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tennessoui · 3 years

Note

You kind of already did 31 but pleaseeeeeeee

these ficlets keep getting longer ffs this is 2k

31. One is a sex worker, the other is a client AU

anakin's had his turn as a sex worker in my writing so it's Obi-Wan this time, paired with Vaderkin and i made it more dark than I thought would happen whoops but. warnings are: probably bordering extremely dubious consent even though no sex happens and this is just the lead up. a brief reference to underage sex work, though absolutely nothing comes of it. and vaderkin being a bit creepy.

There is a saying among the workers at the Establishment: if the imperial palace calls for you, you should hope the person that is displayed next to you is prettier.

Obi-Wan has never bought into prayers of any kind and this saying is only ever said with something akin to a worshipful dread. Still, when Ahsoka drapes a cloak of red around his shoulders and whispers those words to him—“May the others be your betters”—he thinks for a second about the nature of prayer and of hope and the futility of both in this galaxy.

“Don’t worry, little ‘Soka,” he smiles from under the cloak’s hood. “I’m sure it’s just a mistake.” He is, after all, one of the oldest workers here, makes most of his money these days tending bar and running the front desk, called in to serve mostly for virgin customers who want a gentler and more experienced hand to guide them in the art of pleasure. He doesn’t think any of the words could be used to describe the Emperor Vader, can’t see the imposing black-suited man interested in the art of pleasure.

Ahsoka can’t look him in the eye, but she hugs him tightly as he boards the shuttle that will take him to the Palace.

The ride there is quiet. Obi-Wan tries to avoid as many glances from the other people as he gives to them. Most of them are young, human. He seems to be the only male above 40. His chances are good.

Maybe he hadn’t been lying to Ahsoka. Maybe, truly, his name being included on the list had been a mistake

Something inside him hesitates though. He’d been out in the Upper levels a week ago, making his way home after one of his rare appointments with an old client turned friend. A child had fallen into the path of a small parade of speeders. A correctional officer had raised a whip. Obi-Wan had reacted on instinct, catching its lash with his forearm. The child had run off. Obi-Wan had stayed. He’d raised his head just enough, eons later, to see the durasteel outside of the largest speeder pass by his prone form, just enough to see the Imperial crest on its hull. Just for long enough to see a glint of a yellow eye from the window.

Bacta had treated his wounds, but his mind had not allowed him to rest easily, caught up in the memory of that eye--had he imagined the interest? Had he imagined it all?

And so to hear his name called tonight--the first calling since The Incident--had felt like the confirmation of all of his most unfounded fears.

Would tonight be the night he died? He had lived a long life. A rough one. Perhaps it is time.

Still, in the back of his head, a selfish, utterly human part of him whispered, may the others be your betters.

---

Those chosen do, often, come back. Sometimes they do not. Mostly they do. Obi-Wan has never truly decided which of these fates is the worse one. Those who survive don’t say anything for days on end, their eyes blank as they stare forward. Their bruises, if they are there, are easy to heal. But something is always wrong with their minds afterwards. And those who don’t come back...well. It’s hard to say what happens to them, where they go. Far away or down below.

Obi-Wan is forced to his knees in between a moderately aged female Togruta and a fairly young teenager. The boy is shaking. He can’t be more than sixteen.

They’re in the Entrance Hall. Obi-Wan has never been here before, but he supposes it makes sense. There will be one person who ventures further into the Palace. The rest will be dismissed out the doors that just shut. No need to bring the scum further in than they have to.

Distantly, like a funeral drum, Obi-Wan can hear the sound of feet falling, making their way closer. Just a single pair. He wants to look up, to watch the Emperor--because it has to be the Emperor--approach, but there’s a Guard behind him, holding his head down.

The footsteps are close now. There’s only ten of them--sometimes, Obi-Wan has heard that there can be as many as twenty or thirty--so the line is short. Vader paces quietly from the first to the last person, before stopping in the middle. Obi-Wan can just see the black of his boots if he flicks his eyes as far as they can go to the left. The boy next to him lets out a muffled sob. Obi-Wan wishes he could offer the kid some sort of comfort, some sort of reassurance that the Emperor will choose one of the other workers, a body more desirable than either of theirs, but there are no words to describe the guilty relief of a suffering passed onto someone else.

On some sort of invisible signal, the Guard behind Obi-Wan wrenches his head back by the hold he has on both the silken hood and his own hair. It’s far from comfortable, tilted so far back. The message is obvious. Submission is not optional. Respect will be shown through any means necessary.

Obi-Wan tries to keep the hulking form of Vader in his eyesight, even though to see ahead of him he has to close his eyes almost completely because of the angle. It’s impossible to see anything from the chest up, but he can still hear. Loud, mechanical breathing fills the halls. Vader stops at each person for no longer than five seconds before he continues down the line. Obi-Wan holds his breath, waiting for his turn. Does he turn his head as much as he can, to try and accentuate the gray at his temples? Does he lower his eyes?

He doesn’t, in the end, do either. Vader is wearing a mask, completely covering his face. He doesn’t even look human, except for the way he cocks his head slightly as he stares down at Obi-Wan. He feels flayed, just under the single look, but he can’t turn away either. He glowers up at him. Five seconds pass. Vader should be moving on by now. The fact that he hasn’t fills Obi-Wan with the sort of fear he’s only felt a handful of times in his life.

“This one,” Vader says through a voice modulator. Obi-Wan closes his eyes in defeat, thinks of Little Ahsoka back at the Establishment, thinks of what she’ll think if he doesn’t make it home.

But the boy next to him bursts into sobs and Obi-Wan opens his eyes to see that Vader’s hand isn’t pointing to him at all, but instead just to his right.

But Vader’s face is still pointed directly at Obi-Wan though, head still cocked. The question is as clear as if he actually spoke the words aloud. What will you do about this?

What will he do? What can he do? It’s the street from a week ago all over. A child is in danger. How can Obi-Wan ever live with himself if he doesn’t at least try to throw himself on the blade?

“No!” he says before he can think it through. The Guard behind him jerks his hair back roughly in punishment, but the monster in front of him runs two gloved fingers down his cheek, the pantomime of a lover’s caress. “Me instead. Choose me.”

“Quiet,” the Guard hisses to him, making him wince with the ferocity of the yank he gives his hair. Obi-Wan pants open-mouthed as he tries to think of an argument, of a single reason why the Emperor should not get what he wants, should settle for a washed up whore instead of a younger model. All he can think of is the moral justifications of it, and he’s not sure Vader would care for that line of reasoning.

“I’m asking,” he blurts out. The fingers pause from where they’ve been absent-mindedly touching his beard. “When has anyone ever asked?”

The Emperor takes a step back and seems to consider Obi-Wan, what he has to offer. He tries to preen, to throw his shoulders back and sit back on his heels to show off his body, but it’s hard when the Guard hasn’t let up on his hair. In fact the grip gets even tighter as the man behind him snorts a common insult.

A second later, the hand and the pressure disappear. Obi-Wan falls forward automatically at his sudden release. He scrambles away instinctively, even if that means closer to Vader. Vader who has his hand raised out in front of him clenching his gloved fist tight. Obi-Wan looks behind him at the guard who had held him. The man is scrabbling at his throat. Obi-Wan knows already it will be a futile effort. With Vader distracted by his execution, he turns to check on the boy. He’s looking down, refusing to make eye contact.

Probably for the better.

The Guard falls to the floor. The other nine Guards don’t move at all. Obi-Wan supposes there’s no room for loyalty in a galaxy like this.

“Come,” Vader says, running a hand through his hair. It’s a surprisingly gentle touch, seeing as that hand just took someone else’s life.

Slowly, Obi-Wan rises to his feet and follows behind him, through the twisting halls of the Imperial Palace. He thinks anyone could get lonely here if they have no one to keep them company. It’s so big. Obi-Wan shares his room with three other people, and he frets if one of them is still gone by the time he falls asleep.

This much space would drive anyone mad for another’s touch.

He blinks at himself, incredulous. Is he actually trying to feel compassion for the Emperor? Is it actually working?

The Emperor flings open a pair of elaborate doors without touching them, and suddenly Obi-Wan’s in the bedchambers of the most powerful man on the planet. And to think, he’s wearing mismatched and terribly darned socks.

He resolves to not ask Vader for permission to do anything with his own body for the entire night. He sits on the edge of the bed and watches as Vader takes off his cape and his gloves.

“Would you like to know my prices before or after?” He asks as cooly as possible.

“Your price is that it’s you here and not the boy.”

“Would you have wanted the boy?” Obi-Wan can’t hide the disgust in his tone.

“No,” the Emperor says succinctly. “But I did want to know what you would do. If you really were the same man as the one in the street.”

Obi-Wan’s breath catches in his throat. “Why would you want to know that?”

“There’s so little good left in the galaxy. It’s fascinating that so much is concentrated in you.” Vader reaches up to unlatch his mask. A cascade of golden curls falls out.

He huffs. The Emperor of the Galactic Empire thinks there’s not enough good in the galaxy. It’s at the very least ironic. “It’s a greedy galaxy, your Imperial Majesty--”

The Emperor turns around to face him, helmet still held in his hands. Obi-Wan is surprised to learn he’s just a man. An attractive man, certainly, young and almost pretty with a perfect arch to his lips and a roguish scar cutting through a thick eyebrow. If he had been one of Obi-Wan’s workers, he’d have taken him under his wing, tried to protect him from the clients who would have paid extra to rough up that face.

He was saying something. Obi-Wan had meant to say something else. Oh. Right. “Good cannot be bought.”

The man in front of him--was it really Vader?--smiles, but it doesn’t reach his yellow eyes. “No,” he purrs, discarding his helmet and stalking forward. “But you can.”

#asks #tw: dubious consent #obikin #my fics #vaderkin #prompt fill

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pascalpanic · 3 years

Note

hi i love ur writing so much!! can i request something with mutual pining, denial of feelings, idiots-to-lovers, hurt/comfort/angst , maybe some jealousy and fluff and smut if you want i just need something really angsty with javier peña, frankie m or din djarin?? tysmm!!!!!

The Bantha (Din Djarin x f!Reader)

Summary: Being an animal lover does not work well with the plans the Tuskens and Mos Pelgo citizens have to kill the krayt dragon. A retelling of S2E1 of the Mandalorian: The Marshal.

W/C: 4.4K

Warnings: talk of animals being harmed/dying, lots of arguing and angst, Vanth kind of is gross bc I hate his character aha, we respect the Tuskens in this house and use proper terminology for them, language, tiniest mentions of alcohol

A/N: Not gonna lie, the idea for this fic came to me pretty quickly but it took me a long time to properly figure it out. Lots of drafting and editing so THANK YOU to my beta readers, you’re all the best ever!! Anon, I’m so sorry this took so long but I hope it’s worth it!

Of all the dilemmas you’d expected to face as you traveled the galaxy with a tiny, Force-sensitive, 50-year-old toddler and a Mandalorian with the emotional capacity of the earlier-mentioned child, the last one you’d ever predicted you’d face had to be the challenge of ridding a tiny desert town of a giant sand beast that eats their banthas.

“You are so fucking dense,” you groan as you and Din settle on a speeder bike, the little green child tucked in a wrap on your chest. “You’re a Mandalorian, a battle-worn bounty hunter with a kill streak probably in the thousands, and some random man asks for your help and not only do you fucking freely give it, you decide to help them kill the sand dragon terrorizing their town.” You groan to him, rubbing your temples.

Din nods and starts up the speeder bike. “You don’t need to summarize what we just lived through,” he grunts and you wrap an arm around him.

“I do, because I need to clarify that your dumb ass would do that. Sometimes I really do think you don’t have a brain under that beskar bucket,” you shake your head, trying to keep the anger that you’re feeling. If you’re not careful, it’ll turn to adoration and love.

You’ve been battling your feelings for Din for a while now, trying to force the giddiness bubbling in your chest deep down inside. The man is everything you look for in a partner: strong, committed, tall, protective. He’s good with the child, adorably cuddly and loving. He’s even funny sometimes, making dry-humored remarks around the ship.

“Excuse me for caring,” the man grumbles through the modulator. He’s strong and warm beneath your arms, the Tatooine heat making the beskar warm like your bunk in the morning when you don’t want to get up. Stop it, stop it you remind yourself. This is not the time to be enraptured by the Mandalorian man’s body.

That’s yet another trait you love about him- how caring he is. He’s a bounty hunter, a warrior by oath who never shows his face and probably knows millions of ways to kill someone with his bare hands. Yet he cares. He raises the child well; he even raised him alone before you came into the picture. He puts himself in harm’s way for innocent people on the daily, all because he simply thinks it’s right.

You take a sip from your water canteen and hand it to the baby on your chest so he can drink too. “No, I will not excuse you for caring when you’re doing stupid shit, Din,” you scowl and cap the canteen as two three-fingered green hands give it back to you. “You came here- we came here, our family did, to find Mandalorians. There are none.”

“This man will give me his beskar if we help,” Din hisses, revving the engine of the speeder, non-verbally telling Vanth to get moving. The man is dawdling along, a few meters away, as he packs his bike up.

“What do you need it for, huh?” You ask him, throwing your arms up in exasperation. “I’m not a Mandalorian. This little shit doesn’t need beskar. You have a full set of armor already.”

“Beskar belongs to me, to my people, by my Creed,” he says, articulating himself with his hands too. It’s a habit he’s picked up from you. “You wouldn’t ask a Tatooinian to deprive themselves of the moisture they farm.”

You put your face in your hands and groan. “No, you’re right, because they fucking need water to live. You do not need beskar to survive, Din!” You shout, getting off the speeder bike. “And please, forget I called us a family. We’re clearly just a bounty hunter and his… assistant, whatever the fuck I am, and some little kid we picked up for the ride.” You stalk off towards the building.

“Where are you going?” He asks as you turn.

Cobb is standing to the side somewhere, and you approach him. “You got another speeder? I don’t want to put up with him for the ride.”

The man chuckles and claps your shoulder. “Sure thing, pretty thing.” He wanders off and returns about a minute later with another speeder. Din watches the two of you in annoyance, visible from his rigid body language. “Hop on. You know how to drive?” You nod once and he heads to his own speeder. “I’ll lead. You two follow.”

The ride is uneventful at first. Cobb Vanth tells the two of you the story of how he came to be the town marshal, and Din nods his silent comprehension when the man in beskar looks over at him. Most of the stories are aimed at you, desperate to crack your stony anger. It doesn’t work. You stare straight ahead, daring to break your frown into a neutral expression when the little green baby coos excitedly at the wind in his ears.

There are valleys and caverns to navigate through, nimbly ducking and weaving on your speeder bike. The kid loves it, squealing happily when you fly over a bump or turn a sharp corner. It’s a joyride to him.

When Din and Vanth suddenly stop your ride, you panic, holding the child close against your chest. From your holster, you grab your weapon and stand next to the two men. The growling noises are revealed to be massiffs, huge dog-like lizards. You squeal in delight, immediately dropping to your knees and summoning the beast in Tusken.

“What in the hell is she doin’?” Vanth mutters to Din as the big animal comes bounding toward you.

“She’s always like this with animals. Thinks they’re all big puppies,” Din rolls his eyes but can’t help himself: he smiles beneath his helmet as the beast licks your face and you scratch its sides.

You’re such a wonderful person, Din sighs, even though he’s mad at you. You’ve always been amazing with other species, like massiffs and the little green child strapped to your chest. You’re so intelligent too: speaking seemingly endless languages.

“They are big puppies!” You coo and press a kiss to the forehead of one massiff. Another finds Din, who also bends down to give it scratches and attention. “Green bean, look!” You tell the child and put out his hand for the massiff to lick. “See? They’re our friends,” you tell him, admiring the way the little green child giggles at the scaly skin.

From around a corner, a Tusken appears, then several. You stand and lower your weapon, speaking to them first in their native language. “We mean no harm. You have beautiful massiffs,” you tell them then turn to Din and Vanth. “Drop the weapons.”

“Are you crazy?” Vanth shouts.

“We are here to put an end to the krayt dragon,” you explain to them in their language. “Your assistance and knowledge would certainly help us. You want it gone too, yes?”

They affirm you that it’s a yes, and you nod back at the men. You know Din understands. “They’re willing to help if you’ll stop being a douchebag.” Vanth starts to talk but you hold up a hand and cut him off. “I know, I know. We can strike a deal. Are you willing?”

Din’s heart is nearly exploding. In any other timeline, he’d be the one conducting negotiations, using his threat as a Mandalorian to run the show. But here you are, with your gentle nature, making deals and completing them through cooperation and kindness. It’s hard to speak in a soft tone when speaking Tusken, yet you can do it. All with a baby strapped to your chest. Maker, Din thinks, he might be in love with you.

Vanth sighs a few moments later. “Why the hell not?”

Din talks with the Tuskens for a while at the camp, planning and negotiating as night falls and the air starts to get cold. To entertain the child, you spend time with the banthas, brushing their fur and letting the baby get exposed to the animals.

The kid loves them. He coos happily as he strokes their thick fur, giggling as one of them gives him a kiss and covers him in slime. You wash him off and return, quietly talking with the Tuskens caring for the creatures.

You’ve taken a liking to them. They’re gentle and soft, like big lumbering puppies, really. They moo when you brush their fur just right, let their eyes slip shut when you scratch them between the eyes. You’ve always had a soft spot for animals, like Din said earlier.

Cobb likes you. That much is clear from the way he finds you when he’s not working with Din and the Tuskens, bringing you food and water as you and the child mind your business. He’s overly flirtatious, to the point of annoyance. He’s rude and crude about the Tuskens, calling them words you’d never use to describe a human.

Politely excusing yourself, you allow the child to run with some of the other Tuskens’ children and spot a silver-plated man sitting by the fire.

“Vanth is such a goddamn xenophobe,” you grumble as you sit down next to the fire with Din, the child off playing with some Tusken children. He’d ranted about the Tuskens as you rode with them, luckily in Basic so that the people couldn’t understand him.

“Thought you liked him,” Din says and cocks his head. “He certainly likes you.”

You roll your eyes and sip the canteen of water, looking at the crackling fire. “Those things are not mutually exclusive,” you chuckle, looking over at him. “What, are you jealous, tin can?” You tease and knock on his beskar pauldron.

“In your dreams, cyar’ika,” he teases. It’s clear to him that whatever tension had been between the two of you earlier has dissipated, enough for him to steal the water flask from your hand and pass it to the child as he toddles past.

“I was drinking that, you fucking bantha,” you laugh and smack him on an unarmored part of his arm. The Tatooinian desert gets cold at night, you find, and you pull into yourself a little more from the cold.

Din unclips his cape and drapes it over your shoulders, tucking it in beneath where your arms press against your ribs so that it wraps tight to your body. “Hm. You do have a heart under there,” you tease and sigh, naturally leaning against Din and resting your head on his shoulder pauldron.

“So it’s been said,” he nods and even dares to rest his head on top of yours. Through the bare spots in his beskar, he can feel the way your body radiates warmth into the chilly night. You spot a little green head toddling past again, much slower than the other children thanks to his tiny legs, and Din scoops him up.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur quietly, the roar of the Tuskens’ conversations creating a soft hum around you. “For what I said, when I yelled at you. You’re right. You really are just caring for them.”

He nods. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“I’m more sorry for saying we aren’t a family. I mean, we are, right? Not that we’re like, a couple or anything,” you say hurriedly, your voice low as you stumble over your words. “But you and this little womp rat…” you muse as you scratch the baby’s little green head. “You are my family. That much is clear to me.”

Din nods once more. “I agree.”

You smile up at him. “What’s going on under that bucket, huh?”

He turns, looking off. “Just going over the plans for how we’re going to get that krayt dragon.”

“Ooh, share,” you ask, taking one of his hands and lacing through his glove-covered fingers. “I didn’t mean it when we said all of this for some banthas, you know. I’ve really fallen in love with them lately.”

Din is quiet for a moment. He doesn’t answer. “Din?”

He knows you’re going to hate him for this. Your big heart, your animal-loving, sweet talking kindness is not going be okay with this, but he has to tell you the truth. “We’re going to have to sacrifice some of the banthas for this mission to work.”

“What?” You exclaim, dropping his hand. “You can’t possibly do that.”

“We have to. We need to lure the dragon.”

“Do it some other way!” You frown, looking over at the big soft desert cows. “Seriously, please, Din.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he shakes his head. “They’re not sentient.”

“But they can feel!” You exclaim again, standing. “Fuck this. Why don’t you sacrifice yourself to the krayt dragon and see how that feels?” You shout, storming off. You’re aware it’s childish, but you stomp to your tent and lie down. You close your eyes and hope Din doesn’t come to find you.

Of course you didn’t mean it. Of course you didn’t want Din to sacrifice himself to the krayt dragon. So why is he doing it? Why are you on your knees, screaming to the sky that he did exactly what you said?

You’d been avoiding him since that night, since you showed vulnerability and subsequently returned to anger towards the man. You’d wanted to apologize, but you couldn’t get over the sacrificing of the animals for the cause. You just couldn’t.

Din had flown straight into the sand dragon’s mouth, just seconds ago, and is now deep inside its bowels, you’re sure. You clutch the baby to your chest and wail, agonized and terrified. Vanth stands at your side, a hand resting on your shoulder as you wheeze and sob.

But this is Din. He must have a plan. He has to have a plan; he’s a battle-worn warrior and you’ve never seen him lose a fight. You’d stormed off before you could hear the rest of his plans the other night- maybe this was part of it. But the way Vanth stares at the dragon in terror makes you think that maybe it isn’t. Maybe Din just really fucked it up. You set the little green kid in his cradle and stand, sniffling and clinging to the metal sphere as if it’s your last lifeline to Din.

Suddenly, there’s a burst of green goo and out flies a shining silver rocket: it’s Din. “Oh thank the fucking Maker,” you shout as he lands not far from your small group, the wailing and dying sand beast behind him.

He’s covered in slime, but you’ve never been so happy to see the man. You rush to him and throw your arms around him, not giving a single fuck as you jump on him. “Please, never fucking do that again,” you wheeze into his cape, getting yourself covered in slime.

The hug is not comfortable. Din is all beskar where you want to feel his strong body, but it’s all worth it when he wraps his arms around you too. You’re crying, he knows it, and he knows just why. “I didn’t do it because you said it. You know that, right?”

You let go of him, sniffling and wiping your eyes. “Yeah. I was just so scared- oh Maker, Din, I can’t fucking lose you,” you admit, freely crying now. “I love you, I really do, and I can’t-“

“How?”

You look at him in confusion.

“How do you love me?”

This damn man. He’s full of surprises, just getting literally eaten alive by a krayt dragon, and now he’s asking you for a full emotional confession. You’re still reeling from the shock, but the fact that he’s there is enough. You don’t care that Cobb is definitely listening over your shoulder. “Every way. All of them. Romantic, friendship, family. You feel like my home and I want to be with you.” No better time than now, you suppose, to admit this all.

Din walks a step closer. “Romantic. Huh.”

“I hate that fucking helmet,” you admit, trying to deflect the emotion between the two of you. “I can never see your face. Can’t know what you’re thinking, your tone, your-“

Din cuts you off. “We ride back to the village and clean up. Meet me in the home as the suns set.”

What that means, you have no clue, but you nod. “I’m so glad you’re safe,” you murmur, putting a hand on the cut-out cheek of his helmet.

The town rejoices when you come back, shouting and celebrating over the dragon’s death and the plentiful meat that came with the creature. You’d joined in the reverie, taking a shot of spotchka and chanting along to a Tatooinian call-and-response they’d started. It was wonderful, really, and you and the little green thing were the stars. They admired the little green thing, cooing over him. You were proud to stand there as his mother.

The party died as the suns set. Din was notably absent from the hubbub, preferring to be alone as usual. You and the kid talked with the villagers, but as the suns started to sink, you excused yourself and found your way to the spare home you and Din each had rooms in.

Vanth and the women had taken the baby when you told them you were going to talk with Din. Not that it was hard: they all loved the little beast, showered him with affection. It was practically a competition over who got to play with him most.

The building has a warm glow as you wander over to it, wrapping your arms around yourself. The night has become cold now that the two harsh suns have sunk below the horizon, and it’s a relief to open the door to the home and feel the warmth radiating from a fireplace inside.

You find Din staring out of a window on the back, watching the endless wind sweep across the sand dunes, a dark sky contrasting the golden ground. Just his silhouette is visible, black against the deep blue. “Hi,” you say quietly as you walk in, the worn floorboards creaking beneath your feet no matter how deliberately you step. “Glad to see you got cleaned up.”

The man tilts his head in an obvious eye roll, even through the helmet. The slime was disgusting, although Din’s adoptive son had seemed to enjoy the gooey texture, as little ones are prone to. “I almost died and you’re already back to the sarcasm.”

“It’s called a coping mechanism,” you laugh gently and place a hand on his shoulder. There’s no beskar there, just soft fabric warmed by his body. It makes you shiver; even in the safety of the Crest, Din never takes off the armor. You wonder why it’s gone. Maybe to clean it?

Din’s quiet for a moment, enjoying the feeling of your fingers splayed over his shoulder in such an affectionate gesture. “You know how much I trust you, don’t you?” He asks and the black visor turns toward you, admiring what’s visible of your face in the moonlight. Your eyes glimmer and he admires them, the color he’s always loved.

You nod and smile just a little, cheeks growing rounder with the movement. “Of course.” He’s trusted you with his son, the most important thing to him in the galaxy. There’s one clear gesture even now: the absence of the beskar from his form. Maker, he’s broad, shoulders just as wide as with the metal.

He nods and shuts the window’s shutters, allowing even less light in before turning to you. There’s just a soft glow in the room, outlining the shape of the helmet and his shoulders. You can’t see any detail, just the shape. He walks over towards the long comfortable seating in the middle of the room and you instinctively follow, standing in front of it and stopping when he stops, facing him. His hands find your shoulders and his fingertips brush down your arms until they find yours. “Take off my helmet.”

“What? No,” you exclaim, frowning even though he can’t see it.

“Can you see anything?” He asks, a hand gesturing, an even darker shadow through the already murky visibility.

“No.”

“My Creed says you cannot see my face. Not that I can’t remove the helmet.”

You gulp hard, your fingers lacing through his. They’re bare. You’ve never felt them before. Often you’ve wondered if they’re calloused and tough from his work, soft from being hidden beneath the soft leather for all those years, or somewhere in between. They do fall into that in between, but they’re warm and strong and large, even without the leather casing them.

“I can’t do that to you,” you shudder, squeezing his fingers. “It’s the very thing about you, that you can’t take it off,” you start to ramble. You want to, desperately, but there’s no turning back now. If you feel his face, if you’re even so lucky as to kiss him, you’ll never be able to get enough of it. You’ll be subjected to an eternity of longing, even more than you’re yearning now.

“I want you to,” he breathes, his beskar-covered forehead falling against yours. “Please, cyare.”

“Why don’t you hate me?” You ask, your voice straining. You need to keep stalling, need to keep pushing it off or you’re actually going to do it. “I’m so mean to you. All the time,” you point out to him. You do it to keep him away, but he’s persistent. He never seems to care. “All we do is argue.”

“I may not be able to use the Force like the kid,” he mumbles, bringing one hand up to cup your face. “But I can sense your feelings. You don’t hide them well.”

“Din,” you plead, biting your lip and closing your eyes to prevent the tears that are threatening to well in them. “You can’t do this.”

“I can, and I want to.”

“Why are you so fucking patient with me when I’m only ever a bitch to you?” You practically wail, half annoyed and half honored. “You’re such a good man, Din. You don’t deserve someone shitty like me. I’ve got no hunting skills, I’m too stubborn, I’m mean and-”

He stops you by lifting your hands, setting them on either side of his helmet. “You can’t see me, so it doesn’t break the Creed. I want you to do this, because I want you.” He’s eternally blunt, but in this moment you can’t tell if it’s breaking your heart or warming it. “I love you too. Please. Take it off.”

