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#it costs literally nothing to not be a jerk to people who are using their talents and time to make you stuff for free
tippenfunkaport · 1 year
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when you have fanworks like fic and art that people made out of hard work and love for no compensation other than affection for a piece of media and some rando who supposedly loves that same media takes that art, strips off the credit and reposts it for, what, clout? likes? unearned attention?
that makes me furious
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santaasi · 2 months
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DANCE WITH ME
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pairing: jj maybank x dancer!fem!reader
summary: jj maybank loves the sea, the sandy beach of north carolina and the warm sun. new york is the exact opposite of all this. and he hates it. but she... she changes everything.
warnings: new york au, fluff, slight angst (as usual), but happy ending, miscommunication trope, a little use of y/n, some language, english is not my first language
word count: 5.9k
a/n: first of all, thank u all for supporting my first two works here. I rly couldn’t have expected so much love and support from all of u, but i appreciate it. secondly, I can't write summaries, so i think it sounds kinda shitty. thirdly, it was supposed to be a small blurb, but I was carried away and I couldn't stop. and fourthly, I listened to Slaves - Body on Fire and Katy Perry - Wide Awake while writing this oneshot, so I advise everyone to do the same.
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The huge theater hall of the New York School of the Fine Arts was getting more crowded and noisier by the second. People dressed in ridiculously posh suits, as if they had come to a reception at Buckingham Palace, took their seats and from time to time looked askance at the two guys sitting in one of the front rows.
In particular, all those present, as it seemed to JJ himself, looked at him with special disapproval interest. Compared to this bunch of rich bastards who had nothing to do on Thursday night except watch their ‘creatively gifted’ children jumping around the stage in tutus, he looked like a black sheep in his dark jeans, a white T-shirt with unwashed ketchup stains and a cap on. He looked like a total looser, who had missed his shift at a godforsaken restaurant in the Bronx only to watch his best friend’s new girlfriend performance, while everyone around him was showing off their wealth and position. Showing JJ his place.
JJ Maybank had no place in this money-rotten world. And he knew it perfectly well.
And why was he sitting here then?
Just as simple as it is. Because of John Booker Routledge. JJ Maybank adored his best friend. No, not best friend. JJ Maybank adored his brother, John B., who saved him from an abusive and alcoholic father, allowing him to move into his small flat in the Bronx and gave him a chance to make a fresh start.
John B. Routledge was always there for JJ. They spent all the happy and sad moments together, supporting and helping each other. And Maybank, in gratitude for everything, was ready to do anything for John B. Absolutely anything.
That's why he was now sitting in a maroon-upholstered theater chair, waiting for the start of a ballet performance in which John B's new girlfriend, Sarah, had the main role, and felt all these rich jerks staring at him. And it annoyed him.
He was annoyed by all these vain idiots and how they always looked down on guys like John and J, who had to literally fight for their lives in this huge city, while those rich bastards were drinking prosecco on the veranda of their Soho estate.
He was annoyed by the kids of these jerks who studied at these luxurious art schools, a semester in which cost so much that JJ could live happily on this money for five years or even more.
He was annoyed by whole this situation, which literally screamed: “Look at us! We have a lot of money that we spend on stupid school performances, so that our kids would think they're talented.”
JJ Maybank was not envious. It was just that he, a man who had worked his whole life in order not to starve, did not perceive all this creative entertainments as something serious at all. He didn't go to theaters, operas, ballets and the like. For him, it was stupid shows to launder money from these rich peeps. And JJ wouldn't be sitting in this chair waiting for the play to start if it wasn't for John B. John B., who needed his support in this fashionable enemy lair.
Exhaling irritably, catching another look of disgust from some elderly lady in furs, J took off his cap and ran fingers through his blond hair, turning to John B., who was looking at the curtains and tapping his feet on the floor.
“I'm going to take a leak and smoke, okay, John?" JJ patted him on the shoulder before getting up from his seat and heading out of the hall. John just nodded without taking his eyes off the stage.
This guy was obsessed with Sarah. And it's not that JJ didn't understand what his best mate found in a pretty blonde girl, it's just... it's just that Maybank never thought that John B would be all lovey-dovey with some chick that was completely out of his league. Although Routledge always had freer views in this rich/poor hierarchy, while JJ was sure that all the kids born with a golden spoon in their mouths were stuck up bitches not worth his attention.
Of course, Sarah Cameron proved the opposite. As they would say in North Carolina, she was kook on the outside, but a true pogue in her heart. But, as Maybank believed, this was a one-in-a-million exception.
JJ was walking along a bright corridor, trying to find the exit, when he caught a barely audible melodie. The guy followed the sound, looking through the glass in the slightly ajar door leading to a bright, spacious ballroom with large panoramic windows and ballet bars. In the middle of the sunset-drenched hall stood a young girl, who sometimes came with Sarah to hang out with John and JJ, but he never paid enough attention to her.
More precisely, she was too out of reach for a guy like JJ, to pay her attention that he wanted to. She was kind, sincere, her smile could light up, it seemed, the whole world. She always laughed at his jokes, even the dumbest ones. The mere touch of her fingers on his skin made JJ burn as if he were being immersed in a flaming cauldron of hell.
She was incredibly smart, funny and breathtakingly beautiful. Just the sight of her in a small summer dress made everything in front of his eyes fade, leaving only her. She was too perfect in his eyes, like an angel descending from heaven to torment him, JJ Maybank, showing him what he could never have. Making him hate his position and his life. Making him envious of these dumb rich assholes. Because she was too good for a bad guy like JJ Maybank.
And now, looking at her fragile frame, watching the elegant swings of her hands, perfectly honed movements and the flight of her hair from each new spin, JJ's heart in the chest was treacherously squeezed with delight. His breathing, as well as time, stopped, and it seemed to the guy as if the world had stopped too, leaving only her in his field of vision. Neat facial features, flushed cheeks, slightly parted lips, gaze concentrated on the mirror, but as if looking into another dimension. She looked beautiful, flawless... No, she looked divine.
JJ didn't know how long he had been standing in the hallway looking at Sarah Cameron's friend. But as soon as the music ended, and she ran her hand over her hot face, pushing back the hair stuck to her skin. As soon as she raised a bottle of water to her lips taking a couple of sips. And as soon as her gaze fell on the guy on the other side of the door. Maybank immediately came out of his entranced state, feeling caught and ashamed.
Turning around on his heels, JJ walked swiftly to the exit, still feeling his heart beating in his chest at breakneck speed, and her gentle image rises before his eyes. A wave of the hand. Jump. Spin. And again the hand is in the air. Jump… Spin… The music is like the sound of the sea... Her eyes are like warm sand…
The cold February wind hit him in the face and without even thinking, the guy lit a cigarette, looking into the void.
He hated New York and the cold of the city. He missed North Carolina. Kildare with its warm sun and sandy beaches. The smell of the sea, the sound of waves and surfing…
Why is he even thinking about the Outer Banks now, three years after he left without even once looking back…?
JJ Maybank did not return to that room full of these loaded bastards, steeped in luxury and affectation. Instead, he lowered his head and got to their shared apartment on the outskirts of the Bronx, where the rats and the crazy granny neighbor who was always bothering him for nothing were waiting for him.
But for the first time in three years, JJ Maybank didn't care about any of this. He was still standing in that hallway. He looked through the glass at the sunlit room.
A wave of the hand. Jump. Spin.
And again. Her hand is in the air... Jump… Spin…
The music is like the sound of the sea... Her eyes are like warm sand… And her light smile, like the warm sun of Kildare…
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JJ Maybank fell in love.
If someone had told him six months ago that his heart would beat a thousand beats per minute just by looking at her, or that when talking to her, he would not be able to find more than one suitable word and would only stand and watch her giggle softly at his reaction... He would have laughed in the man's face. Because JJ Maybank doesn't fall in love. He spends one night with a girl and forgets about her in the morning. He takes napkins with numbers he will never call and throws them in the nearest trash can.
JJ Maybank is not made for relationships. He does not get attached and cannot love. But for some reason, he feels differently with her.
JJ Maybank fell in love.
And if six months ago he would have been told that he would work two shifts to buy himself a white dress shirt and a pair of decent trousers just to sit in a maroon velvet armchair among rich pompous bastards and watch her dance on stage... Watch how she transforms in her dance, becoming even more beautiful... Watch her every move, every curve of her body and the soft rise of her hands just to catch the smallest changes on her flawless face…
And then, meet her in the hall with a bouquet of her favorite tulips in his hands, for which he borrowed money from John B., just to see her smile like Kildare's sun and hear her laugh that reminds him of waves crashing on the shore.
JJ Maybank fell head over heels in love with her.
And it was obvious to everyone as a clear day.
John B. saw his friend's pupils turn into two big throbbing hearts when he saw her. John B. saw how JJ, who had always been confident around the girls, turned into a small helpless puppy who could not utter a single word as soon as she appeared next to him. John B. noticed how his best friend's life changed dramatically with the arrival of her in JJ's life.
JJ Maybank's life, which previously consisted only of home, work and a couple of weekend parties, now consisted only of work and meetings with her after which he went back to work.
Sarah wasn't blind to the changes in JJ's behavior either. The first time she saw him on the steps of the NYAFA, she thought that something had happened to John B., but when she realized that Maybank was not waiting for her, but for her friend, everything immediately fell into place. JJ's frequent appearance at performances at the academy, even when John B. did not go to them, the flowers that changed every three days in their shared with Y/N house, his questions about her best friend's preferences and many other things finally made sense.
Therefore, at her birthday party, Sarah decided to be a wingman and do everything possible to connect loving hearts. After all, Cameron did not escape the reactions from Y/N, who too often began to ask questions about JJ, who began to devote more time to her appearance and blushed every time Sarah mentioned only the name of the blonde.
Now JJ was sitting at a table in the Cameron's house backyard in Soho, which was decorated with sparkling lights in honor of the birthday girl, and stirring a glass of brandy in his hand. His gaze was once again focused only on her, dancing with Sarah on an improvised dance floor to some Latin music. The skirt of her white dress was like sea foam rising and falling with her every movement, and her ringing laughter made his heart skip a beat. During the four months of his addiction to her, it became a habitual body reaction for him.
JJ chuckled as he drained the rest of the brandy before lifting his head and meeting her glittering, emerald-like eyes. Her cheeks were red and her lips stretched into a wide smile. The guy saw how her chest quickly fell and rose after active dancing. The girl tilted her head slightly, bringing a red cup with drink to her lips before sitting down next to Maybank.
“Are you enjoying the party, Jay?" the girl teased. Her velvety voice carried like an electric current through his body before Maybank turned his head in her direction.
“Rather enjoying the view,” JJ grinned, winking at her, making the poor girl blush. She giggled softly and rolled her eyes playfully, nudging him lightly on the shoulder.
“I'm serious, by the way. You look tired,” the girl murmured and a line appeared between her brows. “And lately, I- I rarely see you.”
JJ's heart skipped a beat at the thought that she was worried about him and a corners of his mouth lifted. He sat closure to her, putting his hand on the back of her chair, looking straight into her doe-eyes. The girl felt as if the air had been knocked out of her lungs by the very sight of that self-confident grin and the look into those deep blue eyes. J's hand softly touched her cheek as he brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. The girl sucked in a loud breath and involuntarily leaned into his touch.
“You shouldn't bother that pretty little head of yours with worries about me, princess,” the guy whispered, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “I'm a big boy, I can take care of myself.”
“And what if I want to take care of you...” the girl said in a barely audible voice, swallowing a lump in her throat.
She could feel her heart about to burst out when JJ slightly closed the distance between them. His lips were unbearably close to hers and she felt his hot breath burning her skin, and his hand continued to gently stroke her cheek. She had never wanted to kiss someone so much in her life.
For the past four months, all she could think about was the guy who came to her every performance when even her parents weren't there. The guy who meets her every night from rehearsals and asks her about her day. The guy who gives her his hoodie when she gets cold. The guy who brings her a bouquet of her favorite tulips every three days and leaves cute notes inside that she keeps in a shoe box under the bed.
Before JJ Maybank, all her thoughts were occupied only with dancing, which she lived and breathed, rehearsals, preparations for concerts and dreams of Broadway.
Now everything that surrounded her: a fresh bouquet of tulips in the kitchen, a blue hoodie with the smell of the sea in her closet, notes in a box under her bed and even the music she danced to - reminds her of him. She thinks about JJ when she wakes up and when she fall asleep. When she's dancing, when she's choosing music for a new performance, when she's walking, when she's reading, when she's resting. She thinks about JJ Maybank, about his light soft disheveled hair, about his blue eyes in which she could drown, about the smell of the salty sea that seemed to soak into his skin, constantly.
And now that he was so close to her, when he touched her face and looked at her with such tenderness, all she wanted to do was pull him closer and kiss him. But instead she swallowed, barely breaking away from him as Sarah's voice shattered their little vacuum world. Maybank cursed softly, running his hand through his hair before looking back at the girl who had already got up from her seat, preparing to head towards Sarah.
“Will you dance with me when I'm done with her?" A nervous laugh escaped her lips as she turned around halfway, looking hopefully at the guy.
JJ was taken aback. He wanted to agree. He wanted to say that he would be happy to dance with her, but... but he couldn't dance. And he was ashamed to admit it to someone for whom dancing was hers whole life. And he didn't want their first dance to be a complete failure just because he was a fool who couldn't move his bear paws and didn't know where to put his hands and how to behave properly and…
“Mhm. I'm already leaving. I have a night shift, so… Maybe another time?” the guy said distantly and shrugged, getting up from his chair.
Meeting her gaze, which literally screamed disappointment and that his answer hurt her, J immediately regretted his words and wanted to return them, but it was too late. The girl faked a smile and nodded.
“Then... maybe... another time? See ya, Jay,” she said finally and disappeared into the crowd, trying to suppress the tears that are starting to fill her eyes.
"Yeah… next time," the guy echoed, watching her move further away from him.
JJ Maybank was head over heels in love.
And even though he wasn't a genius before, he was a complete fool now.
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Three weeks later, her dreams and her heart were broken. Three weeks after Sarah's birthday, she realized that all of JJ's feelings for her were just her own delusions.
At first, they just started seeing each other less often. He no longer met her after rehearsals, as he took extra shifts at work, but still sent her flowers every three days. He messaged her every day asking how her day was and how she was feeling, told her funny stories from work on their evenings phone calls and everything seemed fine. But after two weeks, all their communication came to naught. She offered to meet a couple of times, but JJ refused, saying that he had a job and as soon as his co-worker will recover from his unexpected illness, they would definitely meet.
And she believed him. And waited.
Until one day she saw JJ Maybank with a cup of coffee in his hand, strolling down Lexington Avenue smiling at a dark-haired girl, so beautiful as if she had stepped off the cover of vogue magazine when, according to him, he was supposed to be at work.
And at that moment, her whole world seemed to collapse.
She knew that she had no rights to the guy, that he had promised her nothing. And she understood perfectly well that they were not in a relationship, and that in fact he could spend his time with anyone. But her heart beat painfully in her chest from the realization that all those sweet and meaningful moments with him were now just nothing.
All those notes, flowers, late-night calls and conversations, that almost kiss - were now nothing and it broke her heart.
But the worst thing about this situation was the realization that instead of talking, JJ just decided to ignore her and ghost her, coming up with stupid excuses not to see her.
Maybe she did something wrong? Or maybe some of her words hurt him? Or was she too clingy? A lot of questions were spinning in the girl's head, but all she could do was lock herself in her room and cry, glad that Sarah had gone to her family for a couple of days. She didn't want to discuss this topic with anyone, not even with her best friend.
From that day on, she stopped texting JJ in the morning and calling in the evenings when she returned from rehearsals. She stopped opening the door to the courier, who continued to bring her flowers from him. And she hid his hoodie, smelling of the sea, away in the closet. She cut JJ Maybank out of her life, devoting herself to dancing, shutting herself off from the world around her.
At first, JJ did not notice that the girl had pulled away from him, immersed in her business and work.
More precisely, he noticed that she no longer wrote or called him after training, but for the first three days he attributed it to her busy schedule. Maybank remembered that she had mentioned preparing for an audition for a Broadway troupe, and thought that was what she was doing. But when he hadn't heard from her for a week, he got worried.
To tell the truth, JJ has been restless all week. He was so used to her presence in his life, to her morning messages that gave him energy for the whole day, to her evening calls and laughter on the phone that made his soul feel better, that the absence of these small moments felt like emptiness. Like a black corridor with no exit.
And JJ started writing to her himself, but he didn't get a reply. Then he started calling her, but all the calls were forwarded to the voicemail. He went to the academy, but he never saw her. And eventually he met Sarah, who was also completely unaware.
“Since I came from my parents, she hasn't been herself,” Sarah admitted, biting her lip, frowning slightly. “She hardly talks to me, she's always rehearsing, and it's like she's dropped out of life. I do not know what's wrong with her, JJ.”
Because of the whole situation, JJ Maybank couldn't live fully.
He continued to write to her, call her, even wrote letters by hand, as in those romantic films that she loved so much, throwing them under her door, but he never received an answer. Not a single response in a month.
He had been living without her in his life for a whole fucking month, and if before he was sure that he was in love with her, now JJ Maybank was a thousand percent sure that he loved her to the point of insanity and physical pain.
He wanted to hear her laugh every day. He wanted to wake up and see her smile and sparkling eyes first. He wanted to listen to her endless chatter about her favorite actors, singers and dancers. He wanted to watch her dance, watch how her soul seemed to rise somewhere higher, to where he had no access. He wanted to watch her laugh, blush, cry, be sad or angry for the rest of his life.
JJ Maybank wanted to spend his whole life with her. Because she is life itself. She is the ocean, the sound of waves, wet sand and warm sun. She's Kildare. She's his home.
And JJ Maybank wasn't going to give up on that. Not today. Not now. Never.
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The sun had long sunk below the horizon. It was raining like hell, and even if JJ had an umbrella, it definitely wouldn't have saved him. No one could hide from the spring rains of New York.
JJ was standing under a tree near the entrance to the Academy of Fine Arts, waiting for her.
Today, JJ will solve all their problems and confess his feelings to her. No matter the weather, no matter her mood, or even the meteor shower, he will do everything to make her listen to him. And if after that she decides that she doesn't want to see him, then he will leave her life forever. But if, for once in his life, luck would be on his side, and she reciprocates, then... then he will never let her go.
The big front door opened and Y/N walked out of the building, lifting her head up, looking at the sky. JJ froze for a second, watching as she lifted her backpack over her head and walked down the marble steps so beautiful and elegant. He hadn't seen her for almost a month and a half, and now that she was so close to him, all thoughts and intentions left his head. And just like the first time they met, he could only look at her and enjoy the view. But as soon as her foot hit the sidewalk and she headed for the bus stop, JJ came out of his hiding place calling her name.
The girl stopped halfway, slowly looking over her shoulder at the blond man approaching her. The world stopped around her in a second. She felt her knees ready to buckle, and her heart began to beat a painfully familiar accelerated rhythm. But before her feelings could fully grasp her again, the girl pulled herself together and turned away, swiftly walking away from him.
“No, wait! We need to talk!" JJ shouted through the noise of the rain, starting to run, catching her by the forearm and turning her towards him. The girl's eyes widened when his hand touched the bare skin of her forearm and her whole body felt like it was on fire.
“Let me go,” she said coldly, and JJ was a little taken aback, but did not let go of her hands, shaking his head negatively. He won't leave until he's sorted it out. He needed answers. And he needed her even more.
“I won't let you go until you tell me what's the matter with you"
The girl stared at the guy in shock, and then laughed out loud, throwing her head back, lowering the bag, as her hand was tired of holding it over her head. Raindrops immediately began to roll down her face and hair, drenching her to the skin in a second.
“Are you serious? What's the matter? You tell me what's the matter, JJ! Tired of your new doll and you decided to come back to me again, huh?”
Her eyes sparkled with the fire of anger, burning a hole in the uncomprehending JJ. She was furious and it was the first time he had seen her like this and did not understand what he had done to arouse such reaction in her. Her bag fell to the sidewalk and she came closer, lifting her head a little higher, looking straight into his eyes.
“What? Did you also play with her, made her feel needed, desired, and then dumped her? Yeah, Maybank? Did you do the same to her?”
She pulled her hand out of his grasp and pushed her palms into his chest. The guy staggered, but remained standing in place, frowning, watching her eyes fill with tears. Or was it just the rain?
“Why aren't you saying anything? Answer me! Did you do the same to her as you did to me?" The girl roared in his face, pushing him in the chest once more before taking a step back, shaking her head.
She turned away for a couple of seconds, gathering her thoughts. JJ heard her sniffle and felt his heart clench with pain. He didn't understand what she was angry about, who she was talking about and what she wanted him to say. Maybank wanted to pull her closer to him and calm her down, to tell her that everything would be fine and that they could work it out, but he was too overwhelmed by everything that was happening and couldn't even move.
“You know, I believed that you really liked me. I believed that for the first time in my life, someone liked me, and not Sarah or one of my friends, but you...” she sniffled again, wiping the tears that rolled down her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I-I really believed you… Why didn't you tell me you weren't interested in me? Why didn't you say you didn't want to talk to me? Why did you make up excuses that you were working or-”
“Excuses? I was really working. I took extra shifts and I-” finally realizing the reality of the situation, JJ began to speak, but she immediately interrupted him, throwing a look full of pain and resentment.
“I saw you and that girl coming out of the coffee shop together when you said you were going to work!" She exclaimed, covering her face with her hands, running her fingers through her dump hair.
JJ rubbed his eyes, trying to figure out what she meant, which girl she was talking about, until he remembered Brittany, his dance coach. He signed up for dance classes a month ago. Was it really all because of that? Was she ignoring him because she thought he was just having fun with her? No, no, she couldn't have thought that.…
“Hey, hey, no, it's all not what it seems,” the guy shook his head, taking a step forward, reaching for her hands, removing them from her face, squeezing them in his own.
His eyes scanned her face. The mascara flowed from moisture and tears, the eyes were slightly reddened, and the nose was swollen. And JJ looked at her again. Not understanding why she would even think that he would like someone like Brittany when she was all he could dream of. His hands cupped her face and with his thumbs he gently wiped away the black marks under her eyes. A soft sob escaped her lips and a fresh batch of tears rolled down her cheeks. He exhaled, pressing his forehead against hers, swallowing, breathing heavily.
“The truth is... that Brittany girl... she's my dance teacher,” JJ whispered and looked into her eyes, which were looking at him questioningly. She looked like a little lost child and he chuckled softly.
“That night, at Sarah's birthday party, when you asked me to dance…" J closed his eyes and exhaled loudly. He hoped that he would never have to admit it, and that his dancing lessons would remain a secret, but she had to know the truth so as not to consider him the jerk who played with her feelings. JJ didn't want her to think that of him. “I refused because I can't dance. And I was... I was ashamed. Dancing is your whole life and I would just embarrass myself in front of you… And you'd think I was some kind of fool...”
“But I-I would never have th-thought that,” the girl whispered softly. J opened his eyes, caught her sincere gaze and smiled. God, what a fool he was.
“That's right, but I... I was an insecure jerk, princess,” the guy admitted, grinning, tucking a wet curl behind her ear. “I'm… It all happened so fast and I... I never saw myself catching these feelings. I never asked for help or needed the healing. And I decided to take these damn dance classes for you... and I didn't want you to find out because I... because I'm a complete idiot, apparently,” the guy laughed softly, shaking his head.
JJ let go of her face and took a couple of steps back, giving her time to process everything he said. He could feel his heart beating wildly against the walls of his chest while she stood and was silent, fluttering her eyelashes.
“Listen, Princess. I know I should have told you and all that earlier, but I... God, you're driving me crazy, you know? I can't think, speak, or breathe when you're around. I'm head over heels in love with you, angel” Maybank ran his fingers through the hair, trying to collect his thoughts. “I can't stop the way that this felt. It keeps coming round and round and round and back again”
She looked at him in silence, feeling as if the heart that she had broken herself was beginning to heal from his words. And she wanted to cry how stupid she had been to believe that JJ was playing with her. While he was taking dance lessons so as not to look like a fool in front of her… She knew he didn't like dancing, but for her sake he went to classes to learn. For her sake, he stepped over himself a bunch of times, worked overtime and did everything to make her happy, and she just...
A loud sob escaped her lips and she covered her mouth with her hand, feeling tears blurring her eyes. Her legs buckled and she almost fell to the ground, but JJ quickly picked her up, hugging her to him.
“I'm sorry, Jay! I'm so so so sorry, I was such a fool! I-I-I didn't mean to! I-I-didn't know,” the girl whimpered into his chest, clinging to his soaked T-shirt. His free hand slowly stroked her wet hair while his other hand held her on her feet.
“Shhh… Everything's fine now, right? We'll figure it out and everything will be fine,” the guy whispered in her ear, kissing the top of her head. “You believe me, don't you?”
The girl raised her head looking at his calm face, on which raindrops were running, at his wet hair and soft smile, and her soul felt so warm, as if in a second she was at home in the warmth next to the fireplace with a warm mug of tea in her hands, and not standing under the cold pouring rain in the middle of the street. Her hand slowly soared into the air and removed the bangs that stuck to his forehead before nodding in agreement.
JJ's gaze swept over her soft features. First the eyes, then the pink cheeks and plump lips that he wanted to kiss so much. The guy exhaled, raising his eyes again, looking into hers.
“Will you dance with me?” He whispered hoarsely, without taking his eyes off her, holding out his hand.
She smiled, and it seemed to him that this smile could light up the whole world if the sun ever went out. She gently placed her hand in his palm, and put the other on his shoulder. JJ squeezed her hand, pulling her closer by the waist, so that he felt every cell of her body and took the first hesitant step, which she followed without even thinking.
Her gaze was focused on his eyes, blue as two oceans, in which she was drowning more and more with each new step of the dance. For the first time, she didn't think about what move she should make next, or what position to stand in to look good on stage, or about getting to the beat of the music. For the first time in a long time, she danced just for herself, as she felt and as she wanted, completely trusting in the hands of JJ Maybank. He with trepidation and tenderness whirled her around in a dance on the ever-hurrying streets of New York, which at that moment stopped their run. Leaving only her, JJ and their dance in this vast world.
“I think love you, JJ,” she whispered softly, looking into his eyes, feeling a lump rise in her throat from excitement. Maybank stopped holding her in his arms, studying her face carefully before saying hoarsely, “Say it again".
“I love you,” she said on an exhale, and as soon as these words were uttered for the second time, Maybank pulled her face closer and kissed her. Gently. No rush. Like he haven't kissed anyone else before her. Trying to feel every emotion to the fullest.
The New York's rain comes pouring down, not even thinking to stop. And JJ Maybank didn't like the New York's rain. He didn't like New York and the people who live here. He disliked theater, ballet and dancing.
But JJ Maybank loved the sea, the sun and sandy beaches. He also loved surfing and Kildare, which he had to leave three years ago. He loved his home, which was thousands of miles from New York.
Y/N Y/L loved New York with its weather and people. She lived by dancing and dreamed of performing on Broadway and had never been to North Carolina. But despite this, JJ Maybank saw her as his home: the waves of the sea in her laughter, the sandy beaches in her eyes and the warmth of the sun in her smile.
And next to her, it turned out that New York and North Carolina were not so different, and that his home would never be a thousand miles away. And from now on, It will always stay next to him, in his arms, on his lips, in his heart.
Because now JJ Maybank knew that his home had never been a place. It's always been a person. And it's her.
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that’s my first such loooong oneshot here so, i’m a little nervous to post it. but i rly hope it came out good n not too boring.
I will be glad to receive any feedback. a comment, like or reblog always pleases that little writer’s heart of mine.
but, nevertheless, thankx for reading <3
– your santi ✨
163 notes · View notes
wannab-urs · 3 months
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Outtakes - Monsterfucking
AO3 | Kofi | Main Masterlist | The Spreadsheet Masterlist
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Howdy folks!
Here's a list of fics I've read where either the Pedro boy, the reader, or everyone involved is a monster of some sort.
Summaries and tags are, in most cases, provided by the author - please be sure to read them as some of these fics may have content you do not wish to read.
Pedro boys currently included are: Joel Miller, Ezra, Din Djarin, Dave York, Marcus Pike, Dieter Bravo, Jack Daniels, Frankie Morales, Oberyn Martell, Max Phillips, and Tim Rockford.
updated 5/24/2024
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Demon
Met the Devil Last Night
Joel one shot by @pedgito
I made a joke about wanting to screw dirt-covered Joel even if he was deep in the trenches of hell and...well, yeah. This is pure filth and nothing else. Porn with minuscule plot, if you will
fem!reader, demon!joel, no specific age gap since dude is a literal demon, but reader is early 20s and I picture Joel to be his younger self (around 36), mentions of su*cidal ideations, this all a completely made up concept pls don't come for me about rituals, ect i will cry. virgin!reader, reader's father is a priest and horrible (just a total douche)/mother isn't alive, spitting, oral, unprotected piv, blood drinking, competency kink, innocence kink, mutual masturbation
In Every Lifetime
Ezra series by @xdaddysprincessxx
It’s fall of 1974 in your quiet small town of Chesterfield when everything falls apart. Or is it the beginning?
