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mydearlybeloathed · 4 months

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𝐈 𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔 ²

𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥, 𝐬𝐨 𝐢 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐲 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥...

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: whispers all around the marine ship warn of a new cadet handpicked by the vice admiral himself, making for fine gossip. meanwhile, the strawhat crew wonders why their captain is so frustrated with a storybook.

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: opla!luffy x gn!reader, koby x platonic!reader

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 2.5k

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭: use of Y/N, gender neutral reader, angst, platonic fluff, koby and reader team up of the century

𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤: this is me trying

series masterlist

Koby really wanted Helmeppo to shut up, but didn’t have the heart to say it. So he let his new friend rattle on and on whilst they were meant to be getting important work done mopping the deck.

Though Koby did admit, the hushed whispers around the ship of a new cadet were intriguing. And apparently, Helmeppo knew all about the new recruit.

“New?” Helmeppo laughed. “They’re far from new. Been at this for a matter of months and already they’re at the top.”

“How come?” Koby couldn’t help but ask, leaning slightly on his mop. “Experience?”

“Probably,” Helmeppo considered, turning secretive the next moment. “I hear they grew up with Garp, learned all they know from him and their father, who also happens to be a major.”

No wonder there was so much praise for this cadet. “And they’re really that good?”

Helmeppo nodded through a sigh. “So they say. Apparently, they’ve been assigned to this ship by Garp himself. No big surprise there. If this cadet is as fierce as they claim, we’ve got some competition.”

Koby nodded mindlessly, getting back to swabbing the deck, trying his best to focus, but Helmeppo just moved on to the next topic of his interest.

“Hey, do you wonder—” Helmeppo stopped short, catching sight of an approaching figure through the dark shrouding the deck.

Glancing up, Koby saw them too, a puzzled crease forming on his brow. The figure fumbled about the dark, mumbling to themself, two buckets in hand.

Only after nearly tripping over air and stumbling to a stop did they draw out a sigh and assess their surroundings, finding Koby and Helmeppo watching with equally curious expressions.

“Oh, uhm,” they stammered, stepping into the dim lamplight Koby had set to the side. “Hello. I’m, uh, I was sent me to help.” They set down the buckets and stepped back. “Fresh warm water, and uhm, soap.”

Koby reacted quicker than Helmeppo, who watched this stranger carefully. He went to inspect the first bucket, smiling at the sudsy water. Given that Helmeppo had knocked their bucket over and Koby could only save a quarter of the water, this was a godsend. “Thank you. This helps a lot.”

The words went straight to the stranger’s head, a smile breaking out on their face as they turned to take up a spare mop. “No problem. Anything to stay useful. That’s what my dad always says, at least. A useless soldier's a dead soldier, or something like that.”

Whatever reservations Helmeppo had faded at the prospect of another gossip buddy, prompting an eye roll from Koby as he moved to start cleaning the farther end of the deck.

“Are you new?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you before.”

“Oh, yeah,” the stranger replied. “I just transferred from that marine base we’re docked at.”

Helmeppo immediately stopped mopping and zeroed in on the stranger, like a disarming fledgling hawk to an unbothered mouse. “You would know about Y/N L/N, then. They’re being transferred to this ship too.”

There was a brief silence after the question, only long enough to have Koby cast a curious glance back at them. The stranger stopped mopping too, a thoughtful look crossing their face, before they nodded. “What about Y/N L/N?”

“So you’ve met them?” Helmeppo wondered, cutting the stranger off before they could answer. “I’m curious to see if they live up to their reputation.”

The stranger folded their hands behind their back, face quite expressionless. “Oh… What’s their reputation? From an outside perspective, I mean?”

“Only that they’re responsible for twenty arrests within the span of three months. That’s bullshit, in my opinion. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” The stranger’s undivided attention was now given to Helmeppo, and he was living for it. “Apparently, they were trained up by Vice Admiral Garp himself. I hear they’ve even had a drink with Dracule Mihawk. Can you believe that? Honestly, I’m just waiting to meet this cadet and see if they’re as cold hearted as everyone says.”

Now, Koby was smart. He had to be in order to survive. So of course he’d caught on far before Helmeppo, watching the stranger’s grip on their broom tighten and their gaze tighten into a glare.

He rushed up behind the stranger and mimed for Helmeppo to shut up. All Koby got in return was a strange sort of look and complete ignorance. Koby ran a palm over his face.

The stranger was quiet for an everlasting moment, before they dipped their mop into a bucket and continued to do their job. “It was twenty-three.”

Helmeppo tilted his head as if to hear them better. “Sorry?”

Quite having enough of hearing what other people thought of you, you swiftly whirled back to face him with a steeled expression. “I said I took part in twenty-three arrests in three months. I was raised in the same town as Garp, so yes he trained me as a child. I’ve never met Dracule Mihawk and I’ve never had a drink with anyone.”

You jutted out your chin. “And yes, I’d say I am cold hearted when the situation requires it. Like when dealing with a ignorant, gossiping pain in my ass!”

Jaw slack, Helmeppo searched out for Koby’s assistance, only receiving a pointed glare from his friend. You mopped some more and moved to go back over the spot Helmeppo had already done. “Put some more elbow grease into it, yeah? These decks outta be spotless by morn.”

Miraculously, the deck was nothing but tranquil after that. The three of you worked in silence till just as you’d said, the deck was spotless to your satisfaction. Helmeppo retreated back to the barracks immediately, seeking to collect his pride off the floor, leaving you and Koby.

Koby was going to apologize on his friend’s behalf when he found you picking up your bucket and mop and trudging off to the afterdeck. Koby followed after you, telling you, “Oh, we don’t have to clean the afterdeck. That’s next shift’s job.”

You didn’t reply, setting the sloshing bucket down and starting to work. Koby paused. “We should sleep. We’re setting off tomorrow—”

“I’m aware,” you said carefully, without too much malice. “I know we don’t have to. I want to. I’m not tired.”

The bags under your eyes begged to differ. Koby watched you work before he hurried off, and half of you was sorry to be alone again. But then the boy came back with his own mop in hand, causing you to halt and observe as he started to join you.

“What’re you…”

“I’m Koby,” he said, holding out a hand with a scant smile.

Glancing down, you accepted his hand and grinned. “Y/N. But you knew that.”

He grimaced. “Sorry about Helmeppo.”

Shrugging, you said, “Eh, I’m used to it.”

And you set back to mopping the night away, having the occasional laugh with Koby who did the same. Only when there was without a doubt nothing left to clean of the afterdeck, yet you continued to go back over it, did Koby stop and get in your way.

“I can see my reflection in the deck,” he tried to joke. “It’s okay to stop.”

You couldn’t tell him he was wrong. If you stopped, you had time to think. If you had time to think, you’d think of him. If you thought of Luffy, well, you’d be lost to your thoughts for the rest of the night. It was a whole cycle you couldn’t afford to go down. Not as a marine.

Marine’s don’t have time for trivial affairs such as heartache.

But Koby was insistent, snatching your mop away from you and holding you back when you tried to get it back. He held a soft look as you glared daggers into him. “I think I understand.”

You scoffed, giving up and picking up the buckets to put away. You turned your back and headed to find the supply closet. “What exactly do you understand?”

“I... I was on a pirate ship before this,” he told you, causing you to slow enough for him to fall into step beside you. “I was forced to do things I’m not proud of. Sometimes I feel like I’ve got to make up for it.”

You cast him a glance. “I wasn’t a pirate.”

“But you’ve done something you’re not proud of,” he guessed.

Coming to a halt, you bit down on your cheek as Koby turned to face you, confusion laced in his expression. “You don’t know me, Koby. I’m proud of how I got here. That doesn’t make it easier to sleep at night.”

“Okay,” he nodded. “I understand.”

He didn’t. He couldn’t. But it was nice he tried, you supposed. “Okay.”

So he helped to put away the mops and dump out the buckets, following you back to the barracks. All the lights were off, leaving limited sight to find your way to your bunk, clambering through the dark as quietly as you could.

Koby was having a harder time, tripping over something and nearly waking the whole room. You shot him a glare and hurried to bed, hiding under the covers. The bed was hardly comfortable, and tossing and turning did nothing to provide any comfort.

Rolling onto your back, you refrained from opening your eyes as long as you could before they pried themselves open, and you came face to face with Monkey D. Luffy. His wanted poster was pinned to the underside of the top bunk, something you had thought was a good idea at the time, but now it offered an unwanted spectator to your sleeplessness.

Still, you didn’t have the heart to take it down, pulling the thin blanket up over your head.

જ⁀➴

Nobody wanted to be the first to approach the captain, not when he was in a mood none of them had ever seen him in. If the crew was honest, it made them nervous.

“Somebody should make sure he’s okay,” said Usopp, looking around the lot of them as if to prompt one of them to step up.

They all leaned upon the railing around the ship’s helm, eyes locked on Luffy. The boy sat cross legged on the deck, a book of all things in his lap. From the crease in his brow, he was growing increasingly frustrated.

“Not it,” Zoro quipped when he caught Nami giving him that look.

She rolled her eyes and pushed off the rail, glaring as she scathed, “Honestly.”

Taking tentative steps, Nami assessed the situation closer, not meaning to provoke whatever was going on in Luffy’s head. The book lay open to the very first page, his face a little too close to the words as he sighed every few seconds. He flipped to the next page, then the next, before gritting his teeth and going back to the first.

Kneeling at his side, she bumped his shoulder as she settled down. “Luffy?”

“Hmm?” He barely looked up from the page, and Nami wondered if he even registered what she’d said.

“You okay?” When she didn’t get a response, she ducked forward to see what he was reading. “The Two Birds?”

Luffy snapped the book shut so fast Nami flinched, the sudden smile on his face a little bit of whiplash. “Sorry, what?”

“Luffy, what’s wrong?” she asked, concerned. “You’ve been glaring at that storybook all day.”

“Nothing,” he waved her off and tried to hide the book behind him. “Is it time to eat?”-

Nami wasn’t letting him get away from this, not when his smile was a little too bright to be real. Luffy had never been like this, and it was worrying her more than she liked to admit. “Luffy.”

Gaze flickering from each of her eyes, Luffy’s smile slowly but surely lost its enthusiasm, lips curling downward. He brought the book back to his lap, holding it ever so gently, skimming his fingertips over the cover. “It belongs to my lover.”

“Wait.” She blinked. “Lover?”

Nodding, Luffy almost smiled. “It’s their favorite book. I used to have more, but my ship sank. This is the only one I could save.”

The melancholy in how he said it gave Nami a sick kind of feeling, a million different ideas of this stranger’s fate coming to mind. She almost didn’t even ask. “What happened to them?”

“We got separated a few months ago,” he said, before giving the book a firm nod, “but I’ll find them again.”

“How do we do that?” Nami asked instantly, drawing another half smile out of Luffy as he raised his eyes to meet hers.

“Well,” Luffy laughed breathily, “it’s a bit complicated. They’re with the marines.”

They weren’t dead, which was good, Nami supposed. But this? This wasn’t what she’d expected. “Your lover is a marine?”

“Unfortunately. I couldn’t save them. But they’re strong.” His grin wavered. He thought of that sinking feeling when you remained on land, staring after him with this look he couldn't get out of his head. You'd looked like this was what you planned; him escaping, and you staying. It had been noble of you, he supposed, and he could never hate you for it.

Luffy swallowed thickly and his eyes went all misty. “They’re the strongest, kindest, truest person I know. I’ll find them, and I’ll return their book.”

Nami still couldn’t figure it out. “If they’re so good, why’re you burning a hole into their book?”

“Oh.” Luffy’s cheeks warmed at the question. “Uhm, I was trying to read it but… I got stuck. They usually read it to me.”

She should have left it at that. Really, Nami should have patted him on the back and offered to get a pre-dinner snack to cheer him up. But for some reason, Nami found herself looking at the storybook and hesitantly saying, “Can I?”

“Really?” The shine in Luffy’s eyes nearly made it worth it.

Nami sighed and forced a smile. Only, she didn’t have to force it too much; Luffy’s quickly brightening expression warmed her from the inside out. “Sure. Hand it over.”

She’d barely laid a hand on the book when Luffy whipped his head around and shouted across the deck, “Guys! Nami’s reading a story!”

“Luffy…” she groaned, pursing her lips as Usopp jumped down the stairs, swiftly followed by Sanji and a more reluctant Zoro.

Luffy raised a brow. “What?”

Letting out a huff, Nami simply flipped open the book. Usopp plopped down beside her, leaning in to see what book it was.

“A story?” Zoro asked, ever unamused. Nami shut him up with one glare.

“I personally am happy to hear Nami’s lovely voice,” Sanji piped in with a wink.

Nami gave the chef a deadpan, her head tilted. “Thanks.”

“C’mon,” Usopp urged her. “Let's see if it beats the tales of Great Captain Usopp.”

“All right, all right,” she laughed, turning to the very first page and starting to read off the story to them.

Every once in a while Luffy would start frowning again, eyes unfocused, the words Nami read piercing his heart. It never lasted too long though, some commentary from Usopp dragging a snicker out of him. And when the story came to a close, Luffy offered his crew a grin.

“Y/N would like you guys,” he said, raising some confusion among the men around him.

Nami tried to smile and, half to explain and half to reassure, said, “We’ll get your lover back, at some point.”

Maybe three seconds went by before all heads jolted in Luffy’s direction.

“Lover?!”

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the-kr8tor · 4 months

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Amidst the Waves

Pairing: Pirate! Hobie Brown x fem! Reader

Word count: 4.5k

Tags: no use of Y/N, no specific physical description of the reader (Hobie is mentioned taller though), the reader has nicknames. CW food mentions, TW blood, CW injury, TW violence, TW gore, CW death, CW guns.

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Between the Devil and the Sea Masterlist

Chapter 3 >>> Chapter 4

You've heard all the stories that all pirates are criminals who would cut your throat without remorse for a single coin in your pocket. You've heard it enough from traveling bards and newsboys screaming out the pirates’ crimes every morning that it's ingrained in your psyche. The news about the navy hunting them all one by one hasn't passed you either. You remember walking through towns with pirates hanging from the noose, a warning to all pirates.

It's all everyone talks about, especially in small towns. it's impossible not to hear of the bloodsail pirates and their latest crimes. But now you're standing in their ship, wearing their clothes and eating their soup. A surprisingly good soup too.

If only your past self could see you now, she'd probably throw you overboard herself.

Ned, you've come to know, throws you a mop and a bucket full of hazy water that sloshes on the sides, almost spilling over your new-ish clothes. You're too tired for this.

“Careful now, that has lye” His friend, James, you’ve learned snickers on the side.

“Go swab the poop deck, land lover” Ned points above you, rows of stairs greeting you. “As for you,” he addresses the blond, “the deck”

“What?! Why does she only get the poop deck and I get the entire bloody main deck?!” He jumps off the railing, fuming.

