most imagines and drabbles will be 500-750 words or so. if you’d like something longer, feel free to request a commission off of my kofi!
i may turn down a request if it makes me uncomfortable or if i don’t feel like i can do it justice. don’t be discouraged if this happens! feel free to send another request in.
hey!! I was wondering if I could request a jealous Manato scenario maybe?!
your hero
jealous komano manato x gn!reader
tags: jealousy, protectiveness, manato protects reader from an unwanted advance
tw: minor conflict/aggression
a/n: of course, yes!!! I loved writing this and hope you enjoyed reading it :) my requests are open through my ask box! ~900 words
The touch of a stranger interrupts a beautiful day in the market.
The late afternoon hour demanded a stroll through town to pick up produce for dinner. While Manato bargains for leeks with wide, aggressive gesticulation and a loud voice, you meander away from the stall, attention drawn to another small stall boasting organic honey harvested from bees that have grown fat on clover and dandelion. The touch on your shoulder is, at first, hardly distinguishable from the bustling crowd around you. The second touch is firmer and finally drags your eyes away from the jars that have grabbed your attention.
The offending hand belongs to a man with wrinkles creased around the corners of his eyes and a large, flushed nose. Despite the sun drenching the world in shades of orange and yellow, you catch the stench of alcohol clinging to his breath. His hand remains on your shoulder.
“Heyyy. You, uh,” he stumbles on nothing and braces himself against your shoulder, “you from around here?”
You attempt to escape his grasp and disappear further into the crowd, but his grip is resolute. “Please don’t touch me.”
He doesn’t listen. “Come on, now. Don’t be like that. Just try’na getta know ya. That so wrong?”
“Yes, leave me alone.”
Your fingers curl against his and struggle against the strange strength afforded uniquely to drunkards and the desperate alike. Your body jerks away from his, another attempt that ends in the same failure. Whether you like it or not, this bastard has trapped you here.
“Alls of you bitches are the same,” he slurs. “Always puttin—“
The man cuts himself off with a strangled, throaty shout when another weight lands upon your shoulder. Your eyes draw up to find Manato’s hand clutching the drunkard’s with enough strength to turn the offender’s fingertips white and bloodless. You’ve always known your boyfriend to have the capacity for violence, but it is only now that you truly understand why so many people cross the street to avoid him. He radiates palpable menace, glowering down at the drunkard as if he would like no more than to tear him to shreds with just teeth and nails.
“Do we have a problem?”
The man blubbers for a moment, floundering.
“I was just—“ another strangled cry as Manato’s grip tightens enough for you to hear the bones in the man’s hand creak. “—No, sir! No problem at all!”
“Good.” Manato’s grip remains resolute as he lifts the man’s hand from your shoulder. “Because it would end poorly for you if we had a problem.”
The man whimpers.
“But, since we don’t have a problem,” another squeeze, “you’ll have no issue apologising.”
The man looks up at Manato with watery eyes. “A-A-Apologise?”
“Yeah. Apologise for touching them. Now.”
The man dips his head. “I’m s-so sorry for—“
Manato growls. “Not to me. To them.”
“I’m so sorry,” the man blubbers, turning those pathetic wet eyes to meet yours for a brief moment before tilting down. “I’m so sorry for touching you!”
This whole thing has been too much drama for what was supposed to be an easy run for ingredients. While it would greatly satisfy you to see this miscreant grovel further, you grow weary of drawing out this punishment any further. Judging by the trembling of his lip, he’s suffered enough. As such, when Manato looks down at you for confirmation of the validity of this apology, you merely nod. Manato’s lips twitch.
“Good.” He releases the drunkard’s hand, and the man goes stumbling backward, catching himself on the edge of the honey stall. “Go. Don’t let me catch you again.”
“Yes sir! S-sorry, sir!”
And then the man goes scrambling off into the crowd, disappearing with great haste. His touch is now little more than a memory on your shoulder, a brand soothed by the love of your protector.
Manato turns to you, placing both hands on your shoulders and looking down at you like he’s checking for damage. There’s a palpable concern in the furrow of his brow, a worry that makes him look more like a kicked puppy than the fearsome protector you saw moments earlier.
“Are you okay?”
You nod. “Yeah. He didn’t do anything.”
“I woulda killed him if he did.” Manato leans down and gathers you into a tight embrace. “Like, he woulda been dust before you even said the word.”
You laugh, pressing a kiss into his neck, then his cheek, then his lips. “My hero.”
Manato’s tail gives a sweeping wag that you feel more than you see. “Yours.”
His eyes trace the curve of your neck and darken, and you realize with a start that this kind of display should wait until the both of you are in private, beyond the nosy, prying eyes of the marketplace. You pull back from him with another laugh and rapidly search for a distraction. It comes in the form of a plastic white bag hanging from Manato’s shoulder.
“You got the leeks?”
Manato snaps out of it, pulling back with a wide, toothy smile, though his hand refuses to leave the small of your back.
“Yeah! Managed to get three for one, can you believe it? That’s, like, the best deal I’ve ever gotten.”
You smile in tune to his infectious enthusiasm as you draw him back to the marketplace thoroughfare. “Wow. Not a bad deal at all.”
