Mostly JDM related, with a dash of other favourites

Side blog/writing only - @integra1127grimmreaper (James - Female,35)

[integra1127grimmreaper]

MASTERLISTS

💦 - SMUT

🎆 - IMPLIED SMUT

💞 - FLUFF

💔 - ANGST

⌛ - COMPLETED

⏳ - ONGOING

MAGIC CITY - IKE EVANS

THE WALKING DEAD - NEGAN

THE LOSERS - Lt. Col. FRANKLIN CLAY 

THE RESIDENT - Max

SUPERNATURAL - John Winchester

WATCHMEN - EDDIE BLAKE/THE COMEDIAN

JDM CHARACTER ONE SHOTS & SHORT STORIES

JDM CHARACTER REQUESTS

HIS WARRIOR PRINCESS 💞💦💔⏳

Javi Gutierrez

Joel Miller

Dave York

Marcus Acacius

[integra1127grimmreaper]

Psycho Lady Colonel - Clay's Family - Part seven

Clay Masterlist

1st Series Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Part 6

Warning: fluff, mention of smut

The chaos had ended and once Pooch had collected everyone safe and sound, it was decided by Clay; that you needed rest before making the trip home. "There's no need, Clay...", you protest at first when going to a safehouse was mentioned but you get outvoted by everyone instantly. "I think that it's a good idea-", Jensen groans, still holding onto his head, ''my head kinda hurts-''

"Oh, c'mon... she didn't even hit that hard", you remark with an eye roll, causing both Pooch and Cougar to snicker. Pooch's face turns serious then, "Clay's right. You're super pregnant and just went through a shitstorm. You need to be checked over." Cougar nods in silent agreement. Jensen butts in then, "you'll love the place we picked out! It's amazing what money can buy!" "My money, you mean...", you muttered, giving him a teasing side-eye. That triggers Jensen's overdramatic side, "why didn't you tell us about you owning a security company...!" "I was planning to-", you let out a tired sigh, turning to Clay with a pleading stare, "are we there yet...?'' Flashing you a dimpled smirk, Clay tucks you closer into his side; placing a kiss against your temple, "almost, baby."

"I don't need to be seen over by a doctor-", you protest once again, settling onto the bed with a heavy sigh. "I'm perfectly fine, Clay." "You were held captive for months", an unimpressed Clay points out. "The prick made sure I was taken good care of-'', you rebut. "You were part of a gun fight. While pregnant", he presses further. "I survived. Baby's fine, kicking up a storm right now as a matter of fact", you remark nonchalantly. Noticing Clay's features changes to one of interest then, "do you want to feel?", you offer. With caution steps, a wide-eyed Clay takes a seat next to you. His hand slightly trembles as he reaches out to touch your stomach. Instantly recognizing his father's touch, the baby delivers the most powerful kicks ever before. "Whoa-", Clay head snaps up at you in wonder, then right back down to your stomach as your son continues to kick against his father's palm. "That's our son...?", Clay whispers in astonishment yet again at feeling the baby's movements. "That's him", you smile, placing your hand over his, "he's gotten used to you already." "I've already missed out on so much-", a teary-eyed Clay stares up at you. Reaching up to cup his face, you gently wipe at the silent tears, "it wasn't your fault." "I shouldn't have left you alone inside the club-", Clay argues, "should have found you sooner-" "It was out of our control", you attempt to make him see reason. Clay shakes his head in silent denial, "listen to me-", you grab hold of face to concentrate, "if anyone is to blame for what happened, it's Max." "I could have prevented it, could have-" "No, you couldn't", you interrupt him. "None of us knew what was coming. Max's plans in the club, nor Aisha's betrayal. It wasn't your fault, Clay. None of it." "I missed out on most of your pregnancy-", a dejected Clay remarks. "Not by choice", you point out, "you found us and there's still enough time for you to be a part of it." "Still doesn't take away the guilt-", Clay responds. "I'm not saying it should. I'm saying; that it's ok to move on. To bury the past and think of the future'', you press Clay's palm more firmly onto your stomach, "our future... with our son." Remaining silent, deep in thought for a bit, Clay finally nodded in agreement. "Everything good now?", you gently enquire. Inhaling deeply and then exhaling, a faint smile crosses Clay's face, "Not entirely... but we'll get there." "Good", you smile in return, breaking the somber mood then, "because your son's hungry and I really could do with a shower." Letting out a soft chuckle, Clay reaches out to press a gentle kiss to your forehead. "Let's get you both fed and then showered..."

Clay and you sat silently on the bed, eating takeout as expected because the guys couldn't cook for shit. "Ready for that shower...?", Clay asks once you were done eating. You hum tiredly in response. With a faint smile, he reaches out a hand for you to take and silently leads you to the bathroom. You leaned against the bathroom counter, silently admiring Clay from behind as he prepared the shower for you. "What...?", he arches a brow at you when noticing you staring as he turned around.   Tilting your head to the side, you smile at him, "just missed you..." A smile breaks across Clay's face as he walks toward you and reaches out to cup your cheek, "I missed you too, baby..." He tips down to place a kiss to your lips, "c'mon... showers ready.'' The interaction between the two of you continues in silence as Clay gently removes your clothing and his own, then leads you into the shower. Stepping under the water; you exhale in relief as the hot water hit your skin and with it, the stress and exhaustion of the months being in captivity and the events of earlier seemed to melt away. Reaching out for the shampoo, Clay steps up closer behind you, "let me take care of you." Silently nodding in agreement and shutting your eyes, you surrender to his touch as he gently washed your hair. Once done with that, Clay continues on with washing your body. A loud moan escapes your lips when he applies pressure to your shoulders while washing your back, the effect of it hitting Clay straight in the cock, yet he does his best to rein it in. You were exhausted from everything you had gone through, and he wasn't about to let his lust overtake better judgement, especially with you being pregnant. Pushing those thoughts aside, he gently turns you around to wash your front. Crouching down to start at your legs and slowly making his way up, taking extra care of your pregnant stomach, when reaching your breast; Clay makes the mistake of making eye contact with you. "Don't look at me like that-", Clay groans out in warning. "Like what...?", you smirk innocently at him. "Like you want me to fuck you-", Clay growls out, gently backing you up against the shower wall, caging you in with his body. With a huge grin plastered on your face, you reach out to slowly trail your fingertips across his chest, "maybe, that's exactly what I want..." Grabbing hold of your hand, Clay rests his forehead against your own, "Y/N-" "Please, Clay...", you plead, innocently blinking up at him. "Ok-", Clay groans out in defeat, "but we're not doing it here... can't risk you slipping and falling." You flash him a victory grin. His gaze narrows at you in warning then, "and we're going to go slow." Your head snaps in a quick nod of agreement. Clay shakes his own, letting out an amused snort, "C'mon. Let's finish up and then you'll get what you want..."

The house was silent, the type of silence that came with the knowledge that everything and everyone was safe and at peace. Clay and you were lying in bed after a much-needed reunion within the sheets. Everything seemed perfect, as if the time spent apart had never existed, as if your lives had not been at risks mere hours ago. At least that was what you would like to believe, yet something felt off.  Neither of you were asleep, both silently staring at the bedroom ceiling, wrapped tightly in each other's arms. Both felt as if there was still something left unsaid. The topic is finally breached. "Marry me?", Clay suddenly remarks. "What-?", you break from his embrace; surprised, "you don't have too just because I'm pregnant.'' "I'm not", Clay shakes his head in reassurance, "it's because of Pooch..." You tilt your head in confusion, "Pooch made you want to marry me...?"   "No-", Clay chuckles when realizing his wording. "It's what he said to me when we were searching for you.'' "What did he say...?", you curiously sit up straighter. "A lot of things", Clay responds, sitting up as well and reaching out to move the hair from your face, tucking it behind your ear gently. "Basically, made me come to the realization that I love you with all my heart. That I fell in love with you on our first night together. That I'll always love you and that I want to spend the rest of my life with you, as my wife. And that was before I found out that you were pregnant." You silently study him as the words sink in, finally speaking up, "OK." "OK; you understand what I'm saying?", an uncertain Clay stares at you anxiously, "or, OK; you'll marry me...?" You burst out laughing at his reaction, grabby hold of face with both hands and lightly shaking his head. "Both, you dumbass-" Clay's lips spread into a goofy smirk, "well, you're marrying this dumbass...'' "That I am...", you snicker in response. "Having my baby too...", the smirk turns into a full-on toothy grin as he rests his forehead against yours. You nudge his nose with your own with a breathless whisper, "that too-" "I love you", Clay breathes out, his lips mere inches from yours as you lovingly stare into each other's eyes. "I love you too...", you respond, sealing it by pressing your lips against Clay's in a deep kiss.

[integra1127grimmreaper]

Psycho Lady Colonel - Clay's Family - Part six

Clay Masterlist

1st Series Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Part 5

Warning: swearing, violence, gunfire and death.

"Everyone on point?", Clay radios in, anxiously scanning the surrounding on his way to the place of meeting.

"The Pooch is ready to roll."

"On point", Cougar responds.

"Godfather one is waiting for delivery...", Jensen, ever the jokester comes through to brick the ice.

Clay shakes his head in faint amusement at it, a frown crossing his face when a fourth response doesn't immediately come through. "Aisha? Come in?"

A few moments pass before she finally responds, "present."

Clay's danger awareness comes through even stronger at this, radioing back "baby steps."

Pooch, knowing after what Clay had warned of in private earlier, recognizes the code. ''Be wary of her.'' He sends Cougar a quick text to keep a close eye on her from his position.

"Alright baby boy, we have to get to daddy before the bad guys...", you calmly remark, rubbing your belly and carefully heading for the exit. The floor you were being held on was empty and you found it quite comically that Max thought being pregnant would stop you from escaping. "Fucking idiot", you softly snicker, cautiously taking the steps one floor at a time.

"Did they really have to choose the building with three floors...?", you softly pant, learning against the last exit door. "What is it with this guy with warehouses and shipping ports...?", your son gives a hard kick in response. "Even though it's where your dad and I first began, I'm truly developing a hatred for them", you remark, rubbing more firmly at the spot he was kicking to calm him.

"Showtime baby boy...", you exhale heavily as he calmed down, busting through the last door and catching Max's henchmen off-guard before all hell broke out.

"Ah, Clay! Lovely to see ya!", Max smiles brightly, spreading his arms out in welcoming.

"That's Colonel...", Clay grunts, staring him down with a death stare.

"Right, right-", Max softly chuckles, glaring back at him, "you reminded me of that right before shooting me last time..."

"Shoulda shot you in the head-", Clay grits out, looking over Max and his henchmen, "where's the Colonel-?"

"Oh, she's inside...", Max points nonchalantly behind him, "nice and safe... busy incubating my son."

"Your what!?", Clay steps forward with a growl.

"Hold up there now, cowboy...", Max stops him with a warning, smiling then. "The idea suddenly hit me...!", he motioned with an explosive gesture at his head, "why not adopt the boy as my own? A ready-made heir to take over once I'm gone..."

"Stay the fuck away from my son!", Clay yells out at him.

"Well, he's going to need someone to raise him once he becomes an orphan...", Max shrugs in amusement.

"The fuck that supposed to mean!?", Clay growls out.

"It's the end of the road for you, Clay...", Max smirks signally to his men.

Guns raised to fire, they're disrupted by the sounds of gunfire coming from inside the building behind them.

"What the fuck's going on!?", Max yells out as his henchmen stood in confusion as to what to do while being fired upon by The Loser and gunfire sounding from the building. "She's escaping!", he yells in warning as two of them cover him.

Storming through Max's henchmen was a breeze, clearly they were ordered not to harm you in any way; none of them even so much as attempting to draw a gun on you. They attempt to subdue by hand instead, mistaking your pregnancy as weakness as they charge at you one by one and you, not having time nor luxury to waste; you gun everyone of them down without thinking twice.

Arriving at the building exit, you're greeted by more chaos. Max's men were falling one after the other, clearly Cougar's handy work and you were grateful for it when seeing Clay in the middle of it all.

Hearing the gun shots from inside, Clay doesn't hesitate as he fires upon Max at the exact moment Cougar does. As Max's men began to fall and the path to the building cleared, Clay noticed movement then.

"Jensen!", Clay yells over coms, "front door, now!"

A few of Max's henchmen notice you at that very moment as well and just you were about to fire upon them when they suddenly began to fall with the sound of gun shots as well.

Turning to the source, you're greeted by a goofy grinning Jensen. "Howdy, Colonel..."

"Jensen- thank fuck", you sigh out in relief, grabbing him into a tight hug.

Your son decides to kick at that very moment then, "whoa-", Jensen steps back in surprise.

"He's excited to meet his favorite uncle", you softly chuckle.

"We can play later Clay, Jr.-", Jensen gently pats your stomach, "right now, I gotta get you and your mama out of here."

"Clay-", you protest in concern for him.

"Aisha and Cougar have him covered", Jensen assures but you're not truly convinced.

"That's what I'm afraid of-", you remark.

"Cougar would never-", Jensen rebuts in disbelief of your words.

I know that. It's Aisha, I don't trust.''

"What-?", Jensen stares at you, confused. "She's one of us."

"Is she really?", you argue, "the entire alliance was based on a lie. She was after Max over her father's death, then found out Clay was the one that actually killed him.'' Realization hits Jensen then. "Haven't you found something odd about all of this? My abduction? Why, it took so long to find me?"

"She has been acting odd", Jensen remarks deep in thought, you interrupt it.

"She's out for revenge on both of them for her father's death. Regardless of her previous relationship with Clay, she plans to kill him too. She told me so herself."

Jensen's eyes widen, "oh, no-''

"Two birds, one stone-", you nod at him, both your gazes snapping to the direction of Clay as he held Max at gunpoint after all the henchmen had fallen. The both of you are too distracted to notice the company approaching from behind, not until Jensen drops out cold to the ground from a blow to the back of the head.

"Jensen!", you attempt to assist him but someone grabs you in a chokehold from behind.

"Don't fucking kill her...!", a familiar voice hisses out at your captor when his hold tightens as you attempt to fight against it.

"You!", you glare at Aisha as she steps forward.

"I'm sorry it had to come to this-", she gives a tight-lipped smile, "unfortunately, you're Clay's biggest weakness and only means of distraction."

"Don't you dare!!!'", you growl, attempting to break the chokehold and go for her.

"I told you not to hurt her!", Aisha scolds when you start gasping for air as the hold tightens, "she's pregnant for God's sake."

End of the road for you, Max...'', Clay smirks at him over the barrel of the gun once all the henchmen had fallen and he now stood alone.

Seeming frightened at first, Max sneaks a peek over his shoulders; a broad smile spreads when seeing the scene at the building entrance. "I wouldn't be so sure of that..."

A scowl crosses Clay's face at Max's words, the smirk wiped instantly when seeing what had happened.

Your warning about Aisha had proven to be true; Jensen was laid out at the building entrance and you were being forcibly led towards them by Max's right hand man, Roman, while a stoic looking Aisha slowly trailed behind.

"You traitorous bitch...!", Clay growls, attempting to take a step toward you but Roman stops him by squeezing at your throat.

"Roman!", Max addresses him in warning, "my son's inside there!"

"He's not your fucking son!", you hiss out while attempting to break from Roman's grip.

"Thanks for reminding me-", Max grins, stepping up to Clay and nonchalantly taking the gun from his hand.

"Why?", Clay addresses Aisha.

"I told you, we had unfinished business", Aisha shrugs with a faint smirk, ''two birds, one stone-". A gun shot rings out and Max suddenly drops to the floor. "He truly thought I was working with him-", she coldly smiles, "it was part of the plan, to get you both together in one location."

Clay doesn't respond, merely glares in Roman's direction. "Oh, he works for me now", Aisha answers the unspoken question. "That solo trip was useful. Money buys everything and Max had less after losing the drive."

Clay's gaze drops to you then, a look of love and regret in his eyes, "so, this is it...?"

"Aisha!", you cry out in protest, cradling your stomach to appeal to her, "are you really going to take my son's father away from him!?" Doubt flickers in her eyes for a second while gazing at your stomach and you capitalize on it, "he deserves to know and have his father. Are you really going to take that away from him?"

"He took my father from me!", Aisha cries out, pointing the gun in Clay's direction, "he deserves to die for it!"

"We both know, who's truly responsible for your father's death...", you remind her as your gaze drops to Max's body.

"He killed my father!", Aisha protests, continuing to wave the gun at Clay, "he shot him! He took him away from me!"

"Clay pulled the trigger'', you agree, "but do you know why?" Tears well up in her eyes as she shakes her head in silent denial, but you continue to push forward. "He was using children as drug mules, Aisha. Children."

"Shut up!", Aisha yells out, moving the gun onto you.

"Aisha!", Clay finally speaks up, "don't! Point the gun on me-  Not on her! I'm the one you want dead."

Her attention and the gun is directed back to Clay then and you push yet again to distract her, "children, Aisha! Children!"

"Y/N! Stop it!", Clay yells at you when Aisha's attention goes back toward you. "Please, don't hurt her-", he pleads with her.

"No, Clay!", you protest loudly, "if she's taking you from me and our son, then she should know the truth about why!" You stare Aisha dead in the eye, "your father wasn't a good man."

"It doesn't matter- ", Aisha grits out as her grip on the gun tightens.

"Well, it should", you retort, "especially when he was holding a gun to a little boy's head when Clay came across him. He might have been a good father to you, but he was not a good person."

"He was still my father!", Aisha cries out in defense.

"He was a criminal and a coward!", you yell back at "and so will you be if you do this."

"Well, if that's what you think, then maybe I should kill you instead...", she snarls out, "killing the person he loves instead would be a greater punishment than killing him. Your son won't grow up without a father then."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

"Aisha, I'm begging you-", Clay breaks down. "Don't harm her or my son- if you want revenge, then take it out on me. I'm the one you want dead- not them."

"Told you, you were his biggest weakness...", Aisha flashes you a triumphant smirk, "let's end this-" she suddenly halts when a gut-wrenching scream emits from you. Clay and Aisha both turn to find you doubled over, clutching your stomach in agony as Roman takes a panicked step away from you, giving the perfect opening as rifle shots suddenly rings out of nowhere.

Roman falls dead mere feet behind as you instinctively drop to the ground and protect your stomach. Clay dives to cover you, as Aisha attempts to pinpoint the origin but the gun is shot from her grasp. She tries to go for it but gets stopped with a shot to the shoulder.

"Stay down", Clay instructs as he as check to see Aisha's position.

Glaring at Clay, shielding you with his own body; a wounded Aisha contemplates going for the gun again but the thought passes when warning shots are fired near her feet. Jumping out the way, her eyes lock with Clay's for a split second, "this isn't over!'' With one final glare, Aisha makes her escape then.

"You ok?", Clay final releases you once the dust had settled.

"Peachy...", you grin in response.

"The baby?", an unconvinced Clay panickingly reaches for your stomach.

"Oh, he's fine...", you remark, placing your hand over his, "how else was I supposed to give Cougar a clear shot."

"But- wait- what....?", Clay stare frowns at you in confusion. "Cougar? Shot?"

With a eye-roll and heavy sigh, you use him as leverage to get back up on your feet, "I knew Cougar wouldn't risk a shot so close to me, so I had to cause a distraction..."

"Distraction...?", Clay blinks at you dumbfounded. "Pushing her limit?"

"I couldn't immediately use the baby now could I...?", you shrug, "she would have seen right through it."

"Do you know how stupid that was?!", Clay goes into a displeased rant, "she almost shot you!''

"Well, it worked...", you nonchalantly remark.

With fist tightly clenched and gritted teeth, Clay silently glares at you for sometime before finally exhaling in relief and reaching out to cup your face, "don't ever do that again..."

You blink, then flash him a toothy grin, "K."

Blinking at your goofy behavior, Clay finally breaks down laughing as he pulls you into a tight hug. "You were never my biggest weakness...", he whispers, placing a kiss against your hairline.

"I know", you remark into his chest.

"You're my strength...", he continues.

"I know...", your head tilts upward to look him in the face.

Brushing the hair from your face, Clay cups your cheek; thumb brushing across your bottom lip as he stare longingly into your eyes, "I love you."

A smile breaks across your lips as you stare back, "I know. I love you too."

With a raspy chuckle, Clay rests his forehead against your; inhaling your scent for a second then tipping down to capture your lips in deep kiss. It gets cut though when your son decides to greet his father properly with a kick. "Is that...?", Clay stares down in astonishment at your stomach.

"He's saying hello", you chuckle.

"Hey there, Buddy...", Clay crouches down to rest the side of his face against your stomach, "I'm your daddy..." The baby gives another sharp kick then, causing Clay's head to snap up with shocked smile, "he's very active."

"I think he just wants to go home-", you run your hands through his hair with a giggle.

Nodding in agreement, Clay gets to his feet; pulling you tightly against his side, "let's go home."

Part 7

[integra1127grimmreaper]

The Path of Gods: A Daughter's Sacrifice - Part X

Marcus Acacius Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Part IX

The battle at Cyzicus had taken longer than preferred but three days later, victory had finally been achieved with the loss of Aemilianus; Niger's general's life by your hand. With that victory under the belt, orders to march for Cilicia were sent. When nearing Cilica, Acacius' legion was joined with that of fellow general, Anullinus. ''Acacius...", Anullinus greets once you enter the encampment, turning in your direction and bowing, "Princess." Wrinkling your nose at the title and instantly changing to a more friendly expression as he raises his head back up, you return the greeting, "General Anullinus..."

"We can use my tent to discuss strategies while your own is being seen to", Anullinus points in its direction in offering. You walked ahead as Acacius and Anullinus trailed behind. "You are one lucky bastard, Acacius...", Anullinus remarks, softly chuckling when seeing the scowl on Marcus' face, ''take ease-'', he raises his hand in peace, "I am merely stating a fact, Acacius... nothing else." "It would be in your best interest for it to be merely so", Acacius grunts in response. "I know it is", Anullinus smirks, patting his shoulder and confessing, "if anyone is worthy enough of her... it would be you. Not only that, but I am deathly afraid of her." Acacius laughs at his last words, "you are not alone with your fears- she is a force of a woman. Yet, as much as I fear her... I love her twice as much." The moment between the two was cut short by you calling out to them from the tent entrance, "are the both of you coming or not...?" "We best make hast, before your woman removes both our heads from our shoulders...", Anullinus jokes as the two make their way towards you.

"Niger will not negotiate, of that I am certain", Anullinus states as you sit round-table with him and Marcus. "We need a well-coordinated plan of offence and defense then'', Marcus adds in agreement. "Exactly-", Anullinus responds, moving toward the map of the fortress, "distraction would be our greatest advantage. My troops and I can lead the first wave of attack from the front", he points onto the map in suggestion. "The second wave should come from the rear, while they will be occupied with us. Acacius, I am quite certain that your troops are quite capable of handling that." "Agreed", Marcus nods in response. "Excellent", Anullinus smiles, satisfied. "I am sure that your accommodations are set up by now, so, I shall leave you two to rest up, strategize your point of attack and we can go over it during the evening meal. "

When everything was agreed upon, Marcus and you retired to your tent to settle in. "I see that they set out water for us to clean up", Marcus remarks once entering the tent. Removing your sword and reaching to undo your armor, you're instantly halted by Marcus's presence behind you. "You know the rules...", he reminds you, hands rested heavily on your waist. "You do not undress yourself while in my presence-", Marcus tips down, pressing open mouthed kisses along the column of your neck. "That is my work to do- you know that-" "Marcus- we should clean up first-", you quietly whimper out. Pulling you tighter into his embrace, Marcus slowly starts to loosen your armor's fastenings, "going to soil you with my seed first-", he mumbles against your neck in between kisses, "clean you up afterwards-"

The day of the attack on Niger had finally. Marcus, along with you the rest his troops were standing by near the rear of the fortress; awaiting the signal to charge from Anullinus and his troops. Screams of orders on both sides ring out; signally the clash had started and right on point, the rear attack began as well. The rear was breached within mere minutes; Marcus and you at the lead, taking down soldier by soldier as they charged at you. The fortress was a mess of confusion for Niger's troops, as they were too engaged in their battle with Anullinus to even notice the rear breach in time to retaliate. Within a short spam of the time, the fortress had been successfully sieged and what was left of the opposing troops had surrendered. Marcus, Anullinus and you stood on the outside battle ground; awaiting news on Niger's whereabouts as opposing troops were led to kneel in a lineup. "Any signs of Niger?", Anullinus enquires from both of you. "Not one trace", a furious looking Marcus grunts in response, "you certain, you saw him?" "We all did-", Anullinus, just as furious responds, "on top of the fortress walls. He disappeared out of sight when you breached the rear though-" "He must have escaped!", Marcus growls, fist tightly clenched, "like a coward!" "We shall find out soon enough-", Anullinus responds, displeased with the prospect, "the troops are searching each and every corner of the fortress." It was not long of a wait for the truth to be revealed. "Generals-", a soldier addresses both Marcus and Anullinus, "we found a hidden underground passage that leads to the outside. It seems that Niger had used it to escape there is no sign of him whatsoever inside the fortress." "Cure him!", Marcus growls out. "We have sent out trackers after him", the soldier reassures, "he will not get far." "Fine then-", Anullinus sighs in defeat, settling into a more composed state than as he refers to the surviving opposing troops, "the traitors must be seen." "They cannot be allowed to live", Marcus remarks in agreement. "Execute them all and burn the bodies after." "I shall assist in seeing to it-", you finally bring your voice into the conversation. "There is no need for that, Princess-", an appalled Anullinus object. You ignore his words, silently walking away to see to it. "That was not an offer- that was a fact-", Marcus chuckles softly at the dumbfounded look on Anullinus' face as they watched you walk away. "Best you than I, Acacius-", Anullinus remarking blinking in total disbelief as you took the first traitor's head with one clean swing of your sword and continue onto the next without flinching, "she frightens me-"                                                                                                                                   "I know- I know- ", Marcus chuckles a bit louder, patting Anullinus shoulder in comfort.

It had taken months of travel and battles to finally find a fixed location on Niger, word of his retreat to Antioch had reached your father's generals and with that, all had set forth for the final destination and what would hopefully be the final battle. Niger, having gotten beforehand warning of the Severan army marching toward his location, yet again attempted to flee to Parthia this time, but was finally captured. Once captured, Niger was beheaded and the head was sent back to Rome to be displayed as warning to all who opposed your father's claim to the empire. The supporters of Niger were all punished with either exile or death, all depending on whether your father saw as a threat or not.

With Niger out of the picture; your father and Albinus now co-ran the empire, with Albinus seeing to the political side things, while your father saw to the military side. The agreement seemed to work until tension began to rise amongst them three years into the co-reign. While your father's sole attention was on acquiring more land and riches for the Roman empire, Albinus took advantage of his absence in attempting to sway the Senate more to his side. It didn't take long for your father to catch wind of it and spring into action by declaring your younger brothers as his successors and having Albinus declared as an official enemy of Rome. With this, a full-on civil war broke out for the final contender ship to rule Rome. A war that lasted close to a year and took both the military forces of your father and Marcus, along with yourself to finally defeat him at Lugdunum. With this victory, your father had Albinus' head sent back to Rome as a warning to any who sought to oppose him. And with this, your father, Septimius Serverus acquired full reign over the Roman empire and those that were under its rule.

[pedroscurls]

now comes us (pt. 1)

summary: five years later and life with harry has been everything you ever dreamed of.

pairing: harry castillo x fem!reader content warning(s): EXPLICIT CONTENT (18+ MDNI), established relationship/family, slight age gap, (harry now in early 50s, reader now in mid-30s), time jump, talks about the difficulty of getting pregnant, harry insecurities, smut - missionary, unprotected piv, light dirty talk, harry pins your hands down and covers your mouth, creampie, oral (m receiving), no use of y/n. word count: 8.8k a/n: surprise - update comin' early this week! did y'all miss this story as much as i did? just as an fyi - this takes place 5 years after then came you, so they have 3 kids (stevie - 11, frankie - 6, youngest (you'll find out their name in this chapter) - 5). hope y'all enjoy! this is gonna be a different vibe than vol. 1… it's the calm before the storm <3 pt. 2 || series masterlist. || read on ao3.

Five years later and your life with Harry looked the same, yet different altogether. You both moved into a bigger home, away from the city, but closer to his parents and yours. And two children became three, with hopes for another child. 

You ended up closing your chapter with the diner when Sammy—the youngest—was born five years ago. It had been a decision you didn’t take lightly either. The diner and the people there had become your family, long before Harry and long before Stevie. They saw you grow up, so when you decided to leave, it was an emotional goodbye. 

But it made sense. You wanted to be part of your children’s lives without worrying about missing special moments, and there were times that you wondered if Stevie ever resented you for it. 

Her siblings managed to get all of your attention—something she didn’t quite have the luxury of when she was younger. 

Yet, she never complained. Stevie was still the same sassy little girl that Harry met all those years ago, except now, she was just a couple of years away of being a teenager and it showed too. She wanted to spend more time with her friends, asked relentlessly for a phone so she can be like everyone else (Harry caved, like always), but she was still the same girl who had the biggest heart.

Because she’d help you around the house. 

She slipped into the role of being the big sister so easily too. 

Frankie admired her—wanted to do everything her big sister did. 

And Sammy—short for Samuel after the singer, Sam Cooke—was a sensitive little boy who was the spitting image of Harry, who just wanted to be part of whatever his older sisters were doing.

And Harry, he started working more, especially since his parents retired from the company and named him and his brother as co-CEOs. 

But he still made time for you, for the family you both created. Harry still looked at you like the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, would come home every night and hold you. 

Five years later, and everything just felt right. 

“Dad,” Stevie sighed, leaning against Harry at the kitchen counter. She yawned and rubbed her eyes, blinking up at him afterwards. “Can I try a sip of your coffee?” 

Harry looked down at her and smiled. “No chance, Stevie girl.” 

“But I’m tired,” she said. 

“Then maybe you should’ve gone to bed on time,” he said, gently tapping the tip of her nose.

Stevie huffed and then yawned dramatically. 

Harry narrowed his eyes. 

She blinked up at him. Pleading. 

He sighed. Harry could never say to no to her. 

“Fine. One sip.” 

Her eyes widened with excitement and she nodded, leaning up on her toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Yes, yes, of course. Just one sip. That’s all I need.” 

Harry narrowed his eyes and then set the mug down in front of her. He knew Stevie wouldn’t like his taste in coffee—black, no sugar or milk. 

“Don’t tell mom?” Stevie asked, reaching for the mug. 

“You kidding me? Of course not. I don’t want to get in trouble either,” he grinned. 

Stevie smiled and then brought the mug closer to her lips. She kept her eyes on Harry before she leaned forward to take a sip. Quickly, the dark and hot liquid hit her senses and she made a face. It was bitter. 

“Gross,” she said, turning around and spitting what she had sipped into the sink. “Why didn’t you tell me it wasn’t good?” 

Harry laughed, shaking his head as he looked at her. “Would you have believed me if I did?”

Stevie narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “Well, no…” 

“Exactly,” he smiled, gently reaching for her hand and kissing the crown of her head. “Had to let you figure it out for yourself, Stevie girl.” 

Stevie leaned against him. “Do all coffee drinks taste like that?” 

Harry wrapped an arm around her and shook his head. “No, just mine.” 

“So… I’m hearing that I might like mom’s coffee?” 

He chuckled. “Oh, I’m positive you will. She likes her coffee with lots of sugar.” 

Stevie’s eyes widened. She smiled. “Then, I’ll give coffee another try.” 

“Maybe when you’re older.” 

“I’m eleven, dad.” 

“Yeah, older,” he repeated. 

She huffed and then tried to reach for his mug, but he clicked his tongue and took the mug before she could get to it. 

“Fine,” she said. 

“I said one sip.” 

Stevie giggled. “I know. Figured I’d try my luck.” 

Harry smiled. “Nice try. I can say no to you.” 

“Yeah, sure… but you rarely do.” Stevie smiled, pulling away from him. “By the way, mom said it was okay that I stay after school today. Taylor’s mom will be bringing me home.” 

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Taylor?” 

“Yes.” 

“Have we met this Taylor?” 

“Dad,” she sighed. “He’s cool! We both like the same things and we’re volunteering to help clean up at the school. It’s fine.” 

“He?” Harry asked. “Taylor is a boy?” 

“Dad—”

“I’ll pick you up,” he interjected. “What time will you be finished?” 

She sighed. “Around four.” 

“Great. I’ll be there. To pick you up.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“Oh, Stevie girl… if I was overreacting, you’d know it. Now, go get ready for school.” 

She sighed loudly and then walked away from him, disappearing around the corner and down the hallway. 

“I love you!” He yelled out to her. Harry sighed, hearing the door shut as a response as he looked down at his coffee. Seeing Stevie grow up—seeing his other two children grow up too—have been such an amazing thing to witness, but he did feel sad about it as well.

There would come a day where they wouldn’t need him anymore and Harry was just trying to hold on as long as he could before that day came. 

Harry stepped in the bedroom and noticed you come out of the closet with a towel wrapped around your head and a robe covering your body. He bit his lower lip and walked over to you, wrapping his arms around you from behind. 

“Hey,” he whispered. 

You smiled and turned in his arms, looking up at him. Your hand moved to his cheek, gently brushing his facial hair. He had gone a bit more grey as the years passed, crows feet more prominent at the corners of his eyes. He aged, just like you did, but he still looked so damn good. If not better. 

“Morning, baby.” 

“I’m picking Stevie up from school later. After her… event or something.” 

“Oh, Taylor’s mom can’t take her home?” 

He sighed. “Did you know Taylor’s a boy?” 

“Yes,” you answered. “Harry, they’re just kids.” 

He shook his head. “I don’t feel comfortable with it.” 

“Okay,” you said quietly, nodding. “That’s okay. 

“Am I overreacting?” Harry asked, his lower lip jutting out unintentionally. 

You cupped his cheek and leaned forward to peck his lips. “No,” you answered. “You’re just a protective daddy.” 

Harry sighed and nodded, hands moving to your hips. “She’s not gonna need me anymore, will she?” 

“You know that’s not true.” 

“Feels like it.” 

You shook your head and walked away from him to shut the bedroom door, locking it behind you. With three kids in the house, you both started locking the door, especially when adult activities were happening. 

“Baby?”

You walked over to him and gently pressed your hands on his shoulders, pushing him to sit at the edge of the bed. He huffed quietly and unbuttoned his suit jacket, looking up at you as you straddled his waist and undid your robe to reveal your bare front to him. 

Harry cleared his throat. 

“You know that’s not true,” you repeated. “That little girl looks at you like you hung the moon, baby. She’s growing up, but she’s always going to need you.” 

“What if she doesn’t?” 

“She will.” 

“You’re trying to distract me,” Harry pointed out. “Trying to get me to not think about my little girl having a possible crush on a boy who won’t ever be good for her.” 

“She’s eleven.”

“You telling me you never had a crush at that age?” 

“Well, no…”

“Exactly,” Harry said, eyes dipping lower. 

“What will you do when she gets married?” 

His eyes narrowed. Harry wrapped his arms around your waist and slowly stood up only to lay you on your back with him above you. “She won’t.” 

You smiled and leaned up to cup his cheek. “I love you.”

“This isn’t amusing.”

“I know.”

“You’re looking at me like this is funny.” 

“Harry,” you sighed quietly, grabbing one hand and bringing to to rest against your chest. “She will always love you, okay?” 

“I know,” he sighed. “I know. I just—she’s my Stevie girl.” 

“I know, baby.” 

Harry bit his lower lip. “I should trust her, huh?” 

You nodded. “And trust me too.”

He nodded, moving his hand from your chest to your breast, covering it with his hand. Harry watched you gasp quietly, looking up at him with lips parted. “You’re good,” he whispered. “You know how to get me out of my head.” 

You smiled, grabbing his other hand and bringing it to your lips. You wrapped your mouth around the tip of his thumb, swirling your tongue around it as you felt him suddenly push into you. 

“Baby,” Harry groaned. “We’re gonna be late.” 

“I know,” you giggled, pulling his thumb from your mouth as his hand continued to massage your breast into his palm. “Mmm, don’t see you trying to pull away.” 

“God, how can I? Look at you.” Harry cleared his throat as he pulled away from you, standing upright between your legs as you remained on your back. “How much time do we have?” 

“About half an hour.” 

He grunted. “Can you stay quiet?” 

You grinned. “You know I’ll try.” 

Harry smirked, reaching down to undo his belt, followed by unbuttoning his slacks and lowering his zipper. He pushed his pants and boxers down to his ankles as he spit into his palm before wrapping a hand around himself. “Oh, I know what you want me to do.” 

“Yeah?” You asked, biting your lower lip as you parted your legs for him even further. 

“Yeah, baby,” Harry said, eyes taking in every inch of your bare frame. He leaned forward, rubbing the tip of his manhood along you, applying pressure to your clit. “You always did like it when I covered your mouth.” 

A strained whimper escaped your lips. You felt him slide the length of his hardened member along your lips, gathering your arousal with each movement. He was hot, throbbing against you lower half and you impatiently reached down to grab a hold of him. 

“And you always liked to take your time,” you whispered, guiding him to your entrance. “Please, Harry…” 

“God, I love it when you beg,” he smirked, sliding into you in one full thrust. Harry’s eyes fluttered—like it always did whenever he slid into you. Your walls were tight and wet, wrapping around him and sucking him in with each movement. 

When you felt him fill you to the hilt, you let out a relieved moan. It always felt like your first time with him—even five years later, you still looked at each other like you both just realized you were both in love. 

“Hmm, I’ll beg anytime,” you whimpered, sitting up just so you could remove the robe and the towel from your head. Now completely exposed for him, Harry delivered a rough thrust, causing your body to jerk upwards. 

“You promise?” He asked, hands moving to grip your hips. Harry was still in his jacket, dress shirt and tie, but he was completely bare from his lower half. He watched himself slide into you with ease, his length glistening with your own arousal. Harry tried to keep it slow, tried to force himself not to just hammer into you, but it was hard. He never could control himself around you. 

“H—Harry,” you moaned, hands moving to grip the end of his tie as you slowly pulled him down. 

He grinned and leaned down, brushing his lips along your own. Harry rolled his hips into you, savoring the feel of himself sliding along your walls. “Feel so good, baby.” 

“Fuck,” you moaned. The grip around his tie tightened, but he grabbed your hands only to pin them above your head. 

“Can’t have you ruining my suit,” he grinned. “Because if you do, I’ll have to change and I—” Harry groaned, one sharp thrust into you. “I actually like this one.” 

“Oh fuck,” you said loudly, his free hand coming up to cover your mouth. It was still early, and he certainly didn’t want any of his children barging in either. 

“Look at you… at my fucking mercy,” he said, his hips speeding up but being very careful in ensuring he didn’t make too much noise either. 

Your moans muffled against his palm, legs loosely wrapped around his hips as you arched your back. He wasn’t going as fast as you’d like him to, but he was still hitting that spongy part deep inside of you with each hard thrust. 

“How am I supposed to go to work now?” He asked, growling lowly under his breath. “When all I’ll be thinking about is how good you fucking feel around me, baby.” 

You moaned again. 

He pressed his hand over your mouth more firmly. 

“Gonna let go of your hands now, okay? Be a good girl and grip the sheets if you need to,” Harry smiled, releasing your wrists only to bring the same hand between your legs. 

Your hands needed to hold onto something, especially when you felt him begin to apply pressure to your clit and rub it in circles. Instantly, your hands flew to the sheets, gripping them tightly as Harry continued his movements. 

He wouldn’t ever get tired of this, of you. You were an absolute dream. The way you looked as you were nearing the peak of your climax—he’d commit it to memory every chance he could get and still, it felt like it wasn’t enough. 

“Harry,” you mumbled into his palm, tightening your legs around his hips to pull him closer. 

He grinned. Harry was close too. He sped up his thrusts, but still remaining careful to not make it sound like skin slapping against one another. 

You were moaning against his hand, gripping the sheets even tighter, as you felt the pressure build and build until it finally spilled over. Your legs pulled him in, body trembling against the bed, as Harry smirked down at you. 

“Fuck,” he groaned, pulling out to his tip only to slide back into you with ease. He could feel how fucking wet you were, how tight your walls were sucking him back in. He moved both hands now to your hips, hearing you gasp loudly as he gripped you tightly. 

You bit your lower lip—hard. You couldn’t moan or make any noise as you normally would, but you knew that Harry was close too. You could feel it in the way he gripped your hips, could see it in his face too. 

His hips stuttered, eyes shut tight once he felt himself get closer and closer to the edge. Harry’s hands on your hips tightened even further, fingertips digging into your flesh. 

Then suddenly, after a few more rough thrusts, Harry slammed into you and came. Hard. He dragged his fingertips down your hips to the side of your legs and back up, growling under his breath as he filled you with his come. 

