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siennahrobek · 3 years

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Prompt

In a new attempt to turn Anakin Skywalker to the darkside, Chancellor Palpatine orchestrates the disappearances of heavily pregnant Padme Amidala and Master Councilor Obi-Wan Kenobi. It backfired.

Nobody really won.

It had been ten years.

Knight Anakin Skywalker and Knight Ahsoka Tano were sent to a distress call far out in the outer rim, almost in wild space. Anakin didn’t mind the long journey. His former padawan was good company and sometimes, sometimes, it was nice to get away from the Temple for a while. Away from the sympathetic and pitying stares and lingering theories or rumors.

Things hadn’t been the same for many reasons.

Ten years ago, the two most important people in Anakin’s life disappeared, the man who raised him and his heavily pregnant wife. Eight years ago, they had found what was left of her body. Five years ago, the Order declared Master Kenobi one with the Force.

Anakin never truly stopped looking, but he was becoming dim in ability and stamina. It had been so long and there were no leads to follow. No trace or evidence of his old masters presence anyway. Nowadays, it was pretty much just research and keeping an eye out for anything that vaguely resembled him. He was trying to have the life Obi-Wan always wanted for him, balance and happiness. He tried to connect with others, with Jedi. He spent quite a bit of time mediating, walking the gardens, helping as many as he could throughout the galaxy. He was a good Jedi, he thought, at least on the outside. He was working on the inside. He had a jedi’s life.

It was all he had now. And he would do his best to make Obi-Wan proud.

But being happy, truly happy, Anakin wasn’t sure if he could truly achieve it anymore. Being balanced with that type of hole in your heart, it was difficult. He could accept loss better now; there was no stopping that sort of thing. When it was one’s time to leave the planes of this galaxy for the Force, it was something to rejoice. It was supposed to be home. It wasn’t so easy when there were no answers.

Ahsoka had been knighted several years earlier and Anakin could not have been more proud. Her friends had been there, had congratulated her and she was happy, he had to believe that. But even she missed the presence of another who should have been there. Obi-Wan would have wanted to be there, to witness such a great occasion. They did their best and afterwards, they had a good time, were happy with the rank that came with her knighthood. It wasn’t that either of them were mourning during the time. It was just, they could feel the missing piece. It has been a few years but lately, they had found themselves partnered up quite frequently for missions. He hoped Ahsoka didn’t mind too much but there was never going to be an easy way out of this. Around it. Because this was the type of thing he and Obi-Wan did. They were the Team. They did everything together, even after knighthood.

The Council was trying, he gave them that.

He didn’t know if it really helped, though. It was nice, though, that they cared. They kept an eye on him. Years before, he would have read that as they didn’t trust him. It took him a very, very long time to realize that wasn’t always the case. And partnering him up with someone he was close to, someone he trusted above most else, it was some way of caring. He still struggled with those thoughts, even years later, but he was easier now.

The mystery however, was not any easier. There was an abysmal void where his loved ones should have been. A tear in his heart from the mystery. The lack of answers. He still found himself grieving for Padme but it was easier now. Although no one was entirely sure exactly what had happened to her, at least they had found a body, they had a storyline about what had happened and how it happened. It wasn’t sometime Anakin liked to think about particularly, but it was easier to grieve knowing. She was gone and eventually, he had accepted that. Let go, so to speak. She was with the Force and Anakin could feel her in some of the things he did, some of the objects and people and actions he witnessed and saw. There was grief, but there was also knowing.

The same could not be said for Obi-Wan.

No one knew what happened to him. There were no clues, no evidence. He had disappeared one day, alongside Padme and no one ever could figure out how it happened or why or anything. Although they had found a body for her, they never did for him. Not even a glimmer of anything.

Some darker rumors, cynical beings, spread that he had abandoned the Order. That the war had made him go mad. That he had kidnapped the senator or worse, was the one who slaughtered her. Anakin had quickly put a stop to it. Everyone had felt it the moment he knew about these ideas and theories, diminishing and tarnishing Obi-Wan’s name that was atrocious. He was not the only one who felt this way, but he was the strongest and most determined and the most furious…

No one said anything now.

No one dared.

The Jedi kept him in high honors. He was mentioned in classes, with his thoughts and theories on the Force, his research on all the things he loved to learn; animals, plants, cultures, languages. His strategies from the war were taught. His negotiation fame was spread; everyone knew the stories of the Negotiator. He wasn’t just a war hero. He was a Jedi, and a great one at that. His faith in the Order, his faith in people, his faith in the Force, was incredible and Anakin hadn’t really come to realize how that was until years after.

Obi-Wan loved in such a way that Anakin hadn’t understood since he was a child. He wished that he could talk with him one more time, just to show his old master that he was right, that Anakin was okay. That Anakin knew how much Obi-Wan Kenobi loved him.

That Anakin was doing his very best to be the Jedi and person he knew he could be.

The clones continued to think of him; believe the best in their General Kenobi. They always had liked him. He was a high general, one that appreciated and valued their input and their lives. He was their finder, all the cadets – former and current – had been told the stories about how he found them like a true Jedi searcher. Even if it was by accident, it had jumpstarted their journey into being free. He had worked to help and protect them alongside other council members and the few politicians who saw them more as canon fodder. It amazed Anakin how long and intense the memories of the former soldiers were because he was still brought up.

Cody and a lot of the 212th had taken it hard; harder that most of the rest of the military. He was their direct general, someone they followed personally up until the very end of the war. Some of them had been friends, even. They had helped Anakin search for a long time, but it was getting harder for them. They had jobs now, they had to start lives, be citizens. Things were expected of them, like for some reason, they had to catch up to the rest of the citizens. It was a struggle and a fight but luckily, they did have allies for assistance.

Many clones got adopted into or employed at the Temple. There weren’t many force-sensitive ones, none enough that they would have made an actual Jedi knight, but the Order was loyal to them as they had been to the Jedi. Many troopers filled in other roles, of teachers, sparring partners, cooks, guards, and researchers. Waxer and Boil had made it from being aides to a creche master to being crèche masters themselves, with leading their own clan of initiates.

Obi-Wan would have loved that.

“Coming up to origin of signal,” Ahsoka announced from the pilot’s seat, flipping a few switches as she began the sequence for landing and attachment. In the middle of nowhere, Anakin noted. There wasn’t a planet near here, in sight or on the scanners. He wondered how they even got out here. Hopefully this wasn’t a mortis situation all over again. He did not want to deal with something like that again. The ship in front of them was small and broken down, floating aimlessly in the abyss of space.

He doubted anyone survived.

“You never know, master,” Ahsoka tried to keep herself upbeat as she shot him a grin, sharp teeth showing unabashedly. “Perhaps we will be pleasantly surprised,” she suggested with a bit of a shrug. The ship had made a thud as it hit the abandoned one and the latches untangled themselves to strike into the hull of the ship.

Oh. He had said that out loud. Oops.

“Latch engaged,” she added and turned to smile at him, tentatively once again. “Come on master. Let’s see what adventure awaits us.”

“I’m no longer your master, Ahsoka,” he reminded her, idly.

She shrugged once more. “Right,” she replied with a small smirk, her voice laced with sarcasm. It was practically oozing out of her. She remained him of his former master sometimes, with her humor and quick wit. With a mischievous side eye, she continued, slyly. “Let’s go, master.”

Anakin rolled his eyes and followed her out, making their way through their ship’s hatch and towards the abandoned one. He still didn’t think that anyone survived but this was their duty. And the calm silence of their journey and the nature of the mission was a bit of a relief from the fast-paced ones that he was normally sent on. Usually, it was a good way to keep his mind off of everything else. This was a nice reprieve.

As the two of them got into the derelict ship, Anakin started talking and he had absolutely no idea where it came from. It was like his mouth had started moving and his brain had not given it permission. “I’m sorry, Ahsoka.”

She glanced at him, curiously. “What for?”

He couldn’t quite meet her eyes, as they waved a flashlight around, searching the cockpit for life or anything else that could give them an idea into what had happened and who may have been there. “I know I haven’t really been…the same since…”

“Since Padme and Master Obi-Wan disappeared,” she supplied with a frown. It had been ten years since it happened and several years since she had been knighted and she still remembered. It was almost always the reason.

He nodded and swallowed heavily. “I…I got through Padme, to some extent at least. I knew what happened to her. But Obi-Wan…I still wonder.”

“Wonder…?”

“What happened. I know everyone says he wouldn’t leave me, not like that but…” he drifted off, looking down, his light flickering towards the floor, near useless. “I was a pretty terrible person around the time he disappeared, unbalanced and in a bad place. Listening to the wrong people, making terrible choices,” Anakin shuddered at the thought of what Palpatine nearly got him to do in his desperation and fury. It had been a dreadful time and everyone else had nearly paid the price for his mistakes, for his foolishness. Ten thousand Jedi, millions of the clones, all the people in the galaxy. He feared now what would have happened if he had not been pulled from the edge, if he had made that leap into the dark side, into the fear and anger and hate. “Perhaps…. maybe it was just too much for even the great and infinitely patient Master Kenobi.”

Ahsoka scoffed good-naturedly as she rolled her eyes, finding the sliver of humor to work through. “One, Master Obi-Wan was not infinitely patient,” she pointed out, glancing at him pointedly. She wasn’t completely wrong. Obi-Wan had a lot of patience but even he had his limits, generally with those he didn’t care for. His patience with Anakin though, that was legendary. Not that he would ever really admit that. “And two, they are right. He would never leave you out of choice. I mean come on. Master Obi-Wan.”

“Yeah. You’re probably right,” he replied half-heartedly and tried shooting her a smile. It wasn’t very convincing, but it was all he had at the moment. After a suggestion of splitting up, the two of them went to opposite ends of the ship, Anakin towards the living quarters and Ahsoka towards the cargo bay. Perhaps Anakin could find some clues with the former inhabitant’s belongings or Ahsoka with whatever they were travelling with.

It was a bust. There was very little there, aside from some blankets. Anakin imagined there were a couple of people stuffed within the quarters, perhaps a man and a child or two, with the toys he found. There were some handmade wooden carved ship toys laying on the bed and Anakin picked one up. It was a Jedi star fighter, he realized. It wasn’t the most amazing rendition of the ship, but he was probably a little bias, considering he had not only flown one of these during the war, he still had one.

What was really interesting about it was the feelings imbued with it. The signature felt familiar, like he should know it, but it was weak. Whoever made this toy was filled with so much love, for the recipient, for those in general, that he cascaded off the toy in waves.

He wondered if the former inhabitant had been force sensitive. It might explain the feelings in the ship and the toys, especially.

“I don’t see anything!” Ahsoka shouted from the opposite end of the ship. He could hear her just fine, even though she was on the other end, but Anakin was still a bit entranced with the toy and the feelings coming off of it. “You?”

There was a brief silence and a clatter. Not big enough to be her body but it had sounded like she had dropped her flashlight.

Anakin glanced back towards where she had headed. He couldn’t see her but it was more instinctive than anything. “Ahsoka?”

Silence.

“Ahsoka?! Answer me?” Anakin started to panic, his heart beating faster and faster as he moved towards the door, calling her name.

She sounded scared and small, like back in the early days of the war and casualties were high. When she was worried about those she cared about, troopers, jedi, citizens. She sounded like she was in tears. Anakin couldn’t really remember a specific time where had sounded so fearful, so worried, so sad. Not in a way that was as blatant as this. “Skyguy?” Her voice called out. That was a name he hadn’t heard in a while. “You…you have to come see this.”

Anakin raced across the ship, panicked, and leaping over crates and objects. She didn’t make it sound like she was in danger, and she didn’t appear to be, but he didn’t stop until he was right next to Ahsoka. He had nearly crashed into it. She was standing in front of a large gray slab, some kind of relief sculpture of some kind. At least, that was what it looked like, although he hadn’t gotten a very good look at it. His attention was on Ahsoka. But he could tell what it was made out of. He had never seen such a large slab of carbonite before.

“What is it?”

She was crying, he could see a multitude of silent tears. They were running down her face in a cascade and although he couldn’t hear them, he could almost hear her sobs in the Force. But she just pointed up and Anakin followed her hand and gaze.

The face was distorted, like it had been looking down when the carbonite had been applied. The slab was huge and only made bigger by the cloak the figure wore. It was sweeping and wide, like he was trying to cover, hide or protect large objects underneath. Possibly, he was. But even with the odd, defensive pose and the face not looking straight on, even after ten years, Anakin knew that face.

He always knew that face.

Frozen in carbonite.

Obi-Wan Kenobi.

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jasontoddiefor · 4 years

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Summary: Five times the Jedi Council has to deal with younglings and one time the younglings have to deal with the Jedi Council. Part of my ongoing fix it series. Read on AO3!

Plo Koon took slow steps into the Council chamber, bent slightly towards the right to accommodate for the little guest this session was going to have. He was the last to arrive, and that thirty minutes late as well as the youngling that had latched onto him had first refused to let him out of her sight and then hadn’t wanted to be carried to where Plo need to be. Little Ahsoka Tano, as bright in the Force as she was, was at least twice as stubborn. Unfortunately, Plo had a difficult time denying the child anything. She was his foundling, he had brought her to the temple. He would always remember the days they had spent together traveling fondly.

“Master Koon, you are late,” Oppo Rancisis said, though the amusement in his voice was apparent.

“The Force guided me elsewhere,” Plo answered and crossed the last few steps to his chair. Once there, he sat down while Ahsoka stood in front of him still, her arms crossed and frowning as if she were thinking.

“You can sit on my lap if you want, Ahsoka,” Plo told her but the three-year-old only shook her head.

Then she turned around to face the rest of the Council, still undecided on where she now wanted to go. Plo felt just a little betrayed, had he not spent thirty minutes following her wished only to be abandoned like that.

“You!” Ahsoka said, pointing at Saesee Tiin. “I want to sit with you.”

The Iktotchi Jedi only laughed boomingly and opened up his arms in a welcoming gesture. “Well, then, come here.”

With a delighted yell, Ahsoka rushed forward, somehow now twice as fast as she had been when she was holding Plo’s hand, and climbed onto the lap of the other Jedi Master. They waited until Ahsoka was seated comfortably before finally beginning their meeting.

Mace wasn’t quite sure what exactly he was looking at.

“Welcome, Knight Kenobi,” he greeted calmly nevertheless. Then he attempted to continue with “and Pada-“ only for a suspicious giggle to escape out of Obi-Wan’s direction while the Knight himself pressed his index finger to his lips and shushed. He was smiling fondly and looked well rested for once. He must have begun to learn how to cope with Qui-Gon’s death and embrace his own life again.

Mace exchanged a look with his fellow councilors, but they all either shrugged or smiled in amusement as well. Mace supposed they were going to ignore their little visitor then.

“Well, the Council would like to hear about Padawan Skywalker’s progress,” Mace said.

Obi-Wan nodded and gently wrapped one arm around his stomach.

Or, more accurately, the shoulders of the Padawan hiding beneath his outer robes. It looked utterly ridiculous. Jedi robes could hide a lot, but not a nine-year-old standing on his Master’s feet. Anakin must have his arms wrapped around Obi-Wan’s stomach. Mace wondered whether the two of them had walked through the entire temple like this. It had certainly looked well practiced already when Obi-Wan had stepped into the Council chamber.

“Anakin is an amazing student,” Obi-Wan said, still holding onto his Padawan’s shoulders. “Even though he has experienced multiple setbacks-“ His illiteracy when it came to Basic being a major one that Mace knew of “-he has risen above them. He has a very strong connection to the Force and is already doing very well in the grounding exercises I’ve shone him.”

“Very good that is,” Yoda added. “More you have to report?”

Obi-Wan looked thoughtful then his robes seemed to move on their own accord. Obi-Wan actually bent forward so he could listen to whatever Anakin whispered into his ear. Like this, Mace could actually see his blond hair peak out of the brown robes. Obi-Wan whispered something back, making the youngling giggle and finally stood up straight again.

“Anakin has also passed multiple engineering exams already and skipped several piloting classes,” Obi-Wan stated.

“A great Jedi he will be then,” Yaddle commented.

Obi-Wan smiled. “The very best.”

And little Anakin Skywalker, hiding beneath his Master’s robes, let out a sigh of relief.

After all these years, Mace should really be used to the amused looks he got whenever he had a guest accompanying him to his council sessions. Looking back, Mace could freely admit that it had been a mistake to put him on the Council when he was only twenty-eight. It had been a stressful time, especially those two years he had trained Devan and Depa at the same time. It was a Force-damned miracle that Depa had been as self-sufficient as she had been, Mace wasn’t sure he would have managed to handle two Padawans at once otherwise. He had done her a disservice, Devan too, being unable to give them the attention they deserved. Too often had he taken one of them or both along to a Council session as a replacement for a lesson on diplomacy or galactic history he should have given them in person.

It had taught the two of them well however. They were excellent when it came to keeping secrets and Depa had told him more than once that she was a better Councilor because of how often she had sat next to his chair, doing her homework and listening to their discussions.

And much like his Master many years ago, Caleb Dume now sat next to Mace, filling out his homework.

Or, was supposed to be filling out his homework. Caleb had stopped writing a while ago and was instead listening to them. The boy sat incredibly still, forcing himself to appear calmer than he actually was.

“Do you have anything to add, Padawan Dume?” Shaak Ti asked him.

Caleb immediately began to blush, embarrassed that he had been caught.

“No, Master,” he replied, smiling sheepishly. “Sorry, Masters.”

“No need to apologize, young one,” Shaak Ti said. “You can always do your homework later. Treat this like the learning opportunity it is. Don’t you think that is a more productive use of his time, Mace?”

It was, but Mace had promised Depa he would oversee Caleb’s training while she was on a mission much too dangerous for her young charge. He should ensure he actually got his course work done, the current Padawan’s education was already being shot to the dark due to the war.

Caleb looked to Mace, his eyes wide and pleading.

Mace sighed. He knew better than to fight battles he couldn’t win.

“Don’t tell your Master,” he told Caleb seriously, face stern when his voice was everything but.

Ki-Adi-Mundi didn’t enjoy listening to blabbering fools. He downright loathed attending diplomatic missions where one look at the politician in question told you that they were only here for their own gain and couldn’t care less about the people they were supposed to represent. It was exhausting trying to negotiate with such people. It gave Ki-Adi a headache. Thankfully his current Padawan wasn’t much suited for diplomacy. Ki-Adi of course still had to teach A’Sharad basic diplomacy, but it had become clear that it wasn’t A’Sharad’s strength and therefore the number of politicians Ki-Adi had to deal with was limited.

The same, however, could not be said for council sessions.

The Senator from a rather fancy Core World kept inquiring about Jedi aid he very much did not need.

Ki-Adi was tired.

Still listening to the man make the same arguments as he had thirty minutes ago, Ki-Adi focused on looking at the skyline of Coruscant. It was a beautiful day outside and Ki-Adi could think of about a hundred different things he could be doing right now when a shadow passed by the Council window, followed by an excited shout.

All heads shot up just in time to see a second figure pass by the window. This one Ki-Adi did recognize. His Padawan waved quickly before resuming his controlled fall, followed by little Anakin Skywalker. The two Tatooine children were good for one another, no matter how different their cultures of origin were.

“What- what is that!?” The Senator stuttered, face as pale as chalk.

It was the best look he had worn so far.

“Just First flight,” Adi Gallia said with a chuckle. “Ignore them, Senators. The younglings are merely having fun.”

Ki-Adi was pleased to see a group of Initiates and Padawans were following A’Sharad. First flight was a long-standing tradition, a rather ridiculous one as well, watching 10-year-olds throw themselves off the highest points in the temple, but right at this moment it filled Ki-Adi’s heart with warmth. He was happy that despite his troublesome start, A’Sharad got to make the experience most temple-raised younglings did.

The Senator was obviously still in shock. Ki-Adi supposed most cultures didn’t let their children simply jump off high ledges for fun. It took the man a while to find his line of argumentation again, though the shadows passing the windows certainly distracted him.

One by one the children passed until another one jumped and flew by the window that did catch Ki-Adi’s attention. Mainly, because they were much too small to be attempting this yet. With the Force, Ki-Adi reached out to catch the child mid-air. The Mirialan youngling was obviously put out.

“Proceed, Senator,” Ki-Adi said as he rose from his chair to open up the window and pull the child floating mid-air inside.

“Master!” The child pouted. “I wanna fly.”

The Senator did not proceed. For a moment, Ki-Adi considered leaving the council session to bring the youngling back into the creche where they belonged, and yet-

“You’re too young,” Ki-Adi said. “What would cour crèchemaster say…”

“Barriss,” she introduced herself. “I’m Barriss and I’m already six.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Ki-Adi replied. He settled back into his chair, Bariss on his lap. “I apologize, Senator. I hope you don’t mind Barriss staying with us.”

“Of- of course not,” the man stuttered.

The meeting was over five minutes later.

Yaddle was old. Not as old as Master Yoda, no, but she had lived many centuries already. She would be here many centuries more as well, but sometimes she felt particularly old, especially when she was holding a newborn.

Little Cal had been born just a week ago and his mother was tired. Yaddle had offered to take him off his mother for a while so she could calm. Of course, Vatnem’s own Master and sibling-Padawan had offered as well, but Yaddle had missed taking care of someone so young. She should spend more time in the creche like Yoda, perhaps it would brighten her spirits as well.

“A sweet child he is,” Yoda said about the baby sleeping soundly in his crib.

Cal had his mother’s bright red hair and her lungs as well when he screamed, but right now he was absolutely comfortable.

“Not much noise we should make today,” Yoda continued, glancing at Even Piell and Yarael Poof who had very opposing opinions on the discussion at hand.

“Not much noise at all,” Yaddle agreed and didn’t even bother to cover up how fun she thought this whole discussion was bound to be with nobody wanting to wake up the sleeping child.

Anakin looked at the three Councilors standing in front of him. Out of the three of them, only Kit Fisto seemed to be dressed appropriately given that he was wearing only swim trunks. Anakin pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You do know this is art class, right?” He asked.

Luminara was wearing her long dark robes and Aayla looked like she had just come from a mission, dressed for war and not for three-year-olds. But given how chaotic everything could get here, Anakin was willing to just call it a day.

“Okay, fine,” he sighed. “Just don’t complain when you get finger paint all over your robes.”

“Like you?” Aayla asked, pointing at his color covered pants.

“Exactly like me,” Anakin replied. “Which is why I wear these every time I’m doing art. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Then, smiling almost a little mischievously, Anakin turned around back to his Clan. He had two Padawans helping out distributing the paint to the children who were now excitedly waiting for their crèchemaster to allow them to start smearing the paint all over the canvas.

“Attention!” Anakin called and all eyes drew to him. “We have guests today, I want you all to be on your best behavior, alright?”

The children nodded or cheered eagerly, Anakin could spot the first smearing paint on their neighbor’s tunics. This was going to be fun.

#star wars #Anakin Skywalker #obi wan kenobi #plo koon #mace windu #jedi council #fanfic #anyway crechemaster anakin rights #and jedi positivity #mace is a stressed single parent since his twenties

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kestrelmando · 3 years

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Group Therapy - Oneshot

Inspired by this post by thecyndimistuff (@thecyndimistuff ), apollonkondric , and floatingearth about Peli Motto taking Din to a support group for empty nesters post S2.

Warnings/Notes: None, possible a single swear word slipped by. Angsty, introspective Din and space mom Peli Motto taking charge. No romantic pairings, not beta’d please excuse any mistakes until I find them. Couldn’t help to slip a nod my other Mando fic Bird of Prey, Way of War in at the end.