“Complain more and you clean the bathrooms”

“No! Not the bathroom again.” James picks up a spare mop. “Look, I'm cleaning, yeah?” he mops like a madman all over the main deck.

You chuckle, Ned hears and he gives you a staring down, you clamp down immediately.

“Poop deck! I'm on it!”

Clambering up the stairs is easier said than done. With your new found sea legs and the waves bashing on the sides of the ship, you're fighting for your life.

“Need help?” Hobie suddenly appears on the top of the stairs, annoyingly munching on an apple.

You heave the bucket, staring at him while doing your best at taking the cleaning supplies up the creaking stairs. “I'm good” step.

“You sure? I'm offering you an olive branch here, scuttlebutt” he leans on the railing, not moving an inch to actually help you.

Step.

“You can keep your branch,” you wobble slightly when a large wave crashes on the side of the ship. But thankfully, you keep your balance. Step. Finally reaching the top, you exhale out proudly.

“I'm not fond of olives anyway” you side eye him before continuing to walk on the poop deck.

Another wave hits, the water sloshes out, barely missing your hands. “Shit”

“Careful, that has lye in it” he says with a chuckle.

—

You missed lunch because you scrubbed the entire poop deck clean. Your stomach grumbles as the sun sets and you remember your last day in that small fishing town. The orange glow never fails to make you smile but now it squeezes your heart. It's still a beautiful sight, the large body of water glitters from the light, almost like it's calling out to you.

Great, you're already going insane after a few hours. Pinching your arm, you shake your head. You can't wait to get on land.

Walking down, you walk on the deck with an empty bucket. The sea is much calmer now, the movement is pleasant, if you're in bed right now, you would've fallen asleep from the motion. The breeze picks up as you set the supplies down. You lean on the railing to rest your lower back while you admire the sunset.

James huffs a few feet away from you, still mopping the deck while Ned and a raven haired woman chats near him. They make comments on the side that makes James glare at them. You let them be, watching the sunset with your hand on your chin.

Your back and knees ache from the labour and your stomach roars again for something to eat. Maybe they still have the soup earlier.

There's a sudden presence next to you. Leather and sea salt enters your senses.

He rests a couple of feet away from you, just in case you try to push him off.

“What a view, huh?” Hobie, he looks at you through tired eyes.

“Verdict’s still out” You don't try to argue lest you ruin the rare peace and quiet on a busy ship.

“‘course it is.” He chuckles. There's a comfortable silence between you.

After a beat he speaks up without looking at you. “Go help in the galley.” Before you could retort something witty, he walks away from you. You swear you saw something in his eyes, you have no idea what.

Heading down to the ship's kitchen, you see Gwen just about leaving.

“Oh good you're here. Go help out with dinner” she instructs without stopping for you.

Entering the swinging doors, you can't protest or else, well you try not to think about it too much. The galley is cozy, not what you expected of a pirate ship's kitchen to say the least. It's clean, all stone and steel melded together to create the quaint space.

You jump when Finn's hulking form enters your vision, his butcher's knife chopping down on a slab of meat, the sound reminds you of a guillotine.

He notices you freezed in the doorway, Finn huffs motioning for you to take an apron from the hanger with his incredibly large knife. You think you prefer the cutlass instead of the butcher's knife in his hands.

Tying it around your waist, you keep your distance away from the man.

“What do you need me to do?” You ask carefully so as to not anger the bull.

Finn moves to the side to reveal the boiling pot, the aroma makes your stomach gurgle. He points to a bundle of carrots on the counter before giving you a smaller knife. He nods once, going back to his chopping.

“Alright…” you find his lack of words peculiar, especially hearing the rest of the crew babble endlessly during the short time you've been on the ship.

You spare him side glances with every thwack of his knife to the chopping board. Working in comfortable silence, the sound from the bubbling pot calms your nerves, reminding you of the familiar sound in the white salmons’ kitchen.

The boat sways in the waves, making the hanging pots and pans swing to the motion. Finn taps his knife on the board twice, getting your attention. He gestures with his head towards the sliced carrots before glancing at the pot.

You understood completely, doing what he asked, he nodded once. A thank you maybe? Or he's just being nicer to you because of the whole ‘making you walk the plank thing’

Finn cleans himself up over the sink as you take a ladle to mix the stew, careful of the fire that licks the bottom of the metal pot.

A hand pops up at your line of sight, a bandage and a jar of wound cleaner placed in his large palm. He pushes the supplies to you, encouraging you to take it.

“Uh, what's this for?” you manage to take the things without it accidentally falling inside the crew's dinner. With how the ship rocks, you're proud of yourself for just being able to stand up.

Finn points to his chest, flicking his eyes to the supplies in your hands.

Looking down, you see a spot of red on the white cotton of your borrowed shirt. “Oh, thank you”

He huffs again, going back to cooking, letting you be.

Maybe they're not so bad?

—

Dinner is finally done. You can hardly keep your eyes open as you heave the huge pot over to the longest table you've ever seen. It's a makeshift table, a hodgepodge of crates and planks of wood put together to create the dinner table. Everyone starts to gather around the deck, the sun fully set, darkness rules the seas now as the candle light and oil lamps sway with the movement of the breeze.

Dining under the stars, how romantic.

They're a rambunctious bunch, pushing and pulling at each other to get the good plates first. You're already prepared for this of course, you've hidden a bowl in your apron so you could quickly scoop out dinner and vanish into a barren corner of the boat.

The same dark haired woman has other plans though, just before you could make your escape, she grabs you by the shoulders; orange and a flowery scent wafts in your nostrils.

“Where do you think you're going? Mm?” She whispers into your ear, her voice smooth, raising goosebumps on your arms. Freezing in her touch.

“Stop harassing the poor girl, Yuri” Gwen says while she takes her seat near the head of the table.

“Just having some fun, Gwen” she releases her hold on you, walking away with a wink thrown your way.

“Don't mind Yuri, she likes doing that to new people, her way of hazing I guess. I'm Miles by the way” He shakes your hand, smiling politely at you.

“She's not new to the crew, Miles. She's only here temporarily, remember?” Gwen pipes up, scooping her meal.

“Right, gotcha” he sits down next to Gwen with a huff. “Still, welcome a board the People's Revenge”

“I've gotten acquainted with your ship, just the poop deck and galley actually”

“Let me give you a tour then!” Pavitr suddenly appears next to you.

What is up with this crew instantaneously appearing out of nowhere?

“Hi, remember me?”

“Of course I do, thanks for the coat again”

“No problem, come on, let me introduce you to everyone!” Pavitr takes you by the sleeve, dragging you along the deck to introduce to literally everyone. “Oh you're gonna love them! Well, once you get to know them”

“Oh okay–just”

“This is ‘two fingers’” He points at a man halfway through putting a spoon in his mouth.

“I have a name, Pav! And I have all my bloody fingers!”

“Why are you called–” before you could ask, Pav led you away, smiling excitedly.

“This one here is ‘foul’!”

The crew around him laughs, “You forget to shower once and you get fuckin' called stinky!” Foul grabs a spoon to throw it at a laughing eye patch clad man. It conks him right on his forehead.

Pavitr moves on, actually introducing you to more people whose names get more ridiculous as you go around the table.

“And finally, this one is ‘ugly mug’” Pav shakes ugly mug’s shoulders for emphasis.

“Hey” the man with the most beautiful blue eyes you've ever seen and plump lips greets you.

“Ugly mug? He's not ugly at all!” You wildly gesture to his sharp face.

“You're too kind but I've learned to live with the ugliness” you don't know if he's joking or not with how serious he looks.

“Oh I almost forgot, this is Danny” Pav skims the most normal looking crew member. He whispers to you. “He's a bit weird”

Danny waves wildly, beaming at you. “Hi, I'm Danny!”

“Alright… thank you, Pavitr for the introduction” your stomach starts to cry again. “But I've gotta eat.”

“Oh, sit with us then!” He guides you to an empty chair next to Gwen. “Here, sit down. I'll get a bowl for you”

Awkwardly sitting down, you side eye Gwen. Miles looks like he's about to jump away from the tension.

“If you're worried about everyone planning to hurt you, don't. We have a code here and until you leave, you're kind of…one of us” she pierces the awkward silence between you.

You exhale a breath you haven't noticed you were holding. But you're still on guard, they are pirates after all.

“Here you go, I got you extra bread too” Pavitr saves you from the tension, bringing you a heaping bowl of hot stew with two loaves of bread. He sits down next to you, happily eating.

“God, I'm so hungry.” You grab the spoon with fervor, scooping up a chunk to quickly eat before it goes cold. It warms your insides, calming your hungry stomach. “Thank you– holy shit” it's the best tasting stew you've ever tasted.

“Good, right?” Gwen watches on with an amused smile. “Finn makes them from scratch, even the bread”

“I didn't even know that was possible on a ship.” You say with your mouth full. “Finn doesn't talk much huh?”

“Oh he talks. He just doesn't want to” Gwen shrugs, “that's his thing, don't ask him why”

“Wasn't planning to” you chuckle through your glass.

“Gwen,” Miles looks at you like he knows something you don't. “Am I crazy or she kind of reminds me of M–”

“Don’t” Gwen and Pavitr simultaneously say.

“You remind me who?” You flick your eyes between the trio.

“Don't–”

“MJ, you remind me of MJ.” Miles looks at you with sad eyes.

The entire table silences the moment Miles utters the name. Everyone looks at you and at eachother like how they did when you arrived just this morning. But this time there's sadness in their eyes instead of amusement.

“Who's MJ?” you ask nervously.

“Our former first mate” Foul flicks his eyes around, looking for something or someone. “Emphasis on the former”

“Oh” you could read the room but your bout of curiosity gets you first. “Who's the new first mate?”

“I am” Gwen says it without any pride laced in her words.

“Oh I figured that out. Where is she now?”

“Not here” A familiar voice replies behind you.

Looking over your shoulder, Hobie’s jaw is set, his hand on one of his pistols, the gold on the handle is a stark contrast to the rest of his silver ensemble.

You expect for the crew to stay silent once their captain arrives, but they hollar and cheer. Morphing Hobie's grimace into a smile. But it's still there, the anger and sadness, you can tell because you see it in the mirror everyday.

“Right, what's for dinner?” He sits down on the head of the table while his crew passes him a bowl and the pot. “Looks good, Finn. You've done it again, big man”

You hear Finn's signature grunt from somewhere along the table.

“Aye? She didn't mess anything up did she?” With just one grunt Hobie translated what Finn grunted.

How in the world?

Finn shrugs, making an ‘eh’ gesture with his hand. Hobie laughs, while you look at Finn with a ‘really?’ Look on your face. He rolls his eyes at you.

“I'm an…alright cook” you defend yourself but still remaining true.

“Sure you are, scuttlebutt. What other useful skills do you have, mhm?”

With a chance to prove yourself so they stop giving you tasks that break your back, you sell yourself.

“I recently learned how to sew and mend clothes.”

“You plannin’ on replacing Neddy as our sailmaker?”

Ned lifts his head up from his book. “What's that?”

“Nothin' Neddy. D’you know how to shoot?”

“Please say yes so you can join me with the cannons.” Yuri smirks further down the table.

“Uh, no I don't know how to handle gunpowder.” you refrain from looking at Yuri.

“Carpentry then? Fishing?”

“No and...no” you twiddle with your thumbs under the table.

Hobie grins mockingly at you. “Maybe we should just drop you overboard right now”

You grit your teeth. “I'm good with herbs and medicine. I'm guessing you don't have a ship doctor”

“Now you've piqued my interest.” Hobie casually leans on the table by his elbows, resting his chin on his hands. “Where did a fish girl like you learn about medicine, huh?”

“You only need to know that I can fix some of your crew's ailments. I'm not a doctor but I'm experienced”

“Closing wounds?” You nod. “Scurvy?”

“Theoretically, yes” you challenge him head on.

“The plague?”

“Survived it”

“The pox?”

“Most I can do is stop the spread and alleviate the pain, the survival depends on the person”

“Can we not talk about diseases while eating?!” Pav wildly gestures at his food.

“Carry on” Hobie side eyes you. Taking a huge bite of his loaf.

You throw him a fake smile.

“How are you liking the Revenge so far, Y/N?” Miles tries to make you forget the last interaction with him.

You wouldn't forget about it of course, it'll stay in the back of your mind, festering until your curiosity gets you and you ask who MJ actually is and why everyone quietened after she was mentioned. Maybe you'll do it one day, where your feet are firmly on the ground and you're not near any body of water.

Thinking of an answer that doesn't get you cut by a sword, you fake a smile. “Not what I expected”

“Did you expect blood and gold littered all over the place?” Hobie adds to the conversation. “Because that's in my quarters not here”

Gwen rolls her eyes at his joke while the others are either ignoring it or laughing along with Hobie.

One of the crew yells out on top of all the noise. “Aye, if you're lucky enough, girly, you'll see the inside of the cap’s quarters!”

Hobie shakes his head, throwing an entire plate towards the man with accuracy. Finn moves his head to the side casually before it hits him. The plate shatters then you hear the man scream obscenities.

“Don't listen to that animal” Hobie says without looking at you.

You want to get back at him for the lye comment so you decide to tease him, just to see his reaction, maybe he'll get flustered.

“And here I thought you were inviting me—”

BOOM!

The explosion shoves the entire ship harshly to the left, everyone slides with the movement including the table and chairs. Stew flies everywhere, loaves of bread soar overhead. Shards of sharp wood almost splinter your skin.

You land on the railing of the ship harshly. Opening your eyes through the pain, you see a crate heading your way.

“Fuck–!”

Strong arms grab you by the waist, saving you from getting crushed at the last minute. You hold on to their jacket with wild eyes.

“You alright?” Hobie's words are hushed and soft in your ear. You nod, trying to steady your racing heart. Looking up at him, his eyes roam your face for any injuries.

“I'm okay, what happened—?” noticing that you're still in his arms, you move away, correcting your balance when the ship hurls back to the right position. You try to reach for your necklace, until you remember that it's not there.

He nods once, his concerned face shifting into rage when he hears the sound of cannon balls behind him.

“Unfurl the fuckin' topsails!” He whirls around, directing his crew.

You hear fabric above you unfolding, the large blood red sails fills your vision. It dances in the wind like a macabre waltz.

You follow Hobie's line of sight, he glares at the large ship looming over the distance. The royal navy seal flaps on their bright blue sails.

“The Black Hellion” Hobie spits venom when he says the name. As he says it, a smaller ship appears behind the Hellion, racing to get to the Revenge.

“Fuck” he takes your hand, leading you under the stairs. Your legs drag as the crew rushes to get to their stations.