Reader is mid to late 20s, witchcraft, tarot, yes the witchy things depicted in this is real witchcraft things, use of Latin
Common Courtesies
Din one shot by @juletheghoul
Pride and Prejudice vibes but Mr. Darcy is a sex demon
**pussy-eating** language, age-gap (legal, reader is of age) dirty talk, supernatural elements, sexist society, sexist comments from readers father
Solum
Dave York one shot by @ezrasbirdie
Are you lost?" Your heart seizes with fear at the deep rumbling voice, head jerking to look in the direction it came from. It’s too dark. You can’t see anything. "Who’s—who’s there?" You ask, hoping you sound braver than you feel. "You didn’t answer my question,” it said. “Are you lost?' You swallow. You shouldn’t be here. You’ve never stepped foot in this building before today. You have no business here. But lost? No. You’re exactly where you set out to be.
SMUT, dubious consent [reader wants to be with him, but he's a demon so you know—it's a little influenced]—dead dove, this is horror and Dave York is an actual demon who kills people, graphic violence, body horror, a dash of blood kink, oral sex
Sell My Soul For You
Marcus P one shot by @absurdthirst
During girls night out, you accidentally dial your boyfriend, Marcus Pike. He hears you complain about how vanilla your sex life is and that you need to him to be more dominant. Marcus proves he’s willing to do anything to please you, even if the cost is his soul.
Angst, hurt feelings, demon possession, dominant!Marcus, oral (male and female receiving), face fucking, spanking, pussy slapping, spitting, fingering, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, bondage/handcuffs, anal play, double penetration (fingers and cock), soft aftercare.
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Incubus
Crawling Back to You
Dieter one shot by @prolix-yuy
Have you no idea that you're in deep?
religious corruption kink, bastardizing prayers, brief drug use, mentions of alcohol consumption, grinding, oral sex (f receiving), fingering, breaking a hymen, descriptions of blood, biting and drawing blood, pheromone incubus anatomy, size difference/kink like whoa, monster transformation, monster fucking, PiV sex, wildly unrealistic sex, kind of dubious consent in the way that she has no idea what she's getting into so Dieter checks in A LOT, consent is sexy and monsters especially should ask for it, Reader has no idea what she's doing when it comes to summoning an incubus.
Dream Within a Dream
Ezra one shot by @gasolinerainbowpuddles
Your dreams have become the escape from your draining life. When you discover you are not alone in your dreamworld, will all the aspects lacking in your waking life be fulfilled by your handsome companion?
dream fucking, loss of virginity, depictions and deviations of supernatural lore, erotic gore
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Cryptid
Mothman Fever
Joel one shot by @beskarandblasters
You and your friends head to Point Pleasant, West Virginia in late September for the Mothman Festival. And that’s where you meet Joel Miller, a fellow Mothman enthusiast. But once you spend some time alone with him you realize that he’s not who he says he is.
Smut, canon divergence, semi-public sex, alcohol, no outbreak, pet names (luna), oral sex (female receiving), vaginal fingering, PiV sex, sex pollen, dubcon, monsterfucking
Oh, Honey
Joel series by @lincolndjarin
you’ve been given a gift. a fresh start in a brand new place, the sleepy little town of Honey, WV. a distant aunt has passed away and left you a little plot of land and her camper, the stars must be aligning for you because the local mortician is looking for an assistant and you’re desperate for the work experience. your new employer even offers to set you up with her brother-in-law! things are looking up, you’ve got a brand new home, a new town, a hot date, (and thanks to a series of bear attacks that started immediately after your arrival) you have more than enough work to keep you busy!
Soulmates AU, eventual smut, teratophilia, graphic descriptions of violence, explicit descriptions of menstruation, graphic descriptions of the mortuary process, horror, depictions of extreme fear, body horror, graphic depictions of death, eldritch horror. this is a monster fucker fic, proceed accordingly
Sanguine
ˆEzra one shot by marisferasiop
since being turned as a boy into- whatever liminal state of cryptid he is now- Ezra has walked this earth ageless and alone, never finding his place or a partner for long. He interrupts your meal in the city one evening, and brings you home to strike up a deal; feed from him, alone, and keep one another safe from discovery. The fact that he finds his purpose under the soft graze of your teeth and home between your thighs is a nice side effect.
lots of blood, smut, soft yearning sweet boy Ezra, mapuche mythology and monsters, schmoop. Ezra is a subby little sap in this.
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Tentacles
MDKT Sex Pollen
Joel one shot by @theywhowriteandknowthings
Your patrol with Joel goes a little sideways
Dead Dove Do Not Eat/DDDNI, noncon/heavy dubcon, body horror, tentacles, mouth r*pe, double/triple penetration, bondage, non-consensual bondage, choking, deep throating, pheromones, sex pollen, tentacles, mind fuck/mind break, brainwashing, guilt, trauma, trauma bonding. Let me know if I missed anything.
Taungsdays, am I right?
Din one shot by @theywhowriteandknowthings
You awaken to find yourself and Din in an alien position.
Smut, dubcon/noncon, pheromones, tentacle sex, bondage, mind-fuck, alien sex, unprotected PiV, anal sex, double penetration, dirty talk
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Dragon
Promise
Ezra one shot by @criticallyacclaimedstranger
You are taken from you village by a dragon, and he has an obscene proposition for you.
Human/Monster Romance, Monsterfucking, initial dubcon (sort of a damned if you do damned if you don't deal), dragon fucks reader, Breeding, Oviposition, Stomach Bulge, PIV Sex, Loss of Virginity, Painful Sex, Cunnilingus, Fellatio, dragon!ezra is really good with his tongue, Squirting, All's well that ends well though, seriously I don't know how to warn for this fic guys, dragon biology is weird, DON'T LOOK AT ME! Light Bondage, drugging, pet names
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Werewolf
Bad Moon Rising
Jack series by @wardenparker
When a handsome stranger called Jack shows up on your struggling ranch looking for work, you’re more than happy to take him in - and into your bed, as well.Death of a parent, loss of a spouse, general family drama.
Vaginal sex, oral sex, rough sex, Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy is basically a life motto here, Gunshot wound, first aid things, blood mention, raw meat mention. Vaginal sex, oral sex, rough sex, so much cum, size kink, squirting, anal play/ass eating, monster fucking.
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Shifter
SNAFU
Frankie series by @theywhowriteandknowthings
You’ve done this thousands of times, brought new teams to heel, be it in Britain, Japan, Korea, yet the States are always the hardest to wrangle, the mixture of over-hyped masculinity, the general military bravado, whatever it was, you always ran into trouble. But nothing has ever come close to the new Shifter Charlie Team, and boy, are you in for the biggest challenge of your life.
Canon-Typical Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Shifter AU, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, eventual Frankie x reader, former Jason x Reader, Smut, Fluff and Smut, Military, Porn With Plot, Slow Burn, Pack Dynamics, Pack Cuddles, Pack Building, Strong Female Characters, strong female lead
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Alien
Kudzu
Ezra one shot by @beskarberry
a familiar stranger shows up at the doorstep of your infirmary with unfamiliar wounds. You're no doctor, but masquerading as one makes you the only one in the position to save his life. Can you win out against his extraterrestrial illness, or will his new abilities stake a claim in you as well?
NON-CON/DUB-CON, human/alien hybridization, forced breeding/impregnation/birth, rough/feral sex, sex pollen, body worship, cervix penetration, cum inflation, knotting, a wisp of a/b/o. Nonsexual: wound care and dressing, hurt/comfort, a little whumpish, shootouts, blood, dumb jokes, cheesy ending
Jizz Fingers
various boys series by @gasolinerainbowpuddles
An intergalactic creampie love story.
Smut, alternate universe, aliens, crack fic, penetrative vaginal sex, creampie
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Mermaid
Rises the Moon
Joel one shot by @psychedelic-ink
As the man responsible for operating the lighthouse, Joel lives a solitary life on the isolated coast. He has no complaints, enjoying the hauntingly beautiful songs that echo from the sea at night. One stormy night, he rescues a mysterious mermaid tangled in a fishing net. As you recover in the lighthouse, the two form an unlikely bond and find comfort in each other's company.
mention of joel from time to time visiting a brothel, loneliness, mermaid anatomy things, oral (fem receiving), piv, touch starved!joel and reader, mild breeding kink, squirting
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Vampire
Sated
Joel one shot by @softlyspector
Joel just wants you to eat well
love as being consumed, blood drinking, smut from start to finish (piv, f!receiving oral, fingering), Joel's praise kink, talk of eating, consuming, drinking, hunger, etc, vampires you get it.
Attraction Spell
Joel one shot by @jksprincess10
Vampire Joel finds witchy reader in her shop asks her for a love spell
DDDNE, noncon/dubcon, stalking, blood play, using blood as lube, ambiguous ending, unprotected p in v, fingering, praise kink, choking, pain kink, rough sex, minimal editing.
Bleed for me
Din series by @saradika
When it's revealed that the Mand'alor is seeking a companion, you find yourself among those hoping to be chosen. A life of luxury in exchange for your blood seems a fair trade - even if you're hiding a closely-kept secret. One that would certainly put your life in danger.
vampires, alternate universe, canon divergence, blood/drinking blood, shared memories, angst, death/violence, biting, body worship, possessive!pleasure!dom!din, implied aphrodisiacs, mind meld, praise kink, oral, piv, marking
The Special One
Joel one shot by @toxicanonymity
You meet a handsome stranger on a night out with friends. The last thing you're expecting is to be chained up in his basement.
Smut, age gap, alcohol, drugging and kidnapping, chains/restraints, blood and its consumption, oral sex (female receiving), period cunnilingus, dubcon, held in captivity, reader can menstruate, male masturbation, vampire!Joel, alternate universe, dark!Joel
Vampire!Dieter
Dieter one shot by @chronically-ghosted
Interview with a vampire, gatsby style
flirting, a bit of blood, maybe dubcon due to The Thrall but i think it's safe to say we all want It from vampire!dieter, unbeta-ed because i needed to write something or someone was going to die
vamp but it's you
Everyone at this party's a vampire
Dieter one shot by @idolatrybarbie
"you look so pretty like this."
briefly discussed necrophilia, innuendo, heavy petting
Sanguine
Ezra one shot by @marisferasiop
since being turned as a boy into- whatever liminal state of cryptid he is now- Ezra has walked this earth ageless and alone, never finding his place or a partner for long. He interrupts your meal in the city one evening, and brings you home to strike up a deal; feed from him, alone, and keep one another safe from discovery. The fact that he finds his purpose under the soft graze of your teeth and home between your thighs is a nice side effect.
lots of blood, smut, soft yearning sweet boy Ezra, mapuche mythology and monsters, schmoop. Ezra is a subby little sap in this.
vamp but it's everyone
a court of fangs and foxgloves
Oberyn/Max P one shot @psychedelic-ink
After you left the court and hence Oberyn, no one is eager to forgive you for your betrayal. Especially those closest to you.
Smut, MMF threesome/orgy, voyeurism, mlm dynamics, Dom/sub dynamics, sub!Max, switch!reader, dom!Oberyn, rimming, ass play, anal sex, penetrative vaginal sex, biting, mentions of blood, vampirism
I Bite Back
One shot by me
Max Phillips is seemingly always in command, always domineering, always on top… except when he’s with you.
Dom!Reader, Bratty Sub!Max, pegging… duh. This is technically monsterfucking also lmao. Aftercare is implied because I'm implying it here, I didn't write that in. Oh also vamp!reader if you want but I don't really make that explicit
Red Right Hand
one shot by me
You and Max have dinner and then you get freaky. It’s almost too much for poor little Maxxie to handle.
Pure porn, pwp, Blood drinking (they’re both vampires), minor character death (your victim lol), murder… obviously. sub!Max, Dom!reader, unprotected PiV (they’re vampires, you are not), uhhh blasphemy probably, face riding, cum eating, Max’s vamp face, oral m! and f!receiving, overstimulation m!receiving, multiple male orgasms, refractory period nonexistent due to vampire fuckery, ass play m!receiving, praise kink, use of pet names/titles (Mistress for reader/ baby boy, pet, Maxxie, and one surprise for Max), aftercare, no use of y/n.
Only Lovers Left Alive
Joel Series by @atinylittlepain
He offers her another option between life and death. How could she refuse?
Smut, dubcon, gore, blood and bloodplay, dark themes, cowboy!vampire!Joel, set in the past, alternate universe
vamp but it's max phillips
With Cherries on Top
series by @ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa
After countless late nights and giving up important things in your life for a job and a man that refuses to promote you, your family begs you to quit when you break it to them that you have to miss your grandmother’s 85th birthday. Max Phillips may have left the country an American citizen but he came back an undead vampire, meaning his status in the States is no longer valid. In order to not get deported to Romania, he tells immigration that the two of you are getting married and he strikes a deal to make it worth your while.
Smut, language, adult themes, sexual innuendos, workplace harassment, family issues, angst, hurt/comfort, manipulation
A Little Lipstick Never Hurts
Reader/Max/Dieter series by @max--phillips
Max tries to skip his morning inspection, but gets caught breaking one of the rules you set for him anyway. A punishment is in order. / Max realizes a fantasy, and you enlist Dieter Bravo to help you deliver. / You receive a very hot video from your boyfriends while you are at work. The making of said video requires Max to break some rules you'd previously set out for him. He and Dieter make it up to you very easily.
Forced Feminization, but it's consensual, Femdom, Chastity Device 24/7, D/s dynamic, Sex Toys, BDSM, reader referred to as Mistress and Ma'am, Impact Play, Riding Crop, Bondage, Anal Fingering, Pegging, Butt Plugs, Degradation, Deepthroating, face fucking, gagging, spit, ruined orgasm, Nipple Clamps, Cum Play, Cum Eating, Oral Sex, Aftercare, there is NO misgendering, Max's ass does get referred to as his pussy and his dick his clit, but that's as far as that goes, MMF, threesome, PIV, double penetration, cock cages, ball gag, choking, max is a vampire, blow jobs, sex tapes, cum swapping, rule negotiations, fluff
Reflective
series by @prolix-yuy
His management style is effective AND refreshing. And as his executive assistant, you’re partially to thank. But as your professional relationship blurs, are you getting too close to the middle manager monster of nightmares?
horror elements and themes, graphic descriptions of blood including drinking, background character un-death, violence, fingering (f-receiving), vomiting (not descriptive), descriptions of a panic attack, a dabble of sleazy coworkers, playing fast and loose with vampire lore. mirror shenanigans, fingering (f-receiving), oral sex (f-receiving), PiV sex (don’t be a fool wrap your tool), playing fast and loose with vampire lore.
Lust for a vampire
one shot by @idolatrybarbie
A lot of oddballs and strange characters visit a vampire strip club in a tourist town on the border. Max Phillips is unlike any of them.
Smut, mentioned drug use, background sex work, dubcon, supernatural stalking, blood, pussy slapping, orgasm denial, spit, physical altercation, vaginal fingering, pet names (sweet thing, honey, sweetheart)
The Impaler
Tim Rockford/Max/Reader one shot by @kiwisbell
Chief Detective Tim Rockford makes a breakthrough in New York City’s latest serial killer case. The mysterious culprit is in the mood to share more than information.
vampires, gothic architecture, slightly dubious consent, implied mind alteration/control, murder, death, blood, threesome, lots of biting, spanking, spitroasting, masturbation, DVP, fingering, unprotected PIV (wrap ur vampire dicks pls), wife sharing, free use kink, oral sex (f and m receiving), exchanging fluids, spitting, disgusting and filthy, max using cringey nicknames for reader’s pussy but it’s charming bc it’s max, handcuffs, light bondage, hair pulling
I cannot get you close enough
one shot by @leslie-lyman
“You have to invite me in, sweetheart.” Oh. Right. Vampire. “Come in, please,” you say demurely, and Max’s smile widens as he steps over the threshold into your apartment. He reaches for you again immediately, kicking your door closed and pulling you close. “Good girl,” he murmurs. “Such a polite little Omega.”
A/B/O dynamics; one small scene of men being creepy and threatening towards reader (but, perhaps surprisingly, one of those men is not Max); extremely self-indulgent Halloween costumes on the part of your author; a bit of angst; fEeLiNgS; absolutely way too much plot and character backstory for what was supposed to just be porn; Alpha!Max is his own warning; heat sex; biting; blood-drinking; breeding kink; many, many creampies; Max has an absolutely filthy mouth; look, it’s heat sex with Max, it probably (hopefully?) entails exactly what you think it does
All Mouth
one shot by @idolatrybarbie
max phillips and prompt no. nine— "you look so pretty like this." with a twist!
reader is not American/not an "American vampire", porn with mild plot, pet names (honey, baby, sweetie, Maxxie), all the usual vampire genre warnings, including but not limited to - graphic blood and gore, cannibalism, mention of scars, horror themes, love as consumption, smut - mommy kink, degradation (max gets called a slut), cock slapping, dacryphilia, orgasm denial, handjob, alcohol mention, fluff.
It Will Come Back
Max Phillips one shot by @beskarandblasters
Against your better judgment, you let Max drink your blood.
reader is able-bodied, blood sucking, unhealthy dynamic between Max and reader, fingering, vaginal sex, unprotected sex, creampie, pet names (baby), dark ending kinda???, idk maybe a little out of character for him but fuck it we ball, no use of y/n
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Happy Reading!
99 notes · View notes
tobiasdrake · 1 month
Note
Does Perfect Cell have Agency?
Cell is... difficult to get a read on, as a character. The extreme jankiness of the Android arc left us with an oddball of a villain whose level of wickedness doesn't seem in line with the scope of his motives.
Cell is a weird character for me because he just seems... unfinished but also overly symbolic moreso than a literal person.
What does PIccolo actually want? He wants to kill everyone because he's mindlessly evil. After he reincarnates, the question "What does Piccolo actually want?" becomes a major facet of his journey.
What does Frieza actually want? He wants to kill planets and sell them for profit because he's a real estate speculator, and also to be immortal and untouchable. This extreme want coupled with the callousness with which he pursues it is what fuels his unbelievable cruelty and heartlessness, and makes him the most evil person in the Dragon Ball universe.
What does Majin Buu want? Again, this question becomes a major facet of his journey and opens up new sides to him, because Buu himself doesn't know the answer to that.
Which. Brings us to. What does Cell want?
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He likes to spook. He wants to have fun. He's a spooker looking for a good time.
Cell's primary goal is to a) become really strong, and then b) prove his mettle by testing himself against the greatest fighters in the world. He's a tournament arc villain presented with the gravitas and stakes of an epic adventure villain.
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It's wild because everybody here wants to get really strong and then prove their mettle by fighting Goku. That's what this whole social dynamic is about. That is literally the main goal that everyone in this group pursues. Well, except Trunks and Gohan.
In a sense, Cell's just... one of the guys. Like. He's a rotten dirty bastard to be sure. But it's not like that's a barrier for entry into this group.
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"I WILL KILL AS MANY PEOPLE AS I HAVE TO AS LONG AS YOU ARE ONE OF THEM!" ~TFS
So his goal is to get strong and fight strong guys. But. Like. Who's isn't?
And he's a cruel, sadistic monster. But. Like. We're fine with that. Vegeta's our bestie and Piccolo joined this crew way before he reformed too.
This guy could legit just be hosting the Tenkaichi Budokai. (And he DOES.) In terms of overarching character, nothing about him reads "Epic villain that must be stopped at all costs". So Toriyama really had to ratchet up the moment-by-moment horror to make him fit.
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What Cell wants is not that big a deal. Get strong, fight strong guys, and also he's an asshole about it. So he's given a vile mechanism for attaining the strength he needs. In his base state, Cell can drink people to gain their power for himself.
He's basically Piccolo if Piccolo were born a parasitic vampire instead of a flesh-and-blood Namekian? It's weird. His whole introduction where he walks out and explains his entire character so Toriyama's pal will get off his back about the Twins is weird.
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"Hi there, Piccolo. Did you know that I'm an evil bio-android from the future who wants to absorb the Twins to become really powerful? Also I eat people and I have the genetic makeup of five of the most powerful warriors in the universe, as well as having all of their techniques and abilities. I think that about covers everything. Toodles!"
So we have a character whose primary goal is to defeat the two characters who, up until this point, were billed as the antagonists and are currently seeking to kill Goku as we speak. Like. That's Trunks. Cell is Trunks again. So to make it read as sinister and bad, the means for him to achieve Trunks's goal requires him to kill people in visceral and horrifying ways, and also he's a jerk about it.
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This is far from the worst thing a Dragon Ball character, even the ones on the protagonist side, has ever done. But it's so viscerally horrifying that it feels like the worst thing they've ever done.
Then again, that guy was part of the 1% so maybe it's deserved.
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Truly, Cell is a champion of the underclass. He's literally eating the rich. What's not to like?
I jest. Point is, Cell is a villain of vibes more than anything. In practical terms, Vegeta gleefully slaughtered entire planets and Majin Buu exterminated 80% of the world's population for fun. In fact, Buu even single-targets people and turns them into food to chomp down on too, so he and Cell have a lot in common.
To be perfectly honest, Buu feels like a second draft of Cell with more time and thought put into his character.
So, logically, eating a bunch of people isn't that big of a deal relative to some of the other shit that people we're hanging out with have done. Hell, we spend a portion of this arc helping to power up Vegeta to stop Mr. City Devourer over here.
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"Hey best buddy, you're a remorseless monster who's slaughtered billions of people and is only chill now because you're stranded on Earth with no better options. Want to come with me so we can make you a hundred times deadlier and fight this guy who wants to eat the Androids that destroyed the world in the future?"
And then Cell's over here like.
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"All done eating people. Thanks y'all." Like a parasitic version of the Genki-Dama. Uh. Cool. Glad we could help. Let's go Dragon Balls them all back to life and then I guess we're done here?
It's the vibe. Cell's wickedness is a vibe. It's in the means he needs to undergo to achieve the ends of becoming strong. It's in the sadistic personality he shares with 4/5 of his genetic makeup (two of whom are in the protag party). And it's in his long-term plans for what to do after the tournament when he runs out of strong guys to fight.
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It's like they ran out of ideas for why we even need to fight this guy once he ate the Androids and completed our mission of defeating them and thwarting Trunks's future. So Cell's like, "By the way if we don't defeat me in an epic climax, I'm going to aimlessly wander the globe killing humans individually forever, I guess."
No real ambitions of any kind beyond "Get strong, fight strong guys". He just. Is a dick.
This is sandwiched between vanquishing the CEO of Galactic Genocide Incorporated and fighting a god-killing abomination who made the heavens themselves run red with blood. Cell wants to get strong and fight strong guys, and he'll become Jason Voorhees if we don't deliver. That's it. That's the entire plot. It's so weird. He's the ultimate despicable monster villain up to this point but it doesn't really feel like he should be.
Cell isn't really a character, so much as he is an idea. Specifically, he is a summary of Goku's entire journey up to this point, all rolled up into this one asshole. He is Goku, and also the major villains Goku has fought.
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He is the Tenkaichi Budokai.
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He's a limit-breaking Super Saiyan who becomes stronger through Namekian Fusion of others like him and also regenerates and gets Zenkai boosts.
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He is the concept of everything that Dragon Ball has ever been.
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Hey remember when Piccolo-Daimao blew up that one district during a live broadcast? Do you remember? Cell is Playing the Hits, The Character. But with purpose and intent.
This is why it's hard for me to get a read on Cell. Because who he is isn't so different from much of the cast but what he needs to be is something else: He is the complete assessment of the journey Goku's undertaken over the course of his life, presented all at once for Gohan to surpass.
The physical embodiment of what Gohan must overcome to be his father's successor.
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His character, his motives, his ambitions, his desires, it all takes a backseat to the simple utilitarian purpose of providing a symbolic nemesis to mark Gohan's ascension. Hastily assembled once Toriyama decided that was going to be the real actual plot for realsies no takebacks this time.
It's hard for me to assess Cell because I feel too strongly that he needed a second draft.
Which. Like. Apparently Toriyama agreed.
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As a character and as a story, Majin Buu is hit or miss but he hits most of the same beats as Cell and really does feel like Toriyama trying to take a mulligan on this entire villain concept.
Mileage may vary on whether he pulled it off.
46 notes · View notes
lucysweatslove · 1 year
Note
Number asks: 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50!
Someone I think is funny:
She has long dark brown hair, wears giant glasses, has a sort of dry and sardonic sense of humor some of the time but also goofy and punny with more wordplay. (It's me. I am describing myself, because I think I am hilarious lmao).
My favorite movie:
It's about a boy. Well, two of them, actually. Once is a rich dude who is kinda self-centered and jerk-ish who pretends to be a single dad in a support group in order to get with single mums who have low self-esteem. By doing this, one of the kids of the moms at the group realizes he doesn't have a kid and blackmails him into letting him spend time with him. They develop a sort of "big brother" type relationship and both grow as people. (The name of the movie is, in fact, About a Boy)
My best birthday:
Is it bad that I don't really know? Nothing is coming to mind. I have a worst birthday (can't get much worse than the only person still friendly with you dying), but I honestly struggle with a best one since I don't have memories before that and since then, my birthday reminds me of harder times. We usually have low-key birthdays now. I guess maybe my 26th birthday, as that was around the time that I found out I was accepted into my master's program and my dream of medicine could still live on.
My favorite animal:
Domestic: squat little body and short stubby lil legs with a curly tail, smooshed face, and flippy floppy ears. Can fit 200 lbs of love in a 20 lb body. (Pugs, obvi)
Non-domestic land animal: Giant pachyderm with human-level attachment and tbh probably smarter than a lot of us too. People are evil and ride them when they shouldn't, putting too much stress on their backs. Have visited non-riding sanctuaries and wish I could again (eles)
Technically an animal and can be kept as pets but not really a pet: Beautiful aquatic animals (of my favorite phylum, cnidaria) that just kinda float and swim along slowly, looking all pretty and serene, but some could actually kill you. (Jellyfish. Of all types)
Anything! Make up your own:
Look I'm not a creative person, like the color green. But because it's my special interest AND it's skin cancer awareness month: my favorite sunscreen of all time is Purito Daily Go-To because it has great protection and is super cosmetically elegant in every situation i've needed it and isn't freakin expensive. Also US FDA sunscreen regulations are laughable at best. They're talking about banning every organic UV filter which would literally leave us with only zinc and titanium formulations which actually suck and are super inelegant in comparison. People are going to stop using sunscreen all together which will result in rising rates of preventable skin cancers which already costs us a significant amount to treat. It may also impact other domains of health, as some people may opt to spend less time outdoors and exercising due to the hassle of preventing sunburns. (I have a lot to say about this but I'll shut up now because I know most people check out around this point)
Thank you!
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terresdebrume · 2 years
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Jazz hands
FANDOM: Spartacus (TV) SERIES: - RATING: Teen & Up WORDCOUNT: 1 930 words PAIRING(S): Agron/Nasir CHARACTER(S): Nasir (POV), Agron (main focus) Spartacus, Crixus and Naevia (as extras) GENRE: Stand Up comedy routine TRIGGER WARNING(S): Nothing direct, but see below. SUMMARY: About a year into his relationship with Nasir, and almost three years since the accident that cost him the use of his hands, Agron gives a try to stand-up comedy...about what he knows best. NOTE(S): Fair warining: this fic is essentially Agron making fun of himself and of some of the inconvenience he faces because of having heavily malfunctioning hands. It's intended to be humorous as opposed to self-depreciating, but please let me know if I missed the mark, especially considering I'm not facing those issues myself. Overall I would say that this fic brings up stuff that can potentially be upsetting like needing help for dressing up or using the bathroom for example, but in a lighthearted/flippant way (I feel like Agron would lean more into flippant than I have here tbh.) so that's probably something to be aware of. This fic is also not super heavy into medical research, so don't take it as a source of information. Literally I'm just publishing it because I spent three hours and a half on it, it's the first thing I've completed in a long while, and I made myself laugh. Hopefully, it'll make you guys laugh too :P
(ALSO AVAILABLE ON AO3)
“You sure he’s not going to chicken out?” Crixus asks, and Nasir shushes him.
FANDOM: The Old Guard (2020) SERIES: - RATING: General audiences WORDCOUNT: 4 776 words PAIRING(S): None CHARACTER(S): Nile Freeman (POV), Yusuf Al Kaysani, Andromache the Scythian, Niccolo di Genova (mentioned), Sébastien Le Livre (mentioned). GENRE: Mutual care, Nile Freeman character introspection. TRIGGER WARNING(S): None that I can think of :) SUMMARY: Nile misses her mother but doesn’t know how to talk about it or with who. fortunately, Bâtard the emotional support tortoise is here to help.
NOTE(S): Fair warining: this fic is essentially Agron making fun of himself and of some of the inconvenience he faces because of having heavily malfunctioning hands. It's intended to be humorous as opposed to self-depreciating, but please let me know if I missed the mark, especially considering I'm not facing those issues myself.