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He’s tried being useful around – what were they calling it now? Fett’s Palace? – the palace; taking stock of weapons and resources left behind by Jabba and Fortuna. Weapons he’s familiar with; taking them apart, servicing them, and testing them gives him something to keep him busy and keep his mind occupied.

He even took to sometimes mirroring Fennec’s imposing, protective place – on the left on Fett, never the right that was Fennec’s earned spot – on the dais when Fett had meetings because no, you should not fuck with the legendary bounty hunter but especially when he’s got a sharp shooting assassin on one shoulder and another infamous bounty hunter clad head to toe in beskar on the other.

He’s done perimeter sweeps with Fennec, who chooses to humor his morose silence, and with Fett, who also allows the silence but is far less indulgent about it. Oh, Fett never calls him out on it. Quite the contrary, bounty hunter to bounty hunter he can read Din like a book and knew from the moment he returned to the Slave that he was not ok. Still wasn’t ok but that doesn’t stop the occasional long drawn sigh from the older man.

All in all, it took a week for Din to be sent to Mos Eisley to ‘pick up supplies’. He wasn’t stupid; he knew Fett could’ve sent anyone working for him to go on a supply run. He initially welcomed the change of scenery before remembering he’d have to travel hours around the Great Mesra Plateau and his only options of landscape were either endless sand or the red rock formations and canyons.

So Din dutifully took a land speeder and set off to Mos Eisley, trying to ignore the repetitive backdrop that allowed him far too much time to think about his foundling and his accidental acquisition of the darksaber with Fett’s warning still ringing in his ears ‘make sure you take that thing with you’.

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The supplies, or rather supply, in question was a tiny compressor part for the climate control unit that could fit in his pocket. The vendor had taken one long look at his beskar and held up a bin of the teeny components after Din asked about it and he was done within half an hour.

…Now what?

He found himself following the by now well-known path to Peli Motto’s hanger. She was familiar territory, she was easy to talk to and almost painfully transparent. Perhaps most importantly in this moment; she wanted nothing from him.

The door to Peli’s outbuilding slid open for him and he wandered in, hands painfully empty, and let the pit droids fuss over him. Tatooine’s hot suns greeted him as he stepped into the hanger bay, eyes scanning for the mechanic. The hanger was empty, no parked ship in sight, and the mechanic was elbow deep in a pile of scrap muttering to herself and passing parts and pieces to a pit droid.

Din smiled under his helmet when she tossed a piece of scrap away from her with a huff and it landed near his feet. She turned her head briefly to see where it landed and then whipped it back towards him, hand flying to her heart.

“Stars Mando!” She sat back on her heels and blew out a breath. The mechanic frowned, “Where’s your ship?” Peli stood, dusting her knees and palms off, and took a few steps towards him with a hand pressed above her eyes to block the suns. She looked him over and then stopped dead in her tracks, “Where’s…where is the baby?”

He felt his throat close around any words he was going to say. Peli’s eyes darted around his body; around his hips for the bag, his feet for the little one to pop out around him at any second. She opened her mouth to say something, her face drawn tight, when he simply couldn’t keep up his stoic façade any longer.

A short hiccup, somewhat garbled by the vocoder of the helmet, slipped out followed by a low keen he couldn’t bear to swallow. Din shut his mouth with a snap, a flush creeping up his neck while his hands closed opened and closed around nothing – empty. Peli’s eyebrows rose in concern momentarily before she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth before slowly extending her hand towards him. Her fingers closed around his elbow, shoulders losing their tense line when he didn’t protest, and guided him back towards the outbuilding.

Din let her steer him to a small table in the corner and ease him into a chair. She disappeared around the corner momentarily and was back with a bottle of boga noga and two small cups. Peli sank into the chair opposite him and poured a couple fingers the Hutt ale. She curled her hands around her drink and looked up at him, face pinched.

“Just tell me first; is he ok?”

He took a deep breath that sounded strained through the beskar, “Yes.”

Peli visibly deflated as her shoulders sagged in relief, “Oh thank the Force.” She muttered before taking a sip of her ale, wincing a bit.

Despite the lump in his throat, he felt the corners of his mouth quirk upwards in the beginnings of a fond grin. Din swallowed, “His name is Grogu.”

She cocked her head, thinking on the name, and smiled. They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes and watched the pit droids scurry about the hanger through the viewport. Eventually, she flicked her eyes back up the Mandalorian and asked, “What happened?”

He paused and wondered if it was safe to tell her more than sparse nonspecific details. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her; quite the opposite she’d shown herself to be a loyal friend and Din had already entrusted Fett and Shand with the whole story. But Peli was different – she wasn’t a fighter. Still, Moff Gideon was in the custody of the New Republic and Grogu was safe with Skywalker. He supposed it was safe enough.

So he laid it all out for her and once he started he found that he couldn’t stop. He talked about the bounty from the remnant Imperials on Grogu and how the kid had saved his life with the Mudhorn, how he took on the task of keeping him safe as his foundling and out of the hands of those who would hurt him and use him. To their short time on Sorgan and how Grogu terrorized the local wildlife, how he was tasked by his alor to reunite him with other Jedi. Din told her of his meetings with the Jedi Ahsoka Tano and Bo-Katan, interspersed with a quick and bastardized history of the Mandalore.

He had to pause when he got to Tython. His voice was caught in a steel trap in his throat.

Din considered the shot of ale and tipped the helmet back just enough to not spill it all over himself before downing it. He immediately understood Peli’s grimace when she sipped on hers; it was sweeter and fruiter than he was used to but it was unbearably strong. His eyes watered at the burn. Her gaze flicked to his exposed chin momentarily before darting away and she finished hers too, coughing a little.

She rose her eyebrows at him and he knew what she was thinking; I didn’t think you were allowed to do that.

He continued quietly – Tython, Grogu’s capture, and the Razor Crest getting destroyed. Din covered Morak as clinically as he could and felt the need to explain a bit more about his creed to the mechanic. She watched him carefully and frowned when he began to get hung up. Din gestured uselessly next to her, “I – it should have been a bigger deal. It should have meant everything but I – the kid –“

Peli gently laid her hand on his forearm. His helmet slowly turned to look back at her but she held her ground and patted his arm. Din pressed on and spoke of Gideon’s cruiser, the rescue, and his accidental acquisition of the darksaber. He haltingly recounted his goodbye to his foundling and slumped back in his chair when it was over.

The mechanic was silent next to him, her hand light on his arm, before she turned to him thoughtfully. “Mando—“

Why the hell not. “Din. My name is Din.”

“Din, you did what you had to do for the little one.” She looked nostalgic, “Parent’s sacrifice for their kids. You can’t understand it, can’t know what you are willing to do until you have one. He needed you and you stepped up. I don’t claim to know to know much about your people but it sounds like you fulfilled your mission.”

Peli stood then, collecting the empty glasses. “You say you’re out near the Northern Dune Sea? How long will you be here?”

He nodded absently, “No more than a few days. I’m returning to the palace soon—“

She whirled back around horrified, one of the glasses slipping from her fingers, “Jabba’s Palace?”

Din caught it quickly, “Fett’s Palace.”

Peli wasn’t appeased. “Fett? Boba Fett?”

“Yes—“

“That bantha brain owes me money!”

Din chuckled, realizing she more annoyed than afraid. Fett owed her money? That sounded like a story. Peli headed back towards the kitchenette with a huff and Din dutifully followed with the other glass. Peli sighed exasperatedly, “I was the only one willing to work on that ship of his for years! No one else would touch it, it sat in that hanger for years and no mechanic was willing to do any maintenance on it – oh Peli what if he comes back – well, what’s he gonna be more mad about? That someone was poking around keeping it running or that we just let it sit and get taken by the sands?’

She took the glass from him and deposited it in the sink, “I spent five years taking care of that rust bucket! He comes back looking like hell with no credits and says he’ll pay me ‘soon’. When is ‘soon’?”

He didn’t give it a second thought; Fett had given him way more credits than he’d needed to pay for the part and he knew that she would be a good resource for Fett – she wasn’t afraid of him. He reached into his pocket and held the bag of credits out to her. Peli slowly stretched out her hand and took it, inhaling at the weight of it.

“If that doesn’t cover it let me know. I can pass along that you are willing to work on the Slave, it’d be a regular job.”

Peli passed the heavy bag of credits back and forth between her hands, smiling, and then said, “You know…he can wait a little longer.”

---

Why did he agree to this?

Peli turned from the small table housing drinks and snacks and held out a cup of chilled caf to him. Din slowly turned his head and shoulders towards her and, despite not seeing his face, she read his tone.

She frowned, “Oh right.”

The mechanic turned away for a moment, fiddling with something he couldn’t see, and twisted back with a triumphant grin. Peli brandished a long straw and poked him in the shoulder with it when he didn’t move.

“Come on Mando, just take it.”

With a sigh, Din took the straw and caf before reluctantly following Peli into the other room. All the chatter immediately ceased and six pairs of eyes snapped to him as he rounded the corner with her. He didn’t know what he expected, it was the normal reaction to beskar – still his insides felt hollowed out after his talk and something about it stung a little.

Peli, however, paid it no mind and all but dragged him to a seat next to her. The other occupants, some human and some not, stared and waited for an explanation. The mechanic took a bite of her snack, a large cookie, and chewed slowly. She met the confused and frankly frightened looks of the group and took her time to chew and swallow, all the while rolling her eyes at the over the top reaction.

She was never given a reason to be afraid of her Mandalorian, or even Fett despite his reputation, and he’d always been fair and polite. Oh, she knew their reputation – bloodthirsty, ruthless, and unfeeling. But after seeing Mando with the baby, she had done some digging. Tatooine might be in the backwaters of the galaxy but it had a long history and many colorful inhabitants; between the HoloNet and asking around she’d learned a bit.

That child was never in any danger from the Mandalorian, in fact there was scarcely a safer place to be. Mando – Din – had taken him in and done right be him. Still, she knew he had to be uncomfortable in a place like this. She picked a spot facing the door and had already decided on the way in that she’d do the talking.

She brushed the crumbs off her hands, “Sorry we’re late. This is my friend, Mando.” The silence was deafening but she continued, “He doesn’t say much.”

His helmet turned almost unnoticeably towards her and she met his visor. Peli shrugged and rose her eyebrows; am I wrong? The Mandalorian cocked his head in agreement and leaned back into his seat. She sipped her chilled caf and settled in as a human across from them began to speak. She hadn’t brought him here to talk, she brought him here to listen.

He stiffened when she mentioned it back at the hanger, thinking it was a support group for parents whose children had passed on. But when she clarified that it was for parents without their children with them, whether it be they had simply grown up or were temporarily away, he hadn’t seemed any less rigid.

“I – I’m not his father.”

It was the softest she’d ever heard him and she felt her heart clench at the melancholy tone. His fingers twitched anxiously at his sides, opening and closing.

She countered, “You are in all the ways that matter.”

In the end, Mando tentatively agreed to go with her. The pair listened as the group went around with updates or things they did to alleviate the ache of missing their loved ones; some were grown with families of their own, others had moved off-planet, and some were off training at various academies. They talked about how they kept in contact and how they kept busy. Some tended hydroponic gardens, others kept meticulous journals, and still others traveled. He snorted; one sent his alien foundling with a Jedi across the galaxy and took up being a menacing beskar statue behind an infamous bounty hunter who may or may not be the ruler of Mandalore.

Din retreated into his own thoughts, wondering how Grogu was doing with his training. He could almost picture it in his mind; Grogu’s little brow wrinkled in concentration, maybe with his eyes closed if he was really trying, and the Jedi directing him. He imagined the little womp rat chasing – terrorizing – the local fauna and pouting about not being able to eat all the time. Would he still have his mythosaur pendant? Was he happy?

He blinked back to attention when Peli plucked the straw from his fingers and slid it into his caf with a small clink. People were looking at him expectantly, he swallowed nervously before realizing it was actually Peli there were waiting on.

She stood to get another cookie and Mando took the groups distraction to slip the long straw under his helmet. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but a cold drink was too tempting to pass up. Peli settled back in next to him and began to speak, “Well I have some updates,”

Peli broke the cookie in half and continued, “Corjul still hasn’t left Endor. After all that time on Hoth, he just decided that Endor was ‘perfect’ and he volunteered to monitor the shields. I’m not sure there’s much of anything out there but the natives…but he seems happy.”

Din stared under his helmet – Peli Motto had a kid. He supposed it made sense now he thought about it; why else would she be coming to these meetings? The mechanic finished a bite and folded her arms, “I am glad he’s just an analyst, not running around after Empire remnants. “

He sipped at his now lukewarm caf and wondered what her son looked like. Her voice flitted over his head, "Now Briell—“ Din inhaled sharply and his caf slurped loudly through the straw. Two children? Peli glanced at him, amused, “Briell has been settled nicely on Ord Mantell for a while now with her husband. I’m heading there in a couple weeks, my granddaughter is turning two.”

There was a murmur of appreciation from the group, some congratulating and some asking for a holo. He smiled, happy for her. It seemed the meeting was winding down and he took a long drink of his caf to finish it. “And as for Savi—“ Din choked on his caf, coughing and yanking the straw out from under his helmet to press an ineffectual hand against his chest.

Three. Three children Peli Motto had and Din knew nothing about it. Sure, it hadn’t come up in casual conversation, not that he was much of a conversationalist anyway, but certainly it would have come up? Grogu took to her so quickly and he hadn’t really questioned it but now he could see the pieces fitting together. The way she’d fussed over how to hold Grogu, was he getting enough to eat.

“Anyway, Savi is still planet hopping. He sends a holo when he remembers to. Last I heard he was heading to Coruscant to stay with a friend who’s a lobbyist. Still trying to ‘find himself’.” Peli patted his shoulder, “I’ve got this one to keep me busy and he just hooked me up with a steady new client.”

He took Peli’s cup and his own, following her nodded direction, and went to clean them. It was a simple kitchenette and he used as little of the moisture farmed water as he could to wash them out. His mind wandered again and he palmed the metal knob in his pocket; Fett, in between gasping peals of laughter, telling him that he knew exactly who the Jedi was and that Grogu would be safe with him. He wondered if the kid was pulling all kinds of things out of the air by now – Din smiled – he was going to be a menace once he could grab whatever he wanted regardless of where it was.

Peli’s head poked around the corner, “Hey Mando, you ready to head back?”

The Mandalorian nodded and followed his friend back onto the dusty streets of Mos Eisley. They walked in companionable silence, Din’s head on a swivel watching the road as the twin suns began to set. He fingered the comm unit in his pocket, wondering for the umpteenth time when Skywalker was going to contact him about Grogu’s progress. The man said he’d be allowed to visit, that he wasn’t a believer in separating families but still Din wondered.

“You know, Mando, you’re allowed to miss him and be proud of him.” Peli said next to him.

He looked down to her, “Am I?”

She sighed and stuffed her hands into her pockets, “Yeah. My kids all left Tatooine to do bigger, better things. Of course I miss them, sometimes I miss them more than I can stand but I’m so proud of them. I couldn’t hold onto them forever but it doesn’t mean they are gone for good.”

Din sighed, “I understand that. But he’s – he’s so young what if he doesn’t remember me? What if he’d rather stay with his teacher forever? What if—“

Peli grabbed his elbow, stopping them just outside of her hanger. “He adores you, Din. Anyone can see it, he won’t forget you. He’ll do what he needs to and then you and him will decide what’s next. It isn’t forever.”

He blew out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding and swallowed the lump in his throat. It isn’t forever, we will decide what to do next. Din followed her into the outbuilding and stopped when he caught the mischievous look on her face. He slowly tilted his head at her, almost afraid to ask.

“You’ve done me a favor with Fett, Mando. I might have a ship you’d be interested in.”

#thecyndimistuff #apollonkondric #floatingearth #the mandalorian #din djarin #peli motto #grogu #star wars #a clan of two #clan mudhorn #kestrelmando #the mandalorian fic #din djarin fic #din and grogu

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purplesauris · 3 years

Text

Now Comes The Tide

Din is very unused to being around someone who's mastered the Force, and who seems intent on bothering him with it constantly. Said Jedi seems wholly unaware.

I am out of CONTROL and no one can stop me

Read it on AO3 here!

The first time that Din had felt the power that radiated off of Luke he'd been overwhelmed. It was such a foreign concept to him, for someone to feel, for all intents and purposes, like he was everywhere. The worst part was that Luke didn't even seem to realize the way Din shivered whenever Luke used the Force, the way he felt each grip of his armor as he was sent flying back like the gentlest of caresses. Din had no clue if he was supposed to feel this way, to feel so intimately the pull of Luke's power, but it left his nerves frazzled when the onslaught of Luke's attention never stopped.

It was worse when Din took his armor off- there was no protective layer between him and the outside world, and every time Luke walked past him or reached out Din's toes curled in his boots. The same feeling didn't apply to having seen Ahsoka or Grogu use the Force- it seemed inherently tied to Luke somehow, as if the way Luke manipulated the Force resounded so deeply within Din that he couldn't keep his thoughts straight. It was very rapidly becoming a problem, one that Din didn't know how to solve without breaking down and shouting at Luke to keep his hands to himself.

So he'd taken his supply run a week early, if only to hide away in his ship where the only pressure around him was the constant ebb and flow of recycled air filling the cabin. There was only one other person he knew who knew even a smidgeon about Jedi aside from Ahsoka herself, and Din did not fancy tracking her down to ask stupid questions that she would only smirk at, the same way she had when Din had asked about Grogu so long ago. So he went to the next best source- a bounty hunter who had captured Luke no less than two times, and was grinning, smug as can be when Din came trudging into his base on Tatooine.

"Mand'alor."

"Fett." Din looked around the room he'd descended into, taking in the blaster marks on the wall that showed him obvious signs of a recent fight. "Redecorating?"

"Adds a certain charm." Din snorts, as if that's what you'd call it, and Boba’s voice is amused, that same grin on his face. “You’re a week early.”

“We were running low.”

“On patience?” Din tenses, trying to hide the way his fingers twitch, but Boba is observant and he only chuckles. “What did your Jetii do now?”

Din glances at Fennec, perched on the arm of Boba’s throne, the woman’s eyebrows going up for a moment before she sighs, rolling her eyes. She rises from her spot, taking her rifle with her as she disappears somewhere deeper within the facility to give them privacy. “What do you know about him and his… powers?”

“Not much.” Boba leans back in his chair, fingers tapping against the arm in a slow, steady drumming that puts Din on edge. “He’s strong, a skilled fighter.”

“I know that. What I don’t know is-” Din cuts himself off, gritting his teeth, and Boba tilts his head. “I don’t know why I’m- reacting.”

“And you came here... To ask me?” Boba talks slowly, as if parsing out why Din would want to come here in the first place. Boba scrutinizes him with new eyes, tilting his head in such a distinctly familiar way that Din feels like he could be looking in a mirror. “You don’t react to Grogu, do you?”

“No. Not- this way.” Boba laughs then, shaking his head and covering his face with a gloved hand. Din feels as if the laughter is directly aimed at him, more than at the situation, and Din clenches his hands into fists. "I didn't come to-"

"I know why you came, Mand'alor, but I don't have answers. You'll have to ask Skywalker." Boba rises from his throne at last, broad form filling the room as he steps heavily down off of the dais. "Has he told you anything about being force sensitive?"

"I'm not force sensitive." Din shoots back, frowning when Boba inclines his head, brows raising. It only serves to fuel Boba's amusement, and he sighs heavily, clapping Din on the back.

"Go home, Mand'alor. Secretive as he may be, you've got the last Jetii wrapped around your pinky finger. Use that." Boba's expression has turned serious, and Din scowls within his helmet. "Make sure you get supplies though, or he'll think you were running away."

"Fuck off, Fett." Boba's booming laughter follows Din all the way back to the Razor Crest. Boba is right, though, of course he is, and Din really did mean for it to be a supply run, so he works through it like he always does. He hunts Luke's tea down, finds something that looks fluffy and soft for Grogu to play with, and takes a few bounties just to work his frustration out.

So what if they come back a bit more bruised than usual? So what if Din is a bit more silent when he drops them off and collects his credits? Cara and Karga know better than to comment on his foul mood, the former instead taking him out to the lava flats and affectionately beating the shit out of him. Din hasn't had a hand to hand fight without Luke's powers getting in the way in so long that fighting Cara now seems slow- predictable. Cara seems surprised by his newfound skill, but still manages to toss him like a sack of grain, Din hitting the ground and staying there, laughing like a fool. Cara collapses on the ground next to him, bumping her shoulder against his pauldron. Her chest rises with her own uneven breaths, broken by her laughs, and she's still chuckling when she talks.

"Remember Sorgan?"

"Mhmm."

"That widow was super, super into you."

"She was nice." Din agrees, Cara snorting next to him and continuing her thought.

"Why does everyone you meet fall in love with you? Is it the fact that you can fight?"

"You in love with me, Dune?"

"Very funny, Mando." Din snickers quietly, turning his head when he feels Cara shift next to him. He finds her watching him, eyes narrowed, and Din sits up, suddenly feeling vulnerable laying on the ground the way he is. Cara doesn't move, watching him as a smile grows over her face. "Have you ever fallen in love? Before Skywalker?"

"If I say yes, will you believe me?"

"Not a bit." Din bobs his head in a nod, as if that makes sense, and Cara sits up, smile fading into something softer. "He's good for you. You laugh more than you used to."

“Maybe you’re just funnier.” Cara laughs, but Din can’t deny that he feels… Happier. With Grogu and Luke he feels like he has a purpose, like he’s more than a faceless bounty hunter scraping by. He has a home, a clan to go back to, and that thought sobers him. He’s never dreaded being away from Luke, enjoyed being able to go out and get what they didn’t have, but he misses him. It’s an itch he can’t scratch, the lonely ache in his chest when he’s gone, but it makes going home, seeing the look on Luke’s face that much sweeter. Which he should be doing, he realizes. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Yeah, me too. Duty calls.” Cara rises to her feet first, holding out a hand and hoisting Din to his feet. Din tightens his grip on her hand, standing there for a moment. Cara grips his hand tighter in response, smiling and letting him go when his grip loosens. She shoos him off in the direction of the port while she heads the opposite way, and Din’s trip back home is spent in quiet contemplation.

He still has no idea what is going on with him, with Luke’s power, but there aren’t any other options other than talking to him about it. It shouldn’t seem like such a daunting task, but how do you tell the man you’re very much in love with that his powers do weird things to you without ruining the relationship? Din supposes he could just be straight forward about it, like he is everything else, but his cheeks burn already just thinking of the admission. Din will just have to buck up and face that conversation when the time comes, because the planet they call home is rapidly approaching, and soon Din is too busy with landing the ship and unloading to think much more about it.

Luke is waiting for him at the edge of the city, Grogu balanced on his shoulder, little hands in his hair as Luke floats rocks in a circle above his head. Din’s heart goes fuzzy at the sight, and the closer he gets the more the feeling of Luke washes over him. It’s a pleasant, buzzing warmth under his skin, one that Din didn’t realize he’d missed, and he adjusts the heavy pack against his back.

“Did you see me come in?”

“Sensed you. Everything go okay?” Din hums noncommittally, closing his eyes when Luke reaches out to cup the back of his neck, drawing him in and pressing his forehead to the cool metal of Din’s helmet. This close with Luke’s fingers on the back of his neck, twitching in time with the rocks orbiting them, Din feels an echo of what Luke must feel all the time. An unearthly, groaning abyss of something around him, permeating the air in layers that never quite let up. Din steps back, Luke’s hand falling away, and he can breathe again, eyes opening in time to see a curious expression flit over Luke’s face.

