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wild-karrde · 4 months

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One Step at a Time - Part 15

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A/N: I have been SO EXCITED for this chapter, and also INCREDIBLY NERVOUS, but HERE IT IS! As always, thank you to the stupendous @teletraan-meets-jarvis for beta reading this for me!

Chapter Rating: M

Warnings: language, mention of suicide, mention of character death, grief

Word Count: 8.4k words

Chuckles didn’t go back to the Starlight.

He didn’t have any idea where his feet were carrying him until he slid onto a stool in the tiny excuse of a cantina the settlement had. As far as he knew, the place had at least three different names, and he’d never been certain which one was the official one. It always seemed to reek of death sticks and sweat, and it attracted mostly miners, leaving smears of dust from their boots across the floor. It wasn’t much, but the camaraderie and feel of the place reminded him of 79s, although the clone bar had definitely been cleaner, even on its worst days.

He wasn’t sure why he’d come here. Throughout his training and the war, he’d had more than enough medical droids warn him against drinking with a concussion, and he’d been stupid enough to ignore that advice only once. The worst hangover of his life combined with the exceptionally loud ass-chewing Crater had given him were enough to ensure he never would make that mistake again. His captain hadn’t normally been one to raise his voice, but he suspected the volume of the reprimand had been part of the punishment.

Maybe he wanted to be around people, to blend into a crowd.

Unfortunately, the place was mostly empty.

Should have guessed that. Could have if my head wasn’t throbbing.

Only two other patrons were there, tucked into corner booths. Normally, you couldn’t hear the music coming from the rundown player in the corner, but tonight, the notes easily carried across the cantina, cutting through the silence even at their low volume.

Chuck chose a seat at the far end of the bar, away from the other patrons. He hadn’t gotten a good enough look to determine who they were, but he didn’t want to sit close enough to encourage conversation. Just because he wanted to be around people didn’t mean he actually wanted to interact with them.

He just didn’t want to feel alone.

Even with the concussion, he was thinking clearly enough to know he wasn’t ready to go back to the Starlight, to the kids he didn’t have answers for, to the sheets that still smelled like the woman that had just told him killing those kids and the use of inhibitor chips were justified.

Did she actually say that though?

Chuckles folded his hands and stabbed his thumbs into the crease between his brows, his eyes squeezed shut.

Stop trying to give her an out.

He’d always been one to try and justify, to rationalize someone’s bad intentions away in favor of some less malicious reasoning. Crater had teased him about his optimism, but if he was honest, the majority of that optimism had died with Crater and most of his squad.

But this was Endi. She loved kids, or she at least seemed to tolerate them better than most. She loved to teach. She baked the best desserts he’d ever had. Sunlight sparkled in her eyes and her laugh sounded like music. She was gentle and kind and soft and sweet, and the person he believed her to be simply did not match the woman he’d sat next to tonight. The two women were incompatible in every way, and yet they were the same, and no amount of spin or mental contortions would change the fact that she was a danger to Arni and Nita, a danger to him.

How did I not see it?

His mind was still churning when he felt someone sit down next to him heavily. He ignored them for a moment before he felt a nudge in his shoulder.

“I expected a better welcome,” Anj croaked. “You’d think I hadn’t almost died today.”

He huffed mirthlessly as he tried not to stare. Anj’s head was wrapped in a wad of bandages that hid one eye. The other eye still glittered brightly but sported a massive bruise around the socket, and the cut on her cheek had been bandaged. The arm she had injured was in a sling, and he could see that two of her fingers were splinted. Every movement she made felt slow and carefully calculated, and he’d seen enough injured brothers to be able to see what body parts she was favoring or trying to keep away from scrutiny. In his estimate, she had at least a few injured ribs as well, an ankle that was giving her trouble, and she had all of the same muscle soreness he did.

If she noticed him tallying her injuries, she didn’t comment. Instead, with her good hand, she slid him an unlabeled green bottle across the worn wooden bartop.

“It was Lu’s. He kept the strongest stuff in town.” She sighed, her voice breaking slightly. “‘S not strong enough for this, though.”

Chuckles rolled the bottle between his hands, examining the amber liquid inside. He wasn’t certain she wanted him to ask how she got it. So he didn’t.

“I can’t drink this right now.” He tapped his temple. “Concussed.”

She scoffed, taking the bottle back. “More for me then, I suppose.”

A glass of water brushed Chuckles’s knuckles, and he glanced up to see the barkeep standing on the other side of the counter, watching him carefully. He’d never been certain what species they were and figured it would be rude to guess, but they were at least visibly humanoid, a handful of centimeters taller than Chuck with dark skin and even darker eyes. Their shock of pink hair was woven into tight braids that hung down their back to their waist, and silver piercings sparkled from their nose and ears. They went by Mona and normally, they met their patrons with a smile and joke, but tonight, he could see sadness and sympathy in their eyes.

Word’s gotten around about what happened.

“Thanks Mona,” he rasped.

“Let me know if you need more. Anything for you, Anj?”

The Nautolan raised the bottle she was drinking from wordlessly, and Mona took it, sniffing before wrinkling their nose.

“I’d normally tell you to take outside shit back outside, but that’s Lu’s isn’t it?”

Anj nodded, her eyes falling to the wooden bartop.

“His stuff always could take the lining off your stomach,” Mona said softly, their deep voice suddenly more gravelly. “I’m sorry.”

Anj just nodded again, and Chuckles could see her swallow hard, her teeth digging into her lower lip as her thumb rubbed over the bottle. Mona met Chuck’s eyes one more time before slipping out of view.

“How’s Hells?” Chuckles asked, hoping the news would be good enough to bring Anj up a little.

“She’ll live. Lost a lot of blood, but we… we got her there in time. A few more minutes, and we’d be having a very different conversation.”

Chuckles fought off a shudder at the possibility that they’d eluded.

She’s alive. She’s ok.

��She may never walk unaided again though.” The statement was forced out through gritted teeth, and Anj’s voice broke on the end of the last word.

“But she’ll walk,” Chuckles said softly.

“Yeah. Yeah, she will.” Anj rasped with a soft, pained laugh. “Once she woke up, she was already chattering about what sort of cane she’d want, and how I shouldn’t worry because it will make her that much more interesting.” She took a swig from the bottle, hardly flinching at the harshness of the liquor inside. “Her first thought was to comfort me, as if I was the one that almost lost her leg today. As if I was the one that almost bled out in her arms.” She sniffed. “Like I always say, she’s a kindness I never accounted for in my life.”

“Petal?” Chuckles prompted after a moment.

Anj sighed, dropping her voice low as if someone might hear. “The first time she… she touched my face, it was so gentle. I flinched because of my previous partner, but Helly was slow and patient with me. She never pushed me, but it made me want to let her have more of me.” She paused. “There was a tree on one of the small islands near where I grew up on Glee Anselm. I can’t even remember if the island had a name now, but I remember the tree. It would bloom every spring with these pale pink blossoms, and towards summer, it would drop the petals when the wind would pick up. My sister and I loved to run and dance in them when it happened, and that sensation of the petals grazing my cheek, that’s what Helly made me think of the first time she touched my face. So, she’s Petal to me.”

“Execute Order 66.”

The memory of the tree in the Jedi temple gardens slammed into Chuckles, and tears leapt into his eyes. He swallowed hard, burying that moment of peace and the violence that had followed.

“That’s… that’s really beautiful, Anj,” he croaked out.

“So is she,” the Nautolan replied, seemingly not noticing his turmoil or chalking it up to the day they’d both had.

They sat in silence for a while. Chuckles had a million questions he wanted to ask Anj, but he wasn’t sure if now was the time. She was clearly grieving, and the day’s events had taken a toll on them both.

But I need to know. I need to know so I can protect the kids.

“Why’d he do it?”

The question was out of his mouth before he could overthink it. The Nautolan didn’t meet his gaze, locking her dark eye on the shelves at the back of the bar as if the half-empty bottles were suddenly the most interesting thing in the universe.

“What makes you think I know?” Her tone was slow, deliberate, just like his had been when he’d been trying to disentangle himself from Endi an hour before.

“Hells said something in the mine. That she didn’t think he’d do something. That you both didn’t think it.”

Anj shrugged, taking a drink before answering.

“Helly was delirious with pain. She didn’t know what she was saying. Surprised she could even get a coherent sentence strung together.”

“Anjii.” Annoyance flared within Chuckles. He leaned closer, dropping his voice low. “I need you to tell me what you know. I need to keep my kids safe, and I can’t do that if I don’t have all the information. I need to know what you know, otherwise you’re putting Arni and Nita in danger.”

Anj said nothing for a moment, but a muscle in her jaw ticked in anger. Her eye darted around the bar one last time, ensuring no one was listening to them before she lowered her voice.

“I’ve done a hell of a lot to keep your kids safe, Chuckles. More than you’ll ever know.” Her unbandaged eye finally met his, piercing even in the dim lighting. “And I did it without you having to tell me anything you didn’t want to. Even though you didn’t trust me fully.”

Chuckles shrank back in his seat, his heart thundering in his chest. Anj’s expression softened as she took his reaction in. His mind raced, rapid thoughts bouncing off the pounding throb behind his eyes.

She knows. We have to get out of here.

He stood. Anj’s good hand clamped around his forearm.

“Sit,” she hissed. “If you run now, you’ll only make this worse. There’ll be questions. Now, sit.”

Chuckles stood still, his mind scrambling to pull a stream of logical thoughts together, but panic overwhelmed him.

What does she know? Who else knows? How long do we have?

“Sit. Down.”

He sat.

Anj watched him for a moment before casting another cautious glance around. She leaned in closer, her voice slightly above a whisper.

“The day we helped move the kids down to the hold, Arni ran back up to get one more thing out of the bunk. Now, I was holding the last armful of knick-knacks, so that struck me as odd, but kids sometimes have things stashed, so I thought nothing of it. They came back a few minutes later with something shoved up under their shirt. I didn’t press, but they stumbled on the last step, and that metallic something clattered out onto the floor. I turned, and they were hurriedly shoving it back out of view.” Her tongue darted out to wet her lips. “I’ve seen many weapons in my time, Chuck. Several of the variety they were carrying, although never up close.”

Their lightsaber. She saw their lightsaber.

Chuckles felt like the bottom of his stomach was going to drop out. His mind frantically raced, trying and failing to come up with a believable explanation as to why an eleven-year-old would have a Jedi weapon.

“Anj-”

She raised her hand to cut him off. “I turned away, and as far as they know and as far as I’m concerned, I never saw it. Got it?”

He nodded, unable to formulate words.

Her eye was flicking over every centimeter of his face, taking in his reaction, watching him process the new information. Finally, she spoke again.

“I need you to understand that you can trust me. That there is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you and your kids safe. Hells knows too. I couldn’t keep it from her. She knows me too well. But there are people that you’re close to that wouldn’t do the same.”

“I know about Endi,” he said quietly.

Anj’s mouth drew into a thin line.

“Ah,” was all she said.

“I mean, I didn’t know, not until tonight,” he stumbled. “I thought… I don’t know what I thought, but it wasn’t that. I just… that’s why I’m here. And not at home. I don’t understand what happened, and I don’t have answers.” He scrubbed his hands over his face before tugging gently on his mohawk. “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”

A look of guilt clouded Anj’s features. She rolled her shoulders, rolling the bottle between her hands. “Thought you’d see it on your own eventually. And I wasn’t sure how to intervene without telling you what I knew. I wasn’t sure how you’d react to me knowing something you didn’t want me to.”

“It’s not that I didn’t want to tell you, Anj,” he rasped, his throat suddenly tightening on him. “I wanted to. The kids love you and Hells. I just… the last place we were at, I told people. And then those people had to lie for us, and that put them in danger. And I… I didn’t want to do that to you.”

“You wanted to tell her.”

“I did,” he gritted out. “Almost did tonight. Thank the Maker she told me where she stood first.”

Anj was quiet for a moment. “There wasn’t much about the war that made it out here. Lots of folks have to just believe what they see on the feeds. That’s all we get out here.”

“You know better.”

“I do. But I wasn’t always on Lothal.”

Chuckles paused. “You said you saw… a weapon like Arni’s before.”

Anj nodded, taking another deep pull from the bottle, drawing her lips back from her teeth in a grimace as the liquor burned her insides. “I did. Was in Chaleydonia on Christophsis when the war broke out. The Separatists moved in quick, and then there was a siege and a battle, and I decided I wanted no part of it, so I headed for Lothal. Seemed like it wouldn’t see much action, and my bet paid off. Well, until now, I suppose.”

“And that was enough? To make you see things differently about the Jedi?”

