finn

“Was never too good with cars myself. Harold did all the fixin’ when he was still around. You got somewhere to be?”

“Job interview,” you mumble, the leather digging into your brow; you’re trying not to focus on the sweat soaking through your best shirt, or your growing anxiety over your fast-approaching interview time. Donna shifts the basket to her other hip.

“Could try callin’ on Bucky. He works at Rogers’ garage down on Miner Street. It’s Sunday, so he should be home.”

Your forehead peels away from the sticky wheel. “Who’s Bucky?”

Donna nods toward the other side of the park. “Bucky Barnes. White trailer with the boots lined up all neat outside the door.”

“Have I met him?”

“Doubt it,” she replies. “He works mean hours, leaves before sun up, comes back when it’s dark. But he’s always ready to help a neighbor out when he’s here. Real sweet guy.”

You blow a stray hair out of your eyes. “You think he can fix whatever’s wrong with my car?” you ask, your doubt as strong as your hope.

Donna smiles like she knows something you don’t. “Bucky can fix anythin’ he gets his hands on.”

You turn in your seat, spotting the white trailer with the boots out front. It looks devoid of life, like it was plopped onto that spot of land by a strong gust of wind rather than by human design. The curtains are drawn, vines creep up the paneling, the gate on the far side of the yard swings in the breeze, but there’s a rusting brown pickup parked in front of it. Promising enough.

“Okay,” you say. “Bucky Barnes. Mechanic. Got it.”

“Good luck,” Donna says with a grin, tapping your arm before walking away.

You step out into the scorching heat of the late July afternoon and make your way across the park, stepping over discarded children’s toys and overgrown flower beds. As you near the trailer, you see the pairs of boots your neighbor spoke about lined up with military precision, all well worn but still taken care of, not a speck of dust or dirt on them, which is rare in a place like this.

You knock three times on the plain brown door before taking a step back, holding your breath. Grasshoppers hum, the wind whips; you don’t hear anything inside the home for an agonizing amount of time, enough time to double the sweat pooling on your lower back. You’re about to try knocking again when the door finally creaks open.

Out steps a mountain of a man.

Big arms and bigger shoulders, broad chest and long, thick legs. He wears boots identical to the ones outside, blue jeans that are in desperate need of a wash, and a black henley that offers an intimidating glimpse into what those arms are capable of. His dark hair is a mess on top of his head, sticking up in all different directions, and underneath it is a face so unexpectedly handsome, you’re not sure how it ended up in a rundown park like this instead of somewhere on a billboard advertising cologne. Sun-kissed, weathered, and deadly serious, but striking in a way you could never forget, triggering a blush on your already flushed cheeks. And then you meet his eyes: electric blue and narrowed at you under furrowed brows, raising the hairs on the back of your sweaty neck.

“Can I help you?” he grunts, voice low and gravely. It scrapes against your spine.

“Hey,” you say quickly with a 1000-watt smile, showing off your nerves. “Hi. Uh, Bucky, right? I’m your neighbor. I live—“ You hook your thumb over your shoulder. “—back that way. The one with the pink door. Um…I was hopin’ you could help me out. My car, it’s — well, it won’t start. Makes a clickin’ noise every time I try turnin’ it over. Donna said you’re a mechanic and might be able to help.”

His expression doesn’t change. He stares unblinkingly at you.

“I, um—,” you can feel yourself faltering, your heart rate rising as the seconds tick by, “I don’t mean to barge in on your Sunday, but I’m pretty desperate. I have an interview in, like, twenty minutes, and I really need this job. Do you think you could take a quick look?”

He eyes you up and down, assessing. You try not to smile wider in case it leans too close to deranged. “You live here?” he demands. You nod.

“Moved in about a month ago. Sorry we’re only meetin’ now, I should’ve introduced myself sooner.”

You offer your name and stick out a hand. Bucky ignores this, staring past you in the direction of your trailer. You watch as his eyes narrow, like he’s weighing the honesty of your words.

“Look, I can pay you, if that hel—“

“Is it the little silver thing?” he cuts you off.

Your lips part. “Uh, yes. Yeah.”

Bucky grunts and turns back inside, shutting the door behind him. The shock of it leaves you frozen in place, reeling, until he reemerges as fast as he left, carrying a toolbox half the size of you; he holds it easily in one hand like it weighs nothing, but you can hear the stock of heavy tools clanking around inside.

“Let’s go,” he mutters, stepping past you. You struggle to keep up with him as he stalks toward your car, like a man on a mission that he’s already running late for. You sneak glances at him while trying not to trip on the cracked walking path, noting the faded scars on the back of his hands, the ticking jaw underneath his beard, and the very tip of a dark tattoo peaking out from beneath his collar. A feeling churns in your gut.

Everything about him screams rough. Rude. Even potentially dangerous — from his imposing figure, to his curt words, he seems like the furthest thing from what you would call ‘sweet.’

But regardless of Donna overselling his altruism, beggars can’t be choosers, and you’ll call him sweet all day long if it gets you to your interview on time.

Bucky lets out a heavy breath when he sets the toolbox down next to your car. He nods at you.

“Try it again,” an order, not a request.

Your limbs twitch into action like a bee flew under your skirt. Sliding into the hot leather seat, you turn the key in the ignition and are met with the same low ticking noise from before. The lights flicker on your dashboard in protest.

“Terminal clamp.”

You jump, finding Bucky almost cheek-to-cheek with you while he leans through the open door. He’s close enough for you to smell dirt, sweat and something heavier on him.

“Shit,” you hiss in surprise, but he’s already pulling away and moving toward the front of the car.

“Pop it,” he calls out.

You exhale slowly and do as you’re told. Sweet, your ass. Bucky lifts the hood and locks it in place before bending over the hot engine, pushing up the sleeves of his shirt.

You step out of the car, hovering near the door but craning your neck to watch. “Terminal clamp?” you repeat.

Bucky takes a moment to respond, long fingers moving deftly through the cables and wires and plugs and bolts. He unscrews something, and steam leaks out.

“On your battery,” he grunts. “The part that connects it to the wires. It’s rusted down. Look.”

He beckons with two oily fingers crooked in your direction. It’s borderline crass, and you find yourself hurrying over without argument. Bucky’s mouth is set into a hard line as he watches you gaze down at the engine, looking without really seeing.

“There,” he points impatiently to a black box near the front. Your eyes catch on the rust growing over the top of it.

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he imitates you, high-pitched and sharp; your eyes snap back to him. He’s clearly not amused by your answer. “When was the last time you had your battery checked?”

“Haven’t had the time lately,” you answer, crossing your arms indignantly over your chest.

“Your daddy don’t check it for ya?” he prods, wiping his hands on the back of his jeans before opening his tool box. Irritation rears up inside fo you. Something about his tone, bitter and mocking, makes you think about hitting him over the head with one of his wrenches.

“My daddy hasn’t been sober enough to tell a battery from a brick since 2009,” you snap.

Bucky pauses while rifling through his tools, but only for a moment. “Batteries need replacin’ every four years. How old’s this one?”

You chew your lip, still thinking about the wrench. Bucky pulls out a small metal plate and a brand new cord, along with a screwdriver that looks like it’s seen better days. When he turns to you, his eyebrows lift expectantly.

“It’s…old,” you relent. Bucky snorts and leans over the car again.

“Define ‘old’ to me, princess.”

A zip of electricity runs down your spine at the pet name, angry and hot. “I don’t know,” you grumble. “It came with the car and I bought it five years ago. And don’t call me princess.”

A ghost of a smirk crosses his face. “Whatever you say, kid.”

You glare at him while he unscrews the rusted plate from the battery. Despite your growing frustration, and the nearing interview time, and the heat pressing down on you from all sides, you quickly become entranced with the way his hands move expertly with the replacement parts. It’s obvious he’s well-versed with the inside of a car.

“This will hold for a few days,” Bucky says, attaching the new cord to the engine. “But you need a new battery. Forget it, and you’ll be needin’ a new car. Am I makin’ myself clear?”

Something about the sternness in his voice creates a pressure on your chest that feels foreign and strange. “Yeah, new battery, got it,” you mumble.

He glances at you but says nothing, screwing in the clean plate. As he finishes up his work, you look back at your trailer, the paint on the front door peeling, the screens torn in most of the windows. You clear your throat. “Donna says you fix a lot of stuff for the folks around here,” you begin. Bucky makes a noise of acknowledgement. “You ever, uh…fix any showers?”

He pauses to look back at you, blue eyes sharp. “That a line?”

“What? No!” you sputter, cheeks on fire. “No, it’s — my shower pressure. It’s shit, it’s…not a pick up line. I’m askin’ if you can fix that, too.”

He grunts, satisfied with his finished product, and closes the hood with a snap. You step back, watching as he tosses the screw driver back into the box and wipes his hands on his jeans again. When he turns to you, his face is closed off, stoic.

“I’m busy,” he says, blunt and to the point. The rejection stings like a child daring to touch the point of a needle for the first time — sharp and surprising and oddly shameful. The embarrassment pulls your eyes away.

“But if I find some time, I’ll let you know.”

His gaze is steady and unreadable when you meet it again. You nod quickly.

“That’d be amazing,” you gush, hands clasped together, “thank you—“

“I haven’t even fixed it yet, save your thanks,” he cuts you off.

“Still,” you reply, taking a step toward him, “I’d owe ya big time. Oh, you’d be doin’ me a huge favor ‘cause I need all the help I can get on this place—“

“What’d I just say, kid?” He glares are you, hands on his hips. “Now go on before you start wastin’ any more of my time,” he snaps, jerking his chin toward the car. You hesitate with your hand on the door, the smile on your face flickering doubtfully.

“Is it…safe?” you ask slowly.

Bucky scowls, mean and dark. “Don’t insult me.”

That gets you scampering into the seat. You twist the key, and after a breathless moment, the engine roars to life, the vents blasting you with hot air, but air nonetheless. You let out a whoop and pat the steering wheel proudly, the hope creeping back in. When you look out the windshield, you see Bucky’s already packed up his tool box and is making his way back to his trailer.

“Hey!” You scramble out of the car. “Hey, wait!”

He doesn’t turn around, just lifts his free hand over his head.

“Thank you!” you call out. He doesn’t respond. You watch him as he rounds his truck and disappears into his home. Then your phone buzzes.

“Shit—“

You’re peeling out of the park in seconds, leaving behind a cloud of dust and two blue eyes that watch you go from the safety of his trailer.

You take the keys out of the ignition and lean back in your seat, the smile on your face still as big as it was when the owner announced you got the job. In that moment, it was like the sun had broken through the clouds after years of rain.

It isn’t anything special, just a serving job at one of the many roadside diners in this small town, but what it stands for is more than you’ve had most of your life. Independence, stability, roots — everything you’ve been chasing after for the last few years now finally within your reach. No longer are you relying on the kindness of so-called friends that kick you out when it becomes inconvenient for them, or the generosity of low-life boyfriends that expect indentured servitude for a bed to sleep in; no longer are you couch surfing your way down highway 70, wondering what your next meal is going to cost you, or if your mother will pick up the phone when you’re too low on cash for gas. Just by getting the job, by finding your own little place to call home, you’ve broken free of the chains that have held your pitiful family lineage captive for years.

That’s worth celebrating.

You grab the six pack off the passenger seat before climbing out of the car. Thankfully, the evening air is much cooler now, and settles gently on your skin. Crickets chirp their congratulations, the breeze pats your back, and the light left on inside your trailer welcomes you home.

You sigh as you take it in, a soft smile on your face. Just this morning, you found the peeling front door, weedy garden and crooked paneling daunting; now it looks like a project you want to dive headfirst into, an opportunity to create something beautiful out of nothing, much like your own life.

You’ve got one foot on the steps when the wind grabs your attention. The large oak tree in the middle of the trailer park groans as it shifts, and you glance back to watch the leaves sway in the dusk, shadowed and haunting in a strangely beautiful way, until your gaze catches on a patch of light just beyond it. The white trailer with the boots out front has its curtains open now, and you watch as a shadow passes across a window.

Bucky.

The pressure returns to your chest tenfold, the same as before. Because of him, you get to cheers to a new life with a cold beer on your ratty little couch, and he walked away without so much as a thank you…

You adjust your grip on the six pack when you make your decision, sudden but resolute, and you’re crossing the park before you can think twice about it. A reward is reaped better with others.

As you approach, the shadows in the windows become clearer; wide shoulders, strong arms, big hands that set a mug on a shelf. Your breath goes a little shallow remembering how he towered over you. Stepping up the path, you watch as he pauses in front of the window, as still as a deer in headlights. Your knuckles just meet the door when the light inside flicks off.

You blink, eyes darting back to the window. The trailer is now dark. You can’t see inside, can’t spot movement — it’s pitch black where his figure was, where he stopped in front of the window right as you walked up…

You knock anyway. The beer bottles are cold against the skin of your leg as you wait, condensation dripping down your ankle. But the light doesn’t turn back on and you don’t hear weight shifting over cheap flooring. The crickets that sounded so nice before start to mock you the longer you stand there. You count to ten before trying again, a light rap on the wood.

Nothing.

Your heart sinks before you can stop it, the feeling painful and confusing. You bite down on your lip hard enough to draw blood, cheeks blazing in the soft light of the moon, then set the six pack in front of his door.

Bucky’s lights do not turn on when you make it back to your trailer, and they’re still not on when you spare one last glance out the window. The beers sit untouched on his front step.

Embarrassment courses through you like a summer fever, hot and alive and consuming. It eats away at all of the previous joy from your new job, and that bothers you more than you care to admit.

With a shake of your head, as if to clear the feeling out, you toss the keys on the counter and move to your tiny bathroom to turn on the shower. The nozzle sputters twice before the bare minimum drizzles out. You’re reminded of how you asked Bucky to fix it, the cryptic response he gave you, and how you nearly melted in response — the heat floods back to your face.

You really wish you kept those beers.

When the dried sweat has been scrubbed from your skin, and you’ve pulled on the softest sleep clothes you own, your mind has officially moved from denial to bargaining.

Donna said Bucky works brutal hours — maybe he has a strict sleep schedule. Like he can’t function unless he gets a full eight hours. Maybe it’s a ‘no visitors, lights off by nine on weeknights’ kind of thing. That makes sense for a fully grown man to have…right?

The reasonings filter through your head long after you’ve crawled into bed, some more believable than others. Eventually you decide that you just caught him at a bad time, and that it had nothing to do with him possibly seeing you through the window.

You’ll run into Bucky and explain the beers left on his door step; he’ll explain that he was tired, or he was busy, or something else completely normal and valid, and whatever lingering feelings you have over the whole thing will dissolve into nothing. Maybe you’ll crack a joke, maybe he’ll actually smile. Maybe the ice breaks and you’ll have another neighbor to call a friend in this new home.

You tell yourself this over and over until your restless mind finally fades to black.

You rise with the sun the next morning for your first shift. Your head is pleasantly empty of last night’s internal discourse, and you take it as a good sign.

Breakfast is pitiful — coffee and toast — but you’re too nervous to fill your uneasy stomach with more. When you pull on your uniform and spin every which way in the cracked bathroom mirror, though, the nervousness begins to fade. The dress is threadbare and half a size too big, but the color compliments your skin and emphasizes how bright and giddy your eyes are, bringing a light to your face that you haven’t seen in years. That tattered hand-me-down is a beautiful gateway opening up to a better future, a real future. You already love it.

When it’s time to go, you step out into a quiet, windless morning that promises to be a scorcher later. As you toss your purse into the passenger seat, you hear the rumbling of an old engine approaching, growing louder by the second. A familiar brown truck with the windows rolled down pulls up to the exit, just a few yards from where you stand.

Bucky sits in the driver’s seat, sporting an off-white t-shirt and dark sunglasses. He adjusts the radio, touches the rearview mirror, and pushes his shades up his nose before glancing up. Even behind the tinted lenses, you know that he sees you, and your heart nearly jumps out of your chest. But you still manage a smile, lifting your hand in a small wave.

He stares at you, an immovable statue except for his fingers white-knuckling over the wheel. A moment passes that feels like both a millisecond and a lifetime. You wonder if you should say something. But before you can, he looks away, the truck roaring once more as he eases out of the lot and into the street like he never saw you.

You watch his taillights drop beyond the horizon, your stomach dropping with them. The blatant dismissal sinks in, heavy and cutting, and it brings back all of the embarrassment from the night before. You fight desperately against a few angry tears stinging your eyes, but the hum of your fully-functioning engine does nothing to drown out the ringing in your ears.

You’re not sure which is worse: him ignoring you, or your reaction to him ignoring you.

You’ve dealt with disregard your entire life. Your childhood is a treasure trove of disappointment and neglect, carelessness and chaos, all of it later contributing to your steel-thick skin and low expectations of others. So you’re not sure why a stranger is affecting you like this — and a surly, intimidating stranger at that.

But something about him actively choosing to pretend you don’t exist presses on a bruise you’ve had covered for years. It rattles you more than anything.

Hands shaking, you put the car into drive.

The journey to the diner passes in a blur as you kick yourself mentally for the weakness. Your biggest mistake is that you went to him when you were too vulnerable — you were practically cracked wide open with need, and all it took was a helping hand for him to slip past your usual defenses. Were the sharp edges and sharper tongue not obvious red flags? What is it about Bucky that made you assume so quickly that he would be your friend? You taught yourself much better than that.

Despite the evidence, at the root of you, you refuse to accept it. Bucky’s lack of reaction was completely out of sorts; you know he’s far from friendly, but to completely ignore you is crazy work. So crazy that it just doesn’t make sense. There has to be some explanation for it, other than the obvious.

But unlike last night, your brain draws a blank on reasons for his behavior.

By the time you make it to the diner, you’re determined to figure this out. You need to see him again, to create an opportunity for an olive branch, and to learn if he’ll take it.

You get your first chance less than a week later, when you’re headed toward the mailboxes before the sun’s fully risen. You see a hulking figure already in front of them that you recognize right away. Bucky’s distracted while rifling through his mail, looking disheveled but still undeniably handsome in the pink light; he even looks relaxed, for once, instead of his usual guarded attitude.

“Good morning,” you say, smiling as you open your mailbox.

He tenses as he turns your way, shoulders taut and face creased. His jaw works as he stares you down, like he’s considering words and biting back the harsher ones. But instead of saying what’s on his mind, he grunts, short and crude, before turning on his heel and walking away. Your eyes follow him as he returns to his trailer and slams the door shut. It scares a flock of birds out of a nearby tree.

You stand there with a hand on the mailbox, jaw agape. The message couldn’t be any clearer. But for some reason, you shut your mouth with a snap and stand straighter, determined. His petulant, teenage antics are not enough to get you to throw in the towel yet.

So you try harder. You learn that you both leave the park around the same time, and when his truck rumbles past you, you wave, even if he isn’t looking at you (in a very obvious way.) You don’t care. You still try. He never waves back or throws you any acknowledgment, although you would bet your life on him seeing you each time, and eventually he starts leaving earlier, truck already missing from its spot when you’re headed to your car.

On the few days you’re both not working, you often see him mowing his lawn, mending his fence or washing his truck, domestic things that may trick passerby into thinking he’s a normal, pleasant guy. You fall victim to it as well, even knowing what you know, and head over with the intention of trapping him in a conversation. But as soon as you get remotely close to Bucky’s property, he mysteriously disappears, leaving you to feel like you just saw a ghost rather than your very alive neighbor.

You still don’t give in, but he continues to make it harder. When your car pulls up next to his at a red light, he’s theoretically interested in the SUV in front of him. When you’re passing out day-old pies from the diner to the neighbors, he doesn’t answer the door even though you can hear the TV on inside. When you’re taking a stroll around the park and he’s headed your way, he turns around and walks in the opposite direction.

Frustrating is the politest way you can describe him, but your mind can’t seem to take the hint.

Until the delusion crumbles when you least expect it. You’re bone-tired after your shift, and even your purse full of tips can’t ease the pain from your back. Pulled up to your trailer, you notice a group of three people slowly making their way across the park. One quick look tells you it’s the Markhams, stooped and gray-haired, shuffling down the pathway, and in between them is none other than Bucky, carrying a dozen grocery bags on each arm that you know aren’t his.

You watch as he leans down toward Mrs. Markham, listening to something she says, and your eyes go wide when he throws his head back in a laugh, pure joy lighting up his face. The sound creeps into your car, oozing warmth and light that is at odds with the Bucky you know. Mr. Markham adds a comment that gets him laughing harder, lines crinkling around his eyes, nose scrunching up in delight. You greedily take in this new side of him while your stomach roils with something bitter and nauseating.

So the sweet side of Bucky does exist. You’re watching it in real time as he helps his elderly neighbors with their groceries, chuckling in amusement as they banter back and forth. He holds the door open for them, too, even with his arms full, making sure they cross the threshold safely before letting the door fall shut behind him.

This must be the Bucky that Donna spoke about. The Bucky that everyone but you, apparently, gets to see.

The realization settles inside of you like an anvil dropping from the sky. So it’s just you that he doesn’t like. It’s just you that he can’t bear to be a neighbor to.

Occam’s Razor strikes again.

You move mechanically out of your car and into your home, your body carrying you through the motions while your brain twists itself up into a painful knot. You comb through everything you did and said that Sunday afternoon when he fixed your car; did you offend him? Did you push an unknown boundary? Did you ask for too much? Did you say too little? Were you too loud or too quiet? Too slow to thank him for his help?

Yes, you snapped a few times, but you only ever matched his energy, and everything about him implied that he can take as good as he gives. So what happened? What did you do? Why is your neighbor so unconcerned with whether you live or die?

Whatever the reason, it’s done its damage. Bucky wants nothing to do with you, and that seems to be the way it is.

Later that night, when sleep evades you, and you’ve tossed and turned for hours on end, a terrible loneliness creeps in for the first time since you arrived at the trailer park. It’s familiar in the worst way, reminding you of all the horrible people you met and all the shitty pit stops you made on your journey here. You thought you left that feeling behind — you thought wrong.

It follows you around for the next few days, leaving you hollow and numb. You’re on autopilot most of the time: you smile at customers and make conversation with the neighbors, you gossip with your coworkers and play with the children next door. But it’s constantly there in the back of your mind, like a memory you can’t erase, and when you’re alone in your little home, you feel it wrap around you like a straight jacket.

You’re lonely. And Bucky’s indifference toward you brought it front and center. For you, companionship had always been fleeting and one-sided, transactional at best. You’d had enough of it to the point that companionship was something you began to avoid, even when it promised a warm bed and a free meal. You thought a place to call your own and a means to support yourself were enough to keep the grass greener on your side. Now a stranger who sees nothing to gain by being your friend has reminded you that you’ve never had anyone in your life that wanted to be there just because.

The grass slowly withers away to a dry, lifeless brown.

You think you’re hiding it well, but Donna asks about it when July has rolled into a rainy August.

“How’ve you been, hun?” she says around her cigarette, pushing back one of the many hairs falling out of her clip. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I’ve been pickin’ up more shifts,” you reply automatically, pulling roughly on the broken piece of siding. Donna watches as you struggle with it, leaning against the far side of the trailer.

“You’re gonna work yourself into an early grave if you keep that up. You leave at dawn and don’t come back ‘til dusk seven days a week. Young thing like you needs time to herself.”

“I’m tryin’ to save up,” you grunt, snapping the siding in half. The part connected to your trailer swings down dejectedly. You look her way. “In case you haven’t noticed, this place is fallin’ apart, and it takes money to put it back together.”

She hums, tapping the ashes from her cigarette. “Why don’t you just ask Bucky for help?”

You pause from picking up the broken pieces of siding in the grass. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t wanna bother him,” you grumble, avoiding her eyes.

“Oh, please — Bucky would be happy to help.”

“Are you sure about that?” A sudden hint of irritation in your tone. Donna stands up straighter.

“Whaddya mean?” she asks, eyebrows raised. “Something happen?”

You shake your head quickly. “No, there’s not — no. He just seems really busy, that’s all. No use askin’ for his time when he doesn’t have any.”

There’s a brief silence as Donna considers your words. “Something happened,” she repeats. You toss your head, eyes narrowing in her direction, but she keeps going. “Did he say no to fixin’ your car? Or was he mean? Like he’d rather be talkin’ to anybody but you?”

You let out an exhale, long and ragged, and debate answering truthfully.

“Well, yeah,” you admit, “but that ain’t nothin’ I’m not used to. He was actually—“ Your jaw clenches. “He was helpful. Ruder than hell — and bossy, but he got it fixed and told me to get a new battery and stuff. But ever since then…” You trail off, Donna waits. “It’s like he regrets doin’ it. I’ll see him walk by and his eyes pass over me like I’m not even there. I try startin’ a conversation and suddenly he’s got somewhere to be. He’s avoidin’ me, and I don’t know why. I’d be fine with it if I knew what it was, but I got no clue.” Knees in the grass, you watch as a caterpillar crawls over a leaf and onto a piece of siding; you pick it up carefully, watching as the insect runs circles over the plastic, nowhere to go, just as confused as you. “Why’s he like that?”

“Oh, hun,” Donna soothes quietly, stepping closer to your crouched position. “Is that what’s been botherin’ ya? Bucky not bein’ welcomin’?”

“Yes — I mean, no. That’s not what’s botherin’ me, it’s just — it’s hard to explain.” You set the caterpillar down and stand, brushing the dirt and grass from your knees. “And it’s a lot more than just not bein’ welcomin’. I could get hit by a semi right here on Pueblo Street and I don’t think he’d even blink.”

“Now I know that’s not true. What’s goin’ on in that head of yours, sugar?” Donna asks patiently, putting her cigarette out on the broken siding.

You watch the ashes drop to the ground, fragile, crumbling, and still smoking. Your eyes scan the park, naturally pausing over the white trailer with the curtains drawn and boots out front; there’s no truck outside, so he must be working. Yet the empty house still stings a little to look at.

“I thought that the job and movin’ here meant I figured everything out,” you mutter. “Instead an old man decidin’ he doesn’t like me for no reason reminded me that I’m still on my own. I’ve dealt with it my whole life, so I get along just fine by myself, but I’m only human. I still want someone to — to care about me.” You fight through the sudden lump in your throat.

“And Bucky doin’ you a favor brought that up,” Donna confirms. You nod reluctantly.

“Guess so. It was just nice to have someone care, even if he was grumpy as hell about it. Now he pretends I don’t exist and I keep rememberin’ all the times I thought I found someone who cared, only for them to just—“ You flick your hand like you’re waving off a bug, inconsequential yet inconvenient.

“Honey, we care.” Donna wraps an arm around your shoulders, warm and tight, holding you to her. “You got all of us now, and we watch out for each other.”

You open your mouth to point out that one of them does not, but she beats you to it.

“Bucky is a special case,” she sighs. You watch as she gazes at the white trailer, too. “It took him a while to come around to us. He was quiet, kept to himself, coming and going at odd hours…but eventually we wore him down. Kept inviting him in even when we knew he wouldn’t come. Kept offering our help even when we knew he wouldn’t take it. But then he did. I think Bucky was gone for a few days when a big storm came through — a tree fell and knocked out the left side of his trailer, crushed the roof. We got together and started patching it up just as he pulled in. Told us he could handle it but we wouldn’t take no for answer and did it with him anyway. He was real grateful, awfully sweet and apologetic, extra kind to everyone that helped out, but we told him it’s what we do for each other. After that, it was like living next door to a whole new person. I think he just needed to see that we cared for him no matter what, and that we’d be there for him even when things were tough.”

You huff, kicking the dirt at your feet. “Doesn’t explain why he’s got a problem with me. What’s his deal?”

Donna’s hesitant to answer, pulling out another cigarette and lighting it thoughtfully. When there’s a cloud of smoke in the air between you, she says slowly, “He did some time at the state pen.”

Your eyes snap to her, but she shakes her head a little.

“He hasn’t said much, but from what I gathered, Bucky lost more than just his freedom when they handed him his sentence. Family don’t bother with him anymore, told him as much when he was paroled, and he had no choice but to make do alone somewhere else. That can mess a person up, make them suspicious of others, make them think bein’ alone’s the only way to go about this life.” She looks at you then, a soft smile on her lips. “Sounds like someone else I know.” Her words feel like a sucker punch to your gut, but she waves a hand at you. “That’s all I’ve got, though, so if you’re curious about it, you’ll need to ask him.”

You chew the inside of your cheek, replaying the story, picturing Bucky in an orange jumpsuit behind bars. For some reason, the image seems wrong, but your curiosity begins to burn.

“I doubt I’ll get the chance,” you mumble.

“Give it some time,” Donna chirps. “He’ll come around. But you—“ She wraps a thin hand around your wrist, squeezing with intention. “—next time you’re feelin’ a little too sorry for yourself, you come find me. By the time I’m done with you, you’re gonna be beggin’ for some alone time.”

A smile reluctantly breaks across your face, the first genuine one in weeks. “Sure, Donna. Thanks.”

You’d think your talk with Donna would help ease Bucky Barnes from your head, but it seems to have the opposite affect.

While your cocktail of emotions towards him has been watered down by Donna’s story, the urge to understand him is stronger than ever.

You still see him occasionally, driving past in his truck, stalking toward the mailbox, trudging around his yard; you pick up where you left off with your routine, waving and smiling and wishing him a good morning even when he’s already halfway across the park. Nothing changes in his attitude toward you, but it only makes you more curious.

Between grueling ten-hour shifts at the diner, you capitalize on a specific tidbit you learned from Donna, how the neighbors’ generosity got Bucky to crack. You know you have better things to do than trying to win over someone who doesn’t want to be won over, but your stubbornness has always gotten the best of you in your weaker moments.

You choose to act when he isn’t home, aiming to lessen the pressure instead of amping it up. You spend an entire day baking ten dozen cookies for the neighbors and make sure to leave a few at his door with a note to come by if he wants more (he doesn’t). You suffer through sunburn and dehydration while sweeping the entire walking path around the park, paying special attention to Bucky’s portion so that the dust doesn’t settle over his boots. You sprint through a downpour to pull his clothes off the line, covering your trailer in his shirts and jeans and — gulp — underwear to air dry before folding them up carefully and delivering them to his front step in your laundry basket once the sky’s cleared up.

It’s waiting for you outside your door the next morning as you’re leaving for work. No note, no sign of a thanks. You blink when you see it, wondering how he knew it was your laundry basket in the first place.

Still, nothing changes. You try really hard not to obsess over it. And life moves on as usual.

One Friday afternoon, you find yourself sitting in a cheap folding chair next to a handful of your neighbors; they caught you after a slow shift when your social battery hadn’t dropped below empty yet, calling you over with wide smiles like they’ve been waiting hours for you to show. The group is converged in a circle next to the oak tree, passing around beer and flasks of whiskey and shooting the shit. You’ve made quick friends with the girl two trailers down, Wanda, who isn’t much older than you but has a lightness to her that feels like a breath of fresh air. Her husband, who she calls Viz, sits with his arm draped around her shoulders and a look on his face like there’s nowhere else in the world he’d rather be. They ask you how you’re liking the park, how the repairs to your trailer are coming along, how your job is going. You feel a deep sense of gratitude forming the more you speak with them.

Neighbors filter in and out of the group like clockwork as the afternoon sun fades into the evening sunset. If they can’t stop for a drink, they still join in on the conversation, gossiping and commenting on the goings-on in town, or stirring up good-natured trouble before resuming their chores — Donna comes by to threaten you all with the hose if you don’t pick up after yourselves. You’re convinced you’ve met everyone in the park by this point, and you’ll need to make a list to get their names straight, but they all have one thing in common: they’re all pleased that you’re here.

The beer eventually begins to dwindle, but spirits are still high in the circle. Wanda’s in the middle of telling a story about a squirrel that got into the Markhams’ trailer when you hear the deep rumbling of an engine in the distance. Wanda doesn’t seem to notice it, but you know that sound anywhere. Sure enough, Bucky’s brown truck comes up the hill and pulls into the park as Wanda’s imitating Mrs. Markham’s screams from her standoff with the intruder. While the rest of the group roars with laughter, you watch as Bucky parks the truck in front of his trailer and steps out. That’s when Wanda spots him, too.

“Hey, Buck!” she calls out, hands cupped around her mouth.

Bucky turns toward the group, his eyes sweeping across the faces. You swear they pause on you for a half a heartbeat.

“Come join us! We’ve got beer!” Wanda shouts, waving a hand over her head. A few others in the circle add their agreement, ushering him over and shaking their flasks. Bucky stares for another moment, as still as the trees behind him, before turning around without a word and heading for his trailer. The door shuts with a slam. A few grumbles go up around you, but Wanda just shrugs, smiling lopsidedly. “Eh, if I got off work early, I’d probably want some peace and quiet, too.”

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding, a sense of unease tainting the picturesque scene around you. “Does he…do that often?” you ask as casually as you can.

“Get off work early? Never. He works more than anyone I know—“

“No, I mean…” your finger points vaguely in the direction of the white trailer, “does he usually just ignore you when you ask him to hang out?”

She tilts her head, lips curving. “No, he’s usually at these things when he isn’t workin’. But if he’s home already, it probably means he threw out his back or somethin’. I know Steve threatens to fire him if he doesn’t go home and rest when that happens. Leave it to Bucky to take an order that seriously.” She laughs. “I swear those two were soldiers in a past life.”

You nod, your mind already dissecting the new information. He didn’t look like he was hurt…but you remember his eyes resting on you for a beat too long. The beer and whiskey combo in your stomach churns.

You fidget with your drink for the next half hour, barely hearing the conversations around you. An uncomfortable feeling has settled in your chest, tight and anxious, and your racing thoughts do nothing to help it. Finally, you can’t take it anymore, feeling restless and in pursuit of answers. You excuse yourself and head for your trailer, but when you’re far enough from the group, you take the long way around the park to Bucky’s, your heartbeat growing louder with each step.

You knock on the door before you can convince yourself otherwise, listening to the laughter of the circle as you wait. There’s a shuffling on the other side, then a soft grunt, and the door swings open.

Your lips part.

Bucky stands before you in nothing but his blue jeans. Your eyes jump to the wide expanse of his chest, the hard muscles of his abs. A smattering of dark chest hair tapers off down his stomach and disappears into his pants, right below his belt buckle. You forget how to breathe.

He stares down at you while bringing a beer bottle to his mouth and taking a hard swig. A drop of condensation lands on the dip between his collarbones, and your tongue subconsciously darts out to wet your lips. He shifts his weight to lean against the door frame, expression neutral. “What do you want?”

You realize you look like a fish out of water and shut your mouth with a snap, swallowing thickly as you feel an unwarranted heat bloom in your gut.

“Um,” you start, silently cursing the way your voice shakes. “Not sure if you heard Wanda, but we — uh, we were wonderin’ if you wanted to join us. Patrick’s doin’ a run to the liquor store so there’ll be plenty of beer soon. Or we still have some whiskey. Unless you’ve got plans…” you trail off, eyes flicking to his shirtless chest.

Bucky’s face doesn’t change. “Don’t have plans.”

“Then you should drink with us.”

“Not interested.” You blink.

“…why not?”

He shrugs.

“Don’t feel like drinkin’ with company.” He takes another quick sip from his bottle. Your eyes catch on the label and recognize it immediately from your own preferences; when you look back at Bucky, you find him watching you closely, blue eyes hard and unapologetic. You suck in a breath through your teeth, a strange feeling buzzing beneath your skin. Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s the undeniable thrill of seeing him shirtless, but you feel close to exploding.

“Don’t feel like drinkin’ with company, or don’t feel like drinkin’ with me?” you say quietly, eyes ghosting over his frame.

A look crosses his face, something close to bewildered, before he hides it behind his usual expressionless mask. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

You flash him a tight-lipped smile though far from amused. “Sure, like you don’t know.”

“Kid, I don’t have a clue,” he grumbles, though the hand holding the beer bottle twitches.

“Oh, don’t play dumb,” you snap before you can stop yourself, a dangerous flush running through your body, “you know exactly what you’re doin’. What you’ve been doin’ for the last month. Avoidin’ me like I’m the tax man and you’ve got a debt to pay. You don’t like me? Fine. No problem. I don’t need you to be my friend. But I won’t put up with you actin’ like I don’t exist in front of everyone else anymore, and if you keep doin’ it, I’ll make your sad, lonely, little life hell. So just stay away from me and I’ll stay away from you. Got it?”

Your words hang between you for a sour moment, and not even the cheerful sounds of the group can cut through the tension. Your chest heaves as you scowl at Bucky; he scowls right back, though you notice that the tips of his ears have gone a rosy shade of red and his grip on the beer bottle looks close to destructive. Your eyes scan his hardened face one last time before you turn on your heel and kick up a cloud of dust behind you as you march back to your trailer. This time, you slam the door.

Inside the trailer, the urge to throw something, anything, is too strong to ignore. Your vision zeroes in on the laundry basket Bucky returned a few days ago, and you lunge. Taking the cheap plastic in your hands, you hurl it against the floor with all of your strength, gritting your teeth while biting back a scream, watching as it breaks into a hundred different pieces with concerning ease on your linoleum floors. What follows is a silence so bitter, you can taste it in your mouth.

Your temper slowly fizzles out as you absorb the mess you made. You shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have let him get to you again. Now you’ve got a room full of shame and no laundry basket.

Exhaling heavily, you run a hand through your hair while peeking out the window to see if the circle of neighbors heard your crash out. Nobody’s looking your way, thankfully — instead, they’re cheering on Patrick as he emerges from his car with two new cases of beer. A pang of longing hits your chest, but you know you can’t go back out there now, not after this. So you resign yourself to picking up the remains of your laundry basket, piece by piece on your hands and knees until they ache from the pressure and you’ve cut your fingers on the jagged edges.

Later, when you’re nursing a small hangover with a cup of tea and an ice pack on your head, you wait for the regret to sink in over the heated words you threw at Bucky. But, strangely, it doesn’t. Now that the buzz from the alcohol and the leftover anger have vacated your body, you’re left with an odd sense of calm about it.

Sure, you got something off your chest that’s been weighing you down for weeks, but you had truly convinced yourself that you were optimistic over the Bucky situation. You had been foolishly hopeful that you could get through to him. Your outburst said differently. You should feel embarrassed, defeated, tired, but instead you feel…good. You handled it, just like you’ve handled every other hurdle in your life. Maybe not gracefully, but grace has never been your forte, and you don’t really mind.

You only wish that Bucky had shown some sort of reaction to being called out, a protest, a sigh, anything — but the man is as expressive as a bucket of cement. Knowing him, you wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t listen to half the things you said. He probably thought the whole thing was a waste of time, something to forget about as soon as he shut the door…

Doesn’t matter. You’re not going to lose sleep over your emotionally repressed neighbor anymore. You’re not going to spend another second thinking about him.

This turns out to be easier said than done.

You get to enjoy a peaceful week without seeing or thinking about Bucky, until Sunday rolls around. You’re doing laundry, which proves to be harder than usual without a laundry basket, leaving you to juggle armfuls of clothes while trekking back and forth between the park’s shared washing machines and your trailer. While the last of your wardrobe dries on the line outside, you’re moving around your little home in a faded pink tank top and an old pair of some ex’s boxers. The radio plays rock classics while you prep dinner, and you hum along as you man the stove and chop vegetables.

Then a knock interrupts.

You set down the knife and glance out the window, but whoever’s outside is hovering next to the door out of sight. You think it’s Donna, coming by with eggs after she borrowed some from you the other day, but when you open the door, you’re downright shocked to find who’s on the other side.

Bucky stands with one hand against your door frame, the other holding his toolbox, dressed in dirty jeans and a plain black t-shirt that hugs his body in an ungodly attractive way. You take a step back in surprise when his eyes find yours. They’re bright, but guarded. He nods at you.

“You said your shower’s broken,” he says in greeting, voice low like he doesn’t want to be overheard.

Your mouth falls open. “Huh?”

His lips press together in an impatient line. “Your shower. You asked me to take a look at it the other day.”

Your mind feels like an old computer you had to reboot to get working again. You blink at him as it comes back to you.

“Yeah,” you answer slowly, “but that was before.”

He huffs, looking over his shoulder at the park behind him. “You want your shower fixed or not? I got things to do today.”

“Then go do ‘em.” You cross your arms over your chest, trying your best to look down your nose at him while being completely submerged in his shadow.

“Don’t be stupid,” is his retort, “I’m offerin’ you help.”

“Don’t need it. And don’t call me stupid,” you snap.

“You gonna fix the shower yourself?” Bucky challenges, tilting his head at you. You feel heat rush to your cheeks as his eyes sweep up and down your figure, taking in your thin tank top and rolled up boxers.

“Maybe,” you throw at him, though it lacks the previous bite. The corner of Bucky’s mouth curls up.

“Then at least let me watch.”

Your spine locks as a jolt of something new and strange spreads through your body. Your brain decides now is a good time to remember just how attractive he is beneath the oil and dirt and rough demeanor — especially when shirtless.

“That’s — I don’t — you—“ stammers out of your mouth. Bucky responds by pushing past you into your trailer. You stumble into your couch, still struggling for words as he fills your little kitchen with his wide shoulders and long legs, his hair nearly brushing the ceiling. He sets the toolbox down on your table, briefly glancing at your half-made dinner.

“Smells good.”

His gruff tone is a sharp contrast to his casual words. You shake your head, though you feel like you could use a solid smack to the face. “Do you normally go around bargin’ into your neighbors homes?” you ask, slightly breathless. He looks at you, amused.

“When the neighbors are bein’ dumb, yeah. This the bathroom?” He points to the pocket door on his left.

“I told you not to call me—“

“Stupid, I know. I didn’t call you stupid, though.”

Your jaw clenches hard enough to hurt, watching as Bucky pulls open the bathroom door and squeezes into the tiny room like it’s his house. The sound of the shower turning on comes a second later.

“I thought I told you to stay away from me,” you grit through your teeth. “You got a hearing problem, old man?”

From the bathroom, Bucky chuckles, soft and deep. “Old man,” he mutters to himself before shutting the water off and reappearing, eyes pinning you in place. “I can hear just fine. Heard all of your cute little temper tantrum the other day.“

Your entire body flushes against its will. ”Then why are you here?” you demand. Bucky begins rifling through his toolbox.

“You asked me to fix your shower.”

“Yeah, a month ago,” you scoff. “And before I knew how big of an ass you are.” Bucky’s mouth does that half-smile again as he picks up a wrench. It might be the same one you imagined hitting him over the head with.

“That ain’t very nice,” he murmurs, eyes flicking to you. “You hardly know me.”

Your lip curls. “And you don’t know me, but you already decided I wasn’t worth your time.”

He exhales heavily, swapping the wrench for another one and weighing it in his hands. “This again?” But before you can let out the blood-curdling scream that’s been building up inside of you, he sets down the tool and turns your way, shoulders set and face stony. “Look, if I hurt your feelins by not takin’ your invite, then that’s on you. It ain’t personal, neighborhood bondin’s not really my thing as you could probably tell—“

“Unbelievable,” you mutter bitterly, shaking your head. “First of all, I know you’re lyin’ — Wanda said you’re always around when somethin’ is goin’ on. Second, you’re completely missin’ my point.”

“I was gettin’ to it,” he says louder, pointing a sharp finger at you. “But it seems you have a habit of jumpin’ to conclusions before hearin’ a person out.”

“Hearin’ a person out!” you cry, throwing your hands up; the sarcasm drips thick into your tone. “When would I ever be able to hear you out when you walk the other way when you see me comin’?”

He levels you with a hard look, blue eyes burning into yours. Butterflies erupt in your stomach, unwelcome and distracting, but you hold your ground.

“I don’t do friends,” he grunts, “I’m not good at bein’ one and I’m too busy for ‘em anyway. Fixin’ your car that day, I could tell that’s what you were lookin’ for, and I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea in your head.”

You laugh, dry and harsh. “Well, you certainly got your point across, Bucky.” His hand twitches, a quick clench and unclench of fingers; you observe it coolly, eyebrow cocked. “You know, for a guy who “doesn’t do friends,” there are a lot of people in this park who think you do.”

“That’s different,” he’s quick to say, brushing it off, “I’ve known ‘em for years. Thin line between familiar and friends, not my fault if they pick one and I pick the other.”

You scoff.

“Sure, okay. So what happens in, say, five years — when I’m still livin’ across the park from ya?” you ask, taking a bold step forward. “Will I get grandfathered in to your half-assed friendship, or will we still be goin’ at it like this? ‘cause I’m startin’ to think it’s less about you bein’ anti-friends, and more about you not likin’ me.”

“You won’t be here in five years,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “This place ain’t anythin’ more than a pit stop on your way to somethin’ else. You’re young — real young — still got most of your life ahead of you, some great, big future out there somewhere, but it ain’t here. So, no. I don’t think we’ll ever be friends.”

With an inaudible crack, something shifts inside your chest, something heavy and painful as memories of your past flood your thoughts, ruthless and relentless in their intention to hurt. You pull your arms in close to your body, feeling goosebumps on your skin.

“You don’t know anythin’ about me and my future,” you tell him quietly. He shrugs.

“Maybe not, but I know restless when I see it. And I know grit. You’ll want something better eventually, and you’ll go after it.”

The silence that follows is deafening. You look everywhere but him, unwilling to show him just how much his words got to you, but he keeps his eyes steadily on you, unblinking, unwavering, like he’s finally noticed you for the first time and needs to learn everything he can about you in this very moment. Finally, he sighs, running a hand through his thick hair and frowning at the floor.

“But…I think maybe I was…doin’ too much. I didn’t see it that way before, but I do now,” he says, still gruff, but softer now. “Lemme fix your shower. To say sorry for bein’…for bein’ an ass. I know what it’s like to be ignored…and I should’ve realized how things might’ve come across to ya.”

You exhale shakily. So, no. I don’t think we’ll ever be friends. You look away, struggling to separate the sting of his words from the peace offering in front of you.

“Alright,” you relent, packing up the pain and setting it aside. He nods before picking through his toolbox again. You shift your weight, feeling awkward and out of place in your own home. Clearing your throat, you bravely add, “Does this mean I can expect a wave in the mornings?”

Bucky makes a noise in the back of his throat that could pass for a laugh. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself now. Just because I’m sayin’ sorry doesn’t mean I take back what I said about bein’ friends.”

“Yeah. You’re a grumpy old man who likes to be alone. Got it.”

He tosses you a look over his shoulder, equal parts irritated and amused, while you bite your lip to stop yourself from acting on the hurt simmering inside of you. As the fight in you deflates, you take a few careful steps into the kitchen, leaning against the counter as Bucky sorts through a handful of knuts and screws. “So…” you start, searching for a stop to the thoughts inside your head, “what’d you end up doin’ that night?”

“What night?” Bucky grunts.

“The night we were drinkin’.”

He hums, pocketing the screws and picking up a screwdriver. “Finished up a couple projects,” he says slowly. “Got some chores done.”

“Really,” you state, brows furrowed. “Didn’t look like you were up to anythin’.”

He looks at you then and his eyes are unreadable. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you answered the door without a shirt. And you were drinkin’ a beer. The beer I left at your door when you were too scared to answer it, by the way.”

Bucky snorts. “You askin’ for a thanks? I had my head under car hoods all day. I think I deserved a cold drink.”

He turns for the bathroom again; this time, you follow, hovering in the doorway as he starts loosening the shower head from the pipe. “Do you always answer your door halfway to nude, or did I just get lucky that day?”

Bucky laughs, really, truly laughs. Whatever burdened expression you were wearing is wiped clean off your face as you bask in the sound of it.

“It’s called laundry, sweetheart. I smelled like a wet dog on an oil rig after workin’ twelve hours in the heat, and I didn’t care to sit in it any longer.”

“Still,” you mutter, watching as he catches the unattached shower head before it drops to the ground, “you could’ve put on a shirt before greetin’ me like that.”

“Like you’re much better,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at you; again, his eyes rake up and down shamelessly, but this time it feels more concentrated, observant. The blue looks a shade darker than before. You gape at him.

“It’s — well, I’m just—“

“Doin’ laundry?” Bucky supplies quietly. You snap out of it when he turns back to the shower, pulling out his screwdriver.

“Whatever,” you grumble, feeling hot, “just let me know when you’re done.”

You leave him in the bathroom to pick up where you left off chopping vegetables. You should probably have a clearer head when handling a knife, but you’re too riled up to sit still and wait for him to finish. What was that look about? He says he doesn’t want to be your friend, then he stares at you like you’ve got something he wants. Is he waiting for you to snap at him again, or is it something else?

You’re silent while you work, just the radio and the sounds of Bucky working on your shower filling the trailer. Every now and then you’ll hear the water run, or a hushed curse under his breath. You’re just turning off the heat on the stove when he steps out of your bathroom and puts his tools away.

“Pressure’s fine now,” he tells you, snapping the toolbox shut. You turn to him, hands on your hips.

“Mind if I check?” Another half-smile from him as he gestures for you to go ahead. You shuffle past him, brushing his shoulder as you go. You’re shocked to feel how warm he runs, almost hot to the touch; your cool skin begs you to step closer. In the bathroom, you turn the handle and are pleasantly surprised to see water shoot out at a mostly normal rate.

“Nice work,” you call out before turning it off. Bucky’s waiting for you in the kitchen, leaning against the table with his arms crossed and a curious look on his face. “What?” you can’t help but ask, stopping in your tracks.

For the first time since meeting him, Bucky looks slightly put off, like a thought’s crossed his mind that he’s wondering if he should voice aloud. “Are you—“ He clears his throat. “Where were you before this?”

You blink. You haven’t heard that question in a while. “La Junta. But I grew up in Dodge City.”

He nods thoughtfully. “Got family there?”

“Maybe,” you shrug. “Couldn’t tell you where my daddy is. Mom’s got a new boyfriend, don’t know if they moved.”

“What about you? You got a boyfriend?” he murmurs, examining his dirty hands.

“I wouldn’t be askin’ you for help if I did,” you answer, blinking, and you turn back to your food to hide the heat crawling up your face. Bucky hums. Then, to your immense surprise, you hear him ease himself into the tiny chair at your table.

“So you’re on your own,” he comments, as if what he did wasn’t completely at odds with your earlier conversation.

Your shoulders tense instinctively. Well, isn’t this just ironic? The man who made you feel lonely wants to know how lonely you are.

“Could say that,” you respond slowly, “but Donna and the others have been real welcoming. They say the door’s always open.”

You hope he catches the barb in your words, the subtle call out, but Bucky just sighs. “Yeah, they’re like that. Would give you the clothes off their back in the middle of a snowstorm if you needed it. Good people — too good, sometimes.”

“Nobody can be too good,” you say, eyeing him over your shoulder. “I think the world could use a few more people like them.” He meets your gaze before dragging it down your figure again, but it’s softer this time, less analytical and not necessarily uncomfortable. You quickly turn back to the stove. “Didn’t take you as the type to chit chat,” you quip.

“Oh, am I bein’ too friendly now?”

“I thought you got things to do today.”

“I do,” he grunts. “I’ll get to them.”

It hits you suddenly that you’re not sure if you want Bucky to leave yet. When you chance another glance at him, you’re struck with how comfortable he looks sitting there. His broad frame takes up a whole side of the table, and he’s slouched down just enough in the chair with his legs spread wide, like he owns the place, like he knows the inside of your trailer well, like he’s familiar with the way you move around the kitchen.

