Bun

23 She/Her

[silksaddle]

Forage: Masterlist

gif: @trashcora

Din Djarin x F!Reader Series

Summary: A scavenger working under Nevarro’s trading post, your discoveries are scarce, until a Mandalorian finds you in a somewhat compromising position. Post season 2.

Rating: E/18+

Art | Inspo

Part 1: Gathering

Part 2: The Foxhole

Part 3: Raiders

[wrathkitty]

Short Debts Make Long Friends - Ch 27 snippet

“Why did you take off your helmet?” you ask softly.

Din’s eyes open and flicker away. “I’ve never seen you look that scared,” he finally replies, voice stiff. 

The hard, thin line of his mouth compels you to drop your gaze, and you look down at the glove in your lap, touched. “Thank you.”

He responds with a barely audible, “You’re welcome.”

Silence descends, by virtue of sheer exhaustion. This clusterfuck of a conversation is far from over, but you’ll have to unpack the rest of it tomorrow. 

Din stands and goes to fetch his helmet from where he left it on the dresser, and this time you are mindful to keep your eyes averted. You slump forward with a sigh, propping your chin in your hand. Now what? Go cry in the shower, or wait until morning to sob yourself sick? Both prospects seem equally pointless, and after all the post-explosion shenanigans, it will be a bonafide miracle if you hobble out of bed tomorrow without screaming. 

Shower, you conclude. A real one, with scalding hot water and actual soap. 

You are bracing yourself for the aftermath of cheap hotel shampoo when Din suddenly chokes out your name in a broken voice — your real one.

You snap your head up, stunned. “How do you -”

The helmet hits the ground, and Din collapses onto his knees at your feet. 

“You’ve seen my face,” he pleads, reaching out to grasp your hands in both of his. “You’re seeing it now. What if –” He swallows, fighting valiantly to remain composed. “What if I took my helmet off when it’s very important?”

“This isn’t a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency thing,” you try to explain. “How am I supposed to know what you’re feeling?”

“You always know what I’m feeling, better than anyone else,” he insists. “Better than Grogu, even.”

Your heart sinks. “Oh, Din…”

Acting on impulse, you reach forward and smooth his hair away from his brow, lightly running your fingertips through the overgrown curls. All you want is to comfort him, but this man has been starved, and the consequences are instant. 

Din catches hold of your hand and closes his eyes, shuddering as he presses your palm to his cheek. 

“Please,” he whispers hoarsely. He opens his eyes again and tightly laces his fingers with yours. “Be with me. I’ll do anything.”

Link to Main fic: Short Debts Make Long Friends - An over-educated, underpaid millennial finally gets to go on her first adventure.

Tag list - it's a mess. Just LMK if you want on or off. (And please reblog if you think to!)

@ababysupernova

@onlydrawnbad

@myswficlist

@accusitorial-fic-enjoyer

@littlemisspascal

@mariwinns16

@coffeebeforewater

@terecord

@leithatnight

@lokiofstoriesalwaysthemselves

@djarins-cyare

@shsoba05

@sjdraws-00

@moondirti

@teehee-47

@jbarness

@reileth

@essence-stealer

@itchyfly

@stagerightlauren

@jackieblogsstuff

@ellenmunn

@xoxo-lyss

@onlydrawnbadreads

@brighterthanlonelywords

@dotyoureyez

@cheekychaos28

@purrpledesblog

@aegocrazy

@dear-ickis

@tobethlehem

@newpathwrites

@cas-reads

@littleredpandanaps

@roughdaysandart

@breniii

@epple-benene

@feral-ferrule

@lindsaychops

@thedoctorknits

@greensabereyesforcevictim

@chickenshitt03

@dinnerisserveddjarin

@dindenimchicken

@everythingiwanttoread

@nightlore106

@xoxo-lyss

@sleepingghoule444

[din-djarins-spouse]

Please!?!?! Be with me!!?!? I’ll do anything!?!?!?

Omfg I’m sickkkkkk😭

[eggdrawsthings]

Happy Star Wars Day to the father and son duo ever!!! May the Force be with them forever and always ❤️🥺

[movietimegirl]

I need to calm down 😩

[the-darklings]

♱ 𝒉𝒐𝒍𝒚 𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕.

pairing: baelor "breakspear" targaryen x f!stark!reader

and so the story goes: a dragon falls in love with a wolf, ice invites fire.

content warnings/contains: stark!reader (no physical description other than the fact you're barthogan stark's daughter); set pre-akotsk so no show spoilers, but post first blackfyre rebellion; strangers to lovers; implied age gap; protective!smitten!baelor; angst/fluff; mutual pining; falling in love; sexual tension; court drama.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ pinterest board | inspo tag & asks | ao3┊baelor/lady stark playlist | aerion/lady stark playlist

⊹ ࣪ ˖ word count: 72k┊next update: 12.03.26┊rated: t.

⤷ CHAPTER INDEX:

⊹ ࣪ ˖ one.┊two.┊three.┊four.┊five.┊six.┊seven.┊eight.┊nine.┊ten.┊eleven.

⤷ BONUS CONTENT:

DRABBLES/BLURBS/ONE-SHOTS:

(*) indicates smut

jealousy. ⊹ baelor/lady stark ft. lyonel

first meeting. ⊹ baelor/lady stark (baelor's pov)

a cooling hand. ⊹ baelor/lady stark

"you choose them. you always do." ⊹ aerion/lady stark

protection. ⊹ baelor/lady stark/maekar

just friends. ⊹ lyonel/lady stark

blackwind. ⊹ baelor/lady stark ft. blackwind

family. ⊹ baelor/lady stark ft. maekarlings + papa maekar

the bronze fury. ⊹ baelor/lady stark ft. verminthor (dragons survived the dance!au)

a hug. ⊹ baelor/lady stark

in another life. ⊹ lyonel/lady stark/baelor

always for you. ⊹ aerion/lady stark

a hedge knight. ⊹ dunk/lady stark (platonic)

meaning in death. ⊹ aerion/lady stark

the baby test. ⊹ baelor/lady stark ft. verminthor (dragons survived the dance!au)

a sick day. ⊹ baelor/lady stark/maekar

"your man." ⊹ lady stark ft dunk, baelor, lyonel, aerion, maekar.

hair. ⊹ maekar/lady stark

'come to bed.' ⊹ baelor/lady stark/lyonel

'come to bed.' ⊹ aerion/lady stark

house colours. ⊹ baelor/lady stark

'may i have this dance?' ⊹ aerion/lady stark

kiss goodnight ⊹ lyonel/lady stark

currently accepting headcanon/drabble requests and discussions for this series, feel free to send something in!

P.S. I do not do tag lists, if you want to keep up with this fic, please bookmark this post or follow me directly, thank you.

[cupofzo]

He is in the armor more! I’m glad he said that because I’m sick of that Brendan guy having to always mention how “he’s” Mando. Just like he had to make posts making sure people knew it was him in the suit for this Empire cover.

[a7estrellas]

PEDRO PASCAL Burning Bridges (1996) | dir. Marcus Hahn

[vielens]

[din-djarins-spouse]

Husband… come home✋🏻😔

[bitterrfruit]

splinter

[masterlist]

ghost x f! reader tags/cw: smut (eventually). fixed simon pov. forced proximity bordering on captivity. somno. voyeurism. all that said this is probably the most wholesome thing i've ever written lol

your car breaks down in a snowstorm. a crude stranger takes you in from the cold.

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5

or [read on ao3]

extras

playlist pinterest board

[navasnook]

Thinking about how the fandom harassed them out of finishing one of the most iconic smut fics. I hope @no-droids is doing well.

[corazondebeskar-reads]

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

[rimonoroni2]

din djarin is a fun character To Me bc he has the attitude of a deeply disinterested, exhausted retail worker except his job isnt standing behind a desk, it’s being john wick in space

[tiredmamaissy]

You and That Mouth.

So’lek x Sarentu!Reader

Summary: After rescuing you from the RDA, So’lek is forced to fight instincts he can’t afford to lose control of.

Disclaimer: I haven’t played AFOP (yet) so forgive me if things aren’t as…cannon so to speak. But @zestys-stuff and I have been brain rotting over So’lek non-fucking-stop. He’s lowkey so Ralak coded, but obviously very different in his own way. I hope I do him justice honestly. Yes, this is a collab (we have been blessed), and the illustrations created by this amazing and talented artist — @zestys-stuff — will be linked!

Content Warning: smut, !MDNI!, drugging (?), physical violence, murder/death (lightly described), an ungodly amount of sexual tension, age gap (reader’s around 20 & he’s almost 40), power dynamics, heat cycle, scenting, blowjob, gagging, forced proximity, dubcon, cliffhanger I’m so sorry

Author’s Note: Guysss. When I tell you how excited I was to do this collab with zee…i’ve been feral this entire time. Y’ALL THE ART IS INSANE. I stare at it regularly before bed. Jesus, help me. Anyways, this man is my new fixation. My new obsession, if you will. Naturally when I have a new one of those my immediate reaction is to write a heat/rut fic. So yes, there will be a part two to this, and possibly more. 

