wretched&divine.

He knows it's effecting you, too. Can see the way your shoulders deflate while you sit in the passenger seat, the backs of your thighs sticking to the leather beneath you.

The iced coffee he'd got you this morning sweats in the cup holder, ice nearly gone before you're even halfway done drinking it. He'd gotten it for you in hopes of keeping the peace today.

All you had to do was get groceries and do a couple loads of laundry at the laundromat. Errands that Tommy often finds enjoyment out of doing with you most days. A Sunday afternoon ritual he'd come to love.

But when it's hot like this? You're both irritable and quick to anger. All it takes is one thing to go wrong and you're snapping at each other, frustration building with the temperature.

And to no one's surprise, you start bickering first thing.

While you carry the bag of detergent and quarters, Tommy carries the basket of clothes down from you shared apartment. He puts it in the back seat of his truck at a weird angle, and you try to warn him, but your warning only serves to provoke him.

"Has nothing to do with the angle, it's this stupid fucking basket."

You roll your eyes, angrily shoving a pair of jeans back into place. "Sure, yeah. It's definitely the basket that's been the same size and shape for the last two years. Makes sense."

His jaw ticks, and the thought crosses his mind to take you over his knee. His bratty girl and her smart ass mouth.

But he keeps quiet.

You accidentally drop the bag of quarters in the laundromat, and Tommy spends five minutes of his life chasing them around on a floor that probably hasn't been properly mopped in months.

When you see the irritation plain as day on his face you say, "I didn't mean to drop them. Don't get mad."

"I'm not mad," he argues. "Never said I was."

"Yeah, well. You look mad."

"I'm not."

"Then why do you look it?"

"Can we just put the quarters in the fucking machine?"

You scoff. "You curse at me like that again and we're gonna have a fucking problem."

It's so stupid, such a silly argument, that it makes Tommy laugh.

Your brows furrow in disbelief at first but then you laugh, too. And it lightens the mood, if only for a while.

The two of you sit in the air conditioning of the laundromat until your clothes are folded and neatly put back in the basket, no further damage made to the easy energy you've created.

But the moment you're back outside in the grueling heat, the tension returns.

The two of you are discussing what sounds good for dinner this week on the way to the grocery store when he says, "We've gotta pick up cake mix, too. You still gonna make one for Mike's birthday so I can bring it in to him Wednesday?"

"Wednesday?" Your nose scrunches in that cute, frustrated way he loves. "You told me it was Friday. I was going to go to that bakery in San Marcos to get that pistachio frosting he said he likes—"

"Can't you do that tomorrow?"

"No, tomorrow is Sarah's recital."

"Okay, so Tuesday then."

"And get home at nine and be up until midnight making a damn cake?"

Tommy sighs. "So skip the pistachio frosting. What's wrong with vanilla?"

"It's his fiftieth birthday, Tommy. You should've warned me ahead of time—"

"I did. Twice, matter of fact."

"You told me it was on Friday."

"No I didn't. Why would I say that?"

"I don't know, you tell me!"

His jaw feathers as he clenches his teeth. He hates arguing with you at all, and it's even worse when it's arguments like this.

It feels like you're fighting against each other instead of with each other. Like you're on opposing sides and not two people in love working together to solve a problem.

He makes the decision right then and there, stopping in the middle of the road and pulling into a random driveway to turn the truck around.

"What are you doing?"

"Turning around."

"Oh my god," you huff. "No shit. Where are we going? Tommy, we need groceries. We're out of milk and eggs and the cake—!"

"The store's not closin' anytime soon. And I'm not doin' this today. S'too fuckin' hot out. So just sit there and let me drive," he says. And for good measure adds, "Please."

You fold your arms over your chest, bratty little thing that you are.

But it's okay, Tommy doesn't mind. He knows it's not you, it's the heat. It's the sweat on your skin and the humidity that sticks like glue and the uncomfortable weight of it all.

There's a boat launch a short fifteen minute drive away. Joel and Tommy used to rent boats there to go fishing all the time. They hadn't been back in a while, a couple of years at least.

But today's the perfect day.

When he pulls into the dirt lot just outside the small, wood cabin office building, Tommy unbuckles and climbs out of his truck. He levels you with a stare and says, "Don't move."

"Wasn't gonna," you argue. "Just gonna sit here and let you drive, Tommy. Just like you wanted."

"Jesus fuckin' Christ," he hisses, shaking his head.

Inside the cabin is blessedly air conditioned. It's a small, one room building with cluttered paperwork on a desk and a cash register that looks like it's from the eighties. An old woman sits behind it with a pair of floral framed reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose and a book in her hand titled The Dirty Cowboy.

It makes Tommy chuckle softly to himself. Reminds him of all those filthy books you read on your phone before bed. "You guys got any rentals available for today?"

The woman looks up at him over her worn paperback. "Got a pontoon, a center cabin and a bowrider left. An' no extra poles, so I hope you've got your own. What d'ya want?"

"Let's go with the center cabin."

"You got cash?"