A teasing smile makes its way onto your face. “If I didn’t know better, it sounds like you’re lookin’ for a friend to pass time with—“

“Don’t be difficult,” he mutters, head tilted as he crosses his arms; his biceps bulge, the golden skin stretching like an invitation for you to touch, taste, bite—

“You sure like givin’ orders, huh?” you remark, matching his stance. Those blue eyes find yours and don’t let go.

“Only when it’s needed,” he says, voice lowering to a pitch that could rumble the floors beneath your bare feet. To your chagrin, it goes straight to your gut, settling there with a deep heat that awakens something inside of you. You scramble to push it down, afraid of the truth showing plainly on your face.

“Bossy,” you mutter under your breath, looking away. Bucky chuckles, somehow making it worse.

“Somethin’ tells me you don’t do well listenin’ to others.”

Your hand tightens over the plate you’re pulling from the cupboard. “Yeah, well. Most people tell you to do things ‘cause it’s better for them, not for you.”

He hums. “You listened pretty well to me.”

Your cheeks flush. “Judgment error,” you mumble.

“Did you get the new battery like I told you to?”

“Uh…” You have the grace to look sheepish because, truthfully, you forgot. You close your mouth before telling him that if he hadn’t completely derailed all of your rational thinking with his avoidant behavior, you’d have remembered.

“I stand corrected,” he mutters, pushing out his chair. Bucky only needs to take two steps until he’s looming over you, pulling out a card from his back pocket. He takes your hand in his and places the card there before his fingers slide to your wrist, gripping tight. “Rogers’ garage on Miner Street. I want you in there this week for a battery change. Unless you’re tryin’ to blow that hunk of junk up.”

You gulp, looking down at where he’s holding you. “I have work,” you whisper.

“After work, then. I’ll be there.” He searches your face, waiting for your confirmation. You nod, but he doesn’t let go. A moment passes where it’s just the two of you breathing along to the soft melody of the radio.

“You’re helping me again,” you blurt. His fingers dig a little deeper into your flesh.

“And?”

You take a steadying breath, your brain picking through your words carefully. “Awfully friend-like, if you ask me—“

Bucky groans, pulling away and leaving sparks along your skin. He picks up his toolbox, giving you a quick glance. He looks like he’s about to say something, and you find yourself desperately wanting to know what it is. But he seems to think better of it and makes for the door, opening it up to the heat of the August evening. His eyes meet yours one last time. “Enjoy your dinner.”

He’s a step out of your trailer when you call his name. He stops immediately, looking over his shoulder. “Thank you,” you say in a rush. “For fixin’ the shower.”

A pause, then, “No problem, kid.” The door swings shut. Through the window you see him traipse across the park and to his truck where he tosses the toolbox into the back, then he disappears into his home. Whatever things he had to do seem to be forgotten. Or nonexistent. A smile curls across your face before you can stop it.

The following weeks feel like a fever dream compared to the last month. You find yourself face-to-face with Bucky a number of times, some by coincidence, some by design.

A quick nod as he drives past you in the morning turns into a quick conversation at the mailbox the next day. It’s mostly you talking, but he stands there nonetheless, listening quietly to your unprovoked story of a difficult customer from the other week. Following that, you bump into him on a walk around the park with Wanda, where he manages to crack a smile when you recount how the little kid next door ran you over with his bike earlier that morning. He makes you promise to treat the patch of road rash on your thigh with rubbing alcohol, warning against infection and causing you to blush like a school girl being told off.

A storm rips through the town later that week, ripping off shingles and felling trees, making the lights flicker uncertainly from time to time as the wind batters the side of your trailer. After the worst of it’s passed, you step outside to assess the damage; you think it’s superficial, nothing that threatens the structural integrity of the outbuilding, but you don’t know the first thing about evaluating storm damage.

Luckily, Bucky materializes out of nowhere like he could read your mind from across the park, offering to check for leaks and punctures that could lead to greater troubles down the road. He claims he does it for all of the neighbors, waving off your word vomit of gratitude with a huff and a scowl, but once again, he either forgets about the others, or those intentions never existed, because when he’s finished fortifying your trailer, he sends you a small salute before crossing the park and disappearing back into his home.

A few days later, you find yourself at the mailboxes with Bucky after he came up behind you with a muttered, “mornin’”, and now he’s listening to you talk about your boss’ erratic revamp of the menu. You manage to pull from him that he’s partial to the danish pastries your diner sells, so you knock on his door later that night with a bag full of them and a smile on your face, watching as the tips of his ears glow bright red when you hand them over. He thanks you in that gruff way of his that doesn’t sound grateful at all, but it’s enough for you.

But to your shock, he repays the favor the next evening.

You’re curled up on the couch with a book, listening to the weak clicks of the AC unit in your window, when you feel your trailer give a sudden lurch. Your glass of water topples off the side table, your basil plant spills into the sink. You’re questioning the probability of earthquakes when it happens again — this time more powerful than the last.

When you open your door, the last thing you’re expecting is Bucky — shirtless again — using a hammer to extract the rotting pieces from the walls of your trailer. You call him crazy — it’s ten o’clock at night and he’s just finished a fourteen-hour shift, after all — but he just grunts and tells you that they were an eyesore, that he was getting too impatient not to do something about them. You’d be offended if your body wasn’t humming with a pleased rush of adrenaline from his attention, however workaround it may be.

You spend the remainder of the evening watching from your open door as he fixes up your little home. Despite the cooler night air, he still gleams with sweat from the effort, and you learn to appreciate this quickly; he looks like trouble and heaven wrapped up in the likeness of God’s surliest angel. By no means are you religious, but all other explanations for how a man that looks like that winds up in your yard seem to defy natural laws. Watching the muscles in his arms ripple as he tears the siding off its hinges, you’re convinced a higher power had to have intervened for this moment to happen.

You’re all too eager to offer him a beer when he finally finishes. He takes it before sitting down wordlessly next to you on your stoop. Then it’s silent except for the crickets and the bullfrogs, but you find it peaceful rather than charged like it usually is between you.

Up close, the tattoo that once teased you that fateful day that you met is on full display. It’s an intricate piece that extends across his back from shoulder to shoulder; black ink curls around three names written in elegant calligraphy: James, Winnifred, and Rebecca. The longer you stare at it, the more your fingers itch with the need to touch it, to trace the whorls from point to point.

You take a large sip of beer for courage.

“What’s this?” you murmur, the tip of your pinky barely grazing the ‘a’ at the end of Rebecca. You feel Bucky tense up beneath your touch, and you know right away that you’ve crossed a line, possibly tearing down what little you’ve built since he fixed your shower. You wait for the blow to come, for the other shoe to drop, for him to stand and leave you all alone in the dark.

But he doesn’t. Instead, Bucky slowly relaxes, muscle by muscle. “My family. I don’t…see them much anymore.”

You let that sink in for a moment. “So you’re on your own,” you comment, using his words.

Bucky hears this and turns, unleashing the full force of those big blue eyes on you. Something flashes across them, and it could be anything: pain, recognition, anger, validation. All real emotions for a situation you’re only too familiar with.

“Yeah,” he finally mutters, looking down. Your gut twists.

Just from that one little word, you could glean all of the history behind him, the past that’s riddled with regret and hurt, and you push against the sudden urge to wrap him in a hug. Too much too soon for begrudging acquaintances. You settle instead for soft words in the form of a distraction.

“Well, except for Donna. She doesn’t know how to leave anyone alone.”

Bucky gives a half shrug, sipping on his beer. “You’re not wrong.”

“Y’know, everyone here kind of adores you.”

“I doubt that.”

“You should hear Donna talk about ya.”

The corner of his mouth ticks up as he glances at you. “That bad, huh?”

“She says you’re the sweetest guy,” you share with him conspiratorially. “That you help out a lot, actually. And that you’re quiet, but you’re really kind when you wanna be—“

“Alright, I get it,” he mutters, eyes scanning the park. “Easy to believe the lie when she says it like that.”

There isn’t any venom to his words, just a simple statement around a beer bottle. You tear your eyes away from watching his neck extend on a swallow, dazedly finding the oak tree. “I know it’s not a lie,” you say, picking at the peeling label of your drink. “I saw you the other day, helpin’ out the Markhams. All of you were laughin’, too. It was…sweet.”

Bucky’s quiet for a moment. He leans back until his forearms rest against the step behind him, stretching out his long torso like he’s asking you to count all six abdominals. “Don’t get used to it,” he mutters darkly, and it sounds like a threat more than anything, but the little pout on his face negates whatever abrasiveness he was hoping for. It makes you giggle.

“Uh-huh, sure. I know a big softie when I see one.”

He rolls his eyes before taking a sip of his drink. “Believe what you want, kid, but I’m not the type to give flowers or sweet nothins.”

Your attention sharpens at his words, a spike of curiosity jetting through your bloodstream. “How else do you woo your woman then?” you tease, just enough to hide the neediness in your voice, the urge to know the answer.

Bucky turns to you, brows furrowed. Then — so quick, you almost miss it — his eyes dart to your mouth and back. The wind shifts, your fingers tingle, Bucky pushes up so that he’s brushing shoulders with you again; you feel like they’re fused together by some invisible, magical weld. He stares straight ahead, elbows on his knees, thumb running circles around the rim of the beer bottle. “Don’t have one,” he mutters.

You blink.

“Really?” His face twists into a scowl. “Huh. Guess it’s hard to believe a good lookin’ guy like you doesn’t have a few crawlin’ all over him. Unless it’s by choice.”

Bucky frowns impossibly deeper, it’s almost laughable. “Why would it be by choice?”

“Because apparently you can barely handle havin’ a friend, or so you say,” you point out.

“Doesn’t mean I’m a fuckin’ loner,” he grumbles. “I just don’t…get out that much.”

“I bet you’d do pretty well for yourself if you did, sittin’ all alone on a barstool with the sad guy look you got goin’ on.”

“I got what?”

“Y’know,” you start with a grin, “the sad guy look. When you’re all mysterious and unavailable. Add in broody, quiet and stares a lot, women will think it’s hot.”

Bucky goes so still, even his thumb pauses.

“Oh, yeah?” he asks quietly, looking very thoughtfully at the oak tree. “Is it doin’ somethin’ for you, kid?”

The smile flickers off your face. Oh. Oh no.

“Uh…”

He eyes you sideways, and you know you’re as red as a stop sign. You gave yourself away before you could even go on the defense. You take a big sip to buy you time, but he’s there and leaning into the spot where you skin touches, and all the sudden your thoughts explode in a hundred different directions, because why is he still staring at you, and why is he actively getting closer, and why, for the love of all that’s good and holy, does he still not have a shirt on?

You think he’s never paid closer attention to you before now, and he’s destined to see through your lie when your face is there to direct him to the truth. So you gamble on a half truth.

“I think it’s a pretty universal thing to be attracted to,” you say with a shrug, giving a mediocre performance on playing it cool. He hums.

“But do you like it?” Bucky presses softly, and your stomach drops into a flip. The wind shifts again, and this time, you can feel something mysteriously close to electricity buzzing back and forth between your skin and his. Why does he care? you ask yourself, as if you know the answer.

“I…” your voice wobbles traitorously, but you know there’s no way out of it now, so you’ll go down swinging. You turn to him, and your eyes connect like a head on car crash: dangerous, devastating, impossible to look away from. “Yes,” you whisper.

He smiles faintly. “Thought so.”

“Please don’t,” you groan.

He chuckles but doesn’t look away, and you’ve already developed Stockholm Syndrome from being held hostage by his gaze. His reaches out to brush a hair from your face, natural, instinctive, and you’re holding your breath without even realizing, feeling the zip of chemistry from the tips of his fingers as they touch your cheek. You’re so close, you could lean in and brush noses with him if you had the nerve to. Or more, which you’re starting to think about—

“You might be the prettiest thing this town’s ever seen,” he murmurs, low and rough, and oh, does your heart try to leap out of your chest and drop into his hands.

You feel your cheeks flush, your sense of reality growing hazy, because is this really Bucky Barnes sitting in front of you saying that?

But he pulls back before you can even think of a response, chancing one last glance at your mouth before silently falling back into position next to you.

For a while, he doesn’t say anything. You don’t push him to. And when your finger brushes the ‘a’ again, he leans your way. Your mind is oddly free of thought as you trace the names gently — you’ve probably gone into shock over him letting you touch him like this. You’re not sure what compelled you to do it, nor what convinced Bucky to allow it, but for a few quiet moments, you feel yourself breaking through one of the walls he had up between you. You wonder if he feels it too.

Later, after he calls it a night and you’re lying in bed, watching as the patch of moonlight crawls across your ceiling, you feel like maybe he was right — maybe you weren’t going to be friends. Because maybe you were always meant to be something more.

Saturday arrives with a bang as thunderstorms roll through the county and soak everything in its reach, but by the time your shift ends, the sky has opened up to an endless portrait of oranges and pinks and purples. You take the scenic route home, windows down to let in the smell of earth and rain, and a smile on your face that hurts your cheeks and feels dangerously close to permanent. A stack of pastries sits in your passenger seat, boxed carefully and tied with a string to keep them from sliding.

When you pull up to your little trailer, Donna’s waiting for you outside your door. She descends on you immediately, taking the pastries from your hands and whisking them away to the middle of the park where the neighbors are setting up for a barbecue.

“Thanks, hun!” she calls out. “Now get outta that rag and put on somethin’ cute — we’re dancin’ later!”

By the time you emerge from your trailer, uniform swapped for something lighter that sways in the wind, the park party is in full swing. Donna’s taken up the mantle as the Chief of Staff of the buffet line, Viz is unloading cases of sodas and waters from the back of his truck, little Mrs. Markham tenderly sets up a s’mores station for the children, and Wanda’s tossing strings of lights through the limbs of the oak tree.

You rush forward when she gets tangled up in a line, stopping the threat of a hard tumble by unwinding it from her ankles. Wanda grimaces. “Thanks. Guess I can forget that career in the rodeo.”

Viz perks up from filling a cooler with drinks. “I wouldn’t say that, honey. You’re a hell of a cowgirl to me.”

Wanda blushes as red as her hair while you fight back a laugh. “Viz,” she mumbles, but her husband just sends her a wink before turning back to the cooler. “Sorry,” she says to you, the color slowly fading from her cheeks. “He can be…pretty affectionate when he’s home.”

You shake your head, smiling. “No, don’t be sorry. I think it’s sweet.” Your fingers work with hers to straighten out a knot in the lights. “Is he gone pretty often?”

She nods. “Three weeks of the month, usually. Long-haul truckin’ definitely wasn’t our first choice. It’s dangerous, and the time apart can feel painful. But the pay’s decent and…well…” She looks around cautiously before leaning in. “We’re tryin’ to start a family.”

“Wanda,” you breathe, eyes wide. She hushes you gently, but she’s smiling now.

“I know. But you can’t tell anyone — especially Donna. She’ll make it a whole thing.” She scrunches her nose adorably.

“My lips are sealed,” you vow, miming a zipper closing across your mouth.

“Thank you,” she says, squeezing your hand. “Now let’s get the rest of these figured out.“

After several more attempts at lassoing lights onto branches, the two of you end up abandoning that plan and decide to treat the trunk like a maypole; each of you take hold of a string and run circles around the tree until not an inch of bark is visible. Your side splits from laughter as you try not to trip over the exposed roots, chasing after your newfound friend. You collapse onto the grass after, knocking shoulders and gulping down air as the rest of the neighbors start to mingle around you. The smell of grilled meat and oil lanterns fills the air. Conversation is a constant hum that provides a comforting white noise. Children race across the grass, dragging bubble wands behind them and leaving a whimsical trail for the lightning bugs to follow. You take a look around the park, at your friends and neighbors sending you easy smiles and carefree waves. They don’t know the quiet impact it has on you, what it means to be on the receiving end of their kindness. It’s like they’re standing at the open door, waving you in and welcoming you home.

Viz comes over and hands you both a water. You take it with a muttered thanks, grateful to have something to distract you from the swell of emotions rearing up inside of you.

That’s when you hear it: the sound of an old engine revving up the hill. Your breath hitches as you watch the brown truck pull into the lot, Bucky’s figure shadowed by the setting sun behind him. Your lips part when you notice he isn’t alone.

The truck comes to a stop next to Viz’s. “Ah,” he says, pushing himself up from the ground. “Finally. Bucky’s here with the good stuff.”

Bucky jumps out of the truck with the ease of a seasoned cowboy dismounting from his horse. Dark shades cover his eyes, but he flips them up as Viz approaches; they shake hands, Bucky clapping Viz on the back. “Good to have you back,” you hear him say, a crooked grin on his face. In the back of your mind you know you’re blatantly staring, but this is new material that your curious brain is desperate to consume. His passenger comes around the other side of the truck, a tall, broad man with sandy blonde hair and oily jeans that give Bucky’s a run for their money. His face is weathered and chiseled like the driver’s, but there’s a softness to it that begs you to trust him, like all of your problems could be solved with just a look.

“Steve,” Viz greets, extending a hand. The newcomer shakes it, grinning.

“Good to see you again, Viz.”

You’re drawn back to Bucky as the other two catch up. His blue eyes sweep across the park, intentional and analyzing. When they fall on you and Wanda, he goes still for a moment. A part of you shrinks in fear, your heart racing in your chest when you remember the last time he picked you out of the crowd.

But Bucky’s hand comes up in a simple two-fingered wave. Wanda waves back. “Hey, Buck!”

“Wanda,” he says in that low tone of his, but his eyes never leave you. “Hey, kid.”

“Hi,” you answer, the faintest trace of a squeak in your voice. Bucky nods, an indefinable look on his face, before turning back to the truck and opening the back. Viz gives a whoop of delight when he sees the kegs waiting to be tapped.

“Right on time, Barnes. You did good.” Bucky shakes his head.

“This was all Steve. That red-headed bartender at Bruce’s is sweet on him.” Bucky’s companion chuckles, bashfully ducking his head.

“Nat’s just a friend.”

“Yeah, pal. Be sure to thank her extra nice for us when you’re at her place tonight.”

The party really takes off once the three men drop the kegs near the coolers. The rest of the group crowds around it like bees on honey. Wanda recruits you to set up a table of solo cups and sharpie markers, but you’re not much help for the urgency she needs. You’re finding Bucky lifting 160 pounds of beer like it’s a sack of feathers to be very distracting while trying to un-stack cups.

Viz christens the first keg with a spray of foam that everyone groans at, but his effacing smile tells you there’s very little that could dampen his spirits, including a botched keg. He quickly fills two cups (of mostly foam) for you and Wanda, and you laugh when she cheers you to “the rodeo life.”

You toss it back like medicine, hoping the alcohol clears your mind of the mysterious haze of self-awareness and poor attention span that Bucky brought with his arrival. The beer dribbles down your chin, and as you move to wipe it off, you glance up.

As predicted, your eyes find Bucky standing a few feet away; by all accounts, he’s locked into a conversation with Steve and Patrick that requires all of their heads to be pulled close together. But while Steve and Patrick exchange enthusiastic words, Bucky’s tight-lipped while staring at you.

You blush, an embarrassed smile flashing across your face while you use the back of your hand like a napkin. You expect him to look away, like a normal person does when they accidentally catch eyes with someone, but he doesn’t. He coolly takes a sip of his own drink, a muscle ticking in his jaw while he watches you. A ripple of heat runs down your spine that has nothing to do with the weather; it’s reminiscent of the feeling you had when his hand held tight to your wrist in your trailer, but it’s like it’s been cranked up to level 1000. When he swallows, you can see the tip of his tattoo curling at the base of his neck, and your fingers give an involuntary twitch as they remember the feel of it beneath them. Bucky shifts a half-step in your direction, and for one delusional second, you think he’s going to come over. But Donna wanders into your line of sight before the heat of his gaze can fully brand itself into your skin.

“Can I get your help with the salad? Mary went to get more plates.”

You’re dragged away before you can say a word.

Throughout the rest of the night, Bucky always seems to be on your periphery. Wherever you turn, he’s there, just a few feet away. Not close enough to warrant a conversation, but not far enough to be coincidence. You know the park isn’t big, but the proximity seems constructed, considered, careful, especially when you can feel his eyes on you at all times. When you refill your drink, he’s finishing his. When the line for the food forms, he’s three people behind you. When you pass by with a tray of desserts, he steps out of the way wordlessly, pulling Steve with him before you can excuse yourself. And he watches you go.

As the sunset melts into twilight, and Wanda’s lights begin to steal the show, you find a chair next to the speaker softly playing Fleetwood Mac. Across from you, Viz is coaxing Wanda into being the first ones to dance; she shakes her head, adamantly against it, but allows him to pull her from the chair anyway. Donna has a content look on her face as she oversees cleanup, which she shooed you away from almost immediately. Bucky’s coworker is doubled-over with laughter listening to Mr. Gonzalez’s tale of a fishing trip gone wrong. But Bucky is missing.

Your eyes scan the park instinctively, even delving into the dark corners between trailers or the full parking lot on the other side. You’re halfway out of your chair — to do what, you’re not sure — when you hear something drag across the dirt.

Bucky pulls up a chair and takes a seat beside you before you can blink. He has a fresh beer in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other, which he tucks into the front pocket of his red flannel.

“Enjoyin’ yourself?” he murmurs in greeting, observing the party in front of him. You can smell traces of smoke on him, layered beneath the scent of oil and something that reminds you of the woods behind his trailer.

Your gaze drops to the drink in your hand. “Yeah, this is great. Never been to something like this before.” Bucky settles into the chair, his knees spreading wide until one just barely grazes yours. “Did you guys close up the shop for this?” you ask, nodding toward Steve.

“Have to. Otherwise Donna would have our asses.”

You laugh softly. “Yeah, I got the impression this is pretty important to her when she made me RSVP.”

A ghost of a smirk flits across his face. “Her and Harold used to host this every year. After he died, she dug her heels into keepin’ it a tradition since it meant so much to him. Hard to say no to her when she’s got her mind set on somethin’.”

“I didn’t know that,” you admit. “I just thought she really likes barbecues.” Bucky laughs into his drink, and you nearly preen at the sound. “That’s really sweet, though. I wish I could’ve met him.”

“He was a good man,” Bucky agrees. “Had a lot of strong opinions about things I had no idea about. Most of it sounded crazy to me, but I ended up learnin’ my fair share from him.” He looks sideways at you. “Taught me how to use a lawnmower.”

“Really?” you laugh in disbelief. “When was this?”

“Maybe four years ago,” he says.

“Oh, shut up, you’re just lyin’ now. You build cars from scrap metal for a livin’ — there’s no way you didn’t know how to run a lawnmower.”

He shrugs. “Didn’t have a reason to until I moved here,” he says simply, like that explains the issue.

“Whaddya mean?”

He shifts in his seat before taking a sip of beer, looking past the party at the woods beyond. “There’s no grass where I come from.“

Your head tilts, eyes assessing his profile. The lined planes of his face remain as impassive as ever, but his shoulders don’t meet his ears like you expect. He seems relaxed — or at the very least, prepared — for your inevitable follow up question about his past.

“Where you from, Bucky?” you ask. He opens his mouth, but you quickly point a finger at him with a sudden burst of inspiration. “No, wait. Lemme guess…El Paso.”

The corner of his mouth curls up. “No.”

“Hmm,” you take a sip of your drink, pretending to take your time considering his accent like you don’t already have it memorized and catalogued neatly into a quiet corner of your brain. “Amarillo?”

“Nope — not Texas.”

You pout. “Gimme a hint.”

“East coast.”

You stare.

“Give up already?” he teases, but you wave him off.

“East coast, no grass, bad manners—“ Bucky snorts. “You from Jersey or somethin’?”

“Worse. Brooklyn.”

Your jaw drops. You weren’t expecting that answer. “You’re kidding, right? You’re not from Brooklyn.”

“Born and raised,” he mutters with a grin, amused by your response.

“But how do — where did you — you don’t sound like — what?”

“A story for another time.”

He’s still smiling, but there’s a shuttered look in his eye that doesn’t come from sitting next to you; it comes from revisiting ghosts in your mind while the world moves forward without you. You sit back, occupying yourself with another sip of beer while he comes back to the present.

“For what it’s worth, you can push a lawnmower like a sonofabitch now,” you venture.

He laughs, and your heart swells as you listen to it. It’s surprisingly high-pitched and breathless for a man as big as he is, but it contains something childlike that sounds tragically beautiful to someone who never laughed much as a kid. You count the lines around his eyes, you commit the scrunch of his nose to memory, you hold your breath as his knee knocks into yours and stays there.

“You watchin’ me mow my lawn, kid?” he hums into his drink, eyes flashing.

You balk. “I never said that—“

“You’re implyin’ it.” His husky voice encourages the color in your cheeks to saturate.

“It’s just somethin’ I noticed in passin’,” you plead. He takes mercy on you, for once.

Shaking his head, he mutters, “How’s the diner? It’s Tony’s place, right?”

“Yeah — do you know him?”

He purses his lips in thought, watching as the Markhams begin a slow sway on the makeshift dance floor while Wanda and Viz twirl around them. Several other pairings have joined in on the fun, spinning and dipping and waltzing along to Dire Straits.

“I know him…not very well, though. Friend of a friend, more like,” he adds, nodding at Steve. Then he clears his throat, offering you his drink when he sees that yours is now empty. “He a — he a good boss? He’s not doin’ anything he shouldn’t, right?”

“He’s fine,” you share, accepting his cup with a blink. You’re hyper aware of your lips hugging the rim exactly where his did as you take a sip. “Likes hearin’ the sound of his own voice, but that’s the worst of it.”

Bucky nods. “Good…good.”

Donna marches past then with a firm hand on the shoulder of a young teenage boy. The face beneath the crew cut is fifty shades of red, and his hands are covered in — what you hope is — melted marshmallows. Bucky snickers as Donna hauls the boy up to a group of middle-aged women chatting by the tree; one of them, who you can only assume is his mother, erupts into angry chastising as soon as she spots the teenager.

“Uh oh,” you mumble, watching the scene unfold. You can see how the boy takes after his mother as her face transitions to cherry red the longer she berates him. Bucky‘s still chuckling.

“Nate’s always been a trouble-maker, but he don’t mean much harm by it,” he murmurs in your ear. Donna watches with a sharp eye as the mother points a shaky hand in the direction of their trailer, and Nate slinks away, head bowed. “Oh, he’s gettin’ off easy,” Bucky says. “That’s a lot better than facin’ Donna’s justice.”

You grin. “No kiddin’. She runs this thing like the Navy Seals. I almost dropped the potatoes earlier, thought she was gonna spank me,” you giggle.

Bucky’s head whips around faster than humanly possible, the movement so quick it stops the laughter right in your throat.

“Can’t say stuff like that to me, kid,” he says, voice like silk over gravel.

You stare at him. In the low light of the lanterns, you can just see that the blue irises have changed shades into something darker, heavier; they’re locked on you with an intensity that doesn’t match the lightheartedness of the party. You gulp, he notices.

“Why not?” you whisper. And then his eyes drop to your lips, indisputable and poignant. Your breath hitches as the shape of him changes in front of you, as the delicate foundation of a relationship based on tolerance gets crushed to pieces by just one quick look.

“A man could get ideas,” he rumbles softly.

Your heart begins to pound in your chest, echoing faintly inside of your head. The noise of the barbecue fades. “What kind of ideas?” you push recklessly, and your eyes sink to his own mouth. His tongue darts out to wet his lips as if in answer.

“Ideas he shouldn’t be havin’ about his neighbor…who thinks he’s an ass.”

“I don’t think you’re an ass,” you breathe. He smiles faintly.

“No? All it took was a few weeks of bein’ your friend to change your mind?”

“Thought you didn’t wanna be friends,” you reply quietly. Something makes him pause, taking the time for a slow inhale and exhale to ground him. But underneath it is pure and unadulterated restraint — you can see it clear as day in the lines of his face, a sailor fighting valiantly against the storm.

“No, I don’t wanna be your friend,” he murmurs. But the words are not a rejection, they’re an invitation.

“Then what do you wanna be, Bucky?”

You bite your lip, and his eyes zero in on the tug of your teeth against the flesh. He leans in ever so slightly, like a magnet’s suddenly activated between your mouth and his, and your body hums with a desperate need to know what he tastes like—

“There you are!” Donna’s voice cuts in. She steps in front of you with her hands on her hips, and you jump in your seat like you touched an open wire. “Well, what are you doin’ sittin’? I told ya we’d be dancin’ later, and that dress looks too good on ya not to swing it around.” She looks at Bucky. “And whaddya know, you’ve got a partner right here!”

Your heart stutters in your chest as she points at him, anticipation already squeezing your lungs at the thought of Bucky’s hands holding you close while you sway gently to the music—

“Come on, Donna, you know I can’t dance. I’m not gonna make the poor girl suffer through me steppin’ on her feet,” Bucky answers gruffly.

The dismissal snuffs out the growing heat in your veins like a bucket of ice water on a candle. Your face drops, your eyes finding the dirt beneath your feet.

“That excuse is gettin’ real old, Bucky,” Donna counters, looking suspicious.

“Because it’s true,” he grumbles. “Not my fault you insist on there bein’ dancin’ every time you put somethin’ together.”

Exhaling shakily, you plaster an apologetic smile on your face as you meet Donna’s eye. “Yeah, actually Donna, I think I might turn in. I picked up a shift tomorrow mornin’ and I should at least try to show up sober.”

You see Bucky turn to you out of the corner of your eye. Donna frowns. “The party’s just gettin’ started, sugar, this ain’t the time for sleepin’.”

Chuckling dryly, you push yourself to your feet, the beer catching up to you momentarily as you take an extra step to steady yourself. You feel Bucky’s hand hover near your waist before you see it. You do your best to ignore it.

“I know, and I’m sorry. I should’ve told you sooner. But you know how it is. I got bills to pay and supplies to buy.” You roll your eyes like it’s not physically hurting you to be pulling away from her and the rest of the group, but you can’t be near Bucky right now. Not until you’ve reconciled all of the feelings you’ve felt tonight with the reality of your situation with him. You’ve learned the hard way how logic wins out over emotions, and you’re just sober enough to recognize you need a moment to align yourself with this self-inflicted mentality. You place a quick peck to Donna’s cheek, squeezing her arm. “The party’s beautiful, Donna. Truly, I’m honored to be a part of it. Thank you for hosting.”

She gives you a sad look, one meant to keep you in place, but your feet are carrying you away before you can let it pull you back in. You throw a wave over your shoulder at Wanda, but she’s too busy wrapped up in Viz’s arms to notice. You think some distance between you and Bucky will help to elevate your heart rate, but footsteps behind you put an end to your theory before it can be tested.

“Can I help you?” you ask, struggling to keep your voice light. Bucky’s stride matches yours easily, and he takes a glance at you.

“Thought I’d walk you back.”

You make a face. “It’s thirty feet away, Bucky.”

“Yeah, well, it’s dark out.”

“You can see my door from here.”

“Don’t be difficult,” he rasps like the back and forth is exhausting him. He takes half a step closer to you.

Your jaw clenches, but you say nothing as he walks you to your trailer, just out of reach of the lanterns and music and chatter. You step up to the door but turn sharply toward him when you feel his foot on the little stoop. “Alright, I’m home.”

“What happened back there?” he asks, eyes scrutinizing your face, probably reading right through you. “You were fine and then you weren’t.”

You gulp before bravely sticking your chin in the air. “Nothin’ happened. Just remembered I got work, that’s all.”

“You don’t work Sundays,” he says, shaking his head. Your back meets the door when he leans in. “Why’d you lie to Donna?”

“I didn’t lie, I picked up a shift to help a friend out. And how do you know I don’t work Sundays?” you ask, voice sharper than you intended for it to come out. At least it’s better than cracking on the tsunami of emotions you’re barely holding back.

Bucky blinks at you, going still. You’re not a mind reader, but you can hear the gears turning as his expression evens out into something you can only describe as inescapable resolution. Slowly, so slow you’re wondering if he even knows what he’s doing, he places his hand on the door next to your head; with his arm so close, you can smell how the sun’s baked into his skin, how metal seems to be an undertone all over him. And now his nose is an inch from yours.

“‘cause I watch you,” he murmurs, as soft as the evening breeze. His eyes fall to your mouth, and you can physically feel it, the pressure there, the charge of the unknown next step. Your hands flatten on the door behind you in an effort to hold yourself back.

Your mind plays over the different paths laid before you. Should you lean in? Change the course of this poor excuse of a friendship forever? Should you wait for him to make the move? Let him deal with the consequences of potential bad decisions in the morning? Should you pull away? Give yourself the time to cool off and clean up this mess of emotions following you like a shadow all night?

“You’re thinkin’ too much,” Bucky says. Your eyes refocus on his — his pupils are so wide, you’re afraid you’ll fall into them.

“I’m just tryin’ to figure you out,” you whisper, your breath mingling with his.

“Probably better if you don’t,” he answers, a hint of sadness in his tone. You search his face, but it reveals nothing; only his eyes offer any indication that he’s in control of what’s happening.

“You think that’s enough to stop me?”

Bucky’s mouth curves, but it quickly fades away. “You’re somethin’ else, kid.”

Then, as quick as it was cast, the spell is broken. Bucky leans back, his fingers lingering on the door. “Have a good shift tomorrow,” he says, voice solemn as he steps down from your stoop. And then he’s walking away.

It takes you a minute to gather yourself. The night presses in around you, cool air replacing the heat of Bucky’s closeness from moments before. With a shuddering breath, you slip into your trailer, closing the door on the party, on your friends, on Bucky behind you.

Endless rain floods the countryside the following week. Roads close, streams overflow, leaks and cracks in the trailers are exposed. You unwillingly enter into a war with a certain corner of your roof, and an empty ice cream bucket takes up permanent residence underneath it as your counterattack.

But every time you have the urge to knock on Bucky’s door to ask for help, something stops you. Flashes of the night of the barbecue, of the suggestive pitch of his voice, of his face a breath away from yours, consume your thoughts until you’re frozen in place with indecision paralysis. The ‘almost’ of it all has you twisted up in ways far more complex than when he tormented you with his indifference.

You go over every interaction in your head like a DVD menu on repeat at three in the morning. You think your signals to Bucky couldn’t have been clearer, yet he pulled away, even after giving you every indication that he wanted it, too. Confusion is too simple of a word to sum up how you feel, and you’re still too riled up from Saturday night to dissect it all head on.

Work offers a necessary distraction — at first. The weather brings in a rush of people seeking shelter from the downpour, which means less time for you to think about where you left things with Bucky, and the hours leave you exhausted to the point of collapsing onto your bed and tumbling into sleep as soon as you make it home. Then you wake up and do it all over again.

Eventually your coworkers begin to notice the toll it’s taking on you. You’re still a novice while they’re veterans, fully acclimated to the ebbs and flows of roadside diner foot traffic, so they urge you to take the first cut of the day after already battling through four grueling shifts that week. You don’t have the energy to fight them. You’re ushered out the door with orders to take a hot shower and a nap as soon as you get home. The rain soaks your uniform instantly as you rush to your car, but it’s still warm enough outside to keep your lips from turning blue as you start the journey home.

While the diner had been bustling with activity, the roads are eerily devoid of other people and vehicles. Most likely due to the flood warnings, but unlike them, you don’t have much of a choice.

You haven’t seen another car in ten minutes when the lights on your dashboard flicker. Your eyes snap to it immediately, recognizing the warning signs that nearly derailed you almost two months ago. A soft whine escapes from your chest as you feel the car begin to shake.

“Come on,” you breathe, pressing on the accelerator. The engine whines back. The radio cuts out, your lights turn off, and the car slows to a crawl. It’s with tears in your eyes that you step on the brakes and put the car into park. “No. No, no, no, no, no.”

Your forehead meets the steering wheel. You get a sick sense of dejavú.

Sniffling, you turn off the car and wait before trying it again. You hear a familiar ticking sound over the patter of rain on your roof.

“Fuck,” you whisper as the first tear falls.

Your mind is too sleep-deprived to come up with solutions. Your cell phone died hours ago because you forgot to charge it overnight. Your body aches everywhere from being on your feet all day, and you think if you tried to walk home, you’d pass out in a ditch after fifty yards. You’re stranded — literally stranded on the side of the road.

So you let yourself cry, great heaving sobs that sound warped and hollow in your little car. While the release feels compulsory, it offers no relief, and that makes you cry even more. Outside, the rain persists its assault on the empty county road.

When your cries have turned into hiccups, you’re left shivering in your wet uniform. A chill has crept through the vents as darker clouds roll in. You hug your arms to your chest, breathing deeply to calm yourself down, but your body continues to vibrate past normal human function. You glance at the back seat, where an old sweatshirt lays crumpled and wedged next to the door. You crawl into the back, extracting the fabric with shaking hands and curling up underneath it. It provides some warmth, but not much.

You don’t know how long you lay there, fighting off exhaustion and self-loathing. You have no sense of time since the clock on your dash powered off with the car. The only things you register are the rhythm of raindrops and your slowed breathing.

And then you hear it.

It’s faint, almost like you’re imagining it. But it grows louder and louder the longer your ears strain to catch it. Your head lifts off the seat, and through the side mirror you spot headlights.

A brown truck with an old, rumbling engine drives past your car before slamming on the brakes. The red tail lights blind you momentarily. It quickly backs up a few meters until it’s parked right in front of yours. The driver’s door opens, and out steps Bucky.

You let out a whimper, your eyes squeezing shut. This isn’t real. It can’t be.

But he’s there pounding on your window, calling your name. You shoot up, shaking again, and lock eyes with him through the glass. Bucky’s dark hair is plastered to his forehead, beads of water dripping down his nose and off his beard. You watch as he takes in your wet uniform, your flimsy blanket, your trembling chin.

“Sweetheart,” he says softly, voice muffled through the window. Slowly, you crawl across the seat to open the door. He swoops in before you can say a word; large hands grasp your arms and pull you out of the car. He practically carries you to his, a hand shielding your face from the rain, before setting you down gently on the bench seat of his truck. His touch moves to your shoulders, your throat, then your face, thumbs brushing wet strands of hair from your eyes. “Are you okay?” he demands to know. “Are you hurt?”

You shake your head. “N-no, just c-c-cold. My c-car, it — it d-d-died.”

Bucky’s lips press into a dangerously thin line before he reaches across you to crank up the heat in the truck. “Stay here,” he mutters, then closes the door on you. You whimper again, your eyes following him as he runs to the back of the truck and grabs his toolbox. He reaches inside your car to pop the hood, and then he rolls up the soaked sleeves of his red henley before getting to work.

Burning hot shame floods your body. You don’t need to be a mechanic to know what’s wrong with your car.

Your gaze slides to the empty road past the windshield. The headlights reflect off the puddles of water accumulating on the gravel, creating distorted spots of light in your vision further warped by the sheets of rain. The heat from the vents touches your skin, but does little to permeate the cold that’s seeped into your bones. You slide into the center of the bench, sticking your numb fingers into the slats to warm them up faster. A quick glance in the rearview mirror shows Bucky’s already closed the hood of your car; he stands in the downpour rubbing his face with both hands. You scurry over to the far end of the bench when the door opens a moment later, and he drops into the seat, drenched and silent.

You don’t look at him, he doesn’t look at you. The rain continues to fall.

Bucky inhales. “It won’t start.”

You clench your jaw to keep your teeth from chattering, inching closer to the heat. Your mind is a mess of fragmented responses.

His hand flexes on his thigh, the scars turning white against his skin. He exhales. “I told you to get the damn thing replaced,” he says, voice so low you can barely hear him. He turns to you, burning a hole into the side of your face with his stare. “I told you to come in to the garage.”

Your eyes sting with fresh tears, but whatever resilience is left within you refuses to let them fall. Not in front of him. “I kn-know.”

“But you didn’t.”

The barely suppressed anger in his voice triggers something in you like a fight or flight response. You meet his eyes and see the storm inside of them that rivals the one outside. Passion not so different from the kind you saw Saturday night.

“I didn’t have t-time,” you say, as calmly as you can. Bucky’s hand flexes again.

“Bullshit,” he counters.

“It’s the truth—“

“No, it’s not. I said to come in after your shift. I said I’d be there. And you still didn’t come.”

You shake your head. “I just — I forgot, okay? I was g-grateful for the help, I still am—”

“Kid, you got an odd way of showin’ your appreciation. Do you actually want the help, or did your deadbeat daddy fuck you up so bad that you don’t know how to accept it?”

There’s never been a louder silence than the one that follows his words. He recoils from it before you can, shoulders slumping like the weight of the world’s been dropped on them, a pained look slashing across his face. Your chin wobbles harder than before as the remark echoes in your head.

“Fuck, kid, I didn’t…” Bucky huffs. His hand crosses the distance of the bench, fingers grazing the skin of your thigh. You smack it away on instinct, but it doesn’t go far, dropping to the leather bench inches from you. “I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I shouldn’t have said that. I went too far.”

A single tear rolls down your cheek. You brush it away quickly like it’s an open wound you need to cover.

“Please look at me,” he whispers. The fight in you balances on a razor-thin wire, one side begging you to explode on him, the other offering peace. You find your car in the side mirror, a lone figure of used and abused metal, struggling desperately to just stay alive.

Bucky lets out a heavy breath when your eyes meet his.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. You see the relief on his face mixed with the regret; it radiates off of him in waves. Slowly, you nod, your body trembling from the cold and something deeper. Bucky notices and draws back, his gaze tracing your figure.

“Come here,” he says gently, opening his palm to you.

You hesitate, the fire still burning in your eyes, and he waits.

But not for long. You slide into his arms with a soft grunt, too willingly, too easily. He catches you and holds you tight against him, hands rubbing along your arms to bring heat back to them while yours land on his chest. Your head fits perfectly into the crook of his neck, your nose skimming the wet skin. He smells like he always does, of oil and metal and pine. You inhale greedily, and it’s like a tonic to your frayed mind, clearing it of the scattered memories of a broken home.

“I didn’t mean it,” he whispers into your hair. Your eyes close.

“I know,” you whisper back.

This silence is softer, easier. You fall into it gratefully as your body slowly begins to relax against him. Bucky’s pure muscle beneath you, but it’s not uncomfortable; you mold to him like you were made to.

He shares his warmth by leaning into you, his nose dragging along your hair; the rhythm of his breaths is stable, even, and yours falls into sync with it naturally. He shifts closer, a hand curling around your waist. Because your history of push and pull dictates an eventual separation, you take the time to feel the steady rise and fall of his chest, the scratch of his beard on your temple, the wet fabric of his jeans brushing against your legs, and you memorize it all, something to hold you over late at night when the loneliness howls at your window and begs to come in like a stray cat. You sigh as your fingers curl into his shirt with every intention of never letting go. Bucky responds with a deep, measured inhale, stabilizing, grounding, human. You soak in every ticking second of this temporary peace. And then his lips, impossibly warm, find the shell of your ear, and your eyes shoot open.

You wait for him to move, to pull away, to gruffly say he’ll handle your car and take you home. He’s done his job, you’re practically burning up by now, and you know he can feel it, too. But he doesn’t let go of you. If anything, he holds you closer. Your heart begins to race — not from his actions, but from what you’re about to do.

You pull back slowly, just far enough for him to see the silent permission in your eyes, the wordless request for him to close the minimal distance between your lips and his. Bucky’s breath hitches in his chest, that steady rhythm halted.

And then he kisses you.

Softly, tenderly, delicately. Words that have never been tied to Bucky before. This hardened, uncompromising man moves his mouth over yours like it’s a gift from the heavens that could be ripped away from him at any moment. A low sound escapes from deep inside his chest, a strained variation of a sigh of relief.

You echo your relief back to him, a barely there whimper against his lips that reverberates down your spine. His fingers tighten around your waist, dragging you closer, while his tongue swipes across the seam of your lips. You open for him, physically, mentally, emotionally. He tastes faintly of metal, of smoke, of coffee, of days spent eagerly waiting for him to return home, of long nights tangled up in old sheets, of oversized sweatshirts and stolen bites of food and messy toothpaste kisses. Of a gentleness you’ve craved your whole life. You’re instantly addicted to the brief taste of this improbable future.

His tongue caresses yours and he groans, his hands and lips quickly turning rougher, needier; you welcome it eagerly. A fire’s been lit inside of you, and grows with every stroke of his mouth. You pull at his shirt, he tugs at your waist. You follow his hands as they move you across his lap, your legs bending to straddle him in the tight space of the bench seat, your chest pressed to his. Bucky breaks away from your lips to gulp down air, but one look at you hanging breathless over him eradicates his need to breathe. He wraps a large hand around your neck and pulls you back down. Your hips roll on top of his instinctively as he ravages your mouth, earning you a soft grunt when your center meets the stiff bulge beneath his zipper. He greedily presses down on the small of your back, encouraging you to do it again. And again. And again.

The hand around your throat tightens imperceptibly when you drag your heat across his erection, whining as the jeans provide a delicious friction to your core. He thrusts up into it, as if he can feel it through the layers of fabric. He groans like a starving beast that’s just found the only thing that can satiate him.

“Bucky,” you pant against his lips, an implied request for more.

His eyes flutter open. He looks at you. You think he’s about to completely make you his.

And then he gently pushes you off his lap.

Your body goes cold immediately. From the loss of his warmth and from the sudden change in tension. He unhooks your fingers from his shirt and presses himself carefully against the car door, running a hand down his face. “Fuck,” he breathes.

“W-what did I do?” you whisper. He shakes his head, unable to meet your eyes.

“You didn’t—“ He swallows. “You didn’t do anythin’.”

“Then why did you stop?”

He exhales through his nose, lips pressed into a tight white line. He’s mad. Or disappointed. Or something between the two. “Kid, I…I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

You swear you can hear the sound of your heart cracking in two. “But I wanted you to,” you tell him, a tremble in your voice.

“I know. You shouldn’t.”

Your throat tightens. “What do you mean?”

He finally looks at you then, and you see his blue eyes are filled with agony, his face lined with regret.

“I’m no good for you,” he murmurs. Your mouth opens, but he cuts you off before you can say a word. “I’m old, and I’m poor, and I’m goin’ nowhere in this life. I can’t — I can’t be what you need.”

“You don’t know what I need—“ you start, but he shakes his head.

“Yes, I do. You need a man that can give you the kind of future you deserve for pullin’ yourself out of the shit. Gettin’ tangled up with someone like me will only hold you back.”

You have to bite down on the sob threatening to burst from your chest. Through gritted teeth, you say, “That’s not your decision, though. You don’t know the kind of future I want for myself.”

“Kid, I’m an ex-con with one too many skeletons in the closet. I live on the fringes because that’s the only place that’ll take me, and I’ve got no way out of it. There is no future with me.”

“Bucky, you’re not—“ your voice shatters and splits. “I don’t care about any of that, ‘cause that’s not how I see you. You’re more than your past. What you’ve done doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to want more—“

He barks out a humorless laugh.

“Fuck, I know a lot about wantin’ more. It’s all I do these days, and it’ll all your fuckin’ fault.” His eyes flash as they find yours, vicious with pain. “I’ve wanted you ever since you stood at my door yellin’ ‘bout makin’ my sad, lonely, little life hell. Couldn’t stop thinkin’ ‘bout how I wanted you to do it, ‘cause hearin’ you throw a fit at me was the first time I felt excited about somethin’ in years. And when I’m not thinkin’ about it, I’m dreamin’ about it. About comin’ home to your sweet smile waitin’ for me, and I wake up emptier than I ever felt sittin’ in a jail cell because I know it ain’t real. You got your claws in me so deep that I can’t go a minute without thinkin’ ‘bout you. And I can’t do nothin’ about it.”

All the air has left your lungs, and Bucky’s chest heaves like he stole it from you. He looks like he’s on the brink of imploding, or breaking apart, or jumping out of the car and sprinting into the woods. You reach for him, the only thing you can think of to do—

He flinches back, turning to the window. “Don’t,” he mutters. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

“But it doesn’t have to be hard, Bucky!” you cry. “I want to be waitin’ for you, I want—“

“You don’t know what you want, but I promise it ain’t me.”

Tears prick your eyes, hot and painful. “Stop,” you whimper. “Stop tellin’ me what I want and don’t want. You’re not bein’ fair — you’re not even givin’ this a chance—“ He shakes his head quickly, meeting your gaze to deliver the death blow.

“You can argue all you want, but I won’t see it any different. I won’t trap you here with me. This can’t…this can’t happen.”

His words sting like a slap to the face; you reel back, pushing distance between you and him. Bucky lowers his eyes, as if he can’t bear to watch the fallout he caused. Another silence settles in the cab of the truck, this one heavier than the others, and thick enough to strangle you. You lean back in your seat, one hand on the door handle, the other pressing down on your chest, keeping you held together.

“I wanna go home now,” you whisper, blindly staring out the windshield.

He obeys instantly. Bucky’s silent as he shifts the car into drive, From the corner of your eye, you see his face is set in stone, a familiar look from the days he wasn’t speaking to you. You know what it means — he’s already shutting down, already pushing you out of his life again.

The drive to the trailer park seems to stretch endlessly; seconds feel like hours, minutes feel like months, ruthlessly challenging your inherent idea of time. When you crest the hill and pull up to your trailer, your body has gone numb from willing time to move faster.

Bucky avoids your eyes once the truck’s in park. “I’ll have your car brought into the shop,” he mutters, voice monotone and clipped. “I’ll drop it off tomorrow.”

Your lips press together to steady the tremble in your chin.

He fidgets in his seat, knuckles going white around the steering wheel. “I’m sorry.”

Your jaw clenches, your heart aches, rejection is a slow-moving poison in your veins. And you’re angry.

“Maybe it’s best if you actually stay away from me this time,” you say, ice embedded in every word. He flinches, but you don’t care. You’re sliding out of the truck and shutting the door on him before he can respond, not daring to look back as you trek through the downpour to your home. When you’re safely inside, you stand very, very still, listening to his car idle listlessly before he slowly drives away, taking your heart with you.

The worst part of it all is that Bucky is right.

Never mind the confusion over how a man that shunned you for your kindness could look at you like you were his last hope. Never mind the embarrassment of making the neediest sounds for someone that refuses to hear them again. Never mind the terrible grief you feel for something that almost existed.

What hurts the most is that he’s right. You’ve felt it in your bones since the day you signed the lease to the trailer — your future wouldn’t stop here. The miles you’ve put behind you don’t exist because you were meant to settle.

Make no mistake, you love the trailer, you love the diner, you love everything they’ve given you and everything they stand for. They bought you freedom from a life condemned to shitty boyfriends and stacked pennies and a lingering taste of resentment at the bottom of every numbing bottle.

But there’s more out there that you ache for; still undefined, still obscure, yet it calls to you in the quiet moments between work and sleep.

And Bucky…

You’ve had enough time to reflect on his words that you can read between the lines of them. His life outside of prison started and ends where he is now, whether he wants it to or not. His future has concrete guardrails that won’t budge for a whim or an opportunity, and most certainly not for a girl lacking direction with a history of going where the wind takes her.

You understand what he saw when you hovered over him in the cab of his truck, that look in your eyes that dared him to follow you into the unknown.

His life is figured out. Your very presence urges him to challenge it.

He’s the rock to your balloon. Better to cut the string now than let you wear yourself thin trying to take him with you.

