#dek x reader

Dek keeps trying to do Kwei favors.

It is driving Kwei to madness.

Over the course of your pregnancy, Kwei had managed to convince you both to leave the hut on the outskirts of the village. You’d been resistant to the change, and Dek, not wanting to upset you, given your delicate state, had been trying to be supportive of your choice, despite his own misgivings about his makeshift home.

But over time you needed Mekdah’s attention more often than not. And it did not make sense for her to make the trek out to the hut or for you to be coming and going such a long distance as your pregnancy progressed.

Dek was the Clan Leader now.

And whether his little brother liked it or not, Kwei saw to it that he was given the privileges owed to his new title. Again. You had bemoaned the mule you had grown attached to and named, of all things, but Dek had agreed that the mares were more accommodating to your condition.

By the time you had agreed to travel in what was appropriate matriarchal style, it had made more sense for you not to be traveling much at all.

To which, you had put your foot down, snapping at them both in a fit of hormones, “It’s just – it’s all happening so fast! I feel like I’m being herded like a cow and it’s bad enough that I already look like one –!”

“Flower,” Dek had said, hands over your shoulders as he pulled you in close, “You do not look like anything less than what you are – my glowing, pregnant mate.”

“I miss Eeyore!”

“You can visit Eeyore!” he said, trying not to laugh at the sincerity of your sniffling, “He is still in the stables – Thia uses him to fetch your medical supplies, now please,” Kwei watched as his brother cupped both your cheeks, lifting your face up to greet him, he always found himself staring, when Dek is the one caressing you, “At least until the child is born – let us…visit the royal residence.”

The look you gave Dek had even Kwei feeling beholden to you, “…Just until the baby is born?”

The intonation of your voice will always be different. But it is acceptance, all the same. One that echoes within Kwei’s memories as he wished for you to fight about it harder, after all.

It does help that Dek will always appear more honest that Njohrr ever was, “I swear it, love.”

That he likely means it, more than Njohrr ever did.

Still, it ruins his relief somewhat, even though he still feels it, at the sight of you nodding, regardless, “…okay.”

You and Dek turn towards him in such a way that Kwei remembers that he is present in the room. Some part of his mind having convinced himself he was hiding in the roof, and smaller than he was.

“I guess I’ll go pack up my things,” you say, to which Kwei barely has time to nod.

Dek sighed as you made arrangements to move, “I will call Thia, to help.”

Kwei surprised a rumble.

Thia had become a constant, whenever you or Dek was around. The synth had a habit of showing up uninvited or worse – was expressly called for by one of you to help with whatever minor crisis you seemed to be having.

In his mind, two able-bodied Yautja were more than enough to transfer what little you had in the hut to the larger abode. But then, Thia’s presence reminded Kwei that perhaps Dek no longer saw him as an able-bodied Yautja.

“How’s your lung holding up, Kwei?”

Was the first thing the synth said, upon seeing him as she crossed the hut’s meager threshold. She had the habit of constantly asking about his health, despite being able to see through his body with her mechanical eyes. She could make an assessment on how his one-lung is functioning better than you can, while lacking your more genial bedside manner.

Kwei thinks it is to purposely heckle him, so he makes a point to puff his chest wider as he carries a box you have packed up over his good shoulder, “It is sufficient, synth.”

Thia makes a face caught between amusement and a facsimile of acknowledgment as she looks towards you, “Sorry I asked!”

You rolled your eyes, “Kwei, don’t strain yourself.”

Before he could claim no such strain on his person, Dek walked into the cramped space and looked up at his posturing as if Kwei had grown two-heads, rather than lacking one arm.

“What are you doing?” was all that Dek asked, brow bone furrowed.

Kwei huffed, “Helping.”

“I said you did not have to,” and then, upon seeing the synth, his face morphed from concern to elation, “Thia!”

“Hey, big guy,” she smiled.

You were folding your clothing, smirking as you looked upon her, “She snuck in while you were putting the harness on Bud!”

Dek rumbled at that.

“I did not sneak in,” Thia gasped, throwing a makeshift pillow at you.

“You so did!” you said back, throwing one back.

If either of you had been Yautja females, Kwei would’ve been unnerved by the playfulness you constantly engaged in, with the synth. As it was, Dek insisted that it was a common way for Oomen and Oomen-programed beings to express comradery with each other.

Comradery that bordered on audacious at times, in Kwei’s opinion, as he watched his brother enter the hut and throw an arm over Thia, shaking her lightly. A thing he has never done with another living being, before you. Always hating to be touched.

“Thank you for coming,” Dek said.

Thia shrugged, her unnerving smile never wavering, “It’s what I’m here for!”

Gesturing towards the synth as if Kwei had not noticed she was in the room, “Kwei, Thia is here. Why are still you putting weight over your chest?”