Overall I would say that this fic brings up stuff that can potentially be upsetting like needing help for dressing up or using the bathroom for example, but in a lighthearted/flippant way (I feel like Agron would lean more into flippant than I have here tbh.) so that's probably something to be aware of.
This fic is also not super heavy into medical research, so don't take it as a source of information. Literally I'm just publishing it because I spent three hours and a half on it, it's the first thing I've completed in a long while, and I made myself laugh. Hopefully, it'll make you guys laugh too :P
Agron comes onto the stage with a wave, neutral expression in place as a stagehand comes in to adjust the microphone for his impressive height. Silence falls over the room as Agron stands there, hands hanging at his side while the short woman unscrews the mic and finally gets it to rise high enough for Agron’s comfort.
“Bet I look like an asshole right now, right?” he asks the crowd.
Someone from the crowd agrees, and Agron nods.
“Yeah, that’s on purpose.”
Crixus snorts, but Nasir and the rest of the audience just chuckle.
“Nah, truth I just can’t use my hands,” Agron says, holding up both hands, fingers loosely curled into a resting posture. Only a few people chuckle, and Agron grins. “See now I’ve made you all uncomfortable. I got the pawah,” Agron sing-songs, dragging another chuckle out of the crowd.
“Now, when I say I can’t use my hands anymore, usually there’s two reactions.” Nasir sees Agron’s hand jerk up, but Agron ignores it and continues: “Either people don’t believe me, or they ask what happened. Personally, I think they’re both fucking stupid responses to the news, but not for the same reasons. With the first one I’m just like…’what the fuck’ you know? Like, beyond the dozen bullshit problems I have now, I don’t think people realize how fucking dumb they think I am when they see me struggling with all of this. You ever see someone look at a thirty-two year old who can’t pick up a spoon?”
Agron’s face contorts into a half-exasperated, half-judgmental look they’ve both had to become accustomed to. Last time they saw it, the man watching them literally stood up and tried to rip the fork out of Nasir’s hand to make Agron hld it. It makes the rest of the audience chuckle, though, scattered as it is.
“Yeah,” Agron says with a shrug, “that’s where people start wondering what the fuck they’ve just paid to see.”
This time, the laughter is more pronounced, and Nasire snorts alongside Crixus. On his left, Spartacus shakes his head.
“I really don’t see why, we haven’t even gotten to the real stuff yet, but sure.” Agron pauses in for laughter, then continues: “Anyway, then there’s the people who want to know what happened.” He snorts. “I’ll fucking tell you what happened, you just walked up to a big stranger with anger issues and asked about the most traumatic accident of his life.”
Nasir laughs when Agron headbutts the air, reaching lower than he truly would need to, and spends a few seconds walking around like he’s looking for someone to punch. He’s not alone in this, but then Spartacus, Crixus and Naevia were also here for some of Agron’s least glorious moments, so it very much feels like they’re sharing something a little more private.
On the stage, Agron says:
“People are so fucking smart, man,” and shakes his head.
While the audience laughs, Agron turns towards the backstage and raises a hand in front of his mouth, fingers spasming as he gestures. Nasir watches Mira come onto the stage, carrying Agron’s bottle and her customary, bright orange stool. She walks up to Agron, places the stool in front of him and, leaning on him for balance—and effect—gently pours some water in his mouth.
The audience laughs, of course, though Nasir gave up trying to guess what they’re laughing at two shows in. Agron, for his part, heaves an exaggerated sigh, turns to the audience, and says:
“It’s the height difference,” like he’s explaining a magic trick. “This guy Lugo used to do it before but the audience just felt awkward about it. I think it’s because of the way he looked at me.”
Agron makes what he calls his ‘Nicolas Cage’ face, and Nasir slaps both hands over his mouth. He’s not sure why it makes him laugh so hard, but he’s never been able to resist it before, and it’s not changing tonight.
“Oh yeah, you can laugh at that,” Agron says, “that’s funny. Plus, it’s not like it's the hardest part of not having functioning hands anymore, you know?”
Aripple of laughter goes through the crowd, and Agron grins.
“You wanna know what’s the worst part of this?”
“Yeah!” The audience says immediately.
“Nah, I bet you can’t even guess.”
The audience protests, like it usually does, and Nasir grins, even as he braces himself for what follows.
“Alright, okay,” Agron says after letting the crowd protest for a moment, “take a guess then. I guarantee no one’s gonna get it.”
“You can’t get dressed in the morning!” Says a high-voice somewhere behind Nasir.
“Good guess!” Agron praises. “Classic but not wrong I mean—you like pulling your undies on by yourself in the morning, right?”
Somewhere to the right, someone makes a ‘meh’ sound that catches Agron’s attention. He turns to the person and asks:
“You don’t care?”
There’s something like a baritone, and Agron immediately pretends to sober up as he says:
“Break both your hands and you will.”
Spartacus hasn’t seen the routine before, but he has been in the position of pulling Agron’s clothes up more than once, and his laughter at that joke is particularly booming.
“Sympathies,” Nasir mutters in his ear while the rest of the crowd laughs. Spartacus bumps his shoulder.
“Come on, try harder,” Agron encourages from the stage. “This was basic.”
“You can’t properly anymore!” Offers a heavy Aussie accent on Nasir’s left.
“I don’t know, my mom says she doesn’t see the difference,” Agron fires back without missing a beat. “What else?”
“Can’t wipe your own ass!”
Agron makes a show of groaning, rolling his eyes and spinning on himself before he comes back to the mic.
“See now we’re getting real! No I can’t! You know that thing your parents do sometimes where they’re like ‘I used to wipe your bottom, don’t be an ass’ or like, literally any variant, and you’re like ‘oh my god this is so embarrassing’?”
The crowd agrees.
“Well I promise you ‘stop with the attitude or I won’t wipe your bottom anymore’ is a million times worse.”
The room explodes in raucous laughter, Nasir giving into it even as he sinks into his seat, feet propped up and hand holding onto his knees.
“I see some people in the first row going like—” Agron gasps, feigning shock. “But don’t worry, it’s just a joke. My family would never stop wiping my ass!”
The audience cheers, someone even going so far as to whistle.
“That’s the nurse’s job anyway,” Agron concludes.
Spartacus snorts hard enough to turn several heads their way, and Nasir leans forward so Crixus can clap him on the shoulder.
“Alright,” Agron says, “one last guess and then I’ll just tell you, otherwise we’ll still be there tomorrow.”
From the back, a voice that sounds younger than the audience average pipes up:
“You can’t wank anymore!”
Nasir feels himself go red.
“Actually, I’ve got a fix for that one!” Agron retorts, shit-eating grin all but splitting his face in two: “I found myself a boyfriend!”
The crowd claps, dutifully ‘oohing and ‘aahing and Nasir pretends to bat Naevia’s hand away when she leans over Crixus to playfully punch his shoulder. On the stage, Agron has raised his face to the projectors, hands extended at his side, palms up, and he’s milking the applause for all he’s worth.
“Thank you, thank you,” he says, bowing to one side of the audience and then the other. “He does most of the work.”
Crixus, the traitor, laughs with the rest of the crowd.
‘To be fair,” Agron continues, raising a hand when the laughter turns to playful boos, “I don’t leave him with all the work! I’ve done a lot of work on my sexpertise since we started dating.”
“’Sexpertise,’” Crixus scoffs, but he doesn’t protest when Nasir bumps their shoulders together.
“I have mastered,” Agron starts in a boastful tone, “the starfish.”
He goes as far as miming the pose, and Nasir explodes in laughter, more amuse and proud that Agron’s willing to make that much fun of himself than he is embarrassed at having his friends hear about the details of his sex life.
“Seriously,” Agron is saying, still in starfish pose, “I can lie there like nobody else. One time, I fell asleep in the middle, my guy barely noticed anything. Imagine. The fucking. Talent!”
The audience errupts into delighted laughter, even Naevia and Spartacus giving into it. Nasir, his hand on his face, can feel his ears burning. Thank god stand-up doesn’t happen in full light.
“No but really he’s the best,” Agron says. “He’s right here, trying to figure out why he’s in love with me—I don’t know either but I hope he doesn’t stop.”
Nasir can’t resist it: amids the whistle and the laughter, he ignores Crixus’ loud groan to blow Agron a kiss. This whole process might be a little embarrassing at times, but when he met Agron two years ago no one would have ever expected him to be this open with his emotions, even as a joke. When someone puts that much effort into being more open for your sake, you have to reward it.
“All right, all right, all right,” Agron says as the laughter dies down, I’ll tell you what’s the worst part of not having hands that work, okay?”
Crixus, who contrary to Spartacus has heard the routine before, groans at that, but Naevia shushes him.
“I can’t make fucking numbers anymore!” Agron exclaims on the stage, dragging surprised laughter out of the audience. “And I forget! All the fucking time! I’ll go to a bar with our friend and they’ll ask me what I’ll have and I'll go ‘two beers’!” he says, holding up his hand with no finger folded down. “It’s ridiculous! I started writing this bit as a joke and I was like ‘yeah, I’ll call it ‘ten things people don’t know about fucked up hands’! ‘Number one!’”
He holds up his hand again, and the laughter redoubles. Nasir himself has to hold his stomach to contain his laughter.
“When we go out, I can only order five or ten of anything. We’re two couples and one single guy, and he’s not allowed to get married because it would just get mean. Like, ‘hey wife of my friend, want a beer? Well fuck you, I’m not paying extra!’”
Nasir laughs hard enough to start coughing.
“Yeah you’re laughing but you don’t know what it’s like! I live in Marseille, people! Fucking Marseille! The only place people move their hands more when they talk is fucking Italy! It’s like fucking semaphores in there, man! Like, I’m from Germany: I was raised to talk with my mouth, not my fingers! But I’ve been there for two years now, okay, so I’ve adapted! You gotta learn to speak local, okay?”
Even Crixus is laughing at that point.
“And I just! Keep! Forgetting! All the fucking time! People go like ‘Hey Agron, you wanna eat something?’” Agron flaps his hands. “’How you doing?’” Agron flaps his hands again, making a ‘so-so’ face as he goes. “’You wanna dance?’”
Music bursts out into the room as Agron flaps his hands even harder, jumping in place to the beat even as the lights go out and the curtains fall.
Nasir, Spartacus, Crixus and Naevia clap along with the crowd, and start planning where to take Agron to celebrate after.
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walks-the-ages · 2 years
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Submitted post:
ml vs bleach: kwami vs zanpakuto:
Hi, I am the person that sent that kwami vs zanpakuto post and I wanted to expand on it, so sorry if this inconveniences you.
This is another point about the differences between the kwamies and zanpakuto that I felt I should talk about is that abusing the bond made between the shinigami and the zanpakuto can also affect the shinigami severely. (Note that this will contain spoilers for a Bleach filler arc so sory for that)
As an example, the main villain of one of the filler arcs of Bleach (which might as well be canon if you just tweak the timeline a little bit. The arc is just that good when it comes to characterisation) is a Zanpakuto spirit, named Muramasa, who wated to free his weilder, Kuchiki Koga from being imprisoned, and after a lot of effort of not only continuing to move by sheer will alone, long after his energy was basically nothing, he finally manages to free his weilder.
Sounds like an awesome moment, but this moment of awe is completely destroyed by Koga physically attacking Muramasa, shocking the zanpakuto spirit.
We then get a flashback to just who Koga is, and what kind of person he was: An entitled jerk who believed he was better than everyone and that he deserved better than anyone, to the point he doesn't treat Muramasa as a partner, but as a servant, a tool that should obey him.
Note that Koga was able to enter his zanpakuto's inner world and could directly talk to Muramasa directly, and the guy outright told the poor spirit that they are not partners, but a master and his tool, and that Muramasa's job is to only obey him.
That cruel dismissal from Koga painfully affects the bond that Muramasa and Koga should have as a shinigami and zanpakuto, to the point that Muramasa became unable to hear Koga's demand to help him when the entitled shinigami was attacked by Yamamoto and few other shinigami, and ended up being sealed as a result, and it's only long after that Muramasa finally managed to realize that something was wrong and tried to free Koga (Muramasa deserved better than Koga as a partner)
And the consequences don't just end there!
After Koga pushes Muramasa to the brink of despair, insulting his own zanpakuto and stating that he doesn't need Muramasa, Byakuya fights the rogue shinigami, and we get to see Senbonzakura (Byakuya's zanpakuto) saving his partner, telling Byakuya that even if Koga's illusions tricked Byakuya, Senbonzakura will be with him, and asks Byakuya to depend on him to destroy Koga's tricks, and what follows is a curb-stomp battle where Koga is utterly defeated and on the verge of losing his life, and when Koga calls for Muramasa to save him, Muramasa isn't there anymore, just like when he betrayed Muramasa's trust before, and this time, his life is forfeit.
That scene made it clear that abusing the bond with your zanpakuto is not only cruel and horrifying, but outright dangerous for the shinigami/weilder of zanpakuto.
It clearly stated that you should treat your zanpakuto well and care about them and to take their opinion into account as well. That the bond between a shinigami and a zanpakuto is a two-way street that should be nurtured. It is not an "all-take and no-give" bond, and trying to make it so, will cost you a lot.
With the kwamies, there is no such thing.
Four seasons in, along with special movies, and the "bond" between a kwami and a miraculous holder is still the same: a parasitic bond that severely goes towards the favor of the holders.
The kwamies don't have any agency at all!
They can't stop people from transforming them, using their powers even if they really hated it.
They don't have any agency in even physical movements, as even a simple order can literally erase their mouths if the weilder felt like it, and are most likely unable to even leave if the miraculous holder felt like it.
And at this point I am pretty sure the kwamies can be ordered to forget anything whenever the holder felt like it, or to spout propaganda as well.
Even worse, the show keeps ignoring the so-called "rule" of using the miraculous for evil being something very bad and dangerous, because even now, we still don't see anything bad happening to those that abuse the kwamies and the miraculouses!
Gabriel was abusing Nooroo for what, a year? Two? Or more? And long after he started terrorising the city, and causing chaos and grief. And we still don't see anything bad happening to him that shows us why abusing the kwamies is bad!
Adrien forces Plagg to transform even when Plagg is hungry and doesn't even give the poor kwami enough time to finish his meal, and we still don't see any consequences for that either!
Chloe used Pollen to crash a train, endangering dozen if not hundreds of people, and nothing happened to her that affected her negatively.
Nathalie and Emilie abused Duusuu, with the former using the poor kwami's power to commit terrorism, and the funny thing is: them falling ill is not a consequence of abusing Duusuu, but because the peacock miraculous is broken! And even that was "fixed" later just so Nathalie can be pushed to the background to have Gabriel use the peacock with no side effects!
What is the point in stating over and over that abusing the kwamies and their powers is bad, if nothing will happen!?
Even more so in the next season, where we will most likely see Gabriel (and Nathalie) abusing more than dozen kwamies at the same time, and nothing will happen, because the kwamies in this show are not even living beings as far as the writers are concerned.
The kwamies are not living sentient beings with their own personalities and dreams and perspectives; that's what the show is blatantly telling us.
They are there just to be the writers' mouthpieces so they can shove a toxic and abusive lesson down the viewer's throat. Their "personalities" get retconned to suit the "plot" of the episode, completely ignoring the previous episodes, and out-of-universe, they solely exist to sell more toys, and make the writers feel great about how "smart" they are.
The kwamies are slaves, both in-universe and out-of-universe.
That's what they are; Slaves to those holding their miraculouses, and Slaves to the writers that use them as a mouthpiece to manipulate children watching the show to impose abusive and horrible messages on them.
That was not a mistake, it had long passed the possibility of it being a mistake.
The kwamies being slaves is a choice. A very conscious choice that was deliberately made by the writers, and you cannot just excuse it.
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c-40 · 1 year
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A-T-3 142 Gary Byrd & The G.B.E. ‎- The Crown
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Sir Keir Starmer was talking to the BBC Radio 4's Today programme yesterday morning. The interviewer Justin Webb completes the circle jerk over prudence by quoting The Times 'at a time when we are being so careful about spending commitments...' setting Sir Keir Starmer up to announce his fucking over of students and people who don't want to amass massive debt to get an education
When I heard this my first thought was the public are paying £100million for a coronation and a further £300million to renovate the royal residences, where's the care in that?
The interview was done on the same day BP announced £4bn ($5bn) profits for the first three months of 2023... this is why I prefer not to use 'cost of living crisis' but 'mega-profit crisis' and 'greedflation'
A report in the FT headlined Will the extraordinary boom in luxury goods ever end? https://www.ft.com/content/72208629-1213-4ece-b405-1e2c21c08868 caught people's attention last week as billionaires saw their incomes treble over the pandemic, with nothing to spend it on, and the gap between the ultra-rich and the rest of us (including some pretty well off people) widening
On the Today programme interview Sir Keir Starmer defends continuing the tories implementation of trickle down economics while attacking trickle down economics' failure under the tories. Sir Keir Starmer is doing his best to look less like a government in waiting and more the tories' b team
The photo of the 1m (it doesn't say what denomination it is, lets call it fantasy bucks) I took last week is brilliantly insightful. With the coronation comes how Britain sees its future. Will the value of the pound tank so badly our currency will be more like Japan's where notes begin at a thousand fantasy bucks? The Bank of England has been abolished and replaced with The Bank Of Eternity because this Britain is a fantasy. Funnily enough the shop that had these on display in the window were very pro-Brexit, all brexiteers wanted their sovereignty so they could spunk it on the crown, the shop staff didn't bother with the 'we'll have more money for the NHS,' they were open about having a problem with foreigners... nasty nasty shameful people with horrible values
There's an episode of Melvin Bragg's In Our Time on the subject of Monarchy which discusses how it is far from eternal https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00545k6
The Crown Motown’s first rap record written and performed by rapping radio DJ Gary Byrd and Stevie Wonder
When queen elizabeth 2 died I watched a round table with African academics. Speaking on behalf of Africans they were saying they weren't opposed to to monarchy, there are kings and queens in Africa, monarchy has history covering millennia on the continent. New countries becoming independent from colonial rule have considered reinstating or introducing a monarchy
The sleeve of The Crown by Gary Byrd has him represented as a teacher, Bryd refers to himself a teacher in the rap. Black history is schools is major struggle, it's inadequate in the UK, it's a battle ground in he US, misunderstood Critical Race Theory is one of the fronts currently under attack
The lyrics of The Crown are a bit of a mess, there are references to Alex Haley's book Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Byrd also says he's not talking about just black people wearing crowns but literally 'everyone' including you and I. This is quaintly American and disregards what monarchy actually means. It's a really weird liberal idea that everyone be given the right to be a monarch, it's not how monarchy works, in a way it's how anarchy works if we ignore the finer points. I suppose it's an adaption of the American dream? Reading about kings and queens and imagining yourself in their positions has a lot of problems
Christian introduced me to this record and gave me his spare copy in the 1990s, thanks Christian
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evelxtus · 2 years
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❛ Aʟʟ I ᴡᴀɴᴛ ғᴏʀ Cʜʀɪsᴛᴍᴀs ɪs ʏᴏᴜ.
pairing. . . yandere! childe, yandere! diluc x gn! reader.
warnings. . . dark content ahead. dni if you're a minor or you're uncomfortable with it. not proofread. yandere themes. modern au. possessiveness. pet name (darling), somnophilia??. manipulation. mention of killing (threatening), dacryphilia, but no mention of any sexual activity.
a/n. . . “I'll take a break” 🤡 like wtf. I can't even trust myself now. lmao.
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⩩ CHILDE.
Literally. All he wants this Christmas is to be with you and spend time with you. Did you already have plans with other friends? Who cares? He wants you just for himself. And what he wants, he gets whatever the cost.
Imagine that you are hanging out with Diluc and Childe, and you start talking about what you will do at Christmas. Childe is surprisingly quiet during the conversation, but nobody seems to care, because you and Diluc are the ones who are making the plans.
“Then? Are you coming to spend Christmas with us, y/n?” Diluc asks, with the shadow of a smile peeking across his face at the mere thought that he will spend more time with you. That same smile disappears when Childe's piercing, vacant gaze points in his direction.
You don't realize it, and you nod energetically. “Of course! I'll bring the-”
“No.” Childe begins, shutting you up abruptly. His withering gaze doesn't leave Diluc for a moment. You don't even dare to say a word. “My darling is coming with me.”
“If you want to be with y/n too, you're invited...” suggests Diluc, hiding extremely well the imposing that Childe made him feel at that moment.
“You don't seem to understand.” Childe replies with an amused tone on his face, chuckling darkly. “I want my darling just for myself.”
If by chance you don't spend time together because you reject this offer, he has nothing to fear. He'll find a way to enter your house that very night while you sleep peacefully unaware of what is happening.
Obviously you don't expect any gifts because you live alone, but when you wake up the next morning, you will see under your Christmas tree an impeccably wrapped gift, and a note taped to the wrapping paper.
“I told you that I'd be with you tonight, darling.”
You don't know for how many time he's been there, just watching you on the bed, or if he has touched you. All you know is that he's been here.
⩩ DILUC.
Spending Christmas with you in the tavern is going to be torture for him, he knows it very well, but he must hold out until the establishment closes, who knows at what time it happens.
If he could've left you at home, well prepared for his return after work, everything would be perfect that day, but he couldn't. Everyone was waiting for your presence.
Of course, if he sees that some other guy is closer to you than necessary, he won't ignore it. And much less, if you are the one who starts flirting. He knew he shouldn't let you drink, but as much as he wanted to, he couldn't control you all the time.
A customer of the tavern had been hanging around your place for a while. He seemed to have interest in you. And of course, that day you're dazzling, celebrating the holiday with your most beautiful clothes.
That unknown boy ended up talking to you, captivated by your beauty.
Diluc realized within minutes what was happening. Why weren't you rejecting him already? Why did you keep making conversation and getting closer to that damn jerk?
Without further ado, rage burning through his veins, Diluc approached you both with apparent calm.
“Excuse me.” he catches the eye of your admirer, resting one of his gloved hands on his shoulder.
He leans down to speak close to his ear. For this reason and the fact that the tavern was full of people talking loudly, you couldn't hear his words, so you waited patiently, drinking from your glass.
“If you ever get an inch closer to y/n, I'll cut your throat. And I don't give a shit who you say this to, because no one's going to believe you. Now get your dirty hands off the bar, say goodbye to my darling and never come back again. Oh, and do me a little favor.” Diluc claps his back a couple of times as a sign of farewell to the stunned man. “Make y/n cry.”
Exactly. And do you know why he wants this? Because every time he sees those little tears rolling down your face, he knows that you will go to him for comfort. Because even if he seems the least emotional boy in the world with others, with you he softens like never before.
Threatening other people to hurt you with words is a perfect plan to have his little darling sobbing on his chest again, and that's when he will be able to leave soft kisses for every tear you drop from those pretty sad eyes.
“Did they make you cry again, my pretty darling?” he will say in a tone of very well feigned grief, as if he is not behind all this. “Come closer, I'll have the solution for this.”
And you don't know if it's because of his warmth, because of the way he talks to you so tender or simply because you need someone to wipe those tears away anyway. Maybe you just want validation from him.
“I'm going to make you feel so good that you will forget why you were so sad in the first place. You trust me, right? I'm the only one who can make you feel good.” he talks to you like if you were a heartbroken child.
And I'll leave to your imagination how you think he will make you feel good. Although surely you already have an idea.
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no-droids · 4 years
Text
Beginner’s Luck
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Part Twelve of the Rough Day Series
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 14.6K
Warnings: 👀👀👀 SMUT.  Oral sex (male receiving), cockwarming, sexual acts in public, the use of blasters and other canon-typical weaponry
A/N: Twas the night before Mando season 2, and all through the house—NO IM JUST KIDDING SDKSFKSVS anyways I am so sorry for not being here for basically all of last month but I could not miss this incredibly momentous occasion for anything. Merry season 2 my lovely baby yoditos
***
“Well,” a modulated voice gruffs expectantly from behind you, clearly tired of waiting.  “Turn around, let me see.”
“No.  I look ridiculous,” you sulk from the corner of the hull, refusing to do as he says.  You thought this was stupid from the very beginning and openly told him so, but you’re also a complete pushover for him with just enough backbone to be frustrated when you inevitably give in.  “And don’t you ‘sweet girl’ me, it’s not gonna work this time.”
“Sweet girl,” Din’s deep voice lulls through the helmet, raspy and soft.
Fucking fine, if he’s gonna twist your arm about it.  You spin around with a deep frown and a chrome visor stares back at you as you waddle forwards, and you don’t even need to look at the kid cradled in his forearm to know he’s smiling toothily as you clunk and rattle.  Once you’re standing directly in front of them both, you blow the stray hair out of your eyes and plant your hands on your hips, just waiting for the inevitable response.
Only, you don’t get practically any response at all from him.  He stays perfectly still and says absolutely nothing, and though the baby’s mouth falls open with happiness and he reaches for you, he doesn’t make a sound either.
“I told you,” you grumble after a few moments of pained silence.  “I look ridiculous.”
Still, nothing.  You purse your lips, shifting from side to side uncomfortably, and eventually your suspicion grows and festers until it finally bursts forth.  Oh for the love of Maker—
“I know you’re laughing under there,” you accuse with a growl.  He doesn’t move a single muscle but you don’t buy it, not for a single fucking second.
Then suddenly the helmet glances away from you and stares purposefully at the wall of the hull as the kid starts giggling, and you knew it.  You fucking knew he was laughing.
“You look great,” comes tightly through the modulator after a moment, and you pull your lip up into a snarl, vindicated in your findings but not happy about it.
“Is that how this is supposed to protect me?”  You wave your arms, hearing them squeak and clank like you’re a droid that hasn’t been maintenanced in centuries.  The rough metal jerks up and smacks your chin with the shoulder movement and you grimace.  “Make the bad guys laugh themselves to death?”
“It's bad,” Din finally turns back to you and admits with zero shame, and your cheeks burn at how stupid you must look right now.  “Way too big.”
“Too big?”  You blink at him.  “That’s your criticism?”
When he presented it to you, your first impression was some sort of brown paint—but no.  It’s fucking… rust.  It’s damaged and scraped up and it looks like it’s been through the ringer and back, and not in a way that gives it character.  There’s almost a literal hole in the fucking chestpiece and it’s dented so much that it actually creates more than enough space for your breasts, what the fuck happened—?
“You’re telling me you went from this—”  You ask pointedly, knocking your knuckles against the ill-fitting piece of metal and feeling it wobble against your chest, “—to that—” you tap the pristine, gleaming armor strapped to his body that easily costs more than probably quadruple your entire life, “—without any go-betweens?  It’s missing one of the shoulders, Din.”
He ignores you, flipping the chestpiece over your head with his free hand and letting the metallic clatter of it meeting the floor behind you ring out through the hull.  “I’d hoped at least something would fit,” comes his filtered sigh.  “This planet isn’t nice.”
That sobers you up a bit, and you feel your heart thump painfully.  “Are we on Corellia?”  You ask without thinking.
“No,” he tells you immediately, quelling your panic while pulling off your one singular pauldron.  “Tatooine.”
You’ve never heard of it, but from the grave undertone of his voice, you know the drill.  Different setting, same kind of people.  Smugglers, rogues, criminals—the type he’s used to being around and knows exactly what to expect out of them.  You always feel safe when he’s with you, but when he leaves?
“Oh,” you say, because you don’t really have anything else.  It’s quiet for a little bit, but then he continues on before you can come up with something to fill the sudden uncertainty on your end.
“I know someone here,” Din murmurs, bending his knees and sinking down to start undoing and pulling the shoddy thigh braces off your legs.  “Someone… nice.  It’ll be safe as long as nobody sees me leaving or coming back, and the kid would be happy to see her.”
Your eyebrows pull inwards, something… unfamiliar settling inside you.  Din doesn’t have friends, he’s made it clear that he doesn’t really like anyone that he knows well enough to introduce you to.  Even when he’s lowered himself in front of you and is technically undressing you, you feel a spark of… no, not jealousy, that’s crazy.  But for real, who is he talking about?
“Why can’t me and the baby just lay low somewhere remote like normal?”  You ask instead, but he shakes his head.
“No such thing,” he grunts, pulling off the other thigh brace.  “Tuskans or Jawas will find you even in the middle of the Dune Sea.”
“I like Jawas,” you blurt, having had many positive experiences trading with the little creatures on Arvala-7, but his helmet immediately tilts up to pin you in place and you shut up, feeling the tangible unamusement radiating from the thin blade of the visor even when the kid starts giggling again.  “I mean I… don’t like Jawas?”
Din sighs and rises back up to his full height, finally handing the baby over to you now that you’re not weighed down by that ridiculous getup anymore.  “You can either stay with her while I get the quarry or run the risk of pirates finding you drifting above the atmosphere,” he reasons bluntly, not mincing words.  “But it’s not a good idea to be stuck on the surface without protection, someone will find you.”
You bite your lip, hugging the kid closer to your chest for a second.  “Okay, that’s fine,” you murmur quietly after a moment.  “We can stay with your… friend.”  
You clear your throat and move to let him pass by to get to the cockpit, except Din doesn’t take a single step.  You blink up at him and after what feels like an eternity of no response, the helmet slowly tilts sideways at you and… oops.
