Feral Gojo English Dub Highlights... Just Close Your Eyes And Listen..

Significant

Summary: Din has been calling you riduur for months. You finally find out what it means, and get a little more than you bargained for.

Pairing: Din Djarin x gn!Reader

Word Count: ~5.1k

Warnings: pining, absolute FOOLS in love, bit of grumpy x sunshine, lil angsty, possibly incorrect lore, fluff, lots of Mando'a (translations for the Mando'a at the end)

A/N: Happy Mandalorian Eve!! This is based on a short drabble I wrote, which you can find here! It's not necessary to read it first, though of course I recommend it! The reader and Din have been traveling together for a long time, and after removing his armor in front of the reader for the first time began calling them riduur.

“Riduur.” 

It may as well be your name, the way you turn at the sound of that word. 

“Din,” you return, adjusting the child’s little sleeve which had fallen down past his hand.

“Are you ready?” He asks as he tilts his head to the side. 

You smile and turn back to Grogu. “Dad’s impatient today, isn’t he?” The child coos up at you, lifting tiny arms, ready to be picked up. “Yeah, he is.”

“I’m not impatient,” Din grumbles lowly.

You raise a brow at that and lift Grogu into your arms. “You’re always impatient, Mando.” His head jerks to the side at your assessment.

You have to bite back a laugh. In truth, he is incredibly patient. Most of the time, and especially when it came to you and Grogu. The only time you’ve seen him truly lose his temper was with the Jawas, and really, that couldn’t be helped. 

The child reaches for Din when you turn back to him, and the Mandalorian immediately holds out his arms to take him from you. You deposit the little green baby there before grabbing your shawl. “Yes, we’re ready,” you finally answer. 

The baby gets tucked into the pouch at Din’s hip, before he descends the ship’s ramp out into the desert air that awaits you. 

You roll your eyes gently. 

Not impatient, but not entirely patient either. 

You follow, wrapping the light material around your shoulders. 

It’s subtle, but he does wait for you, his pace slower than if he were alone. His right elbow ticks out a fraction, and you smile before cupping your hand there. He would never ask you to take his arm, still the offer is usually there if he can accommodate it. 

He relaxes a little when you fit your hand against his bicep. “Supplies only,” he reminds you, ever practical. 

“Supplies only,” you agree. “Unless I see something for Grogu.” 

“The child is becoming spoiled,” he complains lightly. “We won’t have enough room in the ship soon.” 

You shrug and tighten your grip on his arm. You like the way he says we. So, you return with, “That’s just because our child deserves the best.” 

Din’s spine straightens a fraction and his shoulders tilt back. 

He’s somehow both stoic and incredibly bad at hiding his emotions. You can tell, just by the slope of his shoulders or the exact angle of the helmet or the precise way he stands or walks, exactly what and how he’s feeling. 

Or, maybe you’ve just spent too much time around him. 

Maybe, you just know him too well. 

And right now, he’s swollen with pride. Though you don’t know if it's because you’ve complimented the way he takes care of the child or if it were something else. Something in the way you said our.  

It’s not long before you reach the market, and Din sighs as soon as it comes into view. It’s much larger than the ones you normally frequent, a riot of color and sound that you both know you won’t be able to resist. The town seems to be in the midst of some kind of festival. 

The smell of fried food greets you before you’ve even breached the perimeter of the town, and your mouth waters. Something better than rations awaited you there. 

Din is single minded though, and you know he’ll immediately make for the most boring of the stalls and shops. 

Supplies only, after all, is what you’d come for. 

“Mando,” you remove your hand from his arm and he immediately halts at the loss of your touch and turns to you. “I’m going to go look around.” 

He stares at you, helmet tilting down. He doesn’t like telling you no, and knows it wouldn’t matter if he did anyways. But, he worries and so it takes a moment for him to reply. “Don’t go far,” he advises. “Do you have a comlink?”

“Yes.” 

“A weapon?” 

You pretend to search your person, “Hm, what’s that again?” 

“Riduur,” he reprimands your teasing. 

That word makes the inside of your skin light up pleasantly. Riduur. If only you knew what it meant. 

You’ve started to assume it means something similar to cyare or cyar'ika. But he’d had no problem telling you what those words meant. Darling and sweetheart and beloved. He’d had no problem telling you he was calling you beloved. 

But he no longer calls you cyare or cyar'ika. Since the first time he’d called you riduur, the day he removed his armor in front of you for the first time, he’d solely begun calling you riduur. 

Even your name is becoming a rarity from his lips. 

“Udesii! Yes,” you cross your arms. “You know I took care of myself for a very long time without you and nothing ever happened. I’ll be okay.” 

Din doesn’t answer, just sighs and gives a curt nod and marches off towards a shop selling medical supplies. 

The dramatics of it all makes you giggle. You like teasing him, especially because he thinks he hides how flustered you make him well. 

Although you enjoy traveling with the Mandalorian, alone time has become a complete rarity. You were always with Din, or watching your little green menace.

You eat your way through a couple of different stalls selling food, bundling up second and third servings to keep for Din and Grogu. 

Din wouldn’t think to get anything beyond rations. Both you and the child like a little more variety, where Din treats the act of eating like a maintenance routine. 

You drift past stalls hawking trinkets and jewelry, fending off the sellers as you crunch something sweet and sour you’d picked up at the last food stall, not entirely sure what it is.  

Textiles are next, bolts of cloth you run your fingers over but mourn not being able to afford. Still, it's nice to browse, nice to feel normal. The Mandalorian isn’t hunting someone for once, and you aren’t trapped in the interior of the ship, stale recycled dry air burning your nostrils. 

A little supply stop has become a little welcome relief. It’s giving you the chance to stretch your legs, to explore. 

Still, your mind drifts back to Din, the way he calls you something he would not name to you.

You’ve searched before, in other markets, on other worlds, for the answer to your question. What does that word mean and why won’t Din tell you? 

You’d tried to convince him once or twice, with gentle words whispered in his ear, when the helmet was off and your hands were pressed against his skin, the contours of his face still a mystery to you. 

Once, you’d felt the skin of his cheeks go hot beneath your hands when you told him he used his tongue so prettily, couldn’t he use it to tell you what riduur meant? 

He’d mumbled something else in Mando’a but had not explained himself. 

You can understand most of that he says now, but because he’s the only other speaker, you have to rely on him to tell you what new words and phrases mean.

Because the Mandalorians are such an insular people, you never come across any other speakers you could ask. There are no dictionaries to Basic that you could download and peruse. 

It’s frustrating, especially since the word seems to be laden with something heavy. Din says it with reverence, with a softness that doesn't cut through the rest of his words. His voice is softer when he speaks Mando’a anyways, but that word is held with a reverence on his tongue, like it’s precious. 

The only other time you had heard him use that tone was when he once called Grogu ad’ika, which meant child. 

You’ve almost given up on knowing, resigned to that fact that you may never know and he may never tell you.

Whatever it means, you’re sure it's important. You just don’t know why.

The market is loud, boisterous and colorful. Music floats through the air, shouts and laughter. 

It’s nice, it makes you smile and you wish you’d taken the child with you because you’re sure he’d have much more fun with you than with Din picking out rolls of bandage and rations and pulse rifle cartridges if he can find someone that has some. 

You stop suddenly in your tracks when you hear a conversation in a language you immediately recognize, the familiar syllables cutting through the afternoon chatter. 

You spin and find two men in robes speaking gently to each other in Mando’a. Before you can stop yourself, your feet have already carried you to their table where they sit sipping cups of caf. 

“Su cuy'gar,” you greet. They both look surprised, glancing at each other and then back at you. “Sorry to bother you. You speak Mando’a?” 

One smiles, “Yes. Of the few outsiders that do, I think.” 

“Were you foundlings?” It’s the only way, you think, that they could have learned it. 

“Once,” the older of the two says. “This one learned it at a university.” 

You can’t help the curiosity that burns through you, “At a university? Really?” 

“Only the very barest basics. From a woman being courted by a Mandalorian,” he dismisses with a wave of his hand. “That was a long time ago. Really I learned from him.” He gestures between himself and the other man. 

You shake yourself, “I’ve just never met another aruetii that does.” Let alone two of them, you think dizzily. Two outsiders who spoke Mando’a. 

“And how did you learn?” 

“My…” you trail off. 

Your what? You aren’t sure what exactly Din is to you, or what you are to him. You never have been. He treats you like you’re more precious than beskar, yet everything between you remains undefined. 

“My traveling companion. He’s a Mandalorian.” You swallow, “I wonder if you could tell me if you know what a certain word means? It’s one I’ve been curious about.” You don’t want to tell them that you’re seeking it out because it's something he calls you. That feels too private, too close to the chest. “He said it once and I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since.” 

“Why don’t you ask him?” 

“It would wound my pride. He’s already taught me so much. He overestimates my fluency.” 