“Hungry?” Din asks, desperately wanting to shatter the fragile thing lingering in the air.

“For your cooking? I think I could settle.” Luke grins, wincing when Grogu pulls his hair, gurgling happily and reaching for his father. Din chucks him gently under the chin, voice fond.

“Yeah kid, me too. Let’s go home.”

-*-

Din really, really doesn't know how to start this particular conversation. Grogu is down for the night, snoring loud enough to wake the dead, and Din has finally let himself somewhat relax. He’s got Luke up on the counter, or rather, Luke had seated himself on the counter while Din cleaned up, and Din hadn’t let him down since. Din leans into the fingers in his hair, eyes closed as Luke trails kisses over his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose, his forehead. The feeling of Luke’s hands or lips on his face is a novelty he still hasn’t gotten over, and Din can tell he’s grinning when Luke bumps their foreheads together.

“You’re thinking.” Luke prods, Din leaning harder into his touches. “Have been since you got home.”

“Your jetii mind powers tell you that?” Luke snorts, pressing a soft kiss to Din’s mouth before cupping his cheeks, thumbs pressing lightly under his chin to tip Din’s head back. Din blinks his eyes open, locking eyes with Luke, who wears a soft frown on his face.

“They don’t have to. What’s eating you, Din?”

“Nothing.” Din’s stomach twists uneasily at the sad twitch of Luke’s lips, but he leans forward, kissing him without thinking and smiling when Luke softens under his hands, a hand sliding into Din's hair to hold him close. Din doesn’t pull away to talk, letting his lips brush against Luke’s with every word. “I have… to figure out how to say it.”

He expects Luke to protest, or argue, but Luke hums against his lips and smiles. “Okay.” Din makes a noise, a question, and Luke’s smile grows wider. “We’re adults, Din, I can wait until you’re ready to talk. For now, how about we spar?”

“It’s pitch dark outside.”

“That’s never stopped us before.” Luke points out, and well… He does have a point. Anticipation curls in Din’s gut at the thought, and he takes a step back, letting Luke slide off the counter, straightening his clothes and brushing a hand through his hair to let it fall back over his forehead. Din grabs his helmet on the way to the door, slipping it on and swallowing so his ears will pop as the pressure regulates. He allows himself a moment to pop in and check on Grogu, but he’s sleeping away, clutching the new toy that Din had brought back with him.

Din shivers when cold, firm pressure curls around him, and he stalks outside where Luke waits just inside the treeline, wagging his fingers mockingly and grinning when Din draws his blade. He’s used to the intense, fevered glow of the darksaber by now, and the green glow from Luke’s saber is a welcome sight, even muted by his visor. Din walks in a slow, even circle around Luke, watching and waiting for the telltale roll of Luke’s wrist right before he gets serious. He watches, and he waits, shivering when the feeling of Luke’s power swells, latching onto him with singular focus as Luke lunges for where he’s about to take a step.

Din is expecting that, though, darksaber already in place to intercept the blow, and Luke’s eyes flicking up to his as sparks rain from their blades. Din pushes back, shoves into Luke’s space and pushes him onto the defensive. It’s probably a mistake to do so so soon after their match has begun, but Din is fueled by the fire that rages through him when Luke fights, eyes flicking back and forth, tracking Luke’s movements as their sabers meet over and over again in showers of sparks that sizzle against his chest piece.

Luke pushes harder now, using his powers to throw Din off balance, to test his limits of what he can fight against while trying to gain the upper hand at the same time. Din’s hands are steady around the hilt of his saber even when the rest of him shivers and twitches with each brush of Luke’s power. It’s easy for Din to lose himself in the feelings of fighting, the shuffling of his feet and the way his heart pounds in his chest as he leans back, narrowly avoiding a lightsaber to the side of the head.

“Watch it.” He barks, glaring when Luke grins sheepishly and adjusts his angle. His helmet can take as much as his armor can, but his neck is semi exposed and Din doesn’t want to lose his head.

“You can stop, if you want.” Din growls at that, because that isn’t what he meant, but the firm hand of Luke’s power clamps down on him, dragging him forward as Din brings his sword up, letting it hiss and spit against Luke’s shield as Luke’s hand brushes over his hip. The touch is quick, fleeting and gone, but Luke’s handprint lingers like a brand, and when Din tries to take a step back, jerking against Luke’s influence his power surges up around Din, raking over his skin in fluid waves of ecstasy. A gasp escapes him before he can help it, loud and raw, and Luke’s lightsaber dies out abruptly. A hand wraps around Din’s, thumb finding the button on the hilt and retracting the blade of the darksaber as Din’s head empties out. “Din-”

Another wave of feeling cascades over Din then and he takes a step back, sweeping Luke’s legs out from under him in one smooth movement. Luke goes down with a shout and Din is on top of him before he can move. His beskar digs unforgivingly into the soft parts of Luke’s body but Luke doesn’t seem to care, struggling against him, fingers digging into the padding of Din’s hips. Din presses down, trying to pin his hands, but Luke’s legs come up behind him, hips shoving up and throwing Din off balance. Din topples forward, hands slapping the dirt on either side of Luke’s head as Luke’s arms wrap around him, rolling them over and over until Din’s head is spinning and Luke’s got his back pressed into the dirt.

Din struggles against Luke’s hold, knowing that they’re just about as easily matched as they can be, but phantom hands clamp down on his ribs, keeping him in place as Luke moves, shoving Din’s legs apart in favor of fitting himself between them. Luke stares, blue eyes wide and dark in the low light filtering through the trees, and Din’s back arches uselessly off the ground when Luke’s power flushes through him, heat pooling between his legs and lips parting as he chokes on a keening cry of Luke’s name. The lock on Din’s helmet pops hard enough for Din to feel it, and Din rips it off himself, pulling in huge, gulping breaths of air as Luke leans over him.

Din hardly has a chance to breathe between the onslaught of phantom touches tracing every inch of him and Luke kissing him senseless, but he doesn’t care. He buries a gloved hand into Luke’s hair and twists the strands between his fingers, lapping into his mouth and groaning when Luke presses his hips forward. “Luke-”

“That’s what you were thinking about.” Luke breathes, pulling back just enough to look at the way Din’s cheeks flush.

“It’s not-”

“Don’t lie, Din, it doesn’t feel nearly as nice as this does.” Luke rolls his hips forward, drawing another gasp from Din’s lips and grinning when Din presses his thighs tight to Luke’s sides. “Is that why you left early?”

“Yes- no- you won’t stop touching me.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Luke tilts his head, considering, but Din’s hand drops to grab weakly at his hip, tugging him forward, and Luke rolls his hips again, giving Din just an instant of friction.

“I can- can feel whenever you- do your magic thing. It's distracting." Luke huffs out a laugh, and the reprimand that it isn’t magic is on the tip of his tongue, Din can tell, but Luke tilts his head suddenly. His brow furrows just a bit, determined, and Din’s hips buck up off of the forest floor when concentrated feeling brushes over his cock. Din's breath goes funny almost immediately, odd, hiccupy gasps, and his fingers dig into Luke's hip. “Luke-”

“So sensitive.” The Jedi purrs, leaning down and kissing along the edge of his jaw. Din arches his neck, whimpering, and Luke latches on, sucking soft marks into the sweat lined skin Din bears for him. “Should have told me about this before, Din. What fun we could have had.”

“Telling you now-” Din’s thigh jerks, and Luke laughs huskily as Din’s breath chokes off in his throat, whole body going taut as he comes. Din can feel Luke smiling against the column of his throat, but whatever control Luke is exerting only gets worse, dragging along the sensitive bud until Din is writhing, trying to both get away from the sensation and chase it. “I need- I-”

“I’ve got you. Tell me what you want, Din, I’ll give it to you.” Din brings both hands up to grab at Luke’s hair, dragging him into a wet, messy kiss that he can only half focus on. He doesn’t know how to articulate what he wants past the hot, insistent ache between his thighs, but Luke has never truly needed words when Din wants something bad enough. Luke groans against his lips, kissing him hard before pulling back, pressing their foreheads together in an effort to get Din to concentrate. Brown eyes so dark they look black bore into blue, and Luke’s eyelids flutter before he looks back down at Din. “You’re sure?”

Din nods frantically, tilting his head to nip at Luke’s lower lip, and Luke snatches at Din’s hip just to have something to hold on to. The first phantom press of Luke’s power against Din’s hole has Din groaning, and when Luke allows that feeling to press in, to slowly and surely spread him wide Din’s head falls back against the ground with a thud. His whole body quakes under Luke’s, hips rolling down uselessly into the sensation of Luke using his powers for something decidedly inappropriate. Luke pauses, breath shuddering from his throat, and Din moans, muffled when Luke kisses him, trapping the sound between the two of them as Luke’s hand draws back, the phantom feeling drawing back as well.

It makes Din whine, being empty, but then Luke is pressing back in, deeper and more insistent and Din sees stars. Heat rockets through him with each shove of Luke’s power opening him up and keeping him full, and Din loses track of time completely. It’s a feeling he’s never had before, being so completely full yet knowing that Luke isn’t moving a muscle. It’s too hot for him to feel any kind of shame, and he groans when Luke pops the button to his fly, tugging the zipper down and shoving his hand past the layers of his clothes. “Luke-”

“I can only focus on one- fuck you’re wet-” Din laughs breathlessly at the first slick slide of Luke’s thumb against his cock, the laugh petering off when Luke’s power surges, pressing up harder into him and making him clench down. Din bites down on his lower lip to try and dampen the noise, not wanting to be loud, but Luke’s free hand comes up, thumb snagging his lip from between his teeth. “Don’t hide- don’t-”

Din moans out loud, unable to help himself, and Luke’s thumb slips into his mouth, pressing against his tongue and dragging over his teeth. Din tries to wrap his lips around the appendage and suck but Luke presses his thumb in, Din choking softly until he lets his jaw go slack. Luke eases his thumb back, letting Din flick the tip of his tongue over the pad of his thumb while moaning lewdly. It’s shockingly loud in Din’s ears, his cheeks heating in embarrassment, but Luke moans right along with him, shaking in between his legs and other thumb speeding up on his cock. Din whines, trying to warn him, but Luke’s only focus is on him, on the wet warmth of him and keeping his power firmly filling Din up. Din’s body can’t tell whether the sensation is warm or cold, but it doesn't seem to matter much when Luke rubs a tight circle on his cock, thumb applying firm, steady pressure that sends Din careening over the edge for the second time in the span of only a few minutes.

“Good?” Luke whispers, hand stilling once Din whines at the overstimulation. Din nods, but his skin is still crawling with need and he only has one thought in mind.

“Want you in me.” Luke swears under his breath, a rather colorful word that makes Din wheeze out a laugh. Luke draws both his hands off of Din to wrestle with his clothes, unlatching Din’s thigh plates and yanking his pants down his hips. Din helps as much as he can, shoving his boots off and letting them fall somewhere in the dirt behind them and then twisting so Luke can yank his pants down off his legs, tossed to the ground somewhere near them. Luke hurries to get the fly of his own pants undone, but he doesn’t have to remove anything, just pulling his cock out and groaning at the first touch.

Din goes up on an elbow, watching with heavy lidded eyes as Luke strokes himself a few times, smearing the precum that gathers at the tip. Din lets his legs fall open wider, other hand sliding down to spread his lips, and Luke’s eyes flick down to watch with interest. “You’re gorgeous.”

Din scoffs, but his chest is warm with affection and he smiles when Luke shuffles forward, kissing him sweetly. Luke’s hands pet over his hips as he lifts him to settle easier in his lap, thighs tucking under Din to support him. It’s a bit weird to have all the rest of his armor on still, but he’s sufficiently distracted when Luke grinds his hips forward, slipping through the slick that’s made a mess of his thighs. “Oh.” Din gasps out when Luke angles his hips, pressing in slowly yet steadily. The phantom fucking that Din experienced earlier was definitely cold, because the hard, insistent filling of Luke’s cock burns in the best way. “Oh- LukeLukeLuke-”

Din’s hips lift of their own accord, easing the angle, and he’s so sinfully wet that Luke slides in faster than he means to, pressing to the hilt and voice cracking on a moan. Din shakes, clenching down on the length of him, and Luke pitches forward, forehead pressing into Din’s collarbone as his hips snap forward, forcing a loud, breathy noise from Din’s throat. Luke braces one hand next to Din’s ribs while the other grabs at his hip, steadying him as he breathes in slowly through his nose, letting it out through his mouth moments later. “You’re tight, I-”

Luke’s words strangle in his throat when Din purposefully squeezes down around him, hips rutting forward messily. Luke is gorgeous and amazing like this, eyes firmly shut and jaw clenched in concentration as a moan falls from his lips, and Din can't help but stare. "You can move." Din teases, smirking when Luke peeks an eye open to glare down at him. "Really, I won't bre- ah-k!"

Din nearly eats his own words right there when Luke pulls back, slamming his hips home and grinding hard against him. Din tightens around him in response and Luke groans, hand sliding down over Din's thigh to hitch his leg higher. It changes the angle just enough to skate over that delightful little spot inside of him, and Din sighs Luke's name. Done with the teasing, Luke finds his rhythm easily, thrusting into Din in long, even strokes, pressing deep enough each time that Din's thighs quiver around him.

Din feels hazy in a way he hasn't in a while, unable to think of anything other than the way that Luke feels in him, feels between his thighs, pressed so deep inside of him that he sees white. Din can feel when Luke loses his careful focus, rhythm going wonky and fingers twitching uselessly against Din's thigh. While he's still working toward Din's own pleasure his is rapidly approaching, and Din's heart swells at the careful attention Luke pays him. Here he is, having come twice already, and Luke is still trying to make him go again. Luke's eyes snap to his, half wild when Din very firmly thinks of what he wants, and Luke's nodding his head without really seeing, hands moving to grab at Din's ribs and haul him up. Din sits up, carefully shuffling his thighs and settling heavily in Luke's lap. The new position presses Luke deeper inside him still, making his toes curl, and he moans when Luke's hands grab at his ass, blunt fingernails digging in. Din grips Luke's shoulders as he lifts his hips, dropping them down as Luke thrusts up, carving hard into him and fucking him open. Din presses their foreheads together, panting and occasionally trying to kiss him before their rhythm forces him to pull back again.

"So good for me, fuck I love you-" Din grins then, tightening when he drops down and basking in the needy whine that drifts from Luke's lips. "So much- love you so much-"

"Come, Cyar'ika." Din whispers, listening as Luke whimpers, nodding jerkily as he fucks up desperately, groaning and hands sliding down a bit on Din's ass to spread him wider. Luke doesn't last after that command, eyelids fluttering shut as he presses up, hips stuttering and grinding up in small, tight thrusts as warmth paints Din's insides. Din's eyes roll back in his head at the feeling and he sags heavily in Luke's lap, keeping him pressed deep as he slots their lips together.

It takes Luke a few seconds to catch on, one arm shifting to lock around Din's hip and hold him still while his hips roll up, fucking his own mess into Din and chasing the last dregs of his release. Luke's other hand slips between them, wrist cramping as he traps Din's cock between two knuckles, letting Din grind up into his hand and whine against his lips. His movements are lazy the entire time, placated, and Luke takes his time tasting the moans that Din lets free while working himself between Luke's fingers. His third orgasm is nowhere near as all enveloping as his first two, just a hazy warmth that bleeds through him and makes him throb around Luke, finally settling as Luke pulls his hand back to hug him close to his chest.

The beskar makes it a bit odd to press closer, an unnecessary barrier, but Luke acts as if it isn't there at all, hands wandering over Din's back plate and occasionally brushing a clump of grass from his cloak. Luke eventually just tucks his face into Din's neck, seemingly dozing with Din in his lap. Din has almost drifted off himself, warm and happy when Luke speaks, voice groggy. "How long?"

"How long what?"

"Have you felt me manipulating the force?"

Din hums, shrugging and leaning his head against Luke's. "Couldn't pinpoint an exact day. After we kissed the first time. Every time after that."

"So when we spar you…"

"Most of the time. Sometimes I can drown it out, like I would an injury."

Luke scoffs, but it's playful, and Din shivers when Luke's fingers trace idle patterns over the small of his back, just under the edge of his back plate. "Thanks Din, so glad to know it's an injury."

"You try being hard all the time." Is all he says back, Luke laughing and conceding the point. "I was afraid of what it means. It- doesn't happen with anyone else."

"Good." Luke says, a note of possessiveness coloring the edge of his voice. "You're sensitive to those you care about. If that person just so happens to be a force user it- creates a unique kind of feedback loop."

"You knew this would happen?"

"Nu uh. Read about it once, in an old text. We aren't supposed to have attachments, so it never seemed prudent. I couldn't be sure you even knew what was happening half the time we talked without me actually speaking."

"That isn't part of the force that's just…"

"You being sensitive." Luke kisses Din's neck gently, breath warm across Din's skin. "It's different with us. You aren't just guessing- you know, even if your waking brain doesn't. You used it earlier, to tell me what you wanted."

Din's cheeks flush at the memory, but Luke is entirely earnest, sitting back to look Din over carefully. He must like what he sees because the blonde man grins, Din's cheeks flushing darker as his face pulls into something resembling embarrassment. Hiding his expression is something Din is woefully bad at, and he knows every twitch of his face betrays him, how he's feeling. Luke's hands smooth over his hips, thumbs pressing into the line of his hip bones, and Din turns to frown at him, brows twitching upward.

"Don't tell me you want to go again." He deadpans, Luke's lips quirking in a small, teasing smile.

"Mm, tempting, but I was more thinking of going to take a shower." Luke's thumbs don't stop their slow, even press and Din shivers, shoving lightly at Luke's chest and lifting himself up out of Luke's lap. He's expecting the mess that standing will make, but Luke's fingers shift and Din gasps as cool pressure fills him up, fingers digging into Luke's shoulders. Luke's hands slip down to cup the sides of his thighs and he leans forward, placing a soft kiss on the skin below Din's belly button.

"Luke." Din's voice is sharp, a warning more than anything, and Luke hums, placing one last soft kiss before rising to his feet as well. Din doesn't particularly want to get redressed, but he is not walking his bare ass into the house in fear that Grogu is awake, so he shoves his legs back through his pants, leaving them unbuttoned. Luke has his boots and thigh plates in hand already while Din pads over to where his helmet was discarded, scooping it up and tucking it under his arm. Luke holds out his free hand, wagging his fingers until Din rolls his eyes and takes his hand, allowing himself to be led inside to their now shared room. Luke drops off Din's stuff and turns to strip him of the rest of his armor. "I can undress myself."

"What am I supposed to do then?"

"Undress yourself." Luke scoffs at the idea, waving his hand, and Din rolls his eyes again. Once his armor is off Din drags Luke to the refresher, stripping himself out of his clothes while the water heats. Din is standing there, arms crossed over his chest, watching Luke undress when he sees Luke's fingers move, just a small crooking of his fingers. Din shudders, hand shooting out to grip the edge of the sink as the pressure inside him fades, and Din's cheeks heat at the way come drips onto his thighs. Din stands resolutely by the sink even when Luke slips into the shower, willing the strength back into his knees and only moving when he's sure he isn't going to fall over.

"Coming?" Luke calls, peeking his head out of the shower and snickering at the glare Din levels his way.

"You're an ass." Luke hums, cheeky grin on his face, and he holds a hand out, allowing Din to clutch onto it as he takes a step over the edge of the tub. Luke turns them immediately so Din can be under the warm water, regardless of the way he shivers, skin already wet. Din tips his head back, letting the water slick his hair back and paste it to his temples.

Despite Luke's teasing and general cheekiness his movements are tender as he helps Din wash up, occasionally leaving light, chaste kisses on the slope of his shoulders just to have an excuse to be close. Din basks in the attention afforded to him, and he's all too happy to do the same, hands mapping over the scars lining Luke's body and working soap through his hair. Luke's hair is longer, finer than his, and while Din's hair stands up with no prompting Luke's falls around him in loose waves, curling at the nape of his neck.

By the time that they finally make it out of the shower Din is half asleep on his feet, shuffling along behind Luke back to the bedroom. He can still hear Grogu snoring away on the other side of the house, so he doesn't feel bad when he collapses onto the bed, letting Luke manhandle him until the both of them fit nicely under the covers.

"So," Luke begins as Din is just beginning to drift off again. "Is this an every time thing?"

"Go to sleep, Luke."

"I'm just asking!" Luke says defensively, laughing when Din digs his fingers into Luke's ribs to make him squirm. "Fine fine, but you have to tell me in the morning."

-*-

Din is pleasantly sore when he wakes up the next morning, just a faint ache between his legs that he enjoys more than he should. The sun hasn’t risen yet, light barely straining to lighten the sky, but Din feels too awake to go back to bed. Instead he goes up on an elbow, glancing down at Luke’s sleeping form. He sleeps spread out, much like a star, wholly unused to sharing a bed with anyone and taking up as much space and blanket as he can. Din on the other hand, is used to sleeping in tight quarters, and it’s all too easy to tuck himself in the space that Luke does leave for him. Which seems to be growing with every night they spend tangled together.

Luke’s face is young, devoid of the usual calculating look or serene expression he wears at all times if he can help it. He’s so wildly expressive when he wants to be, quick to frown or grin and make a joke, but Din feels… Emptiness sometimes. Like the feelings that Luke wears are more like a shield, rather than actually being his. Din doesn’t know much about Luke’s training as a Jedi, and is still learning about his past, but Luke had mentioned more than once that Jedi weren’t supposed to have attachments. That they made them weak, susceptible to the dark side that Luke always seemed so serious about. But here now, Din doesn’t feel weak.

Din finds himself touching Luke, gentle and easy, tracing along the scars on his chest and dipping down to follow their jagged, racing edges with his lips. One scar drifts under his nipple, so close that Din can’t help the way he detours to flick his tongue over the bud, smiling when Luke shifts, chest rising with quicker breaths. Din doesn’t stay there long, not quite wanting Luke to wake up and say something that he thinks is funny so early in the morning. He just wants to touch him, to let his hands drift, fingers trailing the bumps of his ribs that become apparent when Luke breathes in. Din sits up further now, moving slowly so as not to disturb Luke too much, and he skims his hand over the plane of his chest, up toward his shoulders and down one arm, over his bicep and finally stopping to cup his forearm.

Luke’s arms are impressive, corded with muscle but not enormous like Boba- There’s an inherent delicacy in Luke’s form that betrays the strength hidden there, and Din enjoys it immensely. He knows that Luke leans into the look, in letting people underestimate him the same way that Din’s armor and presence demand more. Din places his hand on Luke’s stomach, watching the way that Luke twitches when Din drags his fingers over the lean muscle.

“You’re affectionate.” Din hums when Luke speaks, voice groggy and eyes still closed. Din doesn’t bother stopping even knowing that Luke is awake, but now that he is awake Din’s hand drifts lower. Luke makes a soft noise at the soft brush of Din’s knuckles against the insides of his thighs, Din nudging his legs a bit further apart. Luke shuffles his legs at Din’s insistence, and Din presses his thumb into the crease of Luke’s thigh and hip, huffing a laugh at the way that Luke’s hips shift. He does it again and sees Luke’s stomach clench, flexing as his breathing goes funny. “Din, you know what that does to me.”

“Mhmm.” Din slips in between Luke’s legs easily while he’s distracted, bringing his other hand up to apply equal pressure to the other side too. Luke’s back arches weakly off the bed at the odd, wobbly feeling that Din made him describe the first time he touched him this way, and Din uses his elbows to keep Luke’s knees from digging into his sides. “We have time before Grogu wakes up.”