“Right?! Now, if I can haggle down the carrots, we can…”
tags: super fluffy, premarital hand holding (gasp!)
tw: none!
a/n: been so long since i've done imagines, but i'm really feeling like i wanna get back into it. i hope y'all enjoy! my requests are open in my ask box :) ~600 words
you thought manato had been exaggerating the beauty of failume heights’ cable car when the sun hits the sea. now, though, suspended over the rocky crags where they meet the lashing waves and a bleeding horizon, you realize your folly.
“it really is beautiful up here.”
the cable car is a cramped affair. while you’re quite certain that the small metal interior is of a perfectly normal size for carrying passengers, your companion has a unique way of making everything around him seem littler in comparison. manato sits stiffly on the same bench you occupy, pressed up against the opposite wall of the car with his tail laid carefully between your body and his. his head turns away from the window on his side, a pane of glass he has resolutely stared beyond for the entirety of this slow, lumbering ride.
“you really think so?” a laugh escapes his lips, though it toes the line that denotes a sigh of relief. “well, yeah. it always helps clear my head. since you had a long day and all, i figured...”
he trails off, gnaws at his lower lip, and then turns his head back to the window. the setting sun streams through the glass, setting his black hair alight into a blaze of burnt auburn that that softens his features and renders everything in a gentle, nostalgic haze.
you smile—he went through all the trouble of bringing you here upon seeing how the events of the day had affected your mood, and yet you can’t find the willpower to tear your eyes away from him to truly enjoy the scenery he wanted to share. you don’t feel terribly apologetic about it, though.
“thank you.” you brace your hand on the bench near your hip, fingertips brushing the soft fur of his still tail. “i’m already feeling a lot more relaxed.”
manato makes a strangled sound.
“yeah? good, good, that’s—” his pupils glance towards you, catch your waiting gaze, and dart away again as if struck by lightning. “—good!”
you stifle a laugh. the juxtaposition strikes you with blinding speed—this strong, large man with scars peeking out from the collar of his shirt and a leather jacket with spikes on it and a delinquent attitude is defeated by the mere thought of you looking at him.
mercy comes naturally to you. finally, you drag your eyes away to linger on the sunset playing out beyond your window, to trace how the wind disrupts the waves far below your cable car. the world falls away into ambiance—the rattling of complicated mechanisms overhead, the faint croon of the city below, the soft rustle of fur and fabric as manato shifts how he’s seated.
then you feel something warm against your hand. when you look down, you find manato’s palm laid gently against yours, rigid where his thumb rubs a gentle, timid circle against the tops of your knuckles.
when you look up, you find manato still resolute in his focus on the outside world, albeit now with a pink warmth to his cheeks that cannot be explained by the sun’s heat and the heel of his other hand pressed firmly to his mouth. you can spot only the whites of his eyes—the sunset has fully captured his pupils.
warmth floods your chest and tingles into your fingertips where they flex and, slowly, as if approaching a terrified animal, curl around manato’s hand.
his blush deepens and he stifles a cough into his fist. the cable car keeps rolling along, unaware of the bravery occurring beneath its eaves.
omg it’s been such a long time since I’ve been around but ;;; im kind of in a tough situation right now and was just wondering if anyone had any vgen artist codes to spare so I can open up writing commissions soon :’) thank you guys!!!
not a request! i just read all of your works and wow. you have such an amazing way with words and as a writer i honestly aspire to reach the same level as u 🥹🥹 keep it up !! have a wonderful day 🩷🩷🩷
omg I’m CRYING!!! this is such a nice thing to see in my ask box 😭 such a sweet ask!! it’s people like you that make me wanna keep writing in the first place, yall are literally my foundation !!!
you keep being awesome nonnie!! and keep writing !!! it feeds my soul when people say they wanna aspire to me gjfhfjfj
May I request the hc of stoic and intimidating reader who gets flustered easily with Breach?
Thank you in advance :)
of course you may!! this was fun to write, i love this kind of dynamic, and i especially love breach!!! thanks so much for the request, i appreciate you support beyond belief!
if you like what i do here or would like to request a commission for something more longform, please check out my kofi or fiverr!
gotta keep all of you on your toes. brim’s advice lingers in your head like fog, steeling your eyes as you enter the sparring chambers of valorant protocol headquarters. you can’t help yourself, there’s venom on your tongue as you recall that today is your day to spar. a close call last month got brim all jumpy, and now he’s nervous and jumpy, demanding that all agents keep their hand-to-hand combat regimen up to date. as if you’re not the second best fighter in this whole goddamn organization.
a sigh tears itself from between your teeth as you throw your bag to one side of the room and toss your water bottle down atop it. one upward motion of your hands also rips your jacket off, leaving you in nothing more than a tanktop and sweatpants, but what you see when your jacket comes over your head certainly gives you pause.
standing on the other side of the room is the best fighter in the valorant protocol. breach, skin slick with a layer of sweat, red hair tousled and only barely kept tame in the braid he always wears. you gulp without meaning to.