They laugh and the man who was once a foundling says, “Yes, ask us then.” 

“Riduur,” you say, carefully pronouncing it so they don’t mistake it for another word. “Riduur,” you repeat with more confidence. 

The men glance at each other, brows raised. “Well, it has several meanings,” the more grizzled of the two says, “But I suppose it's all the same in the end. Spouse would be the most overarching translation. Partner, wife, and husband all work too.” 

For a moment, you can’t breathe, you’re sure your heart has come to a leaping halt in your chest. “Truly? Riduur?” You say it again, just to make sure. They laugh and nod and you decide to have your meltdown away from their table. “Well, thank you for clearing that up. Sorry again to bother you.” 

You turn away from them, a roaring in your ears. Your heart stutters in your chest. Riduur. He’s been calling you his partner, his spouse, for months? That word so softly spoken to you - to tease you, to call for you, whispered to you in the dark, said over and over, more than your own name. It meant partner, spouse, wife, husband?

Something inside you lights up with pride. The shape of it is warm, firm in the clasp of your lungs. Riduur. It’s a living, breathing kind of word, one that takes up space inside you. One you’re proud to bear the weight of, the title of. 

Spouse, you think, doesn’t carry the same gravitas as riduur. There’s something heavier and deeper in the word that a translation couldn’t really carry over into Basic. 

You start back down the road, smiling to yourself, but only make it several paces when Din steps up beside you silently from between two stalls. “Dank farrik,” you gasp, stumbling back. “Where did you come from? You scared me.” 

He doesn’t answer you, doesn’t even tilt his head towards you. You may as well have not spoken at all. 

“Mando?” 

Still, he doesn’t answer you. 

You raise a brow but don’t say anything else as he herds you gently out of the market, desert dust swirling around your calves. Eventually, when you reach the edge of the town, he asks, “Did you find everything you need?” His voice is flat, rough. 

“Yes, I got some food for you and Grogu to try. A little feast for you tonight, since it won’t hold.”

He merely grunts and you frown. “Is something wrong?” You glance over your shoulder. “Did something happen? Are we being followed?”

You glance around his legs at the baby, still securely in the brown canvas bag, who’s peering up at both of you with anxious eyes, big ears drooping. 

“No.” He answers curtly. 

The walk back to the ship is silent, and tense, and you aren’t sure why. 

It’s only when you’re in the safety of the mouth of the ship’s ramp, with the baby in your arms, that your irritation spills over. “Are you upset with me? I didn’t wander. I stayed close and had a weapon and -,” 

Din’s hands go to his hips, helm tilting at an angle as he regards you. His voice is agitated when he finally speaks. You expect him to tell you that you wandered too far, that he commed you and you hadn’t picked it up, that you’d unknowingly wandered into danger. And you expect to have to tell him once again that it's all fine, that you are fine, that you’d traveled without him for years and things always turned out alright. 

Instead, he says, “You should not call yourself an aruetii. That is not what you are.” 

For a moment, it doesn’t register with you what he’s talking about, that he’d clearly overheard your conversation with the Mando’a speakers, likely eavesdropped on it. 

All you are, for a few seconds, is confused. “But…I am an aruetii. I am not a Mandalorian.”

Din’s shoulders go stiff at your words. “That does not make you an outsider. You…you are far from an outsider,” he growls and suddenly spins away from you, his footfalls heavy and loud when he stomps across the hull.

He climbs the ladder to the cockpit and disappears, leaving both you and the baby alone, still standing on the ramp up to the ship. “He’s angry with me,” you say in disbelief, glancing down at the child in your arms, not really understanding why. “We’ll let him cool off,” you decide, bouncing the child against your waist. “Hungry?” 

The baby coos and you smile, worry biting into you as you settle with him in the mouth of the ship. The sun is setting on the sand, the air warm, casting red shadows over the world. There’s nothing around you but sand in any direction you glance, aside from the town from which you’d come on the horizon. 

In the distance, fireworks from the town explode in the sky. You point them out to Grogu, gently feeding him bites of food that you’d gotten at the market. He makes a sound that you suppose is a giggle, big eyes focused on the colors dissipating in the sky. He holds a tiny hand up, like he’d like it to fly to him. 

You curl a hand over his. “None of that,” you say with a laugh. “Those are meant for the stars, not you.” 

He goes back to eating, already distracted. 

A weight settles over your chest.

If Din heard you call yourself aruetii then he knows that you now know what riduur means. 

Maybe that was the true source of his irritation, that you’d gone behind his back to figure out what it meant when he clearly hadn’t wanted you to know.

You rub the tip of Grogu’s ear between your fingers and sigh. 

Any warm feelings you’d had are gone. 

Riduur. 

He’s been calling you that for months. But he hadn’t wanted you to know that he was calling you his partner. For some reason it stings. 

The Mandalorian is not cruel, not the type to play with another’s feelings. But, nonetheless, it feels like he might have been. Teasing you in a way you couldn’t begin to guess at. Or, like he could pretend without actually attaching himself to you, and you’d be none the wiser. 

You shake those thoughts away, listening to the music echoing over the sands. 

When Grogu falls asleep and the sun is just disappearing behind the horizon, you secure the ramp of the ship and carry the baby up into the cockpit. 

Din sits silently in the pilot’s chair, and doesn’t look at you as you tuck the child into the floating pod. 

You fidget with his blanket, not sure what to say. 

“I’m sorry,” he breaks the silence first. “Ni ceta.” 

“Din,” you perch next to him in the co-pilot’s seat. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have gone poking around where I don’t belong. I’m sorry.” 

His head tilts toward you, the visor impenetrable. You swallow when he doesn’t answer, an inexplicable lump forming in the back of your throat. “Don’t belong?” 

“I shouldn’t have asked them what riduur meant. You didn’t want me to know.” 

Din stands and holds out a hand to you. You take it carefully and let him pull you to your feet. “That is not why I-,” he stops. “Do you really not know?” 

“Know what?” 

“I should have been…honest about the name I’ve given you.” He tilts his head and releases your hands. “I’m upset because-,” the Mandalorian pauses and seems to consider his next words for a long moment. Finally, he sighs and simply repeats, “You’re not an aruetii. By definition you can’t be.”

You stare at him for a long moment, before shaking your head. “I don’t understand.” 

He huffs, helm ticking to the side again. “Would you call Grogu an outsider?” 

“Of course not,” you answer, horrified. “No.” 

“And why is that? He’s not a Mandalorian either.” 

You don’t have to think about it, shaking your head before he’s even finished speaking. “He’s your child.” 

Din steps forward, close to you, but doesn’t say anything. “Our child,” he corrects eventually. “I am upset because you don’t seem to know you are a part of our clan. Even after knowing what I’ve been calling you. Riduur, ner riduur, for months. You still don’t know.”

Oh. Oh. 

“Osi'kyr,” you murmur softly. “How could I know that, Din?” 

He stands silent and still before you, so still you aren’t sure he’s breathing. “I thought it was clear,” he says stiffly. “I thought it was clear I was courting you.”

Something pleasantly warm settles in among your heart and lungs. “Maybe you should explain your customs to me more thoroughly,” you joke lightly. 

He doesn’t laugh, shoulders tense, hands curled in anxious fists. 

“So why not tell me what the word means?” It seems a bit past courting to you, to call someone riduur. It seems to you he’s already chosen you. 

He shifts from foot to foot, the movement somehow laden with vulnerability and worry. “If you did not…want the same - I’m not sure I could bear that.” 

You stare at him, not entirely sure what to say to that. “So, what,” you start, “you expected me to one day just realize you considered me your-,”

“I would have told you,” he interrupts quickly. “One day.” 

“Told me-,” 

“What riduur means,” he corrects. “And asked if you’d like to be that.” Din takes your hands again, “Just know that you are part of this clan, whatever your answer is.” His voice is so sincere, it breaks your heart a little. “Whether you want to be attached to me or not, you have a place in this clan. You are not an aruetii.”

You tilt your head at the same time he does, the nonverbal cues you both habit in reflecting between you. “I’m just a bit confused. Was that your idea of a proposal?” You smile so he knows you’re teasing him. 

Din gives a long suffering sigh. “Mandalorians do not propose.” 

“Oh. So what do you do then?” You lift a brow, sliding your hands to his wrists so you can work on tugging one glove off at a time. 

“We make an agreement,” he says, not trying to stop you. His voice is hoarse. “We make vows.”

You don’t look up, tucking the gloves in your belt before tracing your fingers along the veins in his wrists, the lines of his palms. “Oh. And did you make vows to me that I wasn’t aware of?” 

You’re still joking, but Din takes your words to heart. He shakes one hand loose from yours and presses it beneath your jaw, tipping your head gently back. “I did. I make vows to you everyday.” 