Was that not subtle?  You didn’t know what to call her, genuinely, that’s why you hesitated.  You didn’t want to use the word acquaintance, it felt too detached for the fact that he said the kid would be happy to see her again.  That’s what’s called a friend, right?  
Maker, why are you being so weird about this?
Thankfully, you end up getting away with it.  After a few painful seconds of looking at every single thing in the hull besides him and humming a song you make up on the spot, Din slowly walks past and disappears up into the cockpit.  You take a deep breath and gently rub the baby’s ears between your fingers as the Crest powers up with a ferocious rumble beneath your feet.
***
It’s bright.  Fuck, it’s so bright here.  You hold the kid to your chest with one hand and shield your eyes with the other as the ramp slowly descends, dust immediately kicking up around it.  Din’s palm is resting against your lower back and his thumb gently brushes back and forth, but your heart decides to drop the very moment his hand does, and as soon as the ramp clanks against the landing platform, he’s striding down into the blazing hot desert sun without you.
Something in your chest squeezes and whispers to you that he probably doesn’t want to touch you when he’s about to see an old friend again, so you wait a few seconds of space before descending down the ramp behind him, not really knowing how you feel right now.  But you’ve barely taken a single step to follow when a woman’s voice screeches out from across a vast distance.  “Oh no, no no no—don’t you even think about it!”
Din slows to a halt at the end of the ramp and gives whoever it is a small nod, nothing beyond it, and if you weren’t purposefully looking at him for cues right now, you’d probably miss the greeting entirely.  You stand on your tippy-toes from behind his cape as a fiery little middle-aged lady in a mechanic’s jumpsuit marches up to him with an attitude that more than makes up for the height difference.
“You’re not allowed here anymore,” she pokes his chestplate brazenly with one hand and props the other on her hip, clearly not excited to see him.  “Not after the ruckus you caused last time, no sir, not on my watch.”
“That won’t happen again,” he gruffs shortly, not providing a single thing beyond it, and you blink.  What… what happened last time?
“It sure won’t!”  The strange woman agrees shrilly, crossing her arms and widening her eyes until she looks a bit like she’s been out in the suns too long.  “I’m still recovering, Mando!”
“I compensated you,” he reminds her, a quiet edge of frustration beginning to creep into his voice.
She suddenly narrows her expression at him, going from manic desert lady to sharp and discerning skeptic within a split second.  “How much do you think my life is worth?”
Din takes forever to respond, seeming to either be choosing his words very carefully or grinding his teeth under the beskar in frustration.  Probably both.  “I brought my ki—”
“You bring trouble!”  She bursts out, stomping her foot on the dusty landing platform and holding her ground.  “I don’t care how cute your little one is, go park your ship on some other poor soul’s hangar bay!”
He doesn’t say anything back, staying completely silent while you stand there awkwardly and wait for his response, and it’s almost like you… forgot.  How quiet Din can be, how unnervingly little he can choose to offer to conversations until he deems the information absolutely necessary to provide.  He allows you to forget that reserved nature of his.  He talks to you.  He never used to at the beginning, but somewhere along the way it just became increasingly common to hear his voice, both with a high-pass filter and blissfully without.  Now though, there’s just too long of a weirdly tense pause in the reunion for you to handle without doing something about it.
So you step out from behind him with the child in your arms, giving her an apologetic smile with as much friendliness as you can possibly put into an expression.
“Hello,” you greet her gently, musically, lifting the baby’s hand to give her a companionable three-fingered wave from the both of you while he coos.  “I promise I’m not trouble, but he did bring me along this time.”
Din and the woman simultaneously turn to look at you; her like you’re just as strange and jarring of a sight to see on this planet as the tiny unnamed boy in your arms and him like your voice by itself is enough to loosen his shoulders.  Though neither one of them ultimately respond to you, you can tell by the way his fists unclench that you’ve at least helped him relax, even if the frizzy-haired lazy otherwise ignores your introduction entirely.
“Now just what in Maker’s name are you doing with a poor little stowaway like that?”  She faces him and pokes his armor again.  “You runnin’ a charity out of that battered piece of junk you call a ship?”
“Three hundred credits to let them stay with you for a week,” he turns back to tell her, cutting directly to the chase.  Alright, so you don’t really understand their relationship at all at this point.  He said she was nice?  And yet he’s already bribing her that handsomely?
“Five hundred,” she immediately shoots back, and your heart sinks.  Fuck, there’s no way.  There’s no way he would spend that much, you’re going to have to find somewhere else to stay.
But… he doesn’t respond.  Which you now remember with a jolt of surprise, means confirmation.  Not wasting words agreeing, he’d say something back to her if he had an issue.  Maker, five hundred credits.  You’re starting to wonder if he’s really able to make any money at all doing this, or if the job is just… fitting for him, so he continues to do it.  He’s spending more and more credits on you every single time you turn around, and while you don’t feel great about it, you know Din well enough to know he’s stable and independent enough to make the decisions he wants to make.
So you just stand there and hold the baby to your chest, unsure of your place, while Din eventually turns around to face you.
Sometimes, if you’re being honest, you almost find yourself wanting to… do soft things with him that you know you shouldn’t while other people are around.  Granted, he’s never told you not to, but the last thing you want to do is undermine his reputation by unintentionally revealing his gentler side.  You want to give him a hug and maybe hand him the baby to say goodbye, but you don’t know if that’s how he wants to present himself to company right now.  Unfortunately, that ends up translating into you just looking at him and awkwardly waiting to see what he does.  Your feelings won’t be hurt if he just takes off without another word now that you know that that’s his intent—you promise, they weren’t hurt the first fifty or so times he’s done it.  You understand him, it’s alright, he doesn’t need to—
But then he leans in and lowers his voice until only you can hear it.
“I’ll be back soon,” he tells you, and you feel warmth creep into your chest.
You understand him.  Which is why you feel like you could almost burst with how much he didn’t have to say that but chose to do so anyway.  You already have a solid time frame—a week—which is more information than you usually get, and it’s such a small thing.  It’s insane; if you made a list, you’d have 1) talking to you, 2) knowing his first name, and 3) seeing a glimpse of his forehead as your top reasons why he might care just as much about you as you care for him.  That’s insane.
He takes a second to reach a glove out and rub the baby’s ear as he makes his adorable little baby noises up at him, before the helmet tilts back up just slightly to look at you.  
“Be safe,” he waits for you to whisper back.
And you think now is finally the time to go, right?  Except he waits just a few precious seconds more, just holding there, silently.  Maker, you don’t want to miss him, why is he doing this to you?  You’re trying to play it cool, see-you-later’s have been commonplace between you for nearing a full year now, so why does it feel like now is the first time he truly doesn’t want to go?
You hold the kid with one hand and start to reach for him the split second he turns to walk away, and you quickly drop it as the dry wind snaps through his cape.  He leaves and doesn’t look back.
Still, you watch him disappear, until eventually you’re reminded of your host’s presence with the tap of a wrench against your shoulder.
“Hope you know your way around a hyperdrive,” the woman says with a smirk.  Maker, Din didn’t even give you her name, you’re going to have to ask.  “Gotta repair at least two of ‘em by sundown.”
You catch the hefty tool with your free hand and turn to her.  “Pre-Imperial or post?  Never done a restoration, but I’m a quick learner.”
She blinks at you like that was probably the last thing she expected you to say, but you give her the same friendly smile from before and look towards the entrance of the hangar for the ships needing maintenance.
***
So Peli is… a character.
She’s quick and entertaining and whip-smart, but you worry that if she had a whip, she might actually use it.  She’s nice—she is, but she damn near works you to the bone once you prove yourself capable.  You don’t think she expected the extent of your practical knowledge of mechanics, she went into it assuming you were going to be useless and did a hard U-turn that very first night.  You both worked together to fix two malfunctioning hyperdrives by sundown, just like she told you she needed, but then she looked vaguely surprised and nobody showed to pick up until two days later.
The second day is more hectic, and the third day is worse.  You cradle the kid on your hip while you work one-handed, smudged grease all over your forehead and sweat sticking your hair to your neck.  Using Peli’s sonic shower never leaves you feeling clean no matter how many times a day you find yourself wanting to wash the dust and grime from your body, the same way yours used to back on Arvala-7, and you immediately get why her dark hair seems so frizzy and dry whenever you step out of the stall and catch sight of the similar rat’s nest on your head in the small mirror.  Hypersonic waves dry it out more than the blazing hot suns on this planet—you look the same exact way you’ve looked for decades and while you don’t mind hard work, you can’t stand the complete lack of water on this forsaken rock.
Din was right, though.  She is nice, but in a way that she never wants anybody else to find out about.  She cooks you food every night but expects you to clean the whole kitchen after, she lets you have free reign over the caf maker as long as you remember to make enough for her, and she allows you and the kid to pass out on the beat-up sofa in one of the secluded back rooms for the time being.  On more than one occasion, when she assigns you chores that require two hands and a steady focus to complete, you overhear her babytalk behind the control panel as she bounces the kid in one arm and plays with his ears.  It fills your chest with a quiet, subtle kind of warmth, and you understand why Din trusts her with him.
At least you stay busy—which, understatement.  She works you so hard that eventually she starts handing you tasks that don’t really seem… pressing.  Replacing the spherical joints on her three pit droids, hand-scrubbing the grime off the pots and pans she uses to cook the same two meals everyday, polishing the dusty windows overlooking the landing platform even though they’re caked over with dirt not even an hour later.  You realize soon enough that she doesn’t have nearly the workload here as she claims, periodically catching her playing cards with the droids while you’re busting your ass doing chores once all the real work has clearly been accomplished, but you’re not upset.  You like being busy, it’s how you’ve lived most of your life.  However, at some point, you actually end up running out of things to do.  After that, it’s like she has to actively look for tasks she still needs completed.
One morning you find her in the parked Crest, ripping open the guidance systems paneling and talking to herself.  You sip your caf and watch silently from the landing bay, hair pulled up in a messy bun and the baby on your hip as the suns rise on your shoulders and she mutters, whole sheets of metal being tossed out from the insides of the Razor Crest.
You've also learned she responds incredibly well to the prospect of credits, so you don’t spend too much time wondering what her goal is—find something in the ship for you to fix and then charge Mando extra for the materials whenever he comes back.
Hilarious though, as if there’s anything in your ship that actually needs fixing.
You spin around with a sigh and walk back into the hangar, knowing today will probably be the first slow day in awhile.
***
A few hours later, you’re invited to play a game of Sabacc for the first time in your life.
There are so many rules—so many suits and names to keep track of, so many values to memorize, only to be forced to choose one card after every round to keep just in case the rest of them happen to shuffle at random, which occurs at least once or twice every game.  There’s too much luck involved to figure out any sort of strategy; you feel like sometimes you’re hopelessly lost and end up winning anyways or you wager nearly your entire stack of bolts on a perfect hand and then you lose the entire thing regardless.
It’s an unpredictable nightmare.  But it’s something to do, and you’ve learned that playing just as stupidly as you bet allows you to easily stay in the game.  The baby sits in your lap and plays with one of your rusty metal gambling pieces while your leg bounces, and Peli grumbles under her breath once it appears you get ahead of her in winnings.
“Beginner’s luck,” she tells her favorite pit droid quietly, who focuses its singular eye at you in a way that somehow feels unfriendly and nods on a brand new swivel, courtesy of yours truly.
You don’t argue, because there’s no point.  The whole fucking thing is luck, but there’s no point.  You know enough about this game to know that you might give something away if you speak, so you keep your mouth shut and let her fill the void.  You know how to stay silent, you’ve learned from the best.  Wordlessly drawing a card from the deck and tucking it in between two others of the same value, you decide to trade one of your other cards at complete random and hope it all just works out.
“Ship looks like it’s brand spankin’ new on the inside,” Peli mutters into her mug out of nowhere, and you pause for a moment, before silently nodding at the offhanded comment and trying not to show how pleased you are by it.  “Was falling apart the last time I saw it.”
You keep bouncing the kid on your knee and fan out the cards in front of you, hoping his big black eyes aren’t reflective enough to reveal your hand.  “I have a lot of free time.”
“I can tell,” she acknowledges, crossing her legs and leaning back into her chair.  Peli sets the mug down and sighs.  “You’re a good mechanic.  I’d offer you a job here, but something tells me you wouldn’t even consider it.”
Now, you do smile.  But it’s a hidden one.  A fond one.  One you find impossible to fight when you’re reminded of him.  You miss him and ache for him and all those collectively angsty things, yes—but mostly you’re just… able to find a bone-deep solace in even thinking about him.  Your heart tightens, but it’s far less constricting than it is a comfort, a firm embrace.  It surrounds you in its safety; Din’s mere existence is your protection, wrapping around you the same way the beskar protects him.  Nothing can touch you.  You’re safe, from all the things you used to fear and all the new things you’ve learned to fear.
No, you’d never consider it.  This planet is too much like Arvala-7, just slightly more populated and dangerous.  You love the baby.  You love him.  You’d never consider it.
“Don’t you get bored?”  She asks you with a raised eyebrow, and your smile admittedly drops the slightest bit.  “Just waiting around for him to come back?”
You don’t have to think about your answer.  Of course you do.  If you’re being honest, it does feel a bit like your life is split between worlds—one with him, and one without.  Whenever he’s not here, you’re thinking about how much you want him to come back, and whenever he is here, you’re thinking about how much you don’t want him to go.  You’ve never experienced anything like that before.  There were a few local farmers scattered far across the arid landscape of the place you used to call home, and three of your neighbors all had kids around your age.  So you experimented when you were younger, since you never had much else to do in your spare time, but you never loved any of them.  You’d always go back home and continue to do chores, continue to look up at the sky and wonder what you were missing.
“Yes,” you admit quietly.
But what you don’t tell her is that in exchange, you get to see the galaxy.  You get to have experiences you’ve only dreamed about, take care of the cutest little baby you’ve ever seen and become part of a family.  You don’t know of anything you could want more.  Adventure, companionship, pleasure, and fulfillment.  Sure, you get restless, and sure, you don’t necessarily feel good about the fact that Din seems to be your driving force even when he’s away, but you know independence.  You know what it means to live for yourself.  You’ve done it long enough that you’ll never forget how to, you’ve experienced it more than enough to know you’re happy about throwing yourself off the cliff and falling into something different.  As much as it’s new and terrifying, it’s better.  Now you have other people to live for, too.  
You marvel at the change—not just from a year ago, but from a handful of months ago.  He used to terrify you.  You used to keep your mouth purposefully shut around him because you were scared of overstaying your welcome and being dropped off somewhere equally as remote as the place you grew up.  Never could you have imagined that the fiercest guardian the galaxy has ever seen would decide you’re also worth protecting.
No, you figure, you just need to… find something in addition.  Something else to also commit to, give yourself something to do.  You can practice the new self-defense maneuvers he taught you, that’s a good idea.  But maybe you can also…
You eventually decide to prompt Peli in a change in conversation.  “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“What do you want now?”  She takes another sip of her caf as if you’ve been bothering her about this all day long, and… well, it’s times like these that you wish you had a helmet, too, if only so you could roll your eyes.
“I’ve got a few pieces of rusted metal in the Crest,” you eventually tell her, careful with your phrasing and not sure how much you want to reveal.  “They’re in bad shape, but I want to keep them.  Could I use some of your tools here to hammer out some of the dents, dissolve whatever crud is on the surface?  I saw you have a forge back there that’s barely been used, just need the metal hot enough to be pliable without sacrificing its integrity.”
She furrows her eyebrows at you.  “But I still need your help with…”
You wait, but she’s got nothing and you both know it.  Still, you keep a pointed silence and wait for it, wondering if this’ll actually work.  This is what Din does, right?  Just refuse to say anything and make the other person crumble under the crushing quiet?  Miraculously, it proves to be successful—you watch her flounder for a response, her will wavering the longer you sit there and stare expectantly at her.
“Fine,” Peli finally acquiesces, and you grin.  “But only if you win this round.  What d’you got?”
You set down your cards to reveal your hand.  A perfect twenty-three if you’ve been counting right, unbeatable unless she or any of the droids managed to get the same, and you know it didn’t happen as soon as she takes a few seconds for mental math and then scoffs.
“Beginner’s luck,” you tell her kindly, pushing all your winnings back over to her side of the table with one hand and scooping the kid up with the other, before turning around and heading towards the Crest in search of Din’s old armor.
***
It’s late afternoon on day five and you’re on your back on a creeper seat, sweat dripping down your neck as you reach up to fiddle with the engine of a T-16, a Skyhopper similar to one you built yourself on Arvala-7.  They're not space-faring vehicles, they’re only capable of reaching the upper troposphere, but owning one allowed you to develop solid flight skills without ever truly being able to leave.  Honestly, you don’t think you’ve ever despised a ship more.
You know you’ve got engine grease all over and you feel like you’re boiling in your own sweat, but you’re almost done.  After this, you’ll be able to go back to working on your side project.
As soon as you’d been granted Peli’s direct permission to do so, you mixed the chemicals necessary to eat away at everything besides the basic structure underneath, and then spent all day yesterday manipulating the metal to better fit someone your size and shape.  You slaved over the wickedly hot forge and developed a whole new muscle in your arm from hammering and reheating, hammering and reheating.  You had to repair the way the chestpiece was tapered into a concave point by folding the thin metal back in on itself multiple times, strengthening it without flattening it back into its original shape too much, and then you ended up melting down some of the extra material from the needlessly large shoulder and thigh pieces to fill in the gaps.
Granted, you still have a ways to go on replacing the crushed magnetics box that was falling off the chestpiece and filing down the rough scrapes and sharp edges, but you’re now left with almost a full set of armor that’s a uniform dull silver in color and molds way better to your general figure than before.  You’re not a blacksmith or armorer by any stretch of the imagination, but you’re good with your hands and did what you could in the time allotted.  It looks better than you ever thought it would, and without access to Peli’s enormous collection of tools and machinery, you know it would’ve been better off in the trash.
Still, you have to finish this engine first before you can rip apart the control unit wiring on the armor to see how the whole set fits together and what else needs to be repaired.  You’ve been working on it for a few hours before you hear the door to the hangar open.  Yet, when you don’t immediately hear Peli’s voice calling out to you, or anyone else’s voice for that matter, your heart thuds in your chest with sudden excitement.
“You’re back early,” you tell the engine suspended over your head, knowing he must’ve already thrown the quarry into the Crest parked outside before coming to see you.  Right on time, footsteps approach and then a boot carefully catches the flat platform between your legs, slowly rolling your seat out from under the ship until the rest of the sunlit hangar is revealed to you.
You know you must look a hot mess right now.  Your hair is a disaster and there’s not a clean spot to be found on your body—sweat glistens and pools along every curve you have and you’re probably drenching the spare jumpsuit Peli let you borrow, but Maker, there he is.  Every time you see him is like the first time all over again, except this time the Mandalorian is looming like a giant over you, the helmet tilted down and silently taking you in.
Instead of settling you, his daunting presence gets you hotter than dual suns in the sky ever could.  Fuck, he hasn’t said a word to greet you, and yet you’re already wondering if you can entice him to shove you back under here and join you.
You slowly push yourself upright and he steps back just enough to allow it, but not an inch more than that.  You have to crane your neck up to keep looking at him, and he stands close enough over you that you wouldn’t have to reach far at all if you wanted to touch him.
And it’s crazy to think that… you absolutely could touch him, if you wanted.  He radiates danger, he hunts and tracks for his continued survival, he’s probably got fresh blood staining the dark fabric of his cape and he’s so fucking intimidating—and if you wanted to, you could touch him.  
Maybe you can partially blame your sore muscles as to why you immediately drop your head back down, but mostly you just want to stare at a part of his body that happens to align perfectly at eye level.  And fuck, nothing stops you from looking.  He doesn’t help you up, but he also doesn’t move so you can haul yourself to your feet, either.  He just holds perfectly still with his body standing tall over yours, content to stay exactly like this while your hand slowly reaches out to wrap around one of his ankles.
He’s so warm, his muscles flex strong under your palm as you let it drift upwards, biting your lip as you flick your gaze back up to the chrome visor and then down again to the apex of his thighs.  Your other hand comes up to scale the beskar strapped to his leg and you roll yourself forward slightly, wondering if he’d let you…
The black fabric stretching over his crotch just barely touches your fingertips before his hand is suddenly whipping out and grabbing hold of your wrist.
You gasp and jerk your head up to look at him, somehow equally hoping that you’re both in trouble and not in it at the same time.  Din’s abruptly chest raises with a large, labored inhale, as if he wasn’t breathing at all that entire time, as if he just now remembered the setting, the fact that he’s not alone on the Crest with you right now.  Peli and the kid have to be somewhere in the hangar, you know that, but…
“We’re leaving tonight,” he breathes out through the modulator, and you have absolutely no fucking problem with that at all.  “But… shit, but…”
“But…?”  You prompt, wanting nothing more than to let your hands reach back up to his pants again, but you settle for slowly dragging one palm up his forearm as his grip on your wrist tightens.
“Fuck, I wanted to take you somewhere first,” he groans like your feather-soft touch is actually hurting him, his hands suddenly dropping yours and pushing you away to clench into fists at his sides.  “Maker—why do you always f-fucking do this to me…”
You raise an eyebrow at him this time, the curiosity starting to mix with the heat simmering down low, the kind that you'd feel even on a frozen wasteland of a planet as long as you were with him.  All at once, you decide to channel him and his trademarked silence, enthralled by the incredibly slim chance that it will work equally as well on its creator.
“…Distract me,” he finally growls out an answer to the question you never asked him, sounding frustrated with you for reasons you still haven’t figured out, and your mouth is drier than the desert outside.  Oh stars, you feel… fucking powerful.  “From everything,” he goes on, talking honestly and openly, more words given to you in thirty seconds than he’s probably offered to anyone all week long.  “Fuck, I feel like I can barely do fucking anything anymore, I’m losing my fucking mind.”
Your heart slams in your chest, wondering if he possibly feels the exact same way about you as you feel about him.  Missing you whenever he’s gone, dreading the moment he needs to leave again whenever he’s with you.  The thought alone is enough to set off fireworks through your veins, pumping hope and excitement from your fingers to your toes.
“I’m sorry,” you breathe out, biting your lip in a way that doesn’t look or feel sorry at all.
“No, you’re not,” Din grunts, before reaching out and hauling you to your feet, and even if there wasn’t a flat seat under you with wheels, it’d still be awkward and uncoordinated as fuck.  “Shit.  I… I need to clean up.  Grab your things, go tell…”
Din trails off after a second, suddenly sounding at a complete loss.  You catch your footing and stare at him as he falters.  “Uh.  Go tell…”  He gestures with a sense of finality to the control room, as if he’s actually successfully communicating with you by doing so.  “Her.  That we’re leaving tonight.”
“What?”  You ask him, thoroughly fucking confused.  “What are you saying right now?”
“The woman,” he clarifies, clearing his throat.  “The mechanic, with the… droids.  Tell her I’ll pay her before we leave, but we’re g—”
“Peli?”  You blurt, completely flabbergasted at this point.  “Did you forget her name, Mando?”
“I…” he shakes his head slightly at you, like you should already know him better than that.  “Never asked.”
“But you—?”  You blink at him.  “But you said she was your friend?”
“You said she was my friend,” he immediately points out, with—oh Maker, just biting accuracy.  It wasn’t necessarily a jab or anything, but you still feel dizzy with how fucking spot on he is about it.  Yikes, you absolutely did say that.  You forgot.
“Oh…” you mumble, at a stunning loss for a response.  “Ha.  Oh.  Yeah, huh.”
There’s too many beats of awkward silence after that, probably because he’s just so blown away by your way with words that he’s just attempting to analyze the wisdom.  Stars, you’re making a complete fool of yourself in front of him, aren’t you?
“Were you jealous?”  He suddenly asks, and you jerk upright, your heart kicking up to a gallop in your chest at the question.
“I’ll go tell Peli we’re leaving soon,” you quickly agree and go to scurry away in abrupt panic, but he catches your wrist and hauls you back before you can get far.  You run into him with a gasp and immediately start to repeat your explanation for why you very suddenly need to depart, but the tips of Din’s fingers catch your chin and force you to look up at him.
“Hey,” he cuts your rambling short with a hushed murmur and the pad of his thumb brushes down your jaw.  “Tell me the truth.”
You don’t have an answer that won’t be incriminating, and you don’t think you can get the delivery right on a lie, not to him and especially not when he’s got you so cornered.  So you just keep completely silent and look up at him like a scolded child would.  Innocent, wide-eyed and scared shitless about the unknown consequences of your actions.
His helmet slowly tilts as he studies you, watching you look up at him for help.  His fingers gradually spread out across your jaw, flattening under the curve of your throat but so gentle, so careful that you’re almost worried he actually is mad.
“I’m sorry,” you immediately offer before he can say anything, your eyebrows pulling up in the middle.  “I’m so sorry, it’s just—I just…”
His thumb carefully stretches up to brush your bottom lip, and you…  Mind blank, no thoughts.  Stars, you’ve got fucking nothing.
“I’ve got nothing,” you admit, giving up before you can even try.  “There’s no reason.  I was jealous.  It’s stupid and I wasn’t going to say anything because I know it’s stupid, and I shouldn’t feel possessive over you but I do, and it’s stupid.  I don’t want anyone else to know you the way I know you, and I’m really sorry if that makes you feel weird, I don’t want you to feel like you can’t have—”
Your chin lifts slightly with the gentlest movement of his hand and the subtle pressure is enough to cut your mindless oversharing off.  Din’s voice lowers until it’s throaty and quiet.
“See that wall?”  He asks, keeping the visor pinned to you while carefully turning his hand to the right, and your whole head easily follows the movement as he guides it.  You have to blink your eyes into focus a few times, but then you immediately see what he’s talking about.  It’s a partition separating the welding room from the rest of the hangar.  He waits until you nod in the cradle of his palm, before leaning in and murmuring to you.  “If we were alone, I’d take you around behind it and show you exactly how that makes me feel.”
You pull back from him with a startled gasp just as a voice calls out from the entrance of the hangar.  “Well, look who finally decided to come back!”
Din slowly drops his arms and stares at you for just long enough to make you seriously worry that he’s going to say fuck it all and do it anyways, before finally turning around and greeting Peli with another silent nod.
She plants one hand on her hip once she’s standing right in front of him, cradling the kid on with her other arm, and you have to take a second to collect yourself now that you’re not at the direct center of his attention anymore.  “Sure did take you long enough, didn’t it?”
“I’m two days early,” he grunts in his immediate defense, but it’s like she doesn’t hear him.
“You’re leaving soon I hope,” she drawls while handing the baby over to him, who makes an adorable little happy squeak at seeing his dad again.  “You owe me five hundred credits.”
“It was five hundred for the full week,” he reminds her, and… he has a point.  Though it was never part of the agreement, you wonder if she’ll be willing to accept less compensation for having the burden of your company be lifted early.
“Five days count as a full week, far as I’m concerned,” she shoots back, and your heart suddenly sinks when Din’s shoulders tighten and he doesn’t respond.
“Peli…” you sigh from behind him before you even realize you’ve spoken aloud.
Your host quickly sidesteps your bodyguard to eye you dubiously, and at the same time, you also jolt and wonder what your goal is here exactly.  You’re ultimately just attempting to diffuse any tension sparking between them, you figure, knowing you’re probably the best mediator here.  She looks at you up and down for a long time, hard and judging, before the baby babbles something wordlessly and she sighs.
“I suppose we can just call it even,” she finally huffs, turning back to him.  “You’re lucky your girlfriend earned her keep, Mando.”
And then your jaw drops.  Holy shit, is she serious?  You assumed Peli valued credits above almost anything else, you never expected her to just… turn down the entire offer like that, so willingly.  Clearly Din didn’t either, because you both just stand there for a moment in front of her in a baffled silence.
Also… girlfriend?
Is that what you are to him?  Admittedly you haven’t talked to him about what to call your relationship, but then again, you’re a practical person and you never really saw a specific need to do so.  You care about him, he cares about you—what else is important?  You don’t need a title to recognize your value to him, and for some odd reason, calling yourself his “girlfriend” just feels like you’re a teenager again.  If you were actually looking for a different word to use instead, you wouldn’t be able to find it, but you know that one just feels… not enough.  Not old enough, not encompassing enough, not complex enough.  It’s an elementary school version of what this is.  And to refer to someone like Din as your boyfriend?  Maker, just saying it aloud would probably make his eye twitch.
“Uh.”  He stands there awkwardly, and you’re so blown away by both the sentiment and specific verbiage she used that you’re practically useless at this point.  Shit, what’s beyond girlfriend, you wonder?  Lover?  No, not good enough.  Partner?  No.  No, not wife, definitely fucking not—  “Thank you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Peli waves him away and spins around to leave, but not before throwing one final thing over her shoulder.  “That ain’t an open invitation to come back, by the way.”
