#it would look fine if you don’t take how I normally draw eyes into account

[gloomy-prince]

one regret about my art style is that this is the biggest I can make Eddie’s eyes before he starts looking like a cat with dilated pupils

#one regret about my style in general perhaps #the good thing is that it can be played for laughs #if I make the eyes any bigger it looks so funny in comparison #it would look fine if you don’t take how I normally draw eyes into account #but since I can’t do that it just makes any character look like a cat about to zoom around a room and uncontrollably knock shit around

[slutforstabbings-archive]

Spend the Night

post-accident!alt!Corey Cunningham x alt!fem!Reader It's been a while since Corey left Haddonfield. He's making a new life in a new town, with a job as a bouncer at a bar that puts on punk and metal shows, living with Craigslist roommates. His past still haunts him, but maybe you can help him forget about it for a couple of hours. contents - smut (18+ MDNI), angst, mentions of past abuse, not-quite-friends to lovers, casual sex, handjob, PiV, subby Corey and slightly domme Reader 5,176 words requested by @ethanhoewke 💕 inspired by these tweets she sent me, and this post I made a couple months back. see my drawing of bouncer!Corey here. @rebel-blue @heartrot666 @wolvesandvampires @multifandom--mess @toxicanonymity @cordelium @hersweetrevenge

Corey leans against the stool in the doorway of the bar, half sitting, half standing, a far away look on his face. When he’d clocked in, the bartenders had been watching some ridiculous action movie with a title like Shoot Bastard or something on mute on the TV above the bar. Shoot Bastard-esque movies remind Corey of Ronald, and thinking of Ron inevitably leads to thinking about Momma. Corey knows he shouldn’t give a shit what happened after he left – how Momma had handled it, how harshly she punished Ron, if she cried, if she misses him – but any little thing can send him down that rabbit hole. Even after all this time, all it takes is 10 seconds of straight to DVD bullshit out of the corner of his eye.

One day, coming up on two years ago now, Ron called Corey into his office. Corey assumed he was in trouble. Earlier in the week he’d had a fight with Joan just as he was about to leave for work. He was so upset when he first got to the garage that he accidentally let all the oil out of a car that had already been given a full oil change. But that wasn’t what Ron wanted to talk about.

“You gotta leave, kid,” he began. “You gotta get out of here. I know I’m not your dad, but I care about you like you’re my son, and I can’t sit around and watch what she does to you, what everybody does to you, anymore. You’re a good kid. You deserve a normal life.”

“Okay…” Corey said, not sure what to make of the declaration. He liked Ronald well enough, was thankful for the job and the distraction for Momma that Ron provided. But it was certainly news to him that Ronald might think of him as a son.

Ronald, for his part, wasn’t exactly lying. He did hate the way most people treated Corey, and he did feel a familial fondness for the quiet teenage boy who had grown into a fine young man in front of him over the past nine years. He was, however, having a moment. He was about to unveil his master plan to get Corey out of Haddonfield, for good. Ever since his divorce from his first wife, he’d felt small and ineffectual, winding up with a second wife who treated him like shit, largely because it’s what he felt he deserved. Doing this was as much about saving himself as saving Corey.

“I know your mother has access to your bank account,” Ron said, laying out the plan he’d worked so hard to devise. “So I want you to go to a different bank and open a new account there. I’m gonna start paying you twice. We’ll keep your direct deposit where she expects it to be. You use that check the way you always do, buy your snacks, put some in savings, don’t do anything that would make her suspicious. But I’m gonna give you a second check. Put that one in your new account, save the whole thing. We’ll do that for a while, until you have enough money to disappear.”

“Is that legal?” Corey asked.

“Christ, kid. Do you even wanna leave?” 

“Yeah, sorry, I uh… I just don’t want any more legal trouble. For any of us.”

Ron deflated, his moment punctured by feelings of sadness for his pathetic step-son, and guilt for not doing more sooner. 

“Don’t worry,” he assured Corey. “It’s all above board. I’m giving everybody raises cause the shop’s been doing so well. You’re just gettin’ the biggest one.”

Corey stood there dumbfounded for a moment. Ronald didn’t exactly obey Momma, but he was usually very careful about the ways he defied her. Helping Corey escape would probably end their marriage if she ever found out. While Corey had never understood what Ronald saw in Momma (or what Momma saw in Ron), he struggled to believe Ronald would jeopardize his relationship with her that way. 

“You’re really for real?” He whispered.

“I’m really for real. Now, don’t tell me when you’re leaving or where you plan on going. Just buy a bus ticket when you feel like you have enough money and get out of here. And when you go, leave the card for the bank account she watches. We both know if she can see where you are, she might follow you.”

It took Corey three months of getting two paychecks to feel like he was financially ready to leave town, and another month after that for him to be emotionally ready too. But Halloween was coming, and he’d be damned if he spent another Halloween in fucking Haddonfield. So one chilly October morning he convinced Momma to leave for her errands before he left for work, promising he was right behind her, since he knew she hated it when he was home alone. Then he shoved as much of his wardrobe as he could fit into his backpack. He put his phone and the debit card Momma monitored on his dresser, emptied both of his savings accounts, and boarded a Greyhound bus headed west. 

Corey looks down at his freckled thighs below the tattered hem of his cut-off shorts, his bare legs decorated with tattoos under wispy red hair. He doesn’t have to wonder how Momma would feel about those. She made it very clear that in her opinion tattoos were only for sailors and convicts (Which had his father been? Corey wondered but never asked). He’d always thought they were cool, always wanted to have as many as he could find space for. He got his first as soon as he could after he got away. It grounds him a little to see them whenever he looks down, a permanent reminder that his life is his, not hers. 

A familiar voice brings him out of his thoughts. 

“Helloooo. Earth to Corey.” It’s you, standing in front of him with a folded five dollar bill between your fingers and a concerned look on your face. “You good?” You ask him.

“Yeah, sorry,” he says as he puts your money in the cash box. He stamps the back of your hand and waits for you to head inside, but you don’t. 

“So, I had to park like, super far away. Would you mind walking me to my car after the show?” It’s not something you would ask just any bouncer at just any bar, but Corey is your favorite bouncer at your favorite bar. You’ve had a little crush on him for ages, dying to get even 10 minutes alone with him. If he won’t make the move, it’s time you did.

“Oh, uh, sure. Of course.” 

“You’re the best,” you say, reaching out to squeeze his arm. Then you go through the door and into the bar. 

You spend the whole show distracted, thinking more about Corey than about the musicians playing their hearts out on stage. You remember the first night he worked the door. You could tell he was new from a distance, which intrigued you, and as his features came into focus as you drew nearer, you only became more interested. The new guy was a hottie. It had been winter then, so his tattoos were hidden from you, and his hair was a rich, warm brown. The weather warmed and Corey's clothes got less bulky, the hems on the sleeves of his shirts and the legs of his pants steadily rising with the temperatures, giving you a delicious view of his strong limbs. The seasons have progressed, and his hair has gotten longer, full of coppery strands brought out by the sun. It’s like every time you see him he’s better looking than the last. Tonight is no exception. 

But his looks aren’t the only thing you like about Corey. When you go outside during changeover on nights he works the door, you shoot the shit with him. You like how his voice exists in the space between raspy and smooth, an accent you can’t quite place peeking through on certain words. You like the way he struggles to tell when you’re joking, but he’s always a good sport about the miscommunication, and how he has his own offbeat sense of humor that you’re slowly learning to watch for. You like his crooked smile, and the way he casually brings up complicated, niche knowledge without ever sounding condescending. 

The nights Corey works inside, you feel extra safe knowing he’s watching over you. Sometimes he appears at your side with a plastic cup of water, yelling “Stay hydrated!” in your ear over the music. He checks on you when you fall in the pit, and he enforces the rule against crowd killing with an iron fist, dragging dudes who think it’s cool to windmill out to the sidewalk by their shirt collars. If another showgoer is bothering you, all you have to do is meet Corey’s eyes and you know he’ll take care of the problem. 

You didn’t park so far away with the intention of getting him to walk you there, but after circling the block three times and seeing no nearby spots, you had no choice. You weren’t particularly scared to walk the distance, but you’d seen Corey as you drove past, Chicago Bears cap backwards over his gorgeous hair, pack of cigs tucked into the rolled up sleeve of his t-shirt, biceps bulging from the way his arms were crossed, and a lightbulb clicked on in your head. You practically sprinted to the door from your parking spot.

Outside on his stool, Corey’s still in a weird mood. He’s had his eye on you for months, and he’s pretty sure you’re interested in him too. Even so, he’s petrified to make a move. He favors you over the other patrons whenever you’re there, and he knows his coworkers notice, but it’s the only thing he can think to do to get closer to you. And his insecurities around dating just bring him right back to Momma. She fucking did this to him. Her refusal to let him have any normal interactions as a kid meant he still couldn’t as a grown-ass man. It’s like getting away from her only made her more present in his life.

He’s trying to remember what his therapist said about negative thoughts moving through without getting stuck. Thinking them and feeling them and then just letting them drift away. They can come over to hang out, but they can't spend the night. Corey wants to be someone you would let spend the night, and he thinks he could be, if he could just fucking relax for 30 goddamn seconds.

And it isn’t helping that you haven’t come outside once tonight. The reason is that you’re just as anxious as you are excited, thinking of ways to angle the walk to your car into something more, just like he is. But he doesn’t know that. So he sulks on his stool and hopes the thoughts will be done passing through before the last band plays their last song.

When the closing act does finish up, you’re the first person out the door, appearing by his side before the reverb of the final notes even stops echoing. 

“Hey,” Corey says, “I usually have to stay for like, 15 minutes after the show ends, then I can walk you to your car.” Add something to let her know you want to hang out, he thinks, but he doesn’t say anything else.

“Okay, no problem,” you say.

You stand off to the side and chat with friends until his shift is over. He takes the cashbox and the stool inside, and then he’s keeping pace with you down a quiet side street towards your car. A light breeze cools the sweat on your neck from dancing and you shiver. Corey comes just a little closer, knowing he runs hot, hoping he can subtly warm you with his radiant heat without you noticing. He’s not slick at all, but it’s endearing. You drift nearer to him too, so close you would barely need to reach out to lace your fingers with his. 

“So. Where do you park?” You ask. “I can drive you to your car, since you walked me.”

“Oh, I walk to work. I don’t live far.”

“Oh, okay. I can drive you home, then.” You wait a beat to see if he’ll ask to hang out. You can sense that he wants to, but as you turn the corner and your little sedan comes into view, you decide it’s up to you. “Actually, I’m really hungry. Why don’t we go get something to eat?”

“Yeah?” Corey smiles. “I’m starving.”

You take Corey to a little shack of a New York style pizza place, where you eat giant slices on a rickety bench leaned against the side of the building. A window AC unit drips onto one half of the seat, so you sit with your bodies pressed together. 

You and Corey have had a lot of physical contact since you met. He’s stamped the back of your hand a hundred times. He’s hooked his elbows under your armpits to hoist you off the floor, caught you over his brawny shoulder when you run out of crowd to surf, gently cleaned and stuck a bandaid over a scrape from the studs on someone else’s jacket. Somehow your thighs sticking together in the humid air feels much more intimate than any of that. 

The proximity makes Corey’s heart pound in his throat. This close to you he can see the fine glitter you dusted over your skin before you left the house, and the little half-open holes dotting your face from piercings you’ve retired. He does his best to hold his voice steady and not think about the conniption Momma would have if she could see him with a painted harlot practically sitting in his lap. The negative thoughts can’t spend the night, he reminds himself. But he still wants to. 

“It’s getting late,” he says when you’ve been sitting there talking and holding onto your grease-stained paper plates for what feels like hours. “Are you… Um. Do you need to get up early? Tomorrow?”

“No, I have a free day tomorrow. No plans, no responsibilities. I’ll probably be horizontal all day,” you say, laughing. You phrased it that way on purpose and you can see it working as Corey swallows hard and tries not to get distracted by the mental image of you lounging around in a tank top and panties. 

“I’m free tomorrow too, and I’m not tired. We could hang out more, somewhere else?” 

“I’d love to. Do you have somewhere in mind? I think most places are probably closing right about now.”

“Oh, uh…” Corey responds lamely.

The obvious answer hangs between you for a moment. You wait, daring him to say it first. You’d been dying to spend 10 minutes alone with Corey, and taking the lead tonight has gotten you that and so much more. You could quit while you’re ahead, adopt an oh well, maybe next time attitude. Or you could finish what you started.

“If you want, we can –”

“What if we –”

You both try at the same time. 

“No, you –”

“I’m sorry, you –”

Corey’s embarrassed, but you giggle, a sweet sound that immediately makes him feel better. He laughs with you. You point at yourself, then at him, then at yourself, an exaggerated look of questioning on your face. He laughs at that too, pointing emphatically at you. 

“If you want,” you start again, “we can go back to my place?”

You live by yourself in a little studio. You unlock the door and reach inside to turn a lamp on, before swinging it wide and pulling Corey inside. He takes his hat off, his large hand fluffing out the dent in his hair, and looks around for somewhere to set it down. His first impression as his eyes wander is how similar to his own apartment yours is – how you’ve had to work around the eccentricities of the building, how so much of your furniture would be instantly recognizable to anyone who's seen a recent IKEA catalog, how your mattress and box spring rest directly on the ground. 

Momma (ugh there she is again) always kept the house spotless, with strict adherence to her ugly-but-well-defined aesthetic, taking meticulous care of the heavy wooden furniture she made Corey’s father buy before Corey was born. While living somewhere that hasn’t been fossilized for 25+ years is a much needed change of pace, he’s often embarrassed by the disheveled way he and his roommates keep things, cringing whenever they bring a friend or partner over for the first time. He was grateful that you suggested your place, but seeing the way your rooms reflect his destroys that insecurity and makes him feel right at home. 

You’re still holding his wrist from pulling him inside, and you use it to guide him on a “tour” of your tiny space.

“This is the living room,” you say. Then you drag him one foot to the right. “And over here is the bedroom.” Corey laughs as you rotate him 90 degrees. “Enormous, state of the art chef’s kitchen.” You gesture toward the rickety old range and skinny half-sized dishwasher. You pull him down the hallway and into the bathroom. “And here we have the sauna and spa.”

“Wow, it’s just like a big mansion from a movie,” Corey says.

“They’ve actually filmed like, 100 movies here,” you joke. You reach behind you and turn the water on in the bathtub. “I’m gonna wash off real quick, you know how gross it can be in the pit.”

“Oh, uh, okay.” He turns to leave but you wrap your fingers around his wrist again.

“You don’t have to go. You can sit on the toilet and keep me company. Or you could join me.”

Corey opens and closes his mouth in surprise, shaking his head, floundering. “Join you?”

“If you want.” You shrug, pretending to be nonchalant. 

“No. Yeah. I mean. It would be great to join you, I just wasn’t expecting that.”

You pull the pin to switch the water from the faucet to the showerhead. “Do you want to check the temperature?”

You switch places with him and he leans over the edge of the tub to stick his hand in the stream. He considers it for a second. While he’s distracted, you start taking your clothes off. You’re down to just your bralette and panties when he turns back around.

“I think that’s… good,” he says, the end of his sentence strangled by the sight of you in your underwear. 

You smile sweetly as you peel the bralette off and raise it over your head. Corey gawks. “Are you gonna shower with your clothes on?” You ask.

“Oh,” Corey says with a nervous chuckle, setting his glasses and his hat on the vanity. He tries (and mostly fails) not to stare at your breasts as he pulls his shirt over his head. He loosens his laces to slip out of his boots, yanks off his socks, and undoes his belt. His face feels hot, which he knows means it’s red. He clears his throat and drops his shorts, then he turns around to give both of you some privacy for the last step. 

When his shirt comes off, it takes your breath away. You knew Corey was a thick boy, and kinda heavily tattooed, but you were not at all prepared for the sight that met you as he started to strip. The true breadth of his shoulders, the size of his traps, the soft definition of his abs, and lines of his hips pointing right where you want to be, all accentuated by his tattoos, way more of them than you were expecting. If he could keep his eyes off your tits, he might’ve noticed you were staring at him too. 

He steps into the shower with his hands clasped in front of his crotch. His modesty is adorable. On his end he’s not sure which would be worse, shrinkage from the cold air, or chub before anything has even happened. Either way it seems best to keep things obscured and fix his eyes on the drain as you step into the tub and close the curtain. 

“You don’t have to hide. I’ve seen a dick before,” you say gently, as if reading his thoughts. “And you don’t have to avert your gaze.”

Corey looks up from the floor of the shower, meeting your eyes. You give him an encouraging smile and he chuckles, dropping his hands. “Okay.”

The temptation to look down immediately and see what he was hiding is strong, but you manage to keep your eyes on his face. You duck out of the shower stream to let him get wet, flipping the top of your body wash and squeezing some out. You gesture with the bottle to Corey and he offers you his hand, palm up. You dispense a little dollop for him.

“You have more tattoos than I thought you would. How long has it taken you to get so covered?”

“Like a year and a half?” 

“Holy shit, Speed Racer!” You laugh, and he fucking giggles. He’s so cute you could die. Between your legs, your clit starts to throb. 

“I uh, had to wait a long time to start getting tattooed. Kinda thought it would never happen. So I’m going a little crazy, trying to catch up.”

“That’s actually so cool. I’m glad you get to make that happen.” You finally let your eyes drift down, studying his tattoos through the bubbles on his skin, using your hand like a squeegee to get a better look at a few of them, and to have an excuse to touch him. They’re all American Traditional – faithful to the rules, truly old school, Sailor Jerry levels of traditional – but you can pick out the hands of several different artists. They’re all packed extremely solid, the colors vibrant and smooth under his freckled pink skin. You get a decent glimpse of his penis while you check out the tats on his stomach. It makes a very good first impression, although if he’s much of a grower you might be in for a challenge. “They’re beautiful, Corey. You have really good taste.”

He shakes his head, denying the compliment. “It’s all flash from a walk-in shop.” 

“But you picked the shop.” You slide your soapy hands back up his torso to squeeze his shoulders. “And you picked the designs off the wall.” You squeeze again. “Curation makes the collection.”

“I guess I’ve never thought of it like that,” he says. 

You stand there like that for a minute, your hands on his shoulders, looking into each other's eyes. You’ve never seen him in decent lighting before, and you’re learning that he has the longest eyelashes in the world, and his eyes are the color of good iced tea, but staring at him is only making you thirstier. You drape your wrists over his shoulders and rest your forearms on his chest. He puts his hands on your hips. You slowly drift closer to each other as if pulled by magnets. The last traces of Corey’s rough mood from earlier in the night flow down the drain with the soapy water. All he’s thinking about is you. 

You can feel him starting to get hard, the tip of his cock poking you in the thigh, higher and higher until you lean away enough for it to reach its full height. You lean back in closer than you were before, wrapping your arms all the way around his neck. Finally he kisses you. 

It’s soft at first, his plush lips feather light against yours. But his boner resting on your belly is making you want him too badly to abide by that for long. You press in harder, and he returns the pressure. You open your mouth more, and he follows your lead. Your tongues slide against each other and he sighs into your mouth. He still tastes just a little like the cigarette he smoked before you left the pizza place. His hands move from your hips, massaging your back and tentatively cupping your ass. 

You kiss so long the water starts to get cold. You pull away from him reluctantly, despite your lips already getting chapped, and rinse the few remaining bubbles from your skin. You pull a giant blanket towel from the cabinet and wrap it around both of you. It’s extremely inefficient when it comes to actually drying you off, but you barely care, just using it as an excuse to keep your arms around him. 

“That’s dry enough, right?” He asks. He’s so hard it borders on painful. He’s desperate for more, anything more, whatever you’ll give him. 

“Yeah, that’s totally dry enough,” you agree, tossing the towel over the curtain rod. 

You lead Corey back down the hallway, to the foot of the bed. You crawl up to the head of the bed, wiggling your ass in the air for him as you go. At the head of the bed you lay down and beckon for him. He scrambles to lay down next to you. His lips are so raw that they taste like blood, but he’s insatiable, needing to be kissing you. He pulls you into his arms so that you’re lying on your side, and you drape your top leg over his pelvis. His breathing gets heavier, and he’s dying to rock his hips so that his achy, leaking cock rubs against your impossibly soft thigh, but he doesn’t. He’s not sure if it’s okay, not realizing it’s the whole reason you put your leg where you put it.

If he won’t grind into your thigh, you’ll just have to grind your thigh into him instead. As his length drags across your skin it leaves a hot trail of precum. He shudders beneath you and makes a little strangled sound. It makes your pussy gush. You want to make him whimper, you want to hear him groan and whine and cry. 

“Corey,” you purr against his stubbly cheek. “Why are you holding back?”

“I, uh – I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do. Like, what you want me to do.”

“Should I just tell you what to do?” 

“Please.”

You kiss him again before giving your first instruction. “Don’t try to be quiet. The walls in this place are really thick, so you don’t have to worry about anybody but me hearing you. But I want to hear everything.” 

“Okay,” he whimpers. 

You reach your hand down and wrap your fingers around his shaft. He inhales sharply. His satiny skin slides up and down as you gently stroke him. You told him not to be quiet, so he lets out a long moan, surprising himself with how desperate the sound is. 

“Does that feel good?” You coo.

“Mhm,” Corey groans. 

“Good. Don’t try to be still either, baby. If you want to thrust, thrust.” 

And thrust he does, immediately, pressing his hips into your hand hard before dropping them back down to the bed. Your satisfied laugh is music to his ears. He thrusts into your hand again, and again. Faster and faster. You kiss him as you pump his cock in your hand, but he’s too busy whining and panting to kiss you back. 

“Fuck,” he gasps. “Stop for a second. Please.”

You release him and bring your hand to your mouth, tasting the mess he made. The sight of you licking his precum off your palm nearly kills him. While he recovers, you pull a condom out of the drawer in your nightstand. You hold it up for him to see, squeezing it so he knows the little air bubble is still inside. 

 “Can I put this on you?” He nods. He closes his eyes and lets out a long, shaky breath as you roll the condom on. You lay on your back and gesture for him to climb on top of you. “Okay, now come here,” you say.

He kneels between your legs. You hold your arms out to him and he slowly lowers himself into them, planting one wide hand on either side of you. His cock taps against your slit and it makes you both hum. 

“I need to feel you inside me,” you whisper. 

Corey’s toned arms almost give out. “I need to be inside you,” he agrees in a strained voice.

You guide him to the right spot. With one push he slides all the way in. He’s completely fucking perfect, filling you all the way up. He flexes his hips experimentally, and the smallest little movements cause him to make the prettiest little whines. You feel so good around him, he’s scared he won’t last five seconds if he moves the way he wants to, but the way you’re looking up at him weakens his will, and he gives in. 

Once he starts in earnest, he can’t stop, overtaken with a sense of urgency, needing more, more, more. His face and chest turn bright red. His eyes tear up and he squeezes them closed. The way he pounds you feels fucking incredible, but the sight of him and the sound of his whiny moans getting higher and higher pitched is what makes you truly feral. 

“Holy shit, Corey.” You reach up and run your fingers through his hair. “You feel so fucking good. You fill me up just right.”  

You feel the effects your words have on him, faltering slightly before fucking you even harder. 

“Look at me,” you command. He opens his eyes and you see the tears welling there. You’re worried for a second, but before you can ask if he’s okay, he reassures you.

“I’ve… never… felt this good,” he says between gulping breaths. “I’m really… really close.” 

“Oh yeah? You’re close?” Your tone is teasing, but sweet. 

“So close,” he barely manages to say, the rhythm of his movements becoming less coherent.

“I want you to cum for me.” 

“B-but… but…” 

“Don’t fight it. Cum for me, Corey.” 

You wrap your legs around his hips and that’s his undoing. He whines your name, muscles trembling, spilling into the condom, a single tear breaching his waterline. 

"Oh my god," he says, voice hoarse as he lays back down beside you. 

"That good, huh?" 

"Mmm," he hums happily. 

When he realizes you didn't cum, he's adamant about returning the favor. And you'll let him in the morning, coaching him on exactly how to rub your clit to make you scream, before you take him for breakfast at a greasy little diner and drop him off to a chorus of "Ooooh where were you last night?" from his roommates. But for now you just snuggle into his thick, strong arms, content to spend the night with him.

#corey cunningham #corey cunningham x reader #corey cunningham smut #fan fic #fan fiction #mine #cc

[banditcoyote]

Wrangled and Tangled

Sasuga stood by the sink washing the last of the dishes from tonights meal. She smiled softly to herself as her tail flicked behind her, happy about the sets of cups and plates she had picked out, feeling domesticated and settled looking over the two sets of dishes her and her lover had shared, something about them in the drying rack felt almost romantic to her. But maybe it was just the way the sunset was showing so pink and purple over the water that was making her feel that way, the cool summer breeze blowing in from the open Lanai. She hummed to herself a little as she dried her hand and reached for the first plate, ready to dry them herself, when the dish cloth was plucked out of her hands swiftly.

“Let me take care of that.” Simon said perching himself onto the counter and starting to dry one of their plates.

“All the left overs put away?” she asked leaning against the counters and bringing her wine to her lips.

“Most of them.” he said with a nod. “Except for the second helping I couldn’t resist, which is now residing in my stomach.”  

She laughed lightly, brushing her hair back behind her ear “Well I’m glad you enjoyed it.” She said with a nod, moving to cozy up to him just a little bit, her eyes full of warmth, and maybe a bit of mischief. “Maybe we can enjoy some other things when you’re done putting those dishes away.” She said with a curl to her lips.

Simon returned the smile and took a moment to lean down to kiss her easily, drawing back with a little hum. “I can think of some things for sure.” He added. “But before we get too distracted.” He placed the clean plate down on the counter and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small ring box and placing it on the counter next to her hand. “Happy Anniversary.”

Sasuga froze at the sight of the small velvet box and her large eyes went wide, slowly looking up into Simon’s face, searching for the meaning.

Simon at once realizing what she might have thought smiled and blushed. “I know we’ve talked about it, but this is just a promise ring.”  Sasuga let go of the breath she was holding with some relief. He picked the box up and opened it. “See?” inside was a thing gold band with a small rose quartz crystal cut into the shape of a heart that side horizontal to the finger. He reached for her left hand and slid it on to her ring finger kissing it into place. “I love you Sasuga, I know that this might not be perfect, but I wanted you to know how much you mean to me.” Sasuga looked to the ring on her finger, feeling tears pull at the corner of her eyes. He hopped down from the counter “Oh no….is it too much? I know we said we weren’t going to do anything, that dinner was enough but-“

She shook her head “Don’t be stupid.” She said choking back her emotions. “I love it. I love you….Thank you.” She looked at the ring again before reaching up to tug on one of his horns pulling him down into a kiss. “Forget the dishes….come on.” She said, her tail already snaking up around his waist to guide him toward their bedroom.

Coyote woke up with a start, staring up into the dark ceiling above him. He contemplated for a moment what that dream could have meant, and his jaw tightened in his face. Did Sasuga sleep with Simon while he was away, it was the only rule he had given. Or maybe that had made the whole thing more enticing for the two of them. Still, why would Sasuga end up with Simon, he had the feeling he was absent, that house not looking familiar to him in the slightest. He closed his eyes again, almost willing it to come back to him, but some of the finer details were already fading from his memory, and all he remembered was the way the pair looked longingly at each other before they kissed. He gave a little growl and pushed himself up quickly to throw on some jeans and a shirt.

“Coyote?” Shishi asked lifting his head from where he was curled up on one of the pillows. “Where are you going?” he asked rubbing one of his eyes sleepily.

“I’m heading back to the Makai” he told Shishi as he pulled his shirt down over his torso.

The imp eyed the view appreciatively before his senses snapped back to him. “Should I be worried?” he asked knowing of Coyote’s sometimes prophetic dreams, and he wondered if he had some type of vision of Sasuga’s fights. “Do you want me to come with you?”

Coyote shook his head. “No. No. It’s nothing like that it’s….” only he wasn’t entirely sure he could begin to really understand it himself. He shook his head “Sasuga’s fine. I just need to see her. I only had that one other show at the end of the week anyway, stay here, I’ll go tell Russell to pack everything up and head on home. You’ll be fine finding a flight right? I mean, stay the night, don’t leave on my account.”

Shishi laughed “Oh it was that kind of dream was it?” he grinned. “Okay, Well, tell her I said hello and get back safely.” He said as he yawned and laid back down to sleep. “I’m sure Kurama and Gatlin will be happy to have me home, if they haven’t torn each other apart yet…”

Coyote slapped on his cowboy hat and grabbed a jacket though he felt his skin burning. “And you remember what we said about this right?” he asked as he headed toward the door.

“My lips are sealed.” Shishi murmured. “Not a word to anyone”

“Especially to Sasuga.” He confirmed hand on the door.

“Especially Sasuga.” Shishi promised “She’d probably be more upset with me than you anyway” and waved him off.

Coyote found himself easily at his ring manager’s trailer, pounding on the door. He felt bad to be waking Russell up like this but he knew he couldn’t just disappear in the middle of the night and leave Shishi to explain for  him, things looked weird enough having him around. Russell answered the door, looking as if he was still blinking back sleep. “Coyote, everything alright?” he asked looking around.

“No…Um no, there was a fire back at the ranch.” He said lying on his feet. Thinking easily of the fire at Thom’s he could use as a cover even if the time line wouldn’t match up. He figured it would never get back to Russell anyways. The manager looked concerned. “It’s nothing big, a small one thank god, no one hurt, but I really should get out there, I know we only have the exhibit at the end of the week so I was just going to head home now. Would that be too much of a pain for ya’ll to handle?”

Russell cleared the sleep from his eyes with his hand “Yeah, yeah I can handle it no problem. Take care, hope it’s as small as you say.” He said and headed back to his bed.

Coyote made one more stop, saying farewell to Poncho in his trailer, before he headed towards the nearest portal in the woods, which was still pretty far, and Coyote had to be careful no one saw him as he slipped into the woods and transformed, having to sprint as fast as he could to reach the portal before daylight. He was glad he had the foresight to try and keep his motorcycle as close to him as possible, as the only other way he could have gotten there was to fly back home and then race to her, and he wasn’t sure he could stand being on a plane the way he was feeling.  All cooped up without being able to run or move, or do anything. It would have been torture, not like the past few weeks hadn’t been. The time away from Sasuga had been harder than he’d like to admit, and he already knew he would never plan on being away from her like this again. All the time away from her he had felt like pulling his skin off. He had helped Thom around her house before he left, and at the rodeo he did more of the manual work than anyone really wanted him to. He ran Poncho as often as he felt he could without causing the poor animal too much strain, and then would run laps as fast as he could as long as he could well into the night. But it was never enough, the women that tried to greet him as soon as he stepped out of the rodeo corral still enticed him to the point he had to nearly run back to his RV. All that hair, perfume, and how the hell where they making such good bras now adays? Though he was sure that some of breasts out there weren’t only held up by a bra but maybe some type of surgery, that didn’t sway him away any. Then the fact that in some of the more populous areas there were actual demon women in the crowds, and those he really had to avoid. He was sure they’d sense something about him, and he was doing his best to be incognito. Luckily his prior years of fooling around with plenty of the women at these things rarely had any of his crew spotting him being social, so now that he was hiding out on his own it went unnoticed. Coyote tried to run himself ragged, exercise, the rodeo, his variety of plants and a few sex toys paired unironically with the body pillow he had snuck on board, none of it had done the exact trick. Which had then led him to call Shishi. It had been a long shot, but it didn’t take much convincing getting him to come out to see him in secret, even if he was a bit miffed at having to mostly stay hidden at the events. Coyote let him have the pass into where the wives or girlfriend’s normally sat, and he posed in his refinery during the events when it fancied him. It had helped tire him out, but he still hadn’t been getting enoug

He thought he could remain out here for the full month, and they had gotten so close, it was almost silly to run now. But after the dream with her and Simon he just couldn’t deny the ache he felt for his mate any longer and he had to find his way back to her. Dawn was just about to break as he reached the portal and he wasted no time heading through it and heading towards where he had hidden his bike. He felt like a dog that had gotten a scent, and he wasn’t going to rest until he got to her. **** Four days later still hours from dawn, Coyote stashed the bike behind the hotel, barely taking care to hide it, and stumbled into the lobby. He had all the faith in the world that Sasuga was still in the tournament, and held the most hope that meant she was still in the hotel room that he had the key stashed for. He limped into the lobby where the clerk paled at the site of him. “Sir….” He said rushing around the desk and towards him. “Do you need a medic?” he asked looking him over.

Coyote didn’t waste the energy to speak to him and only shook his head as he stumbled forward before catching his balance again. He knew what he looked like, but wasn’t stopped as it was clear the clerk in his pristine uniform was afraid to touch him at all.

“Is there someone I can call?” he said walking along side him as Coyote shuffled to the elevator, bracing himself against the lobby wall and causing a smear of blood to press into the wall paper.

Coyote considered it for a moment, but shook his head again. If Sasuga was still in the tournament this late in the game there was a chance she was injured as well, and he wanted her to save her strength for fighting. He’d be okay. He just needed a shower, some stitches, and her.

The clerk did not follow him into the elevator, being the main hotel for the tournament he was surely not the only injured guest they received, and he retreated back to their desk, probably to call for maintenance to clean up whatever other mess Coyote had left behind him. He leaned against the wall as it started it’s ascension toward the upper floors, again leaving a smear of dirt and blood where his shoulder braced himself. A few droplets of blood dripping from somewhere onto the floor. It seemed to take forever for the elevator to reach it’s destination, the doors pausing once as a couple was about to get on, but after seeing him let him go on without a question. Coyote almost passed out, unsure if it was from blood loss or exhaustion, but the dinging and wooshing of the doors riled him, and he staggered out into the hallway. Knowing he was so close to Sasuga spurred him on, and he was relieved to find that the card key still worked. He let himself into the hotel room, finding it dark and quiet and he did his best to move with stealth into the bathroom. He passed the bed and spotted Sasuga sleeping peacefully by herself, he was grateful for this because with the rage that was still somewhat in his veins if he had found Simon with her he might have taken a regrettable action. In that moment iat took everything in him to not simply cover her with himself, though with how dirty he was he knew it would only concern her more. There was blood in his mouth and under his fingernails, matting his hair down and sticking to his hat. Better to clean himself up first, and he shut the bathroom door behind him before turning on the light.

He did his best not to look at himself in the mirror, but finding it a necessity to assess some of the damage. If he had made it this far like this it couldn’t have been too bad. Still he was in rough shape. Not only was his face cut, bruised, and swollen, but he had also lost enough weight that he appeared gaunt under the torn and dirty clothes he wore. He slowly undressed, assessing each wound, fresh bruises forming on top of old ones, some cuts that were still bleeding every time he moved, gashes that would no doubt need to be closed up. He hissed as some of the clothing stuck to him where blood had dried, let his effects fall to the floor, his gun empty and tucked back in his holster, and stepped into the shower letting the water strike at his feet until it was warm enough to step into. He braced himself against the wall, letting it flow over his hair and down his back, feeling the sense of relief start to fill him as well. He had made it, he was close to resting, and he was close to his mate, that was all he could ask for right now.

#cut for length and posting

[alcinadimitrescuwu]

A Modest Proposal (Alcina x Fem!Reader)

Premise: You finally muster up the courage to propose to Alcina Dimitrescu. But will everything go as planned?

Note: Even though we technically don't know Alcina's middle name, I gave her Carmilla as her middle name in homage to another beloved Sapphic vampire! :)

Warnings: blood. Steamy scenes her and there, but nothing NSFW.

As you take the last steps towards your mistress’s chambers you have to stop for a minute and take some deep breaths. The other maids had taken to giving you concerned glances all morning. Your nerves had been so fraught that a plate had slipped out of your sweaty hands and broken. You didn’t mind the stares. To everyone else, this is just an ordinary day. Not for you.

Today is the day you are going to propose to Alcina Dimitrescu.

However, you have some errands to run first. For that you are going to have to ask Alcina, ironically enough, for the rest of the day off.

You steel yourself, slap your cheeks to banish any last nerves and knock on the door.

“Come in,” you hear an elegant, mature voice call.

Lady Dimitrescu is seated at her secretary, lining up accounts for the month. Her brow is furrowed in concentration. Upon clearing your throat, she takes off her reading glasses and when she sees you a smile bursts across her face that takes your breath away.

After a year and a half of courting, you could still not believe that this beautiful woman was your lover. You take in her laugh lines and dimples, her slightly puffy cheeks that she hated but you found adorable, her carmine lips freshly painted, and her blue eyes with a corona of gold around them that you found absolutely mesmerizing.

She takes your hand and kisses your knuckles. “Yes, iubirea mea, what can I do for you?”

“I would like to take the rest of the day off if that’s alright with you,” you say in a rush.

She blinks, surprised, but then smiles. “I don’t mind. After all, you’ve been working so hard lately. Have you cleared it with the head maid?”

“Yes-” Before you can say any more, in an instant Alcina has bent down and taken you in her arms with your back against her ample bosom. You feel hot breath on your neck and her curls tickle your ears as she whispers, “We could spend the whole day together. How would you like that, pet?”

You find yourself lost for words as she moves your uniform collar and begins kissing your neck. You lean back and sigh. Her perfume is intoxicating. She moves one hand to your hip and the other begins to peel back your skirt.