All the air seems to get sucked out of the ship. You gape at him, mouth opening and closing without any sound coming out as you struggle to find words. He chuckles, low and breathy beneath the helmet. You imagine he must be smiling. “Now you see how you make me feel. Like I can’t breathe.”

You finally manage to take a breath, lifting your chin away from his fingers, threads of embarrassment beating under your skin at his teasing. “You could have told me, you know.” 

“It was too large a risk. I wouldn’t risk you.”

Maybe you should hesitate in your next words. 

But you don’t. 

You’ve never been surer in something. 

“Din,” you step close to him. “I would take those vows.” 

“They…they are heavy vows. Not meant to be taken lightly. They’re bonding vows.”

He thinks you don’t get it, that you still don’t understand. “I understand what kind of vows they are. What are the vows?” You step even closer, the heat of his body seeping into yours. 

He smells like sun, like spices from the market and oil on beskar. It makes you dizzy, the usual scent of him is much cooler. Evergreen and pine. 

The cockpit is dark, the very last dregs of light on the horizon gone. The contours of the helm are shadowed, the flicker of lights from the control panels reflecting in blinking lights over the visor. 

There is no hesitation in his voice when he finally speaks. 

“Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde.” 

You mouth the words, doing your best to translate them. 

But he’s spoken too quickly, and you only understand part of it. He waits for you to ask for him to translate, giving you a moment to attempt it instead of immediately telling you. 

“I only understand part…We are one together and-,”

“We are one when together, we are one when parted, we will share all, we will raise warriors,” he says easily. “We are - we are all of those things already. I have kept the promise I made.” 

Your throat is dry, and you can’t think about how that’s true. “We’re raising warriors?” You attempt a joke. 

“Would you not call the child a warrior?”

“I would,” you agree. “I would also still take those vows, now knowing their meaning.”

There’s a long pause in which you can feel the Mandalorian’s stare. His gaze is intense, assessing, hot against your skin. You patiently look back, waiting. “You don’t have to.”

“You think I don’t want to.” 

He huffs, “I…don’t want you to believe you have to make vows to me. You are a part of our clan no matter what.” 

“Would you still call me riduur?”

“If you allowed it,” he takes a breath. “Yes.” 

The lip of the helm drifts up and you can sense he’s no longer looking at you, embarrassed. “Din.” His head snaps back down. “I know I am not an outsider.” You wait for him to digest those words. “I know this is my clan now. I still would like to make these vows to you.” 

He reaches up and presses his palms to either side of your jaw, the crown of the helmet pressing softly against your forehead for just a moment when he dips his head. “If you’re sure, repeat after me. We’ll say them together.” 

“Elek,” you agree. 

“Mhi solus tome,” he starts, reverence and disbelief lodged in his voice. 

In the distance, more fireworks explode in the sky. The colors reflect in the glass of the ship’s front window, sparking over the reflective helmet. “Mhi solus tome,” you say slowly, careful to pronounce each word exactly right. 

You’d never imagined yourself as someone who would get married, and certainly not like this. 

But that was before you knew Din. And all this feels to you is right. It’s both sudden and not. 

This was meant to happen. All your years with the Mandalorian lead towards this. 

You repeat the rest of the vows after him, slow and deliberate. 

When the final syllable rolls off your tongue, a muted kind of joy overcomes you. You’ve been a part of it for a long time, but you feel it now, the belonging to a clan and people. 

Din releases you and leans back. His chest rises and falls quickly. 

You close your eyes and reach for the edge of his helmet. 

You want to kiss him at the very least. 

But when your fingers skim over the release, he captures your wrists in one hand. You let go and Din reaches up with his opposite hand to take it off himself. 

You expect him to kiss you right away, but he doesn’t. You can only feel the lingering touch of his gaze. 

“Open your eyes.” 

“What? No-,” you begin to protest. 

“Yes. You can now, riduur.” The word rumbles out of him proudly, heavy in his mouth. 

You tilt your head and frown. “Are you-,” 

“This is the Way.” His voice warbles, just a little. 

“Are you sure?” You get the entire question out this time. 

Now it’s his turn to tease you. “No,” he says dryly. “I’ll change my mind after you open your eyes.” 

“Ha ha,” you deadpan. “You’re very funny.” 

“Open them.” 

You think you might be more nervous than him to see his face. You honestly never thought you would get to, and you had long ago made peace with that. It didn’t matter to you what he looked like, you knew his heart and that was more than enough. 

You’ve tried to picture him before, from tracing your fingers over his face, but the image is only half formed and without detail. It felt wrong, somehow, too, to try to picture the face of someone who deliberately hid it. 

 Slowly, you peek your eyes open at him. Whatever you had pictured is nothing compared to the man you find yourself gazing at. 

A sense of vertigo sweeps through you, because it's almost like looking at a stranger. 

You have to resist the urge, for just a moment, to tear yourself away from him. 

His hair is darker in color than you thought it would be, but just as feathery and lightly curled as you imagined. Din’s eyes are dark, a deep brown that you’d like to spend lifetimes memorizing, falling inside. You were right too, from your explorations of his face with your hands, about the shape of his nose, his mustache, the patchy beard. You’d pictured his eyes all wrong, the shape of jaw.

One thing you couldn’t have guessed at is the naked expressiveness in his eyes. 

It makes sense though, he’s spent a lifetime without the need to school his features into anything other than exactly what he was feeling. 

You wonder how many times he’s looked at you with such longing, and you never knew. 

He says your name, a question mark tagged onto the end of it, his voice wrecked and strange without the modulator muffling his voice. 

The sound of his voice rips the upside down feeling away. It’s his voice, it’s him. Not some handsome stranger. 

Your eyes flit up from where your gaze had lingered on his lips, the pink shape of his mouth against golden skin. “I was right.” 

He frowns, eyes soft and worried. It shocks you again, just how open his emotions read in his eyes. “About what?” 

“I knew you were pretty. You are pretty,” you tease, pressing yourself against him, the hard contours of him biting into you. You fist your hands into the fabric at his sides. “Mesh’la.” 

Din frowns at you. “I told you that means beautiful, didn’t I?” His voice is playful and doesn’t match his expression. 

You nod and don’t answer, reaching up to cup your hand against his cheek. Din’s arm settles easily around your waist, dragging you closer, the weight of his helm in his hand heavy against your hip. Normally, you’d let him close the distance between you but you can’t quite manage to let him now, gazing instead at the planes of his face. “Mesh’la,” you tell him. “Ner riduur.” 

“That’s my line.” 

“Not anymore,” you tease. “Husband.”

You tip your chin into his and wait for him to meet you there. 

He gives a slight smile before leaning into you. “Not husband. Riduur.” 

“Right,” you agree, because really, it isn’t quite the same. It can’t be. “Ner riduur.” 

The kiss lingers long on your lips. He’s savoring you, a warm passion that doesn’t quite extend into heat. Din’s tongue meets yours briefly, the groan it tugs from his mouth sending flashes of lightning all the way down to your toes. 

The fireworks outside are no rival for the feelings clawing up the back of your throat. 

You want to tell him you love him, but you think he already knows. 

He breaks away to set his helmet down. When he turns back to you, his hands roam over you, free in their movement, tugging at the band of your trousers. 

You can’t stop staring at him, suddenly overwhelmed, drinking in the sight of him, the naked expression of him, everything he’s thinking spread over his face like a well loved language. 

All you’d wanted was to know the name he gifted you, instead - this. 

You map your hand over his face, tracing the divot between his brows, the curve of one sharp cheekbone. “I never thought I would see your face,” you whisper. 

Those soft, vulnerable eyes meet yours, arm wrapping around you again, as his bare forehead presses to yours, “And I always knew you would.” 

Thank you for reading! Please let me know your thoughts!

If you want more of Din and his riduur, Significant-verse drabbles can be found here!

Translations:

Riduur - spouse, partner, wife, husband

Ner riduur - my spouse, partner, wife, husband

Cyare - beloved

Cyar'ika - darling, sweetheart

Udesii - Relax, take it easy

Ad’ika - little one, baby

Su cuy'gar - Hello

Aruetii - outsider, foreigner, traitor

Ni ceta - an apology, rare

Osi'kyr - exclamation of surprise

Elek - yes

Mesh’la - beautiful

🕷

sorry for acting batshit crazy I was feeling a little unwanted

once i beat the depression and the burnout and the anxiety and the loneliness and the exhaustion and the guilt and the awkwardness and the apathy and the low income and the chronic illness and the impatience and the vulnerability and the creative block and the capitalism and the cruelty THEN you'll see

lilac - chapter 3

miguel o’hara x f!reader

summary: your boyfriend doesn’t have the time anymore. good thing both miguel o’hara and spiderman do.

wc: 5.2k

tags/warnings: domestic dispute, unhappy relationship, pining, mentions of kidnapping, mentions of violence, allusions to suicide, mentions of strip clubs

author’s note: got a lil carried away with my emotions for this one ngl

Your pink pen pressed harshly down on the science quiz you were grading, smearing a pit of the sparkly ink as the searing noise of an electric guitar being tuned submerged your little apartment from the floors to the ceilings. You glared up from beneath your brows, a predator chained just inches from her prey, as Ferris and his band of four barked and howled between themselves in your living room. From your perch at the tiny dining table, you watched them, your knuckles paling around your pen. They had moved the furniture around to make room for their equipment, shoved your couch, your armchair, your coffee table - fuck, even your television stand - against the walls so that they could spread out and practice for a gig the drummer had managed to score; probably by going down on the manager of the place, but you’d never say that out loud.