“This is your last fucking chance, Djarin,” you tell him with a wavering voice.

“Cyare.”

“Okay,” you nod and take a deep breath. Din unlatches the little bit at the bottom that keeps it sealed against his head, and there’s a soft rush of air. Your hands grip either side and you slowly lift it off. Din takes it once it’s gone and rests it on the plush seat.

Your hands are drawn to his face like you’re being pulled on a string, your skin prickling as you feel the stubble along his chin and jaw. Your fingers trace his face for a few moments, exploring the new terrain. His cheeks feel hot, and his lips make you shiver again with how soft they are. Swallowing hard, you dare to look at his silhouette, noticing his hair is mostly matted down from the helmet. “What color are your eyes, Din?”

“Brown.”

You smile at that, and you rest your head against his shoulder, your hands dropping to your sides. His arms encircle you and it feels perfect, like you were meant to be like this for all of eternity and it took you long enough. “Of course they are.”

He chuckles at that and presses a kiss into your head, his hands finding your waist. “I did take this off for a reason.”

You lift your head, looking at his just-visible shape. “Really? I don’t know what you mean,” you flirt.

He’s silent. You’re sure he’s rolling his eyes, absolutely certain. “May I kiss you?”

The words are ever blunt, just like Din. “Yes, you bantha,” you tease, but the laughter is gone as his hands find your face again.

Just like that, his lips are on yours, radiating heat and love and it immediately tops the feeling of his arms around you. You gasp, not expecting him to do it so quickly, but your lips quickly meld to his and you sigh in content.

You stay like that for a while, hands traveling each other’s heads and necks and shoulders and sides as you kiss. He’s so warm and strong, his muscles just as sculpted as the indestructible metal that covers him. He’s so human.

After a bit, Din breaks away and presses his forehead to yours once more. He doesn’t speak, just rests there, his hands on your waist. His breath mingles with yours. For once, you’re speechless, unsure of what you can say back. The sarcasm has been stripped from your body like the beskar from Din’s.

“I better put the helmet back on,” he murmurs.

“Please don’t,” you whisper, tucking your face into the curve of his neck. You sit on the couch and he follows, desperate not to lose your touch. “Just… we’ll stay like this.”

He nods. He can’t say no when you kiss his neck feather-lightly, when your skin is pressed to his like this. He hasn’t had contact like this in years. He’ll prolong it as long as he can.

You do stay like that, relaxed and curled into each other. His arm wraps around you and you curl into a ball, nestled into his side. It’s been a long day for Din, you know, but the depth of it occurs to you as his breathing slows and his muscles relax.

He’s fallen asleep in your arms. You press a soft kiss to his neck and set a timer on the wrist-comm you’re wearing, so that you’ll both wake while it’s still dark in the room. For now, he deserves his rest. His face nuzzles into your hair, and he gives a soft sigh in his sleep. Yes, this is exactly what the beskar warrior needed: rest and you.

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#din djarin #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #mando x reader #mando #pedro pascal #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal x reader #din and grogu #grogu #the mandalorian fic #the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian fanfic #baby yoda

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darthkruge · 3 years

Text

Anakin Skywalker x Reader ~ Help

Summary: The five times the Senator!Reader needs Anakin’s help but refuses to ask for it and the one time they do

Warnings: Language, reader is afraid of vulnerability, reader is going through it, angst, violence, fluff (it ends on a positive note, I promise)

Words: 4k

A/N: This idea has kinda been bouncing around my head for a hot minute and I finally decided to just go ahead and write it. And somehow it became the longest fic I’ve ever written! Is this self-indulgent? Who’s to say?!

(not my gif)

Okay, so a right, then a left, then another left, then-

You groaned. You’d been going over the cryptic instructions Padme gave you back at the temple but they were, unfortunately, not helping. It was your first time alone in Coruscant and you were completely lost in the painfully literal sense. You had just been given your first actual mission with the Council as a senator, something you’d worked your entire career for. As an added bonus, you were on the same planet as your boyfriend, Anakin Skywalker.

You’d gotten close over the last year and were elated when he asked you on a date the last time you were in the same place. This was the first time you were together in the two weeks it had been since then.

Anyway, you were currently wandering around the bustling Coruscant streets, looking for the market. Well, you were looking for the market. Now, you realized you would probably never find it and were just trying to make your way back.

You debated calling Anakin. You could. He would be able to guide you home easily, you rationalized. But it’s Coruscant! How difficult could it be? If people came here for missions all the time and didn’t get hopelessly lost, so could you! And Anakin was probably busy anyway, you didn’t want to disturb him. Besides, the relationship was so new! You didn’t want to annoy him. After weighing the odds, you pushed down the urge to reach out and decided to just find your own way.

This logic was ridiculous, you realized far too late. Fuck. There was no way around it, you were going to be late. Or at the very least, cut it exceptionally close. You started running, heart racing. It would be so stupid to be late to your first actual Council meeting because you got lost. You wanted them to take you seriously and think of you as a professional. Tardiness as a first impression went against all of that!

After sprinting and taking several aimless turns, by some stroke of magic you found your way to the Temple. You checked the time and realized you had two minutes to make it to up several flights of stairs.

Fuck it. You decided, taking off in a run. You took the stairs two at a time, stumbling occasionally before unceremoniously bursting through the doors to the meeting.

You gulped in air quickly, chest heaving while you desperately tried to calm your heart. You inelegantly brushed a hand through your hair and gave an awkward smile.

“Hi, uh, everyone! Hi! I’m,” You took a quick break to breathe in some more oxygen as your gaze shifted to Anakin. He looked amused and concerned as he took you in. He gave you a discreet and supportive smile and head nod. You gave your own in return. He believes in me. “I’m Senator Y/N L/N”

II.

Honestly, you didn’t know how your speeder had broken. You’d been flying them for years and, despite being a senator, you were pretty damn good at it. It was something that gave you solace as a kid, those little moments of freedom. Even then, though, you were a decently cautious person and didn’t break many of them.

Thus, you ended up in your current predicament. Staring at the fried wires under the hood of your speeder, trying to figure out what the fuck went wrong. You knew Anakin was freakishly talented at fixing basically everything. He could probably look at the speeder for 10 minutes, know what’s wrong with it, and get it back to you in perfect shape.

You think this is why you don’t want to tell him. What if he thought you were stupid? Shouldn’t you be able to figure this out yourself? You fought with your instincts, feeling the conflict build inside you.

You knew he wouldn’t judge you. You knew he’d be glad you came to him for help. Even so, you felt physically incapable of moving to call or find him.

Frustrated, you turned back to your work. You decided to pull this one gear, thinking it might do something. Well, you were right about that. A stream of oil sprayed out of the speeder, coating you in its thick, black paint. You stood there frozen for a second, trying to mentally comprehend that you had just been sprayed with oil because you were too afraid to talk to the man you were in a literal relationship with!!

You groaned, wiping your hands on your pants before grabbing a towel to wipe some of the grease off your face. You walked back into your apartment quickly, praying to the Maker that no one would see you like this. Honestly, they’d probably smell you first and run the other way.

You finally got back without problems and made a bee-line straight to the bathroom. Pulling off your clothes and turning on the hot shower, you sighed as you finally felt the oil washed off your skin. You spent about twenty minutes in there, scrubbing furiously to ensure you didn’t smell like a fucking garage.

Finally, you went out and saw Anakin sitting on your bed, messing with a piece of wiring.

“Hey, Y/N! Did you know your speeder was broken? It looks like you blew a cable, easy fix, don’t worry. I’ll have it ready for you by tonight.”

He looked up and saw your exhausted state and the clump of dirty, grease ridden clothes you were holding.

His brow furrowed, trying to piece it together. “Maker, what happened to you?”

“I had a fight with the speeder. And lost”

Anakin bit back a laugh before his confusion compounded. “Wait, you know I can fix this, right? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to think I was an idiot. I mean, I did something and broke an entire speeder and somehow didn’t even know what I broke! It’s humiliating!”

“Cables are hard, it’s not your fault you didn’t know what to do, love.”

“Really?” You asked, unconvinced.

“Really. Come on, let’s go throw those clothes in the wash and I’ll get back to fixing this.”

“Oh, no, Ani you don’t have to-”

Anakin cut you off with a kiss, distracting you enough to quickly take the clothes from your hands.

“I’ll have it ready within the hour, my love.”

III.

Who the fuck decided to put the plates that high up?!

You jumped again and again, arm outstretched as far as possible. Once again, you didn’t even get close. Sighing, you looked around the apartment and noticed a ladder. It looked a bit unsteady but you would be fine, right? You were a whole ass senator, you were sure you could handle an old ladder.

Pulling it over to you, you climbed up and reached out. Much closer this time, but you still couldn’t reach them. You went on your tiptoes, eyebrows furrowed and lip bit in concentration. You angled your body just a little further, a little further-

The ladder was suddenly ripped out from under you and you desperately shot your arms out, hands clawing to try and stop your imminent fall onto the hard kitchen tiles. Bracing yourself for the inevitable pain, you squeezed your eyes closed.

“Y/N!!” You heard as your fall suddenly stopped. You opened your eyes and noticed you were barely floating above the floor. Anakin ran toward you and noticed the ladder strewn on the floor beside you.

“What the hell were you doing?” He said, offering you his hand and pulling you up.

“I was just-” You gesture lamely to the plates, realizing how ridiculous you must look.

“Y/N, no one can reach those! Next time, just call me, I’ll get them for you!”

“But-” You sigh, hating this. “I wanted to be able to do this, I don’t want to rely on you and your Jedi powers all the time”

Anakin’s gaze softened. He knew you had trouble relying on others. Even so, he couldn’t even start to think of what would have happened if he’d arrived home even 10 seconds later.

“I know, baby, I know. But, please, try. You’d have to rely on me a lot more if you break your legs falling off a ladder.”

“I know” You reply softly, giving him a shy smile. “I’m working on it, I promise”

IV.

You’d been up all night working on a new presentation for the Council. You’d spent hours going over it, the facts, the plans, the details. Everything was set. Well, everything except one little piece. To make your point stronger, you needed the statistics from the latest Jedi missions.

The only people with access to those were Anakin and Obi-Wan. You knew, logically, that if you asked Anakin he’d give them to you without hesitation. He supported you always and knew that you only used your power as a senator to improve lives.

Even so, there was that part of your brain that told you he wouldn’t give them to you. He would think you’re just trying to use him for his connections as a Jedi. Or perhaps he simply wouldn’t care enough to search through the reports to find the information.

All of this was, of course, completely inaccurate. But you’d never had someone who actually wanted to help you. It's always been “okay I’ll do this for you but only if you do this for me, too.” No one ever looked out for you and you’d grown accustomed to it. It’d become almost comforting, in a way. At least you knew what to expect.

This was how you ended up seeing your beautiful boyfriend across the halls of the Jedi temple and walking another way. Your heart tugged painfully and your brain screamed at you. Why don’t you allow yourself to trust him? Why would you assume the worst? Why can’t you fight these thoughts?

You took one more look back at him. You didn’t want to be closed off by any stretch of the imagination. You wished you could turn off the thoughts and the doubt. You knew Ani didn’t deserve it. You sighed. There he was, training by himself in the courtyard. You looked away and took a moment to compose yourself before your legs carried you away and toward your good friend.

“Hey, Obi-Wan, could you help me with something for the next Council meeting?”

You were running. You were running and as fast as you moved, you never got closer to him. You were never safe. A masked figure was chasing you and you just couldn’t get away. Your legs burned with the effort, your lungs straining to grasp oxygen. You were exhausted to your core, your sheer panic the only thing keeping you awake.

You looked back and saw the man gaining on you. Tears started streaming down your cheeks. You knew what he was capable of and had no doubt he would kill you if he caught you. You didn’t want to die, not like this. You didn’t want him to beat you. You were so, so scared. You screamed as he caught up to you, your body no longer moving. You pleaded with your legs to work, reasoned with the heavens, did anything you could, and yet you wouldn’t budge.

The stranger’s claw of a hand twisted around your neck, squeezing. You fought. It was pointless. You began to black out, feeling the life slip out of your body. Dark spots appeared in the corners of your vision and you tried once again to kick your way out of his grasp-

You bolted awake, eyes shooting open. Your chest was heaving and tear stains marked your cheeks. You placed your hands on the bed sheets, bunching them up and trying to feel the texture to remind yourself that you were safe. You tried to breathe, tried to calm yourself but nothing was working.

You got up, pacing quietly. Out of all the nights to have a nightmare, it had to be today. The one night you and Anakin weren’t together. Since you had to hide the relationship, you couldn’t technically share an apartment. This didn’t stop you from spending basically every night together, though. His chambers became yours after the first month or so of dating, neither of you wanting to spend time apart.

But, unfortunately, the Council seemed more cautious as of late and you didn’t want to risk it. Thus, you decided to spend tonight apart. Still, you couldn’t bring yourself to care right now. You grabbed one of his Jedi robes, pulling the black fabric around your body. You were immediately calmed by his scent and wrapped it closer around you. You started to make your way down the hall. You knew it was risky but after that nightmare, you just needed him.

You made it to his apartment, went to knock on the door, and abruptly stopped. What are you doing? You can’t just go to him! He’s exhausted, he’s been working all week! He finally got home from a mission and you want to wake him up in the middle of the night because you had a nightmare? It wasn’t even real! Maker, get a hold of yourself, Y/N!

Your hand hovered over the door. You wanted him, you did. But those lingering thoughts, those lingering emotions remained. A childhood of neglect, of constant feelings of unimportance left scars you couldn’t avoid. You hated that your parent’s inability to show you affection or care manifested in your inability to be vulnerable. Despite this, you somehow understood. You’d spent years letting them in and only getting invalidated in return. Like all patterns, this one wouldn’t go away just because you wanted it to.

Now, every time you tried to let Anakin in, it’s like an alarm was tripped in your brain. Every part of you that wanted to allow him to know you was combated with the overwhelming fear that, if you did, if you went to him for comfort or help, he would think of you as a burden. He’d leave, just like the rest of them did. So you pushed the urge for comfort aside, dropped your hand, and made the lonely walk back to your room.

You got back to your room, mentally beating yourself up. You wished your brain worked differently. You wished you would allow yourself to be loved. You wished you could trust, fully and completely. You sighed. Knowing you wouldn’t be getting any sleep, you made yourself a cup of tea and sat on your cough, the room solely illuminated by the moonlight. You kept Anakin’s robes around you, wishing it was his arms. You sat like that until morning, sipping the drink on and off until it grew cold. You were zoned out, staring out the window at the Coruscant traffic. Your thoughts either drifted to him or your past trauma. Maker, you wished you could change it.

Fuck. You’d been driving around on your speeder, zipping in and out of alleys, for the last twenty minutes. There was a bounty hunter after you. A damn good bounty hunter, at that. Being a high profile senator, it made sense you’d run into the occasional person trying to kidnap you. Or kill you.

Damn, this bitch is good. You kept trying to lose them but you couldn’t shake them. You didn’t even know who they were but it didn’t matter, you supposed. At the end of the day, regardless of who was in that speeder, they wanted you dead. And if you didn’t figure out how to get out of this mess, you would be.

They’d been shooting at you for a while now but you’d been able to avoid the blasts. Whether it was skill, luck, or a combination of both, you weren’t sure. Even so, you didn’t know what to do. You couldn’t shoot back at them, as you stupidly forgot your blaster. Who could blame you, though? All you wanted to do was go for a ride to clear your head, you didn’t expect to be fucking shot at!

You continued like this for a while. All you had to do was get back to the Temple. You were probably about 10 minutes away if you continued at this pace, 7 if you really pushed it. You looked ahead and saw the walls of it come into view and suddenly safety didn’t feel so far away. Despite the circumstances, a smile graced your face. You could do this.

Or maybe not. As you tried to swerve between more buildings, they hit you. You felt your speeder plummet 10 feet instantly and screamed. Your engine sputtered and your heart dropped. Mind racing, you tried to drive but came to the chilling realization that there was no way you’d make it back. Your engine was done for, it wouldn’t make it 3 minutes, yet alone all the way back.

Your mind went to him. Anakin. Fuck, you loved him. You let out a humorless laugh. Since you started dating, you almost never asked him for help. You couldn’t let him in. Something in your brain stopped you every single time. And yet, now, all of that felt stupid. It felt juvenile. When you looked at your speeder, slowly but surely stalling and the bounty hunter approaching, you felt this overwhelming sense of clarity.

You were going to die. This person, they would get to your speeder and shoot you. You didn’t have a single weapon. It was inevitable. Your mind, however, wouldn’t relent. It was stuck on him. In this moment, you pressed the comm button in your speeder, hoping beyond hope that it would still work.

“Y/N?” Anakin’s staticky voice cut through the speeder and went straight to your heart.

“Hey, Ani” You said, your voice broken up with unshed tears.

“Y/N? Where are you? What’s happening?”

“I’m- Anakin, I’m in trouble. A bounty hunter is after me, my speeder is hit and going to stop working probably within the next 20 seconds. I don’t have any weapons to defend myself. I, I, uh, I need your help”

“I’m coming to get you, stay where you are.” His voice was firm, his need to protect you overruling everything else in his body.

“I’m just a few-”

“I’ve got you, love. I can sense you in the Force. I know where you are”

Of course he could. You took a few deep breaths and you speeder sputtered out, stopping in a deserted alleyway. You looked around and saw the bounty hunter, now obviously male, stepping out and making his way towards you.

“He’s here, Anakin” Your voice was tight, anxious. You were quiet, paralyzed by fear.

“Please, Y/N, fuck! Hold on, I’m almost there”

“Ani, Anakin I’m scared! Ani! Ani!” You were hysterical now, screaming and sobbing his name as the man punched the top of your speeder, fracturing the glass. He pulled you out of it by the hair and threw you harshly onto the concrete.

You yelped in pain as he kicked you directly in the ribs. He backhanded you across the face, the power from his hit making blood pool in your mouth. Harshly you spit it onto the ground, looking up at him with pure hate.

He placed the blaster to your head, right on your forehead. You let your eyes flutter closed. Your knees were scraped, legs bruised. You were sure at least one of your ribs was broken. You could feel blood running from your temple. Your arm was radiating pain from landing on it. Despite all this, the only thing you thought of was Anakin. Funny, you thought, how the brain chooses what to focus on in its last moments. All you hoped was that he didn’t feel responsible for your death. All you hoped was that he knew you loved him.

“You’re finished, Senator”

“I don’t think so” Anakin’s smooth voice, tight with anger, cut through the air. His lightsaber unsheathed, he swung it directly into the man. You gasped, everything happening so quickly. As soon as the blaster was gone from your forehead, you scrambled back.

Anakin walked up to you but, from the shock, you pulled back even further.

“Hey, hey, it’s me, it’s Anakin, okay? I’m not gonna hurt you”

You whimpered, looking at him and placing a hand on his jacket before harshly jumping into his arms. He gripped you to him, both of you sighing in relief.

“You came for me”

He looked at you like you were insane. “Of course I did! You needed me, you called! I’m always going to be there for you, Y/N. I am always going to show up”

“Thank you” You said, voice muffled against his chest. His hands raked through your hair while you just breathed him in. His scent comforted you, his strong chest and large arms grounding you after a day so intense and horrifying that nothing felt real.

You were still trembling, the aftershocks quite apparent.

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you. You’re safe, he’s dead, he’s gone. No one’s ever gonna hurt you again, I promise.” Anakin whispered these affirmations into your hair, holding you until the shaking ceased.

“Thank you for calling me, Y/N. I know that couldn’t have been easy for you.”

“It wasn’t that hard, to be honest, I- wait? What do you mean, you know it couldn’t have been easy for me?!”

Anakin looked at your sheepishly. “You honestly think I haven’t noticed your problems with asking for help? We’ve been together for almost a year and, contrary to popular belief, I can be quite perceptive. I didn’t want to call you out on it, I assumed you’d be embarrassed. But I’m glad that when it actually came down to life or death, you called me.”

“I’ve always known I could call you, Anakin. Please, I don’t want you to ever think my inability to be vulnerable is rooted to anything you do. You’re, fuck, you’re perfect. You’re kind and compassionate and caring and you’re always looking out for me. Look, I know I haven’t been too open about my past and I still struggle with that. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’ve never had someone who actually wanted to be there for me. This thing where you care and want me to come to you when I’m hurting or simply just want affection or company or help with the little things, it’s foreign to me.”

Ani’s heart broke at your words. “I’m sorry I didn’t know you back then, Y/N. I hate that this” He said, gesturing between you both “is unique to you. But, seriously, anytime you need anything I’m someone you can come to. I honestly want you to come to me. Regardless of if you think it’s something small or this life-altering favor, ask me. I doubt I’d turn you away and, on the off chance I do, I’m not gonna hold that against you.”

“You won’t leave? Even if I show you all of me? Even if I rely on you?”

“I won’t leave you, beautiful. So long as you allow me to show you all of me, too. And you let me rely on you, too.”

Your eyes widened at his words. “Of course! Of course, Ani! I’m here for you, I got you, too, always.”

“I know you do” His flesh hand went up, cupping your cheek.

“I know you do, too.” You sighed into his touch. You were exhausted beyond belief, your body and mind pretty much shutting down from the stress of it all. Even so, you relaxed further into his body. Yeah, this was new. Yes, it was scary. But you were going to try. Even though it terrified you, you wanted to be loved. You wanted to be loved by him.

tagging julia bc she asked when i was textpost-complaining about having to edit this <3

@anakinswhore

#megan writes #anakin skywalker x reader #anakin skywalker x gn!reader #anakin skywalker x gender neutral reader #anakin skywalker imagine #anakin skywalker imagines #anakin skywalker angst #anakin skywalker fluff #anakin skywalker x you #anakin skywalker x y/n #anakin skywalker

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snarwor · 3 years

Note

CodyWan prompt: the most painful reunion scenario you can think of

You. I like how you think. CW for lost memories/time, attempted suicide, open/ambiguous ending.

Once

“Marshall Commander Cody.”

“Chancellor Palpatine, sir. You requested to see me?”

“Yes, yes I did. Take a seat over here. Would you care for a drink? I know most of you and your men don’t get the chance to often indulge...”

“I...no thank you, sir.”

“I insist.”

“...very well.”

It’s all black after that. Cody wakes up shoved into a pile of trash, somewhere on Coruscant’s lower levels. He is out of his armor, out of his blacks, left in some ratty garb he can’t make heads or tails of. Before standing, he takes inventory, once the initial shock wears off. He looks around, trying to get his bearings, but without a comm, or some kind of vambrace datapad, he can’t right himself. He’s used to navigating battlefields, judging distance by sunlight and the stars. There are neither in this underworld.

Elevators. He can use the elevators to get higher.

He stumbles around, limping from some injury to his side, his balance and vision a little blurred from the pounding in his head. When he touches the spot that hurts most, his fingers come back bloody, like he’d been in a fight. That would explain the concussion, but not the clothes. A familiar sense of fear flushes over him, followed by the instinctual wash of calm that makes him so effective in the battlefield.

The elevators are all pay-per-use down this low. Stairs it is.

It takes the better part of seven hours to even get up to a level where he can see sunlight filtering through the smog, though by this time, it’s getting rather dark. He’s still low-level enough that he can’t find any vode, but he’s been alone in other situations before.

“Cody?” A voice asks, lyrical and just close enough for Cody’s heart to pound. He turns and sees General Kenobi, though not in his usual robes or armor, instead wearing something a bit closer to what the other Coruscanti citizens would wear. He’s so surprised to see the Jedi that Cody doesn’t do much more than gape at him. “Cody, you’re hurt.” Obi-wan walks closer, his hands fluttering over his body. “What’s happened?” “I don’t-I don’t know, general,” Cody rasps, his voice hoarse, like he’d been shouting. “Let’s get you back to base. I have a speeder not far from here.” It’s a bit of a blur from there, getting him back to base, put back in a set of new blacks, putting in armor requests, letting the medic into his quarters. Obi-wan doesn’t leave his side for most of it, waiting for some kind of explanation, it seems.

“Cody, will you please tell me what happened? Assaulting a member of the GAR, let alone the Marshall Commander, is a very serious felony, and--”

“I was at.” Cody’s jaw clicks shut as he tries to speak, frowning when his mouth can’t make the words come as he wished. “I was called to.” Click. Again. “I had a meeting with.” This time, Cody’s jaw aches when he tries to speak, and the exertion distresses him, more than he already had been. “I don’t remember,” he tries, quietly.

It doesn’t look like Obi-wan believes him, but it’s the only answer that he can give.

He tells no one about his meeting with Chancellor Palpatine, and tries to forget it as best as he can. Thinking about it for too long usually ends with a migraine, and he can’t let those blank spots in his memory keep him from being battle-ready.

When the Order comes, Cody feels it in that long-healed scar at the back of his head, a pulsing, throbbing ache that makes stars flash behind his eyes, like he’d been in retraining at Kamino for too long. He uses the rarely-utilized GAR-wide comm, and passes the word.

“Blast him.”

Years pass. Guilt festers into a sort of madness. He’s a bit of droid himself, now, operating on orders and under familiar, untouched choking power he’d only seen from one Jedi--and that’s another word he can’t think too loudly, else the migraines return. He’s trained, he’s retrained, he’s restrained, he’s seizing, he marks the days by trips to the infirmary aboard the star destroyer.

“The once Marshall Commander Cody.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“I have a mission for you.”

“I’ll see it done, my lord.”

“I know you will. Execute Kenobi protocols.”

The ache in his head turns to a burn, and it’s only the stiff trooper armor which keeps him upright at the sudden onslaught of pain.

He takes a single ship, a fast cruiser with just enough fuel to get him to where he needs to go. Memories are ripped from his synapses.

As much as it was really a trying time, I think I liked Tatooine. I think it’d be a nice place for no one to find me.

Why wouldn’t you want anyone to find you?

Oh, except for you, of course, Cody.

It’s sandy. It’s dry. It’s hot. Cody doesn’t think about anything other than forward. He asks what questions he must of the locals, disguised as he is in the clothes he’d stolen off of a corpse. He hardly registers the blood on his hands and face. Some part of the madness which had grown in him extends to his senses, and blocks the sensation of his shaking hands.

Deep in the Jundland Wastes, he finds him. Just as he’d wanted, once.

Once.

Cody fires a warning shot at the dewback he encounters, and it lumbers away. In its place, stands an old and broken man, who Cody called his, once.

Once.

Cody wants him to remain quiet, in this held breath of a moment, knowing the storm was just at the doorway. Knowing there was only room for one grave, between the two of them.

We’d fit in one together, you know.

Fit in what?

A grave.

A morbid thought. But somewhat romantic.

Thought you’d say that.

The ache in his head forces his hand, raising the blaster in a shaky grip. There’s wetness on his face, but it hasn’t rained on Tatooine in a thousand years. Tatooine hasn’t met the commander who was born in a perpetual rainstorm, though.

Through the madness, through the pain that had once locked his jaw against the secrets, through the rusted fraction of a man he once was, Cody manages a, “Make it stop.”

He manages a, “Please.”

He manages to pull the blaster barrel away from its target. He changes the target to the underside of his jaw, and the initial target cries out in horror, leaping forward to make it stop, indeed.

