Welcome, welcome! This is my sin sideblog where I put my not so safe for work writing! But first, an introduction!
I'm Echo and I write fanfiction
I primarily write skeleton x reader stuff.
I go by she/they
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NSFW dabbles, imagines, reactions, and headcannons for the skeletons
S/O / Reader x skeletons NSFW dabbles, imagines, reactions, and headcannons
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Romantic relationship between an adult and a minor
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Summary: On the way to Bill and Frank’s, you and Joel have an argument.
Warnings: 18+only due to smut 😛
A/N: This WIP topped my poll last week so here’s the full version 🥰
WC: 8.2k
Joel Masterlist
🥊🥊🥊🥊🥊🥊🥊🥊🥊🥊🥊🥊🥊🥊🥊🥊🥊
The photograph falls out of the map at the rest stop.
You’ve both stopped to refill canteens at the old hand pump Joel rigged years back, and when he pulls the map from his jacket to double-check the last leg, a square of paper slips out from between the folds and drifts down to the cracked concrete, face-up.
It’s him – a much younger version – and a girl with dark hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. His arm is around her, and she has the sun in her eyes, a soccer ball tucked under one arm.
You pick it up before he gets to it. Not on purpose – just reflex. You bend down because something’s fallen, and your hand is already closing around it when his shoulders go rigid.
"Who is she?"
Joel's face does a thing you've never seen it do. It goes away. Like someone’s pulled the back off a clock and stopped the hands.
"Give that here."
"Joel, who…?"
"Give it here."
You hand it back. He takes it without looking at your hand and slides it into the inside pocket of his jacket, zips it shut and pulls the canteen back out of the pump trough.
"We're losin’ light so let’s move."
That’s the moment. You should leave it there and you know, even as your mouth opens, that you should leave it there.
"Joel."
"Move."
"It's a picture of you and a kid, I'm not asking for state secrets, I'm asking who…"
"It's none of your business is who."
You actually flinch. He doesn’t see it because he’s already turning, already shouldering his pack and starting up the road, and you stand there at the pump with cold water running over your hand for two full seconds before you remember to shut it off and follow.
You catch up to him within a hundred yards. He doesn’t slow down or look at you.
"That's not fair."
"Drop it."
"After eight months that's not fair, Joel"
"I said drop it."
"You can't just…you can't just throw out none of your business like I'm some stranger on the road, like I haven't…"
He stops walking so abruptly that you nearly slam into the back of him, and when he turns, the look on his face is so hot and hard you actually take a step back.
"Like you haven't what?"
"Joel…"
"Finish it. Like you haven't what?"
"Don't do that," you said, quiet. "Don't make me audit my own claim on you to your face."
"Then don't make a claim on me. Don't make a claim on every goddamn corner of me. Not everythin’ about me is for you. There's parts that ain't on the table. There's parts that won’t ever be on the table. You don't get those."
"I wasn't asking for…"
"You were askin’. Soon as you said who is she, you were askin’."
"To know who she was, Joel, that's not the same as…"
"It's the same to me."
He starts walking again, faster now, and you have to actually work to keep up, your pack thumping against your spine.
"It is exactly the same to me. You don't get to crowbar your way into somethin’ that's mine."
"Crowbar…"
"That's what it felt like."
"I asked one question!"
"And you're askin’ three more right now."
You stop on the road and let him walk ahead. He gets about fifteen feet before he realises you’re not behind him, and then he stops too, and stands there with his back to you for a long second, and finally turns, his face set.
"What?"
"You're being cruel," you say, your voice steadier than you expect. "I want you to know that, in case you're not aware. You're being cruel to me right now and I have not earned it."
His jaw works and he doesn’t answer.
"I'm going to keep walking," you say, “because we have to get there before dark. But I'm not talking to you the rest of the way. I'm not. Because I don't trust what I'd say."
"Fine."
"Fine."
You walk past him without looking at him, then hear him fall in behind you after a moment, and that was how the next mile goes – you ahead, him behind, the gap exactly the length of one person's stubbornness.
****
It doesn’t last.
It lasts about twenty minutes, and then the road bends past a collapsed barn and a stand of dead birches, and Joel lets out a long sigh.
"You think I don't wanna tell you."
You don’t answer.
"You think I'm punishin’ you. You think I'm just being a closed-off son of a bitch ‘cause it's a habit, don't you?"
You don’t answer.
"Look at me when I'm…" He cuts himself off and you hear him swallow the rest of it. "Just…stop walkin’ for a second."
You stop, but don’t turn around. You stand on the road, staring at a patch of yellowed weeds growing up through a seam in the asphalt and wait.
"It's not yours," he says behind you. "That's all. It's not anybody's. It's mine."
"Then put the picture somewhere I can't find it," you say to the weeds. "If it's that private don’t carry it in the map I help you read."
He’s silent for a long time before answering.
"That's fair," he says, grudgingly. It isn’t an apology but it’s something, and you could take it, could turn around right then, take what he’s offering and let the rest go. But you’re too tired and too hurt, and the crowbar comment is still sitting under your sternum like a swallowed stone.
"It's not just the picture, Joel."
"I know it's not."
"You said not everything about me is for you. Do you understand what that…do you understand how that lands? After eight months?"
"I was angry."
"So was I, and I didn't say anything like that to you."
"I'm not…I'm not built like you. I don't have your…your way with this. I say what I say. Sometimes it comes out wrong. You knew that goin’ in."
"That's not a defence, it’s a description."
"I know it is."
You finally turn around and see him standing in the middle of the road maybe ten feet back, the sun cutting low across his face. He looks older than you usually let yourself see him, the lines deeper, his jaw rough. And you want to walk back to him and put your hands on his face, and you want to slap him at the same time, and the wanting both at once makes you furious.
"Was she yours?" you ask quietly.
He goes perfectly still.
"Was she your daughter, Joel?"
"Don't."
"That's a yes."
"Don't. I'm askin’ you…I'm askin’ you not to do this on the road with the dark comin’ and us still three miles out, I'm askin’ you…"
"Then ask me kindly, Joel. Ask me like I'm someone you love and not like I'm a damn dog at the door."
"I am askin’ you…"
His voice cracks open on it, suddenly louder than the woods around you, suddenly stripped of the careful flatness he's been carrying it in.
“I am askin’ you to leave it alone. Please, just leave it alone."
The please does it. The please lands in the middle of the road between you and just sits there, heavy.
You close your mouth. He stands there breathing for a second, then he looks away into the trees, at nothing, and adjusts the strap of his pack with a hand that’s almost shaking.
"We need to move. We're losin’ light," he says quietly.
"Okay."
"Okay."
You walk together this time, more or less. You don’t pull ahead, neither does he and you keep maybe a yard between you, both of you saying nothing.
But the silence is different now. Before it had been hot and now it’s cold, settled, the kind of silence that you know is going to outlast the walk and probably outlast dinner. He said please and you backed off. Neither of you has given any ground that matters. You’re both still standing exactly where you were standing at the rest stop, just further down the road.
Half a mile from Bill and Frank's, you finally speak, just to clear the air enough for company.
"I'm not going to make a scene in front of them."
"I know you're not."
"I just want you to know that, so you don't spend dinner bracing for it."
"I wasn't goin’ to."
"Good."
"Okay."
That’s the last thing either of you say before you reach the gate.
****
Bill meets you with his shotgun loose at his side like always. As though he either hasn’t been expecting you or has decided today’s the day he just blows the two of you away. His eyes do the brief catalogue they always do – you, Joel, the space between you – and one bushy brow lifts a fraction.
"You're late."
"It was harder to get out than we expected," Joel says, his voice perfectly even, as though the road hasn't happened, and something in you goes very cold at how easily he can do that.
"Hm." Bill steps aside. "Frank's in the kitchen."
The smell from the kitchen – garlic, rosemary, bread – hits you in the hallway and you almost cry for reasons unrelated to anything. Frank emerges with a dish towel over his shoulder and a smile that warms the actual air around him.
"There you are." He pulls you into a hug and you let yourself sink into it for two seconds before pulling back. His eyes rest briefly on your face, then he turns to Joel and claps his shoulder. "You look like hell."
"Walked twenty-three miles."
"Then you've earned dinner and a drink. Bill, get the good bourbon, not your varnish."
"It's not varnish, Frank, it's…"
"It's varnish."
They bicker into the kitchen, like the couple they are, and you stand in the hallway with your pack still on and Joel three feet away not looking at you. Frank glances back over his shoulder and catches the whole shape of it in one look. His face doesn’t change, but something behind it takes a careful note.
Dinner is extraordinary by any standard. Pasta with sauce that’s been simmering since morning, bread Frank has baked that day, a real salad, wine in real glasses and candles, because Frank is Frank and you’re his guests.
You eat, drink and answer questions in a polite middle register while the rest of you stays three miles back on the road.
"And the road?" Frank asks, refilling your glass without asking.
"It was quiet," Joel says.
"Yeah, quiet," you echo.
Frank's mouth does a small thing that isn’t a smile. Bill eats with the focused efficiency of a man who considers conversation an interruption to dinner, but he’s cataloguing too – the silences, the angles, the way you and Joel both reach for the breadbasket and then both pull your hands back at the same instant rather than risk touching.
"Bill rebuilt the south generator last week," Frank offers into the gap. "It took three days and approximately a thousand profanities."
"Eight hundred," Bill says.
"I rounded up."
"You always round up."
Frank catches you watching, and for half a second there’s something in his eyes that’s almost rueful. Then he’s asking Joel about the ongoing problems with FEDRA, Joel’s answering and you’re left to your wine.
Joel doesn’t look at you across the table, not once through the whole meal. He doesn’t look at you when Frank refills your glass or when you laugh politely at something Bill says. He eats with his eyes on his plate or on whoever is speaking, the wall of him complete, and you want to throw your wineglass at it just to hear it ring.
After dinner Frank waves Joel and Bill off into the workshop to look at a part for the generator and you start gathering plates without being asked, because what else are your hands going to do? Frank lets you, gesturing you toward the kitchen.
It’s small and warm and smells like everything good in the world. Frank runs the water hot, hands you a dish towel, and you stand beside him drying as he washes, in a silence that isn’t pressure, just space. That’s Frank's particular gift. He can simply make room for a person.
"He had a picture of a little girl tucked in the map,” you say after a few minutes. “It fell out and I asked who she was."
Frank's hands don’t pause. "Mm."
"He told me it wasn't mine to know."
"That sounds like Joel,” he says with an exhale.
"We argued on the road for probably half an hour. I asked him outright if she was his daughter and he wouldn't answer but he wouldn't deny it either. And then he said please and I shut up, and we walked the rest of the way in dead silence."
Frank sets a plate in the rack and reaches for another.
"And now I'm here drying dishes in your beautiful kitchen, and I don't know if I want to crawl into his lap or shove him off the porch."
"Why not both," he says mildly.
You laugh, surprised, a wet little sound, and Frank glances over with that warm, patient look of his. "Frank, I'm serious."
"So am I. The wanting both at once is the part you don't have to be ashamed of. That's just love with the gloves off."
"He was cruel to me."
"Yes."
"That's it? Just, yes?"
"Yes, Joel was cruel today. Yes, you didn't deserve it. Yes, that's exhausting. Do you want me to disagree with you?"
"I want you to tell me what to do with him."
Frank shuts off the water, dries his hands and turns to lean against the counter, looking at you directly. His face is kind and a little tired in the way of a man who's had this conversation, in different shapes, many times.
"Can I tell you something?"
"Please."
"Bill didn't speak to me for three days after we first…" he gestures vaguely, “started whatever this is. He let me into his house, he cooked for me, we…well." Frank's smile twitches. "And then he didn't speak to me. Wouldn't sit at the same table. I baked him a pie and put it in front of him and he ate the entire thing without looking at me and then left to check the perimeter."
"Really?”
"Yes. He was so frightened, you see. He'd built an entire life out of not needing, and there I was, suddenly needing him, wanting things from him, and he didn't know how to do it at first. He thought he could wait me out. Thought I'd give up and leave."
"What did you do?"
"I stayed. I made coffee in the morning even though he doesn’t drink coffee. I asked him questions he didn't answer, and after three days he said one full sentence to me, and the sentence was the pastry should have been crumblier. And I called that an enormous breakthrough."
You laugh and it comes out closer to a sob than you intend. Frank pulls you gently into his side, one arm around your shoulders, and you lean into him for a moment with your face against the soft cotton of his shirt and let yourself not be okay.
"Listen to me," he says, soft, against the top of your head. "Joel has lost. I don't know what, exactly, but a man doesn't carry what Joel carries without having lost something terrible. And he’s so used to bracing for the next thing to be taken from him that letting himself have you is, I think, the bravest thing he’s currently capable of. He doesn't know how to do it without flinching. So sometimes the flinch comes out as a hand, and it hits you."
"It hit me hard today, Frank."
"I know it did. I could see it on you in the doorway."
"He said please. He said it like…like it was being pulled out of him."
"Then he meant it." Frank pulls back, hands on your upper arms. "Listen. When he tells you he's sorry tonight, and he will, it isn't going to come out pretty. It's going to come out crooked and rough and maybe without the word sorry in it at all. Don't make him say it the way you'd say it. He doesn't have those words. He has the ones he has."
"That's a lot of grace."
"It is."
"Why should I give it?"
"Because you love him." He shrugs smiling gently. "That's the only reason anyone ever does. And because, for what it's worth, I watched him watching you at dinner when you weren't looking.”
"He didn't look at me once."
"He didn't look at you when you were looking at him. The rest of the time he didn't look at much else. Bill and I did the same dance for two years, sweetheart, I know the choreography."
You stare at the soap suds in the sink.
"Now." Frank hands the dish towel back to you. "We're going to finish these and then I'm putting a little of the good bourbon in two glasses, and you're going to take both up to bed. And then you're going to fight with him a little more – because you need to, you're not done – and then, knowing the two of you, you're going to make up.”
You snort.
"Try to keep it down," he adds dryly. "The walls are not what they could be."
"Frank."
"I'm just saying. Bill sleeps light and he is not a generous man about lost sleep."
****
The guest room is at the end of the upstairs hall, small and warm, a battery lamp glowing on the nightstand. There’s a single small vase of dried lavender on the dresser, because of course Frank has put one there in the spirit of congenial hospitality.
You set the two bourbons down on the nightstand, undress, pull on one of Joel’s old shirts, get into bed and lay on your side facing the wall, listening to the house settle.
He comes in maybe fifteen minutes later, shutting the door quietly. He sits in the chair to pull his boots off then you hear the quiet rustle of him undressing in the half-light, the mattress dipping behind you when he slides in beside you.
"Frank pour you somethin’?" he says, finally, looking at the glasses.
"For both of us."
"Mm."
You can feel him on his back behind you, staring at the ceiling.
"I shouldn't have said crowbar," he says after a long silence.
"No, you shouldn't have."
"And I shouldn't have said the not everythin’ about me is for you, thing. That one's worse. I knew it was worse when it came out."
"Then why did you say it?"
He exhales heavily. "Because you scared me."
You roll over to face him. He’s on his back, one arm behind his head, eyes fixed on the ceiling like it owes him answers, half his face painted gold in the lamplight.
"You scared me," he says again, quieter. "You picked up that picture, and looked at me with that helpin’ face you get, and you were one question away from a door I keep nailed shut, and I…" His jaw works. "I shoved you. I shoved you with words because I don't know how else to shove someone I love."
You go still.
"Her name was Sarah," he says to the ceiling. "She was my daughter. She was twelve in that picture and fifteen when everythin’ went to hell. She didn't make it through the first night."
The air goes out of you.
His hand finds your wrist on the blanket between you and grips it like he’s holding onto something in a current. His fingers are rough, warm and a little unsteady, and you turn your hand under his, so your palms meet, lace your fingers through and hold on.
"Joel, I…"
"That's all I'm tellin’ you tonight," he says to the ceiling still. "That's what I've got in me tonight. Her name and how long. I can't…" His voice catches and he grounds through it. "I can't do more than that tonight."
"Okay."
"I'm not…I'm not sayin’ never."
"I know."
"I'm sayin’ not tonight."
"Joel, it’s okay."
He turns his head finally, looks at you, and his eyes are so raw, so wide-open and exhausted and seen that something in your chest cracks clean down the middle. This man, this impossible, careful, cruel, tender, stubborn man who said crowbar on the road like a slap and please like a prayer and her name was Sarah like a confession in a language he’s inventing as he goes.
"I'm sorry I made you say it on the road," you say.
"You didn't make me say anythin’ on the road."
"I pushed."
"You asked." He exhales again. "There's a difference. I was the one decided to be cruel about it. That was a choice I made. You don't take that for me."
"But…"
"I'm tryin’ to apologise," he says gruffly. "Let me do it badly."
You laugh and his mouth twitches at the corner.
"I'm sorry for what I said," he says, plain, with no scaffolding around it. "For all of it. The whole walk. I was cruel to you, and you didn't earn it and I knew I was doin’ it the whole time, and I did it anyway because I was scared and I'd rather you be hurt than me be cracked open. That's an ugly thing about me, I know it is."
"Yeah," you say softly. "It is."
"I'm gonna work on it."
"Okay."
"It's gonna be slow."
"I know."
He looks at you for another long second. Then, like the looking itself has become too much load bearing, he moves – rolling up onto an elbow over you, his free hand coming to the side of your face, thumb rough against your cheekbone, eyes searching yours in the lamplight.
"I love you," he says, like he’s admitting to something. "You know that."
"I know."
"I'm sayin’ it anyway."
"Say it again."
"I love you."
You reach up and get a hand into the hair at the back of his neck. You pull him down, and the kiss when it lands isn’t gentle. It has four hours of road in it, and twenty-three miles, and a crowbar, and a please, and a girl named Sarah, and eight months of you and him and every careful inch he's let you have. He kisses you like he’s answering all of it at once with his mouth because his mouth is the only instrument he has that doesn’t fail him.
You bite his lower lip, not playfully, and he growls low in his throat. His hand fists in your hair and tugs your head back to put his mouth on your throat instead, beard scraping rough, teeth grazing the tendon, and you arch up into him with a sharp breath caught behind your teeth because Frank's words are still ringing somewhere in the back of your head.
"Lamp," you breathe
He reaches over and snaps it off without taking his mouth off your skin.
The dark makes you bolder and quieter at the same time. Bolder because there’s nothing to see – no faces to read, no flinching to track, just the heat of him, the shape of him and the rough patient unhurried way his hands move. Quieter because the rest of the house is sleeping, the walls are thin and you’re absolutely not going to give Bill a reason to glare at you over breakfast.
Joel takes his time. He has you and he knows he has you. He isn’t going anywhere and neither are you and there’s no light to budget against. So the next kiss comes slow and deep, his hand cradling the back of your skull, his mouth taking yours with a kind of careful greed that makes your toes curl against the sheet.
"Look at me," he says quietly, which is a thing he sometimes says in the dark, even though neither of you can see, because it isn’t really about seeing but rather about being faced.
You turn your face to his and his thumb gently traces your bottom lip.
"I'm gonna make this up to you, alright?”
"You don't have to…"
"I want to."
He kisses you again before you can argue, and his hand leaves your hair and slides down the side of your throat and the line of your collarbone to the soft outside curve of your breast through the shirt. He rucks it up slowly, pushing it up under your arms, and lowers his mouth to your sternum, and then your breast, his beard scraping soft on the underside of you. His mouth is hot and unhurried, and he closes his teeth, just barely, around your nipple and holds there. You gasp out a sound into the back of your hand because that’s not going to be a quiet noise if you let it out.
He makes an answering sound against your skin and splays his hand flat across your stomach as his mouth moved to the other breast. You can’t lift your hips. Or rather, you can but only into the pressure of his hand, and you let yourself stay there and arch up into his mouth instead, feeling him hum approval against you.
He takes his time – you’re not sure how many minutes – and he isn’t doing anything escalating. He’s just keeping you on the edge of something that’s building anyway, with his mouth at your breast and his palm flat on your stomach and the occasional drift of his other hand down the outside of your thigh and back up. Every now and then his teeth, graze your skin gently, carefully, just enough to make you breathe in sharp and hold it.
"Joel…"
"Mm-hm."
"You're…"
"I know."
"Joel."
He laughs against your skin, low and wicked, then his mouth moves down the side of your ribs to the dip of your waist. He lingers on the soft warm plane of your stomach, pressing an open kiss into the skin just under your navel and breathing out slow. His beard scrapes and his lips drag, and you feel something in your hips kick involuntarily up toward him.
His palm catches your hip and pins it back down.
"Easy."
"Joel..."
"I got you."
He keeps going lower, to the crease where your thigh meets your hip. He turns his head and presses his mouth there, mouthing at the hot soft skin and you bite down hard on the side of your own hand to keep the sound in. He notices and his hand leaves your hip, finds your wrist and gently pulls your hand away from your mouth, holding it down by your side, fingers laced through yours.
"Don't bite yourself," he murmurs into the inside of your thigh.
"They will hear…"
"Then you bite the pillow,” he replies with a kiss to the inside of your knee before moving higher. "Or you bite me. I don't care, but don’t bite yourself."
Then his mouth is on you, and you jolt violently. He's taken his time enough that the contact when it comes is almost too much, and the first long flat pass of his tongue is deliberate and unhurried and so exactly what you need that the sound you make is the kind of sound you absolutely can’t afford to make. You get your free hand into the pillow, press your mouth to the inside of your wrist and breathe through your nose hard.
He hooks one arm under your thigh, pushes it open and holds you there, his other hand still laced with yours down at your side. He set his mouth to you with the same unflagging concentration he brings to every careful important thing he does – no rushing, no relenting.
He learns what you wanted by degrees. Slow, flat strokes first, broad and warm and steady as he maps you. Then narrowing, his tongue finding where it counts and working there with small deliberate movements that make your free hand spasm shut around a fistful of pillow and your hips try, again, to push up toward him. His arm under your thigh holds you still and his squeezes yours once for reassurance.
You bite the side of the pillow as he shifts and changes tactic, circling slow at first and then more focused, building a pressure that’s almost mean in its patience. He doesn’t speed up to chase your reaction, rather he just settles in deeper, the scrape of his beard hot against the inside of your thighs, his mouth working with the lethal certainty of a man who knows exactly where he’s going and has no intention of being rushed there.
You squeeze his hand convulsively and he squeezes back as the pressure between your hips coils tighter. You try to lift up into him, and his arm holds you down, and you try to roll away from the intensity and his arm holds you down, and you realise you’re not going anywhere. You’re going to lie there in the dark, take what Joel’s giving you and you’re going to do it quietly.
The unfairness of it almost makes you laugh. He feels the half-laugh shudder through you, and his mouth pauses, briefly.
“Stay with me,” he murmurs against the inside of your thigh.
He returns to the same slow, merciless rhythm, the same precise pressure, and now he adds a finger. You feel the curl of him find the place and press, and your whole body locks up in a wave of sensation that’s almost too much. You turn your face into the pillow and made a small, wrecked noise that you absolutely can’t help.
"Quiet," he says, his voice amused. "Quiet, baby, come on."
"I'm trying…"
"Try harder, cause I ain’t stoppin’."
You whimper into the pillow, and he hums against you again.
The build is long, slow and unbearable. You feel yourself climb in increments, every small ratchet of pressure another notch tighter. Your free hand goes bloodless in his, your other fist white knuckles in the pillow as your hips make small, involuntary movements against the pin of his arm. He keeps on, and on, with the same exact rhythm that’s brought you up to the brink in the first place, because he’s that what gets you off is not a change but a commitment.
You break very quietly, turning your face into the pillow and pressing your mouth there to release a high, thin sound that’s almost a sob. Your whole body winds up tight and then unspools in a long shaking wave, and Joel's mouth stays on you all the way through it, gentling only at the very end as you start to twitch away from too-much. Even then he doesn’t pull off, he just slows and kisses you there with a kind of soft, tender finality that almost sets you off all over again.
He kisses the inside of your thigh once, then the skin above your hip, then your stomach before crawling up the bed.
He finds your mouth in the dark and kisses you, deep and unhurried, and you taste yourself on him and make a small sound into his mouth. He makes one back, low and pleased, and his weight settles over you warm and heavy and exactly where you need it.
You hook a leg around the back of his thigh and pull him in, feeling him hard against you, not pressing his case, just there. You reach down between you, get your hand around him and he growls into the side of your neck.
He pushes into you slow – that long slow controlled press he does, the one where he’s making you both feel every inch of it – and his forehead drops to yours, his breath coming out shaky and hot. You’re still half-trembling from the aftermath, and the stretch and heat of him sliding home sets off small, fresh shocks of pleasure through your hips that make you bite down on the side of his jaw.
"Quiet," he reminds you, very ragged.
"You shut up too…"
He kisses you to end the sentence then moves, deep and unhurried at first, every stroke landing fully, every stroke deliberate. Your hand fists in the hair at the back of his neck and his hand fists in the sheet beside your head and the bed creaks, once, under his weight, and you both go very still for a beat.
He huffs a laugh against your throat. "Christ."
"Frank is going to kill us."
"Bill is gonna kill us. Frank's gonna be delighted."
"Joel."
He kisses you again, biting gentle at your lower lip, and starts moving, slower now, but no less deep, the new restraint making it somehow worse, more intense, every movement controlled and deliberate and full. His hand slides under the small of your back and tilts your hips up into him, the angle doing something that makes you utter a loud noise you absolutely should not make.
His hand comes up gently over your mouth. "Shh."
You bite it lightly and he hisses in a breath through his teeth, hips stuttering, and you feel his control slip a notch, the satisfaction of that running through you like heat.
"You are gonna get us killed with that mouth," he mutters into your hair, but he doesn’t take his hand away.
He keeps moving and you’re so wrung out from before that every stroke is a small unfair pleasure, sensitivity stacking on sensitivity. You’re not sure you can come again but he doesn’t seem worried about that. His hand leaves your mouth eventually, slides down and finds your throat – not gripping, just resting there, the warm wide span of it across your collarbones, thumb at the hollow of your throat – and the weight of his hand there does something to you that you aren’t going to examine right now.
"Look at me," he says again and you turn your face to his.
He kisses you, slow and deep, breaking off when his rhythm changes, hips going harder, more urgent, the bed creaking again and both of you going still again to listen. Then he huffs a laugh against your mouth and continues more carefully whilst you laugh too.
"This is the worst sex of my life," you whisper, delighted.
"Liar."
"Worst behaved."
"I’ll give you that one."
His hand slides down to find you, his thumb working in small slow circles, and you suck in a sharp breath because your body’s decided, surprisingly, that it actually has another orgasm in it and he’s building you back up with a kind of efficient devotion that has you fisting both hands in his shoulders within minutes.
"Joel…"
"I know."
"I can't…"
"You can."
"I…"
"You will."
You do, because you always do, but this one takes you almost by surprise. It’s quieter than the first because you’ve nothing left to make noise with, just a long shaking shudder that runs through you from head to foot, Joel's name on a near-soundless breath, and the convulsive grip of you around him.
That’s what pushes him over. You feel it happen, feel the moment his control breaks, his whole body drawing taut, his hips stuttering and then driving deep one last time and holding there, his forehead pressing hard to yours, his breath coming out in one long, broken exhale into the side of your neck as he spills into you.
He stays there a long moment, shaking very slightly, and his arms tighten around you like he’s trying to keep you both from coming apart.
You hold onto him and after a long while he shifts, just enough to take his weight off you, but doesn’t go far. He pulls you against his chest in one practiced motion, your cheek against the dip of his shoulder, his arm heavy around your back, his other hand coming up to push damp hair back from your forehead with a tenderness that’s, honestly, almost worse than everything that’s come before.
"You think they heard us?" he says, low, into the dark.
"Joel."
"I'm just askin’."
"Frank warned me before bed."
"He what?"
"He said Bill sleeps light."
There’s a pause, then Joel makes a sound that’s a real laugh, low and rusty and surprised at itself, and you feel it move through his chest under your ear, and you think there, there he is, that's the man.
"Frank's a menace," he murmurs
"Frank’s a saint."
"Frank’s a menacin’ saint."
"True."
He’s quiet a long moment as his thumb moves slow against your upper arm, absent and soothing. The kind of touch he does when he isn’t thinking about it, which is the most honest kind of touch he has.
"I'll tell you more about her," he says. "Eventually. I want you to know that. I'm not…I'm not gonna keep her locked away from you forever. It's just gonna take me a while. Some nights I'll get a sentence out, some nights I won't. I need you to be patient with that."
"I can be patient."
"I know you can. I'm askin’ anyway."
"Okay."
"And I'm gonna mess it up again. The way I messed it up today. Probably more than once. I'm gonna say somethin’ cruel and walk three miles before I figure out how to take it back. That's…that's how I'm built. I can work on it, but I can't promise I'm done with it."
"I know."
"You sure?"
You tip your head up. You can’t see him, but you find his jaw with your hand and run your thumb along it.
"I’m here, Joel. I'm not going anywhere. You can mess it up again. I'd rather you mess it up and come back than be perfect and distant. Mess it up and come back – that’s the deal."
"That's a generous deal."
"You're worth it."
He turns his face into your palm, and you feel him exhale against your wrist, slow and shaky on the way out, like he’s setting something down.
"Sarah used to put hot sauce on everythin’," he says, into your hand. "I used to tell her it was a personality defect, and she used to tell me I was borin’."
You hold very still, like a deer has wandered close.
"She would've…" he takes a breath. "She would've liked you. She had a smart mouth too."
The tears come quiet and neither of you make anything of them. He just holds onto you, and you hold onto him and somewhere down the hall Bill is probably awake now, glaring at the ceiling and Frank is probably curled into him, smiling, knowing exactly what has happened and being insufferably pleased about it.
You'll take Frank's smugness in the morning. You'll take Bill's glare. You'll take all of it.
"Tell me one more thing about her," you whisper. "Just one, then we sleep."
He’s quiet for a long second.
"She was stubborn," he says finally. "Worst stubborn kid I ever met. I used to think it was the worst thing about her."
"And now?"
His arm tightens around you, fractional and deliberate.
"Now I think it's how people survive.”
You close your eyes against his shoulder. Outside, the compound hums and holds. Down the hall, the house sleeps, or pretends to. In here, in the dark, a man who’s spent a day being cruel to you because he’s frightened has laid down a name and two sentences about a girl who liked hot sauce, and that was more than he’s given anyone in a very long time.
You know it, and he knows you know it, and the both of you hold on.
****
You wake to grey light through the curtains and Joel's arm heavy across your waist and the very distinct sense, somehow even before you’re fully conscious, that you’re going to have to face Bill at some point in the next hour.
Joel’s still asleep, which is rare. He usually wakes before you at the first change in the light with his hand already drifting toward whatever weapons is nearest. This morning, he’s on his back with his mouth slightly open, one arm hooked around you and his breathing slow and even. You watch him for a minute in the soft early dimness and let yourself just have it – the unguarded shape of him, the grey in his beard and the small twitch of his lashes.
Then you remember Frank's warning, remember exactly how thoroughly you hadn’t adhered to it, and pull the quilt over your head with a groan.
Joel stirs, his arm tightening fractionally.
"Mornin'," he rasps, voice gravel-deep, eyes still closed.
"We have to go down there."
"Mm."
"Joel, we have to go down there and look Bill in the face."
He cracks one eye open and pulls the quilt back down off your head with his free hand, looking at you with the private warmth he saves for first thing in the morning, and your chest does the thing it always does.
"How bad you figure?”
"Frank will be insufferable."
"He’s always insufferable."
"More insufferable."
"Mm." He shifts and kisses your forehead. “Bill’s gonna glare at us. Guess we could always climb out the window."
"It's a two-story house, Joel."
"I've done worse."
You laugh against his collarbone, and he holds you a moment longer than strictly necessary. The night is there between you, settled, not gone but not raw anymore either. You run your palm up the warm flat of his stomach, and he catches your wrist gently, turns it, kisses the inside of it once, and lets go.
"Come on," he says. "Let’s get it over with."
Frank’s at the stove when you go down, dressed in a faded green sweater with the sleeves pushed up, scrambling eggs in a cast iron pan. He doesn’t turn around when you come in but you can hear the smile in his shoulders.
"Good morning," he says brightly. "Coffee's on. Sit."
Bill’s already at the small table with a mug in both hands and a newspaper from approximately 2003 open in front of him. He looks up over the top of the page. His eyes meet yours, hold for a second then move to Joel’s. He sets the paper down with the deliberation of a man putting a weapon away.
"Sleep well?".
"Bill," Frank sings from the stove.
"I'm asking a polite question."
"It is not a polite question, and you know it."
"It's an extremely polite question. I could've asked something else."
You sit down quickly and Joel sits across from you with the kind of careful composure he usually reserves for negotiations with armed strangers. Reaching for the coffee pot, he pours two mugs without comment and slides one to you.
"Thank you," you whisper.
"Mm-hm.”
Frank sets a plate of eggs in front of you with a flourish, then one in front of Joel. Then he leans down by your ear, just briefly, as he sets bread on the table, and murmurs, "I did warn you."
"Frank, please…"
"I'm just acknowledging. He's a very light sleeper."
"Extremely light,” Bill says from behind his paper.
Joel’s gone a particular colour across the cheekbones that you’ve not seen on him before and that you intend to remember for the rest of your life. He looks intently at his eggs then clears his throat.
"Apologies, Bill."
"Mm."
"Won't happen again."
"It will absolutely happen again," Frank says cheerfully, sitting down with his own plate. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Joel, it's unbecoming. Toast?"
He passes the basket and you can’t help noticing that he’s glowing, because there’s nothing in this world Frank loves more than a small domestic embarrassment that he’s personally seen coming, and you’re going to live with this triumph of his forever.
You take the toast and eat the eggs. They’re predictably perfect and Bill eats behind his paper and makes the occasional dry comment about the structural integrity of upstairs floorboards and the general principle that walls are not, in fact, soundproof.
After the third one, Joel sets down his fork and looks at him. "You done?"
"Almost."
"Take your time."
"Just one more." Bill turns a page. "The lavender on the dresser is for calming, Frank, I told you it was wasted in there."
Frank laughs so hard he has to set his coffee down and, by this point, you’re also laughing, in a kind of helpless way, your face in your hands. Joel's foot finds yours under the table and presses there, warm and steady, and when you look up at him through your fingers, he’s watching you.
****
Frank refuses to let you leave without a packed lunch – actual bread, actual cured something, an apple each, a small jar of preserves with the lid wrapped in waxed paper – and Bill, gruffly, while Joel is checking your packs, presses a small repair kit into your hand.
“The strap on your left pack’s going to go in about a hundred miles, I patched it but watch it.”
“Thank you,” you reply and he nods and moves away.
Frank hugs you at the gate, long and warm, and when he pulls back, he places his hands on your upper arms and looks at your face.
"Better?"
"Better."
"Good." He kisses your forehead like a brother. "Come back soon. And next time, find some wheels so I don't have to feed you both quite so much. I'm only saying,” he says on your look. “The pasta sauce takes hours."
He hugs Joel too – and Joel lets him, which is its own small miracle – and Bill nods and says something low to him that you don’t catch. Joel nods once and there’s a beat there of two stubborn men acknowledging each other across a small understood distance.
Then the gate clangs shut behind you, and you’re back on the road.
The morning’s beautiful in the way late October can be when it decides to show off – pale sun, sharp air, leaves coming down in slow drifts, the road stretching ahead through a tunnel of yellow birches. Your packs and bellies are full. Frank's preserves are wrapped carefully in the top of your pack and you’re going to have them on bread at some point in the afternoon and you know it’s going to be one of the better moments of your year.
Joel walks beside you, his pace matching yours without thinking about it.
About a quarter mile out he reaches over and takes your hand, his warm palm folding around yours, fingers lacing through, the small adjustment of a thumb across your knuckles.
You look at him.
"What?" he says, eyes on the road ahead.
"Nothing."
"You're lookin' at me."
"I'm allowed to look, surely."
"Mm."
You walk on as the leaves come down and a bird screams somewhere off in the woods. His thumb keeps doing the slow thing on the back of your hand and you think about how many ways there are to apologise and how some of them aren’t words at all.