Anj shrugged again. “I don’t claim to understand the ins and outs of everything that happened politically at that time. But I do know what the Jedi meant to people. Growing up, we were taught that they were peacekeepers. The stuff of legends, really. And regardless of how much of that was true or not, I don’t see how killing off all of them did anyone a lick of good.” She shivered slightly, and her grip tightened around the bottle, now only about half full. Her voice dropped even lower.

“I’m no fan of the Empire. Wasn’t that big on the Republic either, but they at least felt like they tried at times. The Empire just seems keen to get as much power as they can and quash any naysayers. And all that about the Jedi? I don’t know everything, but I cannot imagine a galaxy that would be better off without Arni and Nita existing.”

Chuckles’s vision blurred, and his voice cracked. He sniffed hard. “Me either.”

He felt Anj’s eye on him and turned to meet her gaze. More questions were looming in her expression, and he could guess what they were.

You can trust her. You know you can.

He took a deep breath.

“My chip didn’t work,” he said softly. “I was still in service at the end of the war. I’d gone to the temple to see someone, and that’s when all hell broke loose. I-I saw them, my brothers, killing Jedi, killing children.” His hands were shaking, and he folded them together, clasping tightly to keep the tremors in check. “I found the kids and got them out. At first I thought… I thought it had to be Seppies. That they’d gotten ahold of clone armor and snuck in. There was no universe in which I could fathom them doing that.”

“So the chips were real?”

“I think so. Never got any official confirmation, but when the order was given, there was a sharp pain in my head, like something trying to activate, crazy as that may sound.” His fingers drifted up to graze the place on his scalp where he’d felt that stabbing pressure that day. “I just… they’d never have done that, Anj. Not without something making them.”

“Why didn’t yours work?”

He huffed a laugh. “The only thing I can figure is too many concussions. I’ve come down on that place on my head at least twice. Best guess is I’ve damaged it. So I kept my wits about me by sheer dumb luck.”

Anj chuckled quietly. “So your concussions saved your life. And theirs.” She extended the lip of the bottle towards the rim of his water glass.

“It’s bad luck to toast with water,” he mumbled.

“You think we haven’t used up all the bad luck today?”

Chuckles huffed at that, clinking his glass of water against her bottle. “Luck didn’t have much to do with it.”

“Oh, I think we’re luckier than you know,” Anj said softly.

The Nautolan sighed deeply, clearly still wrestling with how much to tell him. Finally, she gingerly turned, fishing a piece of folded flimsi out of her back pocket and placing it on the bar top. She drummed her fingers on it, still thinking until finally, she let out a long, slow exhale.

“Judging by the fact that you’re still sitting here and not halfway to hyperspace, I’m going to assume you’ve decided to trust me with your secret. At least, I’m hoping you’re not going to kill me after we leave here.” Her lip was curled into a nervous smirk.

“Thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. Plus, I think I still like your odds, even with one arm in a sling,” he joked with a pained wink.

Anj relaxed slightly. “Right. Well, then it’s only fair I put my trust in you.” She tapped the paper. “This was in the breast pocket of the shirt you had on. Hells was still clutching it when they brought her into the med tent.”

His brow furrowed in confusion. “I didn’t have anything in that pocket.”

“It’s from Lu.”

Chuckles’s blood pounded in his ears as his brain raced back to the moments just before the explosion. He remembered Lu’s expression, the way he’d awkwardly patted Chuck’s chest, just above the pocket.

“Karking hells,” he swore quietly.

“I’m going to tell you what I know about Lu,” Anj continued, as if she hadn’t heard him. “And then you and I are gonna read this together. I tried. I couldn’t do it. It’s addressed to you. And I just can’t do it.”

Chuckles nodded slowly. “Alright.”

Anj studied the bottle between her hands, and he could see she was steeling herself for what she was about to share. He propped his feet on the bar stool and faced forward, occasionally glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. He knew she’d speak when she was ready, and he didn’t want to stare at her or the folded note sitting next to her elbow. Finally, she spoke, her voice gravelly and grief-stricken.

“Lu was like you and I,” she rasped tightly. “Has a past he’s running from. His homeworld was one of the first to have the Empire clamp a manacle on it. Entire cities occupied with patrols in the streets, picking people up for silly things like being out past curfew. Lu and a few others didn’t take kindly to that and raised a bit of hell about it. Most of his friends got locked up, but Lu had his twin sister Cilli and her family depending on him, so he managed to get out and ran here. He’s been lying low, sending money home to Cilli and her kids. They were close. Real close. Their parents died young, so they’ve been looking out for one another ever since. Cilli’s second pregnancy was so hard, and her man cut and ran when things got tough, so Lu stepped up.” Anj paused to take another swig from the bottle, wincing slightly. “Someone got a message to Lu yesterday. The Empire found out Cilli was getting credits from him. Not sure how. He was so careful, running the credits through all sorts of different places to make sure it didn’t trace back to him. But someone figured it out, and the Imperials classified that as conspiring with a traitor to the Empire. Apparently they take their treason quite seriously, and they raided the house. With detonators.”

She paused to let out a shuddering breath.

“The kids were inside, and they didn’t care. Kids. Gone in an instant. They were closest to the door. As you can imagine, Cilli didn’t take it lying down, not after seeing her babies die. From what it sounds like, she went out with a blaster in her hand and a curse on her lips.”

Anj’s head was down, her tendrils hiding her face. Chuckles could still hear her quivering exhales. The blood was drained from her knuckles, and it was a wonder the bottle in her hand hadn’t shattered in her grip.

“I commed Lu to give him a heads up about the inspectors yesterday, and when he didn’t answer, I went over to check on him. He’s normally pretty responsive, so it struck me as odd. When I got there, I could tell right away something was wrong. He was quiet, more quiet than usual, but there was a tremor in his hands and an anger I could just feel rolling off of him. I finally pressed enough for him to tell me, and when he started talking, it was like he couldn’t stop the words. I told him to take the week off, to not do anything rash. But the minute I saw him today, I knew he hadn’t listened.”

Chuckles chewed the inside of his cheek as he turned the information over in his head. He certainly understood that anger that Lu had felt. There had absolutely been days where he’d felt the losses so deeply that he’d considered burning everything down.

The difference is you didn’t. Because your remaining brothers would have faced the consequences.

“Anger and grief are a deadly combination,” he murmured bitterly. “Keeps you from thinking clearly. And that’s when you put the other people you care about in danger.”

Anj’s head snapped up, and her eye pierced into him fiercely.

“Watch your tongue.”

He glared back at her, taking a sip of his water. “He brought the damn shaft down on us, Anj. He almost killed us too. I get his anger, trust me, I do. But I would never have done something that could have gotten others I cared about hurt.”

“And Lu didn’t either,” she snarled under her breath.

“How do you figure?”

She sighed, picking at the edge of one of her bandages.

“I didn’t know the reason for the inspection until this morning. The new shaft was pushed for by the Empire in order to meet their quotas, so they provided small mining corporations with some of the construction materials as incentives to expand. Every screw and strut and gear in that shaft comes from Imperial factories, and apparently, that means they’re built by the lowest bidder.” She scoffed angrily. “Jerrno got notice from some of his partners that the inspectors were coming to look at the construction of the shaft. Apparently, they’ve been making the rounds, claiming shafts aren’t being constructed properly, but they’re just covering their own asses. The beams we were supplied with can’t hold what they’re spec’ed to. Another mine saw a collapse last month, and the inspectors came out and blamed the corp and their construction processes. But when they tested out a few of the extra beams they had leftover, they found the struts didn’t even come close to being as durable as they were supposed to be.”

Chuckles nodded slowly as she met his gaze once more, her voice quieter.

“Lu was the best damn demolitions expert I’ve ever seen. He could blow a mite off a massiff without waking it up. He had no way of knowing about the fucking beams. Teef was filling me in right when Lu walked in.” Her voice broke. “You think what you want, but I believe Lu just wanted to take out the shaft and inspectors, not bring the entire cliff down on us. That collapse was far too uncontrolled for one of his explosions.”

Her fist tightened around the neck of the bottle, and the muscle in her jaw twitched angrily again.

“They weren’t even going to tell us about the beams. The inspectors just strolled in this morning without so much as a ‘hello’ or ‘fuck you’. They were just gonna tell us it was our fault. Probably still will.”

She drained the bottle, tossing it into a bin at the back of the bar before she turned to face Chuckles again.

“Lu didn’t almost kill us, but the Empire sure did.”

Chuckles let out a long, shuddering breath. All of the anger and resentment he felt leaked out of him, and grief swiftly settled into its place. Of course Lu hadn’t meant to hurt them, not the Lu that had held Nita’s hand or listened to Arni babble on for hours, not the Lu that had quietly showed up with furniture for the kids’ room and watched with a quiet smile as they squealed over it. There was almost a relief for Chuckles, to let the pieces fall into place and find that the Nikto he’d known was the same person he’d always thought he was, the confirmation that Lu was the Lu he’d seemed to be.

It still felt as though he’d lost two people today, Lu and the Endi he thought he’d known, and he grieved them both. Tears streamed from his eyes, and he wiped at them hurriedly, sniffling hard.

“I’m so sorry, Anj.”

“You had no way of knowing,” she croaked. “I just… I know he’s going to get branded as a terrorist, an unhinged and dangerous and cruel man.”

It’s already happening, Chuckles thought, Endi’s words echoing in his mind.

“But we know better,” Anj continued. “We knew him.”

“We did,” Chuckles agreed. Quietly, he reached over for the note. Anj didn’t move. Taking a deep breath, he unfolded the paper.

Chuck,

I can’t give this to Anj or Hells. They’ll know immediately and stop me. So I’m sorry, but it has to be you. I know you may not get my reasoning, and that’s fine, but I know you’ll understand wanting to keep loved ones safe, and the anger that comes with failing at that. Tell Anj I’m sorry, but I can’t let it stand. I’m sure she’ll tell you why, about my sister. All that I had in this galaxy was spilled on Cilli’s front stoop. I can’t stand for it, but I can damn sure fall making my point.

I don’t know how Arni and Nita came to be yours, but keep them safe at all costs. I’ve taken your name off the roster for today and for the rest of the week. Left a note for Jerrno that I didn’t want your name involved, especially being a clone. I’m confident that’ll be enough, and Anj’ll see that it is.

You and your kids are special, a symbol of hope in a galaxy turned on its head. I hope they have the future I wanted for my kin. See that they do. And see that Arni keeps that laser sword better hidden.

It’s better this way. I know too many names and too many places, and I can’t have any more blood on my soul. Tell Anj and Hells I’m sorry. I hope they’ll forgive me and know that they were the family I chose. You all were.

“That shithead did see,” Anj breathed over Chuckles’s shoulder. “He was right behind me, that day on the ship, but I stepped in front of Arni, trying to hide it better.” She choked out a laugh. “Never reacted, and had a perfect sabacc face about it when I probed later. Karking asshole.”

“The roster?” Chuckles managed to grit out around the emotions that were overwhelming him.

“I’ll see that it’s handled,” Anj said quietly. “And I’ll testify to whoever that will listen that Lu acted alone, that he’d been nursing anti-Imperial sentiment for a long time, but we never thought it’d get this far.”

“Anj, I can’t ask that-”

“You’re not askin’. I’m telling you how it’s going to be. Maker alive, Lu wasn’t stupid, but this was impulsive and short-sighted and driven by grief. He planned all these contingencies, but he didn’t really think this through. And now, here we are, picking up the pieces and trying to stay safe while he fucks off into whatever afterlife he believed in.” Chuckles could see her moving through her grief, allowing some anger at her friend to finally show.

“It won’t even take them long to fix that shaft,” she snorted. “A few months at most, even if we replace all the struts, and we’ll be right back down there. I know I told him to not do anything rash, but if he’d… I’d have…” She took a deep, steadying breath. “I’d have at least helped him make sure it counted for something.”

It was then that Chuckles saw it. Anj sat back, her unbandaged eye glistening with unshed tears, and yes, there was grief there, but more than that, there was betrayal. She’d thought Lu would reach out to her, would allow her to help him when he needed her most, and instead, he’d gone alone.

“He kept you safe by keeping you out of it,” Chuckles rasped, reaching over and gripping her hand. She tried to yank it away, but he held on tightly. “And for that, I’m grateful, Anj. Because I’d have done the same.”

“I doubt that,” she snorted, wiping at her eye with her good hand. “Even as reckless as you are.”

Chuckles was quiet for a beat before he folded his hands in front of him. “When I was a pilot, I lost a lot of brothers. Pretty much my entire squad once. I got out by the skin of my teeth. A pilot’s death isn’t like a normal soldier. We don’t bleed out slowly on some battlefield. It’s rare we even get a shot at a medic. If a ship’s done, it’s done, and in the middle of a fight, it’s not like you can take it to a hangar for maintenance.”