You would rather do nothing more than to make love to Alcina on your day off, however there are other matters more pressing. It takes great self control to take her hands off of you. A look of hurt crosses her face. You turn around and give her a chaste kiss and hold her face in your hands. “Forgive me, darling. I would love to but I have some errands to run. May I see you later? Dinner, the usual time?”

Her expression brightens and she kisses you deeply. “I’ll look forward to tonight then,” she says, tucking a curl behind your ear.

You can only nod and when you turn around, Alcina gives you a playful slap on the bum. You look back at her and she gives you a devilish grin.

Closing the door behind you, you can’t help but let out a chuckle. Alcina’s libido, it seemed, could never be satiated. As you take a step you wince and rub your behind. That woman honestly didn’t know her own strength sometimes.

You wrap your scarf around you as you leave the castle grounds. It may be the dead of winter but you find yourself sweating from nerves. The Duke catches your eye and waves you over.

“Ah, Miss Y/N! Just the lady I wanted to see. Your package just arrived.”

You feel your breath catch but nod silently. He turns around and begins rummaging around in the store. You turn around so as to not catch a glimpse of the Duke’s massive behind and you freeze. Alcina is at the window enjoying her morning cigarette. And she is staring directly at you.

You whisper to him, “Wait.” Alcina is still looking at you as she’s taking a drag off her cigarette. Smoke wreathes her gorgeous face. You give her a nervous wave. She waves back and then hears the phone ring. With a grimace, she puts out her cigarette and steps back inside.

You turn back to the Duke. “All right. It should be fine now.”

The Duke smiles and then presents you with a box slightly larger than a normal engagement ring box. With bated breath you open the box and behold the engagement ring that you have bought for Alcina.

Getting the ring had not been easy. When the Duke had told you the price for an engagement ring, especially a custom-made ring for Alcina, you nearly cried with frustration. After all, the main purpose of you working at Castle Dimitrescu was to send back money for your aging parents. When you and Lady Dimitrescu had first begun courting and she learned of your family’s financial situation she had offered to send them money herself each month so you didn’t have to work. However, your pride would not allow it. Any money sent back to your home, you wanted to come from your labors.

Getting enough money for your parents while also raising money to buy the ring had been a long and arduous process. You had begun taking up extra shifts to make up the money. There had been many nights where you had fallen asleep on the sofa with a feather duster in your hand and Alcina had to scoop you up in her arms and carry you to bed herself. But looking in at the ring within the box, you found it had been all worth it. The ring is beautiful, around 14 karats of gold inlaid with rubies forming the House Dimitrescu crest. You are sure Alcina would love it. It had taken time to get the exact measurements of her ring finger. While Alcina was asleep, you had taken her left hand often and studied her ring finger making sure the ring fit snug but not too tight. To get the crest right, you had taken to drawing it over and over again in your off time before you had a drawing good enough to show the Duke to have it commissioned.

You look up and grin at the Duke with tears in your eyes. “Duke, it's beautiful!” you breathe. “Alcina- er, Lady Dimitrescu will love it!”

He pats your hand as you slip the box into your apron pocket. “Not a problem at all, m’dear! Good luck tonight!”

With that done, you head back to the castle. You practically skip back to the gates, taking out the box every so often and peeking inside. Your joy dissipates when you realize what the next item on your to do list is.

Asking for Lady Dimitrescu’s daughters’ blessing.

When you walk in, you actually run into them getting ready to go out. Bela smiles at you as she adjusts Daniela’s cowl on her traveling cloak. “Y/N! Good to see you! Mother told us you had taken the day off.”

Cassandra pipes up, “We were just going out to go hunting! Want to come with us?”

“Actually I wanted to talk to you all about something,” you say as you look around the foyer for any sign of the girls’ mother. “Is there somewhere private we can all talk? Preferably somewhere your mother doesn’t frequent?”

Daniela’s eyes glitter mischievously. “Oooh, keeping secrets are we? Come on, I know a perfect place we can hide!”

Daniels leads the pack to the library. “Mother usually practices her singing around this time,” she says over her shoulder. “So there’s not a chance she’ll overhear anything you say.”

Sure enough, you hear Lady Dimitrescu’s voice singing an elaborate coloratura from upstairs. Perfect.

Daniela’s hands run over the panels in the wall. “Now where is it….Aha there it is!” Daniela picks up a loose panel on the wall and puts it to the side. She steps in and backons the rest of you forward.

There is no light in this room save for torches every couple meters. The room can’t be much more than 6 feet tall, so there was no way Lady Dimitrescu could fit in properly. “We used to hide from Mother here all the time as children,” Daniela winks conspiratorially at you.

Cassandra begins jumping up and down excitedly. “Now what’s the secret? Tell us! Tell us!”

You take a deep breath and then let it out. “All right...Tonight I am planning on proposing to your mother and-”

You are cut off by the girls’ cries of jubilation. Daniela runs over and gives you a big hug. Bela has burst into happy tears. Cassandra continues jumping up and down and chanting, “Bonus mom! Bonus mom!”

You can’t help but laugh. “Does that mean I have your blessing?”

“Of course!” they yell in unison.

Bela says excitedly, “The ring! Do you have a ring?”

Blushing furiously you nod and take out the black velvet box and open it. They “ooh” and “aah” and take turns looking at it before they finally relinquish it back to you. As you put the box back into your pocket, you say, “Well girls, I need to start getting ready. Please make sure not to do anything to arouse your mother’s suspicions. I want it to be a surprise.”

The girls nod their assent, but Cassandra interjects, “Do you need help getting ready? We want you to be looking your best for tonight!”

Everyone enthusiastically agrees and you can’t help but smile fondly at the girls. You may be closer in age to them, but ever since you had begun courting their mother, you loved them like they were your own children. “All right, if you insist.”

The girls cheer and Cassaandra takes you by the hand and leads you back to your room to get ready.

15 minutes before your meeting with Lady Dimitrescu you take a look in the mirror. The girls truly outdid themselves on your makeover. Daniela had curled your hair and it hung in ringlets over your shoulders. Cassandra had given you one of her dresses, a red column dress that was backless with a plunging neckline. This wasn’t the sort of thing you would normally wear, but you had to admit the silhouette was very flattering, highlighting your natural curves. The best part: it had pockets large enough to hide the ring box! Bela was on makeup duty, giving you wingtips sharper than Alcina’s claws and a smokey eye. You spritz on some rosewater perfume and head out. As you pass the hall mirror, you consider putting your hair up in a chignon but think better of it. Alcina had always liked your hair best when it was down.

When you are at the door to Alcina’s chambers you take a deep breath before knocking on the door. “Come in, iubirea mea,” Alcina’s voice purrs within.

You head inside and Alcina has her back turned on you, lighting the candelabras at the table she has set up for you two. “I’ve needed this, my love. You should’ve heard what that fool Heisenberg-”

She stops and stares at you. You can’t help but feel self-conscious as she takes you in. She finally sets the candlestick she was using to light the others back in the candelabra and heads purposefully towards you. She scoops you up in her arms and kisses you deeply, burying her hands in your curls. She breaks the kiss and strokes your cheek. “You look beautiful,” she says breathlessly.

You can’t help but blush at the compliment. “So do you,” you reply as she sets you down gently, praying she doesn’t hear the box rustling in your skirts. She takes your hand and leads you to your seat where she pulls out your chair for you. You take her hand that is resting on the back of your seat and kiss it.

Dinner proceeds as normal at first. You listen to her talk about her day, which takes your mind off the proposal for a bit. Then she puts it at the forefront of your mind when she says, “I saw you talking to the merchant this morning. Did you have anything special coming in?”

Your mouth goes dry. How do you respond to that? “Oh, no. He just wanted to chat. You know how he gets!”

Alcina purses her lips but nods eventually. “Indeed.”

Awkward silence settles over you for a bit. Then she begins talking again, this time ranting about Heisenberg and you almost sigh in relief. This is easy. You just have to listen and agree with whatever she says.

“And then do you know what that fool called me? He called me a ‘simp’ for Mother Miranda! I didn’t even know what that was. I had to ask my daughters and when they told me of course I was infuriated.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I mean, a simp? Me? Ha! Imagine! He’s just jealous because he wishes that he had half the devotion that I have for her!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you think I’m a simp?”

“Uh-huh.”

She glares at you from across the table. Damn. She’s caught you.

You stumble over your words trying to correct your stupid blunder. “I mean, no! Of course you’re not a simp! Where would he get that idea?”

Alcina leans across the table and takes your chin in her hand, forcing you to look directly into her eyes. “Am I boring you, pet?” she asks, a dangerous edge to her voice.

“Er, no! No, I'm having a great time!” you say, smiling stupidly at her.

Alcina lets go of your chin and settles back in her chair, crossing her arms. Her stormy expression can’t disguise the look of hurt on her face. “You were the one that suggested we meet tonight, darling. I can’t see why you would want to if you’re not going to at least attempt to be present with me.”

“I’m sorry, darling. I-”

She turns away from you, her large hat blocking her expression. “Maybe you should go.” She gets up and crosses the room to open the door.

No, no, God, no this can’t be happening. This is your worst nightmare. You can’t let her open the door, you just can’t.

You practically fall to one knee. “Alcina!”

“What?” she snaps, turning her head toward you. Her expression softens as she sees that you are down on one knee with the box open. Her chest rises and falls rapidly as she says so quietly you have to lean to hear it, “Draga mea, what are you doing?”

You had a big speech prepared for this. But everything else has gone to hell in a handbasket, so you might as well get it over with. “Alcina Carmilla Dimitrescu, will you marry me?”

Alcina just stands there and stares. The tears that had been building in her eyes now spill over as she kneels down to your level and gives you a passionate kiss.

You smile against her lips and break the kiss. “Does that mean yes?”

“Yes, my darling,” she gives you a watery smile and caresses your jaw. “Yes.”

With trembling hands you take the ring out of the box and slip it on her left ring finger. She lifts her hand and inspects the new ring in the chandelier light. The rubies catch the light, nearly blinding you with their brilliance.

“How does it fit? It’s not too tight?”

She beams at you, positively radiating with joy. “It fits perfectly.” She then rises and heads over to her dresser and opens the top drawer. To your surprise, she pulls out a red box with the Dimitrescu family crest on the top. She sinks to one knee and presents you with an old, but beautiful ring. It must have been passed down through the Dimitrescu bloodline for generations.

Your face feels hot and you feel tears welling up in your eyes. She gently takes your arm. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” She wipes the tears that have already begun cascading your cheeks. “It is tradition for House Dimitrescu to propose with the family ring to symbolize the unification of two houses. I had been planning to propose to you next week. You beat me to it, you clever girl.” She takes your hand and slips the Dimitrescu family ring on your ring finger. It is slightly larger than your finger, but you don’t care. You couldn’t be happier.

Alcina takes you into her lap and kisses you passionately. In between kisses, she queries, ”All those extra shifts you took. They were all for me?”

“Yes, my love,” you say breathlessly. “All for you.”

She stands up and takes you in her arms. You wrap your arms around her neck as she deepens the kiss, exploring your mouth with her tongue. You can taste salty tears on her lips. She carries you over to the bed kissing you the whole time and sets you down gently. She kneels over you on the bed and you rest your leg on her hip. The slit in your skirt rises up, exposing your stockinged leg. After putting her hand gently on your shoulder, Alcina begins kissing your neck. You lean back into the cushions and sigh.

You hear a low moan in her throat, almost like a whine as she kisses your pulse point. You don’t say anything; you just nod. Soon enough you feel the sharp but familiar sensation of Alcina’s fangs piercing your neck. She holds you against her body and you bury your hands in her curls, causing her hat to fall off. Briefly taking her hand off your shoulder, she slaps the hat aside like it was so much rubbish. You take pleasure in every sigh, every moan, every exclamation you elicit from her as she drinks. When she finally stops drinking she wipes her mouth and gives you a seductive smirk. “Good girl,” she purrs.

Alcina’s mouth is on yours again as she undoes your halter while you unhook her garter. She breaks the kiss and cradles your face in her hands. “Te iubesc, draga mea.”

You take her hand and kiss it while saying, “And I you, Alcina.”

The two of you make love until the sun rises the next morning.

#alcina dimitrescu #lady dimitrescu #re8 village #daniela dimitrescu #bela dimitrescu #cassandra dimitrescu #re8 fanfiction #lady dimitrescu fanfic #lady dimitrescu x reader #alcina x reader #alcina x maiden #lady dimitrescu x female reader

[phoenixyfriend]

Auntie ‘Soka and Little Leia (and Rex)

The counterpart to Uncle Ben and Little Luke (Original Post, Chrono)

Listen. You all knew this was coming.

This got... very long and detailed and I’m going to have to clean it up and post to AO3. As in, this was supposed to be 2-3k and is literally ten times that long. It crossed 25k. And the initial section actually glosses over a bunch, actual fic-style writing starts at “That, of course, is when things get interesting.”

Warnings: discussion of various canon traumas (most relating to being child soldiers), general PTSD, several scenes featuring dissociation or panic attacks upon being triggered, and canon-typical violence.

Rated T, gen.

I still want there to be de-aging nonsense involved so Ahsoka is physically a late teenager despite having a solid two decades of field experience behind her (we’re pulling her from Malachor).

Leia, much like Luke, is now six. She just came from being a rebellion general. She is not happy about being a child. She was already short, this is just mean.  She’s a human espresso.

UNLIKE BEN, Ahsoka is not happy about this turn of events. Being seventeen-ish is not helpful in the outer rim. She’s a female togruta, young and healthy, and in the Outer Rim, caring for a small human child. Sure, she has her lightsabers and plenty of combat experience, and she can keep them safe, but she’s just one person, and a major target for those looking to make some quick cash. It doesn’t matter how good she is; she needs sleep at some point.

It makes my heart happy to treat Ahsoka and Rex as two halves of the same black ops specialist so you know what, he’s there too! He’s physically like... 10-12 in natborn, maybe. They’re not sure, because clones age weird. He’s moderately more useful than Leia (who is very competent but also physically six, and short for that age), but he’s still... very small.

Reminder that none of them have been born yet.

Ahsoka has a harder time explaining WHY she has children with her, since she's barely more than a kid herself, and clearly unrelated by species. She sometimes just says “Oh, my adoptive brother’s kids” since it’s kind of the truth for Leia and she’s not touching the actual truth about Rex with a ten foot pole.

Ahsoka definitely knows about Leia being a Skywalker, or at least has suspicions that Bail never outright confirmed but was conspicuously quiet about. She does tell Leia about it, but it’s not like that means anything, right? Just, you know, your dad was my teacher! I don’t have to tell you he became Va--oh shit, you already knew that part. Well, fuck. What do you mean he had a son? OH SHIT, PADME HAD TWINS.

Alt take for explaining why she’s got kids: She’s my foundling, I know her name as my child (Leia shut up!!!)

(Ahsoka can fake Mandalore. Sometimes.)

That said, there is... significantly less gambling and significantly more theft to get to Coruscant.

As previously stated, Ahsoka is a black ops kinda gal, and more importantly, she looks like a fairly attractive young woman in the Outer Rim, with two children in good health. She’s a target, and also not the kind of person one generally gambles with. If she does gamble, people get upset when she doesn’t lose, in ways they don’t get upset about Ben doing the same, because she’s, again, a cute teenage girl. It’s exhausting.

As things go, she largely ends up stealing from people who deserve it and/or smuggling herself and her charges into someone else’s ship. They’re small, they can hide. Sometimes she can get them all passage by working as a mechanic, she’s good at that.

Once they’ve got a handle on when they are, they have to decide on Names. None of them have been born yet, so technically they could use their own names without anyone Knowing. Rex and Leia might not even be born, depending on how successful they are at, you know, stopping the war and everything. Ahsoka, though, she’s going be born in two years, and there’s no reason to prevent it, so... she doesn’t want to steal baby-her’s name. That would be mean.

Leia is already calling her “Auntie ‘Soka” when she can for reasons like “selling the bit” and “manipulating adults” and “making us both feel better after we had a mutual breakdown about Anakin being Vader.” Ergo, she decides that whatever new name she picks better include that in some way, and decides on “Sokari” because it sounds pretty.

Overall, they don’t... they don’t actually make it very far before there’s an Incident. Again, teenager with small children. They spend a lot of time hiding out in space ports looking for an opportunity.

That, of course, is when things get interesting.

Specifically, Ahsoka spots a Mandalorian.

She doesn’t recognize the armor. She does recognize the sigil, and thinks ‘well, they’re more likely to help than some,’ because from what she’s heard, the Haat Mando’ade are Decent People Overall. Her view is a little biased, mostly on account of the sheer level of grudge she has against Kyr’tsad. It’s fine! The True Mandalorians have the same grudge, right? And Mandalorians like kids and Ahsoka hasn’t slept in five days and it’s fine. It’s fine! IT’S FINE.

“Oh shit,” Rex whispers, before she can suggest anything. “Oh fuck.”

“Stop cursing,” Leia hisses, elbowing him. “People are going to notice.”

“That’s the Prime,” Rex panics, mostly quiet. Ahsoka’s heart drops, because fuck is right. “That’s Fett.”

Leia isn’t impressed. Ahsoka just angles herself between Fett and Rex and hopes that he doesn’t see them. That’s just asking for trouble.

Unfortunately, Ahsoka is in fact running on none sleep with left trauma, and doesn’t notice Fett walking up and dropping into a seat across from them until he’s actually done so, removing his helmet to glare a little more efficiently.

“Wanna explain why your kid has my face?”

Ahsoka later tells herself that he’s killed Jedi and that’s why he can sneak up on her, and that she can be forgiven some slip-ups with the exhaustion being what it is, and that she’s obviously going to be dealing with some emotional instability in light of the sudden return of teenage hormones and new forms of anxiety that are markedly different from those she was dealing with a few weeks ago.

What Ahsoka wants to say is “that’s kind of a long story,” or “maybe he’s a cousin,” or “kriff off, I don’t know you,” or maybe even “he’s a clone.”

What Ahsoka actually does is burst into tears, which is embarrassing for her, for Fett, for the kids, and for the entire rest of the bar.

It really is the straw that broke the eopie’s back. Even when she was actually this age, she didn’t exactly cry much. Objectively, Fett quasi-aggressively asking a valid question shouldn’t send her into a panic. She’s been through torture and worse. She shouldn’t be crying.

But she is, sobbing her eyes out with no control, and he’s just sitting across from her and looking uncomfortable while Rex wraps his little arms--oh Force he’s so small--around her, and both ‘children’ glare at Fett.

“So, I’m going to take it she didn’t kidnap you from a loving family or do something illicit with a blood sample,” Fett says, after it becomes obvious that Ahsoka’s not going to be ready to talk any time soon.

“She didn’t,” Rex says stiffly, with just the right emphasis for Fett to catch what’s implied. Ahsoka just keeps her head down, eyes pressed against the heels of her palms, trying to get her body to stop rebelling against her.

Fett’s eyes dart to Leia, who folds her arms and draws herself up, every bit the unimpressed princess. “My father claimed her as a sister, so she’s my Auntie ‘Soka.”

The man dithers a bit, the conversation clearly not going where he’d expected. “Right,” he says. “You--you’re all kids. I thought she was a little older, at least, but I didn’t have a good look at her face before.”

She is older, but actually admitting that is only going to make this worse, both for her pride and for her chances of making it out alive.

“Where are you staying?”

“What?” Leia bites out.

“You’re kids, you’re alone, and you’re clearly not okay if you were trying to hide the one with my face as blatantly as you did, and then... whatever this is, when I confronted you,” Fett explains. Ahsoka lifts her head to glare at him, but it’s probably not doing much with the way her eyes are rimmed with red and still wet. “Don’t give me that look, ad’ika, your kids looked as confused and horrified by that as the bartender did. They obviously didn’t think it was normal either.”

Well, kriff you too, Ahsoka thinks.

“And what do you mean by ‘blatantly,’ here?” Leia challenges. It’s adorable, but Ahsoka watched this tiny girl shoot a man last week, and wonders when people are going to start taking that seriously.

“There’s a lot of people in this galaxy, and I don’t exactly have the clearest memory of what I looked like at that age,” Fett says, slow and careful like he thinks they’re dumb. Ahsoka decides to chalk it up as being because Leia’s visibly six. “I would have thought it was just a coincidence if you hadn’t put in effort to hide him.”

Leia huffs, and Rex glares harder. Fett just sighs, like they’re all going to give him grey hairs.

“You can explain whatever the hell’s going on,” Fett says. “I’ll let you stay on my ship, there’s a spare bunk and you’re small.”

“For free?” Rex demands.

“A night on a bunk in exchange for information,” Fett clarifies. “We can negotiate from there.”

Ahsoka takes a few moments, notes that both of the others are waiting on her for the decision, and cringes. She doesn’t feel steady enough to carry that. She has to anyway.

“Rex?” she asks, voice rasping after the breakdown of the past few minutes.

“Yeah?”

“How much?”

He looks up at her, eyes calculating, and grimaces. “We don’t want Order 66. A warning is better, even if we... share information.”

She nods, and turns to Leia. “Any premonitions, princess?”

Leia glowers, cute and furious. “No.”

“No, don’t tell, or no, you aren’t getting any vibes about sharing info one way or the other?”

“The latter,” Leia clarifies, huffy to the last.

“Right,” Ahsoka says, and then just... hesitates. “Fett...”

“You’ve got conditions,” he guesses.

She bares her teeth in what could have, through a squint and perhaps a few drinks, been called an apologetic smile. “Just one, really.”

“Yeah?”

“No hurting, killing, or turning us in for bounties,” she says. “Any of us.”

“You’re children, I wouldn’t.”

She blinks at him, slow and careful. She hesitates. She reaches down, out of sight, sees him stiffen.

She unclips her sabers from her belt and puts them on the table.

His eyes are fixed on the weapons the second they enter his line of sight, and don’t move as he clearly realizes why she made the condition she did.

“I left years ago, because I couldn’t stay without it ruining me,” she says. Still slow. Still careful. She’s so tired. “But if I want to keep Leia safe, I have to get back to Coruscant.”

His eyes finally lift from the sabers, expression blank. “Just her?”

“Rex doesn’t have the same monsters coming after him,” she says. “If it were just me and him, I’d worry less. Leia’s a different kind of target.”

“You’re putting a lot of faith on the table by telling me that,” Fett says, voice flat and toneless. “Considering my occupation.”

“She’s a child,” Ahsoka says, feeling heavy and boneless. “Even with what I was and will be, even with what money you would get from the right buyer, you wouldn’t.”

“There are other risks.”

“There are.”

They stare at each other for too long, probably, and then Fett jerks as Rex kicks him under the table. The boys glare for a moment, and then Rex says, “If she weren’t good, I’d still be a slave to those who grew me.”

Fett blinks, and then nearly growls the word, “What?”

“She freed me,” Rex reiterates. “While I was trying to shoot her.”

Ahsoka lifts a hand and puts it on his far shoulder, pulling him into her side. She doesn’t meet Fett’s eyes again, because part of her is back on Mandalore, dodging her own soldiers and crying out as her family dies across the galaxy.

Fett breathes in. Breathes out. He puts a hand to his head, visibly frustrated. “Fine. A good Jedi kid, and two smaller kids, one of which is apparently in some way mine.”

Rex makes a face, which is fair, but also not helping.

“To the ship,” Ahsoka says, putting her sabers back on her belt and sliding out of the seat. “I’m... I’m Sokari.”

“You already know my name.”

“I do.”

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

Fett watches her like she’s a predator, which has the benefit of being accurate and slightly flattering. She lets other two take care of most of talking, and then Fett tells her to sleep first, and talk in the morning.

“You’re dead on your feet, jetii,” he snorts. “And that crying jag didn’t do you any favors. Sleep.”

So she does, and Fett doesn’t even wake her. He just lets her sleep. He watches her in the way of a guard. She sees him when she gets up to use the ‘fresher in the middle of the night, but he doesn’t even comment when she collapses right back into the mediocre cot she’s borrowed for the cycle.

Rex and Leia are safe, her hindbrain tells her, even in the depths of sleep. Her mind curls around theirs in the Force, and she trusts that they are here. They are not happy, but they are alive and unharmed, and that has to be enough.

When she stumbles her way to true wakefulness, groggy and loose-limbed, Fett greets her with caf.

“The kids wouldn’t let me near you,” he tells her.

“They’re good,” she says, cupping her hands around the mug. She feels wobbly, in every sense. Her body, her mind, her emotions, her connection to the Force. Nothing is on-kilter right now. “Did they tell you anything?”

“They waited for you,” he says. “But the little miss needed a nap of her own. They’re down in the other bunk.”

“I didn’t notice,” she admits. She should have. She’s Fulcrum. She’s a veteran of the Clone Wars. She’s... she’s supposed to be better than this.

“How long?” he asks, and then when she squints up at him, he clarifies. “How long did you fight?”

“My last fight--”

“No, whatever war you came out of,” he says. Her chest twists cold. “I don’t know if the Jedi sent you into it or if you waded in yourself once you left, but you move like a soldier.”

“I was,” she confirms. “But... but I don’t want to talk about the details. Not until the other two are here.”

He frowns at her. “Is there anything you can talk about?”

She shrugs and looks away, trying to take solace in the warmth of the caff she holds above the table, as if it can hide her, guard her, from the disgraced Mand’alor across the table.

“Jedi?”

“I’m not officially a Jedi,” she says, voice quiet. “Not anymore.”

“Then what do I call you?” he asks. “We’re not exactly close enough for names.”

“Torrent,” she says. “It’s not--I can’t claim my family name anymore. But I can claim Torrent, so I will. And if you want a title, I was a commander.”

“Bit young for that.”

“I got the rank when I was fourteen,” she says, and watches his face do something complicated and unpleasant. “Don’t. I know your own culture puts children on the field that young.”

“Not in command.”

She shrugs. “Yeah, well... the soldiers were technically younger. Adults, but...”

Ahsoka can see the way he casts about to figure out what species grows at that rate. He guesses a few, and she shoots all of it down.

She won’t tell him. Not until Rex is awake.

This part of the story is his.

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

When Leia tries to sit alone, a foot away on the bench like a proper adult, Ahsoka refuses to let it happen. She pulls the younger girl to her side and quells protests with a glance. It’s a decent skill, but she’s not sure how long it’s going to work on her niece-in-spirit.

“Your body needs the chemical release of skinship,” she says, and Leia glares at her. “I spent way too much time with the boys to not know about this. Deal.”

Rex sits close enough to knock their knees together under the table, and his warmth is the old comfort she needs.

“Do you want the story you’ll believe, or the truth?” Ahsoka asks.

“What’s the difference?”

“One of them involves something so impossible that even most Jedi wouldn’t believe it,” she tells him.

Fett folds his arms and leans forward to rest them on the table, challenging but oddly open. “Try me.”

“Time travel.”

He blinks, just once, fully controlled. “That’s a tough one.”

“There were only three Jedi left alive when I died,” she says. “Or... whatever it is that happened to me. I think I died. All I know is that one moment, I was thirty-two and dying, and the next, I was... seventeen again, and had these two with me. All of us younger than we were. None of us have even been born yet.”

She refuses to look him in the eye. “They both outlived me by... six years, maybe. Got caught up while traveling instead of dying. Leia was twenty-two. Rex was thirty-five. I’m not technically the oldest anymore. I mean, physically I am, but that doesn’t mean anything, and it’s not exactly doing us any good, and--”

Rex bumps his shoulder to her arm. “I dunno, Commander. I’ve spent a long time looking older than I should. Nice to look younger for once.”

She shoots him a small, pained grin. “Could be worse, yeah.”

“Let’s say I believe you.”

Her attention snaps back to Fett, who’s looking damnably blank, and is showing even less in the Force.

He waits a second for her to relax back into her seat.

“Let’s say I believe you,” he repeats. “How’s ‘Rex’ connected to me? What’s so special about Leia there? And what war did you fight in that has you acting like a veteran?”

“Three years in the clone wars,” she whispers, glancing to Rex and forcing herself to not go for her sabers to defend against an attack that her paranoia says is coming and the Force says is not. “Then almost all the Jedi were wiped out at once, and I spent a year... drifting. Then black ops for the next fifteen.”

“Black ops,” he repeats, still damnably flat.

“There was a Sith Empire,” she says, and she can hear her own tone growing somehow emptier. “Glassing planets. Enslaving entire species. Committing genocides all over. Of course, there was a rebellion, and of course I joined it. I was one of the only people left with Jedi training. For all that I’d left the Order, I still had a duty to the universe.”

His eyes flit to Leia, who shrugs and tries to look prim. “I was adopted and raised by one of the founders of the rebellion, a movement built on the desire to instate freedom and democracy in a galaxy that had lost even the pretense.”

“That why you’re special?”

Leia smiles, thin and patronizing. It doesn’t fit on her little face. “I’m special because my biological father was one of the most powerful Force users in history, and his Fall to the dark side and choice to become a Sith is why the Emperor’s rise was nearly uncontested. I do not like power, but it’s in my veins and I can’t change that. Force users are... a lucrative trade, and I’m still the size of a child, so I can’t fight back. I’ll be safer in the Jedi Temple, even if I don’t want to be a Jedi.”

Fett looks to Ahsoka, makes to ask a question, and then shakes his head. Not the time, maybe.

“So, that’s all... very complicated and I don’t know how much of it I believe, but it doesn’t explain...” he trails off, and sighs. “My kid, or whatever you are. I heard you mention clones.”

Rex grins. It is not a kind expression.

“Let me tell you about Kamino.”

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

Ahsoka has no idea if Fett believes them. Either he thinks they’re telling the truth, or he thinks their delusional kids. Whatever the case, he offers to take them closer to the Core. Ahsoka quietly offers to take a look at his engine in return, and then pretends not to notice when Fett awkwardly drifts to and away from Rex.

“They put chips in our brains to make us kill the Jedi we respected, cared for, even loved. I tried to shoot ‘Soka, Fett. She was seventeen and risked her life to get that chip out of my head while I was trying to kill her. I have never hated myself more than when I woke up and realized what I’d almost done, and I was one of the few that were able to fight it. I heard the stories of dozens of brothers who woke with their chips having degraded and chose to eat their blaster rather than live with the guilt of the orders they’d followed without question because of a thrice-damned Sith slave chip in their head.”

“So no, I won’t call you father or acknowledge you as clan until you do something to prove you’re worth it, shared blood or not.”

What Ahsoka does get out of the arrangement, for all that Fett’s route mostly takes them on a meandering path that isn’t faster than their previous system, is sleep. She gets to rest. She gets to trust that Fett won’t kill Rex, out of guilt for something he hasn’t done, that he won’t kill Leia out of a worry that she’s just a delusional child, a real child, that he won’t kill ‘Sokari’ because it would ruin any chance of gaining Rex’s favor, ever.

She’s not safe, won’t believe she can be until she’s in the Temple and Sidious is dead dead dead, but she’s safer than she’s been in a long time.

Every night, Ahsoka wakes up and stumbles to the little galley, deaths and torture sparkling behind her eyes with the energy of a thousand lost Jedi, ten thousand mourned brothers and sisters.

She is not the only one of their little group to be a survivor of a near-total genocide, but Rex could not feel his brothers die in the Force, even if his nightmares featured what they heard of suicide missions by the emperor’s favored shock troopers, and Leia had... Alderaan had more off-world survivors than there had been Jedi at all.

It’s not worth comparing their pain. It’s stupid to even think it. Part of her can’t help but do it anyway.

“Caf?”

She feels a lek twitch in response to the voice of the only other person on board who can reach the top shelf. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“Whiskey?”

“That’s a definitely shouldn’t.”

“Hoth chocolate?”

“...please.”

She doesn’t lift her head from her arms until the mug clicks down in front of her, ceramic on plastisteel.

“Do I ask what it was this time?”

She shrugs. “It’s hard to explain to non-sensitives.”

“Try me anyway.”

Ahsoka twists the Hoth chocolate in her hands, takes a sip as she thinks. “The Force isn’t just one thing. It’s... energy and philosophy and spirit, a sense of being that ties the entire universe together. Sentient and inanimate and living and dead, empty space and lush forests and stifled cities. For those of us who are sensitive to it, it’s possible to feel the life of everyone around you, theoretically possible to feel entire systems. If you have a Force bond, like a master and padawan, that can stretch across planets, even systems if one or both are particularly powerful.

“So just... just imagine, for a moment, what it’s like to feel the screaming of all those Jedi in the Force as their trusted men shot them down.

“Some of them were close enough that I could feel them die,” she manages. “I... it’s horrible. It’s horrific. It’s not something I can ever forget, and I want to. I want to forget what that moment was like. Not that it happened, but...”

She can feel the tears. Fuck..

“You want to dull the edges.”

“Don’t we all?” she asks, scrubbing the back of her hand across her eyes. “Leia lost her entire planet, billions of people, and she was forced to watch. Rex... Force, I can barely imagine, and I was there for most of it.”

Fett watches her, measuring. “From what he said, they were as much your brothers as his, by the end.”

“No,” she immediately denies. “They could have been, maybe, but the ones I was closest to died earlier, and then I left, and by the time the Empire rose, all but a handful were... no. Rex, I will claim as a brother in all the ways that matter, but I don’t get to do that with the rest. I don’t have the right.”

“You’re hard on yourself.”

“Fate of the galaxy, my good bitch. Guess who’s got it on her shoulders.”

He snorts at her, and nods at the mug. “Drink your Hoth chocolate. We’re landing in eight hours, and you’ve got kids to look out for.”

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

There’s a twitch in the Force when they land, something pulling at her in a way she barely feels. She’s had her shields up so fully for so long that it’s natural to hide away what she is to the point where she can hardly tell what anyone else is, either. It takes more than a moment to remember how to let herself spread out across the world.

“Auntie ‘Soka? Why’d you stop?”

She doesn’t have an answer to Leia’s prodding question. “I don’t know.”

It’s almost familiar. Old and half-forgotten, not the same as what she remembers, but--

“This way,” she says, and wanders off into the crowd. Leia and Rex follow without question. Fett curses and rushes through the rest of his transaction with the docking attendant. The sound of him jogging after them is almost funny, with the armor, but she can’t focus on that.

Ahsoka slips between people with the ease of a career built on such a habit, children trailing like ducklings. She knows this feeling, she knows this person, what is she missi--

“Oh,” she breathes, going stock still. She knows that face. She knows those braids. She even knows the presence.

Younger than Ahsoka had ever seen her, but unmistakably Master Billaba.

“Torrent, what the hell?” Fett demands, finally catching up. “You can’t just run off like that!”

“It’s Depa,” she says, eyes still fixed on the woman parsing through a datapad with an irritated vendor. She has a padawan braid. It doesn’t feel like Master Windu is on-planet, so this might be a solo mission, a... oh. Senior Padawan, Knight Elect. This is the kind of mission taken to test if she’s ready to be promoted.

Ahsoka feels light-headed.

Fett waits for her to elaborate, but she can’t. This was Kanan’s master. This was a member of the High Council. This was a woman who died and--

“You need to sit down,” Fett says, not a touch gruff. He puts a hand on her shoulder and guides her off the main walkway. “I’m... going to talk to the woman in the Jedi robes. You three just stay there and don’t get kidnapped.”

Ahsoka nods, feeling like she’s not quite inhabiting her own body.

It’s Depa.

Her eyes track Fett without conscious control, and her montrals pick up the sound.

Depa looks up when the armor comes close enough, free hand tensed in a way that says she’s preventing herself from reaching for a saber in reaction to the heavily-armored individual standing several feet away.

“Mando,” the woman says. “May I help you?”

“Are you Depa?”

Depa doesn’t do anything so dramatic as gape or step back, but she does blink rapidly for a moment. She then folds her hands down in front of her, drawing her spine up ramrod straight. “I am Jedi Padawan Depa Billaba, yes. May I ask why it is that you need to know?”

Ahsoka imagines Fett grimacing, or rolling his eyes, or maybe dithering. She can’t tell from this angle, and he has a helmet on besides. It turns his awkward silences into judgmental ones.

“I’ve had some Jedi kids on my ship, hitching a ride,” he says at length. “One of them recognized you and then just... froze.”

“You have our younglings in your care,” Depa says, carefully not accusatory, but close enough to be a warning.

“Not quite,” he says. “The one that actually came from the temple is seventeen. One of ‘em isn’t Force Sensitive, and the last one is but hasn’t been to Coruscant before. They’re trying to get the little one to the Temple for her own safety.”

Depa considers that, and then passes the datapad to the vendor. “Lead on.”

It’s surprisingly simple, really. Fett did all the talking.

And then Depa is standing right in front of her.

“Like I said,” Fett sighs. “She froze up.”

“Hello,” Depa says, hands laced together inside her sleeves. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Ahsoka shakes her head. “I know of you. I’ve seen you spar. You’ve never spoken to me.”

All true. A little misleading, but it’s fine, it’s all fine.

Depa waits a moment, and then says, “You seem to have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“Sokari T-Torrent,” she manages. The words feel clunky in her mouth, the sound abrasive for all that it’s just her own voice, no different from usual. A little shaky, maybe. She can feel a cool breeze on her upper arms. Shouldn’t she have armor? She should have armor. “It... it’s been a long time since I’ve seen another Jedi. I’m having a hard time believing you’re real.”