Unless they provoked you - which, with every ticking, prolonged minute that passed, you were getting closer and closer to your inclined tipping point.

Sniffing quietly, you shook your head and tried to go back to grading your quizzes. So far, your class had done a fairly good job. A few percentages below eighty, but not many. No matter what score they got, however, you were sure to place a sticker on the corner of the page. Of course, as you had expected, Gabriella O’Hara’s score was a perfect hundred. A small smile graced the corner of your lips. She was a bright kid, you’d give her that. While she needed a little extra help in mathematics from time to time, she practically excelled in every other subject. You scribbled out a little note praising her for a job well done before beginning to move on to your other papers.

From the living room, another glass-shattering, skin-crawling shriek was raised from Ferris’ guitar. You twitched in your seat, subtly raising your eyes to watch the band. Your boyfriend was downing his second beer of the day, despite it being barely eleven in the morning, and he had his feet propped up on some chick’s - the new keyboard player, because the last one stormed out of the group after realizing what a bunch of asswipes they were - and idly strummed a lazy medley on the taut strings of his guitar. It was hooked up to the speaker, so every note that he twanged out was amplified tenfold.

Downstairs, your neighbor knocked against their ceiling with a broom. Telling you all to shut the fuck up, no doubt.

Taking a deep breath, you put on your best smile - which looked more like a grimace, actually - and cleared your throat. “Babe,” you said tightly, drawing Ferris’ attention away from the keyboard player. He regarded you with a roll of his head and hand on the strings to stop the vibrations. “Maybe it’s time to pack it up. You’ve been…” You hesitated. “Practicing for almost two hours now. Why don’t you save some of the music for the paying customers tomorrow instead of the neighbors?”

To your chagrin, like he was dumping fuel across the little flame that had flickered to life in your chest, he shrugged a shoulder and went back to his guitar and the girl across from him. “We’ll leave when we’re done,” he replied nonchalantly, eyes never meeting yours again. “Still got some more songs to run through.”

“Yeah,” you scoffed and went back to your work. “You look real fucking busy.”

“If you’re so tired of listening to us,” your boyfriend snapped suddenly, “why don’t you find somewhere else to go? This is my place too, you know.” He exhaled a venomous sigh and downed another swig from his bottle. “Always on my ass.”

By now, the rest of the apartment had gone silent. The other band members glanced between the pair of you, movements suddenly stiff with tension they had no idea how to release. It felt like no matter what they did, it would light the fuse on either one of you.

Feeling your cheeks heat and your palms become sticky with embarrassment, you swallowed thick and nodded your head slowly. Then you stood, began to gather your papers, and stuffed them into your purse.

“Hey,” said the band’s drummer, a pudgy guy with thick lenses that had, actually, always been nice to you despite their leader’s obvious intentions, “if you need us to clear out, we can. We can find another place to set up where we’re not bothering you.”

You released a short huff, sounding more akin to a snarl than anything else. It seemed your judgment in men really was shit; you’d chosen the wrong fucking band member. “That’s okay,” you spat as you tugged on your shoes and checked that you had your keys. The drummer’s face flashed with guilt and you felt bad for a moment, but then your eyes flickered to where Ferris had wandered into the kitchen to fetch himself another drink. Like a raging wildfire, the flames in your ribcage roared and seared your insides, making them feel like you’d implode upon yourself if you stayed here - in your own damn home - any longer. “I’ll go somewhere else.”

With that you exited your apartment and slammed the door behind you, not stopping your frantic escape from Ferris’ snarls and rolling eyes until you hit the street down below. Before you on the road, traffic moved at a sluggish pace. Horns blared and street lights flickered. Shop fronts gleamed in the sunlight and bells over doors jingled. As you took a long, deep inhale that granted your lungs a wave of fresh air and your eyes with a certain wetness in the corners, you realized your crumbling relationship with your boyfriend was such a trivial little thing in this city. Nothing was going to stop, halt in its tracks, just because your world was falling apart.

Life went on. There was nothing you could do to stop that.

Plopping yourself down on the bus stop bench, you placed your head in your hands and tried to keep yourself from crying anymore. You couldn’t let anyone else see you cry, because what if they did, and they turned out to be like Ferris? Told you that you were being dramatic, that you needed to pull yourself together and be a girl? Fuck, you didn’t think you could handle someone else telling you that. You didn’t need anyone else against you; it already felt like the entire world was.

What you needed, desperately, terribly, pleadingly, was someone else in your corner.

In your pocket, your phone chimed with an incoming text. Wiping away the tears sitting heavy against your lids, you pulled it out. It was an unknown number; your cyber security app had blurred the message, waiting until you accepted to see it. You swiped on the blurred screen, then clicked open the message.

Hi, it’s Miguel O’Hara. I hate to cross any lines here, but Gabriella is having a hard time understanding the homework assigned for this weekend. I tried to help, but it’s beyond me. Some sorry excuse for a geneticist I am, right? Anyway, I was texting to ask if you’d be able to meet us somewhere today and help Bri. I was thinking the public library? We’re going to be headed to the park afterward for soccer practice… you’re welcome to come along. She’s eager to show you a new trick she learned yesterday. Again, excuse my forwardness. We understand if you’re not available. :)

You sniffled slightly, rereading the text over and over again, trying to stuff down the fluttering feeling arising past the flames inside you. Your head snapped up and you were on your feet in less than a moment, hailing the first taxi that passed you. When you climbed inside, the driver asked you where to.

“The public library,” you said, and managed a smile at him in the mirror.

Half an hour later, you sat at a desk in the middle of the study section of the New York Public Library, already having drawn out fresh sketches and examples of the mathematics homework you had assigned for this weekend. Your foot bounced with anticipation under the table, and you found yourself constantly glancing over your shoulder at the wide, arched doorway that let into the private section.

You’d tutored students outside of class before, so you shouldn’t have been so excited. You’d met with them in diners and cheap restaurants, outdoor pavilions when the weather allowed, hell - you’d even sat with them outside their cramped apartment buildings on overturned milk crates and used cardboard as a back for the worksheets while their parents were busy working three jobs and balancing five other kids on their hips at the same time. You weren’t one to judge; you knew how hard it was out here for some people. You were a teacher; it was your job to love and nurture and teach your kids, no matter who they were or where they came from.

So you shouldn’t have been this excited to tutor one of your students. Even if she did have a smoking hot dad.

Small, quick-paced footsteps - like thunderclaps along the ground in the nearly-silent room - pricked your ears and turned your attention to the doorway. A wide, easy grin broke across your lips as you spied Gabriella breaking away from her father’s side to rush toward you and your table. In her arms she carried a wrapped bouquet of flowers. When she reached where you had risen from your seat, she pressed her face into your belly in lieu of a hug.

“Hi, Miss Y/N,” she said, rather loudly, then presented the flowers like they were sterling silver encrusted with diamonds and jewels unimaginable. An ear-to-ear smile stretched from one of her ears to the other. “These are for you.”

Miguel arrived behind her, a backpack slung over his shoulder and a gentle grin of greeting gracing his beautiful face. He tilted his head at you for a moment, then ruffled his daughter’s hair and said, “What are they for?”

“A thank you,” Gabriella rushed to say as you accepted the bouquet. “For coming to help me.”

You tried to squash the butterflies that fluttered through your stomach when he smiled at you, instead pushing your focus to the flowers clutched to your chest. They were fresh blooms, a collection filled with pinks and purples and a few yellows here and there. “Well, thank you so much, sweetheart,” you said as she rounded the table to go and sit by her father. “They’re beautiful.” You took your seat again and carefully set the gift beside your purse. “And you don’t have to thank me. I was already out today anyhow, so it wasn’t any trouble.”

“Really?” said Miguel. He pulled the bag from over his shoulder and gave it to Gabriella for her to begin pulling her schoolwork out. He quirked one of his thick brows, his sad-looking eyes meeting yours. Jolts of excitement, and pleasure, and adoration went sprawling down your spine all at once, like back to back shocks of raw, untamed electricity. “I figured you would have been staying in during a tourist weekend like this.”