He felt Anj watching him, and he pressed on slowly.

“Sometimes, when your ship’s damaged and there’s no hope of you making it home, you do something reckless. You do what you can to steer your fighter and take out as many of the bad guys as you can. It’s not an official thing we’re trained to do, but many of my brothers did. Of course they knew it wasn’t always guaranteed to do much. Sometimes, you’re just a spec of flame on the side of a much bigger battle station. But the thing is, you hope that at a minimum, someone will see it happen, will see you doing everything you can with the moments that you have left, and you hope that galvanizes them.” He ran his thumb along the edge of his water glass. “I think Lu knew as well as you do that it wouldn’t take them long to rebuild, but I think what he hoped is that we’ll be galvanized by what he did. We’ll see what the Empire did to him and his family, and we’ll see his final act of defiance, and we’ll carry that spirit with us and spread it.” He tugged lightly at his mohawk. “I’ve been hiding for the last year, worried that if I stepped into the fight again, I’d put my kids and those around us at risk. But now… I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either,” Anj said quietly. “But what I do know is I’m not sure I can let it all stand. Same as Lu. But I haven’t an inkling of where to start.”

Chuckles took another sip of his water. “Right now, I think the best thing we can do is keep Lu’s memory and message alive,” Chuckles whispered. “Let the anger and the grief pass so that you think clearly. And then you wait.”

“Wait?”

He nodded. “The opportunities will come. We start small. Maybe someone like Lu or me needs a job, and we help them get one and cover their tracks. Maybe some expensive equipment goes missing.”

Anj chewed her lip, and he could see her thinking. “Maybe someone with a lot of pull finds out about the construction materials in the mines.”

“Maybe,” he agreed. Grief was still the main emotion in his system, but Chuckles could feel something sparking in his chest, like a nearly-dead ember being blown upon. He hadn’t felt that spark in over a year, but it felt good, right even.

Maybe I’m finally on the right path.

He could feel a similar energy radiating off of Anj. The slump in her shoulders had disappeared, and a hint of her usual smirk was tugging at the corner of her mouth. “For Lu,” she said quietly, holding out her pinky finger on her uninjured hand towards Chuckles.

He grinned.

“For Lu,” he promised, locking his pinky with hers.

“But tonight, we rest.”

“Some of us do,” he corrected her. “I’m not supposed to sleep much.”

“I don’t know that either of us will do much of that,” Anj said quietly, some of the sadness seeping back in. “But we can still try.”

“We can.” Chuckles pushed his stool back from the bar, standing carefully. He folded the flimsi back up and slid it back to Anj. “You keep this.”

She nodded wordlessly, taking the note between her calloused fingers and rubbing it gently. “Don’t come ‘round the mine until I tell you it’s safe, got it?” she whispered.

“Yes ma’am.” He gently clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Take care of yourself. And give Hells my love. Let us know if there’s anything we can do.”

“When she’s better, can you bring the kids around?” Anj asked quietly. Chuckles could hear the emotion she was holding back. “They always make her light up.”

“You got it,” he said quietly.

She nodded.

“‘Night Mona!” Chuckles called over his shoulder. He thought he heard them call a soft response, but he was already out the door.

He wasn’t sure if it was the water or the conversation or his headache finally fading a bit, but a determination had settled into his chest, one that he hadn’t realized had been lying dormant in the year since the war. He wanted to do something, even if he wasn’t sure what that was yet.

But we’ve got to be safe. I can’t put the kids in danger.

But what am I teaching them if we just keep running and hiding?

How to survive.

But what if they want more than that?

His mind was still wrestling with itself, even as he made his way home, his feet carrying him back to the Starlight as if on autopilot. The interior of the ship was dark and quiet, and he could still smell the dinner he’d shared with Arni and Nita hours ago. The familiarity of it all brought a sense of relief, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion. He kicked off his boots with a sigh, shutting the hatch behind him.

Home. But maybe not settled.

His eyes burned, and he ground the heel of his hand into them, huffing a quiet laugh.

One step at a time.

A soft shuffling sound broke him out of his haze, an incongruence from his expectations that jarred him just enough to draw his attention. His eyes snapped to the co-pilot seat.

Arni was sitting in it, wrapped in the heavy blanket from his bunk. They clearly hadn’t anticipated him coming home, but their sharp brown eyes quickly scanned his face, absorbing everything as usual. He was too tired and overwhelmed to try and hide his feelings anymore tonight.

“Why are you up, kid?” he asked.

They shrugged. “Woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep.”

“Nita?”

“Out. She was pretty tired.”

Chuckles nodded, trudging over to the pilot seat and plopping into it. He let his gaze drift out the front viewport to the stars, taking in the mountains and the soft glow of the town, suddenly less welcoming than it had seemed when he’d woken up this morning.

Maker alive, morning feels like a lifetime ago. When Lu was still here.

It wasn’t all threatening. There was good in the little town still, but there were also threats he’d let slide past his defenses, and now more than ever, he needed to be cautious.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” Arni said softly, interrupting his thoughts.

He sighed heavily. “Me too, kid. I’m sorry I scared you like that.”

“Wasn’t your fault,” they replied, hugging the blanket closer around them.

“Is that why you can’t sleep?”

They nodded. “When… when we first heard about the explosion, I knew there was a chance you were gone. So I started trying to think of what we’d do, Nita and me.”

Chuckles’s heart shattered.

“I figured I could probably keep doing repairs, and maybe Grinz would let me help out at the store for some credits,” they continued. “I just needed to find a way to keep us fed until I was old enough to go into the mines. I think we could have made it work.” They turned to look at him, their eyes shining with tears. They gave him a small smile. “I’m glad we don’t have to though.”

Chuckles slid out of his chair, kneeling in front of Arni and pulling them into a tight hug.

“I’m so sorry, Arni. I’m so sorry,” he whispered. His chest swelled with awe at the young Twi’lek and their selflessness, but the fact that they thought they were alone again, that they’d have to take care of Nita on their own tore at him. He bit back a shuddering sob, rocking Arni back and forth. He felt a damp spot form on his shirt where their face was pressed against his chest, and their fingers dug into the fabric of his shirt.

“I’m right here, kid. I’m alright.”

“I know. I was just scared.”

“That’s allowed.”

After a few minutes, they released him, wiping at their nose and eyes. Chuckles shifted back in the pilot’s seat, sniffling back his own emotions.

“Why didn’t you stay at Endi’s?” Arni asked quietly after a few moments.

Chuckles turned his head to look at them. They were watching him intently, gathering data from his reaction to the question. And that’s when it dawned on him.

The wariness. The hesitation. It all makes sense.

He sighed deeply.

“You knew, didn’t you? About her and how she felt about… about it all?”

Arni’s eyes dropped to their lap. They nodded.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Another shrug. “You seemed happy. And you deserve to be happy.” They met his gaze. “I thought you knew.”

Chuckles stared at them for a moment before scrubbing his hands over his face, tugging lightly at his mohawk.

“Arni, there is no universe where I’d want to be with someone like that. That thinks like that.” He sighed again. “Whoever I’m with, I want it to be someone that I could eventually trust with our secrets. Endi and people that see the galaxy the same way will never fit that category, understand?” His voice cracked, and he did his best to keep the anger and grief he felt at bay.

They thought I’d put someone like that above them.

Arni nodded again, meeting his eyes. “Maybe you can convince her.”

Chuckles huffed at the suggestion. “Nah. I don’t want to be with someone that I have to convince that killing children was a bad idea,” he joked dryly. “Or that putting chips in me and my brothers’ heads was wrong.” He shook his head, releasing a mirthless laugh. “I just can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. I’m such a kriffing idiot.”

“You’re not,” Arni said quietly. “You wanted to see the good in her. And I can’t fault you for that.” They pulled their skinny legs up to their chest, wrapping their arms around their knees. “Being alone is hard. I don’t want you to feel alone, Chuckles.”

“I’ve got you and Nita. I’ll never be alone.”

“That’s different and you know it,” they countered. “I saw how you looked at Teacher Endi. I’ve never seen you look at anyone else like that.”

Chuckles blew out a long breath through his mouth.

Dark curls. Sharp eyes. A twist of a smirk.

“There was someone else that I looked at like that. A long time ago,” he said quietly.

“What were they like?”

He glanced over at Arni. They were watching him intently with wide eyes.

“Only if you want to talk about them. I’d like to hear,” they added.

Chuckles nodded, letting his mind drift back to the garages of Coruscant.

“Her name was Brienna. We called her Bri for short. Well, Bolts mostly. She was a mechanic that worked on our ships. Deep, brown eyes that felt like she knew everything about you from just one glance, dark, wild curls that she always was blowing out of her face. A smile that could light your whole day up just before she ripped you a new asshole. Maker, she was so smart and quick. She was short, but she acted like she was ten meters tall. Took no shit from anyone.” He realized his cheeks were hurting from how big he was smiling. He hadn’t let himself think about Bri in a long time. Not really. But it felt good.

Arni was smiling too, as if Chuckles’s joy was infectious. “What happened to her?”

The smile on Chuck’s face faded.

“Not sure. I was going to see her on the day the war ended. We’d been seeing each other in secret, keeping it casual. She didn’t want the other pilots to think I was getting special treatment, so we didn’t tell many people. I’d promised to take her to dinner when the war was over and court her properly. And then… well, you know the rest of that story.”

“Did you love her?”

Chuckles chewed the inside of his cheek. “Yeah. Yeah I did. Was thinking of telling her that night.”

“I’m sorry.”

Chuckles met Arni’s eyes again. “I’m not. I got you and Nita out of the deal.”

“But you never got to tell her.”

He sighed again, shrugging one shoulder. “That’s true. But I’d like to think she knew. And I almost hope she thinks I died. Better that than her thinking I was a child killer or a mindless drone that offered the Republic up on a silver platter.”

“That’s still sad.”

Chuckles tucked his hands behind his head, carefully propping his boots up on the flight console of the ship.

“It is, but I was lucky that I got to experience love like that, kid. Not many of my brothers did. There were some that tried to make things work, but it was hard. You knew tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed, and if you found someone to share your life with, there was a good chance you might leave them behind. Not to mention a good portion of the galaxy didn’t see us as people in the first place. I was lucky to have Bri, even if it was brief and didn’t end the way I wanted it to.”

“Do you miss her?”

Heat crept up to Chuckle’s cheeks, and his eyes stung slightly. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “When I think about her.” He looked over at Arni. “I think you would have liked her.”

“What if we tried to find her?”

He forced a smile, touched by Arni’s hopefulness and desire to find someone that meant so much to him. But he didn’t share their optimism.

“It’s a nice thought, but I wouldn’t even know where to start, kiddo.” He reached over and squeezed their shoulder.

“I’m alright. I’m sure she’s moved on already. And I want her to be happy, you know?”

Arni appeared to contemplate this for a few moments.

“You should be happy too.”

Chuckles’s smile came more naturally this time. “I will be, kid. It hurts a bit right now, but I will be happy. Don’t you worry.”

They sat in silence for a while longer, watching the stars together. Finally, Chuckles could hear Arni’s breathing deepen, punctuated by the occasional soft snore. As carefully as he could, he gathered the Twi’lek in his arms and made his way down to the hold, doing his best not to trip over the toys that were scattered around. Nita was still dozing quietly, her trooper doll tucked close to her side. Chuckles tucked Arni back into bed gently, waiting a few minutes for the confirmation that they were still asleep, and when he heard another snore escape them, he smiled, sneaking back to the cockpit.

It had been a while since he’d slept in the pilot’s chair, but it felt fitting tonight. He considered what he’d do with the sheets that still smelled like Endi as he retrieved the brown bottle of mystery liquor from its hiding place and sat back down heavily in the weathered seat.

Maybe just a little. There isn’t that much of it left anyway.

Sorry, Crate.

The burn of the booze felt nice and familiar, warming his insides and taking some of the edge off of his feelings. He knew he had to come up with a reason to end things with Endi, one that didn’t create suspicion or out him as an enemy of the Empire. He also knew he’d likely have to carry on the charade for a while longer. He’d acted strangely enough tonight that ending things immediately may make her suspicious.

He hated this.

“Now’s just not a good time for the kids. Work’s getting to be too much, especially with what just happened, and I don’t think that’s fair to you.”

No, that lets her counter it.

“I’m not over the last person I was with. I’m not ready to move on yet. I thought I was, but I’m not.”

That could work.

It wasn’t exactly untrue now that he thought about it. How many times had flashes of Brienna invaded his mind while he was with Endi? How many times had he almost called her the wrong name?