“Did you lead them here?!” Hobie grabs you by the shoulder, shoving you beneath the staircase, the wood behind you digs into your skin.

“What?! I swear I didn't— I didn't even know who you were until I got off the fucking net!” you stare down his angry eyes, grey swirling like a storm brewing behind it. “I swear on my life I am not navy!”

“You better not be,” He takes a rope from his belt then ties your hands together. Hobie lifts you by the binds effortlessly to a hook hanging above. You're dangling from the metal, the toes of your feet are barely on the ground.

“Hey—! What are you—?”

“We'll talk after this. Stay out of my way” Hobie leaves you behind.

You look at his retreating back in-between the spaces in the stairs. “Hobie! I'm not fucking navy!” you watch as he leads his entire crew with the anger of a lightning storm.

There's drum beats sounding above, bells ringing further across the water. You surmise the battle's only beginning.

Another cannon blasts, you cover your ears with your raised arms. The smell of gunpowder tickles your nostrils. The muffled yells of the pirates makes your head swirl and your heart pump rapidly. You try to jump as high as you can to get out of the hook, but it's too high up.

The boat lunges to the side again, the entire structure shakes. Your body swings and you hit your back against the hard wall. Groaning, your vision blurs for a second. Honing on the action, the navy ship rammed itself on the side of the revenge. You see uniform clad men jump ship, immediately fighting with the people you broke bread with.

There's a clashing of swords, pistols are fired wildly at each other. There's groans and screams of pain. You can't believe a few minutes ago the ship was full of laughter and warmth. Now blood is being spilled on the very floors you've cleaned. The laughter is replaced with agony filled yells and gurgled last words.

A sailor runs at full speed towards you, his sword shining in the moonlight. He yells a battlecry. The thought of them saving you is out of the window.

In an instant, a metal chain wraps around the uniformed man’s neck, he flies back, landing brutally, cracking the wood under him. You follow the end of the chain, you see Hobie dragging the sailor away, yanking and pulling at his neck until you hear a snap. The man lies still, you meet with Hobie's eyes through the stairs, you see a hurricane brewing in them.

He flings the chain back to him, the body thuds lifelessly on the wood. Hobie leaves without sparing you another glance. You've seen death numerous times during your journeys but not like this.

Not in front of you.

You stare at the body, all the noise and clashing of weapons falls deaf in your ears. Your hands shake, chest heaving and skin raising.

You have to get out of here.

Even if you have to chance it with the dinghy, even if you don't know how to row a boat or navigate the deep waters, you're gonna get out of here, out of the chaos and warm crimson that's seeping into the floorboards. You refuse to watch the chaos, but you can't avoid their shadows dancing in the moonlight.

You jump again, nothing. Again. You feel the rope lift up for a second. There's something metallic sliding near you, the knife stops near the foot of the stairs. It's too far away for you to even reach with your foot.

The rope burns your wrists, skin scraping against the rough hemp. It stings, like tear drops, your blood is slowly running down your arm.

You've got a better idea but it's a stretch. You still try it, moving your hands back and forth by swinging side to side, you slowly cut the rope with the sharp edge of the hook. Flakes of hemp fall on your head like snow.

There's a high pitched gasp in front of you, the sound makes you pause. Watching through the stairs, you see Gwen struggle under a large uniform clad man, his hands are around her throat. Squeezing painfully.

You hasten your movements, the rope cuts loose, the second your feet hit the ground, you run.

Grabbing the fallen knife from the ground with hot adrenaline rushing in your veins, you plunge it on the man's thigh swiftly. He screams in agony. You help Gwen up, she coughs loudly, clutching at her bruising neck.

“You fucking bitch!” The man grits his teeth, circling his hand around the handle of the knife still in his skin, he grins a bloodied smile.

You hear Gwen snicker in your arms.

He grabs the knife out of his thigh with a sickening squelch. Blood spurts out of him like a fountain, spraying you with warm ichor. You freeze. Gwen kicks the panicking man in the middle of his chest, he falls like a sack of potatoes on the floor, screaming and trying desperately to stop his bleeding.

You look around the chaos, trying not to listen to the man's pained screams. There's clouds of gunpowder hanging in the air, hiding all the bodies lying on the deck, away from your eyes.

“Gwen.” Hobie's raspy voice echoes out in the silence and atop of the leftover screams of the defeated. He throws her a pistol wordlessly.

Without hesitation, Gwen puts an end to the screaming.

There's complete silence now, the moon still hangs overhead, you wonder if the moon saw everything.

It looks like the pirates won as the navy ship is now commandeered by Hobie's crew. James yells from the mast, flipping the bird towards the retreating Black Hellion.

Shards of broken wood lay next to bodies, both pirates and navy. But the navy looks like it's the one that has suffered more loss. Pistols and muskets are littered around the once pristine deck. The smell of death and burned gunpowder permeates the air.

There's fresh crimson flowing beneath you, drenching the soles of your weathered boots. You feel the warmth spreading under your feet.

A hand claps your shoulder, “you saved me, thank you” Gwen smiles genuinely at you.

A yelp takes both of your attention, a man in a lieutenant’s uniform kneels in front of Hobie, his back being pushed down by Finn's boot.

Hobie crouches down, taking the sailor’s chin in his hand, his nails digging into the man's skin.

“Lieutenant George, your Captain left you to die.” He chuckles without humour. “So much for being called the king's flame, huh?.” Hobie sighs.

The lieutenant spits but Hobie dodges it. “I will use your own limbs to dig your grave! You damn pirate!”

“That doesn't sound practical” He stands up, under Hobie's bloodstained face you see the lines in-between his brows, tired, you know it well. “Take him below, Finn.”

“As for you,” Hobie's bloodshot eyes address you, he smiles, the twinkle in his eyes are back. “Red looks good on you.”

You stare at him dumbfounded, realization hits you. With your sleeves, you wipe your face, smearing the ichor all over your skin more.

“Lock her in one of the cabins.” Hobie says to the men behind you. They take you by the arms.

“Wait—! Why? I told you I'm not one of them!”

“Hobie, come on, she saved my life!” Gwen advocates for you.

“I know, I saw, we're just gonna ask her questions, yeah?” Hobie stands in front of you, in all his blood soaked form. “She has nothin' to worry about unless she's hidin’ somethin’”

You could only glare at him as you're being dragged away, too exhausted from everything.

The rest of the crew watch on. Maybe the stories are right. But for your sake, you hope it's not.

A/N: Thank you for reading! Special thanks to my bestie @thesevenofstaves for helping me out with the titles/names 🫶

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feelmyskinonyourskin · 8 months

Text

Where We Begin and End [Misunderstood Breakup Trope]

Pairing: Frank Castle x Reader

Trope de Sept Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Misunderstood Breakup situation 1. One person thinks the other one has broken up with them due to a misunderstanding "Frank comes home injured and it shakes you to your core, the next morning he’s gone and you think he’s left you"

Warnings: Angst into a happy ending. No gender or pronouns specified for reader. No use of y/n. Established relationship. Nicknames sweetheart and baby. Blood/description of a bullet injury and the repair of it.

WC: 2,033

*I never give permission for my fics, manips, or any other original creation I post on this site to be copied, posted elsewhere, translated, or fed into any AI program. The only platform I currently post anything on is Tumblr. Thanks!*

Your fingers trembled as you worked, the silver tweezers dropped from your shaking hand and fell into the porcelain sink under you with a clang.

‘Shit” you mumbled under your breath and retrieved them, the metal tool threatening to fall from your slippery, blood-covered hand again.

“S’ alright sweetheart, take your time.” Frank said softly

Usually his reassurance in a dire situation calmed you. But tonight there was an edge to his voice that had your fragile nerves teetering on an already thin tightrope.

You went back to the task in front of you, hesitantly plunging the tweezers into the flesh of his lower back, attempting to remove the bullet that had ricocheted and lodged itself there.

Repairing Frank after a long night out wasn’t an unusual occurrence for you. The sight of his blood didn’t typically phase you, having spent countless nights tending to his wounds as an act of love. But tonight, the injury in question had you fearing for Frank's life.

You were by no means a medical professional, but you knew enough basic anatomy to know this bullet was dangerously too close to his spinal column and one wrong move by either of you could at best leave him with permanent nerve damage and at worst paralyze or even kill him.

“Almost got it.” You weren’t sure who you were trying to reassure more, him or yourself.

The dulled copper end of the bullet finally poked through amongst the crimson flooding the hole and the marred skin around it. You pulled it out, sighing in relief and releasing a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

Frank, always so stoic and calm, faced away from you sitting on the edge of the bathtub, elbows on his knees. His nostrils flared and his lip twitched, as the pain threatened to creep past the barrier against it he had plenty of practice building up. You were too busy threading the needle to stitch the hole closed that you hadn’t noticed his subtle signs of weakness.

Getting the bullet out was the hard part and an invisible weight lifted off your shoulders knowing if your mediocre medical repair hadn’t gone awry yet, it probably wasn’t going to from this point forward.

Your skin felt damp. God, how had you not noticed until now? You were sweating buckets from nerves and knew there was some of his blood on your face as well. Probably from unconsciously trying to wipe the sweat from your brow as you worked. Oh wait. There were also tears there. When did you start crying?

The silent air between the two of you felt heavier than a led balloon as you stitched the wound, neither of you daring to speak as you wiped the area down with an alcohol swab.

“Okay um…” you sniffled, not wanting to let the flood gates fully open until you were out of the room

“I cleaned up the blood surrounding it pretty good, so try not to get it too wet in the shower.” You finally commented, your work finished.

Frank nodded his head. Typically a man of few words, especially after coming home from a job, he remained unnervingly quiet as you disposed of the bandage wrappers and gauze in the small plastic trash can under the sink.

He leaned forward as if to speak, but decided against it, and instead turned on the spigot in front of him, letting the warm water splash against his feet.

Avoiding his gaze, you washed your hands in the sink. The water ran down the drain in a river of scarlet, then a rusty orange, then eventually clear, the colors increasingly blurring in your vision as more tears filled your eyes.

A soft thump behind you jolted you upright, adrenaline still buzzing and anticipating whatever might happen next. You relaxed a little again as you realized it was just Frank removing his jeans and tossing them on the floor as he changed the knob from the lower faucet to the shower head and stepped in to clean himself of the blood and grime of the evening.

You never ask about what happened. No matter how severe the injuries he comes home with are, you never want to know. But tonight shook you so to your core, you can’t help but be curious.

How did he make such a large miscalculation? Was it because he was getting old? Too distracted by his home life with you? Why had his bullet-proof vest not done a better job at protecting such a sensitive area? Your brain swirled with a million questions.

He grunted in pain from behind the shower curtain and it made you jump once again. As the hot water hit the plethora of other wounds he came home with tonight, he knew you were still uneasy behind the shower curtain.

“S’ okay baby. Really.” he reassured again

You proceeded into the bedroom, pacing in circles and not knowing what to really do with yourself, still unable to let yourself fully cry.

A few minutes later, Frank emerged in a cloud of steam, a towel slung low on his waist.

“You should be resting sweetheart.”

“Wanted to make sure you were okay before I laid down.”

“C’mon, I’ll lay with you.”

Gingerly, Frank laid on his stomach, not wanting to irritate the wound by sleeping on it. You curled into his side, resting your head on his shoulder, no longer able to hold the levee against your tears. They ran down your face in streams, soaking his shoulder and your pillow case.

“Pl.. please Frank. I can’t. I can’t do this anymore. I’m not asking you to change who you are but I can’t keep loving someone who constantly puts themself in a position where I could lose them. I can’t lose you Frank.”

“Sweetheart, you know this is what I do though. You know it’s dangerous. It’s just part of the job.”

“Don’t make me go through what you went through with Maria.”

Frank didn’t respond, only rolled on to his side to pull you against his chest and comfort you with his calloused fingers running soft lines against your skin until exhaustion finally won out and you fell asleep.

The pounding headache was the first thing you noticed in the morning. The heaviness of your eyelids as you attempted to open them was the second.

You reached out for Frank, but your hand only met empty space and crumpled sheets.Not unusual for him to be up before you.

A dull ache radiated through your body as you slowly rolled out of bed. Frank was nowhere to be found in the kitchen, not making coffee as you suspected he might be.

“Frankie?” you called out, voice still small and croaky with sleepiness

But there was no answer.

You looked at the front door. Frank’s boots, coat, and keys were gone. He always let you know when he was going out and when he’d be back. You checked your phone. No text.

Everything else seemed to be in place in your apartment but the feelings from last night still gnawed a pit into your stomach.

You remembered how scared you were and how you’d begged and cried until you fell asleep.

You’d asked Frank to do the impossible, something you’d never ask him, to give up being the Punisher.

And he seemed he’d made his decision. He was gone. Walking out of the life you’d built together like it was nothing.

Getting ready for work was a chore you struggled through. Any sane person would take the day off after everything you’d been through in the last 6ish hours. But you needed the normalcy and the distraction, not wanting to sit around the apartment wallowing, waiting for something to happen that you knew wouldn’t - Frank coming home from wherever he’d gone.

You grabbed his hoodie from the hook in the entryway on your way out. You always wore it on days he was away, when you were missing him extra badly. God, how sick it was that the thing you were grieving was also the only thing you knew would bring you even a little bit of comfort.

You spent most of the day just sitting at your desk, staring at your computer, not really getting any work done.

“God you look awful.” your coworker Kate commented when she popped her head into your office around lunchtime

“Frank and I, um… we broke up.”

“Jesus. I’m sorry. What happened?”

“We… something happened last night and when I woke up this morning he was gone.”

“Wait? Did you guys actually have a conversation about breaking up?”

“Well no but…”

“Did he take any of his stuff with him? You know like someone leaving would?”

“Well no but…”

“Did you, ya know, text or call him to see where he is?”

“Kate. Look. I just know Frank and after what happened, I just know this is it. He’s gone.”

Kate took pity on you and offered to take you to lunch to take your mind off of it. As you exited the office and walked to your favorite Thai place on the corner, you decided to take her advice and text him, knowing that you wouldn’t get one back.

Frank. I’m worried about you after what happened last night. Please just let me know you’re okay.

You must have checked your phone 30 times at the restaurant, with no notification of him texting you back showing up.

The walk back to the office was silent, Kate giving up on inventing one sided conversations to keep your mind off things.

A bouquet of peonies sat on your desk when you got back, as well as a pair of dirty combat boots attached to a very tired looking Marine, appearing as though he could use a nap, lounging in your office chair with his legs crossed and up on your desk.

“Frank.”

“Hey sweetheart. You know your office needs better security?” he said casually as if he was just commenting on the weather and hadn’t just walked out of your life mere hours before

“You’re here.”

“Yeah.”

“But you left.”

“Yeah. Sorry to run out so quick this morning, but something came up.”

“But you didn’t text me back. Let me know. You always let me know.”