“I see,” Depa says. “Perhaps we should take this somewhere more private? You seem a little unsteady.”

Ahsoka lets herself be led back to the ship, in the company of Mand’alor Jango Fett, Jedi Padawan Depa Billaba, Princess-General Leia Organa, and good old Captain Rex.

It’s like the start of a sick joke.

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

Fett and Depa talk where she can hear, but they rarely address her directly. Both seem to realize that she’s not particularly useful right now. Leia and Rex are pressing up against her at the little table in the galley, and Ahsoka lets them.

This is real. She can feel Depa in the Force, recognizes her energy even if it’s not quite what it will-was-could-have-been. This is happening.

It’s a textbook Traumatic Stress Response case, one of them says.

Fett has his helmet off. Ahsoka’s sure that’s wrong for some reason. She thinks he might already be on wanted lists. Should she worry about Depa trying to arrest him?

Depa asks about Rex at one point. Fett tells her that someone cloned him without his knowing, but the kid is more comfortable with Ahsoka so they’re still working on what that means for him.

It’s more or less true. Rex squeezes her hand the one time someone suggests separating them. She’s not letting that happen unless Rex wants to leave for whatever reason. They’ve worked apart before. They can do it again.

“Auntie Soka? You’re shivering.”

Is she?

Leia cuddles in closer, and Ahsoka runs a hand over her hair. It’s an absentminded motion, and for all that she knows Leia’s hair is fine as silk, it feels like plastic in the moment.

“I don’t think I’m okay,” Ahsoka announces. The words hang in the air like lead balloons, and she can feel Depa staring at her. “I haven’t been for a very long time.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Fett says. “Do you need to lay down, Torrent?”

Does she?

“No,” she says. “I... I don’t know what I need.”

“The spicy drink,” Rex tells them. “It’s grounding.”

Right. That.

Fett goes to grab it, and Depa continues to watch.

“How long ago did you leave your master?” Depa asks. “Or... did he die?”

Ahsoka closes her eyes and shakes her head. She can feel the shivers now, tremors in her biceps and a shudder she can’t control in the height of her ribcage. Her teeth grind together, jaw like stone.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Depa assures her. “I’m... going to recommend you see a mind healer on Coruscant.”

That was a forgone conclusion.

A cup clinks onto the table. Fett’s back. “Drink.”

She does.

Depa and Fett continue discussing it as “the adults” at the table. She’s older than both of them. Rex is older than all of them. Ahsoka follows about half of what they say. She agrees with most of it. Rex bullies his way into speaking when she doesn’t, without her even asking, because he knows her mind as well as she does. Fett rolls with it. Depa lets him.

She’s going to reach out to the Temple and see about getting them a ride back to Imperial Center Coruscant.

Fett makes Soka go to bed, taking Leia with her.

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

She feels more like a person come morning.

Depa’s sitting at the table, datapad in her hands and caff on the table in front of her.

“Good morning,” Ahsoka says, rough and croaking, and Depa’s eyes flick up to meet hers. She nods a shallow hello.

“Feeling better?”

“Much,” Ahsoka says, and goes about gathering a breakfast. There’s definitely some dried meat in here. She can get something fresh when they stop by the market later.

“I was hoping to speak with you about your options,” Depa tells her, once she’s sat at the table. “Fett and your friend Rex took care of most of the negotiation, and I feel like I have an idea of what would work best for you.”

Ahsoka nods slowly. “Okay.”

“There is a Master-Padawan pair a few planets away,” Depa says. “The Council informed me when I spoke with them about you and your wards. They’d be headed back to the Temple in a few days anyway, and the Council has agreed to extend an offer to Fett to handle the transportation. The presence of a Jedi Master on board will allow for him to get in and out of the Core unmolested, and we’d like for you and yours to have a Jedi escort, given what happened yesterday afternoon.”

Her complete spiral into nonbeing?

“I understand,” she says instead. “I suppose Fett agreed because he’s still trying to get Rex to like him?”

Depa shrugs. “That part isn’t my business.”

Of course it isn’t.

“Rex can stay with me for a while, right?” Ahsoka finally asks. “I know it’s not exactly protocol, but I’m...”

“In need of a support system until you’ve seen a mind healer, and against all odds, the child is part of it,” Depa summarizes. “Yes, I recognized as much. I think the Council will be able to allow some leeway there. I don’t know if he’ll enjoy it, given that all the others his age are Initiates, but we can adjust as necessary. On that note... Do you know Leia’s midichlorian count?”

“No,” Ahsoka says, and hesitantly adds, “But her biological father was my Jedi Master, and I’m told his count broke records even as a child. Given what Leia’s shown so far... it’s why I’ve been in a hurry to get her to the Temple.”

Depa frowns at her, clearly working through the implications of a Jedi having a daughter and still teaching... and then visibly dismisses the situation, eyes closing to breathe in the steam of her caff.

Biological father certainly implies a child that was raised by her mother or adopted out so the Jedi father could remain in their chosen career without a conflict of interest or duty.

She’ll tell the council the truth, or... at least Master Koon. Master Kenobi is still a padawan, but she can tell Master Koon.

She already told Jango Fett, of all people.

“Padawan Torrent?”

Her head snaps up. She hasn’t been a padawan in over fifteen years. It’s weird to hear. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I asked if you wanted some time to think it over before I presented the offer to Fett,” Depa says.

Ahsoka gets the distinct feeling that Depa is planning a report to the Council that has ‘needs a mind healer’ underlined at least three times.

“No, I’m--I’m fine. That sounds like a good plan.”

“I’ll speak with him, then. Would you like to come with?”

"No, thank you.”

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

Fett agrees. Ahsoka’s pretty sure it’s all to do with Rex and maybe Leia. It’s probably nothing to do with ‘Sokari.’ She’s a Jedi, an adult in mind and in body, or at least close enough to count. She’s a damn sight more ‘enemy’ to Fett than the other two are. Not as much as Depa, maybe, but Fett’s been playing nice with her for Leia’s sake.

He plays nice with Ahsoka for Rex’s. That’s all.

They’re only a few planets over from the meeting point, and they have a few days to hang around before the escort meets them. Depa hadn’t given them a name--apparently it could have compromised the opsec for the Jedi team--but Ahsoka’s pretty sure she’ll be able to identify almost anyone. She gets the feeling that the Force is going to send her a familiar face, just as it did Master Padawan Billaba.

Ahsoka lets herself feel the world around her. It’s dark and dreary, in the sense that the beaten-down port is full of petty crimes and less petty horrors, but it’s still lighter than most of the Empire had been. She sneaks away from the ship at night, ignoring Fett at her back, and performs a bit of vigilante justice while she can. She’ll be banned from doing so as soon as she’s reinstated as a Jedi, probably, but for now... for now, she can look at the drug cartels and ‘they’re not slaves, really’ workers and do something to help.

She doesn’t use her sabers. She doesn’t need to. It’s been a long time since she has, for small fry like these.

“What are you doing?” Fett asks her, landing heavily behind her back.

“Chip removal,” she says, hand pressed to the slave’s leg. Her eyes are closed, but she can hear him shifting. “Let me concentrate, I don’t have a meddroid for this.”

He’s silent until she finishes, and waits until the people she’s helped are on their way to the planet’s freedom routes. He doesn’t ask what she did with the owners.

“You’ve done this before.”

“Regularly,” she confirms. “You?”

He doesn’t answer that, just ambles over to the the chains and stares down at them.

“Fett?”

“You go through this like it’s as easy as breathing,” he says. “It’s... impressive.”

“I guess?” she hesitates to continue. “I’m... I don’t think of it that way. This is the easy stuff. A time-waster that helps people. If I wanted to help for real, I’d been going after Jabba or Sidious or--”

“How old were you?” he asks, turning on his heel to face her dead-on. The vocoder of his helmet pulls the emotion from his voice. “When did this... these missions, the slavery battles, when did that start for you?”

“Fourteen,” she says. She’s not entirely sure, really, what counted as a mission for ending slavery and what counted as just a part of war, but she can round down. “Maybe fifteen. It’s a bit of a blur.”

“And you just kept doing it.”

“Of course,” she says. “If I have the time and the energy, if I need to do something and there’s nothing official on my hands, why not?”

He doesn’t answer her.

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

Rex greets them before she does.

Ahsoka, in her defense, is asleep at the time. It’s a restless sleep, but it’s enough that she doesn’t sense the nearing Force signatures until they’re almost at the ship.

She recognizes one of them.

“Auntie ‘Soka?” Leia questions, when she lurches to her feet and starts pulling on her boots with all the energy of a zombie. “Where are you going?”

“Jedi,” Ahsoka grunts. “Here.”

“I see.”

Leia dresses to follow her, in a little coat that’ll withstand the chill of the outside air, and Ahsoka makes it to the cargo hold just in time to hear Rex saying, “I’m not shaking your hand until you put your gloves on, Vos.”

She laughs to herself, breathless with the knowledge of what she’s about to find. She jumps the railing of the upper walkway, drops down just in front of the Master-Padawan team, and keeps her back to Fett and Rex. “Hello, there.”

One human, one Kiffar. She knows the latter.

“Would you be Sokari Torrent?” the Master asks.

“I am,” she says, with a slight bow. She can tell there’s a bit of judgement for how she’s dressed, but they’re covering it well. A Shadow and his trainee know the value of armor better than most Jedi bother with. “I’m afraid Padawan Billaba didn’t inform me of your names before we met.”

“And yet your friend knew my padawan,” the Master says.

“By reputation,” she says, as smoothly as she can. “I’ve encountered Quinlan Vos before, though I doubt he remembers--”

“I’d remember someone like you,” Quinlan interrupts, with a grin she’s sure is meant to be charming and rogueish.

He’s... very young for her, and not her type. Mostly, she wants to pat him on the head, but that probably wouldn’t go over very well. She still looks like she’s younger than him.

“Anyway,” she says, turning back to the master, “I’m afraid I still don’t know who you are, Master.”

“I am Tholme,” he says, with the bow that a Master gives a Padawan. She feels a little slighted, but it’s fine. She looks the right age, it’s fine.

It’s not like they know.

“It’s nice to meet you, Master Tholme,” she says. “My charges are Rex Torrent, the young man behind me, and currently coming down the ladder is Leia Antilles. I’m sure you’re aware of Jango Fett.”

“The Mand’alor,” Quinlan volunteers, and Ahsoka can almost hear Fett’s teeth grinding.

“Don’t call me that,” he says. She’s sure he’s got a hand drifting for his blaster.

“There isn’t a whole lot of room on the ship,” she says before the men can get into whatever weird contest she’s sure someone might start. Her bet’s on Fett. “But Leia and Rex are small enough to share with me, so I’m sure we can make it work.”

“There’s spare rolls for anyone comfortable with sleeping in the hold,” Fett grunts. “Or on the floor in the passenger room.”

“Well, I guess I could ask for a little help fi--”

“Vos,” Ahsoka snaps, letting her voice take on the kind of ‘obey me or get fresher duty’ irritation that she’d perfected back when the rebellion still had her managing people, before they’d realized she was more use in the field. “Do not.”

There’s a moment’s pause, and Tholme looks unimpressed with that raised eyebrow, but the kind of unimpressed that’s split between his own padawan and the stranger before him.

“Um,” Quinlan says. “I just--”

“No,” she cuts him off. “No flirting.”

It’s weird and uncomfortable and she’d have maybe been okay with it if she was actually the seventeen-or-eighteen-ish(?) that she looked, but she’s not. She’s in her thirties and Vos is... what, twenty? Twenty-one? No.

He stares at her, and she wonders momentarily if she’d gone too far in the direction of judging his intentions in the Force and preempted actual flirtations.

“I’m sorry?” He offers, looking confused, but ashamed. “I, uh, I’ll keep that in mind.”

She definitely preempted the actual flirtation.

Fuck.

Ahsoka closes her eyes and breathes in. Breathes out. Opens her eyes. “Right. That was... I’m not sure how much Padawan Billaba told you about me.”

“Enough,” Tholme says. He moves forward and puts a hand on Quinlan’s shoulder. Ahsoka has no idea if it’s to comfort him or hold him back. “I didn’t share most of it with my padawan, but I have a general understanding of what’s going on.”

Quinlan darts a look at his teacher, but Ahsoka doesn’t acknowledge it. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

“Thank you for your understanding,” she says, and bows, and stiffly turns away to walk to the galley.

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

Leia squirms into the bench seat, shoving her way under Ahsoka’s arm like a particularly wriggly tooka.

“What was that?” Leia demands, the authority of a rebellion general rather useless in the squeaky voice of a child.

“What was what?”

“The whole thing with Padawan Vos,” Leia says. “You blew up at him before he even did anything.”

That’s pretty true.

“I felt the flirtation coming before it happened and reacted inappropriately because I panicked. I’m significantly older than him, but I can’t tell him that, so it’s just awkward and uncomfortable and... I’m not okay, Princess. I haven’t been for a long time.”

“Yeah, we can tell.”

“Leia.”

“What? I need therapy too! Captain Rex needs therapy! I’m pretty sure Fett needs therapy! You, Fulcrum, you really need therapy. None of us are okay.” She huffs, wiggling impossibly closer. “I don’t like it, but it’s true.”

“I know,” Ahsoka groans. “I just... I just need to hold out until the Temple.”

“Will you be able to hold it together if you see someone you actually care about?” Leia demands. “What are you going to do when you see Kenobi?”

“Stop.”

“I’m serious, you--”

“Leia, that’s enough,” she snaps. “I was fighting that war before you were even born, and I’ve dealt with the consequences since. I know the risks and I’ll thank you to remember who taught you to control your own mind.”

Leia stiffens, sucking in a sharp breath. “That was uncalled for.”

“You’re not the child you appear to be,” Ahsoka reminds her, not a little sharply. “You want to dish it out, be ready to take it. What will you do when we see Bail Organa? When we see the toddler that is Anakin Skywalker?”

“I get it.”

“I’m not sure you do,” Ahsoka mutters. She isn’t surprised when Leia ducks out of the embrace and leaves the galley. She lets the girl go, guilt warring with the memory of how Master Kenobi had more than once spoken that way to Anakin at the height of the war. The fact that she’s an adult in the body of a child isn’t an excuse for poking at Ahsoka’s open wounds. It was cruel and unnecessary, and unbecoming of a... not a Jedi. A princess. A politician.

She rests her head on her arms and zones out. She should meditate, but that seems like... too much effort.

She can feel Vos and Tholme setting up in the room they’ve been assigned. Neither seems particularly angry. Most likely, Tholme’s given the absolute shortest explanation of ‘child soldier, dead master, highly traumatized and emotionally unstable’ to Vos to smooth over the incident in the cargo hold. Rex is with Leia; he’s agitated, but less so than Leia herself. Fett’s annoyed, in the cockpit, but he seems annoyed as often as not. There’s a shudder at lift-off, and a few minutes later, they’re in hyperspace, headed for the Core.

Fett finds her, falls into the other bench in full armor, and drops his elbows onto the table. The helmet clunks down a moment later.

She doesn’t lift her head. “What do you want?”

“Do I need to keep Vos away from you?”

“What?”

“Vos. He made you uncomfortable. Was that him being someone that hurt you in the future, or just the interaction being awkward?”

She lifts her head. She stares at him. “What?”

He leans back and crosses his arms. “Do you need me to tell Vos to stay the hell away from you?”

She’s gaping. “You realize I’m thirty-two, right? I can handle my own battles.”

“You’re also traumatized as hell and everyone can see it,” Fett argues back. “If Vos himself is a trigger, I can handle it.”

“He’s not,” she tells him. This is strange. Fett’s being strange. “He was actually a friend of my grandmaster’s. I’m just uncomfortable with the flirting because I’m a lot older than he realizes, and I can’t tell him that.”

He nods sharply, and then looks away. The silence sits.

“Thanks for asking?” Ahsoka says, well aware of how her confusion over the offer turns it into a question. “I mean, thank you for... caring.”

I guess, she finishes in the privacy of her own head. Or at least pretending to.

Fett makes a face, still not facing her. He eyes the galley instead. She can guess where his thoughts are going. The galley is... not very big, especially with six people on board instead of one, but she’s sure they’ve stocked up enough. On the off chance they do go through more than expected, because of how many growing bodies are in residence, they can stop off and buy more. They have those resources now.

Jango never does ask what she did with the slavers.

“Who’s going to cry if I spice things properly?” he asks.

“Probably Leia,” she says immediately. “Vos will try to power through it even though he’s going to be overwhelmed. No idea about Tholme, but I think he’ll keep a straight face whether he likes it or not. Rex and I are fine, ‘hot’ was pretty much the only flavor of seasoning the GAR had.”

“GAR?”

“Grand Army of the Republic.”

He finally looks at her.

“You already knew I was a child soldier, Fett; don’t act surprised.”

“That doesn’t mean I like hearing about it.”

“I was fourteen. That’s old enough by Mando standards, Fett. Just think back, when did you get on the battlefield?”

“I take your point,” he says, lip curling unpleasantly. “It just hits different now that I’m old enough to look back and think of how damned young fourteen really is.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “Yeah, well--”

“You said the clones were ten.”

There’s the rub, isn’t it?

Of course it was about the clones.

“...closer to seven, by the end. Kamino was just making speedies at that point. Triple growth on the average instead of double, but averages in that case meant they’d been growing at double rates for six years and then got forced through four growth cycles in a single year to beef up the army when we kept losing men.” She looks down at the table, picking at a scratch in the plastipaint with her nail. “Rex and the rest of the ones from the beginning were basically twenty in mind and body, even if they’d only been decanted ten years earlier. The speedies... I always wondered. They’d gone from functionally twelve to functionally twenty in a year. That’s not... even in Kamino, that can’t have been normal. They didn’t act like adults, not the way the originals did.”

Fett rubs at his face, groaning. He swears under his breath in three different languages.

She pities him, if only because he hasn’t actually done any of this yet. He’s paying for the crimes of a man he likely won’t ever become.

She kicks him under the table. “Wanna make tiingilar and see how long it takes Vos to start crying while he insists it’s fine?”

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

Dinner is when the questions start. Some are relatively easy. Others, not so much.

“My Master was Leia’s biological father,” is an easy truth to share. “She inherited his power, so I need to get her to the temple for her own safety, because home no longer is.”

“Yes, her adoptive parents were unfortunately killed rather recently. We’d prefer not to talk about it.”

“Rex is with me. Where he goes, I go, and vice versa.”

That one gets her an odd look.

“I thought...” Quinlan trails off, gesturing between Rex and Fett.

Fett keeps his face impassive, but his discomfort and guilt leak into the Force. “I didn’t know Rex existed until I ran into these three in a spaceport cantina a few weeks ago.”

Quinlan blinks at him, looks at Rex again, and then turns back to Fett with a grin that might have been described as ‘saucy’ if he were less smug about it. “Wild oats, huh?”

“Are you shitting me right now,” Leia whispers, and Ahsoka elbows her.

“That was inappropriate, padawan.”

Quinlan’s grin fades as Fett just continues to eye him.

“Um, so--”

“How old is the kid?” Fett interrupts.

Darting eyes answer him, as Quinlan tries to gauge Rex. “Ten? Maybe twelve?”

“And how old am I?”

“...early thirties?”

“I’m twenty-seven.”

Quinlan’s grin fades further as he does the math.

“I’d have been between fifteen and seventeen when he was born,” Fett says, tone flat. “Between fourteen and sixteen at conception. I know damn well I wasn’t doing anything that could have resulted in a kid at that age.”

Quinlan rallies. “So, brothers?”

Tholme sighs loudly, hand over his eyes.

“I’m a clone,” Rex says, and Ahsoka can feel the amusement he gets out of Quinlan’s confused shock. They’d both had plenty of respect for Master Vos, but Padawan Vos was nothing but trouble. “Harvested genetic material, grown in a tube, inconsistent aging meaning I don’t even know how old I am for sure.”

“I broke him out,” Ahsoka adds, which is half true.

“There was a chip in my head,” Rex adds, with a bright smile. Quinlan’s discomfort grows. “She got it out. Also, lots of brothers. None of them are... around anymore. The creators were trying to make an army.”

Vos and Tholme have no response. Fett looks like he’s been carved out of stone. Leia’s just ignoring them and picking at her food.

Ahsoka lifts a hand and, without looking, Rex high-fives her.

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

“Drop your elbow.”

Ahsoka tries to cover her smile at the dirty look that Leia shoots Fett. Fett remains unimpressed by the glare of royalty, just gestures for the girl to do as he said.

“I know how to fight,” Leia grumbles. “I took lessons. I was good at them.”

“And I’m better,” Fett says, leaving no room for argument. “You want the Torrents to take over?”

The Torrents. Rex and Soka. She likes being referred to that way. Like they’re a team that never got split up.

Force, she wished they’d never gotten split up.

“Again,” Fett orders, and Leia moves through the Mandalorian kata with ill grace in her emotions and all grace in her sweeping limbs.

Well, as much grace as an undersized six-year-old can, at any rate.

“Think he’ll ask me to spar her again?” Rex asks, dropping down into the seat next to Ahsoka and passing her a drink.

“Maybe,” she acknowledges. “I think he’s wondering if it’s worth asking Vos to spar with her, so she gets more experience with size differences.”

“Hm?”

“She flinched at his face again,” she tells him. “The whole... thing with Boba, I guess. She still won’t tell me why Fett triggers her sometimes, but he’s not pressing her to spar with him, and there’s only so much she can get out of fighting me. Asking Tholme would be presumptuous, but Vos is just a padawan. I think it’d work out.”

“And you?”

She looks at him, already feeling a cresting wave of bullshit she doesn’t want to deal with. “What about me?”

“Are you going to spar with the Jedi?”

She should. She hasn’t sparred with a saber since she got tossed back into a body only half-familiar to her. She’s let Leia borrow the shorter one to learn some basic blocking moves, Shii-Cho and then, with hesitance, the first Soresu form. Another time, she loaned it to Rex to practice some attacks; they both know that the next time he picks up her saber in battle, having lost his weapons or she her grip, it will be neither the first or last time he wields a sword of light. None of that, however, is... sparring.

None of that is against someone who knows what they’re doing.

How long has it been since she sparred with anyone other than Kanan and Ezra?

How long has it been since she sparred without the looming specter of Darth Vader in the back of her mind, without fear of the Inquisitors, without the knowledge that any saber held by someone other than her two friends would be red as blood and twice as drenched.

Would she be able to hold back as she fought?

“I should,” she acknowledges, eyes on where Fett is nudging Leia’s feet into position for some kind of leveraging flip. She’s so small. “It would probably be a good idea to spar against a master at some point.”

“Do you think you can?” Rex asks.

“I never knew him,” she says. “And he isn’t Dark. It should be fine.”

Rex nods, taking her word for it. They watch as Leia stumbles on a final move, and Fett gestures for her to sit down and get a drink.

“That man is a terror,” she informs them.

(She’d once described him as a slave-driver. She had not made that mistake twice.)

“Least it’s not Kamino!” Rex tells her cheerfully. When Leia refuses to look impressed, he laughs at her.

Ahsoka has a half-second’s warning before heavy boots thud to the ground next to her. “What’s Kamino?”

“Hello, Vos, it’s nice to see you too,” she drawls. “I’m good, thanks for asking, and yourself?”

The boy-not-quite-man rolls his eyes. “Hi, Torrents; hi, tiny one.”

Leia glares at him next.

“So, Kamino?”

“Planet by Rishi,” Rex says.

“Why were you there?”

“They specialize in cloning.”

Ahsoka covers her mouth as the conversation drops into the same awkward gap that always happens when Quinlan stumbles into a subject he didn’t know to avoid.

“Like... you were made there, or you were researching how it works for your own--”

Ahsoka slaps a hand over his mouth. “Now’s a great time to stop talking.”

He licks her palm.

She bares her teeth and arches her fingers just enough to press nails into his cheek.

He bites at her palm, and she yanks her hand away.

“You’re all children,” Leia accuses, conveniently forgetting that Ahsoka and Rex are both over a decade older than her.

“I can throw you the length of a swimming pool,” Ahsoka tells her. “One of the fancy competition-ready ones that would make a Tatooinian cry. You are absolutely the child here.”

“Using the Force is cheating, sir,” Rex informs her.

“Only if there’s a competition,” Ahsoka shoots back. “And proving that a certain princess is a small child is not a competition. It’s a declarative fact.”

“I’m going to rip open the seams on all your tops except the ugliest one,” Leia decides.

“Try me,” Ahsoka challenges. “Adi’ka.”

A low, rough cough interrupts them. “Are you done?”

Fett has his arms crossed, and an eyebrow raised. He knows they’re all adults here, and is entirely unamused. As the silence drags, the eyebrow climbs a little higher.

“Done with what?” Quinlan finally asks, thereby volunteering himself to spar in hand-to-hand with Jango Fett, as one does.

“Poor, poor Vos,” Rex laughs, watching as Fett barks out orders at Quinlan every five seconds to fix his footwork, to stop dropping his guard, to stop wasting energy on flips instead of just dodging the easy way.

“Throw him!” Ahsoka calls. To her delight, Fett obliges.

The thing is, Quinlan isn’t bad at brawling. He’s got training, endurance, skill. The man knows what he’s doing, objectively. He’s just not a match for Fett, and is used enough to relying on his saber that his hand-to-hand skills are rusty. They are perhaps less rusty than those Jedi who don’t take questionable jobs in the Mid-Outer Rim, and Ahsoka’s got a suspicion that Vos regularly gets into bar fights in his downtime, but none of that is enough for him to actually do more than survive against Fett without his saber.

Even the saber wouldn’t help, if Fett had his armor.

“Whose idea was this?”

Ahsoka cranes her head back and smiles. “Hello, Master Tholme. Vos... volunteered.”

“Did he know he was volunteering?”

“No comment.”

Tholme snorts, crossing his arms and eyeing the spar in front of him. “I thought Fett hated Jedi. Giving us a ride for the sake of you three is one thing, but why is he teaching my padawan?”

Ahsoka shrugs. “Constructive bullying?”

There’s a small twitch of a smile, quickly gone. “He said something wrong, I’m guessing?”

“There was no way he could have known,” she dismisses. “We’re just, like, ninety-percent tragic backstories.”

“You’d think the Force would warn him,” Rex notes.

“That’s not how the Force works,” Leia chides.

“No, no, he’s right,” Ahsoka corrects. “The Force does sometimes step in to stop a person from saying something stupid. However, Padawan Vos is at an age where people think they are very rational while being more irrational than they likely ever will be again.”

“Do I want to ask what you were doing at that age?” Tholme asks.

“Running bla...” she trails off, then whips around to gape at him.

He smiles, bland and unassuming. “Does Fett know?”

“Know... what?” Ahsoka asks.

“That you’re significantly older than you look,” he says, voice just low enough that the sparring duo can’t hear him. “All three of you.”

Ahsoka turns back to the spar, only catching Tholme out of the corner of her eye. “He knows.”

“Mm. Were you planning on telling the Council?”

“Yes.” That part was never in question. “How did you figure it out?”

“I am a good investigator,” he says. “And you rely a little too heavily on your physical forms to obfuscate. Were it just one of you, that wouldn’t be a problem, but the pattern repeated across three is a little easier to discern.”

“I hoped the whole ‘child soldiers’ thing would be a bigger distraction,” Ahsoka mutters. She glances at Leia and Rex. Both of them are used to being in charge to some degree, giving orders and making contingency plans, but in this... in this, Ahsoka is in charge. They’d decided that at the very start. It didn’t matter that Rex had lived longer and had more experience, or that Leia had held the highest Rebellion rank of the three of them. Ahsoka had been agreed as leader, and they were relying on her.

They’re waiting on her orders. Stiff and unhappy, in Leia’s case, but they trust her.

“Will you be telling Vos?” She asks.

“No,” Tholme says. “Your secrets remain your own unless they endanger us, and I’ve a feeling they won’t be.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Rex jokes, smile not reaching his eyes. “I’ve been working with this family for too long to trust that trouble won’t find them around the next corner.”

“This family?” Tholme repeats.

“Sokari was telling the truth about her master being Leia’s biological father,” Rex says. He shrugs. “I worked with him, with his wife, with both of his kids, with his master and his padawan. All of them, to a one, are trouble magnets.”

“Ah, but that’s not the secret that’s putting us in danger,” Tholme points out. “Simply existence as a Jedi.”

Rex shrugs. “Fair enough. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.”

Ahsoka lurches to her feet, turning with a smile and dancing backward into the the stretch of empty cargo hold they used for such things. “A spar, Master Tholme?”

He looks past her, to Quinlan, and raises a brow. “Would you not prefer to spar with someone a little closer to your level first?”

She barks out a laugh. “Master Tholme, I’m afraid I’ve spent more of my life fighting to survive than having normal friendly spars. My style is more lethal than the average, and you’ve already seen what war’s done to my mind. I ask to spar with you because, if I lose control, if I slip in time or react on an instinct that isn’t appropriate, I trust that you’ll be more able to stop me than a senior padawan.”

He smiles. “Yes, I gathered as much. Still, better to ask. Shall we wait for them to finish up?”

Ahsoka shrugs, turns, and yells. “Clear the deck!”

Rex snorts behind her, and lowly mutters, “Sir, yes, sir.”

She smirks at him over her shoulder. “At ease, Captain.”

“That’s ‘Commander’ to you, I got promoted,” he sniffs, chin held high.

Heavy steps herald Fett’s arrival at their little group. “The hells are you doing?”

“I’m going to have a spar with a Jedi Master, and I want you and Vos to not get stabbed.”

“I’m not that easy to injure in an actual fight, let alone by accident,” Fett grouses. He looks up and over at Vos, who is already significantly taller, if a fair shot less built. “This one, on the other hand...”

“Hey!”

Ahsoka laughs and backs into the center of the cargo hold, drawing her sabers. “Don’t worry, Vos, I won’t play dirty. You’ll probably get your master back in one piece.”

He wrinkles his nose at her. “Getting a bit ahead of yourself there, aren’t you? He’s a Jedi Master and former Watchman. You’re... what, eighteen?”

Ahsoka raises a brow and activates her sabers, tapping the blades together and watching as more than one person winces. “Wanna bet on how long I last?”

“No,” he says immediately, stepping back to join Rex on the bench. “You’ve already blindsided me enough. I’m not dumb enough to fall for whatever you’ve got up your sleeve.”

“I don’t have sleeves.”

“Armwarmers-slash-greaves, then.”

“Greaves go on the legs, these are vambraces.”

He throws his hands up in the air. “I’m just going to stop talking now!”

“Good plan,” Leia snarks, and then literally hisses when Rex ruffles her hair.

Tholme lights his saber and sinks into an opening stance.

Ahsoka mirrors him.

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

She wins, but barely. She's had a few weeks to practice her forms, has sparred hands-only with Rex and Fett, but this is her first real try at using her sabers against a person, instead of a blaster or thin air, since she arrived in the past. She’s only mostly adjusted to her body.

But Tholme is a healer and a watchman, not a duelist. Ahsoka held her own against Ventress, against Grievous, against Maul when she was this age. Still adjusting to her body or not, her lineage is one of battle, and it bled true.

“You’re terrifying,” Quinlan tells her after they’re done, smiling like the sun as he hands her a towel. “Please never turn that on me.”

She laughs at him. “Would you believe that I’m out of practice?”

“Out of practice with what?” he asks, horrified and fascinated. “Fighting Sith Lords?”

“Among other things,” she says, and smirks when he chokes on his drink. “Multiple darkside users who claimed to be Sith, at least. One being a full Lord, one that was disowned by his master, and one that was apprenticed to a Banite apprentice, so she wasn’t technically allowed to be a Darth because of the rule of two.”

Tholme meets her eyes past Quinlan’s shoulder, head tilted and eyes half-shut in consideration. He’s taking her seriously. He knows what she’s not saying.

“How...” Quinlan trails off and shakes his head. “You know what, no. Asking you people questions never ends well.”

“Good plan,” Ahsoka says, clapping a hand down on his shoulder. “Also, you need to spar with Fett more. Your footwork is shit.”

“It is not,” Quinlan gripes. “You’re all just scary good at this stuff.”

“You mean surviving?” Leia pipes up, and smiles innocently when Quinlan turns to pout at her.

“You’re getting bullied by a six-year-old,” Rex informs him.

“Yeah,” Quinlan sighs. “I know.”

Ahsoka laughs, and it’s fine. It’s all fine. For a week, everything is honestly great. She trains, she laughs, she works through the nightmares.

Then fucking Denon happens.

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

Denon is a city-planet on the intersection of two major hyperlanes. It’s the kind of place where they stop for two things:

Fuel.

Paperwork.

Technically, there’s a whole mess of paperwork they have to fill out to continue along this specific hyperlane, since they aren’t official Republic ships, and don’t have the licenses to just pass along like ships that are pre-registered to the Trade Federation or the like. They could sneak past--literally all of them know smuggler’s routes--but it’s honestly less of a pain to do things legally. They have a Jedi Master. They have cash. Some of that cash wasn’t quite legally acquired, but nobody needs to know that.

It’s supposed to be a pit stop. That’s all.

It’s just a pit stop.

But no, the galaxy isn’t that kind and Ahsoka’s luck is currently being compounded with a Skywalker, two Fetts, and Vos, which means that of course they run into trouble. Of course they do. There was never any other option, was there?

“Motherfucker,” Ahsoka snaps, lifting her head up and slamming her drink on the table.

The glass is empty. That’s good. They’re in a restaurant right now, a little splurging after weeks with only each others’ company, and spilling the sugary child-friendly juice with that move would have drawn way too much attention from the servers.

“Language,” Tholme says, voice idly unconcerned.

“Sir?” Rex asks, kicking Ahsoka under the table. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wr--that jackass,” she hisses, getting to her feet. “Rex, grab a blaster, I’ve got shebs to kick.”

“Okay,” Rex says, grabbing one out of Fett’s holster and scooting out of the booth before anyone can tell him not to. “Whose?”

“I didn’t even know that he was... osik, I don’t have jurisdiction,” she realizes. “I don’t have any record of wrongdoing. I can’t arrest him since we don’t have evidence of criminal wrongdoing...”

“Are you two going to explain what’s going on?” Vos asks. “Or sit down, maybe?”

Ahsoka makes her decision. She eyes the window--the restaurant in question is a little dingy, but it’s also several dozen stories in the air. “Rex, remember the thing we did on Geonosis that you hated?”

He pauses, and then sighs heavily. “Yes, sir. I remember the... yeeting.”

Hah. That slang doesn’t even exist yet.

“Great. With me!”

It’s a good thing the windows are forcefields instead of transparisteel. A bit of a twist to the energy and they’re gone.

She only hears a little screaming before the wind tears all noises away while they plummet.

They land lightly--of course--and Ahsoka wraps them both in a don’t notice me aura. Nobody even notices that they’ve just come from above. It’s great that she can just Do These Things again, and get brushed off as Weird Jedi Shit, instead of worrying about the Empire. She’s missed being able to jump out of windows without fear.

Rex follows her as she starts running through the city. They don’t have comms, and he’s still so small, which means he can’t keep up with her even if she runs at normal speeds without Force enhancement.

“Should you carry me?” he asks, before she can figure out if it’s worth suggesting. She did it a few times before they joined up with Jango.

“It’s not... urgent, I think,” she says. She hesitates to speak, even as she keeps jogging with Rex at her heels. “Honestly, I’m trying to figure out if there’s anything I can ding him for so we can attack him. It’s all well and good that I can beat him right now, but all the crimes I know about haven’t happened yet, so it wouldn’t be legal...”

“Commander?”

“Hm?”

“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

She scrolls the conversation back mentally, considers, and says, “Oh.”

“Who’s getting steamrolled?”

“Uh, Maul’s here,” Ahsoka admits.

“Ah,” Rex says. He makes a face. “I understand the desire to jump out a window, now. I don’t agree with it, but I understand.”

Ahsoka laughs. “I mean, I just... every time I’ve seen him for almost twenty years, it’s been like... on sight, you know? We’ve never not attacked each other, except when I needed him to cause problems on Mandalore. But I always knew I was in the right, then.”

“So... what do we arrest him for?” Rex prompts.

“Um... carrying a lightsaber without a license?” she hazards. “We’ll need Tholme there. Hopefully I can just shout at him and he’ll attack me, but I think he only went full nutjob after Master Kenobi cut his legs off. He might be too controlled to try to kill me just for yelling at him.”

“...do we have to stalk him?” Rex asks, sounding like he’d most likely sigh if he weren’t mid-run.

She scoops him up and swings him around onto her back before she answers. “I think we have to stalk him, Rex’ika.”

“Don’t call me that.”

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

Maul is... exceptionally sneaky, actually. Either that, or he hasn’t done anything wrong yet. Ahsoka’s betting on the former, because she’s seen this particular skocha kung take over a planet before anyone realized he was the most dangerous person around.

Or maybe he’s just not committing crimes, and is in fact just here to buy groceries.

He’s examining a papaya.

She fantasizes about jumping across the market and greeting him with a heel to the cheekbone.

“Are you imagining a flying kick, Sir?”

“Yeah...”

“He’s examining a papaya, Sir.”

“I know...”

“Does he know we’re here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? Do you think I should go hit him?”

“No.”

“Should I hit on him?”