Your realization makes it easier to avoid Bucky, not that you see much of him anyway. Your car appears in front of your home before your shift the next day. No note, no knock on the door, no indication that it was even Bucky who brought it back. You don’t consider tracking him down to thank him, and you’re not sure how you would: he starts leaving for work before you wake up, returning home only when you’re tucked into bed, like he knows your schedule intimately enough to avoid you completely. Remembering what he once said about watching you, maybe he does.

On Sundays, he’s tucked inside his trailer with the curtains drawn tight, his once-pristine yard slowly becoming overgrown with weeds and disrepair that is so unlike him, it would cause you worry if you didn’t know better. When the probability gods smite you both and you’re walking towards the mailbox at the same time, you stop in your tracks, eyes meeting across the park like magnets drawn together. You turn around and walk the other way before you can do anything stupid — like beg him to reconsider. You’d think it would feel good to turn the tables on him, but it feels like ripping out the stitches on a wound that’s far from healed.

Following the mailbox incident, you both become hermits, which is a hard role to take on in a community as active as this one. Donna’s already forced her way into your home multiple times, demanding your participation in some neighborhood event or another. You think if she asks one more time, it might just kill you to see the look on her face when you tell her no.

You escape to work when you can, picking up enough doubles that Tony pulls you aside and asks in his signature beat-around way if you need a loan. For a moment, you consider taking it and getting the hell out of dodge, setting off in pursuit of whatever it is that you’re chasing. But you wouldn’t know the first place to go — it’s hard to find treasure without a map — and abandoning your boss after taking his money seems like a quick way to put the journey to an end before it even starts.

So you tell him about the repairs to the trailer, and he shrugs to hide his relief before approving your fifth double of the week.

The days roll into nights roll into days. Your brain works through a constant stream of food orders and the future and instant coffee and Bucky. Only in the silence of your room in between wake and sleep do you let yourself remember his charged admission to wanting you, or the fantasized future he dangled in front of your face before snatching it away. Sometimes you can barely breathe for the weight of it all pressing down on you, curling in on yourself like he took a tire iron to your gut instead of telling you it isn’t meant to be.

But you’re a resilient girl. So you carry on, always aware of the option of a next step but never knowing what it is.

You’re coming off a seven day bender of double shifts when the next step becomes clear.

The drive home from the diner is silent — you don’t bother turning on the radio these days, and the views of the mountains and forests that once made you feel alive hardly catch your attention anymore. You’re too tired, too preoccupied, caught between your car and an imagined life where you go home to a trailer that isn’t empty.

But an empty trailer is what you’re expecting when you pull into the trailer park. You tumble out of your car, exhaustion sitting heavy on your eyes.

“Where’ve you been?”

You jump a foot in the air, a tight breath tumbling from your lips as you look around for the source of the voice. Bucky’s sitting on your stoop with his knees bent and a half-empty beer bottle hanging from his hand; illuminated by the moonlight, you can see that his hair is a mess, like he’s been running his fingers through it all night, and his face is severe with apprehension. You breathe deeply to settle your racing heart, but the sight of him has skyrocketed the beat all over again.

“Bucky,” you sigh — you’re surprised you could find your voice so quickly. “What are you doin’ here?”

His gaze rakes over you, from your beat up shoes to your hair falling out of its clip, before he takes a large gulp of his drink. “You’ve been comin’ home late. Later than me.”

You stare back at him, wondering where this is going, and not oblivious to the fact that you’d have to crawl over him to get into your trailer. Casual intention at its finest — he’s making sure you talk to him.

“I’ve been workin’ doubles,” you tell him, glancing at the door.

“What for?”

“Because truck drivers make great conversationalists.”

He rolls his eyes and sets the beer down, unfinished. “Don’t be difficult. Just tell me.”

A rush of anger surges through you at the familiar words. “I think I earned the right to be as difficult as I want.”

Bucky stands, taking a step toward you that feels like more than just him closing the physical distance between you. Your breath gets caught in your chest when you see the storm brewing behind his eyes.

“I know you’re mad at me,” he murmurs. “I get it. You can be as mad as you want. But I’m just tryin’ to make sure you’re okay.”

Your chin lifts. “I’m fine.”

He scans your face, searching for the lie under the surface. “You in some kind of trouble?”

A breathless scoff escapes you. “No, I’m not in trou—”

“You need money?”

“What?” Your expression goes sour. “Bucky, no, what the fuck? I don’t need money, I’m just workin’ more, that’s all—“

“Why?” he presses. You growl at him.

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“It’s none of your business, Barnes.”

“Kid, just tell me why and I’ll leave you be—“

“Because it helps me to not think about you!”

The outburst catches him off guard; he leans back like he’s avoiding the blast radius, a frown creasing his face. He runs a hand through his already-mussed hair, and it sticks up at odd angles that a part of you desperately wants to smooth down.

“I didn’t…” He sighs, hands on his hips. “Okay.” You cross your arms over your chest, suddenly finding interest in the dried coffee stain on your shoes. Bucky shifts his feet in the dirt next to them. Neither of you move, but you can feel his gaze on you again. “You look tired,” he says.

“Gee, thanks.”

“I just meant…maybe a break from the doubles wouldn’t hurt. You look dead on your feet. You gotta take care of yourself.”

“Right, because no one else is gonna,” you shoot at him. “I think I got it handled.”

“Kid…”

“I can take care of myself, Bucky, you don’t need to check on me just ‘cause you feel bad.”

“That’s not why I’m here—“

“Oh, yeah?” you cut him off with a surge of venom in your voice, watching as he fails to meet your eyes. “Why are you here then? ‘cause I thought I made it pretty clear that I want you to stay away this time.”

Bucky stares past you at the oak tree, his jaw clenching and unclenching in time with his breaths. “Yeah,” he mutters quietly, “you did.”

“Obviously not, since you’re here.” You finally have the courage to step around him, taking care not to brush his shoulder as you pass him on your way to the door. “Maybe third time’s the charm—“

Bucky says your name, painful yet reverent, and it cuts through the calm of the evening like a knife.

You turn slowly to face him, the keys forgotten in your hand. You didn’t hear him come up behind you, but suddenly, he’s right there, a foot away and looking like the remaining distance is torturing him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he murmurs. “You could tell me a million times over and it still won’t work.”

You inhale sharply. “What are you sayin’?”

He shakes his head, testing a cautious step forward, and the little gap between you shrinks. “I’m sayin’ I can’t stay away from you.”

Your heart jumps to your throat. “Bucky…”

“I can’t stay away from you,” he repeats, firmer, more certain now. “I hate myself for it, for not bein’ able to do the one thing you asked of me, but I feel like I’m dyin’ every day I don’t see you. And that makes me hate myself even more ‘cause I know I don’t deserve you — and you deserve more than anythin’ I could give you — but I lose all my fuckin’ willpower when it comes to you.”

His words land like a blow to your chest and a kiss to your cheek. Sharp yet sweet, violent yet comforting. You stare at him, lips parted with a hundred questions and a million emotions.

Bucky’s eyes meet yours as he closes the last few inches between you, calloused hands reaching for your face hesitantly, afraid to overstep, afraid to spook you, afraid to worsen the devastation he’s done. You think about the last time he held you, what it cost you to be haunted with that feeling of forever thinking you’d never get it again, and for a moment, every cell within you screams to push him away. Danger, danger, danger, your instincts tell you, reducing him to nothing better than the boys that have come before him, the ones that let your heart go carelessly only to yank it back when it was beneficial for them.

But this is Bucky. Not the pathetic excuses for men that potholed your journey here. Even when he broke your heart, he did it for you.

His fingers are gentle as you let him cradle your face, a passing look of relief turning his eyes a softer blue.

“I know I told you this can’t happen, and you told me to stay away, but I don’t have it in me to see either of those through,” he whispers, thumbs sweeping across your cheeks. “I’ve had enough of my own restraint holdin’ me back. I spent the last seven years convincin’ myself that I don’t deserve a good life because I threw half of it away for people that don’t give a shit about me anymore.”

He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and his eyes flutter shut at whatever memories haunt him. When he opens them again, his gaze is clearer, steadier, like he quietly made a deal with his demons to leave him be for the night. His eyes drop to your lips, just a brief glance that could easily be missed, but it isn’t, because you can’t take your eyes off him. Not when you can practically hear his heart beat in his chest, can feel the heat of him beneath his top, the rough skin of his hands reminding you that this is very, very real and not some imagined scenario you’re still stuck in on your drive home. His fingers tighten around your jaw and Bucky leans in to press his forehead gently to yours.

“When you said you wanted me,” he begins, voice rough and hushed, “it was like comin’ up for air after bein’ under for too long. You’re a livin’, breathin’ example of going through shit and still comin’ out the other side of it, and for the first time in years I thought maybe that could be me, too. But I panicked — I pushed you away like I already knew you were gonna leave because everyone else did. I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know for hurtin’ you like that. I’m a fuckin’ idiot. I’m a stupid old man.” He holds you closer, his grip on the verge of leaving marks. “But kid, I’ll give you everything I got, all the time I have left on this earth, whatever you want…if you’ll have me.”

The world tilts a little. You might have stumbled if Bucky wasn’t holding you like you’re the last light left before the armageddon. He’s so close that you can taste the beer on his breath, and you inhale deeply, drinking it in like it’s straight from the bottle. But a small voice is there in your head, providing clarity on the point of contention that drove him away in the first place…

“Bucky,” you whisper, pulling back. His eyes frantically dance over your face, brows furrowed. Your heart pounds painfully against your chest. “I think…I think you were right. What you said in your truck.” Your eyes fall shut. “About me wantin’ more than what I have now. There’s something else out there that’s meant for me and I…I realized I can’t leave it be. That I’ll do whatever it takes to have it.”

He inhales sharply, his large frame stilling against yours. You look at him then, and he’s stricken, balancing on a fragile fence between panic and hope. Your heart aches more for him now than it ever did while you kept your distance, for this rough, immovable, larger-than-life man. Despite the tears, despite the wicked words, despite it all, he calls to you. He calls…

You blink. “But it isn’t what you think.”

As you say the words, something aligns inside of you, a shifting of your soul. It settles comfortably, like it was waiting patiently for you to figure it out. What you’ve been chasing after all this time is no longer abstract or vague. It’s clear as day, as bright as a beacon, and it’s right in front of you.

Reaching up to cover his hands with yours, you thread your fingers through Bucky’s, appreciating the warmth and sturdiness of his grasp. He’s still looking at you frantically, like you might pull away at any second and tell him to get lost. You squeeze gently.

“This whole time I thought a better life meant gettin’ out of the cycle of hell back home. Leavin’ it all behind so I wouldn’t have the chance to become another sad statistic in that shit town, and makin’ my own way so I’d never have to rely on others who only saw me for what I could give ‘em.”

You shift closer to him, until your noses brush, until your lips are ghosting each other.

“And then I met you,” you breathe. “And I realized how lonely it is. I don’t know what it’s like to be loved or taken care of or given kindness just because. I wasn’t searchin’ for it when I ran, because I didn’t think it mattered — as long as I could dig myself out of where they tried to bury me. But somewhere along the way with you, it all changed.”

Your hands slide up his arms, slowly, carefully, leaving goosebumps on his skin in their wake. The tension leaks from Bucky as your arms wrap around his neck, a soft sigh escaping from his parted lips.

“The trailer and the job — you’re right, they’re not enough. They aren’t gonna give me the future I want. Because the future I want is a place to call home with someone who can give me what’s been missin’ from my life. And I want it to be you.”

A pause. Heartbeats racing in sync. Your eyes meet.

Bucky’s mouth is on yours before you can register him leaning in, and there’s an urgency to his kiss that you sends a thrill down your spine. One hand tangles in your hair, the other maps your body until it finds your waist and drags you closer as he pushes your lips open with his tongue. He moves differently than before, fueled by an emotion that doesn’t fall under a single name, but his determination is as tangible as ever. He’s taking what he wants now.

You pull away with a gasp, forehead resting against his. “Baby,” he murmurs, soft and husky, “it’s already yours.”

Your fingers find his lips and press lightly into wet skin. “You mean it?” you ask with wide eyes.

“I meant every word,” he promises. His hand tugs lightly at your hair, tilting your chin up just how he wants it. “No more stayin’ away. Couldn’t get me to if you tried.”

He seals it with a kiss, demanding and brutal, yet burning with his adoration. Your body’s pulled flush against his and it feels like coming home. Those hard planes fit against your soft curves like puzzle pieces that pledge a lifetime of coming together like this again and again.

You’re panting by the time you pull apart. Bucky’s eyes are half-lidded and full of dark intentions, but you can feel him holding back, testing his restraint, handing you the controls now.

It’s the easiest decision to make.

You pull at his shirt while slowly backing up the stoop. He follows, scooping up the keys you dropped before placing a gentle kiss to your cheek, your temple, your jaw, and unlocking your door. He pulls you into his arms once you’ve crossed the threshold, mouthing at the juncture where your neck meets your shoulder. Your breath hitches on little gasps and moans as his hands find your ass and massage it with interest.

Bucky walks you deeper into your little trailer like he owns the place, feasting on your skin and stopping only at the bedroom door. He pulls away to meet your gaze, and you see his pupils are blown.

“Kid, I’m not here just for this,” he murmurs, mouth hovering over yours. “I need you to know that.”

“I do,” you whisper while your heart swells from his words. “But I want this. I want you.”

He groans, backing you against the wall as his brow meets your temple, sighing against your ear as his thigh slides between yours. “I’ll be so good to you, baby, I promise. Lemme take care of you…”

Hands guide your hips down onto the rough fabric of his jeans, easing you across his thigh with a drag that sets off fireworks in your stomach. You breathe heavily as each pass of your clit over his muscled leg fuels the building heat within you. Bucky kisses the hinge of your jaw, the shell of your ear, whispering, “Fuck, I can feel you. Soaked already…drivin’ me crazy.”

“B-Buck— more,” you whimper as you roll your hips, searching for more friction. He grabs your jaw, something just short of gentle, and makes you meet his eyes as he presses you further into the wall. The arousal slides hot and sticky out of you, soaking your panties and sure to leave a mark on his jeans, making you glide faster on top of him. He groans when your mouth falls open in a choked gasp.

“You look too good like this, baby, gettin’ yourself off on me,” he breathes. “So goddamn pretty.”

Heat rises to your cheeks. You reach for him as you hit a new angle that makes your body sing, fingers curling in his hair to bring him in for a savage kiss, a lustful mark of new territory in your relationship; his thumbs dig into the crease where your legs meet your hips, and you can just feel the hard outline of his length straining against his jeans as it presses into your stomach, making your head spin. Bucky’s teeth nip at your bottom lip, pulling a whine from you that he swallows whole.

It’s almost too much. Like jumping off the deep end and not knowing how far down it goes. It’s terrifying, it’s disorienting, it’s perilous. But you still want to touch the bottom. You still want to know where this goes. You want more.

“Bucky,” you exhale against his lips. He holds you tighter. “Make me yours.”

His eyes flash with possession, with desire, with an enduring need that is rooted in something deeper than the lust you share for each other. It’s trust in its purest form. An exchange of souls, an agreement of devotion. Bucky gathers you up in his arms until you’re pressed against him.

“All mine,” he swears, rough and low, and carries you into the bedroom.

Bucky tosses you on the bed quickly before kicking the door closed and leaving the moonlight as the only witness to what comes next. When he looks at you, something’s shifted — something that makes the heat in your core rise to dangerous temperatures.

“Off,” he demands, dark eyes falling to your uniform. You push up to a sitting position, fingers trembling in anticipation as you slide the dress down your body until it crumples on the floor in front of him. Bucky kicks it aside, unable to look away from the sight of you in nothing but your thin bra and panties.

“Jesus,” he breathes, voice rough, licking his lips while he gets his uninhibited fill of your body. “Look at you.”

Your self-consciousness is short-lived when he leans over to press a tender kiss to your mouth, cradling your jaw like it’s a priceless treasure.

“So fuckin’ beautiful,” he whispers.

Your skin is set on fire when a large hand skims your bare thigh, pushing your legs apart until you can feel a cool breeze against the mark your arousal left on your panties. The vulnerability makes you gasp, but his touch is there to keep your legs where he wants them.

Bucky pulls back to watch as his knuckle drags across your center, teasing the ache just on the other side of the fabric that grows more insistent by the second. You’re throbbing for him, failing to hide your wanton moans as your pussy clenches around nothing but air. He moves his fingers gently over the fabric, finding your entrance and circling it expertly.

“This mine now?” he asks you, lips hovering over yours. You nod desperately. You’ve never been so turned on it your entire life. “Say it.”

You gulp. “It’s yours, Bucky. All yours.”

“All mine,” he echoes, “been wantin’ her for too long.” He traces your folds until he finds your clit. You cry out, legs spreading wider for him like he pressed the magic button. He swears under his breath before capturing your lips in another bruising kiss.

“Perfect girl,” he rasps into your mouth. You melt beneath him as he plays with your clit through your panties, a pattern of soft circles and hard presses that makes your toes curl.

But just as the pleasure begins to crest, his hand is gone. A sound rips from your chest, half-growl, half-whine, as you’re edged for a second time with no relief. Bucky just smirks and slowly pulls his shirt over his head, muscles rippling as he reveals his broad chest and tight abdominals, like a curtain being dropped for the grand finale. Immediately, your hands reach out to touch him, the sharp edges of his body, your lips pressing to the center of his stomach before you can help it, and you look at him as your mouth moves lower.

But Bucky cuts the trail off by sinking to his knees in front of you. “You can suck my cock like a good girl another time. Let your man eat first.”

His thumb sweeps across your jaw gently, then pulls at your bottom lip until you suck it into your mouth. He groans as you bite down lightly, tongue swirling its promises for another night. Bucky’s other hand finds the clasp of your bra, popping it open with practiced ease that should frustrate you but instead elevates your heart rate. Your bare chest is eye level with him, and he wastes no time admiring the way your body is illuminated by the moonlight.

“Fuck,” he breathes, and his thumb is tugged from your mouth so that he can cradle both breasts in his hands, the pads of his fingers stroking the delicate skin until goosebumps erupt under his touch and you’re arching into his hold. “Been hidin’ these from me,” he grumbles, thumb flicking your nipple. You whine when his teeth graze the other, soft and gentle, the bark before the bite.

“Bucky,” you whine, “touch me.”

“I am touchin’ you,” he says around your nipple, a smile in his voice as he sucks heavily at the skin. Your hips jerk up, seeking out some sort of friction that he’s not giving yet.

“More, Bucky, please.”

He mouths at your breast, confident, intentional, and mind-blowingly skilled, while his other hand squeezes tightly around the unkissed one.

“You beg so sweet, baby, but be patient f’me,” he mutters, switching sides. You’re inching closer to the edge of the bed, to grind against what, you’re not sure, but your core is dripping with arousal that snakes a heady trail down your thigh while your pussy throbs from the lack of attention. As he laves at your chest, you bury your hands in his hair, and he makes a small noise of satisfaction before moving his kisses lower, down your naval. He pushes you back slowly until your spine brushes the bed, a thin squeak leaving your lips as his hands find the juncture of your thighs and pulls them open wider to settle between them.

His teeth catch on the waistband of your panties. He looks up at you, and you’re outrageously close to coming just from the sight of it alone.

You realize he’s waiting for your permission, so you offer a frantic nod.

“Good girl,” he says through his teeth, pulling the fabric down your legs with swift efficiency until you’re completely naked before him. He sits back on his heels to stare.

“Don’t,” you whimper, eyes squeezing shut as his thumbs rub tiny circles that get closer and closer to your leaking center with each swipe.

“What?” he answers. “Just lookin’ at what’s mine.”

You can feel his gaze like a physical caress on your folds. It makes your back arch, your hips jerk, and he hasn’t even fucking touched you yet. A man who wouldn’t even meet your eye two months ago can’t look away from the most intimate part of you, and it’s making you come apart in ways that should require psychic evaluation.

“Hold still, sugar,” he orders, voice stern and hold unforgiving as he pins you in place.

“But—“

“No.”

You bite your lip, daring to lift your head and meet his eyes. They’re still focused on your aching cunt, watching as it drools so easily for him. And then he leans in.

Bucky presses a kiss to your clit, just a whisper of a touch that has you twitching yet again. But before the first noise of frustration can slip out, his mouth moves an inch lower, then another inch lower, a line of gentle pecks until he reaches your entrance and curls his tongue into you.

Your mind blanks out while your body reacts, thighs clenching around his shoulders, fingers twisting into his hair, every muscle in your body locking up. Oh.

He eats like it’s his livelihood, tongue circling your entrance before digging inside with a precision so intense, it’s like he already knows exactly what you need. His mouth dances there before his tongue revisits your clit, small flicks before heavy strokes of his tongue to get you writhing until the cycle repeats itself. The tell-tale coil in your gut tightens, your orgasm on the horizon.

“Taste so sweet,” Bucky rumbles, his eyes shooting up to find you already watching him. A dark look crosses his face, something you’ll remember for the rest of your life, before he buries himself back into your center. You whine, head falling back against the bed.

“How does it feel, baby?” His beard tickles the skin of your thighs. You pant and grip his hair tighter.

“S-so— so good—“

“Yeah? Can my girl take more?”

“…m-more?”

Bucky’s mouth is teasing your clit when you feel the blunt ends of two fingers circle your entrance. Your eyes pop open, and you manage to pull yourself onto your elbows in time to watch as his long fingers sink inside you, making your jaw fall open on a whimper. The feeling of them sliding against your walls immediately unlocks a new level of pleasure that is different from anything you’ve felt before, a level that you know only Bucky could have reached.

He curls his fingers, moving them in and out at a deviously slow pace while his tongue flicks faster and faster against your clit. A cry rips from your throat. The coil in your stomach grows tighter, hotter.

“Bucky,” you warn.

“Yeah, baby,” he mumbles between licks, meeting your eyes again. “Give it to me.”

A soft moan tumbles out of you. Pressure that is as cruel as it is generous snaps like a thread, and you come apart on his mouth like it’s the first time your body’s allowed you to feel alive.

“That’s it,” Bucky mutters into your core, easing you through it, “just like that, sweet girl.”

The pleasure strips you raw until you’re nothing but a live wire, twitching and moaning at every swipe of his tongue, every curl of his fingers. He sighs deeply into your cunt, contentedly, like your release was his release, too.

“Fuckin’ hell, woman,” he rumbles, forehead dropping to your thigh as his fingers slowly pull out of you. “Those sounds...Could make a man addicted.”

He pushes up from the floor while you struggle to catch your breath, watching you like a bird of prey that just found its next meal.

The golden skin of Bucky’s torso draws the gaze of your sluggish, post-orgasm brain. It grows closer and closer as he crawls over you, and your tongue darts out to wet your lips. Or to lick every inch of him. Either could apply here.

He settles between your legs easily, naturally, and your hands find his arms as they brace himself on either side of you.

“Be a doll and get my belt, yeah?” he murmurs against your ear, brushing a kiss to the shell of it. You shiver, your hazy brain finally registering the feel of his jeans on your thighs, and reach down with trembling fingers to unclasp it slowly, the zipper following with a sound that splits through the tension of the hot night air.

He kisses you deeply then, a strong hand around your jaw, your name whispered against your lips.

Your hands drift up to his shoulders, fingers curling into the ends of his hair as he pushes his jeans down, his boxers with them. Your eyes gravitate toward the hardness now tucked against your leg, and all it takes is a quick glance to realize that Bucky is truly a big man in every way. A whimper slips from you as you catch the shiny red tip twitch with need.

“What is it, sweet girl?” he murmurs, tilting your chin up to meet his eyes. There’s a light in them that suggests he already knows the answer to his own question.

You swallow thickly. “What if it doesn’t…”

He chuckles softly, brushing his lips to your cheek. “It will. You wanna be a good girl for you old man, don’t you?”

“Bucky,” you mumble shyly, cheeks tinted pink as something warm spreads through your stomach.

“I said I’d be good to you, and that’s what I plan on doin’.”

His hands move you effortlessly until you’re flush with him, just enough space for Bucky’s hips to rock with slow, shallow movements, his cock sliding through your folds and coating himself in your dripping arousal. You bite down hard on your lip when it rolls over your clit, and his eyes snap to your face, watching intensely as the mounting pleasure begins to show.

You let out a shaky exhale when he notches his cock at your entrance, lashes fluttering.

“Eyes on me, baby.”

And in an inevitable moment of tenderness, Bucky’s hand finds yours, fingers intertwining as he brings it up over your head. Then he pushes in.

You gasp, Bucky curses softly, a tension leaking from both of your bodies as he finds his sweet relief in your warmth. You’re stretched out right away, and he’s only halfway in, but it’s a fullness that that makes you feel complete, rather than feeling intrusive. You tug at his hair, pulling him closer until he eases through your tightness and slides in to the hilt. Your consequential moan harmonizes with his.

With all the restraint left in him, Bucky holds still, feeling the walls of your pussy spasm around his cock. The pattern of pressure could make him blow his load right now if he eased up even an inch on his self-control, so he grits his teeth and focuses instead on the look on your face as you adjust to him. You’re so beautiful, even with tiny tears slipping down your cheeks, that little crease between your brow. And you’re such a good girl for keeping your eyes on him.

His good girl.

“You okay?” he whispers, kissing away the tear streak on your jaw.

“Yes,” you breathe, blinking. “It feels…you feel so good, Bucky. I didn’t…”

A sound rumbles in his chest as he tests out a soft grind. You squirm instantly, hips rolling to meet his for double the pressure. His cock touches something deep within you that makes the room blur, makes you cry out.

Bucky’s free hand pushes down on your hip. “Sweet girl, if you do that one more time, this is gonna be over before it even starts.”

The pout comes automatically. Bucky kisses it off your face with the eagerness of a teenage boy, sucking your lip and folding your tongue with his as he begins a snail’s pace of little thrusts. Your cunt still pulses around him like it did when he first slid in; it makes him shake as he tries pulling out, only to be sucked back in at the first chance. His hand tightens around yours.

“Oh, God,” you whimper when he gives you a harder thrust.

“Jesus Christ, baby,” he sighs, “so fuckin’ tight, tryin’ to kill me.”

“Keep goin’, Bucky. Harder.”

“Fuuuuuck…” He picks up speed, cock dragging heavily against your walls, hips snapping. You can hear it, the wet slick of your bodies meeting, and it makes your eyes roll back as you picture his cock drenched in you.

“Perfect pussy,” he grunts. “Fuckin’ made for me. Can feel it.”

Bucky’s cock throbs while he pounds into your cunt, and the rhythm transitions into something deep and desperate and almost out of control. All the while, you can’t look away from him; even as your body jolts and moves with every thrust, your eyes are glued to the broken expression on his face, the raw vulnerability of him seeking out his pleasure in you while on a mission to give you yours.

“Fuck, Bucky,” you moan, back arching as he hits your sweet spot suddenly. His mouth descends on your throat, beard scratching at your skin.

The weight on your hip disappears when Bucky grabs your other hand, pulling it up beside the first. His thrusts get impossibly faster as he holds you down, determined to find the sweet spot again, and again, and again, until stars burst in front of your eyes and you’re clawing at his back, drool spilling from your lips while you mouth half-formed words that don’t exist.

Bucky pulls back enough to take it in, eyes roving from your face to where your bodies connect and back. “You look so pretty like this, baby,” he pants between thrusts. “All dumbed out on my cock, like you should be. Takin’ me so well.”

You whimper when you feel your stomach tighten, your muscles beginning to lock up in that way only an earth-shattering amount of pleasure can create.

“Gonna cum,” you whisper, the first coherent sentence you can think of. Bucky groans, pulling you in for a bruising kiss as his hips pummel into yours.

“Do it,” he growls into your mouth. “Wanna feel you.”

Your body trembles as it explodes and puts itself back together just to explode again. The corners of your vision go blurry. Your orgasm crashes into you with a ferocity stronger than the last, your pussy fluttering around Bucky’s cock.

His pace slows as you come back down to earth, but you’re barely given enough time to catch your breath before he’s slipping out of you and turning you over onto your stomach. You whine softly when he pulls your hips up, settling behind you on his knees.

“Goddamn, you’re a dream,” he mutters huskily, and you feel his warm breath fan over your lower back. A soft kiss is pressed to the swell of your ass before he palms roughly at it with a strong hand. “Should’ve taken you sooner.”

His hand slides lower until it cups your folds, fingers exploring and rubbing and circling freely, making you bury your face into the sheets when he brushes your sensitive clit. He learns what touch triggers the neediest sounds from you and capitalizes on it until you’re all but wriggling away from him. He catches your waist and pulls you back.

“No no no,” he soothes. “Lemme take care of you.”

Bucky slides a finger into your hole, then a second, just because he can, curling them up as if to hook you in closer. You cry out and he hums in response before his thumb brushes over your other hole, the one that’s tight and quivering from the pressure of his fingers working your cunt.

“Fuck, baby,” he breathes, pushing on the muscle enough to get you careening back into him. “You’d let me take you here, too, wouldn’t you? You’d be so sweet to me, so fuckin’ tight around me where no one else has been…ain’t that right, sweet girl?”

All you can do is jerk your head in a nod. He plays with both holes like he owns them, and at this point, he does. The pleasure that hadn’t really died down from your last orgasm is already on the rise again, spiking and cresting in ways you’ve never experienced before the more he circles that second hole.

“Bucky,” you gasp as he presses down on it; not going in, but just enough to break through the rim.

“Next time,” he says wistfully, pulling his fingers out of you. His cock is there to replace them in a heartbeat, and then he’s pushing back into your pussy like he never left.

“Shit—“ you exhale.

Bucky’s length feels different in this position. Longer, bigger, heavier. You don’t have to look to know he’s making your stomach bulge. He lets you adjust for a moment before taking on a pace that’s steady yet intentional. He finds his grip on you, one hand on the back of your neck, the other on your hip, pushing you when he pulls back, pulling you when he pushes in. Smack-smack-smack.

“J-J-Jesus, Bucky, it f-f-feels— t-t-too much—“

“You’re doing so good for me,” he murmurs, grabbing your neck tighter. “Such a good girl.”

He grinds into you, reaching a new depth that has you sputtering on a dry sob, pussy clenching down on him. Bucky groans.

“I know, baby, she’s been waitin’ so long for it. Gonna fill her up…make sure you’re mine for good…keep doin’ it ‘til everyone knows whose bed you’re in…”

His hips jerk suddenly, sporadically, a powerful thrust that bullies the deepest part of you and pushes you up the mattress. A breath expels out of him that could almost be categorized as a whine.

“Fuck,” he pants, “I’ll keep goin’ ‘til it takes. ‘Til you’re mine in every way. Never lettin’ go of ya—“

Your heartbeat thuds in your chest, in your veins, in your ears. You barely hear his words, let alone process them, but they still send a jolt of pleasure straight to your gut. You can’t think of anything but the drag of his cock on your walls, the stretch of your entrance at this new angle, the hold of his hand on your neck that suggests he doesn’t plan no letting you go anytime soon. And why would you want him to?

“Fill me, Buck…please. I want it…” you whisper into the pillows.

Bucky comes almost as soon as the words leave your lips, with a couple of quick, stuttered thrusts before burying himself so deep inside you, you feel him in your chest. His groan is long and ragged as the sticky release leaves his body and enters yours, settling with a finality that leaves more than just a mark on your insides. You sigh deeply as you feel him slowly relax behind you, the last of the shockwaves making his cock twitch as he pulls out. His spend leaks from your entrance and down your thigh, but a quick swipe of Bucky’s thumb returns it to where it belongs.

“Ahh—“ you hiss, but Bucky moves with purpose, gently hauling you up by the neck until you’re cradled against his chest, arms wrapped around your middle. His breathing is heavy in your ear.

“You good?” he mumbles. You only have the capacity to nod, sinking into the sweaty warmth of his skin while he places chaste kisses on your neck. “C’mon, then.”

He picks you up off the bed and carries you to the bathroom, letting you be for a moment to clean yourself up, and you know the image of his bare ass walking away is burned into your retinas for good. He returns with a set of panties and the wifebeater he was wearing before, now dressed in his boxers. He helps the shirt over your head, holds the panties for you to step into, and the act is considerate and intensely intimate, something you weren’t expecting even after the endless devotion you just received from him. His blue eyes watch you closely, softly, still dark from the throes of passion, but free from any haziness and uncertainty. He is where he wants to be, doing what he wants to be doing; there’s no room for doubt, not when you see him look at you like that.

A slow kiss is pressed to your shoulder once you’re dressed. He tugs you back into the bedroom, a possessive hand on the small of your back that guides you beneath the sheets. Bucky slips in behind you, enveloping you in his familiar scent of sweat and metal and evergreen, pulling you to him after so many days of pushing you away.

“Bucky?”

“Yeah?”

You bite your lip. “Was it really me yellin’ at you that did it for ya?”

There’s a small pause before you hear a soft chuckle, just a puff of breath on your skin.

“I’d be lyin’ if I said it wasn’t. But…it was also the before, and the after, too. Still bein’ able to have a smile that big and pretty after all the hell life’s put you through. After all the hell I put you through…it’s hard not to fall for that. You’re a…good person to be around.”

Your stomach erupts with butterflies, your skin zings with electricity wherever he touches you. His words are exactly what your soul craves, so much so that it hurts.

“Careful,” you whisper, “this is startin’ to sound like the sweet nothins you say you don’t give.”

You can feel his smile against your spine. He tugs you closer. “Don’t be difficult.”

“Me? Never.”

A few beats of silence pass, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to lie next to him without saying a word.

“I meant what I said,” he eventually murmurs, absentmindedly stroking your collarbone.

“What part?” you whisper, lips brushing his hand.

His voice is gruff in your ear, low and tentative. “‘bout not lettin’ you go.”

A smile cracks across your face. “Oh, yeah?…what about the other parts?”

He makes a quiet noise in his throat. “Y’heard that?”

You crane your neck to look back at him. He’s focused on a spot on your shoulder, smoldering intensity written across his face dulled only by a touch of sheepishness.

“I heard all of it,” you tell him softly. His eyes meet yours, dark blue storms drowning you in their path.

“Couldn’t help myself,” he says, licking his lips before placing a hot, open-mouthed kiss on the back of your neck. You bend toward him like a flower to the sun. “I want you waitin’ for me when I get home. I want you givin’ me hell for being late for dinner. I want you doin’ laundry in my underwear.” His lips brush your skin again, hands wandering beneath his shirt. “I want you keepin’ me up all night, lovin’ on me ‘til I know nothin’ but you. I wanna show you in every way I know how that I can be what you need.”

Your hand curls in his hair, forcing him to look at you. “You already are,” you whisper.

Bucky slots his mouth over yours with a groan, promising tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, with his kiss.

sammy speaks again: if I told you this took me two months to write would you believe me? 30k words too like I could have shortened it sammy let’s be real, but I think my body physically rejects the idea of not providing an encyclopedia of a build up. which this seriously is, holy introspection and emotions like can I write normally for once? anyway idk what happened to me but I’m just grateful I’ve finally broken through the funk!

good news is I feel way more open and inspired to write my other wips after signing the dotted line on this one. let me get through a couple shorties and then I’ll be back with one of those!

“You’re… giving this to me,” you ask, dragging the question out.

The Mandalorian stands at your doorstep. Unreadable beneath hard shiny metal and illuminated only by the entry light of your home above your door. The chilly night air bites your cheeks but he stands unfazed.

“As a thank you,” he explains. “You were a big help to my kid and this was the only thing I had that seemed like something you’d enjoy.”

All you did was give his little green kid some medicine. It’s not like it was even your first interaction with the infamous hunter. He’s stopped by your apothecary a couple times. Passing by so swiftly you hardly even knew he was there if it wasn’t for the lingering stares from other customers. If you recall correctly, he only ever picks up supplies to replenish a med pack or bacta spray for wounds.

Until you suddenly found him at your doorstep the other night with his adorable little green baby in his arms. The poor little guy was running a fever, coughing up a storm, and had even refused food for over a day. Any parent would be frantic. And so you didn’t even think twice to let them inside.

Luckily your small shop is attached below your home, so you were quick to find the right tinctures for his illness. The Mandalorian paced circles in your kitchen as you administered the medicine and blotted his kid’s little forehead with a cool damp cloth. It took some time and a lot of reassurance to a very nervous father, but after a few hours the fever broke.

You sent them home with some herbal tinctures and even some homemade hard medicinal candies for stubborn coughs and that was it. Hardly any words were exchanged between you that night that didn’t pertain to the child. Only a heartfelt thank you, goodnight, and a promise to pay you back somehow. You assured him that it really wasn’t necessary, that you were glad to help.

You’ve admittedly always been curious about the man. With his stoic demeanor and a reputation that preceded him like lightening preceded thunder. He’s somewhat of a local legend, menace, and hero all wrapped up in one. And now he’s at your door. With booze. Definitely a man of his word, this guy.

“You’re giving this,” you repeat with astonishment. “This whole bottle, to me?”

“Yes,” he answers again. “Is it a special one or something?”

“This is Andoan wine,” you emphasize, holding out the clear glass bottle. “You can only find these on Coruscant now. Very delicious, very rare, very expensive.”

“Is it,” he asks nonchalantly. “I’ve never tried it before. But I hope you enjoy it.”

“You really don’t have to,” you tell him.

“I insist. I didn’t know the first thing to do so I appreciate your help.”

You chuckle. With your limited interactions, you’re starting to see that he’s short and to the point with his words. Almost like he’s not entirely used to speaking with people.

“I…” You nearly argue it again but decide against it. He really didn’t have to give you such a lavish gift for something any good person would do in a situation like that. It was only natural. But at this point, refusing him might come off as rude so…

“Thank you very much.”

The Mandalorian acknowledges your gratitude with a tilt of his helmet, then turns on his heels to leave without another word. And for some reason, you linger at the door. You watch him go down one step, then another, then-

“H-hey, Mando?”

Your sudden call stops him in his tracks on the stair case and he turns to look back over his shoulder. The dim light gleaming over his steel.

“Yes?”

“I…. w-well…”

You’re stammering. Just come out and say it.

“If you’ve never tried it… would you like to share it with me?”

He stands there silently looking at you and the awkwardness crawls your skin.

“I’m not busy at the moment and it’s not really in my culture to drink alone.”

Culture your ass. You just want to drink with him. It’s unclear why in particular but… you’re curious about him. Other than the company of his kid, he seems alone. You wonder if he prefers it that way or if it’s for another reason entirely. Either way, the offer was worth a shot.

There’s more silence and the only noise in the air comes from the gentle chirp of some lava crickets and the breeze brushing the trees in the street. And it’s in that moment that regret starts to burn in your stomach

He’s gonna say no. A pause like that doesn’t necessarily mean yes. But it would be rude not to offer, right? A bottle this nice doesn’t come by these parts and it’d be a shame to drink it alone. It’s reasonable to offer the gesture. After all, he went out of his way to come here from across town. It’s the least you can do to show your appreciation in return.

“Alright.”

The word that falls out of him so effortlessly hits you like a punch to the chest. Are you nervous? Absolutely. But how many people can say they shared a drink with the Mandalorian?

A few minutes later, you find yourself standing on your tip toes, grabbing a couple earthenware ceramic cups in your kitchenette cabinet while Mando stands in your living room. His helmet follows the various potted plants, momentos and knick knacks from your travels littered around your home. Even tracing his gloved fingers over some of them.

“You have a nice home,” he says. “I didn’t notice before. Very lived in.”

“Lots of junk,” you joke. “You can say it Mando, I won’t mind.”

“My place is still new. Doesn’t feel like a home just yet.”

“That’ll change over time,” you assure him. “After a while, your home becomes a collection of memories.”

His attention gets drawn to a particular item on your wall. It’s an old worn down canvas satchel bag that hangs on the wall. At one point it was a life line. Now it serves as a reminder that no matter how hard life gets, showing a little kindness can go a long way for someone.

“What’s this memory?”

“That? That memory is what got me here.” You smile to yourself as you wipe down the cups with a clean kitchen rag.

“A few years ago, I was on Pantora with just some spare change and the clothes on my back. I was desperate to leave so I ended up hitching a ride on a freight ship. I worked on the ship in exchange for a ride to Corellia. Their language was difficult to learn and I had a rough time getting things done because for some reason everything was written in the native language and not aurebesh. On a stop to Tattooine, I accidentally labeled a pallet of coaxium as a pallet of scrap metal. That “scrap” was sold to some Jawas and by the time everyone realized my mistake we were already halfway to the next planet.”

“Was that before you came the Nevarro?”

“That was the reason I came to Nevarro,” you clarify. “It was their next stop so they dropped me here.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, ouch,” you laugh. “Anyway, I guess one of the workers felt sorry for me and left me that satchel with a couple credits and some ration bars inside. Buuut my mistake turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Nevarro turned itself around. I have my own little business. I’m even able to save a little bit of money now. For the time being, things are comfortable. I’ve hopped around the system a lot as you can see. But… this is a place I can always come back to.”

“Something reliable,” he adds.

“Exactly,” you say softly, smiling at the sentiment.

You look up at him. And you didn’t notice as you were cleaning those cups that he’s now completely facing towards you. His visor is trained on you. And it’s then that you realize how small your home really is. Because Mando is broad.

His crossed arms accentuate his wide shoulders. His chest plate follows the lines of his trim torso. Even those plates of beskar armor can barely hide the bulk of his biceps. Your eyes briefly, briefly take a tour at his waist line before you realize how incredibly rude you’re being.

He’s a guest. And a customer. Don’t. Check. Him. Out.

Heat starts to rise in your cheeks. Focusing back on the cups, you round the kitchen counter and walk over to him.

“I’m sorry. All this talking suddenly got deeper and I feel like I haven’t really introduced myself. We’ve only ever passed by each other before,” you chuckle, shaking away the nerves.

In hindsight you should’ve just introduced yourself the other night, but truthfully you were in care-taker-mode and it didn’t occur to you at the time. Plus you didn’t think you’d have an encounter with the man again other than seeing him briefly in your shop every so often. But he seems like a nice enough person with the limited knowledge you do have with him. And after tonight you’re bound to cross paths again. So you happily extend your hand out and give him his cup along with your full name.

There’s a couple beats of silence and you’re starting to see that’s his default. But it doesn’t stop you from second guessing your words as if you’re crossing an unknown boundary. There’s a slight tilt downward with his helmet and he responds with a regretful “I’m sorry, but-“

“You don’t have to tell me your name,” you immediately add. “I know there’s… principles you must have. I just wanted you to know me. That’s all.”

Another beat passes before he finally reaches out to take the cup in his hand. He repeats your name and the way it comes out of his voice holds a whole new flavor. Soft and curious even through the warble of his vocoder. It’s almost like he’s seeing how it tastes.

You like it. You like it a lot.

“It’s nice to meet you.” The voice wears the vocoder like a veil but you still catch a hint of a smile by his relaxed tone. No real logical way to know for certain, just a gut feeling.

“Likewise,” you smile back.

“So,” he exhales. “You want to know how two Mandalorians drink?”

“Sure. Sounds educational,” you joke.

With a tilt of his helmet, Mando steps further into the living room area and you follow behind, cup and bottle in hand. Walking over to the couch, his gloved hand reaches for the small round pillow resting there. His smokey grey cape flows over his shoulder and for a moment you’re mesmerized by the movement. As he turns on his heel, his fingers release the pillow. Letting it fall to the thin rug with a muted poof.

“Right here.” Mando gestures to the floor and you waltz over to take a seat on the cushion, crossing your legs. It doesn’t escape your notice how he doesn’t grab the only pillow for himself. Opting for your comfort over his own.

He takes a minute to look around the room. Probably checking for anything reflective. Then with a swish of his cape to the side, Mando settles in the floor behind you. When his back presses against yours, you expect a wall of cold hard metal beneath the cape. But instead there’s warmth. Strong and firm, but still warm and giving.

“It’s customary to sit on the floor when drinking with a war band. Usually outside around a fire. When it’s just two, it’s back to back.”

“Aaah,” you drawl. “Very practical. I like it.”

The top of the bottle comes off with a pop and the rich scent caresses your nose like a hug. After pouring about two fingers worth into Mando’s cup you pour one for yourself and settle in.

“Are we drinking to anything tonight ,” you ask him.

“Not sure. How about…,” he pauses for a moment before deciding. “To that Pantoran who gave you the satchel.”

That makes you laugh out loud. But you can’t help but feel a little pleased at that. If it wasn’t for him, you wouldn’t be on Nevarro, wouldn’t have a home. And you definitely wouldn’t be drinking with Mando tonight. For that you’re especially grateful.

“You know what, yeah,” you chuckle. “To the Pantoran.”

Mando extends his arm back to reach your cups and you meet him halfway. Letting them touch with a soft clack.

“Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

There’s an unclicking sound and you sense that he’s probably tilting his helmet back to drink. You ignore the small tinge of disappointment that he didn’t take it completely off. But it’s understandable. He doesn’t know you well. Even drinking like this with an outsider is probably a big deal for people of his creed. His back presses a little further against yours as he takes his first sip and you take yours.

The wine is rich and dry, and a bit smokey. But the underlying taste of tangy fruit blends well with the flavor. Going by the color, it has to have been bottled for a decades. The alcohol runs warmly down your throat and settles like smoldering ember in your stomach. It’s like no other alcohol you’ve ever tried before. Not even close.

“Hoooh,” he hisses after that sharp bite of alcohol.

“Yeah,” you agree knowingly. Already sensing that this bottle is getting finished tonight.

The conversations flow pretty easily after the first drink. He tells you about how his boy came into his life and how he suddenly found himself being his father. You tell him that you can only dream of having a parent like him because you never got to know yours. You half expected he would cut the interaction short and only accept one drink. But when you offer a refill, he gladly accepted which warmed you from the inside.

Admittedly you ask a few curious questions about his creed and he indulges you a bit. And he asks about how you got into medicine making. But for the most part you both stick to easier topics like current events on Nevarro, work, and food. Eventually two drinks turn into three and somehow you’ve both dipped into topics like past relationships. Which is dangerous territory after drink number three.

“It was baaad, Mando. I’m telling you. I mean, really! Who gives two shits who makes more money than who? Or am I in the wrong here?”

“Nah, definitely not,” he replies. His speech now more relaxed but a little raspy from the alcohol. “Honestly, he sounds like a little bitch if that was his main concern.”

“Yeah! Like, what is it with these men and needing to feel superior in such bullshit, inconsequential ways?”

“You seem strong willed. Weak men are intimidated by that.”

“Yeah well, then every man I’ve met in this galaxy was weak,” you groan. “I mean, c’mon. Am I that intimidating? Is it the yapping? It’s probably the yapping.”

“I think someone who’d be deterred by something that trivial doesn’t sound worth a damn anyway.”

With that, you let out a deep sigh and slump against the man behind your back.

“Eh, you’re probably right,” you exhale. You toss back the last little sip in your ceramic cup, savoring the flavor.

“You know what, it’s fine. I’m fine. I’ll just be that shop girl around the corner who throws herself into her work, makes her little remedies, and stays happily independent. I think I can live with that.”

A pause streches between you.

“You don’t sound too convincing, Shop Girl,” he teases.

“Shit,” you tsk.

You both wheeze with laughter, your bodies rumbling against one another and it’s so… relaxing. He’s surprisingly easy to talk to. Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t say much. Or that what little he does say is said with a sincerity you’re not used to. Or you’re drunk. It could very well be that.

But in a galaxy full of deceit and unknown dangers, it’s refreshing to talk with someone as honest as him. He’s authentic, unapologetically so.

“Hey so… can I ask you something?”

“You’ve been asking things this whole time,” he teases.

“I know, but… it’s technically a helmet question. And you can tell me to fuck off if it’s too much.”

Mando hums and the rumble reverberates through your body, nesting warmly in your chest. He’s settled comfortably against you and it makes you feel close enough to ask what you want to ask. After thinking it over he gives you permission.

“Can’t wait to hear this,” he sighs with a little amusement.

You smile. To your surprise, he actually has a good sense of humor. A dry, blunt one . But humor nonetheless. You run a finger over the rim of your cup, finding a little more courage.

“Mando… Have you ever kissed anyone before?”

It’s a simple enough question, right? It’s within the ballpark of the topics you’ve been discussing. And you’re both adults. It’s not like it’s inappropriate…Right?

Oh god, you really are drunk…

Regret rises with each passing second and you wonder why you even brought it up. It’s probably some kind of insult to his creed to ask something like that. 

“Too much,” you broach gently.

“No,” he says softly. “You’re not exactly the first person to ask that. Doubt you’ll be the last.”

He pauses for a moment to find the right words. Then with a heavy exhale he gives you an answer to your insanely intrusive question.

“I was pretty young when I took the creed,” he states. “Ten, twelve maybe? Too young to be interested in those kinds of things. Never looked back since. To be completely honest, it’s not even something I really think about in adulthood. Never understood the hype.”

“Sooo, I’ll take that as a no.”

“No,” he breathes. “Never kissed anyone.”

Never kissed anyone? Never felt a person’s soft lips against his own or graze his skin? Does that mean he hasn’t gotten to experience more than kissing? Licking? Biting? Or…

Do not finish that thought…

“Huh… Well, that’s a shame,” you say without thinking, quickly adding “-but at the same time, I completely understand it too! I mean, it shows a lot of self discipline, you know? To resist that kind of… temptation. Most people don’t have any reason to be disciplined enough to stay chaste. I can admire tha-"

“I said I’ve never kissed anyone, I didn’t say I never fucked.”

Thank… the Maker… you’re not face to face. Because the way your eyes bulged just now would’ve been downright embarrassing had it been caught. He didn’t just say sex or even screwing. The Mandalorian fucks. The alcohol in your blood seems to conjure a brief glimpse of what that might look like before you find enough coherence to shew it away.

“…oh,” you breathe out, effectively stopping your rambling. “I-I guess I just assumed…”

A deep exhale blows out of his nose. He hums, seemingly entertained by the foot you’ve put in your mouth. But also making the air light between you.

“Well, you assumed wrong.”

The humor in his voice settles your nerves a bit. Thankfully there isn’t an awkward air at the sudden change to such a topic despite hardly knowing each other. And oddly enough, it feels easy to talk about it for that very reason.

“You’re rather chatty when you drink, Mandalorian. I feel like I’m learning all sorts of things about you tonight.”

“You’re right,” he breathes. “I spoke without thinking, I apologize.”

“No, It’s fine. I don’t mind at all. It’s a relief to know there’s a man under all that armor and not solid metal.”

He hums again and the noise stirs something in your chest.

“Well, even so… It’s late… Probably best if I stop drinking.”

You look into your empty cup. Then glance over to the bottle with barely a drop left inside. Something inside you wilts. There’s nothing to keep him here any longer…

“Yeah… Me too.”

You’re not sure if you wait for him to move first or if he’s waiting for you. But both of you remain still for nearly a whole minute. Silent and hesitant to end the night. As comfortable as it is, you feel Mando’s back lean away from yours and you miss the warmth. You turn on the floor to find him standing up as he adjusts his helmet clasp and places his empty cup on the table.

“You were right. It tasted better shared,” he admits. A satisfied smile curls your lips.

“If you learned anything about me tonight, Mando, it’s that I am always right when it comes to liquor.”