All of a sudden, you just can’t stop yourself from breaking out into a wide grin, tucking your chin in hopes that she won’t see it with her back turned and decide to pounce on the display of weakness.  The three of you watch her stride out of the room and immediately bark an order at one of her droids to get back to work, who starts looking around in desperate search of something to do, and Din’s palm finds its usual place on your lower back as she disappears.
“What a nice lady,” you offer to him, and he gives you a wordless grumble in response.
***
So it’s a couple hours later and you think the kid might actually have the right idea this time.
You find yourself wishing you had a little hover pod of your own that followed Din around, one you could close the lid on and hide in while blaster fire whistles through the air around you like the baby is currently doing.  You’re trying to listen to instructions—you’re trying, but there’s a lot going on here.  Voices chatting, guns firing, targets being pinged, a lively little band playing in the cantina next door.  
When Din first led you through Mos Eisley and inside this specific adobe hut, if you’re being completely honest, you had hoped for food.  A comparatively large restaurant, perhaps?  Peli didn’t starve you by any stretch of the imagination, but her dinners were the exact same every single night, and you’ve learned to thrive on new things.  While you didn’t necessarily think he was going to take you on a… a date, or anything, you certainly didn’t expect him to take you to a shooting range.
Well.  Now that you think about it, this might actually be a date.
Luckily you’re hidden away in the furthest firing partition from the door, but even without the near-constant barrage of gunfire to your left, the distractions are still plentiful.  The kid actually reached down and pressed the button to close his crib himself as soon as the bright beams of plasma started zooming past and reflecting in his large black eyes, and oh how you wish that were you.  You don’t necessarily feel like you’re in danger or anything, but you’ve also never seen so many guns in one place before and you’re worried you’re accidentally going to hurt someone else.
So far Din has taught you the fundamentals for any firearm—always keep the safety on until you’re ready to fire, never point at anything unless you’re a hundred percent willing to shoot it, yada yada yada—and also the safety fundamentals for blasters specifically.  So, making sure there’s no leaks in the gas cylinder when you first load it, never letting a strong magnet get near the power pack, checking the surface of your target for deflection curves if you want to prevent a ricochet, or maybe in his case, inspire one.  He’s taught you your stance, he’s taught you how to read your sights, now all that’s left is just to… shoot.
Your arms raise up in front of you and the metal feels too heavy and awkward in your hands, and you have to hold the handle in your left and creep your right index finger all the up the side of the barrel until you feel the indented safety switch.  It clicks and you reset your grip to slowly ease your finger onto the trigger, staring down the sight, right at the bullseye.  Din is standing directly behind you next to the kid’s tightly closed hovering pod, arms crossed and just waiting for you to pull it.
Come on beginner’s luck, come on beginner’s luck—
You fire, and… well.  You don’t think you’ve ever seen a shot miss its target that spectacularly in your entire life.  You’re almost surprised the beam of plasma didn’t somehow ricochet back into the booth you’re both standing in, that’s how spectacularly you missed.
“Try again.”
There’s no amusement in his voice, nothing mocking about it.  Pure monotone under the helmet, as if he was just naturally expecting that to happen.  
No, you think in frustration.  You want to surprise him again, impress him with how quickly you can pick things up, turn him on like last time.  You just fucking know that would get to him—seeing you easily hit the target dead center with his own blaster, you know that would get to him.
You adjust your aim and fire a few more times.  Miss, miss, wild miss, miss.  Fuck, so many distractions, plasma flying in the corner of your vision and an increasingly heavy gaze from behind you.  Another miss, a miss, yeesh that’s a miss—
Alright, so you're just embarrassing yourself at this point.
“I think it’s broken,” you shrug in defeat, taking a second to find the safety switch and toggle it before going to set the gun down on the raised adobe platform separating the line of booths from the targets—but then Din suddenly snatches the blaster from your grip and extends his arm over your shoulder, firing off six rounds in rapid succession so wickedly fast that you jump backwards into his rock solid chest in surprise.  He doesn’t give an inch under the collision and even wraps his forearm tight around your tummy as he hits the bullseye with such deadly accurate precision that even the char marks and the line of smoke left wafting from the target’s center are razor-thin.
“Works just fine,” he grunts, setting the weapon back down again before urging you forward a bit.  “Go ahead, give it another shot.”
But you’re on a remarkable delay, just trying to process his sheer speed, how fluid and seamless the entire fucking motion was.  Fucking Maker, blink and you’d miss the whole thing.  He waited to grab the gun from you until you turned the safety on, but then… then how did he fire it so insanely fucking fast?  That’s like five different things he had to do with one single hand within a split second…?
“I turned the safety on,” you blink down at the blaster, clearly just trying to process.
“Yeah,” he agrees blankly, as if he’s unsure as to what specifically you’re so stuck on right now.
“So how did you toggle so fas—?”
He picks it from the shelf gracefully and lightning quick—as if he just can’t help but go that speed around his weapon—and then he twists it on its side, flexing his wrist back until the barrel is pointed upwards and you can clearly see his index finger extend all the way up to the safety switch, flipping it up and down while his middle finger rests over the trigger guard.
“How in the f…?”  You mutter, lifting your hand up next to his and positioning your fingers in the exact same L shape, only the tip of your index finger barely stretches an inch shy of the switch.  “Psh,” you huff, dropping your arm back down again.  “Design flaw.”
“For you,” he acknowledges, using the trigger guard to flip it back to its proper position in his hand like fucking spinning it like that is just the easiest and most natural way to handle the deadly weapon.  “This gun was made for me, it’s a feature.  Yours would be smaller and lighter, have the safety towards the back of the chamber instead of along the barrel.”
The words and the casual display of ability cause a rush of stirring excitement to burst forth inside you, suddenly giddy at the very thought.
“Wait,” you draw the word out with a grin, leaning back into him and gently nudging him with your elbow to make sure he knows you’re only mostly joking.  “You gonna buy me a blaster, Mando?  I did earn my keep this week, didn’t I?”
“Have to find one that fits a big enough sight first,” he mutters while setting the gun down on the table, and you scoff at him as his hands come to rest on your hips.  They squeeze and try to guide you forwards once again.  “Prove that you can at least hit the target with mine and we’ll see.”
“You only get to make fun of me if you give me a real answer,” you rule, planting your feet and refusing to budge.
“Okay, but we both know I’ll make fun of you anyways,” he sighs, and you have to dig your heels in and push back into him to keep yourself rooted to the spot.
“You’re not being a very encouraging teacher,” you accuse without trying to hide your grin.  “In fact I feel very discouraged right now and I think that y—”
But then Din suddenly tips his helmet closer to your ear and lowers his voice, cutting you off.  “Did you know that gifting someone a weapon is considered a proposal of marriage on Mandalore?”
Your smile quickly drops and you gasp, wholly startled at the implication and immediately trying to spin around to look at him.  “Holy shit, are you serious?”
“No,” comes his modulated grunt, tightening his hold and keeping you firmly facing forwards.  “Of course not.  Pick up the gun.”
Okay.
Okay, so that one gets you.
You immediately start giggling, painfully aware that this isn’t the time or place for it, but that one actually fucking got you.  Din easily guides and parks your gullible ass in front of the window carved out of dried mud before picking up the blaster himself and forcing you to hold it with your loose hands, grumbling under his breath.
Shit, okay, focus.  Focus, you can do this.  You clear the laughter from your throat and suddenly get deadly serious, staring your target down like it’s personally gone out of its way to ruin your entire life.  The blaster feels cold in your palms but not when Din’s hands wrap warm and tight around the back of yours, letting you hold the gun how it’s most comfortable for you before gently settling his fingers down over yours.  His chestpiece presses tight against your shoulder blades when he guides the gun up and out, and his arms are long enough to extend yours fully even though he’s behind you and still has some bend to his elbows.  He uses his feet to kick your ankles apart until they’re shoulder-width and then you both carefully find the trigger together.
He’s quiet and slow about it and the whole thing is one giant fucking turn-on.  Maker, chill out.  Chill out, he’s teaching you how to shoot.  This is important stuff, there are people around, chill out…
Din takes a moment to aim the barrel and his hold is so fucking steady, so unwavering and strong.  You wonder if it’d be too obvious if you pushed your hips back a little, you might be able to feel his—
“Fire,” Din murmurs next to your ear, and you pull the trigger without a second thought.
The bright red plasma beam launches from the end of the blaster and hits the target dead center.  You gasp, pulling the trigger again, and unsurprisingly, it’s another perfect shot.
He suddenly lets go of your arms and takes a small step back, but the second he removes his body from yours, the rounds start bouncing wildly off the edges of the target.  Your eyebrows furrow and you try to emulate how you think the angle felt before, but you can’t find it anymore and you’re just failing spectacularly.
When you decide to pause for a second, Din steps up close behind you and wraps his arms around you once more.  You can feel the exact moment he’s locked in his aim, and you fire wordlessly as soon as you know it’s going to hit.  Bullseye, right on the nose.
This time, he lifts just his hands away from yours, staying perfectly still otherwise and you swear you don’t move a single fucking muscle in your entire body before pulling the trigger, but it still hits the far corner of the target.
“It’s broken,” you shrug once again, and Din drops his helmet to your shoulder with a sigh.  “This gun was made for you, which means there’s obviously some mod you have installed that reads biometrics and ruins the shot no matter how good it—”
“Not even close, but that’s not a bad idea,” he tells you, watching you click the safety on and set the uncooperative blaster down.  “I can’t figure out what you’re doing wrong.   Are you just distracted?”
Uh, fuck yeah you are.  So much is going on and more than that, he’s here and he’s just… fuck, you know what he meant when he said he felt like he was losing his mind.  He’s your biggest distraction, all the time.  He’s still standing so close to you and the baby is still isolated and tucked away in his hovering sphere, and you take a moment to think about it.  
Yes, it’s… it’s possible that you may learn better by example than anything else.
“Can I watch you do it?”  You ask him, and Din shrugs before reaching around you and quickly grabbing the blaster from its mud shelf.  “Wait—” you tell him while he raises and extends his arm over your shoulder, and then you wiggle sideways as much as possible in the small booth to squeeze around behind him.  He doesn’t say anything as you swap places with him and scoot up behind him, but you can tell by his body language that he’s confused.  You wonder if he liked that position and watching you shoot his gun, even if you’re complete shit at it.
He stands in front of you for a second and you give him an encouraging, “Okay,” to let him know you’re ready, but then the helmet turns back to look at the target like he’s still unsure as to what you want specifically.  You keep your mouth shut and let him figure it out.  You meant what you said—you want to watch him shoot.  You want to watch him where he’s infamous, watch him do what he’s best at and let completely loose in front of you.
As if it finally clicks for him, Din turns to face the target and suddenly throws the blaster into his left hand while reaching down and pushing a button hidden under the hollow platform with his right.  You have to lean around his broad shoulders to watch the target slide backwards on its track easily triple the distance before squeaking and slamming to a stop.  Din stretches his non-dominant hand out and subtly tilts his helmet before firing six times, easily hitting the bullseye with just as much accuracy as before, and you frown when you notice the only shots that have actually hit the target so far have all been dead center.
He sets the gun down and stands there for a second, staring across the range like it’s nothing at all to him and it’s… remarkable.  Not that he’s a wicked shot, you’ve known that the second you laid eyes on his armor all those months ago.  No, it’s just… you would think this is where he’d thrive, if anywhere.  The entire place is full of smugglers, raiders, scavengers, mercenaries—occupations that define themselves by their grit.  They’re talking as much as they’re shooting, conversing in languages you’ve never heard but suspect Din easily understands.  But instead of fitting in, he’s just… there.  He doesn’t look comfortable, but he also doesn’t look uncomfortable, either.  He doesn’t look like he’s having any fun at all.
None of this is considered a hobby to him, you suddenly realize.  It’s not fun because he’s too good at it.  This is life.  This is going back to school for the most basic fundamentals of a job he’s excelled at for decades—it’s not interesting, he’s gaining absolutely nothing from practicing.
You try to think of the last time you’ve seen him truly in his element.  You think back on all the different settings—he looked out of place on Canto Bight, got into fights on Corellia, hated Coruscant, seemed stressed on Nevarro, and even on Naboo, even in the middle of paradise, he looked unsure if he actually deserved to be there with you.  Now here on Tatooine, where he has real people that he trusts, where he’s surrounded by like-minded individuals shooting his favorite things in the world, it’s like he’s still not able to fully let go.
Is it just you, you wonder?  Does he stand out more just because you’re the one looking?
No, you think.  No.  You have seen him relax.  You’ve seen him laugh before, you’ve seen him be himself with you.  
But… only with you.  A hardened bounty hunter that much prefers the company of a young woman and an infant to literally anyone else in the galaxy.
Fuck.  Why does that turn you on so fucking much?  It’s the display of prowess, the sheer skill he’s developed, how fucking deadly he is—and how you’ve felt him use that trigger finger to trace slow circles around your clit.  The Mandalorian standing with his blaster raised has probably been the last thing too many people have ever seen in their lifetimes, and yet watching from this angle just makes you feel protected, guarded, and… so fucking horny for him.
“Do it again,” you eventually murmur, touching both your palms to his back this time just to feel it.  You want to feel him shoot, you want to feel his muscles move with it.  You want to touch how mechanically he’s able to aim, you want to know if he’s loose or tense when he fires, you just want to… feel it.
Din grabs the gun and as he extends his arms out, you slide your hands up his back to rest under his shoulders.  He’s so broad, he feels so warm and strong, and his trigger releases are so steady that nothing above his wrists move.
Shit, before he’s even finished setting the blaster back down again, you’re already scooting up behind him as close as possible and carefully slithering your arms around his waist, hugging your body tight to his back.  Din stays completely still while your mouth presses against the fabric of his cape and your hands begin to slowly slide down his stomach.
He doesn’t say a damn thing, which makes it even hotter for some reason.  There’s no warning he gives you, no low growl of your name or sweet girl being dragged through the modulator.  He stays completely silent and holds there while blasters continue to fire from stalls to your left, and it gives you the thrill of your lifetime.  Big strong man holding perfectly still for you to touch in the middle of a crowded room.
Your hand slips under his waistband and sink down low until you can trail your fingertips along his cock, hidden from sight beneath the edge of the clay shelf.  The small sound you make at feeling it already firm and at attention for you gets lost in the noise of the shooting range, but you wrap your palm around it and give it a good, slow pull upwards, feeling Din’s back expand with a breath from the sensation.
“Do it again,” you whisper into his shoulder blade, slowly playing with his cock in his pants with one hand while keeping the other wrapped tight around his abdomen.
Din immediately snatches the blaster off the platform and fires it the very moment he takes aim, and you can feel his cock pulse in your palm as he lets off the shots.  Dead center, as always, but he clunks the metal back down with a bit more force this time and then lingers his fingertips at the sloped edge of it for a second, as if he’s considering whether or not he should hold onto it.  
You’re already wet between your legs, but it gets worse the longer he allows you to keep doing this.  His skin is furnace-hot and he throbs for you, and you trail your thumb up to check—oh, Maker, he’s leaking for you, too.  You drag the pad of your thumb over the tip and gently rub the wetness along the curve of his head, before easing back down to give the shaft another slow pull.
A quiet puff of air comes through the vocal filter, but that’s all you audibly get out of him.  Still, it’s more than enough to fill you with a wicked heat and a desperate desire for more.  So you bite your lip and glance around just to double-check that nobody else has wandered over behind you and the kid is still tucked away in his crib, probably passed out in the secluded darkness at this point.  And then you barely take a split-second to consider it before your knees are bending and you’re slowly sinking down the length of his body.
Din is a fucking statue.  He doesn’t do anything to allow your wiggling underneath the raised platform anymore than he widens his stance to prevent it.  Once you’re on your knees in front of him in the dim isolation of your hiding spot though, he takes a single step forward and pins his waist to the hardened clay above your head, and a thrill skitters through you at being completely walled in on all four sides.
You reach up to hook your fingertips in his hem of his trousers and begin pulling them down, so tight and achy between your legs that you want to shove your hand down between them already.  You don’t though, not yet, because you need two hands to be extra careful in getting his cock out.  You don’t even want the fabric of his pants to touch it, you want your mouth to be the only sensation he knows here.
At the very last second, you decide to pull the waistband down far enough to let his balls rest outside the confining clothing, getting increasingly hotter at the thought that this isn’t going to be sneaky and dirty, even if you’re in public.  Din’s wide stance and the floor-length cape hide you perfectly from any prying eyes behind his back, so it’s going to be soft and it’s going to be slow and he’s going to be comfortable while you go down on him.
Your mouth is already watering, so you bend down just slightly and lift your chin to gently drag your tongue along the smooth skin of his balls before anything else.  Honestly—you don’t think he’s expecting you to go there first, because his whole body suddenly jerks at the velvet soft sensation between his legs and you let out a low hum in response.  He can’t reach you down here unless he tries to, so you scoot your knees up a little bit and just decide to go for it.  This way he won’t be able to get it confused, he won’t pull you out from under here halfway through when you suck on his balls before anything else.  This is what you want from him, what’s right here in your mouth.
You switch to the other one and Din twitches with a filtered breath, the skin already tightening up and responding gorgeously under your tongue.  His hand hovers somewhere near the raised platform above your head, fingers curling in his leather gloves and caught right between stopping you and letting you continue.  While he allows it, you ease your way up and make it just tantalizing enough to make him ache without providing any real stimulation, slowly trailing your tongue up the length of his cock and pressing plush lips to the flared head.
Din exhales a shakily while you take your time, tasting the precum as his body produces it, just kissing and licking and purposefully refusing to touch him with anything besides your mouth.  Without being able to see the rest of him from this angle, you're left to your own devices—you’re so gentle and soft about the pleasure that you start to separate the man from the throbbing erection you’re currently playing with.  You begin to enjoy yourself without thinking too much about the struggle he must be withstanding right now, you moan softly against his heated skin even though you know you’re being a tease at the worst possible moment, but no matter how you decide to take your time with it, Din continues to allow it.  He endures.  Silent, perfectly still, until you eventually decide to wrap your lips around the head of his cock and flutter your tongue up underneath it.
But then he jumps and your eyes open when a deep, unkind voice from the stall to your left calls out, “Hey, Mando!  Gonna fuckin’ shoot or just stand there, huh?”
You can hear his immediate frustration in the blaster scraping against the shelf over your head, and you moan softly around his cock the second you feel him tense and start firing.  The smooth skin pulses on your tongue and you slide your fingers around the backs of his knees, opening your throat and slowly taking him deeper.  
And, for a man that has repeatedly fired six perfect shots every single time he picks up his gun, he falters after just three this time.
The heat of your mouth must be too overwhelming.  Too fucking good, too detrimental to his focus and composure to even perform the most basic tasks he typically excels at.  Like a seasoned mathematician that suddenly struggles to count to ten, a renowned author that can’t recite their ABC’s—Mando can’t even fire a weapon right now and it’s all because of you.  
He has to keep trying though, he has to make an actual effort now that you both know someone nearby is paying at least some sort of attention to his performance.  The sound of more plasma arcing through the air over your head slowly disappears into the background in a way that it never could while you were the one firing—you’re completely hidden and safe down here, you can moan low in your throat while keeping your hands around his knees and begin to bob your head without another thought or worry whatsoever.  Handling it is all on him.  He just needs to stay quiet, be still, and shoot his gun.  It should be the simplest thing in the galaxy for him, right?
Wrong.  So wrong.  You hear the way the bolts are pinging off the sides of the target now, you listen to him grunt and let off a few more shots that also sound like they miss.  Your soft palate lifts and you’re practically drenching yourself at how wide he stretches your throat while you take him down as far as you can, and there’s a moment where you’re holding there and you think about doing something about the dull ache throbbing between your legs.  But once you pull off him for air and automatically touch your drooling tongue to your palm, you decide this is what you want more.
Your slick hand wraps around his cock and starts to slowly jerk him off while your mouth moves down to attach to his balls once more, your touch gliding strong and wet along his entire length.  Din almost doubles over into the platform, his hips stuttering up for the first time at the hard stimulation you’re finally giving him.  His skin swells and tightens in your mouth—you can feel the tension locking his thighs down, you can hear the shots above you start to decrease in frequency, and you know he’s already close.
So you move back up to suck on the head of his cock again and slowly swirl your tongue around it, continuing to use your hand to pull steady and firm on the rest of his shaft, and you just close your eyes and wait for him to give you what you want.  His firing soon stops altogether and you squeeze your finger between your thighs and press hard against your clit, just needing to relieve some of the ache.  You keep doing that, you keep drawing circles with your tongue while slowly jerking the rest of him off into your mouth, and at some point, it all just becomes too much for him.
“Shit,” Din gasps, along with the sudden sound of metal skittering against the clay above you, and your eyes pop open in surprise.  “Ah, sh—shhhhh—”
Maker, did he just drop his fucking gun?
You start to pull back, but then suddenly a trembling hand shoots down and clutches tight under your throat, hooking hard behind your jaw to make sure you stay right there.
His cock starts throbbing and he shudders, slamming his other palm on the shelf and cumming hard in your mouth.  You’re already swallowing before he even gives you anything but Maker, you’re fucking desperate for it that your hand moves to curl your fingers against the exposed skin at his hips as if that’ll somehow help you get it sooner.  The first taste of him comes as soon as you dig in and drag your nails down his flesh, and Din is helpless to do anything else besides clutch your jaw tight and gasp raggedly while emptying himself down your throat.
He shakes and shudders and you don’t spill a single drop, clutching his hips and pulling him close to keep him in your mouth, and as he slowly comes down from that plateau, you lick every inch of him clean.  His fingers gradually lose their rigidity around your jaw and eventually, his fingers drop down to press gently against your throat while his hips pull back.
He slips from your mouth and you wipe the wetness from your chin, staring up at his cock wistfully and almost wanting to keep going.  Is that fucked up, you wonder?  What would he think?
He hasn’t moved yet, why isn’t he moving?  Your job is clearly finished here, no matter what kind of way you may feel about that.  The coast must not be clear, you have to assume.  Perhaps someone is wandering around behind him, maybe he’s still being cautious about the nosy person next door—all you know is that you can tell he wants to move but he isn’t, which likely means he can’t.  You know his cock must be so unbelievably sensitive right now, but he’s not easing his body back far enough away from the shelf to tuck it into his pants.  He’s keeping it right in front of your face and expecting you to stay there until he deems it appropriate for you to get up.
The longer you wait for him to step back and let you out from under here, the more your need sparks and grows.  What would he think?  That you’re so desperate for his cock that you still want it in your mouth even when it’s soft and spent?  Maker, he’d be fucking right on the money.
At some point, you can’t stop yourself.  You lean back up to slowly take his soft cock back in your mouth, and Din nearly spasms while you slip your hand under your waistband and widen your knees.
You don’t do anything spectacular to it—you’re not that cruel—but you do hold him on the heat of your tongue and keep him there, fluttering your eyes closed as your finger finally touches your clit.  Air puffs shakily through your nostrils and you think Din is actually shaking harder than you are, his body fighting oversensitivity while yours starts the race towards bliss.  He doesn’t stop you but it also feels like he’s purposefully trying not to, like everything in him is rebelling against the wet heat of your mouth but knowing you’re only doing this because you’re so painfully turned on.  You’re doing this because you need it, in spite of the electric shocks of wicked sensation it seems to be inspiring in him.
Your finger speeds up and you start gently sucking on the warm, giving flesh, and his hand trembles as it grabs at your hair.  Fuck, you don’t care if he thinks you’re desperate—you want him to recognize it, you want him to know exactly how much you love his cock—
That thought sends a dark thrill down your spine and pleasure burns bright and needy where you’re still rubbing your clit, dropping your hips and rolling them forwards against your hand.  And oh, your only lament is that you wish he was the one doing this.  You wish Din was building your pleasure instead of letting you use his body in search of your own, you wish it was his hand working between your legs and about to shove you over that ledge, but then again.  Something about this whole fucking scene is just so… undignified.  Debased.  And you’re getting off on it, quicker than you ever thought possible.
When you cum, you’re good and you don’t make a single sound when you cum.  You squeeze your eyes shut and your entire body jolts with every single shattering wave of ecstasy, and Din tugs a handful of your hair and slowly rocks his hips once, twice, fucking your mouth while you endure wildfire burning through your veins.  By the time you finish convulsing on the fucking floor of a Tatooinian gun range, you know you can go for another and probably get it equally as quick as that one, but Din is already pulling his cock out of your mouth and shoving it back into his pants.  You’re like jelly as your elbow is immediately caught in his arm and you’re hauled up from your hiding spot, dazed and disoriented.
The chrome visor stares you down and you want to shrink in on yourself, thinking he’s going to take your happy ass back to the Crest.  You should be in trouble, you know you should be in trouble.  Leaving the recesses of your dark cubby and coming face to face with your surroundings brings a brand new clarity to light—you totally should not have done any of that.  He was trying to teach you, for Maker’s sake.  He was taking the time to show you the valuable knowledge he’s gained regarding weaponry and self-defense.  Fuck, you even told him on Naboo that you wanted to shoot a gun, and he brought you here to do just that.
Except then he just spins you around and picks up the blaster from the adobe ledge in front of you, placing it firmly in your hands.
“Okay,” he pants quietly next to your ear, breathing hard and shallow through the helmet.  “Now you should be able to focus, right?”
Fuck…  Fuck, is he serious?  You can barely hold the damn thing, you’re shaking so hard.  How does this work again?  What does this do?
“Wh-What?”  You croak—fuck, your voice is gone.  “I… I can’t—”
“Try,” he encourages, helping your comparatively tiny hands flip off the safety but other than that, stepping back and leaving you to it.  Completely and hopelessly lost, you weakly twist around to watch him stand next to the kid’s closed metallic shield.  “Hit the target,” Din reiterates with a nod, trying to catch his breath.  “You can do it.”
You look back out with unfocused eyes to see it still all the way on the far end of its track, and there’s just absolutely no fucking way.  “I… can’t.”
“Hit the target and we can go home,” he tells you, and while you don’t exactly know what home is anymore, something tells you it’s somewhere in hyperspace.  A resting baby, a metal floor, a pitch black hull, and your cheek pressed against a warm chest.
It sounds… wonderful.
Inspiring a newfound kind of desire in you, you lift your arms as best you can and work so, so hard to keep them steady.  The target is in your sights and you do your absolute best—fuck, you really do, but you pull the trigger and the shot sadly bounces off the edge.
You drop your hands, already defeated and drained.  “I can’t.”
“Hit the target and I’ll buy you a blaster,” he ups the ante, and you instantly lift your dead arms again.  Fuck, come on, come on, you can do this.
You shoot.  Nope.  So you shoot again.  And then you shoot again, and again, minutely adjusting your wrists purely based on where the bright red plasma is landing and ignoring the scope entirely.
“A nice one,” he continues over the pew pew pew of you just continuing to fucking miss, fucking miserably, over and over again.  “Expensive.  Hand-crafted, one of a kind…”
Miss, miss, miss, and—no.  Just, no.  There’s only so much glaring failure you can take before you snap.  You finally stop shooting and growl in frustration, going to slam the metal down on its resting place.  “Mando, I ca—”
“Hit the target and I’ll marry you,” he says quietly, and you freeze just before impact.
… What?  N… No…
Miraculously, you somehow manage to calmly switch the safety on and set the blaster down before turning back to see the helmet staring at you, unmoving.
You… you know it must just be a joke, right?  Just a stupid extension to the one he made earlier, it must be.  You blink dumbly at him and flick your gaze between the visor and two large black eyes staring at you from the crib, wondering if you glitched or if you’re just hallucinating.
“Uh…” you hear yourself say, even though you’ve got absolutely nothing, but Din doesn’t offer anything else to fill in the gaps of your startled misunderstanding.  If you didn’t have such a wild fucking reaction to the words, you'd probably wonder if he actually said them or not—that’s how much he gives away.  Silent, so unbelievably silent when you’re begging him to give you at least something.  Is he messing with you again?  Is he just that confident that you’re going to fail?
It takes forever for you to turn back around and face the target, but you eventually do when he refuses to elaborate.  Your heart slams in your chest and you wonder what you’re doing even attempting this.
The moment you lift your trembling arms is the moment you know your heart is pounding too fast—your finger twitches with the wild rush of blood flow and you end up pulling the trigger way before you’re ready.  You fire before you’ve checked your sights, you fire before you’ve taken any sort of aim whatsoever, you fire spontaneously enough to surprise even yourself and it—
—it hits dead center.
Your stomach drops and a jolt of some rabid feeling punches through you, you have no idea what it is.  You whip around so fast that you get dizzy, seeing him standing there, completely still.
“That was just beginner’s luck,” you quickly reassure him, suddenly feeling faint.  Holy shit, holy shit, what the fuck just happened?  “Listen—hey, no, listen, I can’t get it again,” you explain shrilly to the utterly dead silence from him.  “Look, watch this, double or nothing.”
You spin back around, well aware that absolutely nothing about what you just said or what just happened made any fucking sense at all.  Beginner’s luck when you’ve been consistently awful at this, telling him repeatedly to listen when you’re very, very fucking aware he hasn’t said anything, double or nothing on a literal proposal as if double marriage is something that actually exists?