#my writing #codywan #prompts day #HOPE YOU LIKE IT LOLLLLLL #keigan-of-sweden

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jangofctts · 4 years

Text

Don’t Push Your Luck (Boba Fett x Reader)

Rated: Explicit

Word Count: 4.9k wooF

Warnings: smut, language, handjobs, oral (male receiving), fingering, heavy petting, there is SOFT. I REPEAT SOFT FLUFF. but only SOME

Chapter (1), (2)

a/n: hey y’all...welcome...finally this bITCH IS OUT. thanks to @djxrxn WHOMST HAVE BEEN THE MAIN MOTIVATOR BEHIND THIS. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH 💖🥵🤠

(also lmk if you wanna be tagged or just wanna YELL at me)

It’s impossible not to count down the days, the hours, the seconds leading up to your untimely end. A sleep cycle and half to be exact. A perfect amount of time to finish counting each loose wire and rusty screw holding together this heap of junk—a miracle really, that it’s able to jump to hyperspace, let alone fly.

You’re no expert on the inner workings of a spacecraft, but your familiarity with Imperial grade cruisers gift you the impeccable skill of deducing that the hiss of air every couple minutes out of the hydraulic piping is not ideal. Nor is the solar light overhead that flickers and hums, skirting the precarious line of exploding in your face or simply plunging the cargo hold into murky darkness.

At this point you’d take either.

You sigh, resting the back of your head against the wall as the barbed tendrils of an oncoming headache settles behind your eyes.

Between that, the stupid light, and your boredom; it’s enough to make anyone stir crazy. Stars—even the arduous task of talking to Boba Fett is morphing into something akin to craving. Even if his idea of a conversation runs parallel to the art of smug, male pride and snide words meant to pick and prod—it’s better than whatever this is.

Scoffing, you curl your knees up to your chest and rest your chin over your knee. This is pathetic.

You should despise him—feel like kicking his teeth in—or helmet—whatever. He aided in the killing of you friend—probably took care of all the other poor souls who even dared to breathe your way too. Boba Fett is a despicable, no good bounty hunter who finds far too much fun in the misfortune of others.

And yet…

The task of attaching your hate to the man is proving to be more difficult than you would’ve guessed. You don’t regret what you’ve done with him—far from it in fact—but your tolerance, bordering enjoying his company, is concerning. To say in the least.

Nothing good will come out of the conflicted ball of knots that settle in your chest, ensnaring your heartstrings into that endless monstrosity.

Though none of it stops the way your chest constricts, heart skipping a few vital beats at the familiar sound of his spurs resonate through the ship. They chink against the metal pegs of the ladder, boots settling on the ground with a heavy thump. A moment later Boba steps into your line of sight, tattered cloak and chipped armor in all its battered glory.

He isn’t an immanent threat, but your eyes still track each movement. The rational part of you knows he won’t lash out, but you’re still his quarry and even a wolf with a severed head has the power to bite. No part of you wants to brave the sharp points of his teeth.

Not even a fraction of his attention is thrown your way as he does his routine inspections of your fellow captured quarries, frozen in their carbonite prisons. You just hope none of them spontaneously reanimate—you’re not too keen on another shipmate. Your little corner is crowded as is and forget sharing your blanket. It’s tattered and smells like dust and mothballs and you have a sneaking suspicion it’s just one of Boba’s old cloaks he outgrew—but you’re thankful for it anyhow.

You flinch as he punches in a code, the loud grate of metal on metal piercing your ears as the carbonite slabs swing back into their storage space. With an incline of his head, his weighted gaze settles on your person.

“Still nervous?”

You sniff and shake your head. “You just…startled me is all.”

Boba snorts in disbelief and pads closer. He reaches the toes of your boots and squats, one gloved forearm resting over his knee as the other reaches out to capture a lock of your hair. He twirls it between his fingers and gently tugs, quiet as he studies you behind the visor. The action is familiar—doesn’t scare you as much as it once did, but his closeness still overwhelms.

“I see you’ve found some courage, gentle Rabbit,” he surmises, untangling his fingers from your hair to tap beneath your chin. “While we’re at it…any last favors I can provide?”

It’s whiplash—so stupefying it renders your tongue speechless, a heated blush rushing up your cheeks and to the tip of your ears. He snickers and shakes his head, rocking back onto his heels to stand as you sputter for words.

It’s a joke—a garbage one at your expense. Always at the butt-end of things with no room to snap back. Yet, as he turns on his heel to return to the cockpit—it’s the perfect opportunity. Not the sort of favor he’d be expecting, but a favor nonetheless.

“Can I—“ He pauses and casts a glance over his shoulder as you muster enough bravery to follow through. “Do you think I could—could sit in the cockpit? Just for a little while…”

It’s a long-shot—like launching a flimsy javelin at a target no larger than a thumbtack three thousand clicks away. Not happening—more likely to beat a rancor in a fucking wrestling match then sway the bounty hunter’s opinion. Regardless, the question must stun him—the terse silence drags on for an agonizing amount of time, amping up your anxiety tenfold.

“I’m sorry—I just—I wanted to see the stars one last time,” you mumble, curling into yourself with a wince. “It’s stupid—“

“It’s hyperspace—not much to look at.” He curtly interrupts. “An asteroid if you’re lucky.”

Your spirits plummet further—scraping against the dirt like a crashed speeder geared to the highest velocity and headed straight for a brick wall. Maker this was dumb—

“The second you try anything funny—“

You perk up, your spine straightening as he turns swiftly on his heel and marches back. He leans down at the waist, firmly ensnaring your chin between his forefinger and thumb, straining the muscles in your neck. “—you’ll end up in there.”

He jerks his head over his shoulder at the carbonfreezer. Yeah. No thank you. Absolutely zero interest in becoming a human popsicle.

“You won’t even notice I’m there,” you breathe, holding your stare steady. “Promise.”

Boba hums in thought, releases your chin and pats your cheek. He straightens and taps at his vambraces and with a hiss of air the stasis cuffs around your wrists clatter to the floor. You stand and sigh, rubbing at the angry raised lines, just shy from a dark bruise.

The bounty hunter ushers you towards the ladder, his hand anchored to your shoulder. You stop yourself from scoffing. The action is useless—you’ve got no clever scheme up your sleeve or malicious motive but you can never be too cautious you suppose—not with this line of work.

You try not to snoop once you clamber up into the second level—but Maker—it’s interesting. There’s a small bunk on the other end of the short corridor, messy blankets thrown on top and a deconstructed blaster that’s seen better days. Gray and off-white undershirts hang off the metal rigging on the bunk and the sight of his laundry is undoubtedly jarring. It’s silly not to think he doesn’t do laundry but—imagining the most feared bounty hunter in the Galaxy washing his tidy whities is hilarious.

“Come on,” Boba urges, nudging your shoulder with his own.

Your tiny smile never falters as he leads you into the domed cockpit, the neon blue of hyperspace reflecting across his chipped armor with miniature streaks of light. He gestures at the co-pilot’s seat tucked beside the com board, a litany of buttons blinking and flashing as you gingerly sit.

The hinges squeak as the chair spins, your eye catching the mess of beaded and jeweled necklaces that hang on a tiny hook above the board. You recognize a few—Kashyykian ceremonial beads, the glittering coil of pure, refined diamonds from Pantora and the braided strands of bantha leather common on Tatooine. Your fingers drift up and thumb at the carved wooden Wroshyr beads.

Trophies—

“Don’t touch those.”

You jump and yank your hand back. “So...all I can do is...sit?”

“Isn’t that what you asked for?”

You have to agree—there isn’t much to look at. Hyperspace, as fascinating as it is, looses its charm once the vertigo sets in. To be honest—you weren’t expecting to get this far.

Oh well.

A change in scenery is always nice. Different loose wires and screws to count…

And the seat spins. Score.

Boba however, does not share in your bemused sentiments. Your mopey sighing and the constant squeak of loose bearings on your spinny chair is not pleasant to the ear, apparently.

“If you’re that bored, Rabbit,” he sighs, casting a sharp glance over his shoulder. “You could always put those hands to work.”

You pause and swipe a finger through the dust between the toggles on the comm board and absentmindedly respond. “I don’t think I’d be much help. I’m not very technically inclined and oh—“

Your cheeks flush when he tilts his head. “You, uh...didn’t mean that sort of work, did you?”

Boba snorts and crosses his ankle over his knee and rests his helmet on the headrest. The stretched out figure of his body is alluring—fascinating to studying each nick and scratch on his armor without the repercussions of him staring back. His vambraces clink against his cuirass as he laces his fingers together, resting his hands just above his codpiece.

“Do you need something, Rabbit?”

You swallow, your eyes flicking back up to a more respectable place for them to linger. “Um..n-no. I’m fine. Just…”

He rolls his head to the side, the shadows from hyperspace carving out the sharp lines of his helmet into an even deeper dramatic cut. You squirm and focus your eyes on the frayed laces of your boots.

“It’s alright. You can tell me, sweet girl.” His goads, tempting you out onto that slippery slope of desire.

He uncross his legs and uses the tip of his boot to languidly spin himself around, his knees spread wide in a display of mock easiness. Boba’s thumbs drum against his ammo belt, the quiet, rhythmic tap…tap…tap…the only sound filling the charged silence. It’s the Academy all over again; sat down and scrutinized until you crack—spill every secret until they’re satisfied— and Boba Fett is no different…

You scramble for words, wrangling your thoughts into something somewhat comprehensive. “I’m—I—well—“

He cocks his head, light bouncing off the silvery pockmark on his helmet. Boba’s hand idly travels lower, brushes off imaginary dust on his thigh and settles his fingers over the clasps to this codpiece. His thumb flicks it open then closed, all too keen on where your eyes are glued to.

“You want your hands on my cock again? Is that it?” Boba purrs in amusement. You tongue passes over your lip as you wrench your eyes off of him yet again.

“There’s no need to be play coy, girl,” Boba snickers, “Tell me.”

The words jump out of your mouth—no forethought and apparently not an ounce of self control. “Yes—I want...to p-put my hands on you.”

“On me or my cock?”

You mouth goes dry as you mumble out a feeble agreement. “Your…cock.”

Boba huffs in self satisfaction. “Come here then.”

On already shaky legs you stumble out of your seat and plant yourself in front of him. You have no visual confirmation but the hair-raising sensations as his eyes rake down your body sends shivers up your spine.

Your mouth parts, but before you’re even able to ask what he wants—he beats you to it.

“Your choice, Rabbit.”

Not helpful, you think.

Regardless of the lack of direction, you chew on the inside of your cheek and slowly lower yourself onto your knees, sliding easily between his parted legs. The only indication you know he’s aware you’re there is a quick shift of his hips, settling further into the leather cushion.

His leg jumps involuntarily as your fingers skim up his knee. If you weren’t interested in receiving a lovely black eye, you’d have the nerve to accuse him of being ticklish.

Biting the corner of your lip to stave off your coy smile, your hand continues its path up along his inner thigh. There’s a short huff of air that filters through the vocoder as your fingertips reach the codpiece. They brush over the circular dent left by a blaster, curiosity piqued at the strange location.

You want to ask—but—the thought is fleeting, far more interested in finding the tiny clasps on the side that easily pop open, the offending piece of armor going lax in your grip. You toss it to the side with little hesitation, greeted by the firm outline of his cock filling out the front of his trousers.

Boba Fett is not a patient man and your lecherous gawking, enough to notice, irks him. With a grunt he snakes his fingers around your hand and presses it against his cock. He rolls his hips, guiding your hand into applying a firmer touch until you’re palming him without the extra help. You give the hardening flesh a rougher squeeze, a bolt of liquid heat settling in the pit of your stomach as a stifled moan reaches your ears.

By the time your hand sweeps up to ease off the heavy ammo belt around his waist, the bulge in his pants is considerable—a fucking pain to maneuver around as you tug down his trousers into a dramatic ‘v’. Boba’s hand, hanging off the arm rest, jerks the moment your fingertips brush along the dark curls, trailing up and taking a hold of his cock with a careful grip.

He’s heavy in your hand, thicker than the circumference of your forefinger and thumb pressed together, and harder than kriffing durasteel. You can feel his watchful gaze carve a burning path over the contours of your face, drifting to where you hold him.

He grumbles an inaudible complaint under his breath, curling his fists by his sides. Despite his obvious irritation with your feathery touches, he lets you continue without so much as a grumpy sigh or snippy redirection. You preen at the small victory, delighted you’re able to explore before the short rope of his patience runs thin and snaps.

A sharp hiss of hair passes through the vocoder as you lightly tug on his cock, mesmerized by the firmness and the searing heat beneath your palm. From the base up you pull, fixed upon the dark flesh, flushed and pulsing as wetness pools at the tip as you pull down the foreskin, exposing the entirety of the wide head.

With your thumb you spread the bead of liquid around, intent on continuing your little exploratory endeavor until Boba shifts and grumbles out an order to stop.

“Not like that,” he huffs, laying his fingers over yours that hold his cock. “Harder.”

A fiery blush licks at your cheeks as he squeezes both sets of fingers into a firm fist, leading your hand into the pace he desires.

It’s rough, much firmer than you’d think would be pleasurable—but you oblige. The wetness that dribbles from the flushed tip lessens the friction but with quick lick over your palm, he glides easily in your hand. Boba’s head rolls back against the headrest, exposing a sliver of brown skin beneath the lip of his helmet.

It’s not long before your wrist aches—just shy of a couple moments. Luckily enough for you and your poor hand musculature, it doesn’t take more than a handful of minutes—rough and with no real discernible technique other than just fucking into your fist. Boba’s knee jerks as he lifts his head and arches his hips, chest heaving with shallow inhales.

“Take it in your—in your mouth,” he orders in a rough rasp. His chest heaves as his hand finds purchase in your hair, jerking your head closer to his cock. It stings—Maker, why does he pull so hard?

With a huff, you listen and part your lips. The tip of his cock slips into your heated mouth, twitching as your tongue rolls against the small slit leaking a near continuous stream of precum. With a couple short tugs and a gentle suck around the head, his fist clenches tight and drags you further down his shaft.

You gag around him, a low grunt rattling through his diaphragm as he cums. It’s warm, thick and fills your mouth, but the heavy weight on the back of your head leaves you no other choice than to swallow. Boba curses, cock still twitching when he lets you up and pulls out of your mouth. You gasp for precious air as you wipe off your lips with your sleeve, sparring a look up at the bounty hunter.

The reclined figure of his body molds into the chair, a strip of dark skin peeking out from beneath the cowl has his head rests back against the seat. His fingers twitch when you shift, squirming as the twisting heat in your lower stomach festers and grows.

You watch his throat bob as he speaks, “If you want something...take it.”

The hard enamel of your teeth cut into your bottom lip as you carefully rock forward, dragging yourself off the ground. It takes a moment to shuck off your pants and perch yourself over his knees after shimming his trousers further down his legs. Boba only bothers to look up with lazy interest once your cunt, soaked and smeared over your inner thighs presses against his upper legs, wetting the muscled limbs.

You steel your nerves against the sharp analytical gaze through the carved lines of his vizor and give your hips a tentative roll along the length of his softening cock. For all you know he could be asleep—yet you have a sneaking suspicion as to what his eyes are glued to. You’re no idiot.

Boba’s gloved fingertips skim up your thigh, tempted to go higher but instead they drop back onto the armrests. You chew the inside of your lip, shooing away the urge to frown. Whatever—dwelling upon the quick movement is best left in the dark.

He sucks in a sharp breath of air as you rock your hips for a second time, your slick folds gliding smoothly along his member. It’s a light pressure, no more than a gentle caress so as not to overwhelm—but nonetheless still pleasurable, sating that untamable fire that burns bright in your belly.

Your eyes drift back to those white gloves, his fists balled and stationary on the armrest. You want them on you. You want to feel his callouses scrape over your skin—one last craving you need to put an end to.

It’s a risk—a big one. Yet, throwing your worries out the window is easier than your indecisiveness.

Both your hands slowly crawl over the white gloves, cautious in pulling them off as if he were some rabid Nexu ready to bite. He is, in a way and your sneaky little ploy certainly does not go unnoticed.

Boba jerks his hands up the arm rests. “What makes you think you’re allowed to touch me?”

His tone is scathing—knocks you so far off that small pedestal of bravery you’ve mustered and leaves you wilting. You should’ve known, stopped while you were ahead. Though knowing in the back your mind that something like this would happen, doesn’t take away from the razor sharp embarrassment that cuts through your chest.

Your forearm shoots up to rub away the burning itch of tears that threaten to fall, your head turning away in a mixture of shame and regret. Stupid—

You’re about to retreat, slide off his lap like a miserable pile of goo, but the delicate touch on your chin, coaxing you to face him startles you. Even more so when he tugs at the offending glove and brushes a bare finger down your cheek, a mere whisper against your skin. “You have a soft heart.”

Your heart leaps into your throat, your pulse roaring in your ears as he slips the other glove off, settling one of his bare hands over the swell of your hip while the other tentatively slip between your legs and presses against your clit. You gasp and arch into the light touch, your thighs involuntarily jerking as he increases the pressure.

He trades his hold on your hip to slide his hand into your shirt, palming and kneading your breast through your bra as you roll and whine against his fingers. The tight circles he's drawing over your clit burns through your abdomen, drags you closer to the precipice that you’re all ready so close to. You whine his name as wicked heat licking up your body and spreading to each limb. You arch into him and with a firm hand, he parts your soaking cunt and thrusts two of his fingers inside, grinding the heel of his palm into the little bundle of nerves.

With a chuckle his hand leaves your shirt to pull you against his chest, the vocoder rumbling against your ear. “Good little Rabbit—cum on my fingers.”

Your body seizes as white hot heat sears through your core. Stars, brighter than a dying sun burst behind your eyes, a long whine filtering past your lips as shake and fall apart in his arms, your cunt clenching tight around his fingers.

You whine as he pulls out, little aftershocks of pleasure wracking through your body after your euphoric high. You’re barely conscious of your actions as he lifts your head and pushes his digits, coated in your juices into your mouth. You lick them clean, tasting the tang of your own arousal and the salt on his skin. With a satisfied hum, he slips them out, allowing your head to finally rest against his chest.

His hands are warm around your hips, tracing little patterns into the exposed skin—so light you’re sure you’re imagining it. You chide yourself—there’s no space for these kind of things. Not now.

The beskar is an uncomfortable thing to lay your cheek on—cold too—yet his soft sigh convinces you to stay put. Just for another second, suspended in a strange intimacy that neither of you should be dipping your toes into.

A gentle hush encompasses the cockpit, lulling you into a light doze. Though as your eyes struggle to stay open, the subtle inhale before a sentence is spoken keeps them from shutting. You wonder if he’ll muster the courage to speak or if he’ll let the words settle back into that lake teeming with uncovered mysteries and things better left unsaid.

“What would you do...” The beginning of his words tapers off as if he could pretend you wouldn’t hear it. It’s low, almost...uncertain. Well, as uncertain as Boba Fett could be with a head so full of his arrogance and pride.

His fingers drift higher up your back, ghostlike and teasingly soft.You hate the goosebumps that are left in the wake of his bare fingertips crawling up your spine. Swallowing, your fingernail taps at the chipped paint and circles the little brand on his cuirass. “Do what?”

He doesn’t answer right away—chewing on his words like they’ve stuck to the roof of his mouth and don’t intend to leave. He shifts and you’re afraid he’s about to shove you off his lap and storm away, but all he does is clear his throat and settle a palm on your upper back. “If I...if I let you go. What would you do?”

Your brows furrow, your heart kicking up into a rapid flurry of panic. That’s not fair—that’s not fair of him to say. You look up, your own twisted features staring back at you in the muted spectrum of blacks and grays in his visor. This is a joke—another one of his games to push you over the edge while he gets to bask in his idea of proclaimed hilarity. “That’s not funny.”

“It’s not supposed to be.”

You ball your hand into a fist as a tidal wave of resentment, followed with chilly anguish washes over you. Your head spins and battles with opposing opinions and reasons why he should just go through with delivering you to his employer. Be done with it and get his moneys worth without any consequence.

And yet, there’s a minuscule part of you, sprouting away from the dark cloud of inevitability, that wonders. Wonders if you should fight—convince him you deserve to live, untangle you from the disastrous web the Empire has cast around your limbs with no hope of escape. You sigh and shut your eyes.

“I’d never escape from the Empire even if you did,” you murmur. “The only time I’d be free is if I were dead.”

<><><><><><><><>

He promised himself that this would never happen.

Never let his own desires and emotions interfere with a job.

It’s irresponsible, bad for business and frankly quite stupid. This could cost him his credibility, his credits, his life.

You don’t double cross your employer—it’s the first rule of business that even a child would understand.

Boba Fett is cunning and clever; always one step ahead of his enemies. Always methodical, refusing to leave any loose ends that even hint at coming back around to bite him in the ass. He’s convinced himself that a will of iron is necessary—the only way to survive and to grow stronger than those who’ve hurt him—bested him in the game of life.

Cold, methodical, a legend.

And you…

You are soft. Gentle and too kind for someone to be caught up in this sort of mess. He shouldn’t be delivering you to Death’s doorstep in exchange for credits. You should be off living on some remote planet, far out of the reaches of the Empire. Away from him. Billions of miles from his bloody fingertips that stain your skin like black ink against a white canvas.

But you’ve made your choices and he’s made his.

And none of it soothes the festering storm, with winds more forceful than those on Kamino, that rattle through his ribcage. It tears through his sternum, cuts through the beskar and leaves an open wound—raw and tender that grows tenfold the second your eyes land on him.

You don’t beg when he hoists you up from the floor, no blubbering tears or last minute bargains to spare your life. Not even as you both reach the loading ramp, one mere tap of the button that would reveal you both to the man waiting on the landing platform. One button and he’d be free of you. You’re braver than most.

He’ll give you that.

He shouldn’t have said anything—saved himself from the steady ache that comes with having to look you in the eye. Drives a stake so deep into his chest the second you spare him a precious smile that twinkles like unrefined coaxium and thank him. You’re thanking him for the barest amount of kindness he offered to you on your last days of life.

Boba isn’t sure who he hates more; himself or you.

He must be staring too long—committing each soft slope and contour of your cheeks, the freckles, your softly parted lips, to memory—because the gentle nudge to his arm startles him.

“I’ll be alright,” you grin. You make a poor impression of a blaster with your finger and thumb and mimic the sound of it firing. “One shot to the head and I’m gone.”

“I know how blasters work.”

You shrug and glance at his hand that hovers over the button. “Then why are you hesitating?”

The million credit answer. One that you both know the answer to.

“Because you won’t be dying. Not today and not while I’m still alive.”

<><><><><><><><><><><>

The outfit is garish.

Too white.

Too clean.

A color that deceives his true nature and masks what he truly is— a viper laying in wait for unsuspecting prey and witless victims. The smile that curls along the man’s unshaven face is meant to charm, but all it does is unsettle.

Boba has never once trusted a man who relies solely on the weight of his words rather than his own actions. All that this man has are words. Words, and a flimsy position within the ranks of the Empire. That, and twelve heavily armed Death Troopers that guard him, if you count them as well.

Orson Krennic.

A man that’ll get what’s coming to him. Perhaps not Boba’s own plasma bolt through the middle of his finely pressed uniform—but something equally as satisfying.

Grey hairs that escape his hat glint like shards of metal shrapnel in the midday sun, the Director’s smile steady as he speaks. “Took you long enough, bounty hunter.”

Boba’s teeth clamp onto his tongue, the metallic taste of blood flooding his tastebuds. “Too bad you have to rely on one, Director.”

Krennic snorts, folds his arms behind his back and saunters closer. “And your bounty? What of her?”

“Dead.”

#boba fett x reader #boba fett x you #UH OH CLIFF HANGER KJDKFJ #star wars #boba fett #fanfic #my writing #the last favor series #orson krennic #reader insert #FINALLY THIS HOE DONE

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vercopaanir · 4 years

Text

In For a Credit

The Lovely Moons, Chapter 19

Masterlist

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Blind!Reader

Summary: Fellow Mandalorians teach you how to handle weapons.

Words: 3.5

Rating/Warning: G, I think. Some references to death.

Notes: So, this originally was going to include a lot more. However, the chapter was nearly 7k words, and I didn’t feel like it was fair to post the entire thing because so much happens. So it will be split up. The nice thing is that the next update will be on Monday night. Thank you all for your patience and support!

AO3

The Tribe is a working society, and you quickly become fascinated in the opportunity to occupy yourself. You are no stranger to work, and the constant inner need to be doing something of value, to be useful, to earn your way is so ingrained that it borders restlessness. The morning when the Mandalorian says he’ll be taking his collected bounties to Greef Karga in town, you look up from the book where your fingers pause over the raised indentations of braille, tilting your head. Corde and Venka follow your eyes upward, nibbling at their food, and watching him curiously.

“What should we do while you are away?”

He pauses his adjusting of his vambrace, glancing between all of you, four pairs of expectant eyes, and he explains that there exists many skills that the Tribe hones together as a collective, from fighting to healing to child rearing.

Watching the small green infant play with his stuffed bantha toy perched on the warrior’s lap, you straighten your back and lay your hands on your knees. As a servant and slave, you have performed a variety of tasks. You can clean, cook, mend, garden, and farm. As a handmaid, you’ve developed skills that were fine tuned for a lady of an older age. You’d taken care of her hair and nails, you’d seen to her correspondence, fetched her tea, and kept her company. Having taken care of children before, you knew your strength as a caretaker is hard to rival, blinking at the three children surrounding you.

But this was a chance to learn something new .

A decision settles within you, and you hold your chin level.

“I would...like to learn about weaponry.”

The Mandalorian’s visor trains on you for so long, you think perhaps you have said something wrong. You begin to wonder how you can explain away the whim when he stands suddenly, placing the baby in his pram. He clicks a button on his vambrace to program it’s tracking before holding a hand out to help you to your feet. Venka and Corde shove the remainder of their breakfast in their mouths to follow behind you both as he leads you through the passages of the enclave. The child floats between you and the siblings, large inky eyes blinking curiously.

“Will we get to learn, too?” Corde asks, her eagerness palpable.

“No. But there are foundlings here that you should find. They can teach you games I’m too old for,” the Mandalorian grunts, and she gasps, rushing around to stop in front of you both. You feel his fingers tighten over yours when you both halt suddenly.

“Can we go find them now?”

You hesitate, the idea of the two children disappearing somewhere in the tunnels making you uneasy, but the Mandalorian tilts his visor down at her, taking her measure. “So long as you stay together, and do not leave the covert.” Corde’s eyes light up, but before she can bolt away as if on an invisible speeder bike, the Mandalorian grabs the back of her collar, keeping her in place. He squats down in front of her, still slightly taller in stature, and you hold your breath as you watch them. “I mean it, ad’ika,” he repeats, his voice pitching deeper in warning as he looks down at her. “Promise me.”

Venka is quick to promise, holding a hand over his heart with a bowed chin as if taking an oath for life, and Corde nods so fast her hair comes loose from her braid. “We promise.”

“Go.”

You watch their small shapes disappear from your line of sight, the slap of the shoes you’d sewn them echoing off down the rocky walls of the passageway. They will not be alone, you remind yourself, forcing down the nerves twisting your stomach. If the beskar clad warrior at your side trusts his people to watch over them, you will, too. The Mandalorian watches them until they’re out of sight, nearly jumping out of his armor when you slip your hand in the curve of his elbow.

“And where will you be sending me?” you ask softly, walking alongside him when he seems to remember his feet. He lays his other gloved hand atop your fingers, and you think he might be smiling.

“You said you wanted to learn about weaponry.”

You never see him without a weapon, his blaster ever present against his hip or the ominous rifle slung across his back like a saint’s marker. It is not a leap in judgment to assume protection is important to him beyond his profession, and knowing what you know now, you realize the level of trust he holds for you when he had shown you the weapon’s locker aboard the Razor Crest.

But the memory of how helpless you’d felt holding the blaster and aiming at Toro Calican had not left you. The blurry recollections of Cantonica leave you sick, and you silently wonder, at night when you are alone with your thoughts, if things could have been different had you not been such a foolish thing. That is something Mandalorians are not-and now, you are determined to change it.