“No, Sir. I would not advise that.”

“He’s looking at the neloms.”

“I can see that.”

“Why does he have to be so bo--did he just fucking bite a nelom?”

“It appears so, Sir.”

“Like... like rind and all. Just bit the little fucker.”

“Seems it.”

A scuff of metal. “What the fuck are you two doing?”

Ahsoka tips her head around to peer through the grate. “We’re spying, Fett, what does it look like we’re doing?”

Rex cranes his head. “We’re hanging upside-down from a fire escape to get a look at a suspected Sith Apprentice that is currently shopping for various fruits, Mand’alor.”

Ahsoka waves. “Hi, Master Tholme.”

“Sokari,” the master greets. “This seems a very conspicuous way to spy.”

She shrugs as well as she can from this angle. “Yes, but you see, this way’s more fun.”

“Is it now.”

Rex shifted. “He’s on the move!”

“To kill someone?!”

“No, to the deli meats.”

“Kriff.”

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

Apparently, Tholme and Fett had told Quinlan to take care of Leia, as Leia had wanted to finish her juice and refused to get involved in the Torrents’ nonsense. According to her, if they couldn’t be bothered to explain the nonsense, they didn’t need her.

This was true and accurate.

Quinlan shows up while they’re still stalking Maul, having moved to a low rooftop for a decent vantage point with less likelihood of being spotted. He’s giving Leia an eopie-back ride, and the pout on her face at needing it is adorable. She pouts harder when she sees them.

“Are you even trying to hide?” Leia scoffs.

“Not really,” Ahsoka admits. She’s got Fett’s binoculars out. “I’m not sure he’s caught wind of the fact that we’re here yet.”

“Or he has and he’s just biding his time to escape while we’re distracted,” Tholme points out.

“Meh,” Ahsoka says, avidly devouring the visual that is a teenage Maul glaring at leafy vegetables. “I just want him to do something so I have an excuse to beat his ass.”

“Do I get to know who?” Quinlan asks, setting Leia down on the roof. “Or are we going to keep being completely unwilling to share information?”

“Baby Sith Lord,” Ahsoka says. “He’s fifteen. A child.”

“A baby,” Rex agrees.

“You’re... that’s... ugh,” Quinlan groans as loudly and as dramatically as he dares, flopping down to the rooftop. “Master Tholme, please tell me this isn’t a real Sith.”

“He’s Dark,” Tholme confirms. “Sith is... up for debate until we have evidence.”

“He’s a bitch is what he is,” Ahsoka mutters. She observes the teenager in question stop to poke at some pink tomatoes. “E chu ta, break the law, already!”

“Does he have a lightsaber?” Quinlan asks. “If he has a lightsaber and no Jedi ID or specialty license, we can probably arrest him.”

“Auntie Soka doesn’t have a license or ID,” Leia points out.

“She’s got a Jedi escort,” Tholme says. “And if our supposed Sith is polite and plays nice, we can probably escort him to the Temple as well.”

Rex snorts derisively.

“Do you know why he’s on Denon?” Fett asks.

“No clue,” Ahsoka admits. “Evil reasons, probably.”

“You’re useless,” Leia tells her.

“Thanks, princess, how’s that attempt to open the jam jar by yourself coming?”

Leia says something very inappropriate for a princess, for a child, and for a lady. It’s fairly appropriate for a soldier, which is admittedly what she’s been for a few years now. Ahsoka sticks her tongue out at the girl like the mature operative she is.

“I wish we could still get him to lose his osik by just showing up and insulting him,” Rex mutters, low enough that Quinlan probably can’t hear.

“I wanna punch him in the face,” Ahsoka confesses. “I want him to try to punch me in the face, and fail.”

“Don’t bully the baby Sith,” Rex admonishes.

“He’s a Sith.”

“He’s fifteen, it’s tacky.”

“But it’s Maul.”

“I know, but you’re tw--significantly older than him.”

“But... but it’s the motherfucker himself.”

“...you can bully him a little, but only because he’s a Sith.”

Fett steals the binoculars. “You can borrow them again when you stop acting like children.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Rex says, dry as Ryloth. “I’m ten.”

“Pretty tall for your age,” Ahsoka mutters, and then giggles.

“Don’t steal my jokes,” Rex says. He elbows her, hard.

“You know,” Quinlan says, slow and tired. “Master Tholme and I are trained investigators.”

Ahsoka and Rex look at each other, and then up at him.

“Okay?”

“...do you want me to find actual evidence of this guy doing something criminal?”

“Oh, yes please.”

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

Quinlan, as it turns out, is not overselling his skills. He does catch Maul doing something illegal later that day. It’s a little more ‘stealing corporate secrets in the dead of night’ and less ‘torturing people for kicks,’ but it’s still enough to legally arrest him. Quinlan attempts to do so.

Quinlan does not succeed, and is forced to jump out a window to avoid getting cut in half. Maul follows, steals a passing speeder by throwing out the driver, and takes off. Someone--looks like Tholme--drops back to save the driver, but the rest of them give chase. Ahsoka gleefully takes point on that, of course. She’s the best pilot.

(Rex looks bored, but someone is likely to puke by the end of the night. She hopes it’s not Leia, who insisted on coming for some fucking reason.)

“How the kriff is a teenager that good?!” Quinlan yells, clinging to the edge of the speeder to avoid getting tipped out as Ahsoka swerves around a corner with a wild laugh.

“He’s a Sith!” Leia shouts over the wind. “What do you think?”

Quinlan is not impressed by the claim of Sith.

Ahsoka screeches as she drifts across four lanes of traffic and into an alleyway to pursue Maul. He’s pretty good at dodging cross-building walkways, but she’s better. She bares her teeth, hissing, and tries to pick a plan.

“Vos, how’s your aim with Force throws?” She calls to the backseat.

“Uh, decent?”

“Great! Fett’s the projectile!”

Vos takes a second longer to process that than Jango does.

“I’m wh--”

He cuts off, screaming, and is flung forward by Quinlan to crash headfirst into a teenage Sith.

“Take the wheel!” Ahsoka commands, not waiting to see who follows the order, because Fett and Maul are both getting to their feet, the other speeder is about to crash, and she’s not sure who’s going to win that fight.

She jumps from the speeder they’ve been violently dragging around Denon, and lands feet-first on Maul’s... shoulder.

Hm.

That definitely dislocated something.

“You should wear armor!” she chirps at him, drawing both sabers and grinning as he whirls to face her, eyes wide with hate.

He’s utterly silent.

That’s disturbing. Expected, but disturbing.

“Did you just throw me?” Fett demands, higher pitched than she’d normally expect.

“No, Vos threw you.”

“Because you told him to!”

“Yeah, it’s a good strategy!”

“It is not!”

“Why not? Throwing people was standard practice in the GAR.”

She can’t see his face, but she’s pretty sure he’s about ready to strangle her.

Ahsoka cannot, at that point, continue snarking with the father of her best friend, because there’s a red lightsaber coming for her throat, and she should probably worry about that. Maul’s very good at killing people and she’d like to avoid becoming part of that statistic.

As she is quickly reminded, he is... fifteen. And shorter than she’s used to. And already injured.

It’s really, really easy to take him out, actually.

At some point, the other speeder was safely recovered before it caused property damage, and their own is landing a few meters away with Vos and the kids.

“You have Force-negating cuffs, right?” Ahsoka asks.

“No, Master Tholme has them.”

“Oh,” she says, and grimaces. “I guess I’ll just... keep sitting on him then.”

Maul snarls, and she raps him on the skull. “Stop that, it’s uncivilized.”

Rex snorts.

Jango makes a noise that is incredibly frustrated with the lot of them, and turns on Rex. “Was she telling the truth?”

“About?”

“Throwing people being standard practice for the GAR.”

Rex’s face goes pained. “It was in the five-oh-first. And a few others.”

“What’s the GAR?” Quinlan asks.

“None of your damn business,” Fett snaps.

Quinlan throws his hands up in the air again. “Come on! I just proved I know what I’m doing!”

“And their tragic backstory is none of your business, prudii!”

Quinlan blinks at him, and then glances at Ahsoka. “Um.”

“He called you a shadow since your training, um, seems to be pointing in that direction,” she says as carefully as she can. “We were theorizing.”

“Wh... you actually paid attention?” Quinlan asks, looking horribly confused. “I thought I was just annoying you.”

Ahsoka laughs at him. “Oh, Vos... I’ve been running black ops for... much longer than most would guess. Trust me, I know another spy when I see them.”

She smiles as kindly as she can, because she hadn’t actually meant to make him feel left out or unwanted or... well, she’d been pretty patronizing, especially for someone seemingly younger than him. The smile does not work. Quinlan just looks kind of horrified about how young she just implied she started spy work.

Granted, she’d been sixteen for Zygerria...

Deciding to ignore him for a bit, she shifts on Maul’s back and pats him on the cheek. “Don’t worry, Baby Sith. We’re going to get you lots of nice therapy. Mind healers, no Sith tortures, all that fun stuff. Maybe some plushies.”

“You’re also getting therapy, right?” Quinlan asks. “Please say you are. I’m required for the specifics of my training and if anything you’ve said is true, I feel like you really need it and I’m scared of what’ll happen if you don’t.”

Ahsoka laughs, knowing exactly how empty it sounds. “Oh hell, if I didn’t get therapy, I imagine Kix would rise from the grave to force me into it.”

The name means nothing to anyone except Rex, and... ah, yeah, she told Fett about Kix a few weeks ago.

“No more throwing me without warning,” Fett grumbles, dropping to sit on the ground next to her. “Especially not at baby Sith Lords.”

“I am not a child!” Maul spits.

“He speaks!” Ahsoka cheers. “Aw, I knew you could do it.”

“’Soka, I told you not to bully him,” Rex complains. “It’s tacky. You’re being tacky.”

“I’m allowed to be tacky,” Ahsoka declares. “I’ve died twice, that’s, like, permission from the universe.”

“You’ve died twice?” Quinlan asks, back in ‘fascinated horror’ territory. “Wait, no, I shouldn’t ask--”

“Too late! The first time was on a planet that doesn’t exist and my Master lost his mind, killed a god, and used the good favor of another god to have me brought back to life at her expense. Not in that order.”

“I--what? No, that’s--what?”

Ahsoka smiles brightly. “You asked.”

Tholme finally shows up with the cuffs.

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

“You should eat something.”

He glares at her.

“Baby Sith Lords need to eat.”

He keeps glaring at her.

“Maul, you’ll never get big and strong and ready to kill if you don’t eat your vegetables.”

He bares his teeth.

“No, I don’t eat my veggies, but I’m a Togruta, so if I eat too many vegetables I throw up.”

Rex kicks her thigh, right on the faulds. “What did I say about bullying the Sith Lord?”

“Not to.”

“And what are you doing?”

“Making him eat his vegetables.”

“Soka.”

“Rex’ika.”

He kicks at her again. “Get up, we’re swapping out the watch.”

“But I wanted to hang out with my favorite little criminal mastermind.”

Rex drops to the floor and presses his forehead to her shoulder. “How the hell is being around this guy the first thing to make you cheer up in weeks?”

“I’m allowed to be mean to him.”

“He’s going to bite you.”

“I’ll bite back.”

Rex jabs a finger into her ribs, and she squeaks. “Go get something to eat, Commander.”

“Fine,” she huffs, rolling to her feet and moseying along to the galley. She walks in on Tholme and Fett having an argument about the ways in which Jedi and Mandalorians differ. Quinlan’s on the side, watching with wide eyes, and little Leia’s drinking a juice box at his side, tucked up under his arm and occasionally saying things to fan the flames. Ahsoka assumes she’s enjoying herself.

She opens the cooling unit, looks over the contents, and pulls out a raw leg of eopie mutton. She leans against the counter, bites into the chilled-but-not-frozen meat, and uses the back of one hand to wipe the blood off her chin. The ‘real adults’ don’t notice.

“I’m like ninety percent sure you’re doing this to mess with me but also...” Quinlan trails off, staring at her with horror. “Why?”

“A girl’s gotta eat.”

“Yeah, but all the obligate carnivores I know are like... generally holding to basic rules of courtesy when it comes to not grossing people out,” Quinlan says. “Like, I don’t chew with my mouth open. You don’t... eat in the most intimidating--did you just crack the bone with your teeth?!”

Ahsoka smirks at him, using her free hand to take away the shard of bone so she can suck out the marrow without eating the bones themselves. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this isn’t polite society. We’re in a galley on a bounty hunter’s ship, and I’ve been living on the run or in an army for most of my life. Table manners are optional.”

“No, they’re not,” Leia orders. “Fett, it’s your ship, tell her to--”

“--and another thing!” Fett snaps at Tholme, clearly paying less than no attention to the food argument.

Ahsoka keeps on eating, trying to catch wind of where the discussion’s at. Mostly, it seems to be at ‘talking past each other.’ Neither of them seems to have fully grasped more than the absolute most basic parts of the other culture, and that’s only enough to insult each other, not actually have a constructive conversation. She’d have expected more out of Tholme, at least. He’s not exactly young.

“Hey, quick question,” she says, in a moment where both of them have paused for breath and the opportunity to seethe. “Fett, when’s the last time you worked with a Jedi, or any member of a Force-based religion, before I popped into your life?”

His nose scrunches up as he makes a face.

“And Tholme, when’s the last time you worked with anyone from the Mandalorian system?”

Tholme’s reaction isn’t any more gracious than Fett’s.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she says. “Vos, were either of them actually interested in that conversation, or just looking for an excuse to yell?”

“Now listen here, jetiika--”

“Fett,” she snaps. “I am not a child.”

“And neither am I,” he growls right back. “This is my ship, and I damn well don’t need you treating me like a misbehaving youngling. You’ve got a problem, you bring it to my face, not get all smug about people’s tempers blowing over.”

Well, then.

She smiles thinly. “Of course.”

He stands with his arms crossed, in full armor save for the helmet. She puts aside the eopie meat and wipes her hands, smiling until she can put her hands on her hips and let it drop to a challenge.

“You know, I’m just--I’m just gonna go,” Quinlan mutters, pulling Leia out with him, the girl hanging from under one of his arms. “This, uh, this looks like a problem for... you folks. Um. Yeah.”

He sidles out.

Tholme doesn’t.

Fett rubs at the bridge of his nose, and then gestures at the table. “Sit.”

“I’d prefer not to.”

He drops his hand and glares at her. “We have another week on this ship together. We are going to have this conversation. Sit.”

She sits, right on the warm spot left behind by Quinlan and Leia. She crosses her arms, lifts a brow, and waits.

Fett takes the seat across from her. Tholme leans against the counter.

“We all know you’re older than you look,” Fett says. “I heard Tholme mention it, I know that much has been shared. You’re acting like an actual teenager, and I’ve... I’ve put up with a lot. I am trying to keep things civil, particularly with you. I’ve tried to be friendly. You’ve been fucked up since we met, fine, everyone’s got trauma. The thing where you’ve started talking shit to our faces for what seems like your own amusement? That has to stop. You’re older than me, Torrent. Fucking act like it.”

She blinks at him, slow and not exactly happy, and turns to Tholme.

The man shrugs. “I was planning to put up with it until we arrived to the temple and handed you over to some mind healers. Fett doesn’t have that kind of time.”

There’s a curdle in her stomach, defensive and angry and guilty.

“You’ve been... a bitch,” Fett finally says. “You know that. I’m not going to mince words. You’ve been holier-than-thou and rude and condescending, and aiming that at Antilles is one thing, when you’ve apparently known her since she was a toddler and taught her things. Aiming at the rest of us isn’t going to fly. We’re all adults trying to share a space. Stop acting like... just like you have been.”

There is no defense to be made that they aren’t both already aware of.

She closes her eyes and tries to strangle the burst of irrational rage.

Their accusations aren’t unfounded.

They deserve an apology.

She is in the wrong.

She’s felt freer than she had in years, and in that freedom allowed herself too much rein, let herself lace her words with barbed wires and poison instead of sparks and spices, comments that were cruel instead of just joking. Too familiar. Too comfortable.

“My behavior’s been inappropriate,” she finally says, the words clumsy and too big in her mouth. “You’re right about that. I’m sorry, and I’ll endeavor to keep a tighter rein on my less pleasant behaviors in the future.”

At least she only lashes out with words. It could be worse.

She opens her eyes, fixes her gaze on the wall behind Fett, wrestles her expression into stiff neutrality. “Am I dismissed?”

“...uh, no, not after that,” Fett says, sounding just a little horrified. “What the hell was that?”

Tholme hisses out a breath. “Let her go.”

“No, this needs to be discussed, that’s not a healthy rea--”

“Fett, let her go,” Tholme insists, low and heavy.

Fett looks between the two for a moment, seems to come to a realization he doesn’t like, and then gestures almost violently towards the door. “Fine. Go.”

She walks out, doesn’t sprint. She’s stiff. She’s controlled. She’s the one that fucked up, so it’s fine if she doesn’t feel great right now. Getting called out on one’s own failings as a person isn’t something to get upset about if the failings are real. The feelings are real and normal, but this was her fault, and so it’s up to her to fix it, and she can’t let them know it hurt her, because this was her mistake.

She goes to the cargo hold.

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

Ahsoka works out her frustrations on Fett’s punching bag. She does not augment herself with the Force, just uses raw strength and technique, ignoring the tears that press at her eyes.

She’s fine.

It’s not weird. It’s not odd. It’s not strange to not notice she’s been kind of a bitch since her mood came up with the whole Depa thing, and then Maul. She’s been mean, mostly to Vos and Fett, and nobody’s confronted her about it until now. They let her have room for her trauma, and she hadn’t reined it in. She’s just gotten worse.

‘Snippy’ she’d always been, but age apparently hadn’t fucking tempered it.

“Um.”

She catches the punching bag, breathing heavily and covered in sweat. She hasn’t worked out all the twitchy, nervous energy yet.

“Vos,” she greets, once she’s caught herself enough that her voice won’t waver. He’s on the other side of the bag, but she knows his voice. “Do you need something?”

“You’re kind of... projecting,” he tells her, drifting to where she can actually see him. “Not self-loathing, but, um, recrimination? You just don’t feel very good and I was hoping to help”

Why in all the Sith hells does he have to be nice.

“I got called out on my behavior and wasn’t ready to face the fact that I’d kriffed up,” she tells him. “I’ll be fine. And I’m... sorry. I haven’t been fair to you and was using you as an easy target for some of my ruder comments.”

“I mean, I kind of figured,” he admits, coming closer. “I’ve been tutored by Shadows before, and a lot of them act like you. I just assumed it was more of that.”

“I still shouldn’t have let myself run loose like that,” she says. “I’m... it wasn’t appropriate. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

He shrugs, not meeting her eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she says. “Not with... not with you. Or anyone other than Rex and a mind healer, really. Most of it is...”

She trails off, distantly noticing that her eyes are tearing up enough to blur her vision, and her nails are digging into the bag in a way Fett won’t appreciate.

There’s so much that beat her down, never quite breaking her, that she doesn’t even know what made her act the way she does.

“Want to spar?”

She looks over at him, wonders what he sees that makes him want to fight her when she’s visibly unstable.

He smiles, kind and easy, and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It’s genuine in intent, if not in energy. He wants to help. “You all keep saying I could work on my hand-to-hand. Just take off the armor so I don’t break a finger, maybe.”

“You’re serious.”

“No, I’m Quinlan.”

She’s going to wipe the floor with this boy. “You sure you wanna fight me?”

“You won’t be able to meditate until you do,” he says. He’s right, damn him. “The other option is that I go get your... vod, I think? I go get Rex and you two can talk it out since you trust him with more. I don’t want to do that, though, he’s still a kid.”

She eyes him, lips pressed together and mind awhirl with emotions and thoughts she’d tried to beat out of her head and into the bag. “Ever fought someone without the Force?”

“...yes?”

“Was it cuffs?”

“Oh, you meant me not having the Force,” he realizes. “Er, no. Is... is that something you’ve done a lot?”

She smiles at him. “You’re planning on Shadow work. That means getting captured and stripped of everything you are at some point, Force included. Unfortunately, the cuffs are in use on a very annoying Dathomirian right now, so we’ll have to make do with you shielding like your mind’s a Kessel Spice Mine.”

“...do I want to know how often you’ve been captured?”

“No, you don’t.”

When he comes at her, it’s easy to dodge. It’s easy to tap him on target points, little pokes that show she could take him out, but isn’t going to until he’s learned something. He stays grinning throughout, letting her take the lead, and he treats her like... like a knight. Like a teacher. He’s stepped back and gone from trying to impress her as a fellow padawan, to proving himself to a full knight.

She’s not sure when that change happened, or why or how, but it makes things much smoother. She wants to think that it would have even if she hadn’t gotten a wakeup call from Fett.

So she treats him the way she treated Ezra, for the year she’d spent traveling with Kanan. She treats him as a student that’s willing to learn, good but not yet great, competent but not yet ready to survive. She draws him into the kind of chest-heaving exhaustion that tells a fighter just how much energy they waste.

(Ahsoka may have had her own style, but her grandmaster had been the pinnacle of a Soresu user. She’d spent years on the frontlines of a war. She knew the worth of conserving energy, and she’d teach it to any who stepped in to challenge her.)

“Who taught you to fight like this?” He asks, when they’ve taken a handful of moments to circle each other. His steps are heavy, sure, planted. Her own are light and ready.

“Soldiers,” she says. It’s true enough.

“Not your Master?” he asks, just as he tries to kick for her upper arm. It’s a safe question. For anyone else, it would be a safe question.

But for Ahsoka, it’s another chink in the armor, after a maelstrom of emotion, a storm of self-loathing, a dervish of instability.

She doesn’t break right away.

She spirals. She fights Quinlan, but doesn’t quite see him. Her strikes get sloppy, her feet stumble. She can’t make herself meet Quinlan’s eyes, not when the scrape of his heel against the metal sounds like the rasp of a breathing machine. Her shields get fuzzy, she knows, and she leaks what she feels into the air, making it sour and thick. She doesn’t notice, because all she can see, all she can--all she can hear and feel and--

She drops to her knees and grabs at her head, trying to stop it.

“Sokari?”

She breathes. In and out, harsh and jagged but natural in a way that the damned respirator wasn’t.

Her master her teacher her brother the traitor the hound the executioner

Her face is hot. Something prickles. It might be tears.

She tries to say something, tries to say a name or a request, tries to make anything come out of her mouth that isn’t the broken wail of a woman who hasn’t let herself think about how she died.

She feels herself pulled into someone’s arms, and she can’t quite tell who, but they’re bigger than she is, and feel warm and worried. They care. They don’t understand, they’re scared, but they care.

Her hands shake, clutched to her chest and she can’t breathe she can’t make herself take in enough air to do a Force-damned thing the empire is going to feel her her shields are down and broken and her emotions are spilling and the empire is going to find HER ANAKIN IS GOING TO FIND HER AND--

“COMMANDER!”

Rex.

Rex is here.

Her breath is coming so fast that she’s hiccupping more than she’s actually inhaling. She feels small hands in gloves on either side of her face, and then her forehead presses to something warm.

Rex. A Keldabe kiss. Her brother, her partner, her other half. He’s here. He’s calm. If he’s calm, then things are fine.

“What happened?” Light voice, high voice, small and distant. Leia. Little Leia little princess Leia she’s in danger she’s in trouble Anakin will--

“Commander.”

No. Here and now. She needs to focus on here and now. Her throat feels cold. She breathes too fast, still. She can’t stop it.

“I don’t know.” That’s Vos. He was... they were doing something. He was here. Talking to her. “We were sparring, and she just--”

Right, sparring.

“I don’t know if I said something?” He offers, voice pitching up, unsure and worried. Is he the one holding her? He’s the one holding her. That’s embarrassing.

“Commander?” Rex prompts. “Commander, can you open your eyes?”

She tries. She can’t. She shakes her head.

“Soka?” he asks, voice quiet. “Where are you?”

“F-F-Fett,” she manages. It’s enough.

“And where were you?”

His voice is so soft. So worried. She held him the same way after Mandalore, after Order 66, after all his brothers, all her friends...

“Soka.”

Her mind is spinning, and suddenly all she can hear is Anakin Skywalker is dead. I destroyed him.

Her breath hitches, and she wails.

“Commander,” Rex tries again, but her head is a vortex of Then you will die and Perhaps this child and not the Jedi way.

Our long awaited meeting.

I destroyed him.

Then you will die.

She can’t breathe she can’t breathe she can only see that yellow eye that’s too familiar but belongs to a stranger can only hear a voice that shouldn’t exist can only mourn and break and--

“Soka?”

“Malachor,” she manages. “I--h-he--I died.”

“What did you say?” someone asks. A vod. It’s the right voice, almost, rough and business-like, not accusing anyone yet, and... and... no. No. Not one of her boys. It’s Fett.

“Um, right at the end? I asked her who taught her to fight like this,” Quinlan says, nervous. “And she said it was soldiers. And I joked, I asked that it wasn’t her Master, and she didn’t answer that. A couple minutes later, she just started...”

“Oh, Soka,” Rex whispers, pulling her closer. “Commander, just breathe with me.”

“H-h-he, he just--R-Rex, he j-just--and I c-c-couldn’t--”

“I know,” her captain whispers. “I know, just breathe with me.”

“He k-k-k-killed me,” she sobs, falling out of the Keldabe and into too-small arms. “I l-loved--he was my broth-ther and--and he just--he killed me, he didn’t even stop.”

“I know,” Rex whispers. “Soka, I know.”

Of course he does.

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

“It was just bad timing,” Rex says, once they’re in the room she’s been sharing with her little family, curled up under a blanket and watching the floor like it has all the secrets to how she lost her world three times over.

“Is there anything we need to keep in mind?” Fett asks, gruff and uncomfortable. She wonders if he’s angry that she took his necessary confrontation and turned it into this mess.

“Don’t bring up her Jedi Master,” Rex says, and pulls her in when she shivers. Her eyes squeeze shut before she can stop them, tears beading up again. “Just... don’t. It’s too soon.”

“He’s--”

“He Fell,” Ahsoka interrupts. “I thought he died, but he became a Sith. And fifteen years later, we ran into each other, and I refused to join him in the Dark, so he tried to kill me.”

Fett swears, low and muffled. She thinks he has a hand over his mouth.

Quin and Leia aren’t there. She thinks they’re keeping an eye on their Baby Sith prisoner. That’s good.

“Soka,” Rex whispers, and she buries her face in his shoulder. She’s too old to be this kind of mess. She’s thirty-two. She’s Fulcrum. She’s...

She’s in need of a lot of therapy.

“We can avoid the subject unless you bring it up,” Tholme promises. “Definitely until the Temple. Is there anything else we shouldn’t talk about?”

Ahsoka can practically feel Rex’s deadpan look. “Sir, we’re a trio of child soldiers ripped from everything we know. Every other sentence is a risk. We’re just... working our way through.”

There’s a knock at the door. Oh. Quin and Leia.

“Just figured we’d drop this off before we went down to visit Mr. Grumpy-Face,” Quinlan whispers. He still thinks Leia’s a child. He’s trying to make things less terrible for her. That’s nice. “We decided he’ll be less angry if he tries Hoth chocolate, and made some for everyone.”

They definitely made it for Ahsoka herself, and Maul was an afterthought. Still. It’s sweet.

“Commander?” Rex prompts, jostling her a little to try and get her to sit up.

“Gimme a sec,” she manages. It takes longer than it should to push herself away from him, to accept the mug that Leia gives her, too-serious worry in the furrow of her brow and the twist of her soul.

She doesn’t look six. She doesn’t even look twenty-two. This girl was always too old for her skin, forced to grow up in the hostile fear of the Empire.

“Thank you, Princess.”

She sips.

She can barely taste it beyond the ashes she imagines coating her tongue.

I destroyed him, her memory echoes. His slightest hesitation before he made the final move, it haunts her. She almost reached him. If only she’d tried harder, yelled louder, been better...

She shivers.

“Do you need help falling asleep?” Tholme asks. “I’m a regular healer, not a mind healer, but...”

She probably should.

She takes another sip of her drink, willing herself to taste it. It’s good. She likes it. She knows she does.

“Can you make it dreamless?” she whispers.

“It doesn’t always work, but I can try,” he tells her.

She nods. “When I finish the chocolate.”

“Of course.”

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

Everyone’s careful around her for days. The whole decision to be nicer doesn’t mean anything when she’s walking about in a daze of too few emotions, drained of everything she could feel in favor of a grey cloud of fluff in everything she does.

She does forms. Single saber and Jar’kai. Ataru and Djem so and Soresu. Reverse grip, regular grip, partial reverse on either side.

Again. Again. Again.

She loses herself in the motions, not meditating so much as just empty.

Rex worries. Fett worries. Vos worries.

Leia and Tholme keep their shields locked up tight, and she doesn’t know how they feel. She thinks Leia might be judging her. She think Tholme might be pitying.

Maul simply hates. It’s an old and familiar sensation to walk into, and she takes unthinking comfort in his rage. She’s silent instead of snippy, when she plays the role of guard, and they stare at each other in silence. His eyes burn, and she wonders how much he’s heard of her nightmares.

“You need to talk,” Rex tells her, when he finds her with a cold cup of caff, eyes fixed somewhere beyond it all. She lifts her head. “Soka.”

She just stares at him.

He sighs and pulls her into a hug. “Commander, please.”

She can’t.

Ahsoka stares at the wall behind him, resting her chin on his head. Her neck itches under the lek at the back of her head, a little tingle of a feeling that she can’t bring herself to do anything about. The pale light of the galley is sharp against the chipped paint of the metal that surrounds them. It hurts her eyes to look, but it’s not the deep and dark lit only by red--

Then you will die, her memory growls.

She flinches.

“Breathe,” Rex tells her, too-small hands clinging at her back. “Just breathe, ‘Soka.”

She curls in tighter and tries to just breathe.

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

“Tell me something good.”

Ahsoka blinks. She looks at Leia. She doesn’t have the energy to parse that.

Leia chances a look at Rex, who isn’t leaving Ahsoka’s side any more than he has to, and Fett on the other side. Tholme’s asleep and Quin’s on Baby Sith duty. It’s just people who know, right now.

The little girl across the table, the child senator, the spy, purses her lips and huffs in irritation. “You knew my biological father before he became one of the worst people in the galaxy. Both of you did. Tell me something good about him.”

Good things.

About Anakin.

“You fought a war as a Jedi,” Leia prompts. “Surely you must have done some good things with him, or at least thought you were.”

Did they?

Every mission ended in tragedy or was just a ploy of Palpatine’s. Every saved life was just...

Wait.

“He built Threepio,” she finally says. “Your father wi--I mean, Bail wiped Threepio’s memory after the Empire rose, for your safety, but Anakin was the one who built him.”

Leia sits up, eyes brighter. “I didn’t know that. I... was Artoo involved? Did he build R2D2, or...”

“No,” Rex says, “But Artoo was his favorite astromech, and they always pushed each other into stupid stunts. We risked a hell of a lot to save that droid, more than once, and I didn’t find out until you started working with the Rebellion full-time, but Artoo and Threepio were the witnesses for your bio-parents’ wedding.”

Leia gapes at him. So does Ahsoka. (Fett doesn’t know enough to care.)

Rex grins, and if it looks a little forced, that’s fine. “He had a holo recording. I was one of the few people left that knew about the marriage that might have wanted to see, so Artoo offered. It was... sweet.”

He waits, probably for Ahsoka to add something herself, but she has nothing.

“I think that’s when they swapped droids, since Threepio was more useful to a politician and Artoo did his best work when we set him loose on the enemy.”

“He never changed,” Leia muses. “Did he always swear that much?”

“Yes,” Ahsoka answers, as Rex laughs. “Always. All the binary I learned started with the best swears.”

She tries to think of another good memory, something else that Leia might appreciate. Her mind ticks back to saving Stinky, which is just a terrible option, because that mission started with Hutts and ended with the Battle of Teth. That massive loss of life, all for the son of the creature that had put Leia in chains.

She wonders if she has anything in her memory that doesn’t end in blood and graves.

“Soka.” Rex.

“Hm?”

“Remember that time Fives and Echo got lost in the undercity their first time on leave, and we had to get the General to help us find them?”

She does.

He’s right, that’s a good story.

“Okay, so what you have to understand,” Ahsoka says, already digging the faint details out and dusting them off, “is that these boys were ARC troopers, top-notch, terrifyingly competent once they got through specialty training, and loyal as hell. Echo had memorized the reg manuals front to back, and Fives was... well, Fives ended up being the only person to figure out the chips before they went into action. Point is, the Domino twins were good... eventually. Just like everyone else, though, they started out shiny.”

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

“Tholme’s hiding something.”

Ahsoka wonders if Leia will just leave if she ignores her enough. Probably not. This was the girl that got kicked out of boarding school for leading a sit-in at age seven. She’s got patience.

“His job requires him to hide a lot of things,” Ahsoka says instead. “Not as many as Vos will have to, eventually, but a lot.”

“He’s hiding something from us,” Leia insists, visibly frustrated that Ahsoka isn’t as upset about this as she is. “Something important.”

The way she says ‘important’ is clumsy and impacted by the missing baby tooth. She can’t say the r. It comes out as ‘im-poh-ten,’ which is adorable, and if Ahsoka comments on it, she’s probably going to get punched by a six-year-old.

“The Force doesn’t care,” Ahsoka says. “I trust his intentions, if not him as a person.”

“If you don’t trust him, then why trust his intentions?”

“Leia, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I trust one and a half people in the galaxy,” Ahsoka points out. “Me not trusting a person isn’t a sign of anything except my paranoia. The only person I trust fully and without reservation is Rex. Even you, I only mostly trust, because my brain starts screaming if I think too hard. That’s why you’re the half.”

“Okay, whatever, paranoia aside,” Leia barrels on, “He should tell us. Whatever it is that he’s hiding, we deserve to know. We’re not children that he can just hide things from for our own good.”

Ahsoka presses her lips together. “Leia. Princess. I know you’re used to holding all the cards--”

“This isn’t about me being a control freak!”

“It is, though,” Ahsoka soothes, and smiles. “Your mother--the bio one--was the same way. You spent years as one of the leaders of the Rebellion, so obviously you’re used to having all the information, and people reporting to you... but Tholme is a Jedi Master. He reports to the Council and the Republic. Do you know how many people I kept secrets from while I was a padawan? We’re an unknown, Leia. They have no proof that we’re on their side, especially since we’re traveling with Fett.”

Leia crosses her arms and glares as hard as she can.

“I’m not going to bother him,” Ahsoka says. “I’ve already had, like, five unrelated mental breakdowns. I’m putting this on hold until we get to the Temple and I can trust that there’s a healer on hand to sedate me or something.”

“You... want to be sedated?”

“Leia, this... really should be obvious, but a Force-Sensitive losing their osik the way I have been isn’t actually safe. I know I broke a weapons rack last week.” Ahsoka gestures vaguely. “If the Jedi Master isn’t telling me something for reasons that might relate to my clear and obvious mental instability, I’m going to assume he’s got a point.”

“So he should tell me or Rex.”

“We’ll be on Coruscant in four days,” Ahsoka soothes. “Just... let it be. They won’t hurt us.”

“You don’t know that.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “I don’t have to. The Force leads me in all things, including this.”

Leia isn’t impressed by that, but Leia isn’t impressed by much in the first place.

She strides off in a fit that is, perhaps, more influenced by her six-year-old emotional control than she’d like to admit. Ahsoka lets her. It’s not worth the argument.

It’s only a few minutes later that Fett strides in, takes the seat Leia was just in, and asks, “What would it take for you to teach me how to use a jetii’kad?”

She blinks at him. “You want to learn how to use a lightsaber?”

“Yes.”

“...why?”

“Viszla.”

“I see.”

She does.

Ahsoka taps her fingers against the table, eyeing him with the kind of interest she copied from Master Kenobi, years ago. Fett doesn’t fidget, but she thinks he might want to. He just looks back, waiting for her judgement.

“You’ll need to justify it,” she finally says. “It’s a significant difference from what you actually did, so I need to know your reasoning for doing it, and your plans for once it’s done.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s step one,” she corrects. She tilts her head, considering. “My standards for you aren’t built in a vacuum, and you know that. Explain to me what you plan to do and how you plan to do it, and if I approve...”

“You’ll help me achieve it.”

“Maybe,” she allows. “A lot of that depends on Rex.”

“I expected as much,” Fett says. “He is... an admittedly large part of the reason.”

“He would be,” she says. She gives the silence a few more seconds to sit awkwardly between them, and then stands up. “I’d guess you’ve been brainstorming already. Do you have it written down or is it mostly just in your head so far?”

“I’m still... debating options, so to speak.”

She grins, and the shape of the predator’s smile, the baring of teeth... that almost makes him step back. She can see it in the twitch of his muscles. Smart man.

“Follow me,” she says, and doesn’t wait for him to stand. She strides out with tooka-light steps, hears the heavy beskar tread behind her, and goes to the cargo hold. Fett’s confusion grows tangibly behind her, especially when she tosses him a wooden quarterstaff. She picks up the other and spins it in one hand.

“You’re going to fight me,” she tells him, stretching and letting the staff help with the process. “And while we fight, you’re going to tell me what your plans for Mandalore are.”

He mimics her, but there’s a frown on his face. “And why staffs?”