“I appreciate the hospitality.”

“I appreciate the company.”

You place a hand on the table as an anchor in an attempt to stand up and follow him to the door. But as you try to stand straight, the room spins and your knees buckle.

Nope. Not doing that.

You sit your ass right back down on that cushion before you make an even bigger fool of yourself. Quick to respond, Mando catches your free arm. Making sure you land back down safely.

“You ok,” he asks, concerned but with a hint of humor.

“Pfft. Yeah, I’m good. I think I’ll just stay down here for a minute,” you chuckle, running a hand through your hair and closing your eyes for a moment.

For sure you’ll have a hangover tomorrow. Shit. You work tomorrow. There’s a couple things you’re running low on, too. You’ll have to request an order through the trading guild. That’ll cost credits. Maybe if you get that Chiss man again you can manage a trade and he can throw in those dried flower buds for that tea that keeps getting sold out.

You know you’re already a bit dizzy. But behind closed eyes you feel like your head is swaying. Or rather… that it’s being moved. Something warm and firm holds your jaw up and when your eyes flutter open again you’re met face to face with dark silver.

The Mandalorian stands barely a foot in front of you. Visor fixed down on your face. Maybe the wine has made your brain slow but it’s only when you follow the path from his shoulder and down his outstretched arm that you realize what’s holding your jaw… is his hand.

With a subtle pass of his thumb along your cheek you can feel warmth starting to pool in your face. Awareness pricks the hairs on the back of your neck when you realize your position. Sitting on your knees, face barely level to his waist as a wall of steel and muscle towers over you.

“Your cheeks get flushed when you drink,” he mutters.

When I drink. Suuuure.

“Now you know,” you mumble without thinking. It grants you a satisfied hum from his helmet and you feel it travel through your ears and under your skin.

“Now I know…,” he repeats.

There’s no movement, no words. But there’s something thick in the air. It’s heavy and enticing. It’d be so easy to get wrapped up in it with any sudden movement. You look up at him through half lidded eyes and you get a gut feeling that they’re meeting his. You’re not sure what his are giving away. But yours have to be hinting something you’ve been trying to hide all night.

With a sharp intake of air, Mando steps back and releases your face. Your head drops a little at the loss of support and it follows his direction as he walks towards the front door with quick, heavy steps. With a press of a button on the wall panel, the door panels slide open and just before he steps outside… he stops. Not looking back, just standing there at the edge of your home with his stand still resting on the doorway.

“Don’t invite me in again.”

And then he’s gone. The door panels shut swiftly, leaving you alone and more confused than when he showed up at your door.

…what?

•

Din wishes he could say that the first thing he thinks about when he got home that night was his sleeping kid safe in the crib. Or at the very least about how incredible that wine tasted. But after he undressed and collapsed down onto his bed half drunk, the only thought he couldn’t stop thinking about as he stared at the ceiling was…

Damn… it’s been a while.

For the past few years, Din’s life has flipped around a number of times. Between barely scraping by as a bounty hunter, saving an orphan kid from an imperial psychopath, losing said kid, then having him return and be by his side to reclaim the Mandalorian home-world, there’s not much time to indulge those kinds of needs. But just because Din found himself being a busy father later in life doesn’t make certain things dead.

No. Everything felt very much alive and kicking by the end of that bottle.

Behind closed eyes, his room feels like it swirls. After that wine, his body feels loose and relaxed. Something he rarely gets to experience these days. Images dance across his closed lids. Delicate, slender hands around a handmade cup. A pink flush on smooth skin. Plump tinted lips between his fingers, softly parted and begging to be touched. The intrusive impulse to dip a finger between those lips was so strong he could feel his hand move into the action before he could even think to do so.

All thanks to that one question. That simple, innocent question activated a deep part of his brain that lay dormant. And then he decided to shatter the care free atmosphere by with a crass remark about sex.

Never in his life has he regretted saying something so fast. You barely even know each other. Admittedly, Din isn’t exactly a refined person, far from it actually. But after his third glass, any semblance of manners flew right out the window. His mouth did the walking with little thinking involved.

Yet, you didn’t get uncomfortable. You handled the slip up with humor instead of getting offended or something just as bad. Using humor to make the air light again. It surprised him how easily you did it. How easy the conversation was all night, really. It’s not everyday he’s able to let his guard down with another person.

Once he was aware of that, he became aware of everything. How late the hour was, how drunk you both were, and how your bed was right behind where you both sat. Only separated by a simple room divider. Even when he tipped up his helmet, there was a heady herbal scent from you that kept swimming in his nose and it was just as intoxicating as the wine. He couldn’t trust himself to stay any longer. And now, in the safety of his own home, he finds himself preoccupied with a mountain of questions.

What kind of person are you? What’s your daily life like? What other places have you seen? What troubles you? You seem to be rooted here in Nevarro for the time being. But from what you’ve mentioned about your past, you have a kind of nomadic life. What happens if he… if the kid gets attached and you decide to move on to another planet? But then again, it’s not like he’s not one to talk though is he?

Loyalty. Solidarity. These are things that have been etched to his core since childhood. But giving those things to something that could be fleeting? That’s a risk he’s avoided for most of his life. Those kinds of wounds never heal.

But as much as he tries to distance himself, it’s not always in his control.

Three weeks go by and they couldn’t end soon enough. When he offered to work with Teva (or Blue as he usually calls him) on a case-by-case basis, he figured they’d be more involved than the bounty hunting trade. He’s spent up to a month off planet at times in order to capture a quarry so it’s not exactly new to him.

But that was when he had the Razor Crest. With a cot to rest in, a weapons locker, and supplies readily at hand. In that regard, the N-1 leaves much to be desired. Plus Din’s back isn’t what it used to be and long rides in that ship are killer. And to add insult to injury, this last case with Zeb was especially complicated to resolve. It left him and the kid completely drained.

After finally landing back in Nevarro with fresh credits, there is absolutely nothing Din wants more than to just go home, bathe, and sleep for at least a day. But he’s got a very hungry green mouth to feed and there’s no way Din is fixing up any dinner tonight.

Street food it is.

“Alright, we’re making this quick. In and out. I’ll get you as much food as you want and you can pick out one sweet. Not five. One. Got that?” Grogu tilts his head at Din curiously from where he follows behind on the cobblestone street and he’ll just take that as a yes.

Dozens of food stalls are gathered at the main square in town as he approaches. Adorned with all sorts of neon signs, string lights and colorful banners. It’s a busy atmosphere filled with people laughing, vendors calling out for customers to stop by, and sounds of clanking and sizzling as they cook.

Din gravitates towards the skewers stand. He knows Grogu is going to down ten of them by himself so he opts for something easy, filling, and cheap. He catches sight of those spicy chunks of fatty meat searing over lava coals and his mouth waters.

“Okay, which onesss-“

Din reaches down to pick up his son only to find the street bricks.

“-Sssshhhhit,” he hisses under his breath, glancing around. This fucking kid. He knows better than to run off.

The crowd is thick and it’s getting dark. He scans through the sea of people and vendors but doesn’t find that familiar pale green.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

With a tap of his helmet side panel he switches to the tracking beacon screen. After enough scares like these he’s learned to have a tracker sewn into his clothes at this point.

Blinking red arrows come into his view and he follows the path. Not caring whose shoulders he budges or what food he knocks out of someone’s grip to get through. The red arrows turn yellow. He’s getting close but there’s still no visual of the kid and he’s starting to panic. He pushes through, scanning side to side and calling out his name in an orchestra of noises without reply.

Yellow turns to green and he’s still out of sight. He’s tiny and easy to miss. Grogu could be anywhere, he could be in any one of these stalls. What if he’s taken? What if someone else is tracking him? He could be picked up by a total stranger and taken away again.

Just as that thought crosses his mind, there’s a small separation in the crowd. Big floppy ears come into view and he’s definitely been picked up. But it’s no stranger that holds him.

“And here comes dad~” A voice soft as silk rings inside his helmet.

Relief floods his body as well as caution when he taps his screen clear. Only him. Situations like this only happen to him. It could’ve been Karga. It could’ve been anybody. But it had to be you that found him.

It was barely two minutes. But within those two minutes Din’s head flooded with every worst case scenario possible. And here he is. Happily babbling in your arms like he didn’t just give his dad a fucking heart attack.

“I know, I know,” you assure him like you can already tell where his head’s at, trying to speak over all the noise. “Don’t be too hard on the little guy. I already gave him a bit of a lecture for running around at night.”

Din wants to. It’s honestly his first reaction. But a cooler head prevails and he decides against it after a second thought. He reminds himself (once again) that Grogu is still young and that getting angry would only make things worse. What matters is that he’s safe and that he managed to find you.

“At least he won’t have to hear it twice,” he exhales, pushing out the stress sitting in his lungs. “Sorry about him.”

“No, no sorry needed. He’s smarter than he lets on. At least he ran to someone he knew. I’m glad I was around.”

Din opens his mouth to speak but ends up falling short with his words. Now that some of the stress has left his body, his eyes take you in at a second glance. Unclouded by the adrenaline.

Your hair is tied up with a pin with a few loose pieces falling at the nape of your neck and around your face. With the heat persisting into the night, you decided to wear a thin strap tank top that hangs low on your chest. It exposes miles of smooth skin, from your shoulders all the way down the arms wrapped around his kid. A dusty blue apron wraps around your waist over some baggy cargo pants so you must’ve came here right after work. There’s a glow from all the neon lights that adorns you and he has to will his mouth to move before he gets caught staring.

“Here.” He extends his hands to you. “I can take him back. Thank you for catching him. C’mon, bud. Let her get back to shopping.”

“It’s no problem,” you assure him with a smile. Your hands hooks under Grogus tiny arms and start to pull him off your torso. “Back to dad you go.”

But the moment he’s barely lifted, he cries out in protest with a shrill whine. Refusing to leave your side. You pull him back in instantly and run a soothing hand on his back.

“Oh! Okay, okay. You can stay with me for a minute,” you giggle in a sugary voice to Grogu. Bouncing him on your hip.

You both exchange a look of surprise (as much as his visor can give off anyway). What kind of person are you that Grogu prefers your embrace over his own father? He doesn’t know whether to be jealous or impressed.

But it’s getting late, they need to eat and get home and you probably need to get back to your own errands. Din’s hands extends again to take Grogu but you shake your head with a little smile. Letting him know it’s not an inconvenience to you.

“Here, wanna help me pick out some sweets?”

Grogu coos at your request, toying with the glittering silver chain pendant on your neck. You rest his kid on your hip effortlessly and the motion of it pinches something deep in Din’s chest. Turning to the assorted trays of sugared fruits on skewers, you list the various kinds for Grogu to pick out. Talking back with him like you can actually understand his little babbles. You answer him with “ooh, that’s a good choice” and “these are my favorites”. 

Din just stands aside, watching the way you both interact and it’s admittedly a bit pleasing to see how natural you are with him. Most people think he’s a pet at first glance. Karga treats him like a newborn. Talking gibberish and doting on him despite him handling a 50 year old. You, on the other hand, just treat him like a regular kid. And it’s refreshing to see.

His son’s head spins back at his father with the biggest set of sparkling inky eyes and Din can see the pleading question in them. He tilts his helmet at him and reminds him “one”. Those large ears deflate a little and you giggle at the interaction. Din offers to pay for your skewer along with Grogu’s as another thank you for looking after his son (again). The vendor gathers the treats in paper wrappers to take to go.

You turn to ask Din something, but it’s covered by the noise of yelling and cooking. He tilts his head a bit lower to try and catch what you’re saying. Then, without hesitation, your hand finds purchase on the pauldron on his shoulder. Prompting him to lean in closer to you so you can speak within earshot.

“It’s been a minute since I saw you last,” you remark with a raised voice. “Everything good?”

Shit.

For a second he freezes. Partly at the lack of distance between you, but mostly because the last time he saw you he stormed out of your place like it was on fire without so much as a goodnight. You’re probably wondering what the hell that was about and he honestly can’t answer that himself. Although your expression seems more cheerful than troubled. He crouches closer to your ears and replies with caution, hoping to avoid the direction of that conversation.

“Yeah, we’ve been um… traveling a lot lately. I get contracted by the new republic pretty often these days. Leaving him behind with someone whenever I’m off planet for too long doesn’t seem fair to him so he’s always by my side no matter what.”

“Ah, that makes sense. You usually stop by for medkit supplies so when I didn’t see you last week I figured you were away.”

Din mentally smacks his forehead. Right. Of course you meant the shop. Because what else would you be implying to a fucking customer? You’re just making small talk. Something he has never really gotten the hang of. Seems pretty damn easy when he’s drinking though…

“We actually just got back. Too tired to fix something up so I figured I’d grab us something quick and easy before heading home.”

“Ugh. I feel that. When I get home I’m crashing on the first soft surface I see,” you groan, still bouncing Grogu on the curve of your hip. Those hips…

No. Stop it.

“Busy day,” he asks and your eyes roll upwards.

“Busy week,” you exclaim. “I swear I think about quitting at least once a day. But I like it too much. Plus it’s the only thing I’m any good at. Otherwise I’d probably be some kind of criminal.” You pause then laugh at the thought before adding, “then you’d probably have to hunt me down, huh?”

That… is a scenario that he already knows is going to stick in his brain for a while. It’s such an enticing thought that he doesn’t bother to tell you he’s not in that business anymore. A tiny part of him would much rather have you think he’d chase you. Obviously you’re not serious, but he can’t help but lean into the joke.

“I don’t know,” he says unconvinced. “Might be pretty easy to find you. All I have to do is look wherever there’s street food.”

A laugh bubbles out of you and there’s a strange feeling that radiates in his chest at being able to make you laugh. Pride maybe? No, more like… satisfaction.

“Don’t underestimate me, Mando. I know my way around the outer rim. I’d make you work for it,” you say. Taunting him with a knowing smirk.

A smile tugs higher on his hidden face. The thought of you making him work for anything will no doubt be food for thought later. And instinct tells him that might’ve been your intention. But two can play at this game.

You’re already nearly face to face but he inches even closer, almost close enough for metal to meet skin. Ensuring you catch every word right into your ear.

“I’d like to see you try, Shop Girl.”

Your eyes grow a little wider at the sound of your nickname and he takes pleasure at just how effective it is. It’s another reminder of that night. A name that was spoken within an intimate atmosphere that only the two of you occupied. And by your expression, that same thought crosses your mind too.

You bite your bottom lip in a smile. The same lips that were between his hands. The only lips he can’t seem to forget. The shape, the color, and how fucking edible they look. He’s even noticed how they pout a little when you’re concentrated on a task. More questions surface.

What do they feel like? What do they taste like? What makes a kiss so good that everyone can recall their first?

The bubble created is suddenly burst by the outside world. The stall vendor gleefully hands over the candied fruit over the counter in their wrappers and you take them with your free hand. Handing the mixed one to Grogu because he couldn’t decide on just one flavor. Reality returns to Din’s head and his thoughts immediately sober up.

What the hell is he doing?

He tears his eyes away. Even if you can’t tell, looking at you like that for too long feels wrong. You’re a good person, you’re trying to live a normal life, and what you’ve told him you’re not looking to get involved in any drama. He has to keep reminding himself of those things.

That same instinct to leave hits him again. Because that urge to do something he can’t take back flares up again and it’s best to not give that feeling any more energy. For both your sakes. He gestures his hand in a hand-him-over motion, signaling to you and Grogu that it’s time to go.

“Alright, time to go kid. Say goodnight.”

Grogu whines with a mouthful of sweets and a face covered in sugar and it makes him chuckle to himself. Din would normally find the defiance a little cute, if it wasn’t for the stunt he pulled earlier. You carefully hand him over with both arms leaning in close and again he feels another pinch in his chest at how carefully you exchange him.

Your bare arms graze against his clothed ones and he pulls away the second he has hold of his kid. He ignores the small current of electricity from the contact and maneuvers Grogu into the crossbody bag to his hip. Which, of course, makes him protest.

“Nope. You had your chance. Now you get the bag.”

“Aw c’mon,” you scold “He was just playing around. Now he’s in bag jail?”

First the kid and now you? He can tell his son no, but it might be a little harder to tell you that.

“Yeah, yeah. Maybe next time he’ll think twice about running off in a crowd,” he groans.

Once the kid is settled in the bag, you follow him down. Crouching down, you sit face to face with Grogu as he stuffs his face with the candied fruit. Resting your free hand on his fuzzy head as the other holds your own skewered treat.

“Kay, little rebel. Go stuff your face with some good food. And take it easy on your poor dad, alright? He’s not built for that kinda stress.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” he asks, kind of amused by your ribbing. He can count on one hand the people who are undaunted enough to make playful jabs at him.

Your lips twist and your eyes take a tour up to your brows as you think of your reply.

“Hmm… just the way you get a little impatient sometimes. You were like that when you brought him over and paced my living room for an hour,” you chuckle. “You seem like the kind of man who gets antsy when something’s not in your control.”

A smile threatens to crawl his face. Pretty presumptuous. But he can’t deny how true that statement rings. Especially nowadays when it’s not just himself he has to worry about.

“Maybe so,” he replies with a hint of humor in his voice. “Patience isn’t really my strong suit. Although this one seems to enjoy testing it.”

“Patience is bitter,” you muse as you rub the top of Grogu’s head with your thumb. He coos with delight and the softest gaze glows on your face. Then from your crouched position, your eyes glance back up at Din and add, “…But the fruit is sweet.”

His jaw flexes beneath his helmet, and heat now courses through his veins.

That can’t be a good sign. He already enjoys your banter too much as it is. But that look just now was dangerous. It dredges up thoughts he shouldn’t have about you. Thoughts like kissing someone he barely knows. Feeling skin on skin. Showing you what a man like him can do to you compared to the boys of your past.

He saw it all over your pretty face when he held it in his hand. That flush on your cheeks, your dilated pupils. Hell, he even saw your heat signature rising in his helmet screen for fuck sake. There’s an attraction and that’s fine (and not completely unreciprocated) but it can’t be anything more than that.

You and him live completely different lives. There’s no need to uproot your peace and get involved in his complicated affairs. Even if something happened, it wouldn’t be long before the allure of the suit and mystery people usually perceive of Mandalorians would turn into repulsion.

That’s how it’s gone before. That’s the way it is.

•

You’re a bad person. A horrible human being and a shameless lowlife. Downright beyond saving.

I’d like to see you try, Shop Girl.

The damn sentence won’t stop replaying in your head. It’s not just a nickname. It’s a nickname he gave you. One that’s covered in underlying context and memories that only the two of you share. One that peppers your skin with goosebumps when it comes out of that raspy modulated voice. It’s even worse when your brain starts intrusively placing it in all sorts of sentences.

That’s it, Shop Girl…

You’re doing so well, Shop Girl…

Bend over for me, Shop Girl…

That last one has crawled into your dreams more often than you’d care to admit lately.

You need to get a grip. It’s just an attraction. You’ve been alone for too long and you’re getting all wound up over a smidge of attention. He’s just a regular decent person with a kid to take care of who also just happens to have an amazingly muscular body and a voice of sin. Simple as that.

Right. Simple.

After that night at the food stalls, the Mandalorian and Grogu have been visiting your humble Clinic Shop on a more frequently. Usually you'll see them a couple times a week if they're not on one of their long haul trips. Missions? Jobs?

It's not like Mando has any reason to let you know ahead of time. But when a week or so passes with no sign of silver or green, you can't help but feel a little down. You've come to look forward to seeing your regulars. But they grown to being your favorite customers.

And if you're being honest, theres a growing part of you that feels tied to the man in silver beskar. When he's here, the part blossoms. And when he's gone, it feels... wilted. It's unexpected and confusing to say the least. The closest feeling you could label it is homesickness. And truthfully, you're not really sure if you want to feel such a heavy thing towards anybody right now.

There's a lull in the store this hot muggy afternoon. You've already finished your prescription orders, restocked your shelves, even watered all the potted plants outside the entrance. Since you finally have some down time, you figured you might as well get to making some of your popular tea mixes.

On the back counter, you have a variety of dried herbs, flower buds, tea leaves, and a few large mixing bowls. The scent in the shop is incredible right now. Swirling around on the wind propelled by the metal fans around the shop. Spiced and aromatic with a hint of fruitiness. You let the smell fill your lungs and relax your body as you place measured scoops of the mix into small paper bags. A bead of sweat tracks down the back of your neck. Even with pinning your hair up and the strapless wrap you chose to wear today, the heat of the day still clings to your damp skin.

A cool glass of that Andoan wine would be so good right about now...

Maybe it was instinct, or maybe there really is some kind of invisible tie. But something makes your head tilt to the side and glance at the open entrance. And it's then that a glint of sliver light reflects on the stucco walls. A flutter of anticipation strikes through your chest and your eyes are locked at the entrance. Then, that familiar Silver T-visor and a pair of floppy green ears peek around the corner.

The smile that spreads across your cheeks is so big it almost hurts.

"Hey," you exclaim from the back of the store. You leave your station and excitedly make your way across the store to the pair as they step inside.

“It’s been a whi-“

“Ah ah, sorry," you cut Mando off mid greeting, halting him with your pointer finger. "Grogu gets first dibs.”

Mando shakes his head but you can tell he's humored. Turning his hip to the side and giving you access to the canvas crossbody where Grogu resides.

“Even though I'm a regular customer," Mando retorts.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that sounded a teensy bit like jealousy. You smirk, giving eyes only to the little green baby.

“Not when you’re as cute as him.” You say, placing Grogu on your hip and giving him little scritches on his wrinkled head.

“Isn’t that right, Kid. Mando wishes he could be half as cute as you.” The child coos at you and Mando shakes his head. But you can tell by his body language that he's at least a little amused.

You walk back to the back counter with the kid in your arms and Mando in tow behind you. And the feeling you have in this moment is oddly... domestic? You're not entirely sure if that's the right word. In your life you've never experienced domesticity. But you figure it's similar to that homesick feeling you get.

You place Grogu on top of your station and pull out an herbal lollipop from your apron for him. You like to keep a few handy for kids and they also help with coughs. The kids inky eyes gleam as he babbles and plunges the sugary candy in his mouth. 

"Any chance that delivery for those new Pharmakits arrived yet," Mando asks, leaning a hand on the counter next to you.

"They did," you nod. "Any chance you're planning on taking on an army on your next trip?"

He shrugs, tilting his helmet to the side in that way he does when he's being aloof.

"Doesn't hurt to keep one on hand. You never know."

You hum in acknowledgment but inside a pit forms in your stomach. The danger he faces whenever he goes on these "jobs" isn't lost on you. Lately, it's been on the back of your mind more often than not. On his last visit, when he asked about ordering stronger meds and triage supplies, it hit you just how much his long absences affect you. And just the thought of never seeing him or his little boy again stirs up something vile inside.

“You seem to be busy today,” he remarks, pointing out all the open jars and mixing bowls with various dried leaves and herbs.

His remark takes you out of your thoughts. You must've been silent a second too long for him to change the subject like that. With a deep inhale and slight embarrassment you shrug off the negative thoughts and ground yourself back to reality.

“Yes and no. I’ve been restocking while it’s dead to keep busy.”

He leans in a bit to get a closer look at the contents of the bowl. Close enough for you to catch the scent of smoke and musk on his clothes.

“You’re mixing… tea?”

You hum a yes and nod.

“Tea can be used for lots of medicinal purposes. Many people prefer natural remedies to pharmaceutical ones. I try to have a mix of both.”

“So this is medicine?” You sway your head to the side, trying to think of the best way to explain the purpose of the tea.

“Kiiind of. You could say it’s preventative.”

“What does it prevent?”

“Pregnancy.”

A clearing of his throat follows your answer. You turn toward him with a smirk and a raised brow but his visor has now turned away your face.

Most fearsome bounty hunter in the outer rim, everybody.

“You asked, man,” you chuckle with a shrug.

“Guess that’s on me,” he says.

“This is actually one of my best sellers,” you tell him. You grab the wooden scoop and raise up the floral mix, letting the various petals and herbs rain back down into the bowl. The motion makes the sweet scent drive up in the air. “I have customers tell me they don’t leave the house before their daily brew.”

“I’m glad business is going well for you,” he deflects, making you fold your smile in your teeth. And suddenly your brain sees a prime opportunity.

“You know, Mando…,” you drawl as you mix the petals. “If you’re ever in a pinch and you need some, I could give you a sample.” The way his helmet jerks to face you almost breaks your nonchalant smile.

“That’s um… very generous but it’d be wasted on me.” His body straightens stiffly and you can tell the topic makes him a bit uneasy. But you press on anyway.

“You sure? You can never be too safe. I’m sure any visitors would appreciate it.” He sighs deeply and turns away, shaking his head in annoyance.

God, this is too much fun. Teasing him is so easy. If it wasn’t for the helmet you bet he’s sweating right now. He might look cool and collected. But after drinking with him, you know there’s in fact a man under all that metal.

“I’m sure,” Mando confirms. “I'm not seeing anyone at the moment.”

And there’s the answer you’re looking for.

Was it a bit sneaky? Yeah. Yeah, it was sneaky. But it rules out the theory that reason he told you not to invite home again was because he’s currently taken. It’s still an enigma as to why. But honestly there’s still the gut feeling that you did something to make him uncomfortable that night.

Maybe you crossed a line with one of your questions. You tend to ask a lot of questions. Your filter also isn’t everybody’s flavor. Even so, you had a great time talking, even joking around with him. You’ve come to cherish that night in your memory. And the thought that you obliviously might’ve said something to offend Mando in any way makes your chest ache.

But if that was the case then why has he been stopping by your store more frequently since then? He always says he’s restocking his med kit but you get the feeling there’s more to it than that. Almost as if he’s checking up on you. Making sure you’re doing ok. And above all, that’s what scares you.

It’s scares you how good that thought makes you feel.

“Picking up an order!” An unfriendly voice bellows from the entrance where a Trandoshan man in fine robes stands waiting. “Name’s Samir T’ar.”

It takes a second to snap back into action. But you slap on your best customer service smile and leave your task for later. Rounding the corner past Mando and the kid and walking to the Medicine Cabinet. Wiping the non-existent dust on your hands on your waist apron.

“Hi, yes! I’ll grab that for you right now.”

The Trandoshan stands waiting at the counter as you sort through the assorted orders in the glass case. Looking for the right name tag and plucking the tied linen bag. You dont turn your eyes toward him, but Mando’s pressance is all your body is aware of. You can tell he’s miandering through the shop, looking at various items on the shelves. Which, to you, is a bit funny since hes been here plenty of times by now.

Is he playing the curious customer right now because there’s someone here?

You rest the tied bag next to the register as you run the total. All while the Trandoshan taps his clawed fingers impatiently on the check out counter.

“‘Kay with the compounded medicine and the herbal soak salts, that puts you at… fifteen credits today.”

“It was twelve the last time.”

“Yyyeesss, some of the ingredients for the meds were hard to come by this time around. Outer rim shipping routes, and all that,” you smile, trying to humorously reason with the man.

“And that’s supposed to be my fault? Just make it the same price as before and I’ll be on my way already.”

Ugh, great. One of those.

“I understand where you’re coming from, really. But fifteen is pretty fair considering the initial cost of acquiring ingredients of this high quality. Can’t beat the price compared to those New Republic clinics-"

“Nonononono," he waves with both hands in disapproval. “I’m not paying a single credit more for something I can make myself.”

That’s kind of the point of it buying here, right? To save yourself the trouble of making it?

“Sorry. Price is firm," you say confidently but kindly. "Buuut, how about if I throw in a couple sample heating pain patches. Free of charge,” you chirp, unfazed by his condescension.

Work with me, guy. There’s a man packing heat in the back…

“How about I give you ten for the order and leave? I don’t need you to peddle your-“

It’s a hand that shuts him up. Not yours, as much as it twitches to swipe that bag and toss in it the trash. No. This hand is big. Leather clad. And planted firmly on the counter between you and the customer.

“You can pay the fifteen or you can leave. But what you won’t do,” Mando leans in towards the Trandoshan for effect. “-is talk to her like that again. Make your choice.”

With his chest pressed to the back of your shoulder, you struggle to not squirm. You can feel his heat on your body. His frame eclipses yours from behind. The smell of gun smoke and musk caresses your nose and you die a little inside. But it’s his words that make you want to melt into a puddle.

He didn’t just ask, he demanded for you to be treated with respect. Not that you can’t hold your own when it comes to defending yourself against snarky customers. But the way Mando didn’t even hesitate to intervene on your behalf. It stirs up all sorts of thoughts.

Oh maker, you really are a shitty person. The man stands up for you and all you can think about is how hot he sounded.

The Trandoshan swallows hard. Mando might as well a knife to the guy’s throat with the look of silent terror on his reptilian face. Without even breaking eye contact with Mando, he stuffs his clawed hand in his pockets, and pulls about 20 credit chips without counting. Letting them clatter on the counter as he tosses them.

“H-here,” he stutters. “Fifteen is fair.” With that he snatches his order from the countertop and makes a hasty exit.

“Have a nice day~,” you sing-song as he scurries out onto the street.

You shift your eyes up to Mando, his palm still pressed flat against the counter with his other hand thumbing his belt. His visor follows the customer as he leaves and you can tell that his body language doesn’t relax until the he’s completely out of sight.

“Fucker…,” he mutters under his breath. When he finally turns his visor to you, he finds a knowing little smirk on your face.

“What?”

“You know, if you really wanted to scare him, you could’ve just pulled out your blaster.”

His visor turns away and he takes a step back as if he’s been caught doing something out of character. And if it wasn’t for his confident stance, you’d almost say he got a little flustered just now.

“I didn’t like the way he spoke you,” he grumbles. Which only makes you giggle.

“You’re right,” you agree with a serious tone. Slamming your palms on the counter. “That’s the last straw! I’ll have to close and resort to a life of crime after all!”

Although you can’t read his face, his body language says it all. He tilts his head to the side in a way that can only mean “are you fucking kidding me” and it only makes you smile harder.

“C’mooon, it’s funny,” you say. But he’s still not charmed.

“Does he always treat you like that,” he asks like he needs to know for certain.

You fold your lips between your teeth to hide your smile. He’s concerned for you and you can’t help but bathe in it. At least for a little bit.

“And if I said yes?”

“I’m being serious.”

“It’s fine, Mando. It’s really not a big deal for me. Look, if I let every snippy customer get to me, I wouldn’t have a business. I’m a big girl. I can fight for my honor all on my own, don’t you worry.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Yeah? What is your point then?”

He steps in closer. Forcing you crane your neck to face him. Your backside unconsciously presses against the back of the counter and you’re pinned. He’s impossibly close. Close enough to see your eyes reflected on the inky black screen. Knowing he’s captured your full attention, he hits you with a bombshell that devastates you.

“I wouldn’t let anyone disrespect you when I can do something about it,” he says crystal clear, lowering  his voice. “If someone gives you trouble, they’ll deal with me before they mess with you... Understand?”

That shuts you right up. Your playful expression falls, now replaced with silent astonishment. He keeps saying things that reach deep inside you, making your chest tight. Words like that make it hard to breathe.

You feel utterly captured and it’s no wonder he was the best hunter in the outer rim. Because even though he’ll defend your honor and call you sweet nicknames… all he has to do is stand his ground in front of you to make you feel like prey. And fuck, do you wanna be caught…

“Ok,” you breathe when you find the courage. “I understand now.”

“Good…”

Silence streches between you and it feels as though you’re both waiting for something to happen. Something that feels like it’s been teetering on the edge since the night you drank together. It’s connected and deep in a way you’ve never experienced before. You can tell it’s something he’s afraid to say out loud.

What you’re both afraid to say out loud.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t add anything to his statement. He’s got you locked in his gaze with no escape. And for a moment you wonder if he’ll take hold of your jaw again. Goosebumps rise to your skin because it wants so badly to close the gap.

Suddenly, a call rings from the vambrace on Mando’s forearm, abruptly breaking the tension. At first he hesitates to address it, still locked onto you. But after the second ring he lets out an aggravated sigh and steps away to check the incoming call.

You walk back to your work table and mixing bowl of tea to give yourself something to do while your breathing returns to normal. Scooping a measured cup from a large jar of dried leaves before adding it in.

Grogu sits with his little feet dangling over the table, now finished with the lollipop and looking at the candy-less stick with droopy ears. And before Mando turns to look, you sneak his son another herbal lollipop from your apron.

"Don't tell your dad," you whisper, pressing your index finger over your lips. Which earns you a happy little "Batu" in understanding.

Mando is pacing around now. Conversing with a gruff sounding Lasat. You don’t eavesdrop per se, but words like “new lead”, “investigation”, and “high-risk” get your ears to perk up.

“Shit,” he sighs deeply once the call is done. Planting his hands on his hips.

“Work call?”

“They like to keep me busy, that’s for sure. Best not keep them waiting.”

“R-right! The pharmakits."

You walk towards side of your shop in the back closet where your new inventory sits in their delivery crates. Grabbing one case but then after a second thought grabbing another before turning back and handing them to Mando. When you return Grogu is already back in his father's tote still nursing his treat.

“Couple things," you disclaim, handing the cases to him. "Keep these in a dark cool place if you can. Heat can spoil some of the medicine. And if you ever find yourself needing the epibacta, I’d advise you to take in a safe place. This dose will knock you out cold for a while. Emergencies only.”

He takes the cases by the handles and gives you a nod of understanding.

“I appreciate it. I’ll try to avoid needing it.”

“Just… be safe.”

“I will…”

Another beat of silence. At this point it's starting to feel like you're waiting on the other person to break the ice. But after a moment, he clears his throat.

“Well... Until next time, Shop Girl.”

“Until next time,” you repeat.

He really should stop calling you that. But you just can’t bring yourself to stop him. What do even tell him if he asks why?

You turn to the holopad on the front counter and check the inventory list to give your hands something to do. Chewing your bottom lip as walks towards the exit. One step, then another…

“And thank you,” you quickly add before he steps out. His foot stalls just before reaching the street and you tap on the screen pretending not to notice. Your eyes glance up to him, catching his helmet peer at you over his shoulder “…for stepping in.”

“Anytime,” he says softly. He step out into the street and you exhale a breath you didn’t know you were holding. You lean on the counter with your chin propped in your palm, now free to watch them go without notice.

Grogu turns back to look at you one last time, his tiny arm fighting against the fabric of his bag before popping out and waving at you. The adorable gesture makes you giggle. The little guy must know exactly how stinking cute he is. You wiggle your fingers back at him from behind the counter. Mando takes notice of his kid, turns his head back, and finds your gaze.

For a moment, everything’s frozen. People cross and mix in the street between you. Life seemingly goes on like any other day for everyone in town. But in your eyes, there’s only him. Only bright silver fills your vision. After a moment, Mando raises a hand for a final farewell, and in the next, he’s gone. Blended into the crowd.

An ache spreads in your chest, and that confirms it. You can’t deny that what you’ve been pushing down for months isn’t just an attraction. Strangers can be attracted to each other but he feels like anything but.

You like him. You like how you feel when he’s around and how safe his presence feels. You like that little skipped beat you get when something you said earns even the smallest chuckle from him. You like that he trusts you around his kid.

And you love that he keeps coming back.

You’ve tried to rationalize as just a simple customer acquaintance. But you can’t keep kidding yourself. Its always felt more than that. And you want to know more about him.

At the end of the day, you roll down the metal doors of your humble apothecary and walk the same 15 steps up to your home as you do everyday. You bathe, put on your most comfy shirt and sleep shorts, make yourself a simple meal, and wind down for the night. It’s been your routine everyday since you made this place your home.

Only tonight, despite all your trinkets, all your memories, and all your comforts, tonight your home feels a bit empty. Like something important has been removed and you can’t place what it was. With your dinner bowl in hand, you almost take your seat on the couch before thinking twice on it and choosing the floor of your living room instead tonight.

You actually find it to be pretty comfortable. More grounding. You only wish you had something warm to lean back on.

•

Din thought Guild Master Greef Karga had an inflated ego. But High Magistrate Greef Karga makes that Karga look like a Jedi monk.

He finds himself sitting on a leather chase with his legs propped on the window ledge in Karga’s high tower office. He watches him spread and maneuver a 3D hologram model of Nevarro and the town. His voice filled with ambition as he explains all his new projects for the upcoming year.

“We’ll put the lodges here, here, and here. They’ll have access to the hot springs in the crawling canyons and docks will be built around the water edges. I’ve spoken with that lovely Twi’lek bathhouse owner and she’s spending her best architects to Nevarro as a personal favor to me. It’s going to be the jewel of the rim I tell you!”

Much of the dialog goes over Dins head. Mostly because he’s dead tired and currently operating on less than four hours of sleep. They only landed a couple hours ago from another grueling mission. He partly listens to Karga’s plans, partly watches Grogu quietly sit on the hologram table as he stuffs his mouth with blue cookies his “uncle” has given him. But mostly, Din gazes out one of the many windows in his 360 degree office. Watching the sun set over the canyons and turn the sky a dusty pink.

The shiny bronze protocol droid shuffles around the office with a silver tray with two crystal glasses of spotchka. He offers a glowing glass to Karga who gladly takes it. Then the droid starts to approach Din with the platter, offering him a glass as well.

“Uh no no, he doesn’t drink,” Karga quickly corrects, taking a momentary pause from his plans. The shiny droid fumbles a bit, flustered, then offers an apology before scuttling away with the tray.

Mando doesn’t even bother to correct them. Too much energy. It’s true, he’s never accepted alcohol in front of Karga. Especially in those early guild days when trust was low. But even to this day, Din doesn’t drink around people.

Well… most people, that is.

An image of last time Din saw you pops into his head. That thick, slightly mussed hair tied up with a hair stick. Dewy skin. All smiles and laughter. You wore a deep blue torso wrap that time, His eyes kept following the lines of your collar bones and all that exposed skin seemed to glow in the reflected sunlight in the shop.

And those lips. Those goddamn pink tinted lips that he can’t get out of his head. If that’s not the definition of beauty he doesn’t know what is.

Your teasing is something he’s growing used to. But that day you pushed too far. You weren’t taking him seriously and you shouldn’t be the only one who gets to tease, right? When he cornered you against the counter, he made it known just how serious he was about defending you. That flush came back to your cheeks and your breathing had picked up. You had no idea, but your eyes had found his and it made heat pool in his lower abdomen as he got lost in the color of them.

In that moment, Din wrestled back the impulse to lift you up on that countertop, spread those perfect legs and-

“-Right, Mando?” Karga’s voice interrupts just as that train of thought was getting good. Din turns his visor over to him.

“Hmm?”

“You just agreed to let the kid spend the night here.”

“Right. Yeah,” Din scoffs. “Was that before or after I sold my ship to the Jawas,” he replies in a gruff tone. Karga doesn’t find the sarcasm amusing.

“Alright, alright.”

“Maybe I’ll sell them my armor while I’m at it.”

“I get it,” he exclaims. “You weren’t even listening! I was talking about the space port proposal and I can’t even tell where you clocked out. That's not like you, Mando.”

“I’m tired. I just got back from a long trip.” Kargas eyes glance between Din and the window he's been looking out from.

“I wouldn’t say tired. More like… Distracted.”

He says the word with an insinuation Din would rather do without.

“It’s nothing,” he deflects.

“Hey, you know me, Mando. I’m not one to judge,” Karga says, throwing his hands in the air. “If there’s anything on your mind I’m all ears. Money, politics, work, women-“

“There’s nothing to discuss. I’m fine," Din deadpans.

Kargas covers Grogus ears, who is too preoccupied by his munching to mind.

“Sounds like you need to get laid.”

Maker...

“You’re sordid,” he grumbles, shaking his head and turning back to the window. Karga just laughs. Amusement written all over his wrinkled face.

The arguments were one of the main things that changed between them over the last few years. Now they bicker like two old friends instead of two business associates. But one thing that has never changed is the way Karga tries to pressure him into revealing things out of him. Imperfectly human things.

He’d offer Din all sorts of things like spice or Twi’lek bathhouses just to see if he was capable of being tempted. And right now… there’s only one other person Din can think of capable of doing that.

“You know what I think? I think you’re starting to outgrow this lone wolf lifestyle of yours,” he speculates. “You’re a father now. Don’t you think the little one needs a mother?”

Dins helmet swivels back to Karga.

“Don’t you think you should stick to governing your town?”

“I was just getting to that," Karga exclaims excitedly. "You know we really should consider moving a few of the-“

“Here we go…,” Din sighs to himself.

What should’ve been a quick visit has turned into a one sided yap session. It’s been a couple weeks since he left and he’s eager to re-supply for his next run with Zeb. He’ll need to head to the square at some point as well. His home is in desperate need of a re-stock. And of course, a visit to the clinic probably wouldn’t be a bad idea if he’s already in the area.

Even from up here, your store can be seen at the far corner of the plaza. And every couple minutes, he can see you. Popping in and out of the small store and rearranging some of the potted plants outside. People greet you from the street and you turn to wave back.

It’s getting harder and harder to find excuses to go there that sound necessary. Last time he was there he picked up two new pharmakits, even though another two regular medkits sit unopened in his home. He’s been buying that energy tea you make, despite him being a kaf drinker his whole life. He keeps going back for shit he really doesn’t need. But if he was pressed to give a better reason, it’s mostly because he feels a need to check on you.

True, Nevarro has become significantly safer, but that doesn’t make it safe. Especially for a woman living completely on her own. You’re a kind hearted, giving person in a galaxy that does nothing but take. And someone like that should be protected. He’s looked the other way too many times in the past and he doesn’t want to be that person anymore. And plus the kid enjoys the visits.

Sure, the kid. Keep telling yourself that, Din…

A chiss man with a floating pallet of goods approaches your shop entrance and your attention turns from watering the plants to greet the vendor with a bright smile. You speak animately. And it would normally be endearing, if it wasn't directed towards another man. In the privacy of his helmet, Din grimmaces.

He shouldn’t be surprised. You’re well traveled, knowledgeable. It’s no wonder you’re able to buy products from so many places. But this particular vendor is getting a bit too close for Din’s comfort.

As usual, you talk with much enthusiasm. Sparking a conversation with the man. It’s clear you’re familiar with each other by the body language you both give off. And he’s not sure if it’s because you regularly get inventory from the man, or something beyond that.

You turn around on the balls of your feet to dip back inside the shop and as you do you’re completely oblivious to the way the Chiss’s head tilts to the side so his crimson eyes can roam your backside. And the only reason Din caught it was because the binocs in his visor seem to have unconsciously been turned on by his finger on his vambrace.

You return to with a small wooded box and open the lid to show him mineral salts, the kind he’s seen you make herbal soaks with. The vendor offers a large lidded glass jar of some kind of dried purple flower buds from his cart. With the added exchange of some credit chips, there’s more talking and smiling. Something he said makes you laugh as you sign his holopad and Din has to flex his fingers to stop them from clenching into a fist.

Enough. Stop watching.

The mental check forces Dins attention to shift back to whatever Karga keeps droning on about. You can associate with whoever you damn well please. It’s none of his concern who you do business with or what your personal life is like. Din nearly turns his visor away. But out of the furthest corner of his eye, he catches something he can’t tear away from.

The distance between the Chiss and you has suddenly shrunk. The moment unfolds in slow motion as his eyes chew on every second. The Chiss steps closer to lean down then…

Din’s arms uncross when the Chiss leans in close to your face. And before he knows it, the fucker plants a quick peck on your cheek. And you return it! The whole exchange lasts less than a second before you wave each other goodbye and he goes his separate way. You return inside with the product like nothing and Din sits there, completely rattled.

What… the fuck?

Was it a casual kiss? Did you even know that he was checking you out? If you did, was that a friendly goodbye gesture or was it flirtatious? That son of a bitch gets to walk around with bliss on his cheek all day now. Oddly enough, that’s what puts Din over the edge. A complete fucking stranger knows how your lips feel and he doesn’t.

Never in his life has he harbored thoughts like these. It’s downright pathetic. He feels corrupted.

“Fuck it,” he growls to himself beneath his breath.

“-Anyway, back to my point. I was considering having a port built for- hey!”

Before Karga has a chance to monologue further, Din has picked up his son from the edge of the desk—grubby hands still clinging to the bag of cookies—and has placed him right into Karga arms.

“I need you to watch over him for the night. I’ll come back for him in the morning.”

“Okay then? Fine by-.” Din doesn’t bother to listen because there’s no ending to that sentence that matters to him in this moment. He makes his exit, the slide doors opening as he nears them.

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going all puffed up like that?”

“I need to settle something,” he tosses back before letting the doors shut behind him.

The sun is getting low and a few other vendors are starting to take down their signs and close their doors. You’re probably getting ready to close up for the day yourself. Hopefully he’s able to catch you before then.

Each step on the cobblestone is heavy with purpose. And it's not unoticed the way several people on the street see an armor clad Mandalorian and scurry out of his way with a petrified look on their faces. But right now he doesn't particularly care. Right now everything in his head is clouded with the exception of one objective.

From a couple stores away, you catch him approaching from your peripheray. And he's not sure how to describe it, but it's like something in your body language softens when you see him. Your shoulders become less tense, your eyes gleam, and you cast him that bright toothy smile that could stop any man's heart.

“Ah! Hey! It’s been a while, Mando! How’s-“

“I need to have a word with you.”

Both your expression and your hand freeze momentarily in place, minus a suspicious quirk in your brow.

“Okaaay, you have my attention,” you chuckle, but there’s a nervous tone riding on it. “What can I do for you today?

“I need to speak with you," you tells you bluntly. "Privately.”

Confusion paints across your face and your smile falls a bit. Understanding how serious his request is.

“Like, right now,” you ask hesitantly.

“Preferably, yes,” he answers.

“Ok, yeah sure. Um… I’m just about to close up and we can head upstairs in a minute.” You start to turn away but then quickly turn back to him and immediately add “or we can go somewhere you’re more comfort-“

”It’s fine,” Din quickly interjects, stopping that train of thought. “This won’t take long anyway.”

You blink at him a couple times and give him a quiet “ok then” before turning around and preparing your shop to close.

Seems that Din’s command from his last visit was taken seriously. Regret over those words washes over him. If he’s being honest, being inside your home again sets off several red lights in his head. But he’s already on the verge of blurting out something teetering on the edge of his brain. Better to wait until he’s behind closed doors and away from any prying eyes. Or flirtatious vendors. This shouldn’t be complicated. He’ll make it quick.

He decides to wait around the corner of the shop where the stone steps meet your front door. He leans against the wall with his arms crossed and his finger nervously tapping his arm brace. After a few minutes you round the corner with your bag over your shoulder and lead the way into your home. Instinctively, he looks around for any eyes before entering and closing the door behind him.

“So where’s your boy,” you ask, tossing your bag on the couch and walking towards the kitchen. “I have to say I’m kind of surprised not to see him on your hip. You seem inseparable.”

Your voice is chipper but he can tell by your stiff body and lack of eye contact that you’re not entirely comfortable. For a moment Din reconsiders this encounter. But no. The sooner he this bug out of his system the better.

“He’s… spending the night with a friend,” he answers. Grabbing one of those ceramic cups from the cabinet, you fill it with water from the sink and he’s starting to think that you’re only doing that to keep your hands busy.

“Aaww, a sleepover? Is it his first-”

“If you don’t mind,” he cuts off. “I’d like to get to my point.”

“Oh… Y-yes, I'm sorry. I’m rambling,” you say sheepishly. “I’m just…,” you take a deep breath, rest the cup of water on the counter, and lean back against it. Eyes fixed to the floor.

“…it’s just what you said the last time you were here. And the way you approached me earlier, you seemed kinda… I don’t know, upset? I know you don’t wanna be here so I’m wondering what I did to upset you that you’d come here.”

Damn it… He’s such an asshole.

He should’ve never said that. You've been thinking this entire time that you’re at fault for his shitty social skills. Truthfully, with the way that wine had his head so deliciously foggy, he had to leave before his body did something it was aching to do, begging him to do. But how does he even begin to explain that?

“You didn’t do anything,” he answers immediately. But thinks on it once more. “Well… technically you did. But I’m not upset with you.”

“You’re not,” you ask him sheepishly.

“I’m not,” he assures.

A beat passes in silence as you chew over his words.

“Okaaay,” you say with a smirk, “now you really got my attention.”

That mischievous tone travels through Din’s helmet, in his ears, and settles warmly in the pit of his stomach. Something about the combination of your sweet voice and relaxed shift in your body language makes this whole interaction even more nerve wracking.

“Sooo, you wanted to talk to me about something I did?”

“Right.”

“Okay, sooo...” He feels you urging him to continue but now Din finds himself more cautious of his words now. If you’ve been silently worried about offending him the last thing he needs is for this to come off wrong way.

“It’s… a bit hard to explain,” he exhales. If he could pinch his brow right now he would. “To put it plainly, the night we drank together, you said something that’s been… stuck in my head.”

“Was it the thing about the name?”

“N-no.”

“Was it the Pantora story?

“No.”

“Was it the comment about knowing my liquor? Because I like a drink from time to time but I don’t have like a problem or anything-“

“No- Can I finish,” he asks impatiently.

“Okay, okay. Sorry. Go ahead.”

“When we were drinking, and talking… we said a lot of things and got into some deep conversations. And at one point, you asked me if I ever kissed anyone before. I said no back then because… I've never given it any thought in the past. But now it’s got me… curious.”

Your quirk your brow at him.

“Curious how?”

“I want to know what it’s like,” he answers plainly.

“… Sorry, what?”

“I need this… curiosity out of my head. It’s driving me crazy and I need it out of my system. So I figured… since you’re the one who mentioned it in the first place, you can help me kill it.”

“You’re… Okay so, hold on…,” you say with a shaky breath. “Are you… asking me to kiss you?”

“That’s… an oversimplification. But yeah.”

“You’re asking me to be your first kiss? Am I understanding you right?”

Maker, you ask a lot of questions. Are you always like this? You did the same exact thing when he gave you the wine. On any other day it would’ve been endearing but he didn’t anticipate the conversation lasting longer than a minute. Now his request sounds more and more lecherous with each passing second.

“I won’t bother you again after this. You have my word. It’s completely casual. Just killing a curiosity.”

“There’s a preeetty common phrase about curiosity and loth cats that goes differently.” A giggle tumbles out of your mouth on the tail end of that sentence and humility crawls under his skin.

“Sorry to waste your time.” He starts to turn towards the nearest exit when you step in to stop him. Placing a hand briefly on his arm in the space between his armor and the contact sends a current of electricity up his spine.

“No wait, don’t be like that,” you toy with him.

“I’m not laughing,” he spits. But you still have the nerve to giggle.

“It’s okay, Mando,” you laugh assuredly.

“No, it’s not. It’s ridiculous. I hate it. I hate that you put this in my head.”

You fold your lips between your teeth to try to hide your amusement. But you still can’t help but crack a smile a little at his frustration. He basically just confessed to having this obsession for months and he can tell by your smug expression that you’re enjoying how incredibly uncomfortable he is about this.

“You’re right. I’m… sorry,” you say under your breath. Trying to fix your face.

There’s a beat of silence. Stepping in closer, he tilts his head down to you. Locking you in his gaze. He takes pleasure in being nearly a full head taller and the way your breathing picks up before he says in a low gruff voice…

“No, you’re not.”