“Insatiable.” Din laughs at the way Luke’s voice rasps from him, and Din drops a hand to boldly take Luke in hand, watching the way Luke’s lashes flutter as his hips roll upward. “You’re very far away, Din.”

“Right where I want to be.” Luke’s breath hitches when Din shuffles himself down, left hand smoothing over Luke’s thigh, circling under to tuck his leg up and out. Luke plants his heel in the bed, adjusting himself as Din hums and dips to kiss the soft skin of his inner thigh. Luke croons at the affection, the sound dissolving into a whine when Din nips lightly and then sucks, coaxing a mark to the forefront. Din settles himself down on his front, propped up on his elbows and breath ghosting over the soft curve of Luke’s cock. “You had a question last night.”

“Hmm?” Luke murmurs, hardly seeming to pay attention. Din leans down to lap at the base of Luke’s cock, lips curling in a smile against the soft flesh when Luke gasps.

“Your question, Luke.”

“Ah, shit, umm- what we did last night, with the- ah- force-” Din trails his lips up, letting Luke feel the warmth of his mouth so close while Luke tries desperately to form a coherent thought. Luke seems on the verge of being able to say something when Din takes the head into his mouth, sucking lightly and a hand shooting out to grab at Luke’s thigh, forcing him back into the bed as Luke whines. “You- are impossible-”

Din watches as Luke goes up on his hands, one hand reaching down and fingers threading in Din’s hair. Din hums, bobbing his head in appreciation as Luke’s fingers tighten in his hair. Din looks up as he hollows his cheeks, taking Luke deeper and raising a brow. He lets his thoughts, normally so guarded, flow from him now, and Luke groans, whole body shuddering. Luke’s power rushes up his spine, pooling at the back of his neck and sinking into the base of his skull, vision going dark as Din closes his eyes, swallowing Luke down in earnest.

I want it to be every time. I thought you were uncomfortable around my use of the force, but this whole time- this whole time you liked it.

Luke’s voice is clearer than Din has ever heard it, and Din feels the first cold drag of Luke’s attention against his ass and thighs, raking over his skin. Din can’t do what Luke does, but he tries to show him, to share with him the way that Luke’s powers feel. He thinks about last night, when Luke had grabbed him and overwhelmed him so thoroughly so quickly, and Luke twitches in his mouth, hand tugging on his hair. Din rises with the insistent pull at his scalp, allowing Luke to guide him up and then back down, and Luke huffs out little noises above him, soft and needy in the still of the morning. Din gives him everything he can, thinking about the first time that Luke’s power had excited him, had left him aching and confused and lusting in a way that he was wholly unfamiliar with.

The times in between, when Din was left taking cold shower after shower, trying so desperately to garner back some kind of control until the next echo of Luke’s power sent him reeling again. The warm buzzing that hid under his skin, reaching a crescendo whenever Luke touched him with those strong, talented hands of his.

It never seemed to stop either- Din’s lust was an all consuming thing, a constant want that burrowed in his skin, lit him up from the inside. Din’s mind comes back to him slowly as the pressure at the base of his skull lessens, and he blinks back tears as Luke grinds up into his mouth. He isn’t sure how long he’s been like this, letting Luke see everything while using his mouth, but he can feel his hair sticking to his temples and his jaw has only just begun to ache.

“I didn’t know-” The sound of Luke’s voice, real and rough sends a shock of arousal through Din, and he pulls back, swirling his tongue around the head while Luke tries to speak. It gives him a break, but most importantly it draws the softest moans from Luke, and if Din’s mouth weren’t so preoccupied he’d smile. Instead he sucks particularly hard, chuckling as Luke’s thighs bracket around his head, Din’s hand coming up to keep Luke from squeezing too hard. “Didn’t know it was that way for you.”

Din pops off of Luke’s cock suddenly, surging up onto his knees and crowding into his space to kiss him. His lips are wet and he doesn’t doubt that he tastes like Luke, but Luke throws an arm around his neck and hugs him close, lapping into his mouth as Din wraps a hand around him, creating a tight fist that Luke bucks up into. “It isn’t just the force thing.” Din says, bumping their noses together as he pulls back.

“No?” Din wants him to know, needs him to know, love burning in his chest in time with the pounding of his heart.

Din laughs, bright and stupid and happy, and his wrist twists, drawing a keen from Luke as his hips stutter. “You’re too cocky to pretend you aren’t attractive, Luke.”

“Rude-”

“Stop talking.” Luke scoffs in offense, but Din stops touching him in favor of shoving him onto his back, Luke offering no resistance. Din trails kisses down Luke’s body, occasionally stopping to nip at a spot that makes Luke whimper softly before moving on. Din settles himself back down between Luke’s thighs, and he admires the healthy flush of Luke’s cock, the way it curves proudly up against his stomach. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the sight of Luke spread out like a banquet before him, chest rising and falling and lined with sweat, hair a mess. Luke throbs once Din gets his mouth on him again, and Din can tell he’s close. It seems cruel to keep him in so much suspense, so Din takes him down to the root, swallowing around him and lifting just a bit when Luke’s hips shove upward.

He doesn’t mean to draw back, to make Luke whine, and he soothes hands over Luke’s hips, rubbing at the sensitive junction of his legs in apology. It only takes him a moment to adjust to the weight of Luke on his tongue again, and he allows Luke to fuck up into his mouth, to chase his own pleasure as his hand comes back to grab at his hair. He holds on like without the feeling of Din’s hair in his hands he’ll float away entirely, and Din finds the small tugs whenever Luke presses up just right too attractive to tell him to stop.

Din feels that rush of power push into the base of his skull again, hard and quick, and Din’s hands clench, fingers digging in hard to the meat of Luke’s thighs at the first rush of Luke’s orgasm. He feels, tastes and experiences Luke’s release: his own body sings with it, thighs shaking in tandem with the way that Luke’s do as Din swallows down around him. Din draws back enough to lap at the sensitive spot just under the head of Luke’s cock, groaning at the small taste that he gets in reward as Luke basks in the aftershocks. Din pulls back when he’s able, panting raggedly and wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. His thighs are still shaking, Luke’s pleasure floating through him in lazy waves, and he slips up to lay along the length of Luke’s body, arm around his waist and head pillowed on his shoulder.

He knows that Luke has regained most of his sense when a kiss is pressed into his hair. “That was new.” Din observes, feeling Luke’s laugh echo through his ribcage from where their bodies are pressed together.

“Like it?”

“It was okay.” A rush of affection makes his stomach flop pleasantly when Luke hums, obviously amused but too sleepy to laugh. Luke turns to face Din, resting on his side and skimming his hand up and down Din’s side. The attention is nice, the simple touch warming him, and when Din deigns to open his eyes the sun has finally begun to peak over the horizon, bathing the room in swathes of oranges and yellows. “Just enough time.”

“We have more.” Luke muses, hand sliding down and catching behind Din’s knee. He stops, letting the offer hang in the air, and Din shifts forward, lifting his thigh in answer. Luke maneuvers himself closer, hooking Din’s thigh up and over his hip and dipping his hand lower. It’s a bit of an odd angle to work at, but Luke adjusts easily, hoisting Din up the bed a bit and grinning at the way Din draws in a sharp breath at the manhandling. He chokes on his breath completely at the first brush of Luke’s fingers against him, teasing over the sensitive edges of him before finally, blissfully moving more centrally. The first pass of Luke’s fingers tugs him open, and Din can hear the wet sound that Luke’s fingers make on the second pass, smearing the slick that’s collected in the time that Din was otherwise occupied. “Never get tired of this.” Luke breathes, humming when Din presses his hands to Luke’s chest to anchor himself.

“Sap.” Din murmurs, voice soft. Luke grins, bumping their foreheads together and watching, enraptured at the way Din’s eyebrows pinch at the first press of Luke’s fingers into him. It’s a bit of a stretch to take two at first, even with as desperately as Din wants this, but he hitches his thigh a bit higher, opening himself more as Luke rubs against his walls, crooking his fingers in a come hither motion that has Din’s fingers curling uselessly against his chest. Din’s brain goes fuzzy as Luke thrusts his fingers slowly, curled just enough that every time he pulls back he rubs just right, dragging over the little bump that makes Din’s thighs shake. He hadn’t even thought about himself when he’d woken up this morning- Luke had given him so much last night, had accepted and loved him more than he could ever ask for, but here, pressed chest to chest, breath mingling, Din has never felt more appreciated.

“Can I show you something?” Luke’s voice is soft, hesitant, but Din nods immediately, scratching lightly at Luke’s chest and gasping when Luke presses his fingers up deep, stilling. Din whines, clenching around his fingers, and he’s so distracted by the feeling that he doesn’t register Luke’s power latching onto him again. Din feels a dizzying sense of vertigo, and then he’s sucked somewhere into a memory, an image that’s firmly burned into Din’s mind just as much as it is Luke’s.

It’s the first time they were together, after Din had confessed, when neither of them were sure of each other or what to do. Din remembers the night as being hard and fast, something passionate, and it is, but the way Luke’s hands had held his hips as Din sat astride him, Din’s hands splayed low on Luke’s stomach to brace himself as their hips rocked together… That was love. Luke held him so gently, guided his hips when he lost his rhythm and never asked for more than Din was willing to give. Luke had paid such close attention to him then, always had, and his hands had scorched over Din's skin with each hesitant, shaking touch. Looking at it now Din doesn’t know how he ever thought that this could be fleeting, the all consuming magnetism that drew them together time and time again.

Luke draws him back out of the memory slowly, easing him back to the present, and Din snakes one hand up to cup Luke’s cheek, drawing him in for a shuddering kiss. His hips rock forward against Luke, egging him on, and Luke gives him what he asks for. Luke's touch is gentle, not wanting to hurt him, and Luke curls his fingers again and presses up against his g-spot, rubbing even as Din’s thighs begin to tremble and jerk with each sensation. He’s up on a razor wire and he doesn’t know how long he can last before it snaps, breaths coming faster and faster until Luke presses just right, flicking his tongue against Din’s and sending Din spiraling Din keens into Luke’s mouth, thighs numb, and Luke grins, working him over until he’s sobbing against Luke’s mouth.

“Luke please-”

“You’re okay, Din, breathe.” Din can’t, he can’t even think past Luke’s fingers still buried deep, and Luke groans, rolling Din onto his back and slipping from his arms. Din feels so empty that he clenches weakly, chest rising and falling as he pants, trying to suck in a proper breath. Din doesn’t care if his mind is wide open or if Luke can see the desperate, pained way he’s hanging right on the edge, he wants so badly that Luke being away from him makes him whimper. Din opens his eyes, staring up at the ceiling and trying to get his eyes to focus so he can see where Luke has gone, but then Luke’s fingers are sliding back into him at a new angle and Luke’s clever, wonderful, hot mouth is on his cock, tongue flicking just right- so right-

Din’s hands fly down to grab fistfuls of Luke’s hair as his back arches, and Luke’s mouth and fingers finally snap that wire inside of him. Din chokes on a cry of Luke’s name as he shakes apart underneath him, grinding down against Luke’s lips and gasping when Luke sucks very pointedly. Warmth rushes through him, making his muscles go loose and warm, and he slumps back into the bed, fingers trembling in Luke’s hair every time that Luke’s tongue slides against him in broad, slow licks. Luke is very, very patient, and he doesn't move from between Din’s thighs until Din lets go of his hair, content to use his mouth until Din is ready to be done. Din shifts his hips, wordlessly asking Luke to pull his fingers out, and Luke does so slowly.

“Okay?”

“We’re doing that again.” Din croaks out, Luke laughing and shuffling to sit between Din’s legs. Din traps him between his thighs, not letting him move, but Luke isn’t planning on going anywhere, blue eyes dark with lust as he slips his fingers into his mouth, sucking the mess from them as Din groans at the sight.

“You only have to ask.”

“Why is this the first time I got your mouth?”

“Wasn’t sure if you were comfortable with it.” Luke says, but there’s something different about him, a sort of confidence that wasn’t there before. “You showed me- a lot, when you were distracted earlier. What you liked, what you thought about when you were- frustrated.”

Both Din and Luke know that isn’t the word either of them would use, but it makes affection bubble in Din’s chest all the same. He reaches out for Luke, pulling until Luke’s weight rests fully on top of him before he kisses him, muttering against his lips. “Make note for next time.”

“Next time?"

"You could use more practice with your mouth." Luke pauses, pulling back to look him over, and a tender yet smarmy grin colors his face, eyes bright.

"I think I can manage that."

#dinluke #din djarin #luke skywalker #trans din djarin #force sensitive din djarin #major sluttiness #nsft #it's basically all smut lets be real #Im

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bedlamsbard · 3 years

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I got a couple of different asks about Luke and Ahsoka in other side AU 10, so I guess I will just make it a regular post after all so I can answer all of them at once.

@slecnaztemnot:

Okay i just read your latest other side chapter and I wanted to ask about Ahsoka and Luke dynamics. I wonder what exactly where their heretics disagreemts about the jedi doctrine? while i can guess some of the stuff like attachements i guess i mostly see ahsoka as nonjedi and therefore someone who should not be attached to doctrine about attachements (haha) so i am wondering how you see her. i would actually love your take on how their first meetings went. continued in next ask, 1/2

1/2 continuation since most people write them as Ashoka immediately spilling the beans about the whole Vader situation to Luke and yours Ahsoka didn't. So I am curious what do you think Ahsoka feels about it. I got of course lot of it from the fic itself so i am mostly asking about how did you base your interpretation, if that makes sense and what led you to the narrative choices to portray their relationship in such way.

@comentter:

I'm most interested in what Luke and Ahsoka know about each other. Luke doesn't know much about Ahsoka obviously, but does he have any idea why she seems to hate him? He must be desperate lol. And how much does Ahsoka know about what happened on the DS2? And how much does Kanan know about these events? What was Hera able to tell him and what else did Luke and Ahsoka tell him? I always figure that everyone but Luke and a few people he told (like Leia) think the Emperor and Vader from the DS2 explosion.

I now have this image in my head of Ahsoka spending time with Rex and her laughing as Rex does something like tell a joke or a specific gesture. Then Luke walks by, does the exact same thing and Ahsoka is like "Of course, you'd do this stupid thing, you idiot!" :D

I think shortly before I started writing this sequence I had seen some cute art of Luke and Ahsoka hugging, which is a pretty common art trope and which has never sat quite right with me. I also have the tendency to want to do the opposite of common fanon, which I can’t leave out either. I also wanted to logic out what the hell was going on with Ahsoka’s charaterization in her Mando episode on a Watsonian level rather than a Doylist one (which I did a few weeks ago), even if other side takes place well before Mando and doesn’t intersect with it in any meaningful way.

When it came to the Luke and Ahsoka relationship (or lack thereof), it came down to three questions for me:

Who knows what?

What do they know?

When do they know it?

I made the decision early on in the chapter to leave Leia out of this relationship entirely, since the new canon seems to at this point in time (within a year of RotJ) be keeping it relatively quiet that she and Luke are siblings, and it’s not something that Hera would have a reason to know. (Note also that this entire sequence is told from Hera’s POV, which plays into the “who knows what when” angle.)

As per Rebels S4 (not the epilogue, because Mando’s thrown that out the window), Ahsoka knows (or has good reason to believe) the following:

Anakin Skywalker is Darth Vader, Sith Lord

Darth Vader was directly or indirectly responsible for the genocide of the Jedi Order and the deaths of any Jedi who survived the Purge (”you and your Inquisitors saw to that”)

Padme Amidala is dead

Obi-Wan Kenobi is dead (Obi-Wan was not dead, but she has no way to know this)

no Darksider can return to the Light side

At the end of RotJ (not taking into account anything that happened in the comics or ancillary novels, which I’m not up to date on), Luke knows (or has good reason to believe) the following:

Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker

everyone Anakin ever knew is dead, mostly because of him

Vader returned to being Anakin Skywalker at the end of his life

(Leia presumably also knows all of this, perhaps with a few more details based on things her parents might have told her, but her feelings about Darth Vader are: Bad, Do Not Want, to be glib about it.)

Now, there’s one other factor here, which is Rex. Rex knew Anakin and knew Ahsoka and was in the Rebel Alliance -- we know that he was on Yavin IV prior to Luke’s arrival and we know that he fought in the Battle of Endor. (And turns up in a couple of scattered art panels from the comics.) If we want to take his brief appearance in Galaxy of Adventures with Han Solo’s strike force as canon, then he may have also known Han and probably Luke -- certainly his ears would have pricked up at the name “Skywalker.” (Okay, there’s one other factor, which is R2-D2, but Artoo never tells anyone anything despite knowing...everything. Or most things, anyway.) Rex doesn’t seem to know that Anakin became Darth Vader (I believe there’s an interview somewhere where Dave or Pablo or someone says that a meeting between Rex and Vader would be “awkward,” but there’s no canonical reason to believe that he knew about the Anakin/Vader connection), but he probably found out at some point that the 501st was the battalion involved in the assault on the Jedi Temple. He also, as of Rebels S3-4, assumes that Vader killed Ahsoka -- presumably Ezra would have told him as much as he could. (And Ezra does know that Vader is Anakin, so he may have told Rex that as well.) Rex also knows that Anakin Skywalker was having an affair with Padme Amidala, but presumably didn’t know about (a) the marriage or (b) the pregnancy, because how would he know?

Then we come to Ahsoka’s return and unfortunately the current canon gives us no time point for when it actually happened: presumably Ahsoka did not or could not return to the greater galaxy at the point she “left”, during the fight on Malachor (3 BBY), because as of Rebels S3-4 everyone still believes she’s dead. Maybe she’s still stuck on Malachor without a way to get off, who knows; maybe after S4 Ezra grabbed her into the World Between Worlds she decided to stay on Malachor until she ~caught up with the main timeline, which...you then have to believe that Ahsoka is going to deliberately remove herself from the war, which I can get to, but is not something I’m totally comfortable with. Or she pops out in the timeline at the same time that Ezra returns to the main timeline and is able to more or less immediately return to the main timeline narrative, plus or minus a few weeks. (There are, after all, still a couple of Advanced TIE fighters parked in the Sith temple, even if they were potentially damaged in the temple collapse. Ahsoka could have repaired them or used the comms systems to call for a pick-up -- this is, btw, what happens in Crown.) We don’t know when the S2 finale scene/S4 WBW scene of Ahsoka walking back into the temple actually takes place in the timeline; it doesn’t have to be at the exact same time as the rest of the S2 finale sequence (since obvs Vader dragging himself out, Maul flying off, and the Rebels crew looking sad doesn’t all take place at the exact same time).

Other side AU is deliberately vague about when Ahsoka returns from the World Between Worlds/Malachor/to the Rebel Alliance; it’s not stated in the story, but I made the assumption that she came back shortly after the (non-epilogue) end of the Rebels finale, but was still deeply messed up from her Malachor revelations. (Also, like, Sidious, I guess, but she was probably so messed up about Anakin/Vader that Sidious being around barely registered.) Since she never seems to have held a formal position in the Rebel Alliance, I assumed that after she returned and let everyone know she was still alive, she then immediately took off to try and figure out what the hell happened with Anakin at the end of the Clone Wars, since she saw him like a week before he snapped and at the time he seemed fine.

The problem is that almost everyone involved is dead.

Now, at this point (shortly before Scarif and ANH), a few people are still alive who then die shortly, but whom Ahsoka may have no reason to believe were involved. Bail Organa, for example, is still around, but aside from him being Padme’s friend Ahsoka doesn’t have a reason to know that Bail was there when Padme died -- and since they were in contact for the nineteen years preceding there’s no reason for her to assume now that he was keeping something for her. Back in the comics (before I stopped reading them), Vader did some digging to figure out what was going on with Padme and his child; Ahsoka probably would have done the same digging (without having to torture anyone), but without necessarily knowing that Padme was pregnant. Knowing the date of Padme’s death (same as the Republic, essentially), she may have had a previous assumption that Padme was assassinated on Palpatine’s orders, but knowing that Vader is Anakin probably moves that assumption closer to the truth, that Anakin was somehow involved in Padme’s death one way or another. Sooner or later Ahsoka will turn up the fact that Padme was pregnant, come to the obvious conclusion that Anakin was the father, and possibly find out the same thing that Vader does in the comics -- that the child was born before Padme died. (But also probably not that Padme was carrying twins, but even if she found that out, it wouldn’t make a difference.)

While Ahsoka is doing her digging (and there really isn’t much information out there to find), the events of Rogue One and ANH happen, and Ahsoka comes back to the Rebel Alliance to find out which of her friends are still alive. (Maybe Rex is with her at this point, who knows.)

Everyone in the Rebel Alliance is talking about some young hotshot named Luke Skywalker.

Luke Skywalker who has a very familiar lightsaber, who claims his father was Anakin Skywalker, and who had some kind of relationship with Obi-Wan Kenobi, who turned up on the Death Star, fought Darth Vader, and died.

Ahsoka has just spent the past few months trying to figure out what happened with Anakin, and as best she can reassemble the facts it mostly comes down to “Anakin did something dumb for Padme, that something dumb was ‘turn to the Dark Side and kill literally everyone,’ and then Padme died, the Republic was overturned, and the Jedi Order was wiped out.” Ahsoka presumably walks into a room, hears the name Luke Skywalker -- maybe sees him -- and is all at once face to face with the living evidence of just how badly Anakin fucked up.

This is just too much for Ahsoka to deal with at the moment, so she takes off again, and spends the next five years brushing in and out of the Rebel Alliance doing odd missions that can really only be done by a trained Force-user. Rex, who seems to have a more stable position in the Alliance, is always going to side with Ahsoka over anyone else; if she tells him not to tell Luke that she knew Anakin, he won’t. (And for that matter, he may have somewhat fraught feelings about Luke himself.) She may have the odd interaction with Luke -- who has heard that there’s another Jedi in the Alliance and wants to be friends/get real training -- but Ahsoka just does not want any part of this. It’s irrational! She knows it’s irrational! But this is the living evidence of Anakin’s failure, Anakin who last she saw him TRIED TO KILL HER, who was at least partially responsible for the deaths of everyone she ever knew. (And honestly, finding out that Vader topped it all off by killing Obi-Wan is not going to help.)

Ahsoka may also be feeling a certain amount of survivor’s guilt: if Ezra had not pulled her out of the Malachor temple at that exact moment, she came pretty close to bringing the temple down on both herself and Vader, and may have succeeded in killing him. She did not do so, and who knows how many people died because of that in the years between Malachor and Yavin? (Just because Tarkin was the one who gave the order doesn’t mean that Ahsoka may at least partially blame Alderaan’s destruction on Vader, if she knew he was on the Death Star then.) She knows he killed Obi-Wan.

The Yoda lineage is very good at going “yikes, I am going off to live alone and beat myself up over my failure for years” and Ahsoka is very much an example of that lineage.

She and Luke have a relationship of “Hi, I’m Luke Skywalker, do you want to talk?” and “I have to leave immediately,” maybe with the odd “please stop using that lightsaber grip it is physically painful for me to watch, do it like this instead, okay, bye.” Luke probably told all of two other people about what happened with Vader on the Death Star, Leia and Han; he has no reason to tell anyone else about it because it won’t matter to them. Why would he tell Ahsoka, whom he has no relationship with? He doesn’t know that Ahsoka knew Anakin Skywalker and would only know if one of four people told him: Ahsoka herself (no), Rex (no), R2-D2 (maybe), or Admiral Ackbar (would never have occurred to Luke to ask, might have occurred to Ackbar to say). (We also don’t know that Mon Mothma knew Ahsoka very well, or at all, for that matter; they never interacted in TCW.)

