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turvi · 10 months

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And I Love You So

All the images are taken from Pinterest.

"Severus and Y/n"

Severus groaned when he heard Professor Slughorn announce his new partner for potions. He thought he had impressed Slughorn enough to let him work individually, but the professor claimed that the other students could use his help.

He watched Y/n approach his desk. She looked so happy and bright. He rolled his eyes, distracting himself by collecting ingredients he would need to make potions. For now, Severus was glad that she was quiet until-

"Hey, I am Y/n L/n."

"I know"

This was how the majority of their time went by. Y/n would try to talk to Severus only to get a maximum of two words out of him. At times she could feel him getting restless beside her.

"You are putting too much Dittany root." His fingers twitched as he shifted his weight on his feet.

"Don't worry, Severus...I know what I am doing. Just wait and watch."

He scratched his head and watched as anxiety filled his chest. "It's too much it will explode on your face."

"Aww, Severus you care about me."

Severus looked at her with a disappointed look. "I care about you ruining such an easy potion."

"Trust me, Severus, I got this," Y/n said, patting his arm. Severus shivered when he felt her touch. It was so gentle and warm. His hands were never warm.

"Your hand is warm." He cupped his mouth instantly, not believing the words that came out of his mouth. It was an observation. Nothing...too bad, right? But then he saw Y/n smiling at him.

"Pay attention to your potion" He went back to stirring his potion. He never felt so warm. Probably the temperature is rising. He observed her potion and saw the dark shade of purple forming. While his potion was in a lighter shade.

What made it worse was that Slughorn gave Y/n extra credit for creating the perfect potion. He should have felt defeated and jealous. But she just looked so beautiful standing there smiling at him. What did he do for her to smile at him like that? Like a sweet summer, she shone bright, and she was so warm.

Severus shook his head. "I need a drink." He watched Y/n approach their desk with a smug smile. Severus gave a defeated sigh. "What?"

"Maybe you should put more dittany roots in your potion next time" She looked at him with a mischievous smile, and Severus let her win this time.

..........................................

A few months went by. The season of thunder and rainfall was here, indicating a bitter goodbye to the summer. He sat at the usual desk waiting for his partner- potions partner.

He felt her before he saw her. Her energy was so bright he could spot her in a crowd with his eyes closed. He waited patiently. Severus knew what she was going to say. "Did you hear the thunder?."

"Did you hear the thunder?" Y/n said and frowned when Severus chuckled. "What are you laughing about?"

"Y/n, you have been pestering me about monsoon since the start of our new term. I know how the sound of thunder and rain comforts you, and you love to dance in the rain like an idiot." His tone was more amusing than taunting, and Y/n knew.

"Ahh...so you listen to everything I say. And you say you don't care."

Severus smirked at her."I don't, darling, but you sit beside me regularly voicing your love for monsoon."

For the first time, Y/n was quiet. Her heart pounded against her chest at how he smirked at her and called her darling. She felt nice. She realised she liked seeing him smile.

After the class was over, it started raining again. "Come on, let's go."

"Y/n, where are we going. Slow down."

She didn't reply to him and walked out in the rain. "Y/n, come back. You will get sick."

Y/n twirled and let out a happy squeal. "Yeah, I will, but at least I am enjoying it right now."

Severus shook his head. The sound of her laughter felt like a warm hug in this cold weather. "Come on Sev, dance with me."

He shook his head. "No. I am not stupid like you. I don't want to get sick."

"Please, Severus, just once...then I won't bother you, please." she extended her hand. Severus had a lot of worries. What if someone saw him dancing with her? What if they get sick, what if they slip and fall. But her smile. He couldn't think of a reason someone would smile because of him. But here she was so happy and excited at the idea of dancing with him.

He cautiously held her hand and let the raindrops fall on him. His eyes widened when he felt her hand on his waist, his hands finding her shoulder and waist, drawing her closer to him.

Severus heard whispers and snickers in the background, but he just couldn't take his eyes away from her. The sound of rain and her humming drowned the sound of the whispers and snickers. He frowned only because he couldn't kiss her, thank her, or worship her just because she was patient with him. Just because she held him so gently. Just because she smiled.

.....................................

Smoke clouded his lungs as he tried to make his way through the corridor. He was in his room earlier trying to find ways to tell Y/n that he loves her. The past few days, his feelings have only grown whenever he would find her simply resting her head on his chest, holding his hand, or feeling her eyes on him whenever he looked away.

Dread filled his chest as he heard screams from the Hufflepuff tower. Severus ran as fast as he could, coughing as smoke entered his lungs, colliding with students running on the opposite side. The only thought in his head as his lungs burned was to save Y/n.

"Y/N!" Severus called out in desperation as the common room burned around him. He kept calling her, trying as he made his way through smoke and fire. Then he saw her trying to open the door to someone's dorm.

"Y/n, come out now."

"Severus, students are stuck in there. I can't leave them. Get out the fire is increasing." Y/n yelled as a pillar fell down, increasing the fire.

"I am not leaving without you." He didn't give her a chance to argue and helped her open the jammed door. "I'll put a spell that will clear the way."

Severus and Y/n finally got the door to open, and she helped the students out as Severus cleared the entrance for the students. As the last student got out, Severus got in to help Y/n out, and she smiled as she ran towards him. He picked her up and got her out of the tower before the fire consumed it.

"How did this happen?" She looked up at him as he carefully put her down. But he didn't respond. He just kissed her, his heart pounding against his chest with fear, relief and love. She smiled against his lips. "What was that for?"

"Sorry, I should have asked, I just-

She cut him off as she kissed him again. Severus held her tightly against him. The dread in his chest was still there. He felt like something was not right.

But Y/n sensed it before Severus could. She pushed him away, taking the attack that was meant for him. Severus could only catch a glimpse of the hooded figure.

Severus couldn't run after it as he held the lifeless body of Y/n. The one person who loved him. The one person who smiled when she saw him. He lost her in seconds, and he couldn't even tell her how much she meant to him, he couldn't tell her how much he loved to hear her laugh, he couldn't tell her he loved her.

Severus held her hand, but they were not warm anymore. He lost her. Forever.

...............................

14 years had passed. Severus lay there in the boathouse taking his last breaths. He knew everyone hated him, and he didn't mind, he never did. He could only hope now that Harry and his friends would win the war. He couldn't do much. He finally could rest.

But as Severus started to close his eyes, he heard a familiar. He instantly recognised her voice. Was it really her? He could see Harry was trying to revive him. But Severus didn't want to live anymore. Not when she stood there smiling at him like she did all those years ago.

"Y/n!" his voice croaked, and the trio looked around, trying to see what he was looking at but saw nothing. The trio saw life fade away from Severus. They mourned his loss, not knowing he was finally where he always wanted to be. With Y/n. Dancing with her to her favourite song.

A/N: I hope this was good. REBLOGS AND COMMENTS ARE APPRECIATED

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reader6898 · 3 months

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Rescue

Pairing: delta squad x female reader (platonic), Sev x female reader (romantic)

Summary: Delta squad has to rescue you when you're taken while they're on a mission

Warning: Sev threatens to kill one of your captors, torture (not descriptive), mentions of slavery and sex work, language, that's it

A/n: I've never read any of the clone commando books so I apologize if I didn't get the characters right. I'm just kinda going off on what I've read from other people's fanfics

"Where is she?"

The Zygerrian laughs as he answers Sev's question. "You're too late. She's long gone by now. Probably been sold already and pleasuring one of my brothers as we speak." The Zygerrian laughs again but immediately stops when Sev punches him.

Sev pulls out his vibroblade and pulls the male by his fur as he holds the blade to his neck. "If you don't tell me where she or your cronies have gone I will slice your kriffin throat without hesitation." The Zygerrian spits in Sev's face and stares at him. "I'm not telling you shit. So go ahead and kill me. Your girl is gone forever."

Sev was about to tear him apart when Boss comes in. "What!?" Sev breathes heavily as he continues to hold the blade to the Zygerrian's neck while he waits for whatever Boss is going to say to him.

"Come take a breather. Let Scorch or Fixer take over." "I'm fine." Boss sighs and Sev hears him come up behind him. Boss bends down and whispers loud enough only for Sev to hear his words. "You're not in your right mind, brother. He's never going to talk if you keep this up." Boss was right. Sev needed to take a step back. Boss takes a step back as Sev straightens up and Sev places the blade in the Zygerrian's leg. The Zygerrian screams out in pain but Sev does nothing to lessen to pain. "Hold that for me, would you?"

Sev follows Boss out of the room and curses are thrown his way but both of them ignore their hostage. Sev takes off his helmet and sets it down on the table before pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.

The team had been on a mission so you stayed behind as Sev had said it was too dangerous and that you could get hurt. While it had been true Sev didn't think that the danger would still find you. He was dead wrong.

They had come back from the mission and found their ship torn apart. Sev instantly panicked and went to find you but turned up empty. They searched for you in the nearby woods to see if you were hiding but had no luck. Since then Sev had been going out of his mind as the team continued their search for you.

When they got word from an informant that there were slavers in the area they checked it out and found one of the Zygerrians. They managed to subdue him and brought him back to the abandoned building that they were using when they started looking for you.

Hours later and Sev was still not getting answers that he was looking for. Boss puts a hand on his shoulder and Sev looks up at his brother. "We'll get her back. I promise." Sev knew that Boss was only trying to help but right now nothing he could say was helping to reassure him.

Scorch and Fixer walk up to them. "Did he say anything?" Sev nodded his head. "No. He's not going to cooperate with us." Fixer cracks his knuckles together. "Don't worry. I'll make him talk." Fixer and Scorch walk to the room and lock the door behind them.

Soon Sev and Boss could hear screaming coming from the locked room but chose to ignore it. The Zygerrian chose to lay down in his bed and now has to pay. Now all Boss and Sev have to do is wait patiently.

Thirty minutes later Fixer and Scorch come out and Fixer heads for the sink. he takes off his gloves and cleans them off before washing his hands. Sev paces a little as he looks at his brothers. "well? did he say anything? give a location to where they're holding her?"

Scorch nods his head. "Yeah. Said that they were keeping her in a small place on the other side of the city. He also said that they'll have at least five to six people guarding the place and more in the building." Sev grabs his helmet. "Let's go." Boss sets a hand on his arm. "Hold on. We need a plan if we're going to rescue her. We can't go in blind."

"fuck the plan. I've waited long enough. I'm going to get her back with or without your help." Boss takes Sev aside. "You need to calm down. If we go in there blind we could end up getting hurt. Or worse. And I'm not even going to mention what could happen to her if we do." Sev stays quiet. He knew that Boss was right. If something happened to you Sev wouldn't be able to bare it. "Okay. Let's make a plan." Boss nods and the four of them make up a rescue plan.

You sat quietly on the bed that you had been placed on by the men that took you. When they first found you you hand been outside admiring the plants and taking pictures of them with your holopad to show Sev later and collecting data on them. When you saw them come out of the trees you ran inside and they came after you. You threw everything at them that could get in their way but they had eventually caught up to you. You tried every fighting technique that you had been taught by delta squad but the zygerrians caught you and subdued you.

They were able to tie your arms behind your back and they also placed something over your eyes so that you couldn't see their faces. Once they had you in their grasp the Zygerrians brought you to wherever you were now.

You could hear a couple over in the corner talking to each other and others outside the room. Then you hear footsteps come your way and you panicked. The Zygerrian touches you and you flinch away. He laughs at how scared you are.

The Zygerrian that touched you said something in his native language that you couldn't understand but you had a feeling it had to be about the way you flinched or something inappropriate. The others laugh and you sit far away from him as possible. Taking you from Delta squad had been their first mistake. Now, if you were harmed in any way, these men wouldn't stand a chance against them, especially with Sev on the team. You were his sarad (flower) and if another man even thought about looking your way Sev would have their head.

You continued to sit there when all of a sudden there was shouting coming from outside. What was happening? Whatever it was it raised suspicion with your captors. There was more screaming and shouting and you could hear the zygerrians scrambling to get their weapons.

You could hear the leader of the group giving orders in their language and then it was just the two of you. He walked over to you and grabbed your hair. You let out a yelp as he held you close to his face. "If you make a sound I'll kill you. Understand?" You nodded and he let go of you. You sat in the corner on the bed and prayed that whoever it was didn't kill you as well.

Sev took out another Zygerrian before joining his brothers. When they arrived at the building you were being held at it had gone smoothly in the beginning until one of the zygerrians came out and spotted them. Fixer took him out but soon more had been sent out at the arrival of the team.

They successfully made it inside but more and more zygerrians came at them. They really didn't want to give you up. "On your left!" Scorch took out another Zygerrian that was coming at him and joined Sev as they did their sweep. They looked in every room for you but so far came up empty. You had to be around here somewhere.

They joined Boss and Fixer on the next floor and saw that they had one of the zygerrians. "I'm asking you one last time: where is the girl?" Fixer held his blaster to his head as Boss stood face to face with him. The Zygerrian finally cracked at gave them their answer. "Two floors up. She's in the last room."

