The first time it happened you thought it was an accident. You were sitting next to him during a briefing, thigh pressed against his on the bench and his hand dropped under the table and landed on your leg. His fingers wrapped around the meat of your thigh and squeezed once firmly. When you glanced at him his eyes were fixed on the map Venetim was fumbling through and his expression gave away nothing.
The second time was in the field. You stumbled on uneven ground and he caught you by the thigh instead of the arm, his hand gripping high and tight, denting the flesh through the fabric. He steadied you, held on for a few more seconds and walked away without a word.
The third time removed all doubt. You were alone in the barracks, sitting on the edge of his cot while he knelt in front of you digging through his supply pack. He found what he needed and moved to stand, but on the way up his hand closed around your thigh and he stayed half-standing. His thumb pressed into the inner curve of it, dragging a slow deliberate line toward your knee and back up.
"You keep doing that," you said.
"Doing what."
"My thigh. You can't keep your hands off them."
His jaw shifted but his grip didn't loosen. If anything his fingers pressed harder, sinking into the give of you and the look on his face was the one he usually reserved for targets he'd already decided to pursue.
"And?"
"And I want to know why."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he moved closer, his knee nudging between yours, his hand sliding higher on your thigh until the heel of his palm rested against the thickest part of it. He squeezed again, and watched your breath catch with open satisfaction.
"Because you fit nicely my hands," he said, low and rough. "Because every time I grab you here your whole body reacts and you don't even notice."
His thumb traced the inseam of your pants. "And because you're mine. That's why."
He squeezed once more, let go, and went back to his pack like nothing had happened.
Your face burned for an hour afterward.
Dotta Luzulas
You noticed the pattern before he did. Every time you sat next to him his hand drifted to your thigh. It wasn't a bold move or a conscious decision either for him. His fingers just... migrated over like they had their own agenda. During meals, during watch, during the long boring stretches between missions where the unit sat around doing nothing. His hand would find your leg and his fingers would curl into the flesh and squeeze, light at first, then firmer, kneading into the thick of your thigh like he couldn't help himself.
He never seemed to realize he was doing it until you pointed it out.
"Dotta."
"Hm?" He looked up from his drink, eyes unfocused, cheeks pink from the alcohol. His hand was on your thigh under the table, fingers pressed deep, thumb rubbing an absent circle into the inner curve.
"You're doing it again."
He looked down. Stared at his own hand like it belonged to someone else. The pink on his cheeks flared to full crimson.
"I-- that's not-- I wasn't--" He yanked his hand back and shoved it between his own knees. "Sorry. I don't know why I keep--"
"I didn't say stop."
His mouth hung open. His eyes darted to your face, then to your thigh, then back. You took his hand from between his knees and placed it right back where it had been. His fingers twitched against the fabric and then curled in, tentative, testing.
"It's just..." He swallowed. His voice dropped to a whisper, so only you could hear him. "You're really pre--I mean you feel really-- there's just a lot of you right here and my hand likes it a bit and I just do it without thinking... I think."
"...A little bit?"
"Okay a lot bit." His fingers tightened on your thigh and a shaky breath fell out of him. His thumb found the inner seam of your pants and traced it and his blush spread to his ears. "Can I just... keep doing this? Is that an option for me--us?"
"It was always an option, I was just waiting on you to make the first move."
His hand squeezed again, more deliberate this time, and he bit his lower lip and stared at the table with the focused intensity of a man trying very hard not to combust in a room full of his colleagues.
Norgalle Senridge
Everything Norgalle did had to be a declaration, a public act, a king exercising his right to what belonged to him.
The first time his hand closed around your thigh you were standing beside him while he addressed the unit about a mission plan.
Nobody mentioned it, so you didn't either.
It became a pattern after that. His hand on your thigh whenever you sat beside him at meals, his fingers curling over it with ease. His grip would tighten whenever someone addressed you directly, as though giving a silent territorial reminder. During briefings he'd pull your chair closer with one hand and claim your leg with the other, his broad palm covering as much ground as it could.
But the way he did it in private was different. Slower. Greedier.
You were in his quarters, seated on the low couch while he reviewed his seal work. He set the blueprints aside and his hand found your thigh and squeezed. He watched his own hand with open fascination.
"You do that constantly you know," you said.
"I am aware."
"Want to tell me why?"
He looked at you the unguarded hunger in his eyes. His hand squeezed again, harder, and he pulled your leg toward him until your thigh rested across his lap.
"Because a king must know his territory," he said softly. His fingers kneaded into the thickest part of your thigh and his breathing deepened. "Every hill. Every curve. Every border." His other hand joined the first, both palms pressing into you, mapping you.
"And because when I hold you here, you make a lovely sound, right at the back of your throat."
"I do not."
He squeezed with both hands and you gasped.
His smile was victorious. "Do not question your king on what he knows to be right."