“You and I, we’ve only sparred bare-handed,” she says. “I need a feel for how you fight with a weapon anyway. These are a good start.”

“Not the beskad?”

She grins, and the twitch is back. “No. That can wait. We start with the staffs.”

He takes a stance, and she mirrors him. She lets him strike first with a weapon, but she’s the one that asks all the questions.

(He is the only one on the ship that can fight her one-on-one right now, and he can win. Still, she makes him work for every inch, and what she doesn’t win in bruises, she wins in words.)

(Fett might yet be a proper Mand’alor, but Ahsoka learned war from her brothers, negotiation at the knee of a general and in the shadow of a prince, and government at the side of duchesses and queens.)

(If he wants her help uniting his people, he needs to prove that he can hold them together once she’s gone.)

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

Ahsoka’s interrogation of Jango’s plans is thorough, and she’s not the only one involved. She brings Leia in, and has her join in on the grilling. She maybe laughs as the twenty-seven-year-old survivor of Galidraan, the Mand’alor, a man who has killed Master Jedi with his bare hands, gets lectured on various government structures by a tiny girl that's missing several teeth and needs to sit on books to see the table properly.

Still, Leia knows this better than any of the rest of them do. The girl might have grown up heir to a monarchy, but she got a classical education and was drilled on democracy and all associated forms of government. Where Ahsoka knows military protocol and law enforcement, intersystem relations and defensive measures, Leia knows agricultural subsidies and welfare programs, infrastructure and education.

Ahsoka may know how to find out if someone’s breaking a zoning law, but Leia knows why it exists in the first place.

“And I grew up in a cult,” Rex says, when an argument on that topic breaks out. Everyone that hasn’t heard the joke-that-isn’t-a-joke stares at him. “The Jedi grew up in a religious meritocracy; Leia grew up in a monarchy; and I grew up in a cult.”

Ahsoka elbows him. He’s not wrong, but still.

Unfortunately, Ahsoka is about forty-seven percent sure that Leia will put her foot in her mouth when it comes to Mandalorian culture, blunt as the girl is. That prefrontal cortex isn’t anywhere near as developed as it should be, either, so impulse control for the princess isn’t great. Ahsoka refuses to let Leia and Fett talk about ways to mend the breaks between tradition and the pacifism of the New Mandalorians without either Rex or Ahsoka herself as a mediating presence. Tholme sits in a few times, but while he knows that Leia isn’t really six--though not about the time-travel, yet--Quinlan doesn’t.

They admittedly end up doing this while he’s on Maul-sitting duty.

“It’s like he doesn’t even care about making nice with the people that, at this point, make up the majority of his people!” Leia grumbles one night, as Ahsoka kicks over a step stool so the girl can brush her teeth. “He may not like the New Mandalorians, but from what I understand, it’s still early enough to prevent the majority of the cultural bleaching you brought up. If he stays this stubborn--”

“Leia,” Ahsoka says, and the girl’s mouth snaps shut. “I’m aware of your reasons for not trusting his intentions. But if I may say? Chill.”

“He’s not even trying!”

“He’s trying a hell of a lot harder than he did in the original timeline,” Ahsoka reminds her. “Brush your teeth.”

“I’m not a--”

“Teeth.”

It’s a little worrying, how the child’s brain affects Leia, but... well. That’ll pass in time, hopefully. Until then, Ahsoka gets to be the aunt she should have been. This includes tucking Leia in, which the girl grumbles about despite the fond waves of comfort that enter the Force around her. Ahsoka doesn’t call her out on it, just brushes back wisps of hair to plant a kiss on Leia’s forehead, and then does the same once Rex stumbles in, grumbling about the limitations of a cadet’s body, but far more ready to follow the protocol that is bedtime.

Rex doesn’t pretend to not like getting tucked in, for all that he’s sharing with a grumbly, already-asleep princess. He smiles up at Ahsoka, lets her hug him, and pretends they can be a normal family for five seconds.

Quinlan’s making a late night snack for himself in the galley. Tholme is guarding the Baby Sith. Fett...

Ahsoka goes to the cockpit, takes the copilot’s seat, and watches hyperspace pass them by.

It takes long minutes before either of them say anything.

“Do Jedi believe in souls?”

His shields are up, locked up tighter than the innermost chambers of the Imperial Palace. She has no idea where he’s taking this question. She has to cast about for an answer.

“That depends on how you define a soul,” she finally says. “Leia told me about Force Ghosts. A Jedi Master who underwent the right meditations and training could pass into the Force upon their death without losing their sense of self. They could remain themselves, to an extent, and interact with force-sensitive individuals. I don’t know if they could last that way indefinitely, but depending on your definition, I could argue those ghosts were evidence of a form of soul.”

“So you believe that the dead pass into the Force, but that what passes could be a soul. Something must exist for a sense of self to disappear at death in a way that impacts the Force as you understand it, and many would use the word ‘soul’ for that something.”

“Mm,” Ahsoka considers it. “I’d say that’s pretty accurate. You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

“What about those not yet born?”

Her fingers feel cold, and she finds herself no longer able to watch the passage of hyperspace as passively as she had, and her eyes catch on streaks and motes of what is not dust, her vision unable to keep any more still than her heart.

“Oh,” she hears herself say. “The clones.”

It’s a long time before he answers, but the walls come down. He carries a confused sort of grief with him, guilty and a mite resentful. His questions have been building for longer than she’d thought. His voice is rough. “I’ve taken plenty of lives, but I’ve never known the name of someone I erased from existence before they were even born.”

“The stories we told Leia about the brothers.”

There’s a grunt of agreement from Fett, so those dots at least connect.

“I take it my answer wasn’t helpful,” she manages to say.

“Will they still exist?” Fett asks. “Will they be born elsewhere? Or is... is a soul something that only comes into existence after the body does?”

“I have no idea,” Ahsoka admits. “I want... I want to think that I’d be able to find them eventually, to recognize them, if their souls are still born into this world elsewhere.”

“And if your Sith finds someone else to build his army out of?”

Ahsoka looks at him, sharp and pointed. “You wouldn’t.”

“They’ll be doing it anyway, if their plans are as ironclad as you say.”

“You’re already associating with Jedi,” Ahsoka says, fighting the urge to break his nose. “They wouldn’t approach you, not now. They can’t leverage your anger against you. They won’t know everything, but they’ll know that you have friends among the Jedi.”

“You think they can’t come up with better lies?”

He has a point. He has more than one point and she hate hate hates it.

A Jedi does not hate.

I am no Jedi.

“You’re going to have to convince me,” she says. “Especially if you want to somehow balance this with the darksaber thing. I won’t teach you how to fight with it if you’re not planning to retake Mandalore.”

“That’s how they’d sell it,” he says. “Retaking Mandalore. An army ostensibly for the Jedi, and ultimately...”

“You’d build an army of slaves.”

“No, I’d be the inside man for when they build that army anyway.”

She holds his gaze. She looks away first.

“Torrent?”

“I’m thinking.”

He lets her.

“I’ll need to talk to Rex. Probably Leia.”

“Understandable.”

“I don’t like this.”

“I’m only just considering it. It’s an idea, not a plan.”

“That’s the only reason I haven’t ripped your throat out with my teeth.”

“Hyperbole doesn’t suit you.”

She glares at him, and leaves, her mind chopping up and laying out every possible angle on Fett volunteering to do the exact same thing as last time, but somehow worse.

Great. Just what she needed.

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

Ahsoka isn’t there for the shouting match between Rex and Fett, but she doesn’t have to be. She can hear it form clear across the ship, and Rex comes to her afterwars. He’s been crying, which isn’t as surprising as it could be. These bodies are still prone to such things, and will be for years. She doesn’t comment.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

“We need to take out Sidious before he starts anything on Kamino.”

“Agreed,” she says. “It’ll be hard, though.”

“I don’t care.”

“What did Fett say?”

“That if it wasn’t going to be my brothers, it would be someone else’s. Either we stopped the cloning from happening at all, or we mitigated damage by being there.”

“I don’t think Sidious is going to tap him for it,” Ahsoka admits. “Not unless you’re willing to stage that kind of fight publicly enough for Fett to claim the Jedi poisoned you, family, against him. It could work, but it’s a gamble.”

He knows all of this.

“I miss them,” he says, and she cards her fingers though the curls he’s managed to grow in the past weeks. “I just... even at the end, I had Wolffe. I knew Boba was out there; I wouldn’t be surprised if the beskar let him survive a Sarlacc. I had brothers. Not as many as I used to, but there was always someone. I miss them all, so much it hurts.”

“It wouldn’t be them,” she reminds him. She pulls him closer, puts her cheek to his head. “It would be the same process, the same faces, the same training, even, but the boys themselves...”

He clings to her and shudders.

“Rex?”

“I can’t force them to grow up the way I did. I want them back. Sidious is going to make the army no matter what. Someone’s going to suffer, and I don’t want it to be my brothers, but they won’t exist otherwise, and...”

“And it’s an impossible choice,” she summarizes. “And it sucks.”

“It’s sucks Gungan balls, ‘Soka.”

She laughs, and feels him smile against her shoulder. Good. He needs to smile more.

“He’s still trying to get me to like him,” Rex says. "He’s still making an effort, and he never did that for anyone except Boba, and it’s weird. I don’t know what to do with any of that.”

“Gain a brother,” Ahsoka whispers, and she feels him jerk against her. “If that’s what you want.”

“He’s not vod.”

“Same blood as all the rest, and you’re older than him, so he’s not really in a position to be a parent to you like he was to Boba,” she says carefully. “You don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to, but... I think he’s trying. I think this means a lot to him, and that he isn’t any more sure of what to do than you are. You don’t have to forgive him for what he did in the future, you don’t have to accept when he reaches out, you don’t have to ever talk to him again after we reach Coruscant if you don’t want, but I think... I think it’s worth at least considering what you have to gain. I think it’s worth looking at what he’s trying to give you.”

Rex huffs. “Why couldn’t he just be the shabuir I knew in training?”

“Something happened between now and then?” she offers. “I don’t know. I never met him in the original timeline. I just know the guy that keeps trying to get on my good side so you’ll like him.”

He outright scoffs. “Soka, that’s not the only reason he’s trying to get on your good side.”

“...I’m a former Jedi who talks trash to his face,” she says slowly. “And I cried on him. There is no reason for him to be nice to me, other than you.”

“He thinks you’re cool and a good person and wants you to be his friend.”

“Bantha poodoo.”

Rex grins in a way that goes straight to smirking. “Soka, I’m not joking. Jango Fett wants you to be his friend.”

“Kriffing why?” she asks, more than a little horrified. “I’m a mess, look like I’m ten years younger than him, have gleefully kicked his ass in front of an audience; I even told Vos to throw him at a baby Sith Lord. Putting up with me is one thing, but I’m... I’m only barely not a Jedi. I’m a historical enemy of Mandalore, and part of the community he hates more than anything, and--”

“And his reaction to you kicking his ass was pure Mando,” Rex says. “In that he now thinks you’re a badass, and thus worth being friends with.”

“I can’t believe that. I physically cannot.”

“Soka, just accept it. The Mand’alor wants to be friends with you.” He scratches at his scalp. “I mean, he met you while you were protecting what appeared to be children, and it’s apparently still early enough for him to care about that.”

She leans back in her seat, eyes on the wall ahead of her and back against the cool metal of the other side. Rex falls back with her. She wonders if Rex changed the subject so they didn’t have to talk about deciding how many of his brothers get to exist, and whether or not he can swallow the bitterness of his history to have a connection with at least one member of his blood. She doesn’t ask. If he wants to change the subject, that’s his right.

“I don’t... no.” She denies it as well as she can, and then the implications dig a little deeper. “Is this me accidentally signing up to be the Jedi Order’s official liaison to the Mand’alor?”

“I mean, this point in time... they’ve got Kenobi for the Duchess, yeah?” Rex shrugs. “Good relations with the system are probably a good thing, and you’ve got a stronger connection than Tholme and Vos.”

“Ugh,” she says. She rubs a hand against her head, and then lurches to her feet. “Fine! Fine. If it’ll get him to retake Mandalore before the Sith decide to bribe him with an army he doesn’t get to keep, I’ll teach him how to fight for the kriffin’ Darksaber.”

“That’s what makes the decision for you?”

“Well something had to!”

They only get one lesson in before Coruscant, but the lesson lasts a full day, and Ahsoka’s got his comm number. Fett’s a quick learner anyway, and Tholme was there to give pointers where Ahsoka couldn’t.

He won’t measure up to a Jedi in saber-to-saber combat, but he doesn’t need to. He just needs to learn enough to turn all those skills with a beskad to something that works with a jetii’kad.

(The balance of a saber is wrong to those used to a physical weapon. The inertia doesn’t work the way anyone expects. There’s no need to worry about damaging the blade.)

(Fett is good. Ahsoka is better. And, bless his heart, he knows it.)

(She will mold him into the shape of someone who not only can, but should rule a system with a history like that, and he damn well knows that too.)

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

“Dropping out of hyperspace in T-minus twenty seconds.”

The Slave I is not, in fact, a Venator-class starship, or anything else near the size and smoothness of the ships that Ahsoka grew up on. This is a bounty hunter’s vessel, and the drop to real space jolts like nothing else. Ahsoka’s in the copilot seat for the return, but Tholme’s going to swap with her as soon as they’ve got confirmation that there were no problems with exiting hyperspace, and nobody’s shooting at them.

“We’re not going to get shot at,” Tholme had assured her.

“I always get shot at,” she’d told him.

“I have our clearance,” he reminded her, seeming more amused than frustrated. “There’s no need to worry about getting shot at.”

“I also always get shot at,” Jango had thrown in.

“Okay,” Tholme had allowed, after several minutes of his trust in the Temple warring against Ahsoka and Jango’s learned paranoia. The looks Quinlan had darted around the room when Leia and Rex also claimed ‘chronic getting-shot-at disease’ had been a treat. The paranoia of a Watchman and a future Shadow was great, but the paranoia of three revolutionaries and a galaxy-wide criminal was greater. “You can take us in close enough to get in radio contact, but the second we have to ask for clearance and a vector, I’m in the seat.”

She’d agreed, of course. She was paranoid, not inexperienced.

“We’re much less likely to get shot down by ground control if you tell them we’re with you,” she’d said, to his hilariously apparent metaphysical exhaustion. “Obviously.”

“Good enough,” he’d sighed.

What that means is mostly just that Ahsoka gets to watch the distant star at the center of Coruscant’s system grow rapidly brighter. She can pick out the constellations she’d grown up with, the stars the creche had projected on the ceiling every night, the ones that she may not have seen from the surface, but had greeted her and then sent her on her way every time she left on yet another campaign that lost her men their lives for a Sith Lord's wretched plans. These were the shapes and stories she’d never seen again as Fulcrum, a woman so hunted that to come within a dozen subsectors of the planet was to court her death.

For sixteen years, she hadn’t ventured closer than Alderaan, save for a single trip to Chandrila.

And now, maybe twenty minutes away at this speed, was the Temple. It was home.

A home that didn’t know her, that had sentenced her to death, that had hosted the rampage of her former master... but home nonetheless.

“Stable?” Fett grunts.

“Thrusters are good,” she confirms.

“I meant you.”

Ah. “I’m... fine. As good as I could be, anyway.”

She hesitates, but manages to speak before he does. “You?”

“I’m not the one walking into an entire building of triggers.”

“Only because you’re not entering it,” she says. “It’s the home of your ancestral enemies who, bad info or no, killed off a whole lot of your friends.”

“I get to leave,” he says. “You don’t.”

She plans to needle him a bit more, maybe on something a little less based in both their traumas. She needs to talk, if only to fill up the silence and keep herself from reaching out to all the lights in the Force. It’ll be too much, she knows.

Tholme enters the cockpit. “Change of plans.”

“Better be a good reason,” Jango says, voice flat.

“Leia’s crying.”

Ahsoka’s unbuckling herself before she can process the words fully. “What?”

Leia doesn’t cry for no reason. Her emotional control is as difficult as the body makes it, but she doesn’t just cry. There’s always a cause.

“I don’t know. Rex said to get you,” Tholme explains. “She was saying a name. He seemed to recognize it.”

Not good not good not good. If Leia was feeling the Emper--No. She cuts the thought off there. No catastrophizing. Information first.

“What name.”

“Luke. Mean anything to--and she’s gone.”

Ahsoka ignores him, just sprints to where she knows the ‘young ones’ are. They’re all in Maul’s room, because nobody wants to be alone with him now, but it’s the worst time to leave him without supervision. It’s not the worst option; he mostly refuses to talk, still.

This holds true, because he definitely isn’t talking when she bursts in. He’s sitting on the bench, in a corner, hugging his knees and watching Quinlan try to calm Leia down.

“Captain, sitrep.”

“Vos and Tholme attempted to show Leia how to reach out to feel the Temple from a distance. They felt that it would be a good use of the time, and an interesting exercise at this distance. She attempted to do so, struggled for several minutes, and then reacted with shock. She has repeated the name ‘Luke’ several times since then, and we’ve been unable to fully calm her down. I asked Tholme to get you, as you are the only Force-Sensitive on board that understands the situation in full.”

“Understood.” She nods to him, and then goes to nudge at Quinlan. “Vos, move.”

“Torre--”

“You can sit behind her, hold her in your lap like you did when we had lunch the other day, but I need to get in her face.” She waits for him to comply, and then drops to her knees and takes Leia’s hands in her own. She radiates calm and assurance, even though she knows Quinlan’s probably been doing the same since this started. She dips her head enough to get in the girl’s line of sight, waits for her to meet eyes.

“Princess,” she says, and meets Leia’s eyes. “What did you feel?”

“Luke.”

From this distance... they’ve got half the system to go, at least, and Leia’s training shouldn’t reach that far for anything more than the fact that the Temple is there. Ahsoka could feel unshielded individuals from here, if she focused, but she’s also been doing this much, much longer. The twins theory holds more water than ever.

“Can you show me?” Ahsoka asks, instead of asking for more clarification. She squeezes Leia’s hands and smiles. “In the Force?”

Leia nods, and closes her eyes. It’s not the first time they’ve done this, but it’s the first time in a while that Leia’s needed Ahsoka to guide her through.

Luke’s light, for all that it’s unfamiliar to Ahsoka, is brilliant among the rest of the signatures in Coruscant. Like Anakin and Leia, he’s a star in his own right, but he’s brighter. He doesn’t have Anakin’s bitterness or Leia’s righteous anger, just... light. Ahsoka had asked Leia to show her instead of looking for herself because she’d expected to not recognize the boy, but she needn’t have. He’s unmistakable.

He’s so bright that she almost misses the other signature that she does recognize. She shies away, knowing that it would be there, but... but it’s almost twinned with another nearby. Not identical, but different in a way that comes with age, with trauma, with... death.

Leia hadn’t arrived alone, after all.

Why would Luke?

Her eyes snap open, her hand coming up not-quite-fast enough to clap over her mouth as she gasps. She feels a shudder, one that starts in her shoulders and reaches deep into her ribcage, finds a home in her chest and doesn’t stop.

“Oh fuck,” Quinlan whispers. “Torrent? Um, Sokari?”

Rex steps closer. “Commander?”

“That shabuir faked his death again,” she manages. “Three times, Rex!”

He blinks at her. “...I know way too many people who fit that description, Soka.”

“Master Ke--” she cuts herself off. He might have changed his name, just like she had. There’s already an Obi-Wan here. Rex seems to be figuring it out, but she needs to give him another hint.

“He pulled a Hardeen,” she stresses, and Rex’s eyes snap shut with a tired groan.

“Who?” Leia asks, her own tumult of emotion paused in the wake of Ahsoka’s shock. There’s a hope and relief to her, and Ahsoka belatedly realizes that her main worry had been that she’d misidentified what was going on, that she’d given herself a false hope. Ahsoka’s internal reaction, her approval and awe at Luke’s presence, had trickled over enough to give Leia the reassurance she’d needed.

Unintentional as it was, Ahsoka was glad that she’d succeeded in helping her charge.

“Er...” she trails off. “I don’t know what name he’s going by, right now. We’ve spent so long in hiding...”

“The man Luke knew as Crazy Old Ben,” Rex says, and Leia’s eyes light up.

“Oh,” she breathes. “General O--no, names. The High General, then.”

“Yeah,” Ahsoka says, not a little soft. “Yeah, I guess death didn’t stop him any more than it stopped me.”

“I could have told you that,” Leia says, smiling far too widely. She squirms where she still sits on Quinlan’s lap. “He was... he taught you, right?”

“As much my master as the official one,” Ahsoka says. She glances as Quinlan, feels Maul’s gaze on the back of her head. “Your f... my official master was very young when I was assigned to him. He wasn’t ready to teach, wasn’t even ready to be a knight, entirely, so my training was split between him and his master.”

Quinlan pops in at that moment, “Your grandmaster was military, too?”

We all were, she thinks. Even you, in your own way.

“I landed in their care mid-battle,” she says carefully. “It was a complicated situation.”

He nods, and she vaguely notes that he’s got his arms wrapped around Leia, and his chin tucked on top of her head. She isn’t sure if Leia’s noticed, but Quinlan’s picked up ‘baby’-sitting duty so often recently that she’s fairly certain he’s all but declared her ‘little-sister shaped.’ It doesn’t matter that Leia’s older--she’s still taking the juice boxes and gummy snacks that Quinlan shoves at her every single snacktime.

“Do you think...” Rex trails off, something uncomfortable twisting in the Force, even though his face keeps it mostly hidden. “My brothers. If the General survived and... and made it back...”

“I didn’t feel any,” Ahsoka says, because she knows she’d have noticed if it was anyone she’d met, and likely any clone at all. They all felt different in the Force, but they all held a spark that made her know it was one of them. “I’m sorry, Rex’ika.”

“A long shot,” he says, that dash of hope shriveling up. He must see something in her face, because there’s a curl of warmth in him, even if his smile is brittle. “It’s fine, really. I have you, ‘Soka.”

Rex and Ahsoka. Two halves of one whole.

She can’t wait to hear the lectures on attachment, the way people who haven’t seen her wars try to criticize her for clinging to any chance at still having a will to live. She can’t wait to see them justify telling her that it’s selfish to hold her sanity in her hands and refuse to let the grief take it away. She can’t wait to stare someone down for asking her to ‘learn to let go’ after she’s lost her family, her life, her universe three times over.

Most of the Jedi are more sensible than that, are reasonable enough to see those shades of grey and how to approach rules in the spirit they are meant instead of the rigid letter, but there will be some.

There will be more than enough telling her she is wrong to hold her oldest, closest, best friend as dear as she can.

Attachment, they’ll say.

What they’ll mean is ‘codepedence.’

They won’t be entirely wrong.

She reaches out for him, lets him fall into her side and stay there, closes her eyes and reaches out for the man she’d long called father, when they’d still been in each other’s lives.

This time, past the deafening flare of surprise-love-hope of the little star next to him, she can feel him reach back.

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

The second the ship has landed, even before Tholme and Fett are done with the checks, Ahsoka’s waiting at the exit. She strains her hearing so she’ll know the second the system will let her open the massive door of the cargo hold.

Leia clings to her side, and the boys stand to her back.

Quinlan’s stressed enough that she can feel it like a cloud. She is very much not trying to feel that stress. Quinlan’s stress levels, back where he’s got Maul so he can keep an eye on Ahsoka and the Baby Sith at the same time, are so low on her priorities list that it’s a a little sad.

It doesn’t take long for her to be able to punch the button and open the damn door.

It opens slowly. She bounces on her toes, because there’s a beacon of light and a steady, familiar glow on the other side, and she’s so, so close. She can’t see through the crack yet, because it’s day in this part of Coruscant, and the sunlight is blinding against the dark of the hold. So close. She’s so close.

“The hell’s wrong with you?”

Fett? Fett. He’s already here to get off? This door’s slow.

She doesn’t answer him, because the door is finally open enough to let her out, and she leaps through the gap.

She lands on a pourstone floor, feels pebbles and grit compress under her boots, frantically looks around as her eyes adjust to light and--

The High General, the Negotiator, Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, looking just as he did when she first met him, if a little less armored and a little more fed. The hair, the beard, the crinkle in the corner of his eyes. His spirit is a little older, his smile a little more strained, his posture a little more tired, but it’s him.

He spreads his arms, low enough that she could have dismissed it if she’d cared less for hugs, except she’s almost as small as she was when they met.

And every other hug she’d given back then had been, functionally, her being a living missile aiming her montrals for someone’s organs.

She’s a little more aware of how to avoid stabbing her friends in the intestine now.

“Master!”

She sprints for him, collides and sobs, feels him stumble back and then sink to his knees on the too-hard floor, and can feel the tears pouring out of her already. Her breath hitches, and she wails like a child, and that last part of her that couldn’t even grasp at safety shreds itself. His arms are tight around her, warm and strong and Master Kenobi don’t you dare leave again.

It doesn’t matter that Sidious is out there, that the Republic’s been building towards war for a century, that even now someone’s kicking up the Trade Federation. Her dad is here.

“I’ve missed you too, my dear,” he says, pressing a kiss to the side of her head, the bristles of his beard scratching along the skin of her forehead. Off to the side, the binary suns that are Luke and Leia grow brighter in proximity, so bright she can barely bear it.

(“Fett, why the kriff are you reaching for your blaster?!”)

(“Torrent said her master tried to kill her.”)

(“Different guy, that was a different guy, put the blaster away.”)

(“You could have just warned me.”)

(“I didn’t expect you to go for a shot on sight!”)

(”Calm down, Jetiika, if I was going to shoot on sight, we’d already be in a firefight.”)

She ignores everything.

“If you fake your death one more time, I swear I’m going to kill you myself.”

He tries to pull away to talk to her more directly. She does not let him. He apparently resigns himself to this, because he just adjusts how he’s sitting and pulls her in closer.

“In my defense, I was far from the only one presumed dead that took advantage of that status, by the end,” he says, letting her slump into his lap and cry herself dry. “I’m proud of you. You know that, I hope.”

She nods against his chest, smearing tears and snot across the linen and wool. She doesn’t care that they’ll need a thorough washing. She can have her public breakdown and it’s fine because Master Kenobi is here.

He doesn’t even know what she’s spent the past fifteen years doing. Luke wouldn’t have known. He doesn’t know she’s thirty-two and broken, beyond a shadow and cut down by her own master. There’s so much he doesn’t know but the Force rings with the truth of it: he’s proud of her anyway.

“I’m going by Ben, now,” he mutters against her montral. “There’s already an Obi-Wan here, after all. Still, I remain a Kenobi.”

She can’t make the words come out of her mouth. She’s overwhelmed, so much so that speech is a mite bit beyond her.

Sokari Torrent, she presses along the frayed bond that’s knitting itself back to life with every breath they take. Leia was already calling me Auntie Soka, and Rex and I both took Torrent, for...

“For the men you lost,” he mutters. “Yes, that’s fitting.”

He smells like sapir tea and a spiced beard oil.

There’s a whirl of activity about her, greetings and ‘a Sith apprentice?’ and introductions. She distantly notes when Fett almost shoots Dooku before Rex shuts that down and advises the Master to leave the area before things spiral out of control. She feels Ben stand, and she stands with him, clings to his side like a child and trusts that whatever happens, whatever needs to happen, he’ll take care of it until she can stand on her own two feet without swaying.

Rex grabs her free hand, and she feels herself settle back into her skin, bit by bit.

She’s back at the Temple. The twins are safe. Her grandmaster is here. She has her other half.

They can save the galaxy this time.

She’s alive she’s home she’s okay.

She’s okay.

Everything’s going to be okay.

#Ahsoka Tano #Captain Rex #Leia Organa #Jango Fett #rex and ahsoka #Quinlan Vos #Tholme #Depa Billaba #Obi Wan Kenobi #Ben Kenobi #Maul #Darth Maul #time travel #de aging #ptsd #trauma #child soldiers #Phoenix Files #Uncle Ben and Little Luke #Auntie Soka and Little Leia #disaster lineage

[yandere-sins]

Could you please do a one-shot where the reader tries to escape from yandere Gojo? Thanks in advance! ^^

Thanks for requesting ♥ Haven’t done a request for him in a while :D

»»———————— ♡ ————————««       

Only when you finally ran out of adrenaline did you notice the soothing cold of the night against your skin. For the longest time, you hadn't felt even a breeze ruffling through your clothes. But now, paired with the sound of leaves rustling in the wind, you were engulfed by all these normal-strange sensations you had missed out on for so long. 

Even though your feet hurt from running, and your lungs couldn't get enough of the air all around you, you felt so alive and happy, you were barely able to contain yourself from screaming in joy. Leaning against the wall, you decided to take a small rest in the alleyway, having come far already. How long had you run? Probably a bit more than twenty minutes, left and right and uphill and behind houses. You'd have put rabbits to shame with how you sidestepped just to escape.

So what now? 

Many would call you crazy. That you'd run from a man that loved you so much wouldn't be taken positively by the people around you. You couldn't go home, or to your parents, after all, if you were him, that's where you'd look first. Police? But what would you tell them? That you were locked away for months? Gojo had told you more than once that it was useless to go anywhere - especially without him - after all, he made sure that no one would believe the terrible things you wanted to tell them. Everyone was under the assumption you were doing splendidly with your new boyfriend - a boyfriend you didn't even know existed.

You had been seen with him so many times that people liked to assume that what you had was a normal relationship. They didn't know that he kept forcing himself into your space, that you didn't want to go anywhere with him anymore after he monopolized and clung to you for the better part of weeks. Everyone knew he was eccentric, but they didn't think he was mad on top of that. One could assume that after all he's done in the past and went through, his brain took a big hit, his arrogance and confidence only feeding into his egotistical views. But that he'd kidnap the person he loved, kept them holed up, and did things you didn't want to think about anymore that's not something anyone would accept easily. 

In fact, if you two were ever again confronted with each other, he might blame you for doing these things to yourself and harassing him! No... You decided then and there that you didn't want to have anything to do with him anymore. You just wanted to go somewhere he couldn't find you. Somewhere you'd be safe and could start over without drawing any attention. Calm and peaceful, but most importantly, alone.

At least, that was the plan, but biting the tip of your thumb, you realized you were still stuck in the middle of the city, with no money, no phone, and nowhere to go for help. Perhaps if you visited the bank and asked for money from your account personally, they'd be able to provide you with some, but it was already late, and you doubted there was any bank near you that had a late-night clerk waiting for customers. You didn't like to settle somewhere outside for the night. You wanted to be gone as fast as possible, but what were you supposed to do? Clothed in just a shirt and pants, you sunk to your bottom, pulling in your legs. At least, hidden behind dumpsters and between the buildings, no one would find you or, if, simply assume you were a beggar asleep. 

This was still nicer than being with him. 

Nicer than sleeping in his hold while he whispered his seemingly endless confession in your ear, your body bruised and fragile from his touches.

Sleeping in some dirty alleyway was heaven compared to it.

»»————————

"Ah, look at you," Gojo hummed as he stepped into the alleyway. Even though you had been dozing, immediately, your eyes snapped wide open, and you took on the stance of someone about to jump up and run again. However, your eyes could only fixate on his legs, standing right in front of you and blocking your way out. Even if you thought it was safest to hide, you didn't calculate the risk of getting found. "You must be cold."

There was mockery in his kind words, but Gojo was quick to strip off his jacket and squat down, laying the fabric around your shoulder. Everything about him - the sharp eyes hidden behind shades, the smell of his aftershave, the rough tug he made as he adjusted the jacket over your shoulders - made you want to vomit. Pictures of things he had done and things he was able to do to you popped into your mind while you sat there like a frozen, trying desperately to come up with an escape plan.

"How did you...?" you mumbled, questioning yourself more than him. "What kind of boyfriend would I be if I could even find you? I missed you! Were you scared I wouldn't come?"

No, you were scared all along that he'd find you.

"Why?" you whispered, shoulders slumping. Gojo's lips curled into a pitying smile, one he probably imagined signaled empathy the best. But really, was there even a spark of humanity in this man that would let him feel these kinds of emotions? You doubted it more than anyone in the world. Hands falling from your shoulders to your hips and dragging forward over your thighs to your knees, Gojo took a deep breath, taking in every inch of you appreciatively. Like fine art, a rare sight to see, that's how you must have looked in his eyes.

"I told you I missed you, so I came--"

"No, why are you doing this. Why me? What do you want from me?"

Your voice sounded exhausted more than anything now. Now that you realized Gojo had won, you were tired. There was something animalistic in the way he touched you. Possessive, victorious. He was the white lion prowling in a habitat that didn't fit him, and yet, he benefitted from it. However he did it, you knew he wasn't just passing by and found you. If you didn't know it better, you'd say he always knew where you went, every second of your escape. But it was inexplicable how, when, and why he knew, and it frightened you even more that he was so much more aware of everything going on around you than you were.

Gojo smiled, hesitating to answer while he thought hard about what to say. "You. I always wanted you. I want you to love me and cherish me. Make the whole world stop for a while without me having to worry that you will disappear from it. I am doing this for you as much as I am doing it for me, don't you understand? Won't you rely on me to do what is best for us?"

"I don't want that," you replied firmly, not even a moment of hesitation on your side. No matter what he said, you couldn't decide if Gojo was telling the truth or if he lied. You were sure he was manipulating you, but at the same time, he did it with the face of an angel, hiding much, much more than you'd ever know even if you expected there to be hidden meaning behind it all.

"I see," he sighed, the smile never leaving his lips no matter how he was feeling at the moment. Was he angry? Disappointed? Sad? You weren't sure if even Gojo himself knew. But you did notice his grip on your legs growing harder as he kept squeezing down on them. "Then I will make you rely on me."

Surely enough, you couldn't keep up your scared-up-stance for much longer as he seemed to force you to the ground. You could feel your expression harden in pain as you gasped, pushing at his shoulders. However, Gojo used the moment of your focus shifting to move forward to your face, kissing you in a moment you were stunned by his actions. "Please don't hate me too much," he mumbled, almost sounding... remorseful.

"I just think those legs don't do us any good as long as they are attached to you. We both need to make sacrifices, you know?"

#gojo #gojo satoru #satoru gojo #gojo jjk #yandere gojo #yandere!gojo #Jujutsu Kaisen #JJK #yandere jujutsu kaisen #yandere!jujutsu kaisen #yandere jjk #yandere!jjk #yandere #yandere imagines #yandere headcanons #yandere scenarios #yandere fanfiction #yandere writing #yandere oneshot #yandere drabble #yandere x reader #yandere x darling #Yandere TW #Anonymous

[maxwell-grant]

Having asked your thoughts on designing Frankenstein's daemon, might I now ask your thoughts on bringing Count Dracula from the written word into illustration? (I'm definitely in favour of the 'Hairy Old Mountain Man of Horror pretending he's people' look from the original novel; one of the small tests too many Draculas fail to pass is an absolutely tragic lack of the Evil Beard and/or Wicked Moustache explicitly described by Mr Stoker).

Unlike with Frankenstein, where I think the design needs to be painstakingly thought out in order to achieve the best balance of the creature's traits for horror and tragedy alike, I think with Dracula you can actually just take an approach of "whatever works". Because as I mentioned before, I think much of the appeal and longevity of Dracula is how the character's both a layered villain as well as a shapeshifting narrative force that can be tailored to whatever you want to do with. Granted, there are bad or dissappointing Dracula designs, of course there are, but in regards to the leeway you get for reinterpretation, you get a lot more of it with Dracula than with other literary icons.

Like with Frankenstein, I'm gonna bring up how I'd tackle a less grim, more comedy-centric Dracula first, one that's less a force of horror and more of a charismatic villain, and I think to that end I definitely agree that people are sleeping a lot on the hairy old man barely-passing-off-as-humanoid of the original story. Despite very much loving these performers, I'm actually not a fan of takes that mold Dracula too closely to people who've portrayed him, like Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, partially because I think it's a waste of an opportunity to create your own Dracula design. Since I can't draw (yet), I'll do what I usually do and make a board of images to try and convey some of my thoughts on one way I'd design Dracula.

(Pictured: Kiwi's design for Dracula, Hotel Transylvania concept art, Nandor, Castlevania Dracula, Charles Dance in Dracula Untold, Vladislav, a Transylvanian rug)

I used the images in my other Dracula post and I’ll post it here again because I absolutely adore @kiwibyrd's designs for Dracula and it's main heroes, in particular I love the way it strikes a good balance at making sure Dracula looks distinctly separate from the humans, but not too much that he couldn't conceivably operate in society as just a harmless old man. I also adore the mustache and bushy eyebrows and pointy ears and I think these three are wonderful features to keep on any Dracula design. I'm also very partial to the Hotel Transylvania concept art, even if it makes me incredibly depressed to look at all the great designs they had for Dracula that they threw in the trash because they somehow decided making him look like Adam Sandler was the idea to go with.

I deeply adore What We Do In The Shadows, both the movie and the show, and Jemaine Clement's Vladislav is one of my favorite (maybe even my actual favorite) on-screen Draculas. But I also enjoy Nandor just as much, and I think it's really great that as a character he's completely different from Vlad while also being ostensibly a take on Dracula, and in particular I bring up his Jersey look because "Dracula in common clothing" is a criminally underrated concept for a joke.