W/C: 7k

You never gave it much thought. Being bait, that is. You’ve been everything up until this point—a pawn in this sick war, a subject for their experiments, a punching bag for their anger, an object with no value other than the war machine they could train you to be. 

But bait? That’s a new one. 

They like to call him the ‘Dog Tag Warrior’. That’s the name they’ve been using while you’ve been imprisoned between four glass walls, confined to a metal bench by chains that grow heavier by the minute. Days pass by like a thief in the night—silent, unknowable. With no windows, there’s no way to tell if it's night or day—to see what the great mother has created. No reminder of life or hope.  

What’s worse is that every so often one or two of the pink skinned storm inside with their assault rifles and handguns concealed in their boots, threatening you in an attempt to drive fear into your heart. But no matter how much they torture you, whatever the punishment inflicted, the pain doesn’t come close to what you feel when they speak of him. 

And your biggest mistake is letting them figure that out.

“I should’ve blown off his head while I had him.” The male shouts angrily, huffing as his loud footsteps pace up and down the concrete floor. 

You keep your gaze fixed to your bruised ankles as your heart pounds from the terrifying, yet oddly comforting, confirmation that So’lek is alive. You can’t allow them to see your fear. 

No fear, Sarentu, is what he’d say. 

“Then next time, don’t fuck around.” A rough female voice. Next time? “You’re lucky you still have your tag, corporal.”

Your ears flick towards the distinct sound of metal and glass dinging together. You’ve heard this before—the sound alone is enough to bring you back many years ago, to the experiments, to the trauma you endured in TAP. 

You peek up through your lashes, careful not to make any sudden movements, and see her holding a familiar large, glass syringe a foot away from her face. She flicks the tip with her middle finger until some thick liquid spurts out.  

What are they going to do to you now?

“We’re just gonna have to treat these fuckers like the animals they really are.” She says in a sick, twisted tone. “Let’s see how long he can hold out after he gets a whiff of her.”

The male’s finger settles on his trigger as he moves in front of her, towards the door to your enclosure. Your chains drag against the concrete beneath you as you ready your stance. If you could manage to take the gun from the male, you could get out of here. 

You could find So’lek. 

The plan comes to you quickly. Once they’re close enough, you go for the male's mask, then take his gun and shoot the female. 

Easy, right? So’lek’s voice echoes in your head. 

You watch intently as his hand swipes across the biometric reader, causing the seal on the thick, reinforced door to break. Human air gusts in and the pressure in the room changes, briefly disorienting you. Before you can focus, the male aims, pulls the trigger and you feel the impact in your chest. 

The room spins and you look down to see a bright feathered dart lodged into your right breast. You’ve never seen that before. Suddenly, you have to command your lungs to work, your eyes to stay open—your heart to keep beating. But despite it all, you feel yourself slipping away, vision blurring, sounds muffling together. 

Is this death?

“What…What is this?” You slur your words as you reach for the dart, only for the female to slap your hand away. 

She leans in, her face level with yours—her head impossibly large, her body impossibly small—and thrusts the needle into your thigh. You wince, just barely, trying to maintain what dignity you have left as you inhale, then exhale, and inhale again. 

“Ah—d-don’t…touch—What are you…w-what the fuck…is that?” Your low voice echoes in your ears, your vision splitting into two.

“They said it’ll take effect in about two hours.” She speaks with feigned innocence, emptying the syringe into your spasming, burning muscle, “but we just don’t have that kinda time.” She withdraws the needle from you and steps back as your head lulls side to side. “So I gave her double.” 

“Fuck you.” You garble the incoherent words, commanding every muscle in your body to stay upright, to keep your chin up.

“Brutal.” The male chuckles, his vile, pink hand laying softly against your cheek. “Such a shame, she really is a pretty thing.”

A hiss erupts from your throat, only to sound weak and small. Your body feels like dead weight, as heavy as these chains, dragging you down. You can’t move, you can’t get up. 

“Tranq her.” She gives the order, using her scrawny finger to shove your swaying frame until you make contact with the floor. 

“Are you sure? Didn’t they say one is enough?”

“And what? You want to keep her awake enough so she can be your personal toy when we’re finished with her? I said tranq her, Corporal. That’s an order.” 

Another silent shot and your eyes roll to the back of your head. 

“Good. Load her in.” 

–

So’lek has been tracking you down for what feels like months. After a close call with the RDA that left him wounded, he was able to get a good idea of your location from scent alone. He wasn’t going to let anything, not even his own injuries, stop him from finding you. 

Branches whip past him as he prowls through the forest, his bare feet making harsh impact with the flora beneath him. Every dash, every step is precise, measured. He’s been tracking your scent for a little over an hour now, yet it’s leading him off course. Why does your scent become almost overwhelming the deeper he goes into the forest? His pace lags when the realization dawns on him.

They’ve moved you. 

But why? 

He takes a moment to think, to calculate. To make sense of it all. Why would they relocate you? To throw him off? Is this a decoy? What if you aren’t really there? But, what if you are? He won’t take that chance. Your scent is too strong. You must be there. 

So, how could they have acted so quickly? That means there’s less time than he thought. He scowls, frustrated, conflicted. It’s a trap. Exactly what kind of trap, he’s unsure. But it’s one that requires you to be bait. Just the thought ignites a fire inside him. You, out here, possibly alone, injured and weak. 

Easy prey for a hungry predator. 

So’lek won’t allow it. He quickly weighs his options—track your scent into a potential trap, or abandon the mission to regroup. What else can he do? He can’t gather his thoughts, he’s overwhelmed. Your scent is blinding—it’s grown stronger and he’s barely moved. You need him, he senses this in a way he’s never been able to before. He breathes you in, filling his lungs to capacity, letting himself have this one thing, just for this one second. 

There is no choice. 

So’lek wastes no more time, making quick, tactical strides in the direction of your scent. The horrifying, looping thought of what they’ve done to you, or worse, doing to you, drives his feet forward. He’s crouched low, keeping out of sight, camouflaging himself as best he can. He has to approach this perfectly, he can’t afford to make a mistake. He won’t. Not when you’re involved.

When his nostrils almost burn from the scent of you, he slows his tracks once more, observing, plotting. Silent, and lethal. He counts at least ten RDA troops, scattered sporadically amongst the trees. No, never sporadically. They’re in position. He stalks through the shadows of the approaching eclipse, recounting and revising. They’re surrounding a clearing, which is suspiciously empty. It takes a moment for his eyes to focus.

Then he sees you. 

Oh. You. Naked. With what looks to be a strange, miniature arrow—a dart, impaled into your breast. Your head and body slump forward, arms limp behind you, bound to the tree. The flame inside him roars. You look dead, but your welling scent and heaving chest tell him otherwise. 

These pink skinned will pay, he thinks as he decides who will die first, and who will follow in what particular order. 

He unsheathes his knife, preparing for the most meticulous, silent melee of his life. He swallows, forcing himself to regain focus, to chase the lingering, savoury taste of you from his tongue. It’s imperative he isn’t distracted.

Is that a part of their plan?

Focus. 

He makes his first kill. Clean, and silent. But not satisfactory enough. The fire inside him is hungry for more. He moves quickly onto the next, cutting deeper for his Sarentu. He takes special pride and joy in killing your foes. He steals a glance at you and notices your ankles, how the shackles have eaten away at your supple skin. He snaps another thin neck like a twig—easy. His inner fire flares, pleased with the sacrifice. 

But it’s never truly satiated. 

So’lek moves on to the next offering, smothering him as he pins him to the ground, watching as he writhes. He doesn’t look away as the struggle fades. The flame curls, pleased, and despite himself, a grim satisfaction pulls at his lips. This is the part that he can’t always fully control. The part where the fire consumes him, too. 

It’s when he’s most dangerous. Most distracted. 

But for you, it’s almost natural. It’s like a switch flipping. One second he’s here, and the next, he’s somewhere far away. An observer in his own body, watching himself finish off the next six soldiers in a blur of violence and pure instinct. 

It’s not the hushed sound of the shot, no, it’s the heat pooling in his shoulder that brings him back momentarily. The same bright feathered dart, comically tiny in comparison to his arm, lodged in his upper bicep. A menacing growl rumbles from his chest as he looks in the direction of where it fired from. In the shadows, the silhouette of a metal suit stands in front of him, in front of you. 

Wrong bullet of choice. 

So’lek plucks the dart from his arm, his two fingers effortlessly snapping and crushing the frail glass into mere fragments. The metal suit immediately fires another dart straight into his chest. So’lek pants, his ears flickering as he releases a guttural hiss, heated by the flame itself, before he pounces on his prey, unleashing the rest of his wrath. By the end of it, all that’s left is unrecognizable. 

All except for you.

So’lek’s vision clears once he sees you again, granting himself a moment to take in your condition. When his eyes rake over your bare body, he can’t help his thoughts no matter how hard he tries. The thoughts of admiration.

“Tamtey.” He breathes heavily as he stumbles back, his head spinning. 

He glances down and rips the dart from his own chest with a grunt, before falling to his knees to pluck the dart from yours. He forces himself to look away from your puckered, dark nipples. It’s off limits. These thoughts, these feelings, are. off. limits. 