Boss nodded at Sev and Sev and Scorch ran up to the floor that you were being kept on. Sev was closer to you than ever now and once he has you back he won't be letting you go.

You heard shouting coming from outside followed by blasters going on. You became frightened and struggled a little against the rope that was keeping your arms bound behind your back. Whatever was about to happen you didn't want to be a part of.

The shouting was outside the door of the room and you could feel your heart racing. You could hear the leader of the group stand up from where he was sitting and his weapon being picked up.

The noise from outside stopped and the door slid open. "I'll kill her." The weapon he was holding was pointing your way and you silently listened. You were now afraid for your life and you didn't know if the person that showed up was friend or foe.

Whoever it was didn't care as they shot at the Zygerrian and he went down. You heard footsteps and you panicked as you tried to make yourself small. "Please. Don't hurt me." The person approached you and you could hear them laying down their weapon on the bed and the sound of a helmet coming off

The person touched your shoulder and you screamed. "It's me, mesh'la." You sat there for a moment as you took in his words. "Sev?" Sev takes your blindfold off and you let yourself adjust to the light. Once you could see clearly you saw Sev looking. "It's okay. I got you." You cried as Sev cut the rope and you threw yourself into his arms.

Sev held you close before pulling you away and placed a kiss on your lips. You were visibly shaking and Sev pulled away once again. He brushed your hair out of your face and held your face in his hands. "Are you okay, cyare?" Your lower lip trembles and more tears fall onto your face.

"Shhh. It's okay, my love. I got you mesh'la. I got you." Sev wipes your tears as the others wait for the two of you outside the room. He places a kiss on your forehead, cheeks, lips, and finally one last one on your nose. You giggle a little and Sev was happy to see you smile. "There's my girl." He picks you up and holds you in his arms as he carries you out of the room. As all of you walk out of the building you hold onto Sev and bury your face in his neck. You missed him and the scent of him.

That night you and Sev curl up together in his bunk. The two of you were inseparable since you had been rescued and you didn't mind one bit. You were happy to be back with your clone lover.

The two of you hold each other and as you close your eyes you let the lull of hyperspace pull you and Sev into a deep sleep.

Tagging: @techs-stitches @anxiouspineapple99 @sev-on-kamino @wings-and-beskar @moonlightwarriorqueen @cw80831 @sunshinesdaydream @523rdrebel @dystopicjumpsuit @deejadabbles @multi-fan-dom-madness @rexxdjarin @the-rain-on-kamino @the-bad-batch-baroness @sinfulsalutations @eternal-transcience @starrylothcat

#star wars #delta squad #female reader #delta squad sev #sev x female reader

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smilingformoney · 5 months

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Rickmas 2023: Day 2. Restless Waiting | Snape/Persephone

Read on Ao3 or below the cut:

Never had time moved so slowly. Severus was pacing back and forth in the hospital room so much that eventually Persephone piped up.

“Sev, stop pacing, you’ll wear the floor out. They’ll come when they come.”

“How can you be so calm?” he replied, although he did as she said and stopped his frantic movements. “You’re in labour!”

“Oh, gee, thanks for telling me, I would never have known. Labour takes hours, Sev. Abbie took ten hours to come.”

“Yes, I know that, but anything could happen in that time. Can we not speed it along? All this magical knowledge and we can’t even placate the suffering of labour?”

“Your suffering or mine?”

“Yours, of course, my love.”

Severus sat down by her bed in the chair the Healers had nicknamed “the husband chair.” Hundreds, if not thousands of impatient husbands had sat on that chair waiting for their child’s birth, but none so impatient as him.

“They’ll be here, Sev. And on Christmas Day too… typical. They clearly have the Snape flair for the dramatic.”

“I’m not dramatic —“

“Yes, you are.”

“…I suppose.”

Severus got out of the chair again and knelt down by the bed to come face-to-face with her belly, and he gently laid a hand on her bump.

“I’m very proud of you, my beautiful girls, for choosing such a day to be born,” he said softly to his not-yet-born daughters. “Even if you are giving your father heart palpitations by taking so long.”

At least he was here. Abbie was at home, waiting to hear the news that her baby sisters had been born. She had no idea if they were out yet, if they were okay, if her mother was okay. Severus, at least, was here with Persephone.

She reached out to take his hand, and Severus looked up at his wife.

“Are you nervous, Sev?”

“Am I nervous? You’re the one pushing them out, Sephy, not me.”

Persephone chuckled, but they both knew that wasn’t what she’d meant. Severus brought her hand to his lips and gently placed a kiss to the back of her hand.

“Of course I’m nervous. I’d be a fool not to be. But we have each other, and Abbie. It’ll be different this time. Better. You don’t have to do it on your own anymore, Sephy. We’re a family now.”

Persephone smiled. She was in labour, and still she was the most beautiful thing in the world to him.

“Team Snape,” she joked.

Severus rolled his eyes, but he smirked.

“You’re in labour, so I’ll allow that. Yes, Team Snape. And we’re about to get two more team members… if they ever hurry up and get out of you.” He leaned up to press a kiss to her temple. “I’ll be patient, my love. I waited so long for this… I think I can wait a little longer.”

Persephone winced suddenly, her grip tightening on his hand.

“Maybe you won’t have to,” she said. “I think it’s time.”

#rickmas2023 #severus snape #alan rickman #snape x oc #snephy #gif not relevant #but closest i could get to snape smiling lmao

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robynlilyblack · 2 years

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Heyy request for barty getting taunted by y/n's gryffindor friends for being a 'death eater by association' because he hangs out with rosier and other 'suspicious' slytherin dudes and to everyone's shock y/n gets super defensive over barty and then he's just happy that someone believes in him 😊 💛

I believe in you

Bart Crouch Jr and gn! reader

Summary: Y/n is the only one that believes Barty is good

Warnings: swearing

A/n: 1.4k words, hi, so sorry this took so long, I hope you like it, enjoy

Navigation | Marauders Era Characters Masterlist

Barty sighed he had spent the last hour laying on the common room floor until it was time to meet you, not knowing what to do with himself

“Least Salazar had good taste in rugs” he says to himself, hands pushing into the soft emerald carpet

Suddenly a shadow covered him “What are you doing?” Barty squints for a second before realising it was Snape

“Contemplating life” he says casually

He was in a way, he was trying to decide whether he wanted to tell you how he felt, but there were some things standing in the way. Your friends weren’t exactly thrilled that you and he were friends, let alone the possibility of going any further than that.

He knew hanging out with Evan, Regulus, and Snape, as well as other future ‘deatheaters’ made him considered dangerous, but what else was he to do? Ignore all three of his dorm mates, who despite their parents were lovely people, ostracise himself from his entire house due to ideals that were placed upon it because the founder and his descendants were an arseholes?

He sometimes wondered if you felt that way, if you had fears he would become ‘evil’, you were acquaintances with the marauders after all. Mostly Remus and Peter but he had seen Sirius trying to flirt with you, something that made him realise his feelings for you were far from platonic.

“Well can you do that somewhere else? I can’t study over you Bart”

He groans sitting up “Fine. You know Sev, if you spend less time studying dark arts and more time studying people you might have a chance with your own sweet lion” he says with a cheeky smile

Snape rolls his eyes “We can’t all have memories like yours Bart, say does your sweet lion know of your photographic memory or are you still pretending you don’t know anything?”

“They don’t but just because I remember everything doesn’t mean I understand it Sev. Now if you’ll excuse me…” Barty stands up, brushing down his clothes to smooth them out “…I’m going to go meet them, 30 minutes is too long to wait in your wonderful company” he says the last part sarcastically, ruffling Snape’s hair playfully

Barty headed to the library, knowing you had a study session with your friends there before your own with him. You and he never studied in the library as it was in his own words ‘dreadfully dull’. It was too quiet and he couldn't talk to you freely, make you laugh at his rather terrible jokes nor confess his feelings should the right moment arrive

Soon he found you and y friends, you were facing away from him while your three friends where sitting around the circular table, all clocking his approach so he takes a seat at a nearby table, deciding to just wait there for you

“Where did you say you had to rush off to at two, y/n?” one of your friends asks and Barty looks up, he didn’t mean to listen but considering all three of your friends where sending him glares when you weren’t looking it was clear they were trying to taunt him

“I’m meeting Barty” you say simply but he doesn’t need to see your face to know you have a smile on your face

He sees the middle one rolls her eyes “You know y/n you really shouldn’t be hanging out with him” she says already vexed, something the boy found rather amusing but as the comments continue his amusement fades

“She’s right y/n, he’s a Slytherin he can’t be trusted”

“That’s rather prejudice don’t you think” you say nicely and Barty smiles, you were too sweet for your own good, maybe he was holding you back, a bad influence

“Come on y/n”

“He hangs out with Rosier for Godric’s sake, his father is one of the worst”

“And the younger Black brother, you heard what happened with Sirius, he ran away from that house because they are all evil. If Regulus was anything but that he would have gone with him”

Both of those made Barty’s blood boil, the fact they had no idea what was really happening, the depression Regulus was going through without his brother, the fear of merlin Evan had for his parents.

At the same time he felt like he was going to puke, maybe your friends were right, his friends would most likey end up on the wrong side of the war whether they want it or not and...may bring him with them

“Why should who he is friends are matter? How does that define his character?” you ask looking at them

“Because he’ll become a deatheater, he will y/n, you know that and he’ll only be using you for information. His friends are future deatheaters, who he associates with shows you his real face”

“He hangs out with me so I must be a deatheater then too” you snap at them, your sharp tone surprising Barty

Your friends look shocked too “That’s not what we meant y/n, we’re saying…”

“Well stop” you silence them “You are wrong, Barty is a good person. It doesn’t matter who his friends are because they don’t define him, don’t make me believe less in him. Gordic, what would expect him to do, just not speak to anyone in his house? You know you are right about one thing, who your friends with do matter and I don’t want to be friends with any of you anymore”

Barty’s eyes widen, a smile adorning his face at your defence of his character not noticing all the stares flicking between you and him

“You don’t mean that” one manages to get out

“Yes, I do. He isn’t dark, he isn’t going to be a deatheater and if he did it’s because of people like you” you shout at them not caring who hears “You wonder why Slytherins act the way they do, keep to themselves? It’s because you see the green tie and automatically think they are bad, so how are you any better than the few that see a muggleborn and hate them. Merlin have you met some Gryffindor’s? They are just as bad but you ignore it because they're in a red tie”

Your friends were bound to silence as was most of the library, even the librarian didn’t interrupt you. Everyone you knew was there, the marauders looked shocked but Remus and Peter had small smiles creeping, Lily looked guilty at another table, Regulus and Evan looks pleasantly surprised, Pandora was just smiling at you, bless her heart, and the rest were a mixture of shock and disgust. A Gryffindor defending a Slytherin was unheard of but one publicly defending them was even more so in current climates

“Well if you excuse me” you voice had returned now to its soft nature “I have someone to…” you turn around to see Barty standing there smiling at you “…meet”

You walk up to him, taking his hand in yours and leading him out of the library.

He follows willingly and when you are out of sight of everyone else he stops you “Y/n doll slow down” he chuckles at you

You peer up at him “Sorry” you apologise, frown lines still on your face “Don’t believe them” you say firmly “Don’t let any of them get to you” you take his other hand “They are mean and wrong”

He looks at you fondly “You’re wonderful you know that right” his thumbs graze over your knuckles

You bite your smile smiling “I do now” you say quietly

One of his hands leave yours and cup your cheek “Thanks for believing in me, I was starting to think no one did” he confesses

“Well they're stupid” you say and he laughs

His fingers move to tilt your head so it’s in line with his, leaning in slowly and letting your noses brush “I like you, more than like you actually…I'm pretty sure I’m in love you”

Your eyes light up “That’s good because I’m pretty sure I love you too” you say and with your confession he wastes no more time, lips capturing yours in a soft kiss

Thank you for reading 💛

#barty crouch jr x reader #barty crouch jr #barty crouch junior #Barty crouch junior and reader #barty crouch jr x you #barty and reader #barty x y/n #marauders era #marauders fic

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raineandsky · 1 year

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#28

The villain finds the hero wandering down a small side street, trying to find the best way to eat an ice cream. It’s a little odd to find him out here—he’s in an agency uniform, so he’s on the job. Why is he eating an ice cream? Where did he even get that this time of night?—but the villain doesn’t let it faze her, dropping from her balcony where she was watching him to block his frankly snail pace journey down the street.

“Evening,” she opens smoothly, and the man’s face contorts into something between vague distaste and abject horror. “Hope I’m not catching you at a bad time.”

She leans forward slightly to push the ice cream out of his hand with a lazy flick of her wrist. He watches it splatter rather pathetically on the floor at his feet. “I was eating that,” is all he says, and his voice is dripping with despair.

“Shame,” is all she says as she breezes into his space. “I’m awfully sorry about your little late night treat, [Hero], but I think we–”

“What? Oh, no.” The hero laughs slightly. “No, I’m not [Hero]. I’m her sidekick.”

The villain gives him an incredulous once-over. “What, did they run out of teenagers to employ? They’re just hiring retiring dads as sidekicks nowadays?”