"Frank's going to dine out on that for years," you say eventually, “even if there’s nobody to dine out on it to.”
"Frank’s gonna dine out on that until one of us is dead." After a minute, he glances sideways at you, a sly smile at the corner of his mouth. “Worth it?”
"Don't fish."
"I ain’t fishin’."
"You are absolutely fishing."
"Maybe a little."
You squeeze his hand. "Worth it.”
A while later – maybe a mile, maybe more – he speaks again, looking ahead and not at you.
"She used to like this kind of mornin’.”
You don’t look at him because you know better. You keep your eyes on the road and your hand in his. "Yeah?"
"Yeah, cold like this. She'd get up earlier than she had to just to be in it. Used to drive me crazy in the winter. She'd be out in the yard at six a.m. with no coat, breathin’ steam." He pauses. "I'd yell at her about the coat, tell her she was gonna catch her death. Seems ironic now."
"Did she put it on - the coat?"
"Eventually. Made a whole production of it though."
You smile at the road. "Sounds like she got her stubbornness from you."
"From me and her mother. Poor kid didn't stand a chance, frankly."
The frankly is so dry and so Joel that you laugh out loud, and he looks over at you finally, his eyes warm with the look you saw this morning in bed, the thing that means he’s here – all the way here, not braced for the next bad thing.
"Thank you for telling me," you say.
"Mm-hm."
"I mean it."
"I know you do." He looks back at the road. "That's why I told you."
You walk with his hand warm in yours. Ahead, the road curves up out of the hollow and into the next stand of trees, and beyond that is however many miles and you’ll take them all as long as he keeps his hand where it is.
"Joel?"
"Mm."
"Frank put a jar of preserves in my pack."
"I saw."
"Let me know when you want lunch.”
“I will.”
“Because I’m starving, just so you know.”
He laughs, squeezes your hand, and you walk on into the morning together.
summary: after helping the mandalorian with a favor, he brings you a gift as a thank you. little do both of you know that this gift sparks a connection that neither of you can deny, and thoughts that din never considered before you.
tags/warnings: dual pov, no use of y/n cuz ew, alcohol consumption, mentions of medicine/contraceptives, a very tiny mention of being chased/hunted down, hella chemistry, fluff, language, jealousy, sexual tension, yearning, dirty talk, heavy makeout, biting, fingering, clit play, cunnilingus, breast play, slight choking kink, piv unprotected sex, praise kink, breeding kink, cream pie, helmet off, dark room sensory focused.
author’s note: listen listen LISTEN... I know, it's been a hot minute 🥲 Life happened and all that jazz. Tbh this has been in my drafts for a while but I decided to finish it now that the movie is out so this is probably canon divergent at this point lol. But when I tell you I ran away writing this, bitch I raaaan. To everyone who wondered what happened to that bottle of liquor in s3, this is for you pookies🫵🏻🙂↕️
When you decided to make Nevarro your home, you expected it to be a rough place. A far off den of thieves, bounty hunters, and a sleazy connection to the old empire. Nonetheless, it was cheap so you convinced yourself you could put up with it. It wasn’t anything new to you. Plus, at the time, you really didn’t have anywhere else to go.
Thankfully, the reputation has drastically improved over the past few years. It’s not Naboo, but there’s a sort of gritty charm to it. Rebels became marshals. Bars became schools. Thieves became honest vendors. Hell, there’s even kaf shops here now.
You’re no stranger to drastic changes in this galaxy. You’ve beared witness to the rise and fall of an empire after all.
But receiving a bottle of wine at night from a notorious ex-bounty hunter is definitely a first for you.
“You’re… giving this to me,” you ask, dragging the question out.
The Mandalorian stands at your doorstep. Unreadable beneath hard shiny metal and illuminated only by the entry light of your home above your door. The chilly night air bites your cheeks but he stands unfazed.
“As a thank you,” he explains. “You were a big help to my kid and this was the only thing I had that seemed like something you’d enjoy.”
All you did was give his little green kid some medicine. It’s not like it was even your first interaction with the infamous hunter. He’s stopped by your apothecary a couple times. Passing by so swiftly you hardly even knew he was there if it wasn’t for the lingering stares from other customers. If you recall correctly, he only ever picks up supplies to replenish a med pack or bacta spray for wounds.
Until you suddenly found him at your doorstep the other night with his adorable little green baby in his arms. The poor little guy was running a fever, coughing up a storm, and had even refused food for over a day. Any parent would be frantic. And so you didn’t even think twice to let them inside.
Luckily your small shop is attached below your home, so you were quick to find the right tinctures for his illness. The Mandalorian paced circles in your kitchen as you administered the medicine and blotted his kid’s little forehead with a cool damp cloth. It took some time and a lot of reassurance to a very nervous father, but after a few hours the fever broke.
You sent them home with some herbal tinctures and even some homemade hard medicinal candies for stubborn coughs and that was it. Hardly any words were exchanged between you that night that didn’t pertain to the child. Only a heartfelt thank you, goodnight, and a promise to pay you back somehow. You assured him that it really wasn’t necessary, that you were glad to help.
You’ve admittedly always been curious about the man. With his stoic demeanor and a reputation that preceded him like lightening preceded thunder. He’s somewhat of a local legend, menace, and hero all wrapped up in one. And now he’s at your door. With booze. Definitely a man of his word, this guy.
“You’re giving this,” you repeat with astonishment. “This whole bottle, to me?”
“Yes,” he answers again. “Is it a special one or something?”
“This is Andoan wine,” you emphasize, holding out the clear glass bottle. “You can only find these on Coruscant now. Very delicious, very rare, very expensive.”
“Is it,” he asks nonchalantly. “I’ve never tried it before. But I hope you enjoy it.”
“You really don’t have to,” you tell him.
“I insist. I didn’t know the first thing to do so I appreciate your help.”
You chuckle. With your limited interactions, you’re starting to see that he’s short and to the point with his words. Almost like he’s not entirely used to speaking with people.
“I…” You nearly argue it again but decide against it. He really didn’t have to give you such a lavish gift for something any good person would do in a situation like that. It was only natural. But at this point, refusing him might come off as rude so…
“Thank you very much.”
The Mandalorian acknowledges your gratitude with a tilt of his helmet, then turns on his heels to leave without another word. And for some reason, you linger at the door. You watch him go down one step, then another, then-
“H-hey, Mando?”
Your sudden call stops him in his tracks on the stair case and he turns to look back over his shoulder. The dim light gleaming over his steel.
“Yes?”
“I…. w-well…”
You’re stammering. Just come out and say it.
“If you’ve never tried it… would you like to share it with me?”
He stands there silently looking at you and the awkwardness crawls your skin.
“I’m not busy at the moment and it’s not really in my culture to drink alone.”
Culture your ass. You just want to drink with him. It’s unclear why in particular but… you’re curious about him. Other than the company of his kid, he seems alone. You wonder if he prefers it that way or if it’s for another reason entirely. Either way, the offer was worth a shot.
There’s more silence and the only noise in the air comes from the gentle chirp of some lava crickets and the breeze brushing the trees in the street. And it’s in that moment that regret starts to burn in your stomach
He’s gonna say no. A pause like that doesn’t necessarily mean yes. But it would be rude not to offer, right? A bottle this nice doesn’t come by these parts and it’d be a shame to drink it alone. It’s reasonable to offer the gesture. After all, he went out of his way to come here from across town. It’s the least you can do to show your appreciation in return.
“Alright.”
The word that falls out of him so effortlessly hits you like a punch to the chest. Are you nervous? Absolutely. But how many people can say they shared a drink with the Mandalorian?
A few minutes later, you find yourself standing on your tip toes, grabbing a couple earthenware ceramic cups in your kitchenette cabinet while Mando stands in your living room. His helmet follows the various potted plants, momentos and knick knacks from your travels littered around your home. Even tracing his gloved fingers over some of them.
“You have a nice home,” he says. “I didn’t notice before. Very lived in.”
“Lots of junk,” you joke. “You can say it Mando, I won’t mind.”
“My place is still new. Doesn’t feel like a home just yet.”
“That’ll change over time,” you assure him. “After a while, your home becomes a collection of memories.”
His attention gets drawn to a particular item on your wall. It’s an old worn down canvas satchel bag that hangs on the wall. At one point it was a life line. Now it serves as a reminder that no matter how hard life gets, showing a little kindness can go a long way for someone.
“What’s this memory?”
“That? That memory is what got me here.” You smile to yourself as you wipe down the cups with a clean kitchen rag.
“A few years ago, I was on Pantora with just some spare change and the clothes on my back. I was desperate to leave so I ended up hitching a ride on a freight ship. I worked on the ship in exchange for a ride to Corellia. Their language was difficult to learn and I had a rough time getting things done because for some reason everything was written in the native language and not aurebesh. On a stop to Tattooine, I accidentally labeled a pallet of coaxium as a pallet of scrap metal. That “scrap” was sold to some Jawas and by the time everyone realized my mistake we were already halfway to the next planet.”
“Was that before you came the Nevarro?”
“That was the reason I came to Nevarro,” you clarify. “It was their next stop so they dropped me here.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, ouch,” you laugh. “Anyway, I guess one of the workers felt sorry for me and left me that satchel with a couple credits and some ration bars inside. Buuut my mistake turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Nevarro turned itself around. I have my own little business. I’m even able to save a little bit of money now. For the time being, things are comfortable. I’ve hopped around the system a lot as you can see. But… this is a place I can always come back to.”
“Something reliable,” he adds.
“Exactly,” you say softly, smiling at the sentiment.
You look up at him. And you didn’t notice as you were cleaning those cups that he’s now completely facing towards you. His visor is trained on you. And it’s then that you realize how small your home really is. Because Mando is broad.
His crossed arms accentuate his wide shoulders. His chest plate follows the lines of his trim torso. Even those plates of beskar armor can barely hide the bulk of his biceps. Your eyes briefly, briefly take a tour at his waist line before you realize how incredibly rude you’re being.
He’s a guest. And a customer. Don’t. Check. Him. Out.
Heat starts to rise in your cheeks. Focusing back on the cups, you round the kitchen counter and walk over to him.
“I’m sorry. All this talking suddenly got deeper and I feel like I haven’t really introduced myself. We’ve only ever passed by each other before,” you chuckle, shaking away the nerves.
In hindsight you should’ve just introduced yourself the other night, but truthfully you were in care-taker-mode and it didn’t occur to you at the time. Plus you didn’t think you’d have an encounter with the man again other than seeing him briefly in your shop every so often. But he seems like a nice enough person with the limited knowledge you do have with him. And after tonight you’re bound to cross paths again. So you happily extend your hand out and give him his cup along with your full name.
There’s a couple beats of silence and you’re starting to see that’s his default. But it doesn’t stop you from second guessing your words as if you’re crossing an unknown boundary. There’s a slight tilt downward with his helmet and he responds with a regretful “I’m sorry, but-“
“You don’t have to tell me your name,” you immediately add. “I know there’s… principles you must have. I just wanted you to know me. That’s all.”
Another beat passes before he finally reaches out to take the cup in his hand. He repeats your name and the way it comes out of his voice holds a whole new flavor. Soft and curious even through the warble of his vocoder. It’s almost like he’s seeing how it tastes.
You like it. You like it a lot.
“It’s nice to meet you.” The voice wears the vocoder like a veil but you still catch a hint of a smile by his relaxed tone. No real logical way to know for certain, just a gut feeling.
“Likewise,” you smile back.
“So,” he exhales. “You want to know how two Mandalorians drink?”
“Sure. Sounds educational,” you joke.
With a tilt of his helmet, Mando steps further into the living room area and you follow behind, cup and bottle in hand. Walking over to the couch, his gloved hand reaches for the small round pillow resting there. His smokey grey cape flows over his shoulder and for a moment you’re mesmerized by the movement. As he turns on his heel, his fingers release the pillow. Letting it fall to the thin rug with a muted poof.
“Right here.” Mando gestures to the floor and you waltz over to take a seat on the cushion, crossing your legs. It doesn’t escape your notice how he doesn’t grab the only pillow for himself. Opting for your comfort over his own.
He takes a minute to look around the room. Probably checking for anything reflective. Then with a swish of his cape to the side, Mando settles in the floor behind you. When his back presses against yours, you expect a wall of cold hard metal beneath the cape. But instead there’s warmth. Strong and firm, but still warm and giving.
“It’s customary to sit on the floor when drinking with a war band. Usually outside around a fire. When it’s just two, it’s back to back.”
“Aaah,” you drawl. “Very practical. I like it.”
The top of the bottle comes off with a pop and the rich scent caresses your nose like a hug. After pouring about two fingers worth into Mando’s cup you pour one for yourself and settle in.
“Are we drinking to anything tonight ,” you ask him.
“Not sure. How about…,” he pauses for a moment before deciding. “To that Pantoran who gave you the satchel.”
That makes you laugh out loud. But you can’t help but feel a little pleased at that. If it wasn’t for him, you wouldn’t be on Nevarro, wouldn’t have a home. And you definitely wouldn’t be drinking with Mando tonight. For that you’re especially grateful.
“You know what, yeah,” you chuckle. “To the Pantoran.”
Mando extends his arm back to reach your cups and you meet him halfway. Letting them touch with a soft clack.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
There’s an unclicking sound and you sense that he’s probably tilting his helmet back to drink. You ignore the small tinge of disappointment that he didn’t take it completely off. But it’s understandable. He doesn’t know you well. Even drinking like this with an outsider is probably a big deal for people of his creed. His back presses a little further against yours as he takes his first sip and you take yours.
The wine is rich and dry, and a bit smokey. But the underlying taste of tangy fruit blends well with the flavor. Going by the color, it has to have been bottled for a decades. The alcohol runs warmly down your throat and settles like smoldering ember in your stomach. It’s like no other alcohol you’ve ever tried before. Not even close.
“Hoooh,” he hisses after that sharp bite of alcohol.
“Yeah,” you agree knowingly. Already sensing that this bottle is getting finished tonight.
The conversations flow pretty easily after the first drink. He tells you about how his boy came into his life and how he suddenly found himself being his father. You tell him that you can only dream of having a parent like him because you never got to know yours. You half expected he would cut the interaction short and only accept one drink. But when you offer a refill, he gladly accepted which warmed you from the inside.
Admittedly you ask a few curious questions about his creed and he indulges you a bit. And he asks about how you got into medicine making. But for the most part you both stick to easier topics like current events on Nevarro, work, and food. Eventually two drinks turn into three and somehow you’ve both dipped into topics like past relationships. Which is dangerous territory after drink number three.
“It was baaad, Mando. I’m telling you. I mean, really! Who gives two shits who makes more money than who? Or am I in the wrong here?”
“Nah, definitely not,” he replies. His speech now more relaxed but a little raspy from the alcohol. “Honestly, he sounds like a little bitch if that was his main concern.”
“Yeah! Like, what is it with these men and needing to feel superior in such bullshit, inconsequential ways?”
“You seem strong willed. Weak men are intimidated by that.”
“Yeah well, then every man I’ve met in this galaxy was weak,” you groan. “I mean, c’mon. Am I that intimidating? Is it the yapping? It’s probably the yapping.”
“I think someone who’d be deterred by something that trivial doesn’t sound worth a damn anyway.”
With that, you let out a deep sigh and slump against the man behind your back.
“Eh, you’re probably right,” you exhale. You toss back the last little sip in your ceramic cup, savoring the flavor.
“You know what, it’s fine. I’m fine. I’ll just be that shop girl around the corner who throws herself into her work, makes her little remedies, and stays happily independent. I think I can live with that.”
A pause streches between you.
“You don’t sound too convincing, Shop Girl,” he teases.
“Shit,” you tsk.
You both wheeze with laughter, your bodies rumbling against one another and it’s so… relaxing. He’s surprisingly easy to talk to. Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t say much. Or that what little he does say is said with a sincerity you’re not used to. Or you’re drunk. It could very well be that.
But in a galaxy full of deceit and unknown dangers, it’s refreshing to talk with someone as honest as him. He’s authentic, unapologetically so.
“Hey so… can I ask you something?”
“You’ve been asking things this whole time,” he teases.
“I know, but… it’s technically a helmet question. And you can tell me to fuck off if it’s too much.”
Mando hums and the rumble reverberates through your body, nesting warmly in your chest. He’s settled comfortably against you and it makes you feel close enough to ask what you want to ask. After thinking it over he gives you permission.
“Can’t wait to hear this,” he sighs with a little amusement.
You smile. To your surprise, he actually has a good sense of humor. A dry, blunt one . But humor nonetheless. You run a finger over the rim of your cup, finding a little more courage.
“Mando… Have you ever kissed anyone before?”
It’s a simple enough question, right? It’s within the ballpark of the topics you’ve been discussing. And you’re both adults. It’s not like it’s inappropriate…Right?
Oh god, you really are drunk…
Regret rises with each passing second and you wonder why you even brought it up. It’s probably some kind of insult to his creed to ask something like that.
“Too much,” you broach gently.
“No,” he says softly. “You’re not exactly the first person to ask that. Doubt you’ll be the last.”
He pauses for a moment to find the right words. Then with a heavy exhale he gives you an answer to your insanely intrusive question.
“I was pretty young when I took the creed,” he states. “Ten, twelve maybe? Too young to be interested in those kinds of things. Never looked back since. To be completely honest, it’s not even something I really think about in adulthood. Never understood the hype.”
“Sooo, I’ll take that as a no.”
“No,” he breathes. “Never kissed anyone.”
Never kissed anyone? Never felt a person’s soft lips against his own or graze his skin? Does that mean he hasn’t gotten to experience more than kissing? Licking? Biting? Or…
Do not finish that thought…
“Huh… Well, that’s a shame,” you say without thinking, quickly adding “-but at the same time, I completely understand it too! I mean, it shows a lot of self discipline, you know? To resist that kind of… temptation. Most people don’t have any reason to be disciplined enough to stay chaste. I can admire tha-"
“I said I’ve never kissed anyone, I didn’t say I never fucked.”
Thank… the Maker… you’re not face to face. Because the way your eyes bulged just now would’ve been downright embarrassing had it been caught. He didn’t just say sex or even screwing. The Mandalorian fucks. The alcohol in your blood seems to conjure a brief glimpse of what that might look like before you find enough coherence to shew it away.
“…oh,” you breathe out, effectively stopping your rambling. “I-I guess I just assumed…”
A deep exhale blows out of his nose. He hums, seemingly entertained by the foot you’ve put in your mouth. But also making the air light between you.
“Well, you assumed wrong.”
The humor in his voice settles your nerves a bit. Thankfully there isn’t an awkward air at the sudden change to such a topic despite hardly knowing each other. And oddly enough, it feels easy to talk about it for that very reason.
“You’re rather chatty when you drink, Mandalorian. I feel like I’m learning all sorts of things about you tonight.”
“You’re right,” he breathes. “I spoke without thinking, I apologize.”
“No, It’s fine. I don’t mind at all. It’s a relief to know there’s a man under all that armor and not solid metal.”
He hums again and the noise stirs something in your chest.
“Well, even so… It’s late… Probably best if I stop drinking.”
You look into your empty cup. Then glance over to the bottle with barely a drop left inside. Something inside you wilts. There’s nothing to keep him here any longer…
“Yeah… Me too.”
You’re not sure if you wait for him to move first or if he’s waiting for you. But both of you remain still for nearly a whole minute. Silent and hesitant to end the night. As comfortable as it is, you feel Mando’s back lean away from yours and you miss the warmth. You turn on the floor to find him standing up as he adjusts his helmet clasp and places his empty cup on the table.
“You were right. It tasted better shared,” he admits. A satisfied smile curls your lips.
“If you learned anything about me tonight, Mando, it’s that I am always right when it comes to liquor.”
“I appreciate the hospitality.”
“I appreciate the company.”
You place a hand on the table as an anchor in an attempt to stand up and follow him to the door. But as you try to stand straight, the room spins and your knees buckle.
Nope. Not doing that.
You sit your ass right back down on that cushion before you make an even bigger fool of yourself. Quick to respond, Mando catches your free arm. Making sure you land back down safely.
“You ok,” he asks, concerned but with a hint of humor.
“Pfft. Yeah, I’m good. I think I’ll just stay down here for a minute,” you chuckle, running a hand through your hair and closing your eyes for a moment.
For sure you’ll have a hangover tomorrow. Shit. You work tomorrow. There’s a couple things you’re running low on, too. You’ll have to request an order through the trading guild. That’ll cost credits. Maybe if you get that Chiss man again you can manage a trade and he can throw in those dried flower buds for that tea that keeps getting sold out.
You know you’re already a bit dizzy. But behind closed eyes you feel like your head is swaying. Or rather… that it’s being moved. Something warm and firm holds your jaw up and when your eyes flutter open again you’re met face to face with dark silver.
The Mandalorian stands barely a foot in front of you. Visor fixed down on your face. Maybe the wine has made your brain slow but it’s only when you follow the path from his shoulder and down his outstretched arm that you realize what’s holding your jaw… is his hand.
With a subtle pass of his thumb along your cheek you can feel warmth starting to pool in your face. Awareness pricks the hairs on the back of your neck when you realize your position. Sitting on your knees, face barely level to his waist as a wall of steel and muscle towers over you.
“Your cheeks get flushed when you drink,” he mutters.
When I drink. Suuuure.
“Now you know,” you mumble without thinking. It grants you a satisfied hum from his helmet and you feel it travel through your ears and under your skin.
“Now I know…,” he repeats.
There’s no movement, no words. But there’s something thick in the air. It’s heavy and enticing. It’d be so easy to get wrapped up in it with any sudden movement. You look up at him through half lidded eyes and you get a gut feeling that they’re meeting his. You’re not sure what his are giving away. But yours have to be hinting something you’ve been trying to hide all night.
With a sharp intake of air, Mando steps back and releases your face. Your head drops a little at the loss of support and it follows his direction as he walks towards the front door with quick, heavy steps. With a press of a button on the wall panel, the door panels slide open and just before he steps outside… he stops. Not looking back, just standing there at the edge of your home with his stand still resting on the doorway.
“Don’t invite me in again.”
And then he’s gone. The door panels shut swiftly, leaving you alone and more confused than when he showed up at your door.
…what?
•
Din wishes he could say that the first thing he thinks about when he got home that night was his sleeping kid safe in the crib. Or at the very least about how incredible that wine tasted. But after he undressed and collapsed down onto his bed half drunk, the only thought he couldn’t stop thinking about as he stared at the ceiling was…
Damn… it’s been a while.
For the past few years, Din’s life has flipped around a number of times. Between barely scraping by as a bounty hunter, saving an orphan kid from an imperial psychopath, losing said kid, then having him return and be by his side to reclaim the Mandalorian home-world, there’s not much time to indulge those kinds of needs. But just because Din found himself being a busy father later in life doesn’t make certain things dead.
No. Everything felt very much alive and kicking by the end of that bottle.
Behind closed eyes, his room feels like it swirls. After that wine, his body feels loose and relaxed. Something he rarely gets to experience these days. Images dance across his closed lids. Delicate, slender hands around a handmade cup. A pink flush on smooth skin. Plump tinted lips between his fingers, softly parted and begging to be touched. The intrusive impulse to dip a finger between those lips was so strong he could feel his hand move into the action before he could even think to do so.
All thanks to that one question. That simple, innocent question activated a deep part of his brain that lay dormant. And then he decided to shatter the care free atmosphere by with a crass remark about sex.
Never in his life has he regretted saying something so fast. You barely even know each other. Admittedly, Din isn’t exactly a refined person, far from it actually. But after his third glass, any semblance of manners flew right out the window. His mouth did the walking with little thinking involved.
Yet, you didn’t get uncomfortable. You handled the slip up with humor instead of getting offended or something just as bad. Using humor to make the air light again. It surprised him how easily you did it. How easy the conversation was all night, really. It’s not everyday he’s able to let his guard down with another person.
Once he was aware of that, he became aware of everything. How late the hour was, how drunk you both were, and how your bed was right behind where you both sat. Only separated by a simple room divider. Even when he tipped up his helmet, there was a heady herbal scent from you that kept swimming in his nose and it was just as intoxicating as the wine. He couldn’t trust himself to stay any longer. And now, in the safety of his own home, he finds himself preoccupied with a mountain of questions.
What kind of person are you? What’s your daily life like? What other places have you seen? What troubles you? You seem to be rooted here in Nevarro for the time being. But from what you’ve mentioned about your past, you have a kind of nomadic life. What happens if he… if the kid gets attached and you decide to move on to another planet? But then again, it’s not like he’s not one to talk though is he?
Loyalty. Solidarity. These are things that have been etched to his core since childhood. But giving those things to something that could be fleeting? That’s a risk he’s avoided for most of his life. Those kinds of wounds never heal.
But as much as he tries to distance himself, it’s not always in his control.
Three weeks go by and they couldn’t end soon enough. When he offered to work with Teva (or Blue as he usually calls him) on a case-by-case basis, he figured they’d be more involved than the bounty hunting trade. He’s spent up to a month off planet at times in order to capture a quarry so it’s not exactly new to him.
But that was when he had the Razor Crest. With a cot to rest in, a weapons locker, and supplies readily at hand. In that regard, the N-1 leaves much to be desired. Plus Din’s back isn’t what it used to be and long rides in that ship are killer. And to add insult to injury, this last case with Zeb was especially complicated to resolve. It left him and the kid completely drained.
After finally landing back in Nevarro with fresh credits, there is absolutely nothing Din wants more than to just go home, bathe, and sleep for at least a day. But he’s got a very hungry green mouth to feed and there’s no way Din is fixing up any dinner tonight.
Street food it is.
“Alright, we’re making this quick. In and out. I’ll get you as much food as you want and you can pick out one sweet. Not five. One. Got that?” Grogu tilts his head at Din curiously from where he follows behind on the cobblestone street and he’ll just take that as a yes.
Dozens of food stalls are gathered at the main square in town as he approaches. Adorned with all sorts of neon signs, string lights and colorful banners. It’s a busy atmosphere filled with people laughing, vendors calling out for customers to stop by, and sounds of clanking and sizzling as they cook.
Din gravitates towards the skewers stand. He knows Grogu is going to down ten of them by himself so he opts for something easy, filling, and cheap. He catches sight of those spicy chunks of fatty meat searing over lava coals and his mouth waters.
“Okay, which onesss-“
Din reaches down to pick up his son only to find the street bricks.
“-Sssshhhhit,” he hisses under his breath, glancing around. This fucking kid. He knows better than to run off.
The crowd is thick and it’s getting dark. He scans through the sea of people and vendors but doesn’t find that familiar pale green.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
With a tap of his helmet side panel he switches to the tracking beacon screen. After enough scares like these he’s learned to have a tracker sewn into his clothes at this point.
Blinking red arrows come into his view and he follows the path. Not caring whose shoulders he budges or what food he knocks out of someone’s grip to get through. The red arrows turn yellow. He’s getting close but there’s still no visual of the kid and he’s starting to panic. He pushes through, scanning side to side and calling out his name in an orchestra of noises without reply.
Yellow turns to green and he’s still out of sight. He’s tiny and easy to miss. Grogu could be anywhere, he could be in any one of these stalls. What if he’s taken? What if someone else is tracking him? He could be picked up by a total stranger and taken away again.
Just as that thought crosses his mind, there’s a small separation in the crowd. Big floppy ears come into view and he’s definitely been picked up. But it’s no stranger that holds him.
“And here comes dad~” A voice soft as silk rings inside his helmet.
Relief floods his body as well as caution when he taps his screen clear. Only him. Situations like this only happen to him. It could’ve been Karga. It could’ve been anybody. But it had to be you that found him.
It was barely two minutes. But within those two minutes Din’s head flooded with every worst case scenario possible. And here he is. Happily babbling in your arms like he didn’t just give his dad a fucking heart attack.
“I know, I know,” you assure him like you can already tell where his head’s at, trying to speak over all the noise. “Don’t be too hard on the little guy. I already gave him a bit of a lecture for running around at night.”
Din wants to. It’s honestly his first reaction. But a cooler head prevails and he decides against it after a second thought. He reminds himself (once again) that Grogu is still young and that getting angry would only make things worse. What matters is that he’s safe and that he managed to find you.
“At least he won’t have to hear it twice,” he exhales, pushing out the stress sitting in his lungs. “Sorry about him.”
“No, no sorry needed. He’s smarter than he lets on. At least he ran to someone he knew. I’m glad I was around.”
Din opens his mouth to speak but ends up falling short with his words. Now that some of the stress has left his body, his eyes take you in at a second glance. Unclouded by the adrenaline.
Your hair is tied up with a pin with a few loose pieces falling at the nape of your neck and around your face. With the heat persisting into the night, you decided to wear a thin strap tank top that hangs low on your chest. It exposes miles of smooth skin, from your shoulders all the way down the arms wrapped around his kid. A dusty blue apron wraps around your waist over some baggy cargo pants so you must’ve came here right after work. There’s a glow from all the neon lights that adorns you and he has to will his mouth to move before he gets caught staring.
“Here.” He extends his hands to you. “I can take him back. Thank you for catching him. C’mon, bud. Let her get back to shopping.”
“It’s no problem,” you assure him with a smile. Your hands hooks under Grogus tiny arms and start to pull him off your torso. “Back to dad you go.”
But the moment he’s barely lifted, he cries out in protest with a shrill whine. Refusing to leave your side. You pull him back in instantly and run a soothing hand on his back.
“Oh! Okay, okay. You can stay with me for a minute,” you giggle in a sugary voice to Grogu. Bouncing him on your hip.
You both exchange a look of surprise (as much as his visor can give off anyway). What kind of person are you that Grogu prefers your embrace over his own father? He doesn’t know whether to be jealous or impressed.
But it’s getting late, they need to eat and get home and you probably need to get back to your own errands. Din’s hands extends again to take Grogu but you shake your head with a little smile. Letting him know it’s not an inconvenience to you.
“Here, wanna help me pick out some sweets?”
Grogu coos at your request, toying with the glittering silver chain pendant on your neck. You rest his kid on your hip effortlessly and the motion of it pinches something deep in Din’s chest. Turning to the assorted trays of sugared fruits on skewers, you list the various kinds for Grogu to pick out. Talking back with him like you can actually understand his little babbles. You answer him with “ooh, that’s a good choice” and “these are my favorites”.
Din just stands aside, watching the way you both interact and it’s admittedly a bit pleasing to see how natural you are with him. Most people think he’s a pet at first glance. Karga treats him like a newborn. Talking gibberish and doting on him despite him handling a 50 year old. You, on the other hand, just treat him like a regular kid. And it’s refreshing to see.
His son’s head spins back at his father with the biggest set of sparkling inky eyes and Din can see the pleading question in them. He tilts his helmet at him and reminds him “one”. Those large ears deflate a little and you giggle at the interaction. Din offers to pay for your skewer along with Grogu’s as another thank you for looking after his son (again). The vendor gathers the treats in paper wrappers to take to go.
You turn to ask Din something, but it’s covered by the noise of yelling and cooking. He tilts his head a bit lower to try and catch what you’re saying. Then, without hesitation, your hand finds purchase on the pauldron on his shoulder. Prompting him to lean in closer to you so you can speak within earshot.
“It’s been a minute since I saw you last,” you remark with a raised voice. “Everything good?”
Shit.
For a second he freezes. Partly at the lack of distance between you, but mostly because the last time he saw you he stormed out of your place like it was on fire without so much as a goodnight. You’re probably wondering what the hell that was about and he honestly can’t answer that himself. Although your expression seems more cheerful than troubled. He crouches closer to your ears and replies with caution, hoping to avoid the direction of that conversation.
“Yeah, we’ve been um… traveling a lot lately. I get contracted by the new republic pretty often these days. Leaving him behind with someone whenever I’m off planet for too long doesn’t seem fair to him so he’s always by my side no matter what.”
“Ah, that makes sense. You usually stop by for medkit supplies so when I didn’t see you last week I figured you were away.”
Din mentally smacks his forehead. Right. Of course you meant the shop. Because what else would you be implying to a fucking customer? You’re just making small talk. Something he has never really gotten the hang of. Seems pretty damn easy when he’s drinking though…
“We actually just got back. Too tired to fix something up so I figured I’d grab us something quick and easy before heading home.”
“Ugh. I feel that. When I get home I’m crashing on the first soft surface I see,” you groan, still bouncing Grogu on the curve of your hip. Those hips…
No. Stop it.
“Busy day,” he asks and your eyes roll upwards.
“Busy week,” you exclaim. “I swear I think about quitting at least once a day. But I like it too much. Plus it’s the only thing I’m any good at. Otherwise I’d probably be some kind of criminal.” You pause then laugh at the thought before adding, “then you’d probably have to hunt me down, huh?”
That… is a scenario that he already knows is going to stick in his brain for a while. It’s such an enticing thought that he doesn’t bother to tell you he’s not in that business anymore. A tiny part of him would much rather have you think he’d chase you. Obviously you’re not serious, but he can’t help but lean into the joke.
“I don’t know,” he says unconvinced. “Might be pretty easy to find you. All I have to do is look wherever there’s street food.”
A laugh bubbles out of you and there’s a strange feeling that radiates in his chest at being able to make you laugh. Pride maybe? No, more like… satisfaction.
“Don’t underestimate me, Mando. I know my way around the outer rim. I’d make you work for it,” you say. Taunting him with a knowing smirk.
A smile tugs higher on his hidden face. The thought of you making him work for anything will no doubt be food for thought later. And instinct tells him that might’ve been your intention. But two can play at this game.
You’re already nearly face to face but he inches even closer, almost close enough for metal to meet skin. Ensuring you catch every word right into your ear.
“I’d like to see you try, Shop Girl.”
Your eyes grow a little wider at the sound of your nickname and he takes pleasure at just how effective it is. It’s another reminder of that night. A name that was spoken within an intimate atmosphere that only the two of you occupied. And by your expression, that same thought crosses your mind too.
You bite your bottom lip in a smile. The same lips that were between his hands. The only lips he can’t seem to forget. The shape, the color, and how fucking edible they look. He’s even noticed how they pout a little when you’re concentrated on a task. More questions surface.
What do they feel like? What do they taste like? What makes a kiss so good that everyone can recall their first?
The bubble created is suddenly burst by the outside world. The stall vendor gleefully hands over the candied fruit over the counter in their wrappers and you take them with your free hand. Handing the mixed one to Grogu because he couldn’t decide on just one flavor. Reality returns to Din’s head and his thoughts immediately sober up.
What the hell is he doing?
He tears his eyes away. Even if you can’t tell, looking at you like that for too long feels wrong. You’re a good person, you’re trying to live a normal life, and what you’ve told him you’re not looking to get involved in any drama. He has to keep reminding himself of those things.
That same instinct to leave hits him again. Because that urge to do something he can’t take back flares up again and it’s best to not give that feeling any more energy. For both your sakes. He gestures his hand in a hand-him-over motion, signaling to you and Grogu that it’s time to go.
“Alright, time to go kid. Say goodnight.”
Grogu whines with a mouthful of sweets and a face covered in sugar and it makes him chuckle to himself. Din would normally find the defiance a little cute, if it wasn’t for the stunt he pulled earlier. You carefully hand him over with both arms leaning in close and again he feels another pinch in his chest at how carefully you exchange him.
Your bare arms graze against his clothed ones and he pulls away the second he has hold of his kid. He ignores the small current of electricity from the contact and maneuvers Grogu into the crossbody bag to his hip. Which, of course, makes him protest.
“Nope. You had your chance. Now you get the bag.”
“Aw c’mon,” you scold “He was just playing around. Now he’s in bag jail?”
First the kid and now you? He can tell his son no, but it might be a little harder to tell you that.
“Yeah, yeah. Maybe next time he’ll think twice about running off in a crowd,” he groans.
Once the kid is settled in the bag, you follow him down. Crouching down, you sit face to face with Grogu as he stuffs his face with the candied fruit. Resting your free hand on his fuzzy head as the other holds your own skewered treat.
“Kay, little rebel. Go stuff your face with some good food. And take it easy on your poor dad, alright? He’s not built for that kinda stress.”