The sound of oncoming machines and the buzz of electricity solidify his self-discipline, and So’lek moves fast, cutting you free and hoisting you over his shoulder. He takes off into the thick foliage, using it to his advantage to keep you both out of sight. 

So’lek pushes himself to his limit, stride after stride, getting you both as far into the forest as possible. As far away from those demons as possible. Until he can no longer ignore the falter in his step. Whatever they shot him with, it’s slowing him down. He’s losing momentum—focus, and he’s losing it fast. 

No. This won’t do. At this rate, he’ll collapse before he can make it to the mountains and that won’t be good for either of you. He ponders his next move, but there’s this cloud in his head that he can’t clear. Double vision sets in and he blinks a few times in an attempt to fix it. He shakes his head from frustration and readjusts you on his shoulder. 

With a deep breath, he starts scoping out the nearest shelter. He spots a rather large rock not too far off, half swallowed by the roots of nearby trees. If he didn’t look hard enough, he would’ve missed the broken mouth at ground level, just big enough for him to fit through. It’s a chance. It could be nothing. Or it could be everything you both need right now.

Warily, So’lek approaches the cave, carefully tucking you among the safety of the roots. Now that you’re hidden, he can focus on scouting out the cave. Rifle in hand, he enters the darkness, discovering that it slopes gently downward, putting you out of his sight. He feels a sense of unease and looks back up at you, hesitating. 

He doesn’t like you out of sight. 

He huffs a sigh and grits his teeth, hauling himself further into the cave. He understands it’s the most logical choice. The air shifts, it’s cooler, and a little damp. He scans the cave, even through the haze, checking sightlines, listening for echoes. The deeper he gets, the more the darkness shifts into color. The bioluminescence of the glowy moss and small creatures bloom, revealing a thin stream that trickles from a narrow crack in the rock. A small waterfall that pools shallowly before disappearing into the stone. 

Good, he nods to himself. Water to drink. 

But more importantly, it's empty. 

It's safe. For now, at least. It’s somewhere to disappear for a few hours and let his body fight its way back. Immediately, So’lek turns back, entirely too uncomfortable with the fact that he can’t see you. Had your scent not followed him into the cave he probably wouldn’t have even gotten this far. When he resurfaces, that same scent floods his senses. It’s overpowering. To the point that he’d be a fool not to acknowledge what it really is. 

Your pheromones. 

You’re in heat. 

He breathes hard, eyes closed, trying to push back that fog creeping through his limbs—his body. Your pheromones are only aggravating his state of mind. He scoops you into his arms, using what strength he has left to carry you inside the cave. He’s careful of your head—of your entire naked body—taking his time as he navigates through the cave. 

Once he reaches the soft moss, he is satisfied enough to put you down. He drops to a knee as he does, gentle with his touch, ensuring your head is cushioned by the thickest part of the moss. You curl into a fetal position on your own, the beads of sweat beginning to ball at your temples, your face screwed with discomfort. 

So’lek takes a moment to gather himself, to gather the strength to move away from you and towards the thin stream. He cups the water, splashing it over his face, letting it run down his jaw and neck. It’s there, in the way his blood stained hands tremble as he pulls them from his face, that the realization settles.

In here, he might be the danger. 

If he can’t get a hold of himself now, what will he do when you wake up? How will he resist…you? He exhales, long and shaky, eyes half-lidded now. He retreats to a nearby ledge, far enough from you, but not too far. His instinct won’t allow it. He lowers himself onto the rock, acting as the shield between you and whatever’s outside of this cave. His back presses against the cool cave wall, and he positions his legs just enough to keep himself steady. He settles his rifle on his lap, head slumping back against the rock, finger near the trigger. 

Even in this state, he’s ready for whatever may come. No one will ever take you from him again. He lets himself rest, for now, stealing glances at you every time your sweet scent wafts towards him. Being in an enclosed space certainly doesn’t help the effect it’s having on him. But he can only hold his breath for so long.

He’s got no other choice but to breathe you in. 

It feels like he’s got the reins in his hands but he can’t grip them tight enough. Like they’ll slip through his hold if your pheromones get any stronger. And they are. They most definitely are. Especially now that you’re starting to wake up. 

Your groans start low, and small. More like little whimpers, but they’ve got him watching you none the less. Those glances are no more. He simply didn’t have the discipline to look away at this very moment. He feels ashamed to stare, and he knows it’s the last thing he should be doing. You’re bare. And he’s your mentor. You trust him implicitly. This would be a breach in that trust. But your nipples are puckered so beautifully, dark and flushed. So’lek’s gaze moves downward, your legs are so tightly closed, yet your arousal is so pungent he can practically taste it. 

His tongue swipes his bottom lip before he swallows, his eyes daring to wander a little further down. Heat pools in his stomach and his brows jump when he sees the single, glistening drop of slick slowly roll down your inner thigh, onto the green bed of flora. He shuts his eyes, a harsh breath expelling from his nostrils, his jaw tight. 

In all honesty, he’s never felt jealousy toward moss before, but there’s a first for everything. So’lek bites his tongue, tasting blood. Anything to snap himself out of this trance he’s in. This is a line he won’t cross—can’t cross. No matter how much he may want. He can’t bring himself to turn his head, so keeping his eyes shut will have to do. 

“Mmmn…” 

The groggy sound dislodges from your throat before you can even register it came from you. It’s like there’s a lag between your body and mind. You know you want to open your eyes, but they don’t listen to your command right away. You need to see, or how else will you know what they’re plotting next? You force them open and things are a blur at first. 

Blobs of colors sprinkle your vision and you try to blink them away. Soon enough they merge and things sharpen until you see that you’re in a place you don’t recognize whatsoever. Panic blooms in your chest, and adrenaline pumps through your veins at a frightening rate. Your eyes, once heavy as sandbags, bulge from your head as you spring into a seated position. 

You scramble back until you hit something rough and hard, and reach for your knife which isn’t there. The worst comes to mind. They’ve dragged you to this place where no one will ever find you and left you for dead. And even worse, they’ve found him and killed him. You look down in horror—you’ve got no top on, no tewng, nothing. You begin to hyperventilate, clutching your chest with one hand and hugging your knees with the other. 

“Mawey.” A familiar, comforting voice coos, and when you look up you realise it’s So’lek. Relief cascades over you. “Mawey, Tamtey. You are safe, I have you. Breathe.” 

He’s towering over you, hand cupping your cheek, concern etched into each wrinkle and scar on his perfect face. But his eyes—they’re hazy and glossy. 

“So’lek? Ma’So’lek!” You sob, fat tears streaming down your cheeks as you throw yourself into his arms. 

“Breathe, Tamtey.” He coos as he cradles you close to him, counting down the seconds he has to savour how you feel in his clutch before he reluctantly lets go. 

You look around, and you’re so, so confused. But if So’lek is here, that means everything will be alright. 

“Where are we?” You ask, chest heaving, body burning. “What…what happened?” 

So’lek’s expression hardens as he skitters back, away from you. His eyes flick down to his feet. “I am…not entirely sure.” 

Suddenly, you’re hyper aware of yourself. The sweaty hair stuck to your neck. Your hard nipples. The faint throb between your legs. What’s happened? You close in on yourself even more, embarrassed. He probably doesn’t even want to see you this way, yet you’ve thrown yourself on him. 

Silence passes. The air is thick with tension, an awkwardness filling the space between you and him. You wrap an arm around your chest and cross your legs. You feel utterly exposed, even though he refuses to look at you. 

If anything, that actually makes it worse.

So you turn inwards, to your own muddy thoughts, trying to run through the last memories you have. They shot you, twice. And gave you an injection. And then…that’s it. That’s all you can remember. An unsettling feeling blankets over you. Why are you naked? And…what did they do to you? Worry cramps your stomach, and suddenly you’re nauseous and clammy. 

“You live, Sarentu.” So’lek’s sarcastic tone brings you back from that dark place. He’s finally looking at you now, eyes filled with concern, a light smile on his face. 

You laugh and wipe your tears with a trembling hand. “You came, chicken.” 

“Hmm.” So’lek hums weakly. He looks spent. Like he can barely keep his head up. Like when they shot you.

“What happened…to you?” You ask quietly, you’ve never seen him like this before. “You look like shit.” 

So’lek’s head rolls towards you and his brow bones jump, one side of his mouth curling into a smirk. 

“Me?”

“Ha-ha.” You say faintly, a soft smile pulling at your lips. Yeah, you do probably look like shit, all things considered. At least you feel that way. Like you’ve been caught in the middle of a titanothere stampede. 

But in the same breath, your body feels…strange. Similar to when you’re sick with a fever. That sort of sluggish, air-headed feeling. 

“My head…mmm—” You mumble to yourself as your eyes flutter shut. There’s a muffled ringing in your ears. “…I don’t know.” 

“Tamtey?” So’lek’s calls for you, but he sounds far away. That ringing in your ears is getting louder. 

A bead of sweat crashes onto your chest, and it’s enough to make you look down. Your skin glistens, your tahnìs blinking haphazardly in the dark. There’s a heaviness down there, a pull that makes your legs open to get more comfortable. 