“Ah, well, not entirely retired yet, I guess.” He sighs wistfully. “This is [Hero].”

He turns his back to her—an entirely stupid move, if she wasn’t so curious—and shrugs himself out of his coat. The ridiculous bulge on his back that she’d logically assumed was a bag is in fact a baby sling, and in the baby sling is… a baby.

“Ew,” is the first thing to unintentionally come out of the villain’s mouth.

“As you can see she’s not quite, ah… ready yet.” He takes the ice cream out of her hand, identical to his own now on the pavement below. She’s not convinced a child that size should be eating that much sugar in one go.

“Yeah. That’s a toddler.”

“A year and a half,” he tells her proudly. “I took her to the agency the moment I knew she had powers, but they can’t do anything with her until she’s eighteen, so they ‘hired’ me so I can be under their protection until she’s old enough to be taken in.”

This situation is baffling to say the least. “You’re telling me an awful lot of information about a magical infant child that is presumably yours.”

“What, that you can’t hurt her without getting targeted by the agency?” The hero—or just some random guy, she guesses—smirks knowingly. “She’s in good hands. For the most part. My wife wasn’t too happy knowing we had a kid with superpowers so she left and now it’s just me so–”

“I don’t want your life story.” The villain huffs irritably. “I couldn’t care less. I came here for a fight and frankly I’m annoyed that I can’t beat your ass now.”

“You could, and you undoubtedly would, but you’d be leaving my daughter an orphan.”

“Jesus Christ, okay,” the villain cries with a scoff. “Keep your stupid magic baby. I’ll come back later to deal with her.”

“Give her seventeen years,” the man suggests without a hint of irony.

“Sev– okay, yeah. Seventeen years. Whatever.”

The man smiles gently, and the return he gets is a pissed off scowl. “Thanks for your compassion today, [Villain]. Most villains would see her as an easy target,” he says softly. “I hope my daughter grows up to be as thoughtful as you.”

The scowl only deepens. “Eugh, I hope she doesn’t. I’m not that good.” She turns on her heel to escape this honestly embarrassing situation. “Teach her some manners, at least.”

“She’ll be something to be proud of, I know it,” he calls after her, and for one horrifying moment the villain almost genuinely smiles.

#writing #creative writing #writing community #writers on tumblr #writblr #heroes and villains #guess who downloaded UNITYYYYYY #i cant code and theres a lot happening and its scary mom plz come get me #wish me luck im lost as hell

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gothenby-666 · 1 year

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Finally found you- Severen x gn reader

((warnings of angst, pinning, soft sev, mentions of killing, ends happy!))

((slight description)) You ran away from the coven, and they've been trying to find you for 4 years now. for that time, you've managed to avoid them, but you ended up running into the one who you've really been trying to avoid.

I edited it ✨️

Severen can still remember the night you left. You had been acting strange. You didn't speak or meet anyone's eye - it was a clear sign that you were up to something. The most pressing detail of all was that you stayed behind the rest when you were usually the first one gone. If only he had stayed behind and spoke to you, if only he hadn't let his past lover, Elisa, go back to retrieve his lighter. If only he had gathered the courage to reach out to you. This never would have happened.

You and him were inseparable once you finally made your first kill; he remembered how you were so frightened about what you'd become and how you refused blood for 4 nights. He's never seen someone resist blood for that long, but looking back on it, you always had the strongest of wills. It was one of the reasons he loved you. You were enchanting, fierce, and a force to be reckoned with. Those were the first few qualities that brought his attention to you in that dingy bar. Back then, his attention was only on you, and he knew by how your heart raced that night he had your devoted attention too. Severen should have known the moment he laid eyes on you that you were his mate. Maybe if he wasn't so damn stubborn or blindly loyal, he'd have seen through Elisa, a lover who wasn't even there, and to you, the one he needed. God, how he wished you were near again, he'd do anything to go back to the nights of stolen glances and accidental touches if it meant you were at least with him.

These last few months have been the bane of his existence. Elisa was supposed to be his everything. She was supposed to be what he's always wanted, but now the only thing he wants is to finally be yours. Without you, the coven began to tear apart. The others rightfully blamed Elisa for your abrupt disappearance, even if the note you wrote to the coven saying goodbye never explained why you left. It was clear to everyone, even Severen, but he refused to acknowledge it. It was easier that way.

Caleb and Mae had been your closest friends, beside Severen, when you first became a part of the coven. But when Elisa returned, you retracted from his side altogether and spent your time with them instead. The couple was enraged and sorrowful with your absence. You were their close friend and meant so much to them. Mae had no intention of stopping Caleb from starting a fight with Severen after months passed without you. Caleb and Mae let their disdain towards Elisa well known that night and accused her of driving you away. Severen was going to fight for his returned lover, but the moment she confessed. Any remaining loyalty to her was gone, and he had no fight to give.

In the simplest of terms, the Hooker coven distributed a fitting punishment for hurting one of their own unto Elisa. Gone, but not dead. Now, there was only one thing they all needed to do, and that was to find you. Severen was convinced he'd never find you again as 4 years passed. There were multiple times when he knew you were near but just out of reach, and it drove him insane. He was a void of who he was. No longer did Severen Van Sickle play or toy with his victims. Hell, sometimes he'd even forget to eat. Not even Homer could make him joke around with the others. It was an unsettling sight to behold.

In Chicago, 1992, there you were in an underground punk bar flirting up a storm with someone he hoped you'd be killing. You felt him. He knew you did because from across the bar, you made eye contact. He was overjoyed to see you, but his joy turned lackluster when your horrified expression came to view, and you ran. You fucking ran away again! A pit of rage fuelled Severen's next actions as he ran after you. He wasn't going to let you slip away this time, not now, not ever again.

Already out of the bar and into the nightlife. You ran far, but you could hear the single click of a spur following you. You knew it was him. You could feel him. With time spent separated, the pull between you two became even more powerful and harder to ignore. It made your heart ache, and you wished you could rip it out from your chest. You swerved and turned down different streets, anything to avoid him. You couldn't handle any more heartbreak. He chose her, and so did the coven. Why is he chasing you now? You gave them the chance to meet you again, but no one came. When will this torture end?

You were convinced by now that you lost the older creature of the night and slowed down to a brisk walk. No longer did you hear that spur click after each of his haunting steps. You made your way home and stepped inside the studio apartment building you've been living in for a bit now. It was thanks to a friend who owned the studio that it was even possible for you to live there. The deal was that she let you live there for free as long as you agreed to supply blood for her. You could leave whenever you wanted, and only had to return the keys. All in all, it was a good trade.

While walking up the stairs, your body froze with nerves when you heard that familiar spur click against the ground as the man who wore it approached from behind. Instinctively, you ran up the steps the moment his voice rang through the echoing staircase. "Oh yoo, who!" He laughed hauntingly as he chased after you. You were beyond panicked. Why was he doing this? You pulled out your keys and bound up the last few steps before struggling with the stupid door. He was close; it felt like electricity rushing down your spine the closer he was getting to you. When you finally opened the door, you slammed it shut, but your stalker caught it with his foot.

On the other side of the door, Severen spoke in a low, threatening but mocking tone. "You avoidin' me, darlin?" He wedge one of his large hands into the opening while you used all of your strength to keep him outside. Your heart ached, and the words slipped from your lips. "You know what you did..." You could visibly feel Severen's rage as his large hand grips the strong door and easily throws it open. His strength makes you stumble back and be thrown deeper into the small studio. When he steps through the entryway, he glares you down and slams the door shut so hard it splinters the wood framing. You jump from the loud slam but just stare at him. He's seething, and you've never seen him like this before. "What I did? You're the one who left?..." He didn't yell, but his accent was thicker as the rage seeped into each letter. Severen slowly stalked towards you, and you took a step away from him each time. The man you saw as your closest friend and the one you loved terrified you in this moment. You returned his glare and clenched your fists tightly in order to ground yourself in the overwhelming situation. "You never met me in Salem or wrote back!" You tried to sound mad. You really did, but you sounded heartbroken instead. Severen's rage waned at your voice. He stopped in his tracks and stared at you with such confusion. "Salem? What're you talkin' 'bout?" You laughed bitterly, and the sound was so broken it twisted Severen's heart. "You don't even remember the letter I wrote you." Severen let out a frustrated growl and wasn't tolerating any of your antics. The older creature of the night stormed right up to you and grasped you by your shoulders. He shaked you to snap your attention to him. "Goddamn it, enough! What letter, Y/N? Please.." His voice held little anger like his actions did. He was begging with his voice and eyes just desperately trying to understand what had happened. You push him away from you as his touch makes it all too much. "My letters.. they were on the counter in the motel room. everyone got one." You left a letter for each of your coven members, saying goodbye and telling them exactly what your plan was, where you would be, and a writing address. Severen thought for a moment, trying to understand what happened before whipping around and smacking the desk below. He hit it so hard the wood cracked beneath his palms. "Fuck!" He yelled when the dots connected, you were confused by the outburst. "Severen... what's going on?" He bit back the groan that filled his throat just from the way you said his name, God did he miss you.

The sadistic cowboy looked over his shoulder, still leaning on his hands over the desk. His gaze was something dark. "We never got your letters 'sides the one for everyone. Elisa musta done somethin' to 'em." You scoffed at him and rubbed your eyes in frustration. It made sense. You ran into her that night and didn't even think about the chance she'd tamper with it. "Speaking of your mate, how is she?" You tried to speak politely, but venom dripped when you said the word 'mate'. Severen stood straight from the desk and stepped towards you. Your eyes were pointed to the ground, so he tilted your chin up to meet his dazzling blue eyes. You melted seeing him up close, but when he grimly spoke, that warmth faded. "Gone." Your body froze. Gone? She was gone, but why? A part of you was happy she was, but it dawned on you that this entire time, you've been living a lie. The coven never knew of your letters or knew how you wanted to return. They didn't abandon you like you thought. When he let that information sink in, Severen questioned in a kinder tone. "What did that letter say?" You didn't meet his eyes when you pulled your chin out from his touch. Everything was too overwhelming. Your lips trembled as the truth is revealed. "It said to meet me on October 30th, 1988, in Salem. I wanted to spend Halloween there with everyone." You paused as you tried to swallow the lump in your throat and blink back the tears. "But none of you came, and 2 months alone turned to 4 years." You were hanging on by a thread, and your voice was just as shaky as your body. For so long, you thought the family you finally found within the Hooker coven was all just a figment of your imagination, and they didn't want you. You fell apart when you felt Severen wrap his arms around you. He pressed his head into the crook of your neck and thread his fingers into your soft hair, pulling you into his chest. He hushed you in his arms, but his own voice was shaky as he spoke. "I've been lookin' for you for all these years... I swear if I'd known 'bout that letter I'd been there. we all woulda…"

Once you finally calmed in his arms, Severen pulled away to face you. He needed to see you properly. It was a shocking sight for you to see his pale cheeks dampened with tears. You reached out to cup his scruffy cheek and wipe the stray tears away. He leans into the touch and gives you a wobbly smile. Not a smirk or grin. a smile. One that you missed for so long, "Why are you crying?" it was a stupid question, but you needed to know. Severen brings his own hand and cups your cheek as you pull your own hand away. His rough thumb rubbed against your soft skin, and his ocean eyes stared at you with such longing and love. "Cause I've been lookin' for you for longer than just those fuckin' 4 years. Now that I have, I ain't ever lettin' you go." Your heart flutters in your chest as Severen leans his forehead against yours. His hot breath fans against your pretty lips. "Is that so?" You mused and wrap both your arms around his strong shoulders. You can feel his lips twitch into a smirk. One of Severens hands tangled itself in your hair, and the other pulled you closer to him by your hip - both grabbing your devoted attention. "Nah, darlin'. That's a fact." He closed the distance between your lips with his. He made your head spin with his gentleness and passion. Severen hummed against your sweet lips as you effortlessly returned his tenderness. He regrettably pulled himself away and looked over your beautiful face. He was remembering each feature and design of you with a charming smirk on his face. "C'mon, the others been dyin' to see ya." He wrapped an arm around your shoulders, and you raised a brow at him with a smirk on your lips. "Dyin?" You knew you weren't returning to that studio ever again because you were finally where you belonged.

#severen near dark #severen #near dark #light angst #vampire #bill paxton #but ahhhh #i hope you enjoy

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thetorturedpoetsintern · 1 year

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Illicit Affairs - A Malfoy Infidelity

Note: This was born out of a joke me and @alwayssevvy made but I'm not going to tell it now, you'll find it in the end in order to not spoil the story. Credits to @alwayssevvy for letting me use her OC as Severus' wife. Thank you again 💜

Warnings: angst, mentions of cheating (if it wasn't obvious from the title), fluff, hinted nsfw

cca 2.9k words, a short story by the looks of it

Find it also on AO3

It was a late evening. The kids were put to bed already for half an hour. Severus and Danica enjoyed a glass of wine together, celebrating yet another day where their twins didn’t blow Severus’ lab while playing, and the youngsters actually shared their toys between them without crying. They are growing up, I’m sure, Severus encouraged Danica when she sort of complained about it at lunch. A peculiar day indeed, and yet a more peculiar night awaited them because right when they prepared to go upstairs, a firm series of rasps at the door disturbed them.