You smiled up at him and sat up, careful not to wrinkle his shirt or his jacket as you tugged on the edge of his tie to pull him down. He groaned quietly, rolling his hips slowly before pulling out, biting his lower lip as he looked down between your legs. 

“Fuck,” he muttered. 

“Morning, baby,” you teased, leaning up and pecking his lips. “Gonna feel you all day now.” 

Harry’s eyes narrowed down at you. “I love you.” 

You chuckled quietly. “I love you too. Help me clean up?” 

“Always,” he said softly, licking his lip as he looked down to see his come trickle out of you. “God, you’re fucking beautiful.” 

Then, he stepped away and pulled up his boxers and pants, walking to the bathroom afterwards to grab a small towel to clean you up. 

“You ready for the day?” You asked, teasingly. 

Harry chuckled and nodded, stepping back between your legs and carefully cleaning up the mess that seeped out of you. “I am now, yeah.” 

“Good.” 

“But I’m still picking Stevie up,” he said. 

You smiled. “I know, baby.” 

Then, the both of you heard quiet sounds of footsteps down the hallway. You both looked at each other and smiled. 

“Guess the other two are now awake,” you said. 

Harry smiled. “Come on, baby. Let’s get the cavalry ready for school.” 

Later that morning once all three kids were dressed and ready for school, the three of them sat at the kitchen table each with a plate of pancakes. Harry smiled to himself at the sight of the three of them, keeping an arm around your waist. 

“Mama,” Frankie said, looking up at both you and Harry. “We’re going to the park after school today, right?” 

“How about we go after we pick up Stevie? That way, it’s all of us.” You replied, walking over to her and kissing the crown of her head.

“And we get pizza?” Sammy, your youngest, asked. You looked across the table at him and grinned—deep brown eyes and dark curls that matched Harry’s.  

“Oh, of course,” Harry chimed in. “It’s pizza night.” 

Stevie couldn’t help but smile. “I guess… it’s okay that you pick me up then, dad.” 

Harry sighed in relief. “Oh good,” he said, walking towards her and kissing her cheek. “I’m glad I have your approval, Stevie girl.” 

Frankie giggled and looked over at her older sister. While Stevie had always cared about dressing up and doing her hair now that she was older, Frankie was the complete opposite. She was messy—like Stevie had been at the same age—but she didn’t like dresses or putting her hair in bows. She liked sports, always managed to get dirty and giggle about it too. 

Sammy had finished his pancakes first, sliding off his chair and walking towards the kitchen to put his plate away. Harry looked over at him and smiled, following him and picking him up into his arms. “You’ve got syrup all over your face, Sammy.” 

The younger boy giggled and then stuck his tongue out to try and clean his mouth. “Mmm, still good!” 

Harry chuckled and shook his head. “Let’s wash our hands and face, buddy.” Then, he held Sammy at sink level for the younger boy to reach. While Stevie and Frankie had the same attitude and features as you, Sammy had reminded Harry of himself when he was younger. A sensitive boy who felt so many emotions, but still had the biggest heart like his two older sisters. 

“I think I’m clean now, daddy,” he smiled, turning the sink off and reaching for a towel to dry off his hands and face. 

“Good job, buddy. You ready for school?” Harry asked. 

Sammy nodded. “My teacher said I’ll be able to write my name soon.” 

“Oh yeah?” Harry smiled. “You excited?” 

The young boy grinned. Dimples appeared at his cheeks. “Yes, then I can start writing you and mama letters too.” 

“You’re so sweet, buddy,” Harry chuckled, kissing the tip of his nose. His attention was pulled briefly when he heard laughter coming from the kitchen table, glancing over to see you, Frankie and Stevie giggling amongst one another.

And he stared at you for a few seconds longer. 

Still, you were as beautiful as the day he met you. 

You and Harry stood in front of the school as you dropped your children off. It was Stevie’s last year at this school before moving onto middle school next year, but still, it was convenient that all three of them were under the same school for now. 

“Frankie,” Harry said, kneeling down in front of her. “Is it basketball or soccer today?” 

Frankie grinned. “Basketball,” she answered. “I think I’ll beat the boys this time.” 

He smiled and leaned in to kiss her forehead. “Give them hell, babygirl.” 

“Harry,” you chuckled, moving a hand to his shoulder. 

Frankie giggled and then wrapped her arms around Harry, turning her head to kiss his cheek. “Love you daddy! Love you, mama!” 

“Have a good day at school, baby,” you said, leaning down to kiss the crown of her head before she turned on her heel to go into the school. 

Sammy bit his lower lip. This was his first year in school and he was still trying to find his footing, trying to make friends. 

“Mama?” He called out. 

You knelt down in front of him. “You’re okay, baby.” 

Sammy nodded. “You’ll be here when school is done?” 

“Yup, me and daddy will be here.” 

“Okay,” he said softly. “I’ll see you soon?” 

You smiled and gently cupped his cheek. “I’ll see you soon, baby.” 

“Love you,” he mumbled, wrapping his arms around you before moving onto Harry to do the same. 

“Love you, Sammy,” Harry said, kissing the crown of his head. 

Once Sammy walked into the school, Stevie was already about to turn on her heel before Harry gently tugged on her backpack. 

“Um, hello?” He said. 

You smiled and watched Stevie turn around. 

“Dad…” 

“Give us a hug and tell us you love us,” he said. 

She rolled her eyes playfully. “But my friends—”

“Will see how much you love us,” Harry finished for her. “Isn’t that a great thing?” 

You let out a quiet laugh and then gently pulled Stevie into your arms. “Have a good day at school, Stevie.” 

She let herself relax in your arms for a second. It felt like she was that same five year old all those years ago. Then, almost like she remembered where she was, Stevie pulled away. 

“Okay, my turn,” Harry smiled, tugging Stevie into his arms. “Be good, Stevie girl.” 

“I always am,” she smiled. 

“See you later, okay?” 

Stevie nodded and pulled away to look between the both of you. 

“You really will pick me up?” Stevie asked. 

Harry answered without pause. “Yes, Stevie girl.” 

She nodded and then heard her name being called. She bit her lower lip and then noticed the both of you nod once. 

“I love you guys,” she said. 

Harry grinned. 

You smiled. 

“We love you too,” you said, leaning against Harry. 

“I love you, Stevie girl.” He repeated. 

Stevie smiled and then turned on her heel, jogging to catch up with her friends as she walked into the school with them. 

Harry sighed and looked down at you. “Why does drop off feel so sad now?” 

You looked up at him. “Because our babies are growing up,” you answered, turning around with him to begin walking back towards the car. 

Harry nodded in agreement, keeping one arm draped over your shoulder. “Growing up too fast,” he added. 

Now that all three kids were in school, you had plenty of time to yourself when Harry was at work too. You had been so used to working that it took a very long time to get used to this. Even Harry had to constantly remind you that it was okay, that he wanted you to stay home. It was his way of taking care of you. 

And everyday, you’d show up to his work with lunch. It was ironic, how you were now the one to make sure he was eating during his lunch break when he used to do it for you. 

As you walked toward his office with the food you cooked, you heard Peter from behind you. Turning, you looked over to see the other man who was grinning at you. 

“My brother’s lucky,” Peter said, now walking alongside you. “I should convince Charlotte to visit me during my lunch.” 

You laughed quietly and shook your head. “Charlotte’s seven months pregnant. You’d be cruel to have her come here,” you teased. 

“You’re right,” Peter chuckled. “I should be going home to her to make sure she’s resting.” 

“Second pregnancy tough on her?” You asked. 

He nodded. “Yeah,” he sighed. “That and it took a while for us to get pregnant a second time.” 

You nodded in understanding. Both you and Harry were experiencing your own troubles with getting pregnant again. “Well, just make sure you’re there. I’m sure she appreciates it.” 

“What about you and Harry? Trying for a fourth?” 

You smiled. “Trying, yeah. No luck.” 

Peter gave you a look of understanding. Then, he reached to rest a hand over your shoulder comfortingly. “Well, you guys will figure it out. You always do.” 

You nodded and then glanced over at Harry’s office door. “Is he overworking himself?” You asked honestly. 

Peter shrugged. “We’re co-CEOs, but I feel like since Charlotte got pregnant, he’s been taking more of the responsibility.” 

“So… that’s a yes. He’s overworking himself.” You bit your lower lip. 

“I tried to tell him I can handle it,” he whispered. “But—”

“He doesn’t want to burden you,” you finished for him. Then, it was your turn to reach out to rest a hand on his forearm. “Just look out for him when you are here, okay?” 

“Always will,” Peter smiled. He reached out and knocked lightly on Harry’s door. 

Within seconds, Harry opened the door and you noticed the look on his face before he turned to look at you. You could tell he was stressed—noticed it in his features and his posture too. 

“You’re here,” he said, a hint of relief in his voice. 

“Did you forget?” You asked. 

Harry shook his head. He glanced over your shoulder at Peter and nodded. “Lost track of time.” 

“Take a long lunch,” Peter said. “I’ll get to the next meeting.” 

“You should be going home,” Harry replied. “Charlotte is—”

“I can handle one meeting, Harry,” Peter interjected. “I’ll go home after that one, that okay with you?” 

He sighed. Harry glanced at you and felt the tension in his shoulders loosen just at the sight of you. He finally nodded at Peter and gently reached for the bag of food you were carrying. “Okay, sure. Yeah, thanks,” Harry said. “But if you need to go—”

“I’m fine,” he interrupted. Peter gave you a hug before leaving both of you at Harry’s office. 

“I’m sorry, baby, come in, come in,” he said, opening the door further for you to step inside. Once you were, Harry shut the door and locked it, bringing the food to the coffee table where the couch was at. 

“How many cups of coffee have you had?” You asked, biting your lower lip. 

“Three.”

“Harry.”

“It’s fine, I’m fine.” Harry removed his blazer and set it against the back of his office chair before he walked back over to you, wrapped his arms around your waist. “Missed you, though.” 

“You need a break,” you sighed. “You’re… overworking yourself, baby.”

Harry shook his head and leaned in to kiss your cheek. “Just making sure this company doesn’t go under. My parents trusted me—”

“Trusted both you and your brother,” you corrected. 

“He’s got a baby on the way,” Harry sighed. 

“And you have a family too,” you replied. “You know, if your mom ever found out how much you’re working, she’d—”

“She wouldn’t let me hear the end of it,” Harry interrupted quietly. “Yeah, I know.” 

“Can you just—try to take it easy?” You asked. 

He bit his lower lip. “Okay,” he answered. “I’ll try.” 

“Promise?” 

Harry nodded and moved a hand to your cheek. “Yeah, baby. I promise.” 

“Good, now, let’s eat?” 

He smiled and leaned in to peck your lips. This time, he lingered though. “What if… what if I want to do something else before we eat?” 

You hummed against his lips and moved your hands to his shoulders. “Is that why you locked your door?” 

He chuckled and nodded, moving his lips to your jawline now. “You’re my stress relief,” he whispered. “Whenever you’re around, I don’t feel the weight of this company on my shoulders. Feel like I can breathe.” 

“Maybe I should be here more often then,” you teased. 

Harry pulled back to look down at you. “Really?” 

“What would I even do here?” You asked. 

He shrugged. “Just… stay in my office? I don’t know.” 

“How about… when you feel like the walls are closing in on you, you send me a text and I’ll make my way over here?” You suggested. “Or… you can pencil me in everyday and we can take a walk in the park every morning.” 

Harry nodded. “How about both?”

“Yeah?” 

He leaned in and rested his forehead against yours. “I just… feel better whenever you’re around.” 

“Okay,” you said softly. “We’ll take a walk every morning—does ten sound good?” 

Harry kissed your cheek before releasing his hold on you to go back to his desk where his computer sat. He pulled up his calendar and nodded, setting a daily meeting every morning at ten. Now, his assistant would know to never schedule a meeting at that time. 

“Ten in the morning. Everyday. You and me,” Harry said. 

You smiled and then reached for his hand once he made his way back over to you. “Good. For now, you need to eat.” 

He nodded and sat on the couch, tugging you onto his lap and holding you there for a few seconds longer. “I love you, baby.” 

You smiled and draped an arm around his shoulders, leaning in to kiss his temple. “I love you too, Harry.” 

He stared at you and let the corner of his lips. He rested his head against your shoulder as you reached for the Tupperware, opening the lid and handing it to him. 

He knew he had been working a lot lately. More so than usual. But since his parents had retired and named him and Peter as co-CEOs, he had taken his role seriously. Harry had lots of ideas to expand the company, to make even more money than his parents could ever dream of, but he didn’t want it to be at the cost of his relationship with you or his family. He was still trying to balance work and his home life. 

Stevie was the last one to be picked up after her after school clean up with other kids, especially Taylor. Harry watched his little girl come out of the school building with a young boy standing next to her and he could have sworn he had never seen her this smitten before. The boy was inching closer to her and Stevie bit her lip from smiling. It wasn’t until she looked up that she saw Harry with his arms crossed over his chest and his brows pulled together. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Taylor,” Stevie smiled. 

“Oh,” the boy said. “Okay. Thanks for volunteering with me.” 

She nodded. “I’m always happy to help.” 

The boy stopped walking and looked at her with nervous eyes. “Do you think—do you think I could sit with you tomorrow at lunch or something?” 

Stevie’s eyes widened. Her smile grew. “Yeah, I think that’d be cool.” 

Taylor grinned. “Cool, yeah, that’s… that’s awesome.” Then, he leaned in and gave her a one armed hug before he pulled away abruptly, turning on his heel and jogging to where his mother was parked. 

Stevie could feel the warmth in her cheeks as she walked over to Harry, noticing that you were seated in the passenger seat of the car behind him. 

“Dad…”

“He hugged you,” Harry said. “Was that okay with you?” 

“Yes,” she answered. “Can you… not make a scene? In case he’s looking,” Stevie whispered, turning to look over her shoulder in time for Taylor to wave at her. She waved back and then turned her gaze back on Harry. “Please?” 

Harry sighed. He had been stressed at work. He didn’t want to be stressed about this too. So, he gently reached out and took Stevie’s backpack from her. “Okay, I can be… cool.” 

“Are you sure? It looks like you want to say something.” 

“I just—it’s nothing.” 

“Dad.” 

Harry sighed and gently took her hand, pulling her to his side as he let out a breath of relief when Stevie leaned into him. “You’re just getting bigger,” he said. “One minute you’re that same five year old girl who wanted to be around me all the time and now you’re… you’re a preteen with a crush.” 

“I do not have a crush!” 

Harry chuckled. “Stevie girl, touch your cheeks. They’re warm, aren’t they?” 

“So?” 

“So… you’re blushing.” 

She sighed. “For the record,” Stevie said, opening the door to the car once they were close enough. “I still want to be around you all the time. You’re just… busy with work.” 

Then, she climbed in and Harry felt his heart drop. He heard the muffled sounds of greeting as the door shut, biting his lower lip. Stevie had noticed it too. And if she noticed his stress, he was sure Frankie and Sammy did too. 

Harry set her backpack in the trunk before rounding the car to the drivers side. He pulled his phone out and texted his mom. Simple, two words that meant so much more. Meant that he was struggling, meant that he was lost. 

HARRY: Need advice. 

His mother didn’t waste a second to reply. He looked down at his phone at her response. Harry let out a breath. She replied and said that she’d come by the office tomorrow. 

After the five of you walked Central Park, Harry kept a tight hold on your hand as your three kids walked ahead of you to go to the same pizza shop that you had been going to with Stevie when it was just the two of you. Marco was like family now, watching your family grow over the years. 

“Stevie noticed that I’ve been busy at work,” Harry said with a sigh. “Do I make it that obvious?” 

You looked over at him, tightening your hold on his hand. “You just… wear your heart on your sleeve and your expressions say everything.” 

“I expect you to notice that, but Stevie?” 

“Harry, she’s always been aware of your emotions. Mine too. Even at a young age,” you answered. 

He sighed. You were right. Stevie was such an empath—always noticing and feeling other people’s emotions. “I should get better at hiding it.” 

You shook your head. “Hiding it doesn’t fix it.” 

He bit his lower lip. “Right.” 

“Will you at least reach out to your mom?” You asked. 

Harry squeezed your hand. “Already did, actually. She’s coming by the office tomorrow.” 

“Good,” you said, leaning up to kiss him cheek. “She did this before too, you know. Both your parents.” 

“I know.” 

“You don’t have to be perfect,” you whispered. “Not for the company. Not for us.” 

Harry’s eyes softened down at you. “It’s hard,” he answered honestly. “I just want the best for you guys and for the company.”

“We’ve got it already,” you answered. “We’ve got you, baby.” 

The corner of his lips lifted. “You know all the right things to say.” 

You smiled proudly. “I learn from the best. Not too long ago, you were the one saying all the right things.” 

Harry looked down at you. He noticed the age in your features now, the subtle strands of grey streaked in your hair. You were still younger than he was, but having three kids did tend to age you a bit. 

And yet, you still looked like the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. 

“I love you,” he said quietly. “Thinking when we get back home, after the kids are asleep, we can have more alone time?” 

You smiled. “I think I’d like that.” 

Harry smiled and kissed your temple. “Good.”

As the five of you approached Marco’s, Sammy was the first one to speak. 

“Cannoli?” Sammy asked, looking over his shoulder at both you and Harry. 

You smiled and nodded. “After dinner though, baby.” 

Harry pulled you closer, releasing your hand only to wrap an arm around your shoulders. “Just like Stevie,” he mumbled with a quiet chuckle. 

“I think Frankie’s the only one who isn’t too big on sweets like the other two,” you smiled. “Our little athlete.” 

The three of them jogged inside with excitement in their eyes. Harry chuckled and kissed your temple, nodding over to the same table. “I’ll grab the food.” 

“You sure?” 

“Yeah, baby,” Harry said, hand moving from your lower back to give a gentle pat to your ass. “Now, go. Sit down.” 

“Naughty, Mr. Castillo.” 

He grinned. “You like it, Mrs. Castillo,” Harry winked. He walked into the pizza shop as you moved to sit at the table, smiling to yourself as you watched the four of them with loving eyes. You couldn’t believe that five years ago, you and Harry shared a pizza on the very first day you met. 

And now, here you both were, five years later. Married. With three kids. 

Sammy ran outside and climbed into your lap, snuggling closer to you as the two other girls remained inside with Harry. 

“Hi, baby,” you said, cradling Sammy in your arms. “How was school?” 

“Good,” he answered. “I made a friend.”

You grinned. “You did? That’s amazing, baby.” 

Sammy smiled to himself. “Yeah, he’s nice. He’s new to the school.” 

“Oh, yeah?” 

Sammy nodded. “I volunteered to help him in class.” 

You looked down at him and cupped his cheek. “You’re so sweet, Sammy. I bet it was nice of him to not feel alone on his first day.” 

“He said he was sad,” he said. “Because all his friends were back home where he used to live.” 

“And now he’s got one friend here,” you said, gently tapping the tip of his nose. 

Sammy grinned and nodded to himself, nuzzling his cheek further into the crook of your neck now. You held him closer to your chest and shut your eyes, reveling in the sounds of the city. 

“Alright, Frankie, Stevie, what are we getting?” Harry asked, keeping a hold on Frankie’s hand as she slid her own into his. 

“Pepperoni,” Frankie answered, looking up at Harry with a grin. 

Stevie nodded in agreement. “And cannolis.” 

“And breadsticks!” Frankie added. 

Stevie giggled. “Yes, breadsticks.” 

Harry smiled. “Okay, so the works. Got it.” He glanced at Stevie for a moment and noticed her pull out her phone that he had gotten for her a few months ago before she left the pizza shop to go sit outside with you and Sammy. He sighed and then scooped Frankie into his arms. 

“How was school, babygirl?” 

Frankie leaned against him. “Good. Our team won the basketball game during recess.” 

“Ooh,” Harry smiled. She was so different than Stevie and it had been great seeing the different personalities each child had. “So, mama and I were thinking… do you wanna join a sports team or something? You know, outside of school.” 

Her eyes lit up. “Really?” 

“Yeah, Frankie. You’ll get to go to practice, play games on the weekend. That sound like something you wanna do?” 

She nodded quickly. “Yes!” 

He smiled to himself. He didn’t know where Frankie got her athleticism from, but it excited him—getting to go to soccer or basketball games every weekend to cheer her on. 

“But first, pizza?” She asked. 

Harry chuckled and nodded, kissing her temple. “Yeah, babygirl. First, pizza.” 

Frankie smiled and then rested her cheek on his shoulder, holding onto him tightly. Just like Stevie, Frankie was a daddy’s girl. Wherever he went, she wanted to join. 

Dinner lasted for about an hour and a half before all three kids yawned, signaling that they were ready to go home and get ready for bed. Harry looked across the table at you, still cradling Sammy in your arms as Frankie leaned against your side, blinking slowly. 

Harry glanced at Stevie, seated to his left who had her eyes glued to her phone. 

“I think your screen time is done for the day, Stevie girl,” he whispered. 

Stevie looked up at him and nodded. “Okay, dad.” 

“Been glued to that thing ever since I got you it,” he said. 

She shrugged. “Just texting my friends.” 

“Friends?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Yes, friends.” 

Harry arched a brow. “Taylor being one of these friends you’re texting?” 

Stevie rolled her eyes playfully and put her phone away, shaking her head. “He doesn’t have a phone.” 

“Oh? So, what I’m hearing is that kids your age can live without a phone.” 

“What? No…” 

He chuckled quietly and wrapped an arm around her. “Uh huh,” he teased. 

Stevie leaned against him then looked across the table at you. “Mom?” 

“Yeah, baby?” You said, looking over at her. 

“Can you… can you curl my hair tomorrow?” Stevie asked. 

Harry arched a brow. He looked at you and noticed your gaze shift to him. You gave him a look, one that said not to say anything. He sighed quietly and looked back down at Stevie. 

“Yeah, of course, baby. You gonna wake up early enough for me to do your hair though?” 

Stevie nodded. “I’ll be up and ready, I promise… but if I’m tired, can I get a sip of your coffee?” 

Harry looked over at you. 

“Coffee?” You asked. 

Stevie glanced at Harry. “Yeah, coffee.” 

Your eyes narrowed suspiciously between the both of them. “Stevie, I don’t think you’d like coffee, baby.” 

“Only one way to find out, right?” 

You shook your head. 

Harry cleared his throat. “Alright, should we get going?” He interrupted. 

You arched a brow at him. “You’re acting… suspiciously weird, Harry.” 

“What?” 

Stevie gently elbowed his side. He looked down at the younger girl. She gave him the same look you’d give him—don’t say anything. He let the corner of his lips lift before he shook his head. “I’m fine, baby. Those two are ready to pass out and this one needs to sleep early so she’s not sleepy when she wakes up tomorrow.” 

Stevie giggled. 

Sammy stirred in your arms. 

Frankie rubbed her eyes. 

“Okay then,” you said, looking between Harry and Stevie again. “Are you two hiding something?” 

“Nope!” They both said simultaneously. 

Harry smiled and then stood up, gently reaching for Frankie and pulling her into his arms. “Ready to go, baby?” 

You nodded slowly, standing from the seat as you reached for Stevie’s hand with your free one. “What are you guys hiding?” 

“Nothing,” Stevie giggled, leaning against your side. 

Sammy buried his face against your neck and yawned, his eyes now falling shut. 

Harry walked ahead of you, whispering into Frankie’s ear as she giggled quietly. Her tiny arms tightened even further around his neck as her cheek rested against his shoulder. 

“So, curled hair tomorrow, huh?” You said, looking down at Stevie. 

She nodded. “I—uh, I’m having lunch with Taylor tomorrow, so I don’t know. I just want to look nice.” 

You smiled and adjusted Sammy against your hip before your released Stevie’s hand only to wrap your arm around her shoulders. “Oh, baby, you always look nice.” 

She sighed. “Okay, I want to look nicer.” 

You nodded and leaned down to kiss the crown of her head. “My baby’s got a crush.” 

She rolled her eyes. “He’s just… he’s nice.” 

“Yeah?” 

Stevie bit her lower lip. “And he’s friendly… and kind to everyone.” 

You smiled and held her closer. “Good, baby. That’s really good.” 

“And you know his mom, so…” 

“Yeah, she’s kind too,” you said softly. “Sometimes, I forget that you’re eleven. To me, you’re still that same little girl who would get syrup or ice cream all over her face. For a long time, it was just you and me, you know?” 

Stevie looked up at you and nodded. You reached up and gently stroked her hair back and away from her face. “I love you, mom. Our family… I love it. It’s what I always dreamed of.” 

“And daddy? You know you’ve got him wrapped around your finger from day one,” you smiled. “But that doesn’t mean you get to take advantage of that now that you’re older, okay?” 

“I know,” Stevie said. 

“So, what’s this about coffee? Hm?” 

Her eyes widened. “Nothing.”

“Uh huh.” 

She giggled. “I asked for a one sip,” she admitted. “I didn’t like it, but dad said that I might like yours… because you have sugar in yours.” 

You laughed quietly and shook your head. “You know, I don’t like daddy’s coffee either.” 

Stevie smiled. 

Then, you continued. “Also… he’s going to be overprotective, okay? You’re his little girl. To him, no one’s good enough.” 

Stevie nodded slowly, glancing over at Harry who kept Frankie close to his chest. “I know,” she whispered. 

“You know, he’d give you the world if he could,” you said, smiling to yourself as you crossed the street to walk towards the car. “So… if he’s overreacting, it’s coming from a place of love… and fear.” 

“Fear?”

You nodded, tucking a few strands of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, baby. Us parents… when our kids get older, we think that they won’t need us anymore.”

“I’ll always need you, mom. And I’ll always need him too,” Stevie said quietly. 

Stevie gave you a quick hug before jogging towards the car after you all crossed the street. Harry buckled Frankie into her car seat before he felt Stevie collide against him, her arms snaking around his waist as she held onto him tightly. 

“Hey…” he said quietly, his arms coming to wrap around her too. “Everything okay?” 

Stevie looked up at him and nodded. “I love you,” she said. 

Harry’s eyes softened. “Aw, Stevie girl. I love you too.” 

She buried her face against him and tightened her hold. “Daddy?” 

He felt his heart rate pick up. Stevie had stopped calling him daddy for a while now and started calling him dad—just another sign of her getting older. 

“Yeah, Stevie girl?” 

“No matter how old I get, I’m always going to need you.” 

His eyes watered. “Yeah? Even when you’re adult and you have a family of your own?” 

Stevie nodded. “Yes, even then. Especially then.”

Harry smiled and wrapped his arms around her even tighter. He kissed the crown of her head and sighed quietly, looking up to see you set Sammy in his own car seat. He knew this was your doing, so he mouthed thank you before you shut the door. 

Later that night, after the kids were asleep, you climbed into bed where Harry was seated against the headboard. Before you could even move to lay on your side of the bed, he reached out for you and tugged you onto his lap instead. 

“Hey,” he whispered. 

“Hi, baby,” you said softly. “Dinner was great tonight.” 

Harry nodded and rested his hands on your hips, leaning forward to peck your lips lightly. “You talked to Stevie.” 

“I just… reminded her, that’s all.”

“You didn’t need to,” he said quietly. 

“I know,” you answered. “I wanted to. She’s going to get to that age where she’ll want nothing to do with you or me… but I just wanted to make sure she knew that we’re still her parents.” 

Harry nodded. “She called me daddy tonight. I don’t think I’ve heard her say that in a long time.” 

“She’s always gonna be our little girl, Harry.” 

“I know that,” he whispered. “Just wish time would just freeze, you know? Keep them little forever.” 

“I know, me too,” you sighed. “But hey, we’re doing this together.” 

He smiled at that. His hands moved from your hips to your ribcage, sliding his hands under your shirt. “Have I told you today how lucky I am?” 

You shook your head. “Ah, I knew you were forgetting something.” 

Harry chuckled quietly. “I’m gonna do better, okay? I don’t… want to miss anymore moments.” 

“Okay,” you whispered, leaning forward to pepper kisses along his jawline. “Maybe I should just show up at the office unannounced to distract you.” 

Harry felt his manhood stir beneath you. He tilted his head back against the headboard and shut his eyes, moving his hands further up your body until they covered your breasts. He brushed his thumbs of your nipples as you rolled your hips into his, lips moving down the side of his neck. 

“Hmm, that could work,” he mumbled, letting out a quiet groan. 

You felt his hardening length against your core, grounding your hips further into his. “I love you, you know that?” You asked, pulling back to look down at him.

He looked up at you and smiled. “I know, baby. I love you too.” 

“So… will you let me take care of you?” 

His brow arched. “What?” 

You pecked his lips and then slowly climbed off his lap only to settle himself between your legs. You palmed the center of his boxers, his hardened manhood against your palm now. “Just sit back… let me do all the work.” 

Harry groaned and nodded. He looked down at you and bit his lower lip. He couldn’t believe that this was his life. Today was a wake up call for him—he hadn’t been present in his kids’ lives and he certainly hadn’t been present for you either. 

“You spoil me,” he mumbled. 

“Good. I’m trying to return the favor,” you grinned, moving your lips now to brush against his clothed manhood. 

Harry’s hand darted out immediately to hold your hair back, biting his lower lip in anticipation. “Maybe… maybe you should do this every night,” he suggested. 

You smiled up at him and pulled down his boxers, watching his manhood twitch against his lower half. “Yeah? I wouldn’t mind that,” you grinned. 

“God,” he groaned, watching your lips wrap around the tip of his manhood. Harry cleared his throat, your eyes still locked with his. “Fuck, baby.” 

You pulled back and ran your tongue around his leaking tip. A smile still lined your lips. “Harry?” 

“Yeah, baby?” 

“I fall in love with you every day,” you said. 

Harry grinned. He reached out with his free hand to cup your cheek. “Oh, baby… I fell in love with you five years ago and I haven’t stopped falling since.” 

Before he could continue though, you wrapped your mouth back around him and began bobbing your head slowly. Harry tipped his head back and reveled in the way your lips felt around him, your tongue swirling around the base of him. 

“Fuck, baby…” Harry’s hand around your hair tightened as he slowly lifted his hips off the bed. “Wanna try for another baby, hm?” 

You nodded, but with his length in your mouth, caused you to just bob around him. He growled before he pulled out of your mouth, his free hand moving from your cheek to grab hold of his base. 

“Take off your panties,” he said, licking his lower lip. “And then sit on it. Take what you need, baby.” 

You nodded quickly. You were already throbbing and wet between your legs, sliding your panties off like he said before you straddled his hips yet again. 

Slowly, you lowered yourself onto him, feeling his tip breach your opening first followed by the rest of his girth, stretching you slowly. 

Both of you moaned. 

You stared into his eyes.

Harry stared back. 

“Gonna fill you up,” he whispered. “So much that I’ll be dripping out of you in your sleep.” 

You gasped, lifting your hips before sliding back down. “Get me pregnant, Harry,” you added. “Please.” 

Harry smiled. Both of you had been wanting to expand your family, but this time, it wasn’t easy. At least not as easy as it had been with Frankie and Sammy. 

He gripped your hips and pulled you firmly down onto him. As you sat firmly on his lap, his entire length filling you to the hilt, you both stared at each other and let out a breathy sigh. 

“I love you,” he whispered. 

“I love you too,” you replied, leaning forward to press your forehead against his. 

It had been a while since you and Harry had sex twice in one day. You both just hoped that it was a sign that you’d end up pregnant this time around. 

taglist: @picketniffler @kellyxo1 @arianmock13-blog @sunnytuliptime @orcasoul @brastrangled @callmebyyournick-name @copperhalfcent @inept-the-magnificent @ultimatewolverine @toxicwasteee @sesdeuxyeux @jothenurse91 @katw474 @kakiki3 @peelieblue @notyourlovemonkey @thatcorporategirlie @artsymaddie @lucillered66 @pascalispunktexas @noisynightmarepoetry @stylesispunk @vickie5446 @just-mj-or-not

[baronessvonglitter]

council meeting

(Part 5 of “Office Hours)

Ted Garcia x f!reader | 1.7K | read on AO3

summary: Amid a busy day at City Hall, you and Ted can hardly keep away from each other.

WARNINGS: 18+ Only! Office relationship. Coworkers to lovers. Secret relationship. Sexual tension. Office sex. Semi-public sex. Fingering. Come eating. Unprotected piv. Dirty talk. Improper use of a tie. New character unlocked 👀 Reader is able bodied and wears skirt/high heels but is otherwise undescribed.

a/n: I'm super surprised I got this out so fast (fast for me anyway) with everything else I've been working on. I finally decided the direction I want this to go and I hope you'll enjoy it

TED MASTERLIST | SERIES MASTERLIST | FULL MASTERLIST

The following Monday you choose your outfit carefully – leather pencil skirt, stockings with garters, your favorite high heels and a silk blouse. Ted’s already in his office when you arrive, coffee in hand, tie sitting perfectly straight and tucked into his jacket, sleeves rolled to his forearms as he ponders something, his gaze directed out to the street.

“Morning,” you say sweetly. “I brought you a black coffee.”

On the outside nothing has changed, but really everything is different. In the past seventy-two hours you’d gone on a date with your boss, kissed him, had another date, and had your brains fucked out. You even stayed over Saturday night, only opting to finally leave Sunday evening, knowing if you stayed another night you wouldn’t get any sleep in his bed.

Ted thanks you for the coffee and you turn to go. “That skirt,” Ted mutters as you start to leave. “It’s a little distracting.”

“Should I go home and change?” you ask innocently.

“Don’t you dare,” he growls lowly, hands on your waist.

“Sir.. we have to go over the agenda before the meeting..” Your attempt at staying professional is at risk of fraying.

“Right,” he sighs, pulling himself away from you, collecting his sanity. “All right. Hit me with it.”

You list the major bullet points for the issues to be addressed that day– guest speakers and items that would be brought to the council’s attention. “More speakers against the data centers,” you continue, “zoning issues.. proposals for the new baseball field..”

It’s the longest Monday ever, especially as the two of you refrain from being too close, even behind closed doors. Neither of you completely trust yourselves not to give in. If you’re found out, any touch of scandal could hurt Ted’s chances at winning his reelection. Ted’s in meetings most of the day, so you eat lunch alone at the deli down the road.

You hope for some time alone with him before the meeting, but no such luck. The governor calls him at the last minute and Ted is on a call with her. You busy yourself at your desk with your own tasks, though in a small town like this, you have more free time than you had at your previous post.

Finally you head to the council chambers, the agenda tucked under your arm, Ted keeping pace at your side. You don’t even dare a glance sideways, knowing you’ll just be tempted to press him to the wall and have your way with him.

Ted walks in like he owns the room: calm, composed, an easy manner as he meets with and greets the council members. As everyone takes their seats you take yours at the end of the row. There’s no way to discreetly glance at Ted, to share his gaze and a knowing smile. But it’s better this way, more professional. And you’ve been professional long enough to keep up the ruse. During the meeting you surreptitiously eye him, admiring his poise, remembering the feel of his body against yours, the way he’d moved inside you, as if he’d done so a hundred times, how you’d come quicker than you ever had with anyone else..

“Mayor Garcia?” Councilwoman Reyes speaks up. You look up from your notes to see Ted, turning red, apparently having been caught watching you. A smile fights to stay on your face, so you busy yourself with the reading of the minutes from the previous meeting.

You keep a businesslike attitude as the meeting progresses, watching from the sidelines as speakers come to the podium and introduce new topics, some complaints and suggestions, and you watch as Ted masterfully puts everyone at ease. He defuses tension with a single sentence, shuts down conspiracy talk with cold facts. He nods at reasonable proposals, dismisses noise with quiet authority.

Fuck, you’re already dripping for him. You have been, at every council meeting you’ve been a part of. Only this time you’re going to do something about it.

Ted wraps the meeting with a firm but polite close. But he barely has time to gather his notes before Councilman Hayes steps in, shaking his hand, launching into a long-winded story about his grandson who got a scholarship for golf.

You linger nearby, organizing your notes, the face of composure, while your body burns for him. Come on, you think, just get rid of him.

Finally Ted excuses himself with a firm clap on Hayes’s shoulder. “Gotta run. Full schedule,” he lies smoothly. “We’ll catch up over barbecue,” he says before getting away, skirting past you. “My office, five minutes,” he murmurs. You give a miniscule nod, somehow managing not to hurry after him, pretending to look for something in your desk before going into the mayoral office.

He gets caught up again, Councilwoman Reyes wanting a word and when he finally reaches the confines of his office he finds you there, leaning against his desk.

“Are you wet for me?” he growls, crossing the room in just a few strides. “Or do I get the pleasure of getting you there?”

Your breath hitches. “Ted.. y-yes.. I am.”

“Good,” he growls, grabbing you by the hips and setting you down firmly on his desk. He drops to his knees between your thighs, hands sliding up your skirt. “You’ve been driving me insane all damn day,” he murmurs, his fingers finding the soaked lace covering your pussy. “Look at this..” He slides two fingers through your folds, pushing the material of your panties to the side. “Were you thinking about me during that meeting?” His thumb swipes purposefully over your clit.

“Ted!” you gasp. “Fuck.. yes.. you know I was..”

“Yeah? Did you imagine me fucking you when the meeting was over?” He removes his fingers, your sweet and stringy arousal stretching between his digits. “Know what I was thinking about?” He pushes in again, three fingers this time. “Fucking you over my desk.”

“Baby!” you gasp softly. “What are you doing?” You cast a quick glance at the door. You know it’s locked, but the fact that you’re doing this while city business is still going on all around you is giving a new kind of danger thrill.

“I’m rewarding you,” he says, thick digits pressing in deep, your pretty pussy stretching out around him, your walls pulsing greedily. He thrusts his hand deep, angling your hips up, your heels on the edge of his desk so he can get better access to you. His thumb keeps swiping over your throbbing clit, memorizing the right pressure and right pattern that makes you quake. Just when you’re on the brink he removes his fingers, licking up your juices.

“Turn around,” he growls.

Your heart pounds, core pulses in anticipation as you brace yourself against Ted’s desk. He undoes his belt and presses you down, a big hand between your shoulder blades. You know better than to move while he pulls his pants down just enough, freeing himself from his briefs before lining up, hot and thick, pushing inside in one slow, deep stroke. “Now move that ass for me,” he mutters. You stifle your cry as he bottoms out, stuffing you full. Breath hitching, you slowly fuck yourself on him

“Look at you,” he whispers, “take me like you were made for it.” His grip on your hips tightens as he guides your pace. “Think you can be quiet with me buried inside this tight little pussy?”

You shiver, clenching around him as he moves inside you, the sloppy sound of him thrusting into your wet channel so lewd to your ears, especially as you’re desperately trying to be quiet within the walls of his office. “Ted..” you whimper, a small cry escaping your lips.

He shifts your hips up, slanting them just so that he slides in deep, reaching between you and using his thumbs on your inner thighs to help stretch you out. “We need those pretty lips of yours to be silent,” he grunts, stopping just long enough to remove his tie. “Open,” he commands, and slips the silky material past your lips, effectively shutting you up. “That’s better,” he murmurs, picking up the pace once more. His hips snap harder, every thrust driving you forward. His desk trembles, papers get shuffled around, framed photos get knocked over. You both should be more careful. You both aren’t thinking. You whimper, keening beneath him. Sure, you can’t be heard, but if anyone were to listen they’d hear the unmistakable sound of flesh pounding into flesh.

“Fuck, you’re dripping,” Ted mutters, feeling you clench around him. “You love this, don’t you, naughty girl? I’m not stopping until you come all over me.”

You moan his name but the tie muffles it as you come not once, but twice, drenching him, your legs trembling as you hold yourself up against the desk. Ted follows after, flooding your cunt with his spend, filling you up with every last drop stored in him. At last his grip eases on you, helping you stand but keeping you close to him.

“That was..” you pant, “Jesus, Ted!”

He kisses the back of your neck, muffling a breathless laugh. “We needed that.”

Your phone goes off – an alarm tied to Ted’s schedule. You quickly silence it and try to get cleaned up as quickly as possible. “The county liaison should be here in fifteen minutes for your meeting,” you remind him, stealing a quick kiss as he zips up his pants. You fix the scattered mess on his desk, righting everything in perfect order once again. And as he heads into his restroom to get cleaned up you slip outside to your desk, undetected.

Or so you think.

“Good mornin’ Miss Secretary,” you hear as you set your things down. You know that voice, you’ve heard him at several city gatherings, and you’ve never had a genuine smile for the man. Something about him is just off.

“How can I help you today, Sheriff Cross?” you ask as politely as you can without grinding your teeth.

He’s wearing that contemptuous smile, the one that hides a hostile attitude. You’ve never liked him from the moment you met him.