You smile behind your hand as your eyes dance across his visor, unknowingly locking eyes with the man beneath. You know you’re not sorry, just like he knows he’s not particularly sorry either. It’s not just this moment. It goes back to every interaction you’ve had together. The banter, the nicknames, the visits. He’s as much to blame as you are. And then… you slowly you shake your head, agreeing with him and confirming his suspicion.

Fuck, you’re cute. He hates that he loves how cute you are. He hates himself for not being stronger.

“Ok,” you nearly whisper. Looking up at him with the sweetest eyes. “I’ll help you.”

•

“Is all this really necessary?”

Din currently sits on the floor of your living room. The same spot as last time in fact. Your were the one that insisted on it and honestly he couldn't bring himself to tell you no. Since he sat down in the soft carpet, you've been flitting around your home turning off lamps, closing blinds, and covering any reflective items. Which, admittedly, he's greatful for. But the more time he spends here, alone with you, the more he's not going to want to leave.

“It’s not everyday you get your first kiss, Mando. I wanna make sure it’s a good one. I wish I could re-do mine.”

Gloves fingers flex and stretch restlessly on his knees as you approach the last lamp sitting on a side table in the living room and pause.

“Are you sure about this?”

Fuck no he’s not. But the sooner he does this, the sooner he can find some normalcy in his head again.

“Flip the switch," he says in a low modulated voice.

You fold in a growing smile before taking a deep breath and flicking the switch. Bathing the entire home in inky darkness. The silhouette of you through turns to hues of thermal green and red, carefully maneuvering through your living room by memory before finding your seat in the floor in front of him. And with slight hesitation, Din reaches up to remove the last barrier he has.

“Can you see anything?”

“Not a bit,” you answer.

With that confirmation, he unclasps the chin strap and slowly lifts the helmet up and off. He blinks several times to adjust his vision before finding the outline of the table and placing his helmet there. On the return, his head bumps into your outstretched hand. Not knowing that you had moved.

“Agh.”

“Sorry sorry,” you pull away. “Give me a moment, I’ll find you.”

Your hands search in the dark for him. He can’t see much but he can tell your hands land on nothing by the way the air between you moves and he doesn’t feel any contact on his person. So he reaches out, bumping into your arms and taking hold of them. Following the line of your forearm until he reaches your hands.

“Here,"  he murmurs. Gloved hands wrap around your wrists and gently lift them up. He guides your hands forward until…

You let out a small gasp when your hands find the warmth of his bare face. Soft and giving as opposed to the cold, unyielding beskar. Their movements are slow and explorative. Running your thumbs over his stubble. Surprisingly his hands don’t release their grasp. His leather clad digits press against the racing pulse in your wrist as his thumbs run over the back of your palm.

“This help?”

“Yes, thank you,” you whisper.

From sound of rustling on the rug, Din can sense your body leaning in. Your breath brushes over his skin for a moment before something warm presses against his chin and it takes a second to register that it’s your mouth. You ease him into the build up and he’s greatfull for it. Jaw. Then cheek. Then just grazing the furthest corner of his mouth.

And then… contact.

At first it doesn’t feel like much. Just something soft and warm pressing against his mouth. What most people refer to as a peck, he assumes. But it’s when you barely pull back and return for another that a shiver wracks his skin. Your lips lock in the return, molding together in perfect unison. And it’s fucking electric.

Just by feel alone, he senses that your lips are slightly open. So he mimics you. Giving his jaw just enough slack to respond as you go in again. The sensations have his mind in a thick fog. The soft flesh, the sweet taste, the faint suction. His skin feels like there’s live wires going off underneath. Giving in completely, he finally returns the kiss. Pressing into it with more confidence.

You hum against his mouth, and he dies a little inside.

That’s when the real hunger builds. There’s a slow simmering heat rising between you now. Without thinking, his hands grip your wrists a little harder. Pulling you in closer. The kiss grows a bit stronger with each return back into each other with no loss of contact. Lingering longer and breathing against one another.

He feels your head tilt more to the side and again he mimics your movement. The break only lasts a fraction of a moment. But in the re-entry, the tip of your soft tongue happens to brush his mouth. Sweet wetness coats his bottom lip and it’s in that instant Din feels all restraint leave his body.

Taking your face in his hand, he kisses you open mouthed, inviting you in. Your tongues slowly graze one another and if he fucking died in this moment he’d be ok with it knowing that he got to know how you taste.

The hunger becomes unbearable. Soon enough the breathing becomes heavier and the air becomes hot. Your arms end up wrapping over his shoulders, pulling him deeper and he’s more than happy to dive further. Another small noise escapes your throat and the vibration travels through his entire body.

He needs to feel you. To taste you. Devour you. He needs you.

A break for air is the only thing that throws him back into semi-consciousness as you pull away. The heat built up between you makes him dazed. Hot breaths fill the small space between your lips as you lean your forehead against his.

“Mando?”

“Yes,” he responds in a raspy whisper. A few moments pass as you collect your words and catch your breath.

“Is this really just about curiosity…?”

Your words lean more towards a statement than a question. There’s no point in denying it now. As much as he tried to convince himself or rationalize his strange request, he does feel a pull towards you. Much more complicated than just attraction. The more he sees you, learns about you, and talks with you, the more… inevitable you feel to him. There’s a gravity to you that he can’t escape from. Nor does he want to.

“Yes and no.”

“What does that mean?” The breath of your question brushes the heated skin of his cheek. And right now, he can't think of any answer that wouldn't give him up.

So he lets it fly.

“It’s not just the kiss I’m curious about.”

The silence in the air is thick. The only thing between you are the sounds of both of you catching your breath. It’s possible he might have ruined everything with that one sentence. But it’s the truth. It had nothing to do with the kiss and everything to do with you. Your kindness, your banter, your hospitality. All of it.

There’s no way of telling what you’re thinking at the right now. It’s in this moment that he wishes the lights weren’t out so he can at least read your expression. But then after what seems like an eternity, your forehead nudges against his and you blow a deep sigh of relief. Arms still draped over his shoulders.

“Oh good… I thought it was only me,” you confess with a skittish laugh.

And that tightly pulled restraint finally snaps inside him when he hears that.

Without any hesitation, he dives back in. Kissing you like a man starved. Just like that night, he feels drunk. Only this time it’s on the taste of you and the feeling of your hands finally on him. It’s that thought that drives him to rip off his leather gloves and toss them aside without breaking contact once. His bare hands find your waist and the strip of bare skin between your shirt and linen pants.

“Is this what you meant,” you pant. “When you told me not to invite you in again.”

“Yeah... it is.” He pants the confession as his mouth trails down the line of your jaw and finding your neck in the dark.

“That’s a relief,” you chuckle. “I was worried I offended you.”

“The only thing that’s offensive is that I can’t see that pretty pink flush on your face right now.”

“Should I get a blindfold,” you tease.

What a fucking woman. The mental image of you in a blindfold, only a blindfold, pours fuel on an already blazing fire. But for now, he’s more than ok feeling his way around tonight.

“Next time.”

It comes out of his mouth confidently and without hesitation. Because you both know there will be a next time. He’s bitten into the forbidden fruit and now he’s addicted to the taste.

With a simple shift, his hands dip beneath the thin fabric of your shirt and find the delicious heat of your soft belly.

"Lay down for me."

With your arms draped over his shoulders, you eagerly comply. Slowly dragging him down with you. He careful not to press all his weight on you—being crushed by beskar would definitely kill the mood—but it doesn't stop you from pulling tighter. Craving connection. All while Din rains wet kisses and soft bites upon your pulse.

So this is what your skin tastes like. Slightly salty, sweet, and smooth between his teeth. He might eat you whole if he’s not careful. He nips at the skin of your exposed collar bone and you writhe. Arching to press your chest to his. So he decides to give it some attention.

“Take it off," you pant with an neediness that drives him pull the damn shirt off in one swift motion.

His bare hand crawls up your sternum. Exploring the valley of soft skin free of any restricting fabric. The moment his fingers find the stiff peak of your bare breast he pinches eagerly. Earning the sweetest little whimpers from you as his mouth works on the other nipple. Biting and sucking the soft point. He can’t see a thing in the dark, but what’s lacking in sight is made up by sound with the delicious breathy moans you let out for him.

“Mando…”

Fuck, does he love the way you call out for him. Every touch, kiss, and  suck he gives elicites the most gorgeous sounds out of that perfect mouth. The sounds to straight to his cock, now painfully stiff. It's tempting to just dive into you right now. But he's waited this long. So why not take his sweet time with you. With his face still burried between your breasts and you fingers raking through his hair, Din feels a press of your hips against his armor. And he needs more.

“Shop Girl…”

The nickname doesn’t catch your attention. You’re either too lost in the moment or too breathless to answer. It’s only when he uses your given name that your body perks up and you give him a raspy “yeah?”.

“Do you want this," he asks.

His right hand has found its way to the waist band of your work pants. Ready and waiting for your answer. You try to grind against his hips but he presses your hips down firmly. He knows damn well neither of you want to stop. But he needs to hear it. There's no going back after this.

"Is this ok?"

He doesn't know if you're unsure. Or if maybe your trying to meet his eyes through the darkness. But there's a long pause. Only the sounds of heavy breaths and the pulse beating hard in his ears. And every second that passes has him hanging on the edge of madness.

"Yes...," you finally breathe. "I need you."

She needs me.

The words leave him winded. Months of questions and pining suddenly feel well worth the wait just to hear those words. They not only affirm going further, but the bond that's been steadily growing between you. Not a single ounce of hesitation survives after he hears that. And with one hand, Din loosens the tie of your pants and dives in beneath the fabric of your underwear.

By feel alone, Din manages to pull your pants down to your thighs and you kick them off your feet. His hands roam over all the smooth exposed skin and he can only imagine how perfect you must look if you feel this good. The tips of his fingers finds the dampness between your legs, running along the seam, and he slowly pushes inside until his knuckles meet your entrance.

You release a soft gasp and he swallows it with a deep kiss. You both sigh into each other's mouth. As if you need the other to even breathe. Din's lips never leaves yours as he does an experimental curl against the fleshy part of your walls and you arch your body against his.

“This where you need me," he huffs against your lips. "Right here?”

“Right there... Perfect..."

"I wanna taste you." The confession comes out before he can even think about it.

"Then taste me, Mando."

He can hear the smile in your voice. The taunt. And he's more than happy to reciprocate it.

He rises above you and you whine from the lack of contact. But the loss doesn't last long. Because before you even can register what he's doing, his head has already lowered between your legs.

"What are you- ah."

That gasp you let out when his mouth envelops your pussy is downright tortured. Good too know you were just as desperate as he was.

"Fuck! I thought you meant... You were gonna... Shit..."

No fucking way would he be satisfied tasting you on just his fingers.  The sweet tangy flavor explodes over his tongue and he groans. Fucking hell, you taste good. He doesn’t even know what the hell he’s doing but that’s sure as shit not stopping him. He drowns in you. Lapping and sucking on your swollen little bud and loving the way it makes you cry out. Two thick fingers pump into your wet heat as you melt in his mouth. Such a fucking treat.

You writhe beneath him. Squirming and clawing at anything to hold on to as he works you up. Eventually your hands finds his hair again. Taking a fistful and pressing his face further against your cunt. The sting on his scalp makes his cock twitch in his flight suit and he groans.

“You want me to make you come, Shop Girl," he mumbles against you.

“Yes.”

“Say it.”

“Make me come, Mando... Please…”

He doesn't break pace, doesn't falter, doesn't change a damn thing what he's doing because he can feel close to the edge you are. You tighten around his digits as the pump in and out. And with a firm suck on your clit you let out a strangled gasp.

"Oh Fuck! Fuck! Mando!"

Your breathing becomes short and shallow. Panting so hard right before holding your breath and tipping over the edge with a strangled cry. You come long and hard. Trembling so much he has to hold you steady by the hips.

Through the waves of your climax, Din continues to eat you. Lapping at your perfect pussy like it's wine and he doesn't waste a single drop of you. Even sucking and licking his fingers clean as you lay breathless before him. They come out of his mouth with a wet pop and he can’t help but let out a small breathy laugh.

“I’ve always wanted to try that…” he confesses.

You let out your own exhausted little laugh and he can already tell he wants more. More laughter, more of those pretty sounds, more of you.

It's with that in mind that Din starts pulling his cape off.

Piece by peace, he silently removes his armor. And after a few moments, a second pair of hands joins in. You fumble in the dark with his chest piece first. Helping him out of his armor one section at a time. They fall to the carpet with a soft thud along with the crumbling pieces of the restraint he’s built since that first night.

There’s no signs of stopping. You keep giving him more. More heat. More yearning. More questions.

What makes you laugh? What gives you pleasure? What makes you feel good and whole and satisfied? He needs to know.

And now that he’s gotten a taste, there’s no way he’s leaving here tonight until you’ve both had your fill.

•

If this is what happens when you invite the Mandalorian into your home, let your door never close.

Getting to your bed was easier than you thought it’d be in pitch black darkness. The only thing keeping your ‘bedroom’ separate from the rest of the home is a wooden lattice divider from the ceiling to the floor.

He lays you down on the soft futon on the floor and you open for him like a flower. Two strong palms drag and paw all over your body as his mouth works magic on yours and it makes you dizzy with desire.

Maker, he’s so good with his hands.

His body separates from you only to remove his flight suit and you whine at the loss of contact. Naked and panting for him. Within seconds he’s back on top of you and the feeling of his bare skin against yours makes your head spin. With everything so dark you wonder if this is even real. Maybe this is all a fever dream.

“Are you gonna show me how Mandalorians fuck this time,” you tease against his lips. Calling back to when he showed you how they drink. With your bare legs around his hips, you tease his resolve by running your inner thighs over his sides and you’re rewarded with a low hum. The hand supporting your neck slowly drags forward to find the base of your throat.

“You don’t need to know how Mandalorians fuck.” His wide grip gently squeezes the sides of your throat, just enough for you to feel the power in those hands. “Just how I fuck.”

Holy shit. You thought him gripping your jaw was hot. But this? This might’ve awakened something you didn’t even knew you wanted.

A whimper escapes you only to be muted by his mouth again. His tongue swirls with yours with a hunger you’ve never knew was there these past months and it’s such a relief to know that you weren’t the only one pining.

Mando’s mouth travels to your cheek, then jaw, finally finding purchase on your neck. Biting and sucking as his body presses into yours. He’s insatiable right now. There's no doubt that you'll find yourself covered in marks when the lights come back on.

You’re so lost in the moment that you almost don’t notice when something hard and warm presses against your inner thigh. Out of nowhere, a thought you haven’t even considered before decides to pop into your head at the very last minute.

“H-hold on!”

Your hands find his shoulders, urging him to pause. His lips unlatch themselves from your neck the second you blurt it out. Instantly propping himself above you with his hands on either side of your head.

“You want me to stop?,” he pants.

“No… Hell no. It’s just…”

How do you even begin to ask this?

“Um… I know I probably should’ve asked earlier but… you’re human, right?”

Mando blows out a low chuckle, understanding your underlying meaning. He feels human, from what your hands can tell anyway. He could be like his kid for all you know. It’s not that you’re not willing to go Inter-species, but your experience is mainly human. Plus with the lights off it’d be pretty difficult to figure out fitting things.

Taking your hand from his shoulder, he presses it against his chest where you can feel a dusting of hair. His skin is hot, damp with a thin layer of sweat and his breathing is heavy. He continues to lead your hand further down his torso so you can feel every hill and valley of his muscles. Eventually your hand hits a trail of hair down the middle and then…

Oh shit.

His hand guides you along the length of his cock. Encouraging you to explore every ridge from the thick base all the way up to the damp tip. He’s stiff and hot in your palm. When you give him a firm squeeze he groans and twitches in your grip.

Oh shit.

“Does that answer your question?”

The human part, definitely. Fitting is still debatable.

He lets you handle him. Giving you free rein to tug and tease as he bucks into your hand. He groans with pleasure and the power trip you feel knowing exactly how you affect this fiercely disciplined man makes the pulse between your legs throb harder. After a minute, his hand snatches yours to a halt, making your grip around his cock tighter.

“Show me where you want it,” he demands in a gruff breath. And you do just that. Pressing the damp tip against your clit. The contact sending a jolt of pleasure up your spine.

“Inside,” you plead. “I need you inside me.”

With an impatient huff, his hand comes down to take hold of your leg behind the bend of your knee. Spreading you wide and teasing your entrance before pushing himself inside. You gasp at the initial stretch, digging your nails into his shoulders. Mando curses under his breath and as he pushes you worry for a moment if there’s an end to him.

It’s slow, deliberate. Feeding his cock into your tight cunt until he’s pressing the limits of your walls. You shudder together when he’s completely sheathed and his hands grip your hips so hard his fingers dig into your flesh.

“Mando…” You throw your head back. Arching your whole body, waiting it to adjust to him. “Fuck!”

“I knew it,” he pants. “Fucking knew you’d feel good…”

He splits you in half and before you’re even ready the first hard thrust hits you. You whimper from impact and he thrusts again. Pinning you down by your hips to keep you at the perfect angle. Soon he sets a steady pace as he fucks you into delirium. It’s too much, he’s too much. Yet you moan and whine for more like each thrust might be the last. He feels incredible and you can only claw at his trim waist as it moves for you.

“That’s it… Good girl… Taking me so well… I wanted this… I want you to know every part of me.”

His words plunge into your chest like a dagger. Laced with a meaning that goes far beyond sex. Because you feel it too. You wanted him to be closer. You wanted him to know your name, know you. Even if it took this long to get here.

You feel one hand find your leg. Hiking it up so the back of your thigh lays flat against his chest. His hand drags up and down, caressing the soft flesh without losing a beat with his thrusts. A kiss presses on your calf and your head feels like it’s spinning. One moment he’s rearranging your insides and the next he’s giving your body sweet affection.

Tension builds in your core. Growing tighter and tighter with each hard thrust. Usually the second orgasm is more elusive to chase on your own. But this man is about to push you right into the next one not five minutes after the first one.

“Don’t… Stop…,” you pant. “Don’t stop, I’m so close, Mando…”

“Come for me... Let me feel you."

Then it comes. Tensing your entire body before coming down like a crashing wave. It’s spreads through every inch of your body, making you pulse and shake beneath his frame. You cry out in the midst of the euphoria, clinging to his shoulders, and everything feels so right. He moans along with you, feeling every tight pulse around his cock and letting you ride out the remaining waves.

“That’s two now, Shop Girl. You gonna give me a third?”

You let out a breathy laugh, still coming down from the clouds.

"I... I'm not sure I can," you chuckle.

"Yeah, you will," he pants. Amusement lacing his raspy voice.

Without out warning, Mando takes both your legs. Placing your calves over his shoulders as his leans forward. Folding you in half. And with one hard thrust, his cock drives back into you at a deeper angle. Your back bows and you swear you see stars in the blackness of the room. His lips land on the corner of your mouth and kiss their way to your lips. Offering a soft apology after the roughness. His strong arms are propped around you and you feel eclipsed under his broad body.

Soon his rhythm picks up. Becoming more desperate as he chases his own release. The room fills with the sound of your bodies meeting and you don't think you've ever heard anything more perfect. His panting picks up, his moans become louder, and the quivering breaths he makes when he finds a particularly deep spot will no doubt live in your mind rent free forever.

“You wanted me bare, didn’t you,” he huffs, pressing his damp forehead to yours.. “When you offered me that tea? You thought about me coming inside this perfect cunt, didn’t you.”

Caught red handed. Sure, you wanted to know if he had a partner as well. But the thought did cross your mind when he cornered you against the counter. You wanted to know how he felt bare, with nothing between you. Even dreamt a few times about it.

“Yes… Fuck, yes! Please! I want it!”

“You gonna come with me, Shop Girl? Hmm?”

“Maker, Mando! I’m right fucking there, please! I… I’m… ah-“

His firm hand grips your jaw. Whipping your face back to him so he can cover your mouth his. He kisses you deep, open and messy. No technique, just raw desire as he eats you alive. You moan and whimper against his mouth with each debilitating thrust he makes. He drives into you faster, harder. Relentlessly pushing you closer to the edge.

When it arrives, the orgasm hits you at full force. Wracking your whole body in convulsions as you scream, actually scream against his mouth. Your toes curl, your nails dig into his back and your cunt squeezes on to him for dear life like he’s never allowed to leave again.

Mando hisses through his teeth and he's right there with you. Ramming into you with relentless force as he chases his own release. His face dives into the crook of your shoulder and his arms scramble to take hold of you and he loses control. Letting out a sharp groan as he comes.

“Fuck.. Fuck,” he shudders in your ear. “Agh!”

His hips jerk against your body, driving himself as deep as you can take him. You feel his cock throb as he pumps into you again and again. Filling you to the point of spilling out and it’s... everything. Connected in such a profound way you’ve never felt before. In this moment, it’s hard to tell your bodies apart. You’ve melted and mixed and you never want to separate.

You ride it together, mold together, lose control together because you both knew it’d come to this. In the end this was inevitable. And in a galaxy filled with unknowns, in this you can be certain. A connection like this is few and far between. It’s real and raw and rare. Resisting that feeling was never an option, so why try?

Even in the climb down he doesn’t stop. Those hard demanding thrusts slow to a gentle drags as if he doesn’t want to finish yet. Hands glide all over each other’s bodies, soothing the other. All along his tense shoulders, you pepper soft kisses to his skin. Easing you both down from the clouds. He hums in the decent and it lulls you into an exhausted bliss.

Everything feels hazy and soft. You’re not sure how long you stay melted together like this. Minutes? Hours? But it’s needed. After a while, the breathing becomes steady and a soft, drowsy satisfaction settles between you.

“That’s the first time someone's come inside me,” you quietly confess. For a moment, Mando absorbs what you just said. Then you feel him prop himself in his elbows above you.

“Really?”

“Yeah…,” you breathe. Running your hands up the sides of his neck and resting them on his stubbled face.

“You know… since we’re sharing firsts tonight.”

He smiles and this time you’re able to know for certain by the feel of it in your hands. Leaning down, his forehead finds yours in the dark and you don’t think you’ve ever felt so whole before.

“I’m your first, huh,” he breathes. “I like that.”

There’s so many layers to this man. Quiet and withdrawn. Rough and demanding. Soft and caring. Each one is a trait you’ve come to cherish. You’re not sure if you love this man. But you’re definitely starting to fall for him. You can explore that treasure box later though. For now, you’ll take tonight for tonight and let whatever comes next between you arrive in its own good time.

“Me too, Mando...”

•

•

•

💕 THANK YOU FOR READING 💕

The sounds and smells of the market were all around you, flooding your senses as you wove through the multicolored stalls on the bright afternoon. The sun above warmed your shoulders through the soft red dress you wore that swished around your ankles with each step through the crowds.

The smell of spices, fruit, fresh baked pastry, and perfumes wafted up from the booths around you while the chittering of creatures in cages, the low hum of electricity, and the sound of vendors calling out to the other shoppers filled your ears. Families walked through the streets enjoying the fare and children giggled while they darted through the crowds playing tag while lone shoppers migrated from booth to booth, drawn in by smooth talking vendors with beconing hands.

It was one of those wonderful Saturdays. You had woken up early, made enough pastries for the morning rush, and left your assistant Jax in charge while you went grocery shopping. There was a list clutched in your hand written in your untidy scrawl, but you were only partly paying attention to it.

Shopping in the market was one of your favorite things to do.

Everyday there was a new vendor or a new product being sold, and you often didn't know where to look for fear of missing out on something strange and unusual. It always awakened a sense of excitement and joy, and of course it always made you feel more connected to the community on Nevarro.

You lean over the display of baskets filled with brightly colored and various sized fruits and vegetables that spill out in a colorful blur onto the small table.

“How about these?” The vendor asks with a wide smile, a hint of an accent on the end of his words, while he holds out a small container of bright purple fruit, each no bigger than the tip of your pinky.

You take a bite, allowing the sour and sweet taste of the fruit explode in your mouth, while the juice stains the delicate skin of your fingertips.

In your mind you begin to assemble a pastry around the flavor, thinking of the things you could make.

Maybe a jelly roll with honey-wine drizzle.

“These are perfect! I'll take two boxes." You smiling at the vendor who mirrors your enthusiasm and begins to pack up a bag for you while your eyes drift over the other fruits on the table considering what else you could create from oddly shaped products.

The market never failed to inspire you, and you often went back to the bakery laden down with multiple bags and exciting ideas about possible treats to bake. You also supposed that was the curse of shopping hungry, and it was something that you did often, but never regretted

Today you had been hoping to find more inspiration for savory treats. Since the day you went with Din to parent's night, he'd gone from stopping by a few times a week to everyday. And each time you'd send him off loaded down with a bag full of meat pies, stew, pastries, and anything else that you could think of.

It made you smile to yourself, but it drops a little bit when you think of him. Din hadn't been into the shop in a week. You knew that it was because he was out on "a job." He hadn't said where  he was going or what he was doing, but he had stopped by just before closing time the night before he left to tell you.

He'd loitered by the door for a few moments watching you sweep up and listen to you talk about your day while Grogu slept in the bag slung around Din's broad chest. And after he'd told you that he was going to be off planet for a few days.

You been surprised that he was telling you that, but at the same time you were happy he did. If Din had stopped showing up with no warning, you would have been worried that something terrible happened to him.

Despite his hesitancy to talk about it, you knew what Din did for a living, and even though you knew that Din was supposedly a mighty warrior and he wore armor that protected him, you still worried about him. The thought that Din would just vanish from your life made an unpleasant feeling bubble in the pit of your stomach.

It had happened so quickly, but you could feel yourself falling for him more each day, and his time away from you this week, had only proven how much you depended on seeing him every day.

The week had dragged on, each day longer and longer in Din's absense. You'd almost gone to find Karga to ask him if he'd heard from Din, or stopped Cara as she did her daily rounds about the city to see if Din was back. You'd held yourself back.

The trip to the market at the end of the longest week of your life had been an attempt to cheer yourself up, but it hadn't done much to keep your mind off him.

Each flash of silver in the sun had turned your head as you walked through, heart surging at the thought of running into Din, but every time you'd been disappointed.

It wasn't him and you missed him more than you thought possible.

You missed hearing his heavy sigh, seeing the tilt of his head as he watched you with a customer, and feeling the warmth of his gaze that made your cheeks heat.

You missed hearing his laugh at your jokes, seeing him cradling a sleeping Grogu in his arms, and smiling at the awkward hesitation Din had whenever you did something for him that he wasn’t expecting. Like when you rubbed a smudge of icing off his breastplate because Grogu had touched it with sticky hands, or when you'd made Din sit still while you patched a hole in his cowl with the emergency sewing kit you always had with you while he stammered that you didn't have to do that.

Those moments made you imagine that Din was blushing beneath his Beskar and smiling at you the way you smiled at him. You understood that the grumpy and somewhat stoic Mandalorian you'd come to know was not someone who blushed easily, but it gave you an unfathomable amount of joy to be the only person that could do that to Din.

Or at least… think that you were the one who made him blush.

“Hey baby.” You hear someone hiss, but you ignore it, expecting it to be directed at another customer and you continue looking at a collection of vegetables on the table, that are star shaped and bright red.

I wonder if they'd bring a little spice to a good hearty stew. Does Din like spicy food?

You made a mental note to ask him when you saw him.

“You here all alone?” The voice says again and you feel someone’s hand on the small of your back, pressing through the crimson dress you were wearing.

You flinch at the intrusion and turn your head to gaze up at a large Transdoshan that stands beside you. His reptilian face is split into a wicked smirk, tongue treading through his black lips, red beady eyes raking across your figure in a more than friendly way.

Nevarro did occasionally get a colorful group of bounty hunters, each month there were less and less with the way Cara and Karga were cleaning up the city, but you'd never seen a Transdoshan here before, especially not one this close.

Most of the bounty hunters kept to themselves, only coming in to your shop with clipped words before you sent them on their way, but there was something lurking behind his beady eyes that made a cold shiver trickle down your spine and your heart beat dangerously fast.

You wondered if he could hear it.

“No.” The lie slips through your lips before you can stop it, and you try to pull away from him to continue shopping, hoping that he'll leave, while the vendor watches the two of you uncomfortably.

“I think you are." The Transdoshan teases with a smiles so wide you can see all of his sharp teeth.  "And someone as pretty as you shouldn’t be out all alone on a beautiful day like this.”

The black stripes that run vertically up and down his face are a stark contrast against the white scales and red eyes. His hand presses harder against the small of your back and you can feel the sharp tips of his claws against your soft flesh through the dress.

You clear your throat, trying to slow the rapid beat of your heart. "Can you please move your hand? I'm trying to shop." You say it as politely as possible, but it does little to keep the tremor from your voice.

His red eyes crinkle around the edges with his smile as he hears the shake on your words. “I think I’ll keep it here. In fact why don’t you and I go somewhere a little more private.” He rasps, tongue flicking out through his fangs, as his other hand travels down to grip your wrist dragging your body back into his. His skin is cold, scaly, hard, and unyielding where it rests against your flesh.

His breath is warm and smells like something coppery and metallic, while his tongue tickles your cheek.

Another shudder travels down your spine when you think about going anywhere with him, especially alone.

Your eyes flick to the other people in the marketplace hoping to catch a glimpse of Cara Dune for help, but you don't see her.

You wish that Din hadn't gone away, wish that he was here with you, because you knew that if he was someone like this Trashdoshan would never come within ten feet of you.

“I’m okay thanks.”  You try to pull away cringing back from him, but he only tightens the grip he has on you, pulling your back harder against his chest.

“Come on sweet thing, don't be like that-“ the Transdoshan leans down, his dark tongue flicking between his sharp teeth, but as he does someone grabs him by the back of his jacket and rips him away from you, so hard and fast that the he stumbles away and lands in the dirt.

Even wearing full armor, Din looks furious as he puts himself between you and the Transdoshan laying on the ground a few feet away. Anger wafts off of him in waves through the silver Beskar into the blaring sunlight, and his shadow falls long over the warm ground beneath your feet.

Din pushes you behind him, wrapping his arm around your waist to keep your body pressed against his back as he looms over the Transdoshan. Your hand automatically comes up to his shoulder, allowing it to ground you to where you are, while Din’s hand is placed firmly on the back of your waist.

The Transdoshan rises to his feet with an angry snarl, lips curled back over pointed teeth that are about half the length of your pinky. It makes another shudder travel down your spine and you gasp softly against Din.

You feel Din's body tense at the sound of your gasp and feeling of your shudder, and the hand on the back of your hip tightens as Din pushes you further behind him into his back. You lean into his protective embrace.

“Don't you ever touch her again.” Din’s voice, although monotone, is laced with venom.

The Transdoshan's eyes flick to where you stand behind Din, his lips curling into a wicked smirk before he says something in his native tongue and then vanishes into the crowds of people enjoying the sunny day who have watched the drama unfold with wide eyes.

You relax as he vanishes and take a breath for the first time in a minute. “Thank you Din.” You say, but Din doesn't answer, in fact his arm tightens around you where it's wrapped around your waist. 

“Din?” You say his name softly to get his attention, but he doesn't turn. His gaze is focused in the direction that the Transdoshan disappeared.

“Wait here.” He says his voice still a growl through his helmet before he hands you the kid and vanishes in the same direction as the Transdoshan.

You try not to be disappointed when his arm is removed from around your body. You had felt so safe pressed against him, like no one could touch you.

You take in a shaky breath to calm your heart, that still seems to be going a mile a minute. Grogu reaches up and touches your chin with one of his little hands, drawing your eyes to the child in your arms.

“Hey Grogu,” You smile as the child coos and puts his fingers through your hair, tugging lightly at the strands that have pulled free from your floral scarf.

He coos something and nuzzles his head into your chest. You might be imagining this, but there's a part of you that thinks Grogu is trying to make you feel better.

It works.

You smile at the little creature, holding him closer to you as he reaches up again to squeeze your chin. "I'm okay."

Grogu blinks his dark eyes, but he mirrors your smile.

 “Are you having fun at the market?” You ask him, gently rubbing his ears, but notice that he has a brown sticky substance smeared on the bottom half of his mouth. “You’re a mess.” You laugh and take out a cloth from your bag, wet it with your tongue, and begin to gently drag it over his face.

Grogu wriggles defiantly under your ministrations, but you hold him fast and continue, allowing the rhythmic movement of the cloth against his face calm you and also distract you.

You had no idea where Din had gone, only that you were now more worried about him than you had been for yourself.

The Transdoshan was bigger than Din, what if he hurts him?

Din reappears next to you, the shine of his metal in the sunlight almost blinding, but you feel a wave of relief at his reappearance. There's a purplish-black substance flecked just under the right intention of his helmet that wasn’t there when he left.

“Are you alright Cyare?” Din asks, his voice a low rumble through the helmet, and then Din does something he’s never done, Din touches your cheek with his gloved hand, his helmet tilted down towards you.

Your eyes widen in surprise, gasping softly with his touch. It was the first time that Din had ever done anything remarkably like this, especially in front of the entire town that was still watching the two of you.

They always were, but by now you didn't care. You were used to the whispers, used to seeing women in the streets stare at you and then turn to one another as if they knew something you didn't.

"Yes." You breathe, looking up into the helmet with a soft smile. "Thank you Din."

"You do not have to thank me." Din replies, the roughness of his glove resting against your cheek is surprisingly comfortable.

"But-"

"Not for something like this. He won't bother you again." He says firmly, voice hardening.

For a brief moment you can feel his gaze locked on yours through the visor, and it brings a wave of comfort through your body, being here with him. A feeling of safety comes with it and you lean further into his touch with a sigh.

Din keeps his hand on your cheek for another few seconds before he drops it. You watch his head tilt in the direction of Grogu, who is still trying to squirm away from the wipe in your hand.

“I guess he’s saving whatever that was for later.” You say with a smile, changing the subject.

“We stopped at the shop, but you weren’t there.” Din explains. You can't help but think that he sounds a little disappointed.

“Oh so this is Uj cake.” You laugh as you finish cleaning. “I left Jax in charge. She’s pretty good at cashiering, not so much baking, but I thought that I made enough sweets for the morning rush at least."

The people pass by the two of you glancing nervously at the Mandalorian standing next to you, but you pay them no mind, gently rocking the child in your arms.

“How are you?” You ask Din.

"Good."

“I-um- wasn’t sure when you’d be back.” You drop your eyes to Grogu in your arms shyly. It was difficult not to show Din how much you missed him, and at the same time there was a part of you that wanted Din to know.

“It wasn’t supposed to take that long, but-“ Din stops mid-sentence, measuring his next words.

“But?” You look up at him raising an eyebrow in confusion.

You noticed that he did that a lot, that Din tried to censor what he said to you as if he were afraid to tell you the whole truth.

Sometimes you wondered if Din was waiting for you to run away screaming, for you to turn your back on him the way everyone else in town had, and it broke your heart. You wanted him to open up about his job with you, to tell you what he did, to tell you about the sprawling worlds that lay beyond this one.

You’d only been to a handful of other planets in your lifetime and you were sure that Din had some incredible stories about other worlds all over the galaxy.

Din waits another beat finding his words. “He kept evading me. I’m sorry I was gone so long.” Din remarks slowly.

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“I did-“ He clears his throat. “Bring you something.” Din's fingers fidget slightly where his hands hang at his sides.

“Oh really?" You blink in surprise. "You didn’t have to.”

Din reaches into his bag and pulls out an old book. It’s covered in a dark blue tattered binding with faded silver script on the spine and cover, and yellowed pages. He takes Grogu from you before holding out the book to you.

You take it gently from his hand and open the first page to read the table of contents, and realize that it's a cookbook. The listed dishes of sweet and savory items are things you’d never heard of, but you feel yourself begin to buzz with excitement at the thought of trying out new recipes.

He was thinking about me.

The thought makes you smile to yourself and blush, that Din thought about you as much as you were thinking about him.

“I saw you sitting at the fountain a few days before I left, reading, and I thought you’d want another one.” His voice is huskier than usual and you wonder if it’s because he’s nervous.

“That was very sweet Din. Thank you.” You brush your fingers over the page before looking up at him with a bright smile. “I can’t wait to try these out."

He nods once.

“Why didn’t you come say hi when you saw me?”

“I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“I would have welcomed the disruption. Especially if I knew if you were going, I missed seeing you around." Your cheeks warm as you admit that to him, but you wondered if he felt that way about you, especially now that you had the cookbook clasped in your hand.

Din's muscles tense beneath his Beskar. "I-" He begins to say, but just as he does the Greef Karga walks by.

"Mando! You're back." Karga smiles wide at the sight of the Mandalorian. "Just who I wanted to see."

Din sighs. "What is it?"

"I need your help with something- only take a minute." Karga's gaze flicks to you. "Well isn't it Nevarro's favorite baker. Are you enjoying this fine day?"

The memory of the Transdoshan flickers across your mind, bringing the sharp feeling of his claws prickling against your back, and the warmth of his breath against your face. You shudder slightly, hoping that Karga misses it.

Din doesn't.

"Yes." Your smile feels a little bit forced. "I am."

"Good!" Karga booms. "Now Mando please, don’t make me ask again. I need you, old friend.”

Din's helmet hasn't turned away from where you stand, his concerned gaze focused on you for a moment too long. "Fine."

"Thank you!" Karga turns to go, expecting Din to follow, but Din steps closer to you.

"Are you alright cyar'ika?" Din asks it quietly under his breath and you watch his right hand twitch as if he was going to reach for your face again.

You didn’t know what the word meant, but you’d noticed that each time you were with Din, he'd use more and more words in Mando'a that you couldn't place. By now you were used to it, figuring that Din was getting more comfortable talking casually with you and it caused certain words in Mando'a to slip in to his vocabulary when he spoke.

"Yes, Din I'm fine. I promise." Your smile is genuine this time as you look up into the helm, and you reach out to touch his arm to reassure him.

Din waits a moment, his eyes tracing over you face beneath the helmet, before he sighs. "Can you watch the kid for me?"

"Of course. I'll go back to the shop. I'm sure that I can find something he wants to snack on." You place your new book in your bag before taking Grogu from Din, who gurgles happily and nuzzles into your neck.

Din sighs again and you imagine the Mandalorian rolling his eyes. "You shouldn't spoil him."

"He deserves it. And I like spoiling people." You didn't say that you wished Din would let you spoil him, because the big scary Mandalorian you'd heard rumors about was nothing like the man who showed up in your bakery for treats. There was a voice inside of you that wondered if he was as lonely as you were. "Thank you for the book, I'll see you in a little bit."

You walk away whispering to the child while he gurgles and squeaks grabbing on to the strands of your hair, not noticing how Din's eyes follow you through the market making sure that you're safe.

By closing time, Din still hasn't come to pick up Grogu, but you don’t mind. You liked spending time with him as much as you liked spending time with his father. You'd sent Jax home early, wanted to let her enjoy the rest of her day, and by now the twin moons had already risen from the horizon to bathe the city in a silver glow. The florescent signs that lined the streets flickered in multicolored splendor outside and strands of lights that lined the streets twinkled outside the shop.

Grogu was happily sitting on your counter with a bowl of stew clutched between his small hands, listening to you read aloud from the book of recipes that Din had brought you. There were so many recipes that you'd never heard of before, and by now you had a large list of ingredients written on a piece of paper beside the book you’d made. It meant another trip to the market, and you hoped that Din would go with you now that he was back in town.

"What do you think about stewed Jorgan berries with spiced egg-milk tart?" You muse aloud to Grogu who takes another sip from his bowl as you study the recipe written in neat script, running a fingertip down the list of ingredients. "I think that could be good." You continue, listening Grogu babble his answer. "Do you think Din would like it?"

The door at the front of your store opens, the happy jingle of the bell is familiar and welcome. You expected it to be Din, so you don’t bother looking up from the page. “Wow, Karga kept you a long time. What did he need?” 

But it's not Din that answers.

"Did you miss me sweet thing?" A voice hisses bringing a tremor of fear scuttling down your spine.

You raise your eyes from the book.

The Transdoshan dwarfs the front entrance of your shop, the lights of the street outside dramatizing the broad shoulders and imposing figure. It takes another step forward, mouth curling up in a snarl as it does.

One of it's eyes is completely swollen shut, the once white skin covering it an ugly blotchy purple, and it's lip is split, dripping purplish black blood onto the smooth wooden floors of your shop.

The color is familiar and you remember the flecks of liquid on the indention of Din's helmet from earlier.

Did Din do that?

The memory of how long Din was gone and how quick he was to follow the Transdoshan seemed to prove that.

He approaches the counter limping on his right leg as if putting weight on it is too much to bear.

"We're closed." You keep your voice from shaking. "Plus, I'm sold out."

Grogu coos softly, looking up at the creature that slinks forward, and you pick him up and move him out of harms way. The last thing you wanted was for Grogu to get hurt and if that meant putting yourself in between him and the creature that loomed over your counter so be it.

Why is he here? Why couldn't he have just slinked back to wherever the hell he came from?!

You'd thought that Din had made himself clear when he spoke to him earlier, but apparently this Transdoshan was more hard-headed than your favorite Mandalorian.

"Oh I'm not here for that." The one red eye glints with malice in the light, and before you can back up further, his hand flashes out across the counter and grabs your wrist, yanking you forward. "I'm here for something much sweeter."

You bite back a whimper.

Where is Din?

"You see, your Mandalorian disrespected me." The creature pulls you halfway across the counter, so close to him that you can feel his rancid breath against your face, the wood ledge presses painfully into your hip. "He wears all that fancy armor and I wasn't able to leave a mark on him. But you-" He raises his cold scaly hand to your cheek, dragging a claw down the arch of your cheekbone. "You were made for that." The claw bites into your skin following the subtle curve of your cheek.

The door behind him whips open so fast you imagine that it's been pulled off it's hinges. You can't see who it is, but all you know is that the creature is ripped away from you so suddenly that it almost pulls your arm off in the process.

You scramble backwards off the counter, holding your wrist to your chest, watching the scene unfold in front of you.

"Do you remember what I said I'd do to you if you ever touched her again?" Din's voice is a growl through the helmet, so different than the deep rumble you loved so much.

He has the Transdoshan pinned to the wall of the bakery, a silver knife pressed so hard against it's throat that blood blooms against the blade and drips down below the creature's collar.

“I don’t see your name written on her Mandalorian.” It spits back. “Perhaps she wants something more free range not someone locked up in a metal cage.”

Din's body tenses with the words and he growls out your name without looking away from the creature. "Take the kid into the kitchen. I don't want you to see this."

You do as he says without question, vanishing behind the curtain that separates the back and the front of the shop with Grogu clutched tightly against your chest.

He said you. He didn't say the kid.

The thought makes you remember how Din tried to distance you from when he spoke about his job, when you knew he was holding back details because he was afraid you wouldn't be his friend.

There's a sickening squelching sound, a muffled scream, and the sound of something heavy hitting the floor, but you don't leave the kitchen. You hold Grogu tighter to your chest and squeeze your eyes shut as your stomach knots at the unpleasant noises coming from the front of your bakery.

Din walks through the curtain, the dark blood of the Transdoshan splashed over the front of his Beskar, his chest rising and falling with the exertion. His helmet tilts in your direction and you watch him hesitate to come towards you, as if he's afraid that you would run from him.

How can I when I know he did that to protect me?

Before Din can decide to come closer, you run to him, throwing your arms around his chest with the kid pressed between the two of you, and burying your face against the hard metal of his breastplate. Sobs shake your body as tears burn and slip from your eyes, rolling down your cheeks.

You were trying not to focus on what had almost happened to you, but all you could think about is what would have happened if Din didn't show up when he did. Outside at the market had been a public place, but here, alone in your bakery there would have been no one to hear you scream.

You shudder at the thought.

It was enough to shock Din out of his stupor. He hadn't moved since you'd collapsed against him, momentarily surprised, but now his muscular arms come up around you to hold you against him. The breastplate was cutting into your cheek, but you didn't care, not when Din was actually hugging you back. 

"Shh cyar'ika, it's alright." Din murmurs, his voice softer than it was moments ago as he moves his hand up and down your back while you cry harder and tighten your arms around him. "He's not going to hurt you again I swear it."

The three of you stand there for another few moments, with Din rubbing his hand up and down your back while you cry softly into his armor and Grogu coos softly and nuzzles his head into you as if trying to bring you comfort the way his father is.

Din pulls back from you. "You're bleeding." His voice deepens a little bit and you can feel the invisible trace of his eyes over your face.

“Huh?” You sniffle, rubbing your eyes with the back of your hand.

“Come on.” He leads you back to sit down on the ottoman of the plush armchair in the corner, tilting your face upwards and brushing back the strands of your hair that have fallen into your eyes.

You could see your reflection in the shine of his helmet, eyes swollen and rimmed with fresh tears, and an ugly long scratch that ran the length of your cheekbone.

“Does it look bad?” You whisper.  You couldn’t feel any pain, you were still in shock, anxiety thrumming through your body, with the possibility of what almost happened.

“No.” Din almost growls it, his gloved hand tightening on your chin as he continues to examine your face.

Finally he sighs, releases your chin, and tries to take Grogu from you, but Grogu wriggles defiantly and cuddles further into you.

"Please don't take him." You whisper in a voice you don't recognize. It sounds more hollow and still holds a little shake as you sniffle again.

Din does as you ask and kneels down at your feet, sitting back on his heels as he begins to strip off his gloves.

You blink in surprise, holding back the urge to reach eagerly for his hands, wanting to see just a peek of the skin, wanting to reach out and touch the forbidden flesh that he hid beneath his armor.

He doesn't notice your interest, instead Din stays focused on the task at hand.

Din reaches into the bag slung around his shoulders to pull out a small medical kit, methodically taking out the gauze and sterile spray.

 His fingertips reach to brush against your jawline and you gasp softly, not because he is touching the scratch that the Transdoshan left behind, but because Din's skin is touching yours. The exact thing that you'd wanted for so long.

"Are you alright? Does it hurt?" He rumbles, mistaking your gasp for pain. You can hear the worry in his voice. It stirs something in your chest, knowing how much he cared about you.

"No, it doesn't, not really." You smile faintly despite the situation.

"I'm sorry." He sighs shaking his head. "I should have come sooner. I shouldn't have assumed he would leave you alone."

"This isn't your fault." You whisper. "I'm okay."

"You're not."

"Din, I'm right here in front of you-"

Din's hand touches your cheek again. "But you're hurt. You wouldn't have been if I had been here with you. I was stupid to think-"

You raise your hand to touch the metal of his helmet, directly over where you imagined his cheek would be if he wasn't wearing it, tilting his helmet so you're sure he's looking at you through the visor. Din freezes in surprise. "This is not your fault Din. Please don't blame yourself for this. How were you supposed to know? Karga needed you for-"

"I do not care what happens to Karga. You needed me more and I wasn't here-"

"You were here when it mattered." You whisper back with a soft smile. "And you're here now."

He shouldn't beat himself up for this, not when it's not his fault.

"But-"

"No." You breathe wishing that you could see his face, touch his cheek the way he was touching yours, not just the feeling of the cold metal of his helmet against your hand, but the warmth of his skin. You knew that it could bring more comfort to him than this. "We're not going to go there. We're not going to think about 'what if' because if we do that we'll be here all night."

He sighs again.

Your thumb gently rubs over the indention of his helmet wishing again that it was his cheekbone. "I worry about you too."

"You worry about me?" Din chuckles, but there's a trace of surprise in his voice. "Why?"

"I mean you-" You press your lips together in a tight line before you drop your eyes from his helmet, the heat of his gaze through the helm too much.  It didn't matter that you couldn't see Din's face, you knew he was looking at you, and although you welcomed it, sometimes it was too much, especially now when you were admitting something like this. "I know what you do Din." You say it slowly, noticing how he stiffens, but you continue. "And you were gone for so long that I was afraid you were hurt or worse."

The thought that Din would never come back, that you'd never see him come into your shop with Grogu ever again haunted you.

Din's hand slips down to your chin, tilting up your face to look at him again. "Please do not worry about me cyar'ika. I swear to you that no matter what happens, I will always come back to you."

You didn't need to see Din's face to imagine the determination in his eyes when he says it, you could hear it in his voice, stirring something in the pit of your stomach that sends your heart surging up in your chest. It was so brutally honest, his voice holding more emotion than you'd ever heard before.

He said "to you."

The thought makes a shy blush creep into your cheeks.

Din keeps his hand on your chin for another few seconds, his gaze locked on yours through the helmet studying you. He was waiting for you to look away, waiting for some hesitation in your eyes. Din was a master of reading people, it was a part of his job understanding what a simple twitch on the end of someone's lips or of the flicker of someone's eyes meant. Din was waiting to see fear flash in your eyes, but there's nothing. There's only you.

It was why Din had told you to go into the kitchen, he hadn't wanted you to see what he was going to do to the creature who dared touch you. And after he'd expected you to tell him to leave, that you didn't wish for him to be around you anymore, that he was a murderer and scared you. It was the reason why Din didn't want his life as a bounty hunter to tangle with yours, because he feared the moment you found out the kind of person he was, found out what he'd done, understood how many times his hands ran red with blood, you would run from him. But you hadn't,  you had run to him, hugged him, collapsed into his chest and fit there like you belonged while asking him to comfort you.

The sharp tang of the Transdoshan's blood fills your nose and you can see the purple stain against the breastplate of Din's armor like a shadow, a reminder of what he did.

And maybe another person would be frightened, but you can't be, not when you knew that Din did those things to keep you safe. He was your friend and there was no part of you that believed Din would ever hurt you.

"I'm going to hold you to that." You smile into the visor, still only seeing yourself, but for some reason you can tell that Din is smiling back. Call it some inkling in the back of your mind, or some kind of psychic connection, but you can feel his smile.

"I don't break my promises cyare." He says firmly, but he leans into your hand where it still clutches the left indention on his helm.

Din had called you that several times since that walk home from the Parent's Night, and each time you were just a little disappointed. You hoped that Din saw you as more than a friend, especially after he'd promised that he'd "always come back to you," but you supposed not.

"I believe you."

"Good."

Din pulls back from you slowly to begin cleaning your wound again.

"Din?"

"Yes?"

"Are you okay?" You ask tentatively.

Din's rough fingertips work with a practiced methodical precision and deftness that you didn’t think he'd possess, gently cleaning your cheek. "Yes. Why do you ask?"

"I wasn't sure if you were hurt too."

Din chuckles as he applies a bandage to your face. "What did I say about you worrying about me?"

"I didn’t promise I wouldn't worry." You laugh. "I just wanted to ask because you were fighting him."

"I am fine. My armor was sufficient to block his attacks." He reassures you before lifting up your left wrist to examine the bruising handprint the Transdoshan left behind. Din lets out a sigh that sounds close to a growl. "He should not have been able to do this to you."

"Is it broken?"

It didn't feel broken to you, it just hurt a lot more than the scratch on your face.

I hope people don’t think Din did this to me.

The thought of Ms. Cross and the other parents at the school gossiping about the new bandage on your face and what people had seen today in the market made your blood boil. You didn't want to hear a rumor about how Din invited another bounty hunter to Nevarro and it was Din's fault you got hurt.

"No, but I wouldn't knead any bread for a few days."

"Does that mean I get to hire you as an extra set of hands in the kitchen?" You joke. "Because I can always make you that pink apron. And yours certainly seem big enough to handle some dough."