“I would like to not be so afraid of weapons,” you finally manage in a quiet tone, resting both hands on his arm now and leaning your weight into him. He inclines his head in your direction. “I think fear is disrespectful for something that can save your life.”

He moves his hand, the warm leather covering your fingers that rest on his forearm, and there is a feeling he seems to radiate that washes over you. The backward set of his shoulders, a near defiant tilt of his chin, and you’re surprised when he comes to a brief stop in the middle of the passage. The child coos from his pram, blinking owlishly between you both and perking his ears upward.

The Mandalorian turns you toward him with a gentle, crooked finger beneath your chin. You expect him to say something, his thumb grazing your chin in such a slow, delicate sweep. Your eyes feel heavy as his other fingers uncurl against the warm flesh of your neck, sliding to cup the side of your throat beneath the thick veil of your hair. You keep your eyes upon the shine of his visor as he leans his beskar covering to whisper over your brow, and the complete tenderness in such careful, quiet movements makes your heart speed up. You think he must feel it, your pulse fluttering beneath his fingers where he’d once sunk his teeth out of passion born from fear and admiration, and you swallow hard at the memory.

For a single, still moment, you think he may take your hand and drag you back to your quarters.

The sound of approaching boots has the Mandalorian calmly stepping back from you, and whatever spell had blanketed you both is broken. Feeling flushed, you drop your head away as a fellow Mandalorian passes by both of you, nodding towards your bounty hunter in silent greeting. You draw some hair behind your ear, looking back at the child who grins up with all of his teeth at you as if privy to a joke you hadn’t heard.

The tunnels that interconnect are not twisting or turning as much as you expect. They are large, wide and windy, and you try to remember your way back the way you’d come to begin memorizing the layout. You give up just before the Mandalorian stops in front of a short flight of steps hewn into the rock. He wordlessly offers his hand to you, and in the distance you hear two male voices bantering back and forth.

The armory is large, spanning the same length as the Razor Crest at least, and it is filled with every kind of weapon of all shapes and sizes. Blasters, rifles, blades, and contraptions you have never seen before. There are lights ensconced upon the surface of the rock walls that allow your vision more opportunity to open to your surroundings, and you follow behind the Mandalorian as he comes to stop near a large bench littered with blaster parts, tools, oil, and dirty rags.

Across from you are two Mandalorians, and they stand upon your entrance. The slightly shorter warrior wears armor the color of moss with so many silver nicks and dents that you wonder if he hadn’t been thrown down the side of a cliff face. The taller, broader of the two is covered nearly head to toe in dark grey armor that’s shined to a shimmering gleam. You smile uncertainly, feeling shy as you stand just behind the Mandalorian.

Well. Your Mandalorian.

“Su cuy’gar,” greets the green armored warrior, his thick accent making you tilt your head. “Didn’t think we’d see you here again.”

“That’s because you don’t think much,” shot the grey armored Mandalorian, putting his hand out to grasp the forearm of the man beside you, shaking firmly in welcome. His voice is much smoother, deeper, and you can’t help but feel intimidated a bit by the magnetic presence when he turns his reflective visor upon you. “Tion’cuy?”

The Mandalorian rests his hand upon the small of your back, ushering you to stand properly beside him as he gives your name. “This is Briinx,” he tells you, nodding to the Mandalorian in green before gesturing with his hand to the other. “And Rhalaz. They are valued warriors, firearm instructors for foundlings, and the covert’s mechanics.”

“‘Mechanic’ makes it sound like we’d tinker with any ship that flies in, Djarin. We modify weapons that you can’t quite get through strictly legal means,” Briinx says, twirling a vibroblade between his gloved fingers. “I think we’re artists.”

“No, no,” Rhalaz shakes a hand, sounding completely put off. “Weapons sing. We are musicians, if anything.”

“Then we’d be conductors-”

“Look,” the Mandalorian sighs loudly, interrupting what you assume is going to turn into a conversation he’d rather not be a part of. “You have someone who wants to learn about weaponry. Think you can stay focused long enough to teach her something?”

“I’m offended you think otherwise,” Briinx says suddenly, dropping the blade on the workbench without ceremony. You can’t help the small smile tugging at your mouth. “We might bicker like an old married couple-”

“You are a married couple,” the Mandalorian growls.

“-but we always deliver,” Rhalaz quips, tilting his helmet towards you before settling his visor on the bounty hunter at your side, almost predatorily. “We’d be happy to teach her, but...well, why aren’t you teaching her? Cuyir dar gar riduur?”

Your eyebrows lift curiously when the Mandalorian goes completely still beside you, and you suspect that he stops breathing. The three warriors stare each other down for such a long, tense moment that you’re afraid to even blink. You can’t begin to guess what the implication is of what was spoken, but when the Mandalorian’s hand curls against your back, you feel his unease.

“Sa jate sa,” he finally mutters, staring steadfastly forward. His voice is full of annoyance, bristling and testy. “I have business today, and she wants to learn. Any more questions?”

Briinx puts two hands up in surrender, and Rhalaz’s helmet shakes with laughter.

The Mandalorian turns you both away from the other two warriors, resting one gloved hand on the middle of your back and inclining his helmet down towards you. “I’ll be back by the evening to find you.”

A small furrow forms between your brows, and you tilt your head. “I’m sure I can find the children if I just ask-”

“No!” You jump at his sudden whisper, blinking rapidly when he almost shuffles nervously. “No, I’ll...I’ll come find you.”

You frown after him, his shadow disappearing up the short flight of steps with a snap of his cloak. When you turn around, the other two Mandalorians survey you with their arms crossed across their chests. In for a credit, in for a pound, you think. You take a deep breath, folding your hands in front of you and stepping forward. You haven’t held many conversations with people since you left the cantina outside of the Mandalorian or the children, and it feels very odd.

“Ever held a blaster before?” Briinx asks, picking up one of the hand guns from the workbench that shines beneath the light. It looks freshly oiled and cleaned, and you swallow at how dark and foreboding it seems in his gloved hand.

“Yes,” you murmur, thinking of Toro Calican’s blurry form lying dead on the floor of the Razor Crest’s hull. “And I’ve shot one, too.”

“Well you’re already ahead of most of our students,” Rhalaz chuckles, seeming to sense your discomfort. His tall frame comes around the bench, and he pulls out a stool for you to sit on, patting it.

As daunting as the idea of learning weaponry seems, the two men are accommodating teachers with very different styles. Briinx is more hands on, insisting you hold every weapon, part, or tool you learn about while Rhalaz gives you in-depth explanations for what the parts of a blaster do, how a flash grenade detonates, and even the benefits of using blaster energy versus slug bolts.

“Blasters don’t have the same kickback as a slugthrower,” Rhalaz says, bringing down a long rifle that you immediately recognize. Your face must betray you, because he chuckles and sets the firearm in your hands, braced across your lap. “Where do you think Djarin got his rifle from?”

“I’ve never thought about it,” you admit, feeling the weight of the amban sniper weapon. The familiar pronged end feels awkward and precarious as you heave the gun upward, testing the weight.

“One of my favorites,” Briinx chuffs from across the bench, coming around to show you how to brace the stock pad against your shoulder. He fixes your hands, tilting your head up from hunching over, and correcting your overall posture with a sharp eye.

“Disruptors are one of the most dangerous kinds of weapons. They can short circuit an entire space station if you know where to aim,” Rhalaz tells you sagely, watching his husband adjust your stance.

You swallow hard, wishing you could put the rifle down and far away from you. “What would you need such a thing for?”

“For short circuiting a space station,” Briinx huffs as if the notion is obvious.

“This model and its modifications use more energy than your average blaster, so it...well-”

“It disintegrates people,” Briinx deadpans, moving your hand that cups the stock beneath the gun further out to give your grip balance.

You gape helplessly. “D-Disintegrates?”

“Or electrocutes, if you don’t want to kill the target,” Rhalaz sighs, seeming annoyed with the other Mandalorian. “That’s what the prongs are for.”

“It sounds like these should be banned,” you mumble as Briinx comes behind you to straighten your shoulders once more. You shudder to think what the Mandalorian would need such a weapon for.

“Oh, they were,” he chirps, tilting your head up again. “Now, see this here? It’s the scope. Allows a sniper to see his target from miles away.” His glove floats over the eyepiece and turns the dial. “It’s got heat sensors, too. Maybe Djarin will take you out sometime so you can see for yourself.”

You frown curiously, leaning forward to press your eye to the scope. It’s not nearly as blurry as you expect, and when he flips the dial again, your vision lights up with various shades of color. Rhalaz walks to the far end of the room into the darkened corner of the armory, and you see his heat signature fill the screen. He waves, fluttering his fingers so you can see him.

Excitement tingles along the back of your neck at actually being able to see what has been described to you, and you can’t help the small smile that curves your lips. “Oh.”

“We don’t give these to just anyone, mind you,” Briinx stipulates, patting the crown of your hair as you sit back. “Djarin only got one because he’s the best sharpshooter in the covert.”

“Really?”

It occurs to you that you know very little about the Mandalorian’s skills as a warrior. You had seen him move with precision and even witnessed his deadly reflexes, but you’d never actually seen him fight. The few times he’d killed, you had not been conscious enough to witness it.

“Can’t fight hand to hand worth a damn, but we all have our helms to wear,” Rhalaz sighs dramatically, earning a grin from you as Briinx takes the rifle from you and opens the barrel with a satisfying crack. “Alas, if you do learn to shoot, it should be from him.”

“I...I shot someone once,” you confess, and the armory goes very quiet. You don’t know if it’s from your confession itself or the tone of regret you can’t keep out of your voice. You take a deep breath, your eyes watching as Briinx’s gloves cradle the rifle like you might cradle the child in the crook of your arm. “It...he was going to kill us.”

A firm hand on your shoulder draws your eyes up to the shimmering stormy grey helmet, and Rhalaz tilts his visor down to try and meet your gaze. “There is honor in defending yourself, vod’ika. And the ones you love.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” you whisper, curling your hands in your lap. Your heart begins to pound, face flushing with a cold sweat appearing behind your ears. The words must sound so foreign to seasoned warriors as the ones flanking you, and your quiet confession sinks your shoulders. How could you claim to be the companion of a Mandalorian when you couldn’t even protect yourself?

Surprisingly, Briinx is the one to allay your fears.

“No one wants to truly hurt another,” he says with his unique accent, his green helmet tilted conspiratorially towards you. “And if they do, they are the ones you should keep in your line of sight.”

Rhalaz nods once, grim and somber, and you frown gently. Had you not been able to fire the blaster at Toro Calican, would the Mandalorian have been able to gain the upper hand? Would the child still be safe? The two questions chill you, chasing the flush from your face, and you decide that you would never be in the position to ask such things again.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” you murmur, conviction making the words sound stronger than what you truly feel, but you straighten your back and breathe deeply. “But...I want to protect my child. The children. M-My clan.”

Rhalaz thumps his fist once on the bench, and Briinx chuckles happily, “ Mandokarla! ”

“That we can help with.”

When the Mandalorian descends the steps that evening, you are sitting on the workbench, legs crossed at your ankles as you work to put a WESTAR-34 blaster pistol back together after taking it apart. Briinx stands with his back against the wall while Rhalaz holds several throwing knives in one hand, balancing one in his other. a

“Don’t forget to slot the spring in. You don’t want to jam it, because that will wear it down.”

Thud.

“Your aim is getting worse, old man,” Briinx chides, a teasing note in his modulated voice. “I’m supposed to be able to deflect it, and you have to at least try to hit me.”

The Mandalorian clears his throat, and you look up with a bright smile in greeting, swinging your ankles from your perch.

“Djarin! Welcome back. We did half your job for you,” Briinx declares just as a knife thunks against the side of his helmet, skittering across the floor. “She’ll make a deadly ver’verd yet.”

“Of that, I have no doubt,” the Mandalorian deadpans, inching around behind Rhalaz as he gears up to throw another knife at his husband. You smile wide as the Mandalorian approaches you, and one hand comes to rest on the bench beside your thigh, the other resting on his belt. He leans his weight on one foot, visor tilting toward you. “Having fun?”

“I like this one,” you declare to him, your hands deftly slotting the slide over the barrel and finishing the job. The blaster gleams nearly platinum beneath the light, weighing it in your carbon smudged hands. “It’s very light.”

“You have good taste,” the Mandalorian compliments, taking the pistol from you thoughtfully. You watch with fascination as his gloved hands expertly charge the slide, tilting his head. He looks back up at you. “They teach you how to handle it?”

An offending huff comes from somewhere behind him, but you grin proudly. “I know how to put it together, take it apart, clean it, and reload it.”

“Good.” He straightens, offering a hand to you that you take gratefully. You didn’t realize how much you’d miss his companionship until you were apart, and you squeeze his fingers with a gentle sigh. That is, until he speaks next.

“Now stand up, and I’ll show you how to shoot it.”

Mando'a Translations:

Ad'ika - little one

Su cuy’gar - "You're still alive." A greeting or form of hello.

Tion'cuy? - Who's this?

Cuyir dar gar riduur? - Is she not your wife?

Sa jate sa - As good as

Vod’ika - Little sister

Mandokarla - Showing guts and spirit, the state of being the epitome of Mandalorian virtue.

Ver’verd - mercenary

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#The Lovely Moons #The Mandalorian fanfiction #din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #mandalorian x you #mandalorian x reader #The Mandalorian

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the-blind-assassin-12 · 3 years

Text

Resol’nare - Part Nine

A/N: OH...HEY. Let’s all pretend that I didn’t just have like a three week creative crisis and just dive back in, shall we?? (I’M VERY SORRY.)

*this story will regularly be using words in Mando’a. for a good list of references click here.*

Summary: The Mandalorian arrives on Nevarro to meet with Navina again, hopefully to trade information that could be valuable to them both. But before she joins him he receives a call with some concerning information. When she does finally get there, things come to a head. Quickly.

Warnings: Language, violence

Word Count: 5k

Nevarro.

A dry wind blew across the arid lava fields, his cape whipping behind him as he focused the lens of his visor on the horizon. He had already scanned the other three directions before setting his gaze East. So far though, there was no sign of a ship or speeder anywhere. Another harsh gust of wind tore through the open landscape, accentuating its emptiness. Nothing. He sighed, changing the lens back to its default setting. Crusty flakes of ash covered clay tumbled over the cracked ground and clung to his boots. The Mandalorian hadn’t been waiting long, and Navina wasn’t late yet, but he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that something was wrong. Where is she?

He shifted his weight, leaning against the lowered ramp of The Promise. Pulling his comm device from his pocket, he pressed the speaker button to check that it was still operational and was met with a crackling static sound that proved it was. She just hasn’t tried to contact me. Tucking it away again, he told himself that it was only because she hadn’t landed yet, not because she was involved in any sort of trouble.

His concern hadn’t come from nowhere though, and it wasn’t entirely in regards to the woman’s safety. She can take care of herself. The prickling feeling in the back of his mind had more to do with what he didn’t know about her than what he did. And there’s a lot. Shortly after arriving on the volcanic planet, before he’d even had the chance to check in with Cara Dune, he’d received word from Boba and Fennec back on Tatooine. Curious as to what would warrant the call when he’d last seen Fett only a few days prior- Fennec had been out on one of her missions- he answered quickly, pressing the button to activate the holo screen on the ship’s main control switch.

The blue light flickered and took shape, projecting the man’s image there in the cockpit. “Fett,” the Mandalorian greeted him with a nod. “What is-”

The man’s gruff voice cut him off then, waiving the need for any pretense, which the Mandalorian appreciated. “I’ve got something you need to hear, Mand’alor.” Fett tilted his chin down, his stone solid gaze trained directly at the holo as he spoke. He continued without waiting to be asked, Fennec stepping into view beside him. “Got a hit on that name you asked about. Harsa.”

He blinked, Navina’s face flashing in his memory as she told him her father’s name. That was fast. “I thought you said you hadn’t heard the name?” He tilted his head as he asked.

“I hadn’t,” Boba confirmed. “Still haven’t.” What? “It wasn’t me who came across it, and it isn’t the father, Gavil.”

Head moving back and forth he felt nothing but confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“I came across the name Harsa on a syndicate raid, Mando.” Fennec’s clear tone filled the space as she clarified. “Ixon? The scum I was… interviewing when you were here last?” He nodded and she raised one eyebrow, a look of self-satisfaction still lingering on her face at the way she handled that quarry. “He gave up the location of a Black Sun hideout on Corellia after some light persuasion.”

“And?” He still wasn’t sure where this was headed.

“And when I got there, the place was mostly abandoned. Found a few ledgers, stolen credits.” She scoffed. “Cowards run like rats in Coronet City.”

They do. It had been a long while since the Mandalorian set foot on Corellia or Coruscant. His bounties kept him mostly within the Outer Rim, and he didn’t miss the crowded streets or the types of people they were filled with.

“I was lucky enough to catch one of them though, one of their poor excuses for bounty hunters.” She clicked her tongue. “No accuracy, no skill, and as it turns out,” she grinned. “No loyalty.” That’s why they don’t work for the Guild. “One I caught? Duros. Sang like a little bird. Told me everything I wanted to know. Including who he was working with and what he’d been hired to do.”

Though he was glad to hear that she and Fett were making more progress in cleaning up the galaxy’s garbage, he was still confused about exactly how this raid related to Navina’s name. “Fennec, I’m not sure if I-“

“Just wait,” Boba’s serious, gravelly tone was back. “We wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t worth the trouble.”

He knew that to be true. While Karga enjoyed talking just for the sake of conversation, and Bo-Katan’s routine check-ins could be used to set any clock, Boba and Fennec only made contact when absolutely necessary. Which is almost never. He leaned back in his seat, clenching and unclenching his right fist atop his thigh. “Go on.”

“Turns out this fine gentleman I spoke with had orders to plant a tracking device on a target so that his partner could hunt them down and take them out in a different location. Team job,” she explained, her eyes suddenly looking down as she fumbled with something off screen. Looking back up, she raised her hand, a bounty puck lying flat in it. “This was the target, Mando.”

His eyes widened and his mouth fell open as he watched her activate the holo puck, Navina’s image flickering to life, her name listed in several languages below her rotating likeness.

“Not the Harsa you were looking for, Mand’alor.” Fett inclined his head towards the puck in Fennec’s palm. “Someone’s looking for her though.”

“Any idea who?” There were endless reasons as to why someone would hire an assassin or a bounty hunter, he knew that first hand. But if he knew who it was that wanted the woman dead, he might be able to reason out the why.

Fennec let the puck go dark and lowered her hand. “Well, you see that’s where things get very interesting.” They were interesting enough already. “Ixon isn’t- wasn’t- a very high ranking member of the syndicate, so he didn’t have any names for me.” Not surprising. “But what he did say?” She folded her arms over her chest. “It was a Mandalorian that hired Black Sun.”

“A Mandalorian?” Not even the helmet could hide the shock in his tone. Aside from the fact that paying someone else to do their killing for them was not at all the Way of the Mandalore, it was as unnecessary as one of his kind hiring a personal bodyguard. “Why would a Mandalorian need to hire an assassin?” They wouldn’t. Navina may be a skilled fighter, but the simple fact that she was not entirely covered in beskar put her at an extreme disadvantage when it came to fighting someone that was. Especially if she didn’t even know it was coming.

“An excellent question,” Boba nodded. “And one I think you know the answer to.”

“Discretion.” Whoever it is doesn’t want anyone knowing it was them. Most people contracted their dirty work out because they were incapable of doing it themselves, but he knew that there were others who were just seeking to keep their own hands clean. A sudden thought materialized and immediately took the form of a question. “Are all of our people accounted for there?”

He needed to know if this was an isolated incident; if Navina had garnered this target on her head because of choices she had made, or because of who and what she was...and who she knew. He needed to know if the rest of the covert, the rest of his kind, were safe or if whoever was hunting her down was also tracking other Mandalorians. Perhaps most importantly though, he needed to know if he had to be suspicious of anyone within the covert’s walls. Mandalorian history was full of infighting, different sects and cells with varying beliefs and loyalties often waging war on one another to claim more power and reputation. I won’t let that happen under my watch.

“Just talked to the princess herself, Mand’alor.” Fett grumbled, his upper lips pulling into the snarl it seemed he reserved specifically for Bo-Katan. “According to her, everyone is safe and she’s called for a full sweep of the facility to be sure there are no threats to your growing hive.”

Relief washed through him, and he was glad not only that Bo-Katan and her people were there to keep the others safe, but that at least for the moment it seemed that this was more a matter of personal vendetta against Navina Harsa and not against Mandalorians or their allies in general. It was short lived however, Fennec chiming in once more to remind him that the tracking device was likely still active if Navina hadn’t already been found and killed. “If they haven’t found her yet, Mando… she might be leading whoever is looking for her straight to you.”

He had ended the transmission thanking Fett and Shand for calling with the warning, hoping that Navina would arrive soon and that he’d be able to find and disable the tracker before it caused trouble for him. Or costs her her life. Though his first thought had been that she could be a danger to what he was trying to do for the Mandalorian people, his next line of thinking went in another direction. What if she was targeted because she’s meeting me? What if just knowing me, talking to me was what… Another fact about Mandalorian history that he had learned since becoming the owner of the Darksaber and the title that came with it, was that while the majority of Mandalorians accepted the wielder of that sword to be their rightful ruler, there would almost always be outliers in opposition who would see a different Mand’alor on the throne. He sighed, wondering if it would get worse once they had actually begun to retake the planet, when the throne was even more tangible and real and tempting. One thing at a time.

Scanning the landscape one more time, he tapped the button on the side of his helmet to cut through the hazy fog that hung low over the volcanic ground. At first he saw nothing, but then a wave of air was displaced overhead, and looking up he saw a small ship, maybe half the size of The Promise, beginning its landing maneuvers. That must be her. Tipping his head back, he watched as the craft wobbled upon entry into Nevarro’s atmosphere before the reverse thrusters were engaged, the hull of the ship leveling out, its descent slowing as it got closer to the ground to give him a clear look at the vessel. Dank farrik.

He was immediately reminded of the Razor Crest after he’d trusted the Mon Calamari dockhand on Trask to repair it following the crash landing on Maldo Kreis. Not that I had much of a choice then. Couldn’t get off the platform the way it was. He wondered if there hadn’t been similar circumstances for the woman and her ramshackle ship. There were outer panels that flapped where they lifted away from the rivets that were supposed to hold them in place, shoddily executed patchwork and second hand replacement parts making it almost impossible to imagine what the ship may have looked like when it was new. If it ever was. Cocking his head to the side as the engines powered down, he wondered if it wasn’t something that Navina or her friend had cobbled together themselves from spare scraps of retired ships.

There was another disturbance overhead, the hot air moving as though another ship were trying to cut through to land, and he shook all thoughts of her ship’s provenance and original model number away. He needed to stay vigilant, be on the lookout for whoever it was that was following Navina. The airlock hissed as she lowered the ramp on her ship, the steel plank stuttering jerkily as it dropped then freezing its motion with a grinding sound just shy of reaching the ground.

“Kriffing piece of-” He heard a metallic thunk that he would have wagered anything on had been made by her boot striking the mechanism that operated the entrance ramp, the door groaning on its fastenings as it plunged down to close the distance. “There.” Swinging her braid with a huff, the woman appeared in the opening. She wasn’t wearing any of her armor, her bulging bag slung across her body. He did notice the sunlight glinting off of the kal at her waist and recognized the shape of the blaster strapped to her thigh beneath the gray shawl she wore though, the woman seeming to put more stock in being well armed than well armored. In her case, it made sense, and he realized that if she did know someone was after her, she would only stick out more if she was wearing the beskar helmet and the thin plates she’d collected over the years.

Hopping down from her ship, a cloud of ash rising as her boot soles hit land, she waved one arm and called out. “Hey there, Mando.” Turning, she hoisted the ramp up manually and gave it a forceful shove to slam it shut.

In the same instant that the hefty door clicked to lock, the enhanced audio receiver in his helmet picked up another distinct noise; the nearly silent sound of a ship entering the atmosphere. The tracker. Snapping his attention skyward, he adjusted his visor lens and located the incoming gunship. It’s weapons already charged from what he could see, it would be within shooting range in a matter of seconds. Eyes flicking down to the woman still struggling to close the ramp, he realized that she hadn’t noticed the very imminent danger that she was in. And he didn’t have time to warn her.

Acting on instinct alone, he lunged forward extending his left arm and deploying the whipcord from his vambrace. She turned to face him as the cable wrapped around her body, eyes widening in shock as the restraint tightened to trap her arms against her sides. Sorry.

“What the-“

Her assumed string of swears and expletives was cut short by the zip of the line as he swiveled his wrist, the mechanized cord reeling itself back in. Overhead, a dark shape hovered above the clouds. Navina finally glanced up as the hum of the attacking ship’s guns announced their intent to fire. The expression on her face as she looked back down at him was a mixture of confusion, anger, and fear, adrenaline pulsing from her that he could almost feel himself. Hang on.

Again, there was no time to warn her before he acted, punching his fist hard to pull Navina as far from where she stood as possible. She nearly flew through the air to close the distance, the Mandalorian whipping his body around just in time to stop her momentum by throwing his arms wide and catching her in them. The instant he had a solid grip on her, he bent his knees and pushed off from the ground, jetpack igniting and lifting them both out of harm’s way just as red blaster fire streaked through the sky to hit the ship that she’d been aboard only minutes before.

He didn’t look back, focused instead on locating the enemy, already grabbing for one of the thermal detonators attached to his belt. But he didn’t need to look back to know the exact second that the enemy’s blast hit, her body stiffening noticeably as the explosion engulfed her ship, the sound of her incredulous gasp close to his ear. He didn’t need to see it on her face to understand what she was feeling. I hope there wasn’t anything… He recalled the moment he had found Grogu’s ball in the rubble where the Razor Crest once stood. I hope nothing she cares about was destroyed.

Shaking those thoughts from his head, he rose higher until he was close enough to one of the ship’s engines to toss the detonator into the turbine. Reaching down, he unbuckled another two of the spherical explosives, shoving them in after the first before diving back towards the ground. He hadn’t been able to retaliate right away when Grogu was abducted and his ship, their home, decimated. But I can now. His weapons ignited, tearing the engine to shreds and causing the ship to drop like a lead weight, falling hard and gaining speed.

The heat at his back as they plummeted was satisfying, but his thoughts quickly returned to the woman in his arms as they both touched down on the ground. Bracing for the impact of the destroyed ship’s impending crash, he tucked her head against his shoulder. Tilting his head down, he shielded as much of her with as much of himself as possible, widening his stance to lower his base as the ground rumbled underfoot. Charred debris rained down, a few smaller pieces bouncing off of his armor like fiery hailstones, and he kept her sheltered until he heard and felt them stop falling. As soon as it was clear, he released her, stepping back once he was sure that she was steady on her feet.

“Are you hurt?” He knew that he needed to check the ship’s wreckage to see if the assailant was still alive. But he wanted to make sure that she was physically alright before he did.

Mouth agape and expression completely stunned, she took a breath and then another, staring at the space where she’d landed her ship and seeing only a burnt out crater in its place. “I...I’m...no.” She answered, blinking rapidly before giving him a quick shake of her head. “You… how did you-”

Now’s not the time. Without another word he pushed off from the ground again, flying through the smoke plumes towards the torn and twisted remains of the enemy ship’s cockpit and main hold. Looking through the windshield, he saw the slumped form of a man in dark goggles, the tell tale tattoo marking him as a Black Sun member visible on his neck above the collar of his shirt. From what the Mandalorian could tell, the man was still breathing, simply unconscious, and the lack of movement among the rest of the wreckage paired with the absence of a second body in the co-pilot’s chair led him to believe that this was a solo operation. It usually is. He could count on one hand how many times he’d hunted with a partner, and he knew that most bounty hunters and assassins worked that way, too.