In a flash, a fog claims your mind as you hazily watch your knees part, exposing how swollen and flushed you are. Your puffy folds glisten, and you go to touch them, curious to see how it feels—how it would feel. Your fingers touch, parting slightly, playing with the stringy, clear slick. 

Just as quickly as the fog comes, it clears. And you’re left with this mortifying sense of clarity of what you just did. Of the fact that he’s just seen you, spread wide. Your legs snap closed and you look up, meeting the glowing eyes of your mentor. 

“I…I don’t know—I don’t know why I just did that. ‘m sorry…” You stumble with your words, looking away in shame, further retreating into the wall. He must be so disappointed in you. 

So’lek doesn’t move. He can’t. If he does, it won’t end well. He just holds his breath, embracing the way his lungs scream for air, focusing on that tight feeling instead of the tightness of his tewng. He acts as if it did nothing to him, like his cock isn’t as hard as it was during his first rut. Like he’s entirely unbothered. 

But the truth is…

Your pussy is perfect. She’s more beautiful than he’s ever imagined. Shiny with your arousal, so inviting. As if she’s calling for him. And he’d cut his own tail off so he could answer. But he doesn’t entertain the thought. Instead, he reminds himself not to breathe. Because if he does, then he’ll really taste you on his tongue. 

“It cannot be helped. It is fine.” He manages to get out of his screaming lungs, inching further away from you. But there’s something inside him that’s physically stopping him from completely leaving your side. 

“It’s not—haaah…” You moan shakily as you feel the fog seep back in. You burst out into a shiver, tiny bumps sprinkling your skin. “It’s coming…again. Th-they gave me…something. I don’t—I’m, I feel weird, So’lek.” 

His head snaps towards you, ears tall and alert. “What did they give you?” 

“I don’t know. S-Something.” Your lungs tremble as a wave of heat covers you like a sheet. “An injection.” 

You moan again, that heavy sensation in your lower tummy grows into a sharp ache and you can’t help but cradle that part of you. 

So’lek growls, displeased by the mere thought. And your body responds to the sound alone, producing more of that slick between your legs. His nostrils twitch and you swear his eyes darken when they fall on you protecting your empty womb. 

He will protect it once it’s full. 

“It’s hot, it’s so fucking hot…” You mumble, smacking your dry tongue.

“You and that mouth.” He rasps, finally taking in a deep breath and immediately regretting it. It’s like the air has gone straight to his head, a pressure swelling there until he can’t form a rational thought. 

You’re dangerous like this. No. You make him dangerous. 

The wave passes and some sort of coherence settles, leaving you feeling the most vulnerable you’ve ever felt in your life. Not only that, but the daunting realization dawns on you that this is entirely out of your control. Like there’s something wrong with your body. Anxiety flashes across your face and sympathy floods So’lek’s. 

“Hold still.” He’s speaking to you like your mentor as he makes cautious, calculated movements towards the small pool of water. He cups it in his hands and brings it to your lips, and you drink from them fervently. It’s more than refreshing, it’s reviving. 

“Better, now?” His voice rumbles, his face just inches from yours. When you’re finished, he drags his calloused, wet hands down your throat, cooling you off. 

The feeling is divine. His touch is right. And he’s so close to you that you can feel his hot breath against you. You can smell him. You hadn’t noticed until now, exactly how good he smelled. And it seems to be coming from somewhere a little further down. You don’t realize that you’re looking there, but there's a notable bulge in his tewng.

“Eyes up, Sarentu.” He rumbles. “Focus.”

“So’lek…” You moan as that formidable fog looms back over your entire body. “Ma’Solek.”

“Do not say it…like that.” His brows furrow and his jaw flutters. 

“Ma’So’lek…” His name drips from your lips again, thick as tree sap, your hand brushing against your heavy breasts. Your nipples tighten, a tingly sensation zinging through you like electricity. You’re an open nerve, all of you. And it makes you squirm. 

“I said, rä’ä rikx [do not move].” He bares his canines as he speaks, his voice is deep and thick with restraint. 

“Don’t think I…can—I can’t…” You pluck at your nipples, over and over, it’s annoying how itchy they’re getting. You feel blood rush to your face as another wave of heat crashes over you, leaving you panting and clammy. “Oh, Ma’So’lek…Touch…touch me, please.”

“You are not in your right mind.” So’lek strains his words as he stumbles back, his head turned away from you, yet his eyes still locked on your every move. 

He scorns himself for the lack of discipline he’s showing, for looking at you in your most vulnerable state. He mounts the ledge with a gruff grunt, slightly spreading his legs to make space between his thighs. He leans back, abs tensed, his body unbelievably heavy.

Then your womb throbs. A yearning sensation, something instinctual flares inside you. It’s not pleasant, but it’s not unpleasant either. It’s just different. An entirely new feeling. You clutch your belly, curling over yourself, trying to understand this all. 

“What’s happening?” You whine, crossing your legs tight to quell that bothersome pulse.

“They put you in heat.” 

“H-Heat? I’ve never…I really, I-I don’t like it.” 

“You never…?” So’lek hisses softly, sinking his head into his hands. 

Of course you’ve never had your heat cycle. You’re half his age. Between that and cryo, it makes complete sense as to why you’re so confused. It’s why you’re so innocent to him to begin with. You’re young, and a little naive. Inexperienced. Untouched. Oh. You’ve never been touched, which means…he’d be your first.

No. No, he won’t. 

His fingers rake through his hair as he breathes hard and fast, his hands covering his ears to muffle your sounds. It’s like listening to an ikran in distress. He wants to help, to make it better. But he can’t, so he won’t. Not like this.

“Nggh–h-how…why’d they…why?” You can barely speak, just let these humiliating sounds come from some primal part inside you. 

“So I will come.” Constraint tenses his deep voice, but it's laced with something else, too. 

Hunger. 

You don’t understand, you just want. You crave, you need, you yearn. For him. It still doesn’t make sense to you. There is no point in trying to understand, to fight this. It’s going to happen no matter how much you resist it, so it only makes sense to just let go. To let it happen, right?

“Would it be…haah…s-so bad?” You ask hazily, settling on your knees, letting your hand slip down between your thighs. 

“Yes.” He’s sharp with his answer, giving you that tone he usually does when ‘it’s final’. Dismay bursts through your ribcage. 

“But why?” You let out a frustrated sob, sounding like a child who didn’t get their way. “Why not!”

“Tamtey.” 

He uses your name like a warning, finally looking at you, just to meet his biggest temptation yet. You’re touching yourself, your inexperienced fingers fumbling, your eyes half lidded and cloudy. Inside, he burns with shame—the internal battle of conflict ensuing. 

“I have lived nearly twice your life already.” He sounds weak. He is weak. Whatever they shot him with is still coursing through his bloodstream. 

“Ke tare [it doesn’t matter].”  

“It does.” He snaps at you, overwhelmed by a new, stronger wave of your pheromones. Your heat is peaking. So’lek narrows his gaze on you, his mouth turning downwards. “You are still young. It is your first heat. I will not hurt you.” 

The tears come, and you can’t stop them. They’re only confirming what he’s said. “…it’s already hurting.”

“Shushh…Mawey. I do not like when you cry.” His breath shakes from restraint, from the struggle between what he wants and what he should do. “You are strong enough for this, Sarentu.”

You whimper as you fall forward on your hands and knees, sinking your chest into the moss until your hips lift into the air—your tail swishing wildly behind you. This position feels better, it dulls the ache, it satisfies the pull. It’s the position your body should be in. 

So’lek watches you through lidded eyes, groaning when you rock back and forth a little. He wants to come behind you and settle on his knees. He can see himself so vividly, curving over you, his pelvis flush to you, pressing into that soft, sticky slit you're presenting to him. Instinct rides him, and he shifts his hips. 

He wants to take this bait. 

The scent of your pussy is driving him mad, he can’t take it. He can smell how ripe you are from where he sits. He wishes you’d move to the side a little so he can get a better look, like you did earlier when you mindlessly played with your puffy folds. He craves to know how it feels inside. 

You don’t mean to move. It just happens. Your palms press into the moss, one in front of the other, your knees following effortlessly behind. This distance between you and So’lek feels wrong, his scent isn’t strong enough anymore. 

Why is he so far away? 

So’lek doesn’t dare take his eyes off you, every muscle in his body is flexed—eerily still. Because you look like a palulukan stalking him, hunting her prey. He’s yours. And it’s doing something to him, something dangerous. He presses his pelvis forward, chasing the throb down there that he can’t ignore anymore. 

You start at his calf, nudging at it with your cheek. You drag your flushed face up his muscular leg, past his knee. You're inhaling his musk, deep and long, pressing your nose into his thigh. 

“Sarentu…” He exhales shakily, his hands gripping relentlessly onto the stone. “What are you doing?” 

“It’s coming…from here.” You mutter into his inner thigh, rubbing your face against him as you breathe in his musky scent. It’s stronger the further up you go. 

“You are scenting me.” He whispers through gritted teeth, “…like I am yours.” 

“Yes, ma’So’lek.” You moan, your hands wandering up his thighs. You push them further apart, your face burrowing right between them. “You belong…to me.”