“Dani, please go upstairs! I’ll deal with it alone. Most likely it’s just another drunk bastard who forgot which house is his.”

“To hell I’m going to leave you alone, I’m staying,” she scoffed at him. He knew better by this point than to press on the subject. So in a couple of swift moves, he was by the door, wand clutched behind his back, trying hard to block the view to not disturb Dani. Just then, the known silver head of a snake made its way to his chest. So this thing made those strange noises, thought Severus before withdrawing the wand from his back and pointing it at whoever clutched tightly the joining point of the silver ornament and an elegant black cane.

It all happened too fast, his reflexes still as good as in his school days. If he didn’t recognize the snake head, he might have cursed that person already. But Severus assumed it was a mental alarm, and he could only threaten and not act. He thanked Merlin for that later as from the darkness, the face of his friend, Lucius, could be seen in the light coming from the hallway.

Lucius wore the hood of his cloak over his head, an unusual thing for him as he always insisted he’d rather cast a charm over his hair if it were to rain and let the muggles stare as long as they want than wear the hood of any cloak. His face was dark and firmly set into a grimace of pain. Something must have happened to him. He had never looked like this before, and Severus was right. Something did happen, but not then. Earlier that day, Lucius received the confirmation that what happened wasn’t a mood swing or a twisted revenge. It was true and as real as daylight.

“I know it’s late, Sev, but may I come in?” Merlin’s beard, he’s been crying. Severus then opened the door wide and stepped back, waving at Lucius to enter. Dani glanced at Severus, eyebrows raised in a silent question followed by a quick move of her head towards Lucius, who seemed to notice her standing in the hallway only too late. Severus closed the door behind them.

“You know what, Sev? I’m sorry to have disturbed you. I'd better go on my way.”

Lucius turned towards the door, but Severus blocked the way with his body.

“Nonsense, you’re staying until you feel better.” A shocked What? came from behind Lucius, but Severus didn’t look elsewhere, but in Lucius’ slightly red eyes, forearms crossing over his chest, eyebrow lifted in a muted confrontation. Dani saw exactly the look of determination on her husband’s face and knew better than to contradict him then, though she made her indignation and disagreement clear with a loud scoff and turned her back to them, disappearing from view.

“We’ll talk another time. I upset your wife. You don’t need my problems on top of your clear ones,” Lucius said, dropping his tone in case Dani happened to be right around the corner.

“She isn’t herself if she doesn’t do that at least once a day, and you gave her the opportunity.” He couldn’t resist but to laugh at his own joke, unperturbed if Dani overheard. In fact, he hoped she did because it meant some great passionate nights would follow, nights when he’ll have to remind her to behave. Severus was excited thinking about rekindling their intimate time but something else was more pressing in the moment than him getting shagged. “Now, let’s get you out of this cloak and into my office to tell me what the hell happened for you to be at my door at almost midnight.”

He didn’t have to show Lucius the way. He was pretty familiar by this time with the layout of the house, and without any noise, he made his way to Severus’ office. Looking over his shoulder, he saw his friend following closely as he entered the room. Without shutting the door to his office, Severus came in and went to pour some firewiskey for both of them from the bottle he kept in his hidden cupboard under his typewriter. Hidden from the kids at least, but as long as Dani hadn’t acknowledged it yet, he relished in his little personal secret.

"Do you still have the bottle me and Narcissa gave you when you published your first textbook?" Lucius' face began to show its usual glow of easiness, although weary. "You really become a lazy drinker with age." He chuckled at his own remark and even Severus' lips began to draw in a smile as he left his then more empty glass on his desk.

"You can't quite drink when your house is full of children, can you? Now, the occasion seems to need it. So what happened, Luc?" It was real concern draped in Severus' features. His eyebrows drawn together, his eyes fixated his friends face in a hunter's gaze. Nothing, not even an involuntary twitch, would escape him. "Shouldn't you still be on your honeymoon? And where is Esme? Is something wrong with her?"

At the mention of Lucius' new wife, a deadly silence fell in Severus' office. The blonde man's eyes became glassy again, his look lost, searching somewhere seemingly on the carpet but never finding it. Fingers fidgeted with his still full glass of alcohol when in an outburst of energy, he gulped all its content in one go, and, moaning deeply in his chest, partly due to the burn in his throat at the sudden large amount of firewiskey and partly due to his own emotions bursting out of his chest, he started his story.

"I think Esme and I have broken up. But don't intervene. Let me tell you everything now that I have the courage to do so because if you keep pressing me on details, I feel I won't be able to finish this. And I need to tell you this, or I feel like I might explode. You're my closest thing I have left as family, and I can tell you and only you. You can tell Dani later, laugh at my story, I don't care. But you won't interrupt me, and you and Dani won't spread this thing around, alright?"

Severus nodded, already taking notice of his friend's request on not interrupting him.

"I don't know exactly when it all began. I guess it was when Narcissa wanted to meet Esme. I figured it was something normal to want as the former wife, so I took care of it. I even invited Draco to join. Poor boy, I'm not even thinking at myself but of him. What can possibly be in the boy's head now?

Like I said, I took care of the formalities and invited them over to dinner. The introductions flew with no problem whatsoever. The conversation was easy and familiar. I couldn't believe my eyes how lucky I was. I think now I should've known something wasn't right. What fiancée ever befriends her lover's ex-wife? And it wasn't just the fact that they became friends, they became best friends. Esme started inviting Narcissa over for tea, for lunch, for dinner, for walks in the garden, and all other women nonsense. It started feeling like I hadn't divorced at all, and my mistress was having tea parties with Narcissa in a sick and twisted nightmare.

Besides the fact that Narcissa practically moved back in the manor and I saw her everywhere, Esme started talking about her when we were in bed.

What would Narcissa do?, What does she feel like?, Make me moan like you did with Narcissa.

And I still played along, blinded by some passionate love nights with my soon to be wife. She blinded me with her body, something I gloated myself to be impossible in my case. That it was I who produced this effect and not that I was a victim of it."

Lucius broke his speech to put the glass down, freeing his slightly trembling hands. His eyes were slightly bulged, the red threads showing more obviously than when Severus first saw him that night. It was obvious Lucius tried to contain his tears, and he kept trying as he began talking again with more difficulty this time due to the lump in his throat. He almost succeeded, almost because salty tears washed his face by the end of his story.

“I’m disgusting, Sev, I know. What should have this sick man thought while fucking his soon to be wife on the memory of his ex? And not because I longed for her, but because SHE longed for her.

I should’ve known. Who in their right mind fantasizes about someone’s ex? And I should’ve been more careful because I have known Narcissa for decades. That woman gets what she wants, every time. Just how she convinced me to stop trying to have children after she gave birth to my heir on the first try, how she convinced me to agree with the divorce, and just how she apparently decided to ruin my next marriage before it even began.

And so the days went by. Narcissa, being at the manor, started to become a habit again. Always at the arm of Esme, always at her beck and call. And I decided to ignore it. I was relatively happy, Esme was happy. Narcissa was unusually happy, so who was I to ruin this lavender haze around us?

I think you find it odd all this talk about Narcissa when she wasn’t even at the wedding. Esme invited her, she even begged her to come but Narcissa wouldn’t budge. I, for one, was particularly pleased. It seemed that my paranoia was just that, paranoia. It bothered me when Esme cried after Narcissa’s repeated refusal. It wasn’t a spoiled child’s fit. It was more than that. Even I could have noticed that.

Do you remember when Dani took her aside to give her some words of encouragement the day before the wedding? Well, I thought and thought and thought for some time, and I can say with utmost certainty that she wasn’t upset and anxious about the ceremony, but about the fact that Narcissa wasn’t there.

You don’t have any idea, Sev, how that hurts. To know that you’re not the reason for your lover’s anguish and hence you can’t do anything about it. Because if you bring the person responsible to cure your lover, you know you’ll lose her forever.

And so I kept going through the pain. I said to myself that time will cure it, and as soon as we’re off from this place, everything will turn around and be like in the beginning. But it wasn’t. I was mistaken about that too because as soon as we went off for our honeymoon, Narcissa started to be anguished, too. And what did she do, you may wonder, Sev? She used a portkey to get to our resort.

She made this entire speech to me and Esme about how she didn’t mean to fall in love, that it was something she couldn’t control, that the biggest mistake in her life was to let Esme marry me and by allowing so, she'd have her around, close but still so far away for her entire life. I don’t remember what else she said. My mind has been clouded from the moment I felt Esme leave my arm and fall in the arms of Narcissa. I haven’t seen any of them since then. They just left me. Gone into thin air.

I spent my honeymoon alone, bitter and filled with bursts of vengeance and depression. I would have kept appearances because I’ll be ruined if people found out my wife left me for my ex. Just saying this aloud is devastating. And I would have hidden from you too, Sev if it wasn’t for this photograph I got this morning.” Lucius reached his breast pocket, revealing a moving photo of two smiling women lounged in each other's arms in a chaise longue. They were beaming with happiness, and Severus noticed, even caressing each other softly.

“Read what’s written on the back.” A broken sob erupted from Lucius’ lips, but Severus ignored it for now and obeyed his friend’s plea.

On the back of the photograph, in a neat and supple cursive handwriting, with long and pointed loops in black ink he recognised as being Narcissa’s, a few lines justified Lucius' pain:

We’re alright, dearest Lucius. I plan to take care of her forever so don’t you worry your pretty mind. We’ll put this straight when we get home. Esme begged me to write to you that she’s sorry. I’m not though. Kiss Draco for me, N x

To say that Severus was shocked, it was an understatement. He knew Esme and agreed with Dani when she said they were clearly a match, so hearing now about her having an affair with Narcissa behind Lucius’ back at first shocked him out of his tiredness. Severus knew Narcissa, too, and Lucius was right. Once she got her eyes on something, no one and nothing could stop her. And by the little note, Esme was it now.

He glanced at Lucius’ hunched up form, face hidden in his palms as sob after sob escaped his lungs in a pained tone. Severus made his way toward his friend and reached an arm over his shoulders to drag him into his embrace. He found out that, in a surprising way, he was wordless. But Lucius didn’t need words and so he kept rocking left and right with Lucius in his arms, trying to comfort him in the same way he did with every one of his children but not succeeding this time.

Time went by fast, and Lucius had calmed by the time Dani got to the door.

“Look Lucius, you’re family, you’re our children’s godfather, and whatever happened to you I’m deeply sorry. But now I need my husband to come to bed, and you need to get into one too. So what about you go to the guest room and get some rest.”

Like a kid caught red-handed, Lucius disentangled from Severus and, arranging his clothes and hair, made his way to her.

“Thank you so much, Danica!” He engulfed her in his arms, propping his cheek on her elbow. She could feel his damp skin on hers, and she shot an inquiring look to Severus, who managed to mouth Don’t mention Esme in time for her to let go of her next impulse of asking Lucius directly.

“Don’t worry, Lucius. Have a good sleep!” That was his queue to retire, and he obliged. Just like he knew where Severus’ office was, he also knew where the guest room was and headed straight there, shoulders still hunched and head bowed.

Severus draped an arm over Dani’s shoulders and bent to kiss her forehead. He sensed the question forming in her mind but couldn’t take more of this story for now, and having to retell it meant he had to relive it which he wasn’t inclined to do so this soon, so he answered before she could ask, a habit he had formed a couple of years ago.

“It’s complicated. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow, but for right now, I just need my wife and a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.”

She turned to face him and rose slightly on her tiptoes to kiss him as a response to his unasked answer. It was also a habit she developed a couple of years ago.

“I heard you. And I’m not storming away each day.”

“Oh, but you do, darling. And you know what that means? I have to remind you yet again who runs this place,” Severus dropped his voice and whispered against her lips as one thumb caressed a nipple through her nightgown and the other drew circles on her hip.

“Then let’s go and remind me,” she replied.

It was early morning when, this time, Severus finished Lucius’ story. They were tangled in the sheets, proof of his display of dominance and her blackmail and persuasion.

Dani couldn’t stop laughing by the end of the story, while Severus tried to make her stop, afraid she’ll wake up the children with her laughter.

“I can’t stop, love. Just imagine, the most whorish man I have ever known was cheated by his current and his former wife. Does that count as both of them cheating on him or just Esme?”

“Why? If you’re planning to do something like this, too bad I have no ex-wife,” he replied, palm massaging her lower back slowly, a self-satisfied smirk pulling lazily at his lips

“Oh, love, but I can be the ex. And I’ll help you choose your next wife. In the end, I will run with her, so she has to be a great match.”

He burst into a loud fit of laughter that got him a slap over his shoulder from Dani and an urgent whispered question, “So who’s waking up the children now?” They laughed together at that as silently as they could.

A few caresses and kisses later, they fell asleep embraced. Lucius could wait a couple of hours before Severus would wake up, think and come up with a plan.