Blinking at his change in demeanor, Kwei protested yet again, “I am not –”

“I just told him not to, love,” is what you said, in turn, shaking your head in disapproval.

“She told you not to,” Dek reiterated.

“I am perfectly fine –”

“Actually, his breathing is elevated and increasing by the second,” Thia pointed out, without even looking back at him, as she helped you pack.

Dek looked upon Kwei as if he was an errant child, “Kwei, put it down.”

“I am fine –”

“Put it down.”

The day that Njohrr had enacted his heinous plot, Kwei had woken up in a haze-like stupor.

Buried in the alcove and haunted by his memories, as he always was. The night before, he had returned after a long bout of kv’var, and had intended to invite Dek to train with him. Only to find that you were vehemently opposed to the idea. Citing how Kwei kept keeping Dek away from you, an argument that caused Dek to chide for you to be nice.

Dek kept asking you to be nice to him.

A thing that Kwei did not feel he deserved.

As such. He did what he so often did and feel back to inhaling a bowl to calm his nerves and personal sense of self-loathing. Dek shouldn’t be asking you to be nice to him. In fact, Dek should be the one interested in keeping Kwei away from you – but he can only assume that, being in what was clearly a loving relationship build on the type of trust and adoration that Kwei has never known, Dek has no reason to fear you being nice to his older brother.

Yet another reason for him to cloud his mind and pretend it was better than drinking himself to death.

He’d been managing better before.

When he’d been pretending not to care for you. Pretending he did not see you and Dek falling in love before his eyes while he stood idle and sorry for himself. You’d been wary of Kwei, before, and since your conversation with him in front of the bushfire he’d made, you’d attempted something akin to pleasantries.

Nowadays, it felts as if you didn’t like him at all.

Not that Kwei blamed you for it. He did take Dek out training more often than was probably necessary – but he did not know how else to prove to you both that he was finally true to the promise he’d made. To Dek’s mother. To the only other Ooman that Kwei had ever known.

Kwei did not want Dek to die.

A truth he kept repeating to himself. Over and over until he went mad with the assertion and scared himself back into wondering why he would doubt that at all. Hence the drug-induced haze.

Of course the day Dek and you actually needed of him, Kwei was barely sober.

A shaming ceremony. An archaic law meant to harm you both.

Kwei had found his clan folk riddled with tension and disgrace, with only a hand few of them daring to tell him where you’d both been led.

Where you’d both been dragged. In front of the Clan Leader’s feet.

“Father!”

Kwei’s voice rang through the hall as he stalked frantically towards the dais of his father’s throne.

He stood at the base. Snarling as openly where Dek did not allow it of himself, “What is the meaning of this?”

His father barely paid him any mind, chuffing, “Whatever do you mean – heir apparent?”

“You gathered the clans-folk at the break of dawn!” Kwei reiterates, for you and Dek’s benefit, having been caught unawares, “You send an escort to fetch your youngest child – parade him and his –” his voice caught, “Mekdah’s apprentice as if they were ic’jit to be ridiculed –!”

“I do not note that either of them to have been harmed,” the Antler King sighed with disappointment as he gestured toward you both, “Not a single jeer or thrown pebble at their person – which by right, should’ve been the entertainment of the day –”

“What reason would anyone in the village have to strike at them both?” Kwei shouted, hands clenched at his sides.

The Clan Leader looked down at his eldest son.

Almost as if Kwei had finished pissing him the pauk off.

“…reason enough, Crown Prince.”

Kwei might have known then and there that his father had meant to kill him and Dek both.

Instead. As always. He stood by as Mekdah had marched forward. Calling his father out in challenge. Speaking the truth of his father’s mania – his madness, taking root within his mind.

It filled Kwei with no small amount of pain to hear his grandmother speak of his own mother for the first time since Kwei had replaced her in his mind, with Dek’s.

Had it always been that way, he wondered.

Even as a child, had he mourned some female he had never known, and kept replacing her with the faces of others.

Kwei hadn’t had any time to think upon it.

Not with his father breathing down you and Dek’s neck.

“You know that you have broken the code, Dek,” The Antler King speaks, “You, who have no rank – no title – Nothing to give and are Nothing to the clam members of this village.”

Mekdah stepped forward, “The Ooman did not know –!”

“Do not feign your apprentice’s ignorance, Master Healer,” he snapped.

Kwei stepped forward, “It is archaic law, Father!”

“Archaic…” their father chuffs. The old. Muted aggression that he and Dek had grown up with, manifesting as the old male nodded his head, “Our ways are…old. Rigid. Is that the mindset you will bring to this throne, if I were to fall to you, Kwei of the Yautja?”

Kwei stood tall. Back firm.

The Clan Leader didn’t address him by his formal title. His inherited rank.

Kwei did not care for it.

He thinks, perhaps, that he never truly did.

Continue: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72624596/chapters/205100356#workskin

You awoke slowly.