“What’s that supposed to mean,” he asks, kind of amused by your ribbing. He can count on one hand the people who are undaunted enough to make playful jabs at him.
Your lips twist and your eyes take a tour up to your brows as you think of your reply.
“Hmm… just the way you get a little impatient sometimes. You were like that when you brought him over and paced my living room for an hour,” you chuckle. “You seem like the kind of man who gets antsy when something’s not in your control.”
A smile threatens to crawl his face. Pretty presumptuous. But he can’t deny how true that statement rings. Especially nowadays when it’s not just himself he has to worry about.
“Maybe so,” he replies with a hint of humor in his voice. “Patience isn’t really my strong suit. Although this one seems to enjoy testing it.”
“Patience is bitter,” you muse as you rub the top of Grogu’s head with your thumb. He coos with delight and the softest gaze glows on your face. Then from your crouched position, your eyes glance back up at Din and add, “…But the fruit is sweet.”
His jaw flexes beneath his helmet, and heat now courses through his veins.
That can’t be a good sign. He already enjoys your banter too much as it is. But that look just now was dangerous. It dredges up thoughts he shouldn’t have about you. Thoughts like kissing someone he barely knows. Feeling skin on skin. Showing you what a man like him can do to you compared to the boys of your past.
He saw it all over your pretty face when he held it in his hand. That flush on your cheeks, your dilated pupils. Hell, he even saw your heat signature rising in his helmet screen for fuck sake. There’s an attraction and that’s fine (and not completely unreciprocated) but it can’t be anything more than that.
You and him live completely different lives. There’s no need to uproot your peace and get involved in his complicated affairs. Even if something happened, it wouldn’t be long before the allure of the suit and mystery people usually perceive of Mandalorians would turn into repulsion.
That’s how it’s gone before. That’s the way it is.
•
You’re a bad person. A horrible human being and a shameless lowlife. Downright beyond saving.
I’d like to see you try, Shop Girl.
The damn sentence won’t stop replaying in your head. It’s not just a nickname. It’s a nickname he gave you. One that’s covered in underlying context and memories that only the two of you share. One that peppers your skin with goosebumps when it comes out of that raspy modulated voice. It’s even worse when your brain starts intrusively placing it in all sorts of sentences.
That’s it, Shop Girl…
You’re doing so well, Shop Girl…
Bend over for me, Shop Girl…
That last one has crawled into your dreams more often than you’d care to admit lately.
You need to get a grip. It’s just an attraction. You’ve been alone for too long and you’re getting all wound up over a smidge of attention. He’s just a regular decent person with a kid to take care of who also just happens to have an amazingly muscular body and a voice of sin. Simple as that.
Right. Simple.
After that night at the food stalls, the Mandalorian and Grogu have been visiting your humble Clinic Shop on a more frequently. Usually you'll see them a couple times a week if they're not on one of their long haul trips. Missions? Jobs?
It's not like Mando has any reason to let you know ahead of time. But when a week or so passes with no sign of silver or green, you can't help but feel a little down. You've come to look forward to seeing your regulars. But they grown to being your favorite customers.
And if you're being honest, theres a growing part of you that feels tied to the man in silver beskar. When he's here, the part blossoms. And when he's gone, it feels... wilted. It's unexpected and confusing to say the least. The closest feeling you could label it is homesickness. And truthfully, you're not really sure if you want to feel such a heavy thing towards anybody right now.
There's a lull in the store this hot muggy afternoon. You've already finished your prescription orders, restocked your shelves, even watered all the potted plants outside the entrance. Since you finally have some down time, you figured you might as well get to making some of your popular tea mixes.
On the back counter, you have a variety of dried herbs, flower buds, tea leaves, and a few large mixing bowls. The scent in the shop is incredible right now. Swirling around on the wind propelled by the metal fans around the shop. Spiced and aromatic with a hint of fruitiness. You let the smell fill your lungs and relax your body as you place measured scoops of the mix into small paper bags. A bead of sweat tracks down the back of your neck. Even with pinning your hair up and the strapless wrap you chose to wear today, the heat of the day still clings to your damp skin.
A cool glass of that Andoan wine would be so good right about now...
Maybe it was instinct, or maybe there really is some kind of invisible tie. But something makes your head tilt to the side and glance at the open entrance. And it's then that a glint of sliver light reflects on the stucco walls. A flutter of anticipation strikes through your chest and your eyes are locked at the entrance. Then, that familiar Silver T-visor and a pair of floppy green ears peek around the corner.
The smile that spreads across your cheeks is so big it almost hurts.
"Hey," you exclaim from the back of the store. You leave your station and excitedly make your way across the store to the pair as they step inside.
“It’s been a whi-“
“Ah ah, sorry," you cut Mando off mid greeting, halting him with your pointer finger. "Grogu gets first dibs.”
Mando shakes his head but you can tell he's humored. Turning his hip to the side and giving you access to the canvas crossbody where Grogu resides.
“Even though I'm a regular customer," Mando retorts.
If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that sounded a teensy bit like jealousy. You smirk, giving eyes only to the little green baby.
“Not when you’re as cute as him.” You say, placing Grogu on your hip and giving him little scritches on his wrinkled head.
“Isn’t that right, Kid. Mando wishes he could be half as cute as you.” The child coos at you and Mando shakes his head. But you can tell by his body language that he's at least a little amused.
You walk back to the back counter with the kid in your arms and Mando in tow behind you. And the feeling you have in this moment is oddly... domestic? You're not entirely sure if that's the right word. In your life you've never experienced domesticity. But you figure it's similar to that homesick feeling you get.
You place Grogu on top of your station and pull out an herbal lollipop from your apron for him. You like to keep a few handy for kids and they also help with coughs. The kids inky eyes gleam as he babbles and plunges the sugary candy in his mouth.
"Any chance that delivery for those new Pharmakits arrived yet," Mando asks, leaning a hand on the counter next to you.
"They did," you nod. "Any chance you're planning on taking on an army on your next trip?"
He shrugs, tilting his helmet to the side in that way he does when he's being aloof.
"Doesn't hurt to keep one on hand. You never know."
You hum in acknowledgment but inside a pit forms in your stomach. The danger he faces whenever he goes on these "jobs" isn't lost on you. Lately, it's been on the back of your mind more often than not. On his last visit, when he asked about ordering stronger meds and triage supplies, it hit you just how much his long absences affect you. And just the thought of never seeing him or his little boy again stirs up something vile inside.
“You seem to be busy today,” he remarks, pointing out all the open jars and mixing bowls with various dried leaves and herbs.
His remark takes you out of your thoughts. You must've been silent a second too long for him to change the subject like that. With a deep inhale and slight embarrassment you shrug off the negative thoughts and ground yourself back to reality.
“Yes and no. I’ve been restocking while it’s dead to keep busy.”
He leans in a bit to get a closer look at the contents of the bowl. Close enough for you to catch the scent of smoke and musk on his clothes.
“You’re mixing… tea?”
You hum a yes and nod.
“Tea can be used for lots of medicinal purposes. Many people prefer natural remedies to pharmaceutical ones. I try to have a mix of both.”
“So this is medicine?” You sway your head to the side, trying to think of the best way to explain the purpose of the tea.
“Kiiind of. You could say it’s preventative.”
“What does it prevent?”
“Pregnancy.”
A clearing of his throat follows your answer. You turn toward him with a smirk and a raised brow but his visor has now turned away your face.
Most fearsome bounty hunter in the outer rim, everybody.
“You asked, man,” you chuckle with a shrug.
“Guess that’s on me,” he says.
“This is actually one of my best sellers,” you tell him. You grab the wooden scoop and raise up the floral mix, letting the various petals and herbs rain back down into the bowl. The motion makes the sweet scent drive up in the air. “I have customers tell me they don’t leave the house before their daily brew.”
“I’m glad business is going well for you,” he deflects, making you fold your smile in your teeth. And suddenly your brain sees a prime opportunity.
“You know, Mando…,” you drawl as you mix the petals. “If you’re ever in a pinch and you need some, I could give you a sample.” The way his helmet jerks to face you almost breaks your nonchalant smile.
“That’s um… very generous but it’d be wasted on me.” His body straightens stiffly and you can tell the topic makes him a bit uneasy. But you press on anyway.
“You sure? You can never be too safe. I’m sure any visitors would appreciate it.” He sighs deeply and turns away, shaking his head in annoyance.
God, this is too much fun. Teasing him is so easy. If it wasn’t for the helmet you bet he’s sweating right now. He might look cool and collected. But after drinking with him, you know there’s in fact a man under all that metal.
“I’m sure,” Mando confirms. “I'm not seeing anyone at the moment.”
And there’s the answer you’re looking for.
Was it a bit sneaky? Yeah. Yeah, it was sneaky. But it rules out the theory that reason he told you not to invite home again was because he’s currently taken. It’s still an enigma as to why. But honestly there’s still the gut feeling that you did something to make him uncomfortable that night.
Maybe you crossed a line with one of your questions. You tend to ask a lot of questions. Your filter also isn’t everybody’s flavor. Even so, you had a great time talking, even joking around with him. You’ve come to cherish that night in your memory. And the thought that you obliviously might’ve said something to offend Mando in any way makes your chest ache.
But if that was the case then why has he been stopping by your store more frequently since then? He always says he’s restocking his med kit but you get the feeling there’s more to it than that. Almost as if he’s checking up on you. Making sure you’re doing ok. And above all, that’s what scares you.
It’s scares you how good that thought makes you feel.
“Picking up an order!” An unfriendly voice bellows from the entrance where a Trandoshan man in fine robes stands waiting. “Name’s Samir T’ar.”
It takes a second to snap back into action. But you slap on your best customer service smile and leave your task for later. Rounding the corner past Mando and the kid and walking to the Medicine Cabinet. Wiping the non-existent dust on your hands on your waist apron.
“Hi, yes! I’ll grab that for you right now.”
The Trandoshan stands waiting at the counter as you sort through the assorted orders in the glass case. Looking for the right name tag and plucking the tied linen bag. You dont turn your eyes toward him, but Mando’s pressance is all your body is aware of. You can tell he’s miandering through the shop, looking at various items on the shelves. Which, to you, is a bit funny since hes been here plenty of times by now.
Is he playing the curious customer right now because there’s someone here?
You rest the tied bag next to the register as you run the total. All while the Trandoshan taps his clawed fingers impatiently on the check out counter.
“‘Kay with the compounded medicine and the herbal soak salts, that puts you at… fifteen credits today.”
“It was twelve the last time.”
“Yyyeesss, some of the ingredients for the meds were hard to come by this time around. Outer rim shipping routes, and all that,” you smile, trying to humorously reason with the man.
“And that’s supposed to be my fault? Just make it the same price as before and I’ll be on my way already.”
Ugh, great. One of those.
“I understand where you’re coming from, really. But fifteen is pretty fair considering the initial cost of acquiring ingredients of this high quality. Can’t beat the price compared to those New Republic clinics-"
“Nonononono," he waves with both hands in disapproval. “I’m not paying a single credit more for something I can make myself.”
That’s kind of the point of it buying here, right? To save yourself the trouble of making it?
“Sorry. Price is firm," you say confidently but kindly. "Buuut, how about if I throw in a couple sample heating pain patches. Free of charge,” you chirp, unfazed by his condescension.
Work with me, guy. There’s a man packing heat in the back…
“How about I give you ten for the order and leave? I don’t need you to peddle your-“
It’s a hand that shuts him up. Not yours, as much as it twitches to swipe that bag and toss in it the trash. No. This hand is big. Leather clad. And planted firmly on the counter between you and the customer.
“You can pay the fifteen or you can leave. But what you won’t do,” Mando leans in towards the Trandoshan for effect. “-is talk to her like that again. Make your choice.”
With his chest pressed to the back of your shoulder, you struggle to not squirm. You can feel his heat on your body. His frame eclipses yours from behind. The smell of gun smoke and musk caresses your nose and you die a little inside. But it’s his words that make you want to melt into a puddle.
He didn’t just ask, he demanded for you to be treated with respect. Not that you can’t hold your own when it comes to defending yourself against snarky customers. But the way Mando didn’t even hesitate to intervene on your behalf. It stirs up all sorts of thoughts.
Oh maker, you really are a shitty person. The man stands up for you and all you can think about is how hot he sounded.
The Trandoshan swallows hard. Mando might as well a knife to the guy’s throat with the look of silent terror on his reptilian face. Without even breaking eye contact with Mando, he stuffs his clawed hand in his pockets, and pulls about 20 credit chips without counting. Letting them clatter on the counter as he tosses them.
“H-here,” he stutters. “Fifteen is fair.” With that he snatches his order from the countertop and makes a hasty exit.
“Have a nice day~,” you sing-song as he scurries out onto the street.
You shift your eyes up to Mando, his palm still pressed flat against the counter with his other hand thumbing his belt. His visor follows the customer as he leaves and you can tell that his body language doesn’t relax until the he’s completely out of sight.
“Fucker…,” he mutters under his breath. When he finally turns his visor to you, he finds a knowing little smirk on your face.
“What?”
“You know, if you really wanted to scare him, you could’ve just pulled out your blaster.”
His visor turns away and he takes a step back as if he’s been caught doing something out of character. And if it wasn’t for his confident stance, you’d almost say he got a little flustered just now.
“I didn’t like the way he spoke you,” he grumbles. Which only makes you giggle.
“You’re right,” you agree with a serious tone. Slamming your palms on the counter. “That’s the last straw! I’ll have to close and resort to a life of crime after all!”
Although you can’t read his face, his body language says it all. He tilts his head to the side in a way that can only mean “are you fucking kidding me” and it only makes you smile harder.
“C’mooon, it’s funny,” you say. But he’s still not charmed.
“Does he always treat you like that,” he asks like he needs to know for certain.
You fold your lips between your teeth to hide your smile. He’s concerned for you and you can’t help but bathe in it. At least for a little bit.
“And if I said yes?”
“I’m being serious.”
“It’s fine, Mando. It’s really not a big deal for me. Look, if I let every snippy customer get to me, I wouldn’t have a business. I’m a big girl. I can fight for my honor all on my own, don’t you worry.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Yeah? What is your point then?”
He steps in closer. Forcing you crane your neck to face him. Your backside unconsciously presses against the back of the counter and you’re pinned. He’s impossibly close. Close enough to see your eyes reflected on the inky black screen. Knowing he’s captured your full attention, he hits you with a bombshell that devastates you.
“I wouldn’t let anyone disrespect you when I can do something about it,” he says crystal clear, lowering his voice. “If someone gives you trouble, they’ll deal with me before they mess with you... Understand?”
That shuts you right up. Your playful expression falls, now replaced with silent astonishment. He keeps saying things that reach deep inside you, making your chest tight. Words like that make it hard to breathe.
You feel utterly captured and it’s no wonder he was the best hunter in the outer rim. Because even though he’ll defend your honor and call you sweet nicknames… all he has to do is stand his ground in front of you to make you feel like prey. And fuck, do you wanna be caught…
“Ok,” you breathe when you find the courage. “I understand now.”
“Good…”
Silence streches between you and it feels as though you’re both waiting for something to happen. Something that feels like it’s been teetering on the edge since the night you drank together. It’s connected and deep in a way you’ve never experienced before. You can tell it’s something he’s afraid to say out loud.
What you’re both afraid to say out loud.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t add anything to his statement. He’s got you locked in his gaze with no escape. And for a moment you wonder if he’ll take hold of your jaw again. Goosebumps rise to your skin because it wants so badly to close the gap.
Suddenly, a call rings from the vambrace on Mando’s forearm, abruptly breaking the tension. At first he hesitates to address it, still locked onto you. But after the second ring he lets out an aggravated sigh and steps away to check the incoming call.
You walk back to your work table and mixing bowl of tea to give yourself something to do while your breathing returns to normal. Scooping a measured cup from a large jar of dried leaves before adding it in.
Grogu sits with his little feet dangling over the table, now finished with the lollipop and looking at the candy-less stick with droopy ears. And before Mando turns to look, you sneak his son another herbal lollipop from your apron.
"Don't tell your dad," you whisper, pressing your index finger over your lips. Which earns you a happy little "Batu" in understanding.
Mando is pacing around now. Conversing with a gruff sounding Lasat. You don’t eavesdrop per se, but words like “new lead”, “investigation”, and “high-risk” get your ears to perk up.
“Shit,” he sighs deeply once the call is done. Planting his hands on his hips.
“Work call?”
“They like to keep me busy, that’s for sure. Best not keep them waiting.”
“R-right! The pharmakits."
You walk towards side of your shop in the back closet where your new inventory sits in their delivery crates. Grabbing one case but then after a second thought grabbing another before turning back and handing them to Mando. When you return Grogu is already back in his father's tote still nursing his treat.
“Couple things," you disclaim, handing the cases to him. "Keep these in a dark cool place if you can. Heat can spoil some of the medicine. And if you ever find yourself needing the epibacta, I’d advise you to take in a safe place. This dose will knock you out cold for a while. Emergencies only.”
He takes the cases by the handles and gives you a nod of understanding.
“I appreciate it. I’ll try to avoid needing it.”
“Just… be safe.”
“I will…”
Another beat of silence. At this point it's starting to feel like you're waiting on the other person to break the ice. But after a moment, he clears his throat.
“Well... Until next time, Shop Girl.”
“Until next time,” you repeat.
He really should stop calling you that. But you just can’t bring yourself to stop him. What do even tell him if he asks why?
You turn to the holopad on the front counter and check the inventory list to give your hands something to do. Chewing your bottom lip as walks towards the exit. One step, then another…
“And thank you,” you quickly add before he steps out. His foot stalls just before reaching the street and you tap on the screen pretending not to notice. Your eyes glance up to him, catching his helmet peer at you over his shoulder “…for stepping in.”
“Anytime,” he says softly. He step out into the street and you exhale a breath you didn’t know you were holding. You lean on the counter with your chin propped in your palm, now free to watch them go without notice.
Grogu turns back to look at you one last time, his tiny arm fighting against the fabric of his bag before popping out and waving at you. The adorable gesture makes you giggle. The little guy must know exactly how stinking cute he is. You wiggle your fingers back at him from behind the counter. Mando takes notice of his kid, turns his head back, and finds your gaze.
For a moment, everything’s frozen. People cross and mix in the street between you. Life seemingly goes on like any other day for everyone in town. But in your eyes, there’s only him. Only bright silver fills your vision. After a moment, Mando raises a hand for a final farewell, and in the next, he’s gone. Blended into the crowd.
An ache spreads in your chest, and that confirms it. You can’t deny that what you’ve been pushing down for months isn’t just an attraction. Strangers can be attracted to each other but he feels like anything but.
You like him. You like how you feel when he’s around and how safe his presence feels. You like that little skipped beat you get when something you said earns even the smallest chuckle from him. You like that he trusts you around his kid.
And you love that he keeps coming back.
You’ve tried to rationalize as just a simple customer acquaintance. But you can’t keep kidding yourself. Its always felt more than that. And you want to know more about him.
At the end of the day, you roll down the metal doors of your humble apothecary and walk the same 15 steps up to your home as you do everyday. You bathe, put on your most comfy shirt and sleep shorts, make yourself a simple meal, and wind down for the night. It’s been your routine everyday since you made this place your home.
Only tonight, despite all your trinkets, all your memories, and all your comforts, tonight your home feels a bit empty. Like something important has been removed and you can’t place what it was. With your dinner bowl in hand, you almost take your seat on the couch before thinking twice on it and choosing the floor of your living room instead tonight.
You actually find it to be pretty comfortable. More grounding. You only wish you had something warm to lean back on.
•
Din thought Guild Master Greef Karga had an inflated ego. But High Magistrate Greef Karga makes that Karga look like a Jedi monk.
He finds himself sitting on a leather chase with his legs propped on the window ledge in Karga’s high tower office. He watches him spread and maneuver a 3D hologram model of Nevarro and the town. His voice filled with ambition as he explains all his new projects for the upcoming year.
“We’ll put the lodges here, here, and here. They’ll have access to the hot springs in the crawling canyons and docks will be built around the water edges. I’ve spoken with that lovely Twi’lek bathhouse owner and she’s spending her best architects to Nevarro as a personal favor to me. It’s going to be the jewel of the rim I tell you!”
Much of the dialog goes over Dins head. Mostly because he’s dead tired and currently operating on less than four hours of sleep. They only landed a couple hours ago from another grueling mission. He partly listens to Karga’s plans, partly watches Grogu quietly sit on the hologram table as he stuffs his mouth with blue cookies his “uncle” has given him. But mostly, Din gazes out one of the many windows in his 360 degree office. Watching the sun set over the canyons and turn the sky a dusty pink.
The shiny bronze protocol droid shuffles around the office with a silver tray with two crystal glasses of spotchka. He offers a glowing glass to Karga who gladly takes it. Then the droid starts to approach Din with the platter, offering him a glass as well.
“Uh no no, he doesn’t drink,” Karga quickly corrects, taking a momentary pause from his plans. The shiny droid fumbles a bit, flustered, then offers an apology before scuttling away with the tray.
Mando doesn’t even bother to correct them. Too much energy. It’s true, he’s never accepted alcohol in front of Karga. Especially in those early guild days when trust was low. But even to this day, Din doesn’t drink around people.
Well… most people, that is.
An image of last time Din saw you pops into his head. That thick, slightly mussed hair tied up with a hair stick. Dewy skin. All smiles and laughter. You wore a deep blue torso wrap that time, His eyes kept following the lines of your collar bones and all that exposed skin seemed to glow in the reflected sunlight in the shop.
And those lips. Those goddamn pink tinted lips that he can’t get out of his head. If that’s not the definition of beauty he doesn’t know what is.
Your teasing is something he’s growing used to. But that day you pushed too far. You weren’t taking him seriously and you shouldn’t be the only one who gets to tease, right? When he cornered you against the counter, he made it known just how serious he was about defending you. That flush came back to your cheeks and your breathing had picked up. You had no idea, but your eyes had found his and it made heat pool in his lower abdomen as he got lost in the color of them.
In that moment, Din wrestled back the impulse to lift you up on that countertop, spread those perfect legs and-
“-Right, Mando?” Karga’s voice interrupts just as that train of thought was getting good. Din turns his visor over to him.
“Hmm?”
“You just agreed to let the kid spend the night here.”
“Right. Yeah,” Din scoffs. “Was that before or after I sold my ship to the Jawas,” he replies in a gruff tone. Karga doesn’t find the sarcasm amusing.
“Alright, alright.”
“Maybe I’ll sell them my armor while I’m at it.”
“I get it,” he exclaims. “You weren’t even listening! I was talking about the space port proposal and I can’t even tell where you clocked out. That's not like you, Mando.”
“I’m tired. I just got back from a long trip.” Kargas eyes glance between Din and the window he's been looking out from.
“I wouldn’t say tired. More like… Distracted.”
He says the word with an insinuation Din would rather do without.
“It’s nothing,” he deflects.
“Hey, you know me, Mando. I’m not one to judge,” Karga says, throwing his hands in the air. “If there’s anything on your mind I’m all ears. Money, politics, work, women-“
“There’s nothing to discuss. I’m fine," Din deadpans.
Kargas covers Grogus ears, who is too preoccupied by his munching to mind.
“Sounds like you need to get laid.”
Maker...
“You’re sordid,” he grumbles, shaking his head and turning back to the window. Karga just laughs. Amusement written all over his wrinkled face.
The arguments were one of the main things that changed between them over the last few years. Now they bicker like two old friends instead of two business associates. But one thing that has never changed is the way Karga tries to pressure him into revealing things out of him. Imperfectly human things.
He’d offer Din all sorts of things like spice or Twi’lek bathhouses just to see if he was capable of being tempted. And right now… there’s only one other person Din can think of capable of doing that.
“You know what I think? I think you’re starting to outgrow this lone wolf lifestyle of yours,” he speculates. “You’re a father now. Don’t you think the little one needs a mother?”
Dins helmet swivels back to Karga.
“Don’t you think you should stick to governing your town?”
“I was just getting to that," Karga exclaims excitedly. "You know we really should consider moving a few of the-“
“Here we go…,” Din sighs to himself.
What should’ve been a quick visit has turned into a one sided yap session. It’s been a couple weeks since he left and he’s eager to re-supply for his next run with Zeb. He’ll need to head to the square at some point as well. His home is in desperate need of a re-stock. And of course, a visit to the clinic probably wouldn’t be a bad idea if he’s already in the area.
Even from up here, your store can be seen at the far corner of the plaza. And every couple minutes, he can see you. Popping in and out of the small store and rearranging some of the potted plants outside. People greet you from the street and you turn to wave back.
It’s getting harder and harder to find excuses to go there that sound necessary. Last time he was there he picked up two new pharmakits, even though another two regular medkits sit unopened in his home. He’s been buying that energy tea you make, despite him being a kaf drinker his whole life. He keeps going back for shit he really doesn’t need. But if he was pressed to give a better reason, it’s mostly because he feels a need to check on you.
True, Nevarro has become significantly safer, but that doesn’t make it safe. Especially for a woman living completely on her own. You’re a kind hearted, giving person in a galaxy that does nothing but take. And someone like that should be protected. He’s looked the other way too many times in the past and he doesn’t want to be that person anymore. And plus the kid enjoys the visits.
Sure, the kid. Keep telling yourself that, Din…
A chiss man with a floating pallet of goods approaches your shop entrance and your attention turns from watering the plants to greet the vendor with a bright smile. You speak animately. And it would normally be endearing, if it wasn't directed towards another man. In the privacy of his helmet, Din grimmaces.
He shouldn’t be surprised. You’re well traveled, knowledgeable. It’s no wonder you’re able to buy products from so many places. But this particular vendor is getting a bit too close for Din’s comfort.
As usual, you talk with much enthusiasm. Sparking a conversation with the man. It’s clear you’re familiar with each other by the body language you both give off. And he’s not sure if it’s because you regularly get inventory from the man, or something beyond that.
You turn around on the balls of your feet to dip back inside the shop and as you do you’re completely oblivious to the way the Chiss’s head tilts to the side so his crimson eyes can roam your backside. And the only reason Din caught it was because the binocs in his visor seem to have unconsciously been turned on by his finger on his vambrace.
You return to with a small wooded box and open the lid to show him mineral salts, the kind he’s seen you make herbal soaks with. The vendor offers a large lidded glass jar of some kind of dried purple flower buds from his cart. With the added exchange of some credit chips, there’s more talking and smiling. Something he said makes you laugh as you sign his holopad and Din has to flex his fingers to stop them from clenching into a fist.
Enough. Stop watching.
The mental check forces Dins attention to shift back to whatever Karga keeps droning on about. You can associate with whoever you damn well please. It’s none of his concern who you do business with or what your personal life is like. Din nearly turns his visor away. But out of the furthest corner of his eye, he catches something he can’t tear away from.
The distance between the Chiss and you has suddenly shrunk. The moment unfolds in slow motion as his eyes chew on every second. The Chiss steps closer to lean down then…
Din’s arms uncross when the Chiss leans in close to your face. And before he knows it, the fucker plants a quick peck on your cheek. And you return it! The whole exchange lasts less than a second before you wave each other goodbye and he goes his separate way. You return inside with the product like nothing and Din sits there, completely rattled.
What… the fuck?
Was it a casual kiss? Did you even know that he was checking you out? If you did, was that a friendly goodbye gesture or was it flirtatious? That son of a bitch gets to walk around with bliss on his cheek all day now. Oddly enough, that’s what puts Din over the edge. A complete fucking stranger knows how your lips feel and he doesn’t.
Never in his life has he harbored thoughts like these. It’s downright pathetic. He feels corrupted.
“Fuck it,” he growls to himself beneath his breath.
“-Anyway, back to my point. I was considering having a port built for- hey!”
Before Karga has a chance to monologue further, Din has picked up his son from the edge of the desk—grubby hands still clinging to the bag of cookies—and has placed him right into Karga arms.
“I need you to watch over him for the night. I’ll come back for him in the morning.”
“Okay then? Fine by-.” Din doesn’t bother to listen because there’s no ending to that sentence that matters to him in this moment. He makes his exit, the slide doors opening as he nears them.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going all puffed up like that?”
“I need to settle something,” he tosses back before letting the doors shut behind him.
The sun is getting low and a few other vendors are starting to take down their signs and close their doors. You’re probably getting ready to close up for the day yourself. Hopefully he’s able to catch you before then.
Each step on the cobblestone is heavy with purpose. And it's not unoticed the way several people on the street see an armor clad Mandalorian and scurry out of his way with a petrified look on their faces. But right now he doesn't particularly care. Right now everything in his head is clouded with the exception of one objective.
From a couple stores away, you catch him approaching from your peripheray. And he's not sure how to describe it, but it's like something in your body language softens when you see him. Your shoulders become less tense, your eyes gleam, and you cast him that bright toothy smile that could stop any man's heart.
“Ah! Hey! It’s been a while, Mando! How’s-“
“I need to have a word with you.”
Both your expression and your hand freeze momentarily in place, minus a suspicious quirk in your brow.
“Okaaay, you have my attention,” you chuckle, but there’s a nervous tone riding on it. “What can I do for you today?
“I need to speak with you," you tells you bluntly. "Privately.”
Confusion paints across your face and your smile falls a bit. Understanding how serious his request is.
“Like, right now,” you ask hesitantly.
“Preferably, yes,” he answers.
“Ok, yeah sure. Um… I’m just about to close up and we can head upstairs in a minute.” You start to turn away but then quickly turn back to him and immediately add “or we can go somewhere you’re more comfort-“
”It’s fine,” Din quickly interjects, stopping that train of thought. “This won’t take long anyway.”
You blink at him a couple times and give him a quiet “ok then” before turning around and preparing your shop to close.
Seems that Din’s command from his last visit was taken seriously. Regret over those words washes over him. If he’s being honest, being inside your home again sets off several red lights in his head. But he’s already on the verge of blurting out something teetering on the edge of his brain. Better to wait until he’s behind closed doors and away from any prying eyes. Or flirtatious vendors. This shouldn’t be complicated. He’ll make it quick.
He decides to wait around the corner of the shop where the stone steps meet your front door. He leans against the wall with his arms crossed and his finger nervously tapping his arm brace. After a few minutes you round the corner with your bag over your shoulder and lead the way into your home. Instinctively, he looks around for any eyes before entering and closing the door behind him.
“So where’s your boy,” you ask, tossing your bag on the couch and walking towards the kitchen. “I have to say I’m kind of surprised not to see him on your hip. You seem inseparable.”
Your voice is chipper but he can tell by your stiff body and lack of eye contact that you’re not entirely comfortable. For a moment Din reconsiders this encounter. But no. The sooner he this bug out of his system the better.
“He’s… spending the night with a friend,” he answers. Grabbing one of those ceramic cups from the cabinet, you fill it with water from the sink and he’s starting to think that you’re only doing that to keep your hands busy.
“Aaww, a sleepover? Is it his first-”
“If you don’t mind,” he cuts off. “I’d like to get to my point.”
“Oh… Y-yes, I'm sorry. I’m rambling,” you say sheepishly. “I’m just…,” you take a deep breath, rest the cup of water on the counter, and lean back against it. Eyes fixed to the floor.
“…it’s just what you said the last time you were here. And the way you approached me earlier, you seemed kinda… I don’t know, upset? I know you don’t wanna be here so I’m wondering what I did to upset you that you’d come here.”
Damn it… He’s such an asshole.
He should’ve never said that. You've been thinking this entire time that you’re at fault for his shitty social skills. Truthfully, with the way that wine had his head so deliciously foggy, he had to leave before his body did something it was aching to do, begging him to do. But how does he even begin to explain that?
“You didn’t do anything,” he answers immediately. But thinks on it once more. “Well… technically you did. But I’m not upset with you.”
“You’re not,” you ask him sheepishly.
“I’m not,” he assures.
A beat passes in silence as you chew over his words.
“Okaaay,” you say with a smirk, “now you really got my attention.”
That mischievous tone travels through Din’s helmet, in his ears, and settles warmly in the pit of his stomach. Something about the combination of your sweet voice and relaxed shift in your body language makes this whole interaction even more nerve wracking.
“Sooo, you wanted to talk to me about something I did?”
“Right.”
“Okay, sooo...” He feels you urging him to continue but now Din finds himself more cautious of his words now. If you’ve been silently worried about offending him the last thing he needs is for this to come off wrong way.
“It’s… a bit hard to explain,” he exhales. If he could pinch his brow right now he would. “To put it plainly, the night we drank together, you said something that’s been… stuck in my head.”
“Was it the thing about the name?”
“N-no.”
“Was it the Pantora story?
“No.”
“Was it the comment about knowing my liquor? Because I like a drink from time to time but I don’t have like a problem or anything-“
“No- Can I finish,” he asks impatiently.
“Okay, okay. Sorry. Go ahead.”
“When we were drinking, and talking… we said a lot of things and got into some deep conversations. And at one point, you asked me if I ever kissed anyone before. I said no back then because… I've never given it any thought in the past. But now it’s got me… curious.”
Your quirk your brow at him.
“Curious how?”
“I want to know what it’s like,” he answers plainly.
“… Sorry, what?”
“I need this… curiosity out of my head. It’s driving me crazy and I need it out of my system. So I figured… since you’re the one who mentioned it in the first place, you can help me kill it.”
“You’re… Okay so, hold on…,” you say with a shaky breath. “Are you… asking me to kiss you?”
“That’s… an oversimplification. But yeah.”
“You’re asking me to be your first kiss? Am I understanding you right?”
Maker, you ask a lot of questions. Are you always like this? You did the same exact thing when he gave you the wine. On any other day it would’ve been endearing but he didn’t anticipate the conversation lasting longer than a minute. Now his request sounds more and more lecherous with each passing second.
“I won’t bother you again after this. You have my word. It’s completely casual. Just killing a curiosity.”
“There’s a preeetty common phrase about curiosity and loth cats that goes differently.” A giggle tumbles out of your mouth on the tail end of that sentence and humility crawls under his skin.
“Sorry to waste your time.” He starts to turn towards the nearest exit when you step in to stop him. Placing a hand briefly on his arm in the space between his armor and the contact sends a current of electricity up his spine.
“No wait, don’t be like that,” you toy with him.
“I’m not laughing,” he spits. But you still have the nerve to giggle.
“It’s okay, Mando,” you laugh assuredly.
“No, it’s not. It’s ridiculous. I hate it. I hate that you put this in my head.”
You fold your lips between your teeth to try to hide your amusement. But you still can’t help but crack a smile a little at his frustration. He basically just confessed to having this obsession for months and he can tell by your smug expression that you’re enjoying how incredibly uncomfortable he is about this.
“You’re right. I’m… sorry,” you say under your breath. Trying to fix your face.
There’s a beat of silence. Stepping in closer, he tilts his head down to you. Locking you in his gaze. He takes pleasure in being nearly a full head taller and the way your breathing picks up before he says in a low gruff voice…
“No, you’re not.”
You smile behind your hand as your eyes dance across his visor, unknowingly locking eyes with the man beneath. You know you’re not sorry, just like he knows he’s not particularly sorry either. It’s not just this moment. It goes back to every interaction you’ve had together. The banter, the nicknames, the visits. He’s as much to blame as you are. And then… you slowly you shake your head, agreeing with him and confirming his suspicion.
Fuck, you’re cute. He hates that he loves how cute you are. He hates himself for not being stronger.
“Ok,” you nearly whisper. Looking up at him with the sweetest eyes. “I’ll help you.”
•
“Is all this really necessary?”
Din currently sits on the floor of your living room. The same spot as last time in fact. Your were the one that insisted on it and honestly he couldn't bring himself to tell you no. Since he sat down in the soft carpet, you've been flitting around your home turning off lamps, closing blinds, and covering any reflective items. Which, admittedly, he's greatful for. But the more time he spends here, alone with you, the more he's not going to want to leave.
“It’s not everyday you get your first kiss, Mando. I wanna make sure it’s a good one. I wish I could re-do mine.”
Gloves fingers flex and stretch restlessly on his knees as you approach the last lamp sitting on a side table in the living room and pause.