So’lek’s restraint is palpable. It’s in every loud breath he heaves, to each small spasm of his muscles.

“Tamtey.” He warns longingly, his throat tight. “You are going to send me into rut.” 

“You want me.” It’s not a question, it’s defiance—insistence. You know it in your bones. You feel it radiating from him, his containment, the way he’s peering down at you between his legs. 

So’lek’s jaw tightens. His lips press thin as he intentionally slows his breath, each movement measured. 

“Yes.” He speaks through his teeth, quick and breathless. He will never lie to you, not even about this. 

“Then let me.” You breathe open mouthed against his inner thigh. Your sensitive lips drag upwards, right across that bulge inside his tewng. 

“No…Sarentu.” He speaks quietly, brows tensed, ears slicked back. 

“Smell s’good.” You mumble, rubbing your face against it. It’s hot, and it strains hard against the fabric. You want to see what’s inside. 

“You…” He groans from the friction, his breath heavy as he fights the pleasure. “You do not know what you are doing.” 

“Want…please.” Your tongue darts out for a taste, but it doesn’t taste like much. You need to get rid of this thing stopping you. Frustrated, your hand lugs higher, weak fingers tugging at the taut material.

He’s the male. He’ll help you. 

“Help, Ma’So’lek, help.” 

Hearing you plead for help triggers something inside him, that part that screams protect. Provide. His hand jolts, instinctively going for his tewng, but he stops it at the last second. He can’t think straight, not when your innocent, flushed face looks so perfect between his legs. 

“You will regret this, Sarentu.” His voice is strained, his eyes closing. 

“No, please. Please.” You beg, out of your mind, going for his tewng again, tugging it a little harder. “Want to see…what’s inside. Let me. It smells…s’good.” 

“Eywa.” He hisses through gritted teeth, opening his eyes to see you nipping at his tewng with your little canines. “Give me the strength.” 

“It's what I want…I need…I hurt, ma’So’lek.” 

Well, that pains his heart. Heavily. He can’t have you hurting like this. His hand moves, guiding yours, hooking your fingers underneath the side of his tewng, shifting it slowly. He’s in a trance, moving on impulse as he watches your tail swish excitedly, your body vibrating with eagerness. 

His chest swells with pride, he’s satisfying you, doing you right, as he should. It is right—whatever you want. His duty is to give it to you. Your ears flicker and then pin to your skull, your mouth seeking the source of his scent. You whine longingly, shifting your knees, shuffling closer. 

Eager to see. Your hands slip to his thighs, holding them there so they don’t move, one hand gripping just underneath his muscle. Your fingers sink into his skin, your heart beating its way out of its cage. 

So’lek’s breath is so heavy it’s audible, he’s never seen you so eager. His tewng finally shifts to the side, and his cock springs out, painfully hard. 

Immediately, you rub against his length with your face, enjoying how hot it feels on your skin.

“Tamtey…” So’lek rasps your name in a haze, mesmerized by you entirely. His hand seeks out the ledge once more, gripping it with all his strength when your wet nose brushes against his tip. His cock twitches away from your face, slapping against his stomach. 

“...what are you—?”

He watches as you shove your nose into that space between his thigh and cock, filling your lungs to capacity. Your tail thrashes wildly behind you as you shuffle even closer, your achy breasts brushing against his calves. 

“Ma’So’lek…Ma’muntxatan….” 

Yes. So’lek purrs at the sound of you calling him yours. He is your mate. He feels that is so. That’s also right. His hips buck, the tip of his cock leaking with slick, beading down his length. 

You want to taste it properly, and your mouth opens, tongue lolling out, wet and inviting. You look up at him through damp lashes, dazed. He’s watching intently, like his life depends on it. 

Glancing down, you really see it. It’s big, really big. And hard, so hard it’s straining. His tip tapers into a point, garnished with small spikes, his slit oozing and leaking. He’s throbbing too, just like you. You want to lick the veins protruding down his length, to the base of his cock that's turning deep purple. 

You want to know how it feels against your tongue. 

So’lek draws in a sharp breath when you rest his tip against your hot tongue. Sweetness bursts on your tastebuds and you moan, closing your lips around the head of his cock so you can swallow the taste. It pulses in your mouth, his balls pumping more of those delicious beads into your cheeks. 

Your pussy tightens, slick dripping down your thighs—your belly swirling with anticipation. Your eyes flutter shut as you take more of him inside until that swollen, pointed tip hits the back of your throat and your shoulders heave when you gag. 

A guttural groan rumbles from him, and his hips stutter, making you gag again. He’s never experienced anything like this in his almost forty years of living. How do you look so innocent doing something so filthy? He doesn’t know what to make of it, pleasure and guilt tighten his stomach. It feels too good, his body is reacting quicker than his mind.

His hips drive forward again, rougher this time, but you don’t gag—drool just oozes from the corners of your mouth, your nose getting snotty. His ears grow hot and his swelling balls pull tightly to his core. He’s going to shoot his load down your throat if he doesn’t find the strength to stop you soon. He can’t do that to you. He shouldn’t even be doing this with you now. 

Fuck. He’s losing it, really losing it. He wanted to do this right, to ask you to be his mate. 

But the little self control he had left is gone. Like it was never there to begin with. He’s on the cusp of it now, he feels it creeping up on him. Threatening to take the reins straight from his hands. That fire inside him is waking up again, and it’s not demanding spilled blood. 

It’s demanding you. 

That plump slit between your legs. It wants him inside, deep, touching the opening of your womb. The womb he’ll fill with his seed that you will bear for him. He’s longed for it for some time, to see you round and swollen, carrying a part of him inside you day and night. Now he can make it happen, he can make it real, right here, right now. He can hold you down as you squirm and breed your cunt, over and over. Then he’ll knot you, deep enough to hear your sweet sounds of pain and pleasure, keeping you stuck to him—from running away. 

He’s staring at your expression, hot and bothered, your lips stretched around his fat cock perfectly. He thrusts his hips, driving his cock a little deeper down your throat. His hands fly to your head, fingers weaving through your hair, and he firmly holds you there as you gag repeatedly. With every gag, his knot swells and his cock throbs. He’s going to come down your throat. 

Shit. He’s going to come down your throat.

The realization hits him like a punch to the face and he springs to his feet, his cock popping out of your mouth as you fall to your behind. You gasp for air, unable to catch your breath properly as you stare up at him expectantly. Your hands reach down for the heat between your legs, rubbing and tickling and the sight sends his cock frantically jumping. 

“Tamtey.” He growls low in his throat, his rut riding him hard. “Run.” 

——

[littlebatx]

this hung walk . you all need to listen to me

[silverlullabies]

OlderRoommate!Price who had no interest in fucking you until he finds out no one has ever made you cum before.

He was content being the older, reliable roommate, paying his portion of the rent on time, letting you wear his shirts and steal his coffee, smirking when you padded around in tiny shorts. But then you let it slip: nobody’s ever made me come before. And something in him twists, ugly and possessive and deeply, shamefully pleased.

That night he can’t sleep. All he can think about is your pretty face twisted up, begging, all for him. He pictures you squirming, helpless, soaked just because he says so. By morning he’s so hard he’s considering fucking his fist, but then he hears you in the kitchen, yawning, not a clue how close you are to being devoured.

When he finally gets you into bed, he’s shameless about it, soaked in satisfaction as he drags his mouth down your body, fingers and tongue everywhere, not just to make you cum, but to watch how messy you get, to hear the sounds you make when he won’t stop, even when you’re shaking. He strokes you over your panties, lazy and greedy, lips at your ear. “Christ, that’s pretty. Been missing’ this, have you?”

You nod, cheeks burning. He slides your panties aside, runs two thick fingers through your slick, then brings them to his lips, sucking them slow, groans like a man tasting a vintage he bought at auction.

He eats you out like he’s starving, rough and messy, lapping and sucking, not stopping when your thighs clamp around his head, not even slowing when you sob his name. When you finally break; shaking, gasping, your whole body bucking, he keeps going, tongue mean, greedy for every drop, every twitch, every broken sound. “That’s it, sweetheart. Give it to me. I want to see you cry for it.”

You come again and again, and each time he’s filthier, hungrier, holding you down, sucking your clit until you’re limp, drool on your chin, voice gone raw. When he finally stands, he doesn’t even let you recover. He flips you on your stomach and pushes into you hard, bottoming out so deep you choke on a moan.

“Christ alive, listen to you,” he groans, rutting in slow, heavy strokes. “Tight little cunt- no wonder the boys tapped out before the job was done.”

He kept you there and used you; angle nailed to the spot that emptied your head, thumb back on your clit because he wanted you milking him when he lost it. You clawed the sheets, babbling, mindless; he only sounded, darker, hungrier. “That’s it. Take it. Make a mess on me. Let the whole damn building hear what you’ve been missin’, sweetheart.”

He pounds you through another orgasm, then another, never stopping, never gentle. He’s insatiable, greedy, grinding out his own pleasure and loving every ruined sound you make, every sob and plead, every helpless, fucked out whimper.

When he finally spills inside you, he stays buried, chest heaving, mouth filthy at your ear “Right. From now on, if you’re in my bed, you finish. Every time. And you thank me proper.”

