jey uso is now officially the most tragic character in wwe history - sold his soul to the devil to keep the most important person in his life safe, only to get backstabbed by him in the end - sacrificed his happiness and pride over and over again for the sake of protecting his family, just to see them get corrupted one by one by the power, paranoia and jealousy that comes from being involved with the closest thing wwe continuity has to a king.
the persona of "the Tribal Chief" must die in the end, and Jey should, now more than ever, still very much be the one to make that happen by taking on the role himself only to destroy it and release his family from its influence once and for all.
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So I essentially keep to my own little sandbox when it comes to SWTOR, my own characters and stories. BUT, sometimes @certified-anakinfucker's Darrash comes over to play with Khel and Quinn. Thoughts happened, talks happened, sobs happened, and while the background circumstances are my fault, this scene is very much to be blamed on Cheeri!
Anyway, no polish here, just feels and word vomit. CW for mention of character death.
Darrash Nealev.
The name dredges something out of the tangled mess that’s been steadily replacing Quinn’s once-orderly brain over the last few days. Muddied memories of a small, slouched figure, a cocky grin made wider by scars that split across warm brown cheeks. Green eyes flicking around, a gaze both distracting and distracted. Never keeping still, constant jittering, fingers fiddling with the settings of a sniper rifle long enough that it must threaten to trip him up -
No. Not Darrash. Cipher Nine.
An agent.
An assassin.
The thought catches in Quinn’s roiling brain, latches on, digging, twisting, so that almost before the door has closed again behind his unexpected visitor, Malavai has already moved - ramming the other man bodily into the nearest wall, pinning him there, as the business end of his blaster pushes hard into the hollow place beneath Cipher Nine’s chin.
For once, there’s no easy roll of a neck or shoulder, no cocksure remark dropped casually from the space between flashing teeth. There’s almost no reaction at all, and for some reason Quinn finds this infuriating, and his blaster bites harder, forcing the agent’s head back - the only movement Nine has made, save for the barely perceptible trembling of his lithe body against the wall.
Their eyes meet, furious blue boring into now-muted green, and Quinn actually sees it, for the first time - true fear fluttering in the other man’s gaze. And hell, he should be afraid, because the stubble is thick on Quinn’s too-pale jaw and the hollows of his eyes are burning with unsummoned tears and his teeth are bared as though he’s only a moment away from tossing aside the blaster and using his jaws instead to rend the life from Nine’s throat.
But then words croak from that throat, thin and terrified:
“You - you think I did it.”
And in these last few moments, in the wild rampage of his grief, that’s exactly what Quinn has thought. Because who better than the infamous yet unknowable Cipher Nine to carry out such an act - to peer through the scope of a prototype sniper rifle and drive a Force-rending bolt into the unsuspecting back of the Empire’s Hand?
A tremor runs through his own hand as the memory grips him again; he shoves it aside by jamming the blaster even harder against the underside of Nine’s chin, till the man’s head is clamped in the vise formed by Quinn’s need for retribution and the unyielding wall behind him. He should say something, he needs to say something, but it’s lodged in his throat as though he’s the one trying to swallow and breathe beneath a blasterpoint. So instead it’s Nine who speaks again, soft, scared, not quite a plea, but an entreaty nonetheless:
“Quinn, please think about this. If I killed Khel, would I be standing here unarmed?”
Rationality, logic - these things have not been heeded or welcomed in Malavai’s broken brain. All semblance of reason has given way to the tidal wave of heartbreak, rushing in to fill the terrible hollow left behind by Khel’s death.
But now they nudge gently at him, circling, coaxing him to stop, and breathe, and think. Quinn stares at the agent, sucking in harsh breaths that tinge his tongue with the mud he can smell hanging on the other man. He searches the Cipher’s still stiffened face for any hint of deception, of guilt, but there’s nothing, nothing but fear and a fragmented pain, and slowly, wretchedly, realisation finally takes hold.
It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Darrash.
And yet, even as he feels the fury draining from his limbs, Quinn remains there for another moment, the blaster still pressed tight to Darrash’s tilted chin, because if it wasn’t Darrash he doesn’t know who, and now he has no outlet for the anguish still building unbearably inside him.
But then the moment passes. Quinn withdraws the blaster, steps back, pivots away from the terrified agent; a second later he hurls his weapon into a corner of the room, letting out a sound more akin to a wounded nexu than a decorated officer of the Imperial military; and then he buries his face in his hands, as though skin and flesh and bone might somehow be strong enough to hold the magnitude of the grief once more retching from his mouth.
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