Venetim Leopool
The first time it happened his hand flew off your thigh so fast he knocked his drink over, stammered an apology and refused to make eye contact for twenty minutes. The second time, during a supply review, his fingers landed on your leg and stayed for a full three seconds before he realized and pulled back with a strangled cough.
By the fifth time you stopped counting and started paying attention to what triggered it. It was stress, mostly. The worse his day got, the more his hand gravitated toward your thigh. After a bad briefing he'd sit next to you and his long fingers would creep onto your leg and squeeze, like he was trying to stop himself from spiraling.
But he always caught himself, always pulled away and always pretended like it didn't happen.
Tonight you decided to end that cycle.
He was beside you on the bench outside the command tent, hair loose, eyes tired, recounting a supply disaster in a scattered way that meant he was actually frustrated with himself. His hand landed on your thigh mid-sentence and his fingers pressed in, squeezing in a rhythm that matched his breathing.
You put your hand over his and held it there.
He froze. Looked down at your hand on his. Then up at your face. The flush started at his collarbone and climbed.
"I was--I didn't mean to--"
"Yes you did."
His fingers twitched under yours, caught between the instinct to pull away and the desire to stay.
"You do this every time your stressed out," you told him. "And every time you act like you got caught stealing--Which is more Dotta's thing if we are being honest. So I'm telling you right now, you don't have to let go."
His eyes searched your face for the lie but couldn't find one and his fingers slowly relaxed under your hand and then curled back onto your thigh, tentative at first, then firmer. His thumb found the inner curve and pressed and his breath hitched.
"It helps," he admitted quietly. "I don't know why. When everything gets overwhelming and I can't find the ground, you become it."
"You should have just said so from the start." you teased with a grin, nudging his arm with yours.
His grip tightened and his head dropped onto your shoulder as his thumb kept moving against the inside of your thigh slow and steady.
"I suppose so... thank you for being patient with me." he murmured.
Tsav
He didn't have a subtle bone in his body, so when the thigh thing started there was zero ambiguity about it. You were sitting beside him while he cleaned his thunder staff and his free hand landed on your thigh, long fingers wrapping around it, and he squeezed like he was testing fruit at a market stall.
"Huh," he said out loud to no one, while staring directly at your leg.
"Huh what?"
"Nothing. Wait--Hold on." He squeezed again, slower, his fingers pressing into the give of the flesh and then releasing and then pressing again. His gap-toothed grin spread across his face. "Okay so this is going to sound weird but I need you to know that this is now my favorite thing."
"My...thigh?"
"Your thighs. Specifically this part right here." He squeezed the thickest section above your knee and his eyes lit up like he was lining up a shot. "Because there's this perfect amount of resistance, right, and when I press in it just--" He squeezed and released, as he watched your thigh bounce back to shape. "Yeah. That. I'm obsessed with that."
"You've known me for months and this is the thing that gets you obsessed with me?"
"Apparently." He didn't let go. His hand stayed on your thigh, squeezing at irregular intervals, each time followed by a small, satisfied exhale.
When you stood to leave, his hand chased your leg and caught it, pulling you back down. "Wait-wait-wait!--Where are you going?"
"To get dinner, it's been 4 hours man."
"Bring it back here--Dinner I mean, I'm hungry too," His fingers tightened. "But I'm not done with this yet either."
From that point on it was constant. Whether it was during meals or while the two of you were on watch duty, his fingers would find your leg and squeeze it like a reflex.
During a mission briefing he grabbed your thigh in front of the entire unit and Xylo stopped talking mid-sentence to tell him off.
Tsav stared back but didn't remove his hand. "Sorry sorry! I'm listening now!"
He was not listening. His thumb only continued move higher and higher on the inseam of your pants as his eyes kept darting to you to try and catch your reaction.
Least to say, you stopped wearing thin fabric around him after the third week, yet somehow it only made things worse.
Jayce Partiract
It started after a flight. You rid behind him on Neely for the first time, your thighs clamped tight around the dragon's sides with your arms locked around his waist, and when he helped you down afterward his hands had landed on your thighs to steady you, and froze. His eyes dropped to where his fingers gripped your legs, like he just discovered something about himself.
He let go and didn't mention it.
But after that, his hands found your thighs constantly. When you sat beside him his hand would drift to your leg and squeeze, while he talked about Neely's wing maintenance or complained about grounding orders.
When you sat across from him he'd hook his boot behind your calf and pull your leg closer until he could reach your thigh and rest his hand on it. Always gripping. Always kneading. Like he couldn't believe the give of it under his fingers.
You called him on it one night on the stable roof, his hand on your thigh for the fourth time that day, his thumb tracing circles into the inner section while he stared at the sky.
"Jayce."
"Mm."
"You and my thighs. What's happening there."
He looked at you for a moment before snapping his attention back to the sky, jaw clenching and unclenching until he could find his words.
"When we fly," he said, "Neely and I move together. I can feel her body shift under me, all that power and weight..." His thumb traced higher along your inseam. "Your thighs are basically the same thing. When I grab you here I can feel you and I... appreciate it."
