Chapter Text
And then the whirlwind of the New Empire arrives in my town. Offering genuine peace, protection, and prosperity in return for their unquestioned control and loyalty.
The elders hesitantly agree, due to the Empress being a force to be reckoned with on her own as a Arcane Conductor of a magic user. Due to you not having any real family, you're one of the few samurai who willingly volunteer to be sent to the Express city to join her barracks.
Where you meet an absolute firecracker of a high ranking officer under her command. Her
Majesties star warrior, even!
A short and noisy man who's arcane abilities are whispered to rival the Emperass's. But those same whispers say that they are loyal to her to the end, and will choose her Majesty over anyone and anything. That he is as relentlessly dangerous as the empress herself. Despite carrying a more playful and silly demeanor
This high ranking soldier speaks your language as fluently as if he was from the region, but he's clearly not from the samurai's region nor the Emperor's region.
He's loud and boisterous, but only socializes in small amounts. He regularly accompanies her majesty when she leaves the city as a personal attendant.
During a year of stay-in-city, the bug-motif strange guy is around often. All of the time, even.
He seems to hone in on the Samurai's reserved, hesitant nature to socialize.
They have a lot in common, and The Beetle is going to make the Samurai learn this whether he wants to or not :3
A mostly ace+aro vibes samurai who didn't exactly take an oath of celibacy, but it was socially accepted that I was. Vs this guy in a beetle themed, skin-tight suit who could break every bone in my body with the twitch of his wrist.
+++
The scene in my head that really sort of get the samurai to fully be attracted to Beetle is basically:
They get into a fight while in uniform in a remote facility doing a job (or something similar, it an assignment of some kind) because samurai snarks about how he wouldn't dare trust Beetle. Because Beetle is Not A Safe Person and Dangerous .
Beetle is hurt, since they seemed to have been getting more comfortable and genuine with each other. Beetle snaps back that just because they are loyal to the Empress first, doesn't mean they can't trust other people too.
Beetle gets so angry that their “Conductor-Strength” magical abilities begin to spark in the air around them. Samurai, on a fearful instinct while thinking Beetle is going to attack him, draws his blade and lunges forward to stab Beetle in the back.
The next few seconds happen so fast for him that he doesn't even register anything in the blink of a moment until long after Beetles face is millimeters from his, with a dagger dug nearly hilt deep into the wooden wall next to his temple. His own long blade pressed against his throat across his torso.
Beetle gives him a few moments, taking slow and soft breaths centimeters from his skin, before suddenly stepping back. Leaving the dagger in the wall and taking his blade with them. He, embarrassingly, immediately slips down the wall so he's sitting on the ground, taking ragged breaths as Beetle takes another few steps back. He's unable to speak as he sits there, mouth gaping like a fish. Beetle shake their head, face twisting back into anger. They drop his blade a few feet in front of him and storm off wordlessly.
He did get a shallow, thin cut on his face, right below his temple near his eye.
It's barely a scratch. But after spending about 10 minutes yanking the dagger out of the wall, for reasons beyond his knowledge...
When he gets back to the lodge they're staying in, returning to his room. He looks in the mirror of the bathroom. Staring at his own face. After a moment, he reaches up and gently touches his fingertips to the clotted scratch.
He suddenly feels his whole body flush, as he realizes how fast and flawlessly Beetle had him off balance. How fast Beetle had reacted to his attack, how he was pinned to the wall before he could blink. Beetle was several inches shorter than him, he knew Beetle was strong, well trained. But he never fully allowed himself to admit how Beetle was leagues stronger than him.
For further reasons beyond his knowledge, he gets flushed and VERY turned on. Very hot and bothered.
He attempts to wait it out, to scrub his face with his hands and cold water from the faucet. And when that doesn't help, he puts himself under cold water. He’s hugging himself, naked forcing himself to push the looping thoughts of Beetle being so close to him. The fact he could smell the fruity gum they’d been chewing nearly an hour before the fight. How they were so close, he could almost feel their lips ghosting on his skin.
The cold shower, despite his body trying relentlessly to keep it up, eventually forces his body to cool off. He crawls into bed immediately after, falling rapidly into a dreamless sleep.
He finds himself awake three hours later, he groggily drags himself up, as he finds himself unable to drift back off. He cleans up the mess he’d made with his gear when he returned earlier. When he comes across the dagger again. He goes to touch it, but it causes memories of the event to flash through his mind, and suddenly he’s aching in his trousers again.
Bro sitting on the edge of his bed after not being able to sleep for 9 hours: confused horny grip on his knees
Morning arrives, along with the hotel's breakfast service.
Ito, heavy footed, finally trudges down to the dining room. He finds Beetlepoking at their breakfast plate alone in a booth in the back of the hall.
He nervously approaches, hesitantly setting down the dagger on the table beside Beetle's plate. He wrapped it in a handkerchief of his.
Beetle glances down at the wrapped dagger, then back up at him and locks eyes for a brief moment, then darts back to their plate.
"Good morning." Beetle says gruffly.
"Morning." His voice is almost an inaudible whisper, embarrassingly.
"'m sorry about yesterday."
"Why didn't you kill me?"
"Yeesh." Beetle sort of chuckles, sitting up a little over his plater. "Fucking sit down, you idiot." He sits. He waits quietly, watching Beetle pick at his scrambled eggs.
"Why didn't you-"
"Stop-" Beetle snaps, glancing up at him, and he sits up straighter and locks eyes with Beetle. Beetle immediately breaks eye contact "I didnt- I don't know.” Beetle shoves their food around their plate as they speak. “I don't know what the hell you thought would happen- I don't know if you wanted me to, or what. If that had been- I've killed people quicker for less stupid shit. You've watched me kill people for smaller infractions."
They sat in silence for a long while, until the server brought Ito something he had eaten the day before and Tea.
"I won't tell anyone that you- that that happened." Beetle says quietly. "But don't do stupid shit like that in front of others. If you do that in front of others and I let you live, I woulda been in huge trouble. And it woulda looked bad on me." Beetle sort of laughs and tries to tease. "I got a reputation, I can't be letting idiots catch me by surprise and not put a dagger through their eye, no?"
Ito nods. After a moment, Beetle looks at the handle of the dagger poking from the cloth.
"You can keep this." Beetle says, sliding it across the table. "Token of ' i won't kill you if you're not an idiot .' trust." Ito looks at Beetles face, cocking his eyebrow. "It's one of the blades that's entirely based in magic,” Beetle explains “The handle is a real fancy wood, but the blade is basically endlessly sharp and unbreakable. One of the ones that only shatters from intense and direct magic contact."
The rest of the scene is Beetle being called off to do some work and Samurai going back to his room to sit in horny silence and playing with the blade to try and distract himself from his confusing erection.