Finding the hatch to open the cockpit, he tried to peel it open but it wouldn’t budge, the hinges bent and damaged in the crash. Swearing under his breath, he drew his blaster and shot three times at the lock until the door fell inward. Kicking his boot down through the door, he opened it fully, dropping into the ship to extract the man who had just fired on Navina. In another circumstance, he may have let the man suffer the consequences of his actions and let fate decide whether he walks away from the flames. But then he’d be loose on Nevarro. If this trouble was somehow linked to him, which it was, because Navina was only there to meet with him, then he owed it to Cara and Karga and all of the people there to clean up his mess. And I’m sure Fennec will have questions for him. Slinging the tall but thin man over his shoulder, the Mandalorian climbed back out through the opening he made for himself, jumping from the top of the wreckage. The jets strapped to his back roared to life and he ascended as a fuel tank exploded right below him. That was close.

His next priority was checking that The Promise hadn’t suffered any damage. The blast seemed to have been a direct hit, so he wasn’t overly concerned. But it’s my only way out of here and it’s… He frowned as he landed. It’s not home but it’s… He sighed. It doesn’t matter. The ship was fine, far enough away that it hadn’t even been hit with any rubble or debris. Good. He dropped the man he was carrying in an unceremonious heap, an audible crack coming from his arm as it made contact with the hard ground, ignoring it as he turned back in the direction he’d left Navina in.

She was walking cautiously through the field of burning metal, her face streaked with soot and her blaster drawn. As soon as she saw the man crumpled at the Mandalorian’s feet, her face pulled into an angry scowl. “Kriffing scum!”

She coughed as she inhaled the thick smoke, and he realized that if not for the filter in his helmet he would be having the same difficulty breathing. We should get inside. She stumbled closer, and he could see the shake in her hand as she pointed her weapon at the figure on the ground. Don’t- He was about to reach for her to stop her from shooting the man, despite how badly he knew that she must have wanted to. She didn’t make him do that though, opting instead for a swift, hard kick as she stowed her blaster. Lifting her eyes up to the eyeline of his visor, she shook her head. “How did you kn-”

Another cough cut her short, and he flipped open the cover on his vambrace, tapping in the code to unlock and lower the ramp. “Go inside,” he shook his head and gestured at the black smoke. “You shouldn’t breathe this in. Go.”

He stooped down to lift the unconscious assassin from the ground, hoisting him over his shoulder again and followed Navina up the ramp into the main hull. As soon as he was in, he punched the switch on the wall to seal the door behind them. The air circulation system kicked in with a whoosh as the airlock clicked shut, and before he said anything else, the Mandalorian opened the locker where he kept three slabs ready at all times. Shoving the limp man into the frame of the slab, he held down the button that released a gust of super chilled carbonite to freeze his captive, then shut him away in the locker for transport to Tatooine. He’ll answer for what he did. He was certain that Fennec would squeeze every drop of information out of him and then make him sorry that he ever agreed to work for the Black Sun.

“Hey.” The curtness in her tone made him wince as he turned to face her, but it was understandable. “Are you going to tell me how you knew that was going to happen?” She crossed her arms defensively and he could tell that she was trying to keep her composure.

“I was tipped off by one of my people.” He nodded at her. “I had asked about your father, but they came across your name instead.” Pulling a device from the cabinet below the weapons locker, he went on. “Found a bounty puck on you in a syndicate hideout, and found out that someone had you followed.” Switching the small object on, he pointed it at her bag.

Pulling the satchel away from him, she stepped back. “What are you doing?”

Lifting the device, he explained. “This will find and disable any tracking devices on you so they can’t send backup.” She still seemed hesitant, and though he wanted to be sympathetic and give her time to process what was happening, he knew that they didn’t have that luxury. “Look, I just saved your life and I don’t even know who I saved it from.” Or why someone’s after you. He recalled the way that his subconscious had convinced him to trust her the last time they were together, and though he still didn’t understand why, he felt himself leaning into it again. “So you’re going to let me check you for tracking beacons, or I’m going to make you let me.”

She swallowed, not out of fear but frustration, glaring up at him, then begrudgingly held out her bag. “Fine.”

He swept the device over it, the thing beeping loudly over one of the pockets. “There.”

“What? There’s nothing in-” She dug her hand into the pocket, then froze, pulling it back out with a tiny silver circle between her fingers. “Dank farrik, what the… how-”

The Mandalorian took it from her, dropping it on the floor and crushing it with the heel of his boot. “Someone must have slipped it into your bag while you were distracted.” He raised the scanner once more, making sure that there weren’t any other trackers or bugs planted on her person. Satisfied that there weren’t, he stowed the scanner back where he took it from and straightened up to face Navina again.

The anger and defensiveness were gone, the woman instead displaying concern. “I need to contact Firo.” She shook her head. “That… The Flare, it… that was his ship and I…Osi'kyr! Firo. I need to make sure he’s… that he and his family are safe. What if-”

“Alright.” He held up his hands. “Alright, you can use my holo screen. It’s in the cockpit.” She pressed her lips together and nodded, clearly worried. “It… my contact? They told me that it was only your name that was on record.” If that makes you feel any better.

He didn’t wait for her to respond, simply nodding at the ladder that led to the ship’s controls. She climbed wordlessly with him right behind her, and within seconds he had the holo up and running, allowing her to make contact with her friend. If I thought the kid was in trouble I’d… need to see him, too. There were things that The Mandalorian needed to ask her, but he knew that nothing would be accomplished until her mind was put at ease over the people she cared about.

Once she was satisfied that no one else would be in the crosshairs meant for her, she apologized again to the shaggy haired, amicable man that he had seen pick her up on a stolen speeder when last he was on Nevarro. He insisted that he didn’t really care about his ship, that he was just glad that she was safe, his relief genuine. Ships are replaceable. He looked around at the switchboards and panels that surrounded him. People aren’t. His eyes fell to the vacant seat that was still waiting for Grogu to occupy it. From what she had told him last time they spoke, she knew that all too well.

As she wrapped up her call, she visibly relaxed, no longer on the verge of hyperventilation from smoke or worry, but still a little on edge. Rightfully so. Someone just tried to- a Mandalorian tried to have her killed. One of my... The idea felt wrong to even think, but he had to ask. “Navina?” Her sharp eyes locked with his, again giving him the feeling that she could see through his visor even though he knew that was impossible. “Do you have any idea who would have,” he sighed. Just tell her what you know. “It was a Mandalorian. The person who put the hit out on you? They were… Do you know why a Mandalorian would be after you?”

To his surprise, she actually let out a dry laugh. “Mando, if I kept track of everyone who… everyone that I made an enemy of I’d never get any sleep.”

He was sure that she was right, but it wasn’t what he’d asked. “That wasn’t an answer.”

She frowned, rubbing at a smudge of black ash on her forehead. “No, it wasn’t.” Looking down at her lap, she let out a breath. “I…” she clamped her eyes shut. “Yeah. There are a… a few Mandalorians who might be...who want me-”

“Tell me why.” It wasn’t a command, regardless of how it came out. “Please, tell me why. I,” he paused, wanting to be sure of his word choice so that she would understand his line of questioning. I want to make sure that no one that I am responsible for was responsible for this. As the Mand’alor, it was his responsibility to uphold peace and hand out punishment to those that would threaten it. But she doesn’t know that I’m… He wanted to trust her like his brain was telling him to. But he didn’t want to be wrong, not at the expense of the rest of the covert. She hasn’t sworn the Creed. “I want to be sure that no one in my covert, my Tribe, was behind this.”

She opened her mouth then shut it, furrowing her brow before smoothing it out again, and he knew that she was trying to be just as careful in choosing her words as he was, the two of them playing a precarious game of strategy as they got to know one another. “I’ll… I’ll tell you about the Mandalorians I’ve…” She sighed, her eyes landing on the signet on his shoulder. “I’ll tell you about the Mandalorians I’ve made enemies of, if you tell me something. Like last time.”

He thought for a beat before answering, something in the way that she was eyeing the Mudhorn crest that he wore giving him pause. But that’s how this works, right? Give information to get it? “Alright,” he agreed. “Go ahead.”

As though she’d been practicing the question since the second she pulled away on that speeder three weeks ago, it rolled right off of her tongue to fill the quiet cockpit. “Are you in possession of the Darksaber?”

Thank you for reading! Please feel free to let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from the tags! :)

tags: @something-tofightfor @alraedesigns @pheedraws @valkblue @malionnes @gollyderek @fific7 @becs-bunker @commanderlola @greatcircle79

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grumpyhedgehogs · 3 years

Text

(you taught me) the courage of stars

Summary: “I know what it is like, Ahsoka.” Obi-Wan tells her. “I know what it is to leave the Jedi with nothing more than the clothes on your back and the knowledge that you are doing the right thing.”

Or: Ahsoka Tano flees after a warrant for her arrest is issued, but not before receiving aid from an unexpected ally. (Ahsoka proceeds to go on a road trip filled with a bunch of strangers who all say the same thing: Obi-Wan Kenobi is much more than he has ever appeared to be.)

Warnings: Canon typical violence, abuse (childhood, emotional, physical, mental), mind control.

Pt. 1.

Pt. 2, Pt. 3, AO3

Notes:

This idea has been bopping around in my head for a WHILE, y'all. It's basically an amalgamation of my dreadful desire to put Obi-Wan through pain while also giving him some Therapy Because Boy-Howdy Does He Need It and my absolute adoration for Ahsoka Tano. The basic premise of this fic is: What would happen if when Ahsoka left the Order, she went on a road trip through all of the worst hits of Obi-Wan's childhood?

Bonding. Bonding is what would happen.

Title from 'Saturn' by Sleeping At Last.

Nautical Dawn

Ahsoka runs.

Rain sheets down around the togruta, digging into her skin like a million icy knives. Her soaked clothes weigh her down as she sprints blindly, plastered to her, dragging against her limbs. She is chilled to the bone, but not from the storm.

There is no one here to look closely, to separate her tears from the rest of the water obscuring her vision. She takes a turn, breath hitching beneath her ribs as she passes into a tunnel free of rainwater. There is a light at the end, beckoning, promising freedom. She’s almost out. She’s almost free.

She shouldn’t have to worry about being free.

Footsteps sound behind her as she runs, hurrying after her. Panic closes her throat and Ahsoka tilts, stumbling off balance. She throws out a hand, gasping as the Force rises to meet her command, buffeting her back to her feet. If she can just get to the end of the tunnel--

“Ahsoka, wait!”

Ahsoka had been prepared for Skyguy’s voice to ring out behind her. She’d seen the look on his face, knew he’d look for her when she ran. She’d been prepared for law enforcement, or even Master Windu or Koon to come looking for her--someone with experience hunting for Force Signatures on crowded planets. She’d thought she could do this. After all, if she could turn her back on Anakin, what couldn't she do?

Ahsoka hadn’t thought Master Kenobi would come for her.

“Stay back!” The words tear from her throat, scraping it raw. Her lips burn, her eyes burn. She whirls on him, knowing she must look crazed, deranged, animalistic. Good. Let him see what the Order has done to her. “Stay away!”

Further back down the tunnel, Obi-Wan Kenobi raises his hands to shoulder height and plants his feet. His fringe is plastered to his skin too, and his robes and armor drip rainwater steadily to the filthy concrete below, as if he’d simply bolted after her instead of manning a speeder or taking a transport. His chest heaves in time with Ahsoka’s. Her muscles clench and release, her spine a hot iron rod in her back. The Force whispers in her ears, loud, wanting attention. But Ahsoka pushes it away. It’s hard to hear the Force on Coruscant, sometimes almost painful; there are too many Force Signatures here, and too much turmoil clouding her perception. She can’t let it distract her now.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Ahsoka.” Obi-Wan says. His face twists with the words. Ahsoka wonders if he’s noticed her tears.

“Don’t come near me. I won’t go back to the Temple.” You can’t make me, she almost continues, but the words can’t be forced from her mouth. She bites her tongue instead, shuffling back, and ignores the tang of blood. The whole thing is almost laughable; in any other situation she’d sound like a petulant teenager. Master Kenobi wants her to go to her room. You can’t ground me because I’m not part of this family anymore!

Ahsoka feels sick. She takes another step back. She sees Obi-Wan’s eyes widen. He does not move.

“I’m not trying to take you back to the Temple.”

The words make no sense; they sound like static in her ears. Nerves make Ahsoka snarl at him. It’s a trick, it has to be; the great Negotiator, giving up his prey without a fight, without argument? The Council no doubt sent him after her, and Ahsoka isn’t going to fall for it just because he has a friendly face. They’d have better luck sending Anakin.

“I’m not going to take the fall for something I didn’t do!”

“I am not asking you to,” Obi-Wan replies, and raises his voice over Ahsoka’s incredulous protests as she opens her mouth again, venom on her tongue. “I am asking you to listen to me now because we don't have much time before law enforcement realizes I’ve slipped them and begins searching for both of us. I think one of them might have put a tracker on me, so you’ll need to get as far away from here as possible after we’re done, am I making myself clear?”

No, Ahsoka thinks, mind swirling with questions and accusations, panicked. You aren’t being clear at all. “Why did you follow me if--if you’re not going to arrest me?”

“I need to give you this.”

Master Kenobi lowers one hand, his movements stiffly telegraphed, and holds out his open palm. From his damp glove float three items, bright enough to catch the low light but too small to make out in the shadows they stand in; Ahsoka catches them with the Force thoughtlessly, the movement second nature. It’s almost like the old games they used to play in the creche, rolling a ball back and forth with only the Force. She does not look down at what he’s given her, only closes her fists around them and stares. The Force pulses around the objects in her hand, curling around Ahsoka as she inspects Master Kenobi, looking for some reaction, anything to analyze how he's feeling or what he's thinking. But Obi-Wan's not moving, not making any motions towards her. His voice is clear and hard and not unkind. He stands as parade rest and makes sure Ahsoka can see his hands.

Ahsoka blinks, startled as she realizes that Obi-Wan does not have his lightsaber on him. Not that he isn’t a threat unarmed, but--has he underestimated her? Perhaps he hoped he could manipulate Ahsoka into coming back with him?

Or does he not intend to do anything of the sort?

“The datachip is encrypted,” Obi-Wan tells her like Ahsoka isn’t reeling. He speaks quickly, businesslike, as if he's about to lead Ahsoka into battle rather than--rather than help her run from the law. “But it’s nothing you won’t be able to slice into. I couldn’t get ahold of your sabers, I’m sorry. I wish I could’ve--but there was no time. Do you have a way off planet yet?”

Numb, Ahsoka shakes her head.

Obi-Wan nods and his hair flops with the movement, flicking water down his nose and cheeks. The urge to laugh hysterically bubbles in Ahsoka's chest, but she swallows it. He points over her shoulder, out of the tunnel. “Head to Dex’s diner, in the lower levels. He’ll be able to get you on a ship wherever you want to go. Check the chip if you can't think of somewhere safe. There will be papers waiting for you.”

“You--you’re letting me go?”

His lips twitch into a simulacra of his usual smile. It looks wooden. “Yes.”

“Why?”

Anakin wouldn’t do this. Anakin would ask her to stay, implore her not to leave. Does Obi-Wan want her to go? Does he think she really did it--that she hurt their family?

He wants nothing more to do with Ahsoka. He’s throwing her away like day old trash, just like the rest of the Jedi.

There’s a soothing wash of calm in the Force; it emanates from her grandmaster, rolling in waves towards her own nexus of grief and pain and fear. For a moment, Ahsoka lets it wrap around her, a comforting blanket against the cold that has enveloped her for days. Then she comes to her senses and, horrified at her own childishness, shakes it off. Obi-Wan is still smiling that awful, empty smile. “I know what it is like, Ahsoka.” Obi-Wan tells her. “I know what it is to leave the Jedi with nothing more than the clothes on your back and the knowledge that you are doing the right thing.”

Unable to help herself, Ahsoka lashes out, cruelty squirming sickly in her stomach. She wants--she wants Obi-Wan to stop talking, she wants him to feel her devastation, she wants him to see how she is crumbling beneath the weight of what his Council has done to her. “You don’t know anything about what I feel!”

Obi-Wan loses his smile; his face looks strange; it is as if Ahsoka has never quite seen him before. He is old and worn. There is a deep sorrow carved into his skin. His gaze unfocusses for a split second, eyes far away while he looks at her. She shivers; it isn't Ahsoka Obi-Wan sees standing before him. There’s something else there too, down underneath the rest of it, something that makes the lump in her throat triple in size, something she can’t name. The gifts Obi-Wan gave her bite into the skin of her palms, the datachip and whatever its companions are drawing Ahsoka’s blood in the darkness of this tunnel. Escape looms at her back.

“Yes, Ahsoka. I do. Now you must go--flee!”

Ahsoka runs.

As she does, one question burns into Ashoka's mind: if she asked Master Obi-Wan to come with her, would he?

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what-the--curtains · 3 years

Text

Alliance

Chapter 5 – The Outsiders

(Mando x f!reader)

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Summary: A new lead brings you to a new planet where you search for any trace of the child. Unable to locate him the two of you stop in at a Cantina and when a fight brings the two of you to a hotel new information comes to light, and not just about the childs whereabouts

Notes:Happy new year! Hope your all treating yourself and others with kindness! As always thank you for the likes and shares❤️❤️

TW:swearing, drinking, mentions of drug use/abuse

Tagged: @crazycookiecrumbles

Word count: 6.3K

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Nar Shaddaa, Hutt Space, S-12

Exiting the ship you take in your new surroundings. The city was highly technological; filled with high speed trains, sky scrapers, constant noise and the richest and poorest members of the galaxy. It was a true Ecumenopolis and there’s no mistaking that you’re out of your element in it.

“You’re right.” You remark, causing Din to look over to you “I do hate it.”

“Here” he says, handing you a set of knives to go with the blaster he’d previously gifted you. “Bow and arrow would stand out and it’s best we blend in.” You take them, concealing the blades in the sleeves of your cloak.

“Anya, stay close” you whisper, pulling up the hood so as to shield the majority of your face from any passersby. The likelihood of you being recognized was exponentially higher than it had been during previous visits and anonymity was something that needed to be taken seriously here. Anya sniffs at the polluted air, miraculously picking up the child's scent in minutes.

The two of you pursue her with heads down, maneuvering through the crowded sidewalk lining the busy highway where speeders rip up and down the tarmac towards their destinations. She leads you off the main road and down a side street backlit by the various neon hues radiating off the signs attached to the strip of cantinas and clubs. Anya sits down and you and the Mandalorian exchange a look of confusion.

“There's no way the kid’s in a strip club,” he states.

“Ya I figured,” you snap back, the unintended harshness catching you off guard, “the water must have washed off some of the scent”

“What does that mean for our plans?” he queries.

“It means they just got more difficult.” You reach out through the force hoping the child may have caused a ripple in it recently, you can feel he’s one the planet, but there’s nothing to suggest his whereabouts. The situation wasn't being helped by the intermittent noise coming from the groups of intoxicated people moving between bars. You let out a groan of frustration causing a few nearby garbage cans to rattle and fall over subsequently startling a couple who were making out near them.

“C’mon, let’s find a cantina, cool off, maybe someone’s seen the scavengers that ambushed the base.” he offers, not wanting any more attention drawn to the two of you.

“Best idea you’ve ever had Mando.” You say, slapping him on the shoulder as he escorts you into one of the many cantinas lining the streets of the city.

The club was packed full of creatures from all across the galaxy. You’d seen places like this before, having even been inside them on more than one occasion. Sometimes clients wanted to take the gladiators out to show them off as a demonstration of power and wealth. The clubs were usually loud with dark corners, expensive drinks, illicit drugs and company you could pay for.

This place was no exception and honestly you’re surprised the Mandalorian had set foot in the cantina, you thought this would have quantified a den of sin to him and his creed. You push through the crowded dance floor taking a booth in a far corner in an attempt to disappear into the background. This task was helped by the dim lighting, loud music and general drunkenness of the patrons.

“What do you want?” you ask, pulling your hood down, feeling confident no one would recognize you.

“I don’t drink in public,” he explains taking a seat.

“And I don’t drink alone” you state, staring down at him.

“When was the last time you had to drink alone?” he asks. If it wasn't for everything you knew about his personality you would have thought that was some kind of line. Unfortunately, you must have been speaking too loud as your statement had drawn the attention of a nearby Balosar.

“Well I can make sure that doesn’t happen” the Balosar slurs clumsily placing a hand on your hip and moving his groin too close to your ass for your, or Dins liking.

“I wasn’t talking to you leave” you state calmly, and the man releases you walking off as if nothing happened, before the Mandalorian could even formulate his next move.

“Here’s the deal, I'll drink if you tell me about that trick of yours” he offers, watching the Balosar disappear back into the crowd.

“Deal” you say, turning to the bar. You make your way over through the mass of what we’re likely criminals or the ultra-rich, though oftentimes they fall hand in hand. This club didn’t smell like the lowbrow places you’d been to early on in your career, no it had that perfumed soaked scent of a millionaires mansion trying to masquerade the smell of fraud and blood that built it.

“Hey can I get two retsas, one with a long straw” you shout over the synthetic music blaring throughout the club to the Togruta bartender. You rest your elbows on the counter leaning forward, biting gently on your thumb as you turn your head, gazing over the crowd to where the Mandalorian was sat, absentmindedly stroking Anya’s head.

“Here ya are love” the bartender says, you turn back around to face her smiling as you hand her the credits and take the drinks back to the table.

“What’s this?” Din asks, picking up the straw slightly.

“Straw.” You say as if it’s obvious, taking a sip of your own beverage as you pull back into the booth “you can stick it up under your helmet. Then no one has to see your face”

“So how do you do that.” He asks referring to your ability to seemingly send people away.

“Do what?” you ask innocently, causing him to push the drink away,

“Fine.” you say, and he pulls it back towards him “the truth is I don’t really know how it works. Just does”

“Like magic” he states, maneuvering the straw under the helmet.

“Not a witch” you return, watching some of the liquid drain from his glass.

“The kid can heal can you?”

“No, I never learnt, I think only certain Jedis can. My specialities lie elsewhere.”

“Like the mind tricks.”

“Amongst other things but mind tricks are the simplest. Heads are easily influenced afterall.”

“Jedis'' he laughs audibly. It was the first time you’d heard him do so and you were taken aback by how pleasant it was. Sometimes it was easy to forget a human being was underneath all the metal.

“Why are you laughing? They exist.” you say smiling, still caught up in his laugh.

“I know I’ve met three now. I just think it’s funny that the kid is more qualified than you” He jokes. Your mouth opens, somehow feeling both admired and insulted by the man sat across from you.

“Say aren’t you a Mandalorian” a passerby interrupts

“No he’s not.” You say, sending him on his way with a flick of your wrist.

“You have to teach me how to do that.”

“You just have to put your mind between a state of complete serenity and complete control. Once you tap in, it’s easy enough to use, but you have to keep at it, it’s a skill and it's remarkably easy to lose.” You say gesturing for him to continue drinking. “Well that and a genetic predisposition for force-sensitivity.”

“Oh seems very easy,” he says.

“Well if it’s easy enough for a child to do.” You return.

“Did you use it to get the upper hand on me when we first met?”

“Maybe.” you respond finishing the last of your drink, only just noticing how lightheaded you were. It has been a while since you’d had a proper drink, but even so being this much of a lightweight wasn’t something you wanted the Mandalorian to know about.

“But you don’t use it all the time?” he prompts.

“No, not always safe. That why I was kept on Vryssa. Guess the empire, or ex-empire or whatever the hell they’re calling themselves these days, were hunting down any remaining Jedi” you explain, lightly tapping your fingernails along the empty glass.

“Can you choke people?” he asks, causing you your eyebrows to raise involuntarily.

“Only if they buy me dinner first,” you quip, watching as he finishes the last of his drink evidently not bothered by what you had just said “ but yes, I try not too unless absolutely necessary.”

“The kid tried it on Cara once.” he says laughing for the second time that evening.

“Fuck,” you snort, partially coughing up your drink “what’d she do?”

“She was beating me in an arm wrestling match.” he chuckles, more so at the sound you had just emitted than anything else.

“So you also need a kid to help you win an arm wrestling match?” you tease.

“Don’t start with me, I’d snap your arm like a twig if we went at it.” Did he know how what he was saying sounded? If so, what was he hoping to achieve by it? He’s about to ask another question when you put a finger up “More drinks” you say scooting out of the seat and making your way back over to the bar.

“Back so soon?” the bartender asks

“Drinking’s a specialty of mine” you say with a smile “Same as before please”

“Of course” she wipes her hands on a towel before heading back to make the order. You rock back and forth on your heels until she returns, but not with the drinks.

“If you’re looking for something stronger” she offers, pulling out a packet of what you recognize as spice. You’d done your fair share of it in the early days of the arenas. Trainers used it to control their more unruly fighters, and you found yourself falling under that classification more often than not. It had also come in handy when you had to deal with some of the less pleasing clients who were paying for your services. After you made it to the big times you were weaned off it by San who couldn’t have you overdosing and losing him money. Your hand reaches out for it but you stop yourself, knowing if you took it the Mandalorian would find out and you’d lose his trust. Something which you hadn’t realized mattered so much to you.

“I’m good for now, thanks though” she nods putting it back and returning with your drinks “If you change your mind, names Ynre come find me” you smile grabbing the drinks and moving back through the crowd. Sitting down you decide it's your turn to ask a question.

“How did you know I was a tracker?” you slide the drink towards him and he catches it with ease.

“ A bartender told me you’d helped him find his daughter, I thought you were isolated from the rest of the world.”

“Living has its cost even if you're off the grid” you begin “we needed credits as well, we offered our services to find those who had been taken, most of the time, all memory would be removed before they returned to the real world.”

“Why did you let him remember.”

“Somethings need to remembered, so they don’t happen again” you say, absentmindedly moving your index finger around the rim of the glass

“What’s it like.” He asks “Being one with the galaxy.”

“Pretty uneventful until you showed up in my life.” you say pointing a finger at him as you take another swig.

“Well I can’t imagine anything much happening on Vryssa. Is there anything on that planet except for mud and trees.”

“Some people like the mud and trees, it’s the poverty that stops most people from staying long. Mining isn’t the industry it once was.”

“So that’s what the planet is known for fuel?”

“That and the most hangings during the war, tall trees make for excellent gallows.” Having finished another round of drinks you go to stand up again, hoping when you went back you wouldn’t be offered the spice again. You weren’t sure you’d be able to deny it a second time.

“I’ll get the next ones'' he says standing up. You sit back down, breathing out a sigh of relief as you watch him walk over to the bar. As he reaches the counter you watch him order placing his hand on the bar turning to talk to a Twi’lek, Arkanian and human who had appeared around him. You take note of the body language, it’s plain to see what their intentions were.

Whether it was for the armour or something else you weren’t sure, but there was no denying the Mandalorian had something about him that made him undeniably attractive, even if his face was hidden. He allows a few of them to trace their hands over his armor, the helmet disabling you from gauging what he was thinking. As you watch the scene unfold you smile to yourself finding it somewhat amusing, but at the same time you feel a knot form in your stomach. You brush it off as you see him returning back to your table.

“Armour kinks really a thing then?” you ask nodding your head to the women who were still staring at him from the bar, as he hands you a drink.

“You have no idea,” he says,sitting back down. So he was experienced, you hadn’t been sure what his creed had said about sex. Your mind drifts back to the cave, causing you to wonder what else was going on under that armour. It was hard to say you wouldn’t if the opportunity presented itself, not that it ever would, most days you were unsure if he was even indifferent towards you and vice versa.

“Any more questions” you ask, freeing yourself from your thoughts, which you chalked up to the alcohol, not enough sleep and too much time alone.