As for her swinging harder into overt Jedi-ness by Mando after her blatant “I am no Jedi” of Rebels, it reads to me as a response to the Anakin/Vader revelation (especially the attachment thing). She had made certain assumptions in the TCW period (see her saving Rex in the TCW finale) and prior to Rebels; Kanan’s method of Jediness was something she could accept in the time period and in those circumstances; the Anakin/Vader revelation shattered all of that, followed immediately as it was by Kanan apparently going full Jedi self-sacrifice despite his attachments. (Her reaction to Ezra being a trauma response about two very different circumstances.) All of a sudden what she thought might have been mutable based on the circumstances became something that had to be adhered to in case of dangerous results, which she had just had brought home to her in extremely bad circumstances.

I made a crack somewhere about Mando’s central tension being between “being Mandalorian” and “being doing Mandalorianness”; I think in the post-OT period with Ahsoka and Luke we’re seeing something similar with “being Jedi” and “being doing Jediness.” Even if Ahsoka isn’t actively claiming the title Jedi anymore (because what does that accomplish in most contexts?), she’s leaning far more into the tenets of the Jedi Order -- which Luke doesn’t know and doesn’t know he doesn’t know.

Thus the doctrinal dispute.

Ahsoka grew up in the Jedi Order. That’s what she knows, that’s how she knows how to be a Jedi; for her being a Jedi is being part of the Jedi Order, whether or not the actions associated with performing Jediness are being actively practiced. Luke doesn’t have that context. For Luke, being a Jedi is...being doing Jediness. (This is super awkward phrasing.) Performing the actions of a Jedi. Luke has a few holocrons, but I’m guessing that a lot of what is on those holocrons makes the assumption that whoever is opening with them has the context of being a part of the Jedi Order and doesn’t explain really basic stuff about the Order or what that means. Luke’s Jedi Order is not going to be the Republic Jedi Order made anew; it’s going to be something that has a resemblance to it and is based on a similar view of the Force, even arguably its heir, but is just not going to be the same thing. It can’t be. Luke doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

Kanan, of course, is coming into all of this from a similar context as Ahsoka: he grew up in the Jedi Order, it’s what he knows, it’s who he is. Except Kanan never walked away from the Order, so while Ahsoka had been disconnected from her Jediness at the time of the Purge, he never lost his -- part of Ahsoka’s tension from TCW S7-Rebels was “I can’t be a Jedi because the Order is gone” and Kanan’s was “can I be a Jedi without the Jedi Order?” (Ezra is a whole ‘nother thing but is somewhat outside the scope of this.) The Jedi Order never factors in Luke’s Jediness at all. (There’s some lineage doctrinal dispute here as well -- the Yoda lineage seems to be very closely connected to the Order as the font of Jediness, the Windu-Billaba lineage somewhat less so. The Yoda lineage is like...the hardcore conservatives of the Jedi Order, though, and are probably not typical.)

Poor Kanan came back from the dead, after a week in another universe (which had its own problems; he’s been trying to very gently convince his counterpart that even after being an Inquisitor for months he can still be a Jedi), into Luke trying to build a new Jedi Order from scratch, Ahsoka firmly believing it couldn’t and shouldn’t be done and not wanting to be in the same room as Luke at all (not to mention that she really did not believe that they should have gone for “hey, let’s send Hera Syndulla to another universe” as even being an option), and both of them having essentially incompatible notions of being a Jedi at each other -- this is probably the most time Luke and Ahsoka ever spent in each other’s presence. They’ve probably never articulated their problems at each other, just assumed that the other knew them. And Kanan has his own “how to be a Jedi” approach, which is from a very different than either Ahsoka or Luke because despite originating from the same context as Ahsoka, he had a very different path to get to his present position.

As for what Kanan knows -- uh, pretty much only what Hera knew, and Hera knew very little? She was friendly with Luke and Leia, but didn’t have much interaction with them -- she states that she had a tendency to avoid Luke because even if she would never say it to Luke’s face, she silently believes that if any Jedi should have been in the Rebel Alliance, it should have been Kanan and Ezra and not this relative newcomer. If the Death Star 2 news about Vader and Palps was never common knowledge, then Hera wouldn’t have known it. Kanan’s in a position of having to play catch-up, but also having a completely different priority (finding Ezra). He sat through this meeting where after they’d finished grilling him on “you were in ANOTHER UNIVERSE and also you CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD?” they politely sniped at each other with a bunch of context he didn’t have and flat out decided that wow, he did not want to deal with this at all, whatsoever.

(This is also not stated in the story, but Luke and Ahsoka also disagreed about whether Jacen should be trained or not: Luke said, yeah, of course, when he’s a little older! and Ahsoka said nope, he’ll be fine, it will go away. Hera was just very “...I will deal with this later” about it since it wasn’t an urgent issue.)

#also thanks to reena-jenkins and isweedan for talking this out with me #other side au tag

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lifblogs · 3 years

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Whumpay 2021: Day 30 - Breaking Voice / Stoicism

Hide the Pain

read on ao3 1744 words star wars, the clone wars, post-zygerria arc, anakin skywalker, angst, ptsd, implied/referenced rape/non-con, slavery mention, alcohol use

“And that is all that happened on Zygerria and Kadavo?” Mace Windu asked.

Anakin did his best to keep his face completely plain, stoic. When he spoke, he tried to fill his voice with respect, “Yes, Master.” Though that word: master. It was like curdled milk on his tongue, going down to fester in his belly.

Thankfully he hadn’t had to use that word around the queen, but it had been everywhere. Nothing but slavery.

“Thank you, Skywalker. You’re free to go.”

He bowed, and then left the Council chambers, feeling sick enough to collapse, or to perhaps go back in there and tell them all off for sending him, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and Rex into that mess.

It wasn’t fair! And why him? Their answer before sending him to Zygerria was that he was the one who had discovered the missing Togrutas, so he had insight on the mission. By insight they had probably also meant that he knew how the whole slave business worked.

So Anakin had tried to pretend that he was alright with playing the part of a slaver, had told himself that master was a good title for him. But really, being forced to make his Padawan dress like that, and presenting her to the slaver queen. It was one of the many heavy burdens he now carried with him.

Ahsoka had mentioned that she would be in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, meditating, trying to center herself after all they’d been through. So he decided to leave her in peace and quiet. Obi-Wan was in the Halls of Healing. Anakin decided that’s where he would go. He couldn’t go back to his cluttered room and pretend everything was fine, couldn’t go back to Padmé’s apartments or her office. She would touch him, expect him to touch her. And he wanted to. Blast, he wanted to, and yet… Queen Miraj Scintel was stuck in his head like some infection.

He couldn’t see his wife. Not yet.

Truthfully, Anakin wasn’t sure he wanted to see anyone, but he knew Obi-Wan had been tortured, so it was only right to visit him.

He was in a white tunic and pants when he entered the room he’d been given. He was surprised to see that Rex was there as well. Both looked weary, but most of their wounds were now light scars.

Anakin forced a smile onto his face, even while his blood boiled inside and his stomach churned.

Remain calm. Don’t let them see.

Obi-Wan started getting up to greet him, but Anakin waved it off.

“No, lay still. Rest.”

Rex saluted him. “General.”

Anakin saluted back. “Surprised to see you here, Rex.”

“Well, since I was so involved with the mission the Council thought I should stay close.”

“I’m glad. I hear the Halls of Healing have much better care than the military hospital.”

Rex leaned back, putting his arms behind his head. He shifted in his bed, and let out a sigh, eyes closing contentedly.

“That we can definitely agree on.”

Anakin went and patted his shoulder, and then went to Obi-Wan. He took a seat by his bed.

“How are you feeling?”

Obi-Wan grinned at him, though it was a thin, weary thing, nothing but a mask. “Seeing as I no longer feel like I got shot, whipped, and beaten, I think I’ll be fine.”

Anakin shook his head. “I’m sorry, Master. I was leading the mission, and—”

Obi-Wan held up his hand. “Stop. Don’t carry that guilt with yourself. I took risks I thought necessary, and well, I paid for them.”

“That’s not your fault either.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Obi-Wan said in a somewhat bland, noncommittal tone as he leaned back against his pillows. “How’s Ahsoka?”

“Mostly unhurt. She was treated for dehydration, but she’ll be fine. She’s meditating.”

“Good, and you?”

Anakin paused. His heart beat wildly, and for a few moments he worried that his former master could hear it. Why were they even keeping up this charade? None of them were truly fine. Anakin could sense it, could feel Obi-Wan’s shame and guilt. He was sure that if he closed his eyes and focused he would be able to see Kadavo, see glimpses and brief flashes of the tortures he had gone through.

He tried to force a smile on his face, but he felt it was more like a grimace. So then he kept his features stone cold. His insides boiled, and burned.

“I’m fine.”

“Anakin—”

“I’m fine,” he growled.

“Mm hmm.” Obi-Wan peeked around Anakin, and asked, “Captain, do you perhaps feel well enough to give us some privacy?”

Rex peeped open an eye and then got up with only a little difficulty. “I was thinking of taking a walk anyway, General.”

“Very good. Enjoy your walk.”

After Rex left, Anakin sighed, lowering his head. He didn’t want to face his former master.

“Anakin, on Zygerria… what happened to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? I sense much anguish for nothing to have happened.”

Anakin swallowed roughly, and shook his head. “Just forget it.” His voice was gruff, not at all the hard phrik ore like he’d wished to display.

“Look at me,” Obi-Wan pleaded, voice gentle. “Please, Anakin.”

“I should go,” he said, getting up and making to leave.

“I want to help you!”

“You can’t.”

Anakin left, insides like a hot furnace, like fire and lava deep within a planet’s core. Darkness festered in it, and he wanted to rip his very skin off.

He wandered, blind to where he walked, until he found himself outside Yoda’s meditation room.

Before he could knock, he heard Yoda say, “Come in.”

Anakin entered.

“Troubled, you are,” Yoda said as Anakin went to take a seat across from him. The blinds were half-open, letting in some of Coruscant’s light.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Questions, have you?”

“Why, Master?” he asked, all of the hardness he’d tried to build around him melting, liquid ore bursting forth. What he was left with was a broken voice, and tears building up in his eyes, the sensation pinching at his sinuses.

“The will of the Council, it was.”

“Yes, but why? Why send me? Why send any of us? You know my past. How could you do this to me! How could the Council—!”

Yoda held up a small green hand.

“Peace, young one.”

Anakin snarled at him, but quieted himself.

“Against this mission, I was. Hurt you it would, I feared. This pain you feel, from things you did not speak to the Council of, is it?”

Anakin nodded.

“What happened to me…” He clenched his jaw, and turned away. He couldn’t admit it. Not to anyone, not even to himself. “It shouldn’t have… I wish…”

“Know this, I do. Sorry, I am, as we all should be.”

“You think the rest of the Council is going to feel that!” Anakin shouted, getting to his feet, waving his arm about. “In the end, they agreed to send me there. Did they aim to hurt me? Is that what’s going on?”

“Young one—”

“Don’t call me that!” Anakin snarled. He knew he was young, yet he didn’t feel it. Not after all the horrors he’d been through, and not after his… his nights spent with the queen. “There is something wrong here,” he admitted. “With—with the Council, with all of it, if the leading vote was that I, a former... slave, should go on that kind of mission.”

“Insight, they thought you had.”

“Yeah, sure. Insight into all the pain and torture, and how humiliating and debasing it is! I had to expose my own Padawan to that! It—it dredged up things I wanted to forget.”

“But forget the past, we must not. Accept it, and move forward.”

“How am I supposed to accept it when it’s shoved in my face like that? When I’m forced to… When I’m…” Anakin trailed off, holding in a sob. Part of his voice came out as a whimper.

“Young Skywalker, these experiences you had, part of you they are now.”

“I don’t want them to be,” he ground out.

“For us to decide, that is not. To truly be a Jedi, accept who we are, accept the past, we must. Trust in the Force.”

Trust in the Force. Trust in the Force? Was that the only answer he was going to get? Anakin trusted in the Force, day after day, and yet hadn’t it betrayed him? Hadn’t the Jedi betrayed him?

“Forgive me, Master,” he said, bowing, needing to be alone. “I should not have troubled you.”

Despite Yoda’s admonitions, Anakin left.

Time slipped past him in agonizing moments, every noise setting him on edge, making him want to fight, freeze, or simply run and hide. He wanted to lash out at everyone, at the universe. He held it in, letting it rot in him with the blackness Miraj Scintel had put in him with her touches.

Hours later he found himself at a bar, not even sure where he was. He just knew he needed another drink.

Wobbling in his seat, he called over the bartender and ordered another shot of whatever it was he was putting in his body—spotchka, maybe. The bartender began to refuse, and Anakin just passed him more credits, hoping that would be enough to stay his worries.

A shot of blue liquid that glowed and twinkled in the dim light was passed to him, and Anakin drank it greedily. The alcohol was poison, but why not add to the poison already there? It was already going to kill him, surely.

His comlink beeped, someone wanting to speak with him. He ignored it, but a few minutes later, it went off again.

Anakin turned from the bar, and answered.

“Anakin, where are you?”

“Padmé?” he questioned, voice not wanting to come out, but it did so anyway.

“I heard you got back from your mission hours ago. Where are you? Why haven’t you visited?” Suddenly, a brawl started up in front of him, and there was cheering and yelling. “Are you—are you in a bar?” she asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes! I want to take care of you.”

“I don’t think anyone can.”

“Anakin, come home. Please. I want you to talk to me. What happened on that mission?”

“Nothing.”

“Anakin, I—”

He broke the connection, sneered at the bar fight, and went back to his drink. Yet it wasn’t enough to hide his pain.

#star wars #star wars fanfiction #star wars: the clone wars #star wars: the clone wars fanfiction #the clone wars #the clone wars fanfiction #anakin skywalker #angst #post-zygerria arc #tw: rape mention #tw: slavery mention #fanfiction #writing #my writing

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cocastyle · 4 years

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Fighting For You

Pairing - Ben Solo x reader (post ROS)

Word Count - 5,180

Warning - none :))

A/N - so this is an idea I actually got after watching a tik tok lol. it’s not entirely the same, but the whole concept of bringing Ben back after Rise of Skywalker through him having to make a choice is. I added Ahsoka for myself and the setting so that was my idea and this was just so much fun to write! I love Star Wars so much and I know I haven’t written much but I hope to soon! I hope you all like this and that this gives you the closure you may have needed after Rise of Skywalker’s ending. let me know what you think and if you have any Star Wars requests, please let me know! :))

She had felt what was happening before it did. She had felt the life force leaving him as her own began to consume her body with a blistering pain that nothing and no one could soothe. Only he could, but he was gone.

Ben Solo was gone.

The days after the death of Ben Solo had gone by faster than she expected, but Y/N L/N could still feel his death like it had happened only moments before. She was numb to the outside world, her own pain being the only thing reminding her that she was human. She was a shell of the person she used to be, succumbing to the sadness and hurt that swirled within her no matter how hard she tried not to.

Everyone was worried, Y/N knew that. But how was she supposed to explain to them how she felt? How could she explain that she was spiraling down further and further into her own darkness where only pain and sadness awaited her? How could she explain how every second she was without Ben felt like her heart was being ripped out of her chest?

The answer to all of that was that she couldn’t. They would never understand. No one would. The only one who would’ve was dead.

Poe would tell her jokes constantly, always making a point to sit next to her with BB-8 during meals and talk her ear off hoping that maybe this would be the time she smiled. And Finn would be right there with him, playfully rolling his eyes at the man and giving Y/N a look as if to say ‘can you believe him?’ but all she could do was stare at them blankly.

Rey tried to get her to smile as she trained her in the ways of the Jedi, but not even the dazzling sight of sparks flying off their lightsabers as they fought could crack the wall Y/N had put up.

After all, Y/N felt like there was no reason to smile. No reason the live in fact. Ben had been her everything. They had been best friends since a young age and even after he was consumed by the dark side, Y/N never lost hope. She knew one day he would return to her and then he did, but she had only felt it. Y/N hadn’t even been there to see it for herself.

Only Rey had gotten to see the man Ben Solo had become. Only Rey had gotten to be there for his last breath. Rey was the one Ben had saved and Rey was the one who held him in her arms as he died.

It angered Y/N that she hadn’t been there. For if she had been there, she was sure she would’ve stopped his death. But she knew why Ben had done what he did. She knew that he had done it for her, knowing that Rey was like a sister to her and that she would know this was his last gift to her.

Y/N was beyond thankful for what he had done, but she would never be the same because Ben had died believing she didn’t need him. He had thought she needed Rey more. He had died thinking she didn’t love him. And that, that, was what ate away at the girl every day.

But then Y/N had found a way. Months spent diving deep into the countless books she managed to get ahold of and talking to numerous people had lead her to finding the one thing that could get her what she wanted. The one thing that could possibly bring him back. And if there was even the slightest chance to get Ben back, Y/N would take it without a beat of hesitation.

Rey had been the most understanding as to why Y/N needed to leave, even packing her bags and teaching her a few more tricks with the Force in case the need came up. Finn was apprehensive, not entirely liking the idea but knowing that if it were going to make the girl happy then he couldn’t stop her.

But Poe was an entirely different story. Having trained together since they first joined the Rebellion, the two had developed a pretty unique friendship that made it hard for things like goodbyes. Poe had been angry at first, not believing Y/N would ‘be so reckless’ as he had put it, to throw her life away for someone who was dead. That argument hadn’t ended well and the two didn’t talk to each other for a week before Poe apologized and explained that she was his best friend and that he was just worried about her. The two made up after that and Poe had hugged her the longest before helping the girl into her X-wing after she had hugged Rey, Finn, BB-8, and Chewie goodbye.

Just when Y/N was about to close the hatch, she had locked eyes with Chewie. Chewie may have been mad at Kylo Ren for the things he did, but Ben Solo would always be the little boy who used to climb on his arms and try to speak Wookie. He knew Ben Solo in a way that only Y/N could say she knew him as well and that connection was something the two cherished more than anything on the nights where they mourned their loved ones the most.

She had given the Wookie a small nod as she said with tear filled eyes, “I’m going to bring him home, Chewie. We’ll have our Ben Solo back before you know it.” Chewie had roared at that and that was the last time Y/N saw her friends.

It had been three months since she left her family behind, eight months since Ben Solo’s death. Y/N hadn’t wanted it to take her so long to save him, but this was the timeframe she was given and she knew it would all be worth it in the end.

Standing before the ruins in front of her, Y/N knew she should’ve felt scared, but all she felt was a buzzing confidence. The building, or what used to be a building, looked like a burnt-out husk of the pictures and drawings from books. Over the years the building had crumbled more than it had after the Empire’s raid, but the fact that it was still there was what gave Y/N hope.

“The Jedi Temple,” Y/N whispered in slight disbelief, having never thought she would see the building with her own eyes. It was a legend by now, but here it stood before her. Even in ruins, it was still magnificent.

Y/N was cautious as she crept inside, avoiding the fallen pillars until she had entered the building. The interior was pock marked and burned with blasterfire. The ceiling had collapsed in many areas and the marble floors were cracked. Floors were caved in and in what used to be the Jedi Archives were burnt or torn books. Some of the entrances were blocked off with old blastdoors that were rusty and beginning to fall off, but other than that, the place was still intact.

Y/N couldn’t help but keep her hand atop the lightsaber hanging at her waist. She had an odd feeling that someone was watching her, but every time she looked there was no one there. The only two things keeping her calm were the fact that Ben could soon be there with her and the presence of past Jedi’s watching over her.

It took time but she eventually found what used to be the hidden room of the temple, a room most Jedi’s didn’t know about. Inside was a simple painting, a mural to the past of the Force. There was supposed to be a portrait of three beings—the Father, the Son, and the Daughter. The Daughter had been a paradigm of the light side and the Son the paradigm of the dark while the Father had kept the balance.

All three had died a long time ago, but Y/N had read about their connections to the Force especially that of the Daughter. She knew of what the Daughter did for Anakin Skywalker’s padawan and, knowing that no one truly left the Force once they were gone, had come in hopes of reaching the Daughter and gaining her trust in order to help bring back Ben Solo.

Y/N knew it was a long shot, but it was all she had. She couldn’t give up on Ben. She needed him.

Making her way across the room was the lightest Y/N had felt in the past eight months. This was it. She was going to connect with the Daughter and get Ben back.

The painting was destroyed by now, but that did not bother Y/N. She searched until she found the crumbled pieces of the Daughter’s portrait and used the Force in order to lift the heavier rocks over until she had reassembled the portrait the best she could. Falling down to her knees in front of the portrait, Y/N closed her eyes and let herself go, fully giving into the Force and clearing her mind.

It was only one she was the most calm she had ever been in her life that Y/N whispered out, “Please be with me. Hear my voice and show yourself to me.”

She knew she was speaking into the Force by the feeling that washed over her, but the response she had hoped for didn’t come. After a moment of nothing but silence, Y/N felt her mind waver a bit as she took in a shaky breath.

“Daughter of Mortis, please hear my call,” Y/N whispered, her voice a little shaky as she was met with yet another haunting silence. The silence dragged on and Y/N was beginning to lose her composure as she continued to call out to the one person she thought could help her.

Her thoughts flickered over to Ben as they usual did and a small sob escaped her lips as she lowered her head and slammed her hands against the ground in anger. Tears were rolling down her face by now and Y/N’s whole body shook as she clenched her hands into fists before she whispered out in a heartbroken voice.

“Please.”

Once again there was no response and the presence of the Jedi had gone totally silent. Y/N’s face fell into her hands and she began to cry, utter sadness washing over her body as she realized she had done all of this for nothing. Ben was gone. Ben Solo was dead.

She didn’t know why, but a memory suddenly popped into her head and Y/N got lost in thought as she remembered a conversation she had with Ben when he was still Kylo Ren.

“You don’t have to do this. I feel the conflict in you,” Y/N said, her voice as steady as it could be despite Kylo’s presence behind her. She could feel his eyes flickering over to look at her, his stare making her skin burn and her heart flutter.

How he still managed to make her feel like this despite the fact that he had her handcuffed and had forced her on an elevator that was leading straight up to Snoke himself was beyond Y/N, but he had always had this effect on her and she knew he always would.

“Ben,” Y/N whispered, her voice making the man still but her suddenly turning around to look at him making his gaze instantly fall upon her.

“I’m not Ben. Not anymore,” Kylo insisted, a frown appearing on his face despite the fact that his eyes were giving him away. He had softened, let his guard down just enough to give Y/N enough hope to continue.

“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” Y/N told him. “I know you. I don’t know how your connection to Rey in the Force came to be, but she will never know the person you used to be. They don’t know how you used to sneak out in the middle of the night with me just so we could look at the stars.”

“Stop,” Kylo said, his fist clenching tighter as he glared at the girl, but Y/N didn’t let up and instead took a bold step towards the boy.

“They don’t know how you used to hold my hand when you were nervous or how you used to help everyone in need even if it was as simple as helping them carry a few things or holding the door open for them,” Y/N continued, ignoring the anger that was growing in Kylo’s eyes.

“Y/N,” he warned, but she only took another step towards him.

“They don’t know the type of person you are deep down even if you try desperately to hide it,” she said, continuing to walk towards him until they were so close their toes were touching. “They don’t know who Ben Solo is and you can try and hide your past as much as you want, but that will never change the fact that you will always be that little boy who patched up my knee when I scraped it running.”