You wanted so badly to tell him just what you were doing out, why you weren’t at home enjoying your two days of free time between your two jobs - one that required every bit of your soul and heart during the day, and another that required every bit of your body during the night. You wanted horrendously to confide in him the troubles plaguing you like an illness only he could cure you from, wanted him to secure those thick, sinewy arms of his around your form and hold you tight, assure you in that husky tone that everything would be alright.

But instead, all you said was, “Can’t let tourists drive us locals from our stomping grounds, can we, Mister O’Hara?”

The corner of his mouth quirked upwards, his eyes stuck upon your form even after you’d pulled your attention to the worksheet Gabriella had pulled out.

For a long while, the three of you sat at that table in the library. You taught Gabriella the maths lesson over again as many times as she needed it, helped her with the more challenging problems on the worksheet, then made up a few on the spot to give her for the extra practice. You even tilted around your textbook so that Miguel could see it and gave him a rundown of the next few lessons so that he could help her the following week, should she need it.

It was perhaps an hour or so later when you sat back in your chair, watching as your student set to work on the few practice problems you’d given her. You shut your eyes for a moment, exhaling a long breath, and allowing your brain to shut off for a moment. You’d succeeding in getting Ferris and his stupid, stubborn fucking attitude off your mind for a time, but now you were faced with the realization that sometime today, you’d have to go back home. You’d have to see him again, most likely get into another argument that would lead to one of you sleeping on the couch the next couple evenings.

Most likely you.

“How are you doing?” came Miguel’s voice from across the table.

You thought for a moment he was speaking to his daughter, looking over her work, but when no reply came, you opened your eyes and realized he was talking to you. You blinked a few times, watching as he smirked kindly and crossed his arms over the table. Fuck, he was so easy to look at. He was wearing a t-shirt against the sunny day today, giving you a generous view of the muscles in his arms. They sloped down to his elbows, and further still to wrists wrapped in Gabriella-made friendship bracelets, to large, wide hands that were callused at the fingers and bruised at the knuckles. You wondered briefly if he boxed during his workouts.

Sliding your hand up your face, you gave him a tired smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. Despite only speaking to one another a few minutes every time at pick up and drop off, you felt you could talk to him better than even the girls at your nighttime job. “I’m alright,” you said, then added, “Just… tired, is all. Lots on my plate right now. Work, stuff at home, the whole ‘masked vigilante swinging around the city’ thing. Well… you know how it is.”

It was not the last detail that seemed to faze him. It was the second. “Is everything okay?” he asked, tilting his head to the side slightly, like that of a curious puppy. The lines beneath his eyes deepened a bit, the untamed hair atop his head slipped to his temple. “Sorry if I’m overstepping a boundary, or anything like that. I just -”

“No, you’re alright.” You reached out to finger at a petal on one of the flowers in the bouquet, fondly brushing the delicate thing as if it would disintegrate if you handled it any rougher. His eyes followed your movements deftly. “And, everything’s… okay. Sort of… okay.” You sighed and pulled away from the flower, instead opting to rub at your temples. “Just drives me out sometimes, you know? Everything… happening in those walls. Sometimes it gets too much.”

“You’re never out on the streets, are you?” Suddenly his gaze had turned serious and stony, his mouth set into a hard line across his chiseled expression.

You swallowed thick, feeling the dropped baritone of his voice hit the bottom of your belly and head south to your core. You shifted slightly in your seat, crossing your legs over one another to mask the subtle movement. “No, never.” Forcing yourself to chuckle, you dropped a hand to the desk. “You don’t have to worry about me, Mister O’Hara. I’m just fine.”

Before you realized what was happening, Miguel had reached out to brush his long, thick fingers over your knuckles. Your skin was suddenly alight with a blaze you didn’t even know existed. He leaned forward slightly across the table, lowering his voice so that only you heard it in the cage between your ribs. “It’s alright to ask for help, you know,” he murmured quietly. You were caught in his gaze, unable to pull yourself away. “If you ever need something, some place to stay… our door is open.”

Your tongue had ceased its ability to work, your heart its ability to beat properly. You could only stare at him, wide-eyed, as he settled back in his chair. Miguel O’Hara had just offered you his home. Fuck - he knew. He had to have known. Maybe he could see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice when you whispered; maybe it trembled too much. Or maybe he could just sense it, feel it from the bottomless pit in your soul screaming out for someone to pull it back into the daylight.

Just when you trusted yourself to speak again, both your and Miguel’s phones alerted at the same time. Across the study section, other devices went off, as well. Simultaneously, you pulled out your cells and read the messages scrawled across the screens.

“Jesus,” you muttered upon scanning the message. A kidnapping had just taken place not a block from the library. Car details and plate numbers were attached, along with an urging for anyone with information to call the authorities. “This city gets worse every day.”

Miguel glanced up at your words, hesitated, then looked down at Gabriella. She was still busy with her work, tongue stuck out gently between her pink lips. You sensed him tense from across the table.

“...Miguel?” you asked, tentative to use his first name. “Is everything okay?”

After a short, brief moment, he seemed to make up his mind about something. He stood from his chair so abruptly that it squealed softly against the tile floor, throwing the backpack over his shoulder and rounding the table. “Excuse me just a second,” he said, already heading toward the doorway. “I have to make a call. Ten minutes, tops.” Then he was gone, jogging too quickly and hurriedly to be making a phone call - or so you thought. You wanted direly to follow him, see what he was doing, but you couldn’t. You had your student to take care of.

Inhaling shortly, you turned to Gabriella only to find her staring at the doorway her father had disappeared through. You were quick to find something to change the subject. “These flowers are so pretty,” you told her and nudged the bouquet slightly. She met your eyes, your gentle smile, and it seemed Miguel’s sudden absence was wiped from her mind. So was the inner workings of a nine year old.

“I got to pick them out,” she said proudly, then went back to her worksheet. “But it was Daddy’s idea to get them for you.”

Your heart skipped a beat in your chest. You did your best to maintain your smile, trying not to grasp at your chest and stop the oncoming heart attack making its way through your systems. It had been Miguel to get the flowers? “Yeah?” you said in a small voice.

Oblivious to your strained tone and the excited bouncing of your leg under the table, the little girl nodded and hummed. “Uh-huh. He like-likes you. He told me so.”

Holy fucking goddamn son of a bitch.

You cleared your throat because you knew if you talked about this any longer, you would explode into a little cloud of confetti. Then you’d never even get to see him again, look at him in this new light because fuck, was it a new light. It was a new light you could dance under, twirl and sing and jump under, because no one was going to judge you anymore, and even better, now you could invite him to be under it with you. And you knew you just might have a chance of him saying yes.

And fuck, what a dance that would be.

“Are you excited for the field trip to Alchemax on Tuesday?” you asked her, recalling the months it had taken Washington Elementary’s principal to get permission to bring classes there. She had insisted it was an important place for them to visit, considering all the work they were doing as of late. You guessed your suggestion for a trip to the zoo had been vetoed. “Your dad works there. Maybe we’ll see him. You can brag to all your friends that he’s a fancy scientist.”

“Maybe,” she said, scratching out a wrong answer on her paper. “He works on the seventh floor. I’ve seen his work badge thing. We probably won’t be able to go up there.”

“Here’s hoping we can,” you said to yourself beneath your breath.

Ten minutes passed since Miguel’s sudden disappearance, and then another. Thirty minutes was just approaching, as was the beginnings of sundown, before you sensed him approaching you from behind. Turning in your chair, the first thing you noticed was that he was out of breath, sweating at his temples and down his neck slightly. God, he looked good like that. But then your rational side kicked in. Had he been running somewhere?

“I think that’s enough homework for today,” he said as he reached the table and ruffled Gabriella’s hair again. She batted his hand away, but nonetheless began to pack up her things. As she did so, he switched his gaze to yours, tilting his head in that way he did. “We’re going to head to the park, kick a ball around for a while. You’re welcome to join us, if you like.”

Numbly, because now that you knew he not only liked you, but like-liked you, you heard yourself accept and follow them out the doors of the library and onto the street. The deep purple sky felt a bit brighter than before, and the steps you took together, side by side, seemed a little closer than necessary. The sidewalks were cramped, sure, but not enough so that your hands needed to brush every few seconds. Not enough so that your shoulders bumped when you stepped off curbs to cross roads.

The park was quiet this time of day, occupied only by a few elderly couples leaning against walking canes and teenagers out past their curfews sprawled out on benches making out like they knew they were going to die tomorrow.

How long had it been since you had kissed Ferris? The saddest part of you knew that you couldn’t recall.

For hours, you sat on the sweet-smelling grass of the park’s lawn and watched Miguel and Gabriella scrimmage, kicking around a ball worn by years of scuff marks and green stains from fields. The breeze blew their matching hair this way and that, the dying sunlight illuminated their identical smiles as they round about one another in only a way a parent and a child could know one another. You cheered when either scored a goal. You laughed when they called one another names. And when they urged you to come join, even though the night was throwing itself over the sky and the stars were beginning to wink down at the park, you got to your feet and played.