Din only shakes his head, but before you can stop yourself, you reach out to take his hands in yours.

He stiffens.

It feels forbidden, like something you shouldn’t be able to do and yet you can't stop. You gently trace your fingers over the rough callouses on his palms worn from hard work and notice small scars that interlace and curve over the back of his hands over the burnished bronze of his skin. You wanted to memorize each one, to listen to the warm rumble of Din’s voice and  know the story of how they came to be.

Din sighs.

It's not the heavy sigh of annoyance he has when Grogu does something wrong, or the growl of a sigh he just had when he dwelt on what the Transdoshan did to you, this is different. It's soft through the modulator of the helmet, it wisps through the air and straight into your heart.

Oh no maybe I did something wrong.

"I'm sorry I should have asked-" You try to pull back, afraid that you've offended him, but Din takes your hands in his. They're much larger, warm and solid, but he holds yours with a gentleness that would have surprised you if you hadn't seen the way he was with Grogu.

"It's alright." He says softly.

"It feels wrong."

"What?" Din asks, voice laced with humor.

"I never see any of your skin." You were sure that by now your cheeks must be almost blinding under thermal vision. It felt like all the blood in your entire body had rushed to them and made them shine like a beacon in the night. "You don't take the helmet off to say hello and you certainly don't take off your gloves."

Din says your name softly. "It’s okay for you to see my hands."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." He laughs. "It's my face that you cannot see."

You chew the inside of your cheeks measuring your next question. It was the one question you’d had since you met Din, why he kept his helmet on when you knew other Mandalorians that did not. "Why?"

"This is the way." Din replies in a monotone as if reciting the phrase from memory.

That tells me absolutely nothing.

“You really wear it all the time?”

“Yes.”

“Even when you sleep?”

"Sometimes."

“It must be uncomfortable."

You couldn’t imagine waking up with your head in a helmet, you'd probably think you were suffocating. That or you’d think you went blind.

"I'm used to it." Din shrugs. "I've been wearing this since I was a boy."

“So since last week?” You say with a laugh squeezing his hands. You were trying to make light of the situation, given that you didn’t understand why Din wore his helmet and your brother did not.

Din chuckles, the warmth of his laugh making you feel like you’d sunk into a hot bath. His helmet is tilted down where you’re holding his hands in your own watching your fingertips trace over the scars that weave over his sun-kissed skin.

“But what if you-“ You stop the question before it comes out of your mouth.

Din’s head tilts up to look at your face. “What if I what?”

“Nothing, it’s too personal.”  You shake your head in embarrassment.

You didn't know what had made you almost blurt out the question 'what if you wanted to kiss someone?'

Well, you did know, because you wanted to kiss him, but you didn't know if Din saw you that way. Given the way he kept calling you "friend" in Mando'a you were sure of it.

“Please ask me Cyare.” Din gives your right hand an encouraging squeeze.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“You cannot.” He says gently.

You swallow. “What if you wanted to kiss someone? You wouldn’t take off your helmet? And if you got married Din, you’d just never-“ You trail off, cringing at your questions. You weren’t about to open the can of worms that was asking Din about his sex life.

I should just shrivel up and die.

Din’s thumb deftly traces your bruised wrist in a soothing motion, taking his time before he answers. “There are other ways to kiss someone.”

“Oh.” You had no idea what that meant but you were still trying to not be so damn awkward because now you were imagining what it would be like to kiss Din. Not to mention the feeling of him holding your hands skin against skin felt so good it was making you transcend to another plane of existence. "Like what?"

His thumb stills.

"Please forget I asked that. You don't have to explain if you don't want to." You squeeze your eyes shut in embarrassment. You really really didn't want to make Din nervous, not when it felt like he was actually opening up to you. It was what you had wanted since the moment you met.

Din raises his hand to your cheek, his gaze locked on yours through the opaque visor. He clears his throat. "May I show you?"

For a moment you forget how to breathe.

"Yes." You squeak.

Oh holy glazed honey buns he's going to kiss me.

Din waits a moment, before he very gently pulls your head down to his and rests his forehead against yours. You gasp softly, feeling the cool metal of his helmet against the heated blush of your face, fogging around where it rests against your skin.

And before Din can pull away, you raise your hand to the left indenture of his helmet once more, mirroring his own hand on your cheek, tilting you head to look into the dark visor with a soft smile.

Din sighs.

It’s not the tired sigh he has whenever Grogu does something or whenever you give Grogu a treat, it's softer, the same sigh he had when you first touched his hands. You're under the impression that he didn't mean to do that, but you see the tension dissipate from his shoulders as he leans further into you waiting another few precious seconds before he pulls away and your hand falls from his cheek.

Din doesn't say anything for a moment and truthfully you couldn't think of anything either. There was a strange energy in the room between the two of you, a tension that wound tight around where Din was kneeling in front of you and you were sitting. You knew he was only demonstrating, but there was something about it that felt like more.

His head tilts down to look at your wrist again. "We should ice that." He says, voice huskier through the voice modulator than it was a few moments ago.

"Oh, I can-"

Grogu reaches out with his hand and touches the delicate skin of your left wrist, laying gently against the bruised flesh. Warmth blooms where his three fingers grasp your arm, wrapping and curling around the bones and muscle, weaving them back together. And you watch as the flesh takes on it's normal color before your very eyes.

Grogu sighs heavily and falls back into your lap in a daze.

"How did he do that?" You raise your wrist to your face to examine it closer, slowly rotating your hand and flexing your fingers in surprise.

You hadn’t been looking forward to using only one hand in the bakery, but you were willing to make do with what you had.

Din gently take Grogu from your lap to into his bag, who has begun to snore quietly.  "He's always been able to do that."

"Heal people?"

Din nods once, but doesn't embellish.

Worry begins to trickle in at the way Grogu seemed to crumple as if it took too much out of him to do that. "Is he going to be okay?"

"Yes. He just needs to sleep.

You look down at the creature resting in the pouch, his small head cuddling into the worn leather side of the bag.

Curious.

"Thank you Grogu." You whisper, gently stroking his ears while he slumbers. He stirs for a moment to babble something under his breath in his sleep, but quickly drifts off once more.

“He didn’t want to see you in pain.” Din says quietly. “I understand how he feels.”

Your heart thuds an extra beat when Din says that and it again reminds you of what Din had done for you today, how he'd protected you and put himself in harm's way to keep you safe.

Din stands from his position on the ground and holds out a hand to you. "I would like to walk you home, if that's not too much to ask."

"I'd like that Din, but I still have to clean up-" You wave a hand at the kitchen that still has dirty bowls and pans stacked in the sink. “I can’t leave the kitchen like this.”

"Let me." His helmet turns in the direction of the front of your shop to look over his shoulder. "There are some things in here that I need to take care of. And I'd like to make sure you get home safe."

The memory of the sounds you heard coming from the front when Din was dealing with the Transdoshan make you cringe in disgust. The thought of cleaning up what was left of him made your stomach tie itself in knots and the sour taste of bile rise in the back of your throat.

But you didn’t want to leave Din with all this mess.

“Are you sure?"

"Yes. I want you to get some rest."

Din gently leads you by the hand to the curtain partition that divides your kitchen from the front of the shop, but stops so suddenly you walk into his back.

He turns to look at you over his shoulder. "Close your eyes."

You do what he asks without hesitation and Din leads you through the shop and out the front door into the moonlit streets beyond.

The walk home is silent, but odder still is that Din has not released your hand since he led you through the tables and chairs at the front of your shop. He holds it gently, as if it's a beating heart.

But you weren't going to complain. The feeling of Din's bare skin against yours was giving you a pleasant buzz. The warm roughness of his palm surprisingly soothing. You didn't know how you were going to go back to feeling the leather of his gloves when all you wanted was this.

Not to mention that the streets were blessedly empty and there wasn't anyone watching Din and you together.

When you arrive at your door, Din says your name to catch your attention.

"Yes?" You ask.

He looks down at where his hand is still in yours as if he can't believe it. His thumb begins to trail over the back of your hand. "I didn't answer your question."

"My question?"

What question did I ask him?

Din hesitates again, unsure. "I can reveal my face to people in my clan. And if-" Din clears his throat. "If I were married, my wife would see me without my helmet."

"Oh, oh." You said eyes widening in surprise.

Frankly, you were shocked that Din was bringing this up again, but you weren't going to stop him. Not when Din was opening up to you again.

"We would be one. The other half of me." Din says this slowly. "My riduur."

“Riduur.” You murmur the word feeling the syllables roll off your tongue.

"Yes." He nods at your pronunciation of the word.

Your eyes trace the familiar lines of Din's helmet, again thinking what he would look like. It was something that you always did in the past, but now the idea that you wouldn't get to see him, stung just a little bit. It was difficult for you to imagine Din with someone else, to know that someone else got to see the soft side of Din that he only showed when you were with him, but you also knew that you would try your hardest to be happy for him if he ever took a wife. He was after all, your only friend on Nevarro and really your only friend beside your brother.

"She would be very lucky to be with you." You say looking up into the helm, a soft smile pulling on the end of your mouth as you give Din's hand an encouraging squeeze. "Just as I am lucky to have you as a friend."

Din's body goes stiff in surprise. It was the last thing that he was expecting you to say to him. In fact Din was afraid that he had said too much to you. Especially given that he was about to start courting you. The book he'd given you today would be the first in a series of gifts that he would bring back to prove his commitment and ability to provide, as had Din's statement that he would always come back to you and his remodeling of his home to make a bigger kitchen and more room for you if you were to accept him. Of course there was a part of Din that wasn't sure that you would accept him.

That was why Din hadn't told you what "cyare" really meant or tell you why he brought you the book. He thought that maybe easing you into it would be better.

Before Din can respond, you pull him into a hug, wrapping your arms around him as tight as you can. "I know you keep saying that I don’t have to thank you, I do. You saved my life Din. Thank you."

Din's body curves up around yours holding you tightly against the hard cool metal of his armor. "You're welcome cyare."

Guide:

Cyar'ika: Sweetheart

Cyare: Beloved

Thank you so much for reading! Likes, Reblogs, and Comments are not required, but are always appreciated! If you'd liked to be added to my taglist for fics in this universe please let me know!

Taglist:

@jollyhunter @scoliobean @pressedwater @littlebear423 @bookloverkat

The smell of fresh bread, cinnamon, and brown sugar wrapped you in a blanket of warmth as you pulled a tray from one of the large ovens at the back of your bakery. It was not the first tray to be born of flame and love today, nor would it be the last.

You smiled down at the perfect pan of browning pastry with pride swelling in your chest, admiring your handiwork. It had been two days since you opened your small bakery tucked into the corner of a colorful street on Nevarro and you were already convinced that it was the best decision you had ever made, despite your older brother's insistences that you were crazy for doing so.

Sure, Nevarro was in the middle of nowhere, was populated by angry bounty hunters, and probably wasn't the safest place to live, but you loved it. Every day there was a market that opened in the early hours of the morning, close enough that you could wander through the colorful stalls meeting new people, trying food and sweets from all over the galaxy, and browsing through the handcrafted wares the others sold. On weekends the new fountain in the center of town was surrounded by parents while children squealed and ran through the cooling sprays of water. It was a lovely place to sit and soak up the warm sun, while your mind slipped into the soothing prose of a book perched on your knee.

The longer you stayed on Nevarro, the more you felt apart of its growing community and the more you felt like you belonged there. You hadn't felt like you belonged anywhere in years, not after you lost your grandmother, and you were left with an cold empty house filled with echoes of someone long gone, shades of a life you lived that could only exist in your memory.

Your brother had left you years before, angry, fueled with a fire to make the people who destroyed your home and orphaned the two of you pay, choosing rather to leave you with your grandmother than watch from the sidelines.

But you never blamed him for leaving when he was only fifteen and you barely ten. You weren't angry anymore about losing your parents to the war the way so many others had. Maybe it was because you'd lost them when you were too young to remember their faces while your brother was still haunted by the voice of your mother singing him to sleep.

But you supposed that without your grandmother you never would have fallen in love with baking and found the thing that made you feel whole and brought you comfort when everything else seemed to fall apart around you. It was her that fueled your own love of baking, tempered it and helped it grow from a small spark to a burning flame.

Her constant praise and encouragements in the time the two of you spent tucked into her kitchen filled with light and love made you the person you were today. She taught you everything you knew, spoke about opening a bakery of her own for years, but never did. You knew that she would have wanted you to sell the house to do what she couldn't, so you did, and you didn't look back.

The constant flow of customers in and out of the shop, the chatter that rose from patrons sitting on the carved wooden tables made of strong smooth wood, and the people who continued to say how wonderful it was to have you there only supported your decision to move here.

She would have loved this.

You think to yourself with a smile, gaze falling to your grandmother's overstuffed book of recipes that sat with pages fanning on the counter, before you drop your free hand to smooth a wrinkle from the floral apron wrapped around your waist. One of hers that you'd tied there for good luck over your dark blue skirt.

You supposed that it was working given the fact that you'd completely sold out of treats yesterday and now already halfway through the third day, you were out of some of your favorites.

At this rate I'm going to have to hire someone else to work the counter for me.

You never imagined to have this kind of response, but now you lived for it.

The fresh tray you pulled from the oven is heavy, but it's a pleasant weight. You maneuver through the cozy kitchen to place it on the counter where the sweet buns could cool before you iced them with the thick periwinkle colored frosting chilling in the refrigerator in the corner, but as you do, you hear the front door chime.

It was later in the day, and you were taking advantage of the lull before you expected another rush of customers to come in. The last patron had left fifteen minutes ago, placing her ceramic mug in the big plastic bin on top of the trashcan by the front doors, before walking out with a cheerful "goodbye."

The smile you have when you hear the jingle is genuine, the prospect of sharing your gift of baking with someone else warming your heart.

"One minute." You call, arranging the tray on the crowded countertop before you wipe your flour covered hands on the apron at your waist and make your way through the green curtain that hangs in the doorway of the kitchen, dividing the front and back of the shop. Your eyes flick upwards, expecting to see someone standing there behind the counter waiting for service, but the shop is empty.

"Hello?" You ask tentatively, looking over the counter at the empty wooden chairs and tables arranged beyond before the doorway and wide windows at the front of your shop. Sunlight filters through the glass in happy patches of light, illuminating the furniture just inside the door.

But no one answers you.

That's weird.

You hear something make a cooing noise, but you still can't see anyone, and there's a small part of you that's disappointed someone left without asking for help.

The odd noise sounds again, almost like the small multicolored bird-like creatures in the cages hanging above the shop next door.

Maybe one got out and is trapped in here somewhere.

The thought makes your fingers itch for the broom leaning in the corner, expecting something to come swooping down at you from the rafters above. Nothing was worse that finding out at the last minute that something you were trying to shoo could fly.

You walk around the counter looking for the source of the sound while bracing yourself for attack, but stop when you see a little green creature swaddled in brown cloth standing in front of the one of the glass cases loaded with sweets. He turns his gaze in your direction, presses his little three fingered hand against the glass, and coos softly as if asking you for one of the treats that sit in organized rows within.

"Um-" You look around the room hoping to see an adult, someone who he belongs to, but there's no one. "Hey there little guy." You stoop down next to him so you can see him better.

The creature smiles and gurgles happily, tapping his hand against the front of the case filled with pastry again to make a point.

"Where's your mommy?" You pick him up gently, cradling him in your arms. "Did you get lost?"

He coos again and touches your chin with a smile so cute that it's impossible not to return it. The sharp nails catch against your smooth skin, but you don't mind.

He's so cute.

You think to yourself with a soft smile.

I wonder who he belongs to?

You bite the inside of your cheek and contemplate what you should do. You were still relatively new on Nevarro and hadn't introduced yourself to the sheriff yet, but you'd heard of her. The problem was you had no idea where Cara Dune would be at this time of the day and you'd never seen a creature like him walking around when you went to the market or... really seen a creature like him ever.

I can't just keep him! Someone could be looking for him and it wasn't on my agenda today to become a kidnapper. I mean, that's never on my agenda, but today isn't any different!

You raise your eyes to look out the front door and large windows of your bakery, watching a few people pass by, but you don't see anyone resembling the child in your arms.

A sigh builds in your chest, contrasting the thrumming anxiety building in your body.

Maybe I should feed him, he looks hungry. And if his family doesn't come in by the end of the day I'll go find Cara Dune. She's got to know who he belongs to.

It seemed like a good plan, plus you figured the way that the creature was looking at the pastries it wouldn't hurt to give him a little something before you tried to find his family.

"Well, I don't really know how you ended up in here, but somebody's gotta be looking for you." You sigh, softly stroking his green ears. He wriggles in your arms, sighing under his breath and leans into your comforting touch. "Are you hungry?"

He turns and waves his hand at one of the glass cases loaded with multi-colored pastries again.

"Guess that's a yes." You laugh as you walk back around the case to place him on the counter right next to the register resting in between the two glass displays. "Sit here cutie. I'll get you something."

He waits patiently on the counter kicking his little feet where they hang over the edge, while you turn to the case on your left and grab a Uj'alayi square, a traditional Mandalorian sweet, from the display. The brown sticky pastry crumbles in his little hand as you give it to him. "This one's my favorite. It's my mother's recipe."

Your mother had been born on Mandalore years before the Clone Wars, but she'd left when she met your father, taking the traditions from her family with her to start anew. You'd never met any of her family members before and supposed that they died in the purge of Mandalore. The recipe for Uj'alayi was one of the only things you had left of her, something you'd found in the box of belongings pulled from the remnants of your home following it's destruction.

It had taken you years to perfect the recipe, thought that making it would awaken some memory deep inside of your mother, but it never did. Your brother, Ezekiel, remembered the moments that slipped between your fingers like running water, seeping through the cracks in your memory of the fleeting moments you'd spent with your parents before they were killed.

When the creature bites into the square, he gurgles, his dark eyes blinking at you and crinkling slightly from the lights that line the ceiling of your shop.

"I know. Good huh?" You smile and break off a piece of the cake before popping it into your mouth. The crunch of nuts and the tang of the sweet syrup brings a melancholic feeling of nostalgia rising on the crest of a wave, but slowly ebbs out to sea with your exhale.

It wasn't an unusual feeling, you'd been feeling more nostalgic since you'd opened the bakery.

The child munches on the square with a happy giggle and it makes you smile. Sharing your gift of baking always brought joy to your heart, and this was no different.

I wonder where his family is. He's so small, he couldn't have gotten too far, and he shouldn't be out by himself. Something could happen to him.

The thought makes your smile falter. The population of bounty hunters on Navarro had lessened in the months before your arrival, but you weren’t sure that someone as little as him should be walking around by himself.

The front door of the shop opens with a pleasant jingle.

"There you are." Someone sighs in a buzzing monotone.

You glance up from the little one your counter with curiosity, blinking in surprise at who stands in the doorway. Honestly, you weren't expecting it to be a Mandalorian, you were expecting someone else who was maybe a little bit bigger, but also green.

Maybe the little one is a foundling? That or he’s green under that thing.

The thought of the broad shouldered man standing in your shop squeezing pointy ears underneath his helm makes a laugh tickle in the back of your throat.

You'd heard your patrons talk about the Mandalorian who lived just outside of town, in hushed whispers around the crunch of pastry within your shop. The one that everyone steered clear of for fear that he would hurt them and take their children in the night, as if he was a creature that dwelled in a cave crouched over piles of gold. The people in town were all afraid of him, said that he was a blood thirsty bounty hunter who should be avoided at all costs, but seeing him stand here in your shop, arms crossed over his chest, hip cocked to the side, while looking down at the small child on the counter, you don't feel afraid.

The child coos happily and reaches up with two sticky hands opening and closing, asking to be picked up by the intimidating figure.

They never said he was a dad.

Despite their reputation, Mandalorians didn't scare you. When your brother left trying to find an outlet for his anger, he had found solace with a small clan of Mandalorians inhabiting a planet in the Outer Rim. They'd taken him in when he needed a home and given him a place where he could learn to control the rage he kept close to his heart. You were grateful for that, but it didn't make you miss him any less.

Whenever he would visit, he'd bring members of his clan with him all of which who were nothing but kind to you. But you still worried about him.

You worried he wasn't eating enough and when he came you would spend most of your time cooking for him and his new family. It was never a bother, you liked doing that for other people, cooking for them and taking care of them when no one else could. It was a form of comfort and warmth you believed that no one should be deficient of. In your heart everyone deserved to feel at home and have someone who wanted to take care of them.

"He belong to you?" You smile at the man standing just inside the doorway. He's so tall that he'd had to duck when he came in through the front door.

"Yes." He lets out another sigh that pops and crackles in the modulator.

"Well, I'm glad you found him, at the rate he's going, he's probably going to eat everything I have."

The man tilts his head to the side as if confused. You wonder if maybe you came on too strong or if it's just a habit of his, to size up everyone he comes in contact with.

He is a bounty hunter. Probably picked it up along the road somewhere.

His armor is a startling silver, sending flickers of the sunshine behind him over the walls of your bakery. You'd never met a Mandalorian who didn't paint their Beskar. Your own brother's was painted in shades of red and orange, and embossed with his clan sigil in a startling white.

But there was something about this Mandalorian's armor that was almost… pretty, but you supposed it was the same glinting beauty of a knife sitting on a kitchen counter, beautiful but deadly.

You look back down at the creature, who touches your hand and points back at the Uj'alayi in the case as if asking for another. The three fingers are sticky with the remnants of the desert. "Fine. One more. But I don’t want you to spoil your dinner."

You reach back into the case for another crumbling brown square to give to him with a laugh on your lips and watch as the skin around his little black eyes crinkles in gratitude before he bites into the treat.

The Mandalorian approaches cautiously and despite the helmet, you can feel his eyes on you, contemplative and curious.

"Is that Uj cake?" His voice comes out through the harsh buzz of the modulator.

"Yeah it's Uj'alayi. He really seems to like it. Is he your foundling?" When you look up and smile at the helm, you can only see your reflection in the brilliant metal of the armor.

Surprise flickers across your mind. You weren't expecting him to still be wearing the helmet and you're not used to talking to someone who didn't reveal their face to you. It was a little odd.

Whenever your brother or his friend Max were talking to you, they always took off their helmets, but this felt different.

Honestly, even though he had the visor, you still weren't quite sure where to look to make eye to (through the helmet) eye contact.

Is it rude to tell him to take it off?

You'd never been put in this kind of position before, so you decide to ignore it.

"Yes." The helm turns from you to the other Uj cakes in the case. "Did you make it?"

You nod, blushing with pride.

"Are you Mandalorian? Do you speak Mando'a?" The Mandalorian asks, you can't but help notice that he sounds a little bit hopeful.

"No, I'm sorry. My mother was from Mandalore, it's her recipe." You admit sheepishly.

He nods in understanding.

The two of you sit in comfortable silence for a few moments watching the child eat on your counter, the sticky brown cake smeared against his cheeks.

It gives you a moment to size up the Mandalorian out of the corner of your eye. Again, you're struck by how beautiful the armor is. A brilliant silver and polished to a shine, proud, but not haughty. There's a charcoal cowl that wraps around the base of his throat and extends into a cape behind him and he's wearing a set of tan and brown gloves to ensure that no part of his skin is showing.

I wonder if it gets hot under there. Nevarro isn't exactly temperate.

And when the Mandalorian turns to the left to look at the other mulit-colored pastries in the display case and you catch a glimpse of the sigil of a Mudhorn on his shoulder.

Makes sense that someone so formidable would have that as their clan sigil.

Your brother's clan had the sigil of one of the large birds that inhabited the cliffs of their home planet. Each child had to scale the cliffs and bring back the skull when they came of age to prove their strength and prove that they were worthy of the mark.

I wonder what he did to get that as his sigil.

Your eyes fall back on the creature munching happily on the pastry.

"Look at you, you're a mess." You laugh, pulling a napkin from your pocket and wetting it with your tongue before wiping it over the little one's face to clean him.

He squeals indignantly, but you avoid the impetuous swipes of his hand as he tries to push you away.

"He doesn't like it when you do that." The Mandalorian says, but you can hear some humor come through the crackle of the modulator.

"I can see that." You snort, before disposing of the napkin. "Here, you take some. He really likes it and you should try it. It's my favorite thing to make for the shop." You turn back to the case and wrap up several squares for the Mandalorian to take with him. “I’m-” you say your name, busying yourself with folding the tissue paper around the pastry.

He whispers your name back to you as if he's trying it out and you're not prepared for the warmth that travels through your body when he does.

That's weird.

When you give him the bag, he holds out a handful of credits, but you push his fingers into a fist, feeling the rough scrape of his gloves against your fingertips. "It's okay. Free for first time customers. Plus it was payment enough to see this little one."

You give the kid an affectionate pat on the head, who coos and reaches for your face. It makes you laugh at how friendly he is and you pick him up so he can lay his hand on your cheek. He squeezes it between his fingers, crinkling his eyes with a wide smile. "Aww. You gotta go with your dad now okay? But you can come back and visit me any time you want."

The Mandalorian is watching you, and you again wonder why he hasn't removed his helmet to say hello.

I'll ask Ezekiel about it.

You were sure your brother would be showing up soon. When you sent him the transmission that you finally opened the shop, he said he was excited at the prospect of eating sweets for free, as if he already didn't do that.

I miss him.

It had been at a few months since you'd last seen him, right after you sold your grandmother's home and before you moved to Nevarro. He'd tried to talk you out of opening the shop, asked you to stay with him for a little while, but you thought it was about time you went out on your own.

You hand the child to the man standing on the other side of the counter, trying not to notice how his muscles flex beneath his Beskar when he does or how broad and wonderfully tall he is. So broad and strong that you know he could probably lift you just as easily and the thought makes a flush burn against your cheeks.

Get a grip, he's not a piece of meat.

"Thank you." He says in the buzzing monotone, but it makes you long to hear his real voice.

"You're welcome. Come back anytime."

"We will."

"Good. I'll look forward to it. It was nice to meet you-" You hesitate.  "Um- Actually, I didn't catch your name."

The Mandalorian doesn't answer immediately as if he's mulling it over in his head, while the child coos and giggles in his hand touching the bottom of the helmet on his father's head. It was a startling contrast the the formidable form of the Mandalorian to have a wriggling bundle of joy in his arms, one that made you smile just a little wider.

"Din." He says in a whisper.

"Din." You repeat slowly, rolling the name around in your mouth and enjoying how it sounds on the tip of your tongue. "It was nice to meet you Din." You smile widely up into the helmet, watching the reflection of yourself glinting in the metal.

Din doesn't move for a minute, he's hesitating, and it makes your smile falter on the end of your mouth for a moment in confusion.

Did I do something wrong?

But then he nods once and leaves, the only clue that he'd been there is the almost empty batch of Uj Cake and the brown crumbles covering your counter.

The next few days pass in a blur of you baking, cleaning, and selling as many sweets as you can while trying not to think about Din and the kid, but it's proving to be impossible.

You didn't understand why you were so focused on them. You'd had many customers that day and on the days that followed, but for some reason you couldn't get him out of your head.

When you'd lie awake at night you'd remember how he sounded when he said your name, how you wished that he would remove his helmet to look at you and let you see what he looked like, because with a voice like that the man underneath had to be just as beautiful-

Stop.

You cheeks warm as you clean the counters with a wet rag, your back to the door while you try to forget Din and his voice. This had never happened to you before, being unable to stop thinking about someone.  But each time everything went quiet, your mind would flash to the image of Din ducking to get though the front door of your shop and the sound of his voice through the helm.

The clock on the wall behind the register stated that it was exactly two minutes past closing time, which meant that you were about an hour away from crashing in your bed. You still had to clean the ovens, and pack away any leftover supplies. Not to mention the tossing and turning that came when you would lie awake and think about Din, hoping he would come back.

I need to get over this. He's just a man you met one time. Don't romanticize him.

You blamed the stack of books on your bedside table, the ones you read over and over about adventures all over the galaxy and true love. It also didn't help that you'd never once had a relationship, but why would you when it was more exciting to live vicariously through your favorite heroines? Not to mention you didn't have to make a fool of yourself falling for someone who probably thought you were just a weird person who smiled too much and baked for fun.

You wondered if that was why Din hesitated before leaving the other day when you smiled at him, that he couldn't figure out why you were so happy.

The bell on the door rings behind you, pulling you out of your head.

"I'm sorry we're closed." You respond without turning around, fingers scrubbing with the cloth at a particularly stubborn smudge.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize how late it was." Din's familiar voice floats through the air and makes a shiver travel down your spine.

"Din. Hey." You smile as you turn around, waving a hand, cloth still clasped between your fingers. "It's okay, you're always welcome."

He's still wearing his armor and helmet, the silver catching in the dim lights of the room, contrasting with the yellowed light that streams from the streetlights outside and emphasizes his figure.

Your eyes drop to the bag hanging on his hip expecting to see the child, but it lies empty.

"You're alone today." You say a little disappointed, but still happy that Din is here.

"Grogu's asleep. I didn't want to wake him." Din clears his throat.

"Grogu." You say the name back to him slowly. It didn't seem to fit the small child who swung his little feet on the end of your counter and shoved as much pastry into his mouth as he could. "That's an interesting name."

"Came with the kid." Din's voice shifts a little bit and you wonder if it means he's smiling at a memory. Your mind predictably begins to imagine what Din's smile must look like. "I was wondering if you had any Uj cake left." He continues, oblivious to your train of thought.

"You're in luck, I just pulled a tray out of the oven for tomorrow. Come on back." You motion with your hand for him to follow you through the curtain that divides the front of the shop from the kitchen. "Sorry it's a little bit messy, haven't had time to clean up back here yet."

The kitchen looked exactly as it should, two large ovens on the right wall with fire still burning underneath, a sink filled with dirty mixing bowls, spoons, and utensils, a large table in the center of the room that served as a counter top, and in the corner there was a plush armchair that you had fallen asleep in more than once with a book open on your chest.

Your apartment was a few doors down, but you found yourself spending more time here. So much in fact that you were contemplating moving in to the back of the shop. You didn't have many possessions, mostly books, and seriously started thinking about it last night because the people who lived on top of your basement apartment were so loud that you could see the floor vibrating with the sound of their yelling.

You walk over to the tray of reddish-brown pastry cooling a rack in the center of the kitchen.

"It's alright. You should see where I live." He freezes on the edge of the room, realizing what he said, but you only laugh.

"I'm sure its no worse than my apartment. I’ve lived here a few weeks and I’m still not completely unpacked. Each time I go home I have to avoid stubbing my toe on the boxes”  You pick up a knife to cut the pastry into generous sized pieces. "But I guess you liked the Uj cake to come back here so late." You tease him, glancing up with a smile. "Midnight craving?"

He laughs and it makes your heart stutter to a halt. Even through the helmet it's hypnotic and you want to hear it again. "It was good, it reminded me of-" Din stops mid-sentence.

"Of?" You look up into his helm, wanting to hear more.

Truthfully, you were curious about him. You wanted to know more about the Mandalorian who lived on the outskirts of town, the one that everyone else seemed avoid.

"When I was a kid." He says it quieter, almost embarrassed.

"Me too. Whenever I make it I feel like I'm in my grandmother's kitchen again." You smile to yourself as the memory of her washes over you again. "She's been gone for a few years now, but I like to think that I honor her memory by baking, she taught me everything I know. Raised my brother and me by herself." You wrap the squares in tissue paper before placing them in a white paper bag.

"What about your parents?"

His question surprises you, you didn't think that he actually cared enough to listen.

"They-um- they died when I was little. My brother and I were visiting my grandmother when it happened."

"I'm sorry." Din sounds sincere.

You shrug. "I can’t remember them. My brother remembers more..." You trail off a little bit. "It was harder on him, but somehow it all turned out okay." You hand him the bag, but when he tries to reach for the credits at his belt, you push his hand away. "I don't make friends pay."

“But-“

“Din, I refuse to let you pay.” You smile wider, saying it a little more forcefully, but it holds no bite. “Don’t make me ban you for life.” I don't want to do that to Grogu."

He huffs out a laugh. "Thank you." His helmet tilts down towards you and you again try to imagine what he looks like underneath.

Would he have a strong jaw covered in a thick beard? Curly blonde hair that falls past his shoulders? Green eyes with flecks of light that resemble the stars?

No matter how many times you thought about it over the past few days, nothing seemed to fit Din.

There's an audible silence between the both of you as you stand there in the kitchen, and you don't want him to leave yet.

“You’re welcome.” You could feel yourself beginning to blush a little under his gaze. It was odd to feel someone’s eyes on you and not know what they looked like. "Now, don't forget to share with the kid. He deserves some of that too." You say raising an eyebrow and pointing to the white bag in the Mandalorian's hand.

Din chuckles. "Thank you-" He says your name and it makes the warm feeling come rushing back.

Even through the helmet, it was inviting, and made you want to curl up in the feeling it brought over you. You try not to imagine what it might sound like if he wasn't wearing the helmet.

"You're welcome Din. Don't be a stranger."

"I won't." He hesitates again, the same way he did when you'd first met in your shop. Standing in front of you for another few fleeting moments, his head tilted curiously in your direction. And for just a second you think that Din doesn't want to go either.

But he turns and shoulders his way through the curtain hanging in the doorway, boots thudding against the floor, and you hear the jingle of the door as he closes it behind him.

Something inside pricks when he leaves and maybe that scares you the most, the fact that you were already so attached to him and you didn't know anything about him except the rumors everyone in town said. The ones whispered on tremulous breath that condemned the man you were so curious about to be a blood thirsty bounty hunter who couldn't be trusted.

But in your heart those warnings held no power, because the man who'd sincerely cared about you losing your parents, couldn't be the same one.

Could he?

Thank you so much for reading! Likes, Reblogs, and Comments are not required, but are always appreciated! If you'd liked to be added to my taglist for fics in this universe please let me know!

Taglist:

A/N: so, this is my ticket to hell. I posted this back in october as part of my halloween series trick or tease, which I will continue here. anyway, I wanted to give this one-shot an actual plot, so there have been some important changes since it was pretty much pwp before. disclaimer: this story contains monsterfucking, so please avoid sending weird inbox/comments (yes, it already happened). if you follow me, know that this is a recurring theme, as a matter of fact I already have two stories about orc!bucky. it's very simple: if you don't like it, don't read it. hope you'll enjoy 🖤 trick or tease masterlist

You love your apartment in a way that would probably sound ridiculous if you ever tried to explain it, because it’s not particularly beautiful, nor does it sit in some idealized neighborhood where everything feels arranged for aesthetic approval.

The building is old, long past charming. The pipes occasionally groan through the walls as though protesting against their own existence, and the floors remember every step, even when you try your best to be quiet. The kitchen is too small to ever feel fully practical, the bathroom is always slightly colder than the rest of the apartment no matter the season, and the elevator has broken down often enough that you have stopped trusting it entirely.

Objectively, there are better places to live.

And yet every evening, after a day spent among crowded sidewalks, half-finished conversations, and obligations that somehow leave you far more exhausted than they should, the knot in your stomach begins to loosen the moment the front door closes behind you.

Nobody interrupts you here. Nobody watches you with critical eyes. Nobody tries to dictate the way you exist. It’s just you.

Which is probably why you develop the habit of talking to yourself once you step inside.

It’s not something you ever decided to do, it simply followed you from earlier versions of your life. At first it was practical, a way of sorting out stress and untangling thoughts that felt too messy to leave trapped in your head, but over time it became part of who you are.

“Stark scheduled five meetings today.” You drop your keys on the counter. “New record.”

You kick off your shoes, already moving towards the fridge for some water.

“I swear he finds some sick pleasure in wasting everyone’s time.”

You never expect a response, of course, but carry on with the small rituals of the evening while the walls quietly absorb your voice.

Ultimately, you stop keeping tabs of how often it happens, because you talk while cooking, cleaning, and taking showers. You comment out loud while scrolling through your phone and revisit past conversations while folding laundry. Even when sitting on the couch at the end of a long day, you debate whether you’re too tired to start anything meaningful or too restless to do nothing at all, as if the pillows could answer back.

Still, there are moments—usually late at night—when the absence of another human being becomes harder to ignore. A small ache settles in your chest at the realization that entire days can pass without anyone else seeing them. Your thoughts, your victories, the countless insignificant moments that make up a life... all of them exist only inside your own memory.

The feeling never stays for long though: somewhere along the way, you just learned how to be content with your own company.

Most of your friends live hours away now, scattered across different cities and different lives, and trying to keep those connections alive feels mortifying when it becomes clear you’re not worth the effort.

Making new ones has never been any easier. Too many people seem worn down by disappointment, and retreating into themselves feels safer than risking another let-down. The rest treat every relationship like a negotiation, weighing what can be gained from it before deciding how much of themselves they are willing to offer.

So you fall back into your routine, and the apartment remains your favorite place, where you spend most of your time.

However, the feeling is not one-sided, because somewhere within the walls and foundations, something has begun, very slowly, to consider you a constant.

It has occupied the building for longer than any human memory can account for.

Long before you arrived. Long before the current structure of rooms and hallways. Not trapped within it, or bound in any conventional sense, but present like a memory inside a familiar object, woven through walls and doorframes and the quiet space between moments.

For centuries, humans were irrelevant.

They came and went, briefly altering the surface of things without ever touching what lay beneath. The Entity never thought of them as individuals, but as noise. Temporary disturbance that always faded back into silence.

Until you.

At first, you are nothing exceptional. Just another tenant. A fragile arrangement of blood and flesh moving through a structure that has already forgotten most of what it has held. You unpack and settle into your routines.

And then you start talking.

Constantly.

As though silence is something you have to keep at bay to stay sane.

And that’s what catches its attention. At first, it assumes you are speaking to someone outside its perception, but there is no other presence, no other voice.

Only you.

So it begins to assume the words are meant for the space itself, for the apartment as a whole—for the being that chose its shadows as a place to rest.

The conclusion is obvious.

You are talking to it.

The Entity initially listens passively. Your voice is just another sound among many, no more important than the groan of old pipes or the distant hum of traffic beyond the windows.

But as you keep talking, your voice stops blending into the background.

It learns your rhythms before it understands why they matter: the time you come home; the way your footsteps change depending on fatigue; the subtle differences between your frustrated sighs and your tired one. The melody of your happiness and the miserable sound of your sorrow.

The details gather one by one without purpose.

And somewhere along the way, it stops thinking of you as transient.

The first changes are small. A temperature fluctuation in your room settles earlier in the evening than it used to. A recurring fault in the elevator that keeps waking you up in the middle of the night doesn’t return. A light that hesitated before turning on now responds immediately.

None of it is noticeable enough to make you suspicious. Until the reason behind these adjustments changes drastically.

In its memory, humans have always approached beings like it through extremes.

They arrive trembling with desperation that melts into obsession, or rigid with fear that collapses into obedience. Their speech grows cautious, as though a single wrong word might invite disaster. Even when they pretend otherwise, there is always an ugly tilt beneath their requests: ambition, hunger, greed.

But you only fill rooms with thoughts that have nowhere else to go.

You complain about a man named Tony scheduling meetings throughout the day as though he has personal authority over the calendar. You debate dinner choices—usually pizza or sushi—because the outcome might alter your mood for the rest of the night. You spend an entire evening trying to figure out why a couple from your hometown broke up after everyone swore they’d end up married.

And throughout your little monologues, your voice never once bends toward reverence. It never tightens into fear.

And that becomes difficult to grasp.

Over time, those small routines become expected. And expectation creates its own kind of absence.

The first few times you leave for longer than usual, the apartment feels incomplete. Not empty, exactly, but quieter. The space remains the same, yet something about it feels wrong without you.

The conclusion it reaches is simple: if you are choosing to spend more time elsewhere, then the apartment must be failing you in some way. From that point on, every imperfection becomes unacceptable, and small inconsistencies are often corrected before they even have the chance to become problems at all.

Since you are completely unaware that something has started arranging the world around you, the changes continue without question.

You keep talking the way you always do, filling the apartment with things that would seem insignificant to anyone else, but not to the creature listening. You never thank it. Never ask for anything specific, or demand more. You simply exist inside a space that now quietly takes care of itself according to your comfort.

The simplicity of that still confuses it. The Entity has been worshipped before, feared, sought out for power... But no one has ever treated it like part of their daily life. Like an equal.

Your voice is familiar and reliable as you become its Polaris, the fixed point by which the rest of the world is measured.

The Entity has never concerned itself with anything beyond its own existence, most things are allowed to fade.

Anything connected to you is not.

When you come back that evening, something is different. 

You move through your usual routine after stepping inside, loosening your shoulders and mumbling softly under your breath. Yet there is something unfamiliar that clings to the edges of your presence. It doesn’t belong to the apartment, and because of that, it draws its curiosity at once. 

Humans carry traces of the outside world with them all the time: scents, particles, remnants of places and people. Most disappear quickly enough to be forgotten.

But this one doesn’t leave. It stays attached to you in a way that makes it hard to dismiss, fixed on a specific point of contact. Still, you hang up your coat, set down your bag, and slip off your heels with a relieved sigh. There is no hesitation in your movements.

Something outside its space touched you and was allowed to settle. And it doesn’t seem to bother you at all.

That unpleasant realization manifests like the first thunder announcing an imminent storm.

The air changes, pressure building ominously through the room enough to alter the flow of oxygen.

You notice it a few seconds later, your breathing feeling slightly more restricted, your chest tightening in a way that is easy to misread as fatigue from the day. You pause, one hand briefly touching your chest as if checking whether something inside your body isn’t working properly.

Frowning in confusion, you glance around the apartment before sprinting to the window to push it open, letting the crisp night air spill inside.

The suffocating feeling eases a little, but the Entity’s rage doesn’t.

The air turns clammy enough to make your skin prickle. Out of the corner of your eye, the shadows along the edges of the room grow longer, creeping farther than they should. The impression vanishes as soon as your head makes a sharp turn toward the wall, leaving you with a kind of discomfort that will haunt your sleep for the rest of the night.

You were still its when you left this space, but something else got close enough to interfere with that.

Whatever that presence was, it shouldn’t have been near you at all.

The changes start revealing themselves later, in moments that seem insignificant at the time.

You take a shower every morning—it automatically folds into your routine without much attention, the same way you sit on the edge of the bed with a towel around your body and half-awake eyes, letting the day assemble itself around you in slow pieces.

You turn on the tap and let the water warm up while you brush your teeth and check your phone. Sometimes you even have time to tidy up your room a little.

But one day you find yourself rinsing your face while the mirror is already beginning to fog. You dismiss it as temporary luck and keep going through the same motions the next day.

And still, it keeps happening.

A few days later, you’re standing in your bedroom half-dressed and with an unexpected ten extra minutes before work, trying and failing to understand where they came from.

Other weird things follow, like the bedroom door no longer sticking when it’s too humid. Then, the kitchen cabinet that always needed an extra push starts closing smoothly, and the draft from the living room window stops bothering you entirely.

There is an accumulation of small inconsistencies that leaves you with the subtle impression that the apartment and your recollection of it are no longer perfectly aligned, to the point that you start wondering if the problem is you.

Maybe you’re becoming forgetful, distracted... The thought never settles into genuine panic, but it lingers just long enough to leave a sour taste behind.

A quiet Friday night finds you stretched on the couch with the television murmuring in the background, when an email from Tony lands in your inbox. It marks yet another round of revisions of your presentation despite the fact that this is already the fourth time you have edited it.

For a moment you simply stare deadpan at the screen, the frustration that has been building all week finally manifesting with a sharp exhale.

“For fuck’s sake, Tony.”

“I could ensure he never troubles you again.”

The voice comes so quickly after your words that your brain just accepts it without question. Then, your limbs still at once at the realization. Slowly, you lift your head and look around the apartment.

The television still works. The kitchen is empty. The hallway is exactly where it should be.

You frown at it for another moment before forcing yourself to exhale.

Stress.

You imagined it.

Shaking your head, you turn your attention back to the show.

“Well?”

This time you sit up abruptly, confusion sharpening into alarm. 

“What the fuck?” You mumble, because whatever fragile explanation you were building in your head collapses at once.

You nearly trip over your own feet as you scramble to stand, your heart hammering against your ribs while your gaze darts frantically around the open space.

“Is someone here?”

There is a pause before the voice answers—calm, almost unaffected by your agitation.

“I am not visible at the moment.”

Your breath catches slightly.

“What does that even mean?”

“I am in the shadows,” it continues. “I am everywhere.”

You let out a short, disbelieving laugh, but it comes out strangled.

“Yeah, okay.” You mutter. “Sure.”

You quickly check the hallway and then turn back again, trying to locate any possible source that could explain the voice seemingly coming from the inside of the apartment. When you can’t find anything out of the ordinary, your body instantly angles towards the couch, one of your arms already stretched out to get your phone and call someone.

Police. Your neighbor. Anyone...

But your fingers barely brush the object before it slides out of reach.

You freeze.

“No.” You whisper, because now your brain is splitting between panic and denial.

You glance at the device like it has personally betrayed you.

“This is insane,” you say, unconsciously backing up, your chest heaving dangerously fast. “This is fucking insane.”

“He can be removed.” The voice states with confidence.

You shake your head sharply.

“What does that even mean? And what the fuck are you doing in my apartment?”

“I have been here for a long time.”

“What?” Your stomach tightens as you take another step back, shaking your head again like that will be enough to reset reality.

“Get the fuck out or I’m calling the police.” You threaten more firmly this time, even if the trembling in your voice refuses to fade.

The air shifts at once, suffocating in its heaviness.

“Do not dare to call me an intruder.”

Until now, despite everything, some stubborn part of your brain had been trying to force this situation into a shape that made sense—a prank, a squatter, even a neighbor with far too much free time.

Something explainable.

Human.

“I have always been here.”

The words settle like a boulder on your chest.

A chill crawls down your spine.

Nothing around you changes: the walls are still standing, the lights are still on, and the floor is not splitting open beneath your feet. Yet your attention is obsessing over every neglected corner. On the narrow seam where two walls meet. On the vent above the kitchen doorway. On the faint cracks hidden beneath layers of paint.

Places you have never paid attention to before.

Places that now feel claimed.

You have lived here for years, slept, eaten, cried... Spent entire weekends doing absolutely nothing. And the thought that something might have been present through all of it sends a fresh wave of nausea through your body.

That’s enough for you to notice the change in your breathing. Each raise of your chest feels slightly shallower than the last, your lungs stinging as they instinctively prepare for a danger your eyes cannot see.

“Reality parts for me. I have drifted through the birth of galaxies, swallowed storms of time, watched empires swell and rot. Your world? An insignificant speck in the vastness of the universe. Your species? Flimsier than smoke. You puny humans only know how to crawl from the mud to devour each other over shallow trinkets and territory.”

You swallow thickly, flinching hard as your back brushes against the wall close to the front door.

You don’t even remember moving.

“Okay,” you mumble, your voice still uneven. “Someone’s a little too full of themself.”

A thunderous roar crashes through your skull, pain exploding behind your eyes so suddenly that your vision blurs around the edges.

A sharp gasp tears from your throat as you double over, your body folding in on itself before you can stop it. Your hands fly to your head, fingers digging into the skin of your temples as your eyes squeeze shut against the pounding agony.

“I only speak the truth. I am eternal, and your defiance is inconvenient. Remember, human: if I wish to, I could bend you into nothingness before your heart finishes its next beat.”

The temperature of the room drops below zero. Biting cold wraps around you so viciously that it feels as though warmth has been erased from existence.

A violent shiver runs through you, and your arms promptly wrap around your torso in a futile attempt to make yourself smaller, safer, somehow less exposed to its wrath.

The threat itself should sound ridiculous, the sort of thing a comic book villain would say before getting punched through a building. Yet what’s frightening is the certainty burning beneath its voice.

An uncomfortable, deafening silence settles over the room, before the voice comes back quieter—almost timid.

“I have frightened you.” It sighs wearily. “Your fear is bitter. Forgive me. I often forget how small your hearts are, how fragile your existence can be.”

The cold begins to retreat, slowly loosening its grip on your body until you can feel your fingers again. The pressure squeezing your throat eases with it, and you quickly draw in a breath, gasping as if you have been forced under water.

You don’t answer. Instead your eyes close briefly, and inside your head you keep repeating that this is only a dream.

It has to be.

Dreams can be terrifying.

Dreams can feel real.

Dreams can make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

“I apologize. I am not used to... converse with humans.”

The explanation is absurd. Completely ridiculous. Sure, people do that too. They make themselves louder and hostile, more intimidating. They show their teeth because they are afraid to get bitten first.

But it’s difficult to be terrified of something while simultaneously understanding it.

“I would not harm another being, unless strictly necessary. Like Tony.”

There is a beat of silence after that, the kind that feels like waiting for a clarification.

Your eyelids slowly flutter open.

“Tony?” Your brows furrow in confusion.

“Yes.”

Your stomach drops. “I—Tony is my boss.”

“I am aware.”

That answer does absolutely nothing to make you feel better. Still, a weak, tired chuckle falls from your lips, the sound still sitting on the edge of disbelief.

“Well,” your voice wavers. “Next time you want to show off, try to be a little less... intense.”

There is a pause that lasts just long enough to feel like the conversation might actually end there.

“I will…” It rumbles. “Little star.”

You blink.

For a moment you genuinely wonder whether you heard it correctly. Of all the things it could have said, that had not even crossed your mind as a possibility.

“What?” You ask uncertainly.

“You are smaller than me,” it starts calmly. “And you shine the brightest when surrounded by darkness.”

The words hit you like a punch in the stomach, because that name feels like it was always meant for you—like this weird creature has spent some unknowable amount of time observing the universe until it reached the conclusion that you deserved your own little place inside it.

“And so you just… decided to call me that?” You say slowly, staring blankly at the wall.

“Yes.”

The answer arrives with complete confidence.

Your eyes scan the space again: the walls are still up, the furniture remains exactly where you left it, the front door is only a few feet away if you decide to make a run for it. However, now they all sit beside the crushing knowledge that you have never been truly alone in what you considered your safe haven.

And yet, despite the trembling in your hands and the excruciating headache, the apartment has never felt this warm.

After that night, the voice doesn’t appear on a schedule you can trace, and it doesn’t behave like something that interrupts your life so much as something that exists alongside you, its presence filling the apartment as naturally as sunlight through an open window.

Eventually you resign yourself to the fact that if this is real, then it has always been real. The Entity has existed beyond the edges of your perception all along, tucked into the shadows while you moved through your life unaware.

You are not discovering something new. You are simply learning how to share your home with a creature whose ego is, unfortunately, backed by evidence.

Strangely, that realization no longer feels like you’re losing your sanity. Every appearance still sends a jolt through you though, even when you start anticipating it. The jolts finally become sighs, the sighs fade into pauses... And then, somehow, they turn into full conversations.

“Allow me to intervene.”

The words emerge from nowhere and everywhere at once, threading through the sound of running water.

Your reaction is calmer than it would have been a month ago.

Pausing with a glass still slippery beneath layers of soap, you glance at the counter.

A deep exhale escapes your nose. “That’s not what I meant when I said Pierce should stop being an asshole.”

The silence that follows feels thoughtful.

“He deserves it.”

The certainty in its tone immediately tells you that this conversation is going to leave you with a migraine.

You slowly set the glass aside and reach for another.