“Are you sure about this?”
Fuck no he’s not. But the sooner he does this, the sooner he can find some normalcy in his head again.
“Flip the switch," he says in a low modulated voice.
You fold in a growing smile before taking a deep breath and flicking the switch. Bathing the entire home in inky darkness. The silhouette of you through turns to hues of thermal green and red, carefully maneuvering through your living room by memory before finding your seat in the floor in front of him. And with slight hesitation, Din reaches up to remove the last barrier he has.
“Can you see anything?”
“Not a bit,” you answer.
With that confirmation, he unclasps the chin strap and slowly lifts the helmet up and off. He blinks several times to adjust his vision before finding the outline of the table and placing his helmet there. On the return, his head bumps into your outstretched hand. Not knowing that you had moved.
“Agh.”
“Sorry sorry,” you pull away. “Give me a moment, I’ll find you.”
Your hands search in the dark for him. He can’t see much but he can tell your hands land on nothing by the way the air between you moves and he doesn’t feel any contact on his person. So he reaches out, bumping into your arms and taking hold of them. Following the line of your forearm until he reaches your hands.
“Here," he murmurs. Gloved hands wrap around your wrists and gently lift them up. He guides your hands forward until…
You let out a small gasp when your hands find the warmth of his bare face. Soft and giving as opposed to the cold, unyielding beskar. Their movements are slow and explorative. Running your thumbs over his stubble. Surprisingly his hands don’t release their grasp. His leather clad digits press against the racing pulse in your wrist as his thumbs run over the back of your palm.
“This help?”
“Yes, thank you,” you whisper.
From sound of rustling on the rug, Din can sense your body leaning in. Your breath brushes over his skin for a moment before something warm presses against his chin and it takes a second to register that it’s your mouth. You ease him into the build up and he’s greatfull for it. Jaw. Then cheek. Then just grazing the furthest corner of his mouth.
And then… contact.
At first it doesn’t feel like much. Just something soft and warm pressing against his mouth. What most people refer to as a peck, he assumes. But it’s when you barely pull back and return for another that a shiver wracks his skin. Your lips lock in the return, molding together in perfect unison. And it’s fucking electric.
Just by feel alone, he senses that your lips are slightly open. So he mimics you. Giving his jaw just enough slack to respond as you go in again. The sensations have his mind in a thick fog. The soft flesh, the sweet taste, the faint suction. His skin feels like there’s live wires going off underneath. Giving in completely, he finally returns the kiss. Pressing into it with more confidence.
You hum against his mouth, and he dies a little inside.
That’s when the real hunger builds. There’s a slow simmering heat rising between you now. Without thinking, his hands grip your wrists a little harder. Pulling you in closer. The kiss grows a bit stronger with each return back into each other with no loss of contact. Lingering longer and breathing against one another.
He feels your head tilt more to the side and again he mimics your movement. The break only lasts a fraction of a moment. But in the re-entry, the tip of your soft tongue happens to brush his mouth. Sweet wetness coats his bottom lip and it’s in that instant Din feels all restraint leave his body.
Taking your face in his hand, he kisses you open mouthed, inviting you in. Your tongues slowly graze one another and if he fucking died in this moment he’d be ok with it knowing that he got to know how you taste.
The hunger becomes unbearable. Soon enough the breathing becomes heavier and the air becomes hot. Your arms end up wrapping over his shoulders, pulling him deeper and he’s more than happy to dive further. Another small noise escapes your throat and the vibration travels through his entire body.
He needs to feel you. To taste you. Devour you. He needs you.
A break for air is the only thing that throws him back into semi-consciousness as you pull away. The heat built up between you makes him dazed. Hot breaths fill the small space between your lips as you lean your forehead against his.
“Mando?”
“Yes,” he responds in a raspy whisper. A few moments pass as you collect your words and catch your breath.
“Is this really just about curiosity…?”
Your words lean more towards a statement than a question. There’s no point in denying it now. As much as he tried to convince himself or rationalize his strange request, he does feel a pull towards you. Much more complicated than just attraction. The more he sees you, learns about you, and talks with you, the more… inevitable you feel to him. There’s a gravity to you that he can’t escape from. Nor does he want to.
“Yes and no.”
“What does that mean?” The breath of your question brushes the heated skin of his cheek. And right now, he can't think of any answer that wouldn't give him up.
So he lets it fly.
“It’s not just the kiss I’m curious about.”
The silence in the air is thick. The only thing between you are the sounds of both of you catching your breath. It’s possible he might have ruined everything with that one sentence. But it’s the truth. It had nothing to do with the kiss and everything to do with you. Your kindness, your banter, your hospitality. All of it.
There’s no way of telling what you’re thinking at the right now. It’s in this moment that he wishes the lights weren’t out so he can at least read your expression. But then after what seems like an eternity, your forehead nudges against his and you blow a deep sigh of relief. Arms still draped over his shoulders.
“Oh good… I thought it was only me,” you confess with a skittish laugh.
And that tightly pulled restraint finally snaps inside him when he hears that.
Without any hesitation, he dives back in. Kissing you like a man starved. Just like that night, he feels drunk. Only this time it’s on the taste of you and the feeling of your hands finally on him. It’s that thought that drives him to rip off his leather gloves and toss them aside without breaking contact once. His bare hands find your waist and the strip of bare skin between your shirt and linen pants.
“Is this what you meant,” you pant. “When you told me not to invite you in again.”
“Yeah... it is.” He pants the confession as his mouth trails down the line of your jaw and finding your neck in the dark.
“That’s a relief,” you chuckle. “I was worried I offended you.”
“The only thing that’s offensive is that I can’t see that pretty pink flush on your face right now.”
“Should I get a blindfold,” you tease.
What a fucking woman. The mental image of you in a blindfold, only a blindfold, pours fuel on an already blazing fire. But for now, he’s more than ok feeling his way around tonight.
“Next time.”
It comes out of his mouth confidently and without hesitation. Because you both know there will be a next time. He’s bitten into the forbidden fruit and now he’s addicted to the taste.
With a simple shift, his hands dip beneath the thin fabric of your shirt and find the delicious heat of your soft belly.
"Lay down for me."
With your arms draped over his shoulders, you eagerly comply. Slowly dragging him down with you. He careful not to press all his weight on you—being crushed by beskar would definitely kill the mood—but it doesn't stop you from pulling tighter. Craving connection. All while Din rains wet kisses and soft bites upon your pulse.
So this is what your skin tastes like. Slightly salty, sweet, and smooth between his teeth. He might eat you whole if he’s not careful. He nips at the skin of your exposed collar bone and you writhe. Arching to press your chest to his. So he decides to give it some attention.
“Take it off," you pant with an neediness that drives him pull the damn shirt off in one swift motion.
His bare hand crawls up your sternum. Exploring the valley of soft skin free of any restricting fabric. The moment his fingers find the stiff peak of your bare breast he pinches eagerly. Earning the sweetest little whimpers from you as his mouth works on the other nipple. Biting and sucking the soft point. He can’t see a thing in the dark, but what’s lacking in sight is made up by sound with the delicious breathy moans you let out for him.
“Mando…”
Fuck, does he love the way you call out for him. Every touch, kiss, and suck he gives elicites the most gorgeous sounds out of that perfect mouth. The sounds to straight to his cock, now painfully stiff. It's tempting to just dive into you right now. But he's waited this long. So why not take his sweet time with you. With his face still burried between your breasts and you fingers raking through his hair, Din feels a press of your hips against his armor. And he needs more.
“Shop Girl…”
The nickname doesn’t catch your attention. You’re either too lost in the moment or too breathless to answer. It’s only when he uses your given name that your body perks up and you give him a raspy “yeah?”.
“Do you want this," he asks.
His right hand has found its way to the waist band of your work pants. Ready and waiting for your answer. You try to grind against his hips but he presses your hips down firmly. He knows damn well neither of you want to stop. But he needs to hear it. There's no going back after this.
"Is this ok?"
He doesn't know if you're unsure. Or if maybe your trying to meet his eyes through the darkness. But there's a long pause. Only the sounds of heavy breaths and the pulse beating hard in his ears. And every second that passes has him hanging on the edge of madness.
"Yes...," you finally breathe. "I need you."
She needs me.
The words leave him winded. Months of questions and pining suddenly feel well worth the wait just to hear those words. They not only affirm going further, but the bond that's been steadily growing between you. Not a single ounce of hesitation survives after he hears that. And with one hand, Din loosens the tie of your pants and dives in beneath the fabric of your underwear.
By feel alone, Din manages to pull your pants down to your thighs and you kick them off your feet. His hands roam over all the smooth exposed skin and he can only imagine how perfect you must look if you feel this good. The tips of his fingers finds the dampness between your legs, running along the seam, and he slowly pushes inside until his knuckles meet your entrance.
You release a soft gasp and he swallows it with a deep kiss. You both sigh into each other's mouth. As if you need the other to even breathe. Din's lips never leaves yours as he does an experimental curl against the fleshy part of your walls and you arch your body against his.
“This where you need me," he huffs against your lips. "Right here?”
“Right there... Perfect..."
"I wanna taste you." The confession comes out before he can even think about it.
"Then taste me, Mando."
He can hear the smile in your voice. The taunt. And he's more than happy to reciprocate it.
He rises above you and you whine from the lack of contact. But the loss doesn't last long. Because before you even can register what he's doing, his head has already lowered between your legs.
"What are you- ah."
That gasp you let out when his mouth envelops your pussy is downright tortured. Good too know you were just as desperate as he was.
"Fuck! I thought you meant... You were gonna... Shit..."
No fucking way would he be satisfied tasting you on just his fingers. The sweet tangy flavor explodes over his tongue and he groans. Fucking hell, you taste good. He doesn’t even know what the hell he’s doing but that’s sure as shit not stopping him. He drowns in you. Lapping and sucking on your swollen little bud and loving the way it makes you cry out. Two thick fingers pump into your wet heat as you melt in his mouth. Such a fucking treat.
You writhe beneath him. Squirming and clawing at anything to hold on to as he works you up. Eventually your hands finds his hair again. Taking a fistful and pressing his face further against your cunt. The sting on his scalp makes his cock twitch in his flight suit and he groans.
“You want me to make you come, Shop Girl," he mumbles against you.
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“Make me come, Mando... Please…”
He doesn't break pace, doesn't falter, doesn't change a damn thing what he's doing because he can feel close to the edge you are. You tighten around his digits as the pump in and out. And with a firm suck on your clit you let out a strangled gasp.
"Oh Fuck! Fuck! Mando!"
Your breathing becomes short and shallow. Panting so hard right before holding your breath and tipping over the edge with a strangled cry. You come long and hard. Trembling so much he has to hold you steady by the hips.
Through the waves of your climax, Din continues to eat you. Lapping at your perfect pussy like it's wine and he doesn't waste a single drop of you. Even sucking and licking his fingers clean as you lay breathless before him. They come out of his mouth with a wet pop and he can’t help but let out a small breathy laugh.
“I’ve always wanted to try that…” he confesses.
You let out your own exhausted little laugh and he can already tell he wants more. More laughter, more of those pretty sounds, more of you.
It's with that in mind that Din starts pulling his cape off.
Piece by peace, he silently removes his armor. And after a few moments, a second pair of hands joins in. You fumble in the dark with his chest piece first. Helping him out of his armor one section at a time. They fall to the carpet with a soft thud along with the crumbling pieces of the restraint he’s built since that first night.
There’s no signs of stopping. You keep giving him more. More heat. More yearning. More questions.
What makes you laugh? What gives you pleasure? What makes you feel good and whole and satisfied? He needs to know.
And now that he’s gotten a taste, there’s no way he’s leaving here tonight until you’ve both had your fill.
•
If this is what happens when you invite the Mandalorian into your home, let your door never close.
Getting to your bed was easier than you thought it’d be in pitch black darkness. The only thing keeping your ‘bedroom’ separate from the rest of the home is a wooden lattice divider from the ceiling to the floor.
He lays you down on the soft futon on the floor and you open for him like a flower. Two strong palms drag and paw all over your body as his mouth works magic on yours and it makes you dizzy with desire.
Maker, he’s so good with his hands.
His body separates from you only to remove his flight suit and you whine at the loss of contact. Naked and panting for him. Within seconds he’s back on top of you and the feeling of his bare skin against yours makes your head spin. With everything so dark you wonder if this is even real. Maybe this is all a fever dream.
“Are you gonna show me how Mandalorians fuck this time,” you tease against his lips. Calling back to when he showed you how they drink. With your bare legs around his hips, you tease his resolve by running your inner thighs over his sides and you’re rewarded with a low hum. The hand supporting your neck slowly drags forward to find the base of your throat.
“You don’t need to know how Mandalorians fuck.” His wide grip gently squeezes the sides of your throat, just enough for you to feel the power in those hands. “Just how I fuck.”
Holy shit. You thought him gripping your jaw was hot. But this? This might’ve awakened something you didn’t even knew you wanted.
A whimper escapes you only to be muted by his mouth again. His tongue swirls with yours with a hunger you’ve never knew was there these past months and it’s such a relief to know that you weren’t the only one pining.
Mando’s mouth travels to your cheek, then jaw, finally finding purchase on your neck. Biting and sucking as his body presses into yours. He’s insatiable right now. There's no doubt that you'll find yourself covered in marks when the lights come back on.
You’re so lost in the moment that you almost don’t notice when something hard and warm presses against your inner thigh. Out of nowhere, a thought you haven’t even considered before decides to pop into your head at the very last minute.
“H-hold on!”
Your hands find his shoulders, urging him to pause. His lips unlatch themselves from your neck the second you blurt it out. Instantly propping himself above you with his hands on either side of your head.
“You want me to stop?,” he pants.
“No… Hell no. It’s just…”
How do you even begin to ask this?
“Um… I know I probably should’ve asked earlier but… you’re human, right?”
Mando blows out a low chuckle, understanding your underlying meaning. He feels human, from what your hands can tell anyway. He could be like his kid for all you know. It’s not that you’re not willing to go Inter-species, but your experience is mainly human. Plus with the lights off it’d be pretty difficult to figure out fitting things.
Taking your hand from his shoulder, he presses it against his chest where you can feel a dusting of hair. His skin is hot, damp with a thin layer of sweat and his breathing is heavy. He continues to lead your hand further down his torso so you can feel every hill and valley of his muscles. Eventually your hand hits a trail of hair down the middle and then…
Oh shit.
His hand guides you along the length of his cock. Encouraging you to explore every ridge from the thick base all the way up to the damp tip. He’s stiff and hot in your palm. When you give him a firm squeeze he groans and twitches in your grip.
Oh shit.
“Does that answer your question?”
The human part, definitely. Fitting is still debatable.
He lets you handle him. Giving you free rein to tug and tease as he bucks into your hand. He groans with pleasure and the power trip you feel knowing exactly how you affect this fiercely disciplined man makes the pulse between your legs throb harder. After a minute, his hand snatches yours to a halt, making your grip around his cock tighter.
“Show me where you want it,” he demands in a gruff breath. And you do just that. Pressing the damp tip against your clit. The contact sending a jolt of pleasure up your spine.
“Inside,” you plead. “I need you inside me.”
With an impatient huff, his hand comes down to take hold of your leg behind the bend of your knee. Spreading you wide and teasing your entrance before pushing himself inside. You gasp at the initial stretch, digging your nails into his shoulders. Mando curses under his breath and as he pushes you worry for a moment if there’s an end to him.
It’s slow, deliberate. Feeding his cock into your tight cunt until he’s pressing the limits of your walls. You shudder together when he’s completely sheathed and his hands grip your hips so hard his fingers dig into your flesh.
“Mando…” You throw your head back. Arching your whole body, waiting it to adjust to him. “Fuck!”
“I knew it,” he pants. “Fucking knew you’d feel good…”
He splits you in half and before you’re even ready the first hard thrust hits you. You whimper from impact and he thrusts again. Pinning you down by your hips to keep you at the perfect angle. Soon he sets a steady pace as he fucks you into delirium. It’s too much, he’s too much. Yet you moan and whine for more like each thrust might be the last. He feels incredible and you can only claw at his trim waist as it moves for you.
“That’s it… Good girl… Taking me so well… I wanted this… I want you to know every part of me.”
His words plunge into your chest like a dagger. Laced with a meaning that goes far beyond sex. Because you feel it too. You wanted him to be closer. You wanted him to know your name, know you. Even if it took this long to get here.
You feel one hand find your leg. Hiking it up so the back of your thigh lays flat against his chest. His hand drags up and down, caressing the soft flesh without losing a beat with his thrusts. A kiss presses on your calf and your head feels like it’s spinning. One moment he’s rearranging your insides and the next he’s giving your body sweet affection.
Tension builds in your core. Growing tighter and tighter with each hard thrust. Usually the second orgasm is more elusive to chase on your own. But this man is about to push you right into the next one not five minutes after the first one.
“Don’t… Stop…,” you pant. “Don’t stop, I’m so close, Mando…”
“Come for me... Let me feel you."
Then it comes. Tensing your entire body before coming down like a crashing wave. It’s spreads through every inch of your body, making you pulse and shake beneath his frame. You cry out in the midst of the euphoria, clinging to his shoulders, and everything feels so right. He moans along with you, feeling every tight pulse around his cock and letting you ride out the remaining waves.
“That’s two now, Shop Girl. You gonna give me a third?”
You let out a breathy laugh, still coming down from the clouds.
"I... I'm not sure I can," you chuckle.
"Yeah, you will," he pants. Amusement lacing his raspy voice.
Without out warning, Mando takes both your legs. Placing your calves over his shoulders as his leans forward. Folding you in half. And with one hard thrust, his cock drives back into you at a deeper angle. Your back bows and you swear you see stars in the blackness of the room. His lips land on the corner of your mouth and kiss their way to your lips. Offering a soft apology after the roughness. His strong arms are propped around you and you feel eclipsed under his broad body.
Soon his rhythm picks up. Becoming more desperate as he chases his own release. The room fills with the sound of your bodies meeting and you don't think you've ever heard anything more perfect. His panting picks up, his moans become louder, and the quivering breaths he makes when he finds a particularly deep spot will no doubt live in your mind rent free forever.
“You wanted me bare, didn’t you,” he huffs, pressing his damp forehead to yours.. “When you offered me that tea? You thought about me coming inside this perfect cunt, didn’t you.”
Caught red handed. Sure, you wanted to know if he had a partner as well. But the thought did cross your mind when he cornered you against the counter. You wanted to know how he felt bare, with nothing between you. Even dreamt a few times about it.
“Yes… Fuck, yes! Please! I want it!”
“You gonna come with me, Shop Girl? Hmm?”
“Maker, Mando! I’m right fucking there, please! I… I’m… ah-“
His firm hand grips your jaw. Whipping your face back to him so he can cover your mouth his. He kisses you deep, open and messy. No technique, just raw desire as he eats you alive. You moan and whimper against his mouth with each debilitating thrust he makes. He drives into you faster, harder. Relentlessly pushing you closer to the edge.
When it arrives, the orgasm hits you at full force. Wracking your whole body in convulsions as you scream, actually scream against his mouth. Your toes curl, your nails dig into his back and your cunt squeezes on to him for dear life like he’s never allowed to leave again.
Mando hisses through his teeth and he's right there with you. Ramming into you with relentless force as he chases his own release. His face dives into the crook of your shoulder and his arms scramble to take hold of you and he loses control. Letting out a sharp groan as he comes.
“Fuck.. Fuck,” he shudders in your ear. “Agh!”
His hips jerk against your body, driving himself as deep as you can take him. You feel his cock throb as he pumps into you again and again. Filling you to the point of spilling out and it’s... everything. Connected in such a profound way you’ve never felt before. In this moment, it’s hard to tell your bodies apart. You’ve melted and mixed and you never want to separate.
You ride it together, mold together, lose control together because you both knew it’d come to this. In the end this was inevitable. And in a galaxy filled with unknowns, in this you can be certain. A connection like this is few and far between. It’s real and raw and rare. Resisting that feeling was never an option, so why try?
Even in the climb down he doesn’t stop. Those hard demanding thrusts slow to a gentle drags as if he doesn’t want to finish yet. Hands glide all over each other’s bodies, soothing the other. All along his tense shoulders, you pepper soft kisses to his skin. Easing you both down from the clouds. He hums in the decent and it lulls you into an exhausted bliss.
Everything feels hazy and soft. You’re not sure how long you stay melted together like this. Minutes? Hours? But it’s needed. After a while, the breathing becomes steady and a soft, drowsy satisfaction settles between you.
“That’s the first time someone's come inside me,” you quietly confess. For a moment, Mando absorbs what you just said. Then you feel him prop himself in his elbows above you.
“Really?”
“Yeah…,” you breathe. Running your hands up the sides of his neck and resting them on his stubbled face.
“You know… since we’re sharing firsts tonight.”
He smiles and this time you’re able to know for certain by the feel of it in your hands. Leaning down, his forehead finds yours in the dark and you don’t think you’ve ever felt so whole before.
“I’m your first, huh,” he breathes. “I like that.”
There’s so many layers to this man. Quiet and withdrawn. Rough and demanding. Soft and caring. Each one is a trait you’ve come to cherish. You’re not sure if you love this man. But you’re definitely starting to fall for him. You can explore that treasure box later though. For now, you’ll take tonight for tonight and let whatever comes next between you arrive in its own good time.
“Me too, Mando...”
•
•
•
💕 THANK YOU FOR READING 💕
If you enjoyed my notes app delusions, please reblog, add a comment, drop insane reaction pics. I love seeing all your interactions, thoughts, and support on here. Might consider posting my works on A03 as well but we’ll see. Much Love! 🥰
Plot summary: It’s October 1943, the country in the grip of World War II, and your small English village is fast becoming home to an influx of American servicemen sending hearts a-flutter. Yours already belongs to your teenage sweetheart until, that is, you meet Frankie ‘Catfish’ Morales.
Warnings: 18+only. You know there’s going to be smut 😜
A/N: Couldn’t help myself….this story has evolved from this WIP. Let me know if you’d like to be added to the tag list 🥰 I’m envisaging the characters being slightly younger than in the movie. This is also my first time writing for Frankie, so please be gentle 😂🫣
a brief moment of dubious consent due to..., accidental creampie, bareback sex, p in v, somewhat subby!joel, size kink, breeding kink, humiliation kink, edging/ruined orgasm
a/n: i wrote this with the intention of posting it on my birthday last week, but life sucks sometimes. anyways, there needs to be more sub!p men fic. am i right, @time-for-my-weekly-spanking? not beta read, so don't yell at me.
The way Joel fucks you can never be labeled as anything other than exquisite. His breath is hot against the sensitive skin of your neck, his mouth closing over the pulse point just below your ear so as to taste the salt of your sweat. The coarse scratch of his chest hair drags across your breasts as he leans in close, the low rumble of his groan vibrating through your ribcage. The muscles in his back shift and flex under the featherlight touch of your fingertips. A large hand pins your wrist above your head, the other gripping your hip hard enough to bruise, his thick fingers digging into the soft flesh in a way that makes your stomach flutter.
Despite being lost in the throes of pleasure, you can tell how dangerously close Joel is to coming. His thrusts are no longer the steady, rolling grind that he started with, but desperate and choppy. The thick head of his cock grazes against your cervix with every sloppy snap of his hips. The veins along his shaft throb against your stretched rim, his balls slapping against your ass with each stuttered movement. “Joel…” you warn.
He shakes his head fast, jaw tight and teeth clenched as he fights his impending orgasm. “I know, baby. I know. M’pullin’ out, I promise.”
That had always been the deal between the two of you – he could fuck you bare like he wanted, but he had to pull out – and until tonight, Joel had always been overly cautious. He’d pull out earlier than he needed to, stroking himself those last few seconds before spilling across the backs of your thighs.
Tonight though, Joel seemed to be struggling to hold up his end of the bargain. He rises onto his knees and hooks one of your legs over his broad shoulders. The new angle lets him sink into you further, grinding against that spongy spot inside you with merciless precision. Your body clenches around him, squeezing his cock in a way that makes him break with a choked sound. “Fuck, baby. M’gonna come–”
He rips out of you at the very last second, cock throbbing in the cool summer air. His hand wraps around the thick, slick shaft as he jerks himself with fast, desperate strokes. With an exasperated groan, the first hot rope of come shoots out of him, landing exactly where he wants it - splattered perfectly over your swollen clit. Before you can even react, a second spurt follows dripping down your folds in a sticky, pearly streak.
The sight of his release painting your pussy flips a switch in him instantly. That primal urge in him that is usually kept locked down roars to the surface. Joel’s chest heaves, his entire body going rigid as every civilized thought gets wiped clean and is replaced with the need to be inside you. “Fuck. Fuck, baby–” He drives into you in one brutal, instinctive thrust, thrusting every thick inch of his cock back into the heat of your cunt. The stretch is sudden and overwhelming despite him pulling out only moments earlier.
“Joel–” you manage to breathlessly exclaim as he turns his head and groans against your ankle. His orgasm hits him harder now that he’s buried where he knows he shouldn’t be, the guilt and wrongness only seeming to intensify everything as he continues to spill inside you.
His whole body shakes with the force of it, completely lost in the rush of filling you when he promised he wouldn’t. “Oh fuck–” he chokes out, gasping and moaning as he grinds himself impossibly deeper, pushing his spend as far inside you as he can.
Your leg slips from his shoulder and Joel’s body collapses forward with a groan, his weight pressing you into the mattress. He trembles above you, arms braced on either side of your head, too weak to hold himself up fully as he attempts to catch his breath. Even after the last powerful aftershocks ripple through him, Joel stays buried to the hilt, his hips giving a tiny, involuntary roll, unable to stop chasing the euphoric feeling. His cock twitches inside your come-filled pussy, his body refusing to accept that it’s over.
The room falls silent, the gravity of what just happened settling over you until it’s almost suffocating. Joel finally slumps over you, his forehead nudging into your shoulder, arms wrapped tight around your middle like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he lets go. His breath is shaky as he burrows his face into your neck and you sense the tension and unease radiating off of him. “...baby. I–I fucked up,” he admits, voice wrecked from both exhaustion and nerves.
You can feel the warmth of his release slowly leaking out around his softening cock and you try to lift your head to see, but Joel is heavy over top of you. You tap the side of his ass, urging him to get up and thankfully he understands the gesture. He eases himself out of you, his cock slipping out of you with a wet noise, and falls back onto the mattress, covering his face with his forearm. “Jesus…” you breathe, having propped yourself up on your elbows to look down at the mess he made. The sheen of your slick is smeared glossy across your inner thighs. Joel’s come is everywhere – seeping out of your hole in thick, pearly white streaks and dripping onto the bedsheets beneath you.
Joel sits up, leaning back on one hand as he takes in the sight of your spread thighs, watching as his come slowly trickles from your entrance. The guilt of breaking his promise to you starts to eat at him; but, alongside the shame is a dark, hungry satisfaction that he can’t push away. The conflicting feelings weave together into some fucked up shame spiral and he lets out a heavy sigh, flopping back onto the mattress.
He hears you say his name, but the sound barely registers. He’s too lost in his own head, trapped somewhere between regret and disgust. You call out again, this time a little louder, and he rolls onto his side to face you. Without a word, he leans in, one hand cradling your cheek as he kisses you. It’s not rushed or desperate, but rather sweet, as if his lips were trying to say everything he was having difficulty putting into words. There’s an apology in the way that his thumb gently strokes the side of your face. There’s hunger in the way his tongue slides against yours. And, there’s relief in the quiet sigh he breathes into the kiss, like touching you is the only thing keeping him grounded. “M’sorry, baby…” he murmurs against your lips.
His eyes flick back down to the mess between your thighs, brows furrowing together. “Fuck…look at what I did to you,” he whispers. “As soon as I can feel my damn legs, “we’re gonna get in the car, okay? I’ll drive you to the pharmacy and we’ll see about gettin’ you the mornin’ after pill.” Joel shakes his head, disappointed in himself, but even more so at his cock which twitches with interest. “I promised. I fuckin’ promised and I just…” his voice cracks, “the second I came, I lost it. Buried myself right back in like some goddamn animal.” There’s a short pause, Joel swallowing down a dangerous thought, “Jesus Christ, baby…what the hell did I do?”
You grab Joel’s face with both hands before he can spiral any further, pulling him into a kiss that shuts him up and steals whatever apology was about to tumble out. His lips quiver against yours, unsure if he should even be allowed this kind of forgiveness. It isn’t until the tip of your tongue slides slowly over the seam of his lips that he melts. He lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding and the tension in his jaw finally eases. His hand comes to rest on your waist and he kisses you back, trying to convey his gratitude for not pushing him away.
When you break apart, you rest your forehead against him and brush your thumbs over his stubbled cheekbones. “Should make you go by yourself,” you mumble against his lips, no malice in your voice. “Explain to the pharmacist what you did.”
Joel looks at you with wide, pleading eyes, knowing he deserves every bit of shame and reproach that would come from confessing it aloud. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, his face starting to heat up. “Baby…” he breathes out, voice barely above a whisper.
You smile softly, eyes locked on his, “She’s going to take one look at this guilty face and just know that you couldn’t keep your cock where it belonged.” Joel makes a ragged sound, somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “She’ll make you say it too,” you add, dragging your thumb over his bottom lip. “What you did. Out loud.”
Joel’s eyes flutter shut, cheeks burning hotter under your gaze, his forehead dropping to your shoulder in an attempt to hide his embarrassment. You’re not exactly sure what prompts you, but you find yourself sliding your fingers into Joel’s hair, gently tugging his head back up so you can see his face. “Tell me what you’d say to her,” you whisper. “Tell me like you’re standing at the counter.”
Joel shakes his head weakly, attempting to resist your request, but his pupils are blown wide, lust swallowing his irises. His cock twitches with interest, blood rushing to where he’s already growing half-hard between his thighs.
You let your gaze drop, catching the sudden movement in your peripheral vision. Joel lets out a small, miserable whine and tries to bury his face in your neck again, but you keep your grip firm in his hair. “Joel,” you say, slightly amused but with a strangely cruel undertone to it. “Are you getting hard while apologizing?”
Your question lingers in the air, and the real shock of it hits you, because Joel is not the type to be brought down to his metaphorical knees. He is always the one in control – bigger, stronger, unmistakably male – and seeing him like this almost feels surreal. You can’t help but think that it looks good on him for a change.
Joel’s breath stutters, his cock betraying him as it twitches under your gaze. His blush deepens until he’s red all the way up to the tips of his ears. He feels exposed, ridiculous and so fucking turned on that it’s making his head spin. “Baby, I–I’m trying not to.”
You tilt your head and let out a disbelieving laugh, glancing down at his cock steadily thickening between you. “Doesn’t look like it. Looks like you’re getting big and hard just from thinking about having to talk to the pharmacist later.”
A shiver zips up Joel’s spine and he barely restrains the groan that wants to escape. He fucking loves it when you call him big. Not just because of the way it strokes his ego – though he loves when you admire his dick – but because the way you say it makes him feel powerful. Hearing you use that word against him, teasing him while he’s exposed like this, makes his stomach tighten. The contradiction of being called ‘big’ while feeling so small and humiliated fucks with his head in the best way. Because no matter how big he is – how easily he could pin you down and take control – here he is, rock hard and almost submissive for you. His cock throbs, heavy and flushed dark, curving up towards his stomach as the tip glistens with a fresh bead of precome.
“Answer me,” you say, voice low and commanding as you give his hair another firm tug until his eyes are trained on you.
“...fuck,” he mumbles under his breath, unable to keep himself in check as you stare down at him. “Yes…okay? Yes, I’m gettin’ hard. I hate it and I can’t fuckin’ help it.”
Joel looks completely mortified, but his hips twitch upward anyway, like his body is begging for attention. His big, guilty brown eyes stay locked on yours, glassy and desperate. A long moment stretches between you while you watch him squirm, shame and arousal practically eating him alive. You lean in closer, lips brushing the shell of his ear. “That’s because you liked it,” you whisper. “You liked filling me up when you weren’t supposed to. You liked fucking up.”
His whole body tenses, his cock jerking with another helpless twitch. “Fuck…baby,” he whispers. “So fucking much.”
You let the silence sit for another beat, just to watch him sit with his admission. His hand flexes at his side like he’s dying to reach out and touch you – to grab your hips, pull you closer, bury his face between your thighs, and eat you out until you’re shaking and pushing him away. Anything to distract from the embarrassment of telling someone else how much he enjoyed coming inside you.
When you’re satisfied that you had made him wait long enough, you loosen your grip on his hair and slide your hand down to cup his jaw. “Joel,” you say softly. He responds with a hum, leaning into your touch. “Say it.”
Joel blinks, his breath shallow. “Say what?”
You lean in until your lips are barely an inch from his, “What you’re going to tell the pharmacist.”
Joel’s eyes flutter shut for a second, his lips parting slightly as he half-expects you to lean in and kiss him. When you don’t, he lets out a huff. After a moment, he relents, “Sorry ma’am,” he says, barely above a whisper. “Can I bother you for Plan B? I…I accidentally…” His sentence tapers off, embarrassment and arousal tying his tongue while you look at him expectantly. “She–she told me to pull out, but I couldn’t help myself.”
You tsk at him, a low, disappointed sound that makes his shoulder tense. You trail your fingers from where it cups his cheek, down the side of his neck, over the rapid thud of his heartbeat in his chest, until you reach his navel. You trace his happy trail with the pad of your pointer finger, purposefully keeping away from his more than interested cock. “Keep going,” you state, more demand than request. “You weren’t finished."
Joel looks at you wrecked, completely at your mercy as you continue teasing him with featherlight touches. “Baby…I–”
You cut him off mid-sentence, wrapping your fingers firmly around the thick base of his cock. He goes stock still, his eyes flying wide open as he lets out a sharp gasp, “Fuck–”. You hold him there, tight and possessive, feeling his cock throb hot and heavy in your palm, but refusing to stroke him.
“Keep going,” you say calmly, your thumb brushing lightly over the prominent vein on the underside of his shaft. “Don’t stop just because I have your cock in my hand.”
Joel licks his lips, eyes glued to yours, his thighs trembling as he fights the overwhelming urge to thrust up into your fist. “She told me to pull out,” he starts, your grip tightening. “…but I saw how pretty she looked on my cock and I–” He groans softly, enraptured by the way you’re looking at him. “I couldn’t help myself, baby. I–I just needed to feel you feel you full of me.”
You lean in close, nose brushing against the shell of his ear, and whisper, “Pathetic.”
A broken groan tears out of Joel’s chest, shame flooding his face. He jerks his hips involuntarily, eagerly chasing the heat of your palm. His body shakes – the big, strong man who’s always in control, trembling from a single whispered insult.
“Go on,” you purr in his ear. “Repeat what you’d say to the pharmacist. Word for word.”
Joel’s eyes squeeze shut, his voice is wrecked, cracking with every humiliating word. “...Sorry, ma’am. Can I get a Plan B? I accidentally came inside my girl. She told me to pull out but I…I couldn’t help but fill her up anyway.” His hips twitch helplessly, precome drooling from the tip and leaking over your fist.
“And why not,” you ask softly, adjusting your grip, your thumb swiping over the flushed, sensitive head.
Joel keens, his back arching off the bed. “Because–” he starts, swallowing down a shaky breath, “because she was squeezin’ me so good that I lost control.”
“I told you to pull out,” you remind him, thumb continuing to move.
He nods quickly, shame tightening in his throat. “I know, baby. I know. I did at first but…” Joel lets out a strangled whine, only furthering his embarrassment, “...fuck.”
“But what, Joel?” you ask, lips still brushing his ear in a tease. “Finish your sentence.” Your hand slides up his length in one smooth stroke, then back down to the base. He’s so fucking big in your grip, your fingers barely meeting around his shaft due to the sheer size of him. His cock is a complete mess, glistening and still slick with his earlier load.
Joel’s hands fist the sheets, needing to hold onto something, the fabric pulling away from the edge of the mattress as he fights for control. “I didn’t listen,” he grits out through clenched teeth. “Stuffed myself right back inside.”