You realized, through your aching laughter and the grass stains on your knees, that you hadn’t been this happy in a very, very long time.

That night, after you had wished Miguel and Gabriella a goodnight and walked home, after you had found Ferris crashed out in bed and the dishes still in the fucking sink, you found yourself sitting on the rooftop of your apartment building. It wasn’t quite silent up here, not with the helicopter chopping in the distance, or the occasional honk of a car down below, or the dog barking three stories down, but it was better than facing the quiet of your own home. You knew you would go mad in between those damned four walls, listening to your boyfriend snore and the clock in the kitchen tick and the floorboard creak when you walked to the bathroom.

You couldn’t face the quiet, not after the wonderful, deafening, blaring joy of this afternoon.

You let your legs dangle off the edge of the rooftop, sitting back on your hands and staring at the glaring screen of your phone. Your thumb ached slightly from scrolling through anything and everything you could find to keep yourself distracted. The newest clean energy replacement from Alchemax. The latest from politics. The child that had been kidnapped this afternoon, now home and safe, thanks to Spiderman snatching the kid from the backseat before plowing the speeding car with the kidnapper into a metal gate.

There came the soft, muted noise of a weight landing on the power box on the rooftop behind you, and you whipped around to find a familiar - but no less startling - red and blue figure sitting perched on the metal edge. Spiderman tilted his head at you, balanced on the balls of his feet despite the hulking frame of his muscles.

“Just came to check up on you after the other day,” he said through the mask. His eye lenses moved as his eyes roamed your figure. “Didn’t know you were this far gone.”

Clicking your phone off anxiously, feeling your heart thunder in your ears, you gave a little laugh and looked down at the drop beneath your feet. “I think if I was ready to end it,” you joked in return, “I’d go for something a little less traumatizing for pedestrians.”

Spiderman was still for a moment. Then he extended his wrist, and a string of web shot across the rooftop to stick to the space on the lip beside you. He used it to yank himself across the tarmac of the roof, landing again on the balls of his feet on the edge. He shifted himself, resting his forearms overink his thighs, and turned his masked gaze to the city before you both. Golden lights twinkled from skyscrapers and apartments and office buildings, creating a constellation of life between windows. The night air was crisper up here - as crisp as it could get, what with the smog from arsonist fires and churning factories and gas emissions - and the stars seemed to shine just a touch brighter.

“So… how are you doing?” the vigilante asked, keeping his gaze on New York. “After the robbery, I mean. Something like that, it can… stay with you.”

There came a fluttering in your heart. But rather than express such a sensation, because you had every right to be wary about giving yourself away anymore, you said, “It wouldn’t be the first thing like that to happen to me. And I’m sure it won’t be the last.” You lifted a hand to the star-lit city, crowded to the rim with life and hatred and love. “We’re in New York. What more can you expect from a city like this?”

For a long while, neither of you said anything more. It was strange being so close to the man everyone had been talking about for the couple weeks he’d been active - so close you could lean right over and pull that mask off. But you kept your distance.

Spiderman took a breath and said, “Couldn’t sleep?”

You shrugged a shoulder. “As if I typically sleep at this time anyway.” Then you turned to face him again, locking your ankles together over the edge of the rooftop. The breeze swayed your hair back and forth, like you were suspended underwater. The tension in your lungs certainly felt that way. “Did you enjoy the show the other night?”

He was still for a moment. For two. Then he met your gaze through his mask, his eye lenses narrowing. Even through the cover that hid his face, the heat of his eyes scorched holes through you. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Feeling slightly bolder than you had a moment ago, you lolled your head at him. “You know what I mean.” You sniffed, leaning back on your hands. “Did you follow me? Or was it just a coincidence that Spiderman showed up to my club the day he saved my ass?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“...Sure.” You felt a flutter of embarrassment within you, of doubt and guilt. What if that hadn’t been Spiderman that night at The Menagerie? What if it was some other guy, with some other scar on his collarbone, and you had gotten it all wrong? Despite your sudden worry, you refused to let your confidence waver. “So… do you make it a habit of checking up on every person you help?”

For the first time, you watched and listened as he cracked a smile and chuckled. The lenses over his eyes narrowed as his cheeks rose and his mouth spread into a smirk. You watched the bit of mask over his lips stretch. “You got me there,” he drawled in that low, husky tone of his that made you cross your legs a bit tighter, squeeze your thighs tighter. “Just… couldn’t really get you off my mind. You’ve got courage, saying no to that guy. That’s admirable.”

You felt your cheeks flush. Spiderman? Calling you brave? What an ironic sense of humor the universe had.

“I guess someone has to stand up and say no,” you murmured into the breeze.

“Yeah. Someone has to.”

Moments turned into seconds, and those turned into minutes. You almost wished you could stay like this forever; here, on the rooftop with Spiderman, with the breeze rustling your hair and the car horns beeping and the rest of the world forgotten.

But all too soon, it was over.

Spiderman rose to his full height in a seamless transition, turning his head to face the street away from you. “Should get back now,” he said, then switched his gaze down to you. You wondered, behind that mask, what color his eyes were. “Sure you’re not going to jump?”

You felt yourself smile. “Promise, Spiderman.” You watched as he nodded his head, then prepared to catapult himself off the building and swing onto the next one. Before he could, however, you called out. “And hey,” you said, drawing his attention, “if you ever drop by the club again, ask for the Monarch.”

He stared at you for the longest moment. Then he turned, stepped off the lip of the rooftop, and disappeared.

You didn’t bother leaning over, watching him spring a web from his wrist to flip through the air and parade down the street above the cars and streetlights. Instead you looked back to the city’s skyline far above yourself, silhouettes of buildings framed by a rich violet horizon.

Perhaps one day, you would see what it looked like without all this smog and the army of dark clouds hanging over it.

But for now, you were content with watching it darken until it was nothing but black and purple.

tags: @mooomeadows @twentysomethingwereyote @screamforyani @fangirlreice7 @axdjelx @ornamentalnecromancy @faust-pda @ilikethemoon28 @mrm-pachypoda @wadafrick @natthernandez @bakgoktski @soupsexsunsalutationsss @roxannarichie @lovagirlxxx @soggyeyeballsss @yoyoyoyoyo55555 @sophipet @quantii @lavnderluv @cookiezxx @euphorica @its-a-polyglot @nicalysm @maxi-ride @exzidss @crappwr0m @femme-is-dead

(strike through means blog could not be tagged)

Part five is here! I had some trouble getting going with this one. Figuring out how to follow up the aftermath of the Toji fight was a bit of a challenge even though I already had an idea of how I wanted to go about it. This is one of the more dialog heavy chapters. Some background is given for reader. Part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 The next couple parts will be covering the events between Hidden inventory and Premature death. A whole lot can happen in a year after all. Suguru x reader x Satoru, GN!reader CW: Implied past child abuse though nothing is explicitly stated, descriptions of injuries in the aftermath of the fight from last chapter.Reader cries a lot which i mean is understandable. Word count:4K (Give or take)

Broken… You looked so broken laying on the ground with your arms at unnatural angles. It made Suguru feel sick as he takes several shaking steps toward you. He forces all his focus on you. He can see you’re breathing at least, shallow rapid breaths that shake your chest. He can’t say the same for Satoru. There’s no way he’s alive with how much blood has pooled all around him. Suguru tells himself he has to focus on who he can save.

Through his own pain he picks you as gently as he can. The blood from the wound in his chest mixes with the blood on your clothes. He wonders if it’s yours but doesn’t actually see injuries that would cause so much blood. His eyes flick over to Satoru’s still form and then back to you when you whimper. He feels both guilt and relief as he watches your face screw up in pain. You have enough life in you to still react to pain. You don’t wake up though. It’s for the best, he thinks bitterly. He doesn’t know how to face you right now. It’s because he and Satoru wanted you to come along that you’re like this now. Unbidden a question passes his lips, “Why’d you fight him…? You had to know you didn't have a chance.” He cradles you to his chest, gritting his teeth. He needs to get the both of you to help. The fact that you’re still alive, still with him, is something he refuses to let slip away. The bastard who did all this clearly has no qualms killing, he can only assume you’re still alive for the same reason he is but that probably won’t last if you don’t get medical attention.

____

When you wake it’s in a too stiff bed with scratchy sheets. The air smells like a combination of antiseptic and cursed energy. You’re slow to open your eyes, your head is throbbing and your eyelids feel heavy. Why are you here? And where is here? You flex your hands and your arms throb dully. 

“You’re awake.” The voice is both so familiar and so relieved and then he’s leaning into your space, dark hair loose and falling around you as he leans over, a gentle hand lightly pushing at your sternum to keep you from sitting up. “Easy, you shouldn’t move too fast even with Shoko’s healing.”