Maybe I was just trying to find someone to fill that space for me. But no one was ever going to be her.

Chuck glanced over at the now-empty co-pilot chair and noticed Arni had left their sketching supplies in it. Leaning over, he picked up a loose piece of flimsi and placed it on the top of their journal before reaching for a pencil.

He started with her eyes. Those were her most striking feature, in his opinion. He could get the shape right after a few rough attempts, but never could seem to capture the light in them or the sharpness, the way they’d always felt like they were pinning him down. He moved on to her nose, which proved easier, and then her lips. He couldn’t quite get their fullness right or the permanent skeptical quirk her mouth always seemed to have, but what he finally came up with felt somewhat acceptable. The curve of her jaw was easy enough from memory; he’d touched that place on her enough to never forget it, cradling her face when he’d kissed her, running his fingers along it as she slept.

Her ears were impossible, and he eventually compromised by deciding to cover them with her hair, but even that wasn’t right. The curls were mostly the right shape, but he couldn’t get them to sit right against her face, nor could he add the shine they always seemed to have. As his frustration grew, so did his level of inebriation, and at some point he tossed the paper and pencil aside with a huff, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders and grumbling to himself before eventually drifting off to sleep.

Brienna’s loud cackle and brown eyes haunted his dreams. He could almost feel the rough fabric over her coveralls beneath his fingers, smell the oil and grease on her skin.

Bri.

Even with the concussion, Chuckles slept through the night, too overcome by exhaustion to worry about protocol. When he awoke in the morning, the paper and pencils had all been cleared away along with the empty liquor bottle.

Tag List: @redheadgirl @cyarbika @witchklng @djarrex @arctrooper69 @sleepingsun501 @ladytano420 @rexxdjarin @echos-girlfriend @zoeykallus @leftealeaf @galacticgraffiti @hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall @ariadnes-red-thread @goblininawig @merkitty49 @ladykatakuri @runforrestr @baba-fett @daimyosprincess @obihiddlenox @bucketbunny99 @fordo-kixed-rex @nerd-ika @amish---paradise @arctrooperechy

#karrde writes #one step at a time #osaat #star wars #the clone wars #tcw #clone oc #twilek oc #pantoran oc #jedi oc #OC Chuckles #OC Chuckles Ayyshu #OC Arni #OC Arni Ayyshu #OC Nita #OC Nita Ayyshu #found family #angst #whump

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reverie-quotes · 9 months

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The truth is, I often have trouble with social situations; it's as though everyone is playing an elaborate game with complex rules they all know, but I'm always playing for the first time.

— Nita Prose, The Maid

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pan-flute-skeleton · 4 months

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I hate that I didn't get a chance to ask when I had the chance, but how about the soft ask number 6 with Vivi and Caj?

An intense kiss between these two? I think I can come up with something. @chordsykat make it a double

There was a reason she didn't drink tequila. Turned her into a completely different person. But what could Vivi do in Mexico? Not sample the flavors? Especially when Caj kept on passing her shot after shot. The trip was taken on a whim. She didn't even have time to tell Skwisgaar where she was going. Too busy packing a bag to talk. Vivi liked Caj's spontaneity, but she really wasn't expecting to be the third wheel.

"We like to spice things up with familiar faces," Nita explained on the plane. Vivi only heard some of it through the haze of the Pickle pill to get her through the flight. And now the haze had turned into a full on wonderful fog.

"Dis ams the best vacation evar," Vivi slurred as the three of them stumbled back to the resort.

"You're like a wet noodle," Caj joked as she held onto her soft sides, "wiggling right out of my grasp."

"Maybe we fed her one too many," Nita mentioned.

Vivi started to lean to the side. Caj thought she was gonna fall over, but drunk as she was, Vivi was clever. She pulled her into a deep, liquor kiss, crushing the back of Caj's head with her hand. Nita watched on in awe until they broke free of each other.

"Is tink we should gets to the room faster, ja?" Vivi purred.

Caj looked at her wife on standby and shrugged, "You heard her, let's go."

Nita shook her head, "Water first, then sexy times. Okay?" All three of them would need water before and after they were done.

#metalocalypse #mtl oc #original character #vivi skarsgård #caj stryker #writing challenge #answered #nita nirvana

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brawlstars-dragon-au · 1 year

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Emz, Piper, and Buster dragon sketches. Trying to work on the lineart for the first two but Buster needs more thought!.

Also a future group drawing I'm slowly working on:

I wanna get all the brawlers on for a big list sorted by rarities. This one features a tiny Shelly, Colt, Nita, Bull, and El Primo sketches!

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cloudydayjoy · 1 year

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The Smallest Watchdog

A short new recruit is frustrated by how inaccessible the Skullship is, and tries to make a change by appealing to her even shorter commander.

If only he wasn't a stubborn jerk who made it everyone else's problem.

#wander over yonder #commander peepers #woy peepers #woy watchdogs #woy watchdog #watchdog oc #woy watchdog oc #my writing #nita the watchdog #someday I'll post all my fics here #plenty more over there #woy

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purpleguitar · 1 year

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Ms Nita is literally so hot

#gap the series #gap spoilers #and she definitely was checking out mon. so #who's gonna write monsam/nita hm

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acertainmoshke · 1 year

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Wip files tag game: I’m so curious about what Akolla is 👀 -stuffaboutwriting

Ahhh thank you I'm so glad someone asked! Akolla is a person, as are Talil and Tlapil. They're all part of a 1,000-year fantasy history I'm building surrounding the kingdom of Halara. Specifically, there will be 10 books, focusing on different generations of the royal family.

Akolla is the focus of the second book, the fourth royal generation after Talil the war hero united them as one kingdom. Akolla is an only child and the first royal generation to be somewhat isolated from the general population, though he doesn't live in an actual castle until he becomes Kelesh (the Halaran word for ruler).

I'm not going to tell you everything about Akolla because that won't be all that interesting out of context. What I am going to tell you is about their gender system, because it's my favorite part. Halaran only has one pronoun for all people, vi, but I use different pronouns to differentiate in English. Their gender system is fun and complex, so have an organized list:

Children don't have a gender at all. They all wear tunics and leggings and grow their hair long (well, everyone grows their hair long but adults cover it). They choose their gender when they reach the age of apprenticeship at 14. There's a big ceremony and everything. At that point they start wearing gendered adult clothes and hair coverings--almost all adults wear some sort of headscarves.

With 6 different gender options, gender (mostly) is not based on physicality but on what you prioritize in life, what you want to project to the world, and which deity you feel most represents your self.

Gendered clothing is traditional but not completely fixed--the headscarf style is near-universal and can be the only way to read gender. But also, one can't always be sure. That doesn't matter as much when you don't need to know what pronoun to use for someone, and asking can start interesting conversations.

Ku is the gender associated with the sun deity, with warmth and farming and protection and life. They wear skirts and loose shirts and headscarves in a style similar to a tichel. I use eso/eson pronouns in translation

Aig is the gender associated with the river deity, with strength and leadership and hardiness and endurance. They wear pants and loose shirts and headscarves in a style similar to a turban. I use be/bel pronouns for them.

Dakal is the gender associated with the wilderness deity, with athletics, freedom, cunning, and bravery. They wear long robes and headscarves similar to a flowy hijab style. I use zie/zir for them.

Zjigol is a gender associated with the deity of craftsmanship, associated with art, creativity, entertainment, puzzles, and beauty. They wear wrap-around skirts and either no shirt or a shawl depending on weather and their own preferences. Their headscarves are worn tied at the base of the skull with a tail down their back or over their shoulder. I was running out of options by this point and I'm really not sure what they're called. I use ne/nem pronouns for them.

Kenba is a gender associated with the deity of change, with seasons, adventure, relationships, and politics. They wear single-piece jumpsuits with varying levels of tight or loose fitting legs depending on the current style. Their headscarves are tied tight across their hair with a knot above their forehead. I use kri/krun for them.

Yo'em are different. Traditionally, originally, one was considered a holy and blessed child if they were born with different physical traits. This includes noticeable intersex traits, those that appear at birth or at puberty, as well as other unusual ways to be born, missing or with differently shaped limbs, etc. Initially, they had no choice in the matter and were often sent to become priests (although others could be as well). They were thought to be good omens. In later years, their options expanded and they were given more choice. Eventually, some began to choose their own gender while others redefined what being yo'em meant to them. They wear tunics and leggings, but in a much more adult style than children's, and no headscarf, leaving their hair loose. I use the Halaran pronoun vi for them because I'd run out by then.

#I am still working on tweaking the details for sensitivity and coherence and such #but I'm also very proud of how I built their culture and language around this #the other kingdoms surrounding them have different systems #Eng is very binary #Aled has a third gender much like many real cultures #Nita is binary but much more accepting of being trans or enby #like an idealized modern western society #Moshke writes #Halara #ask game #thanks for the ask!#Writeblr

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chordsykat · 1 year

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Kloktober 2022 Day 27 - Fave Trope or Guilty Pleasure

The trope: A plot-mandated friendship failure (on multiple fronts but largely in the form of a band breakup) The guilty pleasure: Reading old fanfiction The bonus guilty pleasure: Sparkleface A little of both for you guys, today -- from my old fanfic. :) Art above is equally old, but I feel, quite fitting.

Some spoilery things in here if you haven't gotten to read Dethkomic to its current update. Too, this one takes place towards the very end of my very, very, stupidly long series. The girls live in an off-Mordhaus mansion called Kirsche Hall and have a ridiculous manager by the name of Jenna Syde in this one. Those things, along with a lot of what I wrote 10 years ago aren't as canon as they once were, so... maybe this is more like an AU? Maybe an AU of an AU? Honestly I have written these characters in so many forms now, I have no idea which is the real U.

But who cares, eh?! It's MTL and the canon universe is practically bound to get reset anyway. Enjoy!

--- The next morning, Nita Nirvana’s eyes flitted open as her nose recognized a distinct scent she hadn’t been privy to in almost as long as the time she’d spent living in Kirsche Hall: the smell of burnt toast.

More than curious, she pushed the black comforter of her pillow-overloaded mattress aside and got to her feet. Her silk robe was a beautiful ocean of ebony waiting crumpled on the floor next to her bed, and she eased it over her bare shoulders while stepping into a nearby pair of sandals. The scent of burning bread, among other harshly toasted things for sure, was heavier in the air when she walked through her bedroom door and out into the upstairs walkway. Not only that, she could finally hear Sparkles screeching angrily about something, a couple pans clattering around, and the ironically far more calm tone of William Murderface. All of this racket seemed to be centered entirely within the room directly below her - the house’s kitchen. She headed downstairs and, after a brief jaunt through Kirsche Hall’s never-ending dining area, Nita pushed open one of the surgical steel doors to the cook’s quarters. Normally, it was a picture of pristine sterility, but that wasn't the case this morning. Whole bags of flour had been torn open, upended and emptied of their contents which powdered the floor in generous amounts. With them were about three dozen eggs and more than a few gallons of milk. “Gordon Ramsay’s worst kitchen nightmare come to life…” the vocalist said to herself as she tried to find sturdy footing among the far larger spaces of slick surface.

The engineers of said nightmare, Murderface and Sparkles, were easily spotted beyond a jumble of pots, pans, and utensils which, naturally, hung on meat hooks from the ceiling. The duo was stove-side and engaged in a display of fantastic culinary mediocrity. Murderface was putting out a small fire which had sprung up on the corner of the cookbook he was holding while simultaneously ignoring about a dozen more mini-conflagrations going off in the pan before him. Sparkles had apparently been cracking eggs on her forehead. Large portions of yolk and shell smeared across her hairline and trailed down her unkempt bangs as evidence to this. “Awh!” Murderface sputtered, his face falling as he noticed Nita. He put the scorched cookbook down (atop another fire) on the counter. The act, by itself seemed to admit defeat. “We were gonna schurprische you!” Sparkles smiled toothily at Nita before she became distracted by the small fires. She put her hand on one and let it burn her for several seconds before pulling her palm away and hissing at it, then beating the licks of flame into oblivion with her fists. Ever since their joint attempt at a concert in Finland, Dethklok’s bassist had been spending more time at the Baen-Shee homestead, which was to Nita, a bit odd at first. Regardless, his presence had lent itself well to curb the dull sting at the back of everyone’s minds which reminded them all that Eden Nightwish was still in Mordhaus’ hospital, and still not conscious. Murderface was sometimes an opinionated, uncouth lummox with no shortage of bad ideas, but he was always kind at heart and in the very least, entertaining. Nita shot the mustachio’d man a sweet smile, “That’s so thoughtful, you guys!” She paused to look around the room and assess the damage more closely, then - It appeared extensive but salvageable. “Since I’m up, if you wanted to still cook breakfast, I’ll be happy to help. Not like I have anything better to do.” Just as she said that, a Klokateer came through the door and singled Nita out of the crowd immediately, “My lady, your manager wishes to speak with you in her office.” The female bodyguard spoke quickly and nearly slid off her high-heel boots and onto the milk and egg coated ground. When she finally had it together, she added, “It appears to be an urgent matter, majesty.” “Yes, of course.” Nita arched an eyebrow back at her two friends before, very carefully, following the gear out the door, “I’ll be back soon, guys. Keep it hot.” As she was leaving, she caught a glimpse of Sparkles pouring oil onto one of the stove fires. “That schouldn’t be a problem!” Nita heard Murderface yell just before the kitchen doors swung closed behind her. The office of Jenna Syde, Baen-Shee’s manager, wasn’t very far from the kitchen and dining area, so Nita was privy to the sounds of crashing pans and more of Sparkles’ screaming even after she found herself just outside the room’s threshold. Nita knocked timidly, but apparently loud enough to be heard. Jenna threw open the door to her chambers a second later. “Well!” was the first thing said by the offbeat manager-producer as she led Nita inside with a silly grin plastered on her face, “We’re a complete failure! Can you believe that?” “What?” Nita said, stumbling at those words in her march alongside Jenna to her desk. “What do you mean by that..?”

