The Inferno and the Blizzard (male!Sektor x fem! reader)
notes: Honestly? I have no idea of what I'm doing. So please, be nice, I'm just sharing my weirdest new obsession: young Sektor and all the possibilities 🥹✨ also, I'm posting this from my phone so apologies if the format is all messed up.
The West Wing of the Lin Kuei headquarters was always bathed in shadow, smelling of old stone, heavy incense, and frozen iron. In a clan where efficiency was law and emotion was executed as a weakness, silence was the safest armor. But you never cared much for being safe.
As one of the clan's elite cryomancers—plucked from the snow as a baby by the Grandmaster himself—you moved through the dark corridors like a ghost, your boots making no sound against the cold floor. You were supposed to be in your quarters, resting before the next dawn's brutal training cycle. Instead, you were looking for trouble. And there was only one person in the entire temple who guaranteed the exact kind of trouble you wanted.
"What?" Sektor didn’t take his eyes off his newest experiment: a plasma-core flamethrower that looked less like a weapon and more like an atrocity on steroids.
You grinned, stepping up to his side. You leaned in, raising a curious eyebrow at the lethal piece of machinery. The moment he felt your presence, Sektor’s shoulders instantly tensed. His fingers froze right over the ignition switch. Suddenly, the lab fell entirely too quiet—the clanking of metal and the sputter of flames dying out, replaced only by the soft, steady sound of your breathing.
Without looking at you, he grumbled, "...It’s not finished." But his face? It was already burning a shade redder than the plasma core pulsing in front of him.
"Already looks incredible, though," you purred, stepping closer. "Can't wait for a test-drive." Oh, no. He knew exactly what your "test-drives" entailed. A few years ago, you may or may not have coaxed him into incinerating half of the Lin Kuei’s ancient forest. Sektor’s jaw clenched at the word. A test-drive. With you. The memory flashed vividly in his mind—explosions, choking black smoke billowing across the sky, and Cyrax screaming about fire hazards while half the mountain burned to ash.
He finally turned his head, just enough to glare at you from the corner of his eye. That stupidly beautiful face. That effortless grin of yours always made him forget how to breathe. "...No." he said, a flat refusal. But then you leaned closer, your shoulder deliberately brushing against his arm—and suddenly, his "no" felt like a lie caught on fire.
"Coward," you replied, your tone just as flat as his, knowing exactly how to weaponize a little childish provocation. "What happened to the man who burnt a tree with me?" You flashed him a sheepish, knowing grin. It hadn't been a mere tree, and you both knew it. It was a nice little reminder of your power: as one of the clan's elite cryomancers, you could have snapped your fingers and snuffed out the fire before it ever started. You just chose not to.
Sektor’s eye twitched. Coward? In one sharp motion, he slammed the flamethrower’s power core into place with a resounding, metallic CLANK. Sparks flew—literally and figuratively. "Trees! Plural! And that was an accident!" he growled, turning fully to face you. He towered over you, casting the intimidating shadow of a lethal assassin... but his ears were bright crimson.
When your grin only widened, something primal snapped inside him. The vivid memory of your icy hands sliding into his while the forest roared in flames around you hit him like a physical blow. Your absolute control over his fire was the only thing keeping him from burning the whole world down. "...Fine," he whispered, the threat dangerous and low. "But if you dare freeze my weapon mid-blast again—I’m throwing you into a glacier."
"Oh, come on, brother..." The moment the word left your lips, Sektor’s entire body locked. Brother? No. Absolutely not. You weren't siblings! You were the girl who made his heart pound like a war drum in his chest. The one he burned for—not with familial affection, but with a desperate, suffocating desire to kiss you every single time you smiled.
Without thinking, the flamethrower was forgotten. Sektor reached out and grabbed your wrist—not rough, but with an unyielding, firm grip—and yanked you flush against him. "Don't." he growled. It was a low, guttural sound laced with something far more volatile than anger: pure jealousy, and a longing that ripped through his chest like wildfire. But this fire didn't burn to destroy the world; it burned only to ash his own rigid ego. A heavy beat of silence stretched between you. Then, he muttered, "You’re lucky I didn’t throw you into a wall."
You didn't pull your wrist away. Instead, you stepped even closer, deliberately narrowing the remaining space between your bodies until he could feel the frost radiating off your skin. "Keep staring at me like that and I might think you actually like having me around." you teased. You tilted your head, a wicked, triumphant smile tugging at the corner of your lips.
Sektor stared down at you. That smug grin. That stupid head tilt. The way you looked at him like he was the most ridiculous creature in existence—showing absolutely no respect for authority, mocking the heir of the Lin Kuei to his face, just like you always did. A muscle jumped violently in his jaw. Without warning, he released your wrist, only to pull you by your waist and kiss your lips with the ferocity of a starving man.
No words. No warning. Just Sektor being Sektor: violent affection wrapped in fire and frustration.
You kiss him back with a sudden, matching ferocity—a desperate, familiar hunger that pulls you both back through the years. It tastes exactly like the stolen moments of youth. You were nothing but a girl when Sektor—fearsome, towering, and overwhelmingly strong—had first claimed your lips beneath the shelter of a frozen blossom tree. For years after that solitary night, you had chased that feeling, reaching for him again and again, only for Sektor to retreat. He had fled from your touch, terrified to admit that the girl holding his heart was the one weakness he couldn't afford to have. It wasn't until your twenty-first birthday that the walls finally crumbled, and you gave in to each other entirely. It had been your first time. To that day, you believed he was a man of vast experience, a master of worldly pleasures. But little did you knew, that Sektor didn't yield to the sins of the flesh. You didn't knew that you were his first, his only, and his last. And that was a secret he intended to take to his grave.
The kiss deepened, turning messy and desperate, as if you were trying to reclaim every stolen second the clan's rules had ever robbed you of. Sektor remembered that first frozen blossom tree: your small hands resting against his heavy armor, your nervous breath ghosting over his lips... and the way he had panicked afterward like a coward. He remembered running. Always running from how much he wanted you.
But not tonight. Not here.
His arms tighten around your waist, lifting you slightly until you felt weightless against him. A quiet, breathless groan escaped his throat when your mouths finally parted for air. And there, in the quiet dark of the lab, a whisper as rare as hellfire left his lips—your name, raw with something terrifyingly close to love.
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