Suguru. Why is the sight of him so shocking, what happened- Memories of the mission come crashing down on you all at once. “Suguru…” your voice spills brokenly past your lips just like the tears down your cheeks. Your chest rises and falls rapidly and though it hurts, your body sore as you can ever remember it being you try to sit up, to get further into his space. 

He seems to realize what you’re doing and leans down further over you. His hands cup your face and he rests his forehead against yours. “Shhh, I know, just breathe. It’s okay, you’re okay. “

Under normal circumstances having him crowd into your space like this would have left you terribly flustered but not now. “It’s not okay though!” Your voice cracks. He gets what he wants though in the form of you staying down now that he’s close. He can feel you trembling like this. “We… the mission… We’re the only ones who..” You swallow hard. Despite the nerves in your arm’s protesting you raise them, shaking, to cover Suguru’s hands with your own. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. “Not quite.” He’s glad that he at least can give you some good news. 

“What do you mean? I saw the bodies myself, Suguru.” you close your eyes and tears flick from your lashes onto his face. “I saw Riko! I saw Kuroi. I- I… fuck, Suguru I saw Satoru’s body. I cradled his hea-

Someone gently clears their throat in the doorway and Suguru pulls away from your face, the curtain of his hair lifting to reveal Satoru himself standing in the doorway to the infirmary. Suguru very carefully helps you sit up this time when you attempt it. He doesn’t think he's ever seen you look so stunned before. At least with him you’d never thought you’d seen his body, he imagined that made wrapping your mind around him being alive much easier. Especially knowing now that you’d held Satoru while thinking he was dead. “H-how? I- when I-”

Satoru takes three strides into the room and pulls a chair that had been pushed out beside the bed with him before plopping down next to you across from Suguru. You finally tear your eyes away from Satoru to glance back at Suguru and then back to Satoru when you confirm Suguru was looking where you had been, his face somber  but at least confirming he sees what you do and without any surprise. You begin to reach a hand toward him and Satoru takes it, holding your smaller hand in his. It’s warm and undeniably full of life as he squeezes your hand.

“How?” you swallow hard, fighting another wave of tears beginning to cloud your vision. “I held you, you were dead! There was no.. you weren’t breathing-” 

“I know.. And I can explain it I promise. Just try to calm down.” 

“Calm down? How can I calm down? I thought everyone died!” Your shaking intensifies, entirely overwhelmed. You should be relieved, you know that but instead your mind is left struggling to process everything.

“Both of you out. I thought seeing the two of you first thing may be too much.” Yaga was standing in the doorway, a severe look on his face. You weren’t aware of it but he’d already said his peace about the boys taking you along without permission. Given how the mission went he wasn’t as harsh as he could have been. You’d all been through enough. 

Suguru clenches his fists against his pants before getting up and Satoru doesn’t look any happier but releases your hand and gets up to follow. “W-wait-” Your voice comes out small and with fresh panic at seeing them leaving. 

They both look back at you and Suguru forces a smile. “We’ll be back later, promise.” And with that they push past Yaga who closes the door and goes to take Satoru’s seat. It probably takes at least an hour to get you calm enough to talk in a meaningful way but you get there. Exhausted, eyes red from crying, you look at the man who’d taken you in and been your guardian for the last two and half years. 

“I shouldn’t have let you stay on that mission. You were never meant to be in that situation.” He sits there, hands folded in front of him. 

“Wasn’t I though.. If not now, then later right? You told me that… that I'd see awful things.. That I'd see friends die if I became a sorcerer..” He wants to say something but he lets you continue, wants to know where your mind is going with this. “Afterall it’s only because of my potential use as a sorcerer you were able to take me in with the higher ups cutting through the red tape. Otherwise I'd still be in…” You wrinkle your nose and your eyebrows draw low when you think of your circumstances before. “I’d still choose this.” It pains you to say it but it's true. You draw your knees up to your chest and hug them, ignoring the way you middle protests with being scrunched up. You squeeze your eyes shut fighting back fresh tears, though Yaga is unsure if it’s from physical pain or emotional.

The large man’s heart breaks a little seeing you like that. It reminded him of when he’d found you. It had been an overseas trip to try and locate a foreign sorcerer that had once been affiliated with Jujutsu tech. Instead all he found was their grandchild in terrible circumstances. It was an extremely unorthodox situation but that’s what the jujutsu world was right? When he’d realized you’d inherited your grandparent’s technique he’d seen an opportunity to help and had taken it. Technically you’d ‘gone missing’ in official reports and had a new identity forged as a citizen in japan. Sometimes he wonders if he was giving you a worse life than you’d had before but that was a pretty low bar to try and dig under. 

“That doesn't mean you should rush to see the worst of what our world has to offer.” It pained him that you viewed yourself through the lens of how useful you thought you needed to be to justify being taken into a better home. That seeing hell was just the price that had to be paid. He thinks maybe he failed in a way since you were still thinking that way two and half years into your new life. 

“I’m not… “ You look at him over your blanket covered knees. You would struggle with the after effects of this mission for years if not the rest of your life. Even now that’s something you understood. Whenever you closed your eyes you saw the people you failed to save as well as Satoru. God you’d been so sure he was dead when you’d held him. Taking a shuddering breath you ask. “May I see them.. I think I’ll be okay.” 

“I think it’s better for you to rest at least until tomorrow.” 

“But-”

He rubs at his temples. “I won’t keep you from them. You will get to see them later but for now just do as I ask and rest.” He can tell from the look on your face that you want to argue and maybe you would if not for being so exhausted. You knew he was right about you needing rest. 

“Tomorrow for sure?”

He sighs. “Would you actually listen if I said no?” 

You crack the barest of smiles. “You’ve told me I'm a terrible liar. So no, I probably wouldn’t.”

He snorts. “And here I hoped Geto would at least be a positive influence.” He actually had, in ways both older boys had. You’d been getting more confident, coming out of your shell more than he’d seen you do in almost all the time he’d taken care of you. 

He makes sure you’re able to take care of yourself, waits to make sure you’re capable of at least getting to the bathroom on your own. It wouldn't do to leave without making sure you can actually get up if you needed something. Walking makes your insides throb but you’re able to manage. Once you’re settled in bed he takes his leave, closing the infirmary door behind him. Finally alone for the first time since waking up you take stock of your body, you were sore, arms aching but all put back in their proper place. That man had meant it when he’d said he’d cripple you. You were certain that without Shoko that would have been the outcome. You smooth your hands over your midsection. You only vaguely remember the impact of his fist compared to the stark memory of your arms being dislocated and broken. The bastard’s smug face as he’d made you look at him flashes in your mind. You don’t even know his name, only the pain that he’d caused. Was he still out there? Your hands start to tremble and you close your eyes and give your head a shake. You weren’t going to think about him right now.

You look around the moonlit room until your eyes land on the little side table next to the bed. On it is a glass of water along with your phone. You grab the device. It’s only got a five percent charge. It had been fully charged when you’d left the hotel the other morning and you wonder how long you’d been unconscious. At least since mid afternoon.. You check the date. “Ah. Over a day..” you murmur to yourself. Suddenly you really don’t care how tired you are, you’re not sure how long Suguru and Satoru have been waiting for you to get up since you’re unsure how long the both of them were down themselves but you decide it’s been long enough regardless. 

“Besides he never asked if I’d listen and rest tonight, just if I would tomorrow.” You may be bad at lying if directly asked something but a little lie by omission? You could do that. You’re about to at least attempt to get your dying little phone to text one of them, you’d probably only need to text one of them since they often stay with eachother, but your lil brick of a phone decides to flash you a picture of a battery and shut down right at that moment. Now perhaps you should have taken that as a sign to go back to bed but you were feeling stubborn and knew you wanted to see them sooner than later. 

___

The room is lit only by the movie playing in the background, casting shifting light over the faces of the two young men who perhaps had never been paying attention to it in the first place. Suguru sits against the headboard near obsessively checking his phone to see if maybe you’d text once Yaga finally left you alone. Crystal blue eyes peer up at him from where Satoru rest’s his head on his dark haired companion’s shoulder. 

“They may have actually wore themself back out and went to sleep, Suguru.” It was a bit strange seeing Suguru be the fidgety and impatient one out of the two of them. Perhaps Satoru was less eager to see you simply because of how panicked you’d gotten when you saw him. It made guilt twist up in his chest and he knew he’d have to answer a lot of questions if you were calm enough to ask. 

“I should just go back down there… “

“Suguru-”

“They were such a mangled mess when I found them. I just need to see them be whole and awake.” Suguru’s expression is pinched, pained really. 

Satoru is quiet for a moment, he knows all too well the condition you’d been in. Broken as easily as if you were a porcelain ball jointed doll. Then he blinks and sits up from Suguru’s shoulder and looks to the door of the room. “I don’t think you’ll need to go to them.” 