"Sure do." Tommy pulls his wallet from his pocket and hands over the cash once she reads off a total. He waits patiently as she prints out a few pages on what he assumes is the slowest printer still in use and sets it in front of him with a fuzzy red pen.

"Gotta sign the waiver and take a life jacket for each passenger," she says. "There's some extras around back."

Tommy does what he needs to. Dates and signs and leaves a copy of his ID. When she hands him the keys, he leaves the cabin with a newfound relief.

He finds you with your feet on the dash and every AC vent in the car turned towards you, scrolling on your phone with a crease between your brows. Tommy pulls the door open and says, "C'mon."

That snarky little tone still resides in your voice when you ask, "What are we doing?"

"Goin' out on the lake," he answers, unbuckling your seatbelt and tugging you out of the truck. He tosses his cellphone onto the floor at your feet. "Let's go."

"Tommy, I don't want—!"

"Baby." He closes his eyes and takes a slow, steadying breath. The heat is already getting to him again, the sun unbearably hot at his back. "I'm gonna need you to just trust me. Leave your phone, ya won't need it."

That scowl still remains, but you no longer argue. You let him take your hand in his and lock the truck behind you.

Tommy leads you around the back of the cabin and plucks two life jackets from the racks before starting down the familiar path to the lake. It's not a long walk, but it feels that way. Sweat trickles down his spine and his breath feels hollow.

He finds the boat tied to the end of one of the docks and doesn't give you time to argue some more before he begins to untie the rope. Tommy tosses the frayed jute cord into the front of the boat, climbs in, and holds out his hand for you to take. "C'mon."

"We have stuff that needs to get done today, Tommy," you tell him, hand on your hip. The sunshine reflects off of your hair and he thinks you look so fucking pretty like that it almost makes the hellish temperature worth it.

"Our errands aren't goin' anywhere."

"We still need to get groceries—"

"The store will be open late."

"—and put away laundry—"

"Baby."

"—and I promised Sarah I'd—"

"Baby, get in the damn boat."

"It's just so hot and I need to—!"

"You think I don't know what you need?"

The question silences you, and your eyes soften just slightly. "That's not what I'm trying to say, I—"

Tommy takes your hands in his, pulling you forward. "C'mon."

You let him pull you begrudgingly onto the deck, mumbling those smart ass remarks under your breath all the while.

Tommy just laughs. Puts the key in the ignition switch and settles into the seat behind the wheel in the cabin. It roars to life, propellers spinning beneath the water. He pats his thigh twice and says, "Get over here, brat."

"I'm not a brat," you argue, coming up to his side and sitting in his lap right where he likes you. Even when you say it, your mouth turns up at the corners.

"Mhm, sure," Tommy teases, voice thick with sarcasm. He squeezes the hand throttle behind the wheel and the boat surges forward through the water.

And the wind—god. It might be the most soothing thing he's ever felt in his entire fucking life. It cools the sweat that sticks to his skin, lifting the collar of his shirt and reaching beneath the fabric.

Tommy sees you visibly relax at the sensation and knows he made the right choice, bringing you here today.

Silence settles between you as he drives further and further away from the dock. The sun still shines painfully bright in the clear blue sky, but with the chill of the water spray it feels far less daunting.

He turns the radio on and the soft, bluesy ballad of a Santana song plays through the open space. The lake is surprisingly empty for a day like today, but Tommy finds himself grateful for it.

He slows the boat to a stop a handful of miles out, until he can no longer see the shore or the docks or any other boats. He stands to his feet, pulling you up with him, and says, "Take off your clothes."

You shake your head, but when you speak there's ease in it for the first time since you'd left the apartment this afternoon. "I don't really want to swim today," you confess.

But Tommy's not having it. He pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it aside, toeing off his boots next. "Wasn't askin', sweetheart."

With a sigh, you say, "I'll admit it, the boat is nice. It's cooler out here and I don't feel like I'm dying in the heat anymore, but I don't want to get in the water. I'll just…I'll watch you. How's that?"

Tommy undoes his belt buckle with a clink and shoves his jeans down his thighs, leaving his boxers. He wears one of those big, toothy grins as he explains, "You can either get undressed or you can get in fully clothed. Your choice."

"I said—!"

He shrugs. "Suit yourself."

And without another word, Tommy squeezes you in an embrace and hauls you overboard with him.

The water is cold. Not just cool, but borderline freezing. It feels so refreshing that he lets out a low groan when he breaches the surface, letting out a breath that's been stuck in his lungs for what feels like hours.

You come up for air half a second after he does, wiping water from your face. Droplets cling to your eyelashes and all Tommy can do is smile wide.

Because he thinks you're the most beautiful woman to ever live, and he will never take for granted that even on the hottest day of the year, you still choose him to do laundry with.

"You're the worst," you say, but there's no salt to your words. There's a smile on your face and laughter on the tip of your tongue instead. The tension that's been building all day dissipates, washed away by the cold water.

Tommy nods and takes your face in his hands. "Mhm," he says. "You're right. I am the worst. Tell me more."