Kylo was quick to grab her arms and spin her so that she was pinned against the wall. His eyes were blazing with a fury Y/N had never seen before, but not once did he hold her too tight or harm her in any way. “I told you to stop,” Kylo practically growled, his frustration clear but that was enough to make the girl keep going.

Y/N’s voice was clear and steady as she spoke, her eyes focusing on nothing other than the boy’s as she said, “You will not bow before Snoke. You’ll turn and I’ll help you. I’ll always help you.”

Kylo hesitated at that, his already gentle grip on her loosening even more until Y/N was able to drop her hands back down to her side. Kylo looked at the ground, obviously lost in his thoughts and Y/N took that moment to reach out and gently cup the boy’s face in her hands. To her surprise, he leaned into her touch and let out a shaky breath as he closed his eyes.

“Ben, I’m here and I always will be,” Y/N whispered.

“Why?” Kylo whispered, not daring to open his eyes. He voice was soft and almost scared. Y/N knew she was talking to Ben now, not Kylo, and the fact made her heart skip a beat.

“Why what?” Y/N questioned, her eyes flickering over the boy’s face as she kept her voice as gentle and soft as his own.

“Why do you still believe in me? Why do you continue to fight for me?” Kylo asked, genuinely confused but still refusing to open his eyes.

Y/N was silent for a moment and Kylo began to pull away, but Y/N had leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. She pulled away almost as quick as she had kissed him, but even that fraction of a second was enough to make Kylo still, his breath catching in his throat.

Y/N pulled away, but kept her hands on his face as Kylo dared to open his eyes. She had never seen him look so broken in her life and she once again saw it—the fight between the light and dark within his eyes.

“I have hope,” Y/N whispered, her eyes flickering over his face in a gentle way as she smiled almost sadly. “I will always have hope because one day, I will have you back. I believe in you more than I have believed in any one else and I will fight for you for as long as I live.”

“I will never stop fighting for you, Ben Solo.”

Kylo shook under her touch and for a moment Y/N swore he might kiss her again, but just when he had started to lean in, the two both heard the elevator come to a stop and Kylo had pulled away from her faster than she had ever seen him move. His back was turned to her and Y/N opened her mouth to speak, but Kylo shook his head.

“No more talking,” he muttered and the moment he turned around, his wall was back up. Ben was gone and Kylo had returned. “He is waiting.”

Another sob left Y/N’s mouth as she thought back to that moment, how vulnerable Ben had been under her touch and the feeling of his lips against hers. That was the one and only time they had ever kissed, but Y/N knew that memory had only resurfaced in her head because of what she had told him.

I will never stop fighting for you, Ben Solo.

Y/N squeezed her eyes shut, her head throbbing due from all of the crying as she realized she had failed him. She had failed Ben. She didn’t even know what she was supposed to do now. How could she return to her friends? How could she return to a life that was anything but normal? How could she live a life without Ben?

Suddenly Y/N was on her feet, her lightsaber in hand as she spun around and pointed her weapon at the neck of who stood behind her—a female with blue eyes, dark orange skin, brownish-lips, white facial markings, a white leaky and montrals with blue stripes.

“Who are you? What do you want?” Y/N hissed, her eyes practically burning with a fire while she ignored the tears rolling down her face. The woman looked at her in slight amusement before glancing behind her at the portrait of the Daughter on the floor.

“I,” the woman began as she stood back up and looked to Y/N with a small smile, “am Ahsoka Tano. I have come because I heard your call.”

“Ahsoka—“ Y/N trailed off, wondering why the name sounded so familiar to her. Her eyes widened in realization and she hesitantly lowered the lightsaber as she said, “You’re the Ahsoka Tano who trained under Anakin Skywalker?”

A flicker of pain flashed through Ahsoka’s eyes, but she nodded. Y/N’s eyes widened more in disbelief, but then she seemed to register what Ahsoka had told her and her lightsaber was instantly returned to her side as she asked, “You heard my call?”

Ahsoka nodded and walked past Y/N and over to the portrait of the Daughter still lying on the floor. “She won’t appear to you if that’s what you were hoping for. The Force works in mysterious ways, but not even the Daughter would be able to help you bring someone back,” she said.

“How did you-?” Y/N began, but Ahsoka looked back to her with an amused smile that instantly cut her off.

“Know what you were looking for?” Ahsoka finished. “Not many people come around here anymore and only a few know about this room in particular. The Daughter was known for being connected to the light side and was one of the only ones able to bring someone back. I assumed that’s why you have come, but I am sorry to say she can not help you.”

“She brought you back. Why would she not be able to bring Ben back?” Y/N asked a bit defensively, her eyes narrowing at the woman in front of her. “He may have done some bad things in his life, but he died a hero. He deserves to live after the sacrifice he made. I will do anything to bring Ben Solo back and I will never stop fighting for him until I can.”

Ahsoka was silent for a moment as she peered at the young girl before finally saying, “Are you done?” Y/N face reddened in embarrassment, but her expression didn’t waver. “I merely said that the Daughter couldn’t help you. I never said that I couldn’t.”

Y/N relaxed at that, confusion washing over her face as she looked at Ahsoka. “You? But what could you-?” Y/N trailed off before looking at Ahsoka with wide eyes. “You have part of the connection with the Force that the Daughter used to, don’t you? Is it because she gave her life to save you?”

“I can reach him,” Ahsoka told her, ignoring the girl’s questions. “But it will ultimately be his choice. Ben Solo must chose once more which side of the Force he will turn to, but this time he must face the choice alone.”

Y/N was silent at that before setting her jaw and looking up at Ahsoka. “Do as you must, but please bring him back,” was all she said.

“Are you sure? I cannot do anything more but give him the choice. Unless he chooses the light, he will be lost in his own darkness until the end of time,” Ahsoka warned.

“I believe in him,” Y/N insisted, her voice never wavering. “Ben will make the right choice.”

Ahsoka smiled ever so slightly before nodding her head. “Then I will help you,” she announced and before Y/N could ask her how she would do that, Ahsoka raised her hands and the last thing Y/N saw was a blinding light before everything went black.

- - -

When Y/N opened her eyes, she found herself standing in the same spot she had been moments before only this time what stood before her was what looked to be a giant portal. Instead of the decaying room that surrounded her, a red-tinted world of lava and rocks stood in its place. Although she could only watch from afar as two people came into focus.

A small gasp escaped her lips as she realized one of the people was Snoke, a clone of Palpatine’s that had tricked Ben into leaning towards the Dark Side. However, the urge to cry came from seeing Ben Solo standing before him in the same black gear he had died in.

Y/N reached a hand out, ready to jump into the portal and grab ahold of Ben for herself, but a hand on her shoulder instantly stopped her. “You cannot intervene. This is his choice,” Ahsoka’s voice whispered from behind her, but Y/N couldn’t look back at her. She was too focused on Ben who was on the other side of the portal. Ben who she hadn’t seen in eight months. It was Ben. Her Ben. And she was so close to getting him back.

Y/N let her hand fall limply to her side, knowing that no matter what she did, she wouldn’t be able to help Ben. He had to do this himself and Y/N had complete faith in him.

“I can restore you to your former glory!” Snoke exclaimed as the portal came close enough to the two for them to finally hear what they were saying. “I can give you back your army, your power!”

Y/N’s eyes flickered to Ben’s face, freezing slightly at the sight of pure pain on his face as if he was fighting with himself. “Everything that girl took from you will be yours once again and you will not fall!” Snoke exclaimed, his words making Ben grimace once again as she looked up at his former master and his outstretched hand.

“Well? What will it be, boy?” Snoke asked, his eyes narrowing at Ben who stood there with a pained and confused look on his face. Y/N saw his hand twitch and when he slowly began to lift his hand, she felt her heart drop.

“No!” Y/N cried out, her voice cracking as she fell down to her knees in despair. “Come on, Ben! I believe in you!” A heartbroken sob escaped her mouth and tears began to roll down her face, but she hesitated as she watched Ben suddenly still.

He lifted his head and looked around wide eyed as if he had heard her and for a moment, Y/N wondered if he actually could. “Ben,” Y/N whispered, her voice so soft but the look of Ben’s face telling her that there was a good chance he had heard her. “Come home to me. Please, come home.”

Ben stared at his hand before looking back up at Snoke. His face hardened almost instantly and he clenched his hand into a fist before turning and running in the other direction. Y/N blinked in surprise, her eyes widening as the portal view shifted until all Y/N could see was Ben running straight towards the portal.

“Ben Solo has made his choice,” Ahsoka announced, but Y/N could hardly hear her. She was in disbelief and she barely managed to scramble on to her own feet as she watched Ben suddenly stop in front of the portal. As if he was suddenly seeing it for the first time and was unsure of what was happening.

But then his eyes had locked on Y/N and it was then that she realized he could see her like she could see him. “Y/N?” Ben whispered and before she could say anything in response, Ben had burst through the portal and straight into Y/N.

His arms wrapped around her almost instantly, the force of his body hitting hers making the two stumble back until they both fell down to the ground on their knees. Y/N was unable to move, her eyes wide as she shakily put her hands on Ben’s chest in order to push him away.

Ben pulled away enough for the two to look at each other and Y/N continued to stare at him in disbelief as she shakily brought her hands up to cup his face. “Ben?” she whispered. “Is it really you?”

“It’s me. I’m here,” Ben assured her, happy tears beginning to fall down his face as he held her waist tight. “I don’t exactly know how I’m here, but I assure you that I am.”

Y/N let out a breathy laugh at that, but she couldn’t help but break down almost instantly. She fell into Ben’s embrace, the boy holding onto her tightly while she cried in his arms. “You were gone,” Y/N sobbed as her hands balled into fists around Ben’s shirts. “You left to a place I could not follow and. . .and—“

“It’s okay,” Ben whispered, pressing a small kiss to the top of her head while she breathed in his scent in between sobs. “I’m here now, okay? And I don’t plan on leaving you anytime soon.”

Y/N pulled away at that and she let her eyes flicker over Ben’s face, for the man in front of her was not the man she had seen last. He was not Kylo Ren anymore. This was Ben Solo. This was her Ben and never had Y/N been more excited to see him.

Before Ben could process what was happening, Y/N had leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. Ben let out a small gasp of surprise, but his eyes fluttered closed almost instantly and he put a hand to the back of her head before pulling her closer, instantly deepening the kiss.

They had kissed for only a moment before Ben smiled into the kiss, his smile being so contagious that the smile that hadn’t donned Y/N’s face in so long finally broke free. Ben was the first one to pull away and he kept his face a mere inch or two away from her own as he smiled and brushed some hair behind her ear.

“I love you,” he whispered, the words making Y/N’s heart soar and her smile grow as she finally felt happy for the first time in months.

“I love you too,” Y/N whispered back, still staring at Ben with wide eyes full of disbelief. After all, it was hard to believe that he was finally here with her after eight months.

The sound of the portal closing caused the two to glance back right as the portal closed for good. Ben furrowed his eyebrows and looked back at Y/N, his arms still wrapped around her waist as she asked, “How did you bring me back?”

Y/N let out a small gasp as she suddenly remembered Ahsoka and she began to turn around. “Ahsoka, thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” Y/N paused once she turned around to find that Ahsoka was no where to be seen. A look of pure confusion washed over her face and she whispered out, “What—“

“Who are you looking for?” Ben questioned and Y/N furrowed her eyebrows as she looked around the empty room once more. To her surprise, the portrait of the Daughter had disappeared as well and that was enough to make Y/N frown. “Y/N?” Ben called out and the girl was instantly snapped out of it as she looked back at the boy that was still kneeling on the ground with her.

He tilted his head slightly as he watched her, his eyes sparkling with not only the light that now filled his body but pure adoration. Y/N had never felt happier than in that moment as she stared at the boy that had captured her heart all of those years again.

Happy tears began to fill her eyes once again and she gently shook her head as she smiled. “It. . .it doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “What matters is that you’re here now. You made the right choice, Ben. You chose the light.”

“I felt you,” Ben whispered. “I felt you calling for me, asking for me to come home. I had never wanted anything more in my life. Your belief in me was what kept me going. Turning away felt like I was coming home to you. I just didn’t realize how true that was.”

Y/N was smiling so big that her cheeks hurt and she leaned forward to kiss the boy once more before pulling away and hugging him, digging her head into the crook of his neck while he wrapped his arms tighter around her body and did the same to her.

“I will never stop fighting for you, Ben Solo,” Y/N whispered, her words making the boy grip onto her tighter.

“And I will never stop fighting for you, Y/N L/N.”

They never would stop fighting for each other, that much would be proven in the days to come. But for now they just enjoyed the feeling of being in each other’s arms once again while Ahsoka Tano walked down the front steps of the old Jedi Temple and off towards her next adventure with a small smile on her face.

* * *

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evabellasworld · 3 years

Text

Storm of the Republic

Chapter 29

AO3 Link | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29

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Summary: When Tup murdered General Tiplar during a battle, Anakin Skywalker and Captain Rex dispatched Ahsoka, Fives, and Yara to solve the mystery that was plaguing the Clone Army. Meanwhile, Senator Padme Amidala contacted Commander Fox, Commander Tori, Riyo Chuchi, and Dipper to help her continue investigating the death of Palpatine, suspecting that Dooku was behind the evil plot. But when Dooku send an ISB agent to stop them, the team had to race against time to search for the truth, which could alter the course of the galaxy.

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Putting on her surgical mask, Dr. Urakchaevy took a deep breath as she glanced at the surgical tube, before shifting her focus towards Tup. With his head covered in plastic foil and his eyes shut, the doctor slid him inside the machine and looked at the panels. “We’re now beginning level 1 brain scan,” she announced to Fives, who was the only one in the room. “This will only take a short while.”

As Fives gave a nod of approval, the machine scanned his brain for 30 minutes. The ARC Trooper tapped his foot on the floor as the doctor focused on his brain condition. From what she had gathered so far, his brain scan was blue, showing that he was slipping towards his deathbed.

This is not good , her teeth chattered. Somehow, I couldn’t find any lumps in his brain, and yet, Tup is unconscious. How is this possible?

“Is everything alright, Doc?” Fives wondered, noticing her hands trembling on the panels.

Dr. Urakchaevy nodded, pressing her lips. “I’ll have to raise the brain scan to level 2. There’s nothing I could find on the surface of his brain.”

“Alright, Doc, you can raise it up to level two,” he gave a thumbs up. “I hope he’s alright.”

Let’s hope he does, she let out a sigh, as she performed another brain scan on Tup, hoping to dig deeper. Another half an hour has passed, and Dr. Urakchaevy felt her sweat dripping from her forehead, despite the air-conditioning in the room.

Considering Tup was the first clone she had treated, she wasn’t knowledgeable in their biology. The only thing she knows about clone troopers was the fact that they fought for the Republic, even though it had been crumbled by the Empire. She doesn’t see the point of the conflict, but Dr. Urakchaevy has to perform her duty to save her patients.

As the machine beeped, the doctor checked on her panel with a gleam painted on her lips, only for her shoulders to slump towards the results. Is this machine broken or what? Do I need to re-scan just to make sure I find something inside Tup?

“Did you find anything, Doc?” his voice turned agitated. “Please tell me you found something, Doc.”

Dr. Urakchaevy remained silent as she stared at the surgical pod, wondering if she could raise the level of the machine. She knows the risk, and she’s not sure whether she would like the result. The worst-case scenario she could think of was the side effects of the radiation, which was nausea, fever, and vomiting. But it was the only way if she wanted a fast result.

“It’s still the same result as the first scan, unfortunately,” she reported, turning towards him. “I’m afraid I have no choice but to perform a Level 5 atomic scan.”

“What’s wrong with that?” asked Fives, raising his eyebrows. “Is it dangerous?”

“It’s full of radiation and Tup might experience side effects, but it’s the only way I could find a lump inside his brain, though the chances are rather small. Are you okay with that, Fives?”

Fives tilted his head upwards as he pondered for a moment. I can’t just refuse his surgery and let him die. I’ll never forgive myself if I made the wrong decision.

“If the Level 5 atomic scan means saving my brother, then you need to do it,” he told her. “I came here to save Tup, and I’m gonna bring him back to base, safe and sound, so do what you have to, Doc. Go with the Level 5 atomic scan if you must.”

Dr. Urakchaevy gave him a small smile. “You’re a caring brother, Fives. Now go wait outside with your sister, Yara. I’m sure Thonda is done patching her up by now.”

“Will Tup be okay, Doc?” his voice quivered. “I don’t want to lose him, really.”

“He’ll be alright,” assured Dr. Urakchaevy, holding his hand. “I promise you. He’ll walk out of this room and act as if nothing had happened to him. He’ll drink with you and Yara and go back to his usual self.”

“In case he doesn’t make it, can I say my last words to him?”

“Fives, Tup will be fine,” she said, opening the door for him. “Besides, this will only take a few minutes, so don’t worry. I have faith in your younger brother.”

Without saying a word, Fives stepped out of the surgical room and held his breath when he found Yara sitting all by herself, munching a plate full of chocolate chip cookies. Cracking a smile, he tiptoed towards her and slapped his arms on her shoulders, making her choke on her food.

“Bitch, I told you not to sneak up to me like that,” she cussed with her mouth full, kicking his shin. “I could have died of a heart attack, you know.”

“Well, it was funny,” he burst into laughter, as he sat beside her and wrapped his arms around her shoulder. “You could have seen the look on your face. It was so ugly.”

“Shut up, Fives. At least I’m more good-looking than you.”

“Says who? Everyone knows I’m the most handsome man among the Grand Army of the Republic.”

Yara sticks her tongue out in disgust. “Yuck, you’re ugly as fuck.”

“No, you’re ugly.”

“Fuck you, Fives,” Yara shoved his shoulders, her other hand gripping on the plate of cookies. “I hate you so much.”

“Well, fuck you too, Yara,” Fives imitated her voice, as he snatched away her cookies from her grasp. “Also, you ate too much of these. Save some for me, will you?”

She crossed her arms, her lips pouting. “Give me back my cookies, dickhead. They’re mine.”

He shook his head, stuffing one in his mouth. “Hey, sharing is caring, okay? Besides, it’s been a while since I had authentic food, anyway.”

“Tell me about it. I miss drinking margaritas from 79’s. It was the best drink I could ever have, you know. I wonder what’s their secret?”

“Maybe they made it with love,” Fives jokes, leaning on his seat. “Also, the music was glorious at the club. I always enjoyed the songs that the DJ played on the dance floor, especially the song Groovy. That was my all-time favourite song.”

“But somehow, someone always bested you on the dance floor,” Yara snarked. “And that someone is sitting right next to you. Guess who it is?”

He rolled his eyes. “Very funny, Yara. I beat you one time and you were sulking the next day.”

“Yeah, exactly. You only beat me one time, Fives. The rest of the time we spent at 79’s, I always held a record on the dance floor, aside from Lisa, of course.”

“God, I miss those days. Everything was simple back then. Now, it feels like we’re stressing our future like a bunch of old men waiting for death.”

“I know, Fives. I miss the days when the only reason I cried was because I failed the simulation. Now, I cry because everyone we know was killed in front of us, and we don’t even know whether we’re next in line.”

“And I miss the day where the only reason we’re happy was because we passed the simulation. Now, I can only be happy because I lived to fight another day, though I wished I could join the rest of our fallen siblings instead.”

Yara hummed to herself. “I know, Fives. Honestly, when this war is over, I just want to walk away from all of this. I want to settle down somewhere and find someone to love, like Commander Fox. He and Riyo are so happy together and I want to be like them.”

“So, you’re looking for someone like those male leads from your favourite rom-com?” smiled Fives. “And how many kids are you planning to have?”

“First of all, I want a guy who is kind and sweet and secondly, I want at least four kids, doesn’t matter what gender they are.”

“Four kids? Well, that’s a lot, to be honest.” “I want to shower all my love on my kids and accept them for who they are, no matter what,” Yara expressed her hopes and dreams. “And I also want them to have a better life than I did. Since I fought in a war, I want my kids to live a peaceful life, without worrying about a single thing.”

“Sounds like a pleasant life,” Fives said, placing an empty plate beside him. “Honestly, I would like to have that kind of life, too. If only I could find someone like that.”

Before Yara could say something, Dr. Urakchaevy walked out of the surgical room with tears of shame in her eyes. Fives stood up from his seat, waiting for her to speak. “So, did the surgery went well?”

She bobbed her head with hesitation, her fingers fidgeting. “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

“We would like to hear the good news,” Fives replied with his brows furrowed.

“Okay then, the good news is that the surgery went well, and we found a tumour inside his brain,” she informed him, showing the evidence she extracted. “I’m not sure what kind of tumour it is, but I can do my research on it.”

“That’s great to hear, Doc,” Yara beamed. “But then, what’s the bad news?”

“Tup didn’t make it,” Dr. Urakchaevy broke the news to them. “I’m so sorry, guys. I did everything I could to save him, but somehow, his heart rate stopped.”

Fives’ face contorted as he dropped to his knees, frozen. Yara could not utter a single word from her mouth as tears flowed on her cheeks, hugging her knees.

How are we going to face Rex after this?

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ncfan-1 · 3 years

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Because I feel like we’re being set up to encounter Sabine once more in The Mandalorian, some of my more discontented feelings regarding what happened to her in the epilogue of Rebels have been coming to the surface, because I just can’t be 100% okay with anything, can I?

But I really, really do not like what is implied to have happened with Sabine in the epilogue of Rebels. Over the years, I have become more cognizant of the problems I have with certain things in the back half of Season 4 of Rebels, but I think my problems with what happened with Sabine were there in the forefront of my mind from nearly the beginning, even if it was a while before I was willing to really engage with it.

Okay. The natural culmination of Sabine’s character arc over the course of Seasons 3 and 4 was for her to accept the mantle of leadership. We’re all in agreement about that, right? I remember having problems with her shirking that role on Mandalore back in the Season 4 premiere, but I had thought at the time that, from there, her arc would culminate in her accepting the mantle of leadership within the wider rebellion, rather than merely in the Mandalorian Resistance. After all, Sabine has had Hera as one of her most important role models since early adolescence, Hera who decided that it wasn’t enough merely to liberate her own homeworld, but that for liberty to last, she had to go out and free the whole galaxy. Sabine might more readily follow Hera’s example than, say, her mother’s, or Bo-Katan’s. It would have made sense for Sabine to transcend the need for just her own people’s liberation, would have made sense for her take everything she has learned since she was cast out of Mandalorian society as a child and dream bigger than just the dream of a liberated Mandalorian society.

And she really did seem on track for that culmination in the finale. There was a moment that I was sure was the culmination. You guys can probably think of what it is yourself, but it bears pointing out here. It was that moment after Sabine spotted Ezra sneaking off to carry out his own plane, that moment after she covered for him, that moment after the others realized that Ezra had gone off on his own. It was that moment when Sabine stopped Hera from trying to force Ezra to come back, that moment when Sabine took charge of the situation and formulated a plan of action for the team—and her leitmotif started playing.

This was the moment to me. I watched this play out, and I well and truly believed that Sabine had finally reached the culmination of her character arc. I believed that this was Sabine finally pushing past all of her doubts and insecurity. I believed that this was Sabine overcoming her feelings of unworthiness and taking up the mantle of a leader. I believed that this was Sabine accepting herself, accepting the fact that she was capable of being a leader, that she was a leader. And every part she played in the finale after that moment seemed to bear this out—it was Sabine acting as a leader without hesitation, without doubt, without second-guessing herself. She’d finally overcome that block.

And then, the epilogue. Then, Sabine’s voiceover talking about the parts everybody else played in the events to come—and behold, she is nowhere to be found in those recollections, and behold, the absolutely hideous implication that she completely abandoned the fight after the liberation of Lothal, and spent the rest of the war on the planet.