“Are you sleeping?” you're taken aback by this question, why had he asked that. Noticing your concern he continues “When you fall asleep in front of me it’s hard not to notice the night terrors. You ask for me in your sleep. Do you know that? ” You did, but the nightmares were none of his business.

“Well if it’s your name I’m saying it really must be a nightmare, either way I couldn't tell you about them if I wanted to” you lie, hoping your smile would snuff out any suspicions.

“Are they about the fighting rings?” he asks, a sense of guilt hanging in the air.

“No, those stopped a few weeks in” You mumure, refusing to make eye contact with the helmet. He’s about to press for more information when a group of Zabrak walk in. You hadn’t noticed how late it had gotten and trouble usually starts after 1am.

“We should leave, gangsters and you’re too drunk to be of any use.”

“Shut up” you say, downing the last of your drink and cocking your head as if you had just proven some kind of point before pulling your hood back up. As you stand your foot gets caught in your cloak and you stumble. With one strong arm he stops you yet again from plummeting forward, catching your waist just in time.

“I’m not drunk, I just tripped!” you exclaim, trying and failing at hiding a smile as you stare up at him. If it wasn’t for the helmet you’d have seen the grin that had been plastered on Dins face for most of the evening as well. The two of you are almost out the door when you feel someone pull your hood down. The culprit, a tall, handsome man, has moved in front of you, blocking your exit.

“The huntress, you got out,” he exclaims moving towards you causing you to take a step back.

“You have the wrong person” you lie, trying to move past him but he steps in front of you again.

“I wouldn’t forget you, not after what we did,” he looks from you up to the Mandalorian “She’s worth every penny you spent Mando, the best,”

“She says she doesn’t know you. Now move.” Din interjects, succinctly cutting him off. You try again to move towards the door but once again the man steps in front of you.

“C’mon for old times’ sake.” He goes to pull you into him. Tiring of the interaction you drop down one of the knives with an aim of shanking him. Before you can, you hear the distinct sound of metal against skin as Dins fist connects with the man's face, knocking him out.

“Let’s go” he says, pulling your hood back up and ushering you quickly out the door, having now gained the attention of the group at the bar.

“Someone’s following us” you whisper, as Anya begins to emit a low growl. “bounty hunters. Five of them, I can take two if you get the rest.” Without looking at each other the two of you turn, in sync, to face your stalkers.

“Quite a bounty on you two.” One shouts, spitting out chew onto the street, “between the underground, the empire and the gladiators you’re the galaxy’s most wanted duo.”

“Walk away. While, you still can.” the modulated voice says as Din moves his cloak back, revealing the blaster at his side.

“Five versus a drunk Mandalorian and a girl. I like our odds. You don’t mind sharing do you Mando, we like to try the merchandise before we” The lead Zabrak drops to the ground before he can finish his sentence. One of your knives embedded deep in his throat you maintain eye contact with the other four Zabrak as their leader sputters out the last of his breaths. They draw their weapons and an array of blaster shots sound throughout the alleyway until only two of you remain standing,

“You okay?” The Mandalorian asks, giving you a once over.

“Ya, but you’re not.” You say gesturing to the knife currently lodged deep in his side. He reaches up to pull it out.

“Don’t,” you exclaim, grabbing his hand in yours, causing him to look down at you. You quickly release it, worried you may have just crossed a personal boundary. “ It needs to be removed carefully, it’s close to a vein. If you take it out you could bleed to death before we can patch it up.” you explain quickly. “C’mon there’s got to be a place around here somewhere.” The good news was there was a hotel in sight as you turned the corner, but the bad news was that it was upscale. Security would be increased and the knife currently embedded in the Mandalorian would stick out like a sore thumb.

Noting Din’s slowing pace, and aware of the knife's close proximity to a vein and how more movement could dislodge it, you opt to head into the hotel. You enter through the high reaching, stained glass doors depicting what appeared to be a ball of sorts. You sit the Mandalorian down in an armchair near one of the romanesque pillars lining the foyer, hoping to obscure him from the front desk.

Leaving Anya with him you make your way towards the desk, fortunately, due to the late hour late the lobby was essentially vacated. You look up, making eye contact with the concierge as you do, you pull down your hood hoping it would make you appear less threatening. You realize your error when you see a look of panic plastered on his face, likely caused by the flecks of blood marking your hands, neck and face. You see his hand reach for the phone. You make it to him as he's dialing, placing a finger on the hook switch ending the call before it starts.

“Please, we were ambushed on our way back from town, I’m here on a trip for my father. He's an ambassador, the Mandalorian is my bodyguard. We need a room, we can pay any price.” You plead apparently convincingly enough for him to place the phone back down on its receiver as he begins the process of checking you in.

“Seperate rooms I assume.” He says inputting the information

“No ones fine” you say. Noticing the look of judgment coming from the concierge, you continue “He doesn't sleep.”

“Don’t worry, everything here is kept very secret even from your father.”

“No... we… we’re not..” you decide to quit while you're ahead. He ends up offering you a cheaper rate for the room, you being an ambassador's relative and all.

“Thank you” you say sincerely as he hands you the key.

“How’d you manage that?” Din asks upon your arrival

“What can I say I’m an impressive negotiator” Helping him slowly to the elevator, looking back to the concierge offering him a look of thanks once again.

“You sure are.” he says as the elevator doors close, reopening again on the 21st floor.

“Not bad,” you murmur, taking in the room as you sit him down on the king size bed. “I’m going to get some medical supplies, don’t take that knife out until I’m back, and try not to die.” you say, tossing him one of two room cards before exiting the room, descending in the elevator to the main floor and exiting back into the street with Anya at your side.

The two of you dart through the alleys the street lamps illuminate the puddles forming on the pavement beneath your feet. You turn into the first pharmacy with an open sign and begin gathering the necessary supplies from its shelves. One of the benefits of being on a planet run by crime lords was the availability of cheap, illegal and oftentimes more efficient medicines. You’re reaching for a bottle of Shesharile Vodka to use as an antiseptic when you feel something watching you. You turn just in time to see a black cloak disappear into the adjacent aisle.

You follow it over to the next aisle but it moves just out of your view. You carry on into the next aisle, then the next, following the shadow frantically until you reach the cashier who gives you a side eye suggesting to you that there was definitely no one else in the store. You pay for the supplies and make your way back out into the rain which hits against your hood lightly. The soft padding helped to drown out the sense of foreboding that had been with you since you left the hotel. A nearby rib cat runs into a garbage can, making you jump. Startled, you look behind you, but there’s no one there. You shake your head, what was going on with you. It must just be the drink, or the lack of sleep.

You continue to tell yourself it’s just your imagination even when you hear your name whispered into your ear as you re-enter the hotel. Making a bee-line for the elevator you manically press the close door button, the elevator opens once you reach your floor and you swipe the key card. You rip the door open at the sound of the beep, briskly closing it behind you, chest heaving. Your panic worsens when you look to the bed and notice the Mandalorian was not where you had left him. Your eyes scan the room uncontrollably until you hear a faint buzzing coming from the bathroom. You swing the door open and look down to the floor where you see Din sitting. The knife lays next to him as he works at cauterizing his abdomen's broken skin back together. You bend over slapping his hand hard enough for it to retreat away from the wound.

“I said to leave the knife in.” You chastise stepping over him and squatting down to get a better angle of the gash.

“It’s fine, I've done this a hundred times,” he says nonchalantly, once again picking up the pen. After a few minutes of playing tug-of-war you manage to wrangle the cauterizer out of his hand taking it with you as you make your way back to supplies you’d bought. You pull the vodka and return to his side pulling the cork out with your teeth before applying a small amount of it to a towel.

“This might sting” you say as you wipe it against the lesion with gentle strokes. As you do he remains stoic, there’s not even a flinch. A notable sign of someone who was used to being in pain.

“I” he says, but you cut him off, preventing him from making a case for cauterization.

“Shut it, it could get infected, we have no idea where that knife has been. Plus stitches heal better than burns.” You state matter-of-factly, fetching the needle and thread from the supply bag.

Mandos POV

He can’t stop looking at your face as you stitch him back up, you were focused, but there was no sign of stress. You were calm, relaxed as if it was a second nature to you, something that was to be done absentmindedly. You must have done this before, maybe in the early days of fighting. Low brow gladiatorial battles were often messy and crude, you must have had your fair share of wounds when you were just starting off. His mind wanders to the comment you made about burnt wounds healing poorly. Had you seen the many that covered his body that night in the cave? Did you think he was hideous? Why did he care so much, seemingly all of a sudden?

“There. All done” you say, biting the string and applying some bacta to the now closed skin. As you stand up he notices a dark stain glistening through the back of your shirt.

“Wait,” he says quickly, trying to get your attention.

“What?” you ask, turning to face him still wiping his blood off your hands. He’s shocked you hadn’t noticed, based on the amount of blood the laceration was deep.

“You’re bleeding” he says, watching as you casually turn to look at your back.

“Come here” he says, taking another step towards you, concerned you don’t seem bothered by the news that you were bleeding profusely.

“I’m fine, it’s just a reopened old wound. I’ve had worse in the arena.” You say. Every time you brought up the arena, a twinge of guilt came over him. He wouldn’t let any harm come to you again, not while you were with him.

“Stop being stubborn.” He says. He’s about to grab you and force you down, but he rethinks his approach. Instead he places a leathered hand gently on your shoulder, turning you to face him.

“Let me help. Please.” This does the trick and he looks away as you remove your shirt which was now soaked through with blood. As you make your way over to the bed he sees the large open wound going up your back, it was red, swollen and bleeding. He puts some towels down on the bed and you lay down on your stomach. Upon closer inspection he notices the markings going up your spine. They were still prominent even amongst the healed over scars. His hand hover over the ancient scripture which matched up with those on your arms and face.

“Is it bad?” you ask, pulling him out of his trance and stopping him from tracing his fingers over your skin.

“Yes, it’s reopened a few times by the looks of it, did this ever heal?”

“Don’t know can’t reach back there” you mutter.

“It’s infected, it needs to be cleaned, and closed, it’s not deep but it’s too wide for stitches so it’ll have to be cauterized.”

“Just leave it. It’ll heal” you say pushing yourself up onto your elbows. He places a firm hand on your shoulder stopping you from fully extending upwards.

“Or it won’t and you’ll die and I’ll be back to square one.” He says, hoping it's enough to convince you to let him help you. He sighs a breath of relief when you lower yourself back down onto the towels. He positions himself over you, pouring some of the opened vodka into the lesion to cleanse it, noticing your back arch slightly as it does. He takes off one of his gloves, offering it to you.

“Bite down on this”

“This some kind of thing for you.” you ask, taking it from him.

“Or don’t cauterizing isn’t a walk in the park.” he says watching as you reluctantly place it in your mouth before turning your head back to face out the window overlooking the city below. Apparently it was a thing for him, but he shakes his head of any kind of desire in order to focus on the task at hand.

“This will hurt.”

Your POV

You feel the flame hit your skin, but you refuse to flinch, not wanting to appear weak in front of the Mandalorian. You remain still as he cauterizes your skin back together as the smell of burnt flesh fills the air around you. You find yourself wondering how high his tolerance for pain was, if he could essentially melt his skin back together without so much as a twinge. You found yourself exceedingly grateful for the leather which was likely stopping any noises being emitting unwillingly. He closes it up and you feel his hand go to your neck.

“I’m not dead” you say unmoving, your body was still in shock.

“You hadn’t moved in a while, I just wanted to make sure.” He says reaching for the salve,

“Leave it we may need it later.” You protest, but he ignores you, putting it over the wound, evidently not in the mood to argue with you. After a while you stand up and make your way to the mirror to check out his handiwork, not too shabby you think.

“Well now you’re not going to bleed out, you should get some rest” you say, throwing him his glove back before picking up your shirt and rinsing it out in the sink. You lay it out to dry over the radiator in the bathroom.

“You rest i'll take first watch” he says

“Seriously” you say emerging from the doorway “you lost a lot of blood.”

“I won’t be able to rest until the kid’s found.”

“No use to it if you're half asleep, off your game and get shot down one parsec in.” you retort. With that he accepts defeat and gets on top of the bed spreading out his legs and placing his hands behind his head. Careful not to disrupt Anya who was curled up on the bed's corner. You pour yourself a glass of the leftover vodka, swirling it around as you gaze out the window of the 21st floor. The city lights illuminate the sky as if it was daytime, you couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to live in such a place.

You gaze over to the Mandalorian, was he really asleep? He looked like he was, you’d never seen him splayed out like this before. Must be the only comfortable way of sleeping in all that clunky armour. You still couldn't wrap your head around how he kept it on all the time. Staring back out the window you imagine what life will be like once you’ve gotten the child back and you're free to lead a calmer life. After a few hours you hear the rustle of bed sheets. Turning your head you watch as the Mandalorian maneuvers off the bed with ease.

“Batteries recharged?” you joke, finishing the last of the vodka.

“I'm not an android” he replies, not having caught that it had been a joke. You make your way to the bed and get under the covers which were still warm from where he had been sitting a few moments ago. You rest your head back onto the pillows and shift to your side pulling the covers over your head to block out the lights of the city.

“What are you doing?” he ask

“I’m trying to get it dark enough to sleep.”

“I can close the curtains”

“And you'd just sit in a chair in the dark like some kind of weirdo?” he doesn’t respond after that and you doze off before another conversation can be started.

You wake up with the sun in your eyes, you must have de-cocooned yourself sometime during the night. Shit, you’d slept through the night. Not something you’d usually be upset at but you felt guilty for making Din take the majority of the watch.

“You should have woken me up, I would have taken another watch” you say sitting up in the bed and stretching your arms up to the sky, the tightness of the closed wound pulling slightly as you do.

“It seemed like a restful sleep. I figured you needed it.” You hop out of the bed and go to the bathroom pulling your blood stained shirt back on, muttering out a gross. The heat from the radiator had crusted the residue into the fabric.

“I’m gonna go get some towels from the front desk do you need anything” you ask scratching Anya’s ears and grabbing a room key. He shakes his helmet no.

You make your way to the desk, taking note of the assortment of well-dressed creatures moving throughout the lobby in the light of day. They stare as you pass through the lobby either disgusted by your bloodied appearance or suspicious of your intent.

“Must be a bounty hunter. I wonder if she has any idea what’s being auctioned off tonight. Should I ask” You overhear a woman ask as you pass by

“Good morning” a new concierge says.

“Morning, can I get some towels.” You ask, nonchalantly rifling through one of the many pamphlets littering the desk.

“Of course anything else madam?”

“ No, that's all thanks” you say, taking the towels. “actually yes this auction what’s that all about.”

“Oh yes the collector, he's having one tonight. Its location has been kept top secret. It changes each year to add to the excitement.” they explain.

“How would one go about getting an invite?” you implore, placing the towels back down on the counter.

“They usually find you. If you're rich, important or dangerous enough that is.” They say offering you a smile.

“Thanks” you say, formulating a plan the second you start your walk back to the elevator.

“I’m, so sorry” you say bumping into a woman who had been flashing around an invite when you had first entered the lobby. Slipping your hand into her shawl you grab the thin piece of paper pocketing it as she exclaims something along the line of how they're just letting anyone in these days.

As you re-enter the room you hear the shower turning off.

“You shower in that thing” you ask when the door opens.

“Not the towel.” He says “where are the clean ones?” he asks, tossing the bloodied fabric onto the floor.

“Got something better. A lead” you say throwing the invite on the table.

“We won’t get past the door, looking like this” he says. You hold up a finger and dial the front desk putting on the voice of the woman in the lobby.

“Hi it’s Mal Ytha” you say looking at the card, “the dress for tonight should be delivered to room 2108, yes its changed, thank you” you say hanging up the phone.

“How do you know it’ll fit?” he asks.

“She looked about my size.”

“If you’re planning on going in alone to get the kid, think again.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, invites got a plus one which means you get to be my bodyguard.” This gets a laugh.

“What” you say, his laugh still taking you by surprise, its sound not quite matching up with the gruff Mandalorian you knew.

“ It’s just a funny thought, you needing a bodyguard.” He says as you open the knock at the door.

“Thank you”, you say, taking the towels and garment that had just been delivered by a member of the hotel staff.

“Shine up your armour princess, the event starts in an hour and its inner city, so we should probably drop our stuff back off at the ship before we head in ” He nods in agreement.

You get back to the ship and drop Anya off with the rest of your stuff, not willing to risk bringing her into another auction room. You change in the cockpit, the bathroom was too small and you didn’t want to devalue the constitution of the dress, afraid it may cause you to stand out. If the rich could spot anything it was someone masquerading as one of them. Fortunately your ability to guess proportions were right and the dress fit almost perfectly. Dins rearranging the armoury as you lower yourself down his helmet doing a double take when you enter into his line of sight.

“Don’t worry I can still run and fight in this thing if needed.” you say, assuming that’s why he had been staring for so long. Little did you know he was staring because he’d never seen something so beautiful in the entire galaxy. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.

“I’m not worried.” He says clearing his throat, trying to get a hold of himself.

“Good”, you say slipping the knives into the pants concealed beneath your dress.

“Shall we” you say, gesturing to the door in front of you.

#mando x y/n #mando x you #the mandalorian #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin x y/n #star wars #alliance #chapter 5 #two idiots in love #slow burn #din dijarin x reader #din dijarin #din djarin #din dijarin x you

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virtueangel · 4 years

Text

limitless.

chapter six.

wc: 2,242. original publish date: october 10, 2020.

Van Gogh and JFK slouch in the diner booth, eating silently. Kennedy keeps opening and closing his mouth, wracking his brain for something to say so the quiet doesn't crush them like an incinerator. Every time he inhales, moving his lips to form a word, Van Gogh gives him a warning look before nibbling another one of his fries. It's too early in the morning for something so salty, but Van Gogh thinks he can handle it.

This time when Gogh glares at JFK, he ignores it. "Look, I'm sorry. I just-"

"Forget it, Kennedy."

"No, it's-"

"Stop. Just stop. I won't call you-" his breath catches. "I won't call you by your first name again. We'll be Van Gogh and Kennedy. I'm sorry I said anything at all." He chugs down his ice water. He places a palm on his head, massaging his scalp to coax the brain freeze away.

JFK opens his mouth to return, but thinks better of it. And just like that, he's fighting with his best friend again. All because it was someone's stupid idea to get rid of John and Vincent; Jack and Vinny when they were really little and Van Gogh still believed there was good in the world.

Van Gogh and Kennedy sit in the silence for the rest of the meal. For once, neither boy is reaching for something to say. The lack of conversation is by no means comfortable or companionable, but Van Gogh doesn't let it lift. JFK pays the check as usual, and they leave the restaurant, walking side by side. Kennedy slows his stride so Van Gogh can keep up, as he always does. Gogh doesn't thank him. He never seems to notice. This is another one of their quotidians, one of their unspoken truths that they don't break even in the heaviest of fights.

The earth will shatter the day they step out of their routines.

***

"Can I have the map?" JFK asks after awhile, eyes fixed on the open road in front of them. They've been driving for an hour since the diner, and still haven't seen a single other car.

"I thought this was our unplanned trip," he replies halfheartedly, but opens the glove compartment anyway.

"It was, until Weird Joan told us about Marshtown." JFK glances at his best friend, and when he doesn't reply, he adds, "We don't have to go if you don't want to. I get it if you changed your mind. We can just go back to Exclamation!."

"No," Van Gogh says too quickly. He sighs and relaxes. "Here."

"I can't look at it while I'm driving."

"Then why did you ask for it?" Van Gogh's eyes narrow.

JFK exhales. "Sorry. Do you know where the exit is?"

He trails his finger down the map, stopping for a second only to move some hair out of his eye. "Exit four-thirty-five. Not for a while. Still, like, forty miles."

"The girl at the inn made it sound like it was close to Blackbox."

Gogh shrugs, folding the map but keeping his hand on it. "I don't know. Maybe she and her boyfriend wanted to leave the town behind."

"Or maybe her boyfriend lives there," Kennedy suggests.

And just like that, the boys are talking again. The tension has unwound itself from their necks; the air is light enough to breathe.

"I don't think I'd drive all the way out here to look for a boyfriend," Van Gogh says before quickly adding, "Not that I'd ever be looking for a boyfriend."

"Maybe he went to Blackbox to meet her."

"I doubt that too. I wonder how that town even got built."

"I don't think anyone lives there," Kennedy claims.

Van Gogh's eyes widen and he turns to his best friend. "Really? You think all those well-maintained houses are just for show?"

Kennedy shrugs. "It's possible that they're not houses at all. Maybe just cardboard. Weird Joan said they don't get visitors."

"But why would they do that? Build a whole town out of cardboard?"

JFK thinks long and hard, biting his lip. He chews the inside of his cheek, wishing he had some gum. Why hadn't be brought any gum? "I don't know. But those houses were awfully photocopied."

"My neighbourhood is photocopied," Van Gogh counters.

JFK shakes his head. "Not like Blackbox. I mean, yeah, they all have the same floor plan and the same paint on the outer walls, but they're still personalised. I mean, some of your neighbours have benches on their lawns or swings on their porches. Some have potted plants lining their driveways, others have signs in the kitchen windows. I guess all of this is to say that your neighbourhood, while bland, and, well, Americanised, still looks lived in."

While Kennedy says all this without a glance toward the passenger seat, Van Gogh is mesmerised by his sudden burst of sophistication, eyes glued on the body's side profile and blinking in bewilderment.

"Okay, what has been going on this week? This is the second time is as many days that you've given me a perspective on something that isn't superficial."

JFK smiles, exposing his Colgate model teeth. "Mostly I just think about what you'd say to me if the roles were reversed because you've always got some smart shit to say."

Van Gogh looks away, flattered. His cheeks glow pink and warm. "Not that smart..."

Kennedy looks at Van Gogh now, glad there are no cars on the road so he can slow down in the far left lane without worrying about causing a crash. "Yes, that smart. You speak the way you paint."

Van Gogh's face feels as fiery as his hair looks. "I'm just trying to live up to the real Van Gogh."

JFK smiles now, but it isn't his usual arrogantly flirtatious look. "He'd be proud."

Van Gogh looks away.

"He would be."

Vincent, he wants to say. Call me Vincent. But while Kennedy is tragically intelligent, he can't read minds. Maybe that's for the best. Maybe Van Gogh would stop thinking altogether if he could.

***

Van Gogh falls asleep in the silence. Kennedy doesn't mind. He presses the power button on the radio, turns the volume down low, and flips through the stations until he finds something that won't disrupt his passenger's slumber. He finds driving in silence during the daytime insufferable, so he lets the classical violin consume the car. He keeps an eye on Van Gogh, but he doesn't react to the music. He might not have noticed at all. Kennedy gives the boy one last once-over, his eyes washing the boy's pale hands and his healthily long fingernails and the way his wrists flow out from the cuffs of his letterman jacket, like he belongs in it. Even though he'd gotten mad at Kennedy, he never took off the layer. JFK always tells Van Gogh it's his jacket now despite the stitching on the back, but he knows Van Gogh still thinks of it as Kennedy's. That's flattering in its own way, though JFK would never tell him.

Minutes or hours pass; Kennedy isn't really sure. He starts to think that maybe he's missed the exit, but he looks up to read the signage and he guesses they're still a good twenty miles from four-thirty-five. But the car needs gas at some point, and by the looks of the gauge on the dashboard, that time is now. JFK makes his way over to the right lane, checking his mirror and activating his turn signal even though he knows there are no cars on the road. Even in his drowsy state, Van Gogh can hear the organised ticking of the blinker, and it soothes him.

Kennedy successfully exits the highway, as seamlessly as the last time. JFK, while a notorious speeder, is an embarrassingly clean driver.

He pulls into a gas station. This one doesn't look as murderous as the one in Blackbox, thankfully. He opens his car door and hops out of the vehicle, coaxing it shut so he doesn't wake his best friend. He does anyway.

"Shit! Sorry, Gogh."

Van Gogh waves him off. "It's, what, 1:00pm? I probably shouldn't be sleeping in the middle of the day anyway."

"What time did you end up going to sleep last night?"

Van Gogh thinks for a second before shrugging. "I don't know. You fell asleep before you said I had to, and I probably stayed up after the bedtime you set for me. Which, by the way, don't do again." He glares playfully.

JFK punches one of the gas options and inserts the pump into the car before turning back to Van Gogh. His hair is messy and falling over his face. One of his cheeks is dusted a light shade of pink against the paleness of his skin, probably from being pressed up against his seatbelt as he napped. Kennedy grins.

"Sorry. I just don't want you to turn into an insomniac."

Van Gogh scoffs. "I already am an insomniac."

"You get that from your dad."

"Which one?" Van Gogh asks absently, already knowing the answer. He doesn't have anything in common with his foster father. He barely even remembers what the man looks like.

The pump cuts off with a low groan and Kennedy removes it from the car. He screws the cap back onto the gas tank and shuts the flap, shiny and red as the rest of the convertible. He inserts his credit card into the machine and punches some numbers before it beeps. He sits back in the car, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel before buckling his seatbelt.

"Don't you think it's sweet that I care about you?" He asks without looking at his passenger.

Van Gogh smiles, but turns his head toward the window so JFK can't see. "No. I just think you don't want to be responsible for my dead body if I die on this road trip."

Kennedy laughs, and it's genuine and from his chest. It's not often that Van Gogh sees his best friend laugh with authenticity; usually he just laughs at his own jokes, shallow and cruel.

JFK doesn't say anything else.

***

"Do you miss her?" Van Gogh asks suddenly, looking down at his lap and fidgeting with the cuffs of his jacket sleeves.

"Who?" JFK replies, though he already knows.

"Cleopatra."

JFK shrugs. "Haven't really thought about her."

Van Gogh's brow furrows. "Don't you feel bad about that?"

More shrugging from Kennedy. "She's not my girlfriend."

The redheaded boy sits back in his seat, no argument for that answer. He's heard it a million times, like the only reason JFK won't ask her to be his girlfriend is so he'll have that excuse to be shitty to her. But then again, maybe he's only shitty to her because she's not his girlfriend.

"You never ask about Cleo," Kennedy says after a couple seconds. "I thought you didn't like her."

Now it's Van Gogh's turn to shrug. "I don't really know her, so I guess I can't legitimately dislike her, but you know I hate everyone." He hesitates before adding, "Except you, of course."

Kennedy smiles broadly, flattered by this answer for some reason. Of course Van Gogh likes him -- they're best friends. They have been since they were in kindergarten. "Gee, thanks," he hesitates, deciding how to address the boy. He leaves off a name completely. "I'm quite fond of you as well."

Van Gogh shoves his best friend playfully, but can't help but feel that there's something he's not saying. Why hasn't he been making his quick-witted, eye roll-worthy, meaningless sexual innuendos? Why hasn't he made any crude comments about wanting to fuck various girls they've seen so far on their trip? Weird Joan was attractive. So was the diner hostess. Kennedy's missing a piece -- or maybe this is all of him, under his façade, away from all the people he feels he's competing against.

Kennedy has never had to compete with anyone for Van Gogh's attention. In fact, Van Gogh feels like he's had to fight for a sliver of JFK's time his whole life. Now that he's finally getting it, he feels stale. He lets conversations fall flat, expecting JFK to pick up the slack.

"We haven't even been gone twenty-four hours," Kennedy reminds the boy.

Van Gogh smiles, but there's something sad in his eyes. "I know. But I'm sorry I'm making you leave your life behind."

"You're not-"

"Actually, that's not true. I know it's not." He turns to JFK. "More than that, I'm sorry I don't have a life to go back to."