"You get this awful attitude when it gets hot out. You know that?"

It makes him laugh hard enough that his shoulders shake. "We got that in common, sweet girl."

"Nuh-uh. Not me. I'm an angel, actually."

He leans forward, grin still on his wet lips when he presses them to yours. "Yeah you are," he mutters. "My bratty, angel girl." He kisses you again, this time at the corner of your mouth. And then he kisses your cheek, your temple, the tip of your nose, , the tickling hairs of his mustache making you giggle.

"M'sorry I've been mean today," you say with sorrowful eyes.

Tommy wraps his arms around your shoulders and pulls you close, delighting in the way your soft, warm skin glides easily against his underwater. "I'm sorry too, baby. S'alright. Just the heat."

You nod in agreement and reach behind his head to pull the elastic band from his hair. "Yeah, I know," you say. "But I'm still sorry. And I love you."

"Even though I'm the worst?"

With a laugh, you shake your head and pull away from him, swimming towards the back end of the boat.

Tommy watches, floating on his back with his arms outstretched, as you pull yourself up over the hull and onto the deck.

You peel your top off, wring the water out of it, and lay it over the leather seat at the front of the boat. Your jean shorts are next, and then your sandals, leaving you in nothing but your sports bra and a flimsy pair of blue panties.

The fabric clings to your wet skin so closely that Tommy can almost see right through them, to that pretty pussy that lies beneath. It makes him feel hot in an entirely different way.

"Don't stop on my account," he urges, a playful tone in his voice. "If I knew takin' you to the lake would get me a free striptease we would'a been here hours ago."

You scoff and say, "Shut up."

But Tommy sees it; the way your pulse picks up, the way your thighs press together, the way you consider it, just for a fleeting second.

But you leave the last two articles of clothing on before jumping right back into the water.

Tommy's not sure how long you stay out in the lake. You do back flips under the water and splash each other and kiss with slippery mouths.

He takes to doing cannonballs off the side of the boat and your laughter echoes across the water's surface. An Aerosmith song comes on the radio and you both sing along so loudly that he forgets all about the heat and the frustration and your bickering.

By the time you decide you're finished, the muscles in his legs are tired and the tips of his fingers are pruned.

Tommy helps you back into the boat and drops down onto the leather bench near the front of the deck. He spreads his legs wide and drapes his arms over the edge, head tilted back just slightly. Water drips off his skin, sliding down his neck and the broad expanse of his shoulders. "C'mere," he orders.

There's no argument to be had, not this time. You simply walk over to him, leaving little wet footprints in your wake, and stand between his spread knees.

"You feelin' better?"

With a nod, you admit, "Yeah, a little."

"Just a little?" Tommy playfully clicks his tongue. "Now, that just ain't gonna work."

You narrow your pretty eyes at him, a smirk tugging at the corners of your mouth.

"Why don't you g'head an' take off your clothes, baby," he says. And when you begin to protest he adds, "Need to get dry before we head back, don't we?"

You see right through him, shaking your head. But you do as he instructs, struggling for only a second before tugging the wet fabric of your bra up and over your head.

Tommy just watches, leaning back, enjoying the sweetest view of his bratty girl listening so well. He's not shy in his assessment, eyes roaming greedily over the swells of your breasts and the hardened peaks of your nipples.

And when you peel your panties down your legs, Tommy's cock stirs beneath his boxers. You ring the water out of them and lay them out to dry.

"I oughta get dry, too," he says. "Wanna give your old man a hand?"

He watches it happen in real time, that shift in you. Watches what begins as suggestive amusement turn into want. Your pupils flare and your lips part just so.

You drop to your knees slowly, each breath a manual inhale. And then you slide your hands up his calves, still dripping with water. They move over the bend of his knee and through the coarse hair that litters his thighs. And when you finally reach the waistband of his boxers, your fingers curl around the edge to tug them off.

Tommy lifts his hips, and that's the only assistance he allows himself to give. His cock hangs heavy and hard between you, resting against the softness of his belly.

Your eyes flicker up to meet his, and he hears the silent question before you ask it.

"G'head, baby. Give me a little kiss." He thinks that sweet smile you give him in response is real cute. And it's even cuter when you take his cock in your hand and lean forward to lick a long, wet stripe up the underside of him.

The muscles in his thighs flex at the sensation, at the sight of you. Naked and pretty and on your knees for him, with all that worship in your eyes that always makes him feel weak.

Your tongue laves over every hardened inch of him, following the path of each vein, swirling around the tip and coating him in a different sort of wet. Your spit is warm and slippery, providing the perfect amount of ease when you take him into your waiting mouth.

Tommy's head falls back even further as you swallow him down. He groans low, fingers curling tight around the edge of the boat to try and fight off his urge to touch you. To hold your pretty face in his hands and rest his fingers against the side of your throat to feel himself inside it.

But he wants it to be you. All you.

So Tommy just lets you suck his cock, lets you enjoy it the way you want to. Spit pools at the corners of your mouth and you whimper around him, the sound ratcheting his pleasure even higher.