Note: So the idea that started this story was me and @alwayssevvy talking about our life with our own Severus and Lucius when I suddenly changed one lyric from Vigilante Shit into Picture me scissoring with your ex wife, the ex wife in question being Narcissa. The rest is history.

#severus snape #lucius malfoy #severus snape x oc #lucius malfoy x oc #narcissa malfoy black #narcissa malfoy #narcissa malfoy x oc

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arcsimper5 · 2 months

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Yaim'ol - Chapter 3

yaim'ol - [yai-MOHL] - return, homecoming

Pairing: Sev x F!Jedi OC, Scorch x F!Jedi OC Characters: Delta Squad (Republic Commando), F!Jedi OC Cin Rating: M - Explicit content in later chapters Warnings: Gore, Canon-typical violence, angst, smut (later chapters), descriptions of injury, force osik.

Following on from the end of Republic Commando, Sev and Cin must make their way through the galaxy, overcoming trials and tests in a bid to keep themselves alive long enough to reunite with their squad.

Chapter 3 - Loyalty

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

The words seemed to ring hollow in his ears, his mind reeling.

Laid on the floor, helmet off, completely vulnerable as Cin stood over him, her lightsaber blade pointed squarely at the cracked armour of his chest, he knew he should have felt something.

Fear, maybe? Relief, at seeing her again? No… There was nothing. Nothing but anger.

The Jedi were traitors. She was a traitor.

Wasn’t she?

Staring up at her, his eyes were cold and dull. None of the warmth that used to hide beneath the surface, the adoration he used to direct at her remained.

It was like he’d been hollowed out somehow, left a shell of his former self. A shell which had retained his skill, his speed, his strength. A shell that had been hunting her for just over a week now.

She looked… different.

Her usually pristinely styled hair had been cut short, raggedly, likely with a vibroblade, he reasoned in his mind.

Kark… Why was he looking at her? Why wasn’t he just killing her? He knew her tells, he knew how to disarm her.

Just laying there, he could think of at least four ways to knock the lightsaber from her grip and turn it on her without injuring himself.

So why couldn’t he do it?

Cin remained above him, frozen in place, staring at his face as if waiting for something.

A deep cut ran over her bottom lip, grazes and bruises littering the skin of her cheeks, her shoulders, every inch of exposed flesh he could see beneath tattered robes, and an odd compulsion ran through him to reach out, to caress her, to care for her.

Shaking his head, he growled angrily, baring his teeth.

Traitor. Die. Must. Die.

He didn’t even realise he’d spoken aloud until Cin’s breath hitched, tears streaming down her face.

“I don’t understand!” she said in little more than a whisper, the trembling of her hands apparent.

More recognition began to creep back, Sev’s eyes running over her.

Maker, she looked so skinny. When was the last time she’d eaten? He’d had his emergency supply of ration bars on him when he’d crawled out of the wreckage… No… Wait… Been pulled out…

When was that? Days? Months? Years?

Time felt mixed up.

Another memory flashed across his mind, eyes screwing up in pain as it seemed to physically burn him.

Cin laid underneath him, grinning as he pinned her against the practice mat. Sweat beaded on her chest, the low cut vest top she wore giving him the perfect view of her ample cleavage.

“Got you again,” he purred, leaning down to lick a trail from the join of her shoulder up her neck. She shivered with delight, arching against him, relishing the strength he used to hold her in place.

“M-Maybe I let you win,” she breathed, raising an eyebrow at Sev’s wicked grin.

“Of course, mesh’la,” he teased, taking in the sight of her below him. They were so close now, he could practically taste her with every breath.

“That’s the third time you’ve called me that today,” she complained softly, a frown forming on her face. “Are you going to finally tell me what it means?”

“The deal was, if you won,” he chastised her playfully, her fingers flexing against his in annoyance. Before he could even register it, he felt the pull of the Force, his body flipping over in an instant. She was immediately back on him, straddling his hips, his arousal clear as she leant back over him.

“I win,” she chuckled hungrily. “Told you I lost on purpose.”

“Minx,” he breathed, trying not to groan and arch as she leant back over him, her face mere centimetres from his once more.

“Tell me,” she urged, though it was more of a desperate plea now, the question in her eyes burrowing into his soul.

“Beautiful,” he whispered finally, averting his eyes for fear of what he might find waiting for him. “It means beautiful.”

A thousand questions ran through Cin’s mind, but she couldn’t voice them. Not when he was this close, this vulnerable beneath her. He could have flipped them back at any moment, but he was allowing this, allowing her to see him like this.

Closing the gap between them, she brushed her lips over his, earning a low, almost feral moan. Strong arms wrapped around her as a deft tongue swiped against her mouth, demanding access to what it had always wanted…

“N-No…”

Sev’s eyes stung as he blinked, trying to take in the sudden change of position. He’d been on the floor mere seconds ago, with her above him. Yet now…

He could feel the unfamiliar trailing of tears down his cheeks as he stared down at her, his vibroblade clutched in both hands above her, ready to strike as she lay beneath him, a twisted version of the memory.

Now, instead of warmth and fondness, there was cold terror in her eyes, her mouth parted slightly, hand outstretched towards her lightsaber but held down by his knees on her forearms.

“S-Sev, please, I… I need you to l-listen to me… this… isn’t you!”

She was sobbing, gasping for breath as his hands twitched.

It’s simple, his brain reasoned. You’ve done this a thousand times before. Kill her. End this. Take her lightsaber to the capital. Prove your loyalty.

Loyalty…

The word seemed to ring in his ears.

She’d come for him, saved him on the ship when his brothers couldn’t. She’d protected him and them, knowing they couldn’t disobey orders.

Brothers… Maker… he’d forgotten them. How had he forgotten them?

All he could remember was rage, pure and undiluted at seeing her face when she’d dragged him from the wreckage of the ship, desperately calling his name.

“Sev?”

His hesitation was telling, but she couldn’t be sure.

“Good… soldiers… follow… orders.”

The words tasted like ash in his mouth.

He was a good soldier, he was. So why couldn’t he kill her?

She was a traitor!

She… She’d betrayed them…

How?

His own voice asked the question, desperate for answers.

How has she betrayed you? She’s been with you all this time. Every comm, every message, every shore leave, she’s been with you. How has she betrayed you? You know this is wrong.

Something in his mind snapped, searing pain ricocheting through his skull as if his very blood was on fire.

He registered the clattering of his vibroblade, then a warmth consuming him, soft murmurings in his ear.

“Stay with me, Sev, please… please, cyare… I need you, I… I love you, Sev.”

Eyes snapping open again, Sev fought the pain as he reached for his vibroblade once more, Cin’s eyes filled with horror as he clutched it, drawing it back, and…

The trandoshan mere feet behind them let out an awful howl as the blade pierced its eye as it launched its body through the bushes, shattering bone and scale and brains, the corpse falling to the floor with a thump.

He could hear Cin’s panting for breath, her entire body quivering as he collapsed back against her, his head still ringing.

“S-Sev?” she whimpered, as if speaking too loudly might trigger another bout of murderous rage from him.

Looking up, he saw her properly for the first time in days, without the haze of rage, without the need to harm, and he was devastated.

“M-Mesh’la…”

The cry of relief she let out was heartbreaking, settling deep into him and refusing to budge. He could only clutch at her as she sobbed against him, fingertips digging into his armour.

“I- I knew you’d, you’d come back,” she blubbered into his neck, tears wetting his skin, “I knew you were in there.”

Exhaustion overtook him as reality warped and waned, pain and relief mixing together to send him into a blissful sleep state. Only a few words managed to slip past his lips as he collapsed, Cin calling him once more, her panic growing.

“L-Love you… too…”

#star wars #star wars the clone wars #republic commando fanfiction #star wars republic commando #republic commando #delta squad #Republic Commando Sev #Republic Commando Scorch #daniwrites

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rose-of-the-grave · 9 months

Text

The Pact

Pairing: Lily x James

Modern AU

This will hopefully have five parts. I'm the author (please don't repost) <3

Masterlist Series Masterlist. Read on Ao3

Warnings: 18+, no actual smut but a lot of references, mentions of past bullying(no specifics),

Word Count: 1,980

Description: When their friends keep meddling in their love lives Lily and James agree to fake date for a few weeks.

"Lils, we need to get you laid!"

Lily rolled her eyes at her best friend. She did not want to have to go through this conversation again. Just because she hadn't gone on a date in a few months since she had broken up with her sleazebag ex didn't mean she was desperate for some action.

"Can we not do this again?" She pleaded.

"Why? You haven't gone on a date since you broke up with that slime ball Severus. And I know for a fact that you never went further than the second base with him. Which means you haven't had sex in at least six months."

"Seven." She muttered.

"Even worse! You need to get laid and we," she pointed at herself and their other friend, Alice, "are going to make it happen."

"We are?" Alice asked. Marlene elbowed her in the ribs causing her to cough. "Oh. Right. We are!"

"Look, that's sweet but I don't need help getting some."

"Oh?" Marlene arched one eyebrow questioningly. "Are you seeing someone and not telling us?"

Seeing an exit to this conversation she did her best to act convincing when she said, coyly, "Maybe I am. So what?"

Her two friends thankfully took the bait. Unfortunately for Lily, they were very eager to discover the identity of her supposed boyfriend.

"So?" Marlene asked.

Pretending not to know what she wanted to know Lily parroted back, "So?"

"Well? Come one tell us! Who is this mystery guy?" She lowered her voice a little, leaning over the table. "Is it someone we know?"

Trying to diffuse the situation, she merely replied, "Perhaps."

The bell rung signalling that someone had entered the restaurant. Momentarily distracted, Lily looked up. In had walked three men, Sirius, Remus, and James. She knew all three and was close friends with Remus. They had become close when they started working at the same bookstore. Shortly after meeting him she had been introduced to his boyfriend, Sirius. They got along well enough but they didn't have too much in common.

Then there was James. He was practically like a brother to Sirius which meant she saw him on occasion. He would stop by the bookstore once in a while to say to Remus. However, he had developed a terrible habit of asking her out nearly every time they met. At first she had been nice about it but after a while it had gotten a little annoying.

He had stopped once she started dating someone. Overall, she had liked him just fine before. He was funny and charming but once his previous history with her boyfriend had been revealed she had been quick to start hating him.

According to Sev, James had bullied him ruthlessly all through school. Lily had always been one to stand up to bullies so that had started an automatic dislike for him. Her anger towards him developed into outright hatred whenever he mentioned her boyfriend. Right out of the gate he had questioned their relationship, saying that Severus wasn't right for her.

Two months later, he was proved correct when he started hanging out more with his friends and had outright insulted her. From a young age she had always tried her hardest in school so having her boyfriend question her intelligence and insult her family was a huge red flag. She dumped him immediately.

However, even after the breakup she still maintained her aversion to one James Potter. He had seemed to get the memo and had stayed away as best as he could considering their mutual friends. The worst part was he was still funny and charming. If it hadn't been for her disastrous relationship she probably would have taken him up on his offer.

She internally groaned at what she was about to do. Her friends were not going to let up until they got a name.

Standing up, she excused herself saying she had to go to the bathroom.

When she went to walk away, Marlene made it clear that they would be continuing this conversation when she got back. Alice nodded, further hammering in Lily's decision.

Marching up to the three men who had just walked in, she smiled and greeted Remus and Sirius. When she turned to face James, her smile slipped. She already hated what she was about to do.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?"

He was, unsurprisingly, shocked that she had reached out and talked to him. Those were the first words that she had spoken to him in a while other than the occasional, "Hello" and "Remus is in the backroom, he should be out in a minute".

"Sure." He responded, hesitantly. His mind was already racing trying to think of what she might want to tell him. They walked away towards the bathrooms.

"So," he turned to face her. "What's going on?"

Inhaling, attempting to steady her breath, she met his gaze. "I was wondering if you would mind pretending to be my boyfriend for a little while."

"I'm sorry, what?" He was looking at her like she had just told him that the earth was actually flat and everyone was being lied to.

"You heard me Potter." She fixed him with a steely-eyed gaze. "I need you to be my fake boyfriend to get Marlene and Alice off my backs about getting back out there."

"You know you could just tell them to back off."

"You say that like it's easy. I tried but Marlene is of the opinion that I need to get laid." He spluttered a bit when she said that. "Look, you were interested in me before. We already know each other well enough."

"They'll see right through it. You've made your hatred for me quite clear. There's no way they'll believe that you are suddenly dating me."

She sighed, twisting a strand of hair between her fingers. He had noticed that she did that a lot when she got stressed.

"We can just tell them that we've put our differences behind us. We can make it clear that this is still really new so that's why we haven't told anyone yet. Maybe you convinced me to give you another shot and put everything else behind us."

James nodded, "Okay. So if I agree to this, and that doesn't mean I'm going to, what are we talking here? We've been together for a few weeks but have been keeping it a secret. How long are we going to keep this up?"

"We're all going on that ski trip to the cabin. Why not stay together until after that? We can break up after saying the close proximity and everything made us rethink things."

"So, we''ll stay together for two weeks maximum and then break it off once we get home?" He clarified.