“Well, sweetheart,” he starts, and you recoil at the term of endearment. “I’m here to turn in my paperwork to run for the office of Mayor of Eddington.”

dividers by @/saradika 👑

taglist: @sawymredfox | @time-for-my-weekly-spanking | @crumbs-from-the-algonquin | @myownwholewildworld | @berryispunk | @ace-turned-confused | @katw474 | @aurorawritestoescape | @madpanda75 | @whoaitspascal87 | @everybodylovedcontractors | @milla-frenchy (anyone wanting on or off the ride, please let me know!)

[baronessvonglitter]

the fine print of us

(Part 4 of "Office Hours")

Ted Garcia x f!reader | 3.2k | read on AO3

summary: You and Ted finally get to show each other how you truly feel.

WARNINGS: 18+ Only! Office relationship. Coworkers to lovers. Sexual tension. Lots of innuendo. Food/alcohol. Kissing. F!oral. Fingering. Come eating. M!oral. Unprotected piv. Praise kink. Soft dom!Ted. Aftercare.

a/n: Sorry for taking a thousand years to update! But we're finally here! The ✨smut✨BTW Ted is big on seduction and loves old school R&B to set the mood - this is canon and no one can convince me otherwise. ALSO, shout out to Milla - thanks for asking about these crazy fools in love - this chapter was practically done and I sat on it (no pun intended)

TED GARCIA MASTERLIST | FULL MASTERLIST

It’s been the longest week of Ted’s life.

He considers himself a patient man in all respects, except during Zoom meetings, which are the bane of his existence. Other than that he knows that things that are meant for him will come in time. After all, you came into his life right when he needed you.

He admires your consummate professionalism at the office, his eyes hungrily grazing over your figure in your work attire as you flit about, capable and sexy, probably not even a thought given to his state of mind when he watches you. Yet you both handle the sexual tension with discipline during the week, despite the attraction of your bodies: fingers accidentally brush together in an exchange of paperwork, secret smiles, not so much as a kiss on the cheek.

He’s been well-behaved and so have you. Now that the weekend is upon you, it’s time to let loose.

Before the end of the day Friday he puts in a call to the local florist. “Red roses,” he says firmly. “A dozen of them.” He gives your address. “No card. She’ll know who they’re from.”

As he’s preparing on Saturday, he reaches for his phone on several occasions, thumb brushing over your name in his contacts. Half a dozen times he almost calls. Just to confirm. Just to hear your voice again. But no – he wants you untouched by schedules and duties.

He shouldn’t be surprised when you ring his doorbell at eight o’clock on the nose. If you only knew how your punctuality is such a turn-on for him. He’s at the front door in three strides. Slow down, he tells himself. You’re a mayor, not a teenager on a first date. But as he opens the door and finds you standing there, all his practiced words freeze on his tongue. His eyes rake over your form, taking in your red dress, your red lips, one of the roses he sent you is in your hair. Your eyes sparkle captivatingly. Ted’s breath catches in his throat.

“Thank you for the roses,” you say demurely. “You know they’re my favorite.”

Ted’s throat is dry but he manages a soft “Of course I know” as he holds the door open for you. He aches to pull you close to him, but he still has some shred of manners left.

“You look stunning,” he says, fingers tracing from your shoulders to the tips of your fingers, and he holds your hands for a moment before bringing you in for a soft and sweet kiss.

You’ve only ever been inside Ted’s home on official business, never to visit. Until now. You admire the decor, neat and stylish with a southwest motif. “Where’s Eric?” you ask, slipping your purse off your shoulder and hanging it up. The smooth sounds of Rose Royce’s “I Wanna Get Next to You” flow from Ted’s surround sound. He offers you a glass of wine, which you gratefully accept.

“He’s out with friends tonight,” Ted says casually, hoping the implication of you having the house to yourselves will catch on. “Hungry?” he asks.

“Starving,” you answer. “Whatever you have on the stove smells amazing.”

The table is already set with two tapered candles, their flames incandescent. A bottle of champagne, one of the more expensive labels, you note, rests in an ice bucket next to two crystal glasses.

“I don’t cook often,” he admits, leading you to the brightly lit kitchen. “But I managed to throw a little something together tonight.”

“You’ve gone all out,” you tell him, humbled and impressed. “I really appreciate this.”

“You,” he murmurs, stepping close enough to feel the warmth of your body, his hands on your hips, “deserve to be spoiled a little.”

“I won’t lie, I like this seduction technique.” You wrap your arms around his neck.

“Seduction technique? I’m just trying to keep from bending you over this countertop..”

“Jesus,” you exhale. “You don’t mince words, do you?”

Ted leans in, his voice a rough whisper against your ear. “When it comes to you, I don’t have time for words.” His hands slide to your lower back, pulling you flush against him, just enough so you can feel the hard line of him through his slacks. “Every second I spend not touching you or kissing you feels like a crime.”

You whisper his name, subtly moving against him. He growls in response, pressing his forehead to yours, breathing you in – slow and deliberate – like you’re the only oxygen left in the room. You take the lead, reaching up to kiss him, his lips all too eager to be drawn to yours. Warm, soft, insistent, his tongue breaches past your lips to tease yours.

“We should eat,” he manages, finally pulling away.

You exhale a jittery laugh. “Yes.. I’m actually really hungry.”

“Good. I spent all afternoon making this.” He lets go of you and grabs two plates, topping them with perfectly seared steak, roasted potatoes, and charred asparagus. He pours the wine for both of you. His hand lingers on the back of your chair, fingers grazing your bare shoulder.

“Eat up,” he says. “You’re gonna need your strength.”

He watches avariciously as you cut into your steak, daintily bringing it to your mouth. A near-moan leaves you as you taste the meat and his grip on his fork tenses. He watches the tender movement of your throat as you swallow, lightly licking your lips. God, that’s something he wants to explore later.

He does his best to keep the conversation light and pleasant. You talk about your family back home in Texas, and your adventure each Thanksgiving and Christmas to visit them. His own family is small – just him and his son these past few years. His parents passed. Wife was gone long before you entered his life – he doesn’t dwell on this chapter, just states it as fact.

“This is a damn good steak, Ted,” you tell him, washing it down with a glass of red. You dab at your lips with a napkin. “The flavor is perfect. It tastes like heaven.”

“I can think of something else I’d rather taste,” he murmurs.

“Ted,” you tease. “I thought you’d be more original than that.”

He offers a mild shrug and a mischievous grin. “I’ll take honesty over originality any day.”

“Dinner was delicious,” you compliment him. “I didn’t know you could cook.”

“Did you imagine I lived off of coffee and takeout?” He smirks, running a napkin over his mouth. “I wanted to impress you for our first official date.”

“Mission accomplished. Consider me impressed.” You smirk back.

He reaches across the table, fingers tracing the bare skin of your wrist. “That was just dinner. You haven’t had dessert yet..”

The subtlety isn’t lost on you. A frisson of excitement runs from your chest to your core, lighting up every nerve along the way. “Oh? And when was the last time you had dessert?”

“Too long,” he admits. His eyes are dark, like a storm rolling in over the brushland. “But I’m a man who likes to make up for lost time.”

He pushes back from the table with one sharp motion, chair scraping against the tiled floor. In one smooth step he’s in front of you, kneeling between your legs, hands gripping your thighs through your dress.

His voice is low, raw. “Need to touch you, taste you, take you apart.”

“Ted,” you gasp, “if you only knew how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say that..”

His hands slide up your legs, rough and unyielding, fingers biting into your skin. He leans in closer, lips brushing against the bare flesh of your knee. “Jesus Christ, you’re killing me, sweetheart.” His thumbs trace your inner thighs, sliding higher. “I’ve been waiting goddamn weeks to touch you like this.”

Your breath shudders. “Ted.. you’re teasing me..”

He sees you shiver. The fire in his chest is hot and wild. “You have no idea just how much I’ve had to hold myself back.” His thumbs tease the edge of your underwear, making you gasp. “You think this is me teasing? Baby, this is me being patient.”

Your panties are already damp, pussy drooling, the ache in your womb growing exponentially as he takes his time, drawing out the moment, savoring the way you’re steadily losing your poise. He can smell you – sweet, warm, wet. It nearly breaks him. “Christ, you’re drenched already.” His fingers trace the soaked fabric slowly in a deliberate act of torture. Looking up at you through heavy lashes he murmurs, “Tell me what you want.”

“I want your fingers, and.. and your mouth on me.. please,” you gasp.

As if every second of this has been planned and rehearsed inside his head a hundred times before, his fingers hook into the sides of your panties, dragging them down just enough as you lift your hips to give him access. He leans in close, his breath fanning across your sodden flesh.

“Such a good girl,” he murmurs, “begging for my mouth..”

Then he kisses you right where you ache, the first touch soft and teasing. When you whimper he gives you more – harder, deeper – and you taste like heaven. Lightning shoots through your veins, hips arched up to give more of yourself, your fingers carding through Ted’s curly locks as you call out his name. He groans against you, every sound you make a victory. Every gasp an anthem. He works you with slow, sure strokes of his tongue, building the heat, stoking it higher and higher. He knows just where to press, how to swirl, when to suck. When you call his name again, loud, shaky, he slips two fingers inside. “That’s it,” he growls between kisses. “Come for me right here.”

You’ve known men who love to please women, and Ted is definitely that man. He keeps you guessing, and in the next moment gives you exactly what you need. And he does it well. His fingers crook inside you just so, rubbing that hidden sweet spot and keeping his lips pursed around your clit. You come apart easily beneath his ministrations, crying out, limbs quaking.

He takes you through the aftershocks, slowly pulling back as he watches you come down. His whole body is hot, lightning crackling under his skin. “You are so beautiful,” he murmurs, voice rough, fingers sliding out from you. He brings them to his mouth to taste you once more.

Whimpering at the loss of his touch, you’re breathless, sated, excited. You cradle his head in your hands. “God damn it.. you’re good.”

He smiles and presses a kiss to the inside of your knee. Still half-wild and half-in control, he looks like a man who could break. “I don’t think you’re ready for how good I can be.” He stands, taking your hands and pulling you up with him.

Kissing him, tasting your own flavor on his lips, you stumble as one towards his bedroom, undressing each other along the way. On the bed he kicks free from his jeans, his shirt long forgotten somewhere in the hall. Left only in his black boxers which do nothing to hide how hard he is for you, he watches as you slowly peel off that red dress, like a rose casting off its ruby-red petals.

“Jesus,” Ted murmurs, pulling you on top of him on the bed. You’re straddling him in nothing but your bra and panties, matching red silk to go with your dress. “I could die with a smile on my face just seeing you like this..”

“Don’t say that,” you playfully chide him. “There’s no procedure in place for what happens to the mayoral seat if you die.”

“Ever the civil servant,” he teases you before his mouth closes over yours. You help him open the front clasp of your bra. His eyes darken as he takes in the soft curves of your breasts, your nipples taut. Then his mouth is on you, hot, slow, worshipping. One hand cradles your breast while his lips close over the tight peak, sucking gently, then harder as you arch into him with a moan.

“That’s my girl,” he mutters, switching sides and teasing you with teeth and tongue, lips and fingers, teasing you into a frenzy until you beg him for more. His hand slides over your stomach, dipping beneath the edge of your red silk panties. Finding you still slick and aching, he slides two fingers over your folds, slow and teasing.

“Ted!” you moan his name wantonly. He kisses you hard, deep, desperate as his fingers move faster, curling just right, feeling you clench around him. When you come, shaking and moaning his name like a prayer, he slides his fingers out of your slick channel and tears your panties clean off.

You whisper his name like a prayer, now bare before him, your gaze dark and lust-filled, chest heaving with exertion. Ted takes a moment just to look. His gaze slides over your naked body, slow and hungry. God help him, you’re so beautiful laid out beneath him. “You’re a vision,” he whispers.

“Let me see you,” you whisper, reaching up to pull down his boxers. Licking your lips you peel the material down his thighs. His length springs free, thick, flushed, already leaking for you. Just over seven inches, it’s an impressive cock.

“Touch me,” Ted growls, “or I’m gonna lose my mind.”

You wrap your hand around him, gently stroking upwards, feeling the thickness of him in your soft palm. “Can I taste you?”

Every muscle in Ted’s body tenses and he groans as you stroke him. “Please,” he whispers, his breath catching, as your thumb teases the head of his length. You lean down onto his lap, tongue flicking out to capture the bead of moisture from his slit, swirling your tongue.

“Look at me,” he softly orders. “Eyes on me while you’re sucking my cock.”

When your eyes meet his from beneath heavy lashes as your mouth closes around him, he’s done for. He guides your head, his hand on the nape of your neck, tangling in your hair, a deep groan or breathy oh fuck leaves him with each slow drag of your tongue, each gag of your constricting throat.

When you pull away, releasing him with a lewd pop, your eyes are dull and hazy, lips shiny with spit and precome. “I want to ride you,” you tell him. “I come easier when I’m on top.”

“Then get on me, baby,” he says with a low, dark chuckle. “Ride me how you want.”

“Is this okay?” you whisper, straddling him. “I’m on birth control..”

“Only if you’re sure.” He cups your face. “I’m clean – I’ve been tested recently, but sweetheart, if you’d rather use a condom–”

“I trust you,” you whisper, leaning into his palm. “I know you.” Indeed, you know his schedule from top to bottom. He doesn’t have much time for romps in the hay with people you don’t know about. “You’ve been lonely, just like me.”

He’s barely able to keep a coherent thought, the heat of your center just grazing his cock. “So damn lonely,” he agrees. “C’mon, let me feel you..”

Lining him up with you, you settle down on his length. “So big,” you whisper. It’s a snug fit, but you’re already so wet. His hands on your hips, he helps lower you down, savoring the sweet whimpers as he breaches you, filling you. ”You’re so tight,” he rasps, lifting his head to watch himself disappear inside you little by little. “Good girl.. take all of me.. every inch..”

God, he fills you up like no one else ever has. The sweet sting of the stretch of him inside you is alleviated by his hands – a sweep of his thumb across your pearl, circling and teasing, until he’s fully sheathed. Ted stills inside you, buried to the hilt. “Jesus, you feel so good,” he chokes out. His hands find yours, lacing your fingers together as he slowly sits up, bringing you chest to chest. Skin on skin. Heart to heart.

“Eyes on me,” he murmurs, and when your heavy-lidded gaze meets his he begins to move, slow at first. Deep. Rolling his hips in a way that makes you gasp, clinging tighter to him.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” he breathes against your lips. “But I need you.. all of you.”

You gasp, your hips rolling against his, matching his rhythm. It’s bordering on too much when he delves in deep, splitting you open. You’re too full of him, but Ted takes it slow, rocking in an easy tempo.

“That’s it,” he murmurs against your neck. “Take it..” His hands grip you tight, supporting and guiding, as the mattress creaks beneath you. You moan his name, fingers digging into his broad shoulders, head tossed back as you ride him a little harder. His head drops to your shoulder as you take charge. “You take my cock so well, beautiful,” he murmurs, pistoning up to meet your hips, smiling against your skin when you cry out.

“You feel so good!” you gasp, cradling his head. “I’m so close.. I’m so close!”

He lifts his head, wishing he could drown in your eyes. “Look at me,” he growls, cupping your throat to force you to keep his gaze. “I want to see what you look like when you come for me..”

With his name on your lips you come apart, walls fluttering then squeezing him as you cry out in pleasure, seeing stars. “Sweetheart,” he utters, voice broken, ragged, raw. “I need to come inside you.. please.”

“Yes,” you gasp softly, trembling with aftershocks as he keeps fucking you through it. “Want it.. want it all inside me.”

Ted’s control shatters as he presses you back down on the bed, driving into you faster and harder, chasing his own pleasure. With a low growl he buries himself deep and comes inside of you, pulse after pulse of heat filling you as your breaths tangle between desperate kisses.

He holds you tight, both of you sweaty and breathless, listening to the sound of your heartbeats slowing in tandem. He presses soft kisses to your lips, your neck, the ridge of your collar bone, while waiting for the world to come back into focus.

“You okay?” he murmurs against your skin. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No,” you reply softly, your mind practically mush in the serene afterglow. “Ted, that was–” you exhale roughly, your body still thrumming with pleasure.

“Yeah.. I know..” He presses one more kiss to the tip of your nose before gently pulling out. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”

You can’t help ogling his naked figure as he retreats to the bathroom. Tight ass, toned thighs, and a paunch when he turns to the side to wash at the sink. His cock is no longer at attention, but you still feel the way he was buried inside you moments ago, reaching places no one else ever had.

“Enjoying the view?” he says with a smirk as he brings back a damp cloth.

“More than you know,” you smirk up at him, spreading your legs when he parts them for you.

Gently, tenderly, he cleans you up. After, you cuddle with him, listening to the strong, steady beat of his heart.

“Stay the night,” he murmurs, kissing the top of your head.

“Are you sure?”

He nods. “Never been more sure of anything. Stay. Sleep here. Wake up with me.”

You look up, meeting his melted chocolate gaze. “How could I possibly refuse?”

dividers by @/thecutestgrotto 👑

taglist: @sawymredfox | @time-for-my-weekly-spanking | @crumbs-from-the-algonquin | @myownwholewildworld | @berryispunk | @ace-turned-confused | @katw474 | @aurorawritestoescape | @madpanda75 | @whoaitspascal87 | @everybodylovedcontractors | @milla-frenchy (anyone wanting on or off the ride, please let me know!)

[iisu0]

Safe Haven

Joel Miller x Reader

Fandom: The Last of Us (Part II / Jackson Era) Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader (Reader is pregnant) Rating: Explicit / Mature (18+) Warnings/Tropes: Established relationship, Domestic fluff, Soft/Protective Joel, Domestic discipline, Pregnancy, Fluff and Smut, Emotional comfort, Mild language (thanks to Ellie). Word Count: ~3.5k (Short Story)

Summary: A story about a morning of comfort, family warmth and deep, mature passion by the fireplace.

A/N: Hey, guys! Watch a very warm, homely and sometimes hot fanfiction about our beloved Joel. I really wanted to show him like that—protective, caring. I hope you enjoy this post. I will be glad to receive your likes and reblogs! 🤍

Spring in Jackson always came hesitantly, as if afraid of melting the heavy snow caps on the mountaintops too quickly. But today, the sun seemed to finally have the upper hand. Its lazy, warm rays filtered through the loosely drawn bedroom curtains, drawing golden stripes on the wooden floor and on the edge of the heavy blanket.

You woke up to a familiar, barely perceptible rustle. The place next to you had already cooled down, but the pillow still retained a faint smell of tobacco, cedar oil and native warmth. From the kitchen, separated from the bedroom by only a small archway, came the muffled clatter of dishes and a quiet, barely audible rasp — Joel was trying to behave as quietly as possible, which with his build and heavy steps was an almost impossible task.

You smiled, stretching under the covers. Your hand dropped to your stomach by itself. He had already noticeably rounded out — the sixth month was making itself felt—and the usual, trembling warmth spread under the palm of his hand. The baby inside was quiet for now, as if he, too, was listening to the sounds of the house waking up.

When you wrapped yourself in Joel's voluminous flannel shirt (your own clothes were barely coming together at the waist) and slipped barefoot into the hallway, the floorboard creaked treacherously under your foot.

Joel, who was standing at the stove with his back to you, immediately turned around. He was wearing old, worn jeans and a gray shirt, the sleeves of which he habitually rolled up, exposing strong forearms covered with rare scars. He was holding an old cast-iron frying pan in his hand. When he saw you, he frowned, with that trademark, assumed severity behind which he had long been unable to hide his tenderness.

—Hey," his low, sleep—hoarse voice made your heart do its usual soft somersault.

"I told you to lie down." The sun had barely risen.

"I'm bored lying alone," you replied softly, coming closer.

"Besides, someone was so desperate to be a silent ninja that they would have woken up an infected person in the basement.

Joel let out a short laugh, shaking his head, and set the pan on the cold hob. He took a step towards you, and at the same moment his gaze fell on your bare feet. The touch of mild irony immediately evaporated.

—Honey, for God's sake," he growled, rapidly closing the distance between you. — The floor is icy. How many times should I say it? Tommy fixed the heating, but there are still drafts coming from below.

Before you could say a word in your defense, his strong arms wrapped around your hips and back. Joel lifted you up as easily as if you hadn't gained ten pounds in the last few months. Laughing, you wrapped your arms around his neck, burying your nose in his coarse, slightly prickly beard, which smelled of morning freshness and light smoke from the stove.

He carried you to a massive wooden armchair, on which a thick woolen blanket was casually draped, and gently lowered you. Immediately, without getting up from his knees, he reached for your warm wool socks, left yesterday on the armrest, and began to carefully pull them on your feet. His huge, calloused fingers were surprisingly sensitive and careful.

"That's it," he grunted with satisfaction, tucking the edge of the plaid under your feet. "Now sit down. The coffee is almost ready. Well, more precisely, what we call coffee here. Chicory is mixed in half with the remains of real grains that were exchanged from merchants last week. But it smells good.

"And the eggs?" You asked hopefully, glancing at the stove.

"And eggs," Joel nodded, standing up to his full height and looking down at you with a soft, barely noticeable smile that made lines of wrinkles gather around his eyes. — Maria handed over the fresh ones from the poultry house. She said you need more protein right now. She generally controls your diet more strictly now than the patrol schedule.

You leaned back in your chair, feeling absolute, concentrated happiness spreading inside. In this harsh, dilapidated world, where every day outside Jackson's walls was a struggle for survival, it was safer here in this small wooden kitchen than anywhere else.

Joel returned to the stove. Watching him at such moments was your favorite pastime. The man who could reload a gun in one motion and whose name once made smugglers in Boston whisper, was now turning over an omelet with the most serious look, making sure that the yolk did not spread, because "you like liquid."

There was a crash from above, from the second floor. Judging by the sound, someone kicked the bedside table with a swing, and then a dull, sleepy curse was heard.

Joel didn't even turn his head, just sighed heavily, and the corner of his mouth twitched up again.

"Our patrol storm has woken up,— he stated quietly.

A minute later, Ellie appeared on the stairs. Her brown hair stood on end, a pillow mark was imprinted on her cheek, and a huge flannel shirt hung on her like on a hanger. She walked, shuffling her sneakers down the steps, and rubbed her eyes with all her might.

"What's that stink?".. — she croaked instead of greeting, but immediately caught the scent of food, and her eyes opened wider. — Oh. Grub. Joel, if you overcooked the bread again, I'll feed it to the horses.

—Good morning, Ellie. It's good to see you, too," Joel replied dryly, putting breakfast on plates. — And the bread is perfect. Sit down at the table and wash up, don't forget, it's scary to look at you.

Ellie made a face at him behind his back, a gesture that has become a mandatory morning ritual, and immediately turned her gaze to you. Her face softened instantly, although she tried to maintain her usual independent look. She came up to your chair, rested her elbows on the armrest and looked into your face.

—Hi,— she said softly.

"How are you?" This… Did the big guy inside you kick too hard last night? Otherwise, if he's taken after Joel, he's probably already trying to squeeze out more space for himself.

—Good morning, Ellie," you smiled, running your fingers through her disheveled hair. — Everything was quiet at night. I think we slept like marmots.

—Well, that's great," Ellie sniffed and squinted at your stomach, which was clearly visible under the loose shirt. She still sometimes looked at him with a kind of childish, timid apprehension, as if she was afraid that if she got too close, she would break some kind of magic. — Okay, I'm going to splash water on my face before the old man starts grumbling that I'm spreading the infection around the house.

—I can hear everything,— Joel replied from the stove, putting three plates and two mugs of hot drink on the table (herbal tea for you, coffee for him, and water for Ellie, since she didn't like to drink something hot in the morning).

Ellie just grunted and ran into the bathroom, taking the stairs two at a time.

Joel came up to you, holding your mug in his hands. He placed it on a small table nearby, and then he squatted down in front of your chair. His gaze has changed — the morning fuss has disappeared, giving way to something so deep and intimate that it takes your breath away.

When the bathroom door on the top floor slammed shut and the sound of running water could be heard, a ringing, almost tangible silence reigned in the kitchen.

Joel did not get to his feet. He remained squatting in front of your chair, looking up at you. His brown eyes, usually wary and tired from years of living, have now darkened, covered with a viscous, lazy haze. He reached out and gently took your hand, intertwining his long, callused fingers with yours.

"You look pale today,— he said softly, and his deep voice vibrated somewhere in your chest. — Are you sure you're feeling well? Did the baby bother you?

"It's okay, Joel,— you breathed out, feeling pleasant goosebumps on your skin from his proximity. "Just a little sleepy."

He gently released his hand and moved it to your thigh, squeezing it almost imperceptibly through the thin fabric of your house pants. His palm slowly, inch by inch, crept up until it rested on your rounded stomach. Big, hot, it covered him almost completely. Joel froze, listening, and his stern face smoothed out. He gently, barely pressing, ran his palm along the round curve, outlining the contours of their unborn child.

"Sleeping," he stated softly, and a faint smile appeared on his lips. — Obedient. Just like you.

But the pious concern in his eyes began to change rapidly. Joel's gaze slid higher, to where the collar of your loose flannel shirt was slightly askew, exposing your collarbone and the pale skin of your neck. His fingers, which had just been stroking your stomach, slid possessively but incredibly gently under the fabric, rising to your ribs and then higher.

You gasped softly as his other hand moved behind the back of your head, tangling slightly in your hair and forcing you to lean forward.

— Joel… You warned in a half—whisper, even though your own fingers were already gripping his sturdy shoulders by themselves. "Ellie will be down soon.

—Ellie's going to be stuck there for at least ten minutes, I know her habits," he growled against your lips. His breath, smelling of morning coffee, scorched your skin.

He kissed you, gently at first, probing the ground, but sensing your instant response, he deepened the kiss. His hot palm moved confidently up under your shirt, stroking your heavy chest, forcing you to sigh softly into his mouth. His other hand moved to your waist, pulling you closer to the edge of the chair, closer to him. Joel leaned forward, looming over you, and his kisses went down to your jaw and then to your neck, where he began to leave wet, teasing bites that made your knees weak.

—Joel, wait," you gasped, throwing your head back and melting at his touch.

His fingers tightened on your thigh, lifting the hem of your shirt even higher, and he possessively pressed his whole body against your legs, not letting you pull away. He acted confidently, with the same masculine gravity that you could never resist, especially now that your hormones were already making you want his touch every second.

And it was at that moment, when his lips covered yours again, and his hand under your shirt made you gasp, that you heard the distinct click of the door opening from above.

You didn't make it. More precisely, Joel tried to pull away as calmly as possible, but when Ellie, cheerfully jumping two steps at a time, flew into the kitchen, the oil painting appeared in front of her in all its glory: Joel, breathing heavily, with slightly smudged lips, is sitting on his knees in front of you, his hand is still suspiciously close to the hem of your shirt. And you're sitting there with a flushed face and disheveled hair, frantically adjusting your collar.

Ellie froze on the last step. Her eyes widened, and her face reflected a mixture of the deepest disgust and teenage malice.

— Oh-oh, ugh! — she drawled loudly, theatrically covering her eyes with her palm, although she still peeked through her outstretched fingers. —Really?" Right in the kitchen? Right before breakfast?! My eyes! My psyche is destroyed forever!

Joel slowly got to his feet. All his morning tenderness was instantly hidden behind a stony expression, although his ears were suspiciously red. He turned to Ellie, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Ellie, shut up and sit at the table," he cut her off dryly, trying to return to his usual commanding tone, which was coming out pretty badly.

— No, are you kidding me? Ellie walked over to the table, ostentatiously walking around Joel in a wide arc, as if he were contagious. — Joel, you're over fifty, for God's sake, she's got a baby inside, and you're still not going to calm down!

—Ellie! Joel growled louder and with a warning in his voice, but you saw the laughter tremble in the corners of his eyes in panic.

You couldn't stand it and giggled into your fist, hiding your face in a woolen blanket.

Ellie pulled out a wooden chair with a bang and plopped down on it, still grumbling under her breath and ostentatiously staring at the ceiling, pretending that she was afraid to look in your direction.

Joel sighed heavily, ran his hand over his face, trying to wipe away the remnants of the surging desire, and returned to the table. He silently pushed a plate of scrambled eggs and toast towards Ellie, and then took your portion and carefully brought it to you right by the armchair, along with warm herbal tea.

—Here,— his voice became soft again when he spoke to you, although he still tried not to look you straight in the eye, so as not to completely betray his inner embarrassed heat. "Eat before it gets cold."

—Thank you, Daddy,— you whispered softly, with your lips alone, accepting the plate.

Joel barely twitched his cheek, giving you a meaningful look that clearly promised * "we'll talk about this later when someone leaves"*, and sat down across from Ellie.

There was relative silence in the kitchen for a couple of minutes, broken only by the clatter of forks. Ellie was eating breakfast with the appetite of a teenager, but her malicious gaze kept darting from Joel to you.

—So,— she finally couldn't stand it, swallowing another piece of toast and resting her chin on her palm. "Since we're all here… ahem… "We're awake." What are your plans for today? Joel, are you going to spend all day in Tommy's workshop pretending to be very busy instead of mopping the floors?

"I have a shift at the mill today,— Joel replied calmly, without looking up from his plate. — We need to check the gears before the flood waters from the mountains come in full force. And after lunch, I promised Tommy I'd help fix the fence by the horse pens. So I've got my hands full. As far as I know, you're on patrol today.

Ellie immediately became serious, her shoulders slumped slightly, and the usual stubbornness flashed in her eyes.

—Yes,— she muttered. — Dina and I are leaving in an hour. Let's check the southern sector. The guys from yesterday's shift saw some footprints at an abandoned gas station. Most likely, they're just deer, but we need to check it out.

Joel pursed his lips at the mention of the patrol. It was his habitual, involuntary movement—he still hated letting Ellie go outside Jackson's walls, even though he understood that she was already an adult, trained and able to stand up for herself. But now, with a pregnant you waiting for him at home, his protective instinct seemed to have escalated to the limit, spreading to their entire little family.

"Be careful," he said dully. "Don't get into trouble. If you notice anything bigger than a couple of stray clickers, come back and report to Tommy. No need to be heroic.

—I know, I know," Ellie said, but there was no anger in her voice. She turned to you, and her face instantly softened. "You'll be home, right?" Don't carry heavy buckets of water, okay? If you need anything, tell Maria, she'll send one of the guys. Or I'll do it myself when I get back.

"It's okay, Ellie,— you smiled, touched by her clumsy but so sincere concern. — Joel has already brought firewood and water for three days in advance. I was just going to go to the library and spend some time in the garden, weather permitting.

Ellie nodded, finishing the last bite. She got up, took her plate to the sink, and suddenly froze as she passed your chair. She looked at your stomach, which seemed especially large now that you were sitting in a flannel shirt.

She hesitantly shifted her weight from one foot to the other, hiding her hands in the pockets of the jacket she had already draped over her shoulders.

"Listen to me… — she began quietly, squinting at Joel, who at that moment pretended to be very absorbed in his coffee. — And he is… Well, or her… Have they heard anything yet? Well, outside?

You smiled softly and set the plate down on the table.

— They say that by this time they can already hear sounds perfectly. Especially low voices, and… he can definitely hear your voice, too, Ellie.

Ellie sniffed, a slight blush appearing on her cheeks. She took a step closer and, reaching out, quickly, as if afraid that she would be electrocuted, touched her fingertips to your stomach. At that very second, the baby inside, as if sensing the presence of his "older sister," responded with a distinct, gentle push directly into her palm.

Ellie flinched and widened her eyes, pulling her hand away, but immediately pressed it again, this time with her whole palm.

— Awesome… — she whispered, and a huge, silly and absolutely happy smile spread across her face. "He just kicked me!" Hey, little one, do you hear? This is Ellie. Just try to be born a grump like your dad, I'll personally teach you bad words and how to steal cigarettes from Tommy.

—Ellie,— Joel said with a warning laugh, but there were tears of pride and tenderness in his eyes, which he tried his best to blink away.

— That's it, that's it, I'm leaving! Ellie shouted cheerfully, grabbing her backpack by the door. — Bye! Joel… At least don't bother her until I leave the gate!

The door of the house slammed shut with a loud bang, and her footsteps quickly died away on the veranda.

Joel slowly got up from the table, shaking his head, and walked over to you. The tension of the patrols and the morning rush was gone, leaving just the two of them in a warm, spring house.

Evening fell on Jackson imperceptibly, enveloping the wooden houses in a cool bluish twilight.

Evening fell on Jackson imperceptibly, enveloping the wooden houses in a cool bluish twilight. After returning from Tommy's shift, Joel immediately got down to business: he lit the fireplace to expel the dampness that had accumulated during the day from the corners. After the noisy return of Ellie, who, after hastily having a snack and excitedly talking about a calm patrol, ran away to spend the night with Dina, the same secluded, ringing silence finally reigned in the house.

You were sitting on a small sofa right in front of the fireplace, tucking your legs under you and looking at the dancing flames. From the dimness of the room, heavy, measured footsteps came from the direction of the kitchen. Joel came up behind you, and you felt the couch sag slightly under his weight.

His big hands, smelling of wood and barely perceptible gun oil, rested on your shoulders. He began to slowly, strongly stretch the muscles that had become numb during the day, forcing you to blissfully close your eyes and lean your head back against his chest.

"Tired?" "What is it?" he asked softly, his deep voice close to your ear sounding like the rumble of distant thunder.

"My back hurts a little," you admitted, covering his hand with yours. "We're growing too fast.

Joel didn't say anything, but his hands immediately slid down your collarbones, over your breasts, until they settled on your rounded stomach. He sat down more comfortably, pulling you back against his broad chest, completely wrapping you in his warmth. His calloused fingers gently and methodically stroked the fabric of your nightgown. Under his palms, the baby turned lazily a couple of times and lay still, lulled by his father's warmth.

—You know,— Joel spoke softly, and you felt his beard tickle your neck. — I was working at the pens today and caught myself thinking… that I just can't get used to it. To the fact that it's all for real. You, this house, the child. Sometimes it feels like I'm going to wake up somewhere in Boston on a dirty mattress, with nothing but contraband and quarantine walls around me again.

You turned your head, catching his gaze, full of old, but gradually fading pain.

"It's okay, Joel. There's nothing to worry about."

He looked at you, and in the firelight his eyes darkened, filled with a thick, heavy tenderness. Joel gently turned you around, bringing you face-to-face on his lap. Your stomach is gently pressed against his firm abs.

"I've been thinking about this all day," he admitted hoarsely, brushing stray strands from your face. His breathing quickened.His lips covered yours, this time without the morning rush, but with incredible, hungry depth. Joel kissed you as if he were putting all his devotion into that kiss, possessively wrapping his arms around your waist.

He slowly lowered you from his lap right onto the soft pile of the carpet in front of the fireplace, throwing pillows from the sofa under your head. All his severity, his enormous strength, were now subordinated to one goal — to be as careful as possible with you. Joel was leaning on top of you, leaning on his elbows so as not to put his weight on your stomach.

His fingers, hot and eager, slid to the hem of your thin chemise. Lifting you slightly, he pulled the fabric over your head in one smooth motion and threw it somewhere into the darkness of the room.

In the semi-darkness, illuminated only by the golden flames of the fireplace, your heavy chest and rounded belly looked like a real miracle to him. Joel froze for a second, his heavy breathing scorched your skin, and his darkened eyes reflected a deep, almost religious adoration.

"You're so beautiful,baby girl" he breathed, and his voice cracked.

He reached for the hem of his sweatpants, hastily but carefully getting rid of the remnants of his clothes. Throwing them off, he exposed his sturdy, scarred body, and the contrast between his rough, masculine strength and your soft, feminine figure seemed incredibly right now.

Joel lowered himself lower, covering your neck, collarbones with kisses, catching your first quiet sobs with his lips. His palms caressed your thighs, slowly rising to your waist. He stopped at your stomach, pressing his lips to the round curve and leaving there a long, tremulous kiss that made your stomach ache sweetly. You felt a wave of tenderness rise in your throat, and you sighed shakily, twining your fingers into his coarse, gray-streaked hair at the back of his neck.

When his fingers gently touched your inner thigh, gently spreading them apart, you moaned softly with impatience. You were wet and hot, completely ready for him, and the hormones of pregnancy only aggravated every touch to the limit.

Joel lifted himself up, settling between your thighs. He entered you in one smooth, slow and careful motion, forcing you to convulsively arch your back and gasp for air. A long, hoarse sob of pleasure escaped from your chest. Joel froze inside, his muscles tensed, and large beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. He held himself back with all his might, peering into your face, checking if you were okay.

Catching your pleading, lust-clouded gaze, he began to move.

It was slow, deep, and incredibly slow. Each of his thrusts was filled with such a weighty, tangible tenderness, from which everything inside was compressed into a sweet, tight spiral. Joel intertwined his fingers with yours, pressing your hands to the floor, and his movements became a little faster, but remained just as sensitive.

— Joel… Oh my God, Joel," you sobbed, breaking into a whisper as he touched the most sensitive points inside you.

He caught your every breath, every soft moan, eagerly biting into your lips to kiss those sounds. The golden glow of the flames danced on his broad, bulbous back. The heat inside grew, filling his entire being. You freed your arms and hugged him tightly around his neck, nuzzling his shoulder, smelling of skin and male sweat, suffocating from the avalanche of feelings that covered you.

You pulled him towards you, demanding more, tightening your thighs around his waist. Joel moaned into your neck in a low, hoarse voice and gave up—his thrusts became a little harder, more confident, but he still took care of your stomach, keeping his weight on his hands. It was a balancing act on the verge of completely dissolving into each other. At the peak of your pleasure, you squeezed your eyes shut, shouting his name, feeling everything inside explode with sweet, convulsive waves of ecstasy. Joel pushed into you one last time, hard and powerful, and with a broken, hoarse exhale he poured out inside, shuddering all over his body and holding you tightly to him.After a long time, when the flames in the fireplace had turned into comfortably smoldering coals, you were still lying on the floor, covered with a heavy woolen blanket.

Joel was lying on his side, hugging you from behind. His hand, as always, rested on your stomach, slowly and reassuringly stroking your skin. Your breathing became even, and Joel's heartbeat at your shoulder blade was pounding steadily and reliably. In this house, lost among the snows and forests of Wyoming, protected by his huge palms, you fell asleep with the absolute knowledge that you were completely safe.

Thanks for reading!

[pedroscurls]

then came you (epilogue)

summary: one year later... and life's better than ever.

pairing: harry castillo x fem!reader content warning(s): fluff, one year time jump, stevie being the best big sister, no use of y/n. word count: 2.6k a/n: Y'ALL!!! huge thank you to everyone for reading this story. i really didn't expect so many people to love it and i truly didn't think it would have lasted this many chapters. it's so bittersweet to say goodbye to this story and this family that i created, but... who knows? maybe there might be a drabble or two in the future. we'll see! love y'all and enjoy the final part of then came you. <33 part 29. | series masterlist.

One year later…

Harry was sitting on the carpeted floor of the living room with Frankie on his lap as he leaned forward to give Frankie raspberry kisses on her cheek and neck, her giggles filtering the room. He smiled to himself and leaned back, eyes widening and lips parting playfully as she reached out to touch his face. 

“Dada!” She giggled again, gently trying to push him away. 

“You’re an early riser like daddy, aren't you?” He teased, pulling back to look at her as he rested her against his knees. “Stevie and mama like their sleep.”

She stared at him and smiled, her small hands touching his cheeks. “Mama?” 

“Yeah, mama,” he smiled. “Can you say Stevie?” 

She tilted her head. “S—Sissy!” 

“Close enough,” he smiled, pulling her gently to his chest as he stood from the floor. Harry looked around and smiled, keeping Frankie against him. They moved out of the penthouse a few months after Frankie was born, finding a smaller two-story home in a much safer neighborhood. 

As he walked towards the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, Harry heard the quiet patter of feet coming from down the hallway. Within a few seconds, he saw Stevie round the corner with her hair in complete disarray as she rubbed her eyes sleepily.

“Morning, Stevie girl,” Harry said, keeping Frankie propped up against him with one arm as he kneeled down to pick Stevie up with his other arm. “You look like you had a good sleep.” 

“I did,” she yawned, resting against his shoulder as she opened her eyes to look across to see Frankie. She grinned immediately and reached out to touch her younger sister’s cheek. “Hi, Frankie.” 

“Sissy,” she smiled.

Stevie’s eyes lit up. 

Harry smiled, looking between both his girls with loving eyes. “Alright, what are we thinking for breakfast?” 

“Pancakes,” Stevie answered. “Right, Frankie?”

Frankie nodded excitedly, lifting her head from Harry’s shoulder. 

“Pancakes,” Stevie repeated.

“Whatever my girls want,” he smiled. “They’re gonna get.” 

“Can I help, daddy?” 