he’s beaten you more times than you can count. back when you first joined the protocol, nearly every agent was abuzz with your arrival, placing bets on whether or not you could beat breach in hand-to-hand. you got close, but in the end, breach stood victorious, and left a lot of the agents a few credits short. for nights afterward, you kept seeing him when you closed your eyes, the image of his spectral figure hovering over you burned into your eyelids, pinning you to the ground, victorious again.
for as long as you’ve been here, you’ve been telling yourself that the reason for all of that is because you desperately want to beat him. the gentle flip of your stomach in your abdomen is all you need to realize that your feelings for breach are far more complicated.
nonetheless, you approach him from across the room, wrapping your hands in gauze. “breach,” you say, voice firm and stern, face failing to betray your true thoughts.
he looks up from where he’s tucking personal effects into his gym bag. “hah,” he grins, straightening his back. servos go off in his prosthetic arms, releasing a puff of hot steam into the already sweaty room. “so you’re my sparring partner? i wish old brim would’ve given me a challenge!”
you roll your eyes, cross your arms, huff. out of every agent, he’s the only one who can actually manage to get under your skin. “are you gonna talk, or are you gonna fight?”
“don’t get it twisted,” breach chuckles as he turns to face you fully, hands raised into a fighter’s stance. “i can do both.”
you don’t dignify his needling with a response. as soon as you see the spark in his eyes indicate that he’s ready, you delve headfirst into a quick jab headed directly for his gut. a block, another punch, a dodge. you and breach enter an intricate dance, sidestepping from offensive to defensive, never managing to get more than a glancing blow on the opposite party. you’re intimately aware that he has an advantage on you in both size and endurance, so in a bid to capitalize off of your own strengths, you aim to sweep his leg from under him so you can pin him to the ground, just like he’s done so many times before. in a fraction of a second, though, his mechanical hand finds purchase on your calf, and he throws you to the ground before you can reach the back of his knee. very quickly, you find yourself in a familiar position—your back on the ground, breach’s hands on your shoulder, face-to-face.
your stomach was doing flips earlier, but now it’s doing somersaults. he’s so close, you can feel his warm breath fanning across your face, you can see the whites of his eyes and his dilated pupils. most of all, you can feel strands of his hair tickling your nose, and you can’t help but trace his lips with your eyes. what’s wrong with you? what is it about him that makes you so wary?
what he whispers next is audible only to you. “your face is red,” he drawls with a smile. “do i make you nervous?”
you bare your teeth. you’ve won over countless agents in the protocol, you’ve sent the likes of phoenix and sova to the ground within seconds, you’ve earned the reputation of the scariest operator known to the entire organization, and you’re not going to let the likes of breach ruin that perception, no matter how close his face is to yours, no matter how much you like it. with a sharp exhale, you leverage the leg he hasn’t managed to pin to your body to wrap it around his midsection, and then you use your body weight as leverage to flip the situation, rolling over so that now you’re on top and he’s on bottom. with every ounce of strength, you use your hands to hold down his shoulders, so close to his body that you can feel the rise and fall of his chest. as you count to three in your head, you lean closer to his face, victory alight in your eyes.
“don’t underestimate me,” you hiss as a smile curls across your face. “looks like brim should’ve sent me a challenge.”
and, on the count of three, you know you’ve won. it’s without words that you immediately rise from where you’ve pinned breach, and in similar silence, you grab your belongings and leave the sparring chambers, trying not to walk too fast. you need to find somewhere to hide so you can get your heart under control.
hi there!! just came across your blog; was wondering if i could have first kisses between the reader + sova and chamber?? thanks so much!
Hi there!! Thanks for the request! Happy to oblige~ click the read more below to see your requests! 𓆩♡𓆪
if you like what i do here or would like to request a commission for something more longform, please check out my kofi or fiverr!
there's an implicit sense of trust between you and sova. above all else, beyond even the valorant protocol, between all the friends you've made here, you know sova has your back, and sova knows you have his.
in moments like these, where you're tracing the curve of his jaw with your eyes in between training simulations, with sweat soaking his brow, you can't help but wonder how your situation got to this point. it seems magical how you two grew so close. he was the first to greet you when you were a new agent. he was the first to train with you when you were struggling with a fraction of your toolset. he was the first to save you when you were stranded in the middle of enemy territory, struggling with a cracked rib and a bullet hole in your leg. somehow, the two of you meld together like matching puzzle pieces, as if you knew each other once before meeting in such clandestine circumstances. it's only now, in the deep haze of post-training clarity, that you realize you don't even know that much about him.
what's his favorite color? does he prefer dogs, cats, or another domestic animal? his favorite food? what were his parents like? how did he feel about his hometown?
he restrings his bow in front of you, a tiny smile on his face, and you realize that you desperately need to know the answers to these questions. not as a friend, though. above all these questions, you need to know only one thing: what do his lips feel like?
sitting on the same ledge in the vast training space, you impulsively lurch closer. sova turns to look at you just as you do, opening his mouth to say something, but abruptly pauses when you wordlessly steal the breath from his lips with your own.
it lasts only a moment, your hand over his. it's electric, like lightning through your body, but ends too quickly—you want to keep going, you know you do, but your mind bumps into your heart quite abruptly in the very middle of the whole affair. what are you even doing?
you pull away, scrambling back as if bitten. your eyes are wide, and sova's are too, mouth parted and breathing hard. this cannot be happening, you think to yourself. why did you do that?