Frank sat upright, removing his feet one at a time from your desk and walking across the room to stand in front of you. He reached into his back pocket and held up his cell phone between you. The device, cracked across the screen and smashed in the one corner, looked entirely useless between his calloused fingers.

“What do you think the bullet ricochet off of?”

You weren’t sure if it was a chuckle or a sob that escaped your mouth, but it finally broke your resolve and you threw yourself into his arms.

“It was in my back pocket and the bullet hit it and it flew up between my back and my vest. Was gonna get a new one today, but Madani yakked my ear off all morning.”

“Madani?”

“Last night had me pretty spooked too. I didn’t sleep. Thinkin too much about what you said. You were right. My biggest fear is you getting hurt, losin you like I lost them. Didn’t even stop to think that losin me might hurt you too. But you remindin me how it felt when I lost my family… made me realize what you go through with me and all my bullshit.”

“So why were you with Dinah?”

“Remember when I told Madani I’d start working for the CIA when hell froze over? Well guess the devil better buy a coat…”

“Pfft I’ll let Matt know next time we see him… God, you scared me Frank. I thought you left me. That we were done. When I didn’t hear from you and you weren’t home. After last night…”

“You ain’t getting rid of me that easy.”

“That so, big guy?”

“Yeah gonna go be a CIA man. Wear a suit and work in an office and shit.”

“You look good in a suit, Frank.”

“Think I look like a dork”

“But you’re my dork?”

“Damn right baby.”

#frank castle x reader #frank castle #the punisher #jon bernthal #the punisher x reader #frank castle imagine #frank castle fluff #trope de sept #trope #nmcu

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shankss-magnificent-ass · 2 years

Text

OP crews watching you adjust to piracy: Isekai edition

Whitebeard Pirates

"I'm bored," you grumble, lying spread out on the deck of the Moby Dick, as you stare out at the clear blue skies above you.

Whitebeard mumbled, "then go read a book," from his chair, as he read the newspaper

You sighed, "I've already finished everything in the library, twice."

Marco sat up, his leg dangling off the yard he glared down at you and exclaimed, "There's gotta be like a hundred books in there, and you've only been here for a month and a half."

"Yeah, but most of them are shorter than a hundred pages with a relatively low reading level."

Ace, who was lounging on the stairs and eating a bowl of cherries as he said, "oh rub it in, why don't you?"

You flopped over on your stomach, so you could shoot the black hair man a dirty look. "Rub what in? I'm simply stating a fact."

Izou snapped, "he's teasing, ignore him. And if you are bored then go do your chores or something."

You sigh, "I can't, all the chores are done, and there is nothing I haven't already cleaned this week."

Marco squinted at you, clearly using his big brain to try and figure out why you can't just sit still. He slid off the yard, and glided over, landing softly next to you. The blonde started to poke and prod at you, taking your pulse and just examining you in general "I think you're addicted to stress."

"That sounds pretty on point for me." You grumble, "but that might be a result of the way people in my world both live and work."

When Marco squinted at you in confusion, you explained how your usual work week went. Izou huffed, "that explains a lot, you aren't used to having free time. So you don't know what to do with it."

"... but if I'm not being productive what am I supposed to do? Doing nothing stresses me out."

Ace rolled over onto his stomach and groaned, "There's nothing to do because you've done everything already. You even volunteered to clean the bathrooms, who even fucking does that?

Marco took off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose as he sighed, "People addicted to stress, it explains your elevated blood pressure of late, and your insomnia, and lack of appetite."

Pops huffed, "you are my child, you don't have to 'earn your keep' by working yourself to death. Also, I order you to go through rehabilitation, and that you get a hobby that makes you happy." With that he scooped you up and rest you on his knee, and held you there while you squirmed, ignoring all your complaints about boredom.

Red Haired pirates

Shanks waked out on deck to see the entire crew lounging around. The red head walked over to Lucky Roo and gently kicked his side. "What the fuck is going on, why is no one working?"

The large man merely pointed over at your form zipping from one side of the deck to the other as you swabbed the deck.

The captain cocked his head and asked, "didn't they already swab they swab the deck after breakfast?"

Lucky Roo scratched his stomach as get grumbled, "yeah, they also swabbed it before and after lunch as well."

Benn, who was leaning against one of the banisters, takes his cigarette out of his mouth and says, "you wanna take it easy there kid?"

You stopped and looked at him, sweat soaking the bandana tied around your forehead to keep your hair back, you shake your head, "but I'm almost finished, plus I have to earn my keep." You used this brief respite to ring out the mop in the bucket.

Hongou clicked his tongue in disapproval, and a growled rumbled out of his chest, "You've worked nonstop over the last three days, only taking breaks to eat, sleep, and bathe. Working so much isn't good for you."

"But~"

Shanks waved his hand dismissively and flatly stated, "you've done plenty of work for today, go rest. We can't have you working yourself to the bone, all the time, it'll make us look bad if our land lubber rookie is more active in ship upkeep than us. No matter how cute they are to watch having the cleaning zoomies."

Yassop who appeared to be napping, cracked an eye open to glower at you, as he grumbles, "yeah, all the chores you've done in the last three days, is all the usual housekeeping that we do as a crew over a course of two weeks, actually."

The realization you might be over doing it crashed into you like a wave. You pulled off your bandana and rung it between your hands, "okay, sorry, it's just I need to be doing something, or I'll go nuts."

Shanks ogles you and purrs, "well, how about you do me instead?"

Benn karate chops the top of Shanks' head and grouses, "if anyone on this ship needs to get laid it's me, since I have to deal with all of you dumbasses."

Beast Pirates

You looked around, it was a quiet afternoon, one of many on Onigshima. Most of the core crew had gathered in one of the large banquet halls, to lounge and enjoy the breezy autumn afternoon. Kaido was sprawled out on the floor, drinking sake and snacks. Maria was snuggled up to Kaido, resting her head gently on his chest. Yamato, Ulti and Page one were reading comic books on the floor, and sharing a bag of chips. Sasaki and Who's Who were sitting on the floor playing shogi and drinking. Queen was tinkering with his prosthetic arm, his tools softly clicking against one another. Jack sat in the corner whittling. While King lounged on his back up in the rafters as he napped, the crackling fire on his back that usually filled the silence to a comfortable level for you, was out, so he didn't burn the wood

Despite the peace and tranquility of the room you felt like time was moving painfully slow, and the unfamiliar silence made your ears ring.

As the silence dragged on, you grew more uncomfortable and restless. After a few minutes of constantly shifting around, King sat up and snapped, "would you sit still!"

You whined, "I'm sorry," flopping unceremoniously onto your back. After a few minutes you rolled into your side and asked, "is there any news or~"

Kaido rumbled, "News comes with the paper, which comes in the morning, like it does every day."

Queen took a long drag of his cigar and mused, "I wonder what has got you so antsy, perhaps it's a crush?"

Everyone in the room turned their attention to you, interested to seed if you did indeed have a crush. You shook your head and explained you were just adjusting from our fast past-paced information stream and constant stimuli bombardment to one newspaper a week with important news on it sometimes, and life on a sleepy pirate island. By the end you sighed, "I am just not used to living in boring times, I'm used to knowing world changing events within five minutes of them happening."

King stretched his wings and sighed, "well, that explains why you keep asking about the news, and for stuff to do. But that doesn't explain why you seem afraid of silence."

You hummed thoughtfully, "It's like I'm experiencing silence and tranquility for the first time, because there's always noise, be it from machines, or nature. And it's unfamiliar enough my brain is just like" and you mimic the noises and body language of an angry monkey. Before continuing, "that, and it makes my tinnitus like three times worst, so it's just a constant high-pitched ringing in my ears, which hurts."

Most pirates have tinnitus from the constant gun fire and howling wind. So some of them nodded in empathy. King muttered, "Sometimes I forget you're from a different world, until to do weird shit like that, but I hate that I’m used to it enough that I understand your prattling nonsense."

You puffed out your cheeks, "Well if you'd light your fire again, there'd be enough noise for me to be comfortable."

Queen shrieked, "I asked you a question, will you please answer it!"

Ignoring him, you and King carried on your conversation. King asked, "oh so this is my fault?"

You shook your head and admitted, "no, it's just it helps fill the void, and it's rather calming." Which made King flustered enough he didn't respond, and he looked away from you.

Queen looked between the two of you, realizing what King's body language was saying what he refused to say. Before the round man cackled, "oh my god, you two have a crush on one another."

King swiftly turned on the man, and tackled him to the ground while adamantly denying that he had feelings for you. The tussle resulted in the shogi board being launched against the room, the bag of chips crushed, a bottle of alcohol to spill onto Maria's lap, and an all out brawl.

Kidd Pirates

Kidd rubbed his stomach, drowsy from the large break just ate, and looked at the clock and groaned, "balls, it's time for morning roulette." It was practically tradition that the crew took a thirty-minute break after a meal before starting their chores. There were tasks people volunteered to do routinely, but there were certain tasks that no one wanted to do. So what the crew decided a roulette wheel with everyone's names on it, was the least problematic way to pick who has to do the undesirable tasks. There was even a semi-elaborate ritual they did in order to make sure the wheel wasn't tampered with that involved everyone gathering and taking turns doing a series of checks of the moving pieces.

Killer, who was nominated by the crew to keep the keys two the closet where the wheel was stored, nodded his head and went to go get the wheel. As the wheel was being set up, Eustass noticed you were watching with particular rapt attention. From what you'd told him of the diversity of your old life back in your world, he only assumed your interested was because this was new to you. Kidd slapped his brawny hand on your shoulder and boomed, "you look like you've never seen a roulette wheel," and shook you playfully.

Kidd was shocked when you turned your attention to him and admitted, "no, we used them at school festivals for games like the cakewalk. I just have never seen it done so thoroughly. I figure it's to make sure it's not tampered with?" Kidd nodded, and you hummed, thoughtfully, "I admittedly was trying ways to figure out how to rig it in a way that gets around the inspections."

The crew stopped their examination, to glare over at you. You held up your hands and promised, "Not to cheat, but to come up with more inspections."

Wire sauntered over and engulfed your skull in his hand, and warned, "do not futz with the wheel."

As you nodded in his grasp, Killer chuffed, "you better not, also saying that out loud is a good way to get framed by someone trying to rig it?" His blond hair dancing along his back as he shook his head in disbelief.

That night, as you headed to join the crew for dinner, you noticed everyone was inside the galley already, and that their precious wheel was left attended out on deck. You grinned as the most wonderful and irresistible idea took root in your head.

Kidd took the plate of pasta that Killer made for dinner, and turned to go sit down. As he looked for a spot a very sharp and familiar rapid clicking from out on deck pierced the quiet hum in the room. While The red haired man thought nothing of it, Killer asked, "where's (y/n)?"

When everyone connected the dots, many of them raced to the door, and threw it open, expecting to catch you red-handed. Only to be met with your figure fully illuminated in the moon light, standing an arm's length away from the wheel, gently spinning the wheel with an outstretched finger. As they stared at you, trying to figure out what they were looking at, you let out a dark chuckled, "hehehe, If I cannot find problems, I will make them..." making them realize you were fucking with them.

Killer snapped, "why are you like this!"

"I dunno, I'm bored."

Killer momentarily took a few deep breaths to calm himself, before he gritted out, "if you're bored, there's plenty of work to be done."

You shrugged, "I don't wanna, besides tormenting you is so much more fun," and walked over towards them.

Kidd's eye twitched as stopped you, threw you over his shoulder, carried you into the galley, and roughly dropped you into a chair. "Sit," he ordered, pointing down at you, before he wandered over and handed you a plate of food. "Eat, and stop causing problems."

As the captain walked over to his second in command, you exclaim, "how about we play a different kind of roulette!" And you pull out an unloaded revolver from the back of your trousers. Killer quickly brings his fist down on your head, and pulls the revolver out of your hand and replaces it with a dart gun.

Kidd pointed a finger at you and bellowed, "that's it, you're sorting the scrap in my workroom, so I can keep an eye on you."

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corazondebeskar-reads · 3 months

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live to rise - chapter one

live to rise series

one: they'll find you, burn you

series masterlist | next chapter

gladiator!Din Djarin x f!reader

word count: 3.7k

summary: The Last of the Mandalorians have fallen; their Mand'alor captured. Stripped of his armor, his weapons, his people. Din rises to fight another day, grasping onto the hope that his son still lives.

No fighter has won their freedom from the Empire's arena before. With the help of a servant girl, can he hope to break free?

warnings: dark, dead dove do not eat, captivity, forced proximity, canon-typical violence, genre-typical violence, prisoner of war, indentured servitude, fight to the death, au where the empire wins, discussions of genocide, discussions of war, graphic descriptions of violence, graphic descriptions of injuries, gore, brutality, religious themes, fictional religion, mand'alor!Din Djarin, major character deaths, many minor character deaths, Din has hearing loss, angst by the bucket, Din Djarin takes the helmet off (kind of)

Please heed the warnings. There will be major & minor character deaths in almost every chapter. This is not a happy story, but I hope you find it worthwhile anyway.

also on ao3

dividers by @saradika-graphics

It’s morning when the news breaks.

By lunch, datapads are discarded in favor of gossip. It’s as useless as the Imperial rags parading as official broadcasts—all speculation and slander.

While the details of the Mandalorians’ final stand for their homeworld circulate above, the stiff air of the lower complex is thick with the question: to whose barracks will the fallen king be assigned?

You know the answer. Your datapad had pinged early, much before your day should have begun. Much before the news went live across the galaxy.

Cell C-5 had been scrubbed clean on your perennially bruised knees the day before when Dup, a young Gungan whose face was bruised as if he’d already gone a round, had failed to return from the arena.

He had been brought in late the previous night, shaking and weeping and not speaking a lick of Basic. Those were the hardest. There was no comfort, no preparation, no honor you could give them.

He didn’t return after his first battle.

It was the way of things. Many never saw a second sunrise.

As caretaker for Barrack Cresh, whether your fighters eat, drink, bathe, get medical attention and fresh clothing, or, well, anything, falls on you.

So you stocked C-5 with the basics, but the Mandalorian King’s file is barren when your clearance arrives. You bristle at the lack of biodata. How are you supposed to provide proper clothing or order his dinner?

It becomes obvious when he arrives that evening.

You’re not.

It’s past curfew when they bring him in, and normally, you’d be in bed. But one of yours had come back a few minutes earlier from the medbay and you know the state they usually return in, so you’re in C-2 with the door shut.

The ex-Rebel pilot, Gino, doesn’t argue as you dab the shallow cuts on his face with an alcohol swab, but he does flinch when you tug the split skin on his calf together like a stubborn bedsheet to apply suture tape. They had used just enough bacta for his serious injuries and left the rest to bleed.

“Sorry,” you hiss, but it’s lost in the pneumatics of the door.