Jenna circled around to her chair, propped her thick boots on the fine cherry wood of her desktop and knocked over three recently emptied bottles of what must have been her breakfast beer in the process, “I mean Baen-Shee isn’t selling… and this last concert fiasco, since it was all a big hoax anyway, only put us further under…” Nita shook her head in disbelief as she sat down in the big leather chair. “Wait - hold on. Nobody’s picking us up now?” Her lips remained half-parted after she asked the question, and she could feel a hitch forming in the back of her throat. “Afraid not, kiddo.” Jenna said, picking up a stack of papers, “When the band went on hiatus the first time after Cherry passed away, there was risk signing you. Now Eden’s in the hospital and people assume there’s going to be another long wait before we get this thing back on the road again. Venues don’t like doing business with bands that are only half-together, no matter how good that one half may be.”

“Well, we can find another guitarist if we have to… we did before…” Nita wanted to bite her tongue. The idea squeezed at her heart for so many reasons. The thought of Eden not playing with them was made all the more bitter by the realization that it would only happen should the unthinkable come to pass, and the girl died. Nita wasn’t sure she could handle losing two band mates in the short course of one years’ time. “It’s worse than that, honey.” Jenna ducked down momentarily to grab another beer from the mini-fridge under her desk, “Caj is gone again.” “WHAT?” This news nearly drove Nita to an immediate breakdown… and simultaneous rage. “The guard who was on perimeter duty last night told us he saw her leaving. Naturally, you’re all free to come and go as you please, so he didn’t stop her. He gave us this…” Jenna pushed a piece of paper - obviously crumpled and then unfolded again, toward Nita’s side of the desk. The girl picked it up and her eyes immediately set to work devouring each word. She didn’t expect the story told by the meager little parchment, though, and the closer she came to the end, the further her eyelids drooped and her expression turned more pained. “I… never knew… she never told me about…” “She didn’t tell anyone!” Jenna interrupted with what almost came off as an appreciative snicker, “I almost think it’s a stunt. That PR nightmare from last week of hers…” Nita was on the defensive, then, crumpling the letter anew, “You think she faked this note and made up a crazy story so she could go AWOL again, just because she got into a little hot water over a leaked video? Honestly, Jenna!” The manager took a hefty swig from her bottle of Budweiser before continuing, “What I’m sayin’, kiddo, is that I don’t know enough about The Great Dane, and her associated band of closet-skeletons to honestly tell concert promoters that we’ll be right back to square one in no time. That’s my good name going down, there. Not yours, not Caj’s, not Baen-Shee’s. Mine” To stamp some finality on her words, Jenna then let out a loud belch that likely would have impressed even Nathan Explosion had he been present.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this…” Nita said, rubbing two circles around either side of her head. “Well, it’s just the business, babe. I wouldn’t worry about it. You were a respectable household name before this whole thing started, anyway. Besides, you’ve already had one offer…” “What? Who?” “Hah! Rikki Kixx!” Nita’s throat clenched, “You’re joking.” And she hoped Jenna was, though her hands stopped moving around her temples, then.

#old stuff #fanfiction #yeah i know #how about that?#kloktober 2022 #my writing #and that's how Nita ended up on tour with all new all sober Snakes N Barrels #or is it?#(it isn't)

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fouriis · 2 years

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underrated scene much??? sorry but i love them. The SOLIDARITY. i feel like it’s important to post bc in Instagram the fandom is really childish about the whole Nita thing and really hate her??? stfu

#also i saw someone here write how nita is basically a poc tris and its racist of veronica to portray her as a villain #yeah have that #they had the same goal eventually #stop she was so cute when she was like i think i’d be dauntless #veronica roth #tris prior #divergent #tobias eaton #tris #four #fouris #allegiant #nita divergent

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goonlalagoon · 2 years

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A house, a home || Young Wizards

I saw the ask response around the current canon ages of the YW kids while in the midst of camp NaNo, and wrote 1,800 words of spontaneous domestic fluff

Also on AO3

Nita flopped down onto the couch, letting out a sigh of relief. She enjoyed her job - mostly - but she still treasured her weekends, and Friday evening had finally come. Kit dropped down next to her, handing over a glass of water and only just avoiding spilling his own. She waved a hand in vague gratitude, knowing he’d understand it to mean thanks! Great to be home and good to see you, hi! without her saying a word, whether verbally or mentally. After over a decade of being each other’s closest friend and wizardry partner, they could have whole implied conversations through a few gestures or the twitch of an eyebrow.

After a few minutes, she twisted to curl up against him, head on his shoulder. He pressed a quick kiss to the top of her hair.

“Long day?”

“Yeah. Good! We got the agreement through, but it’s such a - ugh. You know.” Kit nodded, though she couldn’t see it. Even without listening to her talk about the ins and outs of environmental policy campaigning, he had a pretty good background understanding of his own. It was hard not to, as a wizard who could speak to the trees and understand what they said about the changing seasons and patterns, had friends who happened to be whales or dolphins (and sometimes wizards) who were as sensitive to the changes to the ocean as it was possible to be, or flip open your manual and see detailed readings of any atmospheric variation or pattern you cared to look at for as long as it had been possible to get measurements - in some cases longer, though those were less reliable. Some days Nita found the work invigorating, a way of following her Oath of wizardry in her day to day life. Other days it was just depressing.

Kit nudged her gently in the ribs.

“Okay, let me up. I’m gonna make mama’s chicken for dinner - it’s already marinading, we finished up a bit early ‘cause we had a super early call.” Nita let herself slump sideways into his vacated seat.

“See, this is why you’re the best.” He laughed, patted her ankle on the way by, and headed back into the kitchen. Nita wriggled until she was on her back, feet propped on the arm of the couch and staring up at the ceiling. She wrinkled her nose at the cracks in the paintwork. They’d fixed anything structural, mostly through subtle wizardry, though one or two things they’d had to get someone in to help with just to make it not too obvious that there was something odd going on.

They hadn’t gotten through much of the decorating yet, still getting used to the idea that they could decorate the place however they wanted. Splotches of paint samples dotted the walls, though Ronan had laughed his head off when they told him and then reminded them that you could buy pretty much anything you wanted at the Crossings. Including time in a nifty device that threw incredibly detailed holograms up, accounting for objects in 3D space, so that you could make a lifelike mock up of any room you chose and walk around it, seeing how different colours worked and what furniture you wanted to use. It wasn’t cheap, but Nita still had a lot of credit worked up with the staff of the Crossings from various dramatic exploits, and a solid in with the stationmaster. Also a very healthy alien bank account that was built largely on investments and returns from Carmela and Ronan’s ongoing side business of ethical chocolate exports. Writing them a custom wizardry for filtering through the business practices of every step of their pipeline to help quantify as much as possible the ethics of each partner had earned her several shares, and they were paying dividends.

It was largely how she and Kit had been able to afford the apartment.

Nita had been torn on the option. On the one hand, being able to play around in a SIMs style mock up was appealing. On the other, there was something nostalgic about putting up swatches, trying to imagine how the room would look. Eventually they’d decided it would be fun, and spent a day up at the Crossings getting increasingly distracted by different options - particularly after taking off the filter to limit them to what could be reasonably implemented on Earth, and could goof around with anything that the Crossings system could find labeled for sale anywhere related to ‘interior design’. Even if most of it had been for fun rather than useful, it had helped narrow down their colours and had given them ideas for things they might not have dreamed up otherwise, and for a few pieces of alien technology that they could pass off as slightly weird decorating choices or furniture, or even that just wouldn’t be visible.

(Alien temperature regulating systems, for example, ranged massively as you would expect, but there were several very discreet options that you could get that blended in perfectly to the join between wall and ceiling. While they could use Wizardry to achieve the same effect - and regularly did if they went anywhere out of atmosphere - it was also the kind of frivolous use of Power that they tried to avoid, particularly when there was a perfectly reasonable solution available.)

- Kit, do we have any plans this weekend? - There was a thoughtful hum from the kitchen, just about audible under the clatter of pans.

- Uh, think we’re seeing your dad for dinner on Sunday. There wasn’t anything urgent on my Manual when I looked earlier, not sure if anyone’s clamoring for more of your time more urgently - His mental tone was teasing, and Nita snickered. There was always someone asking for time from one or both of them; they’d taken on deputy-Advisory responsibilities for the region some years ago and taken on increasing responsibility since then. They’d talked it over a few times, and Kit thought he was likely to phase out of the pipeline for full Advisory soon. He liked working with other Wizards, but he dealt better going in depth with one or two as a mentor or support on a specific project, rather than trying to keep on top of what was going on with several people. In his own words, this is why I don’t want to be a manager at work, Neets. Better play to my strengths, yeah? Nothing concrete had been said, but Nita suspected that once they were more settled into their new home there would be more official movement coming through to back it up; the Powers and their on-planet network tried where they could to not pile new responsibilities on when you were dealing with something major outside of Wizardry, whether positive or negative.

Nita pulled her manual out of her otherspace pocket, skimming through messages.

- Nah, unless something comes up think it should be fine for my usual hours, a few consults and a request to look at a spell calculation, but no fires to put out -

- Nice! Why d’you ask? -

- Figure maybe we should actually take the plunge and do some of the decorating. If we hate it, we can always change it, right? -

- I was gonna say, actually, Chel and I were chatting, and he said - Kit broke off mid thought, the oven beeping. Nita tucked her manual away and rolled to her feet with a groan, going to set the table. Once they were sat down, plates piled high, Kit continued -

“Like I was saying, Cheleb was really interested in what we were doing, and told me that they do a kind of paint in one of the - ugh, I can’t remember where - anyway, someone, somewhere, does a kind of paint that changes colour really easily. Like, you don’t need Wizardry, just ask it nicely in the Speech with a passcode, and it can change to loads of different colours. Chameleon particles, it translated at, but not sure if that’s literal or a cultural translation.” Nita grinned, raising her glass in salute.

“That sounds perfect. Painting party this weekend?” Kit clinked his glass against hers solemnly.

“Sounds like a plan.”

They clattered into Nita’s old family home on Sunday evening, shaking rain off of their umbrella before propping it in the bucket left by the door. Her father called a greeting from the kitchen, echoed by Dairine, Roshaun and Filif. Nita lit up, sticking her head into the kitchen.

“Filif! I didn’t know you were gonna be here, how’s my favourite Christmas tree!” He waved back, and the house filled with chatter about what everyone had been up to.

“Nita and I are officially adults now,” Kit declared when it was their turn, helping carry plates over to the table. Dairine snickered, and her dad raised an eyebrow as he sat down.

“And you weren’t for the past decade? Well, almost decade for Kit, give or take a few weeks.” Nita giggled.

“We’ve discovered we have strong opinions about curtains.” Kit nodded solemnly, trying and failing not to grin. “Seriously, we spent forty-seven minutes discussing options and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much like I’m an actual grown up.” Dairine spluttered with laughter.

“So, you didn’t feel like an adult when we did that errantry right after your birthday - you know the one,” she grimaced and there was a collective shudder. It hadn’t been terrible work, not the most stressful situation they’d worked on by a long shot, but it had been a spectacularly uncomfortable location. “Or when you both finished college -“

“- or, Nita, when new wizards started popping up in your manual first, rather than in your senior advisory’s to triage support -“ Roshaun added with a smirk, Dairine nudging him in the ribs with false irritation for interrupting.