"ah," you stammer, mind racing. "fuck. I’m so sorry. that was stupid of me, I should have asked or something, or I shouldn't have even done it! god, you probably don't even like—"
your breath leaves your lungs as sova's hand moves to your cheek, and his lips meet yours for a second time, this time initiated by him. you're tense for only a moment, and then the stiffness evaporates from your body as you melt into the kiss, grabbing onto his broad shoulders to stabilize yourself beneath his passion.
moments later, he slowly parts from you, though your lips hover close together for whole seconds in the aftermath, as if held in place by some threshold of intimacy. your warm breaths mingle with his in a tender waltz. and as you open your eyes and briefly glance into his eye, your forehead pressed close, you can't stifle the question on your tongue. "you... you were okay with it?"
he laughs. you can't help but smile. "more than okay," he returns, eyes warm. "I’ve wanted to do that for too long. I just didn't want to jeopardize our friendship."
it's your turn to laugh. "I was thinking the same thing, actually."
"well," sova murmurs, lurching closer with his fingertips brushing across your cheek, "now that there are no more misunderstandings..."
another kiss comes, then another, and another, and another, all the way up until training returns to both of your minds.
somehow, it’s become a ritual for you. every time chamber is to leave for an important mission, he ensures that he finds you moments before he leaves, and he asks for a good luck kiss. his track record has gone aptly defeated for months now.
it’s only ever playful, of course. your first month in the protocol was spent deftly dodging his attempts to take you out for dinner or drinks. not that you weren’t appreciative of the offers, nor were resolute in your decision to deny his offers. at another time, maybe you would have accepted it, but this is a battlefield, not a place for romantic dinner dates and candlelit flings. you were far too in your head to think of the offers as anything more than nuisances from a man you otherwise found charming and likable, if not quite full of himself.
chamber got the hint too, of course. he’s a gentleman in all regards. when it became clear he wasn’t getting through to you, he ceased his advances almost entirely. they remain only in this strange ritual, a joking reminder of that one time chamber asked you out every other day for an entire month. it’s usually accompanied by your shaking heads and chamber chuckling while snapping his fingers as if cursing his luck. then he leaves without consequence, up and away into the sky.
tonight, though, the protocol is up in arms. there’s something in the air—danger? fear? this mission is the most dangerous in weeks. next to no intel, an unknown amount of enemies, and a dangerous, irradiated environment. the agents going on this mission are only to get in and get out with enough intel to inform further actions, but nearly every member of the protocol is intimately aware of the fact that so many things can go wrong so quickly, and these mistakes could cost lives. standing in a small, darkened alcove nearby the lockers, you’ve watched friends hug each other and bid ‘good luck’ to each other for half an hour now. it’s only on the tail-end of this grim vigil that your favorite frenchman approaches you. this time, instead of a smile, he’s stoic. you know this to be a bad sign. you’re familiar enough with chamber at this point to know that if he’s not without his signature cocky smirk, something is terribly wrong.
“a good luck kiss for the road, mon ami?”
you gaze into his eyes. it occurs to you quite suddenly that this could be the last time you ever see his stupid face if things go wrong.
what is that adage? you miss all the shots you never take? you don’t want to live a life with any regrets. even if he never does come back, at least you could come back from the situation knowing that you cherished every small moment you had with him.
“I think you need every bit of luck you can get, so…”
chamber tilts his head to the side and quirks a brow. this is a break from tradition, a second away from the strict ritual he’s set, a ritual he had hoped would keep him stable in a situation such as this. he’s cocky and ambitious, certainly, but not even he can defend against the curling tendril of doubt that encompasses the entire protocol. however, as you lean forward and press a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth, featherlight and terribly gentle, he suddenly feels invincible. it shows in how his stoic expression grows into the slightest hint of a smile as you pull away. as you fade from his warmth, he draws your hand into his own, and with the gentlest brush of his lips against the back of your palm, he smiles.
“I will ensure I do not squander it.”
before you can respond, he takes his leave. you’re left staring at his back, recalling how his lips felt against the back of your hand, how gently he held it, how firm stoicism melted away into tenderness as soon as he saw your face. and as he leaves, you’re left only with a terrible fluttering in your stomach.
you might actually be into him, after all these months. if there’s anything good about this mission, it’s that chamber’s time away will give you a few precious moments to sort out your newfound emotions.
of course, anon!! these were so nice to write, I'm sorry they took so long!! the phoenix one accidentally became like... UNBELIEVEABLY fluffy and adorable and now I'm so weak for it omlll anyways!!! i hope you like my love 𓆩♡𓆪
late at night, you sit in cypher’s quarters.
no, amir. that’s what you call him. you’re the only one who calls him that, and occasionally fade, just to throw in his face that she knows. there’s so much power in a name, and you know such a thing intimately. for amir to trust you with such personal information is a great honor for you; it’s placing your heart in a hound’s mouth and trust it to not bite down. it’s going into the jaws of disaster while holding the hand of the beast you’re following. it’s the reason you’ve trusted amir with the same information, a fact that flies in the face of every common sensibility you’ve ever held.