"You're comparing me...to your dragon." you side-eyed him with a laugh.
"I'm comparing you to the thing I love most in the world.--Just take the compliment!" He squeezed again, hard enough to make you inhale, and his grin came back, sharp and unapologetic. "Besides. Neely doesn't make that face when I hold on tight."
"What face?"
He squeezed harder, watched your expression, and grinned wider.
"That one."
Rhyno
The first time it happened he looked genuinely puzzled by his own hand. You were seated beside him on the supply crates after a mission, close enough that your legs touched, and his broad hand had drifted to your thigh and squeezed. Not hard, more like... exploratory. His eyebrows lifted and he looked down at his own fingers with pleasant curiosity.
"Fascinating," he said.
"What is?"
"The way you feel under my hand." He squeezed again, slower, his pale fingers pressing into the give of your thigh through the fabric with his ever-present smile. "Huma--You are so remarkably dense. In a physical sense. All this muscle and tissue layered over bone, and when I press here--" Another squeeze, deeper. "--it gives, but only to a point. And then there's resistance."
"Are you... studying my anatomy right now?"
"Thoroughly." His thumb found the thickest part of your outer thigh and kneaded into it. His eyes found yours and the curiosity in them had darkened into something a tad...hungrier. "I find I don't want to let go."
He didn't.
His hand became a permanent fixture on your thigh whenever you were near him. Always gripping, always kneading, always seeking out that same territory with a focus that bordered on obsession.
The strange part was what it did to the rest of him.
Xylo noticed it first. Rhyno stopped disappearing after missions, stopped deviating from as many orders and reduced the destructive tendencies that landed him in solitary confinement every other week.
So they started pairing you with him. For every mission, every patrol and every assignment. Xylo never explained why. Didn't need to. The results spoke for themselves. Rhyno with you beside him was focused, contained and effective, whereas Rhyno without you was well, expensive.
One night after a clean mission that had zero incidents and collateral, you sat with him on the crates again and his hand found your thigh immediately.
"You know why they keep putting us together, don't you?" you asked.
"Because I behave when you're around." His fingers squeezed slowly, moving up and down your leg. "And I'll keep behaving, so long as you keep letting me hold onto you."
a/n. consider this my petition for you to check this series out.
So a Eastern Dragon! Reader x slight(?)Tsav or Jayce.
The scene is basically the Unit runs into the Reader when they are sent on another semi-suicidal defense mission. The reader helps, thinking they aren't that bad. With a lee skip of them traveling with the Unit to their missions. Reader is so done with all of them. Especially with Dotta, often running him down because he keeps stealing the carved pendant they made.
Was a random thought and sounds dumb-
Jayce's walk of shame being sooo quiet,, Cause he's sweet like that 𐔌՞. .՞𐦯
⟢ He doesn't mean to be especially quiet or anything as he slinks through alleyways and under bridges with leftovers from dinner, trying to hit the sweet spot between creepy and obnoxious he loves to weaponize against a sleeping Xylo— Just quiet enough for Neely, to sneak back into her side without much fuss in the morning. He loves nothing more than to be buried in her scaly hide on a cool, soundless morning; they don't get many of those, (what with all the bustling cities they're made to bunk in. Eughk, people!!), and it only serves to bring his mind back to childhood.
Warm enough to heat the village and padded to the nines; he would do nothing for days at a time, bunking solely with horses and a littler Neely for company. Months spent simply staring up at the smoothly painted ceiling— It bored him to no end, but at least his girl was better fed.
He'd wondered aloud at you about it, and no matter how he protests about not really missing his first home and the way it stifled him, you're always there sewing away at one of his pant legs or repainting his seals while humming in agreement with one of those knowing grins he loves to hate.
Yes, great Jayce. Of course.
You're such a know-it-all— If it were anyone else, he'd have half a mind to wipe your head of it with an arrow between the eyes, but you're you, so it's all good.
Mindful of puddles dotting the stable entrance, maneuvering stealthily between marked stations and hay bales, he makes his way home with haste. Skulking down the far end past wyverns and maulers in the dark, feeling magically embossed nameplates for the one he best be getting back to; Neely, Neely, Neely!
Imagine his surprise when he turns the corner— Filtered moonlight making a halo 'round your heads, cuddled up in Neely's side you snooze with one of his knives in hand like a bad guard dog. He'd yell you awake for a healthy scolding (SHEATHS! SHEATHSSSS!!!) if you didn't look so damn..
Badass. But, like, a pretty one— fresh, waxy scales from mana exhaustion spattered cross your cheeks like a sun-kissed angel, and posed up just as gently by your companion's leg.
He faints face first into hay before getting the chance to worm his way into the pile— And all the scratches on his face'll be well worth it to see you like this in the sunlight,,
Never mind the liminal space between revivals or perfect mornings or a good ride with 'Neels— This is heaven, and he wouldn't trade it for the world ♡