No.  Shut up.  Don’t even think that word, don’t think about fucking anything.  Fire, fire without thinking, just lift the gun and pull the trigger—
You do, and oh.  Oh, no.
“Uh?!”  Your voice comes out on a squeak, now in a complete fucking panic.  What the fuck?  No fucking way.  Perfect, perfect, the odds are fucking astronomical—another deadly accurate shot.  “Ah, um, okay, scratch everything I said—th-third time’s a charm?”
Wide-eyed and having absolutely no clue what you’re doing at this point, you fail to see Din slowly turn his helmet down and to the right as he stands behind you.  You go to lift your arms and pull the trigger, but then he suddenly reaches out lightning-quick and bumps your elbow upwards at the very last second.  
The abrupt push causes your shot to be angled off course spectacularly and you can’t do anything but look up and gasp in horror, worried it’s going to ricochet off the ceiling and land somewhere this building isn’t architecturally designed to absorb.  There’s just enough time to wildly wonder why the fuck he did that—
—but then, like pure magic before your eyes… the beam of plasma adjusts itself in midair.  
It fucking bends.  Across the length of your entire firing lane, it curves in a downward trajectory and hits the target with absolutely impossible physics.
Your jaw fucking drops and you whip your body around in dumb shock to see Din staring hard at the closed shield next to him.
… that’s not closed.
The baby tilts his head at you and coos happily, one ear tipping up while the other tips down, and you’re completely blown away.  Not only at the entirely unexpected demon-power display, but what specifically he was hoping to get out of it.  You’re still stuck, blinking down at the adorable little goof with abilities you’ll never understand.
Only, a hand suddenly grabs yours and drags you back to yourself.
“We need to leave,” Din says quietly, switching the lid shut on the hovering crib and pushing it towards the booth’s exit while tugging you along behind him.  “I don’t know how many people saw that, we need to leave.”
Sure enough, voices in the next partition over start picking up, likely the only ones in here who had a good enough angle to watch the physically unthinkable shot somehow meet its target, and your adrenaline quickly begins pumping while you keep your head down and power-walk your ass to the door.  You don’t know the kind of consequences that could potentially arise from others witnessing the kid’s literal sorcery, but you know you’d rather not take the chance.  The voices start growing louder as you three make your quick escape, beginning to ask others around them if they just saw that, but you’re already out of the rectangular adobe structure and long gone by the time anybody steps out of their panels to hear the uproarious accusations of cheating beginning to fly.
***
Stay tuned for the next part!
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oreomonsterhunter · 3 years
Text
“I’m not wearing my sexy underwear tonight”
Pairing: Johnny x reader (or OC)
Word Count: 3988
Genre: fluff, not smut but they both really wanna toe the line
Warnings: language, some sexy kisses (cover your eyes kids)
Summary: Johnny takes his best friend on their first date
A/N: this has absolutely morphed into a long term couple, because apparently Princess has taken the reins 😂 if you like this, check out the rest of their story so far on my masterlist!
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You were nervous.  Friends with Johnny since diapers, and somehow you were nervous to meet him in five minutes.  You glanced at the time—make that four minutes.
Pacing back and forth in front of the door, you smoothed down your dress again.  All Johnny had told you was to dress up.  He might be a fashion king, but he wasn’t exactly the best at sharing details.  You’d teetered between twenty different outfits before finally settling on a happy medium.  Couldn’t show up to a museum in an evening gown.  Well, you supposed you could, if you even owned one.  So the little black dress at the back of your closet was the final choice.  Safe enough for just about every venue, since Johnny hadn’t told you where your date would be.
You sucked in a breath, fighting against the nerves tight in your stomach.  Your first date, oh my gosh.  How were you supposed to date Johnny?  You’d done practically everything together already, what made this different from going to the movies together last week?  Aside from the obvious—last week, you didn’t know what Johnny’s lips felt like on yours.
Then you groaned at your sudden realization.  Jeez, you couldn’t do anything right in this relationship with Johnny.  You were about to have your first date but you’d already had a hot and heavy makeout session at an unmentionable hour of the morning.  So much for “will I kiss him afterwards?”  Dating for five seconds, and everything was already out of order.  You wanted to scream, but before your thoughts could really start spiraling, you heard a knock at the door.
You were sweating, oh gosh.  Did you need to reapply deodorant?  You froze, staring at nothing.  Until another knock sounded, this time accompanied by Johnny’s familiar voice, “Yo, are you ready to go?”
You sagged in relief.  Nothing else would have snapped you out of the nervous cycle better than Johnny being….well, Johnny.  And when you finally convinced yourself to open the door, the sight of his easy smile was enough for yours to appear, too.
“Well, uh, hi,” he stuttered, making you giggle.
You slipped on your shoes, grabbed a small purse, and locked the door behind you.  Then you linked arms with Johnny, “Alright, where to, mystery man?  You haven’t told me anything.”
“That’s mostly because I didn’t figure anything out until today.”
Biting your lip to hold back a giggle, you tugged him down the hallway.  “No wonder you didn’t share much detail.  I should’ve known.”
Johnny tightened his grip on you when you stepped out of the elevator, leading you to the car.  He didn’t say much, which was a bit out of character.  Frowning up at him, you tried to meet his gaze.  He finally looked down at you when he opened the passenger door for you to get in.  “You, uh, you look really nice tonight.”
A small smile bloomed, “Not looking so bad yourself, hot stuff.”
* * * * *
Apparently Johnny had picked out a restaurant for dinner.  A fancy restaurant.  You read through the list of entrees with a barely-concealed grimace.  “Do you know what any of these words mean?” you asked him.
Johnny beamed at you, “Nope, that’s half the fun.”
A waiter walked by with a tray destined for another table, and you both gaped at the miniscule portion sizes.  “Those look like appetizers,” Johnny said, goggling at the tiny salad. “Maybe I can order several steaks. I’d need about five of them.” He started eyeing the menu again.
“As long as you’re picking up the tab,” you joked.
“Oh, I thought you were,” he said, all wide eyed innocence.  You smacked his arm with your menu, fighting a grin at his usual antics.  The couple at the next table shot you a look, and you hunched back in your seat.
“Don’t worry, I’m paying.  Order whatever you’d like,” Johnny said, still puzzling over the ridiculous dinner options.
You frowned, reaching for your water.  But shoot, it probably cost five bucks for tap, you thought with no small amount of horror.  You set it back down before you drained more of Johnny’s wallet.
After a few more minutes of torturous silence, trying not to fidget too much, you leaned forward.  “Do we even have a waiter?”
Johnny jerked upright, looking over his shoulder at the man in question.  “I don’t know?”
“I’ve been trying to make eye contact with the staff for five minutes and they’re all ignoring me.”
Johnny blinked at you.  “Wait, are you ready to order?”
“No, I wanna ask if they charge for water.”
“No one charges for water,” he chortled.
“I bet it’s five bucks a glass,” you said, crossing your arms.
Now Johnny was really laughing, and half the restaurant was staring at your table.  “Only if it’s imported from the crystal springs of Iceland,” he said, grinning.
“Wait, really?”
“Hell if I know,” Johnny said, making you snort some of your water.  You shrunk down in your chair, hiding your red face while he kept laughing.
“I don’t know this man,” you said to the people at the next table. They stared at you, whispering among themselves.  Pouting, you turned back to Johnny.  “I can’t believe you booked a table here,” you cocked an eyebrow at him.  “I thought we were burger joint people, not escargot snobs.”
“Do you really not wanna eat here?” he asked, propping his elbows on the table.
You opened your mouth to respond, but your waiter finally showed up to take your order.  “Good evening, can I interest you in anything else to drink?”
“Any Icelandic sparkling water?”  Now Johnny was the one snorting inelegantly.
The waiter laughed, despite not knowing the joke.  “Can I interest you in a bottle of red?  You seem like a red wine woman.”
You smiled politely, reaching for the wine list when he offered it to you.  “Sure, I’ll take a look.”
The waiter smirked, eyes landing on you.  “I’ll have to card you, miss.”
Your brows raised, but you complied, digging out your wallet.  Across the table, Johnny cleared his throat, “Do I look like a red wine guy?”  But the waiter barely glanced at him before his eyes were back on you.
“Your photo doesn’t do you justice,” the waiter commented, handing your ID back.
“No one looks good in those pictures,” you chuckled.
“I beg to differ,” he said, then nodded at the wine list.  “What can I get you?”
You glanced over at Johnny, who was fidgeting enough to shake the table.  Curious.  “What do you recommend?” you asked, twirling a strand of hair around one finger.
“You might be interested in one of our finer vintages,” he began, leaning over your shoulder to point out a few wines on the list.  You heard a subtle sound, and out of the corner of your eye, saw Johnny’s fingers rapping the table at a rapidly increasing pace.  You bit your lip, focusing on the wines again, but not before adding a little more fuel to the fire.  Time to test your theory.  You crossed your legs, brushing one foot up Johnny’s calf in the process.  The man jumped as if electrocuted, his knees banging into the underside of the table.
“How about this one?” you asked innocently, looking up at the waiter again.
“A lovely choice, though it is on the higher range, so I’m not sure—”
“We’ll take it,” Johnny announced, plucking the wine list from your fingers and shoving it at the waiter.
You raised an eyebrow, but the waiter simply smiled at you, apparently unbothered by growly Johnny.  “I’ll bring that right out for you,” he said, taking the wine menu and leaving you to suffer over dinner options.
Johnny cleared his throat, leaning towards you again.  “That waiter’s a bit weird, huh?” he asked, watching the man walk away.  “He didn’t even ask what I wanted.”
You donned your best sparkly-eyed expression, “But he’s being so friendly!  He really deserves a nice tip, he had some helpful suggestions.”
Johnny frowned, “He’s obviously flirting with you.”
“No way,” you laughed, waving him off.
Johnny rolled his eyes, “Trust me.  He’s flirting with you more than I am, and I’m the one taking you on a date.”
You leaned forward, resting your elbows on the table.  “Maybe you should start flirting with me some more, then.”
Johnny sent you an indecipherable look.  You wondered if your teasing had worked.  But Johnny seemed to have calmed down some, now that the helpful waiter was out of sight.  
You shrugged, sitting back in your chair.  You changed the subject, giving the man a break.  “Seriously, we don’t need to spend this much on dinner.  I feel bad.”
“I thought you’d like this place,” Johnny said, brows furrowing.
“I will literally go anywhere with you, it doesn’t matter, I just….I dunno, I feel like I don’t fit in here.”  You weren’t quite sure how to express your fear that people would call you a gold-digger or something, only dating Johnny now that he’d achieved success.  Even if the two of you knew better, it still made your stomach twist.  And not in the nice way it did while watching Johnny’s hands playing with his water glass.  Shoot, shoot, shoot, now his fingers were wet from the condensation.  You really didn’t need to know what that looked like.  Had his hands always been that large?  You shifted in your seat.
Johnny’s mouth twisted in a wry smile, “I don’t know if either of us really fit in with the rich old person vibe, but I heard the food is good.”
I’d rather have a bite of you, you thought to yourself, twisting the napkin in your lap.  You’d never seen him in a suit before.  Or at least, not in person.
Johnny coughed suddenly, staring at you with wide eyes.  “What?”
Oh shit, did you say that out loud?  Your cheeks burned.  “Um, I’d be, uh,” you stuttered, trying to cover your mistake, all confidence extinguished.  “We could get burgers, or something.”
Johnny sat back in his chair, eyes on yours.  He smirked, and you wanted to disappear into a hole in the ground.  Oh no, he definitely heard you.
“As long as I get to keep watching you,” Johnny said, voice low.  “You really are beautiful, not just tonight.  Every night.”
You opened your mouth, not sure what to say, but knowing that you wanted Johnny to keep looking at you like that.  Like you were the main course.  “Johnny, I—”
“Your wine, miss,” the waiter had returned.  You bit back a frown, knowing he was just doing his job.  But he seriously couldn’t have waited another minute?
“Thank you,” you murmured, sampling the first sip before allowing the waiter to pour both glasses.
“Can I interest you in any appetizers?” he asked, pouring Johnny’s wine.
You blinked, having forgotten the menu entirely.  Across the table, Johnny pulled out the menu, but before he could point anything out, the waiter was hovering over your shoulder.  “Might I recommend the cheese board?  It will pair beautifully with this bottle.”
“Might I tell you my order?” Johnny said.  His smile was sharper than before.  You might have teased him some more, but you got a bit distracted by Johnny’s jawline as he turned to speak to the waiter.  Honestly, you were having trouble tearing your eyes away from him all night.  It felt like seeing him for the first time, and in a way, you supposed you were.  You’d always known Johnny was attractive, since the time all boys started to look cute.  You’d just never let yourself think about it too much.  Best friend mental boundaries and all that.
Maybe if Johnny hadn’t said anything on that night, you wouldn’t have ever seen him like this.  You wouldn’t have allowed yourself to admire the column of his neck, or his long fingers as they unbuttoned the top of his shirt.  It would’ve been you and your stupid butterflies trapped in the friend zone forever.
Thoroughly distracted now, you bit your lip as you wondered what Johnny’s neck would look like with some new decorations.
“You realize they sell food here, right?  You don’t have to look at me like I’m an appetizer,” Johnny whispered across the table dramatically.  You startled, looking around, but the waiter had left at some point during your daydream.  Oh gosh, did you drool?  You pressed the back of your hand to your face discreetly, relieved to find nothing of the sort.
Then your brain caught up to Johnny, and you looked up at him with a smirk, “You’re too big to be an appetizer.”
Johnny choked on a laugh, covering his mouth to hide his smile when the other diners looked your way.  When he appeared to have himself under control again, he eyed you from head to toe—or at least what he could see from across the table.  He shot you a grin, “You’ll find out soon enough, won’t you?”
You watched him through your lashes, not quite sure what to make of him anymore.  You’d had your fair share of fun with other guys, but never in a million years had you imagined flirting with Johnny so blatantly.  Let alone in a fancy five star restaurant like this.
A sudden presence at your side startled you, and you jumped a little when the waiter reached over your shoulder to set a dish down.  “Sorry for startling you,” he murmured, moving away slightly, but not before brushing your shoulder in apology.  “Should I leave you with this for now, or are you ready to order?”
Johnny’s eyes flashed, and you bit back a curse at the waiter’s truly stellar ability to interrupt.  “We’re fine, thank you,” you said, unable to stop watching Johnny.  Or his hand, slowly tightening into a fist on top of the table.
“Would you like to hear the specials tonight?”
You donned a polite smile, nodding at the waiter to continue.  While he read down the list of fancy-sounding entrées, you turned your smile on Johnny, who was vibrating in his seat again.  You could’ve sworn your water glasses were shaking, and you held back a giggle.  You uncrossed and recrossed your legs, extra slowly to make sure he got the message when you “accidentally” brushed his knee this time.  The vibrations stopped, and his eyes burned into you.
“Thank you, we’ll keep looking over the menu,” Johnny interrupted the waiter, his voice deeper than before.  Your smile only grew.
Once the waiter was out of earshot, you leaned in.  “Can we leave?  I can’t even kiss you here.”
“Yep, yes, absolutely,” Johnny said, standing up the second the words were out of your mouth.  He nearly upended the table, making you snort.  “Right now,” he nodded, striding for the exit.
You scrambled out of your chair, rushing after him.  “Johnny,” you hissed, grabbing his sleeve.  “We didn’t pay yet.”
He came to a halt in the hallway, and you nearly ran into his back.  Then Johnny turned around, and you became very aware of the semi-secluded location as he moved closer.  You squeaked out a panicked, “Not here!”  You backed away until he finally reached out, one hand circling your waist to reel you in.
Johnny’s eyes moved over your shoulder, then back to yours.  He smirked, leaning in close enough for you to feel his lips brushing your cheek as he murmured, “Tell the valet to get the car.  I’ll grab the wine.”
You could’ve sworn you felt his hand brush down your back, lower.  Your cheeks burned hotter.  But when you turned, Johnny’s broad shoulders were disappearing around the corner, and the waiter was hurrying in the opposite direction.
* * * * *
You ended up ditching the car and walking around the neighborhood.  You only looked slightly out of place with your high heels and makeup when you ended up at a tteokbokki joint.  You’d played rock paper scissors between that and burgers, and Johnny won, as usual.
After dinner, you were reasonably close to your apartment, so Johnny offered to walk you home. It felt like another one of your late-night adventures, except you were usually in sneakers. When your feet got tired, you stopped in the middle of the block to take off the killer heels, sighing in relief.  You slung the straps over your wrist, prepared to keep trudging along, when Johnny swooped in.  One second, you were on the ground, the next, you were admiring the top view of Johnny’s ass from where you were dangling over his shoulder.
“Johnny, what the fuck,” you asked breathlessly, dying of laughter.  And from his shoulder digging into your diaphragm.
“Are you crazy?  You could cut your feet open,” he scolded you.
“At least there’s a nice view,” you sighed, reaching down to pat his butt.
Johnny put a little bounce in his next step, and you grunted at the impact.  You could practically feel his smug little grin.  “Hands off the merchandise.”
“How is that fair?  You totally copped a feel back at the restaurant.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Bull,” you said.  “You went all ‘alpha male’ with that nice waiter.”
Johnny huffed, “I wasn’t jealous.”
You grinned in victory.  “I never said you were, mister offering-up-information.  Now put me down, you caveman.”
Johnny’s grip on your thighs loosened, and his hands slid up to your waist, holding you tightly as he helped you back down.  You froze for a second when your feet hit the ground, not expecting to be face-to-face with him so suddenly.  “Wait right there,” Johnny said firmly, finally releasing your waist.
You blinked at him in confusion, watching as he slid his suit jacket off.  Your eyes widened when he reached for you, but it was only to wrap the jacket around your waist, tying the sleeves into a knot to hold it in place.
“There,” Johnny said, nodding at his handiwork.  Then he turned, crouching down slightly.  “Alright, princess, hop on.”
You beamed at him, not that he could see it.  It wouldn’t be a walk with Johnny if he didn’t end up carrying you at the end of the night, you chuckled to yourself.  You were fiercely grateful to Johnny for thinking of his jacket—you weren’t quite sure how long your skirt was, now that you were wrapped around him like a koala.
“Thanks, Johnny,” you mumbled, burying your face in his neck.  “You’re the bestest.”  You left a smacking kiss on his cheek, and he laughed, tightening his hold on your legs.
Finally, you arrived at your apartment building.  You slid your heels back on, balancing with one hand on Johnny’s arm.  “I’ll walk you up,” he said once you straightened.
But when you got to your door, you hesitated, unsure what to say.  Was this the part where you kissed him goodnight?  You were torn, so at odds with the way the night resembled your old friend dates, only now things were different.  What were you supposed to do?
“So,” Johnny drawled, leaning against the wall.  “Where’s my tip?”
You stared at him, incredulous.  “Your tip?” you repeated.
“Johnny’s chauffeur service isn’t free,” he said.  “And if I remember correctly, you still owe me for last time.”
You cocked a hip, smirking slightly.  “Any preferred payment methods?”
Johnny blew you an air kiss, and you made a show of catching it.  “I take cash or card,” he informed you.
“What a shame,” you murmured, dropping your purse in front of the door.  “I seem to have lost my wallet.”
He watched you carefully, barely blinking as you approached him, one slow step at a time.  “Apps?”
You stopped mere inches away, “Not a single one.”
He swallowed, and your eyes tracked the movement.  Your daydream from before came back with a vengeance—you bit your lip at the thought of marking him up.  Then you leaned in, resting one hand on his chest.  His heart pounded through the thin dress shirt.
“Will this do?” you asked, lips just barely brushing his.  Nothing else touched, aside from your fingertips on his sternum, but you could’ve sworn you felt him shiver.
Oh so slowly, Johnny reached out, hands ghosting over your hips.  You smiled against him, then melded your lips to his, bypassing whatever hesitations were holding you back.  What was the worst that could happen?
You felt Johnny teasing at the seam of your lips and gratefully opened for him.  He inhaled sharply when you inched forward, your chest brushing his.  You couldn’t hear anything but your heart racing.  And when his fingers dug into your hips, you fell into the kiss.  He pulled you in like a magnet until every part of you aligned with him.  Your limbs felt molten, burning at the contact.
Johnny pulled away, but not for long.  You gasped for air as his lips traced over your jawline, making their way to the delicate skin beneath your ear.  He pressed hot kisses there until your neck arched back obediently.  And when he nipped at your throat, you whimpered.  Thoughtlessly, your hips rocked forward.  Johnny gave voice to a deep groan, so you did it again.
Growling lightly, Johnny curled an arm around your waist to pull you harder against him.  All of the breath left your body at the feel of his growing hardness against your belly.  You fisted your hands in his collar, tugging him away from your neck.  You caught a glimpse of his kiss-swollen lips and blown out pupils, then dove back in for more.
While your mouth danced with his, your hands dragged southward.  Your fingernails caught on a button or two as you traced the muscle beneath.  Now Johnny’s hips were bucking into yours.  You grinned savagely into the kiss.  You’d just reached his belt when Johnny ripped his mouth away from yours.  “Woah, woah,” he gasped.  “Slow down, there.”
You panted for air, “What’s wrong?”
Both of you were breathing hard, and you were having a hard time ignoring the elephant in the room.  Er, hallway.  “You’re not trying to take advantage of me on the first date, are you?” Johnny asked with a breathy chuckle.
You laughed softly, tilting your chin back to get a good look at him.  “Is it really taking advantage if you want it, too?”  You smirked at him, rolling your hips forward to emphasize your point.
He watched you through half-lidded eyes, and you could’ve sworn you felt him throb.  But Johnny, ever the gentleman, smoothed his hand down your back, resting his head back against the wall rather than picking up where you left off.  “Cut me some slack, I’m not wearing my sexy underwear tonight,” he said with a crooked smile.
Oh no, now you had heart eyes for the man.  You pecked his chin to hide your cheesy grin.  “You let me know when you are, hmm?” you hummed, placing another kiss to the base of his throat.
“Princess, I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready for you.”
You giggled, leaning back in his arms.  “Am I so scary?”
Johnny sobered, meeting your gaze.  “I just don’t want to mess anything up.  Not with you.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” you smiled at him.  “I trust you too much.”
“Oh yeah?  You still haven’t told me what you wished for on your fourteenth birthday,” Johnny taunted.
You tilted your head, thinking back.  “I didn’t tell you because I was hopelessly in love with you at the time,” you confessed.  “Now that’s out in the open, I guess you can know.”
Johnny blinked, taken aback.  “Even then?”
“Johnny, I think I’ve loved you forever,” you said, staring up at him.  “So of course I wished for the same thing every year.”
“What was it?”
Your smile widened, “Well, it already came true.  You said it, too.”
* * * * *
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Can't Keep a Secret
Word count: 4300
Warnings: tickling, fluff, reader with an inability to keep secrets, reader with a crush on a certain god of mischief
I'm so excited for 100 followers!! I didn't expect so many people to actually be interested in my writing when I started posting 🥰
This one is based on @atlas-of-the-universe's request here for a fic where Loki tickles the reader to get information of some kind 😉 I hope this is what you were looking for!
This one also has a little more crushing/romantic fluff than some of my other fics at the end, so if you're not into that just skip that part. As always, completely SFW!
* * *
No one ever seemed to do anything nice for Loki. So, when Thor approached you to ask if you’d help him and the others plan a surprise birthday party for his brother, you wholeheartedly agreed to assist. As the Avengers’ best party planner, you jumped at the chance to start brainstorming ideas to make this party the best Loki had ever experienced – including on Asgard. And, if it meant he’d pay a little extra attention to you, well… that was an added bonus.
The only problem was – you were terrible at keeping secrets.
It wasn’t as if you went around spilling the details when someone asked you not to tell the others about something. You knew enough not to just blurt out the fact that you were planning a party. Unfortunately, though, you had a tendency to let your feelings show in your facial expressions. Trying to keep secrets made you anxious, knowing you’d been the one to accidentally say just a little bit too much in the past and ruined other surprises.
The fact that you were the worst secret keeper was no… secret, for lack of a better word. Your teammates frequently exploited this fact when they wanted to know what you were hiding from them. Tony, especially, loved to talk circles around you until he could get you to trip up and give some detail away. On the other hand, they also tried not to let you in on too many details when they were planning a surprise for one of the other team members.
This time, you were determined not to give anything away. You were thrilled that the team was finally going to do something special for Loki, and you were NOT going to ruin it by spilling the beans to the trickster. Thor was probably one of the more trusting members of the Avengers, and he assured you when he asked you to help with the party that he had faith you wouldn’t screw up (quite literally in those words).
You started researching online to get some ideas. This party had to live up to the standards of an Asgardian prince, so you couldn’t just order a few pizzas and beer and call it a party. Plus, Tony had offered to pay for the whole thing (you suspected he felt guilty for having accidentally blasted Loki through a wall in the training room with his new Ironman suit the week prior) so your funds were basically limitless.
Inevitably, though, you were bound to run into situations where you had to spend time with the raven-haired god without allowing yourself to let any details slip.
The moment Loki first started to suspect you were hiding something was when he walked in on a conversation you were having with Thor in the kitchen. You had been asking him about the Asgardian mead his brother loved so much and wanted to know if he could manage to get some here on Midgard for the party.
“What is it about the Asgardian mead that you like so much better than standard alcohol?” you inquired curiously.
“Ha! That is a very funny question, Lady Y/N,” Thor laughed heartily. “As if any Midgardian liquor could so much as hold a candle to the spirits we drink on Asgard.”
“Hey! I enjoy my tequila! Margaritas are arguably a delicious alcoholic beverage,” you bantered.
“You truly believe this ‘margarita’ as you call it could compare to the smooth, sophisticated taste of an Asgardian mead?” Thor countered.
“I must agree with my brother on this one – I have seen this ‘margarita’ drink you speak of, and it is highly unlikely to be superior to Asgardian spirits.”
You gasped involuntarily when you heard Loki’s voice in the doorway, spinning around to face him with a look of bewilderment on your face. He cocked his head to the side, raising an eyebrow as he scrutinized your expression.
“Oh, hey Loki! Didn’t see you there,” you greeted, trying to lean casually against the counter you were standing beside.
“Yes… it appears you didn’t. You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” Loki folded his arms across his chest, eyeing you intently. “What was it that brought you to the subject of Asgardian liquor?”
“Oh, that? Well…”
“I was just informing Lady Y/N that I have been feeling a bit nostalgic thinking about the celebrations we had on Asgard, when we would drink heartily with Lady Sif and the Warriors Three,” Thor cut in, quickly interrupting you mid-sentence. “Brother, you must recall the time you had a bit too much while drinking with us and…”
“I believe that’s quite enough nostalgia for one evening, dear brother,” Loki cut in, appearing almost frantic as he glanced quickly at you before turning back to glare at the elder Asgardian. “Stark asked me to inform you he requires your assistance in the laboratory. You’ll need to continue this conversation another time.”
“Ah, yes, alright then. Another time,” Thor agreed, winking at you before he exited the kitchen. Loki followed close behind, but not before giving you one last calculating glance before he crossed through the doorway and out of sight. You let out a breath of relief, hoping he hadn’t thought much of the conversation.
You noticed, though, that Loki started conveniently popping up around you more often after that incident. Maybe he didn’t want Thor to have the opportunity to tell you about whatever embarrassing story had occurred when they were younger, you thought. Regardless, it meant that you had to be extremely cautious about doing any planning for the party in any of the common areas.
The second time you nearly let something slip was during a hushed conversation in the training room with Peter after one of your sparring matches. He had pulled you aside after training to ask your opinion about whether he should ask his friend MJ to attend the party with him. He’d had a crush on the girl for quite some time, and now that she knew his secret identity he thought it might be time to introduce her to his Avengers family.
“I’m nervous she might not want to come, but I think it would be a great chance for her to meet everyone when the focus would be on someone else,” he explained. You hiked your backpack up onto your shoulder with your training gear and made your way toward the door to the training room with Peter by your side.
“Why wouldn’t she want to come? From what you’ve told me, she seems to be more of a social butterfly than you are, even,” you asked.
“Yeah… you’re right, I’m probably overthinking this, aren’t I?” he chuckled. “I just don’t want to screw things up!”
“What are you screwing up this time, spiderling?”
You stopped short as you heard Loki’s voice from behind you, making your heart leap into your throat. You turned around, trying not to look startled.
“Oh, Peter wants his friend MJ to attend… a training session with us!” you fibbed, trying to think quickly. “You know, so he can show her his Spider-Man moves!”
“Yeah! That’s right,” Peter agreed, nodding vigorously. “I’m going to go call her right now, thanks Y/N!” Peter scurried off down the hallway, leaving you standing with a somewhat skeptical looking god of mischief.
“Why was Peter asking you about inviting a friend to his training? Would he not have asked Stark?” Loki inquired. You shrugged in a non-committal way.
“Who knows? Anyway, uh, it was nice talking to you, but I’ve got to get going… big assignment to finish up tonight, can’t really stop and chat. See you later!” you blurted, not waiting for a response as you hurried toward your room. Phew, that was close, you thought to yourself, hoping he hadn’t been standing behind you for too long.