You pull back just enough to see his face, his pupils blown with lust, his lips parted as he pants, desperate for more – desperate for something. “Good boy,” you praise. Joel’s entire body seizes up, his cock surging with want, as he attempts to push himself deeper into your grasp. You keep stroking him, the pace excruciating, letting your thumb swirl over the messy come-slick head on every upstroke. “Now tell her why you’re there,” you murmur.
Joel lets out a broken whine, hips jerking helplessly. His voice cracks as he forces the words out, shame and arousal twisting together so tightly he can barely speak. “ ‘Cause she needs the morning after pill,” he breathes out. “And it’s all my fault.” Joel shoves his hips up, spearing his cock into your grip as he starts fucking your fist in short, needy strokes. “All my fucking fault.”
The big, dominant Joel Miller is officially gone. In place is this desperate, leaking, shame-drenched version of him who can’t stop confessing how badly he fucked up – how badly he needed to come inside you – and how much he loved it.
“Greedy boy. You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
He doesn’t answer you. You let him use your hand to get off, watching his face go slack with pleasure before urging his hips down and slowing your hand. Your fingers tighten around him, just enough to control the pace, forcing his thrusts to become shallow and frustratingly restricted. Every time he tries to move, you ease off, keeping him right on the agonizing edge without letting him tip over.
“That’s it,” you croon softly, “Tell her exactly why you need it.”
Joel’s hands fist the sheets tighter, knuckles white as he bunches the fabric at his sides. “‘Cause–fuck…’cause I came inside you, baby,” he groans. “Pussy looked so good covered in my come that I just had to get back inside.”
You feel him swell impossibly bigger in your hand, the thick shaft pulsing in time with his heartbeat, as he teeters dangerously close to the edge. His balls draw up tight, the first warning of his impending orgasm.
Joel’s breath catches, his eyes starting to roll back, inches away from satisfaction. You let go, your hand pulling away completely, leaving his cock twitching and bobbing angrily in the air. He lets out a broken sound as his orgasm crests and then crashes without release. His cock kicks hard, pulsing uselessly, a thick bead of precome dribbling pathetically from the tip and sliding down his shaft. His hips buck in the air, every muscle straining as everything fades into a cruel, aching denial. He collapses towards you, his body practically shaking as he presses his forehead to your shoulder. “Fuck…baby…please…” he begs.
You let him ache, his chest heaving with quick, uneven breaths, his denied cock twitching and leaking against his stomach. Every heavy throb is visible as he attempts to gather himself. He tries to tamp down his arousal, but underneath is something deeper – raw, aching need.
You press a hand gently to his chest, urging him to lie flat and Joel obeys instantly, falling back onto the mattress fully and without protest. You swing a leg over him, straddling his hips, your slick folds parting around him. His head falls back with a guttural groan as you start to rock against him, the fat head of his cock dragging hot and slippery over your swollen clit making you both moan. You feel him shudder underneath you, a low groan vibrating through his chest as he curses silently, “...fuck, baby. Just like that.”
Joel’s hands fly to your thighs, fingers digging into your flesh like he’s barely holding himself together. His breathing is ragged, eyes half-lidded and desperate as he watches you use him. You tease him like that for a few more torturous seconds without giving him what he really needs, a needy whine slipping out before he can stop it.
Without hesitation, you take his cock in hand, lining him up with your entrance and sinking down all the way to the hilt. The stretch is perfect, your walls squeezing tight around him, greedy for more. A broken moan escapes both of you at the same time as Joel springs up, sitting up beneath you in a rush, one arm wrapping around your back as he pulls you into a messy, desperate kiss. Joel licks into your mouth like he’s starving for you. One hand slides up your back, while the other stays wrapped around your middle as he guides you harder onto his cock.
“Fuck, baby…” he pants between kisses, “you feel so goddamn good.” Joel’s forehead drops to your shoulder, breath hot against your skin as he lets you take complete control, utterly lost in the feeling of being buried inside you again.
“Keep going,” you say, pulling off of him until only the tip of him remains inside you, then slamming back down until he’s fully sheathed again. “Tell the pharmacist what you did.”
Joel’s brain is barely coherent. “Fuck–I–” His hands dig into your skin, almost like he’s afraid you’ll leave him ruined and desperate again. “M’sorry, ma’am,” he begins, his words somewhat slurred as you continue to mercilessly ride him, the wet heat of your cunt enveloping him over and over again. “Need a plan B for my–fuck– girl.” His voice cracks as you grind your clit against his pelvis, the coarse hair on his groin prickling into your skin. “I’m sorry,” he groans, starting to babble, the confession spilling out in desperate, shattered pieces. “So fucking sorry. Felt so good. Fuck, baby…you feel so good. Needed to fill you up.”
Joel is embarrassingly close already, his hips stuttering up to meet your rhythm. “Fuck, baby. Hop off–fuck, I’m gonna–” he gasps, starting to panic. His hands scramble frantically at your hips, trying to lift you off him to avoid further incident.
But you don’t let him. You slam down onto him one last time, taking him as deep as you can, rolling your hips in tight circles that eke him closer to the finish line. Your walls clench around him like a vice and Joel’s eyes widen in shock. “No–baby, wait–I can’t–fuck!”
His panicked warning dissolves into a guttural groan as his cock pulses violently inside you, his eyes rolling back into his head, vision going white, as thick, hot ropes of come flood you for the second time that afternoon. His entire body trembles beneath you, his fingers bruising your skin where he grips you as if you’re the only thing anchoring him to Earth.
The wet warmth of his spend spills from your cunt and drips down his shaft, coating him in his own mess. Joel’s face is slack, experiencing what one can only assume to be pure bliss – like nothing in the world exists except the tight, slick heat of your cunt milking him dry.
You ride the high right alongside him, your bodies in a perfect, filthy sync until your own orgasm crashes into you without warning. Your thighs lock tight around his hips as white-hot pleasure rips up your spine. You cry out, your head lolling back, his name slipping from your lips as every muscle shakes with wave after wave of mind-numbing pleasure.
Joel starts to slowly soften inside of you but doesn’t dare look down at the mess. “Still gotta go to the pharmacy, baby.”
The fluorescent lights of the pharmacy feel way too bright as Joel stands at the counter, posture rigid like he’s waiting on his own execution. The pharmacist, a no-nonsense type of woman in her fifties, offers him a polite smile. “How can I help you today?”
Joel’s face immediately burns red, his blush crawling all the way up to his ears. He rubs the back of his neck, glancing over at you like maybe you’ll save him from utter embarrassment, but you don’t. He clears his throat, an attempt at keeping himself from stuttering which immediately backfires as soon as he opens his mouth to speak. “Uh–I–I–uh…I need the, uh…the Plan B pill.”
The pharmacist doesn’t even blink, she just nods calmly and types something into the computer, “One moment, sir. I’ll grab that for you.”
Joel lets out an apprehensive breath, muttering under his breath while his fingers tap nervously on the counter. He prays the ground will just swallow him whole. “Jesus Christ,” he mumbles to himself.
The pharmacist returns with the small blue box and sets it on the counter, scanning the barcode. “Alright, if that’s it for today, that’ll be–”
“It’s my fault,” Joel blurts out, far too loud, before realizing his blunder. “I–I messed up.”
You watch the pharmacist’s eyebrows slowly lift. In truth, your hand reaches for him like you’re going to stop him, but the words tumble out of him quicker than expected. “She told me to pull out but I just lost my head.”
You bite down hard on your lip to keep from laughing, your face heating with a mix of second-hand embarrassment and delight. The pharmacist blinks, completely unfazed. “Oh. Well…it happens. That’ll be $54.11.”
Joel looks like he’s two seconds away from melting into the floor. His neck and ears are bright red, jaw clenched so tight you’re afraid he’s going to pop a vein in his forehead. He fumbles for his wallet, dropping his debit card with a loud clatter, cursing quietly under his breath. You place a steady hand on his bicep and he manages to swipe the card with shaking fingers, refusing to look at you.
When the transaction is complete, the pharmacist hands him the bag, telling him she hopes he has a good day. He can’t even respond with words. He raises his hand, nodding his head and gently takes you by the arm, leading you out of the pharmacy as quickly as he can. When he reaches the sidewalk, he turns towards you, the bulge evident in his jeans, his voice dropping into a hushed whisper only you can hear. “Baby…I swear I ain’t ever been that embarrassed in all my life.”
The minute the front door clicks shut behind you, Joel lets out a heavy exhale, dropping the keys to his truck on the entryway table. You barely make it two steps before he reaches for you, grabbing your hand and pulling you into him, your back flush against his broad chest. His face drops into the crook of your neck, lips brushing your skin like he needs the contact to steady himself.
He turns you to face him and his eyes are soft, filled with adoration and love. The flush of humiliation hasn’t fully faded, his ears tinted pink as he cocks his head to the side and then leans in to kiss you. The kiss starts slow, as if he’s asking for permission, but the moment you kiss him back, it deepens – slow and hungry in the softest way. His hands slide down your back, palms warm and steady, pressing you closer until there’s no space left between your bodies. “Baby…”, he whispers, his lips not leaving yours. “...you were real mean to me.”
You smile, humming in agreement, “Yeah, you gonna let me do it again?”
Joel swallows, eyes dropping to your mouth, his response somewhat shy, “Jesus…I–yeah,we’ll talk about it.”
His forehead rests against yours and he breathes you in for a long moment, then kisses you again. His arms tighten around you as the tension starts to bleed out of his shoulders. “Thank you,” he murmurs, the words barely more than a breath. “For helpin’ me take care of it. For not bein’ mad. For…hell, for everything.”
You feel his body relax fully into yours like he’s finally letting the weight of the day settle. His thumb keeps stroking your cheek in slow, gentle circles as he holds you close, safe in the quiet of your apartment. “Maybe it’s time we start trying,” you suggest. His head whips towards you, eyes wide and curious, trying to gauge if you actually mean it. You nod as if answering his silent question and you swear you’ve never seen him happier.
Summary: Sat in a cell, your only comfort is the Mandalorian imprisoned next door.
Warnings: 18+only. Smut ahoy including masturbation and penetration 🍆
A/N: Little extra Friday treat for you! I’ve been working on this one since I started binging the series in anticipation of the movie. I know NOTHING about Star Wars, I’m a complete fairweather fan on the basis of Pedro. So anything that doesn’t make sense in the universe is on me 🥰
Let me know if you think I should write more…
Masterlist
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The cell smells like rust and recycled air, and the lights went down hours ago – not off, never off, just dimmed to that bruised red that means the facility's day cycle is over and its prisoners are supposed to sleep. You haven’t slept. You’re not sure you remember how to anymore.
Three days. That’s how long you've been in here, counting by the rhythm of the ration slot and the heavy clank of boots that come once per shift change. Three days since the bounty hunter who calls himself Vane dragged you off your transport with a vibroblade at your throat, smiling like he'd won a sabacc pot. He hasn't told you what he wants yet, clearly being the kind of man that likes to make a woman stew.
You shift on the metal bench that passes for a bunk, drawing your knees up to your chest. The durasteel wall behind you is cold even through your shirt, but you press your shoulder blades into it anyway, because the cold is a real thing, and real things are rare in here.
That’s when you hear him move.
The cell next to yours was empty when they put you in. You'd stared at the dividing wall for the better part of a day, watching the seams, listening for breathing, and there had been nothing. But somewhere in the long stretch between the last meal and the dimming of the lights, they must have brought someone in, because now you can hear the unmistakable scrape of something heavy against metal, the dull clink of what can only be armour settling.
You hold your breath and hear a long exhale on the other side – mechanical, filtered. Like it’s passed through a vocoder before it reaches air. You know that sound. Every spacer this side of the Rim knows that sound.
A Mandalorian.
You don't know what possesses you to speak. Loneliness, maybe, stupidity, definitely and you turn your face to the wall.
"Hey."
There’s nothing for a long moment, just that mechanical breathing, even and slow, like a man who’s been in worse places than this and is conserving himself for whatever comes next.
"You're awake."
His voice lands in your chest like a stone dropped down a well. Low, rough at the edges, made stranger by the helmet's modulator, carrying that slight metallic burr that turns every consonant into something with teeth. It should have been off-putting, but it isn’t. It’s the first voice you've heard in three days that isn’t Vane's oily purr, and your whole body leans toward it before you've even decided to.
"Can't sleep," you reply. "How long have you been in there?"
"Couple hours."
"I didn't hear them bring you in."
"They didn't want you to."
You press your palm flat against the wall, as if you can feel him through it. You can’t, of course, the durasteel thick enough to stop a blaster bolt. But you imagine him on the other side, sitting the way you’re sitting, his helmet tilted toward the sound of your voice.
"Are you hurt?" you ask.
He pauses. "Nothing that matters."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the one you're getting."
You smile, in spite of everything. "Fine. Don't tell me your name either, then."
"I wasn't going to."
"Of course not." You let your head tip back against the wall. "So, what do I call you for the purposes of this limited conversation?"
"Mando works."
"Very original."
"It’s functional and descriptive."
You laugh, a tiny breath of one, surprised out of you because it’s been a long time since anything has made you laugh. You hear him shift on the other side of the wall, a slow grinding of beskar against metal that you feel more than hear, the vibration humming through your spine.
"What did you do to end up in here?” he asks.
"Wrong cargo on the wrong ship. You?"
"Wrong face on the wrong wanted poster."
"Yours or his?"
"Mine, apparently."
"Hm." You trace a finger along a seam in the wall, following its line down to where it meets the bench. "Are you going to kill him when you get out?"
"Yes."
He says it the way another person might say I'm going to get water. No inflection, no heat, just the flat statement of a future fact. You should be frightened of him, but you’re not. There’s something steadying about that voice, that certainty. As if the universe is a problem he’s already solved, and you’ve only stumbled into the middle of his working.
"Take me with you," you say, before you can think better of it.
"You don't know me," he replies, with the shape of a laugh through the modulator.
"I know you're not him."
"That’s a pretty low bar."
"It's the one I've got."
He goes quiet for a while after that. Not an uncomfortable quiet, rather the kind that feels like company. You listen to him breathe, slow and even, and try to match your own to it, and find after a few minutes that you have. You inhale when he inhales and exhale when he exhales, as if you’re sharing a single set of lungs through the wall.
"What's your name?" he asks.
You tell him without thinking, the syllables just leaving you, soft, into the dim red dark.
"That's a good name.”
"It's just a name."
"There’s no such thing as just a name."
You turn your face to the wall and press your cheek to it. The metal’s less cold now, or you’re warmer – one of the two.
"Say it again," you whisper.
There’s a pause long enough to make you think he might refuse. Then his voice comes, lower, slower, and he says your name the way you've never heard it said before, like it has weight, like it’s a thing he’s setting down carefully on a table between you, where you can both look at it.
Something flutters low in your belly, and you tell yourself it’s hunger. Three days of nutrient paste can do things to a person.
You know it isn’t the hunger.
"Tell me something," you say, mostly to fill the silence. "Anything, I don't care."
"Like what?"
"Like…what's the last good meal you had and on what planet. I don’t know, anything."
You can hear him thinking about an answer before he speaks. "Tiingilar. On Nevarro. But there was too much spice, and it burned my tongue for an hour."
"You eat through that helmet?"
"Not in front of you, I wouldn't."
The phrasing is so specific, so oddly intimate, that it makes your face hot. In front of you. As if he's thought about it. As if you’re a person whose presence would change what he does with his mouth.
"Why not?" you ask, voice careful and quiet.
"It's the Way. No one sees my face."
"No one?"
"No one living."
You let that sit and take in the whole shape of it — the loneliness baked into it, the discipline, the strange tender violence of a vow that old. You think about a man who hasn't shown his face to anyone in years, who eats alone, who sleeps alone and who would die before he breaks that code.
You think about what it would mean if he ever did break it for someone.
"What about touch?" you ask, and you can hear your own pulse in your ears now. "Does the Way say anything about that?"
He pauses for a single beat. "No."
"No, it doesn't say anything? Or no, you don't…?"
"It doesn't forbid it."
"Oh."
The silence after that has a different quality, the silence of two people who’ve both noticed the same thing at the same time and are waiting to see who’s going to acknowledge it first. You feel your fingers curl against the wall and the wall against the line of your thigh through your trousers, the cold of it sinking through and meeting the heat of you.
"Mando," you say finally.
"Yeah."
"When's the last time someone touched you?"
The modulator catches his exhale and turns it into something like static. He doesn’t answer right away and so you wait. You can be patient when you need to be, and right now, with your cheek to the wall and your blood loud in your throat, you need to be.
"It’s been a long time," he admits finally.
"How long?"
"Longer than I'm going to tell a stranger."
"I'm not a stranger, you know my name."
"That doesn't make you not a stranger."
"Doesn't it?"
You imagine him in the cell next to yours, that helmeted head bowed, his gloved hands resting on his thighs. You imagine his shoulders pressed back against the same wall you’re pressed against, the only thing between his skin and yours a few centimetres of durasteel and a lifetime of bad decisions.
"What about you?" he says.
"What about me?"
"When's the last time anyone touched you?"
The directness of his question startles you. You've been the one playing this game and somehow, he’s taken the cards out of your hand without you noticing.
"A while," you admit.
"How long is a while?"
"Long enough that I think about it when I shouldn't."
"When shouldn't you?"
"Now," you say, "for instance."
You hear the soft sound through the modulator that you decide, immediately and with some certainty, is a laugh, or the closest thing he allows himself to one. It’s a warm sound and it goes straight down your spine and pools at the base of it.
"You're thinking about it now?" he asks.
"You asked."
"I did."
"Are you going to ask what I'm thinking about?"
"I think I'd rather you tell me."
Your face is suddenly on fire and you’re grateful for the wall, grateful for the dark, grateful for every centimetre of durasteel that keeps him from seeing the colour you must be. You press your forehead against the metal, close your eyes and feel the steady, mechanical sound of his breathing on the other side.
Fuck it, you think. You’re never going to see him and he’s never going to see you. If you both die in this place tomorrow, the only thing left of this night will be the air it’s moved through.
"I'm thinking about your voice," you say.
"My voice?"
"That's where I'd start."
"Where would you start with it?"
You wet your lips. "I'd want you to keep talking. I'd want you closer to the wall. I'd want…I'd want to put my ear right up against it, and I'd want you to put your mouth right up against it on your side, and just…talk. About anything. I just want it in my head."
You hear him move, hear the scrape of beskar against the wall, and you know, even though you can’t see him, that he’s shifted closer, that the helmet is nearer to you now than it had been a minute ago. That if there were no wall, he would be a hand's breadth away.
"Like this," he says, and his voice is lower than it had been, the vocoder rasp gone soft, almost a whisper, and impossibly intimate for that. "This close enough for you?"
"Yeah," you breathe. "Yeah, that's…that's good."
"Tell me what else."
"I'd…" You swallow. "I'd want you to tell me what you'd do."
"What I'd do?"
"If there wasn't a wall."
He takes his time with the answer. You can hear him thinking, hear him deciding, hear the moment he gives himself permission to say what he wants to say. It comes through the helmet as a small exhale, almost a sigh.
"I'd put my hand on your throat," he says.
Your breath catches.
"Not to hurt you," he adds. "Just to feel it, your pulse. You've got it going pretty fast right now, I bet."
"How can you tell? It's…it's not the only thing it's doing."
"No?"
"No."
"Tell me."
You press your thighs together, the friction of the rough fabric almost too much. You haven’t realised how wound you've been, how three days of fear and adrenaline has sat in you with nowhere to go, and now his voice is a key turning in a lock you haven't known was there.
"I'm wet," you say, quiet, into the wall. "I've been wet since you said my name."
The sound he makes then isn’t modulated. It is – for just a fraction of a second – something raw that slips through underneath the vocoder, a breath that turns into something else, and you want to live in that sound, want to wear it.
"Show me," he says. "Tell me. Whatever you're doing…tell me."
"You first."
"I'm hard."
The directness of it punches the air out of you. He says it the way he said yes, I'm going to kill him, flat and true, a simple fact of the universe.
"Are you touching yourself?" you whisper.
"I want to wait."
"For what?"
"For you."
Oh. Oh. You bite down on the inside of your cheek to keep from making a noise that will carry. Some part of you is still aware that there are guards somewhere in this facility, that Vane is somewhere in this facility, and that anything either of you does or says too loudly could be heard. But the bigger part of you, the part that’s been starving for three days and probably longer than that, is already past caring.
"Together, then," you say.
"Together."
You work your hand under the waistband of your trousers. The fabric’s stiff and unfriendly, but underneath it, you’re soft and slick and so ready that the first brush of your own fingertips makes you gasp into the metal.
"Talk to me," you say. "Mando…keep talking."
"I'm undoing the belt," he says. "Just the cod, the rest stays on. You can't be careless in a place like this."
"Yeah."
"I’ve got my hand on it."
"Tell me…tell me what it looks like."
"It's hard. It's been hard since you asked me about touch. And it’s leaking a little at the tip. I'm wiping it with my thumb."
"Are you…are your hands gloved?"
"I took the right one off – for you.”
You whimper softly, and don’t even try to hide it. You have two fingers circling your clit now, slow, the way he’s talking – slow and deliberate, with that mechanical control that you suspect is the only thing keeping him from coming apart already.
"What about you?" he says. "Tell me what you're doing."
"I've got my hand down my pants. My fingers…” you exhale. “I'm so wet, Mando, I can't…I'm circling, just circling, slow."
"Slow's good."
"I want it to be your hand."
"What would my hand do?"
"It would be slower than mine and heavier. You'd make me wait. You'd make me…you'd make me ask."
"Would you ask?"
"Yes."
"Ask now."
You can’t think because you can barely breathe. The wall against your forehead is wet from your breath, the metal smelling faintly of iron. “Please."
"Please what?"
"Please touch me. Please…please don't stop talking, please put your fingers in me, please…"
"How many?"
"Two, start with two."
"Tell me when."
"Now. Mando, now…"
You push two fingers into yourself and the sound you makes is hot and high and you press your other hand over your own mouth to muffle it. On the other side of the wall you hear a sound through the modulator that’s almost a groan, but not quite. He’s holding it back, but you hear the shape of it, hear the way it cracks the calm in his voice.
"That's it," he says. "Tell me how it feels."
"Tight. Hot. I…Mando, I haven't…I haven't done this in so long, I…"
"I've got you."
"What are you doing?"
"Stroking, slow. Long strokes. My grip's tight, I…fuck…"
That word through the modulator, low and almost involuntary, is the most vulgar thing you’ve ever heard. It makes you clench around your own fingers, and whine into your hand.
"Say it again," you beg.
"Fuck."
"Again."
"You feel that good?"
"Yes."
"What if it was me? What if it was my hand inside you?"
"It is. Right now, it is. Tell me you're thinking about it."
"I am. I'm thinking about…about pushing you up against this wall where you can't move. Where I can hold you there with one hand and use the other…"
"How many?"
"Three. You'd take three."
"I would."
"You would. You'd take everything I gave you, wouldn't you?"
"Yes."
"Say it."
"I'd take everything you gave me."
You add the third finger. It’s a stretch, just on the edge of too much, and that edge is exactly where you want to be. Your thumb works your clit in tight circles and you pant against the wall, against your own palm, and on the other side of the durasteel a Mandalorian is stroking his cock to the sound of your voice and you’ve never, in your entire life, been so undone by a man you’ve not seen.
"Mando."
"I'm here."
"I'm close."
"How close?"
"Close. Close, I…keep talking to me, please, please, just…"
"Listen to me," he says, and his voice has dropped to something so quiet it’s almost a breath, almost prayer. "Listen. You feel like silk. You feel like the best thing I've put my hand in in years. If I were there, I'd have my mouth on your throat right now. I'd have my teeth on the place where your pulse is. I wouldn't bite hard, just enough that you'd feel it for days. I'd have my fingers in you all the way to the knuckle, and I'd be working you open, slow, until you were begging me, until you were saying my name…"
"I don't know your name."
There’s a pause. A long one, during which you almost stop breathing.
"Din," he says. "It's Din."
Something cracks open in your chest. He’s given you something he’s not supposed to give, given you something that, by his own laws, no one should have. And he’s given it to you with his hand on his cock and your name in his throat and a wall between you. And you understood, in that moment, that you will never, not as long as you live, hear that name said in that voice again without falling apart.
"Din," you say.
"Yeah."
"Din…Din…"
"Say it again."
"Din, I'm…"
"Come."
You come around your own fingers with his name in your mouth and the metal of the wall against your forehead, and you bite down hard on the heel of your hand to keep from screaming. On the other side of the wall, you hear the shape of his climax through the modulator, the cracked-open sound of a man who hasn’t let anyone hear him in a very long time. It goes on, and on, and on, and when you finally collapse back against the bench, you’re trembling all over, slick with sweat, your fingers still inside yourself, your breath coming in pieces.
For a long time, neither of you speak, but you can hear him breathing. You lie back on the bench with your trousers half-undone and your hand against your chest and your heart hammering up into your palm and listen to him do the same on the other side of the wall.
The dimmed red lights buzz faintly overhead and somewhere far down the corridor, a door cycles. The world is still in here, the way it always was – but underneath the stillness, something new is sitting between you that hadn’t been there an hour ago. You can feel the weight of it and suspect he can too.
"Din," you say, just to see if you’re allowed to say it again.
"Yeah." His voice is rougher than it has been, the modulator doing its best to flatten it out and failing. "I'm here."
"Are you alright?"
"That's my question."
"I asked first."
"I'm alright."
You smile at the ceiling. There’s something so absurdly him about it – a man who has just come apart with a stranger's name in his throat and is now answering you in two-syllable monosyllables, the way he probably answers everyone about everything.
Your fingers are still tacky, your face still hot and you feel, somehow, like you’ve just survived something rather than enjoyed it.
"I'm alright too," you say, in case he’s waiting for it.
"Good."
"Din?"
"Yeah."
"You shouldn't have given me that, should you?"
He’s quiet for a long time and you let him have the quiet. You've learned, over the course of the night, that his silences are a kind of speech, that he’s a man who turns things over thoroughly before he sets them down.
"No," he says finally. "I shouldn't have."
"Are you sorry?"
"No."
"Good."
You roll onto your side, facing the wall, draw your knees up and tuck your hand under your cheek. The metal is warm now where you’ve been pressed against it, warm with the warmth of you, and you imagine that on the other side of it some matching patch of beskar is warm too, warmed by a helmet that’s been resting against the same plane of durasteel for the better part of an hour.
"Are you really going to kill him?" you ask.
"Yes."
"Tomorrow?"
"As soon as I get the chance."
"Will I get to see it?"
"You'll be out of the cell before it happens, I'll see to that."
You close your eyes. The certainty in his voice is a strange thing to lean against, but you lean anyway. It’s the most solid thing you've had to lean against in three days, maybe longer.
"Din?"
"Yeah."
"Tell me something else. Anything, just…keep talking, until I fall asleep."
"What do you want to hear about?"
"Anything that isn't this place."
You hear him shift, heard the soft sigh of the helmet against the metal as he thinks about it and settles him in.
"There's a marsh moon," he says, "out past Trask. There’s nothing on it, no settlements, just water and reeds as far as you can see. The water glows at night. Some kind of bioluminescent thing in it. You walk through it and your boots light up the whole pool, blue, like you're walking on stars."
"Have you been there?"
"Once."
"What did you do there?"
"I refuelled, sat on the ramp of my ship for a while and watched the water."
"Alone?"
"Yeah."
"I'd like to see that."
"I'll show you."
Your chest does a thing it has no business doing, given the circumstances. You press your cheek harder into the wall, not rusting yourself to answer, because if you answer, your voice is going to do something embarrassing.
"Keep going," you say when you can. "Tell me more."
So, he does.
He tells you about a desert at dawn on a planet whose name you don’t catch, where the sand turns the colour of beaten copper in the first light. He tells you about a forest where the trees grow so close together that you have to turn sideways to walk between them, and about a kind of bread they baked on Sorgan that you eat with your hands.
You don't know when you fall asleep. You only know that somewhere in the middle of a sentence about a city built into a cliff face, your eyelids give up, and the last thing you remember is the steady metal-edged sound of his voice telling you about the way the wind moves through the canyon at night and, for the first time in three days, you’re not afraid.
****
You wake to white.
Not red, not the bruised dim red of the night cycle, but the cold flat white of the day lights, full and unflattering and merciless on your gummed-shut eyes. You squint and sit up, your body protesting in a hundred small ways and you put your hand to the wall before you've even fully remembered why.
"Din?"
Nothing.
You frown, sleep still thick in your throat.
"Din,” you cough. “Are you awake?"
Nothing.
The breathing’s gone, that’s the first thing you notice, the absence of the slow, even, modulated breath that has become, over the course of the night, as familiar to you as your own pulse. The cell on the other side of the wall is quiet. Not the quiet of a man sleeping, but the quiet of a room with nothing in it.
Your stomach drops.
You scramble off the bench and go to the front of the cell, pressing your face to the narrow slit in the door, trying to angle your eye to see down the corridor. You can’t see much, but you notice the edge of the next cell's door…
…which is open.
Not forced or blown, rather open the way a door’s open when someone’s unlocked it and walked out. The interior, what little of it you could see, is empty. No figure on the bench, no silhouette by the wall, no beskar.
"Din?"
Your voice comes out smaller than you mean it to.
You stand there for a long time with your forehead against the cool metal of your own door, and you try to talk yourself into the reasonable explanations. He’s escaped and he’s going to kill the man who put him here, and a man who says a thing like that the way he said it isn’t a man who stays in a cell longer than he has to.
He said he would see to it that you got out before it happened.
He said I'll show you.
You believe him. You had believed him at the time, and you believed him now, in the cold white morning, with your hair stuck to your face and your hands trembling slightly from cold or hunger or the aftershock of a night you’re still half-convinced you dreamed.
You go back to the bench and sit down. You put your hand against the wall, except it isn’t warm anymore. It’s cold all the way through. He’s been gone for hours, probably, since not long after you fell asleep, because that’s the kind of man he is – the kind who waits until you’re safe in sleep before he does what he has to do, so that you won’t have to lie awake listening to him do it.
You wonder if he said goodbye. If somewhere in the dark, between one of his sentences about canyons and the next, he said something soft to the wall, and you hadn't heard it because you were already gone. You hope so. You hoped he'd put his gloved hand against the metal one last time and said your name the way he'd said it the night before.
You draw your knees up and wrap your arms around them. Then you press your forehead to them and you breathe, slow, in and out, the way you’d breathed with him in the dark, except now you’re doing it alone, and the rhythm doesn’t match anything but the memory of him.
It’s then that you notice it.
A small thing, set on the floor at the base of the dividing wall, on your side, where it must have been pushed under through the narrow gap between the wall and the floor – a gap you haven’t noticed before, a gap barely wide enough for a finger but wide enough, evidently, for this.
You pick it up.
It’s a sliver of beskar, no bigger than your thumb, cut clean, the edges smoothed. A scrap, probably, from some repair he's done to his own armour a long time ago and kept in a pouch for reasons that are his and not yours. The metal’s warm in your hand, even though it shouldn't have been.
Wrapped around it, twice, is a thin strip of leather. And on the leather, scratched in with the point of something sharp, in letters small and precise and careful, he’s written you a message.
Wait for me.
That’s all. No name, no instructions. no promise more elaborate than those three words, in a hand that has pressed hard enough into the leather to scar it.
You close your fingers around the beskar and shut your eyes. You press your closed fist to your mouth and sit there in the cold white morning of the cell that has held you for three days, and you don’t cry, because you’ve not cried in years and you’re not going to start now. But something in your chest does a thing that’s very close to it – a hot, full, aching thing that wants out and can’t get out and so just sits there, glowing, like the water on his marsh moon.
Down the corridor, very faint, you hear footsteps, heavy ones, coming closer.
You open your hand and look at the sliver of beskar once more, and then you close your fist around it again and tuck it into the inner pocket of your shirt, against your skin, where no search would find it without finding you first. You straighten your spine, wipe your face with the heel of your hand and set your jaw.
You wait.
Because he's asked you to. Because he’s coming back. Because a man like that, a man who said yes the way he said it and I'll show you the way he said it and Din – Din, it's Din – into the dark, to a stranger, through a wall, breaking a vow he has kept his whole life – that man doesn’t say wait for me unless he means it.
The footsteps get closer then stop outside your door.
You hear the soft electronic chirp of a lockpad being overridden – not the heavy clang of guards cycling a door open in the normal way, but the cleaner, quieter click of someone who knows exactly which wires to cross and which ones to leave alone.
The door slides back and there he is. Beskar from helm to boot, the morning light off the corridor lamps making a hard silver line down the curve of his pauldron. Blaster holstered at his thigh, vibroblade still wet at the tip. He fills the doorway like he’s been built to fill it, and the visor turns toward you. You stood up so fast you nearly crack your head on the underside of the bunk.
"Took your time," you say.
The modulator catches the tired amusement before he's even spoken. "There were six of them."
"And Vane?"
"Five."
You snort because you can’t help it. He steps into the cell, glances at you, glances at the wall, glances – pointedly – at the floor where the sliver of beskar had been. He doesn’t say anything about it because he doesn’t have to. The angle of his helmet says, good, you found it, and the small tilt that follows says come on, and you’re moving before he's finished the gesture, ducking under his arm into the corridor.
"This way," he says.
"I know which way."
"Then go."
You know the layout of this facility because you’ve spent three days memorising the sliver of it you could see through the door slit, and because, it turns out, you also saw the schematics two weeks ago in a briefing on the Crest – a briefing you had pretended to listen to while throwing ration wrappers at the back of his helmet.
You take the left at the junction and he covers your back. Then you take the service stairs down two levels, through the maintenance hatch and out into the cold dawn air of a landing platform where a familiar gunship sits waiting with its ramp already down, because he landed it himself before he came for you and he isn’t the kind of man who leaves a door closed when he might need to run through it.
The ramp clangs shut behind you, the engines spool and you brace yourself against the bulkhead as he takes the pilot's seat and throws the Crest up off the platform with the kind of brutal efficiency he uses for everything. The planet falls away under you, the stars come up, and you’re free.
You stand in the cockpit doorway, breathing.
"Don't say it," he says, without turning around.
"Don't say what?"
"Whatever you're about to say."
"I wasn't going to…"
"You were going to."
"I was going to say thanks."
"No, you weren't."
You laugh, finally. It comes out shaky, the adrenaline leaving you in a slow drain. You let yourself slide down the bulkhead until you’re sitting on the deck with your back against the metal, and you put your hands over your face and laugh until your ribs hurt.
He punches the coordinates in, sets the autopilot, then stands up, slowly, the way he stands up when his back hurts and he doesn’t want you to know. But you know, because you've been flying with him for nine months and you know every small tell his body makes through the armour.
He crouches in front of you and puts his gloved hand on your knee.
"You alright?"
"Yeah."
"Look at me."
You take your hands off your face and look up at the visor. The T-shape of it is the same as it’s always been. The same as it’s been across a hundred campfires and a thousand cantina tables and the dozen times he’s sat across from you in this same hold and cleaned his weapons while you cleaned yours.
The same, and not the same.
"We really need to stop doing this," you say finally.
"Doing what?"
"The wall thing. The talking through the wall every time a job goes sideways, and they put us in adjoining cells thing. This is…Din, this is the third time."
"Fourth."
"What?"
"Fourth. You're forgetting Ord Mantell."
"Ord Mantell was a closet, not a cell."
"Still a wall."
"Still a wall," you allow.
He huffs, his hand still on your knee. The leather of the glove is warm from the inside of his fist, and you can feel each individual finger, and that he’s not lifting it away.
"It's because we don't talk like this anywhere else," you say. "You know that, right?"
"I know."
"You only get like that when there's a wall."
"I know."
"It's ridiculous."
"I know."
"Din..." you hesitate. "That's the first time you've told me your real name."
"Yeah."
You lick your lips. "Fuck me."
The hand on your knee tightens, just a fraction, just enough that you know he heard you.
"Don't," he says
"Fuck me. Let’s get it out of our systems. Once, properly, with nothing between us and…and I swear to you, I swear, the next time some Hutt-licking bounty hunter shoves us into a holding block, neither of us is going to need to do the wall thing ever again, because we'll have done it, and the tension will be gone, and we can go back to being…"
"Being what?"