"Yeah," he muses. "That's it. So fuckin' pretty with my cock in your mouth, baby. Look at ya. Fuckin' droolin' on it."

You look up at him through your lashes, and smile around his length. Tommy thinks he could fall off the edge right then and there, just seeing how happy you are to taste him, how pleased you look with him in your mouth.

But he resists, pulling his hips back just slightly to say, "S'enough, now. Get on up here."

You do as he says, wiping the spit from your mouth with the back of your hand. When you climb into his lap, knees on either side of his wide thighs, Tommy stops you just before you're fully seated.

"Hang on now, greedy girl," he says. "Lemme see her."

Carefully, you place your hands on the edge of his knees and arch your spine, giving him the most beautiful view.

Tommy can't resist touching you. Not this time, not when you look like this. He gently squeezes your breasts in his hands, smoothing away the water droplets that still sit on top of your soft skin.

His thumbs ghost across your nipples before he glides his palms down your torso, over the dip of your navel, and then finally—blessedly—between your legs.

"Oh, baby," he sighs. Tommy gathers his saliva at the front of his mouth and brings his hand to his lips. "No wonder why you're only feelin' a little bit better." He spits on his fingers before bringing them to your clit, already pulsing the moment he touches you.

You moan when he begins to stroke gently at your pussy, spreading his spit and your slick. His fingers move slowly, just feeling you without true intent, gliding through your arousal.

When he slides his hand a little lower and begins to circle your entrance with the pad of his middle finger, your hips begin to move. Trying desperately to pull him inside, muscles clenching around nothing.

Tommy just grins. Chuckles low when you start to whine, nails digging into the skin of his thighs. "You want it?"

You nod comes feverish and instantaneous. "Please," you moan. "I need it."

He thinks you sound so pretty, begging like that. He moves his fingers back up to your clit, stroking with just enough pressure that you gasp in relief.

But as soon as he gives, he takes away.

Tommy removes his touch completely, stretching his arms back over the boat's edge, resting casual and cocky the way he always is. "Go 'head, baby. Take what ya need."

You don't waste a second, scooting up his lap. You take his cock in your hand and line it up with your entrance before sinking down on him fully.

The sensation of it nearly knocks him on his ass; the tight, wet grip of your cunt around him. His fingers flex against the leather seat, and you steady yourself with your hands on his shoulders.

It starts easy. A gentle rocking of your hips, his cock pressing in deep, the swollen head flush against the tip of your cervix.

But each movement grows more and more desperate, your sounds echoing across the lake. "Such a cute little thing," he says, eyes dark and lids hooded. "Takin' it so good. You feel me in there, baby? Stretchin' you real wide?"

"Mmhm," is all you can manage right away, breath coming fast, chest heaving with each ragged inhale. "Feels so…god—feels so good, Tommy. So big."

You start getting real whimpery, slick dripping down his cock, wet sounds coming from between your legs.

Right about now is when Tommy will normally take over, thrusting up into you, giving you the roughness you always seek.

But he stays still today. Let's you roll your hips over his, fucking yourself on his thick length until you're begging him. "Please, Tommy—touch me."

He cruelly clicks his tongue. "Had the energy to give me all that attitude this morning, didn't ya? Still got stuff to do today, sweet girl. Gotta tire you out before we head back."

A sweetest sounding groan leaves your mouth. "But—please!"

Tommy's real weak when it comes to you. The temptation to give in is there, building inside his chest, right beside the warmth of impending release. "Nuh-uh," he says. "You wanna cum? You're gonna work for it this time. Not gonna have all that sass by the time you're done. Gotta sweat it out, little girl."

You're still moving, still grinding yourself down on his cock, pace ragged and out of rhythm now. "Tommy please, I can't—!"

"Yeah you can," he encourages, taking one a low, condescending tone. "Got full faith in ya. C'mon baby, you're almost there. She's squeezin' me."

He can feel the tension in your thighs and the way your fingers dig into the hard muscles at his shoulders. "Will you at least—" you stop, a moan tearing its way through your chest. "—kiss me. Please, just a kiss. Need to feel you, to taste you."

The request is so spoken so softly, so sweetly, that it send a shock of delight down his spine. And Tommy—God. He can do nothing to resist it. "'Course I can give you a kiss, sweet girl," he says.

Tommy leans in, and the moment he touches his lips to yours he can feel the velvety walls of your cunt clench around him.

He kisses you deep, tongue slipping into your mouth, licking and sliding against yours. You moan his name and it sounds so fucking pretty that his fingers find your clit on instinct.

He strokes it in small, tight circles. And only a few seconds later, you're falling off the edge. Thighs shaking, whimpering into his mouth, riding him as hard as your strength will allow.

"So fuckin' pretty," he whispers. "Such a good girl for me when you're all full, huh? Oughta make you work for it more often."

"Feels so good—hmm."

"You're my good girl, baby. Ain't that right?"

"Yes, yes. I'm your good girl, I'm—oh, god—"

"Uh-huh. That's right. Mine. My baby."