Later that week, you found yourself alone in the common room while watching television. You pulled out your laptop during one of the commercials and started searching the internet for caterers, hoping to find something fancy enough to appeal to an Asgardian god. You had thought that everyone else was out for the day, so you weren’t overly concerned about anyone seeing what you were doing.
“What mindless reality television show are you watching today?” The smooth, baritone voice caused you to jerk your head up from your laptop screen and instinctively slam it shut. He hadn’t even been standing behind you to see what you were searching – it was purely on reflex that you closed the computer. Loki raised his eyebrows at you. “I see you aren’t really watching anything, are you? What is it you were viewing on your computer?”
“Nothing! I mean, nothing exciting, really. Just some old photos that I was trying to sort through,” you stammered, standing up with the laptop clutched to your chest. “You can have the TV if you want, though. I have to go… work on that assignment some more. I was just taking a break. It’s almost done!” Loki opened his mouth as if to say something, but you didn’t wait around to let him ask any more questions that might make you give away something you shouldn’t. You spent the rest of the evening in your room, avoiding the trickster at all costs.
The next morning, after getting ready for the day, you grabbed some breakfast before heading back to your room to continue to do some additional party planning research where Loki wouldn’t walk in on you unexpectedly. You shoved the last bite of one of Thor’s pop-tarts that you’d stolen into your mouth as you approached your door, opening it and walking toward your desk where your laptop sat. You always left the door slightly ajar when you were in your room, and so you were quite surprised when you heard the door thump shut behind you, the lock clicking into place.
“You’ve been hiding something from me.”
You stopped dead in your tracks, your heart pounding in your chest. You turned around slowly, staring wide-eyed at the god of mischief now standing in your bedroom between you and your only exit. His hands were clasped behind his back, his blue-green eyes gleaming ominously as he stared you down.
“Oh, hey Loki! What brings you to my room?” you asked, trying to sound casual.
“Let’s end this little charade, hmm?” He took a few slow paces forward into the room, closing the distance between the two of you. “It’s become clear to me over the last week that you have knowledge of some information that you do not want me to become aware of. I’d like you to tell me what it is.” His tone was calm; low, but dangerous. You swallowed hard.
“Loki, I-I’m not sure what you mean. I don’t have any secrets.” You took a step back from the advancing Asgardian, your back meeting the cold, hard wood of your desk behind you.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way. The choice is up to you,” he threatened, stepping even closer so he was only a foot away from where you stood trapped against your desk. “Tell me what it is you’re hiding, or I will… coerce you into talking.”
“Coerce me? Heh, what’s that supposed to mean?” you asked nervously, your hands gripping the desk behind you.
“I have my ways. I am the god of mischief, after all.” Loki stood in front of you unmoving, a barrier holding you hostage against your desk.
“Even if I did have something to hide, you wouldn’t hurt me. Your brother would kill you,” you warned.
“I never suggested I would hurt you, darling. I would never do such a thing.” He took the slightest step closer. “You seem tense. Am I making you nervous?”
“Very.”
“Good.” A smirk tugged at the corners of his lips. “Have you decided, then? Will we be doing this the easy way or the hard way?”
“I told you, I have nothing to hide,” you insisted.
“Very well then. We’ll do this the hard way.” Quickly, you darted around Loki toward the door, trying to make your escape. He was faster, though, catching you with an arm around your waist and dragging you back so your back was against his chest. “Tell me, darling…” he growled in your ear, making you shiver, “… are you… ticklish?”
“Wha-“ you opened your mouth to protest but stopped speaking as you felt gentle scratching on your side. You shook your head quickly, suppressing the giggles that were threatening to rise out of your throat. If you stood still long enough, maybe he would give up.
“Do you think you’re fooling me by not allowing yourself to laugh? I felt you tense up immediately the moment I touched you.” He tightened his grip, wrapping both arms around your waist and digging his fingers into your sides. You snorted at the sudden sensation, doubling over to try to fight your way out of his grasp. “As I suspected. You are extraordinarily ticklish.”
“S-shut up, Loki!” you demanded, your muscles relaxing as his fingers stilled against your sides. He released you, allowing you to turn and face him but still standing in between you and the door.
“Now then – are you going to tell me what it is you’re hiding? Or do I need to tickle you until you are begging for mercy?”
You felt your face flush with heat. You’d been tickled before, certainly, but only for a few seconds at a time, and never as a means to pry information from you. Truthfully, though, you were enjoying this playful side of Loki. You were also determined not to tell him about the party – it would be so much more fun if it were a surprise, and he deserved to have fun. You braced yourself, folding your arms defiantly across your chest.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Before you could react, Loki had tackled you, and you found yourself flat on the floor with your wrists pinned over your head. Your heart hammered against your ribcage as the dark-haired Asgardian loomed over you, his smirk growing wider.
“I see you’ve made your choice, then. But I should warn you – I don’t do mercy.” The fingertips of his free hand connected with your belly, lightly tracing the soft skin through your shirt. You turned your head so you wouldn’t have to look at him, his knowing stare making it more difficult to prevent yourself from laughing. Slowly, he applied more pressure until he was clawing at your belly with all five fingers, varying between the center and sides and analyzing your expression to evaluate your response.
“I-I’m telling y-you, t-there’s nothing to t-tell,” you insisted, jolting a little each time his fingers found a particularly sensitive spot.
“Unfortunately, I don’t believe you.” He shifted his attack to your side, his fingers spidering gradually up your ribcage. Your nerves were alight with ticklish shocks, helpless giggles now bubbling out of your chest.
“W-whyhyhy don’t you believe mehehe?” you asked, your tone starting to sound more desperate.
“You’re not exactly subtle. It’s rather obvious when you’re trying to keep a secret.” Loki was now scratching in between your upper ribs, and your giggles were evolving into desperate laughter. “I see this is becoming more challenging for you. I wonder – should I try to identify all of your weak spots? Surely one of them will get you talking.”
“NOHOHO LOKI!” you pleaded, thrashing to try to free your wrists from his grasp.
“You’ll need to provide me some information, then. What was it you were really discussing with my brother the other night?”
“HE TOHOHOLD YOU!!” You shrieked as Loki’s fingers found purchase under one of your arms, your feet pounding against the floor in desperation.
“Honestly, Y/N, I didn’t believe a word either of you said.” His fingertips grazed the underside of your upper arm, tracing from your elbow down to your underarm and back up again. You hadn’t realized how ticklish the soft skin of your arm could be, but his maddeningly light touch had you writhing to try to evade his fingers.
“STAHAHAP THAT!” you begged, yanking at your restrained wrists to try to lower your arms. Even before you were in this weakened state, the god of mischief was stronger than you.
“Then talk.”
“NEVER!”
“Aha!” he exclaimed suddenly, lifting his fingers away from your arm. You sucked in air desperately, letting out the residual giggles as he allowed you a moment to recover. “You ARE hiding something! You’ve given yourself away.”
“I… but… no I didn’t!” you pouted. He chuckled, a genuine grin spreading across his face at your adorable, disappointed frown.
“It’s too late now. You may as well tell me your secret.”
“I won’t tell! I’ll never tell!” you barked, a sudden surge of bravery rushing through you.
“I’m afraid I must continue, then,” he stated, feigning pity. “Why don’t you tell me where else you are ticklish instead?”
“What? No! I won’t tell you that either!”
“Fine. It’s much more amusing for me to locate your weak spots myself anyway.” Loki released your wrists and in the same motion reached behind him to squeeze above your knees with both hands. You yelped at the unexpected touch, trying with difficulty to sit up now that your arms were free. You reached toward Loki’s sides to try to retaliate but he was too perceptive, grabbing a wrist in each hand using his cat-like reflexes. “You don’t want to do that, darling,” he warned.
“Oh, but I think I do,” you argued, trying your hardest to break free of his grip. He wrestled with you for a moment, successfully forcing you onto your stomach so you could no longer sit up and try to counterattack.
“Now then – where were we?” he huffed as he sat himself down on the back of your legs, pinning you in place. You lifted your upper body up onto your elbows and turned to look at him, keeping a close eye on his hands. “Ah, that’s right. You were about to tell me what you were discussing with the spiderling the other day.”
“No I was-“ your retort died in your mouth as Loki’s fingertips touched down on the backs of your knees. “L-Loki, hold on, don’t you even think about it.”
“Why? Too sensitive?” he teased, tracing one finger along the tendon in the back of your knee. You let out a squeal, only egging him on as he began to flutter his fingers against the thin skin there.
“LOKI I WILL KIHIHILL YOHOHOU!”
“You hardly sound threatening when you’re giggling like a child,” he taunted, tracing along the skin on the inner sides of your knees. You reached back desperately with one hand while holding yourself up with the other elbow, trying to grab hold of his tickling fingers. He snickered at your feeble attempts, reaching up quickly to slide his fingers under your arm so your elbow would buckle beneath your torso before returning his attention to your knees. “This could all stop if you’d just tell me what your secret is.”
At this point, you’d come to the embarrassing realization that you were actually having fun, despite your abdominal muscles aching from laughing so hard. You were also still determined to keep the party a secret, if not for you then for Loki’s own good. You picked yourself back up onto your elbows so you could turn and look back at him defiantly.
“No!” you declared.
“No? I see I must not be trying hard enough, then. Let’s try somewhere else, shall we?” Loki shifted his weight so he could pin your legs down with his shin, his gaze turning down toward your socked feet.
“Don’t… you… dare!” you warned, noticing where his line of sight was directed. He placed his fingertips teasingly against the soles of your feet, maintaining eye contact with you, eyes glowing with mischief.
“I’ll give you one final chance. Spill,” he ordered. You merely smirked back at him.
“Make me.”
Without another word, Loki sprang back into action, his torturous fingertips skimming along the soles of your feet. Frantic giggles spilled from your lips as you tried jerking your feet away from his touch without success.
“I’d wager you’re regretting what you said now, aren’t you?” he goaded, scratching under your toes with one finger on each foot. Your giggles pitched up as you curled your toes to prevent him from reaching the sensitive skin. “Are you prepared to talk now?”
“NEHEHEVER!!” you screeched, still determined to win. Eventually he’d get tired of this and give up, right?
“Then I’m afraid you leave me no choice.” You practically screamed in ticklish agony as his fingers once again connected with your ribs, darting rapidly up and down your sides and under your arms, scribbling into the small of your back, fluttering against the sides of your neck and behind your ears, never staying in one place long enough to grow accustomed to the sensation. Your laughter fell silent as you tapped your hand hard on the floor, signaling you were giving up. Seeing your signal, Loki’s fingers stilled against you, still pressed gently into your sides as a warning that he could start right back up again at any moment. “Talk.”
“I will… alright… just… just give me a sec,” you huffed, your chest heaving with exertion. Your mind was racing, trying to come up with a plausible lie that would satisfy the god of lies. Your heart sank as you realized you couldn’t possibly come up with something in the next ten seconds that would fool him. It had to be the truth. “I’ll tell you, but you have to swear to me you won’t tell your brother that I told you.”
“That depends on what it is you’re about to tell me,” Loki bantered.
“No, I’m serious!” Loki shifted so his weight was no longer pressed on your legs, and you turned over into a seated position on the floor. “Promise me you won’t tell.”
“Fine. I promise. Now tell me.” You took a deep breath.
“We’re planning a party. For you. It was supposed to be a surprise.”
Loki was silent for a moment, his expression unreadable. His blue-green eyes searched yours as if trying to find any hint of a lie in your face. His face softened a bit as he began to realize you were actually telling the truth.
“What for?” he asked, his tone flat.
“For your birthday.”
“We don’t celebrate birthdays on Asgard, we have far too many of them to be excited for them.”
“Ugh, Loki, don’t you get it? Thor wanted to do something nice for you! I wanted to do something nice for you!” You held his gaze, trying to prove to him you still weren’t lying.
“You wanted to do something for me?” His voice was low, but there was something different about his tone; something you hadn’t heard before. Hope? Excitement? You averted your gaze down to the floor, poking at the fibers in the carpet with your finger.
“Yeah, I did. You deserve something nice. You’ve come a long way since New York. And you’re… a good friend.” You felt heat rush to your face. You’d nearly revealed another secret, one you had no intention of telling him today. Or ever. Unfortunately, Loki was perceptive.
“That sounded like another lie, Y/N,” he stated ominously. You risked a glance up at him, seeing a smirk slowly spreading across his face.
“What?! No, it’s not!” you argued, the warmth in your face spreading to your ears.
“Haven’t you learned not to lie to me by now?” Loki suddenly grabbed hold of your waist, dragging you closer to him. “Or do I need to repeat the lesson?” His fingers latched onto your ribcage, squeezing and kneading with maddening precision. Still exhausted from the previous attack, you immediately caved.
“ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT! I like you, ok??” Loki stopped tickling you, not yet releasing you from his grasp. You covered your flushed face with your hands. “Happy now?”
Loki pried your hands gently away from your face, tilting your chin up with his finger. His eyes were softer than you’d ever seen them before as he gazed at you, a small smile on his face. With a surge of confidence, you closed the gap between your faces, pressing your lips to his. He kissed you back, gently but passionately all at once. When he finally pulled away, he grinned at you.
“Yes, I am happy,” he said simply. You smiled shyly back at him.
“Good.” You hardened your expression a bit, although admittedly it was hard to wipe the smile off your face. “You still have to act surprised. I can’t have people thinking I can’t keep a secret.” Loki laughed at that, his voice rumbling in his chest.
“But you can’t, darling.” He gave you one last poke in the side, eliciting a whine from you. “I’ll do my best to act surprised. I am the god of lies, after all. I should be able to put on a convincing display.”
“Good.” You allowed him to help you to your feet before shooing him out the door. “Now, get out of my room. I still have planning to do.”
“Alright, alright,” he chuckled, stopping in the doorway to look at you. “I’ll go, but only if you’ll have dinner with me tonight.”
“Only if you don’t tickle me,” you countered.
“Sorry, love, but I can’t make any promises,” he replied, winking. You sighed, smiling at him.
“I guess I’ll take my chances then.”
287 notes · View notes
sluttbuttsstuff · 3 years
Note
For the prompts, 49 with doppio? >:3 Idk what it is about him I just look at him and think “oh you’re NEEDY needy, huh?”. Thank you so much, you’re a really good writer! :)
No problem buddy, thanks for the request! >:3
Warnings: not sfw, dubcon/noncon, abduction, dark themes, yandere, etc.
Also, my requests are still open, if anyone else is interested!
Enjoy!
Yandere prompt with Doppio, “You want me to fuck you…? Would that make you happy? Would it make you love me?” afab reader, dub/non con
All you wanted to do now was go home. You had had a long week at work, your parents were nagging you again, and to make things worse you had a headache that would not go away. After an exhausting day that began before the sun was out, and ended after the sun had set, you certainly deserved to do nothing more than go home, eat some junk food in your comfy pjs, listen to a podcast while you took a bath and pampered yourself, and maybe jerk off before bed. Unfortunately, you had a “girls night” tonight.
Your friends (your IRL friends at least) complained that you never went out with them anymore (nevermind that whenever you suggested doing something with them, or wanted to chat or text on the phone they were busy) and had forced you to go clubbing with them to celebrate the three-day weekend ahead. You weren’t much of a drinker, and really weren’t much of a dancer, so you had been given the purses to hold while you waited for them to be ready to go home.
You wrinkled your nose in frustration, glaring into the blurry screen of your phone looking at the late time: this was unfair. You were a hard worker, kind to a fault to those around you, and you deserved better than this. Sitting in a corner of a crowded club, everyone in the place having a great time except for you, tired and alone. At least in your apartment, you chose to be there, and at least no one actively ignored you: places like this just pointed out the flaws you hated about yourself more: you were bad with people, and easy to ignore.
Once one of your “friends” stumbled over to the group’s table, you left them with everyone's purse, mumbling you were going to the bathroom (you didn’t know if she heard you and you didn’t care) and left before anyone could stop you. You stumbled your way to the restroom in heels way too high for you to walk in, trying to clean yourself up and find a quiet place to text your goodbyes so your friends wouldn’t worry about your sudden disappearance. Leaning over the sink counter, you wiped a makeup smear off the corner of your lips, noticing a second too late someone behind you.
“Hey, there’s another sink-” You began to say to the blurred figure way too close to you, before a sudden eruption of pain hit the side of your head, and you were out in a flash…
The next time you regained consciousness was several hours later, but it was still dark when you opened your eyes, trying to remember what happened and where in the world you were. The stale cigarette smell, the unreasonably cold ac, the bedsheets starched so strongly that the sheets felt like plastic- this was definitely a motel. But where, and how long had you been here? As you began to sit up, you heard a surprised, timid voice.
“Oh, thank goodness! You’re awake, I was beginning to worry about you! Hold on, don’t move so suddenly, i’ll help you sit up.
Sure enough, as you started moving, your head lit up with painful throbbing that made last night’s headache seem like nothing in comparison. You grit your teeth and clenched your eyes shut, trying not to groan in pain.
“What the hell happened to me last night?” you grunted through your teeth, rubbing your temple as gentle hands helped slowly sit you up propped against cushions.
“Haha, you had a lot of bad luck last night, running into my boss. He was waiting for...an employee in the restroom and thought you were sent after him. He’s a bit paranoid, and he may have...accidentally clobbered you.” The voice apologized, gentle as he handed you what felt like a glass of water.
You forced yourself to open your eyes; it was still dark, but you could tell it wasn’t because of the time of day but rather a lack of light and closed curtains. You looked at..you looked at the person in front of you. Like whoever had attacked you last night, they had long pink hair, braided and side parted. Their eyes were green and wide, and they looked particularly juvenile with a crop top and freckles. They were on the smaller side, perhaps even shorter than you (hard to tell from while on the bed) and their eyes were crinkled in apprehension, like he was afraid you were going to hurt him.
“Erm, don’t worry though, I talked him out of doing anything too..extreme, after all I'm his right hand man! Besides, you seem like a perfectly nice person, I'd hate to see anything bad happen to you. Sorry, I'm rambling! Umm, do you want something for your headache? You were groaning in your sleep, I'm sure it doesn’t feel so good right now-” He went on and on, pulling out some painkillers to take with your water.
After thanking him, you were about to swallow the pill before pausing, looking at the strange man who’d taken you to a remote hotel after his boss had nearly killed you. Sensing your suspicion, doppio exclaimed, “Oh, don’t worry, they’re safe, name brand painkillers! Um, hold on, lemme just-” And he made a show of popping some of the pills you were holding into his mouth and swallowing, sticking out his tongue and opening his mouth to show you he’d ingested it.
Satisfied, and more importantly in a lot of pain, you took some of the pills yourself, much to the relief of the pink haired man.
“Oh good, thank you for doing that! I was so worried watching you asleep, you’ll feel much better now! By the way, my name’s Doppio, it’s a pleasure to meet you! Oh! And I know your name’s y/n because you had your purse and ID on you! Haha, sorry for going through your purse, I was just hoping to find any info on you that might be, you know, important.” he sat on the bed, scooching closer and closer to you.
You cleared your throat, unsure of what to say, and the watchful eyes of Doppio doing nothing to make you feel better.
“Well, um, thank you, Doppio. I appreciate you, um, saving me? Sorry for any inconvenience, I'll just, um-” You try to get up to leave, only for Doppio to place a hand over your leg.
“Don’t go! What, I mean, what if you hurt yourself? You probably have a concussion, and also you haven’t had breakfast? We could eat together and-” Doppio stammered, grabbing your hand and stroking it with his sweaty, cold fingers.
You had to stop him, before things got out of hand.
“Thank you, Doppio, it really was very sweet of you to take such good care of me, but I-”
“Please! You don’t understand, I mean-” Doppio fumbled with his words, clearly trying to make you stay at all costs.
“Doppio, i can’t stay here forever, i need to go home. My friends are probably worried about me by now.” You tried to press on, you didn’t want to upset the man with a powerful boss, but you felt increasingly claustrophobic with Doppio pawing at you.
“You mean those mean girls who left you with their purses all night? Why would you care about what they-” Doppio covered his mouth with both hands quickly, realizing what he just said.
Your blood ran ice cold; how did he know so much about them? Had he been watching you before the “incident”
Using his moment of weakness, you got up from the bed and tried to reach the door; it was time for you to go home, if not call the cops.
Doppio yelped, Throwing himself in front of the door before you could make your escape.
“Please, don’t be scared y/n! I didn’t mean to upset you, I only meant that I can treat you much better than your friends can. I mean, look at how good I've been for you so far?? I didn’t make you dance with me at the club, even though I really wanted to. I didn’t just have my fun against your will in the bathroom stall like the boss told me to do.I saved you from a concussion, or worse! I got you your own hotel room for the night, and didn’t take advantage of you or touch you while you were asleep! I want our first time to be special, after all! Isn’t that what you want?” Doppio pleaded, eyes wild as he tried to smile, trying to calm you.
You were anything but calm however, this guy was clearly obsessed with you, and had been for longer than just one night. Even if at first he had merely seemed like a pathetic “nice guy” you no longer had any pity or time to give him.
“Doppio, get away from the door and let me leave, now.” you demanded in your best authoritative voice. Doppio whimpered, this wasn’t how this was supposed to go at all, you were supposed to love him!
“You can’t! Boss and I won’t let you!” He cried, covering the door with his body. With no other choice, you slid out of your shoes and charged at him full speed. You managed to give him a good blow on the head, and threw him out of the way of the door. He cried, crumpled on the ground. If not for the fact that he had kidnapped you, you might have felt bad for hurting him like this, but you had to think of yourself at this moment.
As you finally unlock and pull open the door, heading towards freedom, you hear the strangest noise behind you.
“RingRingRingRingRing!” Doppio calls after you, in an unnatural, high pitched tone. You try to ignore it, you literally don’t have time for this, but with strength he had not previously displayed, Doppio grabs one of your arms, twisting it behind your back and up to his ear, holding it like a telephone.
There’s a trickle of blood, and one of his eyes is rolled back in its socket, but he calmly says, “Hello, this is Doppio,” Into your hand, as if he was having a normal conversation on the phone.
You scream out, doubled over by the pain in your arm, Doppio silent as he “listens” to his “Phonecall” oblivious to your suffering. Where did all this power come from? He was acting like an entirely different person, and frankly scaring you. Doppio nodded, pulling your hand closer into his ear and intently listening to nothing but air before “Hanging up and pulling you back into the motel room.
He threw you on the bed ( his arms felt much stronger, and more muscular for some reason) before crawling on top of you and pinning you down. You were too stunned, and frankly too scared, to come up with any means of escape, just weakly struggling to throw him off of you to no avail.
“Doppio, please-” You whispered, eyes blurry with tears.
“I talked to the boss, and he helped me figure out what to do. He wants our relationship to succeed after all!” Doppio exclaimed, additude reverted to how he’d first spoken to you. You were confused, you’d neither seen nor heard anyone in or around the room, who was he talking to and how?
“Boss told me that people like you need some discipline in order to be obedient, or you’ll walk all over me. If I can do that, then I can make you love me, and we’ll be happy together, isn’t that what you want?” Doppio told you, stroking your cheek.
“This is not okay, Doppio!” you yell, thrashing against both arms, “Let me go or i’ll-”
...
Wait a minute, both arms?
Then how was he…?
You look over to one side in shock, only to see a floating metallic and red arm holding you down, one on either side. You screamed, overwhelmed by a stalker and strange supernatural forces you couldn’t understand.
“Oh, you can see King Crimson's arms? Interesting, perhaps because of your near death experience with Boss, you can see stands now? Although, it would be bad if you developed a stand, what to do?...” Doppio pondered to himself, speaking apparent babble.
You cried, trying to wake up from this obvious nightmare with no luck.
“Awww, hey y/n, it’s okay, i’m not gonna hurt you! Not if you be good for me and Boss.” Doppio cooed, kissing your cheeks and forehead. “I talked boss into keeping you with us- you’re always so lonely at home, and never have a good time with others, right? You don’t have to lie anymore, I've been watching you for a while. Nobody else seems to, though, they’re too self-absorbed and stupid to realize how incredible you are!” He continued, oblivious to his words not helping, but hurting you.
“You’re perfect for me and boss, we can take really good care of you. Forget this lousy motel, we have mansions and villas all over Italy that we can take holidays to. We have billions of Lira from work, you’ll never have to lift another finger and we’ll pamper you to death. And best of all? You’ll never have to see your awful friends or family again! Isn’t it awful how they treat you? We can get rid of them, so they can’t hurt you!” He finishes, grinning ear to ear, but his eyes hollow and lifeless, staring unblinkingly into yours.
This guy was sick, there was no other word to it. You might have had issues with your family, and yeah your friends could be assholes sometimes, but you didn’t want them killed! What good would that do you, or anyone for that matter?!
Doppio seemed to read your thoughts, “Look, I know it's a lot to take in at once, but trust me. Boss and I have planned this out for a while now, and we’re always going to do what’s best for us, ok? So don’t worry so much, and please stop struggling? Boss warned me if you got too unruly he’d take over and finish what he started last night.
A wave of nausea slithered through you as you remembered, thinking how close you were to dying. You gave up, lying limp on the bed, praying for this to end.
Doppio smiled again, this one almost seeming genuine, and gave you the softest kiss to your lips. It was childish, almost, and he clearly lacked experience, but he gained more confidence from your lack of struggling. With the mysterious hands holding you (stands? King crimson?) his own hands were free to touch you. He started With your cheeks, your face, your hair, your neck, stroking you with feather-light touches, his fingers tracing each curve, digit and flaw like he was trying to memorize it all.
“Finally… I finally get to touch you like this… I’ve been waiting for so long, y/n. Do you know how long I've wanted to hold you?” He whispered, wrapping his arms around your neck, cradling your cheek to his. You didn’t know, and you didn’t want to, but Doppio told you anyway.
“I’ve been watching, waiting...for so long. Following you home from work, listening into your calls, finding your online accounts. I’ve known since I first saw you that you were the one for me, and now I get to prove it to you. I get to show you all the things I've been meaning to do to you. You’ll never be lonely again, not with me around. We’ll never be lonely~”
He giggled the last part, giddy with excitement, as he slid his fingers down your ribcage, your sides, fiddling with the bottom of your shirt. You wriggled, trying to fight him off again, only to your dismay Doppio giggled even harder at your reactions-perhaps because he knew you could never overpower him.
“Ohhh~ still so shy? Don’t be so uptight, y/n, you need to live a little! I know how much you want this; you complain about it all the time on your personal blog-” You could feel the blush on your cheeks heating up your face, desperate to make him shut up, “ How you want someone to have their way with you, to make you forget everything else in life. You’re desperate for someone to truly cherish and understand you; mentally and physically. You want me to love you? You want me to fuck you…? Would that make you happy? Would it make you love me?” Doppio rambled on and on, ripping your shirt off with strength he hadn’t had before.
You yelped, goosebumps forming on your skin as Doppio cackled, rubbing his face on your stomach, and into your cleavage poking out from your bra.
“Yes, let go for me! Show me every emotion, everything you’ve been holding back from me for so long- i need it, I demand it!” He snarled, splitting your nicest bra in half, and biting down on your neck, hard.
You screamed, legs kicking uselessly as the pain blurred your mind and you were operating purely on instinct. Doppio didn’t seem bothered in the least by it, you could still feel his laughter against your sore neck, as he sucked down on it, trying to bruise and mark you. His hands couldn’t help but find their way to your breasts, toying with them and squeezing them with admittedly little expertise. But he was a quick learner, making note of each little gasp and twitch according to how he touched you, and improving his technique from there. He twisted your nipples a bit roughly, already hard from the chilly air and sensitive to touch- you couldn’t help but moan a little in satisfaction. It had been awhile.
Doppio’s moans echoed yours, as he kissed his way down the crevice of your breasts, and licked each nipple in turn. You squirmed, not in fear or anger but pleasure, angry at yourself for letting this strange man win your body over so easily. Doppio kept his eyes on you at all times, studying your face to see how you felt. He’d had to watch you for so long from so far away, alone in your bedroom, or so you thought… it was time to use the knowledge he’d gained to make your body crazy for him.
You jumped at Doppio’s hands, cupping your groin through your pants, trying not to buck into his hands . It was getting harder and harder to deny him, though, why couldn’t you just-?
Doppio pulled your pants down to your ankles, taking your panties with it. He groaned audibly at the sight- your pussy was so wet and dripping, there was still a trail connected to your underwear.
“No, don’t-” You cried, snapping your legs shut, visibly scared at what was taking place again. Doppio was losing patience, crouching down and prying your legs open,
“Stop fighting me, y/n, you clearly want this!” He cried, eye twitching in annoyance. He managed to open your legs again, and buried his face into your pussy. He moaned, licking up a wet stripe against your labia, warm and puffy and so wet for him- he knew you would be, he knew you loved him.
Tears streaked down the sides of your face, this was so much and so intense. Your thighs clamped down on Doppio’s cheeks and neck, squeezing him as hard as you could. Not hard enough, apparently, as he just started giggling again through a full mouth and busy tongue “Ssho good, y/n, why have you been hiding thissh from mee~?” he moaned, tongue circling your clit. You flung your head back into the pillow, gripping the mysterious hands that held you for any source of strength or comfort.