No, it’s never said outright, and that’s the one saving grace of it all. But it certainly is implied, isn’t it? It’s implied, and it’s such a monumental step backwards for her character, so out of left field, that the only way to make sense of it is to look at the man behind the curtain and think about it Doylistically, instead of Watsonianly.

It feels to me like Sabine was forced to abandon the culmination of her character arc in favor of shouldering the natural culmination of Ezra’s arc. Ezra’s arc would have had a natural conclusion in him remaining on Lothal to protect the planet from further reprisals and help it heal from the damage done to it, but it really hits differently when it’s a character whose arc was never heading in that direction before the last five minutes of the show. It’s not natural, is it?

Now, I don’t have as many problems with what happened with Ezra as I do with what happened with Sabine, and I honestly think that what happened with him works fairly well as an alternate culmination of his arc. But it doesn’t work with Sabine, does it? It does not work with Sabine to have her character arc mutilated this way, because what’s happened is that the implication that she abandoned the fight and stayed on Lothal makes her regress as a person as a character. I was originally going to say it regresses her to her early Season 1 self, but actually, it doesn’t, because even in early Season 1, Sabine was still willing to take the fight to the Empire, even if she was daunted by her doubts and all of her baggage. Where it regresses her to is her pre-series self, right after she and Ketsu escaped Mandalore, and Sabine is so utterly discouraged and heartbroken by her family and society’s rejection of her that she abandons the idea of fighting the Empire for a long time, and turns her heart away from the suffering of the galaxy at large.

It makes no sense, but then, forcing one character to take on the arc of another character rarely ever does.

Now, like I said, it is the strong implication that Sabine abandoned the fight after the liberation of Lothal. It is strongly implied, but never outright stated, and like I also said, that’s the one saving grace of all of this, that it’s never outright stated in the show itself. If The Mandalorian has her saying that oh, she actually was out doing stuff with the Rebellion during the war proper, it might go against the implication, but I’ll still accept it, because it would be so much easier to engage with a Sabine I actually recognize, rather than the stranger who was dropped on us in the epilogue.

I write all of this both to get it off of my chest, and as a long, long preamble explaining why I am writing this. I write it because I think that after meeting Bo-Katan, the next logical step for Din Djarin is for him to meet Sabine. He’s met someone who performs the Mandalorian identity differently from himself, and by the end of ‘The Heiress’, he seems to be on the way to accepting that there is more than one valid way to perform Mandalorian culture and identity. Sabine is the next logical step in the progression, the next step after Din coming to accept that there is more than one way to perform their culture: someone who has a deeply complicated relationship with her cultural identity as a Mandalorian, someone who has done harm to that culture while also deeply harmed by it, someone whose identity as a Mandalorian includes not only battle and loyalty to her family, but self-expression through artwork.

I think that self-expression through art, always so important to Sabine’s character, might be introduced here as well. Because Din’s unpainted armor has always been jarring to me, and I think that his ability to engage in self-expression might have been just a little stifled (or more than a little stifled) by his raising in the Watch, and the values the Watch inculcated in him. Sabine might well introduce him to the concept of painting his armor, whether in his clan colors (and if he doesn’t have any at present, there could well be a scene of him deciding what they are), or in colors and designs that he chooses, that are personally meaningful to him, without clan affiliation or loyalty to the Watch entering.

There is something else about Sabine that I think will be of interest in this show, especially since she is most likely to turn up in Ahsoka’s company. Sabine provides an interesting inverse to the Child’s present situation—where the Child is a Force-wielder sheltered and cared for by a Mandalorian, Sabine was, once upon a time, a Mandalorian child sheltered and cared for by a Jedi, a Mandalorian child who was in her adolescence brought up alongside a child who was a Jedi.

I don’t think that Din’s journey leads him ultimately to give up the child to the Jedi, because that would be a betrayal of the bond that has formed between them. I think that his journey leads to him finding the middle way, finding that place where Mandalorians and Jedi can coexist, held fast by bonds of care and loyalty and love. That Sabine has all of these bonds with Jedi—with Kanan and Ezra, and by the implication of the finale, with Ahsoka as well—may well be the thing that proves to Din that it can be done, that just because Mandalorians and Jedi have traditionally been enemies, does not mean that they must always be enemies.

Din has gone out into the galaxy as the man who has everything to learn about life and how his can be richer than it has been, who has everything to learn about how his own people can be more than just one thing. Both he and Sabine are alienated from their culture in their own ways, and I’m interested to see the way they might play off of each other, what they can learn from each other, and especially what Din is willing to learn from Sabine. I know it’s not a sure thing that Sabine will show up, but it feels right, and I’ll be interested to see what role she has to play in the show.

#The Mandalorian #Star Wars Rebels #Din Djarin #Sabine Wren #Meta

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dettiot · 4 years

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Fic: late-night interruption 9/11

late-night interruption Author: dettiot Rating: G Summary: When Obi-Wan receives a late-night comm from Sabé, he’s not sure what to expect. But what he learns will change many lives . . . and the fate of the Republic. Note: There's only two more chapters to go after this one! I'm really excited about sharing the conclusion to this fic, and I really appreciate everyone who have let me know they're enjoying the story. Also, I love how I explained Satine's survival after Maul stabbed her with the Darksaber, so even though I'm sure it makes no sense--after all, it's Star Wars. Nothing makes sense. :-)

Also on AO3!

XXX

As he gently rocked Luke in his arms, watching Ahsoka make faces and smile at Leia, Anakin Skywalker felt at peace for perhaps the first time in his life.

Before this moment, the closest he had come to this feeling was in his earliest days. When he was with his mother, wrapped in her love and care. But growing up on Tatooine as a slave, bothered by strange impulses and advanced reflexes, his fear and worry had worked against his mother’s calm, centering presence.

Then came the years of training, butting heads with Obi-Wan while seeking his approval, the whirlwind of his romance with Padmé, the start of the war, the secrets and hiding . . . there had been no peace.

Not until now, when he had broken the Jedi Code beyond redemption and the Chancellor, the man he considered a mentor, might be the true source of all the galaxy’s problems . . . now, he felt the serenity he had always been searching for.

And then Leia opened her mouth and yowled, followed by Luke a moment later.

“What did I do?!?” Ahsoka yelped, holding Leia away from her body. Leia’s face was red and her fists were balled up as she cried.

Chuckling softly, Anakin rocked Luke as he lifted Leia up and held her close to him, so she could cuddle up against both him and Luke. Within a moment, Leia settled down and her brother did the same. “Nothing, Snips. She’s a baby, sometimes she’s just gonna cry.”

“Now I wish I had spent more time in the crèche,” Ahsoka said with a sheepish smile. She tilted her head to look at him. “I know you spent even less time there than I did--how are you so good at this?”

Anakin shrugged a little. “Don’t know. It just . . . I feel like I know what to do.”

“You always had good instincts with kids,” Ahsoka said.

“Thanks,” Anakin said. “If it wasn’t for the Force, I’m sure I’d be useless.”

“I doubt that, Skyguy,” Ahsoka said softly.

That made him look at Ahsoka, really taking her in. She had gotten taller, and her montrals were longer, with more defined patterns there and on her face. But the physical was only part of how she had changed. She seemed . . . more guarded. Less open. She held herself differently and didn’t react like Anakin expected.

It made him want to go straight to the Jedi Council and ask them if they realized what they had done, how they had discarded Ahsoka like a broken blaster instead of treating her like a person, a member of the Order . . .

But--but that wouldn’t change the past. Even if it would make Anakin feel better.

He drew in a deep breath. Ahsoka had left the Order because she hadn’t felt like she belonged. Perhaps that might change in the future. He hoped it would. Even if he was expelled from the Order, he hoped Ahsoka would find her way back to being a Jedi one day.

And even if she never did, he knew Ahsoka would always do what was right. She would always help people.

“Ahsoka, I hope you know that--no matter what, I care about you,” he said, stumbling a little over his words. “You--you’re like what I imagine having a sister is like, and--just because you’re not part of the Order--I mean . . . even if you don’t ever come back, my feelings won’t ever change.”

A warm smile lit up Ahsoka’s face. Something more mature than her old cheeky grin, but no less joyful. “Thank you, Anakin.”

“I mean it,” he said, rocking the twins a little. “You’re part of my family. Just like Obi-Wan is, which is the only way I was able to get him to be here when the twins were born.”

“I know you mean it,” Ahsoka said, looking up at him--but not as much as she used to. “I can feel it. And I meant it when I said thank you. It . . . it makes a difference, knowing that . . . that I’m not alone in the galaxy.”

“Not as long as I’m around,” Anakin promised. “And I bet the kids will feel the same way about you. You’ll be the cool aunt who tells them all the cool things she does.”

Ahsoka let out a soft laugh. “And Obi-Wan will be the cool uncle?”

“I don’t know about that . . .” Anakin said with a grin. “Although he does have a bunch of stories about me being an idiot, so I suppose that could hold a bit of appeal for the twins someday.”

That made Ahsoka laugh harder, only to bite it off when Luke made a little snuffling noise. “Oh, sorry!” Ahsoka whispered.

“It’s okay, Snips. Here, hold Luke--he likes everyone, it seems,” he said, handing Luke over to her.

She looked down at Luke, rubbing his back a little. “His eyes look just like yours, Anakin.”

“Yeah, Padmé and I were talking about how much each of them look like us. Leia’s gonna be just as pretty as her mother, aren’t you, my little love?” he cooed to Leia. She blinked her brown eyes at him, then patted her little hand against his chest.

“That’s right,” he said, smiling at his daughter. “Pretty like Padmé and stubborn like me. It’s a good thing Uncle Obi-Wan has so much experience with stubborn Skywalkers, since he’s gonna train you someday, isn’t that so?”

“Oh, Force.”

Anakin blinked and looked at Ahsoka, who was staring at Luke. “Ahsoka?” Anakin asked. “What is it?”

“I . . . I think Luke has connected to me?” she said, sounding confused. “It--it feels a bit like my bond with you.”

Stretching out, Anakin used his feelings to explore his son’s. His discovery made him beam. “Uh-oh. Looks like Luke knows who he wants to train him.”

Ahsoka stared at him. “Anakin!”

“Hey, it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen,” Anakin said, trying to reassure her. “Look at your bond with Master Plo.”

“That felt different from this,” Ahsoka said, looking back down at Luke, her face softening--probably without her realizing it, Anakin thought.

“There’s also a lot of time before either Luke or Leia are ready to be Padawans,” Anakin reminded her. “Especially with everything that’s going on--”

Leia tugged at his tunic, interrupting him. When he looked at her, there was something about her face that made him think of Padmé. He rubbed her back and looked at Ahsoka. “And . . . and they might not be trained as Jedi anyway.”

His former Padawan’s eyes went wide. “What? With how Force sensitive they are?”

Anakin breathed out slowly. “Padmé had a really strong reaction to the twins being so strong in the Force. It was right after she gave birth, so her emotions were all over the place, but--but I think she feels conflicted over the idea of giving the twins to the Temple.”

“Oh,” Ahsoka said, her natural empathy showing in her voice. “That must be very difficult to think about. Especially when you’re holding your newborns and you think you have to give them up.”

“Yeah,” Anakin said. “And . . . well, I’m done hiding things from the Council. But if I get expelled, I wouldn’t even be there to keep an eye on them. Not that I don’t trust you or Obi-Wan or the other Jedi, but . . .”

“It’s not the same,” Ahsoka said, nodding her head. “But, Master--I don’t think you’ll be expelled.”

There was such certainty in her voice, Anakin had to look at her. She gave him a small smile.

“Last night, before I contacted Obi-Wan, I felt something in the Force. A shift that seemed to mean there was something good coming. I think it might have been the birth of the twins. So I don’t see how something the Force sees as a positive would lead to your expulsion.”

Could it be? Could his children be so important? He hadn’t felt such stirrings, but then, he had been a little distracted, what with Padmé giving birth. Perhaps Obi-Wan had noticed something--he would have to talk to him later. Once their meeting was over, once they knew exactly what was happening with the clones.

Once Obi-Wan finished reuniting with his lost love.

Anakin looked at Ahsoka. “What do you think is happening out there? With Obi-Wan and the Duchess?”

“I’ve been trying to give them privacy, even with how emotional they both feel,” Ahsoka said, which Anakin acknowledged with a nod. “But . . . but I think it’s going to turn out okay.”

“I sure hope so,” Anakin said, gently rocking Leia and moving her towards the crib. “I think we’re going to need both Obi-Wan and Satine for what’s to come. Although if anyone deserves a break from putting the galaxy first, it’s those two.”

“Now that I’ve seen them together, I agree,” Ahsoka said. “I wonder what they’re doing.”

XXX

Never before had a silence held so much.

Obi-Wan couldn’t stop staring at Satine as Padmé ushered everyone else out of the room. In the back corner of his mind, he wondered if he should feel grateful to the Senator for allowing him these moments with Satine.

And that realization left him standing as silent and still as a nerf surrounded by banthas.

Like so many times in their past, it was Satine who took the first step. “Obi-Wan--”

Her voice made him squeeze his eyes shut. She was thin and pale, clearly still recovering from her injury and the toil of her recovery. Her beautiful blonde hair was cut close to her scalp, and her eyes were shadowed with pain and worry.

But her voice was the same. Strong and sure, steady and unyielding.

And there was no trace of anger or judgment in her voice. No unspoken accusation about him leaving her for dead.

He supposed he felt enough of that for both of them.

How--how could he have not realized Satine was still alive? He had held her close, extending his emotions for any flicker of her presence, searching for a heartbeat, but there had been nothing.

“I don’t understand,” he said softly, opening his eyes to look at her. “I . . . I was sure that you were dead.”

“So was I,” Satine said, her eyes warmer and softer than he had ever seen them. “I would not have told you how I felt about you unless I thought I was dying.”

His heart clenched in his chest and Obi-Wan opened his mouth, ready to--he wasn’t sure what he was ready to do, and he didn’t get a chance to find out, because Satine took two steps towards him and covered his mouth with her hand.

Her skin was warm and smooth against his lips, and he could catch the faintest hint of lilies--the perfume she had always worn, even during their year on the run when it could have been used to identify her. The scent that had once wrapped around the both of them, when they had--

“No, Obi,” Satine whispered, jerking him out of his lustful thoughts. “You don’t have an obligation to say anything. I only told you because--because I wanted you to know. So you knew there was someone who . . .”

She let her voice trail off, then swallowed and dropped her hand from his face.

“The first Mandalorian Jedi created the Darksaber. You know that, of course,” Satine said, not waiting for any acknowledgement from him before continuing. “What the Jedi didn’t know is the Darksaber has a will of its own. Something special about the crystal that powers it, so the legends say.”

Obi-Wan took a deep breath, trying to rise above his emotions. “Kyber crystals pick their Jedi. So it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the Darksaber has similar characteristics.”

“Yes,” Satine said, clasping her hands together. “So when Maul used the Darksaber on me . . . it did not wish for me to die.”

“But--but you were stabbed,” Obi-Wan said, knowing he sounded like a fool for stating the obvious. “Straight through your chest.”

Satine gave a gentle shrug of her shoulders. “I’m as confused as you are. As disbelieving. Yet here I stand. As best as my doctors can determine, the Darksaber shifted itself as it entered my body, reforming the blade to allow my vital organs to be dealt only glancing blows. My muscles were shredded and I needed a new set of lungs, but . . . but I survived.”

It was so extraordinary, so seemingly impossible. Yet . . . he was a Jedi. He had seen so many remarkable events in his life, witnessing what most would call miracles.

Too often, he had faced heartbreak and tragedy--random, chaotic, meaningless. And he had consoled himself by remembering it was all the will of the Force. Could it be, for once in his life, the will of the Force brought happiness and renewal?

Such thoughts weren’t very Jedi-like of him. All things came from the Force, and its will moved in mysterious ways that couldn’t be fully understood. But right now, Obi-Wan didn’t want to act like a Jedi.

He wanted to act like a man. A man reunited with the woman who meant everything to him.

“Satine,” he said softly, moving towards her. He reached out and gently wrapped his hands around her clasped ones, savoring the warmth of her skin.

She never hesitated to look in his eyes. To meet his gaze and listen to what he had to say, even if it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. And this time was no different. So he could see the hope in her eyes.

“When we first met, no one had ever looked at me and just knew me so quickly, so thoroughly,” Obi-Wan said, gazing at her. “And even though we both grew and changed, you still know me.”

“I do,” Satine said softly, turning her hands in his grasp in order to lace her fingers through his. “Just like you know me.”

Nodding, Obi-Wan smiled at her, leaning forward to rest his forehead against hers. This close to her, he could see the fine lines on her face, the way her lips oh-so-slightly trembled, the glimmer of tears in her eyes.

And even though he had always thought confessing his feelings to Satine would be the most difficult thing he would ever do, it wasn’t.

“I loved you always . . . and I always will, Satine,” he told her, purposefully repeating the words of her own confession. “I do not say this out of obligation--but because it’s what I feel, and to hide that is wrong--”

“Oh, shut up,” Satine said, going up on her toes and kissing him softly.

It was like the whole galaxy burst into song. Not simply because they were kissing, but because . . . they were in love.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes and kissed her back slowly, taking his time, feeling every precious emotion Satine created within him, drawing her close and into his arms.

All too soon, Satine pulled back and he followed her lips, bending down to kiss her.

“That was quite rude, my dear,” he said, pressing soft kisses along her jaw. “Telling me to shut up?”

“Oh . . . well . . . Jedi are so much talk and so little action,” Satine breathed out, tilting her head to give him more access to her skin.

“Only some Jedi,” he said, lightly nipping her earlobe.

Satine let out the most gratifying little gasp of a whimper and drew away from him. “Obi, as--as extremely pleasant as this is--”

“We have work to do,” he finished for her, nodding. But that didn’t stop him from reaching out and holding her hand. “But Satine, just so we’re clear . . . once our work is done? I am yours. No matter what.”

Over the years, there had been a few moments when he had seen Satine happy. They were moments he treasured, how the light of her Force presence increased and her smile reached her eyes. But right now, he could tell Satine was more than happy. She was practically radiant in her joy.

And Obi-Wan wanted to make her that happy for the rest of his life.

XXX

If there was one thing Padmé Amidala knew, it was maintaining a secret romance. She understood how hard it was to stay professional when you wanted to be with your love, to show some sign of your relationship.

It was wonderful that Satine was alive. Amazing, in fact. Padmé had grieved for the Mandalorian Duchess, a woman who had inspired Padmé to balance both the political and the personal. To remember she was also Padmé as well as Senator Amidala, and that she couldn’t be an effective Senator if she wasn’t also a person, too.

So the least Padmé could do was give Satine and Obi-Wan a few minutes together. To allow them time to talk, to resolve their emotions. Because Padmé had never seen Obi-Wan so emotional as when he saw Satine.

Unfortunately, though, their time was almost up. The meeting was scheduled to begin soon, and while their other guests hadn’t arrived yet, it was likely to happen any moment now.

Taking a breath, Padmé looked at Lady Kryze and smiled. “It shouldn’t be much longer before the meeting begins. It’s probably time to remind everyone about the meeting and gather in the living room. Goodness knows Anakin loses all track of time around the twins.”

Lady Krzye nodded, her lips quirking upwards. “And someone should go make sure Satine and Master Kenobi are still clothed.”

“Ah, so you . . . are aware of their past?” Padmé said, tilting her head to one side as she settled on an appropriate euphemism for the relationship between Satine and Obi-Wan.

The Mandalorian woman snorted. “Of course. No one makes Satine lose her temper like he does.”

“I don’t think anyone unsettles Obi-Wan like Satine, so I suppose they’re equal.”

With a nod, Lady Kryze said, “I’ll take care of my sister and her jetii.”

“I’ll meet you there after I’ve gotten Anakin and Ahsoka,” Padmé said, feeling a flutter of gratitude to Lady Kryze for volunteering to handle the more awkward situation.

The two of them separated and Padmé headed to the nursery, excited to get a few moments with the twins before she had to focus on work.

Seeing Anakin hold both the babies made her heart melt. Padmé stepped inside quietly and walked over to him. “Hello, my darlings.”

Anakin smiled widely at her. “Hey, angel. I was just going to put the twins in their crib.”

“Are they asleep?” Padmé asked, noticing how Ahsoka slipped out of the room. She managed to smile quickly at the Togruta before turning her attention to the children.

“Not yet, but they’re definitely sleepy,” Anakin said, showing her Leia’s face smushed against his tunic, her eyes drifting shut and her lips pursed.

Padmé gently stroked Leia’s head, then lifted her out of Anakin’s arms. She settled Leia against her chest, swaying from side to side. Leia let out a soft little sigh, looking up at Padmé with so much love and trust in her eyes.

As she gazed at her daughter, Padmé couldn’t help smiling. Leia was just so precious and unique. The idea of getting to watch Leia grow up, taking pride in her successes and helping with her challenges, was a humbling one. Getting to do that with Luke as well made Padmé feel even more humble.

There wasn’t much time before the meeting. Part of her wished she could just stay here, and sing Leia to sleep and then cuddle Luke while telling him a story. But this meeting would mean so much to the whole galaxy. It could lead to the peace which would allow her to spend such time with her babies.

Still . . . there was enough time to spend a few minutes with the twins.

“Aren’t they just perfect?” Anakin whispered.

And Padmé could only smile and nod at him. Because he was right.

End, Chapter 9

#anidala #obitine #anakin skywalker #ahsoka tano #obi-wan kenobi #satine kryze #padme amidala #bo-katan kryze #star wars #late-night interruption

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nimsajlove · 3 years

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Brothers (I)

So, english is not my first language and i am working with google a lot to translate the most. So please be forgiving, because this takes forever to do for me...

I started a little fan-fic-series in german and now I want to translate it. These are all AUs around Ahsoka and the Clones (most of the time). This little piece is about a AU, where Ahsokas connection to the Clones is much deeper. I shall be called my Brothers-AU I think. Enjoy.

AO3

Part II , Part III , Part VI , Part V , Part VI

*~*

With great reluctance she looked at the food on her plate, if it could be identified as such. She had already learned a lot, but this was her first long trip on one of the Jedi cruisers and now she knew what everyone meant, that the rations there were nutritious. Not more. "Do you spurn your food?", asked a clone calmly, he was sitting next to her and had already finished his ration. She was about to answer when a hand shot past her and grabbed her plate. "More for me.", exulted another soldier and just as Ahsoka was about to get her plate back, the captain laughed softly on her other side and pushed his empty plate away. "Little one, you will have to be faster if you want to see some of your rations."

She got faster. "Jesse, give it back!", she growled and circled the clone who was holding her dessert, consisting of a sweet bar, and was looking at it with curiosity. He was just beginning to open the packaging with a superior expression on his face, when the padawan lunged at him without warning and knocked him to the ground in the motion. And although she was so small, she grabbed the last part of her ration with surprisingly great strength and sat contentedly on the chest of the clone, who rubbed his head. He could have done without the acquaintance with the ground. "I warned you.", Kix mumbled, walking past them and just as he had turned the corner, Captain Rex came from this direction. He stopped with his helmet tucked under his arm and one eyebrow raised. "What happened here?" He asked and Ahsoka grinned broadly and immediately cut Jesse off. "I won.", she beamed and crumpled up the blank paper of the bar, without even thinking about getting up. Jesse could have pushed her down with ease, but somehow he too was enjoying these taunts too much to fight back much.

Rex looked confused for a moment, then began to laugh out loud and held out his hand to the little Togruta. "Wonderful kid!"