You swallowed, wrecked and smiling. “Thank you, sir.”

He smirked, wicked and pleased. “Good girl.” A kiss to your shoulder. “Not a one off, by the way,” he added, casual while he tucked your knickers back into his pocket. “Consider it… a standing arrangement.”

[ohcaptains]

HELL YEAH !!

[bitterrfruit]

splinter [4]

ghost x f! reader. 5.3k words cw: questionable somno. voyeurism (?). kind of smut. 18+ mdni [masterlist]

The next days passed by slowly, if unremarkably. 

She settled in like a foot into a shoe that didn’t quite fit. It’d leave blisters on her, but maybe it’d be worn in with time. Soften to the intrusion. 

She was perfectly content with a simple rotation of activities; taking the dog for a piss and a walk, cooking breakfast, watching a few episodes of the X Files Blu-ray boxset she found in the garage, plucking books off his shelf and skimming through a few chapters before putting them back. She laid claim to his armchair on the third day, and spent most of her time with her knees tucked up to her chest and a pair of tortoiseshell spectacles on her nose. Granted him the miserable excuse of a couch as though a punishment for leaving it as the only thing for her to sleep on.

He was left with the less reposeful chores, but he had no complaints. He liked keeping his hands busy. 

Besides, he wasn’t about to ask her to trudge out into the snow and fell a tree, or clear debris from the chimney, or pour antigel into his generator. He wasn’t a hidebound old prick, he didn’t have any compunctions about a woman doing hard labour, and had the weather been more forgiving he might have even recruited her for an extra pair of hands. 

Such was the way the cards fell, though. Truly, he had no interest in cooping her up in the kitchen or laundry; but she offered to wash and hang out the clothes and towels, wipe down the benches, sweep the floors. It’s only fair, I guess, she said. She made breakfast, they alternated lunch, he cooked dinner. 

Whiney thing always had something to complain about when it came to what he fed her, though. 

Haven’t you got anything else other than fucking baked beans? God, seriously, bangers and mash again? Can’t we just have pasta? 

She’d eat it, though, grumbling about it or otherwise. Probably because he told her he’d funnel it down her throat like a foie gras goose if she refused to. 

It felt at times like he was feeding a cat, because she would get purry around lunch and dinner — always coy about it, of course, an I’m a bit hungry, aren’t you? dropped here and there to make sure he got the message. He was training it out of her, though. Insisted she ask with a please and thank you. He wasn’t her damn butler. 

While he trained up one, though, she was teaching the other to forgo his commands. She loved winding up the fucking dog. At a certain point he was convinced she’d do it just to get under his skin. 

She’d mimic his barks until he started howling at the ceiling, and she’d laugh irrepressibly, a choir of high-pitched noises that went on and on and on until one or the other tired themselves out. She’d get him all riled up right before bed, tossing his mangled duck toy down the hallway and then teasing him when she grabbed it and held it behind her back — d’ya want it? D’ya want it? Oooh, but you can’t have it! It’s mine!

All the new noise that invaded every corner of his house should have been enough to give him a thumping headache, should have irritated him to the point of boiling over — but it didn’t. It might have tested him for the first night or two, until, confounding him, it softened into a tolerable distraction. 

Noise outside of his head rather than within it. Laughter instead of the droning apathy that inundated his mind like radio static. 

Not to say she didn’t have the capacity to annoy the shit out of him, though. 

Her gutted suitcase was an omen he didn’t know to heed. Not a day had passed until her shit was everywhere — loose hairs on the walls of his shower, clothes tossed haphazardly in a hamper, knickers hung on the towel rail. Six different bottles on the shower floor, shampoo and conditioner the obvious ones, but fucked if he could tell what the rest of them were.  

Her corner of the living room was a veritable bombsite, since it had also functioned as a bedroom for the last four nights. Clothes horse was always full of her laundry, and — how sweet, a t-shirt or two of his. 

Worst of all, though — the house was ripe with her. Every corner of every room smelled like her cinnamon-sweet perfume, permeating the porous wood of the cabin walls and soaking into the carpet like cigarette smoke. Blankets that smelled like her skin. Floral shampoo that wafted out of the bathroom every time she showered. 

The showering was, unsurprisingly, a pain point. 

She drained the boiler of hot water every single time she used it, blissfully ignorant — or, purposefully uncaring — that he might want to have a warm shower too, or God forbid take a piss while she was in there. She’d occupy the bathroom for an hour sometimes, singing away the time while she oiled her hair or slapped on some skin cream or other. 

He let the ire simmer, though. Too early to enforce a curfew on the one room to which she could escape from him, a little shelter away from his eyes, even in spite of the door that couldn’t lock. She seemed to trust that he wouldn’t let himself in. 

His generosity was spoiling her rotten, no doubt. She was only getting bossier, needier, chattier. Filling every corner of his house and mind with her. 

He was sure the two days straight of crisp winter sunshine put a pep in her step. Filled her with confidence that she would soon be free of his viciously cruel imprisonment. Counting down the minutes until the snow melted away. 

That was until the weather turned. 

It was just after six that he barrelled through the front door, snow-blasted and out of breath, having trudged through a renewed knee-height blanket of snow to restart the generator in the shed. 

It wasn’t often that the thing stopped dead, only when the weather hit the deep double negatives — and, that evening, it hit negative forty. Winter record.

So cold that the tip of his nose burned by the time he stomped in, slamming shut the door against the blistering gale and bolting it. Almost forgot she was there as he went straight for the woodburner, tossing another log into the glowing embers and crouching down in front of the open hatch to soak in the heat. 

“Looks pretty bad out there,” came her voice from behind him, timid as the first night he pulled her in. 

He pulled his fleece neck gaiter from where it had covered the lower half of his face, frozen condensation of his breath peppering the floor beneath him. “Yep.” 

“It’s, um—” She hesitated, and he chewed on nothing. “It’s not looking like I’ll be going anywhere for a while yet.” 

“Sure isn’t,” he replied frankly. No use pussy-footing around it. “Not gonna throw a fit, are ya?” 

She let out a wistful sigh. “No.” 

“Good,” he huffed, pushing himself to stand with a grunt and turning to face her; and, when he noticed she was within reach, grabbed her by the shoulders and maneuvered her in front of the fire. “Fuckin’ cold tonight. Don’t let those little hands freeze off.” 

He’d have expected some moaning, a bratty dispute at being bossed around, but she was pleasantly docile. Unnervingly so, when she spread out her fingers in front of the flames, no scoffing to be heard. 

“Are you sure we’ve got enough food and stuff?” She asked quietly, as he took himself into the kitchen to put the kettle on. 

“Plenty.” 

“I’m just — it might be — what if—” She worried on, tripping over every second word. 

“Not gonna let you starve, girl,” he grumbled.  

Even that didn’t seem to satisfy her. There was something else, he could read it on her, smell it in the air; the sulphur of a geyser on the brink of eruption, of first-drop petrichor before a flash flood. All edgy because she was girding herself for something, and he could only guess what that could be. 

Perhaps she’d bolt off into the snow again. Use his sat phone to call for a chopper to evacuate her. Shoot him with the handgun she had hidden from him.

“How long do you think it will last?” She lamented, her back still to him.

He let out a harsh breath, rubbing his temple to relieve an iota of the tension that thrummed against the inside of his skull. Sugarcoating it would surely make it worse, he thought, but he certainly wasn’t about to vocalise the extent of his pessimism. 

“I don’t know,” he said eventually. Almost remorseful.

She was quiet for a bit, the sound of her shaky breathing drowned out by the rumble of the kettle, and only once it began to whistle and he took it off the heat did she speak again. 

“I suppose I should get used to it,” she murmured. 

“Uh-huh,” he agreed. Vaguely appreciative she had taken the burden off him to remind her. “Hungry?” 

She was quiet all evening. 

Even a warm cup of mint tea and a bowl of reheated beef curry wasn’t enough to thaw it; she spoke to him in hiccups and avoided a response at all where she could, kept her nose in a book and her body close to the fire. Two blankets draped over shoulders and the dog tucked up under the flap. 

He had the telly on for a while, played a few dated episodes of Hinterland just to fill the noise vacuum that her sudden regression had left. She poked her head up to watch a few seconds here and there and he thought she might deign to speak to him, but by the time it brushed nine, he had given up. 

Too fucking tired for it. 

He was confident he hadn’t done or said anything to warrant a sulk, but it seemed just about anything sent her into one. Maybe she was fussing about having curry for the third meal in a row. Maybe her blanket was too scratchy. Maybe she was still bitter that he told her off for spending too long in the shower. 

Whatever it was, he was sure she’d be over it by morning. He brushed his teeth and took himself to bed without any further words exchanged. 

The blizzard was deafening that night; hammering the cabin from the northeast, shaking the stacked log walls and howling as it whipped over the tin roof. Shards of snow thrashed at the panes of the window by his bed, the trunks of the bullied pine trees moaning and branches snapping in the gusts. 

He balanced precariously on the edge of sleep for what felt like hours. Not quite lingering in true consciousness nor tipping into deep sleep, simultaneously half-dreaming and half-awake until his thoughts were all soupy and impossible to discern.