“Of course, Stevie girl,” Harry answered, turning his head to kiss the crown of her head. “Go and get your apron while I put Frankie in her high chair.” He continued, setting Stevie down on her feet. He set Frankie down in her high chair and positioned it so that she could watch both him and Stevie make pancakes, while Stevie jogged to the pantry to retrieve her apron and stool so that she could reach the kitchen counter. 

“Okay, you comfortable, Frankie?” Harry asked, making sure she was buckled into the high chair before lowering the tray to secure her. 

Frankie flashed a smile. “Ya!” 

He chuckled and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “Cutie.” 

Frankie giggled, then looked over to see Stevie putting her tangled hair into a hair tie. Harry looked over his shoulder and smiled, walking over to her. “You don’t want to brush your hair, honey?”

“No,” Stevie answered. “This is fine!” 

“Hmm… you know mama’s gonna wake up and bring out a brush for you if she sees that your hair isn’t brushed,” Harry smiled, tapping the tip of her nose with his finger. 

“But it’s fine,” she sighed. “Can you brush it then? While I make the pancakes?” 

“Oh, you’re gonna make the pancakes, huh?” Harry chuckled.

“Duh,” she giggled. “But you can make the bacon. It splashes sometimes.” 

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” he smiled. “Let me go get that brush. Don’t start without me or else you’re going to make a mess.”

“I never make a mess!” Stevie giggled.

Frankie kicked her feet and giggled too.

“See, Frankie agrees.”

Harry laughed, looking between both Frankie and Stevie. “I’m outnumbered… but fine. You girls have me wrapped around your fingers.” 

Stevie smiled.

Frankie grinned.

“I’ll be back,” he said. “Stevie girl, I mean it though, don’t start yet, okay?” 

“Okay, daddy,” she nodded.

Harry left the kitchen briefly to walk towards Stevie’s room as he heard her start talking to Frankie, who erupted in giggles. Their laughter echoed throughout the home and down the hallway, a large grin lining his lips. 

Stevie was holding onto Frankie’s hand while Harry was holding the tray of food that both he and Stevie made. The three of them were walking down the hallway to surprise you with breakfast in bed and he glanced over his shoulder to see both his girls giggling to each other. 

Quietly, Harry opened the door with his foot to see you sit up with a quiet yawn, your hands coming up to rub your eyes like Stevie had done that morning too. 

“Mama!” Frankie said first, squeezing Stevie’s hand as she tried to walk a bit faster, though her steps were still a bit wobbly. 

You smiled instantly, eyes fluttering open to see Harry with a tray of food followed by your two girls trailing behind him.

“What’s this?”

“The girls wanted to have breakfast in bed,” Harry smiled, setting the tray down on the nightstand and leaning over to peck your lips. 

“We helped with pancakes,” Stevie said, helping Frankie onto the bed carefully before she climbed onto it too. Frankie quickly crawled over to you, a quiet giggle escaping her lips once you scooped her into your arms. 

“Ooh, I love when you make pancakes, baby,” you replied, using your free hand to cup her cheek gently. “Did daddy help?”

“Help? I made it,” Harry said teasingly. “Stevie helped.”

Stevie giggled and felt him pull her onto his lap as he sat down next to you on the bed. “I think we both made it,” she corrected, curling in his arms as she glanced over at the tray of food. 

Harry laughed to himself and gently tickled Stevie’s sides, her laughter filtering the room and Frankie joining in now too despite not her understanding why she was laughing. 

You grinned to yourself, leaning against Harry’s side. “Ah, so a team effort,” you said.

“Exactly! Team effort, daddy,” Stevie grinned. “Now, can we eat?” 

“Yeah, Stevie girl,” he chuckled, reaching over to grab the tray to set it on the bed in front of the four of you. You reached for the cup of coffee first, taking a careful sip of it as you looked over at him. 

“Morning,” you whispered. 

“Morning, baby,” Harry smiled, leaning in to peck your lips. “Sleep okay?”

You nodded, turning your attention to the pancakes as Frankie began reaching for it. “Okay, baby,” you said. “Careful now. We don’t want syrup getting on the sheets.”

Frankie looked up at you and tilted her head. “Mama…” She was a spitting image of Harry—dark hair with slight curls and deep brown eyes too. When she grinned, there was a subtle dimple on her cheek as well. 

Stevie cut up a piece of a pancake and dipped it in the syrup before she brought it Frankie’s lips. “Here, Frankie,” she said softly. When Frankie leaned forward to take the pancake from the fork, Stevie carefully cupped her chin to make sure that nothing spilled. 

Then, she turned to look up at Harry. “See, I’m careful. I don’t make a mess.”

“You’re sassy today,” he teased, gently tickling her sides as she squirmed against him. 

You laughed to yourself and watched Stevie and Harry, biting your lower lip. There had been a part of you that wondered how their relationship would shift now that Frankie was born, but nothing changed. If anything, they just got closer. 

“I was thinking,” you began, taking a piece of bacon and lifting it to your lips. “We could go to the park today.”

Stevie’s eyes widened excitedly. “Can we?!” 

Frankie was focused on the pancake as you handed her a smaller piece for her to hold. She was grinning to herself as she took careful bites, leaning back against you. You looked down at her briefly and smiled, kissing her cheek before turning your attention to Harry and Stevie who were sitting next to you. 

“I think that sounds like a good plan,” Harry said. “Then maybe… we can go get ice cream at Central Park.”

You smiled to yourself. “Maybe there might be music too.”

Stevie nodded, eating carefully as well. She reached for her cup of orange juice and took a sip of it before setting it back on the tray. “And daddy will keep his eyes to himself.”

You let out a snort and looked over at Harry.

His eyes widened. “Hey! I was not watching the two of you that afternoon…”

You laughed quietly. “I think you were, baby.”

“You guys were just… there,” he reasoned. “I was listening to the busker and you guys just so happened to be there too.”

Stevie giggled, looking over at you before she turned her focus on eating. 

“Best day of my life, though,” Harry continued, looking over at you and smiled to himself. He watched you look down at Frankie, the young girl lifting her small pancake to your lips to offer you a bite, which you took a small bit of it. 

“It was?” Stevie asked, looking up at him.

“One of the best days of my life,” he corrected. “Because it gave me you guys, gave me all of this,” he smiled. 

Stevie grinned and leaned up to kiss his cheek. “I love you, daddy.”

“Love you too, Stevie girl,” he said, grabbing a napkin to wipe at the corner of her lips. “My messy girl.”

“Okay… maybe I do make a mess sometimes,” she smiled.

“Hmm, sometimes, okay,” he teased. 

“Dada!” Frankie giggled, holding up the same piece of pancake over to him. 

“Oh, you want to share with daddy too?” He smiled, leaning over to take a small bite. “You’re so sweet,” he said, gently kissing her forehead. 

“After breakfast,” you said, “We’ll get ready for the park.”

“And daddy brushed my hair,” Stevie pointed out. “So, I don’t need to brush it again.”

“Yes, you do,” you laughed quietly. 

“But why?”

“Because, baby,” you said, reaching over to cup her cheek. “How about I braid it, hm? That way, it won’t get tangled so easily when you play at the park.”

“Can daddy braid it?” Stevie asked.

Harry grinned. “Yes, I can,” he answered. “I’ve gotten better. I’ve practiced.”

“Yes, on me,” you smiled. “He is getting better.” You gently set Frankie down on the bed next to Stevie as you leaned over to peck Harry’s lips. 

“I love you,” you whispered.

Harry smiled, hand coming up to your cheek as both your girls were eating amongst themselves. 

“I love you too, baby,” he whispered.

Later that night, Harry had managed to get both girls to sleep rather quickly. The day at the park tiring them both out. Stevie was already fast asleep in her room after Harry had sung her to sleep and Frankie finally was asleep in her crib in her own room too.

As he walked back into the main bedroom, he noticed the bathroom door open to see you standing in front of the sink with a towel in hand after you finished washing your face. Smiling to himself, he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom. “What do you think of a honeymoon, baby?”

“A honeymoon?”

“Yeah, belated honeymoon at least,” he answered. “We never got the chance to take one after we got married.” 

“Where were you thinking?”

“Wherever you want,” he said, walking over to you and wrapping his arms around you from behind. Harry stared at you through the mirror, turning his head to kiss your cheek. “We can go to Europe. We can go to Asia. We can go anywhere.”

“Anywhere?”

He nodded. 

“Hawaii,” you said. “I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii.”

He smiled. “Hawaii it is,” he said. “I was hoping you’d choose a place where you can walk around in your bikini.”

You rolled your eyes playfully before reaching for something on the counter. Then, you slowly lifted it for him to see.

“Guess we should go sometime soon then,” you said. “Before I get too big.”

Harry’s eyes widened slightly. He pulled away from you to look at the pregnancy test that you lifted to his view. “You’re pregnant?” 

“Took a couple of tests,” you answered, a small smile lining your lips. “All positive.”

“You’re pregnant,” he repeated. “We’re gonna have another baby?”

“Yeah, Harry,” you laughed quietly, hands cupping his cheeks gently as you leaned in to peck his lips. “We’re gonna have another baby.”

Harry’s smile grew as he wrapped his arms around you and lifted you gently off your feet. “I love you,” he whispered. “I love you so fucking much.” 

“Yeah,” you smiled. “I know you do… it’s why I’m pregnant again,” you teased. “But I love you too, Harry.” You felt his lips move to your neck, feeling his stubble brush against your skin, causing you to erupt in a fit of laughter. He held you closer and smiled to himself. 

His house had been quiet and empty. 

But since marrying you, it had not only been filled with so much love, but also with so much laughter. 

He pulled back to look down at you, hand coming up to rest on your cheek lightly. Harry ran his thumb across your jawline. “So, Hawaii…”

“Hawaii,” you nodded.

“And then another baby,” he said.

“Guess Charlotte was right,” you smiled.

Harry grinned. “Yeah, guess so.”

“We’re gonna have a shit ton of kids,” you laughed quietly. 

“Well, that was the plan all along anyway,” he replied, leaning down to peck your lips. “I love you,” Harry repeated. “Thank you for giving me everything I ever dreamt of,” he whispered. 

“You’re unreal,” you teased, referring back to what you two would say to each other in the beginning of the relationship. You moved to wrap your arms around his neck as you leaned in to lightly peck his lips. “And thank you for giving me everything I ever wished for.”

Harry smiled, lifting you off your feet once more and taking you towards the bed. “Kids are asleep…” he said, gently setting you onto your back as he settled himself between your legs. “Thinking we can celebrate the good news.”

“Celebrating is what got us the good news,” you laughed quietly, running your hands through his hair as you felt his hands run along your legs and up towards the waistband of your shorts. 

He hummed, resting his forehead against your own. “Well, guess we’re celebrating again then.” 

You laughed quietly as his hands moved underneath your shirt to touch your bare skin as Harry’s lips moved to the side of your neck. 

“Just can’t get enough of you,” he mumbled.

You smiled, eyes falling shut as you wrapped your arms around him. “Can never get enough of you too, Mr. Castillo.”

Harry lifted his head to look down at you. “Oh, Mrs. Castillo,” he grinned. “You know I love it when you call me that.”

You slowly rolled him over onto his back as you straddled his waist, hands moving to rest on his chest. “Oh, I know,” you chuckled. 

Harry moved a hand to your tummy and smiled to himself, sitting up as his other hand wrapped around your waist. “Dream come true,” he whispered. 

Then, he leaned in and pressed his lips firmly against your own. 

Everything in his life made sense now. 

You and Stevie were the missing pieces that he didn’t realize he needed. 

And this growing family he was going to share with you really was something he always dreamt of having. 

taglist: @picketniffler @pleurspetal @glitterspark @notyourlovemonkey @enchantedreader @fearlesslypascal @just-mj-or-not @sunnytuliptime @christinamadsen @wildthyng @missladym1981 @maried01 @dugiioh @woodxtock @bibimysoul @nightwitchlurker @brittmb115 @beezusvreeland @mrsbilicablog @needz1nk @honey-moon-13 @orcasoul @arianmock13-blog @idk-tbh127 @mariamorales1998 @lizzie-cakes @pedritosgfreal @blog-luvdance @wkuwcb @hoddystark @madmelz @stylesispunk @vickie5446 @thatcorporategirlie @ashleyfilm @mcthsman @inept-the-magnificent @billionairecowgirl @06nasyrah13 @dotyoureyez @matt-sturnioloo @callmebyyournick-name @joelsarchive @ultimatewolverine @cowboylover00 @kneelforloki @sesdeuxyeux @noooway555 @b1bbles @msdariaknight @comfortzonequeen @maryfanson @cameronsbabydoll @the-curator1 @truffleshuffle12

[chaoswithtaste]

Brat Decisions

Pairing – Joel x fem!reader

Companion piece to Pour Choices

Summary

Setting foot into Pour Decisions definitely was one of Joel's better choices. He'd went for coffee and left with a brat that kept him on his toes. Smug grin and gum popping. He'd lie if he'd claim he didn't enjoy that just as much as reminding you how much of a good girl you can be. Like when you steal his shirt and cause him to be late to the construction site because of that.

Warnings

+18 – mdni; pure smut, pwp style, bratting, breath play, spanking, p in v sex, orgasm denial, multiple orgasms, semi-public sex, cunnilingus, implied spit kink, daddy kink, unspecified age gap, alternating POVs

a/n

I loved their dynamic too much to leave it at a one-shot, so here we are with a companion piece/continuation. my notes for this one literally were more porn less plot so here we are! enjoy <3

word count: 3.8k

as seen on archiveofourown

You.

“Babygirl, have you seen my—” the word shirt died on his tongue when he found you standing in your small kitchen in front of the coffee machine that was far too expansive for your little kitchen. Wearing the flannel he was looking for. The red flannel he’d worn last night when he’d picked you up from the café. It reached down to about mid thigh, not that it was covering much, given you’d left it unbuttoned. Giving him quite the view because you wore nothing underneath it. 

Somewhere over the last couple of weeks a good chunk of your clothes had wound up at his place and his at yours. Making mornings easier. Unless you hadn’t done laundry because you’d spend the last week and a half almost exclusively at his place. First he’d gotten sick, and you’d been there to make him soup and tea and make sure he actually stayed in bed and rested and then just as he’d gotten better, you’d caught the plague. 

And if Joel was attentive and caring before, you’d gotten princess treatment after. Going as far as him taking another day off work just to be there for you. Soup and terrible horror movies and spending the better part of the day in his arms included.

“‘m ‘fraid, I need this,” Joel breathed when he remembered to speak, tucking you closer by the flannel. 

“Nope,” you offered, a grin on your lips. “’s mine now. Finder’s keeper’s and all that.”

“Finder’s keeper’s?” He arched a a brow, unable to keep his fingers from slipping under the flannel and settling against your waist, his thumb tracing against your skin. 

“Mhm,” you were close enough now that your nose brushed against his. “Found it here actually,” you remarked. You’d gotten sidetracked while cooking. Enough so that the stove had to be turned off temporarily while he had fucked you on the counter top beside it. 

Dinner was head half naked after that. 

“So it’s mine now.”

“That so?” He was hard, you could feel him pressing  against you through the denim of his jeans. Not the first time he would be running late because of you. Because there was no way he was leaving on time now. You can tell by how his hand had that had slipped to your ass. Making sure you stayed pressed against his bulge. 

You nodded, lips still impossibly close to his. “If you want it back, it’s gonna cost you,” 

“’n what’s that?” 

Your fingers slipped down, palming him through his jeans. Joel moaned hips rolling into your touch. “Hmm…,” you pretended to think for a moment. “Three orgasms.” 

“Babygirl,” he groaned. “Ain’t got time for that,” he complained, glancing towards the clock on the microwave.

“Guess then you gotta leave without your shirt,” you sighed dramatically, pulling your hand away and taking a step back, just for Joel to pull you right back in. 

“One,” he bargained.

“Two,” you countered. 

“You killin’ me babygirl,” his head fell back into his neck, but his hands slipped to your hips, hoisting you up and throwing you over his shoulder, his palm connecting with your ass while you squealed. “Ya lucky I ain’t got time t’remind ya how good girls behave.” 

“You can always tonight.” You already know he would. Because you’d learned quick that Joel was a man who stood by his word. Because he had fucked you bent over the bar one quiet Saturday morning. He had come with you, to set up opening. Well practiced by now, you’d breezed through the tasks with him and when you had poured him his coffee, he’d stepped up behind you, caging you against the counter, already rock hard. 

And then he’d fucked you right there, in plain view of any passers by. Slow and deep, fingers on your clit and his voice a low rumble by your ear. “What’d yer regulars think, you over the counter, ’n me balls deep inside o’you?” and “Promise me y’ll be thinkin’ bout me inside o’you all day. Errytime ya stand here.” You had. Every fucking time you’d stepped toward the register you’d clenched around nothing. Remembering the sensation of the hard, unforgiving countertop underneath you while he’d spilled thick ribbons of his cum deep inside of you. 

The CCV footage, you’d copied and erased — just in case. 

He’d watched it that very same afternoon, while you’d knelt between his legs, his cock in your mouth. It’d been the first time he’d cum on your tongue.

The flannel stayed on, when he settled between your thighs, breath hot against slick skin before his lips had closed around your clit and two fingers had easily sunken into you. And god was he skilled with his fingers and tongue. Easily reducing you to a mess of moans and gasps. “Should be punishin’ you,” he curled his fingers, tips dragging over that sweet spot that made your thighs quiver and hips buck. “’n not reward you f’stealin’ my shirt.”

“As if you,” you pant, “Don’t like it when I—” his tongue flicked against your clit, pulling a moan from your lips “When I wear your shirts, I see how—-” you fall, your orgasm crashing over you before you can finish the sentence. 

“Y’were sayin’” the smug smile barely stayed on his lips, making room for utter bliss when he sunk into you with one hard thrust. 

“That,” you breathed, licking yourself off of his lips. “I see how,” his pace was unforgiving, easily pushing you up high again, barely that you had time to come down. His grip on your hip, keeping you in place, hard enough to bruise. “How hard it makes you when I wear them.”

“That so?” Half a growl somewhere by your ear, followed by the weight of his hand settling around your throat. With just enough pressure to remind you that he was calling the shots here.

Not always, sure, but certainly enough for you to notice. But you don’t manage to tell him that, toes curling, back arching. 

So close. So fucking close.

“Thought so.” Smug fucking bastard. And you would tell him as much, but you were too busy moaning his name, too busy teetering on that fucking edge. He was right there with you, when you fall again, his cock twitching and spilling deep inside of you. 

His hand stayed, even after you caught your breath. “Hope ya enjoyed those,” he breathed against your lips, “Coz they were the last, for a while.”

“What?” He’d gotten off of you, jeans already pulled up again. 

“Ya heard me,” he huffed, “Shirt. Now,” he held his hand out. 

“Joel no,” you sat up, scooting towards where he was standing in front of the bed. “No, baby, don’t say that?” Although you were quick to hold out the flannel shirt for him.

“Y’made me late,” he breathed, buttoning it up. “Again. ’n now I gotta go t’work smellin after you ’n sex coz’ve no time t’get changed.” 

“No, Joel, you don’t mean that—- please?” 

“Beggin’ already,” a grin tucked on his lips, “’s not hard bein’ a good girl, is it?” He leaned in to press a kiss to your lips and you had half a mind to pull him back into the sheets. To give him a million and one reasons why he couldn’t do that. “But ya had t’go ’n be a brat.” His teeth caught your bottom lip “’n now I got all fuckin’ day thinking ‘bout how I’ll punish ya,” a grin tucked on his lips when he stepped back. “’n so do you.” 

──────────

Joel.

Yeah. Tommy’d had a field day with him about being late yet again. He had repeatedly before, ever since you’d shown up one noon with a coffee and a sandwich for him. Popping gum included. 

“Tough tryna keep up with ya girlfriend, eh?” Tommy greeted him, a shit eating grin on his lips. At least he was no longer berating him for being with a girl half his age. 

“Not really,” was all he gave, voice gruff when he handed Tommy a cup of coffee too. Means to shut him up. Bribery, if you will.  

“Sure,” Tommy grinned. “’s why ya haven’t managed to change ’n look like ya jus fell outa bed.” Well, he wasn’t wrong about the latter part. Though, Joel wasn’t pointing that out. 

Just like he wasn’t pointing out that every time you showed up for his lunch break on whatever site he was working, with a coffee and a sandwich, you’d fucked in the trailer that functioned as his office. 

On the desk, against the wall, in the chair on his lap, bent over the floor plan. Every time with his hand covering your mouth or around your throat, to make sure you’d stay quiet. 

Like that time you’d shown up in a dress, when he’d you on the desk. His thrusts slow and measured. “Shhh, quiet baby,” he’d breathed by your ear, “Be quiet f’me,” he’d encouraged you, nearly pulling all the way out before sinking back in. Torturously slow. Inch by thick fucking inch. And you’d whimpered, breath hitching. “Good girl. Feel how ya squeezin me? Fittin’ me like y’were made f’me.” 

You’d bit down hard enough on his neck in an effort to remain quiet, to leave a mark he’d struggled to cover for the rest of the day. 

And of course he’d loved every fucking second of it. 

His phone chimed with a text from you halfway through the morning. ’Tell me you didn’t mean that!’ Oh so you had spent the day, so far, thinking about him and what he’d said. 

Good.

‘Bein demandin ain’t gonna get ya anywhere babygirl!’

‘🙄🙄🙄’

Right, and now you were being a brat about it. No surprise there really. Ever since the first time he’d fucked you in the back of the café, when he’d found out how pliable and soft you could be when you wanted to, gone the snark, the smug smiles, the popping gum when you’d remember to use your words and asked him as nicely as you managed to, to finally fuck you or touch you. 

Yeah. He liked that.

Liked reminding you of that, of your place as his good girl just as much as he enjoyed it when you were everything but. When you effortlessly kept him on his toes without even trying.  Even now, months after he’d first walked into Pour Decisions.

Definitely one of his better choices. 

You showed up around lunch. Tommy’d just left to get food; a coffee and a sandwich in your hands. “Came t’bargain’ again?” He’d grinned, when you’d locked the door to the trailer that functioned as his office, leaning back in the chair, feet kicked up on his desk. 

“Can’t I just wanna spend time with my favourite construction worker?” You’d slipped into a short skirt that came down to about mid thigh. Just where his shirt had ended. No doubt hoping you could sway him on his earlier claim about no orgasms for the foreseeable future.

“Sure,” the grin turned a little smug as he watched you approach, gum popping. The sandwich along with the coffee landed on the desk, and his hand settled on your hips when you climbed onto his lap, legs bracketing his. His lips found yours, “Always.”

“I’m sorry for making you late,” he watched a pout settle onto your lips, the gum now popping between his. 

“You ain’t,” he clicked his tongue, his hand having found a place on your ass again, pulling you in close enough so you knew he was appreciative of you showing up regardless. “Nice try though.” The pout disappeared, just long enough for you to roll your eyes. “Didn’t mind bein’ late babygirl,” he hummed.

“No?” You perked up, hips rocking forward, against the bulge in his pants. 

It was quick work, fly opened, pants tucked down just enough, panties pushed aside and without much ado, you’d lifted your hips and guided his cock to your opening. “Been wet all morning,” you breathed, easing down on him. “Been thinking about how you’ll punish me for my little stunt.”

“Y’know how’ll punish ya babygirl,” he grunted, his hips on your hips, guiding you. “Y’ain’t cummin’” 

As much as he liked watching watching how his cock sunk into you again and again and again, his eyes stayed on you. Waiting for your reaction. For when his words had fully sunk in. 

Oh and through the motions you went. 

Surprise, shock, disappointment and then—- spite. Because who was he to tell you when and when not you’d cum? 

Except that he very much could decide that. 

Your movements grew faster, and if just to proof a point. For a moment he let you. Your quiet moans and the wet sound of skin against filling the small space. Only when your fingers made their way down, did he intervene. 

A hand catching yours, the other holding your hip. 

“No.” He breathed against your lips, biting down hard on your bottom lip. “If you cum now,” his voice heeded a warning, “‘m not gonna fuck you f’a week.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” 

“Two weeks,” he countered, because, fucking try me. “No fingers. No tongue. No cock.”

“As if you’d last,” a scoff, “You were balls deep inside of me within seconds of our first kiss.” His hand connected with your ass once, sharp. 

“Another word and I’ll make it four weeks, ’n’ll find out just how long’ll last.”,” you crumbled quietly, but didn’t breathe another word. 

“Good,” he praised, “Good girl,” you clenched around him hard, making him groan. “You wanna cum, don’t cha, babygirl?” You nodded, eagerly, “Tell y’what, babygirl. If y’re a good girl f’me and ain’t cum now, I’ll let y’cum later.”

“Later?” You voice shook. 

“Eventually,” a nod.

“Today?”

“Today,” he thrusted once into you, making you moan again. “Promise,”

“I’ll be good,” you promised immediately, “Not gonna cum.”

“‘ll tell me when y’re close?” You nodded and Joel stood with you, shifting you to the desk  before he started moving, his pace fast, unforgiving. Chasing his own release. 

And fuck, how tight you were squeezing him, pulling him in deep. “Wait, wait please—-” you moaned, and at once he stopped. Pulling out of. “N–not gonna cum,” you promised. “J–just n–need a moment.” 

“Good girl,” he praised, slowly stroking himself. His cock glistening with your slick. “Breath through it,” and fuck he could tell you tried, your body so wound tight. Your breathing laboured. He gripped his cock tighter, moving faster. 

“‘m gonna cum, babygirl. Think y’can handle me?” You nodded, and he sunk back into you, one thrust, two—- and he was humming, cock twitching, seed spilling, thick rope after rope, with a grunt. 

You moaned, walls fluttering, but you didn’t cum. True to your promise. “Good girl,” praised, pressing his lips to your forehead while you whimpered, hips bucking, chasing, begging. “’s my good girl,” his spend was already leaking out of you around his softening cock. He slipped out fully of you then, not thinking to reach for a tissue in an effort to clean you. 

No, he wanted you full of him, so he just tucked your panties back into place. “Proud of you babygirl,” he breathed, lips finding yours, in a slow, deep kiss. “Y’did good. Real good.”

“Don’t feel like I did,” you complained, slipping off the table on to uneasy feet. “Gonna hold you to your promise,” you breathed, rising onto your toes to press another kiss to his lips. “Gotta get back.”

“Don worry, babygirl, I’ll keep it,” he grinned against your lips before letting you slip away.  “Still gonna punish you.”

“Good, you called back, stepping out the trailer, watching Tommy approach, “Because I spit into your coffee.” 

Brat.

──────────

You.

He kept his promise. Of still punishing you. You’d barely gotten home, after he’d picked you from from the Café — his place this time. Perhaps to avoid a repeat of today; when he’d you bent over his knee. Skirt pushed up and panties down. “Count f’me,” he’d ordered before landing the first slap. 

Biting, sharp. 

Your breath hitched, “O-one.”

“Should spank ya f’every minute ya made me late,” he was breathing hard too and from how you were resting over his lap you could feel him hard and pressing into you. 

You’d made it all the way up to ten.

“B-but you said you didn’t mind that I made you late,” you protested, voice a whimper while his palm soothed over angry, red skin. 

“’s true. Doesn’t mean y’shouldn’t be punished babygirl.” 

Another smack, hard. You yelped, “E-eleven.” 

“Y’know how late y’made me?” You shook your head, breath caught somewhere in your lunges when he squeezed the abused flesh between his strong fingers. “Use y’words, babygirl.”

“N-no.” 

“Forty-five fucking minutes, babygirl.” He landed another slap and you helped before calling out twelve. “Got s’much shit from Tommy—- after y’little noon stunt too.” His hand connected with your skin again.

“Th–thirteen,” you managed, tears now biting at your eyes.

“Should punish ya f’that too,” you whimpered, expecting another stinging slap that didn’t come. Instead he pulled you into his arms. “But ya were so good f’me. Not cumming, just like I asked ya to,” his hand settled against your cheek, so fucking tender that it was hard to imagine the very same hand had left your ass stinging and you sure that sitting would be painful for the next little while. “Think ya can do that again?”

You nodded, just for him to remind you to use your words again. “Yes,” you breathed.

“Yes what?” He prompted gently.

“I won’t cum unless you tell me to Daddy.”

“There she is,” he praised softly, “My good girl.” His lips found yours, slow, unhurried. Your lips easily parting to his tongue. “Think you can stand, babygirl?” 

You started to nod, but then breathed a “Yeah,” before carefully easing off of his lap. 

He walked you into the bedroom, before helping you to undress. Your shirt, your bra, your skirt, your panties. “Look at you babygirl,” he praised, taking a moment to take you in. The curves and dips of your figure, the smoothness of your skin. The spill of freckles that doted along it like small constellations. “How lucky’m, t’call you mine. ‘m good girl. ‘m babygirl, ‘m brat.” A grin tucked on his lips. “Y’like that, huh? Bein my brat. Keepin’ me on m’toes.” 

You nodded. 

“Words,” he reminded you yet again. 

“I do,” you affirmed, struggling to hide your own grin. 

“Y’gonna continue t’be a brat?”

“Duh,” now the grin stood in full bloom, “Course I do.”

“So y’gonna make me late for work again?” He asked, already knowing the answer. 

“Yes Daddy,” his breath hitched. Quietly, barely noticeable. Who would have thought. Joel  liked it when you called him Daddy. He did when you moaned it, begging him to touch you, but he did too when you said it with a smug grin on your lips, in the snack aisle of the grocery store, because he’d again only picked the plain pretzels. 

“’n ya’ll show up at work too?”

“Promised,” you nodded, “With a coffee, a sandwich and a quickie.” 

“Fucking menace,” he groaned, fingers soothing through his salt and pepper hair.

“You complaining, Daddy?” You teased.

“Course not!” He was quick to answer. “Never,” now a grin tucked on his lips. “Means I get t’remind ya who’s in charge.” 

“Me,” you grinned too. Standing in front of him, fully naked while he was still completely dressed. “Obviously.” 

You lost track, somewhere between his tongue, his lips and his fingers, of how often he’d gotten close enough to fall. Just to stop. Knowing from your breathing, from the moans that kept falling from your lips and the way you tucked on his hair just how close you were. You didn’t even need to say anything. Giving you more room to whine and groan in frustration. 

“Not yet babygirl,” he breathed against slick skin. 

“But you promised,” you reminded him, tucking impatiently on his hair. “Please Daddy?”

“Day ain’t over yet,” he hummed, blowing warm air against your oversensitive clit. Causing your hips to buck forward, chasing him. “Gonna make sure y’cum plenty, babygirl. Just wanna worship this glorious pussy first.” He sunk his index finger back into you, slick walls immediately clenching around him. “Feel how she’s clenching ‘round me? So tight,” he curled his finger, teasing over that sweet sweet spot that made your hips buck. “So eager f’me.” 

All you could do was moan, your hips rocking forward, chasing his touch. Just for him to stop again right before your orgasm hit. 

He finally showed mercy, once he was balls deep inside of you and a string of please, and please Daddy, stumbled from your lips. “Cum f’me babygirl,” he moaned against your lips and that’s all you needed to finally let go. Your orgasm crashing over you like a tidal wave, nails breaking the skin of his shoulder, leaving crimson indents while a silent scream fell of your lips. 

“Fuck,” he grunted, losing his pace for a moment. Barely long enough for you to catch your breath before he was moving again. Slow and deep. Measured and you knew that he’d see to at least one more orgasm. 

In the end it was three, before he spilled inside of you with a grunt that closely resembled your name. 

“Don’t think I can walk or sit tomorrow.” You breathed, when he walked back into the room, wet cloth in his hand.

“Gonna carry ya,” he promised, gentle movements cleaning your thighs and sensitive skin with the warm cloth. “Gonna make sure y’re okay, babygirl.” He promised, pressing a gentle kiss to the inside of your thigh and then your pubic bone. 

“You better,” you huffed, even if there was amusement in your voice. 

“Ya did so well,” he praised, slowly easing you to turn around. “Such a good girl f’me,” he gently, carefully massaged a cream into your sore skin.

“So I can steal your shirt tomorrow morning again?” You asked, voice muffled by the pillow. Your body utterly relaxed. 

“Ya can steal all of ‘em. Whenever.” 

You shifted just enough to look at him. “Coz you like it when I wear them,” he nodded. “Makes you hard, doesn’t it?” You arched a brow. 

“Careful, babygirl,” he huffed. Giving your backside a soft, playful smack. Not enough to sting. 

“C’mon,” you whined, an over dramatic pout on your lips when he drew you into his arms. “You can tell me. I know I’m right.”

“Fine,” he groaned in defeat, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Makes me hard, seein’ ya in my shirts. ‘specially if ya have nothin’ under.” 

“There,” you grinned, drawing him into a kiss. “Wasn’t so hard, now was it?”

“Brat,” Joel huffed, tucking the sheets in around the both of you.

“You love it,” you countered, fingers soothing through his hair. Nails scratching along his scalp. 

“Sure do,” he affirmed, tucking you in close against his chest. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

[chaoswithtaste]

Pour Decisions

Pairing: Joel Miller x Reader

Summary:

TLOU Coffee Shop AU — Joel Miller didn't think much of those fancy coffee places that sprouted up everywhere until one morning he forgot his travel mug at home and the dire outlook of a day without coffee lead him to brave the world of a coffee shop. Maybe one of his better choices!

Warnings:

+18 – mdni; smut, fluff, piv, semi-public, spit kink (if you squint), oral, reader is a brat, older!Joel, younger!reader, alternating POVs

Word count: ~7k

as found on: archiveofourown

a/n – y'all I haven't used tumblr in a hot second but wanted to come here with my fics too bc why tf not? so hi!! I'm chaos or c and hope y'all enjoy this as much as I did writing it <3 (in the meantime I'll work on rmr how to work this site lmfao)

Joel.

He’s running late. And Joel’s never running late. But today he is. Damn alarm clock gave out on him. Or maybe he’d just forgotten to check if the damn thing was set like he did every night… Either way, now he was fucking late. Had to rush through his morning and as a result—- left his travel mug on the fucking kitchen counter.

There was contemplation to go back and get it, because starting a day without his caffein hit, was evidently worse than being late. He still opted against it, already more than halfway to the construction site by the time he had made up his mind. 

But then he passed the small coffee shop another five minutes later. The same one he had passed for the last two weeks and never thought twice about stopping. Because Joel didn’t believe in all this fancy shit. With artificial flavours and a hundred-and-three ways to make coffee. He just wanted plain coffee, strong preferably, the kind he could easily make at home. So he had no reason to stop at Pour Decisions — that fucking name alone; but he’d left left his mug on the fucking counter and he needed caffein. So with an irritated grunt at his own damn choices that had led him here, he pulled into the almost deserted parking lot in front of the small coffee shop. 

A bell chimed overhead when he opened the door, bracing himself for an onslaught of that modern industrial architecture the whole fucking food industry seemed to be after, just to find a lack of a clear design all together. 

A mix of mismatched chairs and tables, a couple of surprisingly comfortable looking couches. No brick walls, instead there were two massive bookshelves in an L-shape lining the wall, and plants fucking everywhere. 

Had he set foot into a café or…?

“Good morning,” a warm voice greeted him while he still tried to find the theme of the decor. The first thing he noticed was your smile, not that fake costumer service one, no, a genuine smile. The kind that made your eyes sparkle. “What can I get for you?” 

“You ain’t from around here,” he blurted out instead of an order or a greeting. 

“No shit,” you laughed, “What gave it away cowboy? The lack of an accent?”

“Ain’t a cowboy,” he huffed. He’d come in here for a much needed coffee and not a round of small-talk. What the fuck was he doing? God he felt out of place here. Yesterday’s dust still clinging to his clothes—- the name definitely did fit. Pour decisions and all that. 

“Sure,” you tilted your head, still flashing him a smile. “Now that we’ve that out of the way, what can I get for you?”

“Coffee.” He should have braved the day on no caffein. Coming in here was definitely the wrong decision. 

“Excellent, you happen to be in luck, we sell exactly that.” He really wanted to be irritated by your smart mouth, but didn’t really managed to. You made a point of looking him up and down, wrinkled flannel, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, yesterday’s dust still clinging to his jeans—- could he feel any more out of place? “Let me guess, a triple-upside-down caramel macchiato, cinnamon-dolce instead of vanilla and… with almond milk?”

“What?” Joel blinked, trying to sort the words you’d thrown at him into meaning. “I—,” he hesitated.

“Relax,” you flashed him a grin. “Coffee, drip,” you pushed off of the counter you’d been leaning against, grabbing a large paper cup and fastening a sleeve around it. “I’m going out on a limb here,” you continued, filling the mug with steaming black liquid, “Strong,” he watched you place the lid on top. Your fingers pressing the down on the rim. “No sugar, no milk,” you place the cup in front of him, watching him pull his wallet from his back pocket. “Oh no, it’s on the house. View it as first time costumer bonus.”

“That ain’t sound right? Won’t you get in trouble?” 

You snorted, waving him off. “Let me worry about that. Just promise me to come back tomorrow if you liked the blend.” 

“I— yeah.” he grabbed the cup, his expression betraying that he wouldn’t come back under any circumstances. “Sure.”

By the time he made it back to his truck, he still tried to comprehend what the fuck had just happened. 

Except, that the coffee was good. Really, really good. Better than anything he had had before, if he was honest with himself. So when he got up the next morning, on time, thanks to a replaced alarm clock and checking twice before bed that it in fact had been set, he eyes his travel mug like it had offended him. 

His coffee wouldn’t be as good and he had promised to come back if he liked the blend. And Joel Miller was a lot of things but not a man who didn’t keep his word. 

At least this time around he felt less awkward when the bell above his head chimed, announcing his arrival. Probably too, because you stood behind the counter again. If anything, the smile on your lips wider, and a tad pleased. “So you liked it,” you greeted him. “Good. We just got the blend from a new, local roastery. I’d sell you a pack, but,” you pop the bubble of your gum, placing a freshly filled cup before him. Same like yesterday. “Then you wouldn’t come back, and where would be the fun in that?”

Joel left, paying for his order this time around and leaving the same amount and then some in the tipping jar, having been too bewildered yesterday to even leave tip. He has a stamp card in his wallet too. 

Nine more visits and he’d get another cup on the house.

──────────

You.

He came back. Every single fucking day of the week until Friday. You half expected him to ask you out or for your number at the very least. From how he’d stared at your lips while you talked and the way he’d stammered himself through a conversation. 

It took you until Thursday to find out that his name was Joel. Sometimes you wished you wrote names on the cups like Starbucks did, but that wasn’t quite on your mind when you had decided to open pour decisions. The name stemming from literally everyone telling you that it was a terrible idea to open your own coffee shop in a world of Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts and whatever else those fast-food-frenchaises were called over-saturating the market. 

And yet here you were. Almost two years in, a handful of good and loyal employees, and surprisingly successful with your chaotic-none-concept. The books in the shelves were your own, or those left by guests in a trade, the plants got bought on occasion, if — and that was a big if, you managed to part with them. The caffee was from small and for the most part local roasteries and the pastries freshly baked by a bakery you had partnered with. 

By no means would your café make you a millionaire, but that wasn’t what it was about. You loved what you did and you had enough to live comfortably. By your standards anyway. 

Joel hadn’t exactly fit the description of your regular clientele. Looking utterly lost the first time he’d stepped inside. With the stamp card had come the confidence you expected a man like him to carry himself with. 

Not arrogant or snobbish, the chunky work boots and flannel shirts didn’t fit that, just sure of himself and his footing. So it had been a little hard not to feel disappointed when he hadn’t asked for your number or a date when he’d been in on Friday. He wasn’t in Saturday, but from your Sam, your barista, you knew that he’d stopped by on Sunday. 

‘Your cowboy’s in, looking like he just left Sunday lunch. He cleans up nice. Looked disappointed that you weren’t there.’

You’d only shot back a bunch of eye-roll emojis.

He came back Monday morning, bright and early, 7 AM on the dot, like he had last week. You already have his order ready by the time he stepped to the counter. Another flannel, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, salt-and-pepper hair somewhere between pushed back and and left to it’s own means but begging you to run your fingers through it regardless. 

“Knew I would make a regular out of you,” you greeted him. 

“Ain’t a regular,” he huffed, pushing dollar bills across the counter and dropping another set into the tipping jar. 

“That stamp card begs to differ,” you counter, after adding a fourth crescent moon shaped stamp to the card. 

“Just collectin’ another five of ‘em to get my free coffee,” he countered, though the hint of a smile that showed around his eyes told a different story. 