"Yeah."

Lily looked away to where her friends were sitting. Their food had just arrived and Marlene was already eating while Alice was still calmly sipping on a margarita. Hopefully he would just get it over with. Just tell her he wouldn't do it and to find someone else. Anything to end this prolonged silence.

"Okay. I'll do it."

She looked back at him in shock. He was actually willing to do it. She had purposely chosen him because he had already asked her out multiple times so she had assumed he would most likely be amenable but she was still a bit surprised he had said yes.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I mean why not? It'll be fun, I can practice my acting skills. Besides, Rem and Siri have been thinking about setting me up with some girl. I love them but the last blind date they set me up with was a total disaster. Two birds with one stone, eh? You get your friends off your back and I get them off of mine."

"Okay then. We can go back to our tables and break the news."

He gave her his trademark smile. The one that helped get away with nearly anything. He could probably flash that smile at the police and get away with murder if he wanted.

Lily watched as he went back to his table and sat down with his friends. Walking back over to her own table, she slid back in her seat.

Marlene raised an eyebrow, her mouth still full of food. In answer to her friend's silent question she merely replied, "James."

Alice started coughing and Marlene preemptively swallowed. Still coughing a bit, they both said, "James? As in James Potter?"

Lily nodded.

"But I thought you hated him." Marlene looked at her questioningly. Lily wondered whether her friend had already sniffed out the lie.

"I don't know. He convinced me to give him a second chance, wipe the slate clean. Turns out we actually get along pretty well. We started dating a couple weeks ago. It's not that serious but who knows?"

"Have you slept together yet?" Marlene asked.

"What?"

"You know, had sex, fucked, made love, the beast with two backs, the devil's tango..."

"Alright, alright. I get it." Lily said.

"You sure? Because I've got more."

"That's quite alright. I got your meaning the first time. And yes, if you must know."

"Well?"

Lily raised an eyebrow.

"How was he?"

Lily's face turned bright red as she replied, "No comment."

"Aww, come on." Marlene gave her her best puppy eyes.

"Nope."

"Fine." She changed the subject, asking Alice how her kid was doing. Apparently her son, Neville, had just started to walk. Smiling and laughing at Alice's recounts of her crazy, sleep-deprived life Lily tried to forget everything else that had just happened.

Looking over at her new fake boyfriend she knew this was going to be an utter disaster. There he was, laughing with his friends. She wondered whether he had already broken the news. Then, as if he could feel the weight of her gaze, he looked over at her from across the room. Their eyes met and his smile slid off of his face, replaced with a softer emotion. Pity, she assumed. He may have something to gain from this situation but she was the one desperate enough to ask someone she claimed to despise to pretend to date her for two weeks.

He looked back at his friends when Sirius said something, joining in on the laughter again. It seemed as if Lily was the only one not laughing.

--------------------------------------------------

"So, Prongs. How'd you manage it? I mean the woman hated you for months and now she's your girlfriend? That isn't the sort of thing that just happens everyday." James looked over at his best friend.

"I don't know, man. One day I somehow convinced her to give me another shot. I'm a little foggy on the details. I was just surprised she said yes to going out with me that I kind of forgot everything that happened before."

"I don't blame you. You've had a crush on her since the first time you laid eyes on her."

James stuck his tongue out at Sirius. He'd given up on her after her dating that greasy-haired weasel. James had figured Lily would never look past that and he couldn't exactly blame her. He wasn't always kind to Severus back in school. And now she was offering him two weeks where he could be as in love with her as he wanted and if, at the end, she didn't feel the same way he could play it off as just getting too much in character. Sure, the eventual breakup would hurt but those two weeks would be absolute heaven.

Maybe, just maybe James could get over her for good. He could use these two weeks to get her out of his system. The best he could hope for was that by the end she wouldn't hate him any more than she already did.

Part 2>>

#jily #jily fic #jily fanfiction #lily evans potter #lily potter #lily evans #james potter #james x lily #harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter fandom #fake dating #enemies to lovers #rose of the grave

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shostakobitchh · 10 months

Text

chapter 44 sneak peak

this is a rough draft of the opening of the chapter!

Severus watched the girl in shadow as she tossed and turned.

The Monitoring Charm he’d placed on the room had notified Severus of movement around midnight. He’d swept in and Disillusioned himself in the corner, watching Miss Evans twist in the sheets, moaning and muttering nonsense as she slept. He tried to make out words, most of them stop and please, but he already knew there would be nothing but nightmares.

Severus knew what it was — the memory the Dementors had dragged from her consciousness, plaguing the girl day and night — but it was more than that. It had awakened something in Miss Evans that Severus would have rather seen left buried in the past, though he could only imagine what hearing your mother’s voice as she was murdered did to one’s mind, did to one’s soul. It had left Severus’ in shreds and it was beginning to drive him a bit mad that he could not shield her from this.

He was at least thankful Miss Evans had managed to hear Lily before the Dementors, that she’d heard her mother’s comforting words in the memories she’d left behind instead of her final scream of terror first —

His breathing had quickened alongside the girl’s. He shoved the thought behind his Shields, letting the walls barricade against everything he longed to purge from himself as Miss Evans sat up suddenly with a sharp gasp. Her hand flew over her mouth as she lurched forward, squeezing her eyes shut as she drew in a great shuddering breath. She reached for her wand but stopped mid-motion, burying her face in her hands.

He tensed, waiting for her to call for him, but she didn’t — she never did. Instead, she took another deep, shuddering breath and laid her head back on the pillow so that she was staring at the ceiling. Her eyes closed and Severus felt a swell of something — it might’ve been pride, but it was so unfamiliar and fleeting that he didn’t have time to ponder it — as he watched her Occlude.

Her expression smoothed over, like moonlight on a lake, her eyelids fluttering.

The girl rolled to her side. After what felt like an eternity, the Charm indicated that she’d fallen asleep again, but it would blink and chime every few minutes or so that she’d woken up, the muttering and murmuring beginning anew.

Severus, still Disillusioned, moved closer. Her jaw was clenched, eyebrows furrowed. Lily had grinded her teeth when she slept, especially when she had been stressed. She’d come down to the Great Hall in the morning with headaches from the strain.

He thought of Lily’s face as she massaged her neck and jaw, watching her expression light up when he’d handed her a pain-relief potion he’d made himself to target the inflammation. Picturing that beaming face of light, the golden fall glow on her auburn hair as her green eyes sparkled, the breathless little laugh as she shook her head — how do you do it, Sev? You didn’t have to go through all that trouble for me.

He waited until Miss Evans’ breathing became deep and even again before he whispered. “Expecto Patronum.”

The doe bounded gracefully from the tip of Severus’ wand as he backed away in the safety of the shadow. She stood and looked at him for a moment, before Miss Evans sat up, wiping her eyes and squinting. They immediately widened in recognition with a dazzling smile that made Severus’ chest tighten.

“Oh,” she whispered, moving to the end of the bed. “Oh, it’s you.”

Miss Evans reached her hand out and the doe nuzzled her palm with its snout before grazing her cheek. The girl let out a breathless little gasp that dissolved into laughter, her thin face illuminated by the glow of the doe. Severus stayed perfectly still, scarcely breathing.

There were tears on her cheeks, the light illuminating them like liquid diamonds. She stared at the Patronus for a long moment, her dark eyes alight with wonderment before the doe gave one final bow, and began to fade.

“Wait, don’t go,” her voice cracked along the ones that lined Severus’ own heart. “Wait —”

The room was plunged into darkness once more. The absence of joy was painfully present, the thing that lived between the spaces of Severus’ heart. The girl began to weep, burying her face in her pillow.

Miss Evans did not wake again.

#aim and ignite #writing until my hands fall off

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wanderinginksplot · 2 years

Text

Refuge Chapter Two

Second chapter of Refuge, an eventual Delta Squad/fem!reader fic. (Very eventual. You know how I love my slow burns!)

This is a heavy chapter! It puts a lot of plot in motion, but please pay attention to the warnings! I can summarize the plot in a PM or ask if you're uncomfortable reading this chapter but want to follow the story!

(For those wondering why they're tagged, this is the 'first chapter of a new fic' option on my taglist)

Word Count: 6,600

Warnings: mentions of retaliation, survival situations, destruction of home and property, accusations of treason, attempted murder, near drowning, vomit, enemy attack.

Previous | Next | Masterlist

---

Traitor

“Boss!” Scorch called, picking up speed as he approached the trooper in his orange-accented armor. “Sarge, wait!”

Boss sighed and impatiently held his position until Scorch reached him. “What is it, Scorch? I can’t be late for this meeting.”

“Boss, Voubos fell to the Separatists,” Scorch told him.

His powerful mind took a half-moment to process that information, and another half to think through how it impacted the war effort as well as the Voubosian civilians. The answers were, respectively: ‘not at all’ and ‘poorly’.

Still, he did his best to sound both regretful and stoic when he replied, “Sounds like they made their choice.”

“Yeah, but how do you think she’s doing with it?”

He hadn’t said exactly who ‘she’ was, but Boss knew exactly who the demolitions expert was talking about. The civvie who had offered them a place to stay for the night, a warm meal, and a new skill. She had given Delta Squad a brief glance into the lives of those who were only brushed by the galaxy-wide war instead of embroiled in it. It had been a surprisingly refreshing bit of perspective.

Despite his own misgivings about the situation, Boss shook his head. “Not well, I’d guess. Nothing we can do, though.”

“You don’t even want to try?” Scorch asked, sounding disappointed.

It wasn’t often Boss heard his men sound disappointed in him, and he didn’t care for the role reversal. “Fine. Try to contact her. See what you can find out.”

“We already tried,” Scorch reported. “No response.”

“Who did you say gave you permission to use the long-distance comms?” Boss asked. Voubos was now considered Separatist space. Long-distance comms were carefully guarded and calls to Seppie space were only to be made with great care in dire situations.

“You.” Scorch didn’t sound at all concerned by this retroactive permission. “What are we gonna do about it, Boss?”

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do.” It wasn’t something Boss enjoyed saying, but the civilian had chosen to stay on Voubos. They had offered to let her leave with them, but she had refused. Nothing wrong with that, but it didn’t mean the Republic owed her a chance to rethink her decision.

“Are you serious?” Scorch demanded. “She could be injured or in danger. The planet fell to the Seppies. If they know she helped us, they’ll take it out on her. And, knowing them, they’ll do it as publicly as possible to send a message.”

“I still haven’t heard a good enough reason to go back,” Boss shut down. “And I’m late for a meeting.”

“This has to be bothering you at least as much as it’s bothering us,” Scorch said, and it made Boss’s back teeth hurt that he was right. “Even Sev feels bad and you know he doesn’t feel.”

“I have to go,” Boss said, walking away before Scorch could fight to continue the conversation.

But despite it all, he found his mind wandering to the civvie they had left behind on Voubos. There was really nothing Delta Squad could do, not unless the Republic decided that Voubos was somehow strategically important.

"Further details will be given as we learn more," General Windu concluded, bringing the meeting to a close. "Keep an eye on your datapads for that communication."

Boss saluted, silently thanking Jango's genes for allowing him to listen even while he was so preoccupied with other matters. It didn't make much of a difference anyway - Delta was only being included in this scenario in the unlikely event that an ARC-trained group of CTs was unable to handle a small incursion.

"Sergeant Boss, a word?"

Boss stayed behind as the other officers left, waiting patiently for the room to empty so Windu could speak in peace.

When he did, however, the general put Boss on-edge. "Your focus was lacking today, Sergeant. Something on your mind?"

"No, sir," Boss said, the denial reflexive and utterly false.

From the skeptical look Windu shot his way, both of them knew it. "Do you want to try that again?"

Boss sighed. "The men are upset, sir. When we were gathering information on Voubos, we were housed by a civilian."

"I'm aware of that," Windu told him with the shadow of a smile. "I do read your reports, you know."

"Then you already know that Voubos fell to the Separatists recently."

"Very recently," Windu said with a nod. "I take it your squad is worried about how the fall will impact her."

"Yes, sir," Boss agreed. "They've tried to contact her, but nothing comes back. Not a good sign."

"I understand," General Windu sympathized. "It can be difficult to leave people behind, especially when they helped you. Try to find a way to motivate your squad with this, Sergeant. It will give them something better to focus on."

"With respect, sir, I think the only thing that could motivate them is a transport and the chance to pull an extraction maneuver."

Windu shook his head immediately and Boss felt his hopes - low as they had been - fall. "I'm afraid that isn't possible. Unless you can think of a reason that she may be valuable to the Republic?"

"No, sir," Boss admitted, feeling the sharp sting of defeat."Nothing other than that she helped us out of kindness and we're repaying her by leaving her to the Seppies."

Boss knew that the words were too fervent, his tone too intense for the situation, but he couldn't hold them back. General Windu studied him, dark eyes taking in every bit of his appearance and - Boss was somehow sure - studying his mind and motivations just as closely.

"I cannot allow you to risk your squad for a civilian on a Separatist-controlled planet that holds no benefit for the Republic," Windu said sternly.