“Or when the pair of you got jobs, or bought a flat together.” Harry added with a grin. Filif rustled his leaves, obviously cataloging this list of markers of human adult life. Nita and Kit both shook their heads, grinning.

“Nope. Turns out you’re actually an adult when you spend your spare time thinking about colour swatches, curtains, and whether it really matters if all the place-mats match or not.” Harry chuckled.

“Ah yes, true responsibility - the first time you understand why your parents were always so adamant that you be careful of the paintwork and not eat on the couch. Even if you do have the benefit of that little mini alien roomba…thing. Thanks for that, by the way, it does making keeping everything clean so much easier, even if I do have to remember to hide it whenever the neighbours pop by so I don’t cause an extremely international incident.”

Nita grinned, nudging Kit’s ankle under the table. He nudged her back, smiling, and hooked his ankle around hers companionably.

- I still think the green will look best -

- Ugh, I don’t know! I like it, but I’m worried it will be too dark -

- Well, maybe whichever planet it was that does chameleon paint also does a chameleon curtain… -

- The perks of being a Wizard, huh? -

- Carmela will be so proud of us. Let’s not tell her and see if she notices anything -

- Agreed -

“Hey, Dair, pass the potatoes? Filif, how’s that spell circle you were working on going, I haven’t had a chance to take a look at progress…”

#young wizards #notyoudd #Nita/Kit #my writing #fun fact when I moved into my flat and had to think about curtains I had a moment where i just went #oh wait i'm an actual adult now #and that's basically why I wrote this after realising the kids are about the same age as me in real world terms #It's been a while since I read the books so if I've fuzzed any details then my bad #I should really do a reread soon...

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duraznita-frescante · 8 months

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🌱 — “and then we’ll have breakfast in the morning.”

⇒ regressor! grian & cg! mumbo

⇒ word count: 994

⇒ summary: the night mumbo tells grian he’s taking a break

…

🌿 — my first tumblr fic hee hee this was written soooo long ago but I fixed it up some and I think it still holds up. just some good ol hurt comfort short and sweet. enjoy!!!

“What do you mean you’re leaving?”

Mumbo let out a shaky sigh.

“Not for forever, just… Just for a while,” he tried.

“That’s not— where? Where could you possibly go?” Grian asks frantically.

“There’s much more out there than Hermitcraft, Gri, I want to see it, I need something different,” he tries to explain what he barely understands himself.

“But— But…” Grian is overwhelmed, Mumbo could see it clear as day and he knew his birdy would be as well.

“I’ll be back, I promise. I just need to clear my mind, work on myself, by myself,” Mumbo tried, not sure if he even fully believed himself .

“When?” The winged man asked with a slight bite in his tone. He didn’t mean it, Mumbo knew he didn’t mean it.

“Tomorrow night,” he answered as if it were an apology. It was just long enough to get everything sorted but short enough that he wouldn’t change his mind from now until then.

Grian’s face screwed up in that particular way that Mumbo knew what was to come. He came close to quickly crashing little, barely opening his arms before being crashed into, wings enveloping him on either side. Soft sniffling followed shortly after.

“Don’t keep your sad in, darling, you know I don’t like it when you hold back the tears,” Mumbo sighed, tugging Grian up and into his arms. The poor thing clung to him and let out choked cries.

“It’ll be okay, sweet thing, I promise,” He comforted.

Grian shook his head into Mumbo’s shoulder, “It can’t!” He cried.

Mumbo smiled sadly. So dramatic, he would have said if Grian’s dramatics were not so sincere as they were now.

“Yes, it can, darling, and it will. You have so many friends here to be with you and take care of you,” Mumbo began to choke up as well.

A selfish, cowardly part of him had hoped that he didn’t have to deal with this part. That he wouldn’t have to go through the hurt of explaining to his baby that his caregiver was leaving for a very long time. But as much as it would hurt him, he knew it would hurt Grian about a hundred times more.

“They’re not you! I need you.” Grian was a mess after that, all snot and tears.

“I know, I know,” Mumbo responded softly. The little was far too small and upset to listen to reason anymore. Every little hiccup for air and rough sob made him want to take it all back, tell his birdy that it was all a cruel joke and that he’d never do such a horrible thing as leave his birdy all alone.

But he couldn’t. Not for Grian. Not for himself.

“You want a bath? Hm? When was the last time you groomed your wings?” Mumbo began to ask as Grian’s sobs turned to harsh hiccups.

“Um… I— I dunno…” the younger mumbled.

“That’s alright, let’s get you all nice and clean for bed,” Mumbo walked them both over to their master bathroom, setting a now regressed Grian down on the toilet lid, and began to run a warm bath for his birdy.

Grian whined as Mumbo took his time checking the water temperature, leaving his side.

“Oh, we can’t have that, shh…” Mumbo stood over the younger and held his face gently with his hands, rocking slightly to try and calm the little best he could. Once the water was getting near the top, he shrugged off his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his button-up.

“Ready?” He asked quietly.

Grian silently raised his arms in response, allowing Mumbo to undress him and place him in the bath with no fuss. Very uncharacteristic of the little, but Mumbo wouldn’t comment, he’s sure he has plenty on his mind right now. He took his time scrubbing over his partner as this would be the last time for a while. And oh that hurt so much to think about.

“Close your eyes, darling,” Mumbo directed just as he had hundreds of times before. Grian quickly screwed his eyes shut, not wanting any water to run into his eyes. And just like hundreds of times before, Grains wings fluttered behind him as the water ran over his face, a deep-set instinct that never failed to make the both of them giggle. And today was no different, Mumbo sputtered as he was splashed with water and Grian laughed as if getting his caregiver soggy was the funniest thing in the world.

“You always do this! I don’t know why I think it’ll be any different!” Mumbo exclaims with a smile.

“You should have just come in here with me, then your clothes wouldn’t be ruined,” Grian shoots back, obviously ageing back up a bit enough to say full sentences without bursting into tears. But Mumbo knew better than to assume he was big again. He also knew that Grian was most definitely taking the “suppress my feelings until the problem is gone or until I physically cannot anymore” route to cope with his announcement of leaving.

Mumbo wondered if he could even help him through that before he left, but he severely doubted he could. He’ll have to talk to Xisuma about it, to make sure Grian doesn’t spiral.

“My clothes aren’t ruined, just a bit damp,” Mumbo explained carefully, not wanting to say anything to upset his little one any further. The wrong amount of teasing might just push him over the edge and devolve into tears once again.

Eventually they finished up and Mumbo wrapped Grian in a fluffy towel and they spent the rest of the night sitting together by lamp light. Just as the oil began to burn up and the flame was about half as bright, a quiet voice piped up.

“Don’t leave,” it begged.

“I’ll be right here all night, Gri,” the other responded.

“And then?”

“… and then we’ll have breakfast in the morning.”

#mcyt agere #agere writing #hermitcraft #cg! mumbo #r! grian #age regression #sfw agere #mumbo jumbo #grian #requests open #<< see pinned!!!#nita writes

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wild-karrde · 5 months

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One Step at a Time - Part 14

Master List | Previous Part | Next Part

A/N: I HAVE RETURNED AND THINGS ARE STILL HAPPENING. Please make sure to heed the warnings! As always, thank you to the wonderful @teletraan-meets-jarvis for beta reading this for me!

Chapter Rating: E (you can read the M version of this chapter on AO3 when I get it posted)

Warnings: PiV sex, language, canon-typical violence, graphic description of injury, mention of suicide, character death, grief

Word Count: 8.4k words

Chuckles’s ears were ringing and everything was dark. The throbbing of his head made him fairly certain he was awake rather than dreaming, but it was hard to be sure. He could hear some sounds, but they were muted and far away, as if he was underwater, and the familiar terror at that thought was enough to snap his eyes open. They immediately stung, and he blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision.

The kids.

They’re safe.

But you’re not.

He took a deep gasping breath that burned his lungs, and he coughed hard, tasting a coating of dust on his tongue as smoke inundated his senses. He felt movement underneath him.

Anj. Helly.

Planting his palms, he pushed himself up off of the two bodies he’d dove on top of, feeling a cascade of rock and dirt roll off of his back. He wasn’t wide enough to have completely shielded them, but the heaviness and soreness on his back made him hope he’d done enough. He blinked again, his eyes watering as he frantically tried to get the grit out of his eyes. He could just barely make out the two forms beneath him, groaning quietly. Tears streamed down his face, and he couldn’t be sure if it was purely from the smoke as he choked on another deep, shuddering breath.

Lu.

He glanced over his shoulder.

Where the lift and Lu had stood, there was nothing but rubble and roaring flames that were licking up any structure that was still standing. He could see most of the supports had collapsed during the explosion, and the struts that were still intact were bent, straining under their added load. The fire was superheating some of the metal, causing it to glow orange and creak threateningly.

It’s gonna buckle and collapse the tunnel. We have to move.

Alarms were blaring loudly all around, nearly drowning out the ringing in his ears. He knew people had to be coming to help, but he couldn’t wait for them. The Imperials that were still in the mine were stranded at best, dead at worst, and right now, they were the least of Chuckles’s concerns.

A hand clamped around his arm, and his head whipped down to find Anj pushing a slab of rock off of herself and struggling to a sitting position. Blood covered her face, but her eyes were sharp as they found his through the haze.

“Hells is hurt. We have to move. Now.”

Something about the tone of her voice, the roughness from the dust, the urgency, sent adrenaline dumping into his system and blood roaring in his ears. His training began to echo in his mind and his fingers itched to be wrapped around the controls in his cockpit as he felt the familiar surge of panic and excitement and thrill seep into his veins.

Steady. You’re not at war. But you are in trouble.

His vision finally slightly clearer, he looked down at Helly. She was trembling and groaning, clutching at her shirt, which was soaked with blood. Her eyes weren’t all the way open, and her palor seemed off, even taking into account the layer of dust that was coating all of them. Chuckles felt his stomach flip, but he swallowed the bile rising in his throat and nodded at Anj, and the two of them began digging around the Rodian. Anj soothed Helly as Chuckles did his best to move the largest rocks and debris out of the way.

“Where does it hurt, Petal?” Anj whispered.

“M-my leg,” Helly whimpered. “And my stomach.”

Anj gripped her hand tightly as she lifted her shirt. A wide gash ripped up Helly’s abdomen. Blood trickled from it, seeping into the dirt beneath her. Anj schooled her face into a neutral expression, meeting Chuck’s eyes.

“Hurry. Careful with her leg. We’ll have to carry her out.” Her voice wavered slightly, but her expression was calm. Chuck had seen enough battle wounds to know what the calm was hiding.

“Hang on, Hells. We’ll get you out. Chuck’s gonna get your leg free, and then we’ll get out, alright?”

“The fire,” Helly rasped. “It could hit the fluid lines. They’re filled with flammable material. Y-you can’t stay, Anj.”

“We aren’t going to stay, Petal. But we’re not leaving without you. Got it?”

Tears trickled from Helly’s eyes as Anj stroked her cheek, but she nodded, knowing the Nautolan wouldn’t be swayed.

Chuckles fought a wave of nausea as he finally uncovered Helly’s leg. Bone stuck out through the leg of her pants, and her boot was twisted at an angle that was just wrong for her body. And there was so much blood. More than he was used to seeing.

For a pilot, there usually wasn’t a gruesome death to be witnessed. You were here one moment and gone the next, blinking out like a star as your fighter ripped to shreds around you. If you were lucky, the explosion took you out before your brain could process what had happened, and most of his brothers had been lucky. Crater’s body had never seemed real to Chuckles when he’d seen it, floating in the smoldering debris of the fleet. It had only been a fraction of a second that he’d caught sight of his captain, not enough and too much for him to process and accept. But Crater had been well and gone to whatever the next life held by the time Chuck had seen him, his star extinguished until Chuck could paint it on the back of his helmet.

Chuckles considered himself lucky to be a pilot in that respect, to be able to grieve his lost squadmates but know that they likely didn’t feel a thing. He’d heard the gruesome stories from Howzer and Wolffe and the others that had fought planetside, brothers with broken bodies, screaming with their dying breaths.

He hated to think of his brothers hurting, but somehow, seeing Helly suffer was worse. The clones were soldiers, and the harsh reality of their existence had been drilled into them from the moment they could understand the concept of death. But Helly wasn’t a clone or a soldier. She wasn’t supposed to have her body torn apart like this. She was supposed to smile gently and speak far too quickly about things she was passionate about and make Anj’s eyes twinkle in a way seemingly only she could. And yet, here she lay, trembling and leaking enough blood to make Chuckles think of his own accident with a shudder.