"Whatever we are."
"You think that's how it works?"
"I think it's worth finding out."
You watch the visor, watch the way his shoulders move when he breathes, watch the long, calibrated stillness of a man who’s already decided what he’s going to do and is making himself take an extra second to be sure of it.
"You don't know what you're asking for," he says.
"I do."
"You don't."
"Din, I had three fingers in myself last night while you talked to me through a wall. I think I have some idea."
The sound that comes out of him isn’t a laugh, it’s something rougher, something he doesn’t quite catch in time, and his hand leaves your knee and goes to your jaw, gloved thumb against the corner of your mouth.
You stop breathing.
"Stand up," he says.
You stand he stands with you, and you have to tip your head to keep looking at the visor. He looks down at you for a long moment, and then his other hand comes up and he hooks one gloved finger under the collar of your shirt and tugs, gently, until you take a step toward him, and another, and then his back is against the bulkhead and yours is against him and his arm is around your waist.
"Once," he says.
"Once."
"And it doesn't fix anything."
"Probably not."
"And you're going to have to be quiet, because the autopilot doesn't know what to do if you scream and trip the proximity alarms."
"Din, I am going to scream."
"Then I'll cover your mouth."
You go hot all the way through and feel your own pulse in places that have no business having a pulse. You press your forehead against the cold beskar of his chest plate breathe in the smell of him – leather and weapon oil and metal warmed by the body underneath.
"Bed. Bunk. Somewhere. Now."
He picks you up, one arm under your thighs and the other across your back, like you weigh nothing, like he's been waiting a long time for the excuse to find out exactly how much you weigh. He carries you down the short ladder into the hold and through to the narrow alcove where his bunk is set into the wall and sets you down on the edge of it. Then he stands between your knees and starts, with great deliberation, to undress.
The pauldrons came off first, heavy clunks against the deck. Then the vambraces, the chest plate, the cuirass, the thigh plates. He sets them all aside in the order he always sets them, the order you’ve watched him set them in a hundred times, and the familiarity of the ritual mixes with the unfamiliarity of what’s happening making your head spin a little.
The flight suit comes off next. Black, snug, all the seams you’ve stared at across many a hold while pretending to read. He peels it down to his waist and you see the long lean torso of him, scarred in a dozen places, a constellation of old hurt, a body that has been keeping itself alive for a long time and has the receipts.
There’s scant hair across his chest, dark and soft-looking, narrowing down toward his waistband and a long pale scar that wraps around his ribs like a vine. There’s a tattoo, small, on the inside of his left bicep – a mythosaur skull, no bigger than your thumb – that you have absolutely never known exists.
He keeps going. Flight suit all the way off, boots, trousers and the under-layer beneath. Everything. Every stitch.
Except the helmet.
He stands there in the low light of the bunk alcove, completely naked from the neck down, hard already, his cock heavy against his thigh, and the beskar catches in the dim light off the bulkhead in a way that makes the helmet seem almost a separate creature from the body that’s offering itself to you.
"Din...”
"No."
"I didn't…"
"You were going to."
"I wasn't…"
"You were."
"...I was."
"No."
"Just the eyes. Just…just let me see your eyes."
"No."
"Please."
"No."
He says it gently with no heat in it, as a feature of the universe, not a refusal of you. And then he steps closer and takes the hem of your shirt in both bare hands and pulls it off you, slow, then drops it on the floor on top of his own.
"You have me," he says. "All of me. Just not that."
"Din…"
"All of me," he says again, and he puts his bare hand flat over your sternum, between your breasts, hot palm and rough fingertips against your skin, and you forget what you had been going to say. "Everything else. You can have everything else. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Say it."
"I understand."
"Then take it."
He kisses you.
Or…the helmet does. He presses the cool flat front of the beskar to your forehead first, the way he had once or twice before in moments you’ve not allowed yourself to think too hard about. Then he tilts his head and brings it lower, pressing the brow of the helm to your mouth, just for a moment, just enough that you feel the cold kiss of the metal on your lips, and then his hand is sliding up to cradle the back of your neck and he tips you back onto the bunk.
He kisses everything else with his hands.
The pads of his fingers move down the line of your throat. His thumb skates across your collarbone. His palm cups the underside of your breast and his mouth – the front of the helmet, the smooth lower edge – drags slow against your nipple, cool and unyielding, and you arch up off the bunk with a noise that you try, and fail, to keep quiet.
"Shh," he says.
"I can't…"
"You can."
"I can't…"
His hand comes up and his fingers slip into your mouth. Two of them, the same two, and you bite down and moan around them and he makes a low sound through the modulator.
"Good. Like that. Quiet."
He keeps going down, the helmet tracking down the line of your sternum, the soft place under your ribs and the flat of your stomach. His other hand works your trousers open and shoves them down. You kick them off, and your underthings with them, and then you’re naked under him, and the cold metal of the helmet presses against the hot skin of your inner thigh and the contrast makes you whimper around his fingers.
"Din…"
He doesn’t answer with words. He answers by taking his fingers out of your mouth and replacing them, slowly, between your legs. Two fingers, the way you’d asked for last night. He finds you slick and ready and he hisses, audibly, through the modulator.
"All night," he says. "Like this?"
"Most of it."
"Greedy."
"For you, just for you."
The fingers push in slowly, deeper than yours had gone, longer, more deliberate, and you make a sound that starts high and would go higher but for him pressing the front of the helmet to your sternum.
“Quiet, I told you."
"I'm trying."
"Try harder."
He fucks you on his fingers for what feels like a small eternity. Long, slow, brutal strokes, his thumb finding your clit with the precision of a man who knows where every nerve in a body lives and where to put pressure on each of them. You’re drenched, shaking, biting the back of your own wrist to stay quiet and he’s watching you do it, the visor angled down at your face the whole time, and you know – you know – that behind that visor his eyes are on your mouth.
"Din…Din, please, I want…"
"Tell me."
"You inside me, properly. Now."
He takes his hand away and shifts upwards, bracing one hand on the bunk beside your head and the other on his cock. You feel the blunt heat of him drag through your slickness and your hips buck up of their own accord and he makes a low strangled sound.
"Wait. Wait, look at me."
You look at the visor.
"Are you sure?" he asks.
"Din."
"Say it."
"I'm sure. Fuck me, please."
He pushes in slow, so slow you think you’re going to die of it. He pushes in to the hilt and then holds there, his forehead – the brow of the helmet – against yours, his bare chest against your bare chest, his hand on your jaw and the metallic rasp of his breathing the loudest thing in the world. You can feel him trembling, just slightly, with the effort of not moving.
"Alright?" he asks.
"Move."
"Alright?"
"Move, Din…"
He moves the way he does everything – efficiently, without waste, with the calibrated intensity of a man who’s decided what he’s going to do and is now doing exactly that, and nothing else, and nothing less. He sets a rhythm that’s deep and steady and merciless, and you wrap your legs around his hips and your arms around his shoulders and press your face to the side of the helmet, to the place where his ear would be, and you say his name into the beskar over and over again because you can’t say it into his mouth.
"Din…"
"I'm here."
"Din, harder…"
"You'll bruise."
"I want to bruise. Please, Din, please…"
He fucks you harder. He braces both hands on the bunk now, one on either side of your head, and drives into you with the long, full strokes of a man who’s been holding himself in check for nine months and has finally been given permission to stop. The headboard of the bunk knocks, softly, against the bulkhead in time with each thrust, and your hands roam his back as you map him by feel.
The helmet stays on.
You beg, somewhere in the middle of it. When the pleasure has stripped your inhibitions down to nothing, you put your hands on the sides of the helmet and say, "Please, Din, please, just…just let me see…" and he catches your wrists in one hand and pins them above your head.
"No. Not that. Anything else. Anything else but that."
"Anything?"
"Anything."
So, you take the anything. You take his hand off your wrists and put it around your throat, light, the way he said he would in the dark. You feel his fingers settle there, careful, finding the pulse, and he makes a sound that’s almost a groan, almost the sound you heard through the wall last night, and his thrusts falters for one stroke and then comes back harder.
"Like that?" he asks.
"Like that. Like that. Din…"
"You're close."
"Yes."
"Stay quiet."
"I can't…"
"You can."
He puts his other hand over your mouth. Bare, hot, dry and rough and you moan into it. He fucks you through it, hips snapping against yours in a rhythm that’s losing its precision, finally, after how long you can’t say, and you feel him start to come undone above you – felt the small involuntary movements he’s no longer controlling, feel the way his head bows and the helmet presses to your temple, feel the choked sound through the modulator that you’ve now heard five times in your life and will, you suspect, hear a great many more times before you’re done with each other.
"Come for me," he says, against your ear, against the metal between your ear and his mouth. "Now. Now, sweetheart, now…"
You come around him with his hand over your mouth, his other hand at your throat, his cock buried to the hilt and his forehead against yours, and you scream into his palm. He feels you go – feels every pulse of you around him – and he makes a sound you’ve never heard him make before, a real one, a whole one, unmodulated and choked and human, as he comes inside you, hard, in long pulses that you feel all the way up into your stomach.
Then he collapses – not all the way, catching himself on one elbow carefully – but his full weight comes down on you in a way it hasn’t, and the beskar of the helmet rests cool against the side of your face. You wrap your arms around his shoulders and hold him, his bare back slick under your palms, his breathing wreckage.
"Din," you say when you can.
"Yeah."
"You called me sweetheart."
He freezes fractionally. "I did."
"And...I lied."
"About what?"
"The tension. It's not gone."
His forehead – the brow of the helmet – presses harder against yours.
"No," he agrees. "It's not."
"What are we going to do about that?"
"Try again."
"Now?"
"Give me five minutes."
You laugh into the side of his helmet and feel his shoulders shake, just a little. You run your hand up the back of his neck to the very edge of the helmet – the place where the beskar meets the skin – and let your fingertips rest there.
He doesn’t stop you or pull away. He lets your fingers stay at the line where his hidden self begins, and he lets you keep them there, and that, you understand, is a different kind of yes.
You take it, close your eyes and keep your hand where it is.
Five minutes, he said.
You can wait five minutes.
You have, you reflect, gotten very good at waiting for him.
Summary: When a hunt goes wrong and you're drugged with an aphrodisiac, Din goes to extreme lengths to keep you safe before giving you what you need. [5K]
Warnings: 18+. Dub con due to the nature of sex pollen but both people do consent. Drink spiking. Mild gore. Murder. Semi-public sex. Fingering. Piv. Multiple orgasms. Porn with feelings.
This isn’t how he had pictured it.
All the times he lay alone in his cot and envisioned how soft you would be beneath him, the warmth of your skin flushed with pleasure as he stretched you open on his fingers–as his mouth determinedly worked you towards delirium, ready for the slow slide of his cock sinking to the hilt.
He thought it would be sweet. That despite everything he was, all of his sharp edges and brute strength, he could make the memory of the first time he took you one that was untouched by pain and violence and all the other harsh things that came with being hunters.
But then this job had landed in their laps and they had been too damn quick following the first lead to the mark they got instead of doing some real digging on the guy like you usually insisted.
I don’t like surprises, you would usually tell him but this time exhaustion held your caution behind your teeth. The result of running on the fumes from too many hunts and barely any time to take breaks until all of that ragged bone-deep weariness had begun to creep in, leaving you itching to get this job out of the way so you could finally rest.
And of course, in the end, it bit you in the ass.
You had entered the club with only the knowledge that your mark frequented the place and it had all gone to shit almost ridiculously fast.
The drink that had been brought to your table, the server announcing cheerfully that first ones of the night are always on the house, had been laced. The effects taking hold of you the moment the last drop passed your lips.
And Din had watched, confused, as your eyes had become glazed. Lids heavy and gaze transfixed on the writhing bodies that crowded the glittering dancefloor.
He had asked you a question, 'any sign of the bounty?', and it was like you couldn’t hear him, like he was calling to you through water when he raised his voice to say your name.
Instead, you’d remained rooted in place at the edge of your seat– white-knuckling the smooth leather until he hesitantly placed his hand on your knee and then you had jerked. Snapping out of a trance like he’d burned you, a gasp caught in your throat and your chest heaving whilst you blinked at him.
“What–what is it?” You had demanded breathlessly and if he hadn’t been suspicious that something wasn’t right before, he certainly was then. There was a tremor to your voice he had never heard before and where his gloved hand still remained curved around your knee, heat seared through the worn leather and scorched his palm.
"Are you okay?" He'd asked, his gaze raking over you in a way he'd previously refused to allow himself.
You were wrapped in a silky little dress the colour of the midnight sky. The neckline dipping to reveal the swell of your breasts and the hemline short enough that the bare skin of your legs had seemed endless when you'd first sauntered towards him as he'd waited for you outside the crest.
Din hadn't been able to look at you for more than a few seconds at a time because he knew if he took any longer he wouldn't be able to think clearly.
He wouldn't have been able to concentrate on the job with the image of those legs wrapped around his waist blaring through his skull–that lipstick-stained mouth parted around a moan of his name as he imagined rutting into you.
But he let himself stare then– shoving down those thoughts so he could assess the situation properly. His heart dropping to his stomach as he took in the sweat that beaded at your hairline, the weak tremble of you hand as you lifted it to your forehead in an attempt to swipe the moisture away.
You glanced at him nervously as you did so, chewing your lip. “I don’t feel right, Mando.” You murmured. “Everything feels too tight, like I’m about to burst.”
He had scooted closer then, slid right along the plush seat of the booth to fit himself to your side as his thumb rubbed small circles over the flesh of your knee.
It was supposed to be a comfort, an unspoken gesture that he was there–that you were safe.
But instead you had groaned like he’d shoved his hand through your chest and gripped something vital, the sound of it nearly making him choke on his damn tongue as he thanked the maker that his helmet hid the way he’d had to sink his teeth into his lip to bite back a moan.
“Don’t stop please.” You begged, pressing your own hands over his when he went to remove it. “It hurts when you’re not touching me.”
His eyes had narrowed at that.
It sounded familiar– wisps of old tales floating around in his head before he remembered one about a poison that made you crave others, that made your blood boil beneath your skin until you found someone to offer the pleasure necessary to sate the all-encompassing need.
But how?
You hadn’t been out of his sight all day. You hadn’t ingested anything the two of you hadn’t personally made, except…
His gaze snapped to the glass you had recently drained, remnants of the shimmering liquid still clinging to the edges and he can smell it as he takes it in his hand to inspect it closer. That sickly-sweet smell, the strong blend of fruit and something synthetically syrupy.
He could suddenly feel eyes on him and when he looked up the server that gave you the drink is staring at him with wide, terrified eyes– face paling as Din’s suspicion brewed to a blinding fury that gathered around his head like a storm.
It had been intentional then. No doubt the bounty had caught wind that they were on his take and had taken measures to slow them down.
He would kill them for it–both of them. Would rip them apart and leave the mark of his violence behind in the mess of their insides as a warning should anyone else even think of coming for them in the future.
No one touched her and lived.
His vision had seeped red. His blood spitting in his veins before it surged with panic as your hand flew to your stomach and your expression crumpled into something agonised.
“Fuck.” He hissed when you hunched over beside him with a sharp cry of pain. “I need to get you out of here, now.”
“What about the bounty?” You panted, looking up at him through the fringe of your lashes that were wet with unshed tears.
You had looked so small in that moment– a far cry from the ruthless hunter people would whisper about after you had swept through their town. It made his chest ache, briefly drowning out that insatiable temper of his as he gathered you to his chest and raised a hand to cup your cheek.
“What’s happening to me, Mando?”
“Your drink was laced with an aphrodisiac, he probably knew we were following him.” He said as gently as he could, thumb stroking the swell of your flushed cheek as alarm rippled across your features. “I don’t think it’s lethal but I need to get you back to the ship before the effects get any worse. Can you stand?”
Instead of an answer you fucking whimpered. The needy sound of it shooting heat straight through his gut as your eyes grew dark beneath the flutter of your lashes and your fingers curled tight into his cowl.
Was it his touch or his voice that had prompted such a reaction?
Whichever it was you suddenly looked like you wanted to devour him and Din had to swallow down the fierce sweep of desire that urged him to let you.
To drag you onto his lap and lay himself at your mercy, the words 'use me, take what you need, whatever you want it’s yours' clawing savagely up his throat whilst he grit his teeth and wrenched his face away from yours to scan their surroundings.
They would have to exit through the back. The club was too crowded, with too many bodies between them and the main entrance, all packed tight, and when Din had stood to get a better look, another sight had stopped him dead.
Guards at the door.
One’s that definitely hadn’t been there when you both entered and he’s almost certain are slyly watching every move he makes as he quickly tugged you to your feet and bundled you into his side.
He wanted desperately to believe it was paranoia.
That it was in no way related to the poison working its way through your systemn, that the two of you were going to get outside and be able to make your way to the ship without an issue.
He’d never wanted to believe something so much in his life.
**
It was a trap.
Deep down, Din had known it as they’d stumbled into the quiet of dark corridors– the lingering thump of the music pulsing beneath his boots.
He’d known it when your legs had buckled and he’d scooped you up in his arms, cradling you to his chest like a newborn babe before he’d broke out into a run and nearly kicked the door of its hinges as they’d reached it.
But he hadn’t truly allowed himself to acknowledge it until he’d come face to face with the steel fence chained shut and the sound of a dozen footsteps descending upon them.
When he'd heard the door shut, the decisive click of the lock, and his rage had soared. You were sick and though he was sure it wasn’t lethal he couldn’t shake the feeling like he was running out of time to get you help.
And they were stood in his way.
So he lowered you carefully to the ground, his lungs tightening when a weak groan rattled from your throat as you sank back against the fence and hugged your knees to your chest.
“Did you really think you could take me down in my own club, Mandalorian?”
He needed to swallow down all that burning anger and think, needed to focus on the best way he could take them all out without letting a single one near you.
But then the bounty had made the mistake of looking past the vengeful mass of him to where you were curled up on the ground and any thoughts of a quick and calculated fight were snatched right out of his head.
“Pretty partner you’ve got there.” He’d leered, dragging his tongue over his lip. “She must be dying for someone to fuck her right about now. Maybe after I've killed you, I'll keep her as my whore and fuck that pretty pussy right next to your corpse.”
A terrifying sound had followed–something dark and ragged, drenched in a murderous brand of fury, and then Din’s vision swam black.
Just as the saber ignited in his hand.
**
When he came to, he was panting.
And in the aftermath, there was a mass of bodies, slack mouths and bulging, glassy eyes caught in the horror of their final moments. The air stained with the stench of singed flesh and the metallic tang of blood.
He stared at the carnage he created in a daze until you croaked his name and his gaze shot to where you're sat, wide eyed and trembling, staring at him in disbelief.
Or maybe it was fear.
He had totally lost his head after all, had been absolutely unhinged in the way he took them apart, piece by piece– limb by limb.
Maybe you wouldn’t be able to look at him the same now that he’d discovered what he was truly capable of when it came to you, the darkness that lay in wait ready to gorge itself on violence and spilled blood.
He approached you slowly with hands splayed wide in front of him, hesitation etched in every rigid line of him, as if one wrong move would send you scurrying away. But then, to his utter surprise, your lips quirked–voice cracking with a rasping chuckle.
“I’m not scared of you, Din.”
When he knelt before you, you reached for him easily. Lacing your fingers through his and pressing his gloved hand to the dewy skin of your cheek. “I was scared for you. I've never felt so fucking useless but then you– you did that and I–fuck–”
His voice went low before he could stop it, thick honey over gravel, a wicked flare of heat licking through his belly as your eyes suddenly burned dark. The black of your pupils drowning out their colour. “You what? Tell me.”
There was a second where you simply stared at him, lip drawn between your teeth and the admission weighing on your tongue as the space between you began to crackle and spark.
But then you took a long, shuddering breath and–
“I couldn’t take my eyes off you.” You whispered. “Seeing the way you ripped them apart for me, I liked it.”
Fuck.
He clenched his jaw, his free hand, his entire goddamn body. Everything he could to remain from lunging at you and burying himself inside you right there. It had to be the drug talking– it had to be.
At least that's what he was painstakingly trying to convince himself.
Because there were still remnants of that hungered energy within him, desperate for somewhere to go, and there you were telling him you had liked it, that you enjoyed him killing for you, when he was trying his best to be fucking honourable.
He tried to say your name, tried to curl his tongue around the letters in a way that wasn’t dripping want, but then you’d gasped and your heated expression dissolved into something frighteningly pained, tears springing into your eyes as you folded in on yourself.
His arms were around you in a second, his tone bleeding panic as he frantically scooped you up “We need to get you to the ship now.”
“It’s too late.” You sobbed as your body convulsed, arching and bending until he had no choice but to set you on your feet. His body pinning yours to the fence and his hands clamped around the curves of your hips to hold you up. “It hurts so much– please, Din–"
"We can make it. Let me carry you–I'll run and we'll get you the help you need. Some medicine or something."
"No, I can't wait that long." You whimpered. "I can't–I need you–I need you to touch me."
There was something close to defeat in the way he held himself as your hands came to cup the cheeks of his helmet, the gentle touch pleading. He didn't want it to have to be this way but stars, he didn't think he could handle you being in pain much longer either.
He should have protected you better, moved faster, fought harder.
He should have got you back to the ship the moment he realised something wasn't right, and then maybe you wouldn't have had to beg a man you had no interest in to violate you.
“This isn’t what you want, sweet girl.” He sighed, guilt bitter in his chest. “Trust me, as soon as the effects fade you'll regret what you are asking of me.”
You frowned then, sweat-damp brow wrinkling in a way that made Din ache to smooth out with his thumb as you peered up at his visor. “You think this is just the drug?” You murmured. “That I don’t know my own mind? Stars, Din, I’ve wanted you to fuck me from the moment I saw you.”
His hands spasmed at that, clamping tight as a startled groan slipped from throat before he could choke it back. Were you trying to kill him? Did tou not have any idea how close his restraint felt to snapping from that confession alone.
“Fuck–you can’t just say something like that.”
But you were too far gone, pushing up against his armour and curling a hand around the nape of his neck to wrench him down so you can whisper in his ear.
“I think about it all the time, think about how good you’d feel.” Your fingers brushed over the fabric covering his swelling cock and he jolted. “Wondering how you’d fuck me, if you’d make me come on your cock over and over until I was ruined mess.”
Shit.
His brain had turned to liquid, he was sure of it.
He caught your wandering hand, grunting as you palmed at him before he could drag it away and pin it to the fence at the side of your head. Your breath hitched softly as his other hand drifted down, ghosting past the edge of your dress, the scrape of worn leather on your bare thighs making your hips jump against his hand.
He could fucking smell your arousal and it was driving him insane–his mouth watering as he parted your thighs with one of his own.
“Pretty little thing, is that what you want?” Din asked, voice hoarse. “You want me to ruin you?”
His fingers dared to slip further, dipping past the soaked material of your underwear and when he slid a knuckle through your folds, you gasped.
“Yes.”
**
It was all too overwhelming the moment he broke.
The second your simple yes cracked him open and his breath hitched before he was burying you further into the fence. His fingers grazing the peak of your clit whilst obscene noises burst from your throat, wild and desperate.
If felt so fucking good that you were almost blind with it. All that heat and need swirling to a central point in your belly that could explode at any moment, burning brighter with every rough stroke of Din's fingers and the low rasp of his voice in your ear.
"That's it, mesh’la– let me help you."
You didn't know any words after that– none other than his name at least and the gasping chant of don't stop don't stop don't stop.
When he snatched his hands away you thought you would actually cry, a devastated wail brewed from the depths of your lungs before he hushed you gently. The cold kiss of his beskar soothing against your sweat-slick face as he nuzzled you before a different sensation against your thighs startled you.
Skin. Calloused and warm and completely bare.
In the midst of your babbled pleading you had missed him tearing the gloves from his hands and if you had thought the contact had been electric before then this was something else entirely.
His skin against yours felt cataclysmic. The moan you made when he hitched your leg over his hip and sunk those thick fingers deep inside you, unhinged.
"I want to be able to feel you when you come for me." He told you lowly, purred it in your ear, and you choked as he pressed his thumb to your clit in the most maddeningly perfect circles until you spasmed. Soaking his hand as the tension in your lower stomach snapped violently.
You were lost then.
Boneless against him whilst he curved himself over you and continued stroking your pulsing walls so all of that swirling pleasure became flame again, burning hot and wild enough that it made you let loose a desperate sob. Burying your nails in his neck, the other hand fisted around his cloak as another climax slammed through the dying breaths of the first.
“Oh maker, Din.” You cried out, hips jerking into his hand, thighs trembling whilst he eased you through it. His touch gentler this time, sweet, like he could sense anything harsher would fray you apart at the seams.
There was the cool press of his helmet touching your temple, a calming gesture that clashed with the rapid rise and fall of both of your chests. “That's it,” he murmured, pride equal parts soft and heated on his tongue, “good girl.”
You could hear when he removed his fingers from inside you. The liquid slip that would have made your cheeks flame under normal circumstances but only made you burn for completely different reasons then.
Your own fingers darting out to circle his wrist before leading the slick digits to the tempting plush of your mouth.
He made a low, feral noise–the sound of your name rumbling from deep within his chest as you let the tips of his fingers rest against your lips. Waiting for him to take the next step which he did without hesitation, pressing down until your mouth parted for him and he slid his fingers into soft, wet heat.
You were still aching, still throbbing like a raw, open wound, but it was slightly more bearable now. The orgasms that Din drew from you taking the edge off just enough for you to have this indulgence. A hint of worship.
The slow lave of your tongue against his skin as he shivered. Hips rocking into the cradle of your pelvis, making you whine around his fingers when his clothed cock caught you just right.
He dragged his fingers from your mouth with a hissed curse, rubbing the spit-shine of your lip in a daze whilst the hand on your thigh flexed and tightened its grip.
“We shouldn’t, not here.” Din muttered, swearing under his breath when you deliberately rolled your hips. “You deserve better than this and it isn't safe.”
But you heard what he left unspoken.
We shouldn’t but I will if you want it. If you don't tell me to stop, I’ll fuck you right here– surrounded by the bodies I killed for you and regardless of who might come looking.
You would die before you asked him to stop.
Even if you weren’t beginning to tremble again, your heartbeat picking up to a gallop and cunt fluttering around nothing as each nudge of his cock against your sex swept a blistering need through your veins.
Even if the reminder of the lengths he was willing to go to keep you safe didn’t make you maddeningly desperate for him.
“I don’t care.” You breathed as your stomach clenched. “Please don’t make me wait that long, I need you inside me.”
He inhaled sharply then, his broad chest heaving whilst he cupped your chin and peered down at you. A split-second hesitation before he gave in yet again.
“You’re going to be the death of me begging like that,” He groaned and then his large hands were skimming over your belly. Stroking down until he reached your underwear and tore it from your body with a brutal yank before wrenching you against him as the remains fluttered to the ground.
You made a soft noise of surprise and he chuckled, rough and deep and utterly addictive. The sound of it making heat swell beneath your skin and between your thighs, your head going dizzy.
The desire you had for him was an unhinged thing. Even without the drug you knew that you would still feel like this, like he could unravel you completely with the simplest touch or glance. Your hands shaking as you fumbled with his belt whilst he watched intently.
He let you stroke him, once then twice. His length hot in your palm, throbbing beneath your fingers when the pad of your thumb dragged over the weeping head.
It stole a rough moan from somewhere deep in his chest and then he was on you. Hands wrapping around your thighs to lift you against the fence, thin metal biting into your back but any hint of pain drifts from your mind like smoke as his tip caught at your entrance.
He took it slow at first. Let you feel every inch of him stretching you open as he bit back a wrecked noise, your cunt gripping him like a hot, slick fist, until he sunk to the hilt and your eyes rolled back.
Oh. Oh fuck.
It was a lot.
It was so much that it felt like he’d reached something devastating. That when he drew his hips back to drive into you again, you screamed– back arching violently as your vision turned white.
You nearly bit through your tongue whilst he continued to move. Each bruising snap of his hips punching you further up the fence, fucking you into it, the shrill sound of metal ringing through the night air as it shook beneath Din's strength.
You had practically begged him to ruin you and he was without even trying.
You would feel him for days after this.
Maybe weeks.
You would feel him in the marks his nails would no doubt leave on your thighs from his unrelenting grip, the hard edges of his armour that were embedded in your softness as you wound yourself around him. The way he was carving you open with each frantic thrust, creating a space inside you that only he could ever fill.
The tendrils of pain that had began creeping through your system from the drug snapped to pleasure immediately. You could feel it coiling unbearably tight, growing molten, white hot sparks making your blood catch and your stomach twist in knots.
“Fuck.” You sobbed. Nails scraping down his back, desperately trying to find some kind of purchase as your head falls to his shoulder. “Din, I think–”
“I know, baby.” He grit, shifting slightly until the harsh spear of his cock suddenly hit something catastrophic over and over and over. Your breasts bouncing with every thrust and his body shuddering as your cunt tightened around him. “Come for me, that’s it. Shit–let me feel it.”
You fell apart with a ragged cry. Bursting hot and wet around him as his pace slowed to a hint of something less punishing so he could stare, dazed, at the place where you’re joined. His skin and his armour that was dripping with your release.
For a moment there was only the strained sound of his breathing through the vocoder and then he groaned. Low and filthy.
"You're so fucking perfect." He praised hoarsely, the rough scrape of his voice making you even more boneless as you trembled in his arms. "Maker. I want to taste you. After I'm done fucking you I'm going to carry you back to the ship and taste every inch of you, clean you up with my mouth, and then I'm going to fuck you again."
That scorched you. It made something in your belly stir again despite how sated you had felt only seconds ago, made you clench helplessly around him and Din choked at the feel of it. “Would you like that?” He asked, breathless. “Think you can give me another?”
His cock pulsed inside you and you found yourself wholly incapable of response, beyond words and thoughts and anything that wasn't trembling moans as his pace turned brutal. The wet squelch of your cunt taking him deep, almost embarrassingly loud in your ears.
He bore down on that place inside you that made stars burst behind your eyes with a savage focus and all too soon there was lightning snapping in your blood. The sensation of it flaring hot and sharp, gathering into something furious and terrifying as his name bubbled up past your lips in a weak chant.
“I can’t–fuck–Din, I need–”
He slid his helmet along your cheek, tipped his head down until his forehead rested on yours. The skin of his neck felt just as flushed as your own when you gripped it to hold him there against you. The dark curls that escaped his helmet tickling your fingers.
“Touch yourself, mesh’la. Come for me again and I’ll give you anything you want.”
You shakily dropped your hand between you, spreading your fingers around the place where his cock was punching up into you before your fingers slid up to brush over the crest of your sex.
Stars, you were soaked.
All swollen and slippery and the moment you circle your clit you snapped. Bursts of energy crashing through your body so violently that your head spun with it, your lungs squeezing achingly tight, and your nails sinking in his neck as you cried out.
It made Din go rigid–a wild noise tearing through his throat as you yanked him brutally into his own release. His vision faltering and hips stuttering before they fused against your own whilst he spilled deep inside you.
**
You were exhausted– beyond spent and over-stimulated as the burn of the drug died down enough that you could feel the ache of every muscle creeping in and the kind of sleepiness that would see you comatose for days.
Your eyes were in fact already beginning drooping when Din carefully set you back on your feet. His hands warm and clasped gently around your arms, holding you up so he could peer at you whilst you were trying your hardest to sway back into the comfort of his broad chest.
“Are you okay?” He murmured, concerned. “I didn’t go too hard did I?”
You blinked up at him stunned, silent for a beat as you recognised the flicker of nervousness in the way he spoke, the way he held himself.
You cradled his face then, or where the helmet sat above his cheeks, and pulled his forehead down to yours. “No, it was perfect.” You reassured him and he let out a soft breath before melting against you ever so slightly.
“There is a slight problem though.” You laughed quietly, thumbs absentmindedly stroking over smooth beskar as Din tilted his head.” We’re locked out here and there’s no way I can climb that fence. I can barely feel my legs.”
He chuckled then–the sound of it brushed smug as his fingers stroked down your arms. “Leave it to me, sweet girl.”
He rest you gently back against the fence and your eyes slipped closed almost immediately before popping back open when you heard a loud thrum followed by the short screech of tearing metal. Chains hitting the ground with a clinking thud.
Your breath stuttered as you watched him stalk back towards you, saber in his hand, gleaming beneath the haunting light of it.
It made him look even more powerful than he already was. And the memory of what he did for you with that weapon, the evidence of it still strewn across the dirt, slammed to the forefront of your mind and made your mouth run dry. A weak flutter stirring in your belly despite your exhaustion, that he in no way helped by pulling you into him and swinging you up in his arms.
You made a soft noise of surprise and it only encouraged him to hold you tighter. Sealing every inch of you against him that he could as he carried you back to the ship– his voice brimming with promise as he murmured,
“You’re safe, cyar’ika. I’m going to take care of you.”
Rating: Explicit. 18+ (Minors DNI)
Summary: People always gave me love. Others were never to blame after all.
Warnings: pretend joel miller wrote a mitski song, smut, p in v sex, apocalypse birth control (the pull out method), oral (f receiving), fingering, joel miller not being great at feelings but the dude is still soft in his own way, it's not a sad fic even though the song is sad af
Words: 3,550
A/N: Happy birthday @valevntine! Your friendship and voice notes from 4,500 miles away have brought me so much joy. I know you made "I'm Your Man" into beautiful Joel and Ellie art, which I have taken the liberty to put as part of this header. I used your Joel as inspiration to finish this fic that has been sitting unfinished in my drafts folder for over a year. It's dedicated to you, and your ability to both emotionally devastate AND make me insane. ily 🎀
Masterlist
—-
The faint sounds of guitar notes float in through the open window, carried by the early morning autumn breeze. Dawn is slowly peeking through, and the curtains rustle in the wind. Still tucked in bed, you blink awake to emptiness beside you; it’s a familiar quiet—you know exactly where Joel is. You haven’t been with him for long, it’s only been a month since you first met him.
You were introduced to your new patrol partner by the gate, his gloved hand reaching out to shake yours. It was hard not to notice the slight shiver in his shoulders when you looked into his eyes and told him your name. He had assessed the way you held your gun, the way your eyes scanned the horizon, and the strong-willed determination you possess. At some point on the trail of Cache Creek, Joel Miller had decided you were worth knowing.
There was something about the shy, quiet drawl in his voice that made you ask him over to your new place for coffee, but he insisted his coffee was fresher and his home was closer. You kissed him that first night, unable to resist his handsome face and the quiet strength he possessed. Now, you’ve barely left his home, your shirts now hang next to his while your overnight bag sits empty and unused in the corner of his bedroom.
You stretch, feeling how cold the bed is without Joel. He plays guitar when he can’t sleep, which you’ve come to learn is most mornings. He doesn’t tell you why.
The room is cold when you get out of bed and wrap one of Joel’s flannels around your naked body. You button a couple of buttons and let the sleeves swallow your hands. You move down the steps, yawning, your shoulder brushing the wall, and head for the front door. Joel’s guitar grows louder the closer you get. Through the doorway, you can see him sitting on the porch steps, his broad back to you. The rising sun lights him in an almost ethereal way, the grays of his hair glinting in the light. He looks so peaceful.
The door creaks when you open it, but Joel doesn’t turn. Instead, he begins a new song. A soft rush of notes starts before his deep voice gristles out.
You’re an angel, I’m a dog
Or you’re a dog and I’m your man
You stop in your tracks, feeling his breathy words settle in you. His voice is so low, it’s almost a whisper. You’ve never heard him sing before.
You believe me like a god
I’ll destroy you like I am
Your toes curl against the cold of the porch boards, the thin socks on your feet doing little to guard from the chill as you move closer to him. Each step is a little hesitant as you try hard not to break his concentration.