His.

Tommy follows you off the precipice, his release rushing up to greet him, that tight coil around his spine pulling taught just to snap.

A low groan rumbles through his chest as he fills you with his release, so much of it that it spills out of you and drips onto the thatch of dark hair between his legs.

You roll your hips a few more times, until you're spent and aching, before collapsing on top of him entirely.

Your shoulders drop and your muscles go slack, head falling into the crook of his neck.

Tommy laughs and finally touches you, arms wrapping around your waist to hold you close, fingertips stroking lazily over the relaxed curve of your spine. "You're alright," he says. "I've got ya."

He's not sure how much time passes. Tommy just holds you for as long as you need, cock still twitching inside you, the mixture of your release and his dripping down the inside of his thighs. He lets you catch your breath, and doesn't move until you do.

When you finally ease yourself off of him and stand to your feet, you do so on shaky legs. The heat has dried your shorts and top now, and you pull them back on while Tommy does the same with his jeans.

Once you're dressed he asks, "You ready to head back?"

You nod soundlessly, an ease on your face. Tommy sits behind the wheel of the boat and flips the ignition switch, and this time he doesn't even have to ask for you. You just come to him without a word, sitting in his lap and resting your head on his shoulder.

Tommy kisses your temple with a syrupy smile. "Feelin' better?"

The answer this time is paired with a soft, sleepy sigh. "Much better. Thank you."

His heart swells. And even though the heat persists, warming him back up already, Tommy feels himself relax fully for the first time all day.

"Ain't gotta thank me, baby," he says. "M'always gonna make you feel better."

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

a/n: hope u like <3

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You'd sleep around with all the Cody brothers just so you could get closer to Pope. You curate yourself into the perfect girl, all soft and baby-like for Baz and clueless for Smurf, getting drunk and partying with Craig, taking a job at the bar and keeping some secrets (blackmail), whatever needs to be done.

All so you practically live in the same house as him and do whatever you want. You sneak into Pope's room to snoop through his things, stealing clothes that you wear when you finger yourself to the thought of him, rubbing your release onto his boxers before folding them up and putting them back in his drawer. You sneak around the side of the house, using a camera to zoom in through his window and watch him get ready for bed, clenching your thighs as you watch him change—as if doing it just for you.

You eye-fuck him every chance you get, stare at the bulge in his pants, lick your lips, salivating at the thought of dropping to your knees and taking him so deep in your throat that you gag. Wearing tiny fucking shorts and cropped tanks so he can watch sweat run down your back and sunlight glisten off your belly ring. You bend over just to arch your back and imagine his tongue running along your spine, imagine him salivating to the thought of your salty skin between his teeth as he fucks you from behind.

You come out in a skimpy bikini barely holding everything in, knowing he’s just drooling at the site of you, your curves and discolorations. He’s obsessed with watching you uncross your legs, giving him the briefest view between your thighs and the little stubble peaking out beneath the bottoms. The way you turn to him with your shoulders back and face all scrunched in the sun, holding out your sunscreen and asking in a sing song voice “won't you help me? I can't reach my back”

He’s heading for you before the word “yes” even leaves his lips, watching you lie on your stomach, your eyes covered by the brim of your sun hat. “Dont be scared to touch. I need it under the straps too,” you coax him forward, and hiss a slight breath at the cold liquid contacting your spine, making you arch just a little. His big hands spread out over your back, rubbing it in, fingers sliding under the straps of your top. He’s trying not to think of how easy it would be to pull that string and undue the bow holding it together. Let you spill out, let him grope your tits and pebble those nipples heloves staring at.

“Can you get lower?” you ask in a teasing voice, watching from beneath your hat as his adams apple bobs, but he follows orders. Wet hands roam down to the small of your back, then slowly over the curve of your ass as he lets out a little “this okay?” and you hum in reply, feeling your cunt flutter to life and drench your bottoms.

And poor Pope, all he can do is rub the sunscreen in until you spread your plush thighs open a little and his finger accidentally slips between your legs against the seam of your bottoms, letting him feel the dampness, the warmth, and he has to get out of there as soon as possible, to go hide in a closet and chase the smell of you on his fingers.

You know he leaves the bathroom door slightly ajar when showering so you can peek through and watch him bathe, watch him jerk off with his back facing you, all rippling muscles and those huffing breaths as he whispers your name. You bite your lip to keep quiet as you touch yourself, wanting to go in there and taste his release. The amount of times you’ve imagined walking in on him, just to get a good look at that v-line, get a chance to touch him, let your mouth fall open and tongue go flat against him, looking up at how his abdomen tenses and his head falls back when you suck him all the way down your throat like a good girl.

You start sleeping with no panties on and shirts that ride up your abdomen, your door unlocked and window open. He's keeping a collection of photos of your sleeping form, hair tousled and legs open like you're posing for him. And maybe he stays up late into the night sometimes just staring at those photos while fisting himself, hips stuttering as he imagines what you taste like, how you’d sound with his teeth on your clit or his tongue in your pussy.