“Do you have something to splint with, Anj?” he asked as quietly as he could, trying not to reflexively reach for the scar on his cheek as he fought back against the intrusive memory.

Anj’s eyes darted down to the Helly’s leg, and she sucked in a sharp breath. “There’ll be a medkit by the lockers. If nothing else, it’ll have a pain med to dull that. Stay with her, I’ll go find it.”

“Anj, I can-”

The Nautolan shook her head, her teeth digging into her lower lip. It was obvious she was struggling with this, but she was trying to think logically instead of with her heart.

“I know exactly where it should be, Chuckles. I’ll be faster.”

She reached over, grabbing his hand and sliding it into Helly’s.

“Stay with her, and I’ll be right back. Yeah?”

Chuckles nodded. “Yeah.”

Anj scrambled the rest of the way out of the rubble, her boot slipping on a few of the rocks as she clambered away. Blood was dripping off of one of her tendrils, streaming from a cut on her head. The back of her shirt also had several dark splotches on it, but Chuckles couldn’t be sure if it was her blood or Helly’s.

A quiet whimper brought his attention back to Helly. Her fingers felt cool in his, and a spike of fear shot through him. Ripping his shirt off, he wadded it up and lifted Helly’s tunic again, pressing the fabric against the deep wound in her abdomen to try and stem the bleeding. He felt her body stiffen as he applied pressure, and she winced. Guilt tore through him, some because he knew he was hurting her, some because he hadn’t shielded her enough to keep her from being hurt like this.

“I’m sorry, Hells,” he rasped. “It’ll only be for a little bit. Anj’ll be right back and we’ll get you fixed up and out of here.”

“You both should go,” she said quietly.

“I’m not going anywhere. And neither is Anj.”

“The kids.”

Chuck’s chest tightened at the thought of Arni and Nita.

They’re at school. Endi will take care of them until I can get there. They’ll be scared, but they’ll be alright.

“They’re with Endi. They’ll be ok. I’ll comm them as soon as I can get out of here.”

“You’re bleeding,” she said softly, reaching up and touching his shoulder. Looking down, Chuck saw a deep cut running along the meat of his shoulder. Some of the blood had smeared across his undershirt. Only when he saw it did he finally notice the sting of it. He shrugged, trying to smile through the pain.

“I’ve had worse. I’ll be alright.”

Helly’s gaze grew distant, and her face twisted in grief. “Lu-”

“We’ll find him,” Chuckles replied almost automatically.

Helly’s eyes met his, and he could see she knew as well as he did that there was nothing to find. More tears streamed from her eyes. “Anj knew he… but neither of us thought he’d… I can’t believe…” She shuddered and sobbed and whimpered.

“Shhhh, Hells,” Chuckles tried to soothe. “One step at a time. We’ll get out of here, and we’ll get you fixed, and we’ll figure it all out, ok?”

It was clear Helly wanted to say more, but tears slid down her cheeks, leaving trails in the dust on her skin, and she quietly cried. Chuck squeezed her hand, praying Anj had made it to the lockers. As if some deity was finally listening, he heard a curse and some rocks shift off to his left. Anj reappeared, lugging a medkit with one arm. Chuckles could see she was favoring the other, but he knew better than to mention it right now. He took the kit as Anj extended to it, popping it open and rummaging for a painkiller. He found the injector and handed it to Anj, looking for something to temporarily splint Helly’s leg. Anj whispered quietly to Helly before pressing the plunger against her neck, and some of the tension seemed to seep out of the Rodian’s body as the med flooded her system. Anj flung the spent injector away before taking one of the adhesive bacta patches from Chuckles, ripping it open with her teeth as she pulled up Helly’s shirt and did her best to clean around the wound. Helly wriggled, but kept silent as Anj smoothed the bandage in place.

“Just need to get her leg put together enough to get out of here,” the Nautolan murmured, gently pulling Helly’s shirt back down. “Every medic in a fifty klick radius is going to be heading here, I’m sure.” Her grin was tight, more of a grimace, her teeth glinting in the flickering light of the flames. “You have any medical training?”

“Some,” Chuck replied, ignoring how his hands were shaking as he found bandages and a temporary splint. Helly’s blood and some of his own was smeared across his forearms, and the stinging in his shoulder was beginning to flare into a sharp throb. He bit his cheek as he extended his arm out to Anj to give her the wrap bandages. “You?”

“Some,” she echoed. “But that’ll have to be better than nothing.” Her eyes lingered on Chuck’s trembling hands, and his face warmed with shame. Anj gently reached out, taking the splint from him.

“Hold her while I do this.”

“Anj, I-”

“Chuckles.” Her eyes met his, and he saw a flicker of fear and frustration before she steeled herself. He briefly wondered if this was what she’d looked like when she’d walked away from the partner that had abused her, or when she’d walked away from her home and all she knew, but he blinked, pushing the thought away. Anj closed her calloused hands over his. “I can do this, but I need you to take care of her. Hold onto her and comfort her while I can’t. That’s what I need you to do right now. It’s important to me.”

Chuckles swallowed the lump in his throat, but nodded before moving up towards Helly’s shoulders, helping her to sit up. She gave him a weak smile, but her eyes were dim, and Chuck knew in that moment that the fire and fluid lines weren’t the only things they were racing against.

“I’ve got you Hells. Just squeeze my hands when it hurts, alright?” He pressed her back against his chest, resting his chin on her shoulder, and she gently rested her head against his, allowing his fingers to wrap around hers.

“One… one step at a time. L-like you said,” she whispered.

Those words had been such a boon for him in his life since the war ended, and he hoped he hadn’t worn them out just yet.

Anj met his eyes, and he nodded, holding Helly a little tighter.

“Yup. One step at a time.”

Anj bit her lip and pressed Helly’s leg against the splint.

Helly screamed and shuddered.

He’d known the pain killer wasn’t going to be able to dull Helly’s pain enough for the splint, but that knowledge didn’t stop tears from leaping into Chuckles’s eyes as he held her tightly, trying to keep her from thrashing too much as Anj quickly tried to bandage her leg, tying it firmly to the splint.

“I know, Hells. I know. You’re doing so good. I’m so sorry. Hang on,” Chuckles said softly, trying to keep his voice from cracking as fear flooded through him. Anj was crying as she worked, tears running down her cheeks.

“I’m so sorry, Petal. I’m so sorry. I’m almost done. I promise,” she whispered, her voice breaking on every word.

Helly whimpered, and Chuckles held her tighter as she trembled. The smoke stung his eyes, and he knew tears were leaking from his eyes as well. He cradled Helly’s head, pressing his forehead to her temple as he whispered.

“Almost done, almost done.”

He wasn’t sure if he was reassuring her or himself as she sobbed again.

“There. Done.”

Anj’s shoulders slumped with relief as she sat back on her haunches and wiped at her face.

“Alright, time to go, Hells.”

The two of them pulled Helly to her good foot, bracing her on either side, but it only took one hobbling step for it to be apparent the three of them couldn’t pick their way over the rubble like that. A rumbling echo and menacing creaking behind them served as a warning that they were running out of whatever time they had left. Chuckles bent over, scooping Helly into his arms with a grunt.

“Your shoulder-” Anj tried to protest, but he cut her off.

“Scout a path. I’ll be fine. I’ll follow you.”

Anj looked like she was going to argue. Chuck glanced down at Helly before meeting the Nautolan’s dark eyes with a pleading look.

Let me do this. We’ve got to go.

He could see Anj doing the math of it all in her head, understanding that this was the best way forward, even if that meant she couldn’t hold onto Helly for a few more moments. She scowled, and he could see her spine straighten as she nodded. Without another word, she turned, eyes scanning the uneven footing ahead of her as she carefully placed her boots, arms held out for balance. Sweat broke out across Chuckles’s brow, trickling down his temple as he tried to keep his arms steady around Helly, placing his feet where Anj had stepped and doing his best to not jostle the Rodian too much.

It felt like an eternity had passed when they finally heard a shout up ahead. Anj glanced over her shoulder at Chuckles as if to ensure he heard it too. He nodded before taking a deep breath and yelling as loud as he could.

“OVER HERE!”

Anj moved quickly, shouting with a raw voice, and Chuck followed carefully behind. A moment later, two silhouettes emerged out of the murky darkness, headlamps cutting through the swirling dust and smoke.

“ANJ! WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?!?” Teef shouted. The oxygen mask he was wearing muffled his words, and his sharp eyes blinked behind his goggles.

“Not sure yet,” Anj said flatly. Her eyes flicked to Chuckles, and she gave him a nearly imperceptible shake of her head. The message was clear.

Not now.

“Hells is hurt bad,” Chuckles rasped, his throat suddenly feeling more raw. He noted his legs were trembling, and his shoulder felt like a hot iron was embedded in it. The second figure stepped forward, and he was relieved when Gornar took Helly from his arms with a nod.

“They’re staging medical out front. Aside from the inspectors, anyone else in here?” Teef asked, moving aside to let Gornar past. Chuckles could see Helly’s chest was rising and falling shallowly, her eyes closed.

“There’s no one else alive,” Anj said quietly.

“I thought I saw Lu walk past.”

Anj’s voice broke, and Chuckles grabbed her around her waist with his good arm, holding her against his side as her knees seemed finally ready to buckle beneath her. The next words she spoke were gritted out through clenched teeth.

“No one else alive, Teef.”

The realization settled into the Latero’s eyes, and his gaze dropped to the ground. “Understood, Anj. I’m sorry.” He stepped aside, absently patting her arm as he took in the remains of the mineshaft, still roaring with fire and smoke. “Let’s get you two out of here, and we’ll figure out what comes next.”

Chuckles walked slowly with Anj, allowing her to slide her good arm across his shoulders as he gripped her by her belt, holding her up. Teef went ahead, shouting for a medic and pointing out any unsteady footing. Gornar had already disappeared from view, and Chuckles hoped that meant Helly was already in the hands of a medic. When they finally reached the entrance to the mine, catching sight of Lothal’s sunshine tearing through the dust and smoke, he felt Anj release a shuddering sob, sagging against him as her grief finally overtook her.

“I’ve got you, Anj. Almost there.”

She didn’t reply, but he felt her grip tighten on his undershirt as they stepped forward into the clear air. Almost immediately, they were swarmed by figures, peppering them with questions. Anj slipped from his grasp, half-carried by two humans he was pretty certain were Kit and Bronce. He heard her rasp out Helly’s name as she was led away towards a set of hastily constructed tents.

“WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED, CHUCKLES?”

He blinked hard, his eyes focusing on Jerrno, who was standing in front of him with wide, frantic eyes.

“CHUCK?”

His head throbbed, and his shoulder seared. There was a ringing in his ears that made him flinch.

“I-”

His head swam. He looked down and finally realized how bloody he was. Some of it was Helly’s and some of it was Anj’s, but there was no mistaking the source of the crimson stream that was pouring from his shoulder. His hands were trembling.

“Lu-”

His voice faltered as relief, exhaustion, and agony all washed over him simultaneously. His knees impacted something hard, and he winced, wondering what had struck him. He realized too late he had fallen to his knees, the grit biting into his stinging palms as he tried to keep himself up.

“CHUCKLES!” Jerrno’s voice sounded so far away even though he could feel the Laterro’s hands on his shoulder and back, trying to brace him.

His vision narrowed, as if someone was closing the blinds on a window. His head slammed into something, and he tasted dirt. The last thing he saw was tan dirt that made him think of the birthmark on Arni’s face and sunlight as golden as Nita’s irises.

Then his world went quiet.

—

For the second time that day, Chuckles started awake, but this time, it wasn’t smoke and fire surrounding him, but the soft murmur of hushed conversation and the rhythmic beeping of medical equipment. He could smell antiseptic and the distinct tang of bacta. He recognized immediately that he was in one of the tents that had been setup outside of the mine, lying on a mat on the ground. He groaned, rolling onto his undamaged shoulder. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and his throat felt raw. He heard a scuffling behind him, and Grinz was suddenly hovering in front of his face with a water packet and a look of relief sweeping across his haggard features.

“Drink,” he croaked out.

Chuckles obeyed, drinking greedily until he drained the packet and flopped onto his back, breathing heavily.

“Fire’s out. They’ll be diggin’ for days though.” Grinz sounded exhausted.

“Hells?” Chuckles asked.

“She’s gonna be alright,” Grinz replied, sitting down next to him heavily. “Thanks to you and Anj. If she’d had to wait for a rescue crew… well, I’d rather not think about it.” The Ugnaut scrubbed his stubby fingers over his face, and Chuckles could see him wavering between grief and confusion.