I’m sorry I’m the one you love
No one will ever love me like you again
His voice cracks on the word love, and you feel the first tear in your eye. You haven’t told him yet, but you haven’t made your feelings for him a mystery. Not in the way you curl up next to him at night, allowing his strong, heavy arms to cradle you. Not in the way you press your palm into his sore shoulder when he comes back from patrol, his muscles tight from too many hours on horseback. Not in the way you pour his coffee, black and hot, kissing him on the lips when you hand his chipped owl mug over to him. Not in the way you’ve allowed your sweet, caring ways to prove to him that he can be cared for.
So when you leave me, I should die
I deserve it, don’t I?
Your heart pounds so hard in your chest, you wonder if Joel can hear the thrumming beats above the notes. Standing behind him, wrapped in only his flannel, you watch as his hair rustles in the breeze. He keeps playing, like he never even noticed you come outside.
I can feel it gettin’ near
Like flashlights comin’ down the way
The pain in his beautiful voice moves through you, a slow ache spreading from your heart that’s inescapable. The same lips that whispered "sweetheart" against your ear last night, as he tenderly moved inside you, now sing these wounded confessions. You place your hand on his shoulder, feeling the slight tremble beneath his skin, and squeeze gently. He doesn’t stop playing, but he leans back, just barely, into your touch.
One day you’ll figure me out
I’ll meet judgment by the hounds
You ease down behind him, thighs spreading to fit around his large body. You like being able to touch him in this way, cradling his body against yours. Your arms slide around his waist, your hands softly gripping his sleep shirt, your head resting against his solid back. You can hear the steady thrum of his heart, whispering against your ear, his spine pressing against your cheek.
People always gave me love
Others were never to blame after all
Your eyes close, letting the vibrations and rumbles of his song drift through you. The depth of his ache held beneath the softness you know Joel Miller is capable of. He lets you into the vulnerable place he’s carved out that nobody else has found before. You squeeze your arms around him tighter.
You believe me like a god
I’ll betray you like a man
He hums an almost haunted sound, and you press a kiss to his back as his fingers still against the guitar strings. Now, there’s only the quiet of morning, and the sound of your shared breathing. You’re certain no one else is awake at this hour. It feels so private, just you and him, and the intimate peace you two bring each other. Somewhere, birds sing in the distance, a small chorus for just the two of you.
“That was beautiful,” you say, running your hands up and down his arms, feeling how taut his muscles are as he holds his guitar.
“Meant every word of it,” he whispers, placing his guitar against the steps before his hands cover yours.
“It’s true, you know that, right?”
“What’s true?” he asks.
“You are the one I love,” you confess. It’s not a fragile revelation, it’s stated so simply, settling in the chill of the morning.
You’ve known for weeks, maybe since the first time you heard the rasp of his voice say your name, felt the silent strength of his body against yours, tasted the hint of coffee on his tongue. You’re certain that this is what it means to love a person, no grand declarations, no fevered promises, but the collection of quiet moments like this. The way he lets you touch him, the way he lets you hold him up.
You can feel the way his body stiffens. You wonder if this is the first time anyone’s said it to him since the world ended. If he simply no longer believes it’s possible for someone to love a man like him and all of his broken parts. His breathing halts for a split second before he lets out a shaky breath. You wonder if you’ve said it too soon, if the walls he’s built are too high for your words to scale.
"You shouldn't," he finally says. "You really shouldn't."
But he doesn’t pull away. Instead, he traces your fingers and the back of your hand. You press firmer against his back, breathing in the scent of him—pine, wood smoke, and something so uniquely Joel you’ve come to crave it.
“Yes, I should… and I do.”
His back inflates with a deep breath. He doesn’t respond, he just sits there. You can almost hear him thinking, trying to reason why your love is too good for him. You want to prove to him he’s worthy of the kind of love you can give him.
“Come back to bed with me, Joel,” you whisper.
He unwraps your hands from his waist gently. He stands, quiet and steady, and then reaches for you, hand open, offering it to you. His strong, thick fingers wrap around yours when he helps you up.
He’s close enough that you can feel his breath. His brown eyes stare into yours, his gaze only moving down when you wet your lips with your tongue. The pad of his thumb grazes your cheekbone as he leans in. His lips brush yours—gentle at first, then hungry. You try to tell him with your lips—all the longing, passion, understanding, and love. Your fingers clutch the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer as his mouth opens against yours. You know he can feel everything by the way his tongue laps against yours. When his teeth graze your bottom lip, the sound that escapes you is half-moan, half-whimper.
You can’t resist him any longer, breaking the kiss. You take a half-step back, your eyes staring into his as you whisper, “Come back to bed with me, Joel.”
Your back turns before he can answer, already retracing your steps through the doorway and into the warmth of his house. The stairs creak with each step climbed, the thrum of devotion to Joel growing louder and louder inside you. By the time you reach his room, your whole body vibrates with want.
You shed his flannel, leaving it in a dark green pool on the floor, walking over to the window to feel the cool breeze hit your naked body, the bottoms of the curtains rustling against your knees. You breathe in the crisp hush of the outside as you hear Joel’s heavy footsteps move up the stairs. The door swings wide, the hinges groaning.
“Jesus Christ, sweetheart, you look like an angel.” You can almost feel his words breathe into you from across the room.
You don’t turn away from the window. The sunrise is just beginning to show itself in the low clouds. Gold and blue filtered through the morning dew on the glass. “Come here.”
He’s behind you quickly, his arms banded around your middle, the heat of him wrapping around you. “Aren’t you cold?”
“Warmer now.”
“Mm,” he hums against your neck, his tongue darting out to taste your skin. “Couldn’t believe m’eyes when I walked in.” His hands drift up your torso to softly caress your breasts, rough hands gentle as they tease and caress your nipples, pebbling underneath his touch.
He traces your jaw, tilting your mouth toward his, and kisses you. Your tongue licks across his pillowy bottom lip, getting lost in Joel Miller the way you always do. You turn in his arms, your lips not leaving his, greedy for him, as your hands reach to drag at the hem of his t-shirt, desperate to feel his skin against yours.
Joel slips his shirt off, letting it fall to the floor next to the flannel. You move your hands down his chest and across the small jut of his tummy, to the drawstrings of his pajama pants. Joel’s breathing grows ragged as you untie it, sliding his pants down, leaving you both bare and desperate.
“Baby,” he groans, one of his hands splaying across your back, drawing you closer, the weight of his cock sitting heavily against your thigh. “Feel so good against me.”
“Take me to bed, Joel.”
He backs up towards the bed, careful, almost dazed, until the back of his knees buckle and he falls onto the mattress. Feet planted, body open and waiting. You crawl over him, straddling him, your soaked cunt nestling atop the soft heat of his stomach.
“Already so wet f’me, aren’t you? Can feel it against me,” he groans out. “Let me see the way you touch yourself.”
His hands settle against your thighs, spreading you wide. His glazed eyes stare at the soft slick of you, greedily taking in your needy pussy. You nod, you could never deny Joel Miller. Your hand glides across your body, dipping into your wet heat, a gasp leaving when you press a finger against your needy clit.
His grip tightens against your thighs, breath growing heavier, lips parted as he stares down at the sight of the wet swell of your cunt, glistening for him in the sunrise. You know he wants you desperate for him, you know he loves to see you like this, aching and ready for him.
“Fuck,” he breathes.
You rub slow, lazy circles, your head lolling back, breathing out a shaky sigh of his name. You know exactly what you look like, legs wide, back arched, all of you on display and throbbing for him. His eyes sear you, your body burning only for him.
“Give me a taste, sweetheart, let me taste you,” he gravels.
Your finger shines with your wet when you offer it to him. His lips wrap around it, his eyes fluttering shut, the low groan he lets out humming against your finger. You fold over him, capturing his lips with yours, tasting yourself on his tongue.
“Need my mouth on you,” he whispers against your lips.
He sits up, holding you against his chest, his cock straining between you. You can feel it, the friction, grinding yourself against him, making you whine into his mouth.
“Stop, darlin’. Not yet, not yet,” he rasps, turning to lay you down on the bed. You’re molten and eager, spreading out under him. He slinks down your body and off the bed, his knees settling on the floorboards before he pulls you to the edge of the mattress, spreading your legs wide across his shoulders, his palms parting your lips.
“Beautiful,” he admires, like he can’t quite believe it, the stubble of his jaw pressing into your thigh, leaving a wet open-mouth kiss on it.
“Look at me, baby,” he coaches.
You push up, bracing yourself on your elbows, eyes meeting his as he leans in and licks a long, slow line from your entrance to your clit. His head finds solace between your legs, every untold word of adoration and appreciation for your body spills out with his tongue swirling around your swollen clit. Joel’s hands move to your stomach, fingers curling, gripping your skin. His eyes don’t leave yours as he savors you, groans of devotion vibrating against your sensitive skin. You fist a handful of his gray streaked waves, pulling him farther into you, the greedy sounds he’s making thrumming through your body.
His tongue makes you fall apart, hips jerking up, gasps leaving your lungs as you grind against his face, greedy for him. His tongue lathes through your slick, painting circles around your clit, sucking it, flicking it with his tongue.
His hand dips down to your entrance, his finger drives into you, hooking against your sensitive spot. He fucks you with it, curling as his mouth never leaves you, his tongue against your clit. Your thighs tighten around his head, one hand clutching his curls, the other the bedsheet. You’re writhing, grinding, losing yourself in the obscene pleasure only Joel Miller can deliver you.
You can’t stop saying his name. You don’t want to.
He groans, devouring you, needy for all of the sounds and slick you give him. His hands are iron around your thighs, holding you wide open for his mouth. His nose presses into your puffy flesh, his beard rasping your folds. Another finger dives into your cunt, two fingers now pumping deep, his thick knuckle grinding against you.
The heat already begins to pool inside you, almost unbearable, your body wound so tight by Joel Miller’s devotion to your pussy.
You’re so close to shattering from him, his fingers, his mouth, but what you crave for is his cock and the way you lose yourself in him.
“I need you,” you beg. “Please.”
He pulls away, his eyes wide, brows furrowed in almost disbelief.
“You need me?” he asks, almost unbelieving. He should know better. All you need is him.
You nod, it’s almost pathetic how much you ache for him at all times. The need to feel him, to be owned by him, to make him groan your name.
He takes you in, strung out on desperation and the need to be filled by him. “Okay, baby, okay,” he says, leaving a sweet kiss against your cunt before he stands. You can hear the faint crackle of his knees and spot the slight grimace as he rises, another reminder of just how much Joel will go through to make you feel good. “You’re good and ready f’me now, aren’t you?”
You nod, too blissed out, all semblance of words replaced by moans and breaths as you shuffle your body up the bed. Joel’s body covers yours, the weight of him settling over you.
He kisses you hard, his hands cradling your head, thumbs brushing tenderly across your cheeks. “Sweetheart,” he whispers against your mouth as he slowly sinks into you. Fireworks—you barely remember what they look like, and yet you feel them now as Joel’s thick cock begins to stretch your tight walls. He languidly enters and leaves you, his long, slow strokes giving you time to adjust to his size.
His mouth moves down, tracing your jaw and neck, peppering gentle kisses from your ear to your collarbone. Bliss, straight bliss. You both get lost in each other’s sounds, breathing in each shared moan and groan as he picks up the pace, a graying curl messily bouncing on his forehead that’s now covered in a sheen of sweat as he fucks into you.
You reach for his handsome face, thumb tracing the scar on his forehead, you can see it, the love he holds for you flickering through his eyes. You’ll never force him to say it, never ask him to find the words, but you can feel it and see it.
You wrap your arms around his neck, burying your face in the hollow of his shoulder, breathing him in as he starts to move faster, the rhythm matching your erratic heart. His hand slips between your bodies, a calloused finger finding your needy clit, petting soft spirals of pleasure against it. You’re arching for him, hips rolling to meet his thrusts.
You already feel it—the way your body begins to bloom and burn as your orgasm gathers beneath Joel’s power. Your next breath is only a gasp, “Close,” spills out of your lips as you clutch at his shoulders.
His eyes stay on yours, watching you fall apart with a cocky grin across his lips. “I know, sweetheart. Cum for me,” he encourages, grinding his hips into you, his cock driving right into the spot he knows you need him the most. “Wanna see how good I can make you feel.”
Your release bursts through your body, eyes squeezing shut, breath hitching in your throat, pulse drumming against your ears. Your eyes open to meet his as your cunt pulses around his cock. Joel talks you through it like he always does, filthy, tender affirmations and confessions whispered. “That’s it, baby, cum for me, oh, you’re squeezing me so tight.”
He watches you in awe, before he bends and buries his face in the curve of your neck, rutting helplessly into you. “Fuck sweetheart, that’s it, that’s it,” he drawls. His hips falter against you, body beginning to tremble as his own orgasm begins to chase yours. He pulls out with a hoarse gasp, and you reach down to pump him to release, your slick helping guide your hand up and down his length.
Joel climaxes with a desperate shout of your name as each stroke sends white streaks of his cum across your stomach.
His spent body topples next to you with a grunt. “Gimme a second, I’ll get you a towel,” he offers, his forearm resting across his brow as he catches his breath.
“It’s okay, I’ll clean myself up,” you say, the afterglow dimming just enough to let you sit up and get out of bed.
You glance at Joel’s naked body lying on his bed, legs spread wide, broad shoulders caving into the mattress, half-hard cock resting against his thigh, one arm flung over his eyes, the other draped across his stomach, rising and falling with every relaxed breath he takes.
His body is thick and golden like honey in the filtered sunlight. He’s the most handsome man you’ve ever seen, and now? Now, he’s just fucked you so senselessly, your whole body aches deliciously, and his climax drips down your stomach as you move to the sink.
The wet towel wipes across his spend, swiping away any evidence of what just happened, save for your shaky legs and tousled hair. You pad back to bed. He hasn’t moved since you left him.
You climb into bed, drawing the blanket folded across the foot of it over your and his bodies. He reaches over, pulling you against him, your head finding the perfect place on his chest. Your hand splays against his stomach, and his hand covers it, pinning it in place. He breathes out slowly and places a kiss against the crown of your head.
“I am your man,” he whispers.
—-
🎀 HAPPY BIRTHDAY VALENTINA!!! 🎀
Two fics in two days. Moved up my release of Healed for this.
Being a hooker in Jackson isn’t glamorous, but it pays in coffee, bullets, and the good kind of winter gloves. So when your regular—Tommy—asks if you’d see his brother, you don't hesitate in saying yes.
omg this is literally 11k words im ded - warnings: literally porn with a plot, sex work (mention of terms hooker etc), explicit smut (18+), unprotected sex, age gap (Joel is in his 50s), subby!Joel energy, soft dom reader, emotional vulnerability, Joel has a bad back and feelings, praise kink.
✧˚ ༘ ⋆。 ˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆。 ˚
You caught your breath as the last wave of pleasure ebbed from your body, chest rising and falling in a slow, quiet rhythm while Tommy lingered there a moment longer, his breath warm against your neck as he let out a low groan, still half-drunk on the high you’d given him. The morning light filtered in through the tattered blinds, casting soft golden slats across the tangled mess of limbs and discarded clothes strewn across the hardwood floor. Somewhere, from the corridor or maybe the neighbors', drifted the scent of burnt coffee—bitter, familiar, grounding.
Tommy sat up with a grunt, running a hand through his damp hair as he muttered, “Shit,” under his breath, his voice still heavy with sleep and satisfaction. He glanced over at you with a lazy grin, tugging his jeans from the floor. “Remind me to come by more often.”
You laughed—quiet, genuine—watching him as he passed you a towel and leaned in to press a kiss to your cheek. It wasn’t part of the deal, not really. But then, Tommy had always blurred the lines—sweet in the way men like him weren’t meant to be, not in this town, not in your world.
“You’re already my best customer,” you murmured, eyes gleaming as you took the towel and began to clean yourself up, your voice laced with a teasing fondness, the kind reserved for people who came back again and again not just for the sex, but for something else they couldn’t name.
He stood with a quiet exhale, tugging his flannel over his broad shoulders, his belly soft where it peeked above the denim as he buttoned his jeans. His eyes lingered on you a second longer, not quite lecherous, not quite innocent either—just… watching, like he didn’t want to leave just yet, like he hadn’t quite figured out what you meant to him.
He watched you, gaze lingering over the bare slope of your chest, the way your skin caught the muted morning light spilling through the cracked blinds, casting golden lines across the sheets like something sacred.
You didn’t bother covering up—not with Tommy. The two of you had done this too many times, in too many rooms, on too many mornings like this, for there to be any shame left between you. There was something quiet in it now, a kind of unspoken understanding that had formed over time—not love, not quite friendship, but an intimacy that lived in the space between laughter and the sound of a zipper being drawn.
As he buckled his belt, fingers fumbling slightly around the worn leather, he cleared his throat like he was trying to shake something from it, something heavier than dust.
“Do you, uh…” he started, then hesitated, licking his lips like the question might taste strange coming out. “Do you have an age limit or somethin’?”
You tilted your head, brow lifting in easy amusement as you smiled faintly. “Sorry?”
He laughed, soft and awkward, and rubbed the side of his nose—a nervous little tick you’d seen before, like his body gave him away even when his voice didn’t. “I mean—with what you do,” he said, trying to sound casual but missing the mark by an inch. “With your… services. You got a limit, or...?”
“For my services?” you repeated, feigning offense, a teasing lilt in your voice as you leaned back against the headboard. “You make it sound so formal.”
“Quit,” he muttered, a laugh under his breath, but there was something beneath it—something that wasn’t quite a joke.
You smiled at him again, slower this time, more real. “Not really,” you said with a shrug, reaching for the towel more out of habit than modesty. “As long as they’re sweet... can get it up... and make sure they pay well.”
Because in Jackson, payment wasn’t green bills or cards anymore—those belonged to a world that had crumbled with the last election and the first outbreak. Now, people paid in what mattered. A tin of that good jam made from the summer’s last raspberries. A half-empty bag of coffee beans that still smelled like mornings from before. Gloves thick enough to survive the frost that rolled in from the mountains. Cans of peaches, salt for the roads, shotgun shells, antibiotics, clean socks. Favors. Names. Protection. A seat near the fire.
He chuckled at that, the tension easing from his shoulders like you’d let him off some invisible hook.
You tilted your head again, watching him as you sat forward slightly, your hair sliding over your shoulder in a loose, dark curtain. His eyes caught on it—just for a second, but enough to notice.
“So,” you said softly, the teasing edge slipping just slightly from your voice, replaced by something gentler—curiosity with a tilt of wariness, a shift in the air between you. “Why’re you askin’?”
Tommy exhaled with a quiet huff, running a hand back through his hair and catching the loose strands that had fallen from his ponytail, fingers dragging through it with a kind of frustrated carelessness.
“It’s just…” he started, voice trailing off before picking back up again with a sigh. “My brother. Joel. I think he could, you know—benefit from... all this.” He gestured vaguely in your direction, hand cutting through the air as his eyes flitted across your still-bare body, lingering but not ogling, like he was trying to make a point without being crude.
Joel.
The name landed with a quiet thud, familiar but unexpected.
Of course you’d seen him around—Jackson wasn’t big enough for anyone to stay invisible for long. He was older, that much was clear; wore the years like a weight across his shoulders and a scowl that never quite left his face. Always furrowed at the brow, jaw set like he was bracing for a blow that hadn’t come yet. Handsome in a rough-edged, quietly dangerous way—not like Tommy, whose smile came easy and whose touch always felt a little more like comfort than command.
Sometimes, when you looked at them side by side, you forgot they were cut from the same cloth. Same blood. Same broken world.
You let out a breath of laughter, amused and maybe a little intrigued, as you rose to your feet, the light catching along the soft curves of your body, bare and unashamed, each step toward him slow and fluid, the kind of motion meant to be watched. Your hips swayed with the ease of someone who knew exactly how she moved, your skin still flushed from the morning, the remnants of pleasure humming faintly in your limbs. Sensual without trying to be. Just a woman in her own skin.
“Your brother,” you said with a soft, knowing smirk, brushing your fingers gently through the messy strands of hair that had fallen across Tommy’s forehead, still damp with the sweat of sex and sleep and something in between. The gesture was easy, instinctive—your touch lingering only a moment before it drifted lower, settling at the nape of his neck where your fingers curled loosely, not to pull him close, but simply to stay connected. “Doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who’d pay a visit to a hooker.”
Your voice was teasing, light on the surface, but there was something deeper threaded beneath it—some quiet question you didn’t ask aloud.
Tommy’s hands found your waist without hesitation, as if drawn there by muscle memory more than intent. His touch was broad, familiar, grounding—palms warm against your skin, a little rough from the kind of labor this world demanded of men like him, the kind of years that wore into the bones. There was nothing hurried about the way he held you, nothing that spoke of possession in the traditional sense, but it was there nonetheless—a kind of unspoken tether, something formed not from love or lust but from routine, from comfort, from the simple ache of being human in a place that had taken too much.
Whatever this was between you and Tommy—it didn’t have a name. There’d never been promises or claims, no plans made or futures built. But the line between business and something softer had blurred a long time ago, and neither of you had ever bothered to draw it back again. It was easier this way.
He looked down at you, lips quirking into a crooked grin that didn’t quite make it to his eyes, which always seemed just a little too tired, like he hadn’t had a real night’s sleep in years. “Yeah,” he murmured, the words softer now, almost thoughtful. “He ain’t. But maybe that’s exactly why he needs it.”
You hummed quietly in response, letting your hands slide from his neck down to his chest, fingers resting lightly over his heartbeat. You tilted your face up to meet his, chin angled just slightly, and the distance between you felt at once too close and not close enough.
“He’s fifty-six,” Tommy said, the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth crooked and amused, eyes crinkling just a little as he shook his head. “Old bastard,” he added with a chuckle, like he was fond of the man but couldn’t help teasing him anyway, like it was easier to speak in jokes than admit the weight behind the thought—that time had moved on without asking, and they were all just trying to catch up.
You let out a dramatic gasp, sharp and playful, one hand flying to your chest as though genuinely scandalized, though the glint in your eyes gave you away immediately. “Tommy,” you said, drawing out his name in that mock-offended tone you knew always pulled a smile from him, “what kind of girl do you take me for?”
Your voice was honey-drenched, rich with pretend indignation, all wide, fluttering eyes and arched brows, even as you stood in front of him still completely bare, the golden morning light licking across your skin like it had been invited.
Tommy’s grin tugged crooked across his lips, slow and easy, like it had nowhere else to be. “The kind of girl who says she’s shocked,” he drawled, eyes dipping meaningfully down your body, “while standin’ butt-naked in my arms.”
And then, as if to punctuate his point, he gave your ass a firm, unapologetic slap, the sound sharp in the quiet room. “Now put some clothes on,” he added, voice light but still edged with that gravelly fondness he tried to hide. “Before I end up stayin’ another hour and missin’ patrol—again.”
You yelped, laughing as you twisted away from his touch, jumping back into the warmth of the tangled bedspread, sheets twisted like vines beneath you. His handprint still tingled on your skin, a reminder of how close things could still burn even after the fire was out.
Tommy bent to grab his jacket off the chair, slinging it over one arm as he turned toward the door, but then paused in the doorway, glancing back over his shoulder with that half-smile he always wore when he wasn’t quite sure how to say what he meant.
“So, Joel?” he asked, rubbing the back of his neck like he wasn’t trying to care too much. “You’ll see him?”
You met his gaze, all ease and softness now, letting your weight sink back into the bed as you pulled the sheet loosely over your thighs. You smiled, slow and sure.
“I’ll see him.”
✧˚ ༘ ⋆。 ˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆。 ˚
Tommy sat at the far end of the Tipsy Bison’s bar, his knee bouncing beneath the table with a restlessness that betrayed more than he meant it to, jittery and twitchy like the truth was sitting in his lap and he didn’t know where to put it. His beer sat mostly untouched in front of him, beads of condensation sliding lazily down the bottle’s neck, forgotten. Across from him, Joel nursed his second glass of whiskey with the kind of single-minded focus that suggested he was trying not to think too hard about anything else.
Joel was mid-grumble, voice low and gravelly, muttering into his glass like it had personally offended him. “These kids on patrol,” he said, shaking his head, “they’re damn near still in diapers—think they know everything, but can’t read a fuckin’ map to save their lives. I had to double back twice today. And my knees…” he trailed off with a grimace, reaching down to rub one as if the act alone could conjure youth. “Shit don’t work like it used to.”
Tommy blinked, and then—without really meaning to, like the words had slipped out before he could stop them—he blurted, “Hey, you should go see this masseuse I know.”
Joel paused mid-sip, squinting over the rim of his glass like Tommy had just spoken in tongues. “Masseuse?”
“Yeah,” Tommy said, trying to sound casual but already feeling the weight of what he wasn’t saying begin to gather in his chest. “She’s real good. Works outta her place. Kinda… therapeutic.”
It wasn’t technically a lie. You did use your hands. You did know how to relieve tension. But if Joel had even the faintest idea of the things you did inside that soft little house of yours—the same one with the blue curtains and the jasmine Tommy had planted out front in exchange for a particularly memorable morning—he would’ve spit his drink out on the floor, gotten up, and walked home on those bad knees just to scold Tommy like they were kids again.
Because Joel, bless him, would’ve done what Joel always did—squint real hard, say something like “Jesus Christ, Tommy,” then go on about morals and dignity and how the world’s gone to hell.
So no, Tommy didn’t tell him everything.
Didn’t tell him about the soft, lilting laugh you had, or the way your door was always unlocked for him. Didn’t mention the way you said his name when he showed up late, or the sweet little things you did with your mouth that had nothing to do with pressure points. And he sure as hell didn’t mention the way you made him feel—warm and wanted and like the end of the world hadn’t already come and gone.
“Why the hell would I need a massage?” Joel muttered, voice rough as gravel as he leaned back in his chair, scowl etched deep between his brows. “What I need is for people to stop assignin’ me shifts with goddamn teenagers who can’t tell north from their own ass, and a patrol route that doesn’t run me straight into a fuckin’ ravine.”
Tommy scoffed, lifting his beer but not bothering to drink from it, eyes rolling as he shook his head. “You just spent the last thirty minutes complainin’ about your back, Joel.”
Joel shot him a look—sharp, defensive—the kind that had scared men once, back when fear was still a luxury. “That don’t mean I want some stranger touchin’ it,” he said, shoulders stiffening as he reached instinctively for his glass again. “Ain’t lookin’ to have someone mess it up worse than it already is.”
Tommy flinched at the word—touching—and it landed wrong, punched straight into his gut like a sucker hit. Not because Joel meant anything by it, but because he did. And before he could shut it down, there it was again—you—bent over him, lips parted, breath hot against his neck, your hand wrapped around his cock, stroking slow like you had all the time in the world. The soft sound you made when you sank down on him, the way your tits bounced against his chest, warm and slick, and how your fingers dragged down his spine, nails scratching just enough to make his hips jerk. His cock twitched, hard and immediate, a pulse of heat shooting through him that had no place in this conversation.
He cleared his throat, forcing himself back to the present. “Come on,” Tommy urged, voice lighter now, too easy to be innocent. “She’s real good. Not just in the way you’re thinkin’, either. She’s sweet. Quiet. One of those girls you don’t really notice till you do, and then it’s like you can’t stop.”
Joel arched a brow, unimpressed, suspicion already creeping into the lines of his face. “That so.”
“Yeah,” Tommy said quickly, pushing past the moment. “Real good hands. Knows what she’s doin’. And I’m tellin’ you—first one’s on the house. She won’t even charge you.”
Joel grunted, unconvinced, but didn’t push the conversation away completely. He just shifted in his chair, bones cracking, and muttered something under his breath about not likin’ surprises.
And Tommy—well, Tommy just smiled into his beer again, trying not to think about how you’d looked the last time he left your place, tangled in sheets and flushed with sleep, calling his name like it was something soft.
✧˚ ༘ ⋆。 ˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆。 ˚
Joel stood stiffly on your porch, the wood creaking beneath his boots as he pressed his thick fingers into the knot burrowed deep in the side of his neck, muttering low, gravel-soaked profanities beneath his breath—half at the knot, half at Tommy, and half at himself for agreeing to this in the first place. The porch was too damn pretty for cursing—lined with flower boxes overflowing with jasmine and wild mint, and some old rocking chair that looked like it had actually been made for sitting, not surviving.
He knocked twice—sharp, reluctant—and already regretted whatever the hell Tommy had gotten him into.
The door swung open almost immediately, like you’d been waiting on the other side, like you’d known he’d hesitate and come anyway.
Joel failed—spectacularly—to hide his reaction.
Tommy had mentioned you were a woman, sure. He had not mentioned that you were the kind of woman who made men forget how to breathe. The morning light spilled in behind him, framing you in gold like some holy sin, soft and warm, the robe you wore cinched lazily at the waist like it wasn’t trying to hide anything, just loosely draped to suggest comfort—but his eyes caught the line of your collarbone, the way the fabric parted ever so slightly, and dropped, uninvited, to the swell of your cleavage.
He clenched his jaw, hard.
What the fuck kinda masseuse looks like this?
He’d been expecting someone else entirely—some no-nonsense, middle-aged woman with short gray hair and orthopedic sandals, maybe a raspy smoker’s laugh and a mug that said #1 Back Cracker, someone who would offer him over-steeped tea and tell him stories about her son in the army or her time stationed in Kabul. He hadn’t planned for this—for lace peeking out from under your robe, for legs bare and smooth in the glow of a Jackson sunrise, for you smiling at him like you already knew he didn’t have the guts to walk away.
“Joel, right?” you asked, your voice light, almost teasing, as you leaned a little deeper into the doorway, the name tasting curious on your tongue. “Tommy’s brother?”
“Oh—yeah,” Joel said quickly, the syllable catching on the rough edge of his throat as he blinked like he was just remembering where he was. His boots scuffed slightly against the floor as he shifted his weight, shoulders twitching with a discomfort he clearly didn’t know how to hide. “I, uh… Tommy said you do massages.”
The words came out like a question, like he wasn’t entirely convinced of the truth himself—and maybe he wasn’t.
You paused, something flickering behind your eyes as your lips parted—then closed again. A breath. A scoff. Quiet, sharp, and laced with a kind of tired amusement as your gaze flicked briefly to the floor. Of course Tommy hadn’t told him the truth. Of course Tommy had sent his older brother to your door with that same boyish grin and a half-assed lie, hoping Joel wouldn’t figure it out until it was far too late to back out gracefully.
He hadn’t told him that this wasn’t just a massage.
He hadn’t told him that he was coming over to have sex with a woman—with you—and not in some hurried, transactional way, but slow, deliberate, intimate. The kind of encounter that lingered on the skin long after the door closed behind them.
You bit your lip without thinking, the movement soft and sensual, more out of habit than seduction—but it was still enough to make Joel glance away, like he’d seen too much too quickly and didn’t know where to look anymore.
“Well,” you murmured, shifting your weight from one bare leg to the other, the silk of your robe whispering across your thigh like it, too, was trying to decide what kind of evening this was going to be. “Come on in.”
You didn’t confirm or deny his assumption—just stepped aside and let him walk into the space where everything might change.
And Joel—standing there on your pretty porch, fingers twitching at his sides, jaw locked and eyes anywhere but your mouth—hadn’t figured out how to say no.
✧˚ ༘ ⋆。 ˚✧˚ ༘ ⋆。 ˚
Joel stood stiffly in your bedroom, hands twitching uselessly at his sides, his body held like a man trying not to breathe too deeply in someone else's space—already half turned toward the door, as if he could will an exit into existence before you returned.
His eyes moved over the room like he was trying not to look at anything too closely, but there was no hiding the tension in the line of his shoulders, the way his jaw clenched and unclenched every few seconds like he was already regretting stepping foot inside.
The room wasn’t what he’d expected—and not just because it was your bedroom, though that alone had made his pulse stutter. That part could’ve been explained away, justified somehow—people did all kinds of things out of their homes in Jackson. But it was the way the space was set up that made his throat feel dry.
The bed, wide and inviting, draped in soft cream linens that looked freshly smoothed, was positioned at the center of everything, with candles flickering gently along the dresser, casting long golden shadows across the floor. There were no towels. No oils lined up neatly on a cart. No clinical sterility to hide behind. Just plush throw pillows, lace-trimmed curtains, a faint trace of perfume lingering in the air, and the undeniable hum of something not quite professional.
And you—Jesus Christ, you—had offered him coffee or water, your voice light and easy like it wasn’t a loaded question, and he, too dazed to think, had said yes. You’d disappeared into the kitchen, and he’d barely exhaled since. He wasn’t sure if he was sweating or just uncomfortable in his own damn skin, but every part of him was screaming that he didn’t belong here—that you were too pretty, too soft, too young to be touching a man like him.
You, meanwhile, were grateful for the excuse to step away, your heels silent as you moved through the house, trying to get your own heart rate under control.
You knew it wouldn’t take Joel long to figure it out—that you weren’t really a masseuse, that this wasn’t some wholesome back-cracking session with a side of eucalyptus oil. That lingerie didn’t belong under robes worn for healing. And yet here you were, wearing it anyway, lace brushing against your skin with every step, wondering how long it would take before he got up and left.
When you stepped back into the room, he was still standing—just as rigid, just as uncertain. “Sit,” you said gently, offering a small, practiced smile, your tone breezy enough to keep the moment from collapsing under its own weight. “Please.”
Joel nodded once, tight-lipped, and lowered himself onto the edge of the bed like it might burn him. His knees were wide, his elbows stiff, his eyes trained directly ahead—on nothing at all—like he was trying very hard not to see any part of you.
You approached slowly, extending the glass of water toward him, the condensation already beginning to bead along the side.
He took it with a quiet murmur of thanks, his fingers brushing yours for the briefest moment—just a flicker, but enough for you to feel the heat of him, the way he flinched ever so slightly like he wasn’t used to being touched without intention.
“So, uh…” Joel began, voice low and hesitant, the sound rough like it had scraped its way out of his throat. He rubbed a hand along the side of his neck, eyes flicking briefly up to yours before landing somewhere over your shoulder, already looking like he regretted speaking at all. “How long you been doin’ all this?”
The words hung awkwardly in the air between you, heavy with implication but wrapped in a poor attempt at small talk—something Joel Miller was not known for. You could tell it took effort for him to say anything at all, that his instinct was to sit in silence and let the tension pass like a storm front, but some part of him—some flicker of politeness or nerves—had nudged him into conversation.
Your eyes widened just a little, caught off guard by the question, and then you blinked, like you needed a moment to remember who you were supposed to be in this room. “Oh—yeah,” you said, stumbling just slightly over the words. “Since I got to Jackson, really. Started pretty soon after I arrived.”
It wasn’t a lie. Not exactly. You had been doing this since you arrived—though massage had never been the core of it.
Joel nodded slowly, his brow furrowing with thought, and you could see him working through the gaps, filling in the blanks with whatever image he had in his mind. “So you, uh… didn’t have any proper trainin’? From before?”
You shook your head, lips parting as your answer tripped a little over your breath. “No. I—uh. No, it’s all… self-taught.”
His eyes lingered on you for half a second longer than necessary, then shifted away again, landing on the corner of the bed, then the curtain, then the floor—anywhere but you. “Right,” he said finally, like it was the only thing he could think to say, like maybe he’d already asked too much.
The silence that followed wasn’t cold, but it was thick with uncertainty—his, mostly. His knee bounced once. His fingers tapped the glass in his hand. You could feel the weight of his restraint like smoke in the room, curling into the corners of the furniture, slipping under your robe.
You took a small step forward, smoothing your hands down the front of your robe out of instinct rather than necessity, and offered him a gentle smile—nothing suggestive, just a flicker of softness to meet his discomfort.
“Okay,” you said, voice quieter now, almost tender. “It might be easier if you take your shirt off.”
Joel’s eyes snapped back to yours—not wide, not shocked, just hesitant. Cautious in a way that wasn’t rooted in modesty but something deeper, older, worn thin over time like denim at the knees.
Still, he nodded, slow and uncertain, and reached for the buttons of his flannel, hands broad and calloused, fingers stiff with age and overuse. They moved with that steady, familiar rhythm of a man who'd spent most of his life taking off shirts for work, not for anyone watching. The ache in his knuckles—probably arthritis—tugged at him with every movement, but he didn’t stop.