Watching you whimper so pitifully with his head between your legs, obviously blissed out after being so needy and alone for so long, just did things to doppio. He loved the pained, fucked out expression on your face- you couldn’t even keep your eyes open as he snuck one, two fingers into your aching pussy. You whimpered so cutely, and it was all for him and him alone. Finally~
“Y/n, please, i can only hold back for so long, let me make sure it’s not painful… be good for me, please?” Doppio begged, grinding his hips into the mattress before he could help himself. Begrudgingly, you moved your thighs back just enough for Doppio to push them away, when he got a wonderful idea. King crimson, or what Boss had lent him of his stand to use, sensed his thought, and grabbed both your hands in one arm. Doppio pushed your thighs back and up, effectively bending your knees into your chest and displaying your pussy in such a beautiful way. You cried out, surprised by the sudden movements and embarrassed by how exposed you were, but there was nothing you could do about it. Doppio was just too strong.
The other free hand floated down, spreading your lips apart to give Doppio a nice view before pummeling two of his thick, strong fingers inside of you. You screamed, crying as the fingers curled directly into your sweet spot, massaging with robotic-like precision and speed. The sounds you were making were wet, animalistic, and you were quickly brought close to the brink.
“Perfect, y/n! Just like that, let yourself go! It makes me happy to see a side of yourself you never show anyone else- and you never will to anyone but me! Remember, I'm the one making you feel this good, right y/n? You couldn’t possibly find anything half as wonderful from anyone else but me! Me, got it?!” Doppio exclaimed, his voice cracking and becoming much darker, scarier. For a second, you could swear he looked like a different person entirely, wild, angry and dangerous- but you blinked and Doppio was just as before.
Doppio licked his lips, sweating and anxious, this was good enough to make you love him, right? This was what he had to do to make you happy? Boss’s words from before appeared in his head though, and he remembered how Boss had always been right before. Doppio trusted him, and was determined to win you over. Doppio let go of one of your legs-you seemed adequately distracted and restrained to get away from him- and unzipped his fly. In truth, he would’ve preferred to get all the way naked with you for the first time, so you could see and feel the real him as well, but clearly the two of you were too desperate and impatient for him to get fully naked. This time.
You whimpered at the sound of a zipper, feeling the fingers pull out of you. You heard the crinkle of a wrapped, and the muffled groan as Doppio probably rolled a condom onto himself, but you were too afraid to look. The strong floating hand, still wet with your juices, gripped your cheek and forced you to look at Doppio, staring you down with much more restraint and calm than he had been. Doppio kissed your cheek, then your lip, and pushed his warm cock achingly slowly, gently, into your waiting pussy.
You couldn’t help yourself from moaning, grabbing at the hands that held you, thrusting yourself onto Doppio’s hard and hot cock. He bit his lip, feeling you twitch and squeeze around him; he was trying so hard to be gentle for you, why were you still making things so difficult. He chuckled to himself, and motioned for King Crimson to let you go; finally you were beginning to relax and enjoy yourself, and he wanted to enjoy every bit of it.
Without thinking, you wrapped your arms around Doppio, holding him close to you. Your mind was a mess, your body even messier, you didn’t know what to think or do about your abducter/rapist fucking you so tenderly, and you were tired of fighting. So you let him fuck you, slowly and gently and way way emotionally. Doppio wiped away new tears you hadn’t realized were there, shushing you, “It’s okay, my sweet y/n. Just relax and let me do the work. Don’t fight it any more, just let go.” He whispered, pressing kisses into your lips and cheeks far too sweetly.
So you did, you relaxed and sank into the mattress, pulling Doppio down with you. He let go of your thighs, and held you tightly to him as he fucked-no, made love to you. He gradually picked up the pace, huffing and whispering words of admiration to you about your body, or how much he adored you. You took it all limply, the fight having gone out of you and desperate for comfort. The floating arms, which you had forgotten about, reappeared and stimulated your nipples and clit, bringing you closer and closer to the edge.
Doppio sped up as well, he knew this would have to end, but he wanted to make it last as long as possible. This was your first time together, after all. He wanted to make it special. Your legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper and closer into you. You could feel the spongy head of his dick rub your inside so sweetly, you were starting to get addicted to the feeling. Doppio buried his head into your neck, mumbling nonsense as he pushed in deeper and deeper, faster and faster, as his restraint gave way to passion.
“Y/n I- I don’t know how much longer I can last, but-” He kissed you, as the stroking of your clit sped up. You groaned loudly, you were so close, “Just a bit longer, please~” You begged, biting your lip. Doppio took a deep breath, steeling himself as he was determined to make you come first. He pounded into you, urging you closer and closer, four sets of hands circling your body and drawing out noises and gasps from you out of your control.
“Almost there, please, almost~!!!” You cried, throwing your head back with a final sigh as you came hard and fast, your core heating up and washing over you as Doppio helped you ride it out with clit rubs. Your walls fluttering around him, the face that you made as you came from him, for him, it was too much and he quickly filled his condom inside of you, moaning even louder than you had as he thrust without abandon into your wonderful, most precious place. He didn’t want to stop, thrusting almost to the point of overstimulation, before he had to stop, and collapsed on top of you. He cooed and kissed his praises and thanks into your shoulder and skin, before he noticed the soft sound of you snoring. Poor thing, he chuckled to himself, you’d really worked yourself up.
He reluctantly pulled out, after indulging in 5 minutes of cuddling your sleeping body and listening to your heartbeat. Doppio cleaned the two of you off, and tucked you into the covers of the motel- now would be a good time to set up moving you into your new home. After all, The whole reason you were in the motel is because the moving company Boss had hired to move your things into the main base would take several hours to complete their job, and Boss didn’t want anyone seeing you or Doppio at home. Doppio ruffled your hair as you slept, pulling out his cellphone to check in with Boss and give him the full update he’d requested.
Tonight was going to be very busy.
231 notes · View notes
makeste · 3 years
Text
BnHA Chapter 314: ...Or You Live Long Enough to See Yourself Become the Villain
Previously on BnHA: Some random assholes were all “let’s throw exploding spears at All Might and see if it activates his Conqueror’s Haki” and SURPRISE, MOTHERFUCKERS, IT DID!! Elsewhere, Lady Nagant confusingly tried to capture Deku alive by shooting him in the stomach, but to be fair I guess that’s what happens when you send an assassin to do a bounty hunter’s job, so yeah. Deku was all “ouch”, and then because this is a shounen he basically just straight up forgot about it, and did a big fancy Smokescreen thing, and then activated his mildly incomprehensible new ki-blasting quirk which he got from the Third. En and the Third were all “hey Deku maybe let’s not just impulsively activate all this shit in the heat of battle when you don’t know how to use it yet and you’re already injured,” and Deku was all “thanks for the quirks guys but I’ll take it from here” and snuck up on Nagant and grabbed her arm and so now what’s going to happen I wonder.
Today on BnHA: Nagant is all “[shoots Deku again]” because of course she is lol. Deku is all “tell me about AFO!” and Nagant is all “why would I tell you anything?” and then proceeds to tell him her entire life story which is FILLED WITH SO MUCH MURDER, YOU GUYS. Holy shit. So basically she was an assassin for the HPSC, which we already knew, but somehow it’s one thing to know that, and another to actually see her running around capping dudes in the forehead and being covered in more blood than the elevator from The Shining. Anyway, so you’ll never believe it, but all that murder had a negative impact on her psychologically, and eventually led her to question everything she believed about hero society, and so she killed her creepy boss and was promptly sent to Tartarus. This extremely fun chapter ends with Overhaul showing up all “HI, HELLO, I’M STILL HERE”, because for some reason he is still here. Why are you still here, Overhaul.
“the beautiful Lady Nagant” oh you know your audience don’t you Horikoshi
well all right then! so I’m guessing this means that she is not, in fact, going to roll over and die just because Deku’s out here all “GOT YA!” like they’re playing a game or tag or something. ffff may the manga gods have mercy on our young suicidal protagonist
lmao so Deku is all “GOD I’M SO SMART, WHAT A GOOD STRATEGY I HAD, CAPITOL JOB THERE OL’ CHAP, CAPITOL” and lol, okay. I mean, it was a good plan though. but I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop here
“I’ll make you give me information on All for One” well there you go, lol. Deku Angst arc still fully engaged. still no light in his eyes either of course. just a lil chaotic ball of sleep deprivation and rage
lol, fucking THANK YOU though
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oh my god what the hell did she do to him lol
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did she shoot him with her elbow??? fucking look at this?? THIS IS WHY WE LISTEN TO HAWKS oh my god Deku are you dead
WHAT’S HAPPENING, IS THIS GOOD OR BAD, WHO’S WINNING
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things that I wish I could tell from this panel which I unfortunately cannot tell
did she stab him or shoot him?? can you imagine if it was the former lol. why does Horikoshi keep stabbing all my kids. look Kacchan now the two of you can match
did she actually hit him or did he get away??
or did she hit him and then he jumped away?? just, what
well anyway, so now Deku is asking her why she sided with AFO, but he seems a lot more pissed off than when he was interrogating Muscular, though. probably because she shot him three times. fair enough
oh my god
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does Lady have a blog here on tumblr dot com?? -- does Horikoshi have a blog here on tumblr motherfucking dot com?? why do I suddenly feel like this man is out here sneakily reading up on all our discourse
oh my god Deku it’s almost like getting up close and personal with someone who can shoot custom bullets from any distance and any position with deadly accuracy was a terrible fucking idea
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IF ONLY SOMEONE HAD WARNED YOU NOT TO ENGAGE WITH HER AT ALL COSTS. IF ONLY SOMEONE HAD HAD THE FORESIGHT TO DO THAT sob. can you imagine how much shorter this series would be if characters actually listened to Hawks. Hawks, and Momo. why do we even let anyone else run the show ever
OH MY GOD
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DEKU, RUN
OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING
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this looks a lot like what happens to me whenever I play One’s Justice. those fucking combo attacks that you can’t fucking escape from and so your character just has to stand there getting their ass whalloped repeatedly while you wonder why you paid $40 for this
but anyways though. so Lady who did you kill?? I bet they deserved it, don’t worry I forgive you
(ETA: ANYWAY SO FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT LADY NAGANT DID NOTHING WRONG EVER IN HER ENTIRE LIFE. aside from murdering all those innocent people and shit. but there were CIRCUMSTANCES, and THEY WERE EXTENUATING, OKAY.)
-- holy shit
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looks like the HPSC arc is back on the menu boys
so are we about to learn that the HPSC was going full Hydra on people’s asses? secretly dispatching anyone they deemed a threat to society?? “taken care of” as in you fucking shot them??
so then was the “hero” she killed actually one of the guys who was giving or carrying out these orders?? holy shit Lady, up until now I’ve mainly just been stanning you for your flawless eyebrow game and metal af quirk, but this shit could actually get real very quickly, and I am prepared to genuinely and sincerely love the shit out of you depending on what we learn next about your backstory
oh my god?!?
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so wait, hold up. am I reading this right?? basically the HPSC started murdering vigilantes because they were worried they were gaining too much of the public’s favor?? holy fucking shit???
oh my GOD oh my god
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“it’s been a while since I scarred you all with the dead dog and the graphic slaughter of an entire innocent family, huh,” Horikoshi says thoughtfully. “anyway so what do you all think of my new creation, the Spaghetti Bullet.” well, Horikoshi, so you know that squished-up face that Kermit the Frog makes sometimes? yeah. that’s what I think, if you must know lol
holy hell the juxtaposition
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I’m actually kind of surprised to learn she had a lot of fans? what with her M.O., I was expecting her to have been an underground hero like Aizawa, but apparently not? then again I still have absolutely no idea how any of that works. I really need to read Vigilantes already
oh snap
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nothing like a sweet dose of assassin trauma to finally round out our BnHA Trauma Bingo!! well done guys, we finally collected all of the traumas! hooray!
noooo Ladyyyyyyy
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holy shit what a fucking chapter. like, this man promised us an assassin, and went and fucking delivered. I was not expecting it to be this dark, lol, but holy shit I am here for it
you know, at some point you have to start questioning the logistics of this, though
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I mean, how do I put this... her quirk isn’t exactly subtle. that murder scene from a few pages back looked like the first season of Dexter for fuck’s sake, that’s not exactly “disappearing” people now is it?? and I mean, her bullets are literally made from her own fucking hair; it seems like it would be impossible not to leave any evidence behind. did no one start to wonder who the fuck was going around murdering all these people? or did the people who asked too many questions wind up getting conveniently “disappeared” themselves??
and hey, speaking of asking too many questions
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holy shit is he blackmailing her??!? or no, wait -- what the hell is he reaching for in his pocket boy you better not
(ETA: what exactly was this man expecting fdslkjd. “uh oh my unstoppable hair trigger assassin who is literally always armed is asking questions, better announce that I am going to shoot her and then reach into my pocket veeeeeery slowly while she stands there all of two feet away.” how did this guy ever function as the head of a shadow government with these decision-making skills, I’m genuinely baffled.)
OH MY GOD LADY YES
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this. right here. is why “run the fuck away” was damn good solid fucking advice. oh shit. but my god did this dude have it coming
so wait lol has she just been narrating all of this out loud to Deku this entire time
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okay but can we just stop for a moment and appreciate the fact that they’re having this deep conversation about the dark secrets of hero society right in the middle of their intense mid-air sniper free-for-all lol
holy shit you guys, Nagant’s the one that should have made the tell-all video. I mean, no offense to you, Dabi, I’m sure you worked very hard on your video and did a ton of crunches every day so that you would look good with your shirt off while you told the world all about how your dad was a jerk. but seriously...
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this is already like 100x more convincing than what he put out. also, gasp, is it another flashback
yes it is oh my gosh
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so the HPSC Chairladyperson whom ReDestro killed used to be this guy’s direct subordinate, huh? I wonder if she kept the whole assassin program going after she took over. can’t say I was feeling any particular kind of grieving way about her death before, but certainly not now lol
but unfortunately Nagant has finally lost me at the same place where all of the villains inevitably do, which is to say when they somehow make the dubious mental leap from “society sucks and is bad” to “let’s just be openly fucking evil lol, worth a shot.” because when heroes murder innocent people and cover it up, that’s obviously bad (and I mean, it absolutely fucking is lol, don’t get me wrong); but when villains murder innocent people straight up out in the open without giving a fuck, they’re righteous revolutionaries? just -- is there really no non-murdery middle ground here?? I guess that’s what Deku and co. are for, hopefully
anyways oh shit Deku seems to have spotted something?? and he’s doing something weird with Blackwhip what
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oh, he spotted her, I guess
lmaooooo
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new favorite Deku panel right here. a masterpiece
oh my god you guys our little boy is starting to grow up before our eyes
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you love to see it. and you can tell with those elipses that he’s gearing up to say something really cool and determined and badass like the shounen protag he is, yes please, Deku ilu so much please do your thing
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
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IS THAT A TEENY TINY LIL EYE SPARKLE THERE OMG. still not anywhere close to his usual standard, but that’s some clear resolve there in his eyes there at long last! it always shines the most clearly when he’s being true to himself and his ideals, so I love that it finally shows up again here, when he’s reaffirming his resolve to help others no matter what
uh oh so what’s Lady going to do now
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is it time for a trump card?? kinda sounding like it’s time for a trump card
???
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I lied btw, this is my new favorite Deku panel. but anyways what is she up to now lol
ohhhhhh, lol
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why does she seem shocked, lol. here I thought this was part of her plan, but apparently she forgot all about ol’ “Look Ma, No Hands” back up there
and so I guess that’s it for this week! so we’ve learned basically everything now about Lady and her quirk and her history with the HPSC and why she agreed to work for AFO. pretty much the only question that still remains is why the hell she decided to drag this asshole along for the ride! because I still cannot figure that out dsklkjlkf
(ETA: actually now I’m kind of wondering if they maybe have some past connection we don’t know about yet. when exactly was Nagant sent to Tartarus? is it possible she was ordered to track down and kill Overhaul at some point before that, but never got around to it? or something else along those lines? idk but now I’m curious.)
anyways Deku, I know that your empathy has no bounds and that you’re on a “saving villains” kick right now, and good on you... but also, if you decide to just like, skip all of that shit just this once, absolutely no one will hold it against you, I’m just saying. just, all I’m asking here is maybe let’s think twice before we start trying to reform guys who imprison and torture little girls for profit. I think maybe that’s a good place to draw the line. next week is going to be a very interesting chapter lol
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gemma-collins-ily · 3 years
Note
Jesper with s/o who really knows how to kick ass (aka sis was trained by someone)
Jesper with a Trained S/O
a/n - I love the pairing of Jesper and the pet name honey too much aaah. Also this was written over two nights when I was half asleep so forgive me if it isn't top notch xoxo 💗💝
Warnings: fighting, poison, bruises/cuts but no real mentions of blood or anything
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so
Kaz obviously employed you because of how amazing you are at any type of combat
but when asked the specific reason, he had only responded with a cryptic answer that gave the Crows nothing
"They're an asset to the team. Just as all of you are."
you would train at extremely early hours of the morning, often seen jogging back up the stairs to your room drenched in sweat right when others first awoke
but no one knew what you were actually doing
until Inej caught you in the training room in the Slat, practically beating a punching bag
the funny thing was, you didn't look as though you were a street fighter, one who had developed their own adapted technique that would get them by in a scrap
your punches were calculated, muscles flexing in just the right way and stature perfect
it was the ideal stance for a real fight in a ring
she didn't say anything and instead decided to get up just a little earlier each day in order to observe you
she was caught when she let the door creak accidentally, but instead of kicking her out of the room you only offered to leave so she could use it
she refused and said she'd rather watch you
and she did from then on, you having no protest or apparent problem with it
sometimes, you'd go up against Inej and circle each other warily, not daring to underestimate the other
you had only been on a few low level heists with the Crows at that point, Kaz mercifully easing you into the work
but it was noticed by Nina that whenever it was necessary to run and hide, you could sprint with full stamina and hardly break a sweat unless it was done for a long amount of time
she also noticed your heart rate barely raised
she brought it up once
"Ugh, (Y/N), I'm so jealous, you literally must be super-human, how are you so energised?"
this was said through panting breaths as she bent to rest her hands on her knees, much like the others were doing
this meant in turn it wasn't really registered by anyone
only you
you didn't really mind people knowing you were trained in combat, but didn't flaunt it or let anyone know without them finding out
you would act casually when found out, downplaying your skills
everything was a threat in the Barrel, and saying one wrong thing near one wrong person could cost you your head
you hadn't stiffened when Nina said that, only nodding and grinning, leaning against the wall with your hands in your pockets yet not saying anything verbally
you knew how to play the game and in order to do that, you had to let them subconsciously dismiss the very idea itself
Albert Einstein iq I'm telling you
psychology at its very core
you know
so
it's all forgotten until they see your skills put to use on a heist
if you've watched now you see me 2 and watched the spectacular card sequence, the next part is basically that
your tactful hand at cards could beat Kaz Brekker himself
on the heist, you know one of Kaz's sacred backup plans
only one, mind you
so, it's like the card sequence
you're all going in as guests but you and Kaz will shoot the card with the information between you and your separate searches
"Hands the other way, ma'am."
Your hands flew the opposite way, palms now facing the guard as the card was quickly flipped between your fingers, and with a single, efficient flick of the wrist Kaz had it in his possession.
"Alright, on your way you go."
Jesper had only seen because he was stationed behind you, otherwise he never would have known it was so seamless
Nina told them later that kind of thing seemed to be a regular occurrence as your heart rate had been completely average
showing how confident you are, go bestie
it was true
you and Kaz had trained for that heist often however barely for any length of time at all
the best part for you was that you had been checking how noticeable it was and flipping the card back and forth between you in meetings
Jesper's eyes had widened comically when he observed the whole thing and his jaw dropped
you laughed as you stepped past and kissed his jaw, making it close promptly as he chased after you, desperate for answers
your cards can also be poisoned
and in another heist they doubted you
because they had seen you help pull something off but not use any as a weapon
you were motioned by Kaz to appear innocent until another signal was given, one of which only you and Inej had been paying attention to and so understood
but after you hissed at Jesper out of the corner of your mouth, he stayed subdued too
you remained eerily silent as they pushed you against the wall and searched your pockets
the cards were brought out and ridiculed, even if you had cleverly concealed knives, now you knew how you would kill these men
after the go ahead was given, you burst into action, swooping downward and catching the man holding you off guard
you collected the cards and grinned as you stepped back, now the front most Crow in your little pyramid formation at the end of the street
"And what are they gonna do?"
A malicious glint appeared in your eye as Jesper tapped your shoulder, thinking you had backed yourself into a corner here.
but then, your hand flew out and struck one clean in the eye, making them wail and drop to their knees as you flung another card, swiping a man's cheek
they did not fall until a minute later, that minute consisting of you whipping cards at them and Jesper tugging on your sleeve
he'd do that a lot, before he knew of your training and maybe after too
it wasn't that he thought you couldn't handle yourself, just that he wanted to protect you in any way possible
so pulling you behind him was a knee jerk reaction, desiring to save his loved one from any possible threat or danger
he would do anything for you, let a bullet pierce his chest, a dagger land in his throat, as long as you emerged okay
it was only later, when you got Kaz to pick up the cards, saying it would be easier to wash them with a cloth than learn how to balance the slightly differing weight of a new pack
you made Kaz do it because he had leather protection and knew of the poison darkening the edges of the cards to an inky black
they were kept in a special and specific packet so there was no possible way of you being hurt unless you were completely careless
that was completely unable to happen because you were wary enough to know what to do and what not to
but Jesper still insisted you left them in his coat after he found out, wanting you to be totally risk free
"What if you're not with me? How will I use my weapons?"
"Well, my darling, that will not be the case," he paused to snicker at his unintentional joke about the container then continued, "because Kaz will absolutely keep us together at all times."
You hummed thoughtfully, "How do you know that?"
There was an immediate answer, no moment of hesitation from your sharpshooter, "He simply can't handle how fantastically amazing I am on his own, knowing I am far superior and so will continue to pair us together to avoid having to face that foe."
"Jes, honey, he could partner you with Inej or Nina or Matthias, you know that, right?"
He was stumped and his mouth opened before closing once more.
the cards were still not handed back though
don't worry, new ones were purchased after Jesper insisted on 'clinging' to the other pack like a lifeline, according to Kaz
he did find out about this after you saved his ass in a fight with them
he was so mad, not that you'd defied him but that you had put yourself in danger with the cards
but after Inej pointed out he had to trust you at some moment in time, he softened
because how could you think he didn't trust you?
he didn't ever want you to have to answer that question and set about trying to rectify the situation
you received breakfast in bed and apology cuddles
"I trust you."
It was the mantra he had been repeating for days and you smiled as your hand came to rest upon his jawline.
"I know, darling. I know."
You were met with a soft kiss to your collarbone as his head dipped to fall into the crook of your neck, wrapping his arms around your waist in a tight but gentle hug.
He hummed before continuing, "Just wanted to make sure, honey."
the cards were left wordlessly on your bedside table, drawing a small sated smile from your lips
after he came to terms with the fact that you were a Dreg, a Crow, someone who would be targeted because you were entwined with him, he became just a little overprotective
not that you minded
just reassuring him often you were okay and he was too
after Wylan came along, you politely requested to know if he could make some kind of thing that would make the cards easier to collect
he came up with the idea of a magnetic substance that could be brushed over the centre of the cards, meaning if you kept one in your hand and waved it over the others, there would be no time delay in which you would have to pick them up
again
the added weight, even such a small increment, affected the momentum needed and angle necessary
for days, you were flinging your cards at a wall, barely stopping to eat, wanting to be useful
Jesper dragged you back to bed several times in the early mornings with coaxing syllables and sweet words, promises on how you would get it right tomorrow
"Sweetheart, just come back to bed. Wait a few hours and try again. You're so close to getting this. I just know it."
As you wrapped yourself in the comforter his hand came to stroke your cheek, "There you go, see, you were looking half asleep on your feet, doing yourself no good anyway, lovely. Or those cards."
when witnessing your physical combat skills, Jesper would let a surprised chuckle fall, not fully in control of himself
watching you flip an enemy who had underestimated you over your shoulder never got old
neither did seeing your boot swivel slightly on their chest as you proved just how skilled you were
awww such pure and innocent love
"Don't think I won't beat you in a fight again, Lion. Or there won't be another opportunity for you to."
"That's my partner!"
"Alright Jes, bit much but thanks for hyping me up."
Just as you turned and both of you were about to walk away, a cold and clammy hand clamped over your ankle and you instantaneously recoiled.
Then, before Jesper or the Dime Lion knew what was happening, your fist connected with his stomach, hand coming up to cover your false and exaggerated yawn.
"So cool." Was whispered from your sharpshooter as you stalked off, boots clicking on the gravel pavement.
he had forced you into a chair, begging you to let him take care of your now bruising knuckles and you begrudgingly agreed
"Wasn't so bad, huh?"
"Don't push it." Was the joking response as his arm slung over your waist, and his thumbs brushed over the bandage he had applied so carefully as his hand covered the one you had let hang at your hip.
"Wouldn't dream of it, darling. Don't have the foggiest why you would assume such of me."
if you ever couldn't handle the entire situation and obtained an injury, Jesper would stay by your side
when a minor one, like a small gash on your forehead appeared, he would insist on personally caring for it
and if major, he would hold your hand, allowing you to squeeze it as hard as you wanted when the pain became too much
the same went for the other way round, you giggling at bandages wrapped all around his head like a bandana
but only after you knew he was alright
if tears filled your eyes, caused by relief, his thumb would come up to brush them away and slightly pull the corners of your mouth into a weak and wavering smile
"I'm alright. I'm okay, honey, you just remember that."
the both of you would press gentle goodnight kisses to each others foreheads or lips, forgetting a bruise or cut
this would end in frantic apologies and inevitable laughter when you kept speaking over one another
basically, Jesper thinks you're so badass, amazing and fantastic, reminding you just how highly he regards you everyday
you will protect him and he will protect you, no matter what
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Text
I bought some old Scholastic books from the 90s, and I am tempted to send in the order form
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I never got to do this as a kid, my mom always said putting checks in the mail was a scam, but I'm an adult and I REALLY wanna know what'll happen if I send in for 22 Goosebumps books at 1994 prices.
The most likely scenario is they'd return my check uncashed, maybe with a courtesy form letter saying that the offer is no longer valid. There's a remote chance they might send me a couple of books at today's price, using my check to cover however many it can afford, though I wouldn't count on it. I think that if I wrote a funny letter to go along with it, they might honor the whole form as a publicity stunt, like that time Bethesda let a guy buy a Fallout collectors edition with a boxful of recycled bottle caps. It would make a fun PR story, something they could promote on social media, the sort of thing you'd see on some local news station, a fluff piece with a headline like "Please Allow 1006 to 1008 Weeks for Delivery."
I heard a story about a guy who bought a giant bag of m&ms, and he would take two of them and squeeze them together until one broke, and he'd eat the loser. The winner would go on to be squeezed against another one, and then that winner would go on again, through the entire bag until he found the quote-unquote "strongest" m&m. He then sent that one in to the Mars chocolate company like it was a winning racehorse they could use to breed stronger candies in the future, and they sent him a coupon for another huge bag of m&ms as a "consultancy fee," thanking him for his efforts.
Companies love stupid little stunts like this, but they only work once. They can't just let everybody cash in on it, so they let it happen once for the cameras and then never again. I've heard stories of people inviting celebrities to their weddings, and occasionally they'll show up, but they couldn't possibly make it a regular thing. I'm sure this happens to Scholastic all the time; they've produced literally HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of books over the decades! I'm sure every household in America has at least one. There exist more order forms than copies of any given book. The vast majority of them go unused because kids don't want to tear the pages out, but I'm sure it was (until the age of smart phones) a steady source of income for the company. That's why I would need a funny letter to go along with it, something to contextualize it, to let them know that I'm not just some jerk trying to cheat them out of a few bucks, but a long time fan trying to recapture the spark of childhood they instilled in me so many years ago.
I know this is a long shot. For all 22 books on this form, it would cost $66.40 (plus $2.00 to cover shipping and handling), which in today's money would be lucky to fetch half as many; they're all made of pulp, designed to be cheap and mass produceable, but not $3 a pop cheap, not in 2021. I really think the first scenario is most likely, "return to sender," fluff piece be damned. I doubt I'm the first person to ever think of sending in a 30 year old order form, and they probably have a stock letter on hand specifically for this type of scenario; "looks like this offer has expired, but you can feel free to log onto our website and order as many books as you want!" For all I know they don't even have that PO Box in Jefferson City, Missouri anymore.
What do you guys think; is it worth a shot? Dare I send away seventy bucks to parts unknown? I kinda want to see what happens, even if it's nothing special. I'm 24, I've done stupider things, probably will again in the future, so I may as well have some fun with it every now and then.
Certainty of failure. Small chance of success. What am I waiting for?
Maybe I'll date the check to 1995 and blame Bill Clinton's USPS for it getting lost.
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