“And the inspectors?”

Grinz sighed. “Gone. Probably immediately. Jerrno managed to get some smaller drones down the shaft, but the droids didn’t find anything alive. The explosion collapsed the entire lift shaft, and the working theory is that the inspectors were standing too close when it happened. It was quick.”

Chuckles’s chest tightened at the revelation.

There will be questions. A lot of them. About what we knew and if we helped Lu at all.

Panic rose in his throat.

“Grinz, my kids. I need to tell them-”

“They know you’re safe,” Grinz reassured him. “As soon as I heard the explosion, I ran down here with every bit of medical supplies I could carry. I got here just as they were carryin’ you in here, and I commed Endi to let her know. That was a few hours ago. I… I didn’t think you’d want the kids to see you like this. You’re pretty banged up.”

“I’ve got to get to them.”

He rolled onto his side and pushed himself to a sitting position. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t graceful, but he managed.

“Chuck-”

“I’ve got to get to them, Grinz,” he repeated. The Ugnaut stared at him for a few moments before poking his head out of the curtain that was keeping Chuckles separated from the main portion of the tent and waving down a medical droid. The droid bustled in, scanning Chuckles as he pushed himself to his feet.

“I must advise against you leaving,” the droid protested. “You have a lacerated shoulder, two bruised ribs, one that may be fractured, multiple cuts and contusions, and a concussion. It would be best if you remained here so that we could monitor-”

“Is the shoulder cleaned, bacta’ed, and stitched?” Chuckles asked.

“Why yes, but-”

“And there’s nothing that can be done about the ribs other than taking it easy, correct?”

“Limited activity is recommended, but for your concussion-”

“I know the protocol,” he interrupted again. “Had enough of them during my time as a soldier. I might know more about them than you.”

“Sir, again, I must recommend-”

“You’ve made your recommendation. You did your job. But I’m still leaving.” He glanced down at his undershirt, and swore at the dirt and blood that covered it. “Dammit. Used my shirt on Hells. I can’t let the kids see me like this.”

Grinz stood next to him. “We’ll stop by my place on the way and get you cleaned up. I’ve got a shirt you can borrow.”

“Grinz-”

“If you’re not gonna listen to reason, then you’re gonna have to settle for lettin’ me help you,” the Ugnaut growled. “Now come on, you stubborn git.” Chuckles barely had time to mumble his thanks at the droid, who was still sputtering objections, before he had to stumble after Grinz. The Ugnaut was stomping away at a faster pace than he’d thought his stubby legs capable of.

Grinz’s shower was too small for him, but Chuckles hunched enough to make it work, allowing the warm water to run down his back for a few moments before he scrubbed at the dirt and blood that was and wasn’t his, trying to clean as much of the evidence of the day away as he could. By the time he got out, the stall was covered in a layer of grime, but Grinz waved off his apologies as he helped him back into his clothes. Chuckles knew better than to ask how Grinz had a shirt that was just his size and smelled brand new, and he allowed the Ugnaut to look him over, scrubbing away any streaks of dirt he’d missed and dabbing at one cut that reopened on his brow before putting a fresh bandage over it. Finally, Grinz stepped back, inspecting him with a grimace.

“You still look like you got run over by a herd of bantha, but at least you smell better, I suppose,” he huffed.

Chuck straightened, extending the hand on his good arm. Grinz eyed it before gripping it.

“Thanks,” Chuckles said with a smile. The word felt insufficient but also like anything else would be too much. Grinz nodded, grasping his forearm.

“Go get your kids. I commed Endi to let her know you’d be headin’ out shortly. She’s taking the kids to your ship.” He eyed Chuck again. “You need me to come with you? Can’t have you conkin’ out on the side of the road.”

“I think I’m alright,” Chuckles reassured him. “Not the worst concussion I’ve had.”

“No sleepin’ without someone checkin’ on you.”

He huffed a laugh, but didn’t object. “I won’t.”

Grinz nodded. “Get goin’ then.”

The walk back felt like it took an eternity, and all Chuckles could think of was getting to Arni and Nita. He was certain they’d heard the explosion at school, and if he remembered one thing about being a cadet, it was how fast scuttlebutt would spread, particularly among younger recruits who let their imaginations run wild. His blood sang and his pulse thrummed when the Starlight finally came into view. The kids must have been waiting for him because the hatch immediately flew open, and the two younglings were sprinting at him full speed in a matter of seconds. Tears blurred his vision as he took the scene in, Nita’s eyes wide and her silver ribbons bouncing, and Arni’s lekku trailing behind them as they raced towards him. He managed to kneel down carefully just before they slammed into him. Tears slid over his cheeks as the two younglings babbled, clinging to him tightly.

“We heard about the explosion.”

“Everyone was saying all the miners died.”

“Are Anj and Helly ok?”

“What about Lu?”

He squeezed them tightly, trying to hold back the emotions that were threatening to overwhelm him. His head hurt. His shoulder throbbed. He wanted to break down then and there, but he bit the inside of his cheek, steeling himself. He buried his nose in Nita’s curls, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head before pulling Arni’s forehead to his own.

“I’m ok. Anj and Helly are getting looked over, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be alright too.”

He wanted them so badly to miss the fact that he’d excluded a name, but of course Arni didn’t. Their brown eyes searched his.

“And Lu?”

Chuckles answered as honestly as he felt he could. “I don’t know, kid. He… I don’t know.”

I don’t know anything about Lu right now. Other than the fact that he’s dead.

Arni’s face fell, but Nita appeared to be too relieved by Chuckles’s reappearance to notice the implication that Lu was gone, wrapping her arms around his neck. He carefully scooped her up with his good arm, trying not to flinch from the soreness that was settling into his body. He knew every part of him was going to be aching in a few hours, but at the moment, he couldn’t find it within him to care.

He was alive. Still.

Arni hung close to his side as he made his way towards the ship, but they didn’t reach for his arm, clearly having noted the injury to his shoulder.

Endi was waiting at the door when he reached it, and she inhaled sharply as she took in the cuts and bruises all over him and the bandaging on his shoulder, still apparent beneath his new shirt.

“You should see the other guy,” he joked dryly, winking at her as well as he could with the cut over his eye, but he could see it did little to alleviate her concern. He set Nita down as Endi approached, carefully cupping his face in her hands. He let his palms fall to her waist, closing his eyes and inhaling her scent.

We’re all ok.

“Thank you for taking care of them,” he said softly.

“Of course,” she replied, her voice cracking. “I’m so glad you’re alright. What-”

“I’ll tell you later,” he whispered, cutting her off. Her eyes sharpened, and he could see she understood there were things he wasn’t ready to talk about in front of the younglings. She smiled gently, standing on tiptoe to press a kiss to his cheek. “I’m going to let you spend time with them. Dinner’s in the reheater and should be about ready.”

“Endi, you can-”

“I know,” she whispered softly. “But they need you right now. Come by later if you want. And if not, I’ll understand.” She rested her forehead against his, her fingers slipping into his mohawk. “I’m just glad you’re alright.”

He kissed her, stroking her cheek before letting her slip past him and out the door.

Dinner was an unexpectedly quiet affair, and for that, Chuckles was glad. Nita hummed and grunted in satisfaction through her meal as if nothing was different, but Arni didn’t seem to be able to take their eyes off of Chuckles, sneaking glances at him in between every bite. Chuckles considered asking them about how they felt, but ultimately, he wasn’t sure he was ready to talk through it with them yet. He didn’t have all of the information. His head still ached. And he hadn’t processed things himself yet. No matter how much he was trying to focus on the present, his brain kept replaying the last moments before the explosion, searching for cues he’d missed from Lu, things he could have done to change the outcome, the look in the Nikto’s eyes as he’d reached for the detonator…

“Chuckles?”

He blinked hard. Nita was looking at him expectantly.

“Yeah, Honey?”

“Are we going to be alright?”

Of course that was the question. They didn’t know much, but they knew something was wrong. Something bad had happened, and try as he might to hide it, he knew his guard was down and his concern was written all over his face.

Reassure them.

He pushed his bowl of reheated rice and meat aside and reached across the table. Both younglings took his hands, and he did his best to evenly meet their gazes.

“A bad thing happened today, and while I’m not sure how it’s going to play out, I am very certain of one thing. We are going to be ok. Got it?”

The two of them exchanged a glance before hesitantly nodding. He flipped his pinkies out, and Nita grinned. Even Arni couldn’t hide the hint of a smile that tugged at the corner of their mouth.

“Pinky swear,” he rasped. “We will be ok.”

They locked their fingers with his.

“Alright. Now the two of you go get cleaned up and get in bed. I’ll get dinner cleaned up.”

“But your shoulder,” Arni tried to counter.

“You two have had a day. I can get it.”

Nita was more than happy to escape cleaning duty, scampering towards their shared bedroom, but Arni tapped their foot skeptically.

“We didn’t have a mine collapse on us today.”

“I mean, technically I didn’t either. I didn’t make it down to the mine,” Chuckles reminded them.

They sobered, wrapping their arms around themself. “I’m glad about that.”

Chuckles bit the inside of his cheek to keep the sudden shudder that was threatening to rip through him at bay. “Yeah, me too kid.”

Most nights, the two younglings put themselves to bed without issue, but tonight, Chuckles came down to the hold with them, letting Nita babble about the day and allowing Arni to continue to sneak glances at him, reassuring themselves that he was there and alright. He sat down between their bunks as Nita snuggled with her trooper doll and Arni pulled the blankets up to their chin. The little Pantoran’s speech slurred as slumber quickly overtook her, her mumbled words devolving into quiet snores. Chuckles smiled at her, relieved the day’s events hadn’t affected her too much. He remembered being that age, how most of the small things seemed larger than they were, and how the bigger things weren’t always significant to younger cadets, merely because they didn’t fully understand them. Nita had seemingly never considered the possibility that Chuckles might not come home, and for that, he was grateful.

“Chuckles?”

He rolled his head to meet Arni’s gaze.

“Are we really going to be alright?”

He huffed a laugh, mustering a smirk that he hoped portrayed confidence.

“Of course, kid.”

Arni tugged at a thread on the corner of their blanket.

“Was it scary?”

Chuckles let his head thunk back against the hull’s cool metal wall and winced as his concussion reminded him of his existence. He experimentally rolled his shoulder and bit back a curse as pain shot through his muscle.

Another scar for the collection.

He inhaled deeply.

“Yeah. It was scary for a bit.”

“What really happened to Lu?”

He scrubbed his hands over his face, knowing Arni was picking up every detail of his response but feeling too overwhelmed to hide it. They knew something bad had happened, and he wasn’t going to lie to them. But he also didn’t have much to tell.

“I’m not really sure, Arni.”

They contemplated that. “But he’s dead?”

Chuckles sighed. “Yeah. Yeah he is. I’m sorry, kid.”

Arni let out a shuddering sigh. “I’m sorry too.”

“Let’s not tell little one though yet, yeah? She’ll find out eventually, but I’m just not sure I’m equipped with enough information to help her work through it, if that makes sense.”

“It does,” they agreed quietly. “Will you stay until I fall asleep?”

“Absolutely.”

It didn’t take long before Arni’s snores started to fill the silence. Chuckles didn’t immediately retreat, closing his eyes and listening to the two younglings, his kids, sleeping peacefully. He hoped they had no nightmares, that they could have as much time as possible before they learned the truth about what had happened, about what Lu had done.

They’ve experienced so much loss and seen so much death. More than anyone deserves. But especially not them.

His brain started working the problem, searching for an explanation.

Helly knows something. She said as much.

“Anj knew he… but neither of us thought he’d… I can’t believe…”

Anj knows it too.

He felt his brow furrow as his mind reached for pieces he couldn’t quite see the shape of. Lu had always been quiet, not outgoing but also never rude. He was kind but never offered much up about himself. In fact, the brief conversation he’d had with Chuckles and Helly just before the explosion might have been the most words Chuckles had ever heard him utter at once. But try as he might, he couldn’t find anything in all of his interactions that would point to some reasoning behind Lu’s actions.

His head still fucking hurt.

Checking one last time to make sure the kids were both still fast asleep, he crept up the stairs and out of the ship. The cool night air felt good against his skin as his feet carried him towards the schoolhouse as if they were on autopilot. His brain was still turning over everything when his boots hit the stairs. He was surprised when the door opened automatically, admitting him inside.

Endi was still up, sitting at her desk. A small lamp illuminated the classroom, casting long shadows. When she looked up at him, he could see the toll the day had taken on her as well. Her dark curls hung loose to her shoulders, sticking up in every direction as if she’d been massaging her scalp. Dark circles were evident under her golden eyes, and her smile looked weary as she took him in. She