*~*

She had learned some mando’a during her studies. Not much, but enough to understand the most important things and recognize an offense. She hadn't been able to do much with the knowledge until the evening when she passed a group of clones on the way to her quarters. She had just returned from training with Master Skywalker, because since they hardly spent any time in the jedi temple, they had to do the training in the breaks between the missions on the cruiser. She was almost past the group, had greeted politely and was already looking forward to a shower. Then she heard the men laugh and one of them said a few words out loud. She didn't understand everything, but it included her name and an insult. Maybe it was because of her mindless behavior on the last mission, or it was about her behavior in general.

She paused for a moment and looked back at the men, who watched her slightly annoyed and when no one moved, she lowered her gaze and quickly went to her quarters. She considered going back to Master Skywalker. But at the same time, she didn't wanted to force him to split the men. She knew his opinion, the clones' strength were their relationships with one another. They formed a unit... She was still deep in her thoughts, when she was grabbed by the shoulders and stopped. "Careful, little one. Where are you going so quickly?” She looked up into Rex's calm face, and faint amusement played around his eyes. But that disappeared, when she began to babble a brief answer. Something about being tired and going to bed, she saw that he wasn't buying it.

They had already fought a few missions together and slowly, she got the feeling that the captain had decided to take her under his wing. Because even if she shouted orders on the battlefield and, since that incident, tried to get all the men out of it alive, he still stayed by her side for a while after the fighting. Until he couldn't stand her jokes and attitude anymore and left his brothers to her mercy. He had never seen her so distracted, actually he had expected a snippy, quick answer. His hand was still on her shoulder and he gently shook it. "If you show who is in charge, no complaint will get beyond my desk."

Said and done. This little assurance, that she was allowed to earn her respect, reignited the fire in her and it only lasted an hour before she had defeated the men in a sparring in the small training room and balanced the helmet of one of them on one hand, it was surprisingly heavy.

*~*

"Hey, Rexter!", she called and luckily, the clone stopped and waited until she caught up. Jesse was with him. "I’ll bet my dessert for the next week, that Hardcase will show up at least twice more at the medbay. Today.", she grinned and looked almost too confident for the taste of the clones. They had learned, that she liked to make smaller bets. The problem was, that she won most of them. Rex wondered, if there was any way he could tame Hardcase for today? He called Cody, Ahsoka's grin widened. Master Kenobi and his commander were on board and Rex felt it advisable, to ask his best friend before doing anything. "Hey Cody, do you know where Hardcase is?", he asked and earned a loud laugh, Ahsoka could see some restlessness on his face and had to laugh herself. It wasn't like Hardcase had been part of the team for a long time. With a second swing, he had only been incorporated into the 501st with a bit delay and Hardcase had quickly made a name for himself. And Ahsoka happend to be absolutely thrilled by his company, much to Rex's chagrin. He had complained to Cody a few times, but had received no real pity. “I just saw him, seemed to be in a hurry. I didn't wanted to stop him.” Ahsoka heard the broad grin in the commander's voice, as did Rex. "Oh, I hate you all.", he growled and cut the connection, then tried to reach Hardcase. Of course, there was no reaction. He looked down at Ahsoka, who was still grinning widely. “You are welcome to bet with Jesse, midget-commander. But I'll keep my dessert.", he grumbled and set off to track down Hardcase.

*~*

The nickname stuck for a while, Ahsoka didn't knew whether it bothered her or not. It was kind of funny, but sometimes the clones took it to extremes and with some of them, she had no hesitation to take up the chase while snarling at them. But Jesse and Hardcase had to learn, that Ahsoka also had limits. One was reached when they tried to challenge the girl to a little sparring, but she just sat sadly in the corner and waited. What for was not difficult to guess at, General Skywalker had become very loud during the last conversation with his padawan and none of the clones dared to speak about it. But apparently, Ahsoka couldn't just go back to business as usual until her Master had calmed down.

A few of them sat together in the canteen by the end of the day and complained about their suffering. It was strangely quiet, when Ahsoka Tano wasn't cracking jokes or squabbling with one of the clones. She wasn't with them now either, she'd retired to a table in a corner and poked at her food. The sight reminded Rex of her first day, only this time no one would dare to steal her plate. Hardcase, who usually planned all the pranks with the jung jedi, wrung his hands. “We can't just let her sit there like that. We wouldn't leave our brothers alone either.” He was quietly approved and there was silence for a few seconds. Then Rex took his dessert, a thing its name they had once again forgotten, and picked it up. “Kid, come here! You won it, didn't you?”, he called and the girl actually lifted her head and came over with a tiny smile. As she plopped down between the men, one patted her back, another pushed a glass of water over to her and Rex let his dessert wander to where she was seated. “And now quickly, vod. Otherwise someone else will take it.", he teased and Ahsoka looked up with huge eyes. For a long time, no one had called her family and all the clones at the table laughed softly, when they saw her face.

#ahsoka tano #clone wars #au #brothers-au #star wars #clones #i tried okay?#lets see where this goes

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novembermurray · 3 years

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Patient Evil Haunts Your Steps

Read on AO3

Rating: General

Pairing: Din Djarin x Omera

Summary: Jedi!Omera AU - When Din returns to Sorgan he brings something of the Dark Side with him. It drags up a past that Omera has tried to forget and threatens a future they both long for.

For @mandomeraweek Day 5

It was a subtle sensation of wrong that Omera tried to ignore. It nagged at the back of her mind, from the shuttered abandoned place within her memory she tried to forget. But that feeling of wrong didn’t go away. It came with the Mandalorian when he returned, and it hung around him, not a part of him but never apart from him.

The Mandalorian himself was changed.

When the unknown craft had landed just outside their village the people had been terrified; were these new bandits? Pirates? Conquering warlords? Slavers? But only the familiar figure of the Mandalorian they knew had emerged. Alone.

The ship took off again, leaving the silver armored man behind with a spear and a jetpack and no other luggage or company. He had been a silent tumult of grief, relief, regret, hope, pain, love… but mostly just exhaustion.

“I… I needed a place to…”

“To rest,” Omera finished his sentence. There was no need for any other greeting.

She showed him to the barn. He thanked her quietly and no one saw him for a whole day afterward.

That was a month ago.

The Mandalorian had become something of a shadow in their midst, at the edges of their lives but never integrated with them. He wandered the forests, dissuaded any bandits that strayed closer than he was comfortable with, hunted birds to supplement the village’s aquatic food source — once even using his jetpack to retrieve medicine from the nearest town in a quarter of the time it would have taken anyone else. He enriched their lives, but he didn’t join them. There was still a barrier—something more impenetrable than beskar—that kept him separated from everyone else. Omera knew that only time would wear it down, so she waited.

The wrongness waited too.

It waited.

Until now.

Omera put down the bowl of krill she had been shelling for their dinner, eyes wide and looking around for the source of a sensation that had no sound, or smell, or touch, or visual. But she felt it all the same. Wiping her hands on her apron absently she got up and left the kitchen, following that feeling through the village, between the krill ponds, and into the forest. It wasn’t far away, just far enough that the sounds and sight of the village were lost in the trees. There was a clearing, she had brought Winta there on quiet evenings before. That’s where she found him and the pulsing sense of wrong that grew with every step.

The Mandalorian’s armor gleamed in the afternoon sun, flashing as he stepped through a controlled series of prescribed movements; slash, block, uppercut, spin, parry, parry, block, lunge. Turn. Repeat. They were the motions of sword drills that were familiar as a childhood dream. He moved through each form with a fluidity of practice yet the hesitation of long disuse. Everything about him channeled focus and calm. He was rigorous in all his crafts; this was no exception. His dedication and intensity was neutral, neither joy nor fear; only right .

The wrongness was in the blade. It had gleaming white edges that crackled in the shadows and disappeared in the direct sunlight while its center was a stark black void deeper than the darkness between stars. It seemed to suck in the sunlight and offered absolutely nothing back: hungry, greedy, demanding. Wrong.

“Omera,” the Mandalorian had stopped his practice when he saw her. “Is everything alright?”

“What is that?” She asked him.

“A laser sword. It’s called the Darksaber,” he lifted it, horizontal and out towards her in a relaxed grip. There was nothing threatening about the motion, but when he stepped forward to offer her a closer look she took an instinctive step back. He paused, reading the fear on her face and thumbed a switch on the blade. The void, the light, the wrongness slithered back into the handle with a hiss. But it wasn’t gone, just dormant.

Waiting.

Omera shivered.

“It is… not a pleasant weapon,” the Mandalorian explained. “I didn’t want it to unnerve anyone in the village.”

She felt herself nodding.

“You were looking for me?”

Omera shook herself out of her shock and confusion, scrambling for a lie to dispel his suspicions. Suspicions meant death. Two decades of running and hiding had beaten that lesson into her.

“Dinner will be ready soon. Perhaps we could eat a little early, take Winta up the hill for some stargazing; she likes the stories you tell.”

“That sounds nice,” he agreed. “Thank you. I’ll be along shortly.”

Omera nodded and backed away. She forced herself to turn around and walk towards the village. She flinched when the wrongness flared behind her, released once more. Something about it felt like vicious satisfaction, and she shivered again.

Over the following week the Mandalorian spent more and more time with the blade—the Darksaber. He found time to practice with it usually once a day. Omera tried to find reasons to keep him from it: something she needed help with, someone who wanted his opinion, a broken machine, a missing child wandered off… but it didn’t always work. She thought he might be seeing through her as the days wore on. Her excuses grew thinner and her desperation grew stronger.

He took to practicing at night, when there was nothing to distract him or keep him from his task. It was all together worse because there was nothing to distract Omera either. She lay in her bed feeling the pulsing sensation ebb and flow from beyond the village and bit her lip against the helpless tears of fear. When she would finally find sleep she would dream: nightmares. Usually they were of war, sometimes of assassinations, of armored warriors cheering her as she held the black blade aloft, of cutting down her foes with its impossible sharpness… of the hundreds and hundreds of dead it had claimed… of the rivers of blood it had spilled… of the darkness… and the wrongness.

On the third night she couldn’t stand it any more. She heard his footsteps on the path outside and rose from her bed. She caught up with the Mandalorian as he passed between the krill ponds toward the edge of the forest, his beskar edged in moonlight.

“That blade is evil.”

He stopped dead at her words though he gave no indication he was surprised at being followed. She saw his hands flexing at his sides. He turned towards her tensely.

“It’s just a weapon,” he replied.

“No,” Omera shook her head, “It isn’t. It remembers. It remembers centuries of blood and ambition and greed.”

“You didn’t even know what it was until a week ago,” he snapped, taking a step towards her.

“I don’t need to know what it's called to know it is corrupted,” she argued back just as sharply, matching his step with one of her own and refusing to be intimidated. “You should get rid of it, throw it away.”

“I can’t,” he shook his head and turned away from her.

“You must,” she knew she sounded desperate, “before it destroys you.”

“You don’t understand,” he spun around, ripping the handle off his belt and shaking it at her angrily. “I can’t get rid of it because it isn’t mine to discard. I shouldn’t have it. I don’t want it. But I need to know how to use it well enough to lose against another Mandalorian and relinquish it with honor. So I must train with it. Don’t try to stop me again.” The wrongness thrummed in the night air and even the insects fell quiet under its heavy presence, but Omera would not be quelled so easily.

“If you fight with that blade it will only be a fight to the death!”

The Mandalorian shook his head, ignoring her warning. “Bo-Katan doesn’t want to kill me. She just wants to win the Darksaber properly and reclaim her homeworld, reclaim Mandalore. It isn’t about me.”

“Maybe that is how it will start,” Omera softened her voice and dared to take a step closer, “but that weapon can twist the intentions of weak willed minds, and it will demand blood. That is its nature. Do not fight with that blade, please. It will only end in more tragedy.”

“Then why didn’t I kill Gideon?” He demanded angrily. “I won it from him, after he stole the child— nearly killed my-my son with his demagolyc experiments— and I spared his life. Explain that!”

Omera was brought up short and drew a sharp breath. Of course he wouldn’t have given in, she thought. He has carried it so long, and still it has not overwhelmed him.

“Because there is nothing of the Dark Side in you,” she said tenderly. “Because you are strong and kind despite everything that has happened to you, all the horrors you have seen. Everything you have done, you do out of selfless love. But the longer you carry that and the more you wield it the darkness will find ways to bend you to it’s will, take advantage of your grief and your pain to make you covet, and fear, and hate. I couldn’t bear to see that, to lose you to the Dark Side. Please, get rid of it.” She begged him through the lump forming in her throat and the hot liquid pooling in her eyes.

“The Dark Side?” His helmet tipped, questioningly. “The Jedi said something about that too.”

“You met a Jedi?” Omera barely managed to breath the question.

“Two. Ahsoka Tano and another; Cara told me he’s called Luke Skywalker. He… The kid, Grogu…” The Mandalorian’s helmet dipped as his gaze dropped to the ground, arms limp at his sides. “I let the kid go with Skywalker to be trained… to be safe.”

He took a deep breath, he looked up at the stars spreading overhead.

“I’m…. tired, Omera.” He admitted to the night sky. “I did what I was tasked to do and it cost me everything: every home I have ever known is gone, my people dead or scattered, my Creed broken, my child…” His voice failed him and he paused to swallow painfully. “I need to learn to wield this blade so I can pass it on. Until I do I can’t take this armor off for good. I want that. I want what you offered me the last time I left. But I can’t until I find a way to give up this weapon. I didn’t come here to disturb the peaceful life you have made.” His tone took on the pall of defeat. “I will leave, return when it is done.” His visor was turned away from her, unable to meet her gaze.

“Ok,” Omera breathed, the short agreement coming out shaky.

The Mandalorian nodded before she could explain and started to turn away again.

“No,” Omera rushed forward the last of the distance between them to grab his hand. He looked back, shock practically vibrating off him. “I meant…” Omera took a deep breath. “Ok, until you can take this armor off for the last time, I will help you.”

She dropped his hand and lifted her own over the pond beside her. She closed her eyes and mentally stepped into the long abandoned place at the back of her mind. It felt like coming home, like opening the windows to a bright summer day and feeling the warm breeze on her face. The world was abuzz with life around her and a familiar presence called out from the bottom of the pool, where it had laid buried for seven years right where she had left it. That presence was easy to grasp now, rising at her command through soil, mud, and water.

She opened her eyes to see the rippling surface of the pool break and the cylindrical handle lift into the air. Drops of water that fell from it caught sparks of twinkling moonlight. At her call the handle floated to her outstretched palm, and her fingers closed around it; right. She thumbed over the switch and the blade of blue plasma sprang to life between her and the Mandalorian.

His visor was bright with the reflected glow of her lightsaber when she met his gaze with determination.

“I will train you.”

#mandomeraweek2021 #the mandalorian #my writing #fanfic #din x omera #mandomera #Jedi Omera #the darksaber

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lilrexsoka · 4 years

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Second Last day...

I’m going to be honest and say I have yet to even start working on the last prompt. Oops. Oh well, what happens happens.

I also changed the rating of the series to a ‘T.’ You’ll see why.

Tagging: @officialrexsoka

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26698138/chapters/65370835

Read it here, or below:

Rating- T

Tag Warnings- Strong Implications

It had just been another after-battle celebration, one filled with victorious ramble and laughter as the troops retold their latest fight. It had gone right for the Republic once again and there were promises of drinks upon their return to Coruscant. Nothing seemed strange, rather than the fact that the Generals had rushed to return to the cruiser. Rex had merely assumed another problem had arisen.

What he hadn’t expected was being summoned by the Jedi, along with his men, for a briefing. This wasn’t a normal mission; instead, Anakin told them that special guests would be arriving with a cry for help. He suggested they remain prepared, in the occasion that efforts were to be taken, while Master Kenobi gave his battalion their own orders. It was only when a shiny spoke up, questioning who the supposed visitors were that Rex truly realized what was happening.

“Good question,” General Skywalker told the trooper with a sideways smile. “I’m happy to say that Commander Tano will be paying us a little visit with some friends of hers.”

Ahsoka. She was… returning? After all those months… she was finally coming back to her men. Permanently? Likely not so… but there was always a chance. Rex knew how hopeful he could remain with situations that leaned heavily on the bad side of the odds.

He couldn’t think about that then. She was coming back, finally. What had she been up to? Where had she been all that time? Had she changed? Had she figured herself out, or was there another reason behind the visit? Anakin had said she would be arriving with troubles… what could those struggles possibly be? And who were the mysterious ‘friends’ the General had referred to?

The clone did not ask any of the many questions running through his head. He needed to focus on the things he knew, and that was the fact that he would get to speak to Ahsoka once again. His heart beating with nervous excitement, he let his men mingle and whisper conspiratorially. Maybe they were just as ecstatic to hear the news as he, but he doubted they really felt as deeply for her, nor did they truly understand the importance of seeing her again.

But it didn’t matter. They would all show equal happiness to see her once again. Rex knew it would be selfish to pretend he was more important to her than anyone else. So, he did the only thing he could think of to ensure that he didn’t do anything idiotic or completely unexpected. “Hey, men. How about we all do something for the Commander before she arrives?”

The clones spent the remainder of that time before her entrance busily leaned over buckets and tins of paint, painstakingly laying down every detail of the facial markings that Rex could clearly see in his head. It was as if, with every stroke of the paintbrush, he was slowly bringing her to him faster. It did help; time flew by, and it seemed like he had painted more buckets than the Kaminoans by the end.

She arrived shortly after sixteen hundred; Anakin brought her forward and revealed the troops, shining and standing at attention with their newly painted buckets. Rex hadn’t been keen on getting rid of his Jaig Eyes, but he did hold one of the helmets he had decorated himself. It clearly didn’t matter to her; she was all speechless and starry-eyed at the sight of her former men gleaming with the same markings upon her face.

Rex's mind blanked at first when he saw her; his breath hitched in his throat when the good days with her came rushing back once more. The highlights of the war, he called them, and there hadn’t been many since she had left. But now, here she was, tall and slim and radiating with the skillful power that a Jedi couldn’t let go of.

Their initial reunion was over quickly, interrupted by the blaring of alarms and a new mission. Many words were left unsaid, but Rex held his tongue. It was not the time. It hardly registered when he was promoted to Commander and shipped off to Mandalore because his hopeless brain was cheering over the fact that he would get the chance to fight by Ahsoka’s side once again. He stood through the endless meetings on the way toward the Mandalorian planet, his thoughts and eyes still on her. Sometimes she would look over, catch his gaze and give a small smile. It told him that she was waiting for him as well.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Ahsoka tapped his pauldron and smirked when he turned around and found her. “Do you have a moment, Commander?” she asked with a purr over the last word. It was still weird to hear; Ahsoka had always been the Commander.

“Yeah, I do.” He wasn’t going to deny this chance at finally doing what he had longed to do since that day she had left; speak with her once again, laugh and joke and make everything feel normal again.

She dragged him to one of the war rooms, clearly still knowledgeable of the locations of each room on the cruisers. There was a certain impatience to the way that she dragged him along as if she had something crucial to say.

“What’s with the haste?” the clone had to ask as she let go of his vambrace and turned to face him with wide eyes.

Ahsoka scoffed, already bringing back too many memories. “We haven’t seen each other in months, Rex. Why aren’t you hastier?”

It was a joke. Already, as if there had been just a short span of time between their last meeting, they were exchanging banter. Rex realized that he already felt more comfortable with her now than ever. But things had to feel different. They were both different people, and this was a different time. Could they really go back to how it was? “Well, I have time to take things slow,” he answered. “You’re back now. I don't have to spend each day waiting for you.”

The Togruta suddenly frowned. “I… don’t know if I’m going to stay, Rex.” She bit her lip and then sighed. “I promised Bo-Katan that I would help her take back Mandalore and capture Maul. But after that… I’m not sure.”

Rex set his bucket down on the console beside him and carefully reached out to brush his hands down her arms. He took that moment to really admire how she had grown. She’d nearly caught up to him in height if her montrals were to be considered. Her face had thinned with age, and she was incredibly… stunning. She was beautiful, even if he couldn’t say it out loud. “Could you handle leaving once again?” He hadn’t meant for it to be spoken out loud, but it was better than what he had wanted to say; I don’t think I could handle it if you left again. The Togruta grabbed his wrists in return and shook her head sadly. “Probably not. But I don’t know what will happen,” she answered honestly. “We never do.”

Rex wondered if she wanted to return, even if she was given the chance. It seemed she was happy to see him again… but yet she didn’t seem to want to give a straight answer about anything. “I know what will happen,” the clone murmured. “I’ll miss you.”

“It has been difficult for me as well,” she protested, her gaze hardening. “I was alone for a long time, and being away from you was just as hard. I felt hopeless at a certain point. I had no rock to lean on, nothing. The only thing that kept me motivated was the thought that I would one day see you again.” The Togruta chewed her lip and ducked her montrals. “Which is stupid. I should be excited to see everyone. I am… but you were the one on my mind.” Her gaze returned to his bashfully.

“I get it,” Rex whispered soothingly. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he inched her closer to him, close enough for her to rest her head on his shoulder. “I’m your friend.” And so much more.

Ahsoka lifted her head again to look into his eyes, her bright irises gray in the dim light. She answered him with a smirk. “I thought I told you not to put a label on our relationship.”

It was a tease, of course, but Rex was brought back to that day she told him that there was something between them. Were those words held true to this day? Maybe she still thought that they were something more… though the thought of that squeezed his chest with joy. “Right,” he replied with a chuckle. “Because anything can happen.”

“Yeah,” she sighed breathlessly. Her arms danced up Rex’s and rested on either side of his neck. “Anything.”

Before he knew what was happening, she had pressed her body against his and moved her face closer, until he could feel her breath brush his cheek. There was a moment of hesitation where she was testing his reaction. He couldn’t find the motivation to protest at that moment. So he didn’t.

She pressed her lips to his, tentatively at first. Rex closed his eyes and savoured the contact, something he had only imagined before. Curling his fingers over the swell of her hips, he made sure to hold her close. He had to make this moment count since it was the very first… and possibly the last.

Ahsoka pulled away for a second, running her fingers along the bottom of his jaw. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” she admitted huskily.

Smirking, the clone squeezed her teasingly. “I’m not complaining.”

There was only one other person in the world at that moment, and Rex was holding her in his arms. He’d never truly identified his feelings for her until she had kissed him, and never noticed she must have felt them back until he caught her hint and lifted her up, her legs wrapping around his waist as his arms supported her. Their kiss deepened and Rex stumbled backward under the sudden weight, right into one of the walls where he leaned for support.

He’d never seen Ahsoka in such a light, but now that he had he felt he could never go back. Having her this close, engaged in such an intimate embrace, he let himself forget everything but her. If one of his men had walked into the room, he probably wouldn’t have noticed. The meeting had gone unexpectedly. Rex had assumed they might have talked about the events that had led up to that day, or even shared a tearful hug at most. This was far more than a hug, but there were no complaints to be found.

If there had been search parties looking for them, or meetings going on without their knowledge, it had not stopped them from ignoring everything and having each other for almost a breathless hour.

“This is a better reunion then I could have asked for,” Ahsoka purred, pressing further against his bare chest, straddled over his lap as he sat in a chair. Her skin was delightfully warm against his, almost surreal against the cool, stale air of the room.

And Rex agreed. Of all the years he had spent imagining their future, he had never expected such an outcome. Whatever she called their new relationship, or whatever it would become, she was right. They were not friends.

#rexsoka #rexsokaweek #rexsokaweek2020 #rexsoka week #rexsoka week 2020

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