Certain some whiskey would knock him out. Maybe jerking off would release some of the agitation that never quite dissipated. 

He considered it, for a moment, in a window of lucidity; the girl’d be long asleep by now, curled up with the dog in front of the dying fire. Besides, he reminded himself — it was his fucking house, and he could rub one out whenever he damn well felt like it. 

He let himself consider it too heavily. The thought that she might overhear him fucking his fist in the shower, and he was never too good at stifling his grunting.

Bet he’d get a good scolding if she did. Maybe she’d smack him around the side of the head. Call him an animal. Tell him how disgusting he is. 

Then he heard his door creak, and in a blink he was fully awake. 

“Simon?”  

The faintest whisper, and had he not been actively listening for her voice he mightn’t have heard it over the roaring of the gale. 

He rolled onto his back, propping himself up by an elbow to spot where her whisper had emerged from; there, awkwardly in the half-ajar door, she stood with her arms wrapped around herself. Expression indeterminable in the frigid dark. 

Didn’t like that concern was so quick to supplant his irritation, enough that he thought to get out of bed and check that nothing was amiss; but he quelled the impulse. 

“What’s the matter,” he asked instead. 

“I—” she interrupted herself with a sharp breath, “—I don’t want to sleep on the floor anymore.”

For her own sake, he hoped she wasn’t about to ask what he suspected she was. 

“Couch is still there,” he said mutedly. Better to dissuade her. 

“I know, but — it’s just, it’s so cold in there.”

His jaw tightened. “Stick some more wood in the burner, then.”

“It goes out so quickly,” she lamented. “Then it gets really cold. And the couch is worse than the floor.”

He let out a stifled breath before he said anything further. Only in the quiet he left after her complaints did he hear the shivering; not quite chattering teeth, but the trembly breathing and disquieted shuffling as she tucked her arms into herself like that might warm her up. 

His room was balmy. Radiator had been bubbling for a while, and his duvet was puffy with eiderdown and layered with wool blankets. Damn cold out in the hall, evidently, it trickled in through the open door and he could feel it on his cheeks.

“I’m not giving up the bed,” he reiterated.

“I know, I’m — I’m not asking for that.”

“No?” He murmured, daring. “What’re you asking for, then?” 

Must have pained her to utter the words, she chewed on them measuredly before she let them out, patently aware that the line once crossed was likely irretrievable. 

“Can I… um—” poor thing, couldn’t even bring herself to say it, “can I sleep in here?”

He wondered if she could see the smirk that tugged at his mouth. “On the floor?”

“Um, well, I was wondering — would it be okay if… can I sleep in the bed?”

The sigh he let out was frayed. “Mh. I reckon there’s room.” 

“So—”

Already impatient with her dithering. “Shut the door.” 

“Okay,” she breathed, closing it gently, before she tiptoed towards the bed. 

He didn’t move from his spot, though it would certainly have been polite to; he tended to sleep closer to the centre, the old mattress was sunken in the middle. Simply more comfortable, and he wasn’t about to forsake that just to give her unnecessary room. There was plenty of space beside him.

She peeled up the duvet and slipped underneath, gingerly like she might awaken a bear sleeping under it — though he supposed, in fairness, her caution wasn’t entirely unwarranted. 

She brought the cold in with her. Even her bulky sweater was icy to the touch, her sleeve brushing against his skin as she tucked herself in. Doing her level best not to touch him, apparently, she kept herself perched on the very edge of the mattress, pulling the blanket up to her cheeks. 

He sucked deep a tense breath. Stupid idea, letting her in with him. He could smell her. The rosy scent of her hair, the sweat on her skin. Glutted his sinuses until his mouth started to water. Her quiet breathing eking out from right beside him and it made his knuckles white.

Rolled into his side. Away from her. Safer that way. 

“Thank you,” she whispered; and when he grunted in place of an answer, she added, “g’night.” 

He slept like shit. Tossed and turned, sweating like a dog, because his dreams were feverish and full of sticky, finger-dimpled skin. 

His awareness came and went more than once, sluggish and heavy and sweltering beneath the blankets. Pillowy sleep still weighed on him, but his consciousness was reeled to the surface like a slow-swimming fish. 

Especially when he adjusted himself and felt something squishy and warm against him, a distribution of soft weight from his chest to his thighs but concentrated against his groin. 

A shift of his arm and he realised, eventually, it was the stray he had taken in, tucked up against him as the source of warmth. 

Fast asleep, by the sound of it. Not-quite-snoring and the gentle twitches of a fitful dream; slotted under his arm, wedged along the length of him. 

Doubted it was purposeful, that she was simply pulled in by gravity, slid in his direction towards the divot in the mattress over the course of the night. He didn’t remember draping an arm over her, though. Let alone where it hung in the valley of her waist, atop a sweater that had been inadvertently scrunched up by a busy sleep. 

His nose was an inch from the back of her head, stray hairs quivering with his breathing and tickling his skin; her head was on his pillow, sinking into the edge with her arm folded underneath it. She smelt ripe, and warm. Sticky and sugary as burnt toffee and sweat. 

One movement of his hand, a near-accidental one, and his fingers brushed skin. 

Scorching to the touch. Mallow-soft under the hard callouses of his fingertips, squishy where he pressed in if only to determine whether it was in fact the bare skin of her belly that he was feeling. 

And fuck, it was. Could just about feel her pulse through it, how it rose and fell with her sleepy breathing, how the curve of it sank lower and lower before it was concealed by the elastic hem of her flannelette pants. 

He wasn’t truly awake. Not really. His eyes were glued shut and his breathing was slow, and perhaps there was some deniability in the movement of his hands, driven by half-conscious intrigue more than lucid hunger. 

He could, if he wanted to, poke his fingers under that waistband. Follow her flesh down to where her thighs squished together, burrow between them to find the pussy that was no doubt scalding to the touch. He could wake her up like that, no need to speak a word; let her breach wakefulness with a finger in her cunt, with a clit already swollen and wanting and brought to the brink before she could even ascertain what was happening. 

Let himself dream of it until his cock was hard as wrought iron and wedged against her spine. Let his fingertips shift undriven, grazing over warm skin with every drawn breath. 

Only when they brushed the waistband of her pants did he finally come awake, on a grunt and a skip of the heart, as the realisation collided with him with the force of a slap — that he may not have been entirely dreaming. 

His heavy arm retreated, then, albeit reluctantly, as he rolled onto his back. Kicked the duvet off his body in the hope of lowering his core temperature from where it was peaking at fever-height. 

She wouldn’t have felt it. And if she did, she surely wouldn’t remember it. He wouldn’t have an answer for her if she did. 

Morning came ruefully. 

His head was leaden, brontide thumping in his skull akin to a bitter hangover, and his mouth was dry as sand.

When he finally peeled his eyes open, and saw cottony grey light emerging from behind his shut curtains, he noticed the bird was gone. Only a crumpled, half-tossed duvet where her body used to be. 

He couldn’t remember much of the night, but what he could made his stomach tighten up. His dreams had been unrelenting. Lick-wet flesh and tongues and knuckles. Even now, as he rubbed his eyes with flat palms, he could feel the angry erection resting on his stomach, restrained only by the boxers he had slept in. 

No good.

Seemed his hunger was planting dangerous seeds in his subconscious. Started sprouting thick and unignorable roots.

Unmitigated solitude had helped stave off his lust for the most part, until now, because there had been nothing directly under his nose to tempt him. He hadn’t resorted to complete celibacy in the last two years, he was only human. Still ventured to the odd pub in Smithers every now and again to seek out a quick fuck, and usually he could find one. 

Been a good nine months, though, since he got his dick wet. 

He hadn’t consciously let the girl stay with the intention of fucking her, but it was an unfathomable ego that believed he could remain indifferent to the pudding-soft stray he had tucked up in his burrow. 

Only the fifth day of her stay and he was already dreaming of his cock in her throat. What her tongue would taste like. How those tits would fill his hands. How soft the folds of her cunt would feel around his fingers. How those thighs might tighten around his head if he ate her as gluttonously as he was inclined to. 

He shuffled out of bed when his cock softened and his sweat turned icy, which took a good while. He was sticky with it, still, cold and clammy on the back of his neck and in the creases of his palms. He would’ve liked a shower, but the first thing he craved was a drink. 

“Morning,” came a croak as he lumbered into the kitchen in his boxers, spotting her where she sat at the dining table, near the fire she had lit. Dog was curled up in his bed in front of it, seemed she’d taken him out for a piss already. Clever girl. “Kettle’s boiled, if you want a tea.” 

He smacked his lips as he tried to wet his tongue, eyes swollen and heavy and not quite ready for daylight. “Mh,” in place of a thanks. 

“Did you, um — did you sleep okay?” 

That sheepishness was still warbling in her voice, high-pitched and wary, but there was something notably different underpinning it. Embarrassment rather than fear. 

“Slept fine,” he murmured. That’s all he could say on the matter, before his jaw clamped shut, because fleeting memories of his degenerate dreams came and went with every blink. 