As a character, I'm very partial to comedy takes on Dracula that play him up as a decadent aristocratic supervillain, the kind that can get away with talking in third person. I also have this idea for a version of Dracula who dresses ostentatiously in finely-broidered Romanian or Transylvanian patterns, maybe even wearing a rug as a cape, claiming that he's carrying the legacy of his people on his back. And of course he's lying, he's not Vlad Tepes and he's not even Romanian, he is just a parasite pretending to have a history to be proud of, but good luck getting him to admit that. And finally, I'd like this version to be played by Charles Dance, and I consider it a tremendous crime against humanity that he has yet to play Dracula proper even despite being in a film with the character's name on the title.

So that's kinda how I would design a take on Dracula for something more comedic or more based around him as this guest character and personality on-set. Now, if we're talking a more serious version, I think the possibilities increase, and I won't be getting into all of them because I may prefer to keep them to myself, but I'll elaborate a few ideas.

For example, the edition of Dracula I personally own comes with these really scratchy, really creepy B&W illustrations related to the story, that I can't find scanned online so I'm uploading them here so you can look at. They don't necessarily depict the scenes but rather some of the story's moments, like Van Helsing staking Lucy, Renfield in a straightjacket, Dracula as a coachman, and they are more focused on conveying the horror of the concepts at play.

Dracula never looks the same way in any of the illustrations, in fact you kinda have to piece him out of them by trying to find teeth or capes or eyes or bat-features to see where he's hiding this time. In the first, it's the half-man half-bat, in the 2nd, he's the shrieking bat silhouette next to Renfield, and in the latter, he's the gaping jaws and eerily humanoid eyes in the wolf. The effect to me almost feels like if you were to look at a bunch of tv static and then see a humanoid shape form for a split second before everything went back to normal, something like you'd get from Slender Man or other modern creepypastas, and I’ve argued before that Dracula’s form of horror is a very modern one. 

In terms of illustrations of Dracula that keep up the original traits while still pulling off horror, I definitely have to hand it to the one at the left of the image above, drawn by regourso on Deviantart (account deleted at present). Going back to Castlevania’s many takes on Dracula, two in particular that stick out to me would be Castlevania: Judgment’s armored dress Dracula, who’s got this great twisted heart/rose motif going on in his outfit, and Dracula’s final form in SOTN where he just sits in his throne and his cape twists into all these monsters, particularly how it’s depicted by witnesstheabsurd’s depiction. 

I’m not particularly a fan of how Dracula’s “final form” in these games is usually just some big demon, and part of what I like about his final form in SOTN instead is that, while it’s not a particularly challenging final boss, I do find it interesting the idea of us never actually getting to see what Dracula’s true final form looks like, only an ever-shifting pitch-black torrent of teeth and claws and bloody veins pouring out because that’s ultimately what Dracula is and brings to the world.

On the flip-side of the rotten old monster, we have the charming seductor Dracula, and while I’m really not a fan of how various adaptations have convinced people that “the point” of Dracula is that he’s a seductive force and an allegory for Victorian xenophobia and I’m reeeally even less of a fan of adaptations that make Dracula some misunderstood tragic hero (and I think I’ve made rather violently clear my feelings on interpretations that play up a romance between him and Mina), that the seductive force part exists is impossible to deny, so conversely, while on one hand we can have Dracula as the gargantuan whirlwind of predatory violence, we can also go for Dracula as the tantalizing lover.

I’ve seen a lot of opinions proclaiming Frank Langella as the best Dracula because he was the best at actually being seductive while still playing Dracula, although I haven’t yet seen his performances. If I had to point at one picture I look at and do buy for a second the idea of Dracula as a romantic character, it would be that particular still of Raul Julia in the left of the above image. And it’s strange for me to think of Raul Julia as attractive because I mainly associate him with his brilliant comedy performance of M.Bison (I know it’s far from the highlight of his career but, look, I grew up with Street Fighter, I can’t help it) but those eyes are definitely looking pretty convincing to me, if nothing else. 

And I’ve included this still of Sebastian Stan in the right because, during a conversation between me, @krinsbez and @jcogginsa about who could be a good fit for Dracula, jcog suggested Sebastian Stan, partially because he’s Romanian, and I’ve learned recently that Stan was actually interested in playing the character in Blumhouse’s upcoming remake. And you’d think I’d hate this idea  considering how much I don’t care for tragic anti-hero Draculas, but who says that’s what he’d have to play? 

Do you have any idea how much actors, who are traditionally known for heroic or supporting roles, usually LOVE it when you give them a chance to cut loose as the main villain?

I’d want Sebastian Stan to put all of his charm, all of his talent, all of his good looks and etc, into playing the absolute most vicious, bloodthirsty and irredeemable Dracula put on screen. Someone who is exceedingly, eerily good at being a lovable protagonist, who’s all smiles and charming eyes and politeness mannerisms and maybe even a funny accent, and then it isn't as funny when he's flying through your window intent on kidnapping babies to feed to his brides, except he may take a moment or two to do so because he's feeling pretty hungry himself right now.

Now, admittedly this is kind of a lot to juggle in regards to a single character, which is why my answer for questions like these inevitably has to be “depends on what I’m going for”. That being said, if I was going to try and cast someone who I think could both look the part of Dracula, as well as respectively, play “cartoon aristocrat” Dracula, “mercurial embodiment of evil” Dracula, as well as realistically be an attractive, even seductive performer who can charm viewers even as the character descends into horrible villainy, and juggle these performances even?

I think I’d have to go with Mads Mikkelsen. Not specifically because of Hannibal (I actually haven’t watched it yet), although it’s definitely a factor, the thing that actually made me pick him specifically is, other than his looks, his voice, his reputation for playing sinister characters, the fact that he loves the role and wants to play it, or how many people are deeply in love with this man, or that people already joke that he looks like a vampire, was watching him in Another Round, and specifically that glorious final scene where he’s just dancing to his heart’s content and just, moving with such spring in his step and such joyful vitality even though he’s past his mid-fifties, and that was the moment where, in regards to how much you all love this man, I went

And now I am going to add “casting Mads Mikkelsen as a dancing Dracula” to The List of Reasons Why I Became a Filmmaker.

#replies tag #dracula #horror tag #bram stoker #charles dance #sebastian stan #mads mikkelsen #castlevania #raul julia #wwdits #what we do in the shadows #vladislav #nandor

[ncitygirls]

only - changbin x f reader

angst, fluff, suggestive, royal!au, cw: war, 5.3k

you were barely eighteen when you accepted the hand in marriage of the son of the duke and duchess of levanter. seo changbin - an affluent heir to an impossible fortune - almost had you surprised when you found his interest in you was unlike that of your fellow bachelorettes. naturally, their interest was fuelled by an insatiable greed and a hot desire for financial prosperity. as should yours, as was yours. not changbin though. no, changbin prided himself on many things unfitting for a man of his status, even his age. he wondered not of your family’s alliances or existing trading partners, but of religion and upbringing. he tsked at mention of your international estates, unless in regard to your memories there. he was complimentary of your attire, less in expense but rather in beauty. changbin wanted to know of your favourite season, and your preferred time of day. who was your favourite poet, and from them your favourite poem. he was obsessed with your knowledge of the world, or rather your interest in it. you had been to neo, but did you really see it, really explore? and if not would you care to? did you prefer sugar or honey in your tea? your bread buttered or oiled? to sleep bare or in silk? he wanted to know what side of the bed you preferred to sleep on, if you were adverse to cuddling and if so, if you could be persuaded.

to be fair, he only spoke with you like this for two reasons. the first being your shared upbringing. after almost two decades of friendship, having you enter his home in the prospect of being his wife didn’t come as a surprise to the young bachelor, but rather a relief. he spent days in and days out discussing family politics, ancestry, and accounts. he chose to ignore the blatant issue there, sharing the intricacies of his family’s wealth and heritage with these ladies from kingdoms and countries he’d been too busy to pay any mind in schooling. he knew his ignorance could come back to bite him and it did, especially as you entered his home looking far prettier than he had ever recalled you looking. he held his tongue before he could whistle, but you could see his smirk all the same. it softened into a grin as he bowed, you returning the pleasantry with a lot less pleasantness than he offered you. he welcomed it all the same. it was why he could be free on this day. speak about the things that would effect you two as one another’s, not you two as one.

your presence also meant he didn’t have to pussyfoot around. he didn’t have to fear your hatred, nor your judgement. though your eyes rolled more than the actual number of potential brides he had become acquainted with. he let f bombs slip, and his guard down. he frolicked with you through the grounds you already knew so well, and guided you through the parts once forbidden to the rambunctious children you once were. he walked you to the kitchen and asked for bread, as opposed to stealing it like you both once would. he tried to describe the estate’s chambers as best he could, detailing the art a then prince hyunjin had gifted him and your childish scratchings still on his door frame.

‘you can see it one day,’ he had whispered under the willow tree on the grounds, watching the way your fingers clung loosely to the weeping leaves. ‘it’s still as it was when we were children.’

‘and how would i do that?’ the question is valid enough, though he frowns, tilting his head. ‘i did not realise i had uttered a riddle, my lord.’

‘well neither had i,’ he tutted, moving to latch onto the same branch you once held. ‘and here i was, assuming you to be the smart one.’

‘i am the smart one.’

‘then answer me this,’ he began, pausing to firmly elaborate, ‘plainly.’ your eyes roll for the umpteenth time at his silent warning before you concede with a nod. ‘how might you see my bed?’

with a sigh you deadpan, ‘if you were to make me your wife.’

‘so to see my bed, and your vandalism-’

‘scribbles.’

‘i must make you my wife.’

‘it seems quite the extreme just to see some old scribbles.’ if changbin senses the hidden meaning to your words, he gave nought away. ‘mightn’t someone just bring me a piece of the bed? i’m sure it’s almost past its use, just peel the pane off. and why still the same bed? you are a young lord of age now, don’t you think-’

‘you know you prattle when you’re nervous?’

‘i do no such thing-’

‘it’s cute.’

‘changbin! how are you so sure i want to be your wife, hm?’ you half questioned, moving away from his looming figure. ‘i only came because your parents asked me here.’

‘y/n, i have known you a long time,’ he punctuates his reminder by closing the distance you so bravely placed between you. ‘if you wished not to be here, you would have found no greater pleasure than to decline the invitation.’ that much is not only true but undeniable. the seo’s was your third courting invite this month alone. you knew, and worse, changbin knew. ‘is it so hard to admit that i might have soften that hardened heart of yours?’

‘i find no pleasure in your games, changbin.’

‘what game, y/n? can a man not just want you?’ your eyes betray you as you try to expel the softness conjured by his taunt. a taunt that is starting to sound less like a taunt, and more like a confession. ‘can i not just want you?’

‘how do i know you want me, bin?’ you pressed, pressing your back to the leaning trunk of the all encompassing tree. ‘how do i know you don’t just want a way out of this endless cycle of mindless heiresses?’

‘you said my parents asked you here?’ your head bobbed as he approached you, nodding in time with you before he stopped a foot before you, smiling eyes gazing right at you. ‘who do you think asked them?’

you were married that fall. under that same willow tree, in the presence of his royal highness and his kin, your family and the seos. the affair was small like you both wanted. small like your needs. you joked marrying you was a cop out, as he spun you around the gardens, escaping the intimate celebrations in the grand banquet hall to enjoy the breeze on your skin and feel the wind in your hair. it was the first time he held you since your dance lessons as kids. where you would lead and he would follow. he once swore he would follow you anywhere. both literally and figuratively. around the grounds of your childhood home, in all your beliefs and ideologies. he filled his mind and self with your gospel and truth, infatuated with your manner of thinking, how you arrived at conclusions. changbin spent his whole childhood falling in love with you.

‘you weren’t a cop out,’ he breathed into the shell of your ear, humming as you lay your head on his shoulder. pressing his lips to your temple he confessed, ‘you were my only choice.’

that night, the two of you consummated your marriage under that same willow tree. his hands clinging to your waist as he ground his hips into you. his tightened breaths filling the drum of your ear with every snap, his lips closing around the skin of your jaw, summoning the most satisfying whines he could draw from you. his lover. his friend. his lady.

in his absence, you remind him of this night. how biting the bark had been on your skin, the autumn air stinging your already teary eyes. his last letter arrived over a fortnight ago, it spoke of his fears at battle, the treacherous methods of his enemies. the only face he prays to see again and until that day, the only face he will dream of. you have sent a handful of letters since then, yet still sour as you awake another day to no news. you sigh as you grab your quill, letting the ink drip before signing off your letter.

‘my dearest, changbin. a season separates us, but only a season could.’

it isn’t long after you seal it that you are summoned to the hwang holiday estate. the royal family have a long history of retreating to the country when the weather is a touch higher than that of luke warm water, or near cool cinder. the seo’s residence is but a short carriage ride from the estate, though a tad longer walk. you often opt to walk as you do today, taking no larger than foot long strides between the cobbled paths. your guard walks in time with you, though no more than a few feet behind. he had never been one for small talk, you quickly came to realise. though, since neither is your husband, you feel an odd sense of relief, normality, even in his absence. you try and enjoy the song of the breeze through the willow, the scent of the king’s rose garden carried on its back. it’s hard over the creak of your guard’s hurried stomps, his pace doubling with every corner you take. you only verbalise your awareness of his impatience when he arrives beside you, hastened to strike the door to announce your arrival.

“master yang,” you call softly as you two await entry. “if i did not know any better, i would say you were rushing me.”

“apologies, my lady,” he confesses, stepping back at your side without any question. though, when he gulps, you eye him with a softened concern. “i was informed you were summoned due to a grave emergency.”

“worry not, jeongin.” you chide, recalling your highness’ idea of an emergency. “the king often calls when the queen is away and he is tasked with matters such as assigning dinner seating.” jeongin looks as if he is about to ask when you add, “she says his involvement humbles him.” when he nods, you straighten as the door swings open, a servant welcoming you in. “yes, there is nothing to fear, master yang.”

only, falser words had never been spoken.

you are quick to note the tremor in the king’s frame as he hurries to stand upon your arrival, rushing you through the official pleasantries of an official summoning. “lady seo.”

“your highness.” you reply, your knee bending as you politely lower your head. “how are you on this fine afternoon-”

“i apologise, y/n. but as you know, i didn’t call you hear on matters of leisure.” he politely interrupts, a flush of embarrassment flooding his cheeks as you frown. “when was last you heard from him?”

“heard from who?”

“from—” hyunjin’s confused gaze cuts to his informants, a few members of his court shying away from him before he marvels at them. “has lady seo not been informed?” when he receives no reply, you feel yourself shrink as the gentle king bellows, “why has lady seo not been informed?”

“informed of what—”

“the order of information begins with yourself sire, before reaching the court, the council, the lady and then the people.”

“i specifically requested she be kept informed. why has she not been kept informed?”

“well, your grace, the lady of a knight is only to be informed once official word is received from the battlefield and delivered to you sire.”

“official word of what—”

“which came through this morning and you are about to deliver the information to the lady.”

“king hyunjin!”

gasps fill the room from all but the king himself. he doesn’t falter, instead he turns to move towards you, his eyes growing more fearful, more earnest as he approaches. he shudders at the thought of delivering this message. he even scolds himself for attempting to delegate such responsibility. you are a friend. not only to the crown, but to the royal family itself. before heavy crowns kissed their heads. before rings ever kissed your knuckles. you were his friend. you had always been a friend to him, and the only time you had ever needed him was now and he had let you down.

“we received word that neo soldiers stormed our fortress in miroh. while we have received word from a few troops who were able to escape, we have yet to ascertain who of the full fleet have made it to safety.” when he pauses to gulp he sees your eyes gleam, breaths shallow. his hands then find yours, gripping your shaky, sweaty digits tightly. “we have received no word from changbin’s troop,” he stops when you gasp, your tears falling, cascading down and around your stained cheeks, your lip trembling. “but we have been able to track a number of our men back through the yellow wood, south of levanter.”

“i-is he there? is he okay?”

“we are yet to hear word,” the tears continue to fall, and he hates himself but all he can do is continue, divulge everything he knows. “they plan to set up camp on the edge of the wood, so i will make my way there now and have word sent back to you as soon as i find him.”

“no,” you refuse, snatching your hands away to drag them over your stained cheeks. “i cannot wait, i will join you.”

“as will i,” jeongin pipes up behind you, his voice an odd comfort once more. “your grace.”

“it is no place for a lady,” hyunjin tries, sighing when you just scowl, already mid curtsey as you preempt his agreement and dismissal. “i will have a carriage sent for you at once.”

“would taking just a horse quicken my arrival?”

“i-it would,” he discloses reluctantly, watching you ready yourself to decline the carriage. “for my sake though,” your scowl returns, ignoring the concern from the king. “i implore you to take the carriage. the yellow wood is far from kind..” you decode his meaning before he ever finishes speaking. the yellow wood is far from safe.

“but is this not the same wood my husband’s troop plans to take, sire?” hyunjin’s nod comes seconds later, shame tensing his jaw. hyunjin is visibly trying to appreciate your patience after having all this information dumped on you. but hyunjin also recalls the threats you readily made and followed through on in your younger years. so much so, he fears the worst of you when you bow before slowly approaching him, voice but a decibel higher than a nat’s buzz to threaten him. the king. before as many witnesses as it takes to have your head. “fine. i will take the carriage.

“but i regret to inform you i have fallen victim to the sick allure of hope. so if this carriage takes him from me? if i am too late? i will burn your kingdom to the ground, jinnie. mark my words.”

only once you leave does hyunjin breathe, noticably shaken by the violent rage existing within the women of his kingdom. “ready her carriage.” he suddenly commands, terrified of letting you down. “i want her there by nightfall.”

hyunjin had not embellished the treachery of this road. you had halted close to ten times in the first six hours of the journey. thanks to forewarning by the king and his council, your guards were prepared to be extra vigilant. weary from all sides of the carriage, bandits who fell from the trees and ambushed from the sides did not live long enough to prevail. from dawn til dusk, the wood falsified night with its woven rotted branches and the gradually setting sun, seeing was becoming more hopeless yet more crucial. without a maid for travelling company and jeongin busy guarding your personage, you were once again left with your thoughts. in times of dire woe, you called on memories of your love, though they read more like dreams. this dream is one that only longing for the man you prayed awaited you on the end of this perilous journey could conjure. because not only do you miss him, you fear for him. not much has changed.

‘you think i am going to get myself killed?’ he breathed, nipping at your clavicle as you rest in his lap. ‘have you no faith in me?’

‘of course i do,’ you defend, gasping as he clamps down, teeth rolling your skin. ‘i just-’

‘you just.. what?’ he doesn’t expect an answer. or so you suspect. especially following a slow drag of your thinly veiled heat over his firmed thigh. ‘you think i would ever abandon you?’

‘no, binnie,’ you start, rising from him with a sigh. ‘i just know you.’

‘you do?’ he ponders sweetly, gazing up at your shining eyes. ‘and what is it you know?’

‘you’re powerful, but far too stubborn.’

‘you know,’ he hums, crossing his thick arms as a small pout steals the lips of the strongest man in the kingdom. ‘for someone who claims to adore me, you tend to speak ill of me every chance you get, my lady.’

‘must the two be exclusive?’ when his frown only deepens, his folded arms tightening, you sigh once more. returning to his spread legs, you perch yourself on them, raising your steady fingers to the creases painting the forehead of the most stubborn man you’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. he softens only slightly, his pouted lip closing around yours when you lean in, silently asking his forgiveness. ‘for every ill spoken word, i make up for with countless good, bin.’

‘such as?’ he huffs, knowingly egging you on.

with a small smile, you offer a final peck to his lips before praising the knight beneath you. ‘i know you will fight valiantly.’ you admit, pride permeating right through you to the man you call yours. ‘you will bring honour to your family, to your country.’ with the pads of your fingers, you tuck his hair behind his ear, cooing as he relaxes at your touch. ‘you will be a hero, my love.’

‘and this all worries you?’

‘do you know who will keep your legacy alive, changbin?’ his frown returns at concern for your quivering lip, a sudden fear seeping into your tone. ‘me. your widow.’ he begins to shake his head, a half assed assurance on the tip of his prideful tongue when you remind, ‘it may vex you to hear this, but please remember your knighting was in part an award for your bravery, but also in large part to hyunjin’s love for you.’

‘how can you say that-’

‘since bang chan the brave, name a knight who lived to see his knighting. just one, bin. name one who knelt before their king and felt the sword atop their shoulders. name one who did not die in battle, leaving their grieving widow to accept a meaningless commendation of his honour?’

‘you call your father’s commendation meaningless?’

‘don’t make me laugh, bin.’ your scoff would wound him had you not uttered, ‘i would have rathered he be the one to walk me down the isle the day i married you. knowing my father loved me enough to protect his country is a nice sentiment, but don’t you dare assume i would take that honour over his life.’

‘hey,’ he calls, holding you in his lap as you try to move from him. ‘my love, i didn’t mean to offend.’

‘i know,’ in these seconds you see past the facade, the knight that your husband is. you only see what you fell in love with. you see the compassion, the understanding. ‘bin, i need you to understand. really understand.’ with his cheeks cradled in your palms, you plead with your love. ‘you mean everything to me, seo changbin. before i ever realised you did. i will not let this mindless war take you from me.

‘don’t be a hero, changbin. leave that to some village boy with a chip on his shoulder, with something to prove.’ he nuzzles into your palm as he listens to your plea, gazing into your warning eyes. ‘just come back to me, okay? don’t make me beg.’

‘what if it helped your case?’ he mumbled into your skin, his lips gently puckering as his palms glide up the side of your neck. his tongue slid betwixt your parted lips, trying to exorcise any and all tension from your trembling frame. with another soft pucker of his lips, a suck on your wet muscle has you loosening, falling into him as he moves to embrace you. ‘would you?’

‘do not mock me.’

‘i would never,’ you find this hard to believe as he smirks like a man with ten knives readied for your back. they come as kisses instead, they line the column of your neck, followed closely by his thumbs as he angles your head toward him. ‘you just seem ready to, so i would love to hear it.’

‘perhaps i will marry that lee boy, with the speckled cheeks. i hear the maids think he’s a descendant of fairies, born from the very stars that kiss his face-’ the words halt in your throat as he flips you, firmly pinning you to the goose down.

‘you seem to have thought this through..’

‘have i much choice?’ you huff, glaring at his thoughtful gaze. ‘one tends to ponder such things when faced with their husband’s imminent demise.’ he only sighs, eyes rolling skyward as he asks the gods, old and new, why they ever chose you for him. ‘i hear his line is filled only with beautiful men. who was his ancestor again? minho the something.’

‘you know,’ refusing to come to your aid, he gathering up the hem of your silks. ‘most men would have your head by now.’

‘-magnificent! it was minho the magnificent!’

‘maleficent.’

‘hm?’

‘his name,’ nipping at the exposed skin of your chest, his hand tugs at the starched fabric as he corrects you. ‘it was minho the maleficent.’

‘oh,’ you breathe, less in defeat but rather in sweet contentment. ‘and why is that?’

‘because, my sweet,’ he huffs into your chest, resting on the heels of his palms planted either side of your cushioned head. ‘he burned all of levanter to the ground when his queen died.’

‘yes, he did.’ changbin only strokes the skin of your cheek as you pout, his eyes rolling at your uncanny ability to bring everything back to his encroaching departure. ‘and my husband will not even skip one war for me.’

‘’one war’?’ he smirks, dropping his lips to your exposed breast, tongue sweeping over your teased nipples. ‘you speak as though war is like an evening in a tavern.’

‘both tend to end in regret,’ you jest, or attempt to. it is growing increasingly difficult to barter with him as he presses his lips to your stomach, his body lowering in kind with his touch. before he can disappear entirely from view, you rise. as he rises with you, you are stunned by his rosey cheeks, the flush journeying to his neck as you rest on your elbows. he sees your turmoil. your clear desire for him shadowed painfully by your love and fear. he drops a kiss to your hip, his knuckles dusting the veiled bead of your heat, eyes hard on you as you falter, head lolling to the side before you regain your strength. ‘bin?’

‘hm?’

‘stay.’ it’s faint. so faint he barely recognises it as a plea. he only sighs, his forehead pressed to your abdomen as he purges your wet eyes from his memory. ‘please say you will stay. i cannot bear the thought of a winter without you.’

‘my love,’ changbin speaks into your skin, lowly beseeching your understanding while praying for your peace. ‘a season might separate us,’ he hums, expertly parting your thighs as he offers a lone kiss to your mound. ‘but only a season could.’

“my lady?” jeongin’s voice is first to break you from your nostalgic nightmare. the second is the cries of injured men. “we have arrived.”

the edge of the wood is a wounded minefield. limbless soldiers, knights and footmen alike, are dotted around the dimly lit field. your eyes gloss over at the heaped bodies, and water at the stench. “how long have they been here?”

“just under a week,” jeongin recalls, holding his hand out to stop you as medics pass with a burnt body on a stretcher. “it is hard to believe this is the winning camp.”

“there are no winners in war, jeongin.” you whisper, watching a man close the eyes of his fallen comrade a pair approach to drop his body in a mass grave. a fight ensues. “only loss.”

“y/n?” you halt at the call, half sprinting at the sight of han jisung, wearing a smile warm enough to light the night. “i thought his highness was jesting when he said you’d be here.”

“han!” you cried, latching onto him with a grip that nearly winded him. “thank god, thank god.”

“more like thank changbin,” he wheezed, squeezing you back just as tight, lifting you a few feet off the ground. “had he not been here, i would have surely-”

“where is he?”

“-died.” he only grins as you stiffen, recognising his part in your terror a second too late. “oh! no! he isn’t dead! he is alive! very alive!” his eyes flicker to a scowling jeongin, gulping down an apology as he gestures to his left. “come.”

further from the wood and slowly decaying corpses are the tents. some somehow less grand than a teepee, some spacious enough for a few hours sleep. jisung guides you both up to the largest of the lot, where you find an ill tempered king hyunjin growing increasingly more so. “no, leave him be.”

“had we known you were coming your grace- we can have him moved immediately.”

“your king gave you an order, soldier.” jisung chimes in, tongue slotting into the swell of his cheek as he gestures to you over his shoulder. “now move out of the way or i’ll have you explain to lady seo why she can’t see her husband on account of your insubordinance.”

“yes, sir.”

hyunjin bristles at jisung’s ability to command his men with little effort before he softens at your restless gaze. “he’s been asking for you.”

the grandeur of the king’s tent suits changbin well, you think. a fire crackles at the furthest end, masked only by a large canopy where you know he rests. the four poster bed takes up most of the space, and around it lays tin bowls, rags, blankets and water. the room seems barely lived in bar the knight whose faint breaths float toward you through the warm air. you feel yourself stalling, too busy taking in the space to recognise your fear. what will you find when you pull the curtain away? what remains of your husband, your lover, your friend? will he still have the same warm eyes and full cheeks? will his hands still fit in yours? his feet still step in time with yours? will he look the same, sound the same even? you swallow down this fear, and instead bask in the joy that he’s alive. your husband is alive. and nothing separates you. not a season, nor a wood. not time or conflict. only your fears.

and then they don’t. when you pull back the veil, nothing separates you but air. a soft man made gust as you reveal the man you’d once called your friend, only to call your betrothed and then yours. the fire barely lights the room yet still he glows. he lies bare from the waist up, his abdomen bandaged in rolls of cotton, his chest exposed. you watch it, the slow rise and fall of the place you longed to rest your head, you dreamt of dreaming on. before you realise, you have lowered yourself beside him, careful not to disturb him, nor his wound. before you can call for him he smiles. even in his state of slumber, he leans into your touch. before you meet his eyes, you feel his on you.

“you came.” he whispers, a heavy breath of relief escaping him as your thumb dusts his cheek.

“of course,” you try, before taking your lip between your teeth, fearful your tears might dampen his skin. you kneel at his side, carefully ridding yourself of your outer garments, before returning your hand to his cheek. “how do you feel?”

“now?” he smirks, wincing as a laugh runs through him. “wonderful.”

“and before?”

“so, so.” he murmurs with a kiss to your palm. “a sword to the stomach will do that to you.”

“do i have han jisung to thank for that?”

“no,” he coughs, recalling his sacrifice. “only me.”

“well that’s good,” you hum, employing the upmost care when leaning over him. “because i would hate to think my knight was blindsided.”

“never,” his assurance fans your lips, as yours hover over his. “only by you.”

you almost forgot how it felt to kiss him. the feeling only coming in dreams. there was no memory strong enough to conjure the feeling of his lips pressed against yours. the slow melt of tender skin on skin, the warmth, his gentle caress. his kiss is slow, but even in his prime he took his time. his lips close around yours with such timing and precision, ushering a slow burn of desire from the heels of your feet all the way up to the crown of your head. he knew how to expunge pain and fear from you, to free you from your demons, to reinvigorate you. to love you.

he’s weak. in all the worst ways. his body, his will. he raises his hand to your neck, pulling you closer as he presses his tongue between your lips, connecting the muscles with little intent of parting. he swallows around you, drinking you in, keeping that same, slow and teasing pace. only to pull you closer.

“you need your rest,” you pant into his mouth, resting all your weight on your arms as he pulls you back down, pinning your forehead to his.

“no,” he refuses, sweeping his thumb along your jaw. “i need you.” his voice shakes then, unlike him. unlike the man you know. “only you.”

“is that why you called me here?” you tease, silently wiping his tears away, silently reading the fear in his eyes. he begs them away though warms at your easy dispelling. “to use me?”

“my love,” he laughs, ignoring the pain in favour of basking in your smile. “you know i did not call for you.” when you move to argue, he recalls, as if he were there, “‘would taking just a horse quicken my arrival?’”

“i might have been here sooner if-”

“this,” raising his other arm, he gathers your face in his palms, “is soon enough.”

safe.

“okay.” you agree, allowing him to tug you closer once more. you let him kiss you without restraint. you let him curl his fingers into your neck, ignoring his wincing and kiss him through it. you let his grunts mask his pain, his teeth rolling your lip between the rows, you let him share it. you let him have you, because despite the odds he stayed alive. he stayed alive for you. and that was enough. “i love you.”

he blinks up at your shining eyes, guiding your wet cheeks to his puckered lips. “i love you,” he whispers back against your lips, feeling himself heal at just the touch of your hand. “only you.”

because only a season separated you. but now, not even a season could.

#so #changbin #seo changbin #changbin smut #changbin fluff #stray kids smut #stray kids fluff #dno if it counts as angst #stray kids au #ncitygirls #skz au #skz smut #skz changbin #lol it is angst #skz angst #changbin angst #stray kids angst

[calummss]

Cold Hands, Warm Hearts | Kylo Ren

masterlist

summary: kylo is supposed to fix the furnaces after they shut down, not make them cool out starkiller base

requested by: @theimaginesawakenvii

words: 1K

a/n: my account was terminated so i’m reposting

Starkiller Base was cold enough already. After all; it was located on an ice planet. You never realised how cold it was until the furnaces shut off and frost would start to build up in the hallways. You were never able to get used to it, no matter how long you stayed. Furnaces shutting off was a normal day to day occurrence. Usually when this happened, the engineers would bolt to the heart of the base and fix it within 10 minutes. Those 10 minutes always felt like hell. You would wrap yourself in one of Kylo’s bedsheets and pace around the room trying to create a higher body temperature. Did it work? Absolutely not. Would you still do it? Of course. It so happened that one day, all the engineers were on the Finalizer and the frost filled the halls. Out of this exact reason, Kylo took it upon himself to learn how to fix them. He could not have his commanders and girlfriend freeze to death. It was thrilling to date the galaxy’s most powerful and feared man, but also to have him wrapped around your little finger.

The Base was filled with warm air as you made your way into the main command center.

‘General Hux,’ you bowed your head. ‘Supreme Leader Snoke wishes to see you.’

‘Very well. Take charge whilst I’m gone.’

‘On it, Sir.’

With that he left through the big steel doors leaving you alone with all the generals and workers.

‘You.’ you turned to one of the workers. ‘What’s Hux working on?’

‘The blueprints for the super weapon, Miss.’

‘Draw them up.’

The plan popped onto one of the high tech screens and blasted a bright blue light onto your face. You continued to work until you were interrupted by non other than Kylo Ren.

‘What are you doing?’ the robot-like voice echoed from his helmet.

‘Working on the beam that’s supposed to wipe out an entire planet. What have you been doing?’ you turned your back to him. ‘Guessing you were discussing stuff with Snoke and Hux. You know…, I don’t trust Snoke. Not one bit. You should ta-‘

‘Not know Y/N. If someone hears you it’s going to end bad for both of us.’

‘Fine.’ you huffed.

‘Let’s go to my chambers.’ he held out his hand which was concealed in his black leather glove.

You took a breath and put your hand into his, taking down the blueprints to keep them secure. On your way to the chambers, you noticed several guards running towards the south side of the base. Not batting an eyelash you continued to walk by Kylo’s side before arriving at his door. He confirmed his identity and the door slid up, revealing the white rooms with black finishings.

‘You know, you should add more spark to your room.’ you walked through his room.

Meanwhile he took off his helmet to reveal his soft black curls that curled up upon the sides of his face.

Then you felt a wave of coldness take over your body.

‘Kylo...is the furnace broken or something? It seems rather cold.’ you held your arms across your chest trying to trap some of your leftover body heat.

Kylo reappeared to your sight, grabbing his helmet before closing the door.

Great.

You were guessing he was going to fix the heating problem. Since it was going to take around 10 minutes, you grabbed your electric heating blanket. It was a gift from Kylo. He gave it to you when you arrived on Starkiller Base. He knew how sensitive you were with the cold. In fact—you were the only person with such a blanket. No one else was in possession of anything like it. You walked towards the sofa and plopped yourself onto the soft blue cushions. You pulled your legs to your chest and quickly wrapped yourself in the black cover trying to reheat your body. You were staring at the ceiling waiting for Kylo to return. It felt like Kylo had been gone for ages. Suddenly you felt even colder than before, like Starkiller Base had just shut down entirely. You turned up the temperature of your blanket and snuggled your face into the warm fabric. About to curse, the door opened and Kylo stepped inside.

‘And?’ you raised an eyebrow at him.

He took off his gloves and placed them onto a near countertop, leaning his back against it.

‘I tried to fix it, but it switched up, so now it’s starting to blow cold air through the vents and all…’

‘Are you serious?’

He nodded, setting his lightsaber aside, heading towards the couch you were sitting on.

‘I tried my best you know.’

‘Looks like you didn’t try enough.’ you snickered. ‘It’s kind of funny if you think about it,’

He tilted his head with questioning eyes.

‘I mean, you were supposed to fix it aka make it warm again, yet you made it cooler.’

‘Well with that attitude I might have to take this away.’ he yanked the blanket out of your grasp and held it above your head.

You jumped up; immediately the cold air hit your skin, forming goosebumps.

‘Kylo, give it back.’ you protested.

‘Maybe you should’ve appreciated my will to try.’

You jumped up high and managed to grab the end of the blanket. ‘Now give it back.’

Apparently Kylo was in no mood to be the understanding partner he is and with the span of your attention looking around the room, he pulled it out of your grasp again.

‘Kylo this isn’t funny anymore.’ you crossed your arms. ‘I’m genuinely freezing.’

It was at this point where Kylo noticed the shivering, and chattering of your teeth. He quickly unfolded the blanket and wrapped it around your shoulders, pulling it tight in front of your chest. He pulled you in by the ends of the fabric and held you in his arms. You snuggled yourself into his chest, feeling his warmth radiating through your body. Still holding on to each other, you waddled back to the couch, falling onto the soft seats.

‘You know,’ you started. ‘I’ll have to remind myself, to not ask you to fix the furnaces again…’

#kylo ren #star wars #star wars imagine #reylo #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren imagines #kylo ren blurb #kylo ren blurbs #kylo ren headcanon #kylo ren headcanons #kylo ren x you #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren x y/n #kylo ren fluff #kylo ren smut #kylo ren angst #adam driver #adam driver imagine #adam driver imagines #adam driver blurb #adam driver blurbs #adam driver headcanon #adam driver headcanons #adam driver smut #adam driver fluff #adam driver angst #star wars universe #first order #george lucas #imagine

[fandomwriterstuff]

Perseus Achilles Jackson was the only human aboard the USS Olympus, and he was proud of it. He worked twice as hard as everyone else to get his dumb species into space and his team was very open and proud of him.

But, they weren’t always aware of human customs. This had happened on multiple occasions.

Here are the accounts of the two times Percy’s crewmate boyfriend was so shocked he nearly (or actually) fainted, and the one time he wasn’t.

The first time, they hadn’t been dating. Percy dressed rather conservatively while he was at the academy, not like he would were he on his home island of Kauai. But the first time Percy met a Plutonian was also that Plutonian’s first time meeting a human.

“Human Perseus, hello!” Niccolo DiAngelo was a handsome fellow, Percy noticed on the first meeting. Olive skin, dark eyes, and black hair along with his humanoid shape were all typically attractive looks in Percy’s books, but he also had these huge majestic black wings that Percy ached to touch. That was besides the point.

“Hey, Niccolo DiAngelo, right?” “Just Nico is fine,” the other male smiled as he got closer. Ah! Another species that bared their teeth in friendship… At least Percy hoped that was the case.