Gino is on his feet immediately, shushing you with a finger to his lips. You can’t risk being seen through the little window, so he minds your space as you flatten to the ground and peek through the delivery slot.

At first, all you can see are boots. So many boots. And among the shiny black rubber is the oddest pair of worn brown leather. It’s been so long since you saw anyone in shoes but the guards; your stomach churns with fear.

Gino taps at your head, and you let him help you up to peek once they’re past the cell.

It’s the Mandalorian. There are five of the Moff’s personal guards in their black kits restraining him, and they still have to jab him with an electrostave in order to shut the cell door fast enough.

He’s snarling, the modulator of his helmet warping and crackling the terrible cacophony. He’s also huge, and the strip of lights shines off his dark armor like someone took a handful of the night sky and smudged it across the wall of the cell.

You brush away the errant question of how much of his bulk is the armor and how much he comes by naturally. You’ll find out tomorrow, like everyone else.

The hype alone ensures a sold-out arena. The officers and their simpering spouses and sycophants are salivating for the battle—or at least for the profits.

The headlines fill seats to a swarming mass, everyone vying to see the latest and shiniest trophy.

He won’t be shiny for long.

Not after they strip away the beskar that protects one of—if not the last of—the “galaxy’s greatest warriors” and see if he’s worth anything underneath.

They don’t expect him to survive. They don’t want him to, really. They want to crush the will of any who would still defy the Empire. A very public, humiliating execution is the Moff’s wet dream.

The Mandalorian is gone before your morning rounds, dragged up to the arena’s cage to watch his fate play out on the faces of others. Either end is the same, really.

And if he survives, it won’t matter. Sure, prisoners can earn their freedom through a percentage of the money they bring in from wagers, or they can die trying.

But no fighter has made it out alive. Not even close.

You’re close, though. Not that you’re in an arena contract. But you’re nearing the end of the third year in a five-year indentured servitude sentence, and it carries a lower fatality rate.

Which isn’t saying much, really. It would be hard to have a higher fatality rate than the fighters.

There are twelve of you and ten barracks, not counting the fluctuating number of sponsored champions who have private accommodations.

Sixty standard fighters, never more or less as the sun rises.

Sometimes, you return to six empty cells.

Only once have you found your flock all home. You fell to your knees and cried right then, bringing acrid dread to a boil as you knew it would never, ever happen again.

Just three days ago, Din Djarin had stood in the grand hall at Keldabe, knowing it would be the last time.

It was still. Silent. Not yet in the chaos of war, but just on the edge, as when rainfall is a distant specter and the uneasiness cloisters in your lungs.

He takes in the art behind the throne with quiet reverence, eyes following the sharp lines and bold colors, the stories of their ancestors dutifully and beautifully eternalized.

The shame creeps up his neck again, but he shrugs it off. It will work. He’s known for his tight and effective strategy, and his advisors had agreed to the plan.

He only hoped the Ka’ra would accept his soul into the Manda all the same. That the blood of his brethren wouldn’t deny him the peace that he ached for.

He thinks once more of Grogu, breathes through the pain, and then clears his mind.

Turning from the throne, he strides to the grand windows—to Paz. With hands clasped behind his back, he follows his general’s focus to the TIE fighters breaking through the atmosphere.

Troopers are within the walls. The Destroyers won’t be long, now.

“Vod,” Din begins, angling toward Paz.

“Do not deal me the insult of an out,” Paz snaps.

“I would never,” Din says, throat cinching around the words. “It’s an honor to have you at my side.”

Paz dips his head. “It’s been an honor to serve with you, ner Mand’alor.”

Din knows he speaks true. Though they may not have always gotten along, they were still vod. Still loyal, until death.

Death they now stood on the brink of.

Outside, the fleet falls fast. Din grimaces as their ships careen to the surface and crush the city into crumbs. Fire spreads, and he has to pretend the homes are empty. That everyone got out in time.

The Empire assumes each Kom’rk-class fighter is full of Mandalorians waiting to drop into battle. They target them with glee, thinking they’ve devastated the sky and ground teams in one fell swoop.

But each ship has only a pilot. A pilot who climbed into the cockpit knowing they would certainly die. Willing to take the place of their vod.

Mando’ad draar digu. They will live on in him until he draws his last. More importantly, they will live on in their families, who—if he’s done anything right—will live far beyond him.

“Par Manda’yaim,” Din says.

“Par Manda’yaim,” Paz echoes.

They are to be the last words spoken to one another.

Inside the palace, the fight leaves no breath for such things. Not that they need it; their movements are fluid and equal.

It takes half the platoon to take Paz down and the other to take Din.

Unlike his vod, they do not grant him a warrior’s death.

In the arena, they’ve left him in the armor as he paces the cage. Every moment with it spurns the barb deeper in his gut, the terror turning terrifying as his rage becomes a tsunami.

The fights are nothing. The Imps who thought he’d be intimidated by them have clearly never seen an average Mandalorian brawl. These ended with a little more finality and a little less bickering over the winner, but the actual fighting? Mostly pathetic.

He doesn’t look upon them with scorn, though. These are beings stripped of all dignity, underfed, and devoid of hope. The Empire has ground them into the dirt beneath their glossy boots, and he expects that for many, death is a kindness.

In the end, he lets them take the beskar’gam from his bound body. They hold him, scanners at the ready, the whole of the galaxy waiting to witness his final defeat in real time. The giddy grins tell him what he already knows—they are certain this will break him.

He holds eye contact with Gideon just to see the shock that strikes him at Din’s defiance. He aches to smirk or snarl or sink his teeth into the man, but he won’t give him the satisfaction.

They don’t give them weapons for this fight. At least they’re being honest about their intentions.

Hand-to-hand combat with a Wookie should be a death sentence. Should be, for a lesser being. But the Mand’alor is far sharper than their blades could ever hope to be, and he wields his mind and body as expertly as he would a blaster.

Din doesn’t speak Shyriiwook. He wishes he did, for when he asks his opponent for their name, he fails to capture the response. It slips from his grasp, slick as his hands are from the Wookie’s blood.

Bare hands that have rarely dealt such tangible death. Dust stirred up from the struggle sticks to the thick, hot carnage. He’ll feel the give of the Wookie’s eyeballs under his thumbnails for days. The crack of his skull under Din’s knee, driven like a wedge into the soft cartilage, is at least slightly more familiar.

It’s not a long fight. After all, Din has something of which his opponent has long been deprived: something to live for.

The Mandalorian isn’t back by dinner drop-off, but your captain sent the cart loaded with a tray for him, so you dutifully set it on his cot atop the folded blanket.

There’s been no clean-up call, and the roster is empty. But you don’t have to wonder over his whereabouts for long.

In the servants' barracks—which are actually barracks and not a soft word for cellblocks—the reports are already underway.

Some of the attendants get to watch the fights. Or, rather, they have to, bound as they are to a single combatant. The mandated proximity is unforgiving, and no one likes to watch.

After all, there’s very little difference between you and the fighters. Instead, the attendants take on the solemn duty of letting the rest of you know how your residents fared or fell.

“He was a berserker,” Hali says in hushed whispers. “They took all that armor off, and he just looked like a man. A pretty man, but… just a man. But when it started, he moved so fast. It was over in, like, two minutes.”

“Shut up,” says Eli, your bunkmate. “He did not take down a Wookie in two minutes.”

“No, he really kriffing did,” hissed one of the new attendants whose name you hadn’t caught. “It was brutal. The whole arena went quiet. And he just stood there, covered in blood, looking at the crowd.”

“Okay, whose block is he in?” Eli demands. “Someone needs to spill now.”

“Mine,” you say quietly.

“You haven’t said a kriffing word this whole time? What’s he like?”

“I don’t know,” you confess. “I only saw when they brought him in last night. He was still armored. And terrifying.”

“I saw him,” Hali says. “He was in the lounge.”

“They took him to the lounge after his first fight?” you say, jaw hanging open. The after-party was a grotesque performance, with sponsored fighters forced to smile pretty and play nice with their benefactors after a victory.

“No,” Hali’s face is grave. “They displayed him. They’ve chained him up next to his armor.”

You cover your mouth to stem the nausea. “No,” you hiss through your fingers. The disrespect hurts, raking through like a nexu claw to the chest, and you don’t even know the man.

Eli sets a hand on your knee from where he sits cross-legged beside you on the bottom bunk. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“I know,” you say. But he knows you, sees it written between your brows, and hears it in the crack of your voice.

It’s a weakness; you know it. It had been a strength back home. Every single being that passes through your barrack doesn’t have long. The small hall of cells is a port, and you are the ferryman. Knowing each of them for the last scant moments has only made you love harder and faster.

To try and ease a soul’s journey is a burden you have always chosen to bear.

Come morning, sure as the stars, your cells are full. The Mandalorian is not the only new face—there’s a humanoid woman in C-1, too. The Klatoonian had been gone before the noon bell prior, and his cell cleaned by your hands within the hour after. Ovesu had survived four battles over ten days, but no trace of him remains now.

You start with her, Reen Sala of Drall. She’s on the roster for early afternoon, and you want to make sure she’s got food in her.

You tell her as much.

“Today? Already?” She wraps her fingers around the window bars, peering at you.

“Yes,” you say solemnly, sliding the tray through the slit at the bottom of the door. “Eat quickly. They’ll be coming to get you any minute. They’re going to take you up and prepare you and make you watch the day’s first battles.”

She has a steadiness to her eyes and stock to her build, just enough to have a chance. When she begins to eat, her hands only shake slightly.

“Are you a farmer?” you ask, watching her broken, stubby fingernails wrap around the metal cup of water.

She nods, gulping down quickly to add, “Mostly grains. Eggs. Basics.”

You give her a wan smile, the image of her in a sun-soaked field behind your eyes. It would have to be enough. If she held on, maybe she could fill in the picture.

“Thought so. Me too. My parents have a grove on Hetzal,” you say.

You chat for a few minutes, exchanging tales of her chasing tipyip and you sneaking honeyfruit and shuula during harvest.

“Good luck,” you murmur when you finally step away.

You don’t linger with Disdraa, the Twi’lek in C-3. She took a nasty blow to the head yesterday, so you slide her tray in as quietly as possible, hoping she’ll steal some extra rest.

Which brings you to the Mandalorian. He has no other name in your database. A mistake, you wonder, or an erasure?

When you knock on his door, you keep your eyes downcast. The decision you made in the lift was impulsive, but clear. He will have this respect here, if nowhere else.

“Good morning,” you say.

It’s silent.

You slide the tray under the door. “Do you need anything?”

Nothing.

“Okay, I’ll be back this evening if you think of something.”

Din rolls his eyes in the dark room. Does the quiet, simpering little act really work on the other prisoners? He vaguely considers rejecting the tray just to irritate you.

But he’s a Mandalorian. He doesn’t give in to petty spite when survival is on the line. He has battles to win and to do so, he must eat.

The food is bland but nutritionally complex, so if he keeps up a routine, he should be able to maintain his strength. He’s already run through and decided the optimal calisthenics and body weight routines he can do in the confines of his quarters.

He’s not stupid enough to think all the fights will be so quick or easy. The only benefit, and he’s unwilling to call it that, of not having his armor is that he’s so much faster.

He’ll get out.

He has a promise to keep.

When the Death Star fell three years ago, it took nearly the entire Rebel Alliance with it. The rest were scattered in the ash. And when the Empire barely flinched, the Mandalorians knew their time was running out.

With one loss notched on their belt already, they would have to strike swift and sure.

And so Din’s life as the rebel liaison began.

When he went to Gideon’s cruiser, he had no backup. Technically, no one even knew where he was. But espionage and false diplomacy took too long, purged time they did not have. And he wasn’t going to get another chance to try.

He lost the intel in the skirmish but gained a sword he knew not how to wield, a title he knew not how to bear, and a son he knew not how to raise.

The guards come for Reen, forcing you to finish your deliveries in a tense, silent two minutes.

She doesn’t come back. You paint her picture that night while her soft face and sun-streaked sangria widow’s peak are still fresh in your mind. It, as with most of your books, is stained with errant tears.

Eli had convinced you to keep the ones you ruined with grief, when you first began, desperate not to forget.

“It’s just more proof they were alive if they were also mourned,” he said, flipping reverently through the pages.

It goes against the practice, but it’s not even the most egregious way you’ve had to compromise, so you let it go. This is not the Hall. You have no easels, no canvas, no priestess.

You wonder who’s taken over your space, who they plucked from the apprentices to take over the memorials.

The pictures are small, stacked across the page like a quilt. Most of them have a name, maybe an age, maybe a planet, inked into the corners.

It's certainly not the scale you’re accustomed to, and your colors are limited to the pigments you can press from your dinner, unblessed and unpurified, but you make do.

You never paint them while they still live, not wanting to tether their souls to the pages while they have a chance. But they are yours, and so you will take the burden of remembering from their souls.

“Tray, please,” you say after knocking on the Mandalorian’s door that evening. He’s slow to respond, but you don’t mind. It’ll be a bit before he gets accustomed to the routine, if he makes it that long.

Most don’t.

It grates against the floor when he kicks it out, and you exchange it for the full tray of dinner.

“Do you need anything?”

Silence.

“Okay, have a good night.”

You don’t have hurt feelings. It’s the way of things. Some of the beings who come through never speak a word to you. It doesn’t change your loyalty or your duties.

Din is determined to puzzle you out. Why the farce? Everyone else he’s encountered is open in their disgust and amusement. He’s a novelty, a prize, a disgrace. What purpose does your feigned care serve?

“—dining with us tonight?” calls the inmate to his right in C-3.

You make a show of rolling your eyes, taking the last two trays from the cart. You slide one to the Twi’lek who had spoken.

“Depends. Are you going to behave?” you say.

“I always behave,” the fighter lies.

You seem to laugh, just a silent huff of amusement, and sit down with your back against the wall between the two cells.

He can’t see you from here, but he can hear snippets of you making light conversation between bites.

Something you say gets a lighthearted rise from the Devaronian in C-4 across the hall.

“Old? You want to talk about being old?” he booms.

C-3 groans. “Don’t get him started, come on.”

You laugh. “—else to bitch about. I’m saving— trouble.”

“…that I should suffer your disrespect,” C-4 is trying to say over you.

“Yeah, yeah, Vrar, you’re a terrifying grumpy—,” you tease.

A pause. A murky mumble from C-2.

“—you, Mandalorian? How old—?” You ask, tearing a chunk off your bread roll and popping it in your mouth.

He doesn’t answer.

After you leave, it grows quiet. A few moments pass, as if he was just waiting for you to get out of hearing range, before Vrar speaks up.

“Mando. You holding up? Any injuries?”

Din sits silently on his cot, leaning against the wall.