“Maybe it’s about time I got you hooked on something else then,” your gum popped and his eyes dropped back to your lips. “You you indulge,” you continue, pushing off the counter and stepping towards the pastry. “Sometimes at least,” you flashed him a smile before turning towards the food display “Let’s see…” you study the layout for a beat, glancing back to Joel who only eyed you curiously. “Yeah.” You settle a moment later, pulling a cinnamon roll from the display before popping it into the small oven you kept behind it. “You know we do sandwiches too,” those you made yourself in the morning. “We even take requests, occasionally,” you pack the cinnamon roll into a small paper container before pushing it towards him too.

He’d already placed enough to cover the pastry and a tip on the counter, apparently not taking another it’s on the house. “Yeah?” He asked, thumb briefly toying with the edge of the box. “How’s that work?” 

You flashed him a smile, “Come back tomorrow and tell me the cinnamon roll was spot on and maybe I will tell you.”

And sure, like clockwork, Joel came back on Tuesday. “Donno how you keep pulling’ that, but… you were right about the cinnamon roll.” 

“Course I was,” your gum popped, a smug grin on your lips. His coffee already on the counter. 

“Alright,” he eyed the sandwich display. An assortment of bagels and bread rolls filled with different kinds of meats, greens and cheeses. “Which one I’m getting?”

“None of those,” you offered without missing a beat and Joel almost look offended by how spot on you were again. 

“Fine, what d’you got me pegged for, then?” 

You glance at him for a moment, before answering, like it was the most obvious thing, “Cheddar, turkey, no mayo,” your gum popped again, “Mustard instead, not too much greenery. A slice of cucumber perhaps for the crunch, no tomatoes, too soggy. A bit of lettuce. Toasted.” 

“Fucking hell.” Right on then. 

“Not to brag, but, I’d be burned at the stake during the witch trails.”

“Yeah no shit,” he laughed. Actually laughed. 

Come Wednesday, you had both the sandwich and his coffee ready. Only trading the sandwich for another cinnamon roll on Friday, for it being the end of the week and all. 

“Looks like you’re almost at your free coffee,” you remark, after sliding the stamp card back towards him. 

“What if I want your number instead?”

A grin tucked on your lips. “Get the last stamp then and see if you’ll get it.” As if you hadn’t placed a napkin in the box with the cinnamon roll with your number written on it. 

Your phone buzzes some time around noon. You’d just settled into the back of house, ready to tackle shift scheduling for the next two weeks when your phone buzzes and the screen flashes with an unfamiliar number. 

‘What type of witchcraft you practice again?’ followed by a simple “Joel.” Just in case, no doubt, you handed your number out to multiple times today. 

’The kind that keeps you on your toes ;)’ you shot back, before you add, ‘You better still come in to collect that last stamp though.’ Since he got your number already.

‘Be a terrible regular if I didn’t’ Good, because you’d be really disappointed if he wouldn’t. ‘Gonna have to use it on somethin else now’ 

──────────

Joel.

The kind that keeps you on your toes. 

Yeah right. You did a mighty fine job of that. Guessing his coffee order, what fucking sweet treat he liked, right down to the kind of sandwich he’d order. 

And that fucking gum that you kept popping while grinning at him like you’d had him aaaaall figured out. Which apparently you had. His orders anyway. While he made a fool of himself, trying to hold a conversation. The fact that it had taken him three fucking days to ask after your name? 

Embarrassing. 

He’d still saved you as coffee witch into his phone. Just because. 

Texting was a whole lot easier. Perhaps because you weren’t as distracting and he had time to think about his answers. So it’s no surprise you did from pretty much Friday afternoon straight up to Sunday evening. 

He learned that you moved here for a relationship that no longer existed some eight years ago after dropping out of college, and stuck around because you’d already started to build yourself a life here. He learned too that you’re a good chunk younger than him. Which, in all honesty, he’d suspected but it still almost got him to stop this — whatever this was right here, right there. But then you looped him back in. 

‘Thought of something to cash the card in for yet? Once you’ve collected the last stamp?’ Easy as that. Not even phased by his 52 admission, when you’d asked after his age. 

You made it really fucking easy, which should have been scary but Joel couldn’t really bring himself to care. Not when stopping by the coffee shop every morning had, admittedly, become the favourite part of his day. 

The only issue, they’d wrapped the site in Friday and his next gig didn’t bring him past pour decisions. He’d considered telling you or asking how long you’d be in to see if he could swing by later. 

Joel did neither, naturally, in true fashion of the coffee shops name, this resulted in an early set alarm that sent him utterly deserted parking lot at the crack of dawn. And only when he spotted you inside, among chairs that were still on tables, he realised, he hadn’t checked for the opening hours. 

Fuck. Way to make a fool of himself. He was set to get back into his truck, already trying to come up with a time he could come back withoutcutting slack from Tommy for running off when you opened the door. “Joel?” He winced, of course you’d seen him through the large glass windows. “You’re early.”

“Yeah,” a shrug, “I— uhm, we wrapped the site on Friday, new site’s across town…” 

“I see,” you snort, which did very little to ease how ridiculous he felt, “And I take it you still wanted to collect that last stamp?” You arch an eyebrow. 

“Yeah,” he took the offered out.

“Alright,” you took a step back, holding the door open. “C’mon in then.” 

“What? You sure?” Joel asked even as he took a step towards you. “Ain’t wanna cause any trouble?”

“Trouble with whom?” You cocked your head to the side, gum popping. 

“Donno,” a shrug. “Your boss?”

Another snort, “Nah, I think she’ll understand.”

“Alright,” he decided, following you inside. “If y’say so.” 

“Coffee’s not ready yet though,” you offer, locking the door again. “Won’t take long. You in a rush?”

He was, but he decided that he wasn’t. “Got time,” he heard himself say and the way you beam at him at that, made the looming ordeal of morning traffic and being late easily worth it. 

Joel didn’t watch you move about the café and the morning prep for long before he offered help. First in front of the bar, taking the chairs off of the tables, wiping them down and watering the plants and then behind. 

“You really do not have to help,” you argue yet again while showing him the setting the coffee beans needed to be ground on. 

“’s the least I can do,” after the free food you’d slipped him over the week. No amount of tip he left could make up for the free sandwiches he’d enjoyed. 

“You always this stubborn?” You challenge, before disappearing into the back to continue with the sandwiches. 

“Funny, comin’ from you,” he’d called after you. 

Once the coffee was ground and weighted like you’d shown him, he opted to head to the back too. Deciding that, since he was already here during closing hours, he might as well head into the back of house too. And if only to tell you he was done and what else he could do. Just in time to see you climbing up into a shelf to fish for a pack of cups. Without another thought he’s behind you, “Easy,” he breathed, voice a low rumble, hand raised and hovering inches from the small of your back. 

You startled; not having seen him enter with your back turned to him, making you lose your balance and slip. But he was there to catch you, hands immediately grabbing onto your waist and hip to steady you and catch your fall. 

“Fuck, sorry, I—” he stammered, trying to apologise but you only burst out laughing, not even attempting to step away from him. So maybe he forgot to loosen his hold you when he joined in too. 

“The hell Joel,” you laughed, turning to face him. “You can’t just scare me like that!” You swat at his shoulder, drawing another low chuckle from him. 

“Gonna make sure to catch you‘gain when I do,” he breathed into the space between you, voice rough. He hadn’t even realised he’d raised one of his hands to brush a loose curl out of your face until his palm settled against your cheek. 

“I’ll hold you to that,” he couldn’t have said if you’d whispered or screamed, because he’d been busy was watching your lips move. But he was acutely aware of your breath hitching and his hand on your waist tightening a little further. He wasn’t thinking, when he closed the gap between you.

Your lips were soft when they met his, tasting finely of coffee and cherries and a hint of mint. That damned gum he’d watched you pop again and again and again. 

“—shit,” he stumbled back, “No, I—-” he ran a hand over his jaw, a quiet fuck falling from his lips. He’d wanted to. God he’d wanted to since the first time he’d come in here but not like this. “I’m—- I,” he tried, fumbling for words. Wanting to apologise but also not wanting to. 

Because apologising meant that he regretted and he didn’t. 

His mind went blank again — running overdrive one moment and blissfully calm the next; when your fingers curled into his flannel shirt and card through the hair at the back of his neck to draw him in close again. 

His hand naturally settled on your waist again, bringing your body in flush against his while your lips parted to deepen the kiss. 

It was a blur after that. If asked later, he couldn’t recall how you got from kissing or well… down right making out and the next he had you pinned against a wall, your back to his front. Pants shoved down, panties tucked tucked aside and his lips moving against your neck.

He could feel you tense when his cock inched into you. “Holy fuck,” your voice was half a moan, half a whine. 

“I know babygirl, I know. It’s a lot to take.” Quite literally. He couldn’t really hide the smugness from his words. Even if his voice more resembled a low groan. One of his fingers slipped lower, from where he easily held your weight. A lack of time and logistics—- if he’d have it his way you’d have already cum and if he would have been of sound mind he wouldn’t have done any of this. Not in the back of the coffee shop, not against the wall, not without protection. But as it were, his thumb rolled over your clit. 

“Just like that babygirl. Look at how well you’re taking me,” his voice had turned to rough gravel, strained from both the effort it took not to just fuck you and how gloriously tight you were. “Almost there,” he encouraged you, “Fuck, baby, you feel how tight you’re squeezing me?” His resolve broke the second your hips rolled back into his. Begging him to move. 

A hand braced against the wall you’re leaning against, the other arm wrapped around your middle, keeping you pressed against him, Joel started to move. Hard and fast. “Fuck baby, squeezing me so tight,” he groaned against your neck, realising he was about to cum embarrassingly fast. “Touch yourself f’me babygirl.”

And you did, moving a hand off the wall and down, down, down. 

If he could think stright he would have made a note of how much more pliable you were like this. No snarky remarks, no clever comments, no smug grins. Just moans and gasps and a tight fucking grip around his cock.

He knew when your fingers rolled over your clit. Could tell by the way you were clenching around him while a moan made it past your lips. Drawing him in deeper. In the end he couldn’t even warn you, let alone try to pull out. Caught in the tidal wave of your orgasm, of your body tensing, of your walls clenching. He cums with a grunt and his teeth scraping against your neck and thick hot ribbons flooding you. 

“Fuck,” he groaned against your neck, leaving a kiss where his teeth had just been. 

“Yeah,” you breathed, not making a single move to get away from. “I’d say that’s what we just did, but…” you chuckled and Joel grumbled something unintelligible, while hiding his face against your neck. “Well—-” you started out but a melodic sound ringing through the air interrupted you. “And that would be delivery.” 

And Joel was still balls deep inside of you. 

In the end he made it to the site barely on time. After tucking clothes back into place and all but running out of the café, not even managing to look you in the eyes when you handed him his coffee while the delivery got unloaded tight where you’d just fucked. Not managing more than a “I— yeah, I gotta…” while he’d gestured towards the door. “I’ll…” he’d tried just to stop himself before dipping out the door.

Way to fucking go. 

His ears were still tainted pink when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. 

‘Think you forgot to collect your last stamp ;)’ relief fuelled the grin that tucked on his lips. ‘Your sandwich too!’

“The fuck are you grinning into your phone for?” Tommy gave him a side eye, trying to catch a glance of his screen. But Joel was faster, averting it. It was worse enough that he’d pointed out the frequent appearance of the pour choices to go cups. “You got a girl or what?”

“None of ya business,” he huffed.

“Right, right,” Tommy laughed “’n you’re chewing gum since when?”

──────────

You.

‘Crap. Can I pick that up later?’ his reply came a little towards lunch. When you’d retreated into the back, where he’d fucked you, to tackle the daily admin work. Already sore and with him still dripping from you. 

‘Tough luck,’ you texted back, along with a picture of you and the half eaten sandwich beside you, ‘I’m taking hostages!’ A heart popped up on the edge of the picture. ‘Will negotiated about the stamp though ;)’

‘Lucky fucking me ;)’ he responded and you knew he was over whatever had him bolting from the café in the morning. He’d been down right awkward, not even managing to look at you, and not to mention the crimson shade his ears had taken on... ‘When d’you get off today?’

‘Well I did this morning’ you shoot back because you can’t help yourself. 

‘Yeah walked right into that…’ he was quick to respond. 

‘Maybe ;)’ You sent back ‘Three-ish, why?’

‘’You got time after or nah?’ He doesn’t tell you that he full on intends to ditch the site early — Tommy could handle handle the rest, it meant seeing you again. 

‘You wanna pick me up, cowboy?’ 

‘Ain’t no cowboy.’ Followed up by ‘Be there at 3’

It started raining around 2 PM, not the sudden, strong summer downpour accompanied by a thunderstorm that barely brought any relief from the heat but a proper downpour. When 3 PM rolled around, and you were just wrapping up, it was still raining. Turning the coffee shop down right cozy. 

Sometimes you liked to imagine what your little heaven would be like if you’d set up somewhere with actual seasons, like Boston or maybe somewhere cozy and isolated, like a small town in Wyoming. 

But then you wouldn’t have met Joel, would you? 

“She’s back there,” you could hear Sam over the hum of the dishwasher and radio. “’s alright, you can head on back,”

You could make out the sound of his heavy work boots on the tiles behind the bar before he was in the hallway, an expression on his face like he wasn’t sure Sam knew what the two of you had been up to here in the morning and smug about just that. 

“You sure’s okay I’m back’re?” He asked, while you tossed your water bottle and wallet into your tote. 

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Joel looked unsure, both of a reason and how to properly greet you. All that was missing were the crimson tainted ears and you were right back where you were some eight or nine hours ago. So you rose onto your toes, to draw him into a soft kiss. Joel instantly relaxed. “Made you another one,” you pressed a sandwich into his hand. The bread still slightly warm. “Got your stamp card?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He fumbled for his wallet for a beat, before producing the card from it. 

“Good,” you grinned, plucking it from his fingers and heading out front. Joel followed, looking everywhere but at Sam while you added the last crescent moon stamp to the card. “Alright,” you hand it back to him. “You got everything?” You looked over to Sam. 

“Yep,” a grin. “See you tomorrow, boss.”

Joel blinked. 

“Don’t forget to turn the water off,” you responded, “And make sure you locked up. I don’t wanna hear another story of you tracking here in the middle of the night to make sure the doors are locked.”

“Only happened twice,” Sam grumbled. 

“Three times,” you corrected, heading for the door with Joel following you. “See you tomorrow.”

“You t’boss?” Joel asked barely that you’re outside. 

“Yeah,” you grinned up at him. “I’m the boss.”

“Why you never…?” He lead you to his truck you’d seen pull into the parking lot countless times now, a hand at the small of your back. 

“Because you never asked,” you countered while he opened the passenger door for you. Gum popping. His truck was beat up and clearly used for his job; he had told you he owned a construction business with his brother, but well kept. “And it was kinda funny seeing you all concerned about the potential trouble I could get in for the leeway I’d cut you.”

Joel scoffed, but looking amused when he got into the drivers seat. 

“So, what you wanna cash your stamp card in for?” You asked while the engine hummed to life and he pulled into traffic. 

“Was thinkin’ dinner?” He glanced at you. “At my place?” He sounded a hint unsure. “You been making me sandwiches’n,” he shrugged, “Wanna treat you. Cook for you.”

“Yeah,” you smiled, “I’d like that.” Joel relaxed, a smile settling onto his lips too. 

“Good. Was thinkin’ we grab groceries together?” he asked and you nodded while the city flew past rain-slicked windows. 

Getting groceries together felt oddly domestic, right in a way. That your hand easily found his, and tucked him along to the snack isle first. You hadn’t even decided yet what you’d cook but you knew you needed snacks. 

“Sour skittles?” He asked, “Thought you’d taste,” 

“Says the man with the plain pretzels,” you scoff, a grin tucking on your lips. 

“They ain’t plain. Got salt!” He huffed, and you snorted. 

“Yeah right,” you rolled your eyes, gum popping. “Plain. ’s what I said.”

“Careful now, babygirl, or’ll give your smart mouth somethin’ better to do.” Your breath hitched and a smug grin tucked at the corners of your lips. “Figured,” he hummed, hand settling on the small of his back as he guided you towards the produce aisle. Once bbq chips had made it into the cart too. 

You quickly decided on steak, potatoes and green beans. A bottle of wine got added to the menu too. Before you head to the register, you excuse yourself for a beat. Wanting to grab a new pair of socks. After being on your feet pretty much all day and not really being able to change or freshen up, that was the least you could do.

You find Joel lingering in front of the condoms. “Presumptuous,” your gum popped and his ears turned pink again. 

“No I didn’t—- I just,” he fumbled, looking everywhere but at you, clearly flustered. 

“Relax,” you laughed, leaning up to press a kiss to his cheek, “I’m kidding.”

Joel’s hand found your waist again, keeping you close. “Listen, ‘bout this mornin, I…” he tried. “Normally don’t,” his cheeks were burning too. “’s not somethin’ I do…”

“Joel, if I’d regret what we were up to, you’d know it,” you can feel him relax. “Also,” your eyes drift towards the display, “I’m on birth control and clean, if you’re good too then…” you trail off. 

“Am too,” he affirmed, palm still resting on the small of your back. He glanced back to the shelves too, contemplating for a beat, before guiding you towards the registers without grabbing a pack. 

“And for the record,” your gum popped again while he followed him back to the car. It was still raining, Joel carried both the groceries and an umbrella he’d had in his truck. “I haven’t invited anyone, back who doesn’t work with me.”

You could see the grin tucking on his lips when he helped you into his truck again after storing the groceries. A dash relieved and a whole lot smug. “‘m honoured,” he breathed into the disappearing space between the two of you before his lips found yours. 

His house was gorgeous, he mentioned that he he built it himself when he’d pulled into the driveway. And you don’t mean to snoop, and you don’t, but you still wander through the living room after he excused himself to freshen up. 

He’d build a one-story house, wrap-around porch with a swing, the living space  took over most of the front of the house, a surprising amount of light and a less surprising amount of wood. The couch looked comfortable but judging from the book resting on the armrest of the recliner, it’s easier to assume that he preferred that over the couch. The space didn’t lack warmth but—- it seemed more functional than anything else. 

There was a set of photographs on the mantle above the fireplace, all depicting a little girl. They’re older, dated and they seem to stop. At least there were no more after she looked about thirteen or fourteen. 

“Sarah,” Joel’s voice cut through the silence. “My daughter,” he stepped closer to you. “Hit and run,” a heavy sadness carried through his voice.

“I’m sorry,” you turned towards him, he’d changed into a simple shirt and a pair of clean jeans, hair still damp. You leaned into him, arm around his back. 

“Thank you,” his hand settled on your waist again, keeping you close. “Was a long time ago. She woulda liked you. Your place.” A soft, sad smile settled onto his lips. “Was too smart for her own good." 

Over the course of the dinner preparations — you took over potato duty after he begrudgingly let you, you learn that he’d bought the property before. Always with the intention to build. A life for himself here, and Sarah. And how for a while, he did nothing. Swung like a pendulum between working too much and not working at all. 

“Got too much. Saw her everywhere,” you got that and couldn’t fault him for deciding to leave and literally, rebuild somewhere new. She’d still come with him, in small ways. The photographs, a framed drawing of two stick-figures you spotted on top of the fridge, in the way he talked about her. 

“‘m sorry. Didn’t mean to dull the evening” he’d shooed you from the stove, once the potatoes were in the boiling water, so you’d settled outside with him. Settled on one of the porch chairs while he dealt with the steaks and beans, a glass of wine beside you

“You didn’t,” you were fast to reassure, because he really hadn’t. “She’s a part of you, ’n always will be. Means something you decided to share that with me.” 

“How’d you do that?” Joel shook his head. “Always knowin’ what to say?” 

“Wanted to be a psychiatrist, once upon a time,” you’d never disclosed what you’d studied for when you dropped out. “Guess I might have made a good one.” You could see the question in his eyes when he glanced back at you. “Long story, life happened.” Joel didn’t press, and you were grateful for that. So the silence that followed wasn’t an uncomfortable one, while you watched the rain that had softened to a drizzle and he flipped the steaks. 

“No wonder you read me to shreds,” he huffed, good humour in his voice. “Going three for three between the coffee, sandwich and cinnamon roll.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t psychoanalyse you,” you joked “Or maybe just enough to keep you on your toes.” 

“Sounds ‘bout right,” he huffed, plating the steaks just as the timer he’d set for the potatoes went off.

He wasn’t too presumptuous about the condoms, that much became obvious quick when you settled on the couch with him after dinner. Because it didn’t take long for the conversation about everything and nothing to die down because you wound up in his lap instead, fingers in his hair and lips moving against his. You could feel him get hard against you. 

“Babygirl, no…-” his voice was rough and he tried to stop you when your fingers moved to the fly of his jeans. “I want—” the words died in his throat when your palm pressed against him.

“Let me,” you breathed against his lips, easing the button open and gradually slipping off of his lap. 

“Fuck,” Joel groaned, “You sure?” After your nod, he didn’t try to stop you again but aided you in easing his pants enough until his cock sprung free. 

Holy fuck. After this morning you knew that he was bigger than anyone you’d been with before but fuck. Thick and long, pre-cum beading. Mesmerising. You liked your lips, fingers closing around his length, pumping him, once, twice, keeping your eyes on him. Joel watched you, continued to, when your tongue dragged along his tip. 

His fingers found your hair, not to guide, just to hold. So he could continue to watch while your lips wrapped around him. Only when you hollowed your cheeks and moved your pumping fingers in tandem did he stop. Because his head fell back and and a moan fell from his lips. “Fuck—- babygirl,” his grip on your hair tightened, but he still didn’t force your head down. “Y’know,” his voice was breathy, when his eyes found yours again. “Been fuckin’ thinkin’bout this,” he admitted, while you kept working him. “Since— since’first time ya popped that fuckin’ gum. Smug smile’n all.” 

“Oh I know,” you grinned up at him, string of saliva between your lips and his cock. 

“‘course you do,” he groaned, stopping you from working him back into your mouth and before you can protest, he had you on your feet, leading you towards the bedroom. Pants still open and his cock out. “Somethin’ else I wanted t’do,” his voice was low gravel when he guided you down into the dark sheets. And fuck you know what he’s after. “Somethin’ I shoulda done this mornin,’” you lose our pants, the old band tee you’d thrown on in the morning. 

You were drenched by the time he eased your panties down your legs, a quivering mess, really because you knew what he was after the second he settled between your thighs. “Gorgeous,” his breath was a hot puff of air against slick skin. “Couldn’t stop thinkin’ bout her all day. After how tight she squeezed me.” On cue, you clench around nothing. 

“Joel,” more whine than moan. “Please?”

“Look at you,” you could hear how smug he was, “All polite,” he rewarded you, with a slow drag of his tongue along the length of your slit. “All please n’ no sass.” 

“Fuck,” you cried out and that bastard chuckled, “Quit teasing!” Your fingers tucked on his salt and pepper curls, impatient. 

“Or what?” Another chuckle “You gonna sass me? Smug grin’n all?” 

“Goddamnit Joel!” You whined, “I swear to god if you don’t fucking touch me right I’ll spit in your fucking coffee!” 

A single smack, sharp, stinging, right against your clit.

You yelped and Joel hummed. “That’s now how you say please, babygirl.”

“Joel,” you whimpered, “Please, Joel, please, please—” and he gave in, his lips closing around your clit and his index finger sinking into you. You’re wound up so tight, the coil behind your navel ready to snap that you were already teetering on the edge when he added a second finger. 

“Wasn’t so hard now, was it?” He murmured lips glossy with your release when he settled into the sheets beside you. While you still tried to catch your breath. “Sayin’ please, ’n bein’ a good girl.” 

“Asshole,” you managed and he snorted. “Still gonna spit into your coffee.” He laughed against your neck where he was peppering kisses.

“Sure you’ll,” he sounded amused “Still gonna drink it.” As if he hadn’t chewed your fucking gum for half of the day.

“Freak,” you laughed, your  thighs parting to easily accommodate him as he settled between them, after finally kicking his jeans off.

“Careful now, might need t’bend ya over the bar next time,” Joel teased, his cock dragging against your clit when he hooked one of your legs over his hip. 

“That a promise?” The grin died on your lips when your mouth fell open around a moan, drawn forth by him finally sinking into you. Slow, inch by thick fucking inch, letting you feel all of him. You clung to him, fingers in his hair, nails digging into his shoulder, when he finally bottomed out inside of you.

“Look at you squeezin’ me,” he groaned when he started he started to move. “Didn’t got enough this mornin’, did’cha?” even if you would have wanted to, you couldn’t manage a reply. “Greedy girl.”

You fell just a beat before him, pulling him with you when your second orgasm ripped through you, feeling his thick release spilling deep inside of you. 

──────────

Joel.

He woke you with a gentle kiss to your forehead and a rumbled “Mornin’ babygirl,” against your temple. You’d told him, before falling asleep, what time you needed to be at the store to open up and he’d set his alarm to ensure he’d have time to take you to our place before. So you could freshen up. 

No need for a walk-of-shame. 

You life about halfway between his place and the café, and much to his surprise he discovers that you’re quite grumpy the first twenty or so minutes after waking up. Complaining and huffing and puffing and “Gonna bump the hours to 9—8, fuck the early bird,” until he had you into the passenger seat with a handful of cotton-candy-grapes he’d bought on accident. 

He pulled into the parking lot right on time, and like the day before, he joined you inside. Needing no instructions this time around to help you set up. At least up to where he’d stopped yesterday. 

“I’m afraid I can’t swing three today,” he frowned, watching you pack his sandwich. 

“You know where to find me whenever you can,” simple as that. He’d been to your flat now. Had caught a glimpse of the chaos of plants and books you called home. “Might even have dinner ready,” you grinned, “Not steak but, how’s pasta sound?”

“Good, real good,” he mirrored your smile. 

“Alright, cowboy,” Joel wanted to roll his eyes but then he watched you pull his travel mug from your tote that you’d left on the counter. He hadn’t realised you’d taken it from the counter beside his coffee machine. Where it had sat, clean and unused, since the day he’d forgotten it for the first time. He was about to grab it, once you’d filled it, except you pulled your hand back. “Wait, almost forgot.” He watched, how you unscrewed the lid and spit into his coffee just like you’d promised you would. Before closing the lid again and handing it to him. 

“You’re lucky I don’t have time to bend you over t’bar.” And just to prove a point, he took a swig of the coffee. “‘m sure’ll find a surface fit enough in your flat.”

“Promises, promises,” you sighed dramatically, gum popping and a grin on your lips.

“Fucking menace,” he laughed, drawing you into him. “Don’t spit into any other coffees though, alright?” He breathed against your lips. 

“Nope. Just yours.” 

“Good girl.”

Continuation: Brat Decisions

[isabellaboo2025]

Through The Wall - Part Six

Pairing: Din x Reader.

Chapter summary: You have some news for Din.

Warnings: 18+only. Smut with feelings.

A/N: Thanks for all the kind comments! 🥰

Part One/Part Two/Part Three/Part Four/Part Five

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It begins, the way most things do, with something so small you almost don’t notice.

You’re in the cockpit – Din in the pilot's chair, you in the co-pilot’s – your feet tucked up under you the way you sit when the jump is long, a datapad balanced on your knee with a book you’ve been reading off and on for a week. The hyperspace tunnel runs its long, blue spiral past the viewport and the cockpit smells, faintly, of the caf he brewed an hour ago in the small thermal pot mounted by the navicomputer – a smell you’ve loved, for over a year now.

You set the datapad down because the smell of the caf, very suddenly, isn’t the smell you love, but a thicker, sharper smell. It’s the smell of caf but turned by some small chemical wrongness in the air, or in your head, into a thing that climbs the back of your throat and sits there.

You swallow, “Din?”

The visor turns.

"Can you…" you swallow again, “can you put the lid on the pot. Sorry. The smell is…"

He puts the lid on the pot without asking, doing it the way he does most things you ask of him, with a competent immediacy that’s become a thing you take for granted. The smell eases and you breathe through your mouth a minute. Then you lay the back of your hand against your forehead and find it cool.

You pick the datapad back up.

The visor is still on you. "Cyar'ika?"

"It's alright, it just hit me funny for some reason."

"You're pale."

"I'm fine, Din. Just…" you wave a hand, “maybe I'm coming down with something. The water on Helvista, maybe. I read that some of those swamp bugs can take three weeks to come up."

"Drink something," he says. "Not caf."

You drink water, it tastes fine and by the time the jump drops you back into realspace an hour later, you’ve forgotten the caf entirely. You laugh at one of his small, dry observations about the spaceport controller's traffic patterns, and the moment slides away under the accumulating weight of the day.

You don’t think about it again – not that day anyway.

Two days later it’s the ration bars.

You’ve unwrapped one, in the hold, sitting on the bench where he cleaned his rifle that night six weeks ago when the long, careful conversation about wanting had begun. You unwrap it. lift it to your mouth and the smell of it – the slightly sweet, processed smell of the protein binder, a smell you’ve eaten through cheerfully twice a day for over a year –stops you cold. You set the bar down and stare at it.

He’s at the carbonite chamber, checking a seal and the visor turns towards you.

"Cyar'ika?"

"I just…" you say, "I'm really not hungry."

"You haven't eaten since the morning."

"I know but I'll eat later, Din. Just not…not that. I'll find something else."

You find something else, a piece of dried fruit from the small tin he keeps in the galley locker, and it was fine. You eat three more pieces with a kind of grateful greed that surprises you, because dried fruit isn’t a thing you usually eat by the handful. You wash it down with water and feel a million times better.

Again, you don’t think much of it, convincing yourself that it’s a swamp bug, as feared, or the water on Helvista. Simply some small, persistent disagreement between your body and the last bounty, working itself out the long slow way.

A week passes and it’s a quiet week.

He comes down from the cockpit, every night of that week, strips his armour and climbs into the bunk in his undershirt and trousers and pulls you back against his chest with the helmet on and his hand splayed warm across your stomach. His thumb strokes its small, slow absent circle, and nothing else happens.

You’ve both agreed on doing things this way and you’ve both been keeping it the way he keeps everything once he’s agreed to it, with a careful, patient discipline that doesn’t waver. You love him for it more than you have words for and you don’t tell him so, because telling him will make the holding of it harder. You let him hold it.

You sleep hard against him, the way you’ve not slept since you were a child – long, heavy sleeps, the kind that leaves a small, disoriented hollow in you in the first hour after waking, where you have to remember, slowly, who you are, where the ship is in its drift and what day it’s supposed to be.

You notice it, after a while because the small, disoriented hollow has become a thing you wake into more days than you don’t.

"You're sleeping a lot," he says one morning, the vocoder soft. He’s leaning against the bunk with a cup of caf in his gloved hand and you realise that he’s stopped offering you caf, three or four mornings running, without saying anything about it.

"I know."

"Do you…?”

"I'm tired. I don't know why. I think the swamp bug’s taking its time."

The visor keeps still.

"It's been three weeks."

"I know."

He doesn’t say anything else. He drinks his caf and presses the brow of the visor to your forehead before he climbs back to the cockpit. his gloved hand stroking once down your cheek allowing you to lean into it and close your eyes.

You sleep two more hours and when you wake, the Crest is still in drift, and the bunk smells of him. You sit up slowly, put your bare feet on the cool deck plating and feel, for the first time, a small lift of nausea that doesn’t have anything identifiable to attach itself to. There’s no caf in the air, no ration bar in your hand. Just a soft turning of your stomach, the kind that comes and goes in the space of a breath and leaves you sitting on the edge of the bunk with one hand pressed flat to your sternum, wondering.

You don’t yet know what you’re wondering.

You stand up and move over to the cycler, washing your face in cool water. You look at yourself in the small mirror over the basin and think that you look normal. A little tired, perhaps, the faint shadow under your eyes that comes of long sleeps deeper than usual. Your skin has a small warmth to it that’s not quite a flush, your hair longer than you’ve been keeping it.

You lay your hand flat against your sternum again and move it slowly down past your ribs to the soft place below your navel where, six weeks ago, on a bench in the hold, with a blindfold over your eyes and a man between your knees, you felt his warm, bare, patient hand splay possessive across your skin for the first time in fourteen months without anything in the way.

Your hand stops there.

You don’t, even then, let the thought form. You let your hand rest, let your palm be warm and let yourself, for the small space of a breath, simply notice the small warm place beneath your hand.

Then you take your hand away and finish washing your face. You go out to the hold and eat four pieces of dried fruit and a small piece of flatbread from the locker. Then you drink a glass of water and climb up to the cockpit to sit with him for the long quiet hours of the drift.

You don’t say anything to him because you don’t yet have anything to say. You have a swamp bug and a long stretch of quiet nights and a slightly turned stomach and a body that wants to sleep through every afternoon of the blue cycle. You don’t have anything to say.

Another week passes and your body doesn’t get better.

It doesn’t get worse, exactly, but it becomes…different. The sleeping continues. The nausea comes up in unprompted moments, mostly in the morning when you’ve not yet eaten, mostly easing the moment you put a piece of dried fruit or a corner of flatbread in your mouth. Your breasts have been tender. In the bunk one morning when his hand drifts in its small absent rhythm up from your stomach to settle against the underside of one, you flinch slightly and he feels it. He moves his hand back to your stomach without a word and without comment.

You know he’s watching you and that he has been for at least a week. The visor angles in small, careful checks at the cockpit, at the bench and at the bunk. It’s the inventory of him noting that you’ve refused caf again, that you’ve eaten only the dried fruit, or that you’ve napped through the late afternoon. He hasn’t said because you understand he’s waiting for you to say something. He’s waiting because he’s a man who’s learned that pressing you on a thing you’re not ready to be pressed on is not the right move.

You love him for the waiting.

But you also understand, lying in the bunk on the morning of the day you finally let yourself think the thought, that the waiting isn’t going to last forever. He’s a man who can hold a question a long time, but not one who can hold it indefinitely, and the question he’s holding is getting heavier in his hands by the day.

You let yourself think the thought.

You do it in the cycler again, standing in front of the small mirror in your sleep shirt with the cool water dripping off your jaw and your hand laid flat low on your stomach where it’s been wanting to lie for two weeks.

You count backward.

Six weeks since the night in the hold. Six weeks and three days, to be precise, because the night in the hold is a thing your interior calendar has marked.

Three weeks since the night on the bench when he bent you forward and pulled your hair and you said stop.

Three weeks of just-this since. Three weeks of his bare hand splayed warm across your stomach in the dark without anything else. Three weeks of no possibility, no possibility at all, that anything else could cause what your body is, very quietly and very persistently, telling you is happening.

Six weeks and three days.

You’ve not had your cycle since.

The realisation comes up the way the nausea comes up – quietly, from underneath, without preamble. You stand in front of the mirror with your hand flat low on your stomach and watch your own face in the glass and see the slow recognition arrive in it.

Oh.

Oh, Din.

You sit down on the small fold-down stool by the basin because your legs are not, just then, doing what you need them to do. You sit with your hand still on your stomach and stare at the deck plating between your bare feet and let the thought, finally, take its shape.

You’ve not been tracking it because there’s been no reason to track it. You’ve been on the Crest for fourteen months now and the small reliable rhythm of your body has been a thing you’ve been able to take for granted because you have been given the contraceptive shot by the medic on Sorgan just before you climbed aboard.

“Six months,” you remember her saying. “Six months and then you need to come back for the booster, don’t forget.”

You said you wouldn't, and meant it, because your life up until that point had been all about measuring things in six months intervals. You hadn’t known that morning that you were going to escape and steal aboard the Crest the way you did. Then it had lifted off Sorgan, carrying you to some kind of freedom, and you’ve never been back.

You do the count again and come to the same answer the second time and the third time. You sit on the stool in the cycler with your hand on your stomach and the soft, slow recognition warming you from underneath.

You sit there until the cool water on your jaw dries, and the small, disoriented hollow of the morning fades, and your legs are doing what you need them to again. Standing up, you look at yourself in the mirror and notice that you look the way you looked an hour ago. Tired, and a little flushed, but the same woman.

You lay both your hands low across your stomach and let yourself say the words.

"I'm pregnant."

The woman in the mirror smiles a small, surprised smile, the kind a person smiles when they’ve been told a thing they weren’t expecting and which turns out, when they hear it, to be a thing they’ve been wanting without knowing they want it.

Only you do know, because you asked him – weeks ago now – about family and, in a roundabout way, whether that might be something he’d consider.

You stand there a long moment with the smile on your face and your hands low on your stomach and you let yourself, finally, be inside the knowing of it. There’s a small, warm thing low in you the size of nothing yet – a clustering of cells, a possibility, a beginning – but it’s there. It’s there, and it’s his, and yours, and the two of you have made it in the bed you share with a blindfold across your eyes and a man between your knees who set down, for one careful moment, the last unbroken thing he’s carried out of the wreckage of his covert.

You close your eyes a moment and let the clarity of it organise itself. Then you open them again, wash your face, dry it on the worn towel that hangs by the basin, and go out into the hold to find him.

He’s at the workbench with a strip of new leather across it, a small awl in his gloved hand and the visor angled down at his work. From the careful set of his shoulders, you can tell that he’s been at it a while and that the work is a thing he’s using to hold himself steady while he waits for whatever you’re going to come and say to him.

You cross the hold and stop at his elbow, the visor lifting to look at you.

"Din…” You lay your hand on his bracer. "Come sit with me."

He sets the awl down without a question follows you to the bench by the carbonite chamber and sits down beside you, his armour catching the warm light of the hold, his gloved hands settling open and easy on his thighs.

He doesn’t ask – just waits.

You take one of his hands and draw it toward you, laying it, palm flat, low across your stomach.

He holds it there a long moment, the gloved hand splayed warm across the place under your navel that he’s been splaying warm across most nights of his life for the last six months. You watch the visor angle down to look at his own hand on you and watch the involuntary stillness that comes into him – the kind of stillness that comes into him only rarely, when a thing is settling on him that he’s not been expecting.

The vocoder catches a small uneven breath.

"Cyar'ika."

"Yes."

"I…"

"Yes, Din."

"You…?"

"Yes."

He doesn’t say anything for a long moment and the gloved hand on your stomach doesn’t move. The visor stays angled down, and you watch the careful slow recognition arrive in him the way it arrived in you an hour ago in the cycler. You see the same soft turning of the world on its axis, the same clarity that’s almost laughter and almost not.

"Cyar'ika…"

"I think so. I'm…I'm almost sure. I haven't…" you smile at him, a little crooked, “I haven't peed on anything, Din because I don't have anything to pee on. But I'm…I've been counting. I counted back and there isn't another answer. The dates…" you stop, because you see, behind the visor, that he’s already done the count.

You can see it in the careful held stillness of him, the small mechanical breath through the modulator, the way the gloved hand on your stomach presses, very faintly, in the involuntary pressure of a man who’s just located a thing in time and is, in his own quiet way, marking the spot.

"The night in the hold," he says very low. “When I…”

"Yes."

He doesn’t say anything else – just sits very still, his hand still splayed across your stomach, the visor staying angled down at it.

"Din," you say softly. "Are you alright?"

"Cyar'ika, I’m…" he searches, “I’m not alright, cyar'ika. I’m…" the vocoder cuts, “I’m something, but I don’t know the word. There is…there is no word."

"Tell me anyway."

The visor lifts and he looks at you. You feel the long, careful weight of him through the visor, the small, focused attention you’ve been the focus of, on and off, for fourteen months, the kind that makes you understand, every time, why people have been afraid of him before they’ve known him.

"I have a foundling," he says. "Cyar'ika, I have a foundling that’s also…a foundling that’s also of my body. I didn’t know I was going to get to have that. I didn’t…" the modulator cuts on a small uneven breath, “I didn’t know that was a thing the Creed was going to let me have. I thought the foundlings I might get to have were going to be the ones I picked up off other people's wrecked planets, like I myself was picked up, and I thought that was going to be enough, and I was grateful, cyar'ika. I was grateful for the thought of even those, and now you’re sitting on this bench telling me…"

He stops, his hand pressing gently against your stomach.

"You’re sitting on this bench telling me that I get to have one of my own."

You lay your hand over his.

"You get to have one of your own, Din, with me. The two of us. On this ship. We get to have this. I know that you said it might not be a place for a child and that living here, on the Crest with one is something that you wouldn’t want to ask of the woman who might bear you one but…"

He bends forward off the bench and comes down off it, slowly, the way he came down off the copilot's chair five weeks ago, his knees finding the deck plating in front of you, his cape settling around him, his hands coming up to either side of your hips. He presses the brow of the visor to your stomach in the small, substituted kiss that he’s been giving you for fourteen months in place of the other and holds it there a long shaking moment, breathing through the modulator.

"Cyar'ika."

"I'm here."

“I don’t deserve this."

"Din…"

"I don’t, cyar'ika, I don’t. I…"

"Din, listen to me."

You lay both your hands against the sides of the helmet and hold him there at your stomach, the brow of the visor pressing warm now from his breath against the cool inside of it, his gloved hands cradling your hips.