“That’s good,” she sighed, a quiet slurp as she sipped her tea. “I was worried I’d keep you awake or, y’know. Thank you, though. For sharing the bed.” 

“Better than the floor?” He asked facetiously, electing for a coffee, scooping a spoonful of instant granules into his empty mug and topping it off with the kettle. Tipped a splash of bourbon in when she wasn’t looking. 

“Much,” she said. “I slept like a log.” 

He snickered. Felt a weight lift from him, though the shame lingered. He shuffled towards the table with his coffee and slumped into the chair opposite her. Did his best to ignore how her eyes flitted about him on the way over — bold of him to wander out with so few clothes on, but at this point he relished in the inadvertent attention. 

“Sounds like you’ll be back tonight, then, eh?” He asked, tapping on his mug as he waited for the coffee to cool. 

“I mean,” she paused, “no, I think — my back just needed a break.” 

“One night in’t gonna do much good,” he said. 

“Well, it was probably… I dunno. I shouldn’t have asked. It was nice to get a proper sleep, though.” 

He took a sip of his coffee. Tasted like tar. “Mh. You needed it,” he agreed. “You’re a lot sweeter this morning.” 

She snorted, looking down quaintly at her near-empty tea. “Whatever,” she muttered. “I’m just, trying to say I appreciate it.”  

“S’fine,” he dismissed bluntly. “Glad you got a proper sleep.” 

“Me too,” she nodded. “I feel more, like, normal. But I had such weird dreams.” 

He gritted his teeth. “Yeah?” 

“Mhm. Can’t remember ‘em, though,” she said, and he just about let out a breath of relief, until she asked; “Did you have any dreams?”

“Don’t dream much,” he bit. 

“You sleep talk, y’know,” she remarked simply. 

He scratched the back of his head, a failure of his efforts to conceal any reaction, because he was abruptly on edge. “Do I?”

“Yeah,” she said. “You were mostly just, like, murmuring. Seemed like you were having a nightmare, I thought.” 

He didn’t like to think she had been awake at all during the night. That their periods of wakefulness might have overlapped, and she might have felt his cock jutting unintentionally against her back, or his hand—

Fuck, was that real? 

It was a dream, he was sure, but the images were muddy and glued together into a gummy mass of not-quite-memories that he couldn’t pull apart. 

“D’you remember what it was about?” She asked, almost innocently, but her avenue of questioning felt pointed and knowing. 

“Mh, dunno,” he grunted, spinning a lie on his feet. “Something about an avalanche.” 

That made her twitch. “Avalanche? You don’t think — there’s not a risk of one, is there?” 

His eyes sunk shut in quiet relief at the successful diversion, pacifying himself with another sip. 

“Doubt it,” he said. 

“We’d be safe in here, anyway, right?” She carried on, unbothered, swirling her tea. “Surely it’s built, like, out of the way, or whatever. Or at least strong enough to stay standing. Right?” 

“Yeah, sweethear’,” he murmured. “We’d be fine.” 

After she whipped up what she called breakfast — two bowls of cornflakes and some frozen berries — she disappeared for a shower, leaving the bowls in the sink. 

You don’t mind if I have one first, do you? She had asked, confident, because she already knew his answer would be yes. Or, close enough to a yes that she went for it anyway, leaving him to venture out into the frigid morning to chop some more wood. 

Not as treacherous outside as the night before, but the wind was still biting, and he doubted it was much closer to zero than it had been before sunrise. It took him close to an hour to split two baskets-full of logs and cart them back inside, trailing powdery snow in with him and letting any residual warmth out with the open door. The air was so gelid that he felt himself shivering by the time he hung up his jacket, ice crystalising in his lungs and at the back of his throat, and all he could think of was a warm rum and a hot shower.

Not so lucky, because she was still fucking in there. 

He checked his watch. Forty-eight minutes since she had pottered off to wash herself — if that was indeed what she did in there, so she said — and she was still in the shower. Water still running and all, he could hear it splashing on the tiled shower floor as he lumbered towards the bathroom door. 

Frustration distended between his temples to the tune of her muffled singing, which only incensed him further — she had already left him with all the house chores, kept him up all fucking night, chewed away at his psyche until all that was left was a starving husk — now she so blatantly laid claim to his space that he could only react with unmitigated anger. 

Not a doubt in his mind that she’d drain the boiler again, selfish little shit, too away with the fairies to spare one thought to the fact it was his bathroom, his shower, his house—

He elbowed open the bathroom door.

She didn’t notice him immediately, too busy rinsing something soapy off her face, until he tore open the shower curtain and reached around her to shut off the lever with a clunk. 

“How many fuckin’ times do I have to tell you not to use all the hot water?” 

The shriek she let out could have shattered glass, and she backed up until her wet body slapped into the acrylic shower wall. Her forearm shot to scoop up her tits, not quite concealing her puffy nipples from him, and a small hand shot between her legs to keep her pussy out of sight. 

“Fuck off!” She roared, a scowl so deep it contorted her entire face, and he could read in her eyes the allconsuming desire to swing an open hand into the side of his head — bitterly prevented by the deep-set need to cover herself up from his prying eyes. 

“What d’you do in here that takes an hour? Forgot it’s my bathroom, huh?” 

“Get out, you fucking asshole,” she cursed, wedged into the corner of the shower as if she might curl up into herself.

He snorted. “Y’got five minutes.”

“Or what?” 

She was getting bold. A little big for her boots. He leaned in, a hand on the curtain bar and no give in his expression. “Or I’m comin’ in for my shower whether or not you’re still in here.” 

“Whatever,” she grumbled, “fine. Just get out.” 

It took him a moment to peel his glare from her; almost a moment too long, because her pellucid fury was beginning to thaw into worry. 

“Five minutes,” he repeated with a grunt, heading back towards the door. 

And right as he shut it, she belted; “Dickhead!” 

Stupidest fucking thing he could’ve done. 

Whatever pent-up temper had been throbbing in his jugulars was, obviously, not alleviated by seeing her naked and slippery in the corner of the shower. At the sight of her tits pillowing over her arm as she tried to keep them out of sight, like hiding her nipples made a lick of difference. At the way the tips of her fingers burrowed between her wet thighs in her effort to hide her cunt from him. 

He went and snatched a glass from the cupboard in the kitchen, filling it up with the icy water that had been sitting in the pipes overnight. Gulped it down in four, then filled up another. 

Now he just needed to jerk off, but the fucking girl was still in the bathroom, more than five minutes later — but he was feeling merciful, and decided not to barge in on her again. If only out of concern he’d act out of his own control. Not confident he could restrain himself. 

She shuffled out eventually, though, with nothing else but a towel wrapped around her chest. Bare legs still beaded with water. Gave him such a poisonous glare that he could taste its bitterness on his tongue. 

Still, he found himself grinning. Her ire was unendingly amusing to him, for an unfathomable reason — perhaps he found it endearing, or maybe it alleviated some of the guilt that was beginning to swell in the pits of him. Maybe if she had cried, or pissed herself, or ran away screaming, he’d feel more like a reprehensible degenerate. Good thing she was a spiteful little shit. 

She pursed her lips at him with a scowl, vitriol embedded in her features. “You could’ve knocked.” 

He chuffed. “Like you’d hear it over your bloody belting.” 

“You could’ve knocked loudly.” 

He tilted his head, responding only with a sip of his water. 

“God you’re a prick,” she snapped, storming towards her suitcase to grab her change of clothes. 

“Hogging my bathroom and I’m the prick?” 

“Blow it out your ass,” she hissed. “You’re not subtle.” 

“No?” 

“You just wanted to catch me naked.” 

“I wanted a hot shower.” 

She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. “That’s a convenient excuse.” 

“I’d say it’s pretty fuckin’ inconvenient.” 

She scoffed, lost for a witty retort, crossing her arms over the change of clothes she held in a pile. “I think you’re a pervert,” she settled on. 

“You reckon?” He chuckled, plonking his empty glass back down on the counter. Couldn’t exactly tell her she was wrong. 

“Yeah, I do.” 

He folded his arms over his chest. Let her accusation fester in the air for a beat too long. 

“Better put some clothes on, then,” he said. 

That shut her up. 

Eyes just about popped out of her head. He didn’t mean it as a threat — not a real one, anyway — though as it lingered in the subsequent quiet it edged toward becoming one. Gall of her to climb into bed with him, slather him in shameless glances, wander around his house near-naked, and accuse him of perversion. If she kept blinking all flummoxed at him, still dripping, he might just have proven her right. 

Her lips tightened into a knot as she scurried back down the hall. Not much he could do but snicker at the girl. Unending penchant for getting herself in trouble and acting all affronted when her behaviour was met with the only predictable reaction. 

He was never an erratic man, that much he could grant himself. His existence was Newton’s law manifest; get out what you put in. Fuck around and find out. She was a fuck-arounder, as he had come to realise, though she seemed oblivious to that fact. 

She’d find out soon enough.

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

I think every lesbian who says she wouldn't date a bi woman is functionally on the same wavelength as men who say they would only marry a virgin

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

it all boils down to "penis steals women's purity" and there's literally no non-shitty way to believe that. being gay doesn't give you a get out of jail free card for being sexist