“Just Percy is fine too, no human and no Perseus,” Percy smiled back and stuck out his hand. Luckily, Nico was well versed in human gestures and took Percy’s hand for a rather formal handshake.

“I was wondering what the metal fixtures are on your eyebrow. They don’t seem to serve any medical purpose?” Nico asked, still smiling as if to try not to offend Percy with his questions.

“Oh, they don’t! They’re just adornment.”

“They are just… For appearance?” Nico cocked his head and lost his smile. Percy only laughed though.

“Yup! It’s the only piercing I have, but other humans have dozens.”

“How are they applied?”

“With needles, they first poke the hole in the skin and then they apply the jewelry,” Percy demonstrated by pulling at his eyebrow piercing to show off the bar.

He tried not to laugh as Nico’s beautiful olive skin turned more greenish than should be normal.

“I want more but it’s a little expensive to get good quality stuff,” Percy added.

“You paid someone to poke a hole in your face?” Nico practically squeaked.

“I sure did! Wait til you hear about tattoos!” Percy chuckled and left Nico with that thought.

“I need to get off this planet,” Nico choked out.

“Hah!” Percy laughed out loud and patted Nico on his broad shoulder. “Good luck with that buddy. Seeya in class!”

The second time it happened, Nico and Percy were studying for an exam together in Percy’s dorm. It was late and they’d stopped studying a while ago and were asking personal questions to pass the time.

“So you can’t touch another Plutonians wings unless you’re either a family member or a romantic partner?” Percy asked for clarification.

“Yup,” Nico munched on his ramen, something he found he actually enjoyed and could palate.

“Okay, interesting. Now you ask me something,” Percy leaned back against his bed and stretched his legs out.

“You told me about tattoos, and I definitely looked it up,” Nico’s cheeks burned a little greener at the thought. “Do you have any?”

“I do!” Percy beamed. “You might not have noticed because there are so few humans, but I am about three years older than most of the humans here. I did a three year stint in the American military and was sent overseas during wartime. So I have tattoos that commemorate the lives I took, so that they will never be forgotten,” Percy frowned, and Nico didn’t like that.

“Can I see them?” He asked tentatively.

“Of course, but I have to take my shirt off, and I’m going to have to ask you not to fall in love with me,” Percy winked jokingly at the already blushing Plutonian and made a show of taking his shirt off.

“Whoa,” Nico gasped, and reached out before drawing his hand back, knowing it wasn’t customary to touch another person without permission. Percy’s chest and arms were adorned with patterns of waves crashing and flowing. It was simple and beautiful but still ornate. “And how do they administer these again?”

“They have an electric needle that shoots dye into the epidermis-”

“They have what?” Nico choked.

“Is it the electric needle part or the shooting dye into the skin part that’s freaking you out?” Percy raised an eyebrow. He pulled out his phone to show Nico a video of Percy getting his first tattoo and the big strong Plutonian male completely zonked out and fell over on the floor, much to Percy’s amusement.

“Next time I go to get one,” Percy smirked, leaning over Nico’s body as the other male opened his eyes. “You’re coming with.”

Nico only groaned.

The third time, they were two years into a deep space exploration when they were travelling to Earth for shore leave, and Percy came back to their shared cabin with a devilish smile on his face.

“Neeks? You there?” Percy called into the bathroom. Huh, he would just have to wait for his boyfriend to come back. Percy laid spread on their bed and read his book until Nico came back.

“Hello there,” he said in his best Obi Wan impression when said boyfriend walked in, blue shirt neatly pressed with nary a wrinkle in it.

“Perseus,” Nico sighed. “What did you do?”

“What? Why would you sound so… so.... You love me, don’t you?” He countered.

“Of course I love you,” Nico sighed and laid down, burying his head in his boyfriend’s clothed stomach.

“Well I got another piercing.”

Nico groaned.

“Actually two.”

“I’ll never understand you humans,” Nico lifted his head and peered around Percy’s head at his ears. “Where are they then?”

Percy responded by gingerly removing his own shirt and presenting his new nipple piercings to his long time boyfriend. Not sure what to expect, Nico’s blushing green cheeks and ears were not what he expected.

“That is not what I expected,” the taller male commented quietly. “Did it hurt?” He frowned.

“A little, and they’re going to be a little sore until they heal completely. But I love them,” Percy smiled again, proud of his life decisions.

“I… also love them? I think?” Nico sounded confused at his own reaction and Percy laughed.

“I thought you might,” he pulled Nico (gently) on top of him and pulled him into a kiss.

“They’re kinda hot,” Nico murmured into the kiss, still at odds with himself.

“I thought you might think that too.”

“You do know me pretty well.”

“Wait until I tell you about my next piercing: the Prince Albert.”

#percy jackson #nico di angelo #nicercy #percico #humans are space orcs #body modifications #piercings #tattoos #pjo

[yesimwriting]

Falling Angels

A/n this literally poureddd from me, might be bad bc recently i’ve hated everything i’ve written (my drafts are full lol)

--

Series Summary: Y/n is a rising star in the most famous circus in Ketterdam because of her ability to see the future. Unfortunately for her, Kaz Brekker knows more of her backstory than he should, and he’s willing to use that to his advantage. The one thing he’s not betting on? That he doesn’t know her entire story

Chapter summary: Y/n gets a visitor before getting tricked into the most dangerous show of her life. 

Pairing: SOC x reader, Kaz Brekker x psychic! sunshine-y! reader

Warning: mentions of sexual harassment, slight cursing, near death experience 

--

Enjoy it, because it doesn’t last. That’s what the older girls whisper, mock casualness attempting to disguise bitter undertones as I walk past them. They say this, sharp nails ready to be covered in blood as red as their lipstick, because the pile of gifts from my ‘admirers’ keep coming. Circus hands keep approaching the long vanity in the dressing room tent, tapping me on the shoulder politely to shove cards and bouquets of flowers in my lap. They don’t understand that the praise isn’t because the patrons of our performances find me more beautiful--they’re desperate for my favor. They’re desperate to know their future.

Looking at myself in the mirror, the pageantry of it all has not yet grown old to me. My hair is still in the process of being styled, my stage makeup is half done, and I am not yet coated in that golden shimmer Senia always dusts across my cheeks and shoulders. But I am more enhanced than I normally am, eyes made bright by thick coats of mascara, cupid's bow made prominent by ruby lipstick. The lip look is more daring than I’ve been before, but there can’t be much harm in change. Not when half the women here keep looking at me like I’m the saint of virginity. 

It’s not my fault that the Ringmaster thought an angelic aesthetic would work best for the fortune teller who walks around before the show, reading palms so that people can have their pockets picked. It’s not my fault people want an angel to take the stage and call people down from the audience to get a detailed reading around the crowded circus tent. I don’t pick the costumes, and while I acknowledge that mine shows the least amount of skin, the Ringmaster found a way to dress me as suggestively as possible without ruining the illusion of innocence. 

At least the flowing tulle wings that are stitched into the back of my costume are beautiful. It’s easier when I enjoy the good. 

“Y/n!” The familiar call of Senia. I turn my head, beaming. “You’re a vision, and all of those jealous girls--you can tell them to take their wrinkling faces and--” 

“Seria.” For someone so much like a mother, she often needs to be reminded that not everything needs an aggressive rebuttal. “Think about it from their perspectives--their entire existence is dependent on how sellable they are, how attractive they are to men who only want to use them. If that makes them mad at me because they feel like my youth and novelty is taking from them, then that’s okay.” She raises a fine eyebrow. “I can take a few mean words.” 

Seria purses her lips. “Okay, but I’m just as old and tired and you don’t see me trying to poison you.” 

I roll my eyes. 

“Look, it's our very own saint.” I roll my eyes, Via’s shrill voice piercing through me like an annoying papercut. “And in such a scandalous lip color--has the Ringmaster finally taken you to the ivory tent?” 

Ivory tent. It’s been mentioned to me before and always in jest. “Where he takes me is none of your business, if not being the favorite hurts you so badly ju--” 

She laughs, the sound is pure vile. “Being the favorite is the worst thing you could be in a place like this. You’re shiny and new and soon you’ll be as used as the rest of us--Seria’s use is waning, what happened to her today is proof of that. Soon you’ll have no one to protect you.” 

When she looks at me I see more pain than hatred. “I think we’d get along better if I had it in me to hate you.” 

She raises an eyebrow before shaking a cigarette from a small box into her palm. “You’ll get there, princess.” 

The nickname leaves me burning. There’s nothing more consuming than fire. “You better pray to the real Saints I don’t.” 

via laughs, lifting the cigarette to her lips and lighting it with her abilities. She walks away, turning my threat into that of a child’s. 

“She’s right on two accounts.” Seria hums, “The Ringmaster will kill you if you wear that lipstick and Ketterdam turns people like you into people like me. We could save up, pay off your indenture--get you out.” 

Seria doesn’t need to make sacrifices like that. Not for me. Besides, there’s no leaving Ketterdam for me. Not anymore. “Being like you wouldn’t be a bad thing.” I scratch my arm, see through material wrinkling as a result. “And I can’t--I can’t just leave. I’m a psychic, no Grisha can see the future. I need the facelessness of Ketterdam.” Her lips thin in protest. “And don’t think I didn’t hear what she said about you--what happened to your foot, and what’s in the ivory tent? People keep saying it, whispering it like there’s--” 

“That tent is nothing that will ever concern you. I’ve given you my guidance, and the one thing I ask is that you never ask or go to the ivory tent.” 

I swallow once, the intensity in her eyes leaving me raw. “What if he tells me to?” 

“He won’t.” Seria breathes. “He doesn’t like that for you.” 

This isn’t an argument I can have now, not with two minutes until the show starts. “And your foot?” 

She shrugs, holding up a bandaged ankle. “You get older, your ligaments like the tightrope walk less and less. I’ll be fine.” 

“You’re not tightrope walking like that--” 

“Yes, I am. The Ringmaster doesn’t know and he can’t--if I start giving him performance trouble--you don’t know what happens to the girls who can’t pay off their indenture by performing.” 

I swallow once. “You’ll be careful?” 

“Always,” she grins, “Besides--one day you’ll know enough about tightrope walking to help me on days like this.” 

The last time I trained on the mini-tightrope had proven me to be a disappointment. Still, I smile at her softly. I open my mouth to respond, but a quick tap to my shoulder silences me. 

“Miss,” a circus hand I recognize begins.

I smile politely. “Please leave any gifts on my vanity--” 

“It’s not a gift,” he mumbles, voice taut, “You have visitors.” 

Something solid pushes itself into my chest, wedging itself between my lungs. Have they found me? “I-I don’t take visitors. Not before shows, if someone wants a private reading they’re to go to my tent at the front--” 

“We’re not here for readings or any of the other lies you sell.” 

...Surprising. I let my gaze move from the face of the circus hand and towards the individuals behind him. A man, tall and dressed in business attire--hat and all. His face is all sharp angles and his eyes are emotionless. His leather-gloved hands grip the head of an intricate cane. Next to him is another tall man, dressed a little more casually, with dark curls. Lastly, there’s a girl, with oil-black hair pulled into a sleek ponytail. 

“Then what are you here for?” 

Seria, never one to leave me unattended around strange men, takes a step in front of me. “I know who you are, Dirtyhands, and I know there’s no business you could find with her.” 

What? Dirtyhands? Can people in Ketterdam ever just be normal? 

“I wouldn’t speak so certainly.” I don’t like the way his eyes narrow at Seria or the way his grip on the cane tightens. 

Thoughtlessly, I stick a hand between them, forcing Seria back slightly. “I apologize, she’s protective--always assuming the worst in people. Though considering she called you ‘Dirtyhands’, maybe that’s what you want.” 

Ugh. All I do is ramble when I most definitely shouldn’t. “Want what?” 

Eyebrows drawing together, I force myself to hold his gaze. “For people to assume the worst.” 

The response seems to confuse him. That’s okay--I’ll take anything over aggressive. “The only people I want to assume the worst are those I want to be right.” 

Okay. Dramatic was a fair assumption. 

“Seria.” Oh no. I know that voice. I know that voice too well. “They tell me you're injured.”

Seria stiffens, as does every performer when he addresses them. “Not too injured to perform, sir.” 

The Ringmaster sneers. “I can’t risk you falling and embarrassing me. Perhaps tonight you’ll make your money by spending the entire show in the ivory tent.” 

The way she hardens wrenches my gut. I press my hands to avoid reaching out for her. “I can do the tightrope.” The Ringmaster’s gaze shifts towards me. “I can do it--and I can do it well and I’ll give the profit to Seria.”

He tilts his chin, regarding me in a way a woman should never be regarded. He’s a predator and I’m a lamb that’s lost its way. Still, I hold his gaze. I don’t flinch, even when he moves to brush his knuckles along my cheek. His touch is acid. Pure, burning acid. “The wings I placed on your back are decorative.”

“I don’t need them.” Total bullshit. 

“Hm,” he breathes, letting the smell of alcohol fill the space between us, “I’ll allow it.” The Ringmaster drops his hand to his side. “Wipe that lipstick off your face before someone mistakes you for one of these common whores.” 

How I don’t throw up at the sight of him is a miracle in itself. By some small mercy, he turns and walks away before I have to respond. 

“You’re an idiot--you know you’re not ready for the tightrope.” 

“There’s a net,” I try to keep my voice light, dismissive. She remains tense. “Seria, I had to.” 

“No, you could have--” 

“It’s not fair that you’re always a shield for me. When the opportunity to shield you for once comes, I’ll take it.” Turning before she can protest, I try to walk forward. The stranger places his cane where I intend to walk, intentionally warning me that he decides when our conversation is over. Unfortunately, I used up all my patience with the Ringmaster. “130 kruge.” He raises an eyebrow. “That’s the estimated amount I’ll make tonight, unless I’m late and excluded from the show. Either make up the deficit you’ll be costing me or let me go.” 

His eyebrows draw together, shifting his expression from neutrally calloused to something much darker. “Kaz.” This comes from the girl. She takes a step forward. “Look one step ahead.”

“Excuse me?” 

“Everyone thinks you’re not supposed to look down, but looking up is just as impractical.” She pauses, expression strangely mesmerized, “Look one step ahead--not at your feet.” 

My genuine smile shocks me. “Thank you.” 

“I should be thanking you, Sankta y/n.” Her head bows, hands held together as if in prayer. 

Oh. She’s one of the religious that believes me an actual Saint. “I appreciate the sentiment, but if I was a Saint I’d be able to help people.” No matter what I do, no matter how much blood I offer, I can never help people. “And as you’ve seen--I can’t.” 

--

The crowd’s roaring is a different world to me. On the platform, feet away from the other wooden structure acting as solid ground, everything is different. I am now in a world where the only thing to believe in is a taut rope. The net is beneath me. I’ve seen it--I’ve checked it. 

“And for our grand finale!” The Ringmaster calls, voice billowing over an excited crowd. “Our very own angel defies death!” 

An odd way to phrase the tightrope walk. It’s never called ‘defying death’.  I had been surprised when I was told that tonight the tightrope walk would be the grand finale--I assumed it was because it featured me. I’m always the finale now. I try to move my foot off the platform but it’s planted firmly. No. I need to see Seria--I need to see who I’m doing this for. I force my gaze to the ground, panic rising in my chest. 

Instead of Seria, I see Via--her smirk apparent even from here. Spite’s a decent motivator. My foot descends off the platform, touching the tightrope cautiously. And then I move my other foot. All of me is now on this damn rope. I hadn’t been unforgivably horrible during practice, but I hadn’t been graceful either. 

Don’t look down, don’t look up--only look one step ahead. One step ahead--one step at a time. Balance. I take another step. The room is so silent there’s no doubt in my mind the sound of my bones cracking would be heard from the back row. But there’s the net. There’s always the net. I take a second step. And then a third--eyes focused on only one step ahead. 

And then the phantom of flame comes to claim me. Fire. The world around me is burning. Damning the consequences, I let my gaze fall to the world beneath me. The net--the Ringmaster had an Inferni light the net on fire. Via--that explains the look. 

I can’t fall--the guilt would kill Seria. 

Panic twists my stomach as I continue forward. One step ahead. One step ahead--the flames lick upwards, promising pain and grief all over again. One step ahead. One step--that’s all there is to it. The warmth of the fire calls to me. Burning. Burning--and one more step. This isn’t forever. This isn’t permanent--either way this will soon be over. 

There’s no miracle for me. No good grace, no wings that would let me save myself. There is only balance. 

One step ahead. And then another step. And then I see the other wooden platform. Thank the Saints. I grip the ladder of the platform as quickly as possible. The cheers mean nothing to me as I scurry down the ladder. 

I feel a sharp breeze, a Grisha putting out the flames. Anger pools in my chest as I move towards the exit of the tent. 

“Y/n.” No. Not him again. That man--Kaz, Dirtyhands, whoever he is--needs to go away. “Y/n.” I turn sharply, anger pulsing through me. My expression must be feral, because he stalls. “They didn’t tell you that they were going to burn the net.” 

The fact that he can tell--that he can see my panic and how close I came to death twists my anger into something more fragile. “No.” My posture straightens. “I need to go now, I do--I do readings after shows.”

“Y/n.” He repeats, firmer. 

My nails dig into my palms. “I’m going--” 

“I know what you are.” 

Tensing, my breathing stalls. “What?”

#kaz brekker #kaz brekker x reader #kazz brekker imagine #kaz brekker x you #six of crows #six of crows x reader #six of crows x you #soc imagine #six of crows imagine #my works #series #shadow and bone #shadow and bone x reader #shadow and bone imagine #grishaverse #grishaverse x reader #sab netflix #grishaverse imagine

[asweetprologue]

hematoma of the heart

Octoberfest 9: Wound reveal (whumptober #30)

Hitting the tree is more surprising than painful. A strange shock goes through Jaskier’s entire body when it happens, a litany of unspoken no no no through him as his side slams into the wood and he topples to the ground. For a moment he can’t see, can barely even think, just feeling a dizzying sense of wrongness that makes his skin buzz with anxiety. 

Then, finally, the pain does come to him, bursting from his ribs. If his breath hadn’t already been crushed from his lungs, he would have wheezed at the intensity of it. He lies there for a long moment, curled into a protective ball and trying to get his chest to expand beyond the jagged feeling in his ribs. Through bleary eyes, he can see that Geralt is still fighting the fiend, twisting and rolling deftly around it. That’s good, Jaskier thinks. Gives him some time to sort this out. 

The fiend hadn’t even really been paying him any mind, which was almost more embarrassing. Jaskier had gotten in the way, a bit, though it wasn’t really anyone’s fault that the fight stumbled its way so close to his hiding spot. Normally Geralt would never allow Jaskier to tag along to a fight this dangerous, but as usual trouble found them. Geralt had picked up the smell of the fiend on the breeze, and the noble bastard hadn’t been able to leave well enough alone. His stubborn bravery and selflessness is one of the many reasons Jaskier loves the man, but at this exact moment he finds himself wishing that, for once, they’d just kept out of it. 

After a long moment of lying still and trying to gather his wits, Jaskier slowly sits up. He leans his back against the offending tree and tries to stay as still as possible, not wanting to draw the fiend’s attention or break Geralt’s stride. Mentally he takes inventory. Toes and fingers wriggle when he tests them, so that’s good. No pain in his neck, though it radiates out from his left side and across his back like a sunburst. When he sticks a hand against his shirt he doesn’t feel the wet, tacky sensation of blood, so aside from a few abrasions it looks like he’s escaped with his skin intact. 

Jaskier knows his ribs are bruised, maybe even slightly broken, but overall it’s not as bad as it could be. Jaskier watches as Geralt’s sword descends into the neck of the fiend, a hot spray of blood splashing across the ground and Geralt’s face. The second the beast falls to the ground, Geralt looks up and finds Jaskier’s gaze, his own eyes wild.

Jaskier realizes two things at once. One: Geralt is going to be livid if Jaskier was hurt during a fight, and there’s a very great chance that it will make him not want to take Jaskier on hunts in the future. He’ll say that Jaskier is at risk and is a risk himself, likely to cause Geralt to get distracted and wind up with one of them dead. Never mind that Geralt often needs help after a hard fight, might not be able to make it back on his own or just needs a hand patching up the worst of his wounds. Never mind that Jaskier hates being left behind, hates sitting in a cold, empty camp or inn waiting to see if Geralt will come back this time. Never mind that Jaskier’s entire supposed reason for being here is to get first hand experience of what monster hunting is really like, even if that maybe isn’t so much the reason he’s so dedicated to the Path anymore. 

And two: Geralt will blame himself. 

Jaskier decides, in the span of a second, that he’s not going to say anything. It’s not so bad, after all. How hard could it be to keep a few bruised ribs to himself? 

In the time it takes for him to determine this course of action, Geralt is upon him. He doesn’t touch - Jaskier touches Geralt. Geralt does not touch back, unless it’s to manhandle Jaskier out of danger. Jaskier tries not to think too hard about why this is. Geralt looks at him, his eyes intense but unreadable as always, and Jaskier takes a steadying breath that makes his ribs ache. 

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, almost more of a grunt than a name. He’s only breathing a bit more heavily than normal, as if he’d just been on a light morning jog. “You alright?”

Jaskier nods, forcing himself to climb unsteadily to his feet. The movement is agony, his back screaming as his muscles shift and stretch. He bites his cheek, forcing himself not to gasp or wince. The pain isn’t sharp, just pulsing, which is a good sign. He thinks. “All accounted for,” he says to Geralt, hoping that his voice doesn’t sound too strained. 

With another human, Jaskier doesn’t think he’d have been able to get away with it. No one would be able to get thrown against a tree with such force and pop back up perfectly alright. But Geralt isn’t human, and over the years of traveling together, Jaskier has realized that Geralt knows fuck all about how much humans can withstand. He is both terrified of their fragility and entirely unaware of their limits. He grew up around witchers and has never stuck around any human beings long enough to figure out what really could hurt them. Jaskier thinks, sometimes, that maybe Geralt doesn’t touch him because he’s afraid Jaskier will break. But then Jaskier falls from a horse or gets punched in the jaw or stumbles over the side of a small ravine and Geralt will act surprised when Jaskier’s ankle is twisted or his face is bruised. The witcher just has no idea what will actually cause damage and what Jaskier can walk away from.

So Jaskier plasters on his most convincing court mask and gives Geralt a winning smile, and he knows he’s won when Geralt gives an almost imperceptible shrug. Jaskier watches his shoulders drop ever so slightly, his expression loosening just a fraction. Jaskier drinks up Geralt’s worry like a man drowning of thirst, but he’s still relieved when Geralt turns back towards the fiend. If Geralt knew he was really hurt, his tender concern over Jaskier’s well being would morph into guilt and anger, and that’s the last thing Jaskier wants. So he forces himself to follow after Geralt, and he doesn’t even limp. 

Jaskier does not limp as they set up camp that night, or as he follows Geralt to town the next day, or over the course of the next week on the road. It’s probably making the healing process longer than it needs to be, he knows, but he’s in too deep now to back down. And if he winces occasionally when he’s getting up in the morning, stiff and sore and aching, or if he sucks in a breath to hide a yelp when someone brushes past his wounded shoulder in an inn, Geralt doesn’t seem to notice. Jaskier changes when Geralt leaves for breakfast or to take a piss or to bathe and he thinks he does an okay job, overall, of hiding it. It hurts in another way, deep in his gut, that Geralt doesn’t say anything. Jaskier doesn’t want him to say anything, doesn’t want him to know, but in another way he does. He really does. He wants Geralt to find out and be upset because he cares about Jaskier, cares about his well being and whether he’s in pain. He wants the full force of those golden eyes on him with total attention, those broad hands running across his flank to search for damage. Jaskier wants. 

Maybe that’s why he lets his guard down. Or maybe he’s just healing nicely, and so for a few hours Jaskier just… forgets. They’re in a tavern, stopped in a small town a week and a half away from the fiend encounter, and Jaskier is a bit drunk. He’s been playing, for the first time since he was thrown into that tree, and it felt so good he got a bit lost in it. The crowd was small but invested, lively and eager for entertainment, and Jaskier had been passed more than a couple of tankards. Geralt had watched it all unfold with mild amusement, matching Jaskier cup for cup but barely tipsy by the end of the night. Jaskier had stumbled up the stairs with Geralt close on his heels, likely making sure he didn’t tumble back down the steps. He isn’t that drunk, truly. Barely wobbling as he’d made his way into the room. But as he tugs off his boots now and tosses aside his doublet, he’s drunk enough that he forgets, for the first time in a week, that he’s got something to hide. He turns away from Geralt and unbuttons his shirt, yawning around some garbled sentence about how many ales he’s had. The fabric has barely left his shoulders when he hears Geralt make a strangled sound, and turns to find himself nose to nose with the witcher. 

“Uh,” he says, articulately, and hisses as Geralt’s fingers come up to prod his side. Oh, right. Fuck. He’d been doing so well. 

“What the fuck is this?” Geralt asks, and his voice comes out as a low, warning growl that Jaskier feels in his toes. It’s threatening, he reprimands himself. Geralt is scary when he’s mad. Not hot. Scary. “Jaskier,” Geralt says, and Jaskier snaps back to the moment. 

“I’m fine,” Jaskier says, too quickly. He’s trying to pull his shirt back up to cover up the canvas of blue-purple-yellow that’s scattered across his ribs and shoulder, but Geralt’s hands are in the way. He must be truly surprised, to break his own rules about personal space like this. “I fell, it looks worse than it is. Nothing to be concerned about, truly, I don’t even think my ribs took too much damage -”

“When?” Geralt says. His tone and his hands are demanding, pulling Jaskier’s arm up away from his body so Geralt can get a closer look. Jaskier feels himself flush under his touch, and he’s annoyed at himself for it. 

“Uh, a - a week ago? Around then? It’s been a few days.”

Geralt looks away from the bruises, his eyebrows pinched together. His golden eyes are intense, searching Jaskier’s face for a lie. There’s a moment of quiet between them, Geralt thinking with his hand spread across Jaskier’s ribs, and then his face softens with surprise. “The fiend hunt,” he says, and then his face shutters into that expression, furious and guilty, that Jaskier was trying to avoid this whole damn time. 

“I was fine,” he tries to say, but Geralt is already growling at him. 

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me, Jaskier?” he snaps. Gentle-rough hands push Jaskier down onto the one bed in the room. They’d decided to share, to save money. Always to save money. Geralt starts pacing, not an aimless trek but a journey around the room, pulling various supplies out of their scattered bags. “You could have died. What if your lung had been punctured? Or your kidney ruptured?” A jar and a roll of bandages are thrown down by Jaskier’s side, and the bard winces at the sharp movement. Geralt stops in front of him, fists clenched at his side, glaring down at Jaskier’s face. Accusation in every line of his body. 

Jaskier sighs. Runs a hand through his hair, not bothering to hide the wince as it pulls at his side. “I didn’t want to worry you,” he says, and his voice is smaller than he’d like it to be. He didn’t do anything wrong, really. Geralt isn’t entitled to know of Jaskier’s every scrape and bruise. Yet Jaskier feels guilty regardless. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. The fiend was there, so was I, I ended up fine! I’ll be better in another week or less.”

Geralt looks away, jaw clenching as he studies the far side of the room with intense scrutiny. Without looking back, he says, “You should have told me.” 

Before Jaskier can respond, Geralt turns and gathers up the supplies on the bed and sits down beside him. The lid of the jar pops off, releasing a cool, minty smell into the air. “Lift your arm up,” Geralt says gruffly, and Jaskier does. He can only go up so far without pain, so he rests his forearm on Geralt’s shoulder, suddenly aware that he’s bare from the waist up and Geralt is still fully dressed. It makes him feel off balance and short of breath, for some reason. A moment later Geralt’s fingers are smoothing lightly over his ribs, rubbing whatever salve was in the jar across Jaskier’s bruises. The gentle touch steals the rest of the air from Jaskier’s lungs.

Jaskier lets Geralt work on him in silence, the minutes stretching out silently between them. He’s not sure what to say - how to tell Geralt that he didn’t want him to be mad without sounding like a child, how to make Geralt feel less guilty without being patronizing. Jaskier never quite knows how to manage Geralt’s emotions, not like he does everyone else’s. A crowd, a pretty barmaid, a professor at Oxenfurt, all of these are easy to push and pull where he pleases. Easy to predict. Geralt… isn’t. He digs in his heels when Jaskier tries to lead him, closes himself off when Jaskier tries to get a peak under the mask. Geralt is, Jaskier thinks, perhaps one of the most complicated people Jaskier’s ever met. He knows that’s part of the draw. But it’s frustrating in moments like these, when Jaskier wants so badly to say just the right thing to make Geralt’s shoulders relax, to make the deep frown marring his lovely mouth loosen into a smile. He thinks he could figure it out, given enough time. If Geralt will let him. 

When Geralt finally moves to face away from him, to attend to his back, Jaskier speaks. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he forces his voice to be steady and firm. “I didn’t want to worry you. I didn’t want you to feel bad for not - That is, I don’t blame you. And I didn’t want to slow you down.”

Geralt's hands still on his back, his warm palm burning where it rests on Jaskier’s shoulder blade. It’s so hot in the room, sweat prickling against Jaskier’s brow, and Geralt’s hand doesn’t move. “I don’t care if you slow me down,” Geralt grunts. Jaskier can feel his breath on the nape of his neck, and he can’t suppress a shiver. Geralt must notice, but he doesn’t comment. 

“You very much do,” Jaskier argues, irritated. “You remind me on a near nightly basis that if I’m not up when the sun is you’ll leave me behind. I don’t even bother to ask for a break anymore because you never fail to remind me that it’s my choice to be here. And it is, I know that. I’ll keep up, and if I can’t I’ll take my leave. You’ve made it quite clear that the onus of responsibility rests with me, and I accept that.”

From this close Jaskier can nearly hear Geralt grinding his teeth together. “Not at the expense of your health,” he says, and he sounds properly angry now. “Fuck, Jaskier, you can’t think I’d - That I wouldn’t wait, that I’d leave you behind when you were hurt. You could have fucking died, if it’d been more serious. You couldn’t have known that it wasn’t, right away. What if I’d woken up the next day and you’d choked to death on your own blood in your sleep? What if you’d -” He cuts himself off.

Now Jaskier turns to face him, shocked by the display of emotion, feeling Geralt’s hand shift across his back. Geralt looks away from him, hiding, but the expression that Jaskier catches on his face is… pained. As if it would truly hurt him, to see Jaskier damaged beyond repair. Hesitantly, Jaskier reaches out and touches Geralt’s knee. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I didn’t think of it that way. I just didn’t want you to take it personally.”

Geralt’s eyes meet his again, smouldering in the low light. Jaskier suddenly remembers that he’s a bit drunk, and they’re so, so close together. The space between them is warm, and Geralt’s hand slowly slides down his back to rest at Jaskier’s hip. “I always take it personally when it comes to you,” Geralt says. Jaskier breathes out shakily. Geralt reaches out with his other hand and gently grasps Jaskier’s elbow, making Jaskier’s fingers press more firmly into his knee. “Tell me next time,” Geralt says. And then, “Please.”

Jaskier is powerless to refuse him anything in this moment, so he says, “Alright. I will. Just don’t leave me behind.”

“I won’t,” Geralt says softly. “I won’t. I promise.” Something tense releases in Jaskier, because Geralt is not frivolous with his words and a promise means something coming from him. He won’t leave Jaskier behind. 

“Well good,” Jaskier says, and smiles easily at him. His side feels better now with the salve and the fuzzy layer of alcohol in his system, and every part of him touching Geralt is tingling pleasantly. It’s a lot of parts, he realizes giddily. He’s nearly in Geralt’s lap, held close by Geralt’s hands in something that’s nearly an embrace, and Geralt’s lips are right there. All Jaskier would have to do is lean forward just a smidge, press them together gently, soft as a feather -

Geralt’s eyes flicker to his mouth, and Jaskier flushes hot all over. Gods. Just a look and he feels undone. 

But before he can do anything, Geralt is up and halfway across the room, tucking the jar away like nothing had happened. Jaskier lets out a breath that’s equal parts disappointment and relief. A moment later Geralt is back at his side, holding the roll of bandages. 

“This will keep you from pulling them while they heal,” Geralt says gruffly, and Jaskier obediently raises his arms up as much as he can. Geralt wraps up his ribs efficiently, and it does feel a little more stable. It will help him sleep, at the very least. Just before he wraps the light gauze around Jaskier’s shoulder, Geralt leans in and drags in a deep breath. 

Jaskier splutters. “Are you sniffing me, Geralt of Rivia?”

Geralt huffs out an amused breath against his skin. “Checking for infection. You don’t smell sweet, so you’re probably alright.”

“I smell plenty sweet,” Jaskier gripes. Geralt finishes the bandages, tying them off neatly. Jaskier feels compressed, a bit, but it’s for the best. 

“You smell like ale,” Geralt says with a raised eyebrow. “And the salve. And that lavender soap I hate.”

“You only hate it the first day I use it,” Jaskier points out. The smell is too strong for Geralt to abide by. Jaskier tries not to use it unless they’ll be apart for a day or so. He’d bathed with it the day after the hunt, hoping that the intensity of it would mask anything else Geralt might scent on him. Pain, or distress. Geralt had supported a pinched look of annoyance for a full half a day.

“Go to sleep, Jaskier,” Geralt says, and it sounds annoyed and fond at the same time in equal measure, which Jaskier wouldn’t have said was possible before he met Geralt. The most complicated man he’d ever met. “You need to rest.”

“Up at dawn?” Jaskier guesses, shucking off his pants and settling under the covers. Geralt removes his own boots and pants and crawls in on the other side, settled between Jaskier and the door. Jaskier’s not sure if it’s to protect him or to keep him from running off. As if he ever would. 

“We’ll leave when you're ready,” Geralt says, snuffing out the candle flickering on the bedside dresser. In the darkness, Jaskier hears, “I’ll wait for you.”

For once Jaskier has nothing else to say to that, so he settled down into the covers and plans to sleep past noon.

#whumptober2020 #whumptober #whump #no. 30 #geralt of rivia #jaskier #geraltxjaskier #geralt/jaskier #geraskier #the witcher #october2020 #my work #fic #writing

[lexosaurus]

Going Angst Week 2021: Family/Friends

Read: [1: Birth] [2: Instinct]

Continuation of the No One Knows AU plotline.

---

Everything had changed since the accident. The biological differences were obvious. He glowed, his hair inverted, his eyes turned green, he had ectoplasm running through his veins, he was cold, he didn’t need to breathe as much in human form—the list went on. 

But the psychological ones were easily more terrifying.

And nothing scared him more than the way his friends and family were treating him as of late.

He knew that deep down he would never be able to match the way he acted when he was fully human. But that didn’t mean that his heart didn’t skip a beat every time someone shot him a worried glance, every time someone asked if he was alright, every time he caught himself doing something wrong. 

He wasn’t human anymore. He wasn’t even sure what he was now, and Vlad seemed to have too much fun emotionally torturing him to give him a straight answer.

“You up for a movie tonight?” Tucker asked, leaning across Danny’s desk. 

“Hell yeah,” Sam said. “My house?”

“Oh, you know me too well. What do you think, dude?”

Danny realized that both teens were looking to him for an answer.

He wanted to stay home. Hanging out with either of them meant there was a chance they would see him slip up, and he couldn’t have that.

“Sure.” He hoped his voice didn’t sound too pained.

“Perfect!” Tucker clasped a hand down on his shoulder.

Danny tried not to duck away.

“So we’ll go to Sam’s after dinner. I can bring snacks. Anything you want in particular?”

The thought of eating anything was nauseating. “No. I’m fine.”

“Alright, I’ll just bring the usual then.”

But Danny should have known that something was up. After all, it had been a while since they’d done a movie night. And lately, Sam and Tucker had been acting...oddly. 

Well, that was nothing new. Danny thought that as time went on, they’d forgive him for being a bit jumpier than usual and everything would go back to normal. 

Except, of course, it didn’t.

The past few weeks had been especially hard. It seemed like they constantly had something to say, but never did. The worried glances had only increased, and the silent conversations seemed to only grow.

Danny had been trying his best to act normal, act human, but it seemed like the more he tried, the worse they’d get.

So of course, in between the first movie and second, the elephant in the room finally stomped all over Danny’s metaphorical floor.

“Hey, Danny.” Sam glanced over at Tucker. A moment passed between the two before Sam nodded and turned back to Danny. “We really need to talk to you.”

Dread pooled in his stomach. He knew exactly where this was going. “I can start the next movie if you want?”

“No, Danny. Listen, can you just sit down for a second?”

His ghostly instincts were begging him to run, but his human side forced him to sit down.

“Listen, we know that...well, Jazz told us about the lab accident.”

Danny could have sworn his heart stopped beating.

“She said it was pretty serious? And she was surprised that you hadn’t told us?” Sam fidgeted with her black rings. “We didn’t say anything to you because we wanted you to be the ones to confide in us.”

“That and we didn’t want you to get upset that we were talking to Jazz about you,” Tucker interjected.

“Right, and Jazz only told us because she was worried. And honestly? We’re really worried too.”

Any oxygen left in Danny’s body was sucked out of his throat like a vacuum.

They’d found out. They knew the truth, they knew he was a freak of nature half ghost and they were going to out him, they were going to tell his parents, they’d tell the school counselor, and Danny would have no one and he’d have to run away to become Vlad’s apprentice and he’d change, he’d be corrupted, he wouldn’t make it out alive.