"That’s not how deserving works. That’s not how any of this works. You didn’t earn the night in the hold by being a man who deserves it. You didn’t earn me by being a man who deserves me. You got these things. You got this baby because it came to you, and the only thing in front of you now is to be the man who has it."

You stroke the sides of the helmet with your thumbs.

"And you’re going to be a very good father," you say. "I’m not saying that to make you feel better. I’m saying it because I’ve known for a long time that whatever else you’re going to be in this life, you’re going to be that. So, you can put down the worrying about whether you’re going to be one because you are.”

He doesn’t answer. He presses the brow of the visor harder to your stomach and his hands at your hips tighten.

You let him kneel because you know the kneeling is a thing he’s doing for himself and not a thing it’s your place to lift him out of. The light of the hold falls across his cape, across your bare feet on the deck plating and across the careful held weight of his hands at your hips. Somewhere very far above you both, in the cockpit, the proximity scanner keeps its steady sweep, and the pale starfield turns slowly past. The unrecorded hour of this happens the way every other unrecorded hour on this ship has ever happened, without ceremony and without witness, except by the two of you and the small warm thing under his hand.

Eventually, he lifts his head, the visor finding your face.

"We need a medic."

The practical, immediate competence of it, the way he’s moved, in one breath, from the shaking awe of recognition into the planning of the next step, makes you laugh. You don’t mean to, but it comes out as a soft surprised sound, and his shoulders ease in a way that tells you that he’s been waiting to hear it, to know that you’re as all right with this as you’ve said.

"Yes, we need a medic, eventually. But not tonight."

"Cyar'ika..."

"Not tonight, Din. Tonight I want to sit with it. I want to sit with you, and the two of us, and the…" you lay your hand over his on your stomach, “the three of us. I want one quiet night with just the three of us before there are medics and supplies and a thousand practical things to plan. Can we have that? Please?"

"Yes,” he says quietly. “Yes, cyar'ika, we can have that."

"Good."

You draw him up slowly, your hands at his elbows. He stands and you lay your forehead against the brow of the visor and close your eyes a moment, because it helps you think. You breathe against him, he breathes back through the modulator, and for a long quiet stretch the two of you stand in the warm light of the hold without saying anything.

"Din?"

"Mm."

"I'm hungry."

He laughs, a small, modulated laugh, the one you know, but underneath you hear the warm, hoarse unfiltered laugh of the man from that night with no helmet on, low and surprised and pleased.

"What do you want?"

"Not caf."

"I know."

"Not ration bars."

"Noted."

"Dried fruit, and the flatbread. And…do we still have any of that nut paste from the market three planets ago? The one with the seeds in it?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"All of that. Together. On a plate." You make a face. "I know it sounds strange..."

"It sounds…" he searched, the way he searches when he’s being careful with words, “it sounds like a thing a pregnant woman would ask for."

You laugh again and lay your forehead harder against the visor, feeling his hand come up to the back of your head and cradle there. The warm, careful held weight of him against you is a thing you’re going to remember the shape of for the rest of your life – just like his true face is.

"Get me my strange plate, Mandalorian."

"Yes cyar'ika,” he replies with a low chuckle then goes and gets you your strange plate.

You eat it on the bench with him sitting beside you, his hand splayed once warmer and more possessive across your stomach in the new way you realise it’s going to splay there from now on. You eat the dried fruit, the flatbread and the nut paste and it tastes the way nothing in three weeks has tasted, which is good, and right, and the thing your body’s been wanting and hasn’t been able to name until you put it in your mouth.

You eat two pieces of flatbread loaded with nut paste, a small pile of dried fruit and drink a glass of cool water, then you sit back against him with the warm satisfaction of a meal that has finally agreed with you, and you close your eyes a moment, as the small slow circle of his thumb begins its absent rhythm low on your stomach.

"He's going to be hungry like this."

“He?”

“Yes.”

"I know."

"All the time, so you’re going to have to learn to make more than four things."

"I’ll learn."

"Good." You hesitate. "I know I said he, but I don't…I don't know that. I shouldn't say it because it could be either. I just…" you laugh at yourself, “I keep thinking he. I don't know why."

The hand on your stomach presses, very faintly.

"I know, it's silly."

"It's not silly."

"I just…I've been thinking it since I worked it out and I keep thinking him. I keep thinking the small warm thing is a him. I don't know why.”

"Cyar'ika, if he is a he, then he is a he and I will teach him as my father taught me. And if she is a she…”

He breaks off and you raise your head to look at the visor.

“If she is a she?”

“Then…I’m not entirely sure what I’ll do.”

You lay your hand over his on your stomach and lace your fingers through his as best you can through the leather. Closing your eyes, you let the new shape of your family settle into the shape it’s going to settle into.

A father in beskar.

A mother with nothing but her wits.

A small warm thing under your palm that’s going to be, in the long, unwritten months ahead, a person.

"We’re going to need a bigger ship."

The vocoder catches and he laughs, the long, low, full laugh, the one that comes up from somewhere deeper than the modulator can quite strip, the one that you’ve been given once unfiltered and will always now hear underneath. He laughs and the hand on your stomach shakes with it.

"Cyar'ika..."

"I'm just saying."

"I know."

"The bunk is already small."

"I know."

“Where will we put a cradle?”

"We'll figure it out." He presses the brow of the visor to your temple. "Tomorrow.”

"Alright.”

"Tonight we have the three of us."

You lean into the warm familiar bulk of the cuirass against your shoulder and the cool curve of the visor against your temple and the hand splayed warm and possessive across your stomach.

The night in the hold had given him one thing and it’s now given him two.

It’s given him a small, unrepeatable moment with no armour between you. And it’s given him a small warm thing under your palm that’s going to grow, that’s going to be born, that’s going to have his small, crooked nose, perhaps, or your eyes, or both, or neither. A small warm thing that’s going to be raised on this ship, or on a bigger one, by a father in beskar and a mother with her wits, and that’s going to be loved in a way that not very many small, warm things in this galaxy ever get to be loved.

In the morning, you’ll talk about medics, about supplies, about timelines, and about the thousand practical things that the small, warm thing under your palm is going to require of you both.

In the morning.

Tonight, you have the three of you, which is more than enough.

It is, you think, very nearly everything.

And you have no idea what is about to come.

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Taglist: @thelittlebats @sassythejedi @millercontracting @porganas @lovely-kitsune-exe @themilkhasjustexpired @dream-alittlebiggerdarling

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[isabellaboo2025]

Through The Wall - Part Five

Pairing: Din x Reader

Chapter summary: The ramifications of Din removing his helmet hit harder than you expect.

Warnings: 18+only. Smut with feelings. This chapter gets a little bit darker.

A/N: Hoping I’ve kept this on the right side of consent. Thanks for all the kind comments! 🥰

Part One/Part Two/Part Three/Part Four

Din Masterlist

Read on A03

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The thing about giving him something he can’t have again, you understand later, is that you’ve not thought about what it’ll cost him to give it back.

You’ve thought about a great many things, in the long warm afterglow of that night. You’ve thought about the shape of his face under your fingertips, the unfiltered laugh, low and surprised, and the warm, hoarse, human voice underneath the modulation, and the soft warm patient slide of him with nothing in the way. You’ve carried all of it, in the days after, like a small bright stone in a pocket, taking it out in the quiet moments and turning it over in your hands.

You’ve not thought about him taking it out in the quiet moments and turning it over in his.

You should have. You should have known. He’s a man who takes things out and turns them over in his hands – that’s the whole architecture of him, that’s how he’s built every interior room of himself. You’ve given him a thing to turn over, and he’s begun to wear it smooth.

The first week is very good.

He’s quieter in a way that’s not withdrawn but settled, the way a man who’s been given something that has rearranged his small interior furniture and is taking the time to learn the new layout is quiet He sits closer to you in the cockpit. He touches you more in small, absent ways and calls you cyar'ika more often. He says it through the modulator, and you hear, every time, the human voice underneath, because you’ve been given it once and you’ll never not hear it underneath now.

The second week is where it begins.

It begins so small you almost don’t notice and you only do because you’ve now spent a year learning to notice small things about him.

You’re in the bunk with the lights out. He comes down from the cockpit and strips his armour, piece by piece, laying it aside in the careful ritual he’s built around the night cycle. He climbs in behind you in his undershirt and his trousers with the helmet still on, pulls you back against his chest and splays his hand across your stomach, his thumb beginning the small, slow, absent, familiar circle of your skin.

And then his hand stops a second too long.

You feel him hold his breath and feel the helmet press, very lightly, to the top of your head. Then you feel the small involuntary tightening of his fingers against your stomach, as if he’s been about to do something and stopped himself.

Then the thumb resumes, the breath is let out and the helmet stays. You don’t say anything. You just close your eyes, let him hold you and tell yourself it’s nothing.

It happens again, three nights later. He bends to press the brow of the visor to your forehead, and you feel him pause, the cool beskar a hair's breadth from your skin, and you feel the small held breath of him through the modulator. Then the visor presses down and he pulls back.

You look up at him in the half-dark.

"Din, are you alright?”

"Yes."

He’s not alright, but you don’t push, instinct telling you that he’s not ready to look at whatever it is yet.

You let it lie and it gets worse.

He starts to take longer to settle in the bunk. He starts to lie behind you with his hand on your stomach and not move at all, to hold so still it’s like he’s teaching himself not to. When he takes you in the dark, he starts to keep one hand always braced against the bulkhead beside your head, as if he needs the anchor of something cold and unyielding to remind him of where the discipline is supposed to live.

He starts to fuck you, in those nights, with a small, new, desperate edge underneath the old patience. Not rough, just…wanting. You feel it every time in the small involuntary catch in his breath when he buries himself in you, the small held-back sound he makes through the modulator when he comes, the way his hand tightens on your hip and then deliberately eases, the way you can feel him pulling against some invisible leash.

You know what the leash is and yet you don’t say, because you also know that the thing he’s leashed against is a thing he can’t be allowed off the leash for again. Maybe not ever. The Creed has given him one negotiated night because you built him an argument he could climb through, and the same argument doesn’t climb twice. You both understand that and asking him for it again will be asking him to break the thing the night only carefully bent.

So, you let him stay leashed. You hold him afterwards, tell him you love him and feel, every time, the small flinch of him hearing it whilst you pretend, every time, you don’t.

But it doesn’t work.

The third week is when you have to start admitting it’s not working.

This is when he starts to pace again. Not the wide easy pacing of a man with nervous energy to spend, but the small, contained pacing of a man who’s holding something down with his hands and can’t quite manage to hold it down with the rest of him. He paces the cockpit between jumps, he paces the hold at night, he strips his rifle and reassembles it twice in one evening, which is something he hasn’t done since the first month of you living on the Crest, when you were still learning to read him and he was still learning to be read.

You try twice to talk to him. The first time is in the cockpit, where you lay your hand on his bare forearm and stroke the skin there gently.

"Din?"

"Mm."

"Talk to me."

He doesn’t turn his head.

"There's nothing to talk about, cyar'ika."

"There is."

"There's not."

"Din…"

"There is nothing."

His voice through the modulator is very level and so you take your hand off his forearm and nod as though he’s given you an acceptable answer.

"All right," you say softly.

The second time is in the bunk. He takes you from on top this time, the way he sometimes does when he wants to watch you – your hands braced on his shoulders, your weight in his lap, his hands at your hips guiding the rhythm. He finishes with the small held-back sound through the modulator and then lifts you off him with the careful competence he always brings to it, laying you down beside him, and beginning the slow absent stroking of your stomach with his thumb that means he’s settling toward sleep.

You lay your hand over his. "Din."

The thumb stops.

"I miss it too," you say, very quietly. "I do. But I have it in my head, and it’s enough. It’s more than enough. We don't have to chase it. We don't have to…to keep looking back over our shoulders at it. It’ll still be there in a year, or five, or twenty. We don’t have to chase it."

The thumb doesn’t resume and he remains silent for a long time before responding.

"I’m not chasing it."

"Din…"

"I'm not, cyar'ika. It was a gift. I know what it was. I'm not…" the vocoder cuts on a small uneven breath, “I'm not the kind of man who chases gifts."

"I didn't say you were."

"Then don't worry about it."

“I only…"

"Sleep, cyar'ika, please."

You sleep or at least pretend to. Behind you, in the dark, his hand stays splayed across your stomach without moving, and you understand, lying there with your eyes closed, that you’ve pushed and he’s pushed back, and that’s the end of the conversation for tonight, and possibly for longer.

The third week ends and the fourth week is Helvista.

It’s a long bounty, seven days of hard tracking on a swamp moon, a quarry who moves at night and sleeps in trees, a stretch of work that leaves you both filthy, underfed and tired down to the small bones of your wrists. You eat ration bars on the bounty's last night without speaking, haul the carbonite slab into the hold at dawn and shower, one at a time, the way you always do.

You come out into the warm dim of the night cycle with your hair damp and your skin warm and find him sitting on the bench by the carbonite chamber with the helmet on and nothing else and a look about him that you’ve not seen in a month.

His visor turns and he watches you cross the hold.

You don’t stop in front of him, moving past him to the bunk, because you understand, from the small set of his shoulders and the careful angle of his helmet, what he wants, and that the bench is not where he’s going to take it.

He follows, his hand coming around your waist from behind and pulling you back against the warm heat of him, the visor pressing to the side of your throat with the small hungry edge of a man who’s been holding something down for a long time and is, tonight, going to let himself stop.

"Cyar'ika."

"I'm here."

He turns you, pressing your back to the bulkhead, then he kisses you through the helmet as his hands go under the loose sleep shirt you’ve pulled on after the shower, finds your breasts and palms them.

You should have stopped him then, but you don’t.

You want him too. You’ve wanted him for a week of swamp moon and longer than that of small held-back hands on your hip and a leash neither of you is talking about. You want him and so you turn your face up to the visor, let him push the shirt up over your head, and guide you into the bunk.

He bends you forward over the edge and that’s the first place it goes wrong, only you don’t realise it at the time.

He’s taken you from behind before many times. There’s nothing wrong, in itself, with him bending you forward over the edge of the bunk, pulling your hips back against him and pressing the visor to the back of your neck while his hands run the small inventory down your sides.

But you understand, with a small far slow part of your mind, that he’s chosen this position because he can’t see your face from it and that he’s choosing it because tonight, he doesn’t want to have to remember whose face it is.

You set the thought aside, because you want him.

He presses against you, hard, the blunt heat of him sliding through the wet of you, and the small, low sound he makes through the modulator is rougher than the small, low sound he made through the modulator a week ago. He sheathes himself in you in one long stroke, you cry out against the mattress, and he presses the visor to the base of your skull, beginning, with very little patience at all, to fuck you.

It’s not the rhythm of any night in the bunk before.

It’s hard, harder than he’s been before. This is a man who’s been holding something down for four weeks and who’s decided, somewhere on the swamp moon or in the shower or on the bench, that he’s going to stop holding it down for the next ten minutes, and that the way he’s going to stop holding it down is through you.

His hands grip your hips tighter than usual. You felt the small involuntary pulse of pressure where his thumbs dig into the soft place above your hipbones, where you register, dimly, that there will be bruises tomorrow. He pulls you back against him on every stroke, using you as the anchor he’s been bracing against the bulkhead for. The small, hoarse sounds through the modulator are not the warm, low, pleased ones you know. They’re rougher, the sounds of a man working at something. The sounds of a man trying.

"Din."

"Mm."

"Din, slow…"

He doesn’t slow. The visor presses harder to the base of your skull. The hand on your right hip slides up your back, fists in your hair, and tips your head back. Not gently, not the careful tipping he’s used before, but a harder tipping. A tipping that pulls, that hurts a small clean line down your scalp, and you make a sound that’s not entirely pleasure.

He doesn’t seem to hear you.

He keeps going, the pace never breaking. The pressure of his hand in your hair doesn’t ease and the other hand on your hip pulls you back harder. The visor presses to the side of your neck and the modulator catches a small, rough sound that’s almost a growl. You feel him driving toward something, chasing something, and the small, far, slow part of your mind finally understands.

He’s chasing the feeling of having no helmet between him and you.

He can’t have it. The helmet is on, the Creed is on, the leash is on, he can’t get it off, and he’s trying, in the only way left to him, to fuck through it.

You know you can’t let him – can’t let him chase a thing through you that you’re not going to be the chase for.

"Din."

He doesn’t slow.

"Din."

The visor presses harder, the hand in your hair tightening.

"Stop."

The word comes out small. You don’t even know, at first, that you’ve said it. You haven’t said stop to him before. There have been times when you’ve asked him to slow, to wait, to give you a moment, but you’ve never, not since this all started, said the word stop.

He doesn’t hear you and you say it again, louder.

"Stop, Din. Stop."

He stops so completely it’s as if a thing has been switched off inside him. The hand in your hair releases. The hand at your hip releases. The visor lifts from the back of your neck and the rhythm breaks. He holds inside you a long, shocked moment, breathing through the modulator, and you feel the long uneven shake of him.

Then he pulls out, fast, and steps back. You hear him stumble with the small, uncharacteristic ungainliness of a man whose body is no longer obeying him. You straighten up off the edge of the bunk, slowly, and turn to look at him.

He’s standing in the half-dark of the bunk alcove. The visor’s angled at you, but only barely, the rest of him angled away, shoulders set, hands at his sides, the breath through the modulator coming in small, uneven bursts. He looks, you think, the way a man looks who’s just watched himself do something he doesn’t believe he’s capable of and is, in the space afterward, deciding what kind of man he’s going to be on the other side of having seen it.

"Cyar'ika…"

"Din, it’s alright."

"I…”

"Come here, it's alright. I'm all right.”

You reach for him, but he flinches back, a half-step, no more, and you feel it in your own chest like a blow.

"Cyar'ika…"

"Din, stay, please."

But he doesn’t stay.

He turns and goes across the hold, lifting his discarded flight suit and clumsily pulling it on over his naked form before heading for the ladder. You watch as he climbs it, then hear the small bang as the cockpit hatch closes, the lock engaging.

You stand naked in the bunk alcove in the half-dark with the warm wet ache of him still inside you, listening to him moving above, then sit down on the edge of the bunk and lay both your hands flat against your thighs, breathing slowly, the way he’s taught you to breathe when you’ve come back too hot from a fight and can’t bring yourself down. You take the breaths, count them and let your shoulders come down.

Your hips hurts and when you look down, you can already see, in the small backwash of light from the hold, the dark beginnings of bruises above the bones. You press one with your fingertip and the small, bright ache of it is almost a relief.

You scout the floor for your trousers, pull your sleep shirt back on and think, first, about whether you’re alright.

You are – you know you are. Your hips are bruised and your scalp feels tender and there’s a small soreness inside you that’s nothing you’ve not had before. You’re alright. You said stop and he stopped, the way you knew he would. He stopped completely.

The Creed is a discipline, and the discipline has held, even at the end, even with him chasing something through you that he can’t have.

You sit there a long time wondering if you might cry and quickly realising that you won’t. What comes instead is a long, slow, steady clarity telling you, firstly, that he’s not alright and secondly that he’s not going to be alright by himself.

The third thing the clarity tells you is that you’re going to have to go up there after you’ve given him some time to be alone with the thing he’s just discovered about himself, the way an animal that has been caught in a snare needs a stretch of being alone with the snare before it’ll let anyone near to take it off.

But you know the stretch can’t not be too long, because you know the decision a man like Din Djarin is capable of making about himself, when he’s just hurt the woman he loves and it’s not a decision you’re going to let him reach unattended.

Standing up, you move slowly, around the hold, making yourself useful. You fold the blanket that has slipped off the bench. You pick up the scarf from where it migrated days ago to the small shelf beside the bunk, fold it and put it back. You drink a glass of water and stand in front of the small mirror in the cycler looking at your reflection.

Your hair is wild from his hand and there’s a small flush along your throat. Your eyes look tired, but not frightened, and you don’t look, when you turn at the waist to check, like a woman who’s been hurt past mending. The bruises on your hip are already coming up dark, and you trace one with your fingertip, thinking about how you’re going to tell him about them and deciding you’re going to tell him the truth, because the truth is the only thing that’s going to be useful to him tonight.

You wait fifteen minutes and then walk to the foot of the ladder, laying your hand on the rung.

"Din?"

The cockpit hatch doesn’t open, not that you expect it to. You stand at the foot of the ladder with your hand on the rung and speak up the shaft just loud enough that he can catch your voice through the hatch.

"Din, I'm coming up in a minute. I just want you to know that."

You’re met with silence and you stand there a moment longer, stroking the cool metal of the rung with your thumb the way he strokes your stomach, and you breathe.

"I'm alright," you say quietly. "I want you to hear me say that.”

The cockpit hatch doesn’t open and he doesn’t answer.

You wait two more minutes and then begin to climb. At the top of the ladder, you lay your hand against the hatch.

"I'm at the hatch. I'm not going to open it because I want you to open it when you're ready. I'm just going to sit here on the ladder and wait."

Sitting down on the top rung, you lean your back against the bulkhead beside the hatch, fold your arms across your knees, lay the side of your head against the cool metal, close your eyes and wait.

You don’t how long you wait for but, eventually, the lock disengages. You don’t sit up or push the hatch open. Rather, you wait for him to open it.

The hatch slides open from the inside and when you open your eyes and look up, you see him sitting in the pilot’s chair, turned to face the hatch, with the helmet on, the visor angled at the deck plating between his feet.

He doesn’t look up as you climb the last two rungs and sit down on the lip of the hatch, your legs dangling into the shaft, your hands folded loose in your lap.

"Hi.”

"Cyar'ika...I…"

His voice through the modulator is the voice of a man who’s been crying. You don’t know how you know that because, in all the time you’ve flown with him, you’ve never heard him cry, never even been entirely sure he’s capable of it. But the small uneven catch in his breath and the slight thickness in the way the modulator handles the word tells you that he has and is.

"Can I come in?" you ask softly. “Or do you need me to stay here?"

He doesn’t answer right away.

"Come in," he says, eventually.

You don’t go to him. Instead, you go to the copilot's chair and sit down in it sideways, so that you’re facing him, your bare feet tucked up under you, your hands still folded loose in your lap. You look at the dash, at the dim glow of the navigation readouts, at the small steady spin of the proximity scanner, so that he doesn’t have the weight of your eyes.

He doesn’t look up, the visor remaining angled at the deck.

"Din, I need to tell you some things, okay?"

"Yes."

"Firstly, I’m physically alright. I’ve got two bruises on my hip from where your hands were and my scalp is a little tender from where you pulled my hair, but that's all.”

He doesn’t answer and the visor stays angled at the deck. You watch, very faintly, the small involuntary shake of his shoulders under the flight suit.

"Secondly, I'm going to tell you that I love you and I want you to hear me say that now, before I say anything else. I love you, Din. I’m not any less in love with you tonight than I was this morning.”

The vocoder catches a small broken sound that’s almost a word and also not. You sit with him while he takes in what you’ve said and let him have whatever time he needs.

"Alright," he says quietly.

"Good. Now I'm going to tell you the third thing. And I'm going to say it once, and then we're not going to talk about it tonight again, because tonight isn’t the night to talk about it. We’re going to talk about it tomorrow, or the day after, or when you’re ready. But I want you to hear it once tonight, because I want you to carry it into whatever you’re about to do with yourself in your own head, and I want it to be in there with you."

The visor doesn’t move.

"You were chasing it, weren't you?"

He doesn’t answer.

"You were chasing the way it was that night, and you’ve been chasing it for four weeks. I’ve watched you chase it and I haven’t said anything because I didn’t know how to say it without taking something away from you that I’ve got no business taking. But tonight you chased it harder than you’ve chased it before, and tonight I felt it, Din. I felt you trying to get through the helmet at me with your body because you can’t get through it any other way."

The vocoder catches a small, wrecked sound.

"I’m not angry," you say. "I want you to hear that. I’m not angry, Din, because I understand why. We had something that was real, and it’s not something a man can put down easily after he’s had it. I should’ve understood that better than I did. I should’ve asked you, the morning after about how you were going to carry it and I didn't, and for that I’m sorry.”

You uncurl your hands and lay one palm flat on the armrest of the copilot's chair, facing up, as an offering.

"But you can’t chase it through me, Din. Not because you hurt me, but because if you chase it through me, you’re not being true to yourself. You’re not letting us be what we are to each other. I don’t want to be a thing you have to fight your way through your armour to reach. I want to be the thing inside the armour with you."

You let out a long breath, and still, he says nothing.

"That's all I wanted to say. “

You sit there watching the proximity scanner until he finally speaks and, when he does, the voice through the modulator is very small. The voice he keeps for the things that hurt him.

"Cyar'ika."

"Yes?"

"I…I didn’t know that I was. I thought…I thought I had it under control. I thought I had…I had set it down the morning after. I had taken it out and I had looked at it, and I had set it down. I told myself I had."

"I know."

"I told myself I had every morning. Every morning I would pick it up and look at it and set it back down, and I told myself the setting down was the work. I told myself I was doing the work. I…"

The vocoder catches.

"But I wasn’t doing the work," he says. "I was wearing it smooth."

"I know, Din. I saw you do it."

He bends forward in the chair and lays his hands across the visor of the helmet, the way a man holds his head in his hands when he’s trying to keep something inside it.

"I hurt you."

"Not badly."

"I hurt you."

"Alright, you did, a little. And I said stop, and you stopped. I want you to hear that part – you stopped. You stopped completely, Din, the second I said it. You heard me and you stopped."

"That’s not…that’s not the bar, cyar'ika. That’s not the bar I want to meet."

"I know it isn't."

"I don’t want to be a man who has to be told to stop. I don’t want to be a man who…who chases a thing through the woman he…" the vocoder cuts on the word.

"I know, Din."

He doesn’t say anything for a long time, his hands remaining flat against the brow of the visor. You don’t move from the copilot's chair, but you keep your palm up on the armrest, letting it be a thing he can come to if he wants.

"I’m afraid."

The vocoder almost strips the word, but you hear it anyway.

"Afraid of what?"

"I’m afraid that I’ve…I’ve learned a thing about myself I didn’t know was in there. That there’s a man in here who…who wants past the Creed. Who wants past it badly enough to put his hands on you and pull. And I don’t…I don’t know what to do with knowing that cyar'ika. I’ve built my… my whole self on top of the Creed. The Creed is the floor. If I’m the kind of man who…who pulls against it through you, then I don’t know what the floor is."

You sit with his words for a long careful moment, because the thing he’s setting down between you is a thing that matters, and you’re not going to answer it cheaply.

"Din, will you come over here? I’m not going to ask you anything. I just want you over here because you’re too far away, please.”

He doesn’t move and the hands stay on the visor.

"Din, please."

Finally, he stands slowly and crosses the small space between the chairs. He doesn’t look at you or sit. He stands in front of the copilot's chair with the visor angled at the deck and his hands hanging useless at his sides.

You reach up and take both his hands in yours, gently drawing him down to you. He comes down to his knees in front of the chair, kneeling between your feet on the deck plating of the cockpit, and you cradle his hands in yours and turn them, slowly, so the palms are up, and you lay your own palms flat on them, and hold him there.

"Listen to me."

The visor remains angled at the deck.

"Look up, Din."

He looks up slowly.

"There’s no man in there who wants past the Creed. There’s a man in there who loves a woman and wants to be close to her. That’s all that is. You’ve built your whole self on top of the Creed, and the Creed is the floor, and the floor is fine. The floor is not cracked. The floor held. You said yes to a negotiated night, took it, and then you tried, for four weeks, to carry it without telling me you were having trouble, and that’s the only place anything went wrong tonight. You should’ve told me. The next time you have trouble carrying something, you need to tell me. Yes?"

The visor is very still. "Yes.”

"Good."

You stroke his hands with your thumbs.

“The night in the hold was a gift, we both said so. But a gift isn’t a debt or a thing you have to chase. A gift is a thing you get to have once, and the having of it doesn’t require any more havings to stay real. The night in the hold is real, it will stay real and it will be real in a year, and in five, and in twenty. I’m not going anywhere, Din, and the night in the hold is going to be one of the things I take with me to whatever is on the other side of a long life on this ship with you. It doesn’t need to happen again to stay real. Do you hear me?"

"Yes," he replies, softly. “I hear you."

You sit there with his hands in yours and after a long moment, you feel the long shudder of a breath go out of him through the modulator that you understand, with a small flat clarity, is the first whole breath he’s taken since the bunk.

"I’m sorry, cyar'ika."

"I know."

"I won’t…"

"I know."

He lays his forehead against your knee and you place one hand against the back of the helmet and hold him there, stroking, very slowly, with the pad of your thumb, the small place where the lip of the helmet meets the collar of his flight suit, the small bare strip of skin you’ve touched a thousand times.

"I'm going to ask you something now, Din, and I want you to answer it honestly.”

"Alright."

"Do you need a stretch of nights where we don't do anything at all? Just…nothing but sleeping.? Just my back against your chest and your hand on my stomach and the helmet on and nothing else? Would that help?"

You feel the small careful stillness of him at your knee, the slow consideration of a man who is, for the first time in four weeks, letting himself actually look at what he needs instead of what he’s supposed to be capable of.

"Yes."

The word comes out small.

"Yes, I think…I think I do. I think I need that."

"Then we'll have that."

"Cyar'ika…"

"We'll have that, Din. As long as you want it. You tell me when you’re sitting with it clean, when you’ve stopped chasing it, when you’re settled. And then we can go back to the way it was before, the way I love, Din, the way I love…"

Your voice catches small and unexpectedly, and you steady it quickly.

“And we won’t be chasing anything. We’ll just be having what we have, alright?"

"Alright."

You stroke the back of his helmet.

"And we’re not going to talk about doing the other thing again. Not for a long time, maybe not ever. I’m not going to come to you in six months or a year and ask you to take the helmet off. The night in the hold is not a thing I’m going to ask you to give me again. If it ever happens again, it’ll be because you, the man inside the armour decides that you want it, and not before.”

The vocoder catches a long uneven breath and the helmet nods slowly.

"And if that night never comes, I won’t be wanting for anything. I have the one night here." You lay your free hand flat to your sternum. "I have the shape of your face under my fingertips, and I have the sound of your voice without the modulator, and I have the feel of your mouth on me and I’m full of it, Din. I don’t need another helping. I want you to never, ever again be lying behind me in the bunk wondering if I’m wanting more than I have because I won’t.”

He doesn’t answer and you feel, against your knee, the small uneven shake of him. You sit like that a long time, letting the time be a thing that happens around you until he eventually lifts his head, the T shape of the visor finding your face.

"Cyar'ika, will you let me see the bruises?"

You don’t flinch at the request. Instead, you stand, gently drawing him up, take his hand and lead him down the ladder, across the hold and into the bunk.

You sit on the edge and ease the waistband of your trousers down, slowly, so he can see. The dark shapes above your hipbones have come up in the last half hour to a deep blue-purple, the kind of bruise that will be ugly tomorrow and uglier the day after and will, by the end of a week, be a soft greenish-yellow.

He looks at them for a long time.

“I’m sorry.”

He kneels slowly and lays both hands very lightly on you, cradling the curve of your hips, his thumbs not pressing, just settling near.

"May I?"

"Yes."

He bends, the brow of the helmet pressing, very lightly, to each bruise in turn, holding there a long moment, breathing through the modulator, his thumbs stroking once across the soft skin above the bones.

Then he moves and climbs into the bunk behind you, pulling you back against his chest with the helmet at the top of your head and his bare hand splayed warm across your stomach.

His thumb begins the small, slow, absent circle, and you close your eyes, feeling the warm familiar weight of him. You feel the visor against your hair, the bare hand on your stomach, the thumb in its small slow rhythm, the bare arm warm along the underside of your breasts.

The helmet is on. The Creed is on. The bruises on your hip ache, dully, against the warm length of his thigh behind yours, and the small, clean ache of it is, somehow, against every odd, a comfort – a thing you can feel, a thing that proves you’re both still inside your bodies. A thing that will, in a week, be greenish-yellow and then nothing at all.

"Thank you," he says softly.

"You’re welcome."

"I love you."

The vocoder catches a little on the words, and you hear, underneath, the human warmth of the voice you’ve been given once and will not be given again, and the hearing of it underneath is not a thing that hurts – it’s a thing you have.

You lay your hand over his on your stomach and lace your fingers through his.

"I love you too, Din."

His thumb resumes its small, slow, absent circle against your skin.

You don’t know yet how many nights of just-this it’ll take. You don’t know if there will be a slow careful return to the long, patient rhythm of how it has been, or whether something between you will have to be built newly out of the rubble of tonight, piece by piece, the way the covert he lost is a thing that can perhaps, in some long quiet future, be rebuilt out of the materials at hand.

You don’t know if there will be other nights when he’ll need to lay his bruised wanting at your knee and have you hold it, or whether the work of tonight will be enough.

But you know that you’re both here.

Closing your eyes, you let the warmth of him be the thing your body settles into. You let the small slow circle of his thumb be the metronome your breath organises itself around as you sleep.

When you wake, in the small blue hour before the Crest's day cycle comes up, his bare hand is still splayed across your stomach, and his helmet is still pressed to your hair, and the long warm length of him is still against your back.

He’s still here and the work in front of you both is work that two people who love each other can do.

You lay your free hand over his on your stomach and close your eyes again, sleeping another hour, against him, in the small, warm, blue dim, before the day asks anything of either of you.

➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰🚀➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰

PART SIX

Taglist: @thelittlebats @sassythejedi @millercontracting @porganas @lovely-kitsune-exe @themilkhasjustexpired @dream-alittlebiggerdarling

PTaglist: @copperhalfcent @missladym1981 @whattheflipsiesss @brittmb115 @elizabeth4th @peepawmiller @angelwithablade @cassieorz @somedayheaven @silversvu12 @madpanda75 @johnssherlock221 @madnessofadaydreamer @kirsteng42 @ifall4dilfs @pedro-pascal-3nthusiast @cuteanimalmama @inept-the-magnificent @mystickittytaco @arood98 @sunnytuliptime @katw474 @pascalgold @dotyoureyez @victoriaholland @loveday1219 @awkwardpaws @misstokyo7love @vinyl-and-coffee @spock1988 @readingiskeepingmegoing @kakiki3 @kayidlewild @miserysinferno @tupelomiss @untamedheart81 @ilovequeen978 @g0ldenstarr @missadangel

[isabellaboo2025]

Through The Wall - Part Four

Pairing: Din x Reader.

Chapter summary: Din needs something from you and you’re more than happy to oblige.

Warnings: 18+only. Smut with feelings.

A/N: I saw the film today and it was so good! Not enough un-helmeted Pedro but you can’t have everything! It inspired me to post this today 🥰

Part One/Part Two/Part Three

Din Masterlist

➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰🚀➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰

The first thing you notice is that he won’t sit down.

That, by itself, is not unusual. He’s a man who paces, a man who stands at the edge of rooms, a man who has been trained never to take a chair that doesn’t have its back to a wall. In the time you’ve spent together, you’ve learned the geography of his stillness and his motion, and ordinarily you can read him through the soles of his boots.

Tonight you can’t read him.

It’s a slow night – the bounty puck spent, the credits locked away, the next job not yet pulled. You’ve eaten the simple meal you made together, wiped down the small fold-out table in the hold, sat with him on the bench by the carbonite chamber while he field-strips his rifle, and you’ve read aloud, in the small companionable way you’ve begun to develop, from a book of poetry you picked up from a stall on Bestine for two credits.

It was the closest you’re going to get to a bookstore.

He’s been listening with the slightly tilted helmet that means he’s paying attention. And then, somewhere between the second and third poem, he sets the rifle aside half-cleaned, stands up, and begins, with no apparent destination, to pace.

He paces the length of the hold once, pausing at the carbon-freezing controls, then paces back. He stops at the foot of the ladder, sets one gloved hand on the rung and stands there a long moment as if considering whether to climb it. Then he turns and paces again, ending up at the small fold-out table, and he stands there with his hands resting on the edge of it and the visor angled at some middle distance of the deck plating.

You watch him through all of this with the patience of a person who’s learned that the surest way to make him close up is to ask him directly what’s wrong. So, you don’t ask. You set the book down, tuck your feet up under you on the bench and wait.

He paces again and comes back to the table, stopping at it again as if it’s a thing he hasn’t noticed the first time, and exhales unevenly.

"Din,” you say gently, the helmet still turned away. “Come sit.”

He doesn’t move for a long moment. His bare fingers on the edge of the table flex once and go still. Then, slowly, as if it costs him something he doesn’t want to spend, he comes back across the hold and sits down beside you on the bench.

He sits forward, elbows braced on his knees, his bare forearms catching the warm sodium light of the hold. He laces his fingers together loosely and stares at them, or at the deck, or at nothing in particular through the T-visor and says nothing.

After a long time, the vocoder catches a breath.

"Cyar'ika."

"Yes?"

He goes quiet again, so you lay your hand on his forearm. The skin’s warm, the small dark hairs there soft under your palm, and you stroke it very slowly with the pad of your thumb.

"It's nothing," he says, finally. "I'm…being foolish."

"You're not foolish."

"You don’t know."

"Tell me."

He remains quiet so long this time, that you begin to think he’s going to stand up again and pace, but he stays by your side.

"I want something," he says, the vocoder very low. "I want something, and I can’t have it, and I’ve been…I’ve been turning it over in my head all evening like a man turning over a stone he can’t put down. And I’m being foolish, because the wanting changes nothing. So, I will put it down. And we will…" he gestures, small and helpless, at the book on the bench beside you, “we will read another poem, cyar'ika, and I’ll be alright."

You don’t pick up the book. You continue slowly stroking the inside of his bare forearm with the pad of your thumb and feel the small involuntary tightening of muscle there under your hand.

"Tell me what you want," you say.

"Cyar'ika…"

"Tell me."

He draws a long breath through the modulator and turns his hand over under yours so that his palm is up. He lays his bare fingers across your wrist, and traces – with a small careful absent motion, as if he’s not aware he’s doing it – the small bones there.

"I’ve been thinking," he says very quietly, "about a thing I can’t do."

"What thing?"

The visor turns and he looks at you. You feel the weight of it, the long careful look, the way you always feel it when he’s deciding how much of himself he’s allowed to give you.

"I want to put my mouth on you."

You don’t move, don’t even breathe for a moment, because if you move or breathe you might break the small fragile shape of what he’s just set down between you.

"I want…" he says slowly, “I want to taste you, cyar'ika. Your mouth, your body, your…your heat. I’ve been wanting it for…for a long time. Tonight it won’t leave me, I don’t know why. Sometimes it’s like that. Sometimes the wanting climbs out of where I keep it and walks around the room with me, and tonight it’s been walking with me for hours, and I am…"

The modulator cuts on a small almost-laugh that’s not, you think, a laugh

"I’m tired. I’m tired of pacing around it. I need you to know what’s in my head. I don’t need you to do anything with it. I only…" his bare thumb strokes the inside of your wrist, “I need you to know."

You sit with his words for a long careful moment, because the thing he’s just said is a thing that matters, and you don’t want to answer it before you’ve understood the shape of it.

But you do understand. To put his mouth on you – his true mouth, not the substitute chin of the helmet, not the small kiss of the visor against your skin – is a thing he can’t do without breaking the Creed he’s sworn to uphold.

You know that he’s not asking you to ask him to break it – even though you have before. He’s asking you to know that he wants to.

You lay your hand against the cool curve of his helmet at the cheek and tip your forehead to the brow of the visor, closing your eyes to help yourself think.

"Din,” you say, slowly and carefully, “what if I close my eyes."

The helmet doesn’t move.

"What if I close my eyes the whole time, and I don’t open them. Not once, not for any reason, not even at the end. You could…you could come and go without me ever seeing you. The light could be on or off, whatever you want, but I wouldn’t see you. I swear to you I wouldn’t see you."

The vocoder catches a long uneven breath.

"I'm serious."

"I know you are."

"It wouldn’t be breaking the Creed."

"Cyar'ika…"

"It wouldn’t, Din, think about it. The Creed says, no living being may see your face. If my eyes are closed, no living being sees your face. The helmet is off, but no one sees. The thing the Creed protects is protected."

He sits in silence for a long time and the bare hand on your wrist tightens, very slightly, and loosens, and tightens again.

"I don’t know," he says, finally, “I…."

"I know you don't."

"It’s…" he searches, “it’s the kind of argument a man makes when he wants the answer to be yes."

"Maybe." You stroke the curve of the helmet at his cheek. "But it might still be the right argument, Din. The Creed is about the spirit of the thing, isn’t it. You told me that the covert who raised you cared about the spirit."

"They did."

"And the spirit is that no one sees."

"Yes."

"Then no one would see."

"I don’t know if I can trust myself," he says. " I don’t know if I can trust myself to…to put my mouth on you and not, in some moment of not thinking, demand that you open your eyes and look at me.”