You've got your own collection of sneaky photos: him on jobs, from behind trees across the street while he's at the atm, at the end of the grocery aisle. You learn his routine and start inserting yourself in every aspect of his life. Running into him at the beach, getting the girl who smiled at him fired from the store, coming over to sunbathe while he's working on the yard, pretending not to care in your bikini and staring at him through your big sunglasses.

You got his whole routine logged in your notes app. Where he goes shopping, how many hours a day he sleeps, when he wakes up, what he usually eats for breakfast. You even bought the same soap so you could smell more like him.

And maybe one night while following him across town, wearing no panties under your tight jean shorts cause you just get so turned on while stalking, Pope catches you off-guard. Cause of course he knows you stalk him, and he's so pent up with want that he can't help but drag you by the nape of your neck to the nearest back alley, pulling down your little shorts and sticking his fingers into your cunt, making your eyes roll back. "so fucking nasty, you get off on following me around?" he's leaning in, sniffing your neck and getting your hair in his mouth, pulling on the strands and tasting your conditioner.

He'll snatch your camera and start taking flash photos of your face while finger-fucking you, "so fucking wet and disgusting, look at you. You want it? Baby, c'mon, let the whole city know," he’s knuckles deep, curling his fingers up into that sponge as his thumb rolls over your swollen clit, making you buck against him, head thrown back as you mewl. Before you can cum on his hand he’s abruptly stopping, licking your slick off his glistening fingers before unbuckling his belt with one hand.

He'll record the whole thing—the moment your sloppy cunt sucks him in, how loud you moan while he thrusts until his hips slam into yours, all the babbled, incoherent things you say while clawing at him, not caring how loud you are.

"wanna—ahh, fuck—cum inside me. I wanna feel you, all you," you want to feel him inside you for days, don't you? Dream about the thick length of him, the pulsing vein that's sliding against your folds, the head of him squishing deep and the sputtering warmth as he bucks his hips, rutting endlessly and turning your pussy raw and burning.

He takes pictures of your face as you cum around him, thighs shaking and eyes rolling back. Then his thrusts falter for a moment while he sets the camera down and reaches for you, fingers round your neck as he picks up the pace. He’s got you squealing and gurgling choked moans, biting on his thumb when the pleasure spikes with pain.

He doesn't stumble one second as hot sticky release shoots into you, fucking himself through the climax and moaning against your shoulder. “Gonna keep following me?” he’s asking, squeezing your chin and forcing you to look at him.

You can't help but smile. He likes it just as much as you do.

And that's how he got a picture of you cumming in his wallet

She surprised you before you’d fully opened the cubicle curtain.

“Please don't tell me I'm pregnant. I don't care about the rest, just please - Wait, you’re not the cute farm boy from before.”

According to Whittaker's hurried handover, the girl was 19, a freshman in college. She had spent hours in the blazing sun at cheer practise, had tumbled and felt a twinge in her ankle, but assumed it was nothing and carried on with her day, until a combination of pain and exhaustion had got the better of her and she fainted whilst trying to hobble down the steps outside the library. Meaning, that as well as a sprained ankle, she was also on concussion watch, sported two scuffed knees and a grazed elbow, and an open wound on her calf from a rogue shard of glass, resulting in her needing a tetanus shot and stitches. Whittaker claimed she was handling it well, which you didn't doubt, but Whittaker was young too. You knew from experience that the brave faces of college students nearly always wore off over time. They were still kids, after all. You wouldn't baby her, but you'd go gentle.

“Oh, and she's a bit of a livewire,” Whittaker added, right before dashing off.

The girl only needed to utter one sentence for you to know what he meant.

You gave her a smile. “Hi Josie,” you said warmly, introducing yourself. Dr Whittaker has been pulled into another case, but he's asked me to take over your care and stitch up your leg. I’m no cute farm boy, but if it helps, I'm known for being a bit of a seamstress around here.”

“Girl, you can patch up my leg however you like. Just tell me I'm not pregnant.”

It was pretty obvious from her blood work. “You're not pregnant.”

The girl sank back on the bed, relieved.

“Thank fuck. The last guy I slept with was some asshole hockey player; I do not want to be responsible for continuing his bloodline.”

“It's nice to be the bringer of good news,” you laughed. “And good to know college hockey players still have a bad rep.”

You gave Josie a quick rundown of her test results and the treatment you were proposing for her injuries, then started to prepare your suture kit.

“Oh! Can I take a picture first?” she asked excitedly, pulling out her phone (pink glitter case with charms and all). “My dad will want to see a before and after.”

You wheeled your seat back for a moment, not wishing to end up in her TikTok or Insta. “Go ahead.”

When the photo shoot was complete, you got to work.

You liked doing stitches because they were methodical. They were a straightforward, visual representation of doctoring; you could see how your medical intervention healed someone in real time.

If only parts of your life could be stitched together in the same way. If only you could sew a string from your heart to Jack's.