Kennedy doesn't say anything for a couple minutes. He pulls off the highway and stops the car on the shoulder. He leans over the centre console, hesitantly at first, and wraps his arms around Van Gogh. Alarmed by the gesture of affection, Van Gogh freezes, but quickly warms up and reciprocates the hug. He feels all the muscles in JFK's back under his palms, the broadness of his shoulders in his arms. He hugs his best friend tighter and closes his eyes, the scent of his deodorant and aftershave and shampoo filling up his nostrils and clouding his head. He squeezes his eyes shut so violently they prickle, and tries to capture this moment in time, wishing there were a way to take a photograph with his mind.

"You'll always have a home to return to," Kennedy says.

They keep hugging each other, not sure if the other wants to let go.

"Vincent," he adds in a voice so small it can barely be considered a whisper.

#clone high #clone high van gogh #clone high jfk #jfgogh

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redrobinhoood · 4 years

Text

no choir | chapter 10, no ballad

AO3 Link | 2200 words (approx) | Chapter 1, Chapter 9, /end.

A/N:

And there will be no grand choirs to sing No chorus will come in, no ballad will be written It will be entirely forgotten And if tomorrow it's all over at least we had it for a moment Oh, darling things seem so unstable But for a moment we were able to be still - no choir

Chapter Summary: Riyo returns to her family on Pantora, bringing Fox into a new life.

Riyo watched the outlines of silk harvesting facilities blow past them outside the windows of the train. It had been so long since she had been home that the sight was nearly foreign to her, a building that wasn’t a form of skyscraper. She turned her attention back to the man across the table from her. His skin was blue like hers, and the yellow arcs across his cheeks complimented her green arcs in such a way that they could be siblings. But if one had removed the hood over his head, his un-Pantoran hair would be revealed and their charade would be over in a moment. Though perhaps not. They had done nothing to his eyes. Though they shone golden in the right light, they would not pass for Pantoran golden all the time. Yet, Pantoran-human hybrids were possible and he had not been questioned. Perhaps his hair wouldn’t have been an issue. Right now, his eyes were fixed on the world outside the window, a new world to him.

She stood up when the train began to slow, with Fox following her lead. They had three bags between the two of them, two of which Riyo carried. Fox was healing, but she would not let him undergo the strain of carrying the heavier of the three bags. They wouldn’t have the same access to medical facilities as they had on Coruscant, and she wouldn’t dare risk his injury.

Riyo’s mother met them on the train platform, grinning from ear to ear; though her grin faltered slightly at the sight of Fox beside her daughter. She looked just like Riyo, except that the green markings on her face sat in diamonds above her brow and below her lips. Riyo set down her bags and embraced her mother before she pulled back and gestured to Fox. “This is the man I wrote you about.”

Her mother took Fox in for a few moments before extending her hand. “Kaiya Chuchi.”

Fox took her hand and shook it. “Fox.”

“No surname?”

“Mother!” Riyo protested.

“None.” Fox confirmed.

“By choice?”

“No.”

“Well, that certainly impedes my background check.” Kaiya’s face broke into a smile and Riyo allowed herself to relax as she watched the tension leave Fox’s shoulders. “Come. Let’s go home.” They followed her out to the speeder lot and boarded the one that Riyo recognized from her childhood. “So tell me, why is my daughter carrying the luggage? You look like a strong man.”

Riyo spoke up before Fox could. “He’s injured, mom.”

“Protecting you?”

“Not this time.” Fox said. “This one was entirely my doing.”

With the bags in the back seat, the three beings squeezed into the front bench with Riyo in the middle, resting her head against Fox’s shoulder.

“You’re not Pantoran, are you?” Kaiya asked once they had sped away from the station.

“No, ma’am. But the concealment of my identity was necessary.”

“Well, as soon as we get back to my house you are going to wash that face paint off so I can get a good look at you.”

Riyo could feel the muscles of Fox’s chest flex as he nodded. She wished she could lay here forever in his arms, with her mother by their side and with Pantora flying past them. But she also knew that that could never be.

---

It took Fox a few minutes to understand how the shower worked. Riyo had brought him soap, towels, and makeup remover for the traces the paint had left behind, but she had not told him how to work the controls. He wondered if every shower was different, or only the three that he had ever encountered.

When it came, the hot water was welcome on his skin and he took a few minutes just standing under the shower head and letting the water sooth his aches and pains. The new wound on his torso stung at the first contact with the water. He let it hurt. It was the pain of being alive. When he had scrubbed away the last of the blue from his features and the dust from the journey, he turned the water off and dried his skin. He took a few moments to look at himself in the mirror. Despite the month of near isolation, he had maintained the close-cut regulation hair and clean face that he had always had, it was as engrained in him as shooting a blaster. The only thing that set him apart from his brothers was the scars and he took a moment to trace the long one that cut through his abs. He had lost brothers for every scar, except the two on his back that had resulted from saving Riyo’s life and now the one that had saved him.

In the month of isolation, Riyo had bought him civvies, more than he could have ever worn as a member of the Guard. With his Pantoran robes set aside for the moment, he slipped on the loose red shirt and grey pants that had sat at the top of the bag. He’d never had to choose his clothes before, and it was his understanding that Riyo had taken extra care to select colors that would always work together. He could kill a being in nearly a hundred ways but wasn’t trusted to dress himself.

When he reentered the living room Riyo’s face broke into a smile. Her mother’s, on the other hand, broke into barely concealed alarm. “Riyo, this is a clone trooper.”

“Yes, he is, mom.” Riyo’s expression hardened into defensiveness.

“What is your number, Fox?”

“CC-1010.”

Kaiya’s gaze grew more alarmed. “A commander? Riyo, this is different than just bringing home a clone. This man is a weapon.”

“I don’t care.” Riyo shot back.

Kaiya looked from her daughter back to Fox. “Do you love my daughter?”

“Yes.” He answered instantly. “I would die for her in a heartbeat.”

“And he’s tried.” Riyo said with fond exasperation.

Fox gave a tight nod and turned his gaze to glance around the room. Now that the hood no longer hid his face he could take in the space, the décor, the pictures. His eyes found one of a young Riyo and her father, a man with golden arcs across his cheeks like hers. Fox was just as familiar with his file as he was with Riyo’s. They were similar after all; a Pantoran Senator who got on the wrong side of the Trade Federation, leading to an assassination attempt. But, this time, Fox had been there to throw himself between the assassin and the senator.

Finally, Riyo’s mother broke the silence. “I’m sorry. Please, sit, Fox.” She waited until he had sat beside Riyo to continue. “My daughter has told me so many wonderful things about you. I shouldn’t discard them because of what you are.”

“I’m used to worse, ma’am.” He’d been braced for far worse.

“That doesn’t justify anything. The two of you, tell me, what do you need?”

---

Thire barely looked up from his datapad as his brother stepped up onto his bed and lay down between him and the wall, looking over his shoulder at the datapad.

“They’re on their own now.”

“No issues?”

“None.” Jek glanced over the report Thire was typing, letting the silence sit on them for a few moments before speaking again. “Thire?”

“Jek?”

“I still think we should die together, but let’s wait a while. There’s some things I want to do first.”

Thire smiled warmly at his brother. “Me too, Jek. Me too.”

Jek took a deep breath, letting silence fall once more before he whispered to Thire. “You lied to Fox. At the dinner.”

Thire matched his tone. “That was a month ago.”

“Still, I’ve been thinking about it every day. I didn’t ask before because I could never lie to him. But now he’s gone. So, what happened, Thire?”

Thire turned off the datapad and glanced around the room before turning back to Jek. “At dinner, Fox mentioned that Darth Vader was there, at our briefing with the Emperor. But when I woke up on the Emperor’s couch it was just us in the room.”

“So Vader left? What does that have to do with anything?”

Thire lowered his voice. “When Fox mentioned Vader, I remembered what happened. I’m certain of it. The Emperor is the traitor. He’s some sort of Sith, like Count Dooku or Asajj Ventress were. He’s been the one toying with my memory, and he was the one who ordered Fox to be killed. I watched him call the bounty hunter who shot him.” Thire paused, taking in the look on Jek’s face. “Don’t ever tell Fox. He’d come running back here and get himself killed. He can never know.”

“So, what are we going to do about it?” Jek breathed.

Thire shook his head. “Nothing. We’re going to play our parts with no protest, no questions. We’re going to do everything, every horrible thing that he makes us do, and we’re going to write it down so that he can’t take the memories away from us.” Thire held up the datapad, turning it around in his hands. “We’ll back everything up so that no one can destroy it. And someday, we'll find someone who will listen.”

Jek stared at Thire with admiration in his eyes. “Can I read what you’ve written so far?”

Thire nodded and passed the datapad to Jek, curling up into his brother’s side as he began to read.

---

When Riyo woke, it was to an empty bed. She rolled over to where Fox had lain the night before and found cold blankets where he should have been. She sat up, glancing around the small, still unfurnished room for any sign of him.

“Fox?” She called as she slid out of bed, her bare footsteps echoing in the empty room. It was dreamlike. Everything had been dreamlike since they had left her mother’s home, nearly three weeks of a dream state. When he didn’t answer, she stepped out into the rest of the small home that she had purchased with some of what she had saved from her senatorial salary, the salary that they were depending upon until they established their own livelihood.

She didn’t find him in the rest of the home but did find the caf maker they had purchased to be warm. She poured herself a mug from what he had left behind and took it with her as she stepped outside. She hadn’t seen the home in the daylight yet. They had arrived the night before, assembled the bed, and fallen asleep without any further exploration. She glanced around the empty porch before following the stairwell down to the ground, finding the speederbay under the home empty as well, save for the fixer upper they had bought yesterday between the purchase of the home and essential furniture. She had discovered that Fox was far more technically skilled than he had ever had the occasion to demonstrate before her, and he had promised that the speeder would be good as new in a week. She supposed now that getting an early start was not part of his plan.

All other choices exhausted, she searched for the path that led to the rest of their property. She knew for certain now where he would be. She’d known where she would find him this morning since they had first set eyes on the holograms of their now home. When she rounded a large tree at the end of a side trail, she knew that she had been right.

“Good morning, cyar’ika.” He smiled up at her from the roots of the tree, where he had tucked himself into a mossy hollow.

“Fox.” She sighed, a relaxed smile making its way across her lips. She had never seen him so at peace before. She knew that he was still hurting, even now his hand lay across his torso, but she also knew for the first time that the galaxy would step back and allow him to heal.

“What is this called, this water?” He asked, gesturing to the sight that stretched out before them. “It’s too small to be an ocean.”

“In Basic, it’s called a lake.”

“Lake.” She watched his lips move to form the foreign word. “Thank you. Riyo, will you sit with me by this lake?” He pushed his empty mug away and gestured to his lap.

“I won’t hurt you, Fox.” She protested. In all the time that had passed since he had been shot, she had leaned against him, pressed against him, but never dared to place her full weight on him for fear of bringing him pain.

“You could never hurt me, Riyo.” He insisted.

She gave in with a sigh, setting down her own mug beside his and lowering herself into his lap, minding the middle of his torso. She leaned back against him, tucking her head under his chin and pressing her hand against his sternum to feel his beating heart.

He drew back for a moment to kiss the side of her head before tucking it back under his chin and wrapping an arm around her waist. “Ner ka’ra, ner me’suum’ika.” He whispered to her as he pulled her closer to his body. She relaxed into him, closing her eyes to listen to his body live as he looked out over the waters before them. They were finally at peace.

#foxiyo #commander fox #riyo chuchi #commander thire #clone trooper jek #my fics #no choir fic

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theangstyboiblog · 3 years

Text

How I Met Your Mother | Captain Rex Pt. 4

Kit accompanies Obi-Wan on his search to capture General Grievous. At Obi-Wan's order she takes Rex and his men to search for the separatist general, but leads them right into an ambush.

Follows the events of season 2's ep. 10: The Deserter.

I ended up splitting this part of the story into multiple parts because I figured someone would kill me if I posted a 5k word chapter on here (you’re welcome). Also, if you haven't noticed, we're going for a slow-burn here. I don't think Rex would be someone to fall in love at first sight (he’s got too much to lose, and too much work to do), and neither would Kit. So we're gonna take our time to get to know one another.

Anyways, see you tomorrow!

Part one | Part two | Part three |

The battle had been long. The deaths had taken their toll. It took us three hours to reach the surface of Saleucami where General Grievous’ ship had finally gone down. The troops were on high alert as we began to disembark the cruiser to begin our search for the separatist general. Swallowing a deep breath I made my way down the ramp keeping an eye on the back of Jedi General Master Obi-Wan Kenobi as he spoke to a small holo image. Quietly, I stepped up next to him, arms crossed as I listened in on their conversation.

“Our sensors are picking up multiple crash landings across the planet, you’ll have to pick your search area wisely,” Admiral Yularen said quickly. “General Grievous will have a head start on you.”

“We will find him,” Obi-Wan assured the Admiral with a firm nod before signing off. He glanced over at me. Then without a word he slipped the holo disc into his pocket.

“It’s what happens when we find him, that worries me,” I murmured under my breath before I could stop myself.

Obi-wan stilled as the troops around us continued their way down the ramp, trackers, speeders and walker tanks rumbling along. I watched over them, jaw tense, a painful coil in my stomach. “I sense much fear in you, Kit,” Master Kenobi said softly.

I looked up at Obi-Wan for a moment, then back down at the men. “Grievous has killed Jedi Knights that were far stronger than I am. Smarter too.” I curled my hands into fists, the memories of young, familiar voice crying out through the force. I had felt their pain. A quick look at Obi-wan told me he had felt it too.

“You fear dying, it’s perfectly natural.”

I shook my head. “Not dying. At least that’s part of it but not the most of it. It’s failing, Master Kenobi.” I glanced at him. “Not being strong enough to protect the people around me. That’s what I fear.”

Obi-wan looked me over for a moment. “Facing such a fear aloud does you credit. My advice would be to know your fear as what it truly is. Don’t give into the fear of loss.” He crossed his arms. “Knowing why you are afraid can empower you, but to focus on it can cloud your judgement.”

“So, accept that I’m not strong enough, and just do what I can?” I asked, after a moment of contemplation.

Obi-wan inclined his head and set his hands behind his back before walking down the ramp. “You’re very astute, Kit.” Holding back a sigh, I trailed after him and we made our way towards one of the ground transports tanks, my jaw still clenched, the worry still enveloping me.

That’s still easier said than done, Master Kenobi.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“There’s nothing here, sir!” a trooper called up to us from inside the crashed ship. Obi-wan and I shared a look. “But the engines are still warm!”

“Grievous could be anywhere,” I said as I turned on my heel, examining the horizon. Above us two clones scaled their way down the side of the ship. At first glance I didn’t recognize them, but then I noticed the jaig eyes on the helmet under his arm. “Captain Rex,” I greeted giving the man a soft smile as they approached. A look of surprise flashed over his face for a moment, before it disappeared and I bit back a chuckle. Didn’t think I’d recognize you?

“General Tolsim,” he said with a nod before turning to Obi-wan and doing the same. “General Kenobi, the crew compartment is almost entirely destroyed.”

Obi-Wan sauntered up and stood next to me arms crossed. “We need to split into teams.” He turned to me. “Kithrid, take Rex, Jesse, Hardcase and Kix and search that wetland.”

I nodded. “Yes, Master,” I said, glancing at the clones he had pointed to. Raising my eyebrows, I inclined my head and moved past them to begin climbing down from the ship. On the ground we began to jog towards the speeders, Rex taking the lead. I studied him for a moment. He didn’t pay me a second look.

“Battle droids in a wetland would be like throwing a shock grenade in the fresher,” Jesse grumbled behind me, glancing at me when he realized he’d spoken louder than he’d meant to. “Hope you’re ready for a boring swamp tour, General.”

I chuckled and glanced at the, Captain. “The last time I let Captain Rex take me on a tour, it turned out to be quite the opposite of boring.”

Looking over his shoulder, Rex shot me a frown. “It ---”

“Oh, really?” Jesse said, his voice teasing. As a group we slowed to a stop everyone taking a speeder. “You’ll have to tell us about that tour sometime, General,” he said, egging his Captain on. Rex stared straight ahead as he readied his speeder.

I thumbed the throttle on mine and edged my way forward until I was just barely ahead of him. Then I looked over my shoulder, smiled and shrugged. “Sometime,” I told Jesse. Then I looked to Rex and gave him a questioning nod. “Let’s move out.” With a lurch my speeder took off, racing forward, leaving the clones doing their best to keep up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jesse had a point about the wetlands. Unless Grievous was traveling with amphibious droids, this lower terrain was unfriendly to anything short of a hover bike. There’s nothing here. Peering through a pair of electro binoculars, I looked down from the ridge we had stopped on, sweeping the flat lands below us carefully.

“I don’t see anything,” I said as I handed the binocs to Hardcase. I glanced to the speeder next to me as Rex put his flipped back the scope on his helmet.

“Nothing,” he said, looking over at me. He pointed to the right of our location. “That ridge should give us another good viewpoint to scout from. If there’s no sign of them by that point, I suggest we call it in and regroup with General Kenobi.”

“Agreed,” I said as I thumbed the throttle on my speeder. “Lead the way, Captain.”

With a nod and not another word, Rex took the lead, speeding down the side of the ridge. Looking over my shoulder I maneuvered my bike ahead of Kix, taking the second position in the pack as we wove our way through the brush, over mudholes and washed-out creeks.

I almost ran over Rex when the shot hit. A flash broke on the hill ahead of us. And in the next moment, the captain was flying back through the air. A hard lurch of the controls pulled me to the left just in time to miss hitting him as he was thrown to the ground. His speeder rolled end over end, a cloud of dust filling the air. I could barely see.

“Protect the captain,” a voice yelled. I wasn’t sure whose. Jesse? Hardcase? I turned around, looking over my shoulder to find Kix’s speeder rounding back to Rex’s position. I should have faced forward then. I should have been alert. I should have been ready.

The second shot missed me, but hit my speeder right in the engine. My momentum died, the controls locked in my hands and my hands held on when my mind was screaming to let go. If I had let go, it wouldn’t have been so bad. As it was, I was pulled with the bike as it turned sharply, my weight pulling it further until at one point I found myself staring an inch away from the ground. Then it rolled. My hands finally let go of the steering bars, but not until after my left leg was smashed between the speeder and the ground.

Somehow, someway everything finally came to a standstill. Nothing moved. The world didn’t move. My body didn’t move. Face down on the ground, sprawled out like a baby on a crawling mat, I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

Then the pain hit, and my lungs drew breath instinctively.

“Kriff,” I rasped as my body seized up with pain. I curled in on myself, the crown of my head pressed to the ground, the body’s weight pressing down on my forearms. My right leg pulled up to my chest, but my left leg --- no matter how much my body commanded it to move, it stayed still. Blasters fired in the distance, the sound of speeders whirred. Looking down under my body I glimpsed my leg and immediately felt the need to vomit.

Fuck that’s not pointing the right way.

Crying out, I forced my body to turn over so that I was on my buttocks, legs out stretched. My hands flew to my thigh, trying to keep my leg from twisting even worse.

“General Tolsim!” Hardcase and Jesse’s speeders whirred towards me both men jumping off before they had fully stopped. Tears blur my eyes as I fight them back, Jesse and Hardcase moving around me to find some way to help. Just then Kix’s voice comes over our comms.

“Jesse, you better get back here,” he said, his voice ominous.

I grit my teeth and waved them off. “Get to your Captain. Help Kix.” Hardcase moved next to me, putting on my shoulder.

“Ma’am your leg---”

“Isn’t going to kill me. One of you go,” I panted. The two men shared a look, before Jesse hopped onto his speeder and rode off. “Gaah,” I groaned as I collapsed back on my elbows.

“I’m going to stabilize your leg until Kix can get to you, General,” Hardcase said, taking off his helmet. I nodded, breathing hard and fast. Biting the inside of my cheek I force my breathing to slow, and cut my eyes over to Hardcase.

“Do it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the time Jesse and the others found a place for us to spend the night, I was ready to cut off my leg. It felt like deadweight at the moment --- heavy, useless weight. Using Hardcase for support I followed after Kix and Jesse as they carried a still unconscious Rex into the barn the farmer’s wife had allowed us to use. Helping me settle down on a bench along the far wall, Hardcase soon joined his brothers in removing Rex’s armor. I ground my teeth as I got my first view of the hole that had nearly blown through his chest plate. My brow dipped as I focused on the captain, trying to get a sense of what was going on as the clones around him blocked my view. With a slow breath, I finally opened my eyes as I sensed his lifeforce.

He’s alive. Weak, but he’s alive.

Digging through his med kit, Kix brought out a bacta patch and affixed it to Rex’s chest, before giving him a direct injection of bacta. Two seconds later, Rex was awake.

“Wh-what happened?” he asked, trying to set up, before Kix or perhaps the pain forced him back down on the table.

“Sniper shot,” I said through grit teeth. Rex’s head turned, eyes zeroing in on me, before drifting down to my leg.

“General, what--- Kix, get off of me,” he ordered, rolling over.” Massive bruising had broken out across his back. “I can’t move my arm,” he said. I wasn’t surprised but I kept it to myself.

“You have nerve damage,” Kix offered.

“Understood, let’s move ---”

Before Rex could say more, all three troopers surrounding him had pressed him back onto the table. “As the team medic, when it comes to the health of you and the men… I outrank everyone,” Kix said, quickly. “So, I respectfully order you, sir, to get some rest.”

The room fell deathly quiet as Kix and Rex stared one another down. Finally, Rex gave in. “Very well,” he said, lying back on the table as Jesse draped a blanket over him. Turning his head, Rex looked to me. “Will you give them their orders, General?”

I nodded and turned to Jesse. “Jesse, take Kix and Hardcase and continue the search. Get word to Master Kenobi when you’re in range and let him know your findings and…” I glanced down at my leg. “Let him know that Captain Rex and I are both injured. We’ll regroup with you back at base camp when we’re able.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jesse said with a firm nod. Picking up his helmet, Hardcase mirrored him and followed Jesse out the door.

Kix stepped back from Rex’s table and moved towards me, bag in hand. “I’ve got enough bacta to help your pain ma’am.”

I glanced round the room, eyes falling on the clone drifting in and out on the table. I looked over his chest. That’s gonna take a lot more help before he’s even close to moving. Lifting my head, I stared up at Kix. “Just splint it, Kix. Use what bacta you have left on the captain.”

Kix shook his head, brow furrowing. “Ma’am---”

“Yes, yes, you outrank everyone, I know,” I stretched out my leg best I could, unable to hide a grimace. “But I’m allergic to bacta.” Kix stared at me with a frown, Jesse and Hardcase stood behind him eyes wide. On the table, Rex lay on his back, head turned towards us. His frown was just as bad as Kix’s, if not worse. I ignored it. “I swell up like a gorg in a steam box,” I said. “The best we can do is splint it and let it heal on its own,” I said, as I looked down at my leg. I looked back up at Kix. “So what will it be, Kix?”

With a sigh, Kix knelt next to me, shoving the vial of bacta into his bag. “It’s gonna hurt, ma’am.”

“It already does, I don’t see how it could get worse,” I said, almost missing the look Kix gave me before setting to work.

I was wrong. It hurt. Everything hurt.

By the time Kix was done with me, I was ready to quit. I had found myself eyeing his med bag, where I knew the bottle of bacta was safely stored away. Patience. A voice said in my head. Pain is fleeting.

“You’ll need to keep your weight off your leg until we can get you to a cruiser,” Rex said as he began to pack up his things. I laid back on the bench, the rise and fall of my chest slowing as I finally relaxed. With my leg stabilized, the pain wasn’t nearly as bad. For a few seconds here and there I might have even forgotten it was broken.

I wiped my hand down my face. “I promise to stay off it,” I told him as I crossed my heart. Turning my head, I glanced at Rex, finding him still asleep. “Anything I should know about him before you leave?”

Kix raised an eyebrow. “About the captain?” he asked, voice sounding confused.

I frowned. “What---oh,” I realized where he’d misunderstood my question. “No, I mean about his wounds. How long before he’ll need another dose of pain meds?”

Kix nodded, understanding me finally. He set his bag next on the ground next to me. “He’s already had a lot, should last him awhile. When he wakes up, if he’s hurting give it to him. Better to stay on top of the pain. Once you start really feeling it, it’s hard to catch up.”

I sat up. “Got it. Thank you, Kix. You better head out or they’ll leave without you.”

Kix straightened up to stand at attention. “Ma’am,” he said, turning towards the door. The sound of speeders taking off followed a few minutes later and I breathed out a sigh and shook my head.

“Kriff,” I muttered as I looked around the barn. Rex lay motionless, save for the soft rise and fall of his chest and a soft twitch along his brow ever now and then.

See what your weakness leads to, a voice said in my head and I found myself holding my breath. You couldn’t even take a small group out on patrol without injuring yourself and watching as the group’s leader was blasted off his bike. What kind of leader are you, Tolsim? Worthless---

Reaching up, I wiped my nose on my sleeve. When my voice left my throat, it was small, barely a whisper as I closed my eyes.

“Emotion, yet peace.”

“Ignorance, yet knowledge.”

“Passion, yet serenity.”

“Chaos, yet harmony.”

“Death, yet the Force.”

My hands clasped as I repeated the Jedi Code again and again. Slowly the world began to fade, only to be interrupted by the pain in my leg, the thoughts in my head that belonged to a voice that wasn’t mine.

Focus. I told myself. Look past the pain. Use the Force and be healed.