“Alright, I get it. You don’t have to talk to me. But can you be more respectful to the girl?”

If it’s bait, it works. “I don’t make a habit of being respectful to my captors.”

To his surprise, Vrar barks a hearty laugh. “Is that what you think? She’s a slave, Mando, same as the rest of us.”

Din feels hot guilt rise in his throat. “My mistake. I’ll do better.”

Vrar grunts his approval, and that’s that.

The next morning, when you ask if he needs anything, he tells you, “No, thank you,” in a soft but sure tone.

You straighten a little abruptly and try not to look shocked. “Okay. Good luck today,” you say, and move on. You’re pretty sure if you draw attention to it, he’ll never speak again.

You aren’t privy to the way things operate up top. All you know is that they take your fighters randomly, with at least one day between as a rest. Sometimes, it’s longer between fights.

But not for Mando. For the next two weeks, it’s every other day like clockwork. They’re capitalizing on his novelty, you think, but also hoping to wear him down.

Rumors tell you he’s become a quick crowd favorite. It should mean he has a shot at earning his freedom, but rumors also tell you he has the highest price on record.

They don’t want him free, and they don’t want someone to buy him.

No, they want him to die in the arena.

next chapter

thank you so much for reading! i live for your feedback, and i'm not above begging so if you have any thoughts pls let me know

*title from "Get Out Alive" by Three Days Grace

#din djarin x reader #the mandalorian x reader #mando x reader #the mandalorian fic #gladiator!din #the mandalorian x you #mando x you #din djarin x you #fic: live to rise

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shion-yu · 2 months

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A Safe Place (part 3) [day 18]

A feverish Cliff is seen in the emergency room. For @monthofsick Day 18 “Unfamiliar surroundings”. 2,965 words, original work, TWs emeto, hospital content.

Part 1 | Part 2 - I swear this was supposed to be 2 parts but now it’s gonna be 4? Lol whoops.

Elliot supported Cliff into the busy ER. It was a Saturday, of course there were a lot of people there, Elliot thought regretfully. Silly to hope otherwise. Elliot eased Cliff into a seat as close to the reception desk as possible and then checked Cliff in, presenting Cliff’s ID and health insurance card. He was grateful Cliff’s wallet and phone were the two things his boyfriend had actually brought with him when he left his parents’ house, although a jacket and his inhaler would have been useful third and fourth choices.

“What’s this visit for?” The receptionist asked after scanning the cards and handing them back to Elliot.

“My boyfriend is having trouble breathing,” Elliot said, hoping this concerned her as much as it concerned him. “He has asthma, he’s wheezing, and he has a high fever. He didn’t know who I was earlier.”

The receptionist stood up a little to catch a glimpse of Cliff in his seat, who did look like he was struggling. “Okay, we’ll get him triaged as soon as possible,” the receptionist said. Elliot chose to believe her for his own sanity’s sake. “In the meantime, have him wear a mask.”

Cliff sagged against Elliot when Elliot sat next to him. He was in no shape to do paperwork, so Elliot tried to fill it out as much as he could. Fifteen minutes passed. Cliff was whimpering in pain and his wheeze had grown louder. “Just a few more minutes, Cliffy,” Elliot said, hoping it wasn’t a lie. Thirty minutes passed. Cliff was now insisting he was fine after all, and that they ought to go home. But that was when he was lucid, which would last only a minute before he’d follow up by saying something that made very little sense and reminded Elliot exactly why they couldn’t leave. Finally, about forty minutes after they’d checked in, a nurse called Cliff’s name and brought them to a small room between the waiting room and the actual ER. Elliot repeated the story he’d given the receptionist although more aggressively this time as the nurse nodded and took Cliff’s vitals.

Elliot never wanted Cliff to be so sick. However, his vitals did prompt some action and for that Elliot was grateful. Cliff’s fever was 103.5 now, his oxygen running lower than expected at 92%, and his heart rate and blood pressure were both high. The nurse led them to a stretcher in a curtained off bay and told Cliff to change into a gown. Elliot had to help Cliff climb up, his boyfriend’s coordination poor. His hands were shaking too hard to button his own gown up, so Elliot did it for him.

“Don’t feel good,” Cliff mumbled, swaying even as he sat up on the stretcher.

“I know, just lie back,” Elliot said. “They’re gonna help you.”

Thankfully, this time they only waited about ten minutes before a new nurse came in with a small bucket full of supplies. She introduced herself as Anna and said she was going to insert an IV, take some blood, and hook Cliff up to oxygen and fluids. She was also going to swab Cliff for flu and strep, but Elliot explained the urgent care had already done that. “Well, this tests for some other stuff too, it’s a full respiratory panel. I’d recommend we just do it anyways.” Elliot agreed on Cliff’s behalf; Cliff seemed to be communicating only in nods at this point.

Nurse Anna looped some oxygen tubing over Cliff’s ears first and plugged it into the wall. She also attached a blood pressure cuff and oxygen probe that she said would stay on for now for monitoring. Elliot felt like all the devices only made Cliff look sicker. Anna swabbed Cliff’s nose, which made him cough harshly to the point of gagging, and then got ready to insert an IV.

Cliff looked to Elliot in panic, swallowing rapidly. ‘Faint,’ he mouthed to Elliot helplessly. “Um, I think he passes out when there’s needles,” Elliot spoke up for him. Cliff nodded gratefully.

“Well you’re in the right place if you do,” Nurse Anna said. She lowered the head of the stretcher and told Elliot to hold Cliff’s hand as she looked for a vein in his other arm. “I’ll go super quick,” she reassured them, and she was right. It was quick. But Cliff turned sheet white and got really sweaty and by the time she’d collected enough tubes of blood, flushed and secured the hub and hooked him up to a bag of fluids, Cliff was barely conscious. “Don’t worry, it happens,” she said. She put a pillow under Cliff’s legs and told him to breathe deeply through his nose. Elliot found her calm demeanor the only thing keeping him calm, because it seemed terrifying even if it was normal. Cliff followed her directions and eventually gained some color back. Anna said his blood pressure was coming back up and that he should just lie there with his feet up for a few more minutes, then left the room.

“I’m sorry,” Cliff apologized miserably for the tenth time since they’d come back here.

“Baby, please, stop apologizing,” Elliot told him. “You’re here because you have to be and you’re not doing anything bad or wrong. Just rest.”

Cliff’s eyes filled with tears and he covered them with his forearm. “I suck,” he whimpered, Elliot’s words clearly not having reached him as intended. Elliot sighed and put one hand on Cliff’s head to stroke his sweaty hair. It wasn’t worth fighting Cliff on this right now. Elliot just had to be there for him.

Cliff fell asleep to Elliot’s relief. Elliot texted his mom what was going on and hoped this wasn’t as bad as it felt. Cliff snored quietly until a woman came with a huge portable x-ray machine. “Sorry to wake you up,” she said, “Cliff? I’m here to get your x-ray. I’ll go fast.”

Cliff opened his eyes and stared blankly at her. Elliot wasn’t sure if Cliff knew what was going on at this point so he stroked Cliff’s arms and explained, “Cliff? She’s gonna take the pictures of your lungs now.” He helped the x-ray tech manipulate Cliff’s torso so that he was lying on a hard board. Elliot stood in the doorway while they did the films.

“Alright, take a nice deep breath for me and hold it,” the x-ray tech said. “I know, good job, got it. You can cough.” And cough Cliff did, that same desperate wet cough that had made Elliot’s mind up to bring him here. He managed to catch his breath, but it wasn’t over. “One more,” the tech said, moving the boards and machine around to point at Cliff’s side now. “Again. Deep breath. One, two, and good. Let it out.”

This time Cliff didn’t seem able to stop coughing. He coughed until each gasp sounded like a Herculean struggle and Elliot wasn’t sure that any of that air he was gulping in was actually reaching his lungs. The machine that was measuring Cliff’s oxygen levels started to beep and the tech told Elliot she was going to find the nurse. Elliot held on to Cliff and tried to soothe him, but it didn’t seem to work. Cliff just kept coughing until suddenly his eyes flew open and he spewed a sharp wave of vomit from his mouth all the way to the end of the stretcher. Elliot winced, pulling back and trying not to look at the mess. Cliff spluttered and coughed between additional harsh gags that produced little besides a stream of thick brown saliva that pooled in his lap. Elliot prayed the nurse would come in soon and hesitantly rubbed Cliff’s back. He didn’t know what to do and Cliff seemed frozen, unable to lift his head or close his mouth.

Thankfully the nurse showed up then and said, “Oh no!” Oh no was right, Elliot thought anxiously. “Did we just get coughing too hard?” She glanced at Cliff's oxygen levels and turned a small green dial on the wall, which made a quiet hissing noise for a second as the flow of oxygen increased. “Don’t worry hun, we’re going to get you cleaned up.” She found a change of sheets in one of the cupboards behind the stretcher and changed the blankets and top sheet in record time. She checked Cliff’s fluids which were nearly done and then charted standing in the room for a few minutes on her rolling computer.

Cliff was silent, hunched over holding a pink plastic basin in his lap in case of another incident, and Elliot couldn’t tell if he was just out of it or humiliated. The room still smelled of putrid stomach acid; Elliot breathed through his mouth. His phone dinged in his pocket and he saw an alarmed text from his mother. He didn’t have time to reply though, as the doctor walked in at that moment.

“Doctor Jim,” Anna greeted him politely, scooting her computer farther away from the bedside. “He just threw up coughing and I turned up his oxygen.”

“I’m not surprised,” Dr. Jim said. He looked to be in about his forties, was mostly bald and had tiny round glasses that looked too small for his face. “Cliff? I’m Jim, I’m a physician here. How are you doing today?”

Elliot thought that was a stupid question. Cliff looked at Dr. Jim with hazy eyes and mumbled, “Sick.”

“Well, that makes sense. You’ve got yourself a nasty case of double pneumonia,” Dr. Jim said. Elliot’s heart sank. “Has this ever happened to you before?”

Cliff shook his head no. He moved his hand to the edge of the bed that Elliot understood as a silent signal to hold it, which he did. “Well, I think it’s best if we admit you for observation overnight with the vitals you have. I’m going to order two IV antibiotics and some steroids, try and get that swelling down in your lungs and hopefully you’ll be feeling better in no time. How’s that sound?”

Cliff didn’t answer. “That sounds fine,” Elliot said, squeezing Cliff’s hand. “Can I stay with him?”

“Once we move him to the floor, visiting hours are eight to eight,” Dr. Jim said. “But you can stay with him for as long as he’s in the ER.” He turned to Anna and gave a few other orders for Zofran, Tylenol, albuterol and budesonide treatments. It all seemed so casual to them, but Elliot was still disturbed by how sick Cliff looked and seemed to him.

Dr. Jim physically examined Cliff next. Cliff shuddered and Dr. Jim apologized for his cold hands, but Elliot knew that the temperature hadn’t had anything to do with it. He hummed a lot, wrote down some notes, and then left with a “Hope you feel better soon.” Elliot wondered if he told all his patients that, or just the ones who could actually get better soon. Nurse Anna also excused herself to get the ordered medications, leaving Elliot alone with Cliff once again.

“So… pneumonia. That sounds pretty bad,” Elliot said. “Why didn’t you tell me you felt so sick?”

“You were at work. I didn’t want to bother you,” Cliff said in a tiny voice. “And then I tried to text you but none of the letters in my phone made sense.”

Elliot felt his chest clench painfully hearing that. “Cliff, you wouldn’t have bothered me.”

“But I’m bothering you now,” Cliff whimpered.

Elliot frowned. “I didn’t say that.” Silence from Cliff. Elliot sighed and grasped Cliff’s hand in his own. “Cliff, Cliffy, can you look at me?” It took a second, but fever-bright, hazel eyes eventually focused on Elliot. “You’re my boyfriend. I want you to be okay. Can you at least try to trust me?”

“I do trust you,” Cliff whispered, voice hurt.

“Then let me care about you.”

Cliff fell quiet again and Elliot sat back but kept Cliff’s hand in his. Cliff had his eyes closed, but it didn’t do much to hide the tears that escaped from the corners of them. Elliot didn’t say anything, just brushed them off of Cliff’s cheeks with his sleeve. Once Cliff was asleep, Elliot finally allowed his own silent tears to fall.

Eventually a CNA came to bring Cliff down to the short-stay unit. She rolled Cliff’s stretcher down the hall and into an elevator. Cliff looked nervous and kept glancing at Elliot, making sure he was still right next to him. Elliot always was. They got to a small room that had a real hospital bed in it and the CNA and Elliot both helped Cliff take two steps from the stretcher onto the bed. It was painful for Elliot to see how difficult even this brief transfer was for Cliff, and Cliff started another one of his long coughing spasms afterwards. Elliot rubbed Cliff’s arm, unsure what else he could possibly do to help. “Water,” Cliff croaked hoarsely between deep, rattling coughs.

“Sure. Um…” Elliot looked around him but this room was barely more than an ER bay. It didn’t even have windows. “Let me go check,” he said, and went to go look for the nurse’s station. There were two tired and rather bored looking, middle aged women sitting at computers at the end of the hall. “Excuse me? My boyfriend just got here and he could use some water…”

“I’m almost there,” one of the nurses said, which Elliot thought was a weird thing to say when she very much wasn’t almost there. Regardless, they didn’t seem to like him hovering very much so Elliot went back to Cliff’s room. There was nowhere for him to sit, so he stood at the bedside. Cliff had managed to stop coughing at least.

The nurse, despite her indifferent demeanor, did show up with a little bin that contained hospital socks, meds and a large plastic jug of water. “Clifford Barrows, hmm? I’m Carey. And you are…?” She raised an eyebrow at Elliot.

Suddenly feeling extra protective, Elliot quickly said, “His boyfriend.”

“Alright. Mr. Barrows, are you okay to have Elliot in here?”

Cliff nodded a yes. Elliot thought it was so weird to hear Cliff called by his last name. They seemed too young for that.

“Well, your boyfriend will have to leave after I finish this admission paperwork as visiting hours are over soon, but remind me to get you a chair for tomorrow,” Carey said. She started a myriad of questions, which included Cliff’s emergency contact.

“Make it Elliot,” Cliff said quickly, looking at him. “Um, will my dad know I’m here?”

“You’re eighteen, right? Not unless you tell him,” Carey said. “But I see your dad is the primary insurance holder so he may see the invoice after you’re discharged. It shouldn’t show any details though.”

Cliff grimaced but nodded. At least there would be no confrontation in the actual hospital, Elliot thought to himself. Carey kept asking questions, which ranged from did Cliff smoke to could he walk up a flight of stairs to did he have any plans to hurt himself right now. They seemed a little ridiculous to Elliot, but Cliff was able to answer all of them with simple yes’s and no’s pretty quickly since he was for the most part entirely healthy.