Warmth and comfort surrounding your body that, though enjoyable, told you that you were not in your familiar hut. In your beloved home, which had a way of relaxing you that no amount of foreign luxury ever would. Because for all the thread count and lush padding you currently felt at your back – nothing would ever compare to the happiness you felt when you were in the one place meant solely for you and Dek. Where neither of you would ever be disturbed.

The smells of your hut’s fire and the scents of your dried flora hanging from wall and roof. The lived-in feel of every pelt your mate hunted for you. The sounds the outside pipes made against the wind – and rickety pitter-patter of the window blinds.

Those were the senses that gave you calm. That brought you peace.

You knew you were not home, so you reached for the one thing that would give you the sense of security you searched for. Eyes closed as the world came back to you, slowly, slowly.

Dek’s hand found yours.

And gave it the lightest squeeze.

Breathing deeply, you turned your head, eyes finding him, through the haze of slumber, “Dek?”

He chittered as he purred down at you, sitting besides you as you laid before him, “Better, Flower?”

“Yes,” you nodded, indeed, feeling well rested, and not as nauseous as you had, earlier, “Where are we?”

Around you. The sight of a sturdy cave formation greeted you. The glow of a hearth somewhere off to the side giving light over the little chimes that decorated the place. You were, indeed, laying down in luxurious red silk bedding. And when you turned, you could see a gorgeous view of the twin suns setting over the horizon.

Off over the line – hidden in some blip along the distance, you remembered where Dek had taken you to see his mother. Just out of sight. Out of mind. In front of anyone who took refused here – but where only two other people knew about. Down to one now.

“Royal Residence,” Dek said, watching the landscape before you.

“Is this –” you looked back up at him, “You’re mother’s alcove?”

“Kwei’s alcove,” he corrected, gently, moving to rubs his thumb over your knuckles. Your hands hand been laying idle over your growing stomach, “Had to bring you here to rest.”

“You didn’t have to –”

“Sei-i,” he said, golden eyes staring at you fondly, “I did.”

You didn’t argue his point.

Instead. You basked in his gentle caress. Relishing in the feel of Dek’s knuckles running over your skin like a balm over the wound of your heart. He purred for you in earnest. Bending down until his tresses curtained you both, as he nuzzled over your face with fang and tusk and tongue.

“…how do you feel?” he asked, voice husky against your skin as he coaxed open your lips.

You allowed him the exploration. Moaning happily, before answering, “…better, now.”

“N’got.”

You sighed into his mouth.

Kissing Dek felt as natural to you as breathing. And it truly helped your mood – given the heinous goings on of the past few months. For now, you thought little of the state of the clan, or the village, or even the Honorable Arbitrator.

All that mattered to you was Dek. And the way you pulled him in by his jaw, hungry for him and everything he could give you.

“Oh – she’s awake!”

The sound of Thia’s voice had you jump a bit.

Breaking into a fit of laughter as you watched Dek’s face furrow into a growling frown, “Thia –”

When you spotted her. She was in the middle of turning around – and beckoning Kwei to sneak back out of the room, “Out, out, out –!”

“I believe they saw us, Thia.”

You bit your lip. Staring up at Dek with an ill-contained grin, “Later?”

He whined in his throat.

“Come in.”

He said. Bidding the two to enter.

“Sorry…” Thia said, apologetic in tone and body as she shuffled to rest on both her knees next to where you were laying down, “I got this soup for you that Mekdah made before she had to go back to treating the rest of the clan – she said it would invigorate you, when you woke up.”

“Was she nice to you?” You asked, pointedly as you looked at her.

Thia shrank a bit under your gaze, “…As nice as she’s capable of.”

You loved Mekdah with abandon. Saw her as your own mother – that didn’t mean you were unaware of how mean she could be. Hellfire – she had been icy to Dek up until recently. You knew how she was.

You hummed in your throat, taking the flask Thia offered as gently as you could, “Tell her to talk to me if she can’t behave.”

“Already giving orders,” Dek teased.

You huffed, “Well – I have to keep up with my mate.”

As he scoffed, Thia began to clap by your side, bouncing a bit where she sat, “This is so exciting! Kwei was explaining to me how you both are going to be seen as the figureheads of the village now – Dek as the Clan Leader, and you as his Matriarch mate!”

Ah, yes. How could you forget.

Already, the prospect of such heavy titles loomed over your head like a weighted anvil. How would you proceed, now that any prospect of running off and starting over yet again was no longer in the cards for you and yours?

You both had made a decision. Earlier today.

And now it was time to keep it.

You looked up at Dek with a soft smile, “I guess we’re really doing this, huh?”

He breathed in a sigh, pulling his knee up to rest his wrist over it, “Seems as such.”

“You really are the Alpha now, Dek!” Thia grinned, pushing him playfully in the shin.

“Alpha!” You echoed, raising an eyebrow.