The fleeting moments you shared with Dr Abbot during the changing of the guard were a craving. You often arrived at the ED early and stayed late, just to make sure you would see him at handover. You’d exchange a few jokes, flirt a little, and pocket each other’s smiles. The perfect start and finishing knot to begin or end every day with. Mornings when you missed him were troubled, the day tainted because it didn’t get off to the right start. But the evenings without him were worse. You hated being sent out into the night, having not heard his voice or seen his face, your thoughts loose and frayed, untied.

You were desperately hopelessly in love with him, and you had no idea what to do about it. No idea where to place the next stitch in the fabric of your life.

“Are you single?” Josie asked suddenly, snapping you out of your thoughts. You briefly wondered if the girl was a mind reader.

“I-”

“Because you're actually kind of hot.”

Oh. This was new; you had never been hit on by a teenage girl before.

“I can think of many reasons why things wouldn't work out between us,” you responded dryly. You’re my patient. You’re too young. You're in college and don’t have your shit together. I'm not attracted to women (though sometimes I wonder if life would be easier if I were). I’m hopelessly in love with a man who probably never gives me a second thought. Need you go on?

“Oh, God no.” Did she really need to sound so repulsed by the idea? “I mean, sure, if you were like, waaaay younger, I totally would. I’m an equal opportunities employer.”

Were you supposed to say thank you?

“I was thinking about my dad. He's suuuper single. It’s like chronic at this point. I keep telling him to put himself out there again - Mom wouldn't have wanted him to stay lonely and celibate forever after she’s gone. Plus, he needs someone to distract him from his weird-ass hobbies.”

“I see. Well, it's nice of you to think of me, but-”

“You're taken, aren’t you?” she said despondently. “I should have guessed.”

“Not ‘taken’ as such, not officially, I mean.”

Disappointment turned to sympathy (or was it pity?)

“I get it,” she said solemnly. “Your heart's taken. The guy is just slow on the uptake, right? They always are.”

“Something like that.” You didn't know what else to say, so you fixed all your attention on the stitches you were making.

“Hurts though, huh? Unrequited love.”

“Thought I was the medical professional here, yet you're diagnosing me.”

She shrugged.

“I'm a doctor's daughter. The skills must be genetic.”

You wanted to ask more about her family’s medical lineage, but she was clearly much more interested in talking about you.

“So, tell me, what's the guy like? Is he hot? He better be, to deserve a chance with someone like you. Is he older? Younger? How did you meet him?”

You felt strangely compelled to answer, as if you were one of her college friends and you were cosied up in a dorm room together, gossiping about crushes. You missed that. What was the harm in playing along? You’d keep things professional; just give her enough details to whet her appetite.

“Yes. He's hot. Gorgeous, actually. He’s older, but not by much, I don't think. And…” Brace yourself, Josie; here comes the juiciest slice of gossip. “We met at work.”

She squealed. “He works here?! Get it, girl. A workplace romance, I love that for you. Do you get steamy in the call room? Wait - was there some professional rivalry? A clash over a patient’s case that boiled over? Enemies to lovers, that kind of thing?” Her eyes brightened. “Ooooh! Is he here today? I bet I can work out who he is-”

Thank God Jack wasn’t working today. There was a good chance Josie would still be around at shift change, and you wouldn’t hold up a straight enough poker face to not give the game away.

“I really don't think-”

“Is everything OK in here?”

Of course, Robby would pick this precise moment to do his rounds. You collected yourself and gave him a smile, putting back on your ‘I’m-a-very-professional-doctor-who-definitely-wasn’t-gossiping’ voice.

“Joise, this is Doctor Robinavitch, Chief Attending Physician here in the ED.”

The girl gave him a wave and looked him up and down. “Clock it. I'm honoured… Chief.”

Her sarcasm made it evident that, for whatever reason, Robby didn’t impress her much.

You soldiered on, giving Robby a quick rundown of Josie’s injuries and proposed treatment. “I'm just finishing up the stitches on her calf now, and then we'll get the wound properly dressed and arrange for an ankle boot and some crutches.” You handed Robby the iPad so he could glance over the test results. “There was nothing abnormal in bloods or the CT-”

“Not pregnant, praise be,” Josie cut in, pointing her fingers to the sky.

“- And the fainting spell appears to be a one-off, likely brought on by overexertion in the heat and not drinking enough water.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I won’t be forgetting my Stanley cup again.”

Robby smirked and nodded at you, agreeing with your prognosis, then handed back the tablet. He peered at your almost finished sutures, and you couldn’t help but feel proud of your work.

“Perfection, as always,” Robby said. “You know, I still have that tear in my jacket if you ever feel like -”

You rolled your eyes dramatically. “In your dreams, manchild.”

Robby chuckled. “Was worth a shot.” He turned to Josie. “You got someone to take you home?”

“Why, are you offering?” she said glibly.

Thankfully, Robby just gave her the silent treatment, accompanied by his trademark look of disappointment over the rims of his glasses until the girl caved.

“My dad,” she mumbled, picking at her stick-on nails. “I wish he was here already.” Her lip wobbled, and tears were near.