He just tried not to think about how long it had been since anyone had seen him like this—shirtless, stripped down, exposed in a way that wasn’t about survival. He tried not to wonder whether his body, changed by time and burden, would make you flinch. Whether the soft at his waist, the scars, the salt-and-pepper spread of hair across his chest would make you look away.
You turned away—not out of modesty, not to create distance, but to offer him something rare in this kind of space. The grace of privacy. The freedom to choose, or not choose.
Behind you, there was a quiet rustle—cloth shifting, boots scuffing gently against the floor, the faintest creak of the bed frame as his weight shifted.
“I’m ready,” Joel said at last, his voice low and gruff, the words shaped more like a sigh than a decision, like he was forcing them through clenched teeth.
You turned around slowly, hands folded softly in front of you, gaze lifting to meet him—and stilled for just a moment at the sight.
He was broader than Tommy. Thicker through the chest and shoulders, his body weathered with age and labor in a way that wasn’t unkind, just honest. The kind of build earned from years of carrying things—wood, gear, grief. His torso was lined with muscle that didn’t try to impress, but spoke of endurance, strength without vanity. Sparse hair dusted across his chest, silver threaded through dark, and a thin scar trailed down from his left shoulder toward his ribs, pale and healed and unspoken.
You cleared your throat gently, “You can lay on your tummy,” you murmured, voice soft, quiet.
He nodded once, eyes flicking away from yours, and with a heavy breath he lowered himself down, letting out a grunt as he adjusted his limbs, clearly not used to surrendering his body to anything but pain or sleep.
You dipped onto the bed beside him, the mattress dipping beneath your weight as you knelt beside his frame, your knees brushing the sheets. He was tense—every muscle held taut, like even now, he didn’t know how to truly let go.
You reached out carefully, hands warm and deliberate, and let your palms press gently against the slope of his shoulders. The moment your skin touched his, he flinched—not sharply, not out of fear, but with the quiet recoil of a man unused to kindness. Of someone who hadn’t been touched gently in years—not without urgency, not without purpose.
“That hurt?” you asked softly, letting your fingers still against his back, giving him space to answer.
“No,” he murmured, voice muffled against the pillow, gruff and strangely quiet. “It’s just—”
You waited. He didn’t finish.
So you started to move again, slow and careful, letting your hands glide over the broad expanse of his shoulders, down the rigid line of his spine, easing into the hard knots along his lower back. His skin was warm, rough in places, scarred in others, but beneath your fingers you felt something deeper—a kind of held breath, a body that had been bracing for too long.
And then—just there—just below his ribs, your thumbs pressed into a tight knot of muscle and he let out a sound. Low. Unintentional. Somewhere between a grunt and a breathless sigh, like the smallest piece of him had slipped loose without his permission.
You paused.
Not because he told you to, but because something in the room shifted—just slightly, but enough. The silence grew thicker, not with discomfort, but with heat. A different kind of tension settled beneath your palms, no longer just physical but charged.
You leaned forward, just barely—close enough that your breath warmed the curve of his neck. “That okay?” you asked, your voice low, velvet-soft.
He nodded, but didn’t speak.
So you let your hands drift lower. Slower. Testing. Exploring. And when your fingers grazed the waistband of his jeans, you felt him tense again—but not the same way. Not from pain. Not from unease.
From want.
A breath caught in his chest. His fingers curled in the sheets.
Still, he didn’t stop you.
You let your hands linger at the small of his back, then slowly, deliberately, splayed your palms across the wide stretch of his hips, fingertips grazing just beneath the worn hem of his jeans. The heat coming off him was no longer the warmth of skin—it was heavier now.
“Turn over,” you murmured, your voice barely more than breath, a suggestion wrapped in silk.
Joel hesitated—but only for a beat—before he shifted beneath your touch, his breath hitching slightly as he rolled onto his back, propping himself up on his elbows. His chest rose and fell with quiet tension, each breath like he was trying to steady something inside of him that had already tipped. His hair was mussed from the pillow, his ears flushed red, and he wouldn’t quite meet your gaze—his eyes somewhere near your shoulder, like he couldn’t decide if this was the moment he should speak or simply stay.
You looked at him—really looked—and it hit you with a kind of quiet intensity you hadn’t expected. Rugged. Shy. Ruined with restraint. For one suspended second, you felt your breath catch—your body going still with the weight of what you were about to admit.
“I’m not really a massage therapist,” you murmured, the truth threading from your lips like smoke, soft and unembellished.
Joel’s brow lifted slightly, a flicker of surprise ghosting across his features—but he didn’t flinch, didn’t yell, didn’t get up and storm out the way you thought he might. He didn’t raise his voice or accuse you or spit something cruel. He just sat there—this man you’d heard whispered about around town, the one with the sharp jaw and the sharp aim, the one who’d killed infected like it was nothing, like breathing—and he blushed. His ears pinked. His throat bobbed. And for a man who was supposed to be all grit and gravel and gunpowder, he suddenly looked so soft.
Your gaze dropped.
And there it was—undeniable, obscene even—his cock straining thick and swollen against the front of his jeans, the fabric doing a poor job of hiding just how wrecked he already was. You could see the wet spot where he’d already leaked through, dark and damp and desperate, the denim pulled tight across the aching outline of him like his body couldn’t help betraying how badly he wanted this. How badly he wanted you.
“Shit,” he muttered, voice low and cracked, almost pained, one hand dragging down his face like he could scrub the arousal off with enough pressure. “I’m… I’m sorry.”
The apology hit your chest like a bruise—small and self-conscious and entirely Joel. Like he couldn’t imagine that his desire was allowed, like he thought being this turned on was somehow shameful. Like he wasn’t sure if wanting made him pathetic.
It was so different from Tommy.
Tommy never apologized for being hard. He wore it like a joke, a badge, always ready with some cocky little line—“That one’s your fault, sweetheart”—as he adjusted himself without blinking. He got hard, you both laughed, he’d kiss your shoulder or slap your ass and go right back to whatever he was doing, comfortable in his skin, in his want, in the way he took up space.
You reached for him before that shame could bloom any further, your hand wrapping gently around his wrist—steadying him, grounding him—and you leaned in close, voice soft and sure and edged in something deeper.
“Don’t,” you whispered, letting your fingers slide slowly up his forearm. “Don’t apologize.”
Your gaze dropped again, drinking in the sight of him—his flushed neck, the way his thighs had tensed, how his cock twitched hard under your stare like it hurt to be untouched.
And then—without breaking eye contact—you sank slowly to your knees between his thighs, the sheets rustling beneath you as your robe slipped open just enough to reveal the tops of your breasts, the soft glow of your skin catching the light. Joel’s breath hitched sharply in his chest, and he didn’t move—didn’t lean in, didn’t pull away—he just watched, wide-eyed and stunned, like he couldn’t quite believe you were real, like he was afraid that moving might wake him up.
“That’s why I’m here,” you murmured, your voice low, velvet-smooth as your fingers glided up the inside of his thigh. You could feel the heat radiating off him now—thick, pulsing heat—and you swore his legs trembled just slightly under your touch, like his body had been starving for this, aching longer than he’d ever dared admit. “To take care of you.”
You reached for his belt then, undoing the worn leather with slow, reverent hands, letting the soft clink of the buckle echo in the stillness. He sucked in a breath at the sound alone, as though it unraveled something inside him.
Before you even freed him, you pressed your palm gently over the bulge in his jeans—and fuck, he twitched beneath your touch, cock rock-hard and leaking, the wet spot soaking through the denim where he’d already been dripping for you.
“Fuck,” he breathed, the word trembling out of him like he wasn’t even sure he was allowed to say it. “This—this ain’t right.”
You looked up at him from between his legs, your position deliberate, your eyes steady and warm. You didn’t flinch. You didn’t shy away. You just smiled softly, your voice velvet-wrapped and laced in heat. “Why not?”
Joel’s gaze dropped—first to your mouth, then to your hand still palmed over the thick, pulsing bulge in his jeans. His chest rose in quick, shallow breaths, like he was trying to breathe through wanting. “You’re—fuck—you’re a hooker?”
His voice cracked on the word, like it embarrassed him to say it out loud. Like it made him feel ashamed to be this turned on by someone he wasn’t supposed to deserve.
But you didn’t pull back.
You didn’t offer shame or explanations. You kept your hand right where it was—pressing gently against the thick, leaking shape of his cock—and leaned in, close enough that your breath warmed the sensitive skin of his thigh through the fabric.
“I’m here,” you whispered, slow and steady, “to make you feel good.”
Joel opened his mouth, ready to argue, to throw up some sad scrap of pride or guilt—but you didn’t let him.
You kissed him instead.
Right on the inside of his clothed knee, a soft, filthy little kiss that made him twitch beneath your palm. So gentle. So patient. So goddamn unfair to a man who hadn’t been touched like this in years.
“Stop thinking so much,” you murmured, your lips brushing against him again. “Let me take care of you.”
There was a pause. A long one. You could feel it pulse between you—hesitation, thick and tight, the kind that came from deep inside a man who hadn’t let himself need in a long time. The want was there, throbbing—pressed up against years of restraint, of pride, of silence. But then Joel looked down at you—eyes wide, pupils blown, a little wild with it—and he nodded. Once. Sharp. Like the motion hurt.
“Okay,” he said. Then, barely audible—“Please.”
God, his voice on that word—so wrecked, so raw—you could’ve come from the sound alone.
You smiled, slow and warm, something curling in your chest, deep and satisfied. “Good boy.”
The words slipped out before you even thought them through—instinctive, soft, teasing. But the moment they left your mouth, you saw it hit him. His jaw clenched, his chest stilled, his breath catching like you’d yanked the air right out of him.
His eyes flicked away immediately, like he wasn’t sure what just happened or why it made his cock twitch so hard it strained visibly against his jeans. But it did. And he felt it.
He was so different from Tommy.
Tommy never waited. Never asked. He’d grip your thighs, mutter something cocky like “Bet you’re already wet for me,” and be halfway inside before you could catch your breath. He took control like it was his birthright—rough palms, fast kisses, always in command.
“Let’s get these off, huh?” you said gently, already reaching for the button on his jeans, your fingers working with slow precision, deliberate and unhurried, like you were unwrapping something rare.
He didn’t stop you. He didn’t speak. He just sat there, chest bare, arms braced behind him, watching you with a look that was part surrender, part disbelief.
You pulled the denim down, inch by inch, and then his boxers—already damp with arousal—until both were gathered around his thighs.
And then his cock sprang free.
Fuck.
It slapped up toward his stomach with weight, flushed and hard and glistening at the tip, fat drops of pre-come already trailing down the shaft. Not as long as Tommy, no—but thicker, meatier, with veins you could trace with your tongue and a curve that made your cunt clench just looking at it. The kind of cock that filled you. That stretched you.
Your mouth watered.
And below it—God. His pubes were wild, a thick thatch of dark hair streaked with silver, coarse and completely untouched, like he hadn’t even thought to groom because he never imagined someone might want to see him like this. And that happy trail? Not neat. Not delicate. Just a messy line of hair leading down from his soft stomach to the base of his cock—feral, raw, real, like the rest of him. This wasn’t a man who prepped for pleasure. This was a man who had been surviving.
And still—he was so fucking hard for you.
Visibly twitching with every breath you took.
Your hand found his thigh first, the heat of him pulsing beneath your palm, solid and thick beneath your touch. You let your fingers trace the curve of his muscle, the hair there soft and coarse at once, and you felt the faintest tremble as you leaned in closer, your breath warming the head of his cock just enough to make him twitch.
“You’re so big, Joel,” you murmured, your voice slow, low, reverent, like you were saying it just for him and no one else. “You’re already dripping for me, baby,” you added with a little smile, dragging your thumb across the head—slow, teasing, making his hips jerk like he hadn’t even meant to move.
His breath caught, chest rising like he’d been hit, eyes locked on you in disbelief. “Christ,” he rasped, the word escaping him like it physically hurt to hold it in. His hand twitched where it braced against the bed, knuckles white, jaw tense, his eyes dragging over you like he was afraid to blink and miss anything.
Then, softly, sweetly—you tilted your head, lips just brushing the inside of his thigh.
“Do you want me to use my mouth?” you asked, the question falling from your lips like silk, delicate but charged, heavy with intention.
Joel opened his mouth. Closed it again. Swallowed hard.
“I—” he stammered, and then exhaled like it cost him something. “Shit… can I… can I see you first?”
The request was so gentle, so earnest, it cracked something inside you. There was no demand in it. No entitlement. Just the soft ache of a man who hadn’t been given softness in a long time, if ever. He wanted to see you. Not just touch, not just take—see. He wanted you to be real to him, wanted to remember how you looked in this moment, flushed and glowing and his, if only for now.
You couldn’t help but smile. “See me?” you echoed softly, lifting your eyes to meet his.
He nodded—barely—a small, shaky dip of his chin like anything more might shatter the moment. And when he spoke, his voice was rough, low, wrecked, caught between awe and the kind of ache that sat low in a man’s belly. “Yeah… if that’s okay,” he said. “I just—fuck. I wanna remember it.”
You straightened slowly, your breath soft and even, fingers slipping to the sash of your robe. The silk felt cool against your skin, a faint whisper as it slid beneath your touch. You untied it with quiet grace, letting the knot fall loose, the fabric parting to reveal the delicate lace beneath—your lingerie soft and sheer, clinging to you like second skin.
Joel’s eyes were on you now—truly on you—and the way he looked made your stomach flip. Not hungry. Not greedy. Just wide-eyed and reverent, like you were something holy he didn’t know how to touch without ruining.
You stepped closer.
His hands rose slowly, hesitantly, the way a starving man might reach for fruit he wasn’t sure he was allowed to touch. His fingers brushed your hips with the barest pressure—calloused and trembling, like even that much contact might be too much. His thumbs ghosted along your skin, just beneath the lace, pressing in gently like he needed proof that you were real and not some fevered hallucination his mind had conjured from loneliness and want.
“This okay?” he asked, voice rough but quiet, like it hurt to say aloud—like he was asking permission just to want you. His eyes lifted to yours, and they were so fucking open, something vulnerable flickering there, raw and unguarded, as if a single word from you might send him crumbling.
You nodded, slowly, letting your smile bloom soft and slow—something deeper than heat, something that said yes, I want this too.
Your fingers threaded into his hair—thick and unruly, streaked with silver at the temples—and the second your nails grazed his scalp, he broke. Not loudly. Not all at once. But in the way his breath hitched, in the way his knees seemed to go soft beneath him, in the way his entire body leaned into your touch like it was the first good thing he’d felt in years.
His shoulders dropped like a weight had slid off of them, like your hands alone were holding him upright. He didn’t move his own—just kept them resting on your hips, loose and trembling, like he was scared if he held tighter, you might pull away.
And when you tugged gently at the strands, he let out the softest, smallest sound—a whimper, barely there, but so raw it made your chest ache.
He tilted his head into your palm like he couldn’t help it. Like your touch was oxygen. Like he needed it more than he needed to come.
Like he’d been waiting for this—not just your body, but your hands, your care, your permission to be held—for far, far too long.
“You can take this off,” you murmured, your voice barely a whisper, lips brushing the shell of his ear as your fingers toyed with the straps of your lingerie. “If you want.”
He swallowed hard, his throat working visibly, his eyes flicking up to yours again—wide, hesitant, a little stunned.
“You sure?” he asked, and God—his voice when he said it, thick with that gravelly drawl and threaded with something so soft it made your chest ache. His eyes were almost pleading—puppy-dog eyes, sweet and unsure, hidden under all that gruff exterior. The kind of look that said he wanted it so badly he couldn’t bear it if you didn’t.
“Yeah,” you whispered, nodding as your teeth grazed your lower lip, voice as open and bare as the skin he hadn’t touched yet. “I want you to see me.”
His eyes stayed locked to yours, dark and wide and uncertain, but he nodded—just once, soft and small—his voice barely audible as he whispered, “Okay.”
You moved slowly, carefully, like the moment might break if you shifted too fast. Your knees sank into the bed, and you straddled him gently, your body folding around his like a promise, like something he wasn’t sure he deserved but couldn’t stop wanting. His cock—hard and flushed and waiting—pressed up against the thin fabric between your thighs, heat meeting heat, and you felt him twitch slightly, breath catching in that way that made you ache for him.
He was still so nervous, so unsure, like he didn’t know if he was allowed to want this, if you truly meant what you’d said—so you leaned in and kissed him, soft and slow, your mouth brushing against his like you were giving him time to change his mind.
He didn’t.
Joel kissed you back with a kind of desperation that nearly undid you—like he was starving for it, like every nerve in his body remembered what his mind had forced itself to forget. His lips were rough, a little clumsy, but so eager, so full of want it made your knees weak. His hands gripped your hips first—tight, tentative—but then one of them slid slowly up your back, the movement stiff and unpracticed.
You felt his fingers fumble at the clasp of your bra.
Slow. Awkward.
A clink. A pause.
Then another tug that clearly wasn’t going anywhere.
You smiled into the kiss, unable to help the way your lips curved gently against his. The affection in your chest bloomed too big to contain.
“Need a hand, baby?” you murmured, teasing soft and warm.
Joel froze.
Literally froze, like you’d just caught him red-handed doing something far more scandalous than trying to get your bra off.
He pulled back just enough to meet your eyes—cheeks flushed, lips kissed raw, brows furrowed in mortified concentration. His hand was still awkwardly stuck on the clasp like it might bite him.
“Shit—God, I’m sorry,” he said quickly, his voice hoarse, the shame already rising like a tide in his chest. “It’s just… I haven’t—fuck, it’s been a while. A long while.”
Your heart swelled. Not with pity—but with something softer. Deeper.
“It’s okay, Joel,” you whispered, your voice like balm, soft and steady. “You don’t have to be perfect.”
He huffed quietly, almost laughed—but it didn’t carry humor, just something strained and bruised, something that lived in the hollow of his chest. He shook his head, gaze dropping as he muttered, “I’m sure the other men you’re with…”
“Joel,” you said firmly, cutting him off before the sentence could reach its end, your voice soft but full of weight. You leaned in a little, pressing your forehead gently to his, forcing him to look at you, to feel how present you were. “I’m not thinking about anyone else right now but you. Okay?”
His breath shuddered out of him in response, his eyes closing like he was holding that truth against his ribs, trying to believe it. After a moment, he nodded, the smallest, quietest movement—just enough to say he heard you. Just enough to say okay.
You smiled at him then, slow and warm, and leaned back just slightly. “Now,” you murmured, fingers slipping behind your back with practiced ease, “let’s get this off.”
Your hands worked quickly, but not rushed—there was no shame in the movement, no hesitation, no apology. Just the quiet, practiced confidence of a woman who knew exactly how powerful she was. The clasp of your bra came undone with a soft snap, the straps sliding down your arms with sinful grace before the lace slipped away completely, falling to the floor like it had never deserved to touch your skin in the first place.
And then—you were bare.
Joel’s breath caught so violently in his chest he almost choked on it.
Your tits were fucking perfect. Full and high, soft but heavy, flushed with heat, nipples tight and begging to be sucked. Lit by the golden light filtering through the room, they looked practically edible—glistening, mouth-watering, obscene in how pretty they were. They swayed gently with every breath you took, right at his eye level as you sat astride him, so close he could’ve buried his face between them and died happy.
But he didn’t.
He just stared.
Wide-eyed, jaw slack, pupils blown so dark they nearly swallowed the color. Like he wasn’t sure whether to worship or drop to his knees. Like it was his first time seeing a naked woman and you were every fantasy he’d ever had—all of it—wrapped in silk, sweat, and sin.
And fuck, the way he looked at you?
It made you wet. Soaking. Aching.
Because his gaze wasn’t greedy. It was wrecked. Full of awe. Full of reverence, like you were something holy and he was already praying.
His tongue flicked out, instinctive, desperate—wetting his lips like he could taste you just from looking.
And finally—hoarse, broken, like it physically hurt to say it—he murmured, “You’re… beautiful.”
You smiled at him then, your hands still resting gently at the back of his head, your fingers idly curling through the hair at the nape of his neck. “You’re handsome,” you said, and meant it—because even flustered, even blushing, even sitting there with guilt in his eyes and wonder on his face, Joel was beautiful. In a way he didn’t know how to carry. In a way you ached to show him.
He shook his head a little at that, bashful, like the compliment didn’t belong to him, like he didn’t know where to put it.
You leaned in slightly, shifting your weight just enough to press your chest a little closer to him, your breasts soft and warm in the space between you, your skin nearly touching his. “You can touch them,” you whispered, your voice low, your lips brushing against the shell of his ear as your breath shivered across it. “I like when people use their mouth.”
Your fingers slipped deeper into his hair, gently tugging at the roots, anchoring him in the moment, steadying him against the flood rising between you.
“Whatever you wanna do,” you whispered. “It’s yours.”
His breath shuddered in response—just a single exhale—but it sounded wrecked, like you’d just undone something in him that had been locked tight for years.
His hands rose slowly, big and broad and calloused, shaking just slightly as he brought them to your chest. And when he finally cupped your tits—gently, reverently, like they might melt in his palms—you swore you saw his lips part in pure awe.
His thumbs brushed over your nipples—light, tentative—and his gaze flicked up to meet yours, wrecked and open and begging for approval.
You nodded.
And he leaned in.
Your fingers tangled tighter in his hair as his mouth closed around your nipple, warm and wet and so gentle at first, like he was still afraid he might do it wrong. But the moment he sucked—just a little, just enough to pull a quiet gasp from your lips—you whimpered, the sound leaving you before you could stop it, breathy and broken and so full of want it made his cock twitch against the inside of your thigh.
He froze for just a heartbeat, pulling back only slightly to glance up at you, lips still parted, a little swollen now, his eyes dark with something soft and searching.
“Am I…” he paused, his voice rough and low, so unsure, like the words tasted foreign in his mouth. “Am I doing good?”
God. God.
Your chest rose with the breath you sucked in, your eyes already glossed with it, your lip caught between your teeth as you nodded—hard, fast, desperate for him to understand just how much he was ruining you.
“You’re doing so good, baby,” you whispered, voice trembling, your hips already rocking forward, chasing friction. “Fuck, Joel… you’re making me feel so good.”
His eyes widened slightly at the praise, his breath catching in his throat, like he didn’t know how to carry those words—but needed to.
You cupped his face then, pulled him back to your chest, your thighs squeezing tighter around him as his hands cradled your hips and his mouth returned to your breast with more purpose now, more hunger.
He moaned against your skin, low and desperate, sucking softly, his tongue flicking over your nipple just to hear the way your breath stuttered.
“Shit,” you breathed, voice barely holding together, your body already flushed and trembling from the way he touched you like you were something precious, something sacred he didn’t know how to handle but wanted to try.
You pulled back just enough to look him in the eye, your thumb brushing gently over his flushed cheek, your chest still rising fast from the weight of his mouth. “Lie down,” you murmured, the command soft but firm, wrapped in something far more tender than dominance. “Get comfortable.”
Joel obeyed without a word, shifting beneath you with a quiet grunt as his back met the sheets, but his eyes—God, his eyes—never left you. They dragged down your body like a prayer, following the way your hands slipped beneath the waistband of your panties, tugging them down slowly, baring yourself to him inch by inch until there was nothing left between you. His breath hitched audibly when he saw you, the heat of your pussy glistening in the low light, your thighs already slick with want, your confidence quiet but undeniable.
You crawled back onto the bed, slow and deliberate, your knees parting as you straddled his thighs again, his cock thick and flushed and waiting, twitching slightly where it rested against his stomach. Your breasts—red and swollen and slick from his mouth—bounced gently with each movement, catching the light like they’d been made for him.
And then—just as you were about to reach for him again—Joel sat up.
“Wait,” he said, voice low and rough, and a little breathless.
You stilled, your hands settling on his chest, your brows lifting slightly. “Yeah?” you murmured, brushing your thumb along the curve of his shoulder.
He looked at you—so shy, so unsure, like a man who didn’t know if he was allowed to ask. His cheeks were flushed, his lashes low, his voice softer now than you’d ever heard it.
“Can I…” he hesitated, swallowed. “I don’t think I’ll last long if you—if you use your mouth. Can I just—can I be inside you?”
You smiled, “Of course you can,” you whispered against his mouth, your lips brushing his with a sweetness that made him sigh into you, the sound barely audible but heavy with relief, like the permission alone had eased something he’d been holding for far too long. “I want you to.”
But before he could move—before he could even think—you reached down, your hand slipping between your bodies, finding his and lacing your fingers together. Gently, deliberately, you guided his hand downward, slower than necessary, not for hesitation but for effect—for connection—until his fingers rested at the slick heat of your entrance.
“Here,” you said, voice breathy, your eyes locked to his. “Feel.”
Joel’s eyes snapped to yours, wide and glassy, full of disbelief, like he hadn’t expected you to give him this, too. His throat worked around a hard swallow, the tips of his fingers twitching against the soaked warmth of your cunt, already glistening for him.
“For me?” he asked, the words almost reverent.
You nodded, biting your lip, your breath hitching as his fingertip brushed just barely against your entrance. “For you,” you whispered, your voice trembling with heat. “I’m so wet, Joel. For you.”
He made a soft, broken sound in the back of his throat—part groan, part plea—and you could feel how badly he wanted this, how hard he was fighting to hold on to whatever control he still had.
“I—” he started, and then sighed, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “Shit. My back’s bad. And my knees—”
You smiled, warm and teasing, as you leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, your voice turning playful as you reached for his cock and lined him up against your soaked entrance. “Gonna make me do all the work, huh?” you teased, your hips already rolling slightly, letting the thick head of him slip just barely into your folds.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, flustered, completely undone now, blinking up at you like you’d just caught him stealing something precious.
“I’m joking, Joel,” you said with a breathless laugh, your fingers slipping into his hair, your lips brushing his as you began to sink down slowly, inch by inch, the stretch burning in the most perfect way. “Relax. Let me bounce on your cock.”
Joel exhaled like he’d been punched in the chest, his hands gripping your hips instinctively, not to control—but to anchor. His eyes were locked on yours, wide and dark and filled with something that looked dangerously close to awe.
And then you sank down—fully—his cock stretching you wide, thick and throbbing and buried so deep it felt like you couldn’t possibly take more.
Your cunt clenched tight around him, soaked and fluttering with every inch he filled, your thighs trembling from the fullness. You held still, just for a moment—breathing with him, grounding yourself—as your body adjusted to the sweet, overwhelming ache of having all of him inside you.
And Joel?
He fucking unraveled.
His head tipped back against the pillow, jaw slack, throat arched, eyes squeezed shut as he let out the most broken, shaky moan you'd ever heard tear from his chest.
“F-fuck—oh my God,” he gasped, the words tumbling out of him like they weren’t meant to be said out loud. “Fuck—sweetheart—I—I can’t—”
His hands gripped your hips like he didn’t know what to do with them—torn between holding you down and worshipping you. His whole body trembled beneath you, his thighs tight, chest rising in frantic, ragged bursts like he was trying not to cry.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathed again, voice high and wrecked, cracking under the weight of it all—awe, hunger, helpless fucking need. “You’re—fuck—you’re so tight—so warm—I can’t—fuck, baby, I can’t—”
He looked up at you like you were about to ruin him—eyes wide and glossy, mouth open, chest rising fast.
“Please,” he whimpered, voice shaking so badly you felt it in your cunt. “Don’t—don’t move yet. I—I need a second.”
You nodded gently, cradling his face, letting him breathe through it—letting his cock throb deep inside you as your walls fluttered around him, gripping like a fucking vice.
But when he finally exhaled, when the tension in his shoulders dropped just enough—you moved.
A slow, teasing grind of your hips. One long, drawn-out rock that pressed your clit right against the base of his cock, dragging every inch of him against the softest, tightest parts of you.
Joel gasped.
His eyes slammed shut, his fingers digging into your hips like he didn’t know whether to pull you down or beg you to stop.
“You okay, baby?” you whispered, lips brushing his cheek.
He nodded—too fast, too desperate—his head barely bobbing before he choked out, “Yeah, just—fuck, slow down—please. I ain’t gonna last long if you—”
You leaned in, pressing your forehead to his, anchoring him in the heat between your bodies, and whispered against his lips, “That’s okay. You don’t have to last long, Joel.”
Another grind. Wetter this time.
His breath hitched violently.
“Just let me make you feel good.”
And then you rolled your hips again—slower this time, deeper—and his hands shook on your skin, his whole body going tight beneath you as he gasped and swore again, his voice barely holding together.
“Goddamn,” he groaned, one hand slipping up to your waist, fingers trembling, the other rising to your chest like he couldn’t help it. You guided him, curling his hand around your breast, moaning as his thumb grazed your nipple.
“Touch me, Joel,” you whispered. “Just like that. You’re doing so good.”
And he was—his cock throbbing inside you, his mouth open, eyes wide and overwhelmed, his voice breaking as he tried to keep himself from losing it. But your pussy was gripping him so tight, soaking and pulsing and grinding down with every slow, filthy roll of your hips—and he was ruined.
“Shit—darlin, please—I can’t—” Joel gasped beneath you, voice catching as his fingers dug into your hips, trying desperately to still you, to slow you down, to regain any control over the way your body was grinding down onto his, slick and hot and perfect around him. His head fell back against the pillow, his chest heaving, eyes squeezed shut like he was holding on by a thread.
But you didn’t stop.
You moved faster now, hips rolling deep and steady, your thighs trembling from the pace, your cunt clenching around him with every thrust. Joel’s hands flew to your waist, gripping you hard, like he could physically slow you down—but even as his fingers dug into your skin, his hips bucked up to meet you, chasing your rhythm like his body had stopped listening to him.
“Darlin’,” he gasped, voice fraying, wrecked, “you gotta stop—I’m serious—fuck, you gotta slow down or I’m gonna—”
But you didn’t stop.
You moved harder.
And Joel’s breath hitched, eyes wide, mouth open like he was trying to warn you and couldn’t remember how.
“Shit—shit,—stop movin’—I can’t—I’m not gonna hold it—fuck, I’m gonna come—you’re gonna make me come.”
His voice cracked on the last word, his grip trembling as he tried to slow you, tried to guide you off him—but his cock twitched violently inside you, and his hips snapped up in betrayal, chasing that edge like he couldn’t help it.
And then he broke.
With a sharp, shuddering gasp, his whole body arched beneath you, thighs shaking, eyes squeezing shut as he came hard, release spilling into you in thick, pulsing waves. His hands clamped down on your hips, not to stop you anymore—but to hold on, to anchor himself as the pleasure tore through him, brutal and sudden.
His jaw clenched, breath catching in his throat as he moaned low and hoarse, like he was in pain from how good it was.
You gasped softly at the warmth spreading inside you, the way his cock twitched with every pulse of it, the way he moaned your name—broken, wrecked—like a prayer against your collarbone, his breath shuddering as it spilled from him.
And then—he pulled you in.
His arms wrapped tight around your waist, dragging you down against his chest, like he needed you closer, needed to be grounded in the heat of your skin. His face buried in your neck, breath ragged, hot and frantic, his whole body still trembling with the aftershocks. He held onto you like he thought he might float away if he didn’t—fingers digging into your back, too tight, too desperate.
You didn’t move.
You just stroked your fingers slowly through his hair, soft and patient, cradling the back of his head like he was something fragile, like you were holding a man coming undone quietly in your arms.
And Joel? He didn’t even lift his head.
He couldn’t.
His chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven waves, his cock still buried inside you, twitching with sensitivity, every part of him too much—too raw, too fast, too gone. He pressed his face deeper into the curve of your neck, like maybe if he hid long enough, you wouldn’t see how red his cheeks were.
“Fuck,” he rasped finally, voice hoarse, choked, mortified. “I—shit. I’m so sorry.”
The words were slurred, mumbled into your skin, thick with shame, like they physically hurt to say.
“I didn’t mean to… I mean, I wasn’t trying to—fuck, I didn’t think I’d—”
He cut himself off, groaning in frustration, still unable to look at you. Like he was bracing for disappointment. Like you were gonna laugh. Like he’d failed some unspoken test.
“I didn’t mean to come that fast,” he whispered. “That’s… not how I wanted to do this.”
“Shh,” you whispered softly, stroking his hair a little slower now, your touch more comfort than seduction. “You don’t have to be sorry, Joel.”
You pulled back just enough to look at him, brushing his sweat-dampened hair from his forehead, your gaze tender, reverent. “You did so good for me,” you murmured, kissing the corner of his mouth, your voice a hush of affection. “Made me feel so good. So warm.”
His eyes fluttered open, glassy and unsure, and when he looked at you—really looked—he almost broke again.
“Look at me,” you whispered, thumb brushing his cheek. “Please.”
And when he did, you kissed him—slow, deep, soft enough to make him sigh against your lips. His mouth opened to you like instinct, and he almost whimpered into it, the sound desperate and sweet, like his heart was leaking out through the press of your mouths. He held onto you tighter then, arms curling around your waist, pulling you down against him like he didn’t want any space left between your bodies.
He didn’t say anything for a long moment.
He just breathed.
Held.
Tried to remember what it felt like to be this close to another person without losing something.
And then—so quietly you almost missed it—he whispered, “I don’t wanna go.”
The words cracked something in you. Not lust. Not even longing. Just something bare and soft and aching.
You kissed his jaw, then his cheek, then the corner of his mouth, and whispered back, “Then don’t.”
And he didn’t.
He stayed.
Wrapped around you, still trembling, still catching his breath, holding you like you were the only safe place left in the world.
˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖
TY FOR READIN - LET ME KNOW UR THOUGHTS IN THE COMMENTS !!!!
are certain lubes better suited for vaginal or anal sex? or are they all the same?
hi anon,
water-based, oil-based, and silicone-based lube are all suitable for either vaginal or anal sex. many people prefer silicone-based lubricants for anal sex because it's so long-lasting and durable, which is helpful when you're working with an orifice that won't naturally lubricate itself. oil-based lubricants are also a no-go with latex condoms, which is relevant for both vaginal and anal sex. beyond that it's all a matter of personal preference!
thank you dildo-smith Matt for chiming in, and while we're at it let's actually just go through the whole tl;dr pros/cons of the different families of lube!
water-based:
pros: easy to wash off/clean up, safe for use with any toy material.
cons: dries up quick and needs to be replenished often during sex.
silicone-based:
pros: long last. extremely long lasting.
cons: can be a pain in the ass to clean up, and not good for silicone toys as noted above.
oil-based:
pros: long-lasting, and often the best choice for folks with allergies/sensitive skin triggered by other lubricants.
#literally not into sex in the slightest but i feel this information is important enough for a reblog
I really appreciate when people share info even when it's not relevant to them personally! you never know who might be following you who will really benefit from seeing it :)
ID: Reply from @/moth-the-man: Add-On that if you're using silicone toys, do NOT use a silicone lubricant and if you do be sure to very thoroughly and immediately wash the toy after use, or it can cause curing issues and otherwise make that toy unsafe for future use! /End ID
I always say "draw for yourself" because if the primary need is attention, and art is only a way to achieve it, you're gonna struggle like a mf with something that you're not that interested in. People see artists with a following and go "I want that too" not realizing they want the community, not the particular skill that person has. You're saving so much time and frustration by asking yourself why you're doing what you do, and would you still do it if you were alone. How could you get the attention you want in a way that suits you better?
You thought about it and the answer is I fucking love making art? Then YES community feels amazing, and I hope you meet like minded people to share with. It feels amazing when someone gets it.
And please engage with the artists you like. I know y'all have social anxiety, but artists are not uptight out of reach people, we're a bunch of nerds who will have a good day if you give them a compliment or like their jokes. You might make friends!
Isn't it weird and funny and happy that being a monsterlover genuinely makes me happier
Like its been there ever since I was Kiddo and I thought I was alone and weird for liking monsters and wanting them to steal me and kiss me
And then. Whao. Turns out a lot of people like that too and they like the thoughts that I have!!! I thought I was weirdo no one would understand!!!! Ahh!!!
I think. Only people on tumblr would undwratand how important this is like actually 🥲