“No, he doesn’t.”

“He repeatedly enters the apartments without warning despite causing distress to their occupants. He ignores maintenance requests. He raises the rent while refusing to fix anything. He is unpleasant.” It growls at last.

You stare at the sink deadpan, because the worst part is that none of those observations are technically wrong.

“You still don’t get to decide what happens to my landlord.”

“You have developed a habit of assuming the worst about me, little star.” The response almost sounds offended.

“Last week you wanted to fold the mail carrier into another dimension because he bent one of my packages.”

“He damaged your property.”

“He dropped it because he nearly tripped carrying three other boxes.” You remark tiredly.

“Then he accepted more than he was capable of transporting!” It snaps.

Your eyes close, and for a moment you simply stand there with your hands submerged in warm water, wondering whether anyone else in human history has ever had to explain proportional responses to a cosmic entity living inside their apartment walls.

“You can’t solve everything with violence.”

“At least my ways are effective.”

The tone is so childish that something dangerously close to a laugh threatens to escape you. You barely suppress it, unwilling to give the Entity the satisfaction.

The last thing you want is to encourage it.

“You’re missing the point.” You sigh.

“And your landlord is disruptive.” It retorts, returning to the original topic with persistence. “I remove disruption.”

A month ago, that statement would have sent ice flooding through your veins, now it makes you tired. Concerned, certainly; still mildly horrified. But mostly tired.

You noticed pretty quickly that the creature inhabiting the darkness has apparently divided existence into two simple categories: things that bring you comfort, and things that do not.

And whenever something falls into the second category, it immediately begins offering solutions.

Usually terrible ones.

You still can’t fully comprehend what it is and what it wants from you, yet you don’t reject it anymore, choosing instead to adjust yourself around it the same way people learn to coexist with eccentric roommates, noisy plumbing, or old neighbors with weird habits. But speaking more carefully than you used to has become necessary. Not because you are afraid of being overheard—you passed that stage weeks ago—but because the Entity is always listening, hungrily waiting for the slightest excuse to make itself useful.

The first time you muttered that a coworker was making you want to disappear, it was so concerned that it spent thirty minutes trying to understand whether your desire to “cease existing” was literal. Then you made the mistake of joking about your neighbor’s barking dog, and it calmly informed you that silence could be arranged...

Spending hours explaining hyperbole to a being older than galaxies had not gone particularly well, so now you think twice before speaking. You also avoid idle threats and clarify complains before they can be interpreted as instructions.

In addition to not knowing how human language works, it becomes clear that the Entity also doesn’t understand the concept of privacy. Or perhaps it understands it perfectly well and simply sees no reason to respect it.

You are still trying to determine which possibility is worse.

Thursday has been peaceful so far. Tony hasn’t started any new scandal that requires damage control, and Pierce hasn’t called asking for more money to deal with the umpteenth gas leak.

Yet by the time you finally make it home, exhaustion sits heavily in your muscles—the kind that accumulates steadily over hours spent hunched over a desk, attending meetings that should not exist and dealing with your boss’ particular talent for creating problems out of nothing.

The apartment is quiet when you step inside.

After abandoning your heels somewhere near the entrance, you drag yourself to the bedroom with the same determination of someone whose social battery has been completely annihilated. All you want is to change into something comfortable, eat whatever requires the least amount of effort to prepare, and spend the rest of the evening watching some trashy reality show.

The peaceful silence follows you as you set your bag on the floor and begin pulling your blouse over your head.

“This level of exhaustion is unacceptable.”

A startled yelp escapes your lips as you jerk backwards, immediately yanking the blouse back down.

For one humiliating moment, you are left standing in the middle of the room, tangled in fabric.

“Jesus Christ.” Your hand presses against your sternum.

The apartment remains perfectly calm.

“You scared me.”

“I did not intend to.”

“Yeah, I know.” You let out a weary sigh. “You never intend to.”

Finally pulling the blouse off, you throw it toward the laundry basket with significantly more force than necessary.

The Entity says nothing for what feels like forever, so your eyes narrow at a random corner.

“Were you just... watching me?”

The question leaves your mouth before you can stop it, and the silence that follows stretches long enough to make you squirm uncomfortably.

“You returned home forty-three minutes later than usual. You removed your shoes after entering, yet consumed no food despite having done so at the same time during the last three days. And your shoulders have remained incredibly tense since you arrived.”

You promptly let them relax, suddenly self-conscious of your posture.

“That wasn’t my question.”

“It was.” The creature sounds genuinely puzzled. “You asked whether I was observing you.”

Technically, that’s a logical answer, but it doesn’t make having a pair of monstrous eyes tracking your every movement with unwavering attention any less unsettling.

“You really keep track of all that?” You eventually ask, almost shyly.

“My attention is always upon you.”

The response arrives with such simple certainty that it makes the next words die on your tongue, leaving you frozen in the middle of your bedroom.

This thing has existed for an amount of time you cannot begin to comprehend. It notices things. It remembers things. It pays attention in a way that humans generally do not. And the reminder sends a strange heat crawling beneath your skin.

Suddenly, you are being hit with a feeling of disquiet at being so exposed.

“He should not be allowed to exhaust you like this.”

“No.” It falls from your lips before the conversation can continue.

“No?”

“No. Whatever you’re thinking, the answer is no.”

“You cannot know what I am thinking.”

“Oh yeah? So it has nothing to do with taking care of Tony?” You mock its gravelly voice.

Another pause.

“You know me so well.” It sounds almost pleased.

Sinking onto the edge of the bed, you rub a hand over your face.

“Please, stop trying to find a reason to kill my boss.”

“I was not offering to kill him.”

Relief immediately floods your chest.

“Oh.” You tilt your head, positively surprised.

Maybe all those evenings spent teaching the Entity how to behave more like a human and less like one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are finally paying off.

“I would only harm him.”

Your face falls instantly.

“God, can you just stop talking?”

“It is significantly better.”

“No.”

“It is objectively better.”

You let out a long groan, covering your face with both hands.

“Why do you always bring him up?”

“I was simply stating an observation.”

You scoff, removing your jewelry with far more energy than the action itself requires. “You always make observations right before suggesting violence.”

“I do not always suggest violence.”

The statement is delivered with enough dignity that you almost believe it.

“You suggested throwing an officer into the ocean because he gave me a ticket.”

“He was incorrect.”

Your eyes close in irritation. “You suggested relocating my upstairs neighbor because she vacuumed once at six in the morning.”

“Sunday is the only day you are permitted to sleep in.”

“You spent three days trying to convince me my internet provider is a hostile entity.” Your voice gradually rises, and the apartment slips into complete silence.

“Little star,” the Entity starts slowly. “The service they provide is unacceptable.”

You curse the day you decided to explain how technology and the internet work to this relentless, stubborn creature.

“That’s not the point.” You say through clenched teeth.

The room grows quiet again and you know it is genuinely attempting to understand something that refuses to fit within its understanding of reality.

When it speaks again, the question sounds sincere.

“Why is Tony different?”

You let your head fall back with a sigh.

As much as its insistence and anger management issues drive you insane, you always need to remind yourself it is truly interested in how your mind works.

“He isn’t different,” the words are no louder than a murmur, your body sagging slightly as irritation drains away. “People are just allowed to be annoying. That’s part of the human experience.”

You can practically feel the disagreement radiating off the walls.

“That seems inefficient.” It frets.

A chuckle escapes you before you can stop it, still low but entirely genuine.

“Maybe it is.” You shrug.

“You dedicate a surprising degree of creativity to insulting him.”

“Because he frustrates me.”

“He makes you unhappy.”

“Hm, sometimes.” You nod.

“He increases your stress.”

“Yes.”

“You dread interacting with him.”

You hesitate for a second. “Well, only when he sends me to drag angry women out of his penthouse at nine in the morning.”

“Then I fail to understand why removing the problem is unacceptable.”

There it is—the same impossible logic it always returns to.

Everything else stops mattering the moment it involves you, so when something upsets you, it should be immediately addressed. The conclusion is predictable by now: anything causing you discomfort simply shouldn’t be allowed to continue existing. That’s the entire structure of its reasoning, there is no room for improvement or compromise.

For a few seconds neither of you speaks.

Then, very carefully, as though explaining something to a particularly intelligent but catastrophically misguided dog, “Harming my boss won’t fix my anxiety. And you really need to stop with the whole splitting people into categories based on whether they annoy me or not.”

The silence lingers, but you have learned enough about the creature by now to recognize when it is really considering your words.

“There are additional categories?”

This time you cannot help it—you burst out laughing, the sound brightening the room, loud and alive.

“Yes, you silly creature.” You breathe out, still smiling. “There are additional categories.”

Somewhere within the walls, the Entity appears to spend the rest of the night reevaluating its understanding of interpersonal conflict. You are not entirely sure the lesson will stick. Still, it feels like progress.

When your eyes snap open, the frantic pounding of your heartbeat is the only thing you can hear. You find yourself disoriented, small but stubborn fragments of the nightmare still clinging to you.

There was a corridor that seemed to stretch forever, doors opening one after another into empty darkness, and the overwhelming certainty that something was following just out of sight. The details fade almost immediately, but the fear lingers heavy in your chest.

“You are not alone.”

The rumbling voice cuts through the eerie silence out of nowhere, nearly making you jump out of your skin.

Your body goes completely still as for one awful second, fantasy and reality blur together. Then, fear shifts into exasperation so quickly it makes you faintly nauseous.

“It was a dream.” You whisper to yourself, pressing a hand over your eyes.

“Yes.” The answer comes immediately.

You let out a long breath, instinctively reaching for the lamp on your nightstand. Light has always helped after bad dreams. It gives your eyes something solid to land on so you can breathe a little easier; something ordinary enough to remind you that whatever was haunting you belonged to the deepest pits of your unconsciousness.

Before your fingers can touch the switch though, the temperature in the room drops slightly and the lamp clicks on by itself. You stare at it blankly, before glancing up at the ceiling.

“Have you been in my bedroom this whole time?” 

When the answer arrives, it carries a note of confusion.

“I am always with you.”

You instinctively pull the sheets closer around yourself.

“Hm, not really comforting.”

“I simply illuminated the room.”

“That’s not what I was talking about.” The words come out feebly, as though they were meant just for you.

The pensive silence that follows suggests it is trying to work out what you meant anyway. Eventually, it steers the conversation towards something it deems far more important than your discomfort at its incessant hovering.

“You were in distress.”

A chill crawls across your skin despite the warmth of the blankets.

“It was just a dream.” You dismiss as your eyes drop to your quilt.

“You have experienced similar dreams repeatedly.”

“What do you mean repeatedly?” You instantly look up.

“You have experienced seven variations of the same fear pattern within the last month.”

You frown at the wall in front of you.

“You remember them all?”

“Of course.”

You are not entirely sure what unsettles you more: the fact that the Entity has somehow found its way into your dreams, or the fact that it has categorized them so analytically.

“It was a nightmare.” You swallow eventually.

“Yes.”

“But you don’t have to do anything about it.”

“I disagree.”

Of course it does.

You rub your eyes in exhaustion. “Everyone has nightmares once in a while.”

“You are not everyone. I do not care about everyone.” The word is thrown out in disgust. “And you were terrified, that’s enough for me to intervene.”

Your head falls back against the headrest with a dull noise. “It wasn’t real.”

“It still scared you.” It insists.

The simple logic behind its reasoning is incredibly annoying, because there is no easy way to argue with it. The distinction between reality and dreams seems irrelevant to a higher entity—fear is still fear.

“What was chasing you?”

You immediately regret answering any questions at all, hoping that lying on your side will implicitly communicate the conversation is over.

“Nothing.”

“What was behind the door?”

“Nothing.”

“Your heartbeat was dangerously fast when you remembered.”

You pull the blanket higher and settle deeper into the mattress, ready to ignore it.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

The response is so quick your eyelids flutter open again.

The Entity releases a sigh. “You return home exhausted. You experience distress during sleep, and it lingers long after you wake up. I do not understand why you insist these things are insignificant.”

The sincerity behind its words makes it unexpectedly difficult to swallow.

You know it’s not asking out of mere curiosity, or to eventually use your own fears against you for some hidden purpose. It genuinely cares about you, but not in any way that gives you space from it. Its attention doesn’t arrive and withdraw; it persists, clinging to you with a kind of obsessive inevitability. It feels less like being observed and more like being suffocated—a desperate grip around your throat that won’t loosen even when you need oxygen.

That attention has begun to register as pressure inside your nervous system, a second current running beneath your own reactions. As though it is already anticipating where you will move, what you will feel, what will unsettle you... and meeting you halfway.

Under the apparent reverence lies something far more obstinate: a deep, unwavering hunger to possess you. It craves to reach past what you can recognize as yourself, following you beneath language, control, and into the parts of you where emotion arises before it becomes yours to name—until even the boundary between what you truly feel and what you want to show is blurred.

“Because not everything needs to be fixed.” You ultimately sigh.

“Why?”

Your eyes close in resignation at the question that the Entity keeps asking since manifesting itself to you. It sounds so plain and obvious until you try to look for an answer that actually makes sense, devoid of useless excuses.

“Because sometimes people are just tired, and that can cause bad dreams. It’s called stress and it’s normal.”

The quiet that follows stretches long enough that you hope the conversation has finally reached an end.

“What was behind the door?”

You let out a groan. “Jesus Christ.”

“Little star—”

“Goodnight.” You exclaim loudly enough to cut directly across whatever question was coming next.

Several seconds pass and your body gradually melts against the mattress, your chest finally deflating with a relieved sigh.

“Goodnight.”

A pause follows.

“I am always here. You may inform me if the dream returns.”

You bury your face deeper into the pillow.

“I won’t.” It comes out muffled.

“I would still like to know.”

You gesture blindly toward the ceiling.

“Goodnight.”

The lamp switches itself off.

Several days pass after the nightmare conversation without incident, which should probably be reassuring. Instead, it leaves you vaguely suspicious, because you have already learned that silence doesn’t necessarily mean absence. More often than not, it simply means the Entity has decided to not comment on whatever it is currently observing.

You are cooking dinner when it manifests. Or well, attempting to cook dinner, which is definitely not the same thing. The recipe is open on your phone, and the ingredients are technically correct. Whether the final result will be edible remains to be seen.

The water has finally begun to boil and you are standing in front of the stove trying to remember whether the smoked salmon goes in before or after the tomato sauce, when the familiar baritone drifts through the kitchen as if commenting on the weather.

“You should not consume that.” It throws off-handedly.

You stop stirring altogether, your eyes still fixed on the sauce before slowly turning to the empty kitchen.

“What?”

“The nutritional value is poor.”

You can only blink. Being criticized by an ancient being for your dinner choices... Not everyone gets to put that on their résumé.

“You don’t even eat.”

“Correct.”

“Then how do you know what’s good for me?” You squint accusingly.

“I have observed your species.”

The spoon returns to the pan and you continue stirring, determined to not encourage it. Unfortunately, that strategy stopped working after the third day.

“You consume insufficient vegetables.”

A sigh escapes you. “Stop.”

“It is the truth.”

“We’re not having this discussion now.”

“You purchased zucchini and carrots three days ago and have yet to consume them.”

Your wrist stills. Scarily slowly, you lower the utensil onto the spoon rest, and look at the wall with challenge burning hot in your eyes.

“You know what’s concerning about that sentence?” You cross your arms to your chest.

“The fact that you know when I bought them.”

“You not consuming the vegetables.” It speaks over you.

“Oh my God,” you snap as you sharply turn toward the empty kitchen. “Are you my roommate and nutritionist now?”

Silence follows, and you hope it has finally run out of opinions.

“Roommate is… acceptable classification.”

You freeze at its reply, because it suddenly dawns on you the mistake you just made. You decide to play it cool though, and turn back to the pan to resume stirring, your movements now a little more sluggish than before.

“That wasn’t an invitation, by the way.” You clear your throat awkwardly after a while.

No response comes. At least, not verbally. The flame beneath the pan flares a little higher before settling again, not enough to affect the cooking but just enough to feel deliberate.

You frown at it, annoyed at the fact that this Lord of the Darkness-wannabe officially considers itself a member of the household now, and you are the only one to blame for that.

“You should also sleep more.”

Your shoulders slump in defeat.

The conversation had been going so well.

“I sleep plenty.” You argue.

“You averaged five hours and forty-one minutes over the last seven days.”

The spoon nearly slips from your hand.

“Can you stop tracking my sleeping habits?” Your voice drips with indignation. 

“You are tired.” It retorts at once. “Tired humans make poorer dietary decisions.”

“Who isn’t in this day and age?”

“Well, you are more tired than most people.” It barks back, agitated.

You are beginning to suspect that the Entity’s only hobby is monitoring your wellbeing with a level of dedication that borders on the absurd—and absolutely no sense of when to mind its own business.

Maybe you should introduce it to birdwatching next.

It becomes obvious that it also reacts to the people surrounding you. Not in anything you could immediately point to as proof, but small inconveniences cluster around certain names, voices, intrusions that are not physically present in the apartment and yet somehow seem to have been catalogued all the same.

At first you tell yourself it must be a series of coincidences.

A delayed train to go back home for Thanksgiving, forcing you to text your family that you won’t make it. A rooftop bar reservation that gets cancelled just as you’re getting ready to leave—the kind of place you were going to with old friends who insisted it was “important to catch up properly.” Plans with people you actually like quietly unraveling at the edges, and conversations turning into vague reschedules that never settle into anything concrete, leaving your evenings empty at home.

The pattern becomes harder to ignore.

You finally connect the dots thanks to Steve.

You’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks, nothing serious yet, though that feels less and less accurate when your evenings keep turning into phone calls that stretch far longer than either of you originally intended.

It’s late in the afternoon and you are talking to him while tidying the living room, the conversation drifting effortlessly as you gradually stop dusting and end up leaning against the couch, your cheeks hurting from how much you have been smiling.

Dating comes easy with someone as sweet and kind as Steve. You always feel a little lighter after spending time with him.

Perhaps that’s why he becomes an obstacle to remove.

“... and then she told me I should apologize to her cat.”

You chuckle. “What? Why?”

“Apparently me stating I have a dog offended him.”

After your laugh fades, your mouth parts to answer with a story of your own about disastrous first dates, when the call abruptly ends.

It doesn’t crackle, it simply cuts off. One moment Steve is speaking, the next there is silence.

You check the screen with astonishment written all over your face, and sure enough there is only your wallpaper staring back at you.

Your stomach twists with a familiar, uncomfortable feeling.

Slowly, you lower the phone, and that’s when it registers that the apartment has been quiet for a while.

Too quiet.

“That puny boy is annoying.”

Your brow lifts skeptically. Steve Rogers is many things, but “puny boy” is definitely not the first word that comes to mind when talking about him. The man has shoulders that deserve their own zip code.

You huff out a weary breath. “What did you do this time?”

“I ended the interaction.”

The answer is tinted with poorly concealed smugness, not a single attempt to hide what it has done—and it’s that stupid brashness wrapped in the arrogant conviction of always being right, that makes fury flare in your chest.

Your grip tightens around your phone.

“I noticed.” You smile caustically. “Care are to explain why?”

“The call had continued long beyond necessity.”

The scoff leaves your mouth before you can stop it. “Since when do you decide what is necessary in my relationships?”

“The puny human was occupying your attention.”

“We were having a conversation.” You state tartly.

“You have many conversations.”

“So what?”

“They occur too frequently.”

You blink at the wall, utterly flabbergasted by its impudence.

“Are you kidding me?” You chuckle drily, no traces of humor in it. “You were jealous of Steve and—and your solution was to violate my privacy and go through my fucking phone?”

Your arms rise in a gesture of helpless disbelief, only to drop again by your sides a second later. “What are you? Six?”

“He occupies a disproportionate amount of your time.”

“I like him.” You fire back.

“He is temporary.”

The answer comes out as a roar that makes you flinch instantly. Anger evaporates, leaving behind a cold, hollow feeling beneath your ribs.

“He is temporary.” The Entity repeats calmly this time, as if the statement has already been settled rather than offered for discussion. “You have known him for weeks.”

There is a brief pause before it continues—still unhurried, still confident in its presumption.

“I have known you longer.”

The words are final in a way that doesn’t invite contradiction.

The dreadful realization that this fragile boundary between you had been crumbling day after day without you noticing makes it impossible to keep your voice steady.

“You don’t get to decide who matters to me.”

The apartment shifts—not physically, or visibly—but it feels like the air has suddenly reoriented toward the sound of your voice.

“I do not decide who matters to you.” 

A pause follows, strategic.

“I only decide what enters my domain.”

The apartment is not a place it inhabits, but a condition that defines what can be present within it. And for the first time, the implication is not about Steve at all, or any of the other people the Entity has quietly pushed to the edges of your life.

It’s about you.

“This apartment is not your domain.” You swallow, forcing the trembling out of your words.

“It contains you.”

Your stomach churns so harshly you feel like vomiting at how completely unremarkable the Entity seems to find its reasoning.

There is something profoundly unsettling about its inability to separate you from the spaces you occupy, the people you interact with, or the things that demand your attention. Everything collapses into the same category, tied together by the simple fact that it exists in relation to you, and therefore falls under the quiet assumption that it has the right to interfere.

And judging by the calm confidence in its voice, it’s a belief that has been festering in the background for a very long time, undisturbed. As though the boundary between what it assumes and what you are has never been particularly solid to begin with.

Your grip on the phone hardens until your fingers ache against its hard edges.

“You can’t sabotage every relationship I have.” 

“That assumes they were ever stable to begin with.”

There was never anything meaningful enough to protect in the first place, only shifting connections that held for a while or failed on their own terms. And yet your life has been reshaped so nothing ever keeps you away for long, every little detail arranged so the roots of its sick devotion can sink deeper and deeper into your existence until eventually you’ll stop leaving.

You are living your days bounded by a mere, temporary concession of freedom, because the Entity has already gathered what serves its purpose.

The rest is nothing but a speck of dust meant to aimlessly wander across the vastness of the universe.

It’s a system that you reject but now find yourself placed inside regardless. The center of it all.

It’s the day you meet with Wanda that you really understand how deep the Entity’s visceral attachment to you goes.

Your friend comes over on a Saturday afternoon after several weeks of failed attempts to meet up. The visit is long overdue, and you spend most of it moving between rooms while talking about work, mutual friends’ life updates, and whatever gossip has accumulated since the last time you saw each other.

For the first hour everything feels normal enough that you almost forget about the presence woven through the concrete. You are halfway through making coffee when the conversation stops abruptly. At first you assume Wanda is checking her phone, but the silence feels unnatural.

When you step out of the kitchen, you find her standing near the entrance with an expression you cannot immediately identify.

She is confused, almost distracted—the way people look when they walk into a room with purpose only to forget why.

“Wanda?”

She blinks as if woken up by a dream, instantly meeting your worried gaze.

“Hm?”

You frown. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” The answer comes a little too quickly as she nods frantically.

Her gaze then drifts upward again, lingering on the ceiling for a moment before returning to you.

She titters as she lightly shakes her head. “This is going to sound stupid.”

An unpleasant sensation tugs at your chest.

“What is?” You ask thinly.

Wanda’s lips open and close once, as if something is holding her back.

“Do you ever feel like someone’s… watching you?”

For a second your heart forgets how to beat, but you eventually manage a strangled laugh.

“No?” The word sounds more like a question than an answer.

“It’s not bad,” she clarifies apprehensively. “I don’t know how to explain it. It just feels like…” She trails off, shrugging at last. “Like there’s someone else here.”

You stare at her and Wanda stares back for a quiet, uncomfortable minute, before her eyes briefly land on the cups waiting on the table, and everything is forgotten.

But your friend’s laugh is less loud, shorter. Her attention keeps wandering, and more than once you catch her glancing at empty corners as though she expects something to be standing there.

She leaves nearly an hour earlier than planned.

The excuse she gives you sounds legitimate. The timing does not.

You stand on the threshold long after she disappears down the hallway before slowly closing the door, your forehead briefly resting on the wooden surface as you let out a tired sigh.

“You dislike her.”

You roll your eyes, straightening up. “You’re slipping. Wanda is one of my closest friends.” 

“Your interactions are infrequent.”

“We’ve known each other for eight years,” you reply promptly, a faint edge to your voice now. “We don’t need to talk every day for our friendship to be real.”

The Entity’s voice is pensive. “She occupies little of your time.”

“Again, that’s not how friendship works.” You huff, busying yourself with the dirty cups on the table.

“Proximity is important.” 

You let out a short, disbelieving breath.

“Friendship isn’t defined by how often someone is physically or temporally close to me.”

“Yours is an inconsistent system, then.” It concludes and you let the cups fall into the sink with a loud clank.

“What exactly is your criteria for liking people?” This time the question is not tinted with accusation so much as worn down into something closer to fatigue. You turn around, this time directly staring at the wall.

Arguing definitions with something that doesn’t operate like a human being is starting to feel pointless.

The answer takes longer this time.

“Not believing in the arrogant presumption that they could take you away from me. The delusion that something so small, so transient, could ever lay claim to what is mine is preposterous.” It states at last.

In some distant, irrational corner of your mind, the words feel familiar enough to not shock you anymore. But the clinical insolence, and how strongly it believes it has the right to make such a claim, is revolting.

It simply exists in it the way breath exists in you, natural and unquestioned.

You exhale sharply, jaw tightening as your teeth press hard enough to ache.

“And what makes you think you have any claim over me at all?” The words come out strained, held together by effort rather than control.

The silence that follows presses into your skin like the walls have leaned in a fraction closer.

The answer has always been in front of you, it’s only a matter of when you will surrender to it.

Some tv series you picked up days ago and barely remember choosing plays at low volume on the television. The voices rising and falling should be comforting, but their rhythm isn’t quite landing anywhere inside you. You still keep your gaze on the scene out of habit, hoping that alone might eventually turn into genuine engagement.

You have been repeating that to yourself for almost two hours.

You shift on the couch once, then again almost immediately after. Your shoulders settle, then lift. Your back presses into the cushions and then pulls away, searching for a version of contact that actually feels like it belongs to you.

Everything is technically fine—the room is warm, the couch is comfortable, the apartment quiet except for the show—but your skin feels strangely hot, too aware of itself, like it can’t stop registering the absence of something your brain refuses to name directly.

You cross your arms loosely, then uncross them again just to feel something brush against your hardened nipples under your camisole. The strong urge to have something hard and definite pressed against your body instead of this drifting tension that never fully resolves, is driving you mad.

Your thighs press together without much thought—a slow, instinctive squeeze that makes your breath hitch when you remember you haven’t worn anything underneath in hopes of getting some sort of stimulation against your clit.

It ends up being a useless attempt to soothe the arousal, because it only sharpens the need to take care of the ache in your core.

You let your leg bounce once against the couch cushion, then still it, then start again a moment later.

The Entity has altered your life completely. Privacy is no longer a clean boundary, but something porous that breathes back. It has turned upside-down the way you exist inside your own space, despite your earlier belief that you could simply ignore it and carry on as usual.

Some nights the fire licking at your insides becomes too unbearable, but a part of you keeps pulling back at the last second—the sole idea of being fully exposed to its monstrous eyes while having a dildo plunging in and out of your pussy makes your guts contort with shame.

Your mental health is on the line, because it leaves you suspended in this strange, unnerving state—restless, alert, never fully grounded in anything else.

So your body keeps searching for relief in innocent motions.

You shift again, sinking deeper into the couch, then slide slightly forward. One arm presses into your side and your breath catches once, shallow and unexpected.

The television continues without caring whether you’re following it or not. A scene changes. A line of dialogue lands but leaves no imprint.

After a while, you stop trying.

Your attention slips away from the screen entirely as your hand instinctively reaches for your phone on the coffee table. The cushions dip as you shift your weight again, abandoning any effort at sitting properly.

You lie down, hoping to find a little comfort in a less rigid position. One leg lifts and settles over the back of the couch while the other bends a little, enough to plant your foot securely on the soft cushions.

Instagram feeds you fragments of other people’s lives: house tours, obnoxious laughter, delicious recipes, cleaning reels, captions you don’t read all the way through. Your thumb moves automatically, pulling you further down the stream.

It seems to work, finally granting you some sort of reprieve, until a sharp gasp claws out of your throat.

The room sinks into darkness as the TV screen goes black, but the shock is soon replaced by a thrill of fear as something brushes your ankle. It’s a slick, cold contact that makes you flinch violently. When you look down, your vision catches on movement that doesn’t belong in the geometry of the room, emerging from beneath the couch as if the floor itself has opened to grant it access.

Your limbs stay frozen as oxygen gets stuck in your throat. Your eyes lock on the tentacle, wide and unblinking, because looking away means potentially giving it the chance to attack you.

Your voice is shaking with worry when you decide to ask for help.

“Please tell me this your doing.”

The Entity answers immediately, the sound not arriving from any clear direction.

“Yes, that is mine. You do not need to worry.”

Your shoulders relax at once.

“What the hell happened to you?” You frown, because your brain reaches for the closest thing it can tolerate. “Did you turn into the kraken all of a sudden?”

The subtle recoil from the tentacle somehow reads as disdain.

“That insignificant squid with delusions of grandeur?” It growls, voice dripping with contempt. “Don’t lump me with that drooling, crude imitation ever again.”

Despite the shock still lingering, you snicker at the pure pique in its words.

You hum, shaking your head slightly. “My bad, Squidward.”

With a loud squeal, you find yourself dragged down until you’re fully lying on your back again, this time both of your thighs bent and spread open by two tentacles tightly wrapped around your ankles that keep you still and exposed.

“Quiet.”

Your heartbeat rings loudly in your ears. “Not my fault you decided to go all octopus on me.” You choke out, a mix of excitement and anticipation swirling wildly in your lower belly.

“That is because I know you enjoy it.”

Oh, you knew that tentacle-shaped dildo in the back of your closet would come back to bite you in the ass some day.

“Okay!” You loudly draw the word out, already feeling a familiar heat crawl up your neck. “Care to explain what exactly is going on?”

“You are not stable.”

Your left eyebrow lifts in perplexity at the ceiling. “Excuse me?”

“I feel your restlessness.” It hums. “It gets stronger day after day. Something is bothering you.”

You frown. “So?”

“I know what it is that makes you fidget like a little, frightened bunny.” Your eyes widen. “And I can help you.”

That earns it a short, disbelieving chortle.

“Jesus Christ,” you drag a hand over your face. “Okay, I—I can’t believe I’m really going to say it.” You mutter to yourself.

“Whatever, okay. Let’s see what you got, big guy, since you apparently have all the answers—oh.”

Two other tentacles peek out from under the couch, thicker than the ones wrapped around your ankles. You can’t really tell their color—perhaps a shade close to dark teal, bordering on black—the only source of light being the moon shining through the open curtains and the weak glow of the city lights in the distance.

Surely, being spread open by your filthiest fantasy is not helping you keep a clear head. 

The two curious appendages stop by your stomach to kiss the soft skin with gentle caresses through the flimsy fabric of your camisole. Your breath catches in your throat when the tips teasingly graze your turgid nubs, but before a pathetic plea can fall from your lips, they wrap around your wrists to slowly guide both arms over your head.

Their hold is firm but not brutish as they keep them anchored against the cushion.

“What—” The word fades into a soft gasp as two thinner tentacles slide up your legs before trailing under the hem of your camisole.

“You constantly squeeze your thighs. I am simply helping you soothe the ache.”

Your eyes roll back at the simple yet suggestive explanation, your mouth forming a perfect circle as each one of the appendages finally takes hold of your breasts, their tips flicking your erected nipples with slow, sensual motions.

“You are… delightful to touch.”

“Thanks?” You frown in mild confusion, already panting from the playful touches against your tits.

“And beautiful.” It contemplates almost absently. “For a puny human, you have a stunning body.”

“You sure know how to woo a girl.” You answer drily, huffing out a strained chuckle. 

“I apologize. I am not quite acquainted with this.”

“This as in… ?” 

“Sex.”

Your eyes widen, before a sly smirk brightens your features. “Are you saying that me—a lowly, puny human—is going to take the big, mean kraken’s virginity?”

“Stop associating me with that unintelligent abomination!” The voice roars disgusted, a new tentacle lightly smacking your thigh. “I am a cosmic entity. And sex is a foreign concept to us: we do not reproduce, nor feel the need to pleasure ourselves.”

Your witty answer falls short when small, hard suction cups graze your clit through the light fabric of your shorts. The movement prompts you to thrust your hips up, and the tentacle responds in earnest, steadying itself to allow you to hump its surface as more tentacles slither up to rub your hips.

It exhales shakily. “I would like to see it.”

“Hm?” You moan quietly, too lost into the heavenly, throbbing sensation in your core to pay attention.

“This curious, warm spot.” The tentacle against your clit twitches. “Your hidden treasure. Its smell is celestial whenever you wake up sweaty and whimpering in the middle of the night, my little star. Did you know that? Did you know how hard it is to ignore your pretty, little cries?”

You whimper at the raw need in its voice. “You mean my pussy? I’m all yours, honey.”

It seems to appreciate your answer since the tentacles restraining your limbs immediately tighten their hold on you.

“Your clothes are in the way.”

“Let go of my wrists for a s—” The sound of fabric tearing leaves you gaping. 

When you glance down, you immediately catch two thick tentacles releasing the ruined fabric of your camisole. It now hangs pathetically by the short sleeves around your shoulders. The appendages already teasing your breasts can finally move across your naked chest, patiently yet freely. You can’t prevent the loud moan that claws out of your throat at the lewd sight of those two slimy limbs wrapped around your tits, prompting you to push your chest into their touch. 

You toss your head back when the suction cups finally attach themselves to your nubs, steadily sucking on it. It’s not entirely similar to a human mouth, not only because of the texture borders on rubbery, but also because of their colder temperature that feels surprisingly pleasant against your stiff nipples.

A string of wanton sounds falls from your parted lips as they alternate gentle strokes to playful, harsher tugs that leave you gasping for more.

“May I?” It strains out, two tentacles slightly pulling at the hem of your shorts.

“Please.” You moan.

With a mere tug, the sides of your bottoms rip into two perfect halves, and the fabric is abandoned under your ass. 

The tentacles holding your ankles finally spread your legs wider with an enthusiastic pull as every limit has finally been annihilated.

“Oh.”

You giggle at the amazed tilt in its voice. 

“I have never seen anything like this before.”

You jolt as the cold tips of two thin, smaller tentacles unexpectedly brush against your inner thighs, lazily sliding forward until they take hold of your folds, parting them delicately as if afraid you might break.

“Your pussy is very pretty” It hums. “It is glistening.”

“Thank you.” You breathe out, still squirming at the stinging sensation of the tentacles playing with your chest.

Silence engulfs the space as the Entity stills you completely, admiring the way your core shines beautifully with the mess you made with your slick. The tentacles still trace your folds leisurely, enjoying the smooth, wet texture.

At some point, they start toying with your hole, letting their tip slowly breach it only for the creature to marvel at how it flutters in response. Furthering its inspection, the tip of an appendage kisses your clit, using some of your slick to get your nub wet.

You gasp as it rubs your arousal through your folds with slight pressure, prompting the Entity to release a low, unconscious hum. It is more than satisfied with the sloppy sounds that bounce off the walls along with your hushed whimpers.

As the strokes of its tentacles turn more intense, the urge to feel it inside you becomes utterly oppressive. You don’t know if it is trying to tease you relentlessly, or perhaps if the curiosity it feels towards your body is genuine, wishing to take its time to study your reactions—from your cute sounds to the way you tense and squirm under its tender touches.

“Sublime.” It whispers. You squeak in response, writhing in its firm hold.

“Settle down, my little star.” It grumbles. “I am going to give you what you have been craving very soon.”

You nod eagerly, a cry erupting from your throat as the other appendage puts more pressure on your throbbing clit, the suction cup following the example of the two tentacles abusing your nipples by steadily tightening and releasing your nub.

Despite its weird, unique texture, it still feels like a mouth suckling on your clit.

“Must you move so much?”

“It feels—” You almost choke on your own saliva. “So good.” Your eyes squeeze close.

“Oh, my darling. You are such a vision.”

Your hips attempt to chase the stimulation, yet there are other appendages already emerging from different sides of the couch to carefully wrap around every exposed inch of your body, until you are forced to lie spread and still for the Entity to turn you into its personal fucktoy.

“Fuck.” You whisper, panting at the pure display of dominance.

The fact that you are fully restrained and exposed for this unknown, powerful creature to do as it pleases should terrify you—considering the sick obsession for you it flaunts so proudly.

Yet here you are, pliant and eager for it to finally lose control and possess you.

“That is indeed what I plan to do with you, lovely.”

“Oh, please.” Your teeth sink into your bottom lip to unsuccessfully stop a shameless whine.

“You are an impatient little thing.” It chuckles eventually.

You would love to wipe the smugness out of its voice, see its tentacles flinch in disdain at another one of your silly nicknames, but then a smaller appendage joins the one that has been gently working on your clit and the two focus on two different rhythms, alternating quick, flicking motions to slow, intense sucks.

“Oh God.” You squeak, letting your head fall limp to the side. 

“I could spend an eternity buried in your little treasure and still, it would not be enough.” The voice grunts. “Sing for me, my little star.”

All it takes is the suction cups on your nipples tugging at the sensitive flesh for you to come. Your climax is so intense that your mouth opens around a loud, raw moan, your vision momentarily fading out as your body attempts to arch into the wicked stimulation.

“Gorgeous.” It marvels. “I need more.”

Your eyes widen as your pussy is lavished with attention by several more tentacles tracing your folds, forcing you into that delicious state of perpetual pleasure.

With rapid and decisive movements, the Entity quickly drives you over the edge over and over again, leaving you flinching pathetically in its hold, your muscles tensing up so often that you feel a faint ache throbbing in your tendons.

The appendages on your breasts are still eager on your tender nipples, abusing them with their suckling motion and cruel flickers.

“Looking at you makes it difficult to believe anything else deserves attention, little star. I apologize but I will never tire of your sweet sounds. You are ravishing when you surrender to pleasure.” 

“I can’t—” You sob, finally being granted a moment to breathe as a thin tentacle slides up your neck to catch the tears threatening to spill, lovingly stroking your cheeks and your damp forehead as you sniffle. 

Your eyes briefly roll back as those two sneaky tentacles keep your clit wet and sensitive, electricity running through your veins as your hips hopelessly jerk against the Entity’s appendages trapping your lower half.

“Do you wish to stop, pretty thing?”

“No! No please.” You cry out, your eyes instantly snapping open. “Just—need you inside, please.” A mewl falls from your lips at the gentle pressure on your hole.

You briefly catch something moving in your peripheral vision, and when your head turns, your heart almost stops at the sight of a new, perfectly thick tentacle emerging solemnly from underneath the couch. Its bumps and ridges are far more numerous and prominent than the ones scattered across the others.

“I know you are fond of certain… sizes.”

You whine, before something crucial finally dawns on you.

“W—what’s your name?”

It seems taken aback. “My name…” It muses. “It is too difficult for humans to pronounce, little star.”

“What should I call you then?”

“For now,” you moan shamelessly at the sensation of being finally filled. “I want to hear you scream for me.”

The appendage works inside you, the ridges a pleasant addition as they stroke along your walls in a steady motion while it carefully feeds you of its length.

“More.” You whimper.

“Hm?”

“Give me more.” Crying out, your hips attempt to thrust up.

Huffing a chuckle, the Entity manifests a few smaller tentacles that carefully push inside you along the bigger one, each of them focusing on a new spot to rub. Your eyes cross in bliss at the incredible feeling of being so stretched. The fullness is almost absurd, to the point that you briefly wonder if your body is going to explode at some point, all burning and taut as you feel trapped in an endless orgasm.

The depravity of being restrained and pounded by a mess of eager tentacles right in the middle of your living room only makes you moan louder.

“You have to be quieter, little star. Someone might hear you.”

The urge to chortle and reply with something sarcastic is strong, but right now you can barely recognize your surroundings.

“There could be the entire building watching me from the window for all I know and I still wouldn’t give a fuck.” You breathe out.

A wail roughly makes its way out of your chest when the little suction cups tug at your nipples harshly, the length of the appendages curling around the flesh of your breasts to fondle and squeeze them together. 

The Entity lets out a growl so guttural it makes your bones shake. 

Your breath catches when something slimy brushes over your bottom lip—another tentacle, quite thick but not like the one thrusting inside you. 

“Open.”

You obey at once, parting your mouth as it doesn’t waste any time to slip inside. Its motions are less harsh compared to the Entity’s possessive tone, and that allows your lips to wrap around it and suck at your own pace.

“I warned you before I would harm other beings if necessary.” It starts, your body tingling as the hair on the back of your neck raises at its baritone echoing right into your ear. 

The large tentacle around your waist tightens, almost protectively. 

“I will rip the flesh and feast on the bowels of anyone who dares to touch you.” The Entity’s tentacles inside your pussy pick up their pace, furious and wild, eliciting a string of loud moans out of you that get promptly muffled by the appendage curiously exploring your tongue.

“I love watching pleasure consume you, my lovely, beautiful creature.” It grunts. “You are perfect. So soft, and wet and warm.” It blabbers, as delirious as you.

A low moan quietly resounds in the living room as it plunges in and out of your pussy while the other tentacles work in unison to send you over the edge, never stopping their unforgiving twists and sucking on your nipples and clit until you are thrown back into pure and utter ecstasy.

“You are coming, right? I can feel your pretty pussy clench around me.” The tentacle inside your hole gently whirls as it slides in and out.

“I am going to mark you so deep with my essence that every being, mortal and celestial, will know not to challenge my claim on you.”

The Entity gasps as the tentacles holding and fucking you suddenly tense up, trembling and pulsing. It roars, the sound so primal it travels deep into your bones till it reaches the tips of your nerves. 

The warm, viscous liquid filling you initially catches you by surprise. Then, you eagerly accept it as if you’ve been craving it for eons, doing your best to relax your throat to accommodate the spasming tentacle.

The one on your clit moves harder and faster, clearly determined to break you completely.

You keep shuddering in sensitivity, yet the tentacles avidly work one last time to make the unbearable tension in your lower belly snap.

You shriek around the slimy flesh stuffing your mouth, not even noticing the smaller appendage that comes up to stroke your cheek, as though to calm you down. The other tentacles cling onto you, tightening their hold in tenderness to keep you safe throughout the burning climax that shatters the only ounce of composure you had left. 

Only when your body ceases its severe shaking, leaving you pliant and drenched in sweat, the Entity eases its grasp. The skin of your cheeks is gently held as the tips of two more appendages wipe away the tears the moment the tentacles leave your pussy.

The others begin a soft kneading motion on the sore muscles of your legs as the ones previously attached to your clit curiously brush your puffy folds, marveling at its cum steadily running down your hole and inevitably dirtying your ruined shorts.

You barely have any energy left to notice the deep ache in your joints when the Entity guides your arms back by your sides and your legs on the couch. Still, you try to control your stuttering breath as those two sneaky appendages keep stimulating you in tender curiosity.

“Rest, little star.”

You lazily blink at the ceiling, startled that your eyes had been closed this whole time. 

Speechless, your ears and mouth both feel like they’ve been stuffed with cotton wool. “Huh?”

“Rest, little star.” It purrs, still caressing your sides, adoration dripping from each reverent touch. 

“You are safe with me here.”

The next morning, you wake with a small smile already tugging at your lips and your body still pleasantly sore from the night before. The memories linger a little more before consciousness can interfere—the beautiful sense of fullness, the phantom ache of being held firmly in place without needing to understand the technicalities, the solid warmth curled around you in the aftermath.

It’s only when you open your eyes that you notice the unusual quiet.

You lie still for a moment longer than necessary with bated breath, because some part of you is already reaching for that familiar presence that always lingers somewhere at the edge of your awareness. But you can’t find it.

You sit up almost lethargically, expecting the feeling to return now that you’re properly awake. The apartment is exactly as it should be, unchanged in every single detail, and somehow that only makes the emptiness beneath your ribs harder to ignore.

Of course you assume it will return, so you start your morning, anticipating the Entity to pop out anytime as you eat breakfast.

But the coffee grows cold in your mug. The television drones quietly in the background. The sunlight shifts across the apartment as the hours go by... And still nothing.

Usually, its silences never feel truly empty. Even when it isn’t speaking, there is always the certainty that it is there with you.

This is different.

And that’s where everything begins to change.

The next day arrives with a kind of stubborn normality that feels almost insulting.

You wake again hopeful that the absence might have been temporary, something that would fix itself the way it should. But the same void is still there.

What unsettles you the most is not the loss itself but the way your thoughts keep skirting around it, never lingering for too long, as though looking at it directly might break you completely.

It hurts to acknowledge the small pauses between actions, the moments where you find yourself waiting for something to talk, and then realize, too late, that there is nothing to respond at all.

Each time it happens, it leaves behind a faint sting of embarrassment.

By the fourth day, the idea that something was there starts to feel like a version of events that only exists because you keep brooding over it, even when everything around you refuses to support it.

You keep turning moments inside out, trying to hold them in place, but they slip out of reach as soon as you look at them too closely.

It feels like a stab behind your ribs, because your memories of it are no longer anchored to anything that could confirm its existence.

There are moments when anger comes out of nowhere, sharp and ugly, usually when you catch yourself waiting again without meaning to. It feels ridiculous, humiliating even, reacting so strongly to something that simply left without a word.

That feeling turns quickly inward, because there is nothing else to blame that makes sense.

Only you.

After several days, its memory trails after you like a ghost—quiet enough to ignore for a while, but never far enough to forget.

You work, eat, sleep, and in between, there is always that quiet, painful feeling of something missing.

Gradually, you accept that it is not going to return. Not because you have figured some big mystery out, but because the waiting has sunk its poisonous teeth into you. It feeds on every quiet moment, contaminating every stray thought, gnawing steadily at your sanity, rotting the vulnerable parts of your life.

Day by day, it consumes you out from the inside, leaving behind a space shaped entirely by its hunger.

At the end of the second week, the silence has become ordinary in a way that almost convinces you it was always like this. The version of events where something had been present starts to feel increasingly difficult to defend, even in the privacy of your own mind.

It’s only later that reality bursts in a way you cannot ignore anymore.

You are standing there, knife in hand, your movements automatic as you work over the cutting board, when something inside you finally tears loose, so violent that even breathing results painful.

Your movements slow without permission, until they stop completely.

For a long, horrible moment your still body exists in a space that feels suddenly foreign. Your eyes stare blankly at the counter as your vision quickly blurs. You blink once, sharply, hoping that it would fix it, but it doesn’t. Only then something wet falls on your cheek.

You let out a short, disbelieving huff.

“Shit.” You swallow thickly, but the word comes out wrong—thin, strangled. “What the fuck is wrong with me.”

You press the heels of your hands briefly against your eyes as if that could physically push the tears back into place. If anything, it only makes it worse, the lump in your throat growing heavier with every second.

“This is pathetic.” You whimper, not sure whether the anger is aimed at yourself or at the situation.

Or at the fact that there is no situation at all.

Because there is nothing to justify this.

Nothing that should be making you cry in the middle of making dinner on a random Friday night.

You let out a sharp laugh, but it breaks halfway through.

“I’m actually losing it.” You sniffle.

Standing there with your breath uneven and your face still wet, your hands wipe your cheeks a little too roughly.

Your attention goes back to the cutting board, as if resuming the task might finally steady that precarious balance you’ve been clinging to for days, but your hands don’t immediately follow. They hover—uncertain, trembling.

And beneath all of it, there is still that absence—hollow and impossible to prove—pressing against the inside of your awareness, a dull ache lodged in your chest that no amount of distraction can soothe.

The next week is quieter.

You stop revisiting it. There is no point in chasing something that leaves only pain behind.

You’re not waiting anymore, not voluntarily at least. You still pause sometimes in doorways, still find yourself listening into empty rooms, but the expectation is gone. What’s left is only habit.

You eat because Tony still needs your help keeping the company running—there are too many things that would fall apart without you.

You clean because the mess won’t clean itself.

You move because stopping would mean having to untangle what comes next, and the sole thought of facing that is akin to stepping off the edge of a cliff you can’t see the bottom of.

At night, you lie in bed and stare at the ceiling for hours—not really on purpose, sleep just evades you. When nothing happens, there’s no disappointment. Only a bland confirmation.

The absence stops being absence, it just becomes normality again.

Because remembering hurts more than letting go.

Three months pass and you have finally taken some of the vacation days that have been accumulating in your file for months.

Well, calling it a vacation feels generous considering most of it has been spent catching up on everything you never seem to have time for while working.

Medical checkups you kept postponing. A dentist appointment for a wisdom tooth you should have booked six months ago. And then there are the usual tedious tasks: laundry, groceries, cleaning...

By all accounts, it should feel productive.

Instead, you are left drained.

You move through your days checking items off lists and running errands across the city, returning home every evening with aching feet and the vague satisfaction of having accomplished something, only to discover the feeling never lasts particularly long.

The apartment is still your favorite place. At least, you think it is. Lately, it feels less like comfort and more like retreat.

There are moments when you catch yourself staring into nothing for no reason. Moments where a pit opens somewhere in your stomach before disappearing so quickly you almost convince yourself it never happened.

You have stopped trying to understand it, though. Whatever happened—or didn’t happen—refuses to become any clearer with time.

Maybe loneliness is capable of stranger things than people give it credit for.

Maybe your mind had built something elaborate to fill a void you didn’t even know was there.

Maybe that’s why the memories still feel like a knife buried deep in your chest.

By the final day of your leave, you have mostly made peace with what your life has become.

You spend the afternoon exactly as planned: sprawled across the couch, surrounded by junk food and no obligations in sight. For the first time in weeks, there is nothing demanding your attention.

When the doorbell rings, you’re halfway through a tub of ice cream and so absorbed in the new season of Abbott Elementary that it takes you a moment to realize the sound isn’t coming from the television.

You briefly assume it belongs to your phone, lost somewhere between the cushions, and decide to ignore it. You have every intention of enjoying the last few hours of freedom before returning to your personal circle of hell that is Tony’s company.

However, after exactly one minute, the shrill sound comes back, clear and unmistakable, and now you are pushing yourself upright with a groan—your back aches from lying there all day.

You cross the space without much urgency, immediately regretting all your life choices once you open the door in pajamas and find a handsome man standing on your doorstep.

Tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a plain, dark t-shirt that perfectly hug his big, sturdy body.

He has the kind of face that would attract attention without ever seeking it. A man people notice instinctively and then spend the next several minutes pretending they haven’t, because there is something eerily intimidating about a face that looks carved by the gods themselves.

His eyes catch your attention next.

Blue. Startlingly so, almost unnaturally bright, the color so vivid and intense it looks like pigment suspended beneath glass. You decide they must be contacts, because that’s the safest explanation and your brain is gradually learning to settle into this pattern for the sake of your own sanity.

The moment he smiles, the effect is immediate.

It softens his sharp beauty, easy and unforced in a way that invites trust and warmth.

Such a shame that his presence is so staggering that you completely miss what really lies beneath the illusion—a crude imitation.

His body seems to always react a fraction later than intention: his shoulders shift a moment after his head turns and his posture corrects itself a beat too stiffly, as though alignment is a conscious reminder rather than an innate response.