Boss bowed his head, ready to acquiesce and go break the news to his squad, but the general wasn't finished.

"There's no guarantee that we'll need you and your squad for this next mission, but we do need you in place by the start of it, four days from now," Windu explained, passing Boss a piece of flimsi with a code scrawled on it. "Here is the code for the ship you'll be using. If memory serves, it has some mechanical issues, including a broken location tracking system."

Boss quickly met the General's eyes as he nodded in confirmation. "With that in mind, you would be better served to leave sooner and wait for further orders on one of the nearby planets. I believe the closest ones to our target are Renatasia, Thon Boka, and Voubos."

"...sir?" Boss asked, glancing from the code in his hands to General Windu.

"Sergeant," Windu said simply, letting Boss's rank serve as a question, an answer, and a farewell. With that single, hardworking word, he simply left.

Boss stayed for a minute, thinking over everything he had learned from that exchange. He could return to Delta Squad, lay it all out, and let them help him make a decision, but that would put them partially at fault if something went wrong. Windu had given him leeway, but the civvies had an old saying about ‘enough rope to hang yourself with’...

No. Responsibility couldn’t fall on anyone but Boss. That’s what it meant to be a leader.

When he finally made it out into the hallway, Fixer, Sev, and Scorch were waiting for him. Boss wasn’t really surprised. They had been together their entire lives and they knew each other better than they knew themselves.

“Men,” he said with a nod. “We have our orders.”

And he started down the hallway toward the hangar. The ship would have everything they needed on it. There wasn’t any use in delaying their departure. Especially now that they were trying to fit two missions into one.

Sev fell into step beside Boss. With a conversational tone in his gruff voice, he said, “I hear we’re leaving people behind now.”

“She’s not one of our people,” Boss answered truthfully.

“That doesn’t mean she didn’t risk everything to help us,” Fixer argued.

“Let’s get to the ship,” Boss ordered. “We only have four days before we need to be in place.”

When they reached their ship, the men watched closely as Boss input the proper coordinates. “Are we going to-?”

“The next mission will take place on Zebitrope - a tibanna-rich planet in the Outer Rim,” Boss announced, giving all of them a firm look. “We’ll be traveling a known route through established trade routes, so it should be an easy flight.”

“That’ll only take about a day and a half,” Fixer told him, running through the calculations in his head.

“Yes, it will,” Boss agreed, voice bland.

“Boss, I finished the pre-flight checks,” Scorch announced. “It looks like this ship took some serious damage to the tracking system. Want me to fix it?”

“No.” Boss ignored all of them, navigating the ship out of Coruscant as Delta Squad glanced at each other with delight. After they had cleared the planet’s atmosphere, the men were all still gathered nearby. Boss quickly brought them back down to reality.

“Here’s what we’re looking at, gentlemen,” he said, bracing momentarily when they entered hyperspace. ”This is an unauthorized mission. We need to be in place outside of Zebitrope in four days. The journey there will take approximately a day and a half, with another few hours of flight time to Voubos. That leaves us two days to infiltrate the planet and try to find out what happened. We all know there’s a chance we’ll find her dead.”

There was a thick silence in the cabin. Boss gave them all a look. “Yes, she’s resourceful, but we know how well civvies usually do against the Separatists. It’s possible we’ll find something we don’t want to find.”

“It’s better to know,” Sev insisted.

“But we also need to prepare for the other side of things,” Fixer pointed out. “If she’s alive, will we have time for an extraction?”

“Depends on where they have her,” Scorch told him before Boss could say the same. “If she’s imprisoned somewhere high-security, is there a chance we could steal some more time after the Zebitrope mission to circle back and do it right?”

“No,” Boss told him. “We only have these few days to work with. Even worse, we can’t jeopardize the Zebitrope mission. If it comes down to hard contact, we have to pull away.”

“So the odds are against us,” Sev summarized. When Boss nodded, the grin that spread across his scarred face was chilling. “Good thing we’ve never paid much attention to the odds.”

---

You blew out a breath, glancing around before you made even a single move. Bathing was dangerous, the most vulnerable you could be here. It had to be done carefully, quickly, or you could end up worse off than you ever had been.

You stripped off your clothes as rapidly as you could, setting them aside before stepping gently into the small pond. It was cold. Thankfully, it wasn’t frozen or you would have been out of luck, but it was certainly brisk enough that jumping in would have been easier. You couldn’t risk the noise that a splash would make, though, so you gritted your teeth and fought against making any sounds of complaint.

As you scrubbed your skin and hair, all of the mud and leaves that had been caked on your body floated away. It was a pity that you would have to start from scratch, but you needed to bathe. The natural oils on your skin and hair had started to build under the camouflage and had been warning animals about your presence.

When you were finished, you shook your arms and legs to remove as much water as you could, then did what you could with your hair. With that done, you put your clothes back on - carefully neutral browns and tans that fit tightly enough not to drag on the ground.

You knelt by the pond, scooping up a thick handful of mud and smoothing it over your skin. It felt counterintuitive given what you had just done to get clean, but when you were covered in mud again, you retreated into the woodline and dropped to the ground. A few rolls in the narrow space let you pick up leaf pieces, dirt clods, and even a few small sticks. You draped a large piece of moss you had found over one shoulder to disrupt your silhouette and you were as ready as you were going to be.

It hadn’t been an easy week. Despite your hopes and expectations for your planet, Voubos had fallen to the Separatists. Well, you weren’t sure whether ‘fallen’ was the right word or not. For all you knew, the politicians could have given the planet over to the CIS.

Either way, the other citizens of Toporik hadn’t hesitated to point out the fact that you had harbored a group of Republic soldiers shortly before the planet lost its neutrality.

The droids had come knocking at your door, a round-voiced Neimoidian male declaring that you were to be taken into Separatist custody for treason. The fact that the planet had still been neutral at the time of your ‘treason’ didn’t seem to bother them.

They had captured you easily. Though daring escape plans danced through your head, there were no opportunities. Besides, you had no combat skills and winter was approaching quickly. You would be lucky to last a week out on your own, especially considering the natural predators on Voubos.

All of that logic disappeared the moment your camp was attacked that night as you were marching back to wherever the Separatists had made their base.

The low screams of hunting animals paired horribly with their mirrored eyes flashing back light from the campfire. They went almost entirely for the droids. Clearly, no predator would get nourishment from them, but the metal soldiers kept making noise and attracting more and more attention. The Neimoidian had disappeared into a tank and kept the hatch closed as the animals pawed at it. You could hear him shouting even through the tank’s metal hull.

You had disappeared in the chaos.

Well, ‘disappeared’ might be giving yourself too much credit. You panic-ran into the woods, luckily running in a direction where there was nothing but trees. You survived the night in your thin clothes and tried to go back to your home the moment the sun rose. If nothing else, you reasoned, you could salvage some goods from it.

But when you got close, you smelled smoke and knew that wasn’t going to happen. And so, hidden in the forest, you saw your house engulfed in flames while your neighbors stood around chatting about what they had managed to take before the droids set it on fire.

As you left, you could still see them holding your favorite blankets and the vegetables you had carefully preserved for the winter. You retreated into the forest with nothing.

Fortunately, you had remembered reading about natural camouflage in one of your books. With a little bit of tweaking, you had figured out a system. During the day, you hunted for whatever food you could find. You tried to keep to berries, roots, and vegetables when you could. Killing animals was a sure way to draw predators, and you couldn’t risk building a fire to cook meat every day. When the sun started to set, you climbed the tallest tree you could find and lashed yourself to its trunk so you could sleep with a lessened fear of being attacked.

It was difficult to track time when it seemed to speed past and drag by in turns, but you believed it had been almost ten days since you had escaped the droids.

With any luck, the Separatists would think you had been killed in the attack on the camp, but there was every chance they were still looking for you. Still, you knew your time on Voubos was drawing to a close. You wouldn’t be able to survive a Voubosian winter, not without thicker clothes, a permanent shelter, and a sustainable food source. Since you didn’t have any money, those seemed unlikely.

You had never been lost in Voubos’s forests and you weren’t now. You had stayed around Toporik for the first few days, foraging the best places for food, but that had changed without you realizing it. Now, you were working your way closer to Beryod, the capital and largest city of Voubos. You also had a gut feeling that this would be where the Separatists would have set up camp. But, as you had noted, your time on Voubos would end soon. Whether it would end with you stealing a transport or being caught and executed by the Separatists, you didn’t really know.

And, in your moments of clarity, you weren’t sure that you cared.

You were alone in the galaxy. Even if you survived this situation, you would be forced from your home planet, left adrift in an unfamiliar galaxy. You didn’t know anyone who didn’t live on Voubos… An image of four highly trained men wearing new scarves under their armor flashed through your mind, but you pushed it away.

You didn’t really know anyone outside of Voubos.

Your progress to Beryod, the capital city of Voubos, was slow but steady.

When you had finally run short on gathered food, you took half a day to regroup. Your gut told you that the river you were camped beside would help you. Sure enough, you had managed to find a torn net tangled in the reeds beside a river.

It had taken some time to free the net and longer to patch it with the limited materials you could find in the forest, but with some time and a handful of thin roots, you had salvaged the net. With some work, you had caught a few fish and set about cooking them.

The risks of lighting a fire were the same as they had always been. There was a chance you could start a wildfire, since this autumn had been strangely dry. There was also a chance you could attract attention from curious residents of the area or any droids that had heat-tracking equipment. Still, they were risks you had to accept. You didn’t have the time or means to dry the fish, but a solid meal would help you stretch your meager rations.

You soaked a few segments of branches from fallen trees, arranging them in a circle under the cover of the trees, sweeping away as much debris as possible before using that fluff to serve as kindling. Fortunately, you knew how to start a fire with very little fuss. Even after the fire had started to burn in earnest, the wet wood seemed to be a successful barrier between the fire and the forest.

As you carefully turned the fish - rudimentarily cleaned and skewered on sticks - you tried to plot out the rest of your journey. You were no more than a day’s travel from Beryod now, even taking your lessened speed into account. When you reached the capital city, you would take some time to survey it before you made your move. If you managed to steal a ship, you were familiar only with inner-atmosphere transports and had to hope you would be able to puzzle out the differences quickly enough to escape. Even then, droid armies probably wouldn’t have rations stocked on their ships…

You turned the fish, idly trying to plot out whether you could manage to survive a short trip to a nearby neutral planet on your rations or if you would have to spend even more time foraging for additional food.

There was something in the woods behind you.

With a quick motion, you turned and stared in the direction that was sending your instincts jangling. “Who’s there?” you asked. If it was a person, they would answer, and if it was an animal, maybe it would be frightened away by the sound of your voice.

A man stepped out from behind a pile of underbrush. His hands were raised in a non-threatening pose, but your instincts continued to jangle. You knew him, which didn’t put you any more at ease.

“Olavi,” you greeted warily.

“You’re wandering far from Toporik,” he said by way of greeting, easing closer to the fire… and, by extension, you.

“Yes,” you answered shortly. Maybe Olavi hadn’t heard what had happened since he lived on the outskirts of Toporik on the opposite side from your home, but you doubted it. The fact that you were covered in mud and bits of leaves was probably a hint that something was wrong anyway. But since he kept getting closer, you decided to try to throw him off. “Come sit by the fire, Olavi. Warm yourself, have some fish.”

Olavi froze in place, watching you with confusion, but slowly nodded. “Thank you.”

He eased down to the ground, not quite on the opposite side of the fire, but far enough away that you didn’t fear that he would attack you immediately. You handed him one of the skewered fish and took another for yourself. Your gut told you he meant you harm, but you reasoned that you couldn’t do anything without eating first. It had been almost a full day since you had eaten, and that meal had been less than satisfying.

You and Olavi ate in silence - you much more quickly than him. It helped that you had given him the most recently cooked fish, so he was still picking delicately at the steaming flesh while you polished off two cooled ones in rapid succession.

And now, the test of his intentions: You stood, dusting yourself off carefully. The motion was ridiculous considering your clothing, skin, and hair was still caked with mud, but you did your best. “Sorry to run off, Olavi, but I’m on a tight schedule. Help yourself to the rest of the fish.”

Olavi straightened as well, abandoning his fish. His hand dipped behind his hips and you tensed, knowing what you would see before he revealed the glinting knife.

“The droids are offering a reward for you,” he told you, voice low. “I need the money. I’m taking you to Beryod.”

“I’m already going to Beryod, Olavi,” you said soothingly. “You’re more than welcome to come with me.”

He shook his head. “We’re going on the main roads. I won’t let you run.”

You changed tactics. “They plan to imprison me. You would subject me to that?”

“Imprison you?” Your heart sank at his scoff. “They plan to execute you as a traitor. From what I hear, you deserve it.”

“I deserve execution? For what?”

Olavi scowled at you. “You protected soldiers of the Republic. They would have died in the forests if you hadn’t brought them into your home.”

“Ignoring, of course, that Voubos was neutral at the time,” you argued. “I won’t go with you, Olavi.”

He shrugged, stepping toward you as he brandished the knife. “The reward is almost as high if I only bring your body to Beryod. The droids appreciate loyalty.”