“He will be soon, I’m sure. I bet he’s speeding down the highway as we speak. And he’s not going to believe the picture you took earlier is actually your leg when he sees how good the after looks.”

Josie saw right through what you were doing, but gave you a soft smile regardless.

“I'll leave you to finish up,” Robby said, tucking his glasses into his jacket pocket. And then he was gone.

“Is that him?” Josie asked eagerly when the coast was clear. “The guy you have a crush on?”

“No! No. He's my boss - He’s…he's not good with commitment,” you added, feeling a bizarre need to over-justify why you weren’t attracted to a man who felt more akin to your benevolent yet complicated uncle, yet you somehow were attracted to his pseudo brother in arms, who was almost exactly the same age.

“I get it. Those types of guys are the worst,” she agreed. “Great for a bit of fun though…”

Thankfully, you had just tied off the final stitch.

“Okaaay, I'm all done here, so I’ll grab a nurse to dress the wound and head out to find those crutches and ankle boot I’ve been promising.”

-

You checked back in soon after, wielding the spoils of a victorious quest.

“The only crutches left down here were those pink ones covered with stickers,” you explained. “I can get a porter to hunt down another pair from upstairs, but who knows how long that will take. And I figured these would actually kind of suit you, so…”

Josie gave you an eyebrow raise and an ‘I'm too cool to care’ shrug, but you caught her examining the stickers and smiling whilst you booted her up.

You helped her out of bed and showed her how to situate herself on the crutches, then, once she was more confident, she set off on a practice loop around the ED.

Inevitably, you got pulled away for a few minutes. When you eventually circled back, you found Josie court at the nurse’s station.

“Hey Doc! I’m getting the hang of things, look!”

She hopped towards you a few metres, then stopped in her tracks, noticing someone enter the ED through the doors behind you. Her face lit up with childlike joy, and she transformed into a little girl right before your eyes.

“Daddy! You're here!”

You could feel your heart glow warm inside your chest. Happy reunions were your favourite part of the job.

So why did the nurses look like they'd seen a ghost?

You spun around in time to watch Josie hop past you and throw herself into her father's arms.

Jack Abbot’s arms.

Josie told you she was a doctor's daughter. But never did you think it was that doctor.

“Hey sweetie, they patched you up good, huh? How are you feeling?”

“I feel great; everyone has been so nice.”

Jack looked over his shoulder at the staring crowd. It had grown. Robby and Dana were both looking at him expectantly now, too, eyebrows raised, arms folded.

“You didn't tell him, did you?” Jack said to Josie.

She shrugged. “They never asked.”

Jack presented her to the group. “This is my daughter, everyone,” he said proudly, with a tinge of defensiveness. “I will not be taking any further questions until I get the rundown on her care,” he added firmly. “Besides, I'm sure you all have plenty of patients to be seeing too.”

He turned to Josie. “Who was your doctor, sweetie?”

“That would be me,” you volunteered.

Jack's relief was palpable. Which made you feel a little giddy.

“I knew it. Those stitches are damn perfect. Seamstress perfect.”

You showed Jack Josie’s test results (noting that Josie didn't mention not being pregnant this time around) and walked him through your recommendations for Josie’s care over the next few weeks, doing your best to treat Jack like any other concerned father, despite the fact you knew he knew everything you would say before you said it. But he listened intently, stepping into his role as Josie’s Dad, not her doctor.

“So, I have every confidence Josie will make a full and speedy recovery. She’ll be back to her cheer squad in no time.”

“I keep telling her cheer squad is damn dangerous,” Jack muttered.

You and Josie looked at each other and rolled your eyes. Josie opened her mouth to chastise him, but you got there first.

“Look who’s talking,” you snorted. “The pom poms are damn sight safer than ‘gun guns’.”

Josie guffawed, and Jack smirked, taking a step closer, honing all his attention on you.

“Is that so?” he said, folding his arms, as if he thought accentuating his devastatingly gorgeous biceps would throw you off your game. Not this time.

You hummed. “I was head of my cheer squad in college, you know,” you boasted.

He cocked his head slightly, and his eyes swept up and down your body – fleeting, but obvious. It made you want to be daring.

“You picturing me in a short skirt, Abbot?”

The corner of his mouth quirked, but he didn’t take the bait.

“Just surprised, that’s all…”

“Oh really? And why is that?” you teased. “What about me doesn’t scream cheerleader to you?”

The tete-a-tete between you continued. You were completely oblivious to the world, as you always were when Jack’s eyes were yours for any amount of time, no matter how short. For a few short golden minutes, you and Jack were wrapped up as a pair and tied together with a bow.

So, you didn't notice Josie hovering in the background, watching her dad flagrantly flirt and listening to you laugh and putting two and two together. You didn't hear her jaw hit the floor when she came to her final realisation.

She taped her crutches to the floor, popping the bubble you and Jack shared.

“I told you I'd work it out!” she cried with jubilant smugness. “The guy you've got a crush on is my dad.”

------