"You can, Din. You’ve spent your life not doing the thing the Creed forbids. You have a discipline. You won’t ask me to do it."

"And if I do?"

"You won't."

"Cyar'ika, if I do…?"

You stroke his cheek through the beskar. "Then I won’t see you, because I won’t open my eyes. You can trust me, Din. I know I asked you to take off the helmet before because I wanted to see but…if we do this, knowing how you feel…I promise I won’t open my eyes."

“I do trust you,” he says softly. “That’s not…that’s not the question I’m holding."

"Then what is?"

He exhales heavily. "Whether I can trust myself to be the kind of man who tests it."

You understand, then, in one long flat clarity, what he’s holding. He’s not afraid that you’ll open your eyes because he has no doubt that you won’t. He’s afraid – he, who has carried the Creed for so long and who has built every other thing in his life on the foundation of its discipline – of what it says about him that he wants it badly enough to negotiate around the edge of it.

You lay both your hands against the cheeks of the helmet and tip his forehead to yours.

"Listen to me. You have spent your whole life not asking. Not for yourself. You have spent your whole life giving the Creed everything it asks of you. You’ve given it well, and you’ve given it without complaint, and the Creed has, in return, taken almost everything from you. And you’ve carried that, Din, without flinching, for longer than most men could."

He goes very still.

"And now, after all of it, you want one thing. One small thing. You want to put your mouth on the woman who loves you. And you’ve built – we have built, between us, you and I – a way that you can have that thing without setting down the spirit of what the Creed protects. And you’re sitting here on this bench asking yourself if wanting it makes you a worse Mandalorian."

You stroke his cheek.

"It doesn't, Din. It makes you a man, that’s all. Just a man. A man who has loved a woman for a year now and who would like, for one night, to put his mouth on her. The Creed is large enough to hold that. The covert that raised you – the one that cared about the spirit – I think they would have held it. I think they would have wanted you to have it."

He doesn’t answer for a long time and the bare hand on your wrist stops its small stroking. It’s simply holding, now, the fingers laced loose through yours.

"Cyar'ika," he says, eventually.

"Yes?"

"I don’t have a blindfold."

You don’t laugh, but you very slowly, smile against the brow of the visor. “I have a scarf.”

****

The scarf is dark blue, almost black in the sodium light of the hold, a long soft length of woven Tatooinian cotton you bought in a market on a planet you can’t now remember the name of. You’ve used it as a head covering on dusty worlds and as a pillow on cold nights and as a small comforting weight around your shoulders when the bunk is too quiet and he hasn’t yet come down from the cockpit. It’s a thing that smells of you and him and the Crest.

You carry it back to the bench, sit down and set it across your lap.

He sits the way you left him, elbows on his knees, his bare fingers laced loose between them, the visor angled at the deck. But when you sit down beside him, he turns, slowly, and lays one bare hand against the side of your face.

"If you change your mind at any moment…"

"I won't, but if I do, I’ll tell you. I’ll say stop, and you’ll stop, and that’ll be the end of it, and we’ll not talk about it again until you want to. I know how this works."

"I know you do,” he says softly.

"Then trust me."

The bare hand at your cheek strokes, slow, the pad of the thumb tracing the small line beneath your eye where you have a habit of pressing your fingers when you’re tired,

"I trust you," he says.

You hand him the scarf, and he kills the lights at the small wall panel by the bench, the sodium glow going down to nothing in one slow fade. The hold drops into the low blue half-dark of the night cycle, where the only light comes from the small standby diodes on the bulkheads and the faint backwash of the cockpit instruments down the ladder shaft. You sit on the bench in the half-dark and watch the silhouette of him come back across the hold to you, the helmet a darker shape against the dark, the cape moving slightly with the air-recycler's breath.

He stands in front of you, holding the scarf in his bare hands. "Close your eyes."

You close them and feel him kneel in front of you, feel the soft brush of the scarf across your forehead, his bare fingers gathering your hair carefully out of the way, the fabric settling over your closed eyelids with a weight that’s somehow both very light and absolute. You feel him tie it at the back of your head and then test it with one fingertip along the upper edge, where it presses gently to your brow.

"Can you see anything?"

"No."

You feel him kneel a moment longer and the visor presses, very softly, to your scarfed forehead – the last kiss of the helmet before it comes off. You lay your hand against the cool beskar of his cheek and smile.

"Take your time," you say.

He draws a long breath through the modulator, then rises to his feet. You hear the small, soft hiss of pressure release and the faint click of a seal disengaging. It’s an intimate sound, one he’s probably not let another living being hear in years.

You don’t move or even consider opening your eyes. The thing he’s setting down, in the small space of the hold, is a thing he’s built every other thing in his life on top of, and you understand that the only way to receive it is with stillness.

You hear the soft thump of the helmet being set down carefully and the next breath you hear is his.

It’s unfiltered, a man's breath, low and a little uneven, no modulator, no metal. It’s the most naked sound you’ve ever heard him make.

You stay very still as he kneels again, feeling his weight come down in front of you, his hands settling on your knees.

"Cyar'ika."

It’s the first time that you’ve ever heard the word without the vocoder.

His voice underneath is lower than you thought. Softer, a little hoarse, perhaps from the suddenness of the unfiltered air, perhaps from emotion, perhaps from both. It has a small warmth in it that the modulator has stripped from you for a year without you ever quite knowing it was there.

You don’t move, but you smile.

"Hello, Din."

You hear him laugh for the first time ever. Really laugh, not the small vocoder-clipped almost-amusement you’ve become an expert in, but the actual sound, low and a little surprised, as if it’s escaped from somewhere he hasn’t been guarding. It breaks against the inside of your chest the way the first cold water of a stream breaks against your bare feet.

"Hello, cyar'ika."

"You sound…like a person."

"I am a person."

"I know you are. I just haven’t heard…" you break off, because you don’t have the word, He laughs again, very softly, and you feel his bare hand come up to your face and lay against your cheek.

Then you feel his mouth.

His mouth.

Not the chin of the helmet, or the brow of the visor, but his actual mouth, warm and slightly chapped, pressing to the corner of yours.

You don’t open your eyes. You only turn your face blindly the small distance it needs to turn, and let your lips find his, and the small soft sound that comes out of you when they do is not a sound you knew you know how to make.

He kisses you slowly, the way a man kisses for the first time something he’s been wanting to kiss for a very long time. The soft press of his lips against yours, the small careful catch of his upper lip against your lower, the warm uneven breath of him through his nose against your cheek. You feel the brush of stubble and, very faintly, the tip of his tongue, tentatively brushing the seam of your lips, asking.

You open your mouth to him.

The sound he makes is small and broken and not for anyone but you. His tongue slides against yours, warm and slow, and you taste him for the first time – a clean simple human taste, the faint trace of the caf you shared earlier, the warmth of a mouth that’s been hidden from you for a year and that is, now, very deliberately, no longer hidden.

He kisses you the way he does everything else – with a careful patient attention, as if you’re a thing he’s been given permission to study and intends to study well. The hand at your cheek slides into your hair behind the knot of the scarf whilst the other finds your waist. He kisses you and kisses you and kisses you, and you sit there blindfolded on the bench with your hands fisted lightly in the fabric of his undershirt, kissing him back. Dimly, somewhere behind the warm flood of it, you realise that you’re going to remember this for as long as you live.

He pulls back, finally, his forehead pressed to yours, his breath uneven against your mouth.

"I’ve wanted that for so long."

"I know, Din."

You stroke the back of his neck, where the hair is curled and soft and feel the small involuntary lean of him into your hand.

"Take your time," you say, again. "Take all of it. I'm not going anywhere."

He kisses you once more – a slow soft press, his lower lip catching at yours – and then he begins to move down.

He kisses the corner of your mouth, the line of your jaw and the soft place beneath your ear that, for a year, has only ever been touched by the cool curve of a visor. The sound you make when his actual mouth finds it is small and shocked and entirely involuntary. He laughs against your throat, low and pleased, and the warm breath of him there makes you shiver.

"That," he says, against your skin, "is a sound I’ve wanted to be the cause of for a long time."

"You have been the cause of it."

"Not like this."

He kisses the hollow of your throat and the small notch above your sternum, his bare hands sliding down to the hem of your shirt, fingers finding the small fastening at the side and working it with the quiet competence of a man who has undressed you a hundred times in the dark. He draws the shirt up over your head, careful of the scarf and your closed eyes beneath it. You lift your arms and let him. Then you feel the cool air of the hold on your skin, and a moment later, the warm slow trail of his mouth down your sternum, between your breasts, to the small soft place at the base of your ribs where you once told him, in the dark, that you’re ticklish.

He pauses there, smiles against your skin, and then, very gently and deliberately, he kisses you there.

You laugh and he laughs against your stomach, unfiltered and warm.

"Din…you’re enjoying yourself."

"I am."

His hands slide up your sides, find your breasts, cups them with a warm careful weight that he’s given you many times before, but which feels now like something entirely new. His thumbs stroke across your nipples, slow, and you arch into his hands. He makes a low pleased sound that the modulator has never been allowed to give you, and you feel his mouth close warm and wet around one nipple, making you gasp.

He takes his time, kissing, licking and drawing gently with his teeth whilst his hand kneads the other breast in slow rhythm. You sit blindfolded on the bench with your hand fisted in the back of his hair and let him learn you, finally, with the part of him he’s never been allowed to use.

He moves to the other breast and gives it the same patient attention. His mouth is hot, and a little wet, and the small hoarse appreciative sounds he makes against your skin are the most undisciplined things you’ve ever heard from him.

When he finally lifts his head, you’re breathing hard, the scarf warm against your closed eyes.

"I want…"

"Yes."

"You don't know yet what I’m going to say."

"I do, Din. Yes."

You feel him laugh again, very softly. His hands slide down your sides to the waist of your trousers and work the fastening, drawing them down, carefully, over your hips, down your thighs and then off, over your feet. He sets them aside and you sit naked on the bench in the blue half-dark of the hold with a blindfold tied across your eyes and a man whose face you’ve never seen kneeling between your thighs.

You had never, in your entire life, felt safer.

"Lie back," he murmurs.

The bench is narrow, but he guides you, his hands warm at your hips, until you’re settled along its length with your head pillowed on your bunched-up shirt, your knees bent and your feet planted on the metal. You feel the cool air of the hold on every inch of you then feel his hands stroke up the inside of your thighs, parting them, and your knees fall open for him.

You do not, for one single second, consider opening your eyes.

Then he kneels at the foot of the bench, and you feel his hands slide up under your thighs, lift them gently, hook them over his shoulders and his face come down between your legs, the warm uneven breath of his open mouth against the inside of your thigh.

You feel the small drag of stubble against the soft skin of your inner thigh and the warm wet press of his tongue. The small low sound he makes in the back of his throat is, you know, simply pleasure and he kisses his way up, taking his time. He kisses the crease where your thigh meets your hip, then the other one. He kisses the small soft place just above where you’re already wet for him, and the warm exhale of his breath against you there makes you shake.

"Din…please…"

"I’ve waited a year for this," he says, against your skin, his voice low and unfiltered and warm. “Let me have this."

You lay your hand on the back of his head. "Have it."

His mouth closes over you and the sound that comes out of you is not quiet and not in any language you know. He’s…he’s good at this, in a way you haven’t been prepared for, the way a man can be good at a thing he’s never done because he’s thought about doing it for a very long time and has spent that time paying close attention to the woman he’s going to do it to.

He knows where you’re sensitive. He knows the small place just to the left of centre that makes your hips lift. He knows the rhythm you like, the slow building one, the kind that gathers and gathers and doesn’t break and doesn’t break – and finally breaks.

He makes small sounds against you, low, hungry ones. Sounds that the modulator has never given you, that come from somewhere deep in his chest and vibrate against you in ways that make you fist your hand in his hair and gasp his name aloud in the half-dark. You hear your own voice come back to you off the bulkheads, but you don’t care.

He licks into you, drawing you into his mouth and sucking, slowly and carefully, the small steady rhythm of it building a low heat in your belly that climbs by inches and then by feet. He slides one hand up your stomach to find your breast, and his thumb strokes your nipple in time with his mouth, the small precise coordination of it almost more than the heat itself.

The other hand slides down and you feel two fingers slide into you.

"Din…"

He hums against you, the vibration running up your spine.

"Din, I'm…"

He hums again and doesn’t stop or slow. He draws you steady into his mouth, curls his fingers inside you and the climb gathers and gathers and the warm wet patient rhythm of him doesn’t let up. You feel your hand tighten in his hair, your hips lift against his mouth, and your breath catch on a sound that’s almost a sob.

And you break.

It washes over you in long white waves. You come against his mouth with your back arched off the bench and your hand fisted hard in hair and his name – Din, Din, Din – falling out of you in a wrecked rhythm that matches the pulse of it. He doesn’t stop. He stays with you, his mouth gentling but not lifting, his tongue easing into a slow patient stroke that draws it out, the small careful hum of him still vibrating against you, until the waves ebb to a long warm ache and your hand in his hair loosens and your hips settle, trembling, back to the bench.

He kisses you, easing his fingers out of you. Then he lays his cheek – warm and rough with stubble – against the inside of your thigh, and stays there a long moment, breathing.

"Cyar'ika..."

"I'm here,” you say, your voice wrecked. "I'm here, Din."

You stroke the back of his head and feel the wave of his hair under your fingers.

"You…" you try, “are very good at that."

He laughs again, low and a little surprised. "Thank you."

"I'm just saying."

"I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.”

"It shows."

He laughs again and you love him so much, in that moment, that you have to press your free hand to your mouth.

Minutes later, he kisses his way slowly back up your body – your hip, your stomach, the soft place at your ribs that makes you laugh, your sternum, the curve of your breast, the line of your throat, the soft place beneath your ear – and he settles, eventually, half over you on the bench, his weight braced on one forearm beside your head, his other hand stroking slow lazy circles on your stomach. He kisses your mouth slowly and you taste yourself on him.

You stroke his face with your fingertips, eyes closed, learning it the way he’s learned you in the dark of the bunk. You feel the line of his jaw, the rough patch of stubble there, the long bridge of his nose which is a little crooked, the curve of his cheekbone, and the small warm corner of his eye where there are the faint lines of a man who, despite everything, has laughed often enough to mark them.

He holds very still and lets you map him.

"I'm just…looking," you murmur.

"I know."

"Without looking."

"I know."

You stroke the line of his mouth and feel him smile under your fingertips. You feel the small, dry, warm press of his lower lip and the slight chap at the corner and the small, unguarded, pleased curve of him under your touch, and you lay your palm flat against his cheek and hold it there.

And you let yourself say a sentence you’ve never said before.

"I love you, Din."

"I know," he says. “I know."

"I needed you to hear me say it."

He kisses your palm.

"I love you," he says. “I love you, cyar’ika. I’ve loved you for a long time. I’m…" he searches. “I’m still learning how to let myself say it. But I do."

You lie there for a long moment, the cool air of the hold raising small bumps along your bare skin, your mind absorbing the words he’s just spoken. The warm weight of his forearm beside your head, the warm slow circles of his hand on your stomach, the small steady unfiltered breath of him near your ear – you catalogue all of it, eyes closed, the way you’ve catalogued him through the visor.

"Din?"

"Mm."

"Don't put the helmet back on yet."

The hand on your stomach pauses.

"I want…" you turn your face blindly toward where his is and feel the warmth of his breath against your cheek. "I want you, Din. Like this. While you're still…still like this."

He doesn’t answer and you stroke his cheek again, feeling the small tense stillness of him, the careful held breath, the place where he’s sitting with the size of what you’ve just asked for.

"I won't open my eyes," you say firmly. "I haven’t even thought about opening them. The scarf can stay. I just…I want to feel you. I want all of you. Once, just once, with nothing in the way."

He’s silent so long you think, briefly, you’ve asked too much. Then his forehead lowers to yours and, for the first time, you feel the skin of him against the skin of you there.

"You don't have to. If it's too much…"

"It's not too much. I’m only…I’m only trying to remember how to breathe. Give me a moment."

You lie there blindfolded with his bare forehead against yours, his warm breath against your mouth and his hand splayed motionless across your stomach and let him have whatever moment he needs. You have time. For the rest of your life with him, you have time.

Eventually, his breath evens and his thumb on your stomach resumes its small, slow circle.

"Yes," he says quietly and starts to undress.

You don’t see it of course, you hear it. The soft rustle of him sitting up, the quiet drag of the undershirt being pulled over his head, the small clink of his belt unfastening, the rough whisper of fabric over skin as he strips the trousers off. You hear him set everything aside, carefully, the way he sets the armour aside at night, not because it matters where the clothes go, but because the small ritual of placing them gives his hands something to do while the rest of him catches up.

The bench is too narrow, and you feel his hands slide under your shoulders and your knees as he lifts you against his bare chest and carries you the short distance to the bunk.

You feel the familiar give of the mattress as he lays you down on it and kisses you again, his hand coming up to cradle the back of your head where the knot of the scarf still holds, warm now from your skin. It doesn’t slip and you don’t open your eyes.

He settles between your thighs, hard against the soft, warm wet of you, the blunt heat of him pressing where his mouth was not long ago. He presses his bare forehead to yours.

"Cyar'ika…tell me if…"

"Yes, Din. Yes."

He slides into you in a way neither of you have had before – his actual skin against your actual skin from head to toe. He presses his forehead harder to yours and holds there a long shaking moment, just breathing against your mouth, and you understand – blindly, behind the scarf, the warmth of him everywhere on you – that he’s as undone as you are.

"Cyar'ika..."

"Oh Maker, Din…please move."

He moves slowly. He has to because you realise that anything faster will break him. He draws back, almost out, then slides back in, and the warm long stroke of it without anything between you is a thing that makes your breath catch on a small, wrecked sound. He kisses you while he does it, his mouth on yours, swallowing the sound, his tongue moving in slow time with his hips, the unfiltered uneven breath of him pouring into you between kisses. His hands are on you everywhere – your face, your throat, your breast, your hip, your thigh, the small place at the back of your knee where he once told you he likes to touch you in the dark because the skin there is the softest – because he can’t decide where to put them.

You wrap your arms around his back, feeling the long, warm muscle of him and slide your fingers up into his hair, the shape of him under your palms entirely revealed, entirely yours, for this one moment in this one bunk, in the warm blue half-dark of the Crest.

He kisses you over and over whilst he moves in you with that long, warm, slow rhythm, his hips finding yours, the small soft sounds of him unfiltered against your mouth, the warm, wet, patient slide of him building a heat in you that’s slower and deeper than anything you’ve felt with him before. You feel it climb the way the sea climbs a beach, by inches, no hurry, no urgency, only the inevitable.

His hand slides down between you, his thumb finding where his mouth has been and circles it in time with his hips. You break the kiss on a small, wrecked sound and he presses his forehead to yours and breathes against your mouth and watches you as the tide climbs and climbs.

"I'm…"

"I know."

"Din…"

"I know. Come for me, cyar'ika. I want to feel you. I need to…I have you."

You come hard, his body pressed flush to yours, his mouth on yours, his thumb steady and patient through every shaking pulse of it. You sob his name and he drinks it, kissing you through it. He doesn’t stop moving, the long, slow stroke of him in you carrying you all the way through and out the other side, until you’re limp and shaking and gasping against his lips.

Then he lets go and the broken sound he makes when he does is the most undone thing you’ve ever heard from him. His body locks against you, his forehead pressed to yours, his hand fisted in the bedding beside your head, and you feel him spill into you in long, warm pulses with his mouth pressed open and shaking against yours. You hold him through it, your hands flat against his back, your knees high around his hips, and you understand that you’ll never, for as long as you live, have anything more than this.

He stays inside you, on top of you, his forehead against yours, his breath slowing against your mouth. You stroke his back and the hair at the base of his skull and don’t say anything for a long time, because there’s nothing that needs saying.

Eventually, he kisses you, slow and sweet, the kind of kiss you’ve not known a person could give until tonight, his mouth lingering on yours with the small soft drag of his lower lip.

"Thank you," he whispers.

You stroke his cheek. "Thank you, Din."

****

He holds you for a long time before eventually carefully easing out of you and settling his weight beside you in the bunk, pulling you against his chest with your scarfed face pressed to the warm hollow of his throat. You feel his pulse there, feel the small, unfiltered rhythm of his breath against the top of your head, feel his hand splayed warm and possessive across the small of your back, the thumb stroking slow absent circles.

You lie there with your eyes still closed under the scarf and listen to him breathe then feel his lips press, eventually, to the top of your head, the warm, soft kiss of his actual mouth in your hair.

"I'm going to need to put it back on,” he says finally.

"I know," you say, feeling a pull in your throat.

"Not yet."

"No?"

"A few more minutes."

"Take all the minutes you want."

He holds you and somewhere in the small warm dark of the bunk, in the long patient afterglow, the man whose face you haven’t seen, and will not see, presses his bare mouth to the top of your head once more and you understand that he’s committing the unguarded moment to memory the way you are – building it into a thing he’ll carry with him in the long, modulated dark of every day after.

Eventually, he stirs.

"Cyar'ika…keep them closed."

"They’re closed."

You feel him ease out from under you and the cool air of the bunk rushes in to where his warmth has been. You hear the quiet click of the helmet's seal engaging and the small mechanical breath of the vocoder coming back online.

The next sound out of him is filtered again, modulated, but the voice underneath is yours now. Privately and permanently. A thing you’ll carry like the shape of his face under your fingertips. Something that nobody else in the galaxy will ever be given.

He comes back to the bunk, his hand moving to rest on the back of your head. Then he unties the scarf and draws it from your eyes.

You keep them closed a moment longer and then, when you open them, the visor’s waiting and you smile up at him in the blue half-dark.

"Hi, Din."

The vocoder catches a low pleased sound as he bends and presses the brow of the visor to your forehead in the substitute kiss, the one that hasn’t become any smaller for the existence of the other. If anything, it’s grown larger, because you know now exactly what it stands in for, and how willingly he set it down for you, and how carefully he’s picked it back up.

You lay your hand against the side of the helmet and hold him there.

"Come to bed."

He climbs in behind you and pulls you back against his chest, the helmet pressing to the top of your head, his hand splayed warm and possessive across your stomach.

The scarf is somewhere on the floor of the bunk and, tomorrow, you’ll find it, fold it and put it back where it belongs, with the rest of the small private inventory of things that smell of you and him and of the ship that has become, against every odd and every doctrine, the home you didn’t know you were going to find.

You close your eyes and, behind you, in the dark, his thumb strokes once across your stomach and the vocoder catches a long even contented breath.

And the man who lives inside the armour, the man whose face you haven’t seen, holds you against his chest and doesn’t, for the first time in a very long time, find anything in himself that needs pacing around.

➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰🚀➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰

PART FIVE

Taglist: @thelittlebats @sassythejedi @millercontracting @porganas @lovely-kitsune-exe @themilkhasjustexpired @dream-alittlebiggerdarling

PTaglist: @copperhalfcent @missladym1981 @whattheflipsiesss @brittmb115 @elizabeth4th @peepawmiller @angelwithablade @cassieorz @somedayheaven @silversvu12 @madpanda75 @johnssherlock221 @madnessofadaydreamer @kirsteng42 @ifall4dilfs @pedro-pascal-3nthusiast @cuteanimalmama @inept-the-magnificent @mystickittytaco @arood98 @sunnytuliptime @katw474 @pascalgold @dotyoureyez @victoriaholland @loveday1219 @awkwardpaws @misstokyo7love @vinyl-and-coffee @spock1988 @readingiskeepingmegoing @kakiki3 @kayidlewild @miserysinferno @tupelomiss @untamedheart81 @ilovequeen978

[isabellaboo2025]

Through The Wall - Part Three

Pairing: Din x Reader.

Chapter summary: A sparring lesson turns into more and you ask Din a question about family.

Warnings: 18+only. Smut with feelings.

A/N: Really enjoying thinking up scenarios for Din and Reader to have sex and then deal with deeper feelings - i.e. a bit of a plot 😛 If anyone has suggestions, let me know 😂

Part One/Part Two

Din Masterlist

➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰🚀➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰

For once, it’s quiet onboard the Crest – no pursuit, no atmospheric chop, no proximity alarms screaming about Imperial remnants or Guild rivals breathing down the exhaust. Just the steady drone of the hyperdrive and the gentle tick of cooling plates somewhere behind the cargo netting.

Which leaves the hold all to the two of you.

You've been lying flat on your back on the cold durasteel grating for what feels like an hour, arms splayed, hair fanned out, staring up at the bundle of conduit that runs along the curve of the ceiling. You've counted rivets and reached seventy-three before you give up and roll your head to look at him.

Din is at the weapons rack, doing what Din does when there’s nothing pressing to be done – maintenance. Always maintenance. The man can field-strip a blaster in his sleep and probably has. The pulse rifle lies in tidy components on the workbench, each piece arranged with that quiet, ritual precision that you've come to recognise as a kind of meditation for him. The beskar catches the low amber light of the hold, dulled and scarred and gorgeous, the T-visor angled down at his work.

You watch him for a long time – the shift of his shoulders under the flight suit beneath the cuirass, the flex of leather across his back where the harness crosses, the slow, deliberate movement of his gloved hands, knuckled and competent.

Before you met him, Mandalorians had been people to fear, hidden behind their armour. Now, you can’t help but think it’s the most arousing thing you’ve ever seen.

"Din?”

He doesn’t look up. "Mm."

"I'm bored."

"Read something."

"Read what, your weapons manuals? I’ve read everything on this ship at least twice. Next time we pick a planet to land on, I want to be sure there’s either a bookstore or a library."

"There's a holo in the locker."

"It's a sabacc tutorial from before the Clone Wars."

He exhales faintly through the modulator, not quite a laugh, but the shape of one. Then he sets down the bore brush and finally turns his helmet toward you, that black T-slit fixing on you with a patience that’s become deeply, infuriatingly familiar.

You prop yourself up on your elbows. "Teach me to fight."

The visor doesn’t move. "You know how to fight."

"I can shoot, sort of. You said yourself my left guard is a disaster, and the last time someone got me at close range I almost ate a vibroblade. If I'm going to keep flying with you, I want to be able to put someone on the floor when it goes sideways. And let’s be honest here, it always goes sideways."

“If you’re going to keep flying with me?”

You try and fail not to smile, because there’s no if about it. He’s keeping you and you’re keeping him, regardless of what you want to name it.

“Okay,” you nod, “because I’m going to keep flying with you…yada, yada, yada.”

He considers you for a long moment. You can’t see his face, of course, but you've learned to read the helmet by now – the tilt of it, the pauses, the way the visor lingers on you a beat longer than necessary when he’s deciding something.

He sets the brush down, pulls off his gloves, folds them, and lays them on the workbench beside the pulse rifle's disassembled receiver. Then he reaches up and begins unclipping his pauldrons.

Your stomach does a small, traitorous flip. If seeing a Mandalorian in armour – your Mandalorian – is the most arousing thing, then watching your Mandalorian remove it is off the scale.

"Up," he says.

You scramble to your feet, suddenly very awake.

He sets the pauldrons aside and unclips the cuirass next, lifting it off over his head with a practiced economy. Underneath, the dark flight suit clings to him in ways that the beskar always hides, and though you’ve seen him out of his armour before many times, there’s something different about watching him take it off in the middle of the hold under the workbench lights.

Methodical. Intentional. Like he’s preparing.

The vambraces stay on. The greaves, the boots, the codpiece, the belt and the helmet. He strips down to the parts that won’t bruise you if he has to take you to the floor, and you understand, with a small thrill, that he’s taking this seriously whilst you’re looking to end up on your back.

He rolls his shoulders, the flight suit pulling across the breadth of him.

"Centre of the hold," he says. "Feet apart. Shoulder width."

You go where he points and set your feet.

"Wider."

You widen them as he circles around behind you. You feel the warmth of him before you feel the touch – a hand at the small of your back, the other at your shoulder, adjusting, broad and hot.

"Bend your knees. Keep your weight on the balls of your feet, not your heels. If I push you…" his hand comes to your sternum, flat, and gives a small, testing shove, "…you should be able to absorb it. Try again."

He pushes and you stagger.

"Again."

He pushes and you hold.

"Better."

His voice through the modulator is always a little flatter than a person's voice ought to be, a little more metal-edged, but you've long since learned to hear the texture underneath – the dry approval, the rare, gravelled humour, the rasp when he’s tired. Right now, it’s patient and instructive.

He steps around to face you, the T-visor angled down, and you look up at your own warped reflection in the dark of it.

"Hands up."

You bring them up.

"Higher. Cover your jaw. Elbows in. You're inviting me into your ribs."

You adjust and he nods once.

"Now I'm going to come at you slow. Don't try to hit me back. Just keep your guard and move your feet. If you can put your hand on my chest and keep me from getting past you, you win, yes?"

"Yes."

He comes at you slow, a wall in dark fabric and battered beskar at the wrists, and he doesn’t punch, doesn’t grab – he just walks into your space with the inexorability of weather. Your hand comes up to his sternum, and you genuinely try to keep him off you, but he simply puts a hand on your wrist and turns it and you’re suddenly facing the other way with his arm across your collarbone, your back flush to his chest.

"Dead," he says quietly, right next to your ear, the modulator buzzing against your hair. "Again."

He releases you and you shake out your hands, trying not to think about how solid he had felt behind you, all that warm fabric over all that warm man, the shape of him pressed up the length of your spine for one held second.

You set your feet and he comes at you again. This time you get a half-step further before he hooks your ankle with his boot and you nearly go down. He catches you, his hand fisting in the front of your shirt and arresting your fall with a casual strength that turns your knees stupid, and holds you there for a beat, suspended, while the visor tips down at you.

"Watch my feet," he says. "I telegraphed that. You looked at my shoulders."

"Maybe I like your shoulders."

The visor tilts and you feel, rather than hear, the small exhale through the modulator.

"Focus."

"I'm focused."

"On the lesson."

"Mm-hm."

He sets you back on your feet, steps away, and you see the deliberate way he resettles himself – rolls his neck once, plants his stance – and you realise with a flush of triumph that you’ve gotten to him, just a little. Just enough.

You set your guard.

On the next pass, he moves faster. Not full speed – you know that full speed from him will put you on your back before you blink – but faster, real enough to mean it. You watch his feet. You move when he moves. You keep your hands up, and when he steps in, you slide your palm onto his chest, push and pivot at the same time, the way he's shown you. He lets you slip past him by maybe six inches before his hand closes around your upper arm and turns you neatly back into his orbit.

"Better," he says.

"Did I…?"

"You did good. Again."

You do it again and again and again. And somewhere around the eighth or ninth pass you've worked up a sweat, your shirt sticking between your shoulder blades, your hair clinging to your temple, and his hand has been on you – wrist, arm, collarbone, hip, ribs – so many times that the contact has begun to register as something else entirely.

The next time he comes in, you don’t try to slip him.

You let him close, and you grab two fistfuls of his flight suit at the chest and yank. His weight is suddenly committed in a way he hasn't intended, and you twist and use his own forward momentum to bring him down with you, the both of you crashing to the grating in a tangle of limbs and hot breath and the dull clank of beskar vambrace on metal.

You end up half-under him, half-pinned, one of his thighs heavy across yours, his weight braced on a forearm beside your head, both very still.

The T-visor is a hand's breadth from your face.

You can hear his breath through the modulator now – uneven, the smallest catch in it. You feel the rise and fall of his chest against yours. His other hand is somewhere at your hip, and you can’t quite remember how it’s gotten there.

"That wasn't the lesson," he says low.

"Wasn't it?"

"No."

"I improvised."

"You cheated."

"You said put you on the floor."

"I said put me down, there's a difference." His head tilts, that slow, considering tilt, and you watch yourself in the curve of the visor – flushed cheeks, parted lips, hair stuck to your forehead. "You used your weight against mine."

"You taught me that two passes ago."

"I taught you to use it on someone your own size."

"You're not that much bigger than me."

"I'm exactly that much bigger than you," he replies dryly.

His thigh shifts, moving an inch higher between yours and you make a sound you haven't meant to make, small, barely anything, and you watch the visor go very, very still above you.

You lie there under him in the warm hum, and you don’t say anything, and he doesn't say anything, and the silence stretches out and gets heavier and heavier until it’s its own thing in the air between you.

Then, slowly. he lowers his forearm closer, until the bare skin of it is alongside your cheek. His other hand leaves your hip, comes up and brushes your hair back from your temple with warm fingers that then trail down the side of your neck and stop at the dip of your collarbone where your shirt’s damp with sweat.

"Tired?" he asks quietly.

"No."

"Mm."

"Are you?"

"No,” he replies with the smallest sound of amusement.

"Lesson's not over, then."

He looks at you for a long second through the visor, then his hand on your collarbone slides lower – up over the cotton of your shirt, over the curve of your breast, his thumb dragging slow across the peak of it through the fabric – and he watches your face the entire time. The watching is almost worse than the touch. The unreadable beskar dark of him, that helmet that hides every micro-expression, the only feedback the steady weight of him on you and the slow, deliberate motion of his hand.

"No," he agrees. "Lesson's not over."

You arch up into his palm before you can stop yourself, the sound that leaves you something between a gasp and his name.

The hand at your chest tightens. His thigh presses up between your legs, the seam of his flight suit drags across the seam of yours and you grind down on him without meaning to, your hips lifting off the grating, chasing the friction.

The modulator buzzes with what might have been a curse in Mando'a.

"Up," he says.

"What?"

"Up. The floor's cold and I'm not fucking you on a grate."

The casual filthiness of it, said in that calm, modulated voice, like he’s telling you to refuel the thrusters, makes heat punch low through your belly. You let him pull you to your feet, but he doesn’t go far, backing you the three steps to the wall of the hold, between two crates of foodstuffs. His hand moves to your jaw, thumb tracing your lower lip, the visor tipped down close enough that you can see your own eyes reflected in it.

"I shouldn't have let you bait me," he says.

"You didn't let me."

"Mm. Tell yourself that."

His hand leaves your jaw, goes to the hem of your shirt, and pushes it up in a single steady motion, baring your stomach, your ribs and the underside of your breasts. You lift your arms and he pulls the shirt off over your head and drops it somewhere on the floor. Then his bare hands are on you, both of them, palms hot, and he’s looking at you, just looking, the visor moving slow down the length of you and back up.

"I want…" you start.

"I know."

"I want you to…"

"I know."

His hands cup your breasts, thumbs dragging over the tight peaks, and his head tips down so that the cold smooth curve of the helmet's cheek presses against your cheek, the modulator vent so close to your ear that you can hear the small mechanical click of the rebreather as he inhales.

"Tell me," he says right against your ear. "Use words."

"Touch me."

"I am touching you."

"Lower Din, please…"

He makes a low sound through the modulator, something almost like a laugh and almost like a growl, and his hand leaves your breast and slides down your stomach, over the waistband of your trousers, his palm pressing flat against you through the fabric.

You buck into it and he lets you. He holds his hand there, steady pressure, and watches you grind yourself against the heel of his palm with your head tipped back against the bulkhead and your mouth fallen open.

"Look at you," he says with a quiet reverence laced with a roughness that isn’t reverent at all. "Wanted me to teach you how to fight, huh?"

"I…"

"Is this what you really wanted?"

"Yes."

His fingers work the closure of your trousers open, slide inside, and his bare fingertips find you slick and burning and ready for him. "Yeah, I figured."

His fingers move in the way he’s learned over the last year. He’s good at this in the same way he’s good at everything. Two fingers slide into you, and his thumb works you in slow, tight circles. Your hand grabs at his shoulder, at the bare skin of his neck where the flight suit dips, anywhere you can reach, and you make noises into the helmet's cheek that you'd be embarrassed about in any other situation but this one.

"Din…Din, I'm…"

"Not yet," he says.

"What?"

"Not yet." His hand withdraws and you whine, openly, shamelessly. "Easy. Easy, mesh'la."

He strips your trousers down your legs and you step out of them, kick them aside, and stand there against the bulkhead in nothing at all while he’s still mostly dressed, the disparity making you shiver, making you press your thighs together because the air of the hold is cool against the wet of you.

He sees it the same way he sees everything.

"Look at me," he says and you look up at the T-visor, steady on your face.

"Stay there."

He steps back and unfastens the closures of his flight suit at the throat, the chest, the waist – not all of it, just enough – and his bare hand pushes the dark fabric aside. You watch as he frees himself, watch him take his own cock in his bare hand and stroke once, slow, the visor tipped down toward you the whole time.

You make a small sound.

"Come here," he says and you go without question.

He turns you gently until your palms are flat against the bulkhead, your back to him. His bare hand smooths down your spine, over the curve of your ass, and his other hand comes up to brace beside your hand on the wall.

"This okay?"

"Yes."

"Tell me if it's not."

"It's okay, Din, please."

You feel him line himself up, feel the blunt heat of him press against you, drag through the slick, and then sink in – slow, slow, slow, the patient relentless press of him filling you up inch by careful inch until his hips are flush against yours and you’re panting open-mouthed against the cool durasteel. His hand comes up to wrap around the front of your throat, not squeezing, just there, holding you in place against him.

"Breathe," he says as he starts to move.

You let out a gasp at his long, deep, deliberate strokes, the kind of fucking that isn’t fast or frantic but is somehow worse than fast and frantic, because it gives you no relief, no chance to climb the edge and tumble over. It’s just the steady relentless drag of him in and out of you, the slap of his hips against your ass, the low constant noise of him through the modulator that’s somewhere between a breath and a growl.

His hand at your throat tightens, fractionally, the bare pads of his fingertips against your pulse. His other hand leaves the bulkhead and slides around your hip, down between your legs, his fingers finding you again where you’re stretched open around him, working you in time with his thrusts.

You come apart on him almost immediately.

It hits you with no warning – one second, you’re panting and the next your knees are going, your whole body clenching, and the only thing keeping you upright is his hand at your throat and the press of him inside you. You sob his name mixed with something less coherent. The modulator buzzes at your ear with a sound that might be approval and might be a curse, and you can’t tell and you don’t care.

He fucks you through it, not slowing down or speeding up, just keeping the steady devastating rhythm of him while you flutter around him and shake and try to remember how breathing works.

"That's one," he says and you can’t answer. "Going to give me another one, mesh'la?"

"I…can't…"

"You can."

His hand leaves your throat. He turns you again, your legs jelly, and you whimper at the loss of him for the two seconds it takes to get you on your back on a stack of crates that he's dragged together with the side of his boot. Then he’s inside you again, your legs hooked over his arms, the cool of the vambrace on the back of your thigh, the helmet tipping down to watch where your bodies meet.

"Look at that," he says, quietly again. "Look at you taking me."

"Din…"

His thumb comes up to your mouth, and you open for it without thinking. He presses the pad of it onto your tongue, and you suck, eyes locked on the visor. He watches you suck like it’s the most important thing happening in the galaxy, like he’s filing it away, every detail, the way your tongue moves against the pad of it, the hollow of your cheeks.

"Good girl," he says.

You moan around his thumb as he presses it down on your tongue and you feel yourself clench around him hard enough that he makes a sound – a real one this time, low and bitten-off, the kind of sound that comes from deep in his chest and barely makes it through the vent of the helmet at all.

"Fuck," he breathes.

His hips snap up. The slow methodical fucking falters, just for a beat, into something rougher, and your back arches off the crates, your hands flying up to grab at the edge of the helmet where it meets his collar.

The visor tips down and watches your hand hover at the edge of his throat, and then his hand leaves your hip, catches your wrist and guides it back down to his chest, over the open flap of the flight suit, to the bare hot skin of his sternum.

"Here," he says, rough. "You can touch me here."

Your palm flattens against him, his heart hammering beneath. Your Mandalorian is an immovable mountain of a man, and yet his heart is going like a hunted thing under your palm, and you understand with a hot dizzy lurch that you do this to him. That for all his patient methodical control he’s as wrecked by this as you are, just better at hiding it under all that beskar.

"Din…come in me…” you beg, even though he does every time.

His hand tightens on your thigh. The vambrace is cool against your skin and his bare fingers are burning, and the difference makes you shiver.

"Get yourself there first."

His hand slides down between your bodies, finds you again, and his thumb works you in those tight little circles while he fucks into you harder now, less measured, the crates creaking under your back. You can see him losing it, the way his breath comes faster through the vent, the way his free hand has fisted in the strap of his own harness like he’s holding himself together by main force.

"Look at me," he says, “and don't look away."

You don’t look away. You come on him for the second time staring straight into the dark of that helmet, into your own reflection, and see your own face break apart in the curve of the beskar. You feel him follow you a half-dozen ragged strokes later, the modulator choking, his hips stuttering hard against yours, the hand on your thigh going white-knuckled as he spills into you.