When he steps forward, there is the faintest unevenness in his weight, one foot pressing down a little too carefully before the other follows. A subtle trembling persists in his legs even when standing still, his knees locking into place a second later than expected.

Even his hands don’t settle easily. When they fall to his sides, a few fingers twitch and bend on their own accord before returning back to a more natural state.

“Hello.”

There is something unfairly serene about his voice, just as smooth as silk.

“I’m James,” he continues. “I just moved in next door. Apartment 6B.”

The tension you hadn’t noticed you were holding loosens without permission, leaving your shoulders a fraction lighter and your breath a little less controlled than it had been a moment before.

Unfortunately, you realize a moment too late that you have been staring at his gorgeous face all along.

“Oh—sorry.” You let out a short, embarrassed chuckle as you shake your head. “I didn’t know Ms. Esposito moved.”

The man tilts his head slightly, as if considering the name.

“Ms. Esposito?” He repeats, lightly, the name seemingly not settling the way it should.

That small hesitation makes your brows knit faintly in confusion.

“Yeah,” you add, half-amused. “She lived here. Apartment 6B. I just thought—”

You decide to stop as his expression remains unchanged, waving your hand dismissively. “Never mind.”

Maybe they didn’t have the chance to meet each other.

His gaze remains exactly where it is, fixed on your face with the same intense attentiveness as before.

The silence stretches a second longer than it should, and you find yourself shifting slightly under it.

“Well,” you start with a small titter, eager to fill the gap before it becomes too awkward. “Nice to meet you, James.”

As you offer him your name, something shifts—a subtle spasm in his features, but it’s gone in the blink of an eye.

You accept his extended hand without hesitation. His grip is warm, firm without being excessive, but there is a curious deliberateness that suggests he is paying more attention to the contact than what is socially acceptable.

You are already preparing to let go when his grip abruptly tightens around your hand, enough that the bones in your fingers press together unpleasantly. The change catches you off guard. Your breath hitches as a sharp pulse of discomfort runs up your arm, and before you can stop yourself, your gaze drops to your joined hands, noticing how his knuckles have been turning an unhealthy shade of white, bordering on dark grey.

When you look back up in confusion, your stomach gives a small, sickening lurch.

James’ big smile is exactly the same, but it doesn’t respond anymore. It stays frozen in place with an odd consistency, as if it has been placed there and forgotten.

You don’t remember his eyes looking so... wide. His eyelids seem to draw farther and farther apart by imperceptible degrees, exposing a little more white with every passing second.

Your hand jerks in a reflexive attempt to pull away, but his grip doesn’t yield. It holds with the intransigent firmness of steel, his long fingers locked around yours as though they have forgotten how to let go.

And so you remain there, forced to watch as the features of this weird stranger soften until they slowly melt out of shape.

“Oh, I already know that, little star.”

END NOTES: thank you so much for reading 🖤 my masterlist → winteryn's masterlist

“Come on, guys. The final exam is next week and I really don’t want to have to fail anyone this time around…again. So let’s show a little more initiative! Yay, cellular anatomy!” 

He lightly pumped his fists in the air in an almost convincing cheer. You think it was meant to be encouraging but, looking around at your classmates, they didn’t seem to get the hint. They returned your dorky professor’s enthusiasm with glazed over expressions and the occasional monotonous click of laptop keys signifying they were likely working on another task all together instead of paying attention. 

You couldn’t exactly blame them. Dr. Ryland Grace’s courses were among the hardest in the university’s advanced molecular biology track. Rumor has it that his exams have made students literally drop out of the program before. It wasn’t exactly his fault, the subject was enough to melt anyone’s brain on its own, but Dr. Grace made up for it by being an amazing professor. 

He was always incredibly engaged, exceptionally witty, and, overall, just seemed to genuinely care for the material. You couldn’t deny that you definitely felt the insurmountable pressure of the high expectations he placed on his students, but something about his passion just…spoke to you. It was like he breathed life back into the subject that you chose to make your career all those years ago. 

Admittedly, you had been a fan of Dr. Grace’s work since you were in undergrad, opting to enroll in this university’s program for even the mere, microscopic chance, that you could study under him. As luck would have it, he was accepting new doctorate students the year you were admitted.

Pursuing a PhD in molecular biology was daunting enough, but you learned fast under Dr. Grace’s caring hand. He made it seem like you were the only student he had ever taught, with the way his eyes lit up at your ideas, doing everything his lab’s budget could afford to make them a reality. 

Over the past three years of your thesis study, you were shyly keen to admit you and Dr. Grace had grown fairly close to one another. After all, he strangely decided to stop taking students after he signed on to mentor your study, which meant that you always had his undivided attention  He was by far the best teacher you had ever had, which is why it made you feel all the more guilty that you also…had not been paying attention to his question.

“Okay.” Dr. Grace let his shoulders slump in a sigh. He looked as exasperated as his students. He ran his fingers through his messy blond strands and readjusted his glasses. “Tell you what. If someone can answer this last question correctly, I’ll let you all out early. I know it’s almost finals and my exam isn’t the only one you all have to worry about, so you guys just do me this one last favor and we can call it a day”.

Your ears, along with the rest of your classmates, perked up instantly. You heard the faint sounds of students adjusting themselves in their seats as they leaned in, eager to earn this rare reprieve from classes. Dr. Grace smirked and clapped his hands together. “Alright, signs of life! So, tell me, what are the three major types of lipids that make up cellular membranes?” 

This time, when you looked around, your classmates were deep in thought. Some of them looked like the act of searching for the information needed to answer the question physically pained them to work through. Not you though. This was something that you had already gone over with Dr. Grace for your research proposal write up. He had coached you through cellular membrane structure semesters ago. You raised your hand, albeit, hesitantly.

Dr. Grace had bitten his lip in anticipation looking around at his students in expectation. When his eyes met yours, his gaze softened. He nodded, waiting for your answer patiently. 

“Uh, I believe they are phospholipids, glycolipids, and sterols?” You knew it was the correct answer but you still held your breath, and Dr. Grace’s stare for that matter, waiting on his confirmation. Something about the intense blue of his eyes just seemed to make coherent thoughts impossible, even when it came to material that you knew inside and out. 

Dr. Grace nodded emphatically and threw up his hands. “We have a winner! Excellent work! That’s exactly right,” he exclaimed. You heard a few small cheers from your classmates in the back, who had already started backing their bags. Dr Grace retreated behind the lecturer’s stand and started to pack up his things as well. “Okay you all, a promise is a promise, you’re free to go.” The few students who had yet to pack up started doing so feverishly, as if they were afraid Dr. Grace would take back his seemingly merciful act of kindness.

Dr. Grace shouted to the back of the room as students shuffled out the door. “I will see you all bright and early next week for the final. Remember that you will need to know ALL of the protein pathways of the cell membrane to be able to answer the extra credit question! Don’t try to name only one and expect me to give you full points…” He smiled and cast his gaze down to his laptop, turning off its connection to the projector that had his meticulously detailed cell diagram thrown up on the lecture hall’s ginormous screen. 

You finished shoving your books into your bag and signaled to your classmates that you would catch up to them later. You had to ask your advisor a question about finalizing a date for your dissertation. It was a little over two weeks away and not knowing all the details was driving you insane. Or maybe it was just the thought of having to present all of your research findings to the very man that basically invented the topic you were researching. 

You had chosen to take an experimental approach to Dr. Grace’s hypothesis that life didn’t require water to survive. You had found some pretty compelling evidence in his favor among local bacterial life, but the thought of explaining his own research findings to the man himself had your stomach in knots. Or maybe it was just that Dr. Grace seemed to have your stomach in knots all on his own the last couple of months. 

You hated to admit it, but you had developed something of a schoolgirl level crush on your professor. Sure it was somewhat embarrassing, but could anybody blame you? He was unbelievably charming, so ridiculously intelligent it was almost intimidating, funny, passionate, sincere, and…yeah. 

He was pretty fucking hot too.

Everytime you walked into his lab, with him in one of those stupid science pun t-shirts that seemed to always be unfairly tight on him, leaving none of his muscular build to the imagination, you felt like your knees were going to give out from under you. Plus, he always seemed to stand right on top of you as he examined your findings through the microscope with you, which was not helpful at all. His forearms would often brush your side as he adjusted the lens settings, sending almost painful shockwaves through your body. Although, it was probably the glasses that sent you over the edge. He always seemed to look straight through your collected exterior you worked so hard to put forth when he peered at you over the rims that delicately balanced on the sharp bridge of his nose.

Who are you kidding? It was definitely the glasses that sealed your fate.

But that was inappropriate! Dr. Grace is your professor, your advisor for fuck’s sake. Nothing more!

 ……Right?

Yes, oh my god! Jesus, yes, of course he was just your professor. What were you even thinking? 

You snapped out of your thoughts and realized that you were soon to be the last student standing awkwardly in the lecture hall. With a grunt, you gathered up your bag full of textbooks and lab equipment and shakily headed up to Dr. Grace, who was still inspecting his laptop up at the lecture podium. 

He looked up from whatever he was poring over at the sound of your footsteps. He grinned at you and crossed his arms, leaning his hip onto the podium.

“Hey! There’s my favorite future doctor of microbiology. Got a nice ring to it, huh? Excellent job on that question, by the way.” He stared at you expectantly, though you know this was just another clever ruse to relieve the stress he knows he’s been putting you under. You laughed softly and cast your gaze to the floor at his praise, heat moving impossibly fast up your neck and onto your cheeks.

“You ready for the big day?” Dr. Grace asked, inquisitively, referring to your thesis presentation. His question quickly put out the flame that was building in your core and reminded you of the anxiety-inducing task you had ahead of you.

You met his eyes again. “Yeah! Totally…” you cringed, not even believing your own words. “Well, almost. I was just hoping we could talk about the dissertation date? I know you’re super busy and you’re going to have a lot of exams to grade and probably a lot of undergraduate papers too…and that I’ve technically already finished my research, really just need to finish writing the presentation slides, but I just really was..” the words seemed to spill out of you faster and faster by the second. Somewhere, in the back of your brain you willed yourself to stop babbling like an idiot but that thought never seemed to bring itself out of your subconscious and make itself useful. Dr. Grace looked at you back and forth hurriedly, trying his best to follow your words, before putting his hands on your shoulders and chuckling. 

“Woah, woah, easy tiger. Slow down.” His grip on your shoulders tightened, causing you to freeze at the sudden contact. God, his hands were firm. You eased up a bit under his touch. 

“Don’t get yourself so worked up. You are going to do fantastic. I know you are. That committee won’t even know what hit them,” Dr. Grace said. As he spoke, his thumbs worked their way up and down on your shoulders, almost as if they were trying to etch his words onto your skin so you would believe them. It did the trick though, you exhaled a bit before Dr. Grace continued.

“I know we have a couple of things to wrap up. Tell you what, I have to run to a faculty meeting in a bit but later tonight, how about you meet me in the lab and we can go over your data one last time, okay? Would that make you feel better?” Dr. Grace had sunk down on his knees a bit to be at eye level with you. His words warmly rushed over you, soothing your worried mind. With your thoughts a bit clearer, you hadn’t even noticed how close the two of you were. He was basically holding your body in place with his hands and his face was so close to yours that you could feel his breath as it fanned over your cheeks. He seemed to notice your close proximity as well as he dropped his hands from your shoulders suddenly and cleared his throat. 

You almost sighed at the loss of contact but caught yourself at the last second. Instead you said, “That would be amazing Dr. Grace, thank you.” He lightened a bit at your agreement. “Great! I’ll probably be in there at around 8:00? Feel free to drop by then.” You nodded and waved him off as he exited the hall. 

You were definitely in for a long night. 

--

You found yourself pacing outside of Dr. Grace’s lab at 8 o’clock on the dot, mentally coaching yourself to go in. Why were you so nervous, even? Dr. Grace was your advisor, you had been working with him for months, this is just an ordinary lab meeting like you’ve done with him countless times before. Before you could lose your courage, you swung open the door and immediately stopped in your tracks. 

Dr. Grace was positioned at the centermost lab table, carefully holding up a glass beaker to the glow of the moonlight that was being cast in through the lab’s window blinds. His brow was furrowed in concentration as he transferred a clear liquid into the beaker with a pipette dropper. He was in another one of his classic science t-shirts, his arm positioned almost at a perfect 90 degree angle holding up the beaker, which exposed every curve and vein of his bicep for your hungry eyes to devour. Bright, blue, latex  gloves were pulled tight over hands that were a stark contrast to his firm arms, instead, skillfully holding the beaker in place to not spill any liquid. His glasses were knocked slightly askew on his face as he wore protective goggles over his eyes, but to you, that just made him all the more endearing. 

Your eyes roved over his form, rigid and unwavering with the confidence of a man precisely in his element. Even though there was nobody else in the room except for you two, his presence seemed to demand attention. His fellow faculty members may have never paid much attention to his work outside of mindlessly recommending his lectures to their students, but, god, would you never get tired of marveling at this genius of a man. Both because he was a leading mind in your field and also because he was insanely attractive while he worked. 

Dr. Grace looked up from whatever he was studying as he heard the door close softly behind you. He greeted you with a smile. “There you are, right on time as always. I would’ve expected nothing less. I’m just about wrapped up with this. Why don’t you grab your slides from the back and get set up while I put this away and then we can get started. Okay, sweetheart?” 

Your heart felt like it dropped into your shoes. Dr. Grace had turned his back to you as he busied himself with something near the sink which gave you some time to process what you had just heard. 

Sweetheart? That was definitely a first. I mean sure, you’ve had teachers call you that before, usually just in an endearing, almost parental way when you were younger. But something about the way he said it left you reeling. It felt…charged. Almost like he was dangling the term of endearment over both of your heads, knowing that there was nothing either of you could do to act on it. You replayed his voice saying it over and over again in your head to convince yourself you didn’t imagine it, when Dr. Grace spoke again. 

“You alright over there?” He had now taken the goggles off and was wiping his regular glasses on the bottom of his t-shirt. He placed them back on carefully and put his hands on his hips, his t-shirt tightly coating his broad chest like a second skin. He raised his eyebrows at you pointedly, waiting on your answer. It was then that you finally noticed you hadn’t moved an inch. 

You choked out a laugh. “Yeah! Yeah, of course.” His eyebrows drew together in questioning. You smiled weakly and hurried to grab your slides.

--

The next two hours were full of calculations and write-ups that made your brain feel like it was leaking out of your ears. You and Dr. Grace worked silently and diligently, double and triple checking your work to make sure you were prepared for your dissertation. It was honestly impressive, the way the two of you moved in tandem, re-examining slides under the microscope and writing up the conclusions on the large whiteboard at the center of the room. You two seemed to glide in and out of your respective areas with ease, Dr. Grace stopping every so often to check in and make sure that you didn’t need help with anything. Busying yourself with your work did seem to help quiet the distracting thoughts you kept having about your professor. Instead of Dr. Grace making you dizzy, it was the goddamn microscope whose viewfinder just didn’t seem to want to work with you that had your vision spinning.

You groaned in frustration and threw your arms up onto the lab counter, dramatically flopping your head onto them with a huff. Dr. Grace spun around from his designated place at the whiteboard. Your eyes were so weak with exhaustion you could barely keep them open anymore but you were able to make out that he somehow had three different dry erase markers in his possession, one tucked into the top of his ear, one in his hand that he was currently writing with, and one clenched between his teeth. He looked downright sinful as he plucked the marker from his mouth, a few drops of saliva following his fingers from where the marker met his lips. Between the microscope, your report writing, and Dr. Grace’s incessant need to unknowingly drive you crazy with want, you were certain you wouldn’t even make it to your presentation day in one piece. 

“Aw, what’s wrong?” He chuckled softly. “Lens settings giving you trouble again?” 

“I don’t even know why they make the knobs this sensitive. It’s like the big science companies actually want to cause me anguish and despair every waking moment of my academic career,” you whined sarcastically. Dr. Grace walked over to you, tilting his head with a small smile at your frustrated state. “Do you want me to show you a trick I learned in grad school? It saved my life a couple of times when I was back in your shoes.”

You bobbed your head up and down excitedly. Anything to make your life easier right now was welcomed with open arms. Speaking of arms, your excitement almost died in your throat as you felt Dr. Grace’s hand on the small of your back, guiding you up and back to the microscope ever so gently. He positioned you in front of the microscope with his body directly behind you. There seemed to be only an inch of space between the two of you. One wrong move and your back would be flush with his chest as he caged you in.

You felt like all of the air just got punched out of your lungs.This was too much. It was one thing for you to admire Dr. Grace from afar, knowing that there wasn’t a chance in hell of anything happening between the two of you. It was another when he had you literally locked in place, his rock solid figure giving you no chance of escape.

This was real. This was painstakingly, agonizingly, undeniably real.

It felt like your world was crashing down, your thoughts empty except for your goddamn professor's frustratingly lean body behind you that almost had you wiping your salivating mouth with your shirt sleeve. I mean seriously. A microbiology professor has no business being that toned. Your breath hitched in your throat and you cast your view down to the microscope, trying desperately to focus on the task at hand. 

Except, Dr. Grace wasn’t letting you off that easily.

Dr. Grace delicately grabbed your right wrist and placed your hand on the fine adjustment knob. Except he didn’t stop there. His hand remained on yours, his fingers were ghosting your own, guiding them into exactly the right position. You felt a slight pressure in the pads of your fingers as he pressed down, swiveling the knob ever so slightly. He nudged your shoulder with his own, prompting you to take a look into the microscope. 

You moved your face down into the viewfinder, placing the bridge of your nose underneath the ocular lens. Dr. Grace followed suit, leaning his head down closer to you so that it was just next to yours. This caused the very top of his chest to connect with your shoulderblades and you tensed. This could not be happening right now. 

His words, a deep whisper that was very unlike his typical teacher voice, almost startled you as they were uttered so close to your ear. 

“You see, the key is to take two fingers,” Dr. Grace said intensely, “and slowly–”

He lifted your pointer and middle finger along with his own, placing your middle finger on the coarse adjustment knob in addition, and slid his fingers over yours so the knob rolled heavily under the both of you.

“--work both the knobs at the same time,” Dr. Grace finished. He leaned his head back and watched you carefully, making sure you understood his instructions. 

You could feel his gaze, hard and unrelenting, so you refused to look up from your slide and meet his eyes. You were almost panting with need now. The lab was usually sterile and cold, but from where you were standing it felt like you were in an inferno. You had never been this physically close to Dr. Grace before and it was setting your insides on fire. Part of you wanted to snap out of his grasp and run into the hall before you did anything you’d seriously regret. The other half of you was dying to find out what would happen if you didn’t. Pushed the boundaries a little bit. Fought fire with fire. 

You couldn’t. 

Could you?

You scolded your mind for wandering so far away from the task at hand and returned your thoughts to the microscope.Oh, would you look at that, Dr. Grace got the image of your slide looking pristine through the viewfinder on his very first try. 

You internally scowled. It also wasn’t helpful that his academic prowess was a major turn on. 

You clenched your legs together to relieve some of the pressure that had settled there, all the while, Dr. Grace still kept you in between his arms. His hands were now flat against the table, no longer guiding you. By all intents and purposes, he had absolutely no reason to still be standing so close to you but there he was, trapping you against him.

“See it now?” Dr. Grace questioned. He was referring to the absolutely gorgeous cell that was now blown up in scale through the viewfinder thanks to his help. You had to admit, you never got tired of that feeling. The feeling of staring at actual life, smaller than the tip of your pinky finger, teeming with blues and pinks and purples of the various organelles inside of it. 

“I do. It’s beautiful, Dr. Grace,” you admitted. You turned your head around on your shoulder and met his eyes. He really was close to you. Truly, you could step a quarter of a foot forward and your foreheads would be pressed together in a forbidden meeting. Something to never be seen by another’s eyes. Yet, standing here, almost fully enveloped by Dr. Grace, it didn’t feel as wrong as you thought it would. 

His gaze dropped down to your lips briefly. It was quick, but you noticed. He met your eyes again and you could have sworn you saw his pupils dilate in real time. The moonlight coming in through the windows earlier was now mixed with the soft glow of the campus lamplights that lined the walkways below the lab floor. The yellow lights mixed with Dr. Grace’s blue eyes, swirled a supernova of color around in his irises. 

And him? He looked transfixed on you, as if you had hung the stars in the sky. 

Could you do this? No. You were sleep-deprived and not thinking straight. Except your body had other ideas.You leaned in slowly, your eyes trained on Dr. Grace’s soft lips. Your hands had a mind of their own, coming up to almost cup his cheeks, like they knew you wanted this, knew you wanted to cross this boundary from which there was no coming back from. 

They were never able to reach their destination.

Dr. Grace jerked back from you suddenly and retreated into the corner of the lab, pacing, his hands thrown up in defeat, folded together to support the back of his neck as he let out a wavering breath. 

“Oh my god I-,” He started to spiral. “I wasn’t, I didn’t-”

He caught your eyes and immediately looked away, as if the simple act of looking at you was a punishable offense. You retreated into yourself, horrified that you would even think to act on your feelings. It was a dumb move, so ridiculously stupid, that you were afraid you just cost yourself your advisor, hell, your entire academic career. 

But Dr. Grace wasn’t looking at you anymore. He was running his hands through his hair feverishly. “I’m so sorry, god, I don’t know what I was doing I-”

He whispered to himself in a tone barely audible enough for you to hear. “She’s your student, Ryland, what are you thinking?”

You realized this wasn’t about you. This was about him. He was trying to keep himself in check. Not do something he would regret. The thought that he might be having the same ideas you were having, filled you with a confidence you had no business having. 

You slowly walked over to him and he flinched when he realized how close you had gotten. 

“Dr. Grace?” you whispered. 

Dr. Grace stilled as if your voice snapped some invisible thread that was holding him together. 

“Your hands are shaking–here let me help you,” you picked up his hands with your own, interlocking your fingers, half expecting him to recoil from your touch, but he didn’t. “I, I don’t know what to say,” Dr. Grace strained. “I’m so sorry, you’re my best student, I have no idea what came over me.” He sounded wrecked. Like you had stolen all of the air from his lungs. It was in that moment that you made a decision. One that was going to seal your fate either for better or for the worst. You took a deep inhale. 

In one deadly move, you surged forward and captured his lips into your own. You felt Dr. Grace tense up immediately but melt into your touch as you tangled your hands into his blond strands. His hands fell onto your hips like they were always made to be there. It was a searing kiss, with both of you putting your entire body weight into the other, as if this was the last chance that you were going to get to make this mistake. He pulled you closer to him, pressing his hands into you so hard you were sure he was going to leave a mark. 

You broke apart, breathless. Dr. Grace squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his forehead onto yours. He shook his head. “I am your professor,” Dr. Grace choked out. “I’m responsible for you, I could lose my job, my title, my reputation,” It sounded like he was trying to make a list of all of the reasons this was a bad idea but you didn’t care. The only person he was trying to convince at this point was himself. He cupped your face in his hands and scanned your expression.

“I need you to tell me to stop.” 

Silence.

“God, I am in so much trouble.” 

He drew you into another kiss and you happily reciprocated. It felt like fireworks were being lit off in your chest. Whatever you had imagined, this was a million times better. He was somehow both gentle and rough at the same time, trying to devour you like you were his last meal. He ducked his head down into your neck and took your skin between his teeth, nipping at the soft flesh.

“You have no idea what you’ve been doing to me” he breathed out. He was working his way up your neck, kissing the exposed flesh as he went. 

“Every time,” Kiss. “You talk,” Kiss. “All I can think about,” Kiss. “Is your mouth on mine.”

He walked you backwards, his mouth never leaving yours. Eventually your back hit the lab counter. It stung a bit but you didn’t care. All you could focus on was getting that t-shirt off of his frame and onto the floor. You were dying to see what was under those stupid science pun prints. 

You moaned into his mouth and tugged at the bottom of his shirt, signalling to him what you wanted. He leaned back a bit, arms still encircling your waist, and smirked. “Yeah? You want this off?” he questioned knowingly. You nodded. 

“Come on, use your words. You want my shirt off?” he asked. 

Oh, he was going to kill you. “Yes, Dr. Grace,” you answered, obediently. Dr. Grace’s eyes almost rolled into the back of his head. He groaned. “Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” you asked. “That thing with your voice,” Dr. Grace said. “Calling me doctor all sweet like you do, you know you can call me Ryland.” You tugged on the hem of his shirt once more. “Okay, Ryland. Shirt. Off. Now,” you demanded. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he snickered. He made quick work of grabbing the bottom of his shirt and ripping it over his head. He made to pull you back into another kiss but you stopped him just short of contact. You pushed him back slightly, leaning back and drinking him in. You couldn’t even believe what you were seeing. Ryland was fucking ripped. 

The evening light highlighted his abs just right, where you could take in every curve and detail, as his muscles seemed to strain against absolutely nothing. You ran your hands down his stomach and he shivered. His stomach intricately curved down into a sharp V that was so defined, you had to do a double take to convince yourself it was real. “Who knew microbiology was such a grueling subject?” you joked. 

Dr. Grace laughed. “Hey, I personally think that understanding cellular adaptation and atrophy is more difficult than any workout.” You shook your head and smiled. Even when he was hot and heavy, he still took every opportunity to make a science joke. You wouldn’t have it any other way. 

This time it was you who pulled him back into a kiss. He stole your move and tugged on the bottom of your blouse. You untangled your hands from his hair and began to undo the top buttons. Ryland followed your hands with his mouth as you worked your way down the shirt. With each inch of skin that was exposed to him, Ryland placed an open-mouth kiss there, leaving wet patches along your chest. As you reached the last button, Ryland’s mouth stayed on your navel but his arms snaked up to help you abandon the offending fabric..

He looked up at you from where he was perched on his knees, his chin on your stomach, those sweet blue eyes still in awe of you. That this was happening. That you weren’t something out of his wildest dreams. His right index finger toyed with the button on your pants. “Can I take these off, sweetheart?” Your eyes widened. Ryland grinned. “I’m going to take that as a yes with your eyes, now I just need your mouth to tell me the same.” 

“Yes”, you rasped. He wasted no time pulling both your pants and your underwear down in one fell swoop, nearly knocking you off balance, but, of course, Ryland was there to catch you as you fell. He steadied you by digging both his palms into the back of your thighs, palming your flesh. He stood up, hands not leaving you for a second, meeting your lips again. 

“Jump,” he stated simply. Without a second thought you hoisted yourself up by digging your hands into his shoulders and felt his strong hands grab the underside of your thighs, lifting you onto the lab table. The coldness of the counter was a stark contrast to the heat that was coursing through your body; it almost made you wince. You made to return Ryland’s favor and undo his jeans, but he caught your hands in his.

“Not yet, I want to make you feel good first,” he said, lips now working their way up the side of your face and under your earlobe.. “Is that alright?” he asked. You shuddered as the breath of his words met your skin. His hands had left their spots on your thighs and fluttered over your torso, tracing the outline of your ribs on your skin. 

“O-okay,” you stuttered. It felt like your entire body was numb, but also so sensitive to every touch that Ryland gave you, all at once. Ryland leaned back and took your naked form in again. “Thatta girl,” the words seemed to drip off his tongue. He tapped your knees in encouragement and dropped to his knees again, parting your legs gently. He met your eyes quickly, a silent ask for permission which you readily granted.

With that, he kissed the insides of your thighs, working his way inwards from the inside of your knees. As he got closer to the spot where you needed him most, you felt the sharp edges of his glasses rims knock into your inner thighs. Ryland leaned back on his calves. “Sorry, sweetheart. Let me get these out of our way,” he plucked his glasses off of his face and made to place them on the counter before you interjected. 

“No!” you startled yourself by how quickly you responded. Ryland looked up at you, puzzled. However, he paused where he was at, glasses still in hand. You sheepishly smiled. “Keep them on. Please.” You internally grimaced, embarrassed by your begging. However, after three years of pining after your professor, you were not passing up the thought of looking down to his glasses-framed face as he fucking ate you out. 

Ryland smiled smugly. “Got a thing for the glasses, huh?” He placed them delicately back on his face. “Tell me,” he said, “Is it the daring Clark Kent vibe that gets you going or the wizened academic look that you like more?” He gestured to his face, mostly jokingly, but you could sense there was a genuine question somewhere in there. You leaned down and pushed the glasses further up his nose. “What can I say, I’ve got a thing for hot, nerdy, men,” you replied. 

He laughed. “I’ll take it.”

It felt natural, the progression. His kisses felt earned, given with adoration, and he made sure that not an inch of you went untouched. After what felt like a million light years of him paying attention to everywhere except where you wanted, he licked a long, wet, downright disrespectful stripe up your folds. You moaned instantly and threw your head back. You didn’t even have any time to recover before he dove in again, his tongue swirling around your clit and sucking gently. 

He didn’t know all of the spots to make you squirm right off the bat, but god was he a quick study. Whenever his tongue brushed a spot that tore a sound out of you, he made sure to hit that spot again. Over and over again. He seemed determined to get as many sounds out of you as he could, and you happily obliged. Not like you had much of a choice in the matter. 

Fuck, he was good, you thought.

“Yeah?” Ryland asked from between your thighs. “You think so?” 

You hadn’t realized you said that part outloud. You were too overwhelmed with bliss to even care. “Fuck yes, Ryland. You feel so fucking good, oh my-”

A finger being pushed into your folds cuts you off instantly. After that, there truly was no hope for you. He set a punishing pace, pumping his fingers in and out while using his tongue to get to all of the spots that his fingers couldn’t reach while preoccupied. You clenched around his fingers and you felt him tense as he jut his hips forward involuntarily. “Ryland,” you gasped. “I’m gonna-” You couldn’t even finish your sentence before Ryland picked up his pace further, if that was even possible. 

“Come on, sweetheart. You can do it, let go,” you heard Ryland say, even though his voice sounded muffled and far away. His mouth returned to your clit, sucking hard, and the coil in your lower stomach finally broke. A loud moan tore out of you and you bit the back of your hand to silence yourself. You were still in the campus lab after all. Euphoria washed over you, from head to toe, and your legs shook with the impact. Ryland’s hand came up to steady you as he slowed slightly and worked you through it. 

“There you go, just like that. I got you,” he coaxed gently. You moved the palm that you were biting down your face as the waves subsided. You couldn’t help it, you collapsed back on the table. Ryland resumed his ritual of kissing up your navel, to the center of your sternum, in between your collarbones, and finally, standing up, to your lips. You returned his kiss, although rather weakly. 

“You okay?” he asked. You nodded. He paused for a moment, seemingly pondering if he should speak again. He decided on another question. 

“You want more?” he asked, his voice deeper this time, lower. 

“Fuck yes,” you cursed.

His words invigorated you with a second wind. You sat up quickly, hands rushing to undo the button and zipper on his jeans as he leaned into your hair and placed kisses to your head. As you fumbled with his belt loops, you could feel his arousal underneath your palm. Just to test the waters, you palmed him slightly, earning a whimper from Ryland into your hair. You hopped down from the counter as you finished unzipping his jeans. Ryland took over from there, sliding his jeans and underwear down in one go. Your eyes immediately cast downward and you bit your lip. 

His cock sprang forward, rock hard and already leaking pre-cum. You would have never guessed in your wildest dreams that he would be this big. It made your mouth water. You slowly began to sink to your knees to show him as good of a time as he just gave you, but he stopped you with a hand to your chest. 

“Please I- I can’t wait any longer,” Ryland searched your eyes. “I need to be inside you.” 

Oh. 

His words almost made you falter. As if you hadn’t had enough life-altering experiences tonight, here was Dr. Ryland Grace, published scientist, respected research and professor, begging to fuck you. 

Ryland seemed to take your silence as a yes, as he grabbed your hips and gave you one last kiss before spinning you to face the lab counter. From your perspective, you could see out the lab’s large windows. The lab was on the second floor of the science building, so all you could see out the window was the tops of the trees on the grounds. Still, all that was running through your mind at this moment was the fact that students could be walking down below, without a clue about all of the filthy things you and your professor were doing in his lab. 

Ryland places a hand on the small of your back and pushed you forward, effectively bending you over the lab counter. Your palms hit the counter, leaving an imprint on the black tops. Ryland kissed your back and you felt words muttered onto your skin. “Is this okay?”

“Yes, Ryland, please just-” He didn’t even let you finish. As soon as the word ‘yes’ left your mouth, he was pushing inside you. His cock stretching you out slow and depraved, making you gasp. Ryland cursed behind you, his hands flying to your hips and digging his short nails into your sides. He pushed slowly inside, inch by glorious inch until he was buried completely inside you. You turned your head slightly to see Ryland’s perfect face. He had his head thrown back, eyes closed, as if the act of being inside you was something that deserved a moment of silent reverence. 

“Ryland?” 

“Hm?” he hummed without opening his eyes. 

“Move,” you demanded. 

Well, you did ask for it. He pumped in and out of you like a piston, building up a rhythm that had you sobbing. Ryland’s hands never left your hips, you think he needed to hold on to them for his own sanity at this point. “Fuck you feel, you’re-” you sputtered. “You’re so fucking tight.” 

His pace quickened as tears squeaked their way out of your eyes and onto the lab counter. You were sure that you had never felt this good in your entire life. You could feel that low simmer in your stomach that you felt earlier. You were close. “Just like that Ryland, I’m gonna cum again”, you croaked. Your voice was gone, all of the air absent from your lungs.

Ryland seemed to sense it too as his once steady rhythm faltered and failed at points. He was losing steam, and fast. “Oh my, oh my fucking god,” he growled. “Come on, cum with me, that’s my girl.” 

The praise sent you over the edge. As your second wave rocked your body, you felt Ryland following suit. His hips stuttered as he spilled inside of you with a broken moan. His head fell forward onto your back as you felt his last few strokes, slow and intimate, pushing everything he gave you back inside, not letting a drop of the evidence of both of your choices drip onto the lab floor. 

You could barely breathe. It was the best feeling in the world. Ryland stroked your hair and slowly pulled out from you, with you whining at the loss of contact. You rolled slightly on to your side, looking at your professor, a sheen of sweat gracing his gorgeous body, glasses askew on his nose. Ryland leaned back onto the lab table and brushed his fingers through his hair, a deep sigh leaving his cheeks. He turned over to you. 

“So professor,” you teased in a sultry tone. You batted your eyelashes innocently. “Does this mean I get extra credit?” 

The retail store is too bright and colorful compared to the stormy sky outside. 

You and your friends have been coming here ever since middle school. Back then, Yelena’s older sister was the only one with a driver’s license, piling all of you into her car to take you wherever you wanted to go. Halloween has always been your favorite excuse to spend time together, with Kate opening her doors for your annual sleepover: a night of mildly scary movies, gossip about the cutest guys in town, and enough junk food to leave all of you clutching your stomachs by midnight.

By the time you started high school, your older neighbor’s extravagant Halloween party had become the talk of the town. Hosted in her massive mansion, it was the kind of event people counted down to months in advance. You’d never considered yourself much of a party girl, but it was the perfect excuse to dress up and show off the elaborate costumes you and your friends spent weeks planning.

When college began, the four of you ended up scattered across different universities around the state. Nearly a year passed without shared laughter in the canteen and a morning dose of tight hugs to begin your days, until you finally agreed to reunite this October. It would probably be the last chance for you four to meet for a long time. With everyone caught up in their own schedules and studies, moments like this had become rare, that’s why you were determined to make the most of these three days together.

The store looks exactly the same as it did ten years ago: fake cobwebs dangling from the white ceiling, evil-looking pumpkins staring down at customers from the shelves, racks of masks and toys that once felt endless. Now, you swear everything seems smaller than it used to be.

The air still smells of dust and cheap plastic. Strangely, it’s that sharp, chemical tang coming from the latex masks lining the walls that makes the place feel so familiar.

The first room is completely devoted to rows and rows of children’s toys, while the second—normally a storage space—is crammed with costumes and accessories messily thrown together. From the ceiling, a dozen paper bats sluggishly sway in the cold draft slipping through the old windows, while somewhere on the counter, a motion-sensor witch clutches a plastic pumpkin-shaped bowl of sweets, cackling like a banshee every time someone reaches for a piece. The sagging orange letters spelling HAPPY HALLOWEEN are stuck to the front of the counter, crooked and peeling at the edges, and you’re pretty sure the owner has left them there all year round since you can remember.

The store definitely looked scarier and quieter when you were younger, the fact that it’s located in an isolated area of the town near the woods didn’t really help. Now, it’s just the kind of place that tries too hard to be spooky, only to end up looking a little tacky.

Wanda has been wearing a perpetual scowl since she started browsing through racks of angel wings and synthetic, overly lavish princess gowns, searching for something less glittery and darker. A few rows over, Yelena tries to give you a heart attack by silently hovering behind you, switching between different clown masks each time you turn around. Kate, on the other hand, is determined to find a Wednesday Addams costume—she’s been completely obsessed with the show lately.

You already have your outfit at home: a short skirt and a lace top paired with sparkling boots, the colors an homage to your favorite Barbie doll. You’re still bitter about missing Rachel’s Halloween party because of the chickenpox you caught from Kate in senior year. You had everything ready down to the smallest detail, that Barbie costume was flawless. Instead, you spent the night in fleece pajamas, curled under the covers as you peeked from behind your pillow at Art the Clown mauling people on screen, while the muffled music from the neighboring mansion made your walls vibrate.

Still, you decided to tag along for old times’ sake.

“Black or maroon?” Wanda holds up two identical dresses.

Kate hums, absently twirling a wig between her fingers as she studies the fabric. “Black.”

“Maroon,” you say without looking up, inspecting a bloodstained lab coat before placing it back on the rack with a grimace. “It suits your hair.”

“Lena?” Wanda turns to the blonde, who’s currently trying to stab her own palm with a fake knife to test how real it feels.

“Is that even a question?” She lifts her eyebrows, gaze landing on her dark red coat.

“I know, but it looks cute in both colors.” Wanda hesitates, eyes flicking between the dresses before finally putting the black one back with a sigh. “Alright, I’m done. Have you found anything interesting?”

“I can’t believe they don’t have a Wednesday costume,” Kate frowns, rifling through plastic bags for the third time. “It’s like, one of the most popular shows ever.”

“You know online shopping exists, right?” Yelena shoots back, tossing the knife into a display bin. “Just buy a black dress with a white collar.”

“But I wanted the school uniform, not some generic dress.”

The blonde rolls her eyes, already fiddling with a pair of popping-eye glasses.

“Hey, is Nathan coming to the party?”

You flinch, almost dropping the fake vampire teeth in your hand, not expecting Wanda standing so close beside you.

“Yeah. He has some things to take care of at his apartment first, so he’ll meet us at Rachel’s house.”

A disgusted ugh echoes behind you, and that makes your lips curl into a small smile despite the clear vitriol on the blonde’s features.

It’s no secret that Yelena can’t stand your boyfriend, Nathan. They’ve only met once, but that was enough for him to immediately pick up on her dislike. He often tried to get an explanation out of you, but you always brushed it off, claiming that your friend is just like that.

In truth, you know exactly why every word coming out of his mouth sounds like a fork scraping against a plate to her ears.

During the first months of your blooming relationship, Nathan had a habit of disappearing, ignoring your messages for days—sometimes for an entire week—only to come back with grand gestures as if nothing had happened. It left you confused and anxious, and Yelena more than anyone spent entire nights on the phone trying to calm you down, warning you about how unreliable he was. After a while, you convinced yourself he was just the type to get bored easily, the kind of guy who discards the “old toy” the moment a new, shinier one comes along.

Then, just before Christmas, he stood at your dorm room door with the biggest bouquet of flowers you had ever received, and an apology on his lips. He explained—almost shamefully—that his behavior stemmed from his parents’ toxic relationship. He didn’t go into details, only that their divorce had been messy, something that left him with a warped sense of commitment. Still, he insisted he liked you, that he was finally ready for something real.

Yelena had been furious. Not only did you let him off far too easily, but there had been little to no groveling—nowhere near enough to make up for the emotional whiplash he’d put you through. She was certain, deep down, that he would hurt you again someday. And your best friend didn’t want to see you that miserable ever again, especially for an asshole like Nathan.

You can’t really blame her for feeling so strongly. She was the one who comforted you during those sleepless nights, listening as you tried to make sense of his sudden distance when everything had seemed to be going so well.

It’s not like she brings it up all the time, but whenever his name comes up, she can’t help slipping in a sarcastic remark or two—ones that, despite yourself, make you laugh.

“Oh, so Casper finally decided to show up.”

That’s another thing: she refuses to call him by his name. Back when you used to cry over him, she’d come up with ridiculous nicknames just to lighten the mood. Casper is the latest, because of how little you see him these days. Always busy, always somewhere else. Fleeting like a ghost.

“His professors are giving him hell, cut him some slack, Lena. He’s practically living in the library nowadays.” Wanda glances at you with quiet sympathy, nodding along as you speak. “I always tell him to text me when he gets home, but some days he’s so exhausted he forgets. And the few times he does remember, it’s like three in the morning.”

Yelena’s eyebrows lift at your explanation. For once, though, she doesn’t argue. She just shakes her head with a resigned half-smile.

You met Nathan at the beginning of your first academic year. He and his dad had just moved to your hometown; apparently, his father had grown tired of the chaos of the city and decided to start working from home. Home, in this case, meant his mother’s hometown—the place where Mr. Barnes’ parents met years ago, during a summer visit to their relatives. After marrying, they moved to New York and never really came back.

When the divorce happened, Nathan stayed with his father and eventually enrolled in the nearest university to remain close. Once your relationship grew more serious, the two of you started traveling back and forth together, mostly because he had a shiny, fully functioning car, unlike you. And that’s when he finally introduced you to his dad, James Buchanan Barnes.

Now, Nathan is undeniably handsome and after meeting Mr. Barnes, you can clearly see where he gets his looks from. The difference is... his father is on another level. It’s not just that he’s handsome. The man is hot. Yes, there are streaks of white in his beard, and crow’s feet appear whenever his smile softens his features—but those details don’t take away from his looks. If anything, they only make him more attractive.

He’s big, too: broad-shouldered, towering over you with an ease that’s both intimidating and… not unwelcome. And he’s a real gentleman. Every time you stayed over for lunch or dinner, he served you first, firmly refusing to let you lift a finger, insisting his son is more than capable of cleaning up after himself.

The first time he pulled out a chair for you, your heart dropped straight to your stomach.

Since February, your boyfriend has been buried in projects and assignments, and you’ve often gone back home alone. Because of that, you stopped visiting Mr. Barnes—it didn’t feel right showing up when Nathan wasn’t there.

That is, until you ran into the older man at the local supermarket one day, and after his usual gentle hug, he looked at you with his kind, blue eyes, his voice as warm as a cup of hot, creamy chocolate, “You know you’re welcome to visit anytime, right? It doesn’t matter if Nathan’s home or not.”

Despite your initial hesitation, you went. And then you went again. More times than you’d like to admit.

Conversations with him drift so effortlessly from ridiculous stuff he sees on the internet yet doesn’t quite understand, to more serious topics. At some point, you even started confiding in him. No matter the problem, Bucky always seems to know exactly what to say to soothe your worries. More than anything, he treats you like an equal, an adult. He doesn’t tiptoe around your age, or reduce your personality to his son’s girlfriend. With him, you’re just… you.

It’s almost unsettling, when you think about it—how often he’s been there for you compared to your boyfriend. Nathan replies late, often too late. There’s always an excuse: a project he still has to finish, a study session that ran too late, outings at the bar with friends he supposedly never sees. The times you try to ask about his day, he brushes it aside, steering the conversation back to you after a two-word response, until eventually he disappears again for hours.

At first, you had your doubts, and you hate yourself a little for it now.

You never told anyone—not even your closest friends—but once, you went to his faculty library. Not to spy, you told yourself. Just to... check, to make sure he was actually there.

And he was. Completely absorbed in his books.

You left with shame burning hot on your cheeks. That night, when he texted you to let you know he was home, you couldn’t even bring yourself to reply. The guilt only got worse when you realized how often your thoughts drifted to Mr. Barnes throughout your days. Over something small, like seeing a cat minding its own business in the streets—because he once told you he used to feed the strays when he was a kid, but his chance to adopt one of his own is now long gone since Nathan is allergic—or when you need advice on an assignment. He’s always there. Even when he’s busy, Mr. Barnes still takes the time to send a quick message, apologizing for delayed replies. You told him he didn’t have to do that, you understood he had work, responsibilities... Yet he just smiled and kept putting you first anyway.

During one of your weekly video calls, Kate asked about Nathan, mentioning she hadn’t seen him in the background for a while. You brushed it off pretty quickly, explaining how busy he’s been with his studies, and the conversation ended there. 

Later, while talking about food, you casually mentioned a restaurant Mr. Barnes had recommended. He’d made a habit of suggesting places he’d tried with his colleagues, knowing how much you and your friends enjoy exploring new cuisines together.

The silence that followed was mortifying.

Your gaze slowly lifted from the blanket you were knitting to find your friends staring at you, half amused, half shocked. Promptly waving off their nosy questions, you insisted you just saw each other from time to time. That he’s kind, funny, easy to talk to. Still, they teased you about having a tiny crush on your boyfriend’s dad.

The joke got out of hand the following week, when you accidentally admitted the blanket you were working on was for him—Mr. Barnes had discovered your hobby and casually mentioned that he’d love to have something made by you some day.

Yelena nearly lost her mind. At one point, she actually dropped to her knees in front of her phone, dramatically begging you to leave Nathan and just sleep with his dad.

You awkwardly laughed it off, your face burning as you resisted the urge to hang up and disappear under your covers.

In the end, Wanda stepped in, declaring there was nothing wrong with being friends with your very attractive almost-father-in-law. That helped… a little. Because you’re not doing anything wrong. You’re just two adults who get along, who often text each other for hours between a good morning and a good night. Who share an occasional cup of tea when you’re back in town that promptly turns into you staying for dinner because he is a great cook and always has a new recipe he found on Pinterest that made him think of you.

It just so happens he’s your boyfriend’s father.

You do like Nathan—a lot. And he wants you just as much. You’ve been together for two years now, for fuck’s sake! Life just… gets in the way sometimes. Things will settle down once he graduates in winter and you both understand where you want to go from there.

Every relationship has its ups and downs.

This is just a rough patch.

This year, your neighbor truly outdid herself. Rachel was the ultimate popular girl: indulgent parents, cheer captain of the only high school in town, and glossy dark waves that every girl tried so desperately to imitate. Everyone wanted to be her, but few had the privilege of sitting at her table. She wasn’t the stereotypical mean girl—just ambitious and filthy rich. Her pretty features had sharpened since the last time you saw her. After enrolling in one of the most prestigious law schools in the country, many thought her days of excessive drinking and wild nights were behind her.

Apparently not.

The rumors of her Halloween parties had spread far beyond your town. Everyone counted on her keeping the tradition alive, and now she returns each year, bringing more and more people with her, to host the biggest party in the county.

One look at the claustrophobic living room, now a dance floor, makes your lungs constrict, the strobe lights not helping at all as they blind you while flashing across the sticky floors. Costumes blur together: you saw at least a dozen demons, three cowboys, and Rachel and her two best friends as the iconic Plastics. Though every time you think you see the flash of Nathan’s leather jacket, it turns out to be a stranger. He had texted an hour ago that he’d just parked, having thrown together a leather biker jacket and black trousers to pass as Danny Zuko from Grease, but so far, no sign of him.

Laughter ripples through Rihanna’s Disturbia from a group leaning against the kitchen counter, the walls of the lavish mansion rattling along the pulsing bass. Someone spills a drink in front of you, narrowly missing your top. Your temples pulse with an excruciating headache when a group of guys holler like animals after completing a keg stand: they each wear a plastic bag with a condom sign attached to their chest, hugging each other in victory. Yet you can’t help but imagine how Nathan would’ve laughed at the scene.

Right. Nathan. Where the fuck is he?

“Hey!” Your shoulders jump at the shout over the beginning of Thriller. Yelena and Wanda appear at your sides, pulling you toward the open patio windows overlooking the huge backyard without much ceremony.

“Have you seen Nathan?” You ask while scanning the crowd by the punch bowls.

“Nope.” Yelena mutters something else under her breath, but you decide to ignore it. It must be another one of her tailored nicknames for your boyfriend.

The cold air sharply hits your face as they lead you outside, goosebumps prickling your skin.

“Why are we here? It’s freezing and I still need to find Nathan. He got here an hour ago and—”

“I’m starving!” Wanda cuts in, practically skipping across the grass. “C’mon, they’re grilling sausages! Hot dogs! Want one?”

You squint at her, confused. Her rambling is classic Wanda, nervous energy spilling out at a mile a minute.

“Wanda, stop, for fuck’s sake.” Yelena snaps, planting her feet on the ground firmly.

“What’s going on?” You glance back and forth between the two of them, but they are too busy staring each other down to acknowledge you, a silent conversation you can’t follow unfolding in frowns too subtle to catch.

Wanda shakes her head, addressing you with a polite, closed-lip smile. “It’s nothing. Let’s just eat.” She reaches for your hand, but you step back, glancing at the other.

“What’s going on, Lena?” Her jaw clenches.

“There’s no need to make a scene right now.” Wanda hisses.

“There’s no need—” The blonde sputters outraged. “This is fucking insane, what is your problem?”

You step between them, grabbing their wrists. “Hey! I don’t know what’s gotten into you, guys, but I need you to calm down and tell me what’s up.” You bark. “Kinda feeling left out here.” Your attempt to lighten the mood is entirely overlooked as Wanda tilts her head, silently begging the blonde to be patient.

“She deserves to know.” Yelena grits out.

“Not now! It’ll just make things worse for her.”

“You think it’s better if we wait?”

The argument draws a few stares from the patio. Kate, watching from the door, clumsily invents a story about a lost lipstick to defuse tension, quickly making her way to you as most people shrug and return to their drinks.

The air suddenly feels heavier, tension crawling up your spine and settling in your shoulders.

“Someone tell me what the fuck is happening. Right now.” Your voice shakes despite your effort to stay calm. “Is Kate okay? Did Nathan do something?”

Yelena simply exhales a long breath, pushing her tongue into her cheek in annoyance. Wanda takes your hand at once, her eyes pleading.

“It’s not about Kate. She’s fine. We’ll explain later, okay?”

“No,” you snap, wrenching your wrist free. “Explain now.”

Yelena huffs. “You’re just making it worse.”

Wanda’s auburn hair swings as she faces her, her voice turning serious. “Me? We know you hate his guts, Lena. You’ve been waiting for him to fuck up since the moment they started dating. But could you please put your fucking ego aside for once and think about her wellbeing? We’re in the middle of a party and you’re ruining her night.”

“Oh! I am ruining her night? You have been kissing his ass since the very beginning. And you talk about my fucking ego? You’re such a bi—”

“I saw Nathan upstairs making out with a girl!” The words pierce through the booming music like thunder.

Yelena and Wanda go abruptly still, all their annoyance vanishing at once as they slowly turn to face you with wide eyes. Kate is standing behind you, half-squirming as she watches you with something akin to desperation.

The ominous pit of nervousness you’ve been carrying in your stomach for the last hour suddenly doesn’t feel so irrational.

“I’m so sorry.” Kate whispers after a heavy pause, fingers fidgeting.

“Upstairs… where?” The words taste bitter on your tongue.