“I’m just wondering why you didn’t say anything?” Sam asked, her violent eyes brimming with concern.

“I…” Danny’s mouth felt like it was lined with cotton. He tried to swallow, but it was like swallowing sand. “I didn’t want you to worry is all.”

“Yeah, and we get that,” Tucker said carefully. “But, I mean, we’re your best friends. And dude, you’ve been...well…”

At Tucker’s helpless glance, Sam took over. “You just have been acting really off lately.”

“Sorry.”

“No!” Sam nearly leapt out of her seat. “Danny, don’t apologize. It’s not your fault. I mean, hell, if I nearly died in a lab accident I’d be acting off too. It just, you know, it explains a lot. It must have been really terrifying.”

Danny didn’t trust himself to say anything. 

How much of his personality had shifted because of Phantom, and how much had shifted because of the accident? Were his ghostly instincts really creeping up that much into his human form? 

Would he ever be the same again?

Did they know?

“Is there anything you wanna talk about?”

“We’re all ears, dude.”

He had so many questions he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t say a word. Not without outing himself as Phantom, and that was bound to backfire on him in the worst way possible.

Oh god, he was acting too suspicious. He needed to save this.

“I’m good.”

There was a beat of silence.

Sam leaned forward. “Danny...I don’t mean to sound like Jazz, but bottling stuff up isn’t—”

“I’m fine!” Danny snapped. “I didn’t say anything and I’m sorry, but you know it’s not every day like you’re nearly electrocuted to death in your parents’ ghost portal.”

“Is that what happened?” Sam’s eyes grew wide. “Oh my god, Danny.”

“Holy shit,” Tucker agreed.

Danny threw his arms out. “Ta da! I survived, I’m fine. Nothing to talk about.”

“Danny, I—”

“No.” His tone was final. “Drop it, seriously.”

Another beat of silence passed, and then Sam finally sighed. “Fine, but I’m telling you as your friend that if you ever need anything, we’re here for you.”

He wished he could have trusted those words. But he knew they were nothing more than a farce.

It would have been cruel to hold onto false hope.

Still, he tried to smile. “Thanks.”

Even though he knew he hadn’t fooled anyone.

---

Maddie’s POV

Maddie watched her son from across the kitchen table, just as she’d done every night for the past several weeks. Quietly, as inconspicuous as possible, always watching.

Ever since the lab accident, he’d been….different. Jack hadn’t noticed, but to Maddie the changes were far too obvious. The dropped spoons, the flash of green behind his eyes, his limbs losing visibility without him even noticing, their ecto-inventions that always seemed to go off around him.

One day, she even saw him walk through his bedroom door.

At first, she thought it was just a simple case of possession. But there were telltale signs of possession, one’s that Jack, for all his enthusiasm, always failed to take into account.

Sure, Danny’s eyes flashed green every so often, but most of the time they were blue. Human blue.

And then there was his personality. In cases of possession, the ghost would be completely controlling the body. But in Danny’s case, he was still very obviously Danny. Still the sweet boy she always knew him to be, but he was just...different. Jumpier. Scared.

Like he knew he was living a lie.

And then, just a few weeks after Danny’s run in with the portal, a new ghost appeared. 

Of course, Maddie didn’t make the connection at first. The ghost was obviously new, and didn’t seem to have a grasp on its powers. Its fighting was laughable, its ectoblasts nearly always missed, and it seemed to constantly forget about its core powers.

Not to mention, its hair was white. Danny had black hair.

But then the ghost gave itself a name: Danny Phantom. And that was when Maddie decided to take a second look at it.

It was Danny’s height and build, its voice sounded similar to Danny’s, it seemed to know all of Danny’s classmates, it used a Fenton thermos, it wore a hazmat suit that looked eerily similar to the ones in their basement closet—not to mention that Danny’s hazmat suit had gone missing recently.

On its own, one small correlation didn’t mean anything. But when the little similarities kept piling up, then Maddie had to draw some sort of conclusion.

Just what was the conclusion though?

The Danny across the table had gone to school like any other human child, he’d eaten his meals like anyone else, he’d hung out with his human friends, he talked with his human family. On paper, he seemed normal.

Human.

But his grades were in a downwards spiral, Jazz had expressed concern about him and his friends, he’d been breaking curfew, and there were times when she’d peak into his room at night to find him gone.

He could have been just experiencing trauma from the accident. Maybe he was rebelling. There were so many explanations for his behavior that didn’t involve ghosts.

But then he’d do something ghostly or a weapon would beep around him or Phantom would fly nearby, and her red flags would be raised once again.

Maddie learned long ago to trust her red flags.

The Danny across the table took a bite of his salad, and his face immediately scrunched up.

Maddie felt sick.

He swallowed, and Maddie could see his eyes watering. “Is there something wrong with the lettuce, Mom?” 

She feigned innocence. “Hmm?”

“I don’t know,” he prodded a carrot on his plate. “Something just seems off.”

“Tastes fine to me,” Maddie said. “I just bought this lettuce today. Jazz, is yours okay?”

“Yeah,” she said.

Maddie suppressed a grin. She could always count on her “facts and research only” daughter.

“It could be the dressing? I used a new brand tonight. It’s healthier than the other stuff.” 

That, or it was the small amount of blood blossoms she’d blended into the vinaigrette. 

“Maybe.”

But it couldn’t end here. She needed to know. She was a scientist, she had to see the experiment through.

“Eat the rest of your salad, honey. I’ll buy the other brand tomorrow, okay?”

Danny carefully put another forkful of salad into his mouth. He gave a small wince, but swallowed. 

“Good boy,” she said. “I have fudge in the fridge for when you’re done.”

“Oh, fudge?” Jack exclaimed. He shoveled the rest of his salad into his mouth. With a mouth full of food, he said, “Thanks, Mads! You’re the best!”

“You’re welcome sweetie!”

Jazz made a face. “Gross, Dad.”

Jack laughed and bantered back at his daughter, but Maddie had already tuned out of the conversation. Her only focus was on Danny, whose face was now just too flushed to be healthy. Still, he forced himself to eat.

There was just no question. No doubt about it.

No matter how Maddie looked at it, this was proof enough.

Danny Fenton wasn’t human. The portal hadn’t nearly killed him, it probably did kill him. And now here he was, pretending to still be a part of the family while using Phantom to distract them from the fact that he was a ghost.

It was a truly elaborate ploy. And if Maddie was anyone else, his plans probably would have worked.

But she was Maddie Fenton. She had a PhD in ectobiology. She’d been researching ghosts for twenty years.

Dinner ended, and the children went upstairs to do homework. Although, if Maddie looked, she was sure Danny wouldn’t actually be in his room. And if she went outside, like she’d done in nights past, there was no doubt she’d see Phantom soaring through the skies.

But she knew. She knew. She knew.

She slipped a white business card out of her jacket pocket, grabbed her cell off the counter, went into her bedroom, and dialed the number. 

It rang once, then twice, then stopped. A deep voice sounded from the other line. “Maddie Fenton? I figured I’d be hearing back from you. Have you made your decision?” 

“Yes.” Her voice was mechanical, as if she’d only called about a malfunctioning weapon. “I have. I agree to the partnership.”

“Excellent. And the terms are to your liking?”

“Yes.”

“Understood. We’ll be in touch tomorrow to sign the official contract. Will your husband be involved in this, or are you working alone?”

Maddie closed her eyes. “The contract will be for my name only.”

“All right, then. We’ll talk tomorrow. You won’t regret this.” 

“I know.”

---

<previous / next>

#danny phantom #the life cycle of a half ghost #going angst week 2021 #phicc #my writing

[watermelonlipstick]

Can’t Find My Way Home

Written for @jensengirl83‘s 1k challenge--a thousand congrats to you, sweets, although it sounds like you’re going to need to come up with a new challenge shortly!! I picked the song Can’t Find My Way Home by Blind Faith (which I’ve always loved and was so excited to snag 😋). Thanks in advance for reading, and as always, I would love any advice or critiques!

Title: Can’t Find My Way Home

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 1068

Summary: When Dean’s spiraling after a fight with the reader, somebody must change.  

Warnings: angst, swearing, fluff, ~*mutual pining idiots*~

…please leave your message after the tone.

           The last moment to hesitate swells and passes with Dean’s breath in the half second it takes to hear the beep and he lets it. “You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve, talking to me like that,” he starts, focusing hard to keep his tongue from muddying the words together. “After ever—after everything I’ve fucking done for you, everything I fucking gave up for you, for you to—to—whatever, man. If you ever gave a fuck about me, do me a favor and don’t run to Sam so I can tell him myself.”

           He tosses the phone to the backseat without checking if the message went through. Flicking the collar of his jacket back up, he opens the car door, ready to patch over it with a few more doubles of cheap scotch or the bartender who’s been telegraphing her interest all night.

           The phone rings.

           Answering the late night check-in is a reflex, muscle memory keeping Dean from checking the caller ID. “I’m fine, Sam. Sleeping out tonight, see you tomorrow.”

           “Where are you?” It’s less question than statement of intent, your voice a fraction rough and Dean’s immediate need to know whether it’s from sleep or crying pisses him off more than anything. Your voice is quiet but firm, unwilling to rise to the message’s bait.

           “The fuck do you care?” he hisses. Your silence on the other end of the line is extremely unsatisfying—he wants to fight, wants to yell a few fuck yous at each other, not look inside himself for even one second, and the fact that you won’t give him that should by all accounts be making him more mad at you. He wants to be mad, tries to gather up everything into a slippery fist and twist it into something icy but he can’t. His jaw sets hard against the tightness in his chest.

           “Where are you.” Not even a quarter step of rise at the end of the sentence, not even pretending now.

           “You’re not coming here,” he says, and immediately knows it’s a tactical error no matter how fucked up he is. Showed his cards too fast, shouldn’t have been the first one to fold on his opening gambit, but it’s too late now. And fuck you for holding onto the silence as you wait him out again.

           “Where. Are. You.”

           “If you called me to play fucking Pocket Repeat—”

           “Just—can you—just please don’t drive, okay?”

           Dean doesn’t have to put on the snap of offense in his tone as he scoffs. “Glad to know you think so highly of me.”

           “Dean—” you groan.

           “Save it.”

            The phone stays in the backseat when he goes back into the bar.

           You breathe more than a shallow sigh of relief in spite of yourself when you find Dean alone in the Impala’s backseat over an hour later. His arms are crossed tight over his chest and one ankle covers the other, boots resting gently on the glass.  Making sure you’re as clearly visible as possible and taking a deep breath to settle your nerves, you give two quick raps on the window.

           Dean’s eyes fly open without any other movement in a way that betrays he wasn’t asleep. He holds your gaze rock-steady for a moment before leaning forward and unlocking the door.

           Driving around dark parking lots with a brooding mix of anger and anxiety, you’d run through all kinds of impossibly cutting and true things you could say, and even some placating apologies. Now, slowly crawling into the backseat you’d sat in hundreds of times, your mind goes completely blank—it feels like being put under a trance for the way you’re moving almost purely on viscous tangled emotion across the leather to your best-friend-arrogant-asshole-how-dare-I-speak-to-you-like-that-how-dare-you-speak-to-me-like-that, too close into his space and Dean takes a sharp inhale through his nose, his eyebrows quirk up just a hair but he only draws back a half centimeter in surprise, doesn’t jerk away.

           You pause for a beat when you’re close enough to feel the heat of his breath on your lip, waiting for that jerk away. It’s all he would have to do. Just jerk away, show you that’s not it and make fun of you mercilessly for a couple weeks—let that one thing get back to normal.

           He doesn’t move.

           He doesn’t move and you do, close the distance between you and Dean in that backseat like stupid, fumbling teenagers, delicate skin of your lips just barely grazing his. He’s a statue pressed up to his elbows on the bench seat with you hovering above him. Your pulse is loud enough in your ears you think Dean must be able to hear it and somehow when you deepen the kiss that scotch and chapstick taste has already existed in your memory, it’s just that you’re finally able to place it.

           You might’ve thought—if you were able to think at all—that he would’ve kissed you back forcefully, proving a point and slicing through tension one of the best ways Dean Winchester knows how, but it’s so soft. So soft, barely there and he’s slipping his night-chilled fingertips along the back of your neck, into your hair and then it’s so gentle it hurts; you want him to be rough, want to be able to go back thirty seconds and select the Keep Fighting With Dean option because it’s all too much what the fuck are you doing. A deeper part of you knows that this is the only possible next step.

           Doesn’t make it any less terrifying. You tilt your head back just enough to catch Dean’s eyes and it’s more hopeful than anything, begging for everything to be good.

           Dean’s only barely able to believe this is happening, beautiful psychotic thing he’s never given himself permission to think about suddenly all that makes sense. When you draw back he can feel the open brightness in his eyes but can’t do anything about it, exposed and skinless beneath you, rubbed raw with the beginnings of a hangover already licking at his heels and completely at a loss for anything to say in a way he so infrequently is. He watches your lips part and close, bracing himself for a thousand possibilities about to come out of your mouth.

           “Can we go home?” you breathe, and it’s all Dean can do to nod carefully as you ease back off of him.

-

Thanks again for reading! If you liked it, check out my Masterlist or send me a request!

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#dean winchester #jensengirl831kcelebration #dean #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester x you #dean winchester oneshot #dean winchester fluff #dean x you #dean x reader #dean winchester reader insert #spn #spn fanfic #spn reader insert #supernatural #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural fic #supernatural fluff #supernatural angst #dean angst #dean fluff #dean winchester angst #dean w #spn fanfiction #dean one shot #dean oneshot #dean fanfiction #dean fanfic #dean winchester fanfic #dean winchester fanfiction

[elius-learns-to-write]

If We Had 5 More Minutes

Hey Besties, I just want to say that there will be talk of death, grief and a brief mention of alcohol being used to cope and as always me not proofreading. Anyway, this kind of sucks but I hope you enjoy it anyway. Hold on besties! I’m so proud of all of you

A mission goes wrong and you die. How would they react? Let’s find out 

The mission was supposed to be a quick one

Get in, take what you needed and get out 

But it wasn’t 

Before you even got there the vibe on the jet was weird 

Bucky and A few others claiming they had a bad feeling about the mission

“All I’m saying is we should be extra careful, I have been doing this long enough to be able to tell when somethings wrong” Bucky said to Steve obviously frustrated with the way the Captain wasn’t listening. “Buck you just need to take a breath, if you aren’t ready and can’t put your superstitions to one side then I will take you off of this mission and leave you in the jet” the blond replied using his captain voice. You were watching this all from your seat knowing that it was best not to get involved and get so emotional before a mission. You did have to admit that something felt strange but you had put it down to the adrenaline pumping through your veins as it always did before a mission. “I’m sure we’ll be fine, we’re a team remember. We go in together and come out together no matter how we are feeling” you said trying to lighten the mood. Whether it lightened the mood or not the men decided to drop the subject and carry on the prep.

If only

When you all made your way to the designated start point the air was still filled with something you couldn’t decipher, whatever it was you could cut it with a knife it was so prominent

Still you and the rest of the team got ready for Caps orders 

“Ready guys?” Steve's’ voice crackled over the comms

“What? Ready to kick some bad guys ass? When are we not” Tony joked. He always had a joke to make or a way to lighten the mood “Hell yeah Stark” you giggled. “Alright, on my count” Steve said, you could tell even just by his voice that he was smiling “1. 2. 3. GO GO GO”

And with that you were off like a flash. 

Zooming straight to the North Corner with Sam just like you were told

It all went wrong so quickly that if someone were to ask you what happened you wouldn’t know where to start

There were more guards than you had previously anticipated meaning you all had to work twice as hard to try and find the USB with the information on 

“Uhhhh Steve, we might need some help up here” Sam called through the comms as he fought off 2 agents at once. Mean while you were struggling to hold off 3. Left hook. Duck. Kick. Slash. Slash. Right hook. Just as you had been trained to do, whether it was the fact there was 3 of them or the fact that they were practically a wall of muscle, you were finding it hard to dodge their attacks. You already had a black eye, a slash on your arm and at least a fractured or bruised rib. “Steve Hurry up, unlike you I don’t think I can do this all day” you joked trying Tony’s tactic to pretend you didn’t feel like there was an elephant pressing on your chest.

Steve got there shortly after

Having taken down all the agents on his side 

However 1 shield and 4 more agents with guns wasn’t exactly the most reassuring situation

Bang. A scream.Falling to the ground, a scream tore from your throat. When had the guy aimed at you? Why did it feel like you were falling in slow motion? Your body hit the floor with a thud “Y/N’S DOWN GET OUT TO THE JET NOW” you could here Caps voice but it sounded like you were underwater. As you drifted in and out of consciousness you could feel your body being lifted up by a pair of arms and carried out of the building. Opening your eyes all you could here was the dull sound of cried from your team mates “it’s going to be okay” you coughed, blood spilling out your mouth. That wasn't a good sign. “We’re a team remember?” you said, smiling as best you could as your black dots started to cloud your vision. “Don’t you dare die on us doll!” Bucky choked from somewhere on the jet, “Bucky's right, we’re a team just like you said” Bruce cried. Where was everyone's voice coming from? “You can’t leave us” Natasha sobbed, you tried your best to open your eyes but they just felt so heavy. “I’m not leaving you” you said breathy “I’m always gonna be here” struggling to speak you said the only thing you had the strength to and the only thing you could think of “I love you all, I’m sorry” tears rolled down your cheek as you looked into Steve’s eyes. “It’s okay princess, you have” his sentence was interrupted by a cry “nothing to be sorry about” and with that you closed your eyes.

Dying. It didn’t feel like how the movies said it would. It wasn’t like being embraced in a blanket, it wasn't soft or calm it was harsh and rushed. You had been ripped from your families world in a flurry of tears and blood and broken promises. That’s the thing about death. The people who describe it as greeting an old friend or surrendering to the unknown in a blissful and unaware state, fail to account for the people we leave behind. The broken, griefing and shattered people. That’s all the Avengers were without you. Broken people. Bruce no longer looked forward to leaving the lab to see you standing there with a coffee in your hand and a knowing smile on your face. Tony no longer joked, opting to wallow in his pain at the bottom of a bottle. Steve no longer found joy in drawing, you were always his inspiration and now you were gone. Bucky no longer talked, what was the point if the people listening weren’t you? Clint was no longer a shoulder to cry on for others, spending more time at home with his own family. Vision no longer used the door to the bedroom you had once occupied, in fact he refused to go in at all. Thor no longer laughed. Loki no longer took pride in his magic, it’s not like it saved you? Wanda no longer baked, you used to do that with her. Pietro no longer raced around, it was normal to see him slowly walking through the corridors remembering how your laugh used to bounce of the walls. Natasha no longer had someone to mother or even talk to. Peter no longer smiled.

That’s the funny thing about losing someone you love. You often find yourself remembering the times you had, asking yourself all the what if’s and the why not me. It leaves a person shattered and more often than not the only person who could mend that was the person that was no longer there. Without you, they were no longer a team. I mean how could they be when you were the glue holding them together?

Yes the world kept turning and the sun still rose.

But without you around to light up their lives like the star you were 

The world didn’t seem the same.

So how did they  react? How did they cope?

They didn’t.

#the avengers #avengers x platonic reader #avengers x teen!reader #avengers x reader #avengers imagine #nat x teen!reader #tony stark imagine #steve x teen!reader #bucky x teen!reader #loki x teen!reader #bruce banner x teen!reader #thor x teen!reader #wanda x teen!reader #pietro x teen!reader #peter parker x reader

[brookecuzyes]

three years of you. — tear myself apart

Damiano David x GN!Musician!Reader

Main Masterlist — 3yrs Masterlist

Summary: it’s only been a couple of days, which were full of tears and regret. however, that regret wasn’t on their part until a simple comment was made. (Part 3 of a series)

Word Count: ≈3.4k

Warnings: cursing, alcohol intake, angst (Anyone drinking alcohol in this chapter is of the legal drinking age in the United States, which is 21.)

A/N: thank y’all for reading! this has already gained a lot of readers and so i am happy about that. love you guys sm 💕 songs included in this fic are not mine. any characters mentioned are not mine, and belong to their respected owners. and ofc, i don’t own the celebrities either. i do check comments/reblogs, so please be respectful!!

———————————————————————-

You’ve got this, you can do it.

You tried consoling yourself. Normally, he would be here to help calm you down— or at least call if he could physically be there. He’d be there if you were about to have a panic attack, he’d be there to make sure that you were OK.

But you aren’t.

An entire audience full of strangers who listened to the songs, who listened to your heartbreak. Now, they get to watch your heart break live.

He wouldn’t— no, couldn’t— be there to comfort you. He couldn’t be there to tell you that everything will be fine. He fucked up, he’s the one who messed up that relationship…

“…then why did you show up?”

——

Glasses clinked. Chatter was taking place all around. Honestly, it was a little overwhelming.

You sat down at the booth with the whole band. Saturday had rolled around, which you hadn’t noticed since you were lost in an almost depressive state where time was non-existent. However, the karaoke bar definitely woke you up.

“Alright, guys,” Luke, the lead guitarist, said, holding a couple of drinks in his hands. “Tonight is the night! The tradition kicks in once again, and Monday we start recording. Let’s celebrate and relax.” Julie, the lead singer and the girlfriend of Luke, followed behind him, setting more drinks down on the table. Flynn, the unofficial manager of the band, let out a loud, “woo!”, making everyone laugh. All of you grabbed a glass and clinked them together, all taking a sip at the same time. Your face crunched when you processed the drink.

“Jesus, Luke, what is this?” you questioned.

“Alcohol,” he said blatantly.

“Yeah, no shit,” you shot back, shaking off the effects.

“I just said that we’re relaxing— that’s exactly what alcohol does!”

“Or maybe you're just an alcoholic?” Alex joked, taking a sip of his drink.

“I don’t drink that much.” Luke defended.

“That’s what an alcoholic would say.” The whole band started laughing at the ongoing banter. It isn’t often when Alex made witty remarks like that, and everyone always enjoyed it when he did.

On another note, you felt as if you absolutely needed this drink. Given what’s been going on this last week, you felt like you deserved it. Though, you knew you’d regret this tomorrow. You knew Alex was keeping an eye out for you. The rest of the band didn’t know yet, they just knew that something happened, which is why you left Italy so early. They were all confused, but didn’t ask upon it when Alex glared daggers at them when they tried. So, thankfully, they did back off. But, it doesn’t mean that they weren’t concerned.

You had been talking, making it seem as if everything was fine, but Alex’s heart broke when he picked up on it. However, with the alcohol about to course through your veins, it would be harder from him to be able to pick up on whether you were drunk or going through it. Regardless, he was going to make sure that you were having fun and not thinking about your ex.

“Hey,” Flynn said, “why don’t we start the karaoke? I think we all have enough alcohol in our systems to do this.”

“I vote for Alex to go first!” You said, raising your hand. “Do Micheal Bublé.”

“Woah, hold up, I never even said-“

“It doesn’t matter. What I say goes. Now go.” He sighed, laughing as he stood up from the booth. He went over to the guy and told him what song he wanted to do. They got everything set up, and Alex got on stage.

“Let’s go, Alex!” You cheered on, making him smile and blush just a bit— though that wasn’t entirely visible from where you guys decided to sit.

The song started playing, and Alex started singing. It took you a few seconds to recognize the song but you figured it out.

“Oh, he’s singing Feeling Good. I love that song,” you whispered to Reginald, the bassist, who was sitting next to you. He looked to you over his shoulder, smiling. He hadn’t seen you so “out there” since you got back. It was nice to see you getting back to normal. Though, he didn’t actually know why you weren’t normal to begin with.

And I’m feeling… good.

You cheered Alex on again, dancing along to the beat with the whole band. Alex didn’t sing much, but when he did you cherished those moments. That’s why he songs Now or Never and Stand Tall on the band’s very first album are your favorite.

“God, I love his voice,” Reggie said, as if he read your mind.

“Yeah, and look at him,” you pointed out the way his body is moving with the music. The way he was just lost in a musical haze. It was enchanting. “That’s what his anxiety covers up.”

Alex soon finished, hopping off of the stage with an embarrassed smile on his face.

“Oh, don’t be embarrassed, babe,” you said, noticing his expression. “That was the best performance tonight by far. Not even Julie could compare to how amazing that was.”

“Thanks, Y/N,” she said, drawing out the ‘thanks’ in a sarcastic way. You raised your glass to her.

“Anytime, Jules,” you replied, raising your eyebrow and taking a sip. She laughed, letting the comment you made slip— for now at least.

“Hey, I have an idea!” Flynn exclaimed. “How about we take a couple photos and post them to our accounts? Y’know, to celebrate this very special moment.” Everyone collectively agreed. Pictures were taken left and right— and others were taken throughout the night, too— and each person had a different photo that they were each going to post. You had decided that you were going to post yours now, not wanting to forget later on tonight or tomorrow.

You captioned it:

Just continuing a small tradition tonight with music and alcohol. maybe if he lets me, i’ll post Alex singing Feeling Good 😏🤍

It was perfect and you posted it, after letting everyone see it to make sure it was OK. Within minutes people already saw it and were liking and commenting. You made sure to turn your phone off before it started going crazy. Julie and Luke decided to go up and do a duet with each other. They choose Little Do You Know. Their voices were beautiful singing the song. They mashed just so perfectly. You recorded them, knowing that you would 100% show them this at their wedding. (They aren’t engaged, but it’s bound to happen sooner or later.)

You weren’t paying attention to the notifications spamming the top of your screen, though you did look back once to see if the camera was aligned with their bodies. That’s when you saw a specific notification. One thing that you absolutely forgot when you posted that photo was that Måneskin could still see your posts. The only reason you remembered was because Victoria responded to your post.

Ahhh you look amazing!!!😘

The second you saw it, you put your head in your hands, mentally slapping yourself. If Victoria saw it, then the rest of the band is going to see, meaning Damiano would see it. Fuck, you thought to yourself.

“Hey, Y/N, are you alright?” Alex asked, placing a hand on your arm. You looked up at him showing him the comment. “I don’t understand.”

“Victoria commented. Meaning Damiano’s probably gonna see it.”

“Not if he’s blocked.”

“I didn’t block him, we’re still mutuals.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, Alex. Maybe I just haven’t gotten to it yet.” You realized the angered tone in your voice, not meaning to be rude to Alex. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.”

“No, it’s okay. Hey, maybe if he does end up seeing it, he’ll just be jealous. Damiano will see everything he’s missing out on.”

“What is Damiano missing out on?” Julie asked, sitting back down with Luke.

“Oh, it’s nothing-“ Alex started, but you cut him off.

“I left Italy because Damiano was talking to another girl. It caused too many problems, so I left.” Everyone went silent. Everyone’s eyes softened at you, unsure of what to say.

“Y/N…”

“It’s fine. I’m here now. It doesn’t matter.” Silence fell once again, especially on Alex’s behalf. He knew you weren’t fine, he knew it mattered— whether you said it or not. “Sorry if I kinda killed tonight’s vibe.”

“N-No, you’re fine,” Reggie said. “You did nothing wrong.”

“Yeah, you didn’t ruin anything. I am glad that you told us, though. We’ve been worried.” Luke said, putting his arms on the table and leaning forward just a bit. You felt your phone vibrate but didn’t think anything of it— probably just another person on Instagram.

“Sorry that I made you guys worry. I just wasn’t sure how to bring it up. It’s just been a hard couple of days. This shit isn’t easy,” you explained, mumbling the last part. Everyone stayed silent, none wanting to make something worse.

“Luke, why don’t you and the guys go grab some food?” Julie suggested, placing a hand on Luke’s back, turning her attention back to you.

“Oh, yeah. Guys, let’s go,” Luke said, getting the hint. The boys got up and left, each giving you a sympathetic look. The girls, on the other hand, all stayed behind.

“Alright, listen up,” Flynn started. “Tonight is not the night to mope around. You can do that tomorrow when you’re hungover.”

“Right now,” Julie jumped in, “you’re gonna forget about that asshole, get your ass out there, and sing your heart out, dammit!” Your eyes widened at the girls’ sternness. A smile started creeping from your lips, Julie and Flynn following behind you. Soon enough, the three of you started laughing your asses off.

“Ok, ok, I’m convinced. I’ll have fun tonight. Thanks,” you said, trying to shake off the laughter so you can speak. You grabbed your drink, taking a sip of it. It was the same drink Luke got you earlier. Damn it, Luke. You shook your head to shake off the kick the drink had. Flynn chuckled at your antics, taking a sip of her, not as strong, drink. The guys soon came back with some snack-type items in their hands.

“Are we all good now?” Alex asked, setting down the plate on the table and looking your way.

“Yep, we’re all good now,” Julie answered, taking a sip of her drink. You chuckle at her, reaching for some of the food on the table. “But, Y/N’s about to sing for us.”

“Woah, wait, now?”

“What did I say? You’re gonna sing your heart out.”

You groaned, slumping back in your set in a joking— yet, not entirely joking— way. “Julie, I didn’t realize that you meant right now.”

“Ok, so? Get up there, Y/N! C’mon it’ll be fun.” You contemplated. I should go, you thought, it could be fun.

“Fine, I’ll go,” you announced, getting up from your seat. Reggie and Flynn got up from theirs so you could get out. When you got up, you turned to Reginald.

“C’mon, you’re doing this with me,” you said, grabbing his arm and dragging him over to the guy supervising the karaoke.

“I didn’t really wanna sing right now. Nerves, y’know?” Reggie explained.

“So? Reggie, I get that nerves are real, but there’s no way in hell I’m doing this alone.” You opened up a book full of songs, and was going through the selection.

“Why couldn’t you just get someone else?”

“Because I think our voices clash very well together.” You turned your head to him and gave him a smile. He shyly smiled back. You looked back at the book and held it up to Reggie. “What about this one?” you asked, pointing to a song. Reggie read it and smiled.

“Yeah, let’s do it,” he said, grabbing the pen and marking off the song and writing your names. You stood back, waiting for him to finish. When he did, he turned around.

“Alright, I’ve got us down. Wanna head up?” He asked, holding his hand out with a playful smile.

“Let’s do it,” you said, grabbing a hold of his hand, him taking you up the stairs and into the stage.

When you walked up, you saw the screen in front of you turn on, switching to the lyrics of the song. The lights were bright, but it wasn’t anything you weren’t used to. You saw some people stare at you, but it was mainly the rest of the band. Reginald walked to the microphone set up on the far left, you took the other. The song started playing, immediately relaxing you. Maybe this isn’t as bad as I thought. The song you chose was a favorite of you and Reggie— Meet Me At Our Spot. Of course, the band loved it too, but they got bored with it after a while since you two were always blasting it wherever you went. You actually had some inspiration from this song and wrote a little tune, but you had no lyrics at the moment.

When I wake up

I cant even stay up

I slept through the day, fuck

I’m not getting younger

——

“Victoria, you don’t understand-“

“No, you don’t understand, Damiano!” Victoria raised her voice at him. They never argued. They’ve known each other since childhood and nothing had ever caused an issue, except for this.

“I did nothing wrong.”

“Really? ‘Cause it looks to me that you broke your lovers heart.”

“Y/N left me,” he said, trying to reason.

“They might have physically left, but, Damiano, you were gone a long time ago.” She started towards the front door of his house, grabbing her keys.

“Where are you going?” Damiano asked.

“Home. But, let me tell you something first, Dami.” She put her hand on the doorknob. “It doesn’t matter how you try to defend yourself, you fucked up. You broke Y/N’s heart. You were talking to someone else. The damage is done. If you’re gonna try and get them back, you’re gonna have to try really damn hard. You want to get Y/N back, right?”

Silence followed. Victoria gave him a second to compose himself, but ultimately feared the worst. “Dami…”

“I mean, yeah, but-“

“No buts. You shouldn’t be saying ‘but’, you have no reason to.” Damiano just looked at her. “Wow… unbelievable.” Victoria opened the door and walked out, slamming the door behind her. Damiano walked up to the door and locked it. He headed back to the living room and heard his phone ding. He picked it up and saw that you had posted a photo.

Just continuing a small tradition tonight with music and alcohol. maybe if he lets me, i’ll post Alex singing Feeling Good 😏🤍

He sighed. He unlocked his phone, and went to go see the photo you posted. You looked nice. Happy. What was the tradition again?

Right, karaoke. The weekend before the band records an album, everyone goes to a karaoke bar. He scrolled down a bit and saw a comment. He saw Victoria’s comment.

Ahhh you look amazing!!!😘

He figured that she saw the post before she pulled out of his driveway. He debated on what he should do.

Yeah, he fucked up. But, it really wasn’t that bad. It’s not like he cheated. It was just talking. He wanted to tell you that you look great, but wasn’t sure how you would feel about it. Like Y/N would care what I think, he thought to himself. You never broke up, though. Plus, he needs to know what’s going on, how you’re doing. He’s concerned. Couldn’t be the worst thing— it’s not like the internet knows yet.

Ok, I’ll just just comment.

——

Caught a vibe

Baby, are you coming for the ride

I just wanna look into your eyes

I just wanna stay for the night, night, night

You and Reginald were jamming out to the song, as per usual. Everyone was loving it, even the rest of the band. It was the most fun you’ve had in a hot second.

When we take a drive

Maybe we can take the 405

Hypnotized by the light

Man, this must be the life

As the song ended, everyone cheered you two on. You went over and hugged Reggie on his side, him giving a small hug back. You guys walked back to your booth, the whole band full of excitement. Alex got up from his seat and let the two of you in, you sitting in the corner of the booth.

“That was amazing!” Luke exclaimed.

“Thanks, we had fun,” Reggie said, practically reading your mind.

“Definitely.”

“Your voices go so well together,” Flynn remarked.

“That’s exactly what I said!” you said, hitting Reginald’s shoulder so he knows your point is proven.

“Ok, we don’t have to be violent about it,” he joked, smirking just a bit.

“Yeah, whatever. I’m gonna go to the restroom real quick. I’ll be back,” you said, waiting for Alex and Reggie to stand up so you can go. You grabbed your phone, stood up, and made your way to the restroom. When you got to the restroom, you went to one of the stalls but checked your phone before you did anything else. However, you almost immediately regretted it because you saw that Damiano had commented on your photo.

What the hell does he want?

You read what he had commented, and, honestly, you wanted to laugh.

You look great tonight, as you do every night, amore

You couldn’t believe it. Amore, really? you thought to yourself. You looked up from your phone, looking at the stall door. You contemplated what to do next:

For starters, keeping the comment wouldn’t be out of the norm for your followers. They knew about you and Damiano. However, if you deleted (which you really wanted to do), everyone would notice. People would speculate. Or, you could just go off on Damiano privately. That would be too harsh. But, this is your account— your decision. Do you want to have your cheater boyfriend compliment you the way he did?

You know what, do it later, you thought, turning off your phone and finally, actually, using the restroom.

Once you finished, you exited the stall and walked over to the sinks. You washed your hands, not able to get that damn comment off of your mind.

You walked out of the restroom and back over to the booth, but you didn’t sit down.

“Alex,” you said, standing next to him. “Can I talk to you?” He looked up at you, unsure of what you wanted to talk about, but got up anyway. You grabbed his hand and pulled him outside.

When you two got out there, you sat down on a bench, Alex following your move.

“Is everything alright?” You opened your phone and went to Instagram, showing Alex to comment Damiano left. “Oh.”

“Yeah. I just don’t know what to do, and it is tearing me apart. Do I delete it? Do I keep it? Do I argue with him?”

“Delete the comment, and, Y/N, please, block him on social media. You don’t have to block his number, but you should block him everywhere else.”

“Why not his number,” you asked.

“Because you need closure. At some point, you’re gonna want to text him or call him and try to get some understanding as to why he did what he did. You haven’t actually broken up yet. Maybe that’s how you finish off?”

After a moment of contemplation (again), you nodded your head slowly.

“Ok. Yeah, ok, I’ll do that.” You lowered your head and searched through your following to find Damiano’s account. You clicked the three dots at the top, and looked for the block button.

“You sure this is the right thing to do?”

“Yes. Want me to do it?”

“No, no, it’s fine. I can do it.”

You looked at the button for a second. You’ve never even thought of blocking him before. I’m your mind, he was the one. Now? Well, you’re blocking him because he cheated on you, so obviously your idea of him completely shifted.

I can do this.

Your hands started shaking slightly, your heart was beating like crazy.

I can do this.

Slowly, you moved your finger over the button.

Click it, it’ll be fine.

And, so, you did. You clicked the button.

You felt free.

———————————————————————-

Taglist for 3yrs — i’m so sorry if i couldn’t tag you!*

@mywritingonlyfans @nientedaridere @pingpongchamps @fairysums @kkjk @blackbluerose666 @thatmeganthing @teenyweenynightghost @ccweasley @lilchickie @katyldamusic @fanfictioncafe @tiaamberxx @butkutee @aboredassho @story-scribbler

*(for those who want to be tagged, please have stuff posted onto your blog and make sure that your blog isn’t censored <3)

#damiano david fanfiction #damiano x y/n #damiano david fanfic #damiano david x gn!reader #damiano david #damiano x you #damiano david angst #må #måneskin #maneskin #three years of you. #three years of you: tear myself apart #3yrs