He holds there and doesn’t move, the brow of the helmet lowering until it rests against your forehead, cool beskar to hot skin, and you both breathe. His thumb drags along your jaw, slow and gentle.

"Lesson over?" you whisper.

The modulator gives back the smallest huff of breath.

"Lesson over."

He doesn’t move for a long time. He stays inside you, over you, his hand stroking idle warm circles into your hip while your breathing evens out and your heart climbs back down out of your throat. When he finally slides out and steps back, he does it carefully – one hand at the small of your back to help you sit up, the other already reaching for the rag he keeps clipped to his belt for blaster maintenance. He cleans you up with the same patient methodical care he used on the pulse rifle an hour earlier and the thought makes you laugh, breathless, the visor tipping at you with mild inquiry.

"Nothing," you say. "Just…you really do treat me like one of your weapons."

"Mm." He fastens his flight suit closed with one hand while the other smooths your hair back from your damp temple. "Best thing on the ship."

"Flatterer."

"It’s the truth."

He bends and retrieves your shirt from where it fell by the bulkhead and pulls it gently back over your head, threading your arms through the sleeves with the same quiet attentiveness he gives everything. He helps you off the crates and your legs wobble, so he catches you with an arm around your waist and holds you there against his side until you've remembered how to be a person again.

"Same time tomorrow?" you ask into the leather of his harness.

"Footwork tomorrow," he says. "Real footwork. You're still dropping your left guard."

"Din, I just came twice on your cock. Let me have this."

He pauses. "Footwork. Tomorrow."

You laugh into his chest and feel, more than hear, the small answering rumble of him laughing back.

****

Later, you sit curled into the copilot's chair in the cockpit with your bare feet tucked beneath you and a thermal blanket over your shoulders in the long blue silence of the hyperspace run and watch the stars not move.

His hands are still bare, and you’re holding one now across the space, running your fingers over his knuckles and the small white scars there as if you’re reading a book in a language he’s taught you only the alphabet of.

You don't know, even now, why you asked it then.

Maybe it was the afterglow. Maybe it was the year that has piled up behind you like snow against a door. Maybe it’s the way he says cyar'ika, the way he holds you afterward, every time, with a tenderness that feels like a promise he hasn’t yet decided he’s allowed to make.

"Have you ever thought about family?"

The hand under yours doesn’t flinch. He has a long-trained body that doesn’t give away surprise easily. But you feel the very small adjustment of him, the half-degree settling, the way a man sets his weight before he answers a question that matters.

The vocoder catches the slow exhale.

“My parents died when I was young. The Mandalorians are…were…my family.”

“No, I know, I…I wasn’t meaning that. I meant more…a partner and…and children.”

He moves slightly again.

"Why do you ask?”

"I don't know." You stroke his knuckle. "I was thinking about what kind of life this is. About whether…" you break off, because you can’t quite ask it the way you want to.

Whether we could. Whether you want to.

He’s quiet a long moment, the blue light moving across the visor.

"I have thought about it," he says, finally. "I'm not sure what kind of life I could give a child, cyar'ika. This…" his free hand makes a small gesture that takes in the cockpit, the stars, the bounty puck still glowing on the dash "…this is not a life for children."

"There are Mandalorians with children, aren’t there?"

"Yes, in covert, in community. With…a place. The covert I came from is gone. I have no home to bring a child to but this one."

"This is a home."

He turns the helmet, slowly, to look at you and you feel the weight of the visor's attention. The thumb of the hand you’re holding strokes, very lightly, over the inside of your wrist.

"It’s a ship," he says gently, “and it’s a life of running, and hunting, and being hunted in return. I would not…" he breaks off, the vocoder catching a small rough sound. "I would not ask that of a child. Or of the woman who might bear me one."

Or of the woman who might bear me one.

You feel the sentence land somewhere under your ribs and stay there.

You don’t let your face change because you’ve learned not to let your face change when he gives you a piece of himself you’ve not earned by asking. You only stroke his knuckle once more, slowly. "I see."

"Cyar'ika…"

"It's alright," you smile at him and mean it, but also don’t mean it. Both things are true at the same time, the way many things have been true at the same time since the day you first climbed aboard the ship. "It was just a question."

You know he doesn’t believe you because his bare hand turns, under yours, catches your fingers, and holds them.

"It’s not a no," he says, quietly. "It’s…" he searches for the word. "It’s a thing I haven’t let myself want because wanting it without being able to have it is…" the vocoder cuts on the next word, very briefly, the way it does when his breath goes uneven "…a wound I've already carried once."

You squeeze his hand. "Alright," you say softly.

He holds your fingers a long moment more, the bare warm pads of his thumb tracing the small bones of your hand as if he’s committing them to memory in case he has to give them up. Then he lifts your knuckles to the chin of the helmet, very briefly – the small substitute kiss that has become his, and yours – and lets you go.

"Get some sleep," he says. "We drop out at oh-four-hundred."

You nod, stand and touch the curve of his pauldron in passing because you can’t quite bring yourself to leave the cockpit without touching him. Then you climb down the ladder into the hold with your blanket trailing from one hand and a sentence echoing somewhere behind your sternum that you can’t yet make peace with.

Or of the woman who might bear me one.

You crawl into the bunk and lie on your back in the dark with your hands folded across your stomach and the hum of the Crest under you like a long patient animal breathing.

You turn the conversation over in your head.

I'm not sure what kind of life I could give a child.

That, you understand. You’ve seen in a year, what this life costs him – the wounds you’ve patched and had patched, the credits that come and go, the bounty pucks that sometimes glow with the faces of people who deserve what’s coming and sometimes with the faces of people who don’t.

He wakes from nightmares sometimes, but you’ve learned not to ask about them. He carries the weight of a creed and a covert and a long list of names he doesn’t speak aloud, and you’ve never once in your year together heard him use the word future about himself except in the most narrow sense –the next jump, the next bounty, when the Crest will next need its compressor flushed.

Or of the woman who might bear me one.

That’s the sentence that won’t lie down.

Because he said it out loud, with you in the chair beside him, your thumb on his bare knuckle and the blue light of hyperspace running over the visor between you. He didn’t say some woman or a woman. He said it with a particular pause before the article, the small hitch you know from a year of cataloguing his hesitations, the place where he thought about the word and chose it anyway.

You lie in the dark and let yourself, for the first time in a year, name the thing properly.

He was thinking of you.

Not promising or asking or perhaps, even hoping, in any active sense. He’s a man who knows how to hope, you’ve begun to suspect, in the way some people know how to swim or to bake bread. But he was thinking of you. He let himself, however briefly, however privately, set the word child and the word you on the same workbench and look at them together. And then he put them away because the workbench is a ship and the ship is a hunting ground and the hunting ground is not a place to raise a small life.

You close your eyes and think about your mother, who didn’t raise you well, but who raised you. You think about the way she once looked at you over the edge of a cup of caf and said, Sweetheart, a person can change a life. A life cannot change a person. Remember that.

You hadn’t understood it at the time, but you think you might be beginning to.

He isn’t going to change. You know that with a clarity that doesn’t hurt the way you might expect it to. He’s not going to wake up one morning and decide that the Crest is a nursery, that the helmet can come off, or that the creed can be set down. He’s told you what he can’t give, and why, and he’s done it not because he doesn’t love you – because he does, you know he does, you’ve heard it in every cyar'ika and feel it in every careful hand at the small of your back – but precisely because he does. Because he’s a man who’s been trained, since he first fit under a Mandalorian's cape, to think first about what he can ask of other people and last about what he can ask for himself.

He hasn’t said no to the question. He said, I have not let myself want it.

The two are very different.

It’s a door he hasn’t locked. A door he’s only set his shoulder against, on the inside, because he’s not yet been given any reason to believe it can be safely opened.

You don’t know if you can give him that reason. You don’t know if any of the things you know how to do around him amount to a reason. You don’t know if you can be a covert for a man who’s lost one. You don’t know if a ship can be a home for a child, even one raised by two people who will, between them, kill the galaxy to keep that child fed.

But you know you’re not going anywhere.

You’ve been waiting, perhaps, for some part of yourself to use the conversation as a door of its own – to look at the or of the woman who might bear me one and decide it’s a polite warning, an exit cue, a closing of accounts. You wait for the part of yourself that has spent a long life slipping out of cantinas at four in the morning to lift its head and say time to go.

It doesn’t lift its head. It’s sleeping somewhere deep, curled around the place where his hand held yours, and it doesn’t stir.

You’re not going anywhere.

You’ll stay by his side. You’ll patch him when he comes home bleeding and let him patch you when required. You’ll feed him caf strong enough to dissolve a spoon and let him have you in the cockpit with the helmet on and his gloves on your hips and you’ll ask him about children again.

Not yet.

You’ll let him sit with the question because you can be patient and because you’re used to waiting for him.

Opening your eyes, you hear, through the deck plating, the small sounds of him moving above – the creak of the pilot's chair, the soft clink of a buckle, the tiny exhale of the modulator as he adjusts something on his vambrace.

He’s not asleep and, you suspect, he’s not going to sleep for a while.

You wonder if he’s thinking about it too. If he’s sitting up there in the blue light with his hand on the throttle and the helmet tilted slightly to the left and a sentence of his own echoing somewhere under his cuirass that he doesn’t yet know how to put down.

You hope he is. You hope he’s thinking about a covert that can be rebuilt instead of mourned. You hoped he’s thinking about a somewhere – a small dirt-floored house on some forgettable moon, a garden that won’t grow much but will grow something, a cradle that he can come home to between bounties and lay his beskar down beside.

You hope that he’s beginning to let himself want it.

You don’t know if he will. You don’t know if you’ll still be on the Crest a year from now, or five, or twenty, or for the long quiet rest of your life. You don’t know if the door he’s set his shoulder against will ever open.

But you know you love him and you know that loving him is the work of a long time, not a short one, and you know that you’re willing to do that work.

So, you close your eyes and sleep.

Above you, in the cockpit, the helmet tilts very slightly to the left. The hand on the throttle flexes once and goes still. The vocoder catches a slow even exhale, and another, and another, and the man inside the armour sits with words on his own workbench in the blue light and looks at them, for the first time in a long time, without putting them away.

He doesn’t know yet what he’s going to do with them.

But he’s taken them out.

➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰🚀➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰

PART FOUR

Taglist: @thelittlebats

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[isabellaboo2025]

Through The Wall - Part Two

Pairing: Din x Reader.

Chapter summary: Back on the Razor Crest, you and Din continue to enjoy one another, until a moment of panic brings everything into focus.

Warnings: 18+only. Smut with feelings 😛

A/N: I’m not going to create a Masterlist page as this was originally a one-shot but I’ll link back to each chapter.

Part One

Din Masterlist

➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰🚀➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰

The hum of the Razor Crest in hyperspace is a sound you've come to know better than your own heartbeat – that low, throaty thrum that vibrates up through the deck plating and into the soles of your boots, into your knees and into the soft hollow behind your sternum where want lives. The cockpit lights are dimmed down to a smoulder, blue-edged shadows pooling in the corners, the wash of streaking star lines turning the inside of the cabin into a slow blue snowstorm.

He sits in the pilot's chair like he always does, spine straight, gloved hands resting easy on the armrests, helmet tilted just a fraction toward you, the dark T of the visor swallowing every flicker of light it catches.

He hasn't said a word in three minutes and neither have you, but the air between you has thickened to where you can cut it with a vibroblade. When you finally push off from the bulkhead and cross the metal floor toward him – bare feet silent, your tunic loose at the collar – you see the leather of his glove flex once against the armrest.

Just a twitch. A tell. Mandalorians aren’t supposed to have tells, but you've been studying him for months now, cataloguing every microscopic concession his body makes to your presence, and that little flex of his fingers tells you everything you need to know.

You sink to your knees.

Three weeks.

That’s how long it’s been since the cell on Vane's facility, and in that time, you haven’t stopped sleeping with him, and he hasn’t stopped sleeping with you, and somewhere in the middle of all that sleeping-with the geometry of the two of you has quietly, irreversibly, changed.

It isn’t just the sex, though the sex is good. The sex is unhinged. The sex has taught you things about your own body that you have not, in thirty years of inhabiting it, suspected. He takes you against bulkheads and over crates and on the floor of the cockpit with the autopilot blinking placidly above your head. He takes you slow in the bunk in the middle of the night when neither of you can sleep, and he takes you in the refresher with the water running and the steam fogging the visor and his bare hands skating slick down your spine.

The helmet always stays on. You haven’t stopped wanting, but you’ve stopped asking, because the wanting is your problem and the not-asking is, you’ve decided, a thing you can give him.

But it isn’t just the sex.

It’s the way he starts making caf for two in the mornings now, instead of for one. It’s the way he sets his armour down in the order he always sets it down but pushes your half of the bunk smooth before he lays himself on it. It’s the way he says your name when he wants your attention from across the hold, low and unhurried, like a hand on the small of your back.

You know what it is. He knows what it is. But it’s clear that neither of you are going to be the one to use the word. He’s a man who’s spent his whole adult life saying as little as possible about anything that matters, and you’ve decided that you respect that – that you’d rather have his silence honestly than someone else's words pretending. And so, you carry the unspoken thing around in your chest like a small warm coal and you feed it kindling and you do not, blow on it, in case the smoke makes him bolt.

For three weeks you mould your body to his and sink to your knees and allow yourself to have whatever this is between you.

The deck plating is cold under your knees through the thin fabric of your trousers, but you barely feel it. You kneel in the narrow space between his boots, the worn leather scuffed and dust-pale, and let your hands settle very lightly on his thighs, right where the flight suit emerges from beneath the cuisse plates, where the dark quilted fabric stretches taut over muscle.

You feel him go still. Not tense, just still. The way a predator goes still when something interesting walks into its sightline.

"Din." Your voice comes out lower than you mean it to. "Tell me to stop."

He pauses for a long moment, the vocoder hissing faintly with his breath before he speaks.

"No."

That one word, filtered through the modulator, gravel-rough and warm at the edges, lands somewhere low in your belly and blooms outward like a struck match. You smile up at him, slow, and slide your palms upward, over the quilted dark of his inner thighs, fingers spread wide, taking your time, mapping the heat of him through the fabric.

You feel the moment his thighs flex under your touch, feel the way his breath catches and stutters out through the vocoder as a soft static crackle.

"Good," you murmur. "Then sit back and let me take care of you."

His head tilts in that maddening way, the visor angling down so that you know, you know, he’s watching every move you make. You've never seen his eyes, never seen his mouth go slack, never seen his jaw clench, never had the satisfaction of watching this man fall apart in the conventional way. All you have is the helmet, the dark immovable mask of beskar, and the small involuntary sounds the vocoder can’t quite scrub clean.

It’s enough, a delicious little game, dragging every reaction out of him by force, pulling each one through the filter of his armour like coaxing music from a closed instrument.

You work the codpiece loose first. There are clasps along the underside, hidden, fiddly things, and you take your time finding them, letting your knuckles drag deliberately against the swell already firming up beneath the plate. He inhales sharply and the vocoder catches it, distorting it so that it sounds like a low electronic rasp. You hum approvingly and finally get the last clasp free, lifting the codpiece off and setting it down on the deck beside you with a soft, careful clink of metal on metal.

The dark fabric beneath is obviously, undeniably tented. You let yourself look for a long moment, savouring it – the shape of him straining against the cloth, the small dark spot where he's already started to leak through. Then you raise your eyes back up to the visor and give him your sweetest smile.

"Look at you," you breathe. "All this control and you're already this hard for me."

The gloved hand on the armrest tightens, the leather creaking.

"I know," you murmur, working open the front of the flight suit, easing the laces loose with deliberate slowness. "I know, patience. I'm going to give you everything."

When you finally free him you have to take a breath. He’s heavy in your hand – hot and flushed dark already at the head, a bead of slick beading at the slit, the whole thick length of him twitching faintly against your palm as you wrap your fingers around the base. You've had him before. You know the shape, the weight and the way he fits in your mouth. But every time feels like the first time. Every time he pulls this particular reaction out of you – this nearly worshipful pause, this want that buzzes in your teeth.

You look up, holding the visor's gaze, and then, slowly, you lean in and press a kiss – soft, almost chaste – to the very tip.

His whole body jerks in a tiny movement that’s almost nothing. Just a flinch of his hips, the smallest involuntary buck, and then the iron clamp of his own self-control snaps it back down. But you feel it and grin against him, lips still pressed to the head of his cock, letting your tongue slip out and drag a slow stripe through the slick beading at the tip.

"Haar'chak." The curse hisses through the vocoder, half static, half breath.

"Mm." You lick your lips, tasting salt and skin and the faint metallic tang of whatever he's been wiping his hands on earlier. "Say it again in Basic, Din. I want to hear you in Basic."

A long, ragged breath comes through the modulator, and his hand leaves the armrest and settles into your hair, the rough leather catching at the strands. He doesn’t pull but rather just rests his palm against the back of your head like he needs to anchor himself there.

"Please," he says, and the way the vocoder bends the word, scratching it raw, making it almost a whisper nearly undoes you right there on the cold metal floor.

You reward him by opening your mouth and taking him in – just the head at first, sealing your lips around the flushed crown and sucking, slow and soft, the flat of your tongue working in small circles against the underside. The taste of him fills your mouth, salt and musk and something faintly metallic that you've long ago decided is particular to him, to the man under the beskar, and you let your eyes flutter closed for half a second just to savour it.

He makes a low, strangled, half-mechanical sound that the vocoder can’t quite categorise and his hand in your hair tightens, just barely.

You sink lower, agonisingly slowly, working him into your mouth inch by inch, your tongue pressing flat to the underside, your lips stretching tight around his girth. You feel the head bump the back of your throat and you pull back, breath catching, eyes watering already because he’s thick and you’re out of practice at this kind of patience. Then you go down again a little further, working saliva down the length of him with each pass until he’s slick and shining and your jaw is beginning to ache pleasantly.

His thighs tremble – tiny tremors, barely perceptible, but you can feel them under your palms where you've braced yourself against him. The Mandalorian – the man who can stand motionless in a firefight, who can track a quarry across three-star systems without losing his composure – is trembling under your mouth.

You want to weep with how good it feels to do this to him.

You pull off with a wet, obscene pop and look up at him through your lashes, watching as his chest rises and falls in shallow, controlled drags. The vocoder catches each breath and gives it back to you as a soft electronic rasp.

"Are you watching me?" you ask. Your lips feel swollen and you lick them deliberately, watching the visor track the movement. "Tell me you're watching me, Din."

"I'm watching."

"Good." You lean in and press your cheek against the inside of his thigh, letting his cock rest heavy and wet against your face, the slick head smearing against your temple and your hair. You turn and mouth at the side of his shaft, dragging your tongue in long, lazy stripes. "Don't look away, not for a second."

"I won't."

The promise scrapes out of the vocoder like a vow.

You take him again, deeper this time. You've warmed up to him now, your throat relaxing, your breathing falling into the rhythm you need. You let him slide back, back, back, past the soft resistance at the back of your tongue, into the tighter clasp of your throat, and you swallow around him and feel him judder. His hips lift off the chair an inch and slam back down. The gloved hand in your hair fists, finally, finally pulls, not hard, just hard enough to tell you he’s losing some thin filament of control.

"Slow…slow…"

You don’t slow. You set a rhythm, bobbing your head, hollowing your cheeks, taking him deep on every third or fourth stroke and feeling your nose press against the dark fabric of his flight suit at the base. Your hand wraps around what your mouth can’t reach, twisting gently, thumb dragging beneath the head on every upstroke. Your other hand creeps up under the cuisse plate, scrabbling at the edge of the flight suit, until you find the soft pouch beneath and cup him there too, rolling him gently, playing with the weight of him, and feel him moan through the vocoder as a long staticky exhale.

The Razor Crest hums around you. The star lines streaked. The dim blue light catches on the curves of his armour, and you kneel at his feet with his cock in your throat and you think, dizzily, that you’ll never want anything else. That you’ll do this for the rest of your life. That if he asks you to live on your knees on this ship you'll do it without a second thought.

"Mesh'la." His voice is breaking up now, ragged through the filter. "Mesh'la, mesh'la, mesh'la... "

You don’t know the word, but you know the tone and you pull off, gasping, drool stringing from your lips to the tip of him, your eyes streaming. You take three quick breaths, then you go down again in one long swallow, your nose pressing flush to his stomach, your throat working around him, and you hold it.

You hold it until your lungs burn, until his hand is shaking against your skull, until you hear the vocoder spit out a long, broken sound that might be your name and might be a curse and might, in fact, be both.

When you come up for air, your mouth is numb, your eyes were streaming, your chin slick and you’ve never, ever felt so beautiful.

"Din," you rasp, your voice wrecked from the effort. "Tell me how it feels."

He can’t speak at first, the vocoder hissing static, breath after ragged breath.

"Like I'm going to die."

You laugh – a hoarse, delighted little laugh – and press a kiss to the slick head of his cock, tasting him afresh.

"Not yet you're not," you whisper. "I've got you, just hold on."

You start again, slower this time, but deeper, more deliberate, your tongue working tricks against the underside, against the sensitive spot just beneath the head that you know drives him to pieces. Both of his hands have now abandoned the armrests, one gripping your hair, the other fisted tight against his own thigh, the leather creaking and creaking. You watch the rise and fall of his chest as the visor stays locked on you, unwavering.

You feel him swell against your tongue, feel the tell-tale tightening, the way his thighs go rock-hard under your palms, the way his hand in your hair starts to push you down instead of just resting there. You let him guide you, let him take what he needs, let your jaw go slack and your throat go loose and your eyes close because you want to feel everything, you want to drown in this.

"I’m going to…I'm…"

You hum around him, long and low, a vibration that runs the length of his cock, and his entire body goes taut as a bowstring.

"Off…" he manages, urgent now, his hand trying to push you back, "you have to… "

You look up at him, his cock buried deep in your mouth, your eyes locked on the visor and shake your head minutely.

The sound he makes is a low broken groan, almost a sob, and then his hand is clamping down at the back of your skull, and he holds you there as he comes in long, hot pulses against the back of your tongue.

You swallow around him, your throat working, the salty bitter heat of him filling your mouth faster than you can take it down. You feel him shudder, feel the way his thighs lock up and his whole body strains forward, feel the helmet tip back as his head falls against the headrest of the pilot's seat. The vocoder rasps out a single long breath that stretches into something unrecognisable.

You stay on him as he softens. You stay until the last twitch, the last little pulse, until his hand loosens in your hair and his thighs unclench beneath your palms. Only then do you pull off – slow and careful, your lips dragging the whole length of him on the way up – and you sit back on your heels, breathing hard, your chin and lips slick and shiny in the dim blue light.

You look up at him, his helmet tilted back, chest rising and falling like he's just sprinted across a desert. The gloved hand that had been in your hair hangs loose at his side, twitching faintly with the aftershocks, the other unclenched at last from the meat of his own thigh.

You smile because you know exactly what you look like – flushed and wrecked and triumphant – and you let him have a long moment to take it in.

"You," he rasps finally, through the vocoder, "are going to be the death of me."

You laugh, lean forward and press a final kiss to the soft, spent length of him before you tuck him gently back into his flight suit, lacing it up with the same careful slowness you used to undo it. You retrieve the codpiece from the deck and refit it, clicking each clasp back into place. You smooth your palms up the front of his thighs, over the plates of his cuisses, up the dark quilted fabric to settle finally, feeling the slow steady pound of his heart through the layers of armour and underclothes.

"Mm." You rest your cheek against the cold metal of his chest plate. "Not yet, I hope."

His hand comes up slow, almost shy, the way it always is when he isn’t in the heat of it. He cups the back of your head, gentle now, fingers carding through your hair where he's just had it fisted, his other hand settling at the nape of your neck, his gloved thumb stroking lightly along the line of your jaw.

"Mesh'la," he says again, quieter now.

"What does it mean?"

He strokes your jaw again as the streaking blue starlight slides across the curve of his helmet.

"Beautiful."

You smile against the beskar and close your eyes, allowing yourself to stay there a long moment, kneeling at his feet in the dim cockpit, the Crest humming around you, his hand gentle at the back of your neck, the taste of him still warm on your tongue.

"Din?"

"Yes?"

The words form in your mouth, but you hesitate and push them back down again because you’re not sure if this is the right moment. Or if in fact there will ever be a right moment to tell him exactly how you feel.

The silence stretches, then his thumb presses, very gently, against the soft hinge of your jaw, tilting your face up.

You turn your face into his palm and press a kiss to the worn leather of his glove.

"Take me to bed."

And that’s how it goes for another three weeks.

Six weeks of sexual satisfaction which, you tell yourself, is all you need.

Then he takes the Tarvix job.

****

Tarvix is a jungle world out past the Mid Rim, hot and wet and full of things that want to eat you. The bounty is a Twi'lek arms dealer who’s taken his operation off-grid and underground and very specifically into a network of root caves that no sensible bounty hunter would follow him into, which is, of course, exactly why this particular bounty hunter takes the job.

"It's a stupid job," you say on approach.

"It pays."

"It pays because nobody else is dumb enough to take it."

"Which is why it pays."

"Din…"

"It's a clean grab, in and out. We've done worse."

"We have done exactly worse and the exactly worse is why I'm telling you it's a stupid job."

He turns his head, the visor settling on you, and you see – even through the beskar, even with no eyes to read – the small relenting tilt of the helmet that means he’s heard you. Reaching out, he puts his gloved hand on your thigh.

"Stay close to me."

"I always do."

"Closer."

It goes wrong the way these things always go wrong, which is to say slowly at first and then all at once. You find the Twi'lek, secure it and are on your way back out of the cave system with the Twi'lek cuffed and grumbling between you when the root caves turn out, surprise, to have a second tenant – a colony of something the Twi'lek has been paying off in ration packs to keep them docile, and whose docility runs out roughly thirty seconds after the ration-packer gets cuffed.

They come out of the walls, long pale segmented things, the size of small speeders, with too many legs and a mouth-part arrangement that doesn’t bear thinking about. Din shoots the first one in half. The second one takes a flame to the face and screams in a register that makes your back teeth ache. The third one comes up behind you while you’re dealing with the fourth, and you get your blaster around in time to put a bolt through its eye-cluster.

But you don’t see the fifth one, the one in the ceiling, the one that drops.

It hits you across the side like a falling girder.

You go down hard, sideways, off the lip of a root ledge that you haven't realised is a ledge, and fall a long way, a longer way than you should have survived falling, into the wet dark of a lower chamber. You land on your back on something that gives under you and the world goes white.

You come back to it in pieces, pain shooting across your whole left side, the sharp wrong kind, the kind that means ribs and you mouth fills with blood. You feel a long burning line down your flank where the thing's claw, or whatever it is, has opened you up through your shirt. You smell smoke from somewhere overhead and hear the high mechanical whine of a flame projector going and going and going.

Then you hear his voice through the helmet comm in your ear. It’s very close to you, somehow, even from up above.

"Talk to me."

"Din…"

"Talk to me. Where are you hit?"

"Side. Ribs. I…I can't…there's a lot of blood…"

"I'm coming. Don't move. Don't move. Don't move."

"I wasn't…"

"Just keep talking."

You do as asked, but you don’t remember what you talk about. You remember that your voice sounds thin and far away and that you can’t seem to take a full breath because each one turns into a wet stabbing thing in your chest, and that somewhere above you the flame projector keeps going, and the roaring stops one by one.

Then there’s the soft hiss of jetpack thrust, and his boots hit the chamber floor in front of you with a thud that you feel in your teeth.

He’s on his knees beside you before the dust has settled, gloves off, his bare hands on you, one on your jaw and the other under your shirt, finding the wound and pressing. You cry out, and his head snaps to your face, the visor so close to you that you can see your own reflection in it, wet and grey and not looking very alive.

"Stay with me."

"I'm here."

"Stay with me."

"I'm here, Din, I'm…"

"Look at me."

You look and suddenly see that his hand on your jaw is shaking.

You’ve never seen his hand shake in all the time you’ve flown together. Not under fire, not in the middle of a job going sideways, not when he’s setting a broken bone in his own forearm with his other hand and a length of pipe.

The hand of Din Djarin does not shake.

The hand of Din Djarin has been engineered specifically to not shake, and now it’s shaking against your face, his bare thumb skating across your cheekbone, smearing the blood there, and his voice through the modulator comes out a half-tone too high.

"Okay," he says. "Okay. Okay, I've got you. I'm picking you up. This is going to hurt, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, cyar'ika, I'm…"

He stops and you know he hasn’t meant to say that. You hear the small, choked silence where the word has landed and where he’s decided not to chase it, and you want to ask him what it means, but you can’t, because he’s sliding one arm under your knees and the other under your shoulders and lifting. You scream, and he makes a sound through the modulator that sounds very close to a sob.

"I know. I know, I'm sorry. Just…just hold on. Just hold on to me."

You get one arm up around his neck and fist your hand in the cape at his shoulder, pressing your face into the side of his helmet.

He carries you up through the cave system at a run. You have no idea how the jetpack works with the weight of you in his arms, and you have no idea how he’s navigating or how he’s fighting – because somewhere in the middle of it you remember the muzzle-flash of his blaster going off one-handed past your shoulder, and him swearing once, very quietly, when something rakes the back of his cape – but he gets you out.

He gets you out into the green wet light of the jungle, across half a kilometre of root and mud and up the ramp of the Crest, through the hold, and into the small alcove that served as a medbay. Then he sets you down on the cot so carefully, so impossibly carefully, that you barely feel the transition and starts hurriedly removing his beskar.

And then his hands start moving on you.

You’ve seen him field-dress wounds before. He’s good at it, efficient at it. He moves through a medical situation the way he moves through a firefight, which is to say with the calibrated economy of a man who’s been doing this for a long time and has learned, somewhere along the way, that panic is a luxury for people with other people to panic for them.

He’s not efficient now.

He’s fast, but there’s a roughness to his movements that you’ve never seen in his hands before. He cuts your shirt off you with a vibroblade and the cuts go in wrong directions, doubling back, his free hand pressing at your side to hold the wound closed while the other does the work. Twice you see him stop, just for half a second, just long enough to take a breath that the modulator turns into a stutter, before he keeps going.

"Din."

"Don't talk."

"Din, I'm…"

"Don't talk."

"I'm okay."

"You are not okay. You are not okay. You're…" His voice cracks mid-sentence, the modulator catching and amplifying the crack, and you hear the sound of his control failing. "There is a lot of blood. There is a lot of blood, and I need you to not talk so I can…so I can…"

"Din."

"Please."

You stop talking.

He gets the shirt off you and cleans the wound with bacta wash, the cold sting of it making you hiss through your teeth. Then he reaches for the cauteriser, his hand still shaking, and he stops. He sets the cauteriser down on the tray, pushes up the sleeves of the flight suit and presses both his bare palms flat to the cot on either side of your hips, bowing his helmeted head, breathing in and out.

You watch the whole bare expanse of his arms, the corded muscle, the scars, the little mythosaur on the inside of his bicep that you’ve now traced with your tongue more times than you can count, all of it locked into a posture of such absolute, white-knuckled control that you understand, finally, what it’s costing him to do this at all.

You reach up, arm aching, and put your hand on the side of his helmet – on the beskar, on the cheek of it. "Hey."

He doesn’t move.

"Din, look at me."

The visor comes up.

"I'm okay," you say. "I'm here. I'm okay. You're doing fine. Pick up the cauteriser."

The helmet bows lower, the brow of it coming down to rest against yours, beskar against skin, cool and hard and so familiar by now that it’s almost a kiss.

"You scared me," he says.

The modulator is barely there. The voice underneath it is barely there. It’s a thing he says directly into your skin, almost.

"I know."

"I thought you were…"

"I know."

"I can't…"

He stops himself from saying the thing he can’t let himself finish, and you want, with a fierceness that surprises you even now, to grab the back of his helmet, pull it off and look at the face he’s making under there, because you’re sure that whatever his mouth is doing right now you would die to see.

But you don’t. You put your hand around the back of his neck instead, against the small bare strip of skin between the helmet's edge and the collar of his flight suit, and you hold him there.

"Cauteriser."

He picks it up and works, the skin on your side sizzling. You bite down on the heel of your hand, hard, and you don’t scream, because he’s already as close to broken as you’ve ever seen him and you won’t give him a sound he can carry into his next sleep.

He works the long burning line of the gash closed, packs it with bacta gel, and then he puts a patch over it, and sets his palm flat against the patch, holding it there as if he can press his own steadiness into you through the bandage.

His hand isn’t shaking anymore. Somewhere in the last sixty seconds he’s taken all of it – the shake, the crack, the whatever-it-is – and has folded it down small and tucked it back inside himself. You’ve watched him do it, and know, watching him, that this is the price of him. That this is what it costs him, this discipline, this not-saying, this absolute refusal to let anything spill that he hasn’t first measured into a cup.

"Other ribs," he says. "Let me feel."

You let his fingers walk your ribs one by one, slow, professional now, the shake gone. Two of them are cracked, one might be broken. He wraps you, slow and careful, lifting you against his shoulder so he can pass the wrap around your back, his bare arm strong under you, his other hand passing the bandage from one side of you to the other across his own body.

You lean your forehead into his neck, close your eyes and breathe him in.

"Almost done," he says.

"Take your time."

"I am taking my time."

"Take more."

He finishes the wrap and lays you back down. Then he sits on the edge of the cot beside you, one hip against your hip, and looks down at you for a long moment, before reaching up and brushing a piece of hair off your forehead with the back of his bare knuckles.

"You're going to live."

"Optimistic."

"I'm the one with the medical training. Trust me."

"Mm. Lie down with me."

"I'm sweaty."

"I don't care. Lie down with me."

He hesitates, glances at the cot and at himself then makes a small sound of acceptance and eases himself down on his side, propped on his elbow, his hip pressed to yours. His free hand comes to rest, lightly, on the unbandaged side of your stomach, his bare palm warm and anchoring.

You watch the visor for a long time, he lets you, and somewhere in there your throat goes tight in a way that isn’t related to any injury.

"Din."

"Yes?"

"What does cyar'ika mean?"

He goes very still and doesn’t answer for a long moment. The hand on your stomach doesn’t move and the visor stays where it is, tilted down to your face. You watch the way his shoulders rise and fall once, twice as he decides.

"It means…”

The proximity alarm goes off, shrieking out of the ship's speakers in the high two-tone wail that means a ship has just entered scan range. His head snaps up toward the cockpit, his hand leaving your stomach, and the whole moment shatters.

He’s on his feet before the alarm finishes its second cycle. "Stay,” he says over his shoulder, back to his working voice. “Don't move, I mean it. Don't get off this cot."

"Din…"

"Stay."

Then he’s gone, up the ladder to the cockpit, three rungs at a time, and you hear him drop into the pilot's seat, and punch the alarm off. Then you hear him bring up the scanners, and swear, quietly, once, with feeling.

You put your bare feet on the cold deck, grab his cape from where he left it, pull it free from the vest, and walk, very slowly, out into the hold. You know you’re not supposed to be moving and that he’s going to have words for you when he comes back down, but you don’t care. You sit on a crate and listen to him work.

You can read him by sound, by now, the cadence of his hands on a console as familiar to you as his breathing. You hear him bring up the long-range scope, toggle through the bands and hear the small grunt through the modulator that means he’s found what he’s looking for and doesn’t like it.

You hear him flick the comm to passive, hear the navicomp wake up and hear him punch in coordinates without consulting the charts, which means he already knows where he’s going, which means he’s been thinking about this contingency since long before you took the job. Which means that you were right about it being a stupid job, and he’s known it was a stupid job, and has taken it anyway, and made a back door.

You hear the hyperdrive spool and the soft whump of the stars turning into blue.

Then you hear him push back from the console, slowly, before he comes back down the ladder.

He sees you on the crate, stopping on the third rung from the bottom, and looks at you – visor down, the whole long judgment of the T-shape directed at the place where you very obviously are not.

"What did I tell you?”

"You told me to stay."

"And?"

"I didn't."

He comes down the rest of the ladder and crosses the hold to stand in front of you. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and you watch his bare hand flex once, at his side, and then unflex.

"Why?" he asks.

"I thought I heard something."

It’s a lie and he knows it. He looks at you for a beat longer and then sighs, a real, tired one, the modulator turning it into a long mechanical exhale. Then he crouches down in front of you and puts his hand, very lightly, on your good thigh.

"You're going to make me grey," he says

"You're already grey."

"You can't see my hair."

"I'm extrapolating."

"From what?"

"From the way you sigh."

He huffs then tips his head down and presses the brow of the helmet to your collarbone – gently, mindful of the ribs and the bandage – and stays there a moment.

"Who was it in the scope?”

"A Guild ship, looking for us. We're clear now."

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere quiet."

“Like where?”

“You ask too many questions. Somewhere you can heal. Somewhere I can…take care of you.”

"What are we going to say about the bounty?"

"Screw the bounty. Someone else can pick him up, if he's still breathing."

You smile, in spite of yourself. He lifts his head off your collarbone and looks at you, and you can feel him cataloguing – the colour of your face, the set of your mouth, the way you’re favouring your left side, the way you’ve wrapped his cape around yourself without thinking – and you watch him add it all up and make whatever decision he’s making. Then he stands up, bends and slides one arm behind your knees and the other behind your back.

"Din…"

"You walked, now I carry."

"I can…"

"You walked. On the ribs I just set. You do not get to negotiate with me right now. Put your arm around my neck."

You put your arm around his neck and he lifts you, carrying you back into the medbay alcove and setting you down on the cot with you in his lap, your legs across his thighs, your bandaged side cradled in against the bare skin of his arm. Then he sits there with his helmet bowed against your temple and doesn’t move for a long time.

"You scared me," he says again, as if he needs to say it twice. As if the first time hasn’t been enough to set it down.

"I know."

"Don't do it again."

"I'll try."

"Try harder."

"I'll try harder."

His bare hand comes up and cups the side of your face, his thumb moving across your cheekbone, stops at the corner of your mouth and stays there.

"Cyar'ika," he says.

You hold very still.

"You asked me what it meant."

"Yes."

The thumb at the corner of your mouth doesn’t move.

"It's old Mando'a," he says, finally. "It means…it doesn't translate cleanly. It's what you call someone you…"

He stops.

"Someone you what?"

He doesn’t answer, so you wait. You can be patient. You’ve learned how to be patient with the long shape of his silences, how to let him build them and stand inside them and decide, in his own time, whether he’s going to come out the other side of them with a word in his mouth or without one.

The hyperdrive hums under the deck and his thumb stays at the corner of your mouth, his chest rising and falling against your good shoulder, steady now, the breathing of a man who’s brought himself all the way back from the edge he's been on in the cave.

"Someone you keep," he says.

It isn’t the word, you know it isn’t. He’s walked himself right up to the word and turned, at the last second, and offered you a different one – a smaller one, a safer one, a truer one in some ways. Because love is a word that everyone uses for everything and keep is a word that he, specifically, has probably never said out loud in his life.

You feel your eyes go hot, but you don’t cry because you know, if you do, he’ll think it’s the ribs, and will feel responsible, and he’ll close up around the not-saying again and the next time you try to drag the word out of him it’ll be even harder. So, you don’t cry. You take his bare hand off your face, turn it and press your mouth to the palm of it, hard, holding it there with both your hands, breathing against his skin until your throat lets go.

"Okay," you say, into his palm.

"Okay."

"Keep me, then."

"I will."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

He says it the way he says everything, and you understand that you’re very probably, never going to hear the other one out of his mouth, but that you’re going to hear this one, in its place, for as long as he has a mouth to say it with.

You can live with that. You can live with that for a very long time.

He shifts carefully under you and lies back on the cot, slow, drawing you down with him, settling you against his chest with your bandaged side up and your head tucked under the chin of the helmet. His arm comes across your hips, the other one under your neck and he pulls the thin medbay blanket up over the two of you with one hand. Then he presses the brow of the helmet to the top of your head and exhales, long, the modulator turning the breath into a sigh that you feel all the way down your spine.

"Sleep," he says.

"You first."

"Together."

"Mm."

His hand spreads flat against your back under the blanket, the pad of his thumb tracing the line of one of your vertebrae. Up. Down. Up. The bacta is already doing its work, the throb in your side dulling, going far away, the way pain does when somebody you trust is holding you through it.

You close your eyes and you think, in the last clear moment before sleep takes you – He almost said it and he didn't have to.

And in the dark behind your eyelids, very quietly, in the secret place where you can say it because nobody can hear you, not even him - you say it back.

Then you sleep, whilst his thumb keeps moving on your spine. Up. Down. Up. For a long time.

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PART THREE

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[isabellaboo2025]

Through The Wall - Part One

Pairing: Din x Reader.

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…

WC: 8k

Din Masterlist

➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰🚀➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰

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.

➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰🚀➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰

PART TWO

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