“You’re easy,” Carey said, winking at Cliff. “Boyfriend? Visiting hours are over now honey, so you say your goodbyes and you can come back at 8am tomorrow morning.” Elliot thought she was kind of like those old ladies at diners who yelled at you for your order but called you honey so you couldn’t feel totally attacked.

He nodded and gave Cliff a quick hug. He thought about kissing him, but Cliff didn’t like to be kissed in front of other people so he just squeezed Cliff’s hand instead. “I’ll be back in the morning,” he promised. “Get some rest and tell them if you don’t feel good, okay?”

“Okay,” Cliff said. He looked scared, so Elliot hugged him again and kissed the top of his head this time.

“I love you,” Elliot said. “I know you can be strong for me. You’ve got your phone right here.”

Elliot didn’t look back as he left, because he could feel Cliff’s kicked puppy expression trailing him and knew if he did, it would be ten times harder to leave. He walked to the parking lot without thinking, got in his car, and drove home without Cliff beside him. He made it to the park a block away from his parents’ house before he pulled over and cried for a solid ten minutes.

Cliff was going to be okay, Elliot told himself. Cliff was stronger than he seemed, and realistically Elliot couldn’t be there for him every second of the way. But he’d promised Cliff they weren’t going to the hospital, and then he promised Cliff that he’d be right there next to him the whole time. He’d broken both of these promises and now Cliff was sleeping in a hospital bed, in a tiny room with no windows and only a crotchety old lady to keep an eye on him. Elliot felt just terrible and wondered if he’d made the wrong choice dragging Cliff to the ER. All he wanted was for Cliff to be okay, though, and he really hadn’t seemed okay today.

Elliot wiped his tears away and told himself he had to be strong. This seemed so intense and adult, but Elliot couldn’t let it overwhelm him. He tried to remember the coping mechanisms his therapist had taught him back in high school. Deep breaths. One second at a time. He could do it, and so could Cliff. Elliot turned on the car and returned home by himself.

[Part 4]

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wolveria · 8 months

Text

The Raven's Hymn - Ch 39

Pairing: SCP-049 x Reader

Series Warnings: Eventual smut, dubcon, slow burn, violence, horror, death, monsters, human experiments, dark with a happy ending

CHAPTER WARNINGS: Involuntary medical procedures, humiliation, brief noncon elements via medical procedures

Chapter Summary: “Don’t do anything to antagonize him. I’ve seen what he can do, and it’s so much worse than this.”

AO3

Heaviness weighed you down, like a blanket made of lead. Your mouth was cottony and dry, and a dizzy ache cradled your skull. You blinked in discomfort as bright lights were out of focus above you, and you felt underdressed.

And your legs were bent at an odd angle. Something was wrong. You attempted to move, but a pair of hands held you down. And then two.

Dull pain shot upwards between your legs, and your eyes widened, lucidity hitting you like a bucket of water at the coldness splitting you open.

“Stop... stop... please!”

“It’ll be over soon,” a nurse said, patting you on the shoulder. “Don’t worry.”

“W-what?”

Discomfort tinged in your gut at the familiar scrap of something inside you, and you realized what was happening. It didn’t calm you.

And then it was over, the swab retracting from your uterus, the metal forceps removed from your vaginal canal, and the doctor sitting in front of your stirrups sat up on her stool.

“Here are the samples, make sure the labs get them with priority status. Mark everything else as normal.”

The nurse pulled your legs out of the stirrups, but your movements were clumsy, heavy. Despite that, you trembled, disoriented.

“What did you do to me?” you rasped over your dry tongue.

The doctor, an older woman with brunette hair in a bun, frowned at you and then gave a sympathetic smile.

“Just a simple pelvic examination and pap smear. You’ll be coming out of the sedatives soon, but they should still relax you so you don’t feel any further discomfort. It’s all right to have anxiety about medical procedures, nothing to be ashamed of.”

You had no idea what she was talking about—and then, you understood. She didn’t know you were an experiment, Leahy’s little test subject. You knew because she treated you like a person. The shock of being talked to like a human being after so long was enough for your voice to go silent.

The nurses helped you off the examination gurney and into a wheelchair, your legs still unable to support you. Your legs and feet were bare and cold, and all you wore was a flimsy light green hospital gown.

You didn’t notice when the nurse pushing your wheelchair was replaced by a guard, or when the medical sector became the thick walls of Heavy Containment. You could barely keep your head up, wanting to slip back to sleep and not think about anything.

Two guards unceremoniously pulled you from the wheelchair, supporting you by the arms and half-dragged you into a containment cell. They dumped you to the floor with just as much delicacy and left you there.

You remained in a collapsed heap, bracing your palms against the floor but barely able to lift your head. You fought against the dizziness, the dwindling adrenaline allowing the sedative to seep into your senses again.

A pair of hands touched your shoulders. You gave a pitiful cry and tried to push them off.

“Do not fret, dear one. There is no one else. Only me.”

You grabbed onto those hands like a lifeline, melting into them with the last of your strength. 049 caught you easily, crouching next to you on the ground. You pulled in close, curling into a ball and tucking your legs underneath you, seeking his natural warmth and the sense of safety he always provided.

Once you were safely ensconced against his chest, he caressed your hair and softly said, “Good. That’s very good.”

He slipped his arms under your knees and back, lifting you easily as he stood straight, and 049 carried you into the inner containment room. As soon as you felt the bed underneath, you panicked.

049 stilled your movements, easily done with your lack of strength, but he was gentle, one hand brushing the hair from your face.

“I know what this bed signifies and why you would avoid it, but I will not leave you on the floor. You need warmth.”

You breathed a little easier when he pulled the blankets over you, covering your legs where the short hospital gown had ridden up your thighs. The feeling of vulnerability was made worse when they hadn’t bothered to give you anything to wear underneath.

049 situated the pillow beneath your head so it was more comfortable, and you noticed the thick band around his wrist that hadn’t been there before. A biomonitor.

“What…” You swallowed down the rising horror. “What did they do to you?”

He paused, as if the question caught him unawares, but his eyes were warm. His fingers brushed against your hair again, stroking the strands and allowing you to further sink into the mattress.

“Aside from the distress of not knowing where you were taken, I am unharmed. But I fear the same cannot be said of you.”

You swallowed and looked away, fixing on the far wall. The confusing memories of having an involuntary pap smear, of thinking the dark shapes in the room and the hands on your skin were SCPs, it filled you with a hard shudder. Upon waking, you’d believed Leahy had made good on his threat.

Regaining awareness in the middle of the procedure had somehow been the worst. Being unconscious for the entire thing, or fully lucid and awake, would have been preferable than waking up, disoriented and scared.

The sharp taste of bile lay on your tongue as you forced out the words.

“They gave me a pelvic exam. Took samples from my uterus. It was all standard procedure, but... I didn’t know what was happening, I woke up during it. I wasn’t… I didn’t want it, but I was still sedated, and-and I know Leahy is punishing me. Showing me what happens when I resist.”

I don’t brute-force things that don’t need it.

049’s hand froze, a flash of real hatred in his eyes, but then it was gone. The look of intensity didn’t fade, simmering beneath the surface.

“He has much to account for, and I will ensure he pays in full.”

You took his hand and pulled it down until it rested against your cheek. He blinked, following your movements with his gaze.

“Don’t do anything to antagonize him,” you quietly pleaded. “I’ve seen what he can do, and it’s so much worse than this.”

His expression softened, his thumb trailing along your cheek.

“Let us not worry about such things tonight. You need rest, and I… need to think.”

You looked up at him questioningly, but he only gave you one of those faint smiles using only his eyes.

“Sleep, my dear. I will not leave your side.”

You knew he meant it, so you turned over on your other side, facing the wall. Right now, a blank wall was a comforting canvas of nothing. You hoped it would help settle your mind and also keep it empty. The sedatives still lingered, and you hoped for a few hours of sleep before having to face whatever came next.

Expecting 049 to go to his desk, you were surprised to feel the mattress dip behind you. Warmth curled against your back as he draped his arm around your waist, his beak brushing against the side of your neck.

You didn’t stiffen at the close contact this time. You settled against him, grateful for the comforting weight of his presence on your back. He held you closer than he ever had before, as if he too understood. It didn’t matter what the cameras saw, what your former colleagues thought of your interactions with the SCP. All of your careful distance had amounted to nothing.

Dignity was the last surrender, and then there would be nothing left for the Foundation to take.

Chapter 40

#the raven's hymn #scp 049 x reader #scp 049 fanfiction #dark content #scp fanfiction #wolveria writes

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breakfastteatime · 11 months

Text

Today's minific is for @mistressorinoco who requested 'Chores are Everyone's Business'

Greez arrives at the engine room door with a bucket and a mop. “I don’t care if you lived in a hovel full of rust, mold and damp on Bracca – you live on my ship now, so you live by my rules, and Benduday is chores day.” He looks around the deck, no doubt noting the new scuff marks and boot imprints. “Yeah, you can start off in here. Then I want the hallway, the galley, and the lounge squeaky clean.”

Cal stares at him from the workbench where he’d been double-checking his repair job on BD’s leg. “I did live in a hovel full of rust, mold and damp. I still kept it clean.”

“Great! No excuses then!” Greez leaves the mop and the bucket by the door. “Oh, and don’t you go getting any ideas about using your space wizard powers to clean. I don’t want you blowing anything up back here.”

BD says exactly what he thinks about that. He also tells Greez about Cal’s plans to take a nap, but he is not understood in the slightest. Greez jabs a pair of fingers at him. “I can still flush you down the refresher, droid!”

Cal gets between the pair very, very quickly. “It’s fine,” he says, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “I’ll clean up.”

“Alright, good.”

Greez heads out. Cal offers BD a shrug, finishes his checks, and then gets to work mopping. It’s strangely soothing, watching the dirt wash away. There some distant lesson in his mind about moving meditations. Master Tapal could turn anything into a lesson when he wanted to… which was always. When Cal reaches the galley, he finds Cere unpacking the dishwasher. She stares at him, chuckling at his bemusement.

“Chores are everyone’s business,” she explains, placing a stack of plates in a cupboard.

Cal looks beyond her, but Greez is nowhere to be seen. BD is not impressed.

“He’s in the refresher,” Cere explains. “Greez is very particular about it, and I suggest you don’t question it.”

“He doesn’t let you clean it?”

“Oh, absolutely not.”

Cal continues swabbing. “Is it a Greez thing or a Lateron thing?”

“Honestly, your guess is as good as mine.” Cere finishes in the galley and pulls a duster out of the storage locker. “I’m going to clean off the holotable and the cockpit readouts.”

“You’re allowed to clean the cockpit?”

“Oh, only the screens.”

Cal scrubs at a particularly stubborn splash of juice under the galley table he knows he left there during breakfast. “Is there anything else I should know?”

“Do not, under any circumstances, move Greez’s cleaning supplies, and whatever you do, don’t sit on the couch immediately after he’s cleaned off the potolli weave. You’ll never get the stain remover off your clothes.”

Cal looks at his well-worn uniform. “Would you even notice?”

“Definitely,” Cere says. “It dyes every fabric it touches a bright white. Think about the parts of your body that would touch the cushions.”

“Oh.” Cal can feel his skin flushing.

BD giggles.

Cal continues scrubbing the deck. “Cleaning was never this complicated on Bracca.”

#star wars jedi: fallen order #jfo minific #jfo headcanon #cal kestis #bd 1 #greez dritus #cere junda #found family feels #fic requests 2023 #the mantis crew

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pomefiore-visitor · 9 months

Note

that boat/ship prompt got my mind working. leona's got that pirate card too!! leona, despite being a captain, is motion sick rlly bad. i imagine stumbling across him in his quarters an absolute mess. practically hearing his stomach churn, hearing him gag and burp. obviously, he can't hold much in long while at sea, so you sit beside him to comfort him as whatever he ate makes its way onto the floor. and you're stuck with trying to hide your hard on and a sick kitty at your side 😏

FIRST ASK 🎊🎉🥳

urghhgh yess i love how your brain works!! i’m actually writing a little fic based off of this because of this ask 👀 but i wanted to get my brainrot out of the way 🤭

nsfw under the cut, i don’t consent to minor interaction. minors dni!!

I just think he would look so good from the back when you enter his quarters. He’d have a grip on his desk so hard he’s leaving scratch marks and indents from his claws with every wave of nausea 🥴. this guy for sure already has his sealegs but is so not close to having his sea stomach no matter how many times he goes out on the waters.

With every sway of the ship you would watch his hackles raise and his lips curl back because he can already taste the bile in his throat when he gags and burps. N once he starts dry heaving you watch him bring his hand up to his mouth n getting it all slick with drool because he can’t stop salivating.

when you try n trace some shapes in his back to soothe him a little he’d get all snippy and try to tell you to “fuck off” but as he’s saying it he gags again.

his eyes would get all big and before he can grab the mop bucket they use to swab his quarters and the back deck of the ship he’s turning over his stomach onto the wooden floor just completely missing his target :(((. Probably whining as you hold back his curls and rub his back 😩😩. especially after he’s done puking.

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john-silvers · 2 years

Photo

JACK RACKHAM, BLACK SAILS, SEASON 1 ★ Join another crew right now, the only task I will be trusted with is swabbing out the piss buckets, and for that, my darling, I feel compelled to state out loud, life is simply too fucking short.

#blacksailsedit #blacksailssource #jackrackhamedit #black sails #jack rackham #type: gif #s1 #character: jack rackham #by me

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buckttommy · 1 year

Text

Quick little Bobby POV that I whipped up after that set photo. Catholic!Bobby praying for his kids is something that can be so personal (translation: I'm throwing up blood). On ao3

It's funny to him, sometimes, how routine religion becomes. It's supposed to be this big thing, isn't it? At least that's how people talk about it. Religion, the greatest of great dividers, spoken with a sort of gravitas reserved for whispers behind cupped hands. On one hand stand the devout, on the other the faithless, each with both feet planted firmly on either side of the line.

Righteousness. Brainwashing. Devotion. Child abuse.

But neither side is truly right, are they? Religion, Bobby has come to find, is a lot like putting on a comfortable sweater. It's there when you need it, both a comfort when your shoulders are cold and a burden when the world is too sunny-warm to bother. But Bobby has learned over the years that you always need a sweater. You just don't always realize you need it until the rain pours and the thunder rolls.

Buck's hospital room is dizzyingly sterile. They always are; such is the nature of being a passerby in a sea of passersby. Fill one bed, empty another, a constant revolution of life and death, life and death. Bobby doesn't know why it matters to him more this time though. Matters so much that he wants to take a bucket of paint and swab over the cold white walls with a light blue or pastel green. Plant a couple vases along the edges of the room filled with sweet smelling, vibrant flowers to liven up the space. But Buck hates flowers and Bobby's not keen on facing the legal hassle that'll come with technically defacing hospital property, so he remains in his seat, staring idly out the window.