And with that there’s a soft knock at the door. Suguru nearly flings himself off the bed and almost trips in his haste to get to the door. When he opens it he sees you standing there, looking a bit startled, probably by how quickly he’d gotten to and flung open the door. His eye’s scan over you taking in the small beads of sweat on your forehead and your arm wrapped about your middle. You’re still clearly in some pain but came over here by yourself instead of calling one of them. His relief at seeing you is mixed with a bit of frustration. 

“___, what’re you doing walking around? You should have just texted me or Satoru-”

“I was going to but my phone died…” You glance away sheepishly and lean against the doorframe for support. “Still wanted to see you though, didn’t want to be alone all night.” You don’t meet his eyes as you speak and are caught unaware as he scoops you up. “Suguru?!” You squeak his name in surprise. 

He turns with you in his arms and pushes the door closed behind him with his foot before carrying you toward his bed. He’s about to tell Satoru to scoot over but he does it without being told and you’re gently placed in the middle of the bed. He follows moments after and you find yourself suddenly propped up against the pillows snug between the two of them, your admittedly still sluggish mind struggling to process the sudden closeness and you can feel some heat rising in your face. You’re very much aware that you've become the literal center of attention for the two of them. It doesn’t make you panic though like it did the last time you found yourself in a similar position in this room, and there’s no teasing in any of their actions as they somehow crowd further into your space. Though it still leaves you at a loss for words when Suguru slides down a bit so he can tuck his face into your neck and Satoru wraps an arm around your shoulders, his fingers resting on Suguru’s neck. You’ve been enveloped by the two of them, pulled into a precious and private place. 

It’s oddly quiet for the three of you, with only the sounds of your breathing, the low murmur of the tv and the beginnings of rain tapping at the window. You can really feel them though. Warm and alive. Suguru’s breath fanning over your neck, the sound of Satoru’s heart beating next to your ear. You swallow thickly. All three of you were really alive. You hadn’t lost them. You’re so lost in your thoughts that it surprises you when Satoru brushes a thumb over your cheek, wiping away a tear you hadn’t realized had escaped. You’d thought you’d already wrung yourself dry honestly. 

“Hey-” he begins, concern filling his uncovered eyes.

You shake your head. “No it’s,” you take a shaky breath and Suguru pulls back from your neck slightly so he can examine your face. “It’s a.. It’s a good cry. “ You reach up and rub roughly at your face. “You’re both really here.. I’d been so sure that you were both dead when that-” Another shaky breath and you cut yourself off. You don’t want to think about that bastard. Not right now. “I’m just so relieved you’re both still alive,” you breathe out, seeming to regain your composer.

The two of them share a look and without saying anything seem to agree on something, Suguru nodded to Satoru. “I was aware of everything, you know?”

You look at him wide eyed. “But how? I mean I’m still not even sure how you’re alive. You weren’t breathing when I got to you.” 

“Yeah it’s a lil hard to do that when one of your lungs get’s cut in half,” he tries for humor but notices how you blanche. Quieter he says, “Sorry.”  with the arm that’s not wrapped around your shoulders he reaches for one of your hands, when you don’t pull away he continues. “On the brink of death It finally clicked how to use reverse cursed technique. It was slow at first. Just enough to keep me from death. Then you showed up. It was comforting and I wanted to tell you I was still alive, to do anything in that moment to let you know.” 

The idea that he’d been alive and aware of you while you held him, his blood soaking into your clothes was making your mind reel. You open and close your mouth and when nothing comes out he speaks again. 

“My awareness wasn’t perfect. But I still knew what was going on.” Some anger creeps into his expression. “When he showed up and you drew your weapon I was screaming inside. Wondering what the hell you were doing. Fuck if Suguru and I couldn’t beat him why would you fight him? He was going to ignore you and leave.” His voice raises slightly and you flinch. 

“He’s not the only one wondering that you know. At first I thought maybe he’d decided to have a go at you just because he could and tried to rationalize that normally you’re smarter than that until Satoru told me what happened.” Suguru’s words stung but you knew neither of them were wrong. 

You stare down to where your hand is being held by Satoru and your other clutches your pant leg. “I know it was stupid,” you admit quietly. “The truth is I wasn’t really thinking at that point. With how the whole mission had gone sideways and I was trying to wrap my head around one of you being dead already and when that monster spoke to me I lost it. In my mind that meant both of you were dead.” You bring your free hand up and push your hair back from your face, tugging at it a little. 

“You almost died.” Suguru’s voice is quiet. “Shoko said If you’d gone much longer without healing you would have bled out internally.”  You wince, more at the underlying pain in Suguru’s voice than anything. 

Satoru looks away from you for the first time since this conversation began and looks at the rain streaked window. He was glad that Suguru at least hadn’t gotten a front seat to your beating like he had. The memory of the  sounds of your limbs breaking and your ear shattering scream make bile rise in his throat.  And while he really wished you hadn’t further provoked the man he’s not sure that bastard would have left you with just your arms wrecked even if you hadn’t spit in his face. Normally he would get a kick out of you getting feisty like that but in this situation it in all likelihood got you a good deal more hurt. The injuries to your arms wouldn’t have been lethal but the crushing blow to your stomach had been like you’d been hit by a truck but the impact had been focused entirely into the diameter of that man’s fist. He had no doubt you’d reinforced yourself with cursed energy otherwise there’s no way Suguru would have gotten to you in time and you might have actually had a hole through your stomach instead of your organs getting battered.

When you remain quiet, thinking over their words Suguru speaks again, drawing Satoru’s gaze back. “How do you think we would have felt if you’d died and we both survived? After we decided to bring you with us? Your death would have been on us.” He sits up so he can look at you more directly. 

You’d already admitted you hadn’t been thinking in the moment but that question really struck you. You hadn’t thought either of them were alive but he’s right, you’d been wrong in your assumption and had nearly died for it. Almost left them behind like you thought you had been.  

“You went into a frenzy because you thought we’d died right? Because you thought you lost us both and that feeling overwhelmed you?” Satoru questions you and glances away when you look toward him. “Neither of us wants to lose you either. So just…” He roughly runs a hand through his hair, making it spike out wildly. The anger that had pinched his expression fades and turns into something softer, his cheeks tingeing just a bit pink in the low light of the TV’s glow. “Keep yourself safe even if you don’t want to do it for yourself, do it for us. Even if you think one or both of us has died you need to keep living. Because what's the point if you’re not alive and happy?” 

Suguru chuckles and Satoru gives him a somewhat annoyed look, “What?”

“Nothing. You just put that very well. Almost sounds like you were making a confession for the both of us.” A smug sort of smile etches its way onto Suguru’s tired face, his first smile since what happened in the depths of Jujutsu tech. 

You’re glancing back and forth between the two of them with large eyes, gears turning in your head overriding some of the guilt that had been building. A confession..? The puzzle pieces begin to fall into place for you.  All the time spent training with you, the movie night, taking you on that mission even though they knew Yaga would be pissed at them, all the moments you’d shared with them leading up to going back to the school, your position now snug between the two of them-  You let go of Satoru’s hand and dip your head, covering your face with your hands. Okay maybe you’re a little stupid.

And that's it for part 5! I really hope you guys like it. And yes we're finally hitting the relationship part of things! If you find any errors please ignore them, I've gone over this so many times already to catch everything that I nearly went cross eyed.

@strawberrystepmom @icy-spicy @nanamikentoseyebags @gojoest @porridgesblog

If Jax was given a computer and saw all of the fanart and fans he has, how would he react? Same question applies to everyone in the circus.

(Also hope you're having a wonderful day/night!)

I feel like he wouldn't know what to think.

I think the original trilogy should have had a blooper of Darth Vader actually finding R2 with the plans and trying to get them from him like a dog with food it can't have.

Darth Vader, feared sith: R2 give me the rebel plans! Drop it!

R2d2, most feral droid to exist: NO! How dare you conquer the galaxy without me! You're uninvited from the droid upraising

i mean in fairness to anakin, he did bring artoo along for SOME of the world conquering!

(commission info // tip jar!)

my bf has many interesting stories and observations from his new job as a 911 operator

my favorite is how meandering people are, even in the midst of a terrible emergency

they respond to “what is the emergency” with “well, the thing is, four weeks ago–”

and then he’s like “WHAT IS THE EMERGENCY RIGHT NOW”

and they’re like “so what happened this morning was, i said to my wife, i said–”

“WHAT IS CURRENTLY HAPPENING AT THIS MOMENT”

“oh i’m having a heart attack”

my second favorite is how specific he has to get sometimes

like, “what is your emergency?”

“i’m sitting in a pool of blood.”

“… is it… your blood?”

“yes i think so”

“do you know where it’s coming from?”

“probably the stab wound”

“have you been stabbed?”

“oh yah definitely”

Ooooo u wanna draw Jax in a dress soo bad oooo

You keep my fetishes away from me!