“Emotion, yet peace…”

~~~~

I meditated until mid-afternoon, the pain in my leg dulled to brief moments whenever I tried to move it. It was better than what I’d hoped for, but still not healed enough for me to stand on it fully. If my focus hadn’t been stolen, I might have healed myself more. As it was, I was brought out of my trance by a moan of pain. At first, I forgot where I was. I forgot that I wasn’t alone. Then another sound met my ears. A whimper.

Looking up, I found Rex still on the table, head rolling back and forth as he slept fitfully.

Time for more meds.

“Ready for another dose of bacta, Captian?” I asked, rising from my seat. I didn’t expect him to wake so quickly, but as soon as I called to him, Rex opened his eyes and peered over at me, wrinkles on his forehead as he tried to stave off his pain.

“Your leg,” Rex said, eyes dropping down the length of my body.

“Is healing.” I raised my hand, and curled my fingers in a soft gesture. “Sit up, please.” Bending down, I grabbed the med bag and brought out the last bacta injection.

“Are you really allergic to Bacta?” Rex asked as he sat up with a groan.

“No.”

Rex froze, and I could feel his eyes scanning my face. “So you lied.”

I shook my head. “It’s not the first time I’ve told a lie in your presence.”

“But you’re hurt too, you should’ve---” Uncapping the lid of the bacta injection, I jabbed the side of Rex’s neck with the needle. Rex smacked his palm against his throat with a hiss as I pulled back. “Kriff, General.”

“I can heal myself, Rex,” I said as I tossed the empty vial into the bag. With a grimace I turned on my heel. “Not perfectly, but faster than a bottle of bacta can.”

“Then why didn’t you just say you could heal yourself?” Rex asked as I hobbled away from him, using the table as a support.

“Arguing with Kix didn’t seem very appealing,” I said as I sat back down, lifting my leg to elevate it on the bench beneath me. Rex relaxed on the table with a sigh and shook his head. Crossing my arms and let out my own sigh. “I’m not great at this healing thing, if I’m being honest,” I said as aches panged and pinged through my body.

“All the more reason you---”

“But I’m in better shape than you, Rex. You were shot in the chest. My leg is mangled, but a little pain isn’t going to kill me,” I said. I ran my hands up and down my thighs gingerly. Rex was silent for a moment and I looked up, expecting to find him asleep. Instead, I found him watching over me, his face almost what I would call relaxed.

“You can’t save all of us, Ma’am,” he said after a moment and the breath in my chest stalled, caught in my lungs.

Shaking my head, I laughed him off. “I didn’t save you, Rex.”

Rex smiled and looked up at the ceiling. “Tell that to my shoulder. Felt like I was being stabbed before you gave me that shot.” I watched as his smile disappeared. His eyes fell and met mine. “I know you felt bad about Hevy, back on Rishi Station. And I’m not saying that’s why you did what you did here, but you’re in command.” My smile cracked as he stared at me from across the room. “Next time, take the bacta, ma’am. You’re needed more than a few---”

“Captain,” I cut him off, an edge to my voice. Rex’s lips stilled, voice caught in his throat as his sentence went unfinished, but we both knew what he was really trying to say.

You’re needed more than a few clones. I shake my head, because I know he is wrong. But I don’t correct him.

“Rest,” I said after a moment of silence. I cut my eyes at him. Please, let it go.

Screwing his mouth into a frown, Rex turned his head and faced away from me. “Yes, Ma’am.”

Shaking my head, I slowly closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and fell back into my meditation trance as Rex’s breathing fell once more into a deep rhythm. Soon, the barn and even the sound of him faded away.

#captain rex #ct-7567 #tcw #tcw rex #original character #romance

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princessdevy03 · 4 years

Text

Tumblr Exclusive!!!!

For @anybodihearme....

QuarantinEdd

They were supposed to be quarantined.

But they were essential employees, so off to work they went, Edd to the hospital and Kevin to the town’s only mechanic’s garage.

Edd going to work made sense. He was an ER nurse and desperately needed in the midst of a pandemic, but Kevin wondered if the governor had lost his mind by letting businesses like his remain open.

He had enough money to pay everyone for ninety days and if he got a small business loan to help offset any losses from the pandemic, he could afford to pay everyone for another ninety more. Not to mention being able to pay for a decent cleaning crew to make sure everything would be safe once the people smarter than him said it was safe to open.

But people were still out driving for small gig jobs like online food deliveries, off and out of work parents were taking the time to teach their now homeschooled kids to drive, and for some reason, the number of fender benders repairs thanks to speeders quadrupled.

And that was in the first sixty days.

It was now day 132 and Kevin’s numb.

He’s down to a third of his crew because someone had either caught the virus or has been in close contact with someone who has, customers that have been coming in for decades were taking their business elsewhere because they just couldn’t deal with his simple requests to keep their facial coverings on and to stay at least six feet from each other in the shop’s oversized lobby, parts were taking forever to come in because they weren’t essential items so they were low shipping priority, and he can’t remember the last time he’s seen Edd.

Video calls are verboten in the hospital because of HIPPA, but he hasn’t even gotten a meme from the man in a week.

Stepping out of the hottest shower he can bare to take, he checks his phone.

There were the usual texts from his mother, Nazz, Rolf, and he thinks his baby grandson has gotten a hold of his mother’s phone again, or his daughter in law has had a stroke.

Quickly opening the last text, he saw the baby had sent him a seven second video of himself running with said phone and his mother screaming at his father to catch him while his sister declared that he had to come with her if he wanted to live.

His chuckle turned into a high pitched scream not unlike that of the lead starlet in many of the B List horror films The Eds watched when they were kids when the bathroom door swung open.

Edd fell to the floor with a cackle, holding his sides as he rocked side to side and laughed til he cried as Kevin stormed out of the bathroom, quickly donned his housecoat, and threw an old quilt some great aunt from Ireland made his father when he was a baby over his head.

“YOU SCARED ME!” He screamed at his husband as he went to stand over the man still tittering on the floor.

“You look ri-ridiculous,” Edd snickered as he sat up and did his best to catch his breath.

“How dare you?!” He huffed, arms crossed, looking rather ridiculous considering his usual immodesty of just walking around naked when no one but Edd was in the house. “And what are you doing here anyways?!”

“I live here?” Edd shrugged and Kevin finally got a good look at him.

His hair was wet and he only had on an old tshirt and shorts he had made out of an old pair of sweatpants.

“You’re home?” Kevin asked softly, a bit disbelieving what he was seeing.

“As of today,” Edd answered as he looked at his smartwatch before taking it off and placing it on the charger on his nightstand, “I get the next two weeks off, pending the results of my latest round of tests.”

“What happens next?”

Edd looked the worried man in his weary face and tried to be as honest but as gentle as possible.

“If I’m not sick, I go back. If I’m sick, I stay home til I get worse and then I go back because I’m dying.”

And for some strange reason, Kevin thinks he can fight Death.

“You won’t die,” he said, voice low, the quilt hitting the floor and his housecoat quickly followed.

Edd had to admire his moxie, even if he was being a bit ridiculous.

“You gonna fight a novel virus for me?” He smirked as he walked over the naked man in front of their dresser, arms crossed defiantly.

HIs back hitting the bed and his shorts hitting the floor was his answer.

But then Kevin realized that if Edd was in the house, so were the germs.

“Where did you shower?” He asked as he straddled him, arms crossed but his dick was getting harder by the second and Edd is about to die.

“Main bathroom in the hall,” Edd groaned, batting at his chest to get him to get back to business.

“Clothes?”

“Washer downstairs? Your stuff is still in the one in the garage.”

The great thing about the house was that the first owners put the washer and dryer in the garage, the next family built a laundry room addition off the kitchen for some reason, but it was awesome because Kevin could always use the old set in the garage for his heavy, greasy coveralls, while the laundry room was used for their everyday clothes.

But before Edd got stuck at the hospital for the last way too long in Kevin’s mind, they both had been using the garage for laundry to keep from bringing the germs the CDC was only now getting an inkling of an understanding of, in the house.

If he used the sanitize cycle on the fancy set in the laundry room, they’d be ok.

“Sanitize?”

“I’ll roast you in it myself if you don’t blow me.”

“But I don’t want to die, Eddward!” Kevin pouted, feeling randy, confused, and oh, so frustrated.

Edd sat up and pulled his shirt off to bring Kevin’s warming body closer to his burning own.

“I’m ok,” he whispered lovingly. “I got the clothes washed and I took a shower, just like you. We can clean the cars tomorrow. It’ll be fine.”

“Fuck that, I’m having Jimmy’s cleaning crew over here first thing to do it,” he said matter of factly as he wiggled himself off Edd and grabbed his legs to pull him to the edge of the bed so he wouldn’t be roasted in the fancy washing machine.

Tears pricked the edges of Edd’s eyes as Kevin swallowed him whole and his hands lost themselves in sunset red locks.

Never had he been able to hold onto him like this and he distantly thinks of suggesting him never cutting his hair again because -

“OH GOD!” He screams as he pushes him away, embarrassed that he was to the edge so quickly.

“You like that, huh?” Kevin snickered at him as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and waggled his brows at him.

“I hate you,” Edd huffed back but his body had other plans.

It was a bit like riding a bike.

But it was also almost like going through the motions, though.

Kevin’s mouth nipping at his neck as he grabbed the lube off his nightstand.

Them trading kisses between trading the lube between themselves; Kevin coating his hand and Edd coating Kevin’s dick.

Then Kevin’s first knuckle dropped inside.

Edd hissed in the back of his throat as he quickly squeezed the dick in his lap before he tossed his head back with a groan.

He knew he wouldn’t last long, but this was gonna take a bit.

“Just breathe for me, Babe,” Kevin huffed, trying to set his mind right.

If he was this tight on his hand, he’s gonna lose his damn mind once he gets inside of him.

Edd took a breath and Kevin wiggled his finger as gently as he could. The stretch lasted for only a moment before Edd picked up his hips for a bit more, but Kevin stayed him with a hand on his stomach.

“Breathe,” he ordered as he slipped down off Edd’s torso and Edd’s breath is gone as quickly as he took it because his dick is in Kevin’s mouth again, naturally.

He relaxes into the bed, taking everything in.

The softness of the sheets, the spicy musk of the air freshener plugged into the wall, the soft dampness of Kevin’s hair in his hands, the soaking warmth of his mouth.

When his head hits the pillow, it’s like he’s been wrapped up in something.

He gasps as another finger is added to Kevin’s ministrations and when he tosses his head to the side he realizes that Kevin’s been using his pillow.

Dear Lort…

The man has his head between his legs, two, no, three fingers up his ass, and his pillow smells like him.

Kevin wouldn’t be mad if he came this instant, but he’d rather he fuck him like he wants to do his pillow right about now.

“Kevin, please.”

The way he spoke was just so urgent that Kevin didn’t argue.

He just moved.

He grabbed the lube as he came off of him, squeezing some quickly into his hand and then giving himself a couple of strokes as he got into position. Resting on his knees, he pulled Edd into his lap and said, “You do it, ok?”

Edd nodded because they both knew if Edd could control the motion, he’d be less likely to be hurt.

No one wants a trip to the hospital in a pandemic over something like this!

Bracing his hands onto Kevin’s sides and Kevin doing likewise, he slowly worked his hips back and forth til he was fully hilted, his head falling onto Kevin’s shoulder with a thunk.

Neither moved for a few, long, tense moments.

When Edd finally brought his head up, Kevin whispered, “I’m...I’m not gonna last long.”

“Me, either,” Edd sighed as he placed a chaste kiss to Kevin’s lips and moved a bit.

Kevin groaned into the soft movement, his hands falling onto Edd’s hips, and his mouth searching for those soft lips again.

His gut whirled tight when Edd pushed their mouths together and his brain shorted out when the needy man in his lap started sucking on his tongue like he would his dick.

He moaned into the kiss and Edd’s hips picked up speed.

Lean arms around his neck made his hips jerk up, but he dug his knees into the bed to anchor himself down when Edd wrapped his legs around him.

Hands explored every inch of skin they could touch and they kissed each other breathless as Edd drove himself up and down on his dick as fast and hard as he could.

“Fuck, I missed you,” Edd whined before kissing him again.

But it was harder this time and his hips weren’t moving in any sort of rhythm anymore.

Kevin brought him closer with one arm, the other slipped between them and started to stroke Edd’s throbbing cock.

Kevin couldn’t wait to get his mouth on it again, but for now, he’d suck Edd’s tongue in his mouth to give him a taste of what he wanted to do to him, with him, and just for him for the next two weeks.

The hand on his cock and the mouth on his tongue made his hips jerk.

HARD.

And Kevin’s dick hit a spot in him that hadn’t been touched in weeks.

He could barely scream as he fell apart, his ass squeezing the hard dick inside him as his whole body begged for more.

Long, thick, milky white strips of cum bursts between them as a roar came out of Kevin.

Strong hands grabbed lithe hips and Edd’s gone.

Release like he hadn’t known in far too long coursed through his whole being as Kevin came as hard as he did.

Once the room stopped spinning, Edd realized that they had fallen backwards, their heads at the feet of the bed.

“You need a haircut,” Kevin grinned affectionately at him, running a weak hand through dark, thick, wavy locks.

“And If you ever cut your hair again, I’ll kill you,” Edd absolutely purred, relishing the gentle touch.

“So noted,” Kevin chuckled as he willed himself up.

“Where ya goin now?” Edd whined.

“Bathroom,” Kevin grinned as he snatched the lube up from where it had fallen on his pillow and made his way to the bathroom.

Edd scrambled as best he could on his baby deer legs to follow him.

Kevin didn’t go back to work and Johnny’s cleaning crew didn’t come for two weeks.

Kevin and Edd shrugged it off and said they were busy catching up on projects at home.

#tumblr exclusive #kevedd #kevedd fanfic #kevedd fanfiction #reg!kevedd #reg!kev #reg!edd #kevin barr #eddward vincent #vincent-barr

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37-children-of-the-dreams · 3 years

Text

Day #28: I Will Be The Strongest

Fennec's been through a lot in the Mandalorian, but she's always surviving and living like the legend she is. May and December can't get here any faster.

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

Fennec had the hardest time keeping a poker face as her mother wore the clothes Korkie made. Fennec always saw her mother as the most beautiful woman in the Galaxy. Yet, Korkie made her mother look like a mother goddess. Kristal Shand was laughing as she twirled around the small living room with her new dress. Her mother could never get the best clothes and had to use old washed up ones.

"Are you about to cry?" Crosshair asked. "You've stopped making that neutral face and I'm seeing droplets."

Fennec rubbed her eyes in record speed, but her parents saw her face. Her mother went to her side and put a gentle hand to Fennec's back. Her father was at her side the instant he knew something was wrong.

"Oh, my darling," she comforted. "What's wrong?"

"You've always looked beautiful," Fennec gasped. "But, we never had good clothes. I'm just so happy to see you wearing the best clothes we've ever known."

"Fennecky," her father said. "Our clothes never mattered to us. You did. We lived our lives for you and all we wanted is your health and happiness."

Fennec sobbed and let the tears flow. She knew her family loved her, but she could never understand why they were always okay with losing everything. Now she knows. Fennec herself was the one who kept them alive. They loved her with everything they had and made sure she was living a healthy life. Fennec's love for her family made her strong and she was thriving big time.

"Mama," she cried. "Papa. I got him. I got Ruk to justice."

Luka Shand held his daughter closer to him as his wife ran her fingers through Fennec's hair. Korkie and Crosshair exited the scene and went outside. They sat on the grass near the small garden. Korkie had his head and Crosshair's lap as they look over the place.

"You okay?" Crosshair asked.

"I miss my family," Korkie said. "I miss my both of my buirs. Nanny Rana's probably going to have another meeting with some certain people and missing me. I get where Fennec's coming from, and I hope this wouldn't be the last time they see each other."

"You know what to do."

Korkie took a breath and closed his eyes. He lost his family once, he will never make another person lose their family.

Back inside Fennec stopped crying. She needed to talk them what she did to Ruk, and how she avenged her late aunt.

"We needed a bounty," she said. "We entered a cantina and I saw his puck. I had to get it. The guys were willing to help me get my revenge. Korkie had some drama with his old friends and Ruk got away because of them, but we got him again because Korkie really hates making mistakes. We tied him up on a speeder and went back to the cantina. Ruk tried to get away one last time, but Crosshair had his rifle. Crosshair warned him that he can shoot that bastard ten miles away and said I can do it too. He's a great teacher, Mama. Ruk just accepted his fate and we got our bounty."

"Oh Fennec," her mother hummed. "It seems like you're living quite an exciting life now."

"Don't you guys care that I got Ruk."

"Not really," Luka admitted. "I knew someday he'd get his karma, but I never knew who would give it to him. I'm so proud of you."

Fennec giggled. Her family never changed. Anything huge happening and her parents would just take it to face value. Maybe it might be the Jedi genes, but she was sure this wasn't normal for a regular family.

"Mama, Papa," Fennec said. "What happened after I left the town? It didn't change, but you two left and I got worried."

"Fennec," Kristal sighed. "The rich folks started mocking us. They kept calling out your name and we couldn't take it. We couldn't live in a town that reminded us of you without you being there."

"So we left," Luka added. "The townsfolk said nothing. They just accepted it because you left and we have nothing there anymore. We only go there during harvest, but nothing else."

Fennec nodded. As long as her family was safe, there wasn't anything to worry.

Suddenly, Korkie and Crosshair burst into the living room.

"Some rich people are about to come here!" Crosshair announced.

"And they do not look happy," Korkie chimed in.

Kuka sighed as he rubbed his forehead. Last week he went to the town to get money from his harvest. The richest man there was bullying him and said the crops were worthless. Luka shrugged it and told him if they were worth nothing, then he can have all of it. The man was not happy with the insult and threaten Luka that he'll destroy the house if he didn't apologize and kissed his shoes. Luka just left and they didn't do anything.

Yet, if they heard Fennec was back, then Luka knew what he was going to do. He was going to make Fennec his mistress and abuse her because Luka insulted him.

"Papa?" Fennec whispered. "What's wrong?"

"Remember that rich man?" Luka asked. "Notoh? He's coming here to make you his mistress because he can't take a joke."

Crosshair rolled his eyes. He was starting to hate rich people. Well, every rich people that wasn't Korkie. All the rich people they've met was snobby, annoying and pure neck pain to the sniper.

"They'll be here in an hour," Korkie said.

"Enough time for Fennec to learn how to shoot ten klicks away," Crosshair stated.

"What?" Fennec stammered. "What does that have to do anything we what's going on?"

"I've killed politicians before. Rich people are nothing to me. Coming Fennec."

Fennec stood up and got her rifle. She looked at her parents and saw their sad eyes. Her father was never a violent man, and her mother never hit anyone. Yet, Fennec was different and she was going to show every rich people which family to stop messing with. Fennec and Crosshair exited out of her parent's house and went to the trees. She was going to learn how to shoot for miles, and she will not miss any shot.

Luka and Kristal were led outside by Korkie to watch their daughter. They were watching their daughter hit branch after branch without missing them. They always knew Fennec was a gifted child when she was younger. Seeing her now made them smile as their little Fennec became a woman with great importance.

"She'll become a legend," Korkie stated. "I know it."

"You're a Seer aren't you?" Luka asked. "My father knew one before he left."

"I wasn't raised as a Jedi, but the Force was always wanting a Kryze to have the Force again."

"Kryze? As in the Mandalorian House Kryze?"

"What? If Fennec's grandfather was a Jedi, then why can't a Mandalorian and Jedi have a Force sensitive child?"

"You're supposed to be a pacifist."

"I know, but I'm more of fighter. There's nothing wrong with different ideals in a family as long as it doesn't end in a civil war."

Luka laughed. He never liked war. He like pacifism and peace. He agreed with the Kryze on ending wars and having a more peaceful System. Yet, Luka knew there were still fights to end in combat.

And his own daughter will end the battle for them.

Fennec looked at the highest branch on the tallest tree. She took aim and shot the branch. It was close to ten klicks and Crosshair knew it.

"You've done it," Crosshair proudly said. "The Force might never connect to me, but I guess it knows when a fight should end."

"You've hung out with Korkie to much," Fennec giggled.

"So? He's my future husband. If he's close to the Force, I guess I have to accept it."

"Like the fact you're accepting me as a great sniper?"

"You're just gifted. Now, do we kill him or just scare him."

"Have Korkie chose. He's the one ending rich lives."

Crosshair nodded as they went back down to the ground. Korkie was clapping as Luka and Kristal hugged Fennec. Crosshair pat Korkie's back.

"You think I'd be a better sniper if I was Force sensitive?" Crosshair asked.

"I don't care," Korkie blurted out fast. "You're the best sniper in my eyes no matter what. I mean, if you weren't the best sniper, then how did Fennec get better in mere weeks after meeting you?"

Crosshair swung his rifle-free arm around Korkie. He could be sweet-talking the clone, but he can't say Fennec didn't become a great sniper because of him. He looked at Fennec as her parents were congratulating her.

He was a good teacher and Fennec was going to get payback.

#korkie kryze #korkie kenobi #crosshair #clone trooper crosshair #fennec shand #the bad batch #star wars

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emperorsfoot · 4 years

Text

abandoned Star Wars fic #2

This one is so rough my notes are still there in the document. When you see the brackets [ ] that is me talking to myself as I write.

Another AU, again based off the Star Wars EU that existed pre-Disney Buyout. Vader manages to intercept Obi-Wan before he can get Luke to the Lars, but Vader can’t raise him on Corescant. Palpatine would ask too many questions. So, Vader takes Luke to be raised by an alien race loyal to him on planet Honoghr.

...

[title]

Chapter One:

Sand and dust was kicked up in the wake of two speeders racing across the dessert night. One furiously gaining, the other desperate to shake and lose its tail.

One arm wrapped protectively around the bundle clutched to his chest, the other trying its best to steer the small one-man speeder. Keep it steady. While simultaneously trying to shake off and lose his pursuer. But it was a tall order to fill. His hunter knew these sands far better than he did, had grown up here, was shaped by the sands and the winds. And he was driven. Driven by a a raging tumultuous storm of feelings to wild and varying to interpret fully. But Kenobi would have to say that rage was definitely at the forefront of that emotional storm. Rage and pain.

Pain over the death of Padme and rage at the one he credited with responsibility for her premature passing.

Because goodness forbid Anakin Skywalker ever take responsibility for his own actions or their resultant tragedies.

Kenobi clutched baby Luke tighter as he banked hard to the right. Taking them down a labyrinthine formation of shallow canyons and jagged rocks. For the majority of the journey, the baby had remained blissfully quiet. Something the Jedi master was sure was uncommon for new borns and infants. It might have given him cause to worry if he didn't currently have a much greater and more pressing concern tearing between rocks and sand behind them.

But now, being rocked and jostled by the chase, and perhaps also sensing the violent storm of feelings behind them, Luke uttered his first loud, unhappy cries since slipping from the warmth of his mothers womb into the cold and uncaring world they lived in.

Perhaps he was spurred on by the sound of his son's crying, or perhaps he'd just gotten close enough for the weapon to be useful, but from behind, Kenobi heard the unmistakable snap-hiss of a lightsaber. Unable to simultaneously draw his own blade while still steering the speeder and holding Luke, Kenobi did the only other option open to him. He leapt from his own speeder just in time to miss being split in two by a jumping swing of the crimson-white blade.

The red hot saber slashed the speeder in two instead. Each half banging and ricocheting off rocks and canyon before they came to skidding, crumbling halts. A few seconds later, Anakin's own abandoned speeder followed the Jedi's speeder into oblivion by crashing into the canyon wall. The spectacular explosion lighting up the night enough for Kenobi to see flames illyminate the new black armor and helmet in brilliant shades of orange and red.

Lowering the red saber only slightly, Anakin -no, he wasn't Anakin anymore, Anakin had died on Mustafar, this man was a Sith Lord- Darth Vader extended his free hand. With a new voice, deep and baritone, nothing like Anakin's at all, uttered a single command. "Give him to me."

Shaking his head, Kenobi drew his own lightsaber. Ready to defend the innocent life in his other arm with his last breath if necessary. "Don't do this, Anakin. Let him live his life without the burden of your legacy."

There was a beat of silence filled only by the sound of the respirator, carefully counting breaths. Then, "You have taken to much from me. You'll not take my son as well."

With that, the sinister figure closed the distance. Dark cape trailing behind him. Kenobi just managed to bring his own blade up in time to block the blow. With only one hand holding the saber, he had less strength to hold the red-white blade at bay. The Jedi hoped that Vader would regulate his strength enough so as to not injure the baby he carried -it was, after all, the baby he was after- but remembering his actions towards Padme, Kenobi just couldn't be sure of anything anymore. Vader wanted the baby. But he also wanted the Jedi master dead.

Pulling a bit of the Force to him, Kenobi pushed Vader off them. Taking advantage of the younger man's imbalance to swing an offense of his own, Kenobi aimed for that shiny and new black helmet. But the blow was only glancing, just melting a scratch on the surface, not even penetrating to the head beneath. Both men to a step back to regain themselves. Luke resumed his wails. The cries seeming all the louder for the echo off the canyon walls.

"This is what Padme would have wanted for him!" Kenobi tried to reason with him. "To grow up with a family and love. Not be used as a tool for your ambition or the Emperor's power!"

"He will be with his family." Vader snarled. "I am his father!"

"You killed his mother!" Kenobi reminded him.

"Because of you!" The other snarled.

He swung his lightsaber at the man. The spinning blade arching towards his head. Kenobi jumped to the side, drawing on the force to help cushion his fall, not for himself but to ease the discomfort to the baby. The swinging blade came flying back to its wielder's hand and he slashed down at Kenobi's prone form. The Jedi struggling to regain his footing was quick enough to evade a death blow, but not quick enough to come away unscathed. He screamed as the red-white blade sliced through his ankled with a burning ferocity. Kenobi's scream of pain, adding to the chorus of Luke's.

"She was my wife!" Vader roared. "And you used her. Turned us against each other. I might have been the instrument, but it was you who killed her! Its your fault! Your fault!" The dark shoulders shook with unchannelled emotion. It sent reverberations through the Force, washing other both of them. Causing the Jedi to forget the pain in his leg for a moment and the baby's sobs degraded into hiccups, having already cried himself hoarse. "You took my wife from me, Obi-wan. I will not let you take my son from me as well."

The Sith Lord bent down over them. Black gloved hands reaching… and with unexpected care, plucked the hiccuping child from the Jedi's arms. He held the baby for a moment or two. The only sound apart from Luke's nervous hiccups and grumbles, the mechanical breathing of the respirator. Vader -or perhaps in that moment he was Anakin again- looked down at the child in his arms who squirmed uncomfortably against the cold leather pulled over unfeeling bionics. There could be no warmth in that hold. No physical warmth. But perhaps there was some emotional warmth from the father for his son. For Luke seemed to calm ever so slightly. His child in his arms, Vader's own raging storm of feelings also subsided to what Kenobi decided must be the new baseline for the Dark Lord.

The relative serenity of the scene was broken by an errant breeze whistling through the canyon. The soft sound string them from their brief moment of peace. Kenobi called his lightsaber back to his hand. But Vader was quicker on the draw. The Jedi froze with the glowing crimson tip a few centimeters from singeing distance of his beard.

[I cannot yet decide if Ben would serve the story better alive of dead. So I'll leave this scene here for now. Perhaps you can think of a suitable way to close this little skirmish. ]

And so he had his son. Padme's son. The last living remnant of the woman he'd loved.

But what to do with him.

Taking him back to Corescant was out of the question. Loath though he was to admit it, Obi-wan did have a valid point. Padme would not want her son to be used as a tool for Palpatine's power. Not to mention that there was that tiny matter of the rule of two. It was possible that the old man might not even allow the boy to live. Either that, or order the father's death and take the boy as a new apprentice. Young, and malleable, and still whole. But if he was gone, then who would protect the boy while he grew?

Vader unconsciously tightened his grip on the boy, wrapping him in an invisible cloak of dark and territorial feelings. A gesture protecting him both physically and psychically. He needed to keep his son safe. That was priority one. Everything else was detail. It could be sorted out later. First thing first, he needed to get Luke to a secure location. After that he could figure out what to do. Corescant was out. But Naboo didn't sound to appealing either. While he was sure Padme's family would be more than happy to take in her motherless child, it would be to easy to find him there.

Briefly, he considered Tatooine. They were already here, after all. And it was where he grew up. But no. The environment was too harsh. Both ecologically and culturally. Slavery was to prevalent and to many households were just a few credits difference away from selling their own children into bond to feed themselves. He would not risk his son becoming a slave. He would not allow his son to grow up believing slavery to be a common and acceptable practice. Slowly, he ran through the list until he finally thought of one that might just be perfect.

Remote. Out of common knowledge. Honor-based culture. And most important of all, completely dedicated to him.

Vader didn't know why he didn't think of it first!

Now with a destination, they set course for Honoghr.

…

[And then I realized Anakin/Vader wouldn't have had time to construct a new lightsaber. Between "NOOOOOOOO!" and Obi-wan taking Luke to the Lars' there just isn't the opportunity to make one. So the fight between Kenobi and Vader couldn't have gone like that. I'll have to re-write the scene. ]

Kabarakh braced one arm against the speeder's dashboard, his other hand gripping the side panel so tightly his gray knuckles threatened to turn white. He was a Noghri warrior, trained to remain calm and composed even under great strain. …But none of his mentors had ever had the 'honor' of riding passenger in a speeder piloted by the Son of Vader.

"Wha-hoooo!" The young human whooped as they banked a hard turn just in time to save them from plummeting down a rather steep ravine cut by the rushing waters of the Vas'ser river. Kabarakh let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding in. If the fall hadn't killed them, the waters surly would have. They sped off over the short scrubby kolm-grass of the wastes.

...

THAT’S ALL SHE WROTE

I’m not even sure I had an end-game for this. Just a vague idea of a premise. Like, was I gonna have Luke leave Honoghr at some point? Was the whole fic gonna be him growing up steeped in the culture? Some combination of the two?

Who the fuck knows?

I certainly don’t!

#star wars #honoghr #noghri #planet honoghr #luke skywalker #Darth vader #fan fiction #alternate universe #expanded universe #au #eu #timothy zahn #abandoned project #pre-disney buyout

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