for you, it’s remarkable you’re even here now, sitting on his bed sharpening your knives while he tinkers with a camera on his desk. you’re so prone to run when anything gets this intimate; from the moment you grew up, you never imagined you would have been comfortable sitting in silence with anyone. now, though, it’s become a routine. every night, no matter the day’s events, you go to sit in amir’s room, no expectation for intense conversation or anything else. just quiet. just two souls enjoying the other’s presence—masks off, both figuratively and literally. nothing to hide.
and you like him when the mask is off. you can ogle his scruffy brown hair and the unkempt shadow on his jaw for however long you’d like, and when amir’s like this, so focused on his tech and the wires to his right, he hardly even notices you. you can barely stand the heavy weight of his eyes on you in moments such as these, so the anonymity allows you to be as bold as you need in watching him.
all of this while sharpening your knives. you hardly notice the danger inherent in your voyeurism until amir steals a glance back at you and a smile ghosts across his lips, playing with the scar just beneath his nose.
“you’re staring,” he observes, a sparkle in his eyes. “it’s bewitching, when you get like that. so focused. i wonder how i got so lucky.”
bewitching. dear god, he just said that.
your hand slips, and the screech of metal on metal echoes through amir’s room as your hand slips, sending your knife directly into your palm. “fuck!” you exclaim. you curl over yourself, drop your knife and sharpening steel, and you squeeze your eyes shut. “ow, ow, ow…”
blood drips to the ground in droves, rolling like rivers from the thumb-sized slice over your lifeline. amir’s laugh compliments your groans in pain, alongside the clattering of a chair as he rapidly rises to his feet. “ah, no, no, no,” he laughs, struggling to keep his humors in check as he reaches for you. “i didn’t mean to! damn, i’ve made a mess of you.”
in more way than one, is what you want to say, but you bite it back as you glance up at him.
“bewitching,” you echo, stammering. “say it again.”
“bewitching,” he murmurs, drawing your hand away from your torso with a soft, featherlight touch. “it’s what you are. bewitching.”
then he presses his lips to your cut palm, centimeters away from where blood seeks the edge of gravity, and he smiles against your skin. he mentioned luckiness in regards to himself, but now you want to strike it out in red pen, you want to figuratively rewrite his phrase; you’re the lucky one. you don’t know how you got here, a beautiful man clutching your hand and kissing it like it’s the most precious thing in the world, but you’re glad you’re here. you wouldn’t trade it for the world.
you exhale, a sigh of content. amir rescinds his mouth from your hand, but refuses to let go of it; instead, he guides you up from his bed with a smile.
“come, then,” he suggests. “i’ll get you cleaned up.”
another day, another opportunity to humiliate phoenix in front of the entire protocol.
the guy’s good-natured, nice, eager to help, but damn if his ego isn’t astronomical. for every sacrifice he makes to help another person, he gives himself the green light to go ahead and call himself the ‘king’ of whatever skill he’s obsessed with that day. today, it was aim. you approached him in the middle of yoru, jett, and sova as he was spinning a sniper rifle around in his hands, and you stood right in front of him and in no unclear terms implied he could never beat you in a battle of sniping. never one to back down from a challenge, he, of course, agreed.
and now, in the immediate aftermath, he’s skulking away from the training grounds, nearly a thousand points away from your score. jett and yoru also skulk away, at least one of them walking away with every single credit the other walked into the competition with. all that’s left is you and sova in the locker rooms—for every second you spend with a scowl on your face, all it takes is sova and his bright smile and burning eyes to draw a rare smile to your face. he’s made it his personal mission, afterall. he prides himself on never missing, and the philosophy extends even to brightening up your mood.
as you sit on a nearby bench with a rag in your hand, sova settles into a seated position alongside you, watching with intrigue as you send the cleaning rod down your rifle’s barrel. you’ve never been more aware of how he stares at you before, nor how close he is. heat emanates from him in droves, and though you keep your eyes focused on your rifle and it’s upkeep, you can’t stifle the stumble in your heart or the way your stomach does somersaults in your torso. it only gets worse when he leans close enough for you to feel his warm breath fan across your ear.
“phoenix never stood a chance,” he whispers as your body locks into place. “never. i’m so proud of you, солнышко.”
you exhale, shakily, as you feel your blood rush to your face. it’s hot enough that the only thing you can do is set your gun aside and place your hands over your face in hopes that sova might not recognize how flustered even his mere presence makes you. “you’re going to kill me if you keep saying things like that,” you mumble against your palms.
he laughs in that golden, bright way he always does, and your stomach flips again. “ah, not allowed,” he chides, and his hands gently brush across yours to pry them away from your face. “i have yet to kiss you tonight.”
you stare, spellbound. he’s the only one who can melt you like this, the only one out of every agent in the entire protocol to be able to shave away the layers of ice surrounding your stoic heart. and now that he leans in, moving his face towards yours and requesting permission with a flash of his eyes in yours, you’re quite certain that he will be the only man to ever see this side of you in the foreseeable future. the briefest smile flashes across your face as you nod.
your lips meet in the soft afterglow of pure euphoria. it’s small, chaste, lovely, every positive synonym you have in your arsenal, but it leaves you hungry when he leaves. you chase him as he pulls away, but a hand on your shoulder prevents any further touch as he rises from the bench.