He wonders how many more times he's going to have to do this—the bedside vigil, the hollow-voiced, tight-throat prayer for healing, for mercy. For forgiveness, when he thinks it's necessary. It feels necessary today, mostly because Bobby's not sure if the people in his life are better for having him in theirs. Mostly because he's not entirely sure he's not cursed.

Bobby shakes his head. He stifles a yawn, digging his thumb and forefinger into his tired eyes. "It's a ridiculous thing to think, isn't it? It's not rational, I know it isn't, but sometimes..." He looks down at the rosary in his hand, at the years of prayer tattooed into the lines of his hands, and shrugs. "I don't know."

Buck doesn't say anything, but then, of course he doesn't. Buck is in a coma. Three days ago, he was dead.

Bobby stares down at him, committing every detail to memory.

Buck's face is still. His entire body is still in a unnerving, unnatural way that makes nausea swirl in Bobby's gut.

He's not equipped for this much suffering. There's this saying that parents aren't supposed to bury their children; what does it mean for him that he's already buried two, that he stands on the verge of burying another?

Buck isn't his son by blood. Right now, on the other side of the door, Buck's parents are sitting awkwardly in the corner of the waiting room, like it's clear they'd rather chew glass than be by his side. But Buck's his kid in all the ways that matter. Bobby's walked him through grief and triumph, held his hand through is first heartbreak and through the aftermath of a fucking explosion. Yeah, Buck's his kid. And right now, his kid is walking the same path Brooke and Bobby Jr. did—a path that leads to an early grave and a lifetime of Bobby wondering what he could have done differently.

It's no wonder he feels so tired all the time, no wonder he feels so old and weighed down by everything. He feels like Atlas, forced to forever carry the corpses of his children on his back. Already he can feel the weight of Buck's skin and bones on his shoulders. Bobby held his son's lifeless body in his hands; he knows how much his death weighs and it feels like a wooden cross dragged through the streets.

Bobby leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. He drags a hand over his face. "Listen, I need you to do me a favor, kid. I need you to pull through this. I know I've sat in this chair, or one like it, quite a few times already asking you to perform a miracle, but I need another one. Just one more. Because there are a hell of a lot of people out there that need you. Hen, Eddie, Chris. Me. I—"

He cuts himself off. Blinks past the burn of tears, takes a deep, steadying breath, and squeezes the rosary in his hand until the beads carve divots into his skin.

Bobby clears his throat. "One more miracle, kid. Just one more, and then I'll have you on desk duty the rest of your goddamn life, okay?"

Buck doesn't move. He would have squawked in protest at that before. Desk duty, Cap? he'd say, nose crinkled. Are you serious? The only way you're dragging me off that rig is if I'm dead.

Well.

A knock sounds at the door. Bobby turns around in time to see Athena peek her head in. Her smile is soft, but her eyes are sad.

"Hen and Karen are here," she says, but time's up is what she means.

Bobby gets to his feet, his knees cracking as he goes. He tucks his rosary in his pocket and crosses the few inches between himself and Buck's hospital bed. He drags a hand through Buck's hair, feeling the limp, greasy strands slide through his fingers and, after a moment's hesitation, leans down and brushes a kiss to Buck's forehead.

"I'll be back tomorrow after shift. Try to wake up before then."

Bobby doesn't say goodbye; those two words have long since begun to feel too final. He squeezes Athena's hand when he passes and together they walk down the hallway as Hen and Karen take his spot.

Tomorrow.

He will take up his mantle and pray again tomorrow, don the sweater of religion and plead mercy like the humble servant he is. But for tonight, Bobby settles in the car, sinks into the anger brewing in his chest, and leaves his faith on the hospital doorstep.

God seems to be too busy for him anyway.

#girl i hate this fic #anyways!#my fic #tv: 911 #911: 06 x 11 #911 spoilers #jack.txt

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thenihilistofthevoid · 5 months

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Our War Game

(A starter for @bas0rexias Koby Muse bc he's a precious bean)

It hadn't taken long for rumour to reach his ears, it travelled faster than anything... Garp had taken an interest in one of the Cadets, a cadet who'd beaten him at their old game, which was impressive. The old man wasn't exactly a slouch at it, and curisoity was an insipid little itch that needed scratching. "I'm taking personal time off. You're in charge." The raincoat-wearing Commander ordered his subordinate, simply stepping out the window into the rain and just vanishing.

It didn't take long to find their ship, he knew the location of most in his area and soon appeared on deck, simply remanifesting from the droplets as he marched along the deck, his boots clicking against the wood as the droplets slid off his coat, his black hair a deeper shade due to being soaked with rainwater. "Commander on Deck!" One of the Ensigns stated.

"Cadet Koby... I hear you've been giving Vice Admiral Garp a hard time during games of Go and show interesting tactical prowess..." Kid was about his age when he started beating the old man at strategy games. The man was older and taller than Koby, having well-definied musculature. His coat had the emblem of the Marines on it, with the underclothing being white with gold drop-like symbols patterning it. "I am curious to see how you- W-What about me, sir?" Helmeppo began before finding the tip of the Commander's umbrella forcing his lower jaw shut. "I do not permit people to speak when I am speaking, Cadet. Go and swab the decks again, they're filthy." Saburo ordered, his tone ice before he pointed his umbrella at a mop and bucket in the corner, returning his attention to Koby. "As I was saying, I want to see how you play. Come with me." He requested, opening the question mark-handled umbrella to keep the rain off Koby.

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shieldkeeper · 7 months

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Writing Prompt: Call it a Day Word Count: 723

“This one is bored.”

“You or me, kupo?”

“Mmmm, both?”

Two lalafells had been left to their own devices upon Garen’s ship. Both of them recently recruited into the crew and given a set list of duties for each individual. Of course they were free to do as they pleased! So long as they did their chores and kept up with the rest of them.

Which was all nice and dandy and all, but these two in particular held no attention span for work for long! Even when they were playing nice and pretending to play the act of the landwalkers, their worlds were a little different in their own eyes.

Those born of mischief and play. A member of their respective tribe clad in glamoured disguise.

“Wishy washing the floors with hands are so boring. These ones should just fly and let loose our magicks to do the trick!” The ‘lalafell’ dressed in forest greens and bark browns whined in a sing song voice. Flailing dramatically in a way not befitting their form… before the guise held no further and they transformed into that of a masked sylphling.

The other ‘lalafell’ dressed in rags and his most notable featuring being a poof of white hair fluff blinked as eyes grew wide and lit up in mischievous glee. The best part about this whole ship crew thing was finding someone much like him, just looking for an excuse to cast whimsical wonders for a spot of fun.

“But won’t we but wrung out and forced to walk the plank, kupo?”

Garen, the captain of this motley crew, had gone to great lengths to emphasize to the two tribe members of their duties and how it needed to be done after all!

But the sylphling merely shrugs its small arms, beating its wings to float further up towards the ceiling. Olyxio would not suffer doing this the normal way any longer. “How else are these ones supposed to clean every nook and cranny? This one thinks it faster this way!”

With a flourish and flick of its wings, magicks did thusly fill the room as swabs and rags marched to their own beat. Whipping around the room as splatters of soap and water rained down from above. Mogcan, starry eyed by the display, could hold back no longer as they popped up into the form of a moogle, a triumphant little ‘toot’ from a horn as they giddily added their magicks into the fray.

Before long, anything in close proximity had been absolutely soaked as water and soap from all nearby buckets had been sprayed about the cabin and hull. Soap that lathered up quickly from the chaos, where it only grew in size instead of being infused with water for proper cleaning.

But the two of them were having fun with it! Everything was getting cleaned as promised! The captain would be so proud of them!

…

Except when the captain wasn’t exactly proud of them.

“Hey.”

The duo turned. There, standing at the entryway of the room and having come to check on how they were doing, was none other than Garen himself. He’d walked in at just the wrong time, getting just about instantly drenched in water! And Garen, who was usually so patient, so kind, so always warmly smiling—

Was smiling even now. Though not in a kind way as he loomed over the two shrunken crew members.

“How about we stop here hmmm?” Despite his smile, poison dripped in his voice. That was the sound of a land walker who looked about ready to strangle their lot! “Since you were so close to damaging our wood and all and likely sunk us if you continue.”

Both Olyxio and Mogcan instantly sensed they were in deep trouble, swift to frantically buzz around the air space in fear of what Garen might do them! Even bumping into one another before finally bumbling out of the room.

“These ones are sorry…!”

“Big big big time sorry, kupoooo!”

As the made a run for it, Garen simply sighed as he gazed out upon the mess they’d left behind. There would be… much to do in terms of drying out the room before all the water settled in. It wouldn’t be too bad, but he’d have to be fast to deal with their blundering…!

#ffxiv #writing #ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2023 #olyxio #mogcan

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radarsteddybear · 2 months

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Find the word in your WIPs

I was tagged by @rose-of-pollux (thank you!) to find the words from the list in my WIPs and post the paragraph they belong to.

Sea: From my Pirate Story (original fiction):

The deck immediately became a buzz of chaos, which, in turn, completely decimated that last 30 minutes of swabbing Nellie had done. She figured that no one would fault her for giving up on the deck, so she emptied her bucket back into the sea and put it away with her mop in their little closet. There would always be later, when whatever this was was over.

Star: From a nearly-finished fic called "The Baby Grand Piano" (Singin' in the Rain):

“Sure, all the big movie stars do it. Why, just the other day, I overheard Zelda telling Tersesa about how that Lina Lamont had some lady called Elsie de Wolfe to furnish her whole house.”

Pleasant: I cannot find this word in a single WIP.

Walk: From a fill to the prompt "Bloody hands" (The Rat Patrol):

They came after him, of course, but Dietrich was too crazed, too fast. He ran and ran and ran until he was alone, utterly alone, surrounded by nothing but sand and sun. And then he had no choice but to walk.

Linger: From a fill to the prompt "Go, but I'm not leaving" (Hogan's Heroes):

Carter wished he could stall, stay out here a while. He didn’t want to go through the tunnel back to Barracks 2, not alone. He didn’t want to have to explain what had happened. He didn’t think he could explain what had happened. He wanted Newkirk to come strolling through the woods, asking Carter what was taking so long for him to get back into camp. But the woods were silent. And it wasn’t safe for him to linger out there for very long.

#The Pirate Story #The Rat Patrol #Hogan's Heroes #Singin' in the Rain #fan fiction #WIP #tagged #teddy bear writes

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mogai-sunflowers · 1 year

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I'm not trying to like... Start a fight? But it's ahistorical to say that the only reason bi sapphics left the lesbian label is because political lesbians drove them out. It's not true. There are many cases of bi sapphic and bi achillian activists who wanted to be defined by their own sexuality and not by their sex acts. It removes the autonomy of bisexuals to claim we all were so weak that lesbian separatists drove us out for feminist reasons when the political lesbians your mentioning, not by name given but it's not really needed, were a fringe group whose harm is indeed large but often over exaggerated. They wouldn't have that power to literally change all of lesbian culture and it's community and make bi sapphics leave. In my opinion, based on historical documents of both lesbian and bisexual activists and writers from the 1920 up til about the 1960s, it was just a natural shift in the community. Bisexuals wanted their own label outside of just being forced to swing between straight and gay depending who we're with and to claim they just got basically shoved out of lesbian bars and slapped with the bi label just.... Isn't true and ignores large swabs of bisexual history in trying to own our identity and the acceptance of bisexuals in mlm and wlw spaces.

I'd love to see counter evidence and I'm not opposed to the mspec lesbian label but as someone who loves and inspects bi History, this narrative that we were simply kicked out and it was the mean lesbian's fault is often used to encourage lesbophobia and simply... Isn't true. I deeply encourage you to check up on bisexual history concerning activists and the separation of the mlm and wlw communities maybe in different places than you haven't prior and how, for most of us, we left the gay and lesbian communities willingly because LGBT enforced biphobia was just as rampant back then as it is today and we wanted our own identity outside of just sex acts.(which deeply did and still dose contribute to the biphobic sediments that bisexuals are flirtatious and unloyal cheaters and liars. it wasn't just cishets calling us that stuff.)

I hope this doesn't sound passive aggressive or demeaning in anyway, that's not what I'm trying to say. I'm just tried of this take that it was mean lesbian supremacists that kicked us out without a source ever to be found and just buckets and buckets of bi activists talking about bisexuality and how they wanted a label and place of their own going completely unnoticed and unacknowledged because it doesn't fit the narrative that often underlines arguments concerning mspec lesbianism next to mono lesbianism ("bi lesbians are great and automatically unproblematic but monosexual/cis lesbians are automatically suspicious and terfy" kind of trash with no introspection into how that's blatantly lesbophobic regardless of any trans/mspec standpoint. Not just bigoted and applying your own stereotype on a fellow queer person because of terfs (also reinforces the terf sediment that terf is just the new word for lesbian) but also just patently not true.)

I fully agree with everything you’re saying, I normally talk only about the political lesbianism aspect because it was pretty violent and it’s what I know most about, I know it’s not the sole reason for what happened. so in that regard I’m sorry for misrepresenting that part of history.

however, I don’t think that pointing out the impact lesbian separatism has had on the community is in opposition to that. lesbian community used to always be about celebrating the joy of love for women, not about not being attracted to men. im not saying there’s anything wrong with being proud of not being attracted to men, or that individuals shouldn’t define themselves that way in relation to their lesbianism, but political lesbianism DEFINITELY reflected a shift that has made the general entity of the lesbian community much less about love for women, which is in my opinion a loss. it’s become more about excluding people based on an attraction quota than it has been about including people who personally resonate with the lesbian label and experience. The exclusionary part came from political lesbianism, and that’s evident in the way so many younger lesbian communities operate nowadays. Bi activism wasn’t about trying to force a rift between the two communities, but rather to acknowledge their general distinctions, so to me it’s not as relevant to the history of lesbian exclusionism. But I don’t know enough about that aspect of history to truly form an opinion on it, so I would really appreciate if you could send some of the sources you’re talking about!!

overall, I agree with you that i and others should take those aspects of queer history into account more, and I’d love to learn more about it, but I don’t think it’s any less important to acknowledge the roots of the exclusionism that so many lesbians face. i do not at all think that lesbian and terf are synonymous and I hate that people think they are, but acknowledging that the roots of radical feminism partially lie within lesbian feminism, isn’t saying that, it’s acknowledging how transphobia and biphobia have played a real part in our history. it’s not “mean lesbians” it’s bigoted people who used their lesbian identity as an excuse to promote exclusionary and reactionary queer politics /info /nm

#🌌written in the stars ; asks 🌌#tw discourse #discourse tw #bi lesbian #exclusionism tw #tw exclusionism #exclusionism discussion

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