You stared at him blankly, unable to process the idea that he hated you so deeply, and was determined to see you dead by the end of this. No, it was worse than that - Olavi didn’t hate you. None of his actions were rooted in dislike for you. He was just a man looking for a reward. That somehow managed to be more insulting, but it didn’t really matter.

You would be dead either way.

In a beat, you had plucked a stick from the fire and tossed it into Olavi’s face. Sparks exploded at the impact and he stumbled back, swiping at his face. You didn’t wait for him to recover, running instinctively back to the river where you could hide in the tall, thick reeds that grew along the bank. Your mud-covered clothing would help you blend in, especially with the head start you had gotten. With any luck, he would think you had dove into the river and would either follow you downstream or give up.

You were seconds away from sprinting into the reeds when something heavy hit you around the waist. You stumbled forward, landing heavily on your hands and knees.

You had enough presence of him to throw yourself to the side, hard, and felt Olavi’s knife skitter across your back. It definitely caught your clothing, but the adrenaline roaring through your system was too much for you to guess whether he had sliced through your skin as well.

You kicked and thrashed wildly, hearing the heavy thump of his knife sailing out of his hand. Like a trained massiff, you tracked the sound and launched yourself at the place where you knew you would find the knife.

Success!

With Olavi’s knife clutched in your fist, you pushed yourself to your feet and staggered away from him, barely managing to dodge when he tried to tackle you again. To get away from him, you were forced into the river’s shallows, struggling to keep your balance with the silt of the river washing away under the pressure of your feet.

Olavi followed you in, the fool, and you tried to back away from him. You nearly stumbled when your calf caught something, but you had just enough time to reach down and snatch up another discarded net. This one was in far better shape than the one you had used, most likely from a fisherman upstream who had cursed the loss of such a fine piece of equipment.

You had half a moment to process that before Olavi was on you again. You tossed the net at him, twisting your wrist to help the net spread out over him. Olavi’s arms had spread, but a combination of the reeds and his own thrashing served to hold the net in place around him.

“Just stop, Olavi!” you cried. “We can both walk away from this!”

Olavi snarled and pushed toward you again. He struggled for the knife, which you were holding with every bit of strength you could muster even as the river bottom was growing deeper and more slippery every moment. He grabbed at the knife with his hands still entangled in the net, which only served to make you lose the knife at the same time as he lost his balance.

It felt like you had an eternity to stare at him, to watch as his feet went out from under him. Olavi’s eyes went wide as he fell, grabbing at anything he could on the way down.

Unfortunately, the only thing his searching hands found was you.

With the edges of your mud-soaked clothing caught fast in his grip, you lost your careful footing and fell forward into the river. The current caught you like it had been waiting its entire existence for that moment.

You had spent summers swimming in the rivers and lakes of Voubos. There was little else for entertainment on the planet, and the icy mountain runoff had been a refreshing way to cool off on the warmest days. Swimming was a love of yours, and you considered yourself proficient, if not amazing.

In the current of the river, none of that mattered.

You were surrounded by water, tumbling over and over until you didn't know which way the surface was. Stars, you were starting to wonder if there was a surface. You had always been taught to follow the direction of an air bubble if you got disoriented, but the current of the river was strong enough that you couldn't find the trail of a single bubble to follow in the frothing mass.

You felt the autumn air on your face, the chill air warm in comparison to the frigid water, and gasped in a breath. Before you had finished filling your lungs, the river whipped you over once more and you coughed and sputtered trying to expel the water from your mouth. Then you lost the surface again.

You were bobbing down the river, thoroughly caught in the current now and unable to reach the bottom at all. You were pushed deeper and pulled shallower every moment, the lack of pattern depriving you of the chance to plan a way out of your situation.

Your lungs began to ache, then burn, then they resorted to tricks. They started trying to convince your mind that you would be just fine if you opened your mouth and took a deep breath. You knew that you would be breathing water, but that knowledge started to feel theoretical at best.

When it seemed unavoidable, your mouth opened, but you exhaled the carbon dioxide in your lungs with a huff. Something had caught you, hitting your abdomen hard enough to force air from you.

Out of pure instinct, you scrabbled for what had hit you and clung with all of your might. It felt like a partially-submerged tree, so you might still have a chance to survive this. Even better, the trunk, oddly slender, was almost perfectly smooth. It would be hard to hold onto, but it must have been in the river for a while. It wasn't going to wash away with your additional pull. You grabbed it, fighting to keep your grip strong.

Then the tree twisted sickeningly in the water and you lost your grip… but the tree reached out and grabbed you. You released it again from the shock, but you were lifted from the water anyway.

You blinked up at the tree, coughing and spitting river water. "...Boss?!"

The commando was hanging from a low-hanging tree trunk that jutted out over the river. One of his arms was wrapped around the trunk, along with one leg. His free hand was wrapped around your arm while his leg dangled into the river. That had been what you hit and grabbed so firmly.

"I need you to climb up," Boss called, voice raised to be heard over the rushing furor of the nearby rapids.

You didn't bother answering him directly, letting your slow movements up his arm speak for you.

The process got significantly faster when Sev appeared on the trunk as well, reaching down to pull you up between them.

"Be careful," he warned, his rough voice only audible because of how close he was. "If you fall back in, we won't have the space to pull another rescue."

You glanced backward, looking past Boss at the river that you had just left. Sure enough, just past your position was a collection of rocks, sending the strong current surging every which direction. Rapids, rough ones at that. You wondered distantly if that was where Olavi had ended up and shuddered, but Boss’s hand against your shoulder brought you back to the moment.

“Can you do this or do you need one of us to help?”

It was a steady, non-accusatory question. If you needed help, Boss would find a way to help you. That was enough to make you shake your head. “I think I’ll be okay.”

His affirmative hum sounded skeptical, but you managed to climb across the narrow tree trunk until you could slide down the curved trunk to land on the rocky mud of the riverbank. You had lost your shoes in the river, Fixer caught your arm as you slid, helping to soften your landing.

“Boss, I’m tracking convergence on our position,” Scorch reported, his visor moving back and forth almost imperceptibly as if the helmet were helping him see things beyond natural sight.

“Hostiles?” Boss checked.

“Safe bet, there,” Sev told him with a scoff.

“We need to make a quick exit, then.” Boss glanced at you. “The ship is about two klicks away. If you can’t keep up, tell us and we’ll figure something out.”

You nodded and they took off. Scorch took the lead, clearly still tracking whatever was coming in your direction. Sev followed behind him, a blaster cradled steadily in his hands as he ran. You and Boss were next. You knew any of the commandos could outpace you in a heartbeat, but Boss matched his speed to yours, calling out adjustments to the two in the lead as necessary. Fixer stayed at the tail end of the group, clearly also watching for threats, if you were to judge based on how he would occasionally freeze, swivel around with his blaster aimed at the treeline, then catch up with the group when he found nothing.

“Hold- on-” you panted, hoping you were almost to their ship. “I need- I have to stop…”

“We need to keep moving,” Fixer reminded you sternly, but you had already stopped and braced your hands against your knees.

The moment you put all the sloshing water and bits of fish into motion, your body had started to protest. It was fitting, then, that your body would rebel entirely when you stopped.

No sooner had you braced your hands and lowered your head than you started to heave. You tried not to look too closely at what came out, but you caught enough to know that the fish you had eaten was gone now, and that the water from the river had been muddier than you had anticipated. Or maybe that was just what happened when it was shaken around in your stomach.

Either way, you felt a great deal better when you had finished. You straightened up, spitting thickly onto the ground. Wordlessly, Scorch handed you his canteen. You glanced up to find that the commandos had fallen into defensive positions around you in your moment of weakness. You were oddly touched by the gesture, and made sure not to touch your lips to the neck of Scorch’s canteen while you rinsed your mouth.

“Let’s go,” you croaked after passing the half-empty canteen back to Scorch.

They took you at your word, matching the speed you had been running before your stop. Your lungs were screaming by the time you reached an edge of the forest and Fixer told you, "Our ship is behind that group of boulders. Almost there."

You eyed the distance skeptically. It wasn't far, especially given how far you had already come, but it meant you would be crossing over a clearing. You would be running unprotected by the trees that had shielded you up to this point.

"We're gonna have company soon," Scorch announced. Your heart sank, but he didn't seem concerned. None of them did.

"Good," Boss said, sounding satisfied with the knowledge. "You just volunteered to help me plan the welcome party while the others head for the ship."

"I do love a good surprise," Scorch agreed, and it sounded like there was a grin hidden beneath his helmet.

You, Fixer, and Sev were only about halfway across the distance when that company appeared - a group of six droids on speeders.

"Fixer, how fast do you think you can get us in the air?" Sev asked as casually as if you weren't running full-speed away from the sound of blaster fire.

"Under a minute from the time my shebs hit the pilot's seat," he answered.

Sev nodded. "Go. I'll get her there by the time you're ready."

Fixer took off and you stared. How could someone wearing that much armor and gear run so quickly?

More blaster fire echoed from behind you. "Don't they need our help?" you asked Sev.

"The best way we can help them is to get the ship ready," Sev told you. "Can you run any faster than this?"

Though there was nothing pointed in his question, you bristled. "No, I can't."

"Hang on, then," he warned, hosting you up and into his arms before you could even begin to brace for the movement.

You were held close to his chest. It wasn't comfortable being pressed against the white armor, but it stopped you from bouncing around and hitting against the hard material as he ran, so you were grateful. One of Sev's hands around your back held you in place while the one hooked under your knees still held his blaster.

You reached the ship in a thankfully short time and Sev set you on your feet before joining Fixer in the cockpit. In moments, the ship had lifted into the air, the take-off so rapid that you stumbled. The whole thing rotated and you heard the sound of a blaster cannon firing, then the ship lowered once more. The door to the small cargo bay behind you opened, allowing Boss and Scorch to step inside.

"Just had to take the last one from me, huh, Sev?" Scorch asked, pulling off his helmet with an irritated huff.

"It looked like it might have finished you off," Sev called back from the cockpit and Scorch swaggered in his direction, calling threats that sounded improbable.

Boss took his helmet off, too, but much more sedately. When you glanced over, he was watching you. "I don't want to leave you here. Voubos isn't safe anymore, and I think you know that. But I don't like the idea of forcing you out of here."

"Does she still want to stay?" Fixer asked loudly, clearly listening from the cockpit.

"There's no way," Sev denied.

"They burned your house down," Boss told you, looking serious.

You sighed. "Yeah, I saw that."

"She does!" Scorch said disbelievingly, popping his head back out of the doorway to the cockpit. "What are you gonna do, rebuild so they can burn it down again? Maybe they'll even make sure you're inside this time!"

"Scorch," Boss reprimanded. "If she wants to stay, she wants to stay."

"I don't want that," you finally interrupted. Boss and Scorch stared at you while utter silence emanated from the cockpit. "They burned down my house and tried to charge me for treason. I would have been executed. I don't know where I'm going to go, but I don't want to stay here."

"Fixer?" Boss called.

"Already done, Sergeant," Fixer replied. The cargo bay door closed and the ship began to rise through the atmosphere of Voubos.

Despite your unease, you stepped forward until you could see into the cockpit and through the transparisteel at the front of the ship. Voubos disappeared slowly, and your heart ached as it was replaced by a sea of stars.

It was only when you were clear of the atmosphere that you noticed all four of the troopers were watching you. With the intense realization that you had no idea what expression you were wearing, you admitted, "I always wondered what it would feel like to do that."

You turned away from their curious looks, returning to the rear portion of the ship.

"We don't have much onboard," Sev told you carefully. "But there's a sonic shower. Or if you feel like eating, we have rations."

"A sonic shower?" Scorch repeated derisively. "Do you see her? What's a sonic shower gonna do?"

"Scorch!" Boss warned. "Cut back on the attitude."

"It is a valid question, though," Fixer said, looking you up and down. "How do you still have mud in your hair after nearly drowning?"

For some reason, that struck you as being insanely, ridiculously funny and you started to laugh. You laughed until your cheeks hurt, laughed until your ribs ached, you laughed until tears snaked down your face.

And then, all of a sudden, you were crying.

Deafening silence reigned in the ship, and then you found yourself shrouded in four emergency blankets before the commandos made excuses to get back in the cockpit.

You smiled to yourself, still sniffling, and pulled the blankets a little tighter. So maybe you did know people who didn't live on Voubos. You were away, you were safe. Now, you just had to figure out a new life.

---

Author's Note - I reference natural camouflage a lot in my fics, and this is a good example of it! That's what reader is doing when she covers herself in mud and twigs, and disrupts her silhouette. Just in case anyone thought I was being ridiculously weird!

Though this is not the first chapter of Refuge, I consider it to be the beginning. I'm tagging people who signed up to be tagged in the first chapter of new stories on my taglist, but I've added an option for Refuge on my taglist. Please submit a new form if you want to be on the taglist for this fic specifically! If you don't want to see any more of Refuge, don't do anything and I won't tag you in the next.

Also, be warned that updates for this fic will probably be sporadic as I focus on Gar Cyare!

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