“ah, ah, ah,” he chides, smiling with the utmost crypticism. “after you are finished with your gun, i am making you dinner. we deserve to celebrate.”
“me wiping the floor with phoenix?”
sova laughs. “that too,” he chuckles, mirth clear even in his cybernetic eye. “but mainly, i want to celebrate us.”
that speeds up your palms. you rapidly return your gun and cleaning rod to your lap, and begin the same cleaning process all over again. “count me in,” you return as the sounds of steel clattering against carbon fiber redefine the locker rooms once more, tinged with the excitement of a night spent with your favorite person in the world.
it’s always been hot and heavy with phoenix.
he just melts you. it’s impossible not to smile when he’s around. there’s never been a moment in his presence that hasn’t left you a blubbering idiot. not only is he ridiculously charismatic, his time with you has always been singularly devoted to figuring out exactly what to say to make your face go red. he says he likes it when he’s able to make that happen; says it’s like an affirmation that you’re really his.
of course, you can never really tell when he’s serious and when he’s saying these things just to say them. he’s reassured you so many times that everything he says to you is the utmost truth, that he would never lie to you, but, god, it’s hard when he’s always carrying around that dopey smile and has a voice so animated you can hardly tell when he’s being sarcastic or genuine. all you can really do is trust him, though. trust—how long has it been since you’ve trusted anyone else like you’ve trusted phoenix?
at the very least, quiet mornings like these have always been idyllic. you always roll out of bed far before his does, as early a riser as you can get, and you always set up a kettle for tea so that you both can be greeted with something warm seconds after rising. and then, as the steam is escaping the pot with a screeching his, you step outside onto the balcony, and you lean over the railing to feel the cold morning mist and watch as dew collects on the tropical leaves just outside. it’s in this place that you wonder how you’ve got here, how you became the only thing phoenix ever really thinks about. by all means, it shouldn’t have happened. a charismatic everyman meets a stoic asshole with a quiet, intimidating air. you pushed him away at literally every opportunity. there wasn’t a moment where you let him see exactly what you were thinking until that mission in venice, when he was looking death in the eyes and you were the last bastion between him and a dark fate.
and it’s under the duress of these strangling memories that his hands wrap around your waist to knot in front of you while his head leans down to rest on your shoulder. his hair tickles your ears as you move a hand to gently caress his forearm.
“hey,” you murmur. “how’d you sleep?”
he ignores your question. in a sleepy tone, with a yawn seconds away from claiming his lips, he mumbles words you never imagined you would hear. “you make me happy,” he manages, burying his face into your bare skin. “i like sleeping next to you.”
you’re stunned. you know this to be the unadulterated truth, this time entirely absent from the pomp and circumstance of his manufactured personality. the early morning has made him sentimental; genuine. nothing could take you from this moment, not even the pulsating red flush that reaches for your cheeks and seeks to destroy you from the inside.
“...i-”
“no, no,” phoenix cuts you off. “don’t say anything. just… just be like this. with me. you’re perfect just as you are.”
you close your mouth, pressing your lips together firmly as emotion threatens to swell up in your throat and strangle your voice. you know that even if you did try to respond, you could say nothing more than a haphazard attempt at a statement with the same gravity. the only thing you can do, then, is take a hold of his hand, and you squeeze. one, two, three.
he knows what it means, and he smiles against your shoulder as the kettle cries in the background.
champagne, wine, cocktails—creature comforts to distract yourself from the elegant party raging behind you.
it’s dark and it’s late. the cold wind of night bites at every patch of skin you’ve left exposed, and the frigid iron of the balcony railing beneath your arms seeks to pierce your flesh. you’ve absolutely no business being at a party such as this. you’ve already turned away at least three separate partygoers attempting to chat with you by just a piercing stare. this whole affair is a mess of unseen intentions and subtext, and you have no patience for any of it. being charming just for the sake of being charming is something vincent does, not you.
and of course it’s dawned upon you the question of why you’re even here in the first place, but the answer is always the same. him. vincent.
it’s important to him, you realize as you turn to look at him as he approaches from behind you, signaling his arrival on the balcony with the gentle closing of the balcony doors. he, of course, looks sharp as hell. if there’s anything you can say about vincent fabron, it’s that he know how to look nice. more than nice, most days.
that’s not all to him. the protocol assumes the worst of him, and maybe they rightfully should, but you know more than he ever will. you know that, beneath the suit, there’s a heart.
“mon amour,” he murmurs to you as sidles up alongside you, leaning over the balcony in a mirrored pose. “you’ve left quite an impression on the partygoers.”
“a bad one, i’m certain,” you grumble, hanging your head.
he laughs. “why should you care what they think of you?”
you glance at him out of the corner of your eye. “i don’t. i care about what they think of you.”
“mmm, so selfless,” vincent continues, a smile on his face. “mon amour, you only make me better. i am not vincent fabron without you by my side. any impression you make on anybody will always be perfect in my eyes, for you being there at all is the greatest miracle to grace the earth.”
how does he manage to make your knees go weak every time with things like this? it’s in an instant that your face goes red, your mind clouds, and your legs wobble beneath you. you can hardly believe the first few things he says, and then he just keeps going. by the time he’s finished, you’ve clung to his shoulder and are now pressing your face quite firmly into his arm, prompting him to gently place his hand on your head. he gently tilts your face back to meet your eyes.
“feeling better?”
it’s difficult to admit defeat, especially to him, but you can hardly keep the words from escaping your mouth when you press your face back into his shoulder. “...yes.”
“parfait. i was hoping to steal a dance from you, no eyes watching.”
that sends your heart aflutter. you rapidly glance up at him. “vincent, you know i don’t dance,” you object.
“not even a waltz with yours truly?” he purrs, smiling with great satisfaction as he gently draws you away from the balcony railing with his hands on yours. he gives you the look he knows you can’t resist, the look that always makes you melt.
“...you’re unbelievable.”
“and you’re exquisite,” vincent fires back as a gentle, flowy tune begins to play from the ballroom inside the party space. “but who’s counting?”
for anyone having trouble reaching my request rules, tumblr seems to have messed my blog up somehow :’) not to worry; I’ve pinned a post with them so you can always see them until tumblr can fix it! I hope you guys have a lovely day <3
@serialobsesssor sorry for the tag, but I wanted to make sure you knew since I saw ya on my ‘requests open’ post!! Lemme know if this is outta pocket
Hello! I was wondering if you’d write something for Maverick from r6s? I feel like he’s a little unpopular :( I’m open to anything you wanna write! But if you need ideas: him and reader relaxing/bonding after a mission; “there was only one bed” trope (a fav); or him showing reader how to work his torch and it’s a little *heated* (get it? because it’s a torch?) If you don’t wanna I understand! Thanks either way 🌈💜
Hi there, Anon!! You’re so right, Maverick seems so unpopular and I don’t really get why omg 😭 😭 😭 I’m always happy to add to the Mav fics, especially with a ‘there was only one bed’ trope involved >:) lotsa good suggestions you gave here, I tried to include as many a possible!! Hope you love 💖
tw// alcohol usage in a recreational setting with no severe drunkenness
it’s dark when you get into the inn. hot, too. you’re in the dead of summer, and sweat clings to your skin and clothes and makes it difficult to maneuver the ancient key into the inn room keyhole. even worse, you know your partner is staring at you, watching the way your hand shakily fumbles with the doorknob. maverick doesn’t say anything, ever polite (if not austere and quiet), but you know he’s looking. it’s hard not to—his eyes have that quality to him, burning and bright, just like the cattle brand he’s named for.
his gaze remains even as you finally manage to get the door open. it swings inward and reveals a dark, dusty space, an artifact from an earlier time. you’re worried already—though darkness shrouds your vision, shadowy outlines further in suggest only one blocky mattress instead of two. your heart pounds. when arranging this inn stay, six repeatedly confirmed two beds instead of one. how could this one aspect of your mission have gone so astronomically wrong?
maverick, ever the empath, recognizes your hesitation even before you do. he bumps your elbow with his, shifting his lips beneath dusty blonde stubble. “we going in or sleeping outside tonight?” he phrases it as a joke, but you know as well as he does that sleeping outside is always an option for him.
in lieu of true comfort, you stumble over a laugh, and keep your voice steady through sheer willpower. “no, we’re… we’re goin’ in.”
you’re the first to take the plunge. in you go, hands fumbling over a 50-year-old lightswitch on the left wall in the process. with a click, illumination floods the bedroom with brilliant radiance, albeit smoky and flickering, emanating from fluorescent lights spotted over with dark patches overhead. in the dappled half-light, your worst fears are concerned. once dark outlines elevate into full images—just as you suspected, there is only one bed, and it leers at you from its spot in the bedroom’s center, as if mocking you with how much space it takes up. when maverick takes a spot at your side and drops his bags down near your feet, you hear his lips part. he must be imagining the same thing you are. he inhales sharply in preparation to say something, but you cut him off long before he has the chance.
“wine?” you turn to him after unearthing a bottle of cheap cabernet from your pack, unopened and gleaming beneath the sickly fluorescent light.
he laughs, just a little. you like hearing that from him; maverick’s more stoic than you think he should be. if all were right in the world, he would be smiling and laughing all the time, in that low, chuckling tune that rumbles in your chest. not all is right, though. this night is the first of many that you two will be behind enemy lines, intelligence agents risking your lives to get vital information back to six. you don’t know what tomorrow holds, nor what the day after that will. tonight, however, is peaceful; nice. if this is that last night that he laughs in a while, you want to make it a good one. hence, wine. a silly sentiment, maybe, a bottle grabbed off empty shelves moments before you left the hereford base in preparation for your assignment, but a sentiment that he seems to appreciate nonetheless. both of you know from experience that the nights before danger are the best for indulging in creature comforts.
a nod and a few murmured words sees the two of you sitting in rickety wicker chairs on a dirt-caked balcony staring out over the sonoran desert, a world of stars and wilderness. a smattering of constellations and distant worlds illuminates your bodies and the bottle of wine that hovers uncertainly between you, half-downed. idyllic is hardly a word to describe such an environment, and yet your eyes burn maverick’s profile into your brain. somehow the stars only enhance his rugged features. the stars conferred with each other to knit him together at this moment as if he’s always belonged here with you since his conception. you’re buzzed from the wine, certainly, but deep, deep down, you know you would have ogled him so fanatically even if you were sober.
the wine seems to have dulled his senses too. normally he notices when you look at him this way, but a lull in his permanent state of vigilance sends his eyes to the stars. so thoughtful, you think to yourself. what could possibly enrapture him so?
“what are you thinking about?” you wonder, voice soft. he turns his head to glance at you, the faintest hints of a smile on his lips.
“the stars,” he murmurs finally, sending one last look to the heavens. “constellations are the same everywhere, but the meanings change.”
he smiles up at the sky and deep down, you wish he was smiling at you too.
“the latin world was so obsessed with the bigger picture; ursa major, the great bear,” he continues. it occurs to you that this is the first time he’s spoken at length about the nebulous ideas within his brilliant mind. “the middle-east wasn’t, though. put a lot of damn importance on the value of the individual. named every individual star, but not how they came together. al-qa’id, ‘the leader’, at the vanguard. al-hawar, ‘the white of the eye’, right there.”
he indicates something far above you, but you can’t quite catch the meaning. in an effort to reach closer to the deepest corners of maverick’s thoughts and dreams, you point up at what you think to be the constellation he’s referring to, palm wavering against a dark, glistening background. “there?”
he chuckles at your side. “close, but no cigar,” he murmurs. in a confidential meeting of skin, he gently takes hold of your palm with his own, and a quiet adjustment places you in the same realm he’s in. you can’t help the flush in your face as he does so; all you can do is trace the tattoo of kabul on his thick forearm as it slowly fades from your touch. “there we are.”
you smile at him, and he smiles back. it’s mystical how the desert air tousles his dusty blonde hair, scattered throughout with the messy aftermath of a long trek through what amounts to a wasteland. maybe it’s the wine that makes you say what you say next, though in the annals of your own experience, you will always know that this question has been on your heart long before this moment.
“you never talk about what happened in kabul, when you disappeared before six,” you finally manage. “you lost contact for two years. you could have been gone for way longer—it would have been easier, too. no courts, no trials, no questions. why’d you come back?”
he pauses. maverick’s so used to listening, so shy of talking. his mind is a fortress you’ve thus far failed to crack, but as you see the wheels turning in his head, you finally feel the seals on the edges of his identity begin to peel away.
“it’s easy to disappear if you put your mind to it,” he begins, slowly. “it’s harder to realize that you can’t kill every part of your old self. some part of you will always go back. I had people to help; to save.”
he exhales. “and sometimes… sometimes you need to become a ghost to understand how ghosts live.”
“and how do ghosts live?”
he smiles this time. the spark’s back in his firebrand eyes. “very carefully.”
you laugh with him, a melody in the stiff summer air. it’s only a moment though. reality sets in soon thereafter. “we should sleep,” you insinuate suddenly. “early morning tomorrow.”
his laugh fades. “yeah. yeah, we should head in,” maverick murmurs, gathering the wine bottle from the end table beside both of you. “I’ll take the floor.”
“no, you’re not,” you interject quite suddenly, standing from your chair. “we need to be on our best for this mission. you can’t get that if you’re sleeping on the floor.”
“I’ve slept in worse places,” maverick grumbles, already gathering his things in preparation to return to the hotel room from the balcony. “the damn floor’s nothin’.”
you reach out, arm moving faster than your mind can keep up with. you slot maverick’s wrist into your grip, and the ferocity with which you grab at him forces him to look back at you and address the fire in your eyes. “I’m serious, mav,” you insist. “either we both sleep on the bed, or neither of us do.”
he takes a moment, eyes meeting in the liminal space of an argument staked on the wellbeing of the other person. it’s an intense, passionate tryst of the eyes, one that maverick ends up losing. he breaks before you do, turning his head to force your eyes apart while his free hand moves to rub against the back of his neck. you can feel the blush cross his hands, and you know it touches his cheeks as well. “fuckin’ a,” he grumbles. “okay, okay. you win. don’t say I didn’t try though.”
you remove your hand, a self-satisfied smile replaces it. the sweet rush of victory, however, cannot extinguish the flame now ignited in your heart. “I’m nothing if not stubborn,” you call back as he turns to enter the bathroom.
“now I know,” he returns, his last reply before the two of you finally decide to turn in for the night.
and soon enough, the two of you are in the same bed, peering at each other from under half-lidded eyes in sheer darkness. you trace the curve of his brow, the touch of his nose, his lips with your eyes, and you notice he does too, albeit under the influence of far more sentimentality. you feel desperately close even on separate sides of the bed, and the heat generated from such close personage is enough to send sweat down your spine. the warmth grows ever brighter when maverick’s hand snakes forward. you melt into his palm as it cups your cheek. this is the most intimate and sentimental you’ve ever seen him.
“thank you,” he murmurs. “thank you for listening to me. for letting me talk.”
“anytime, maverick,” you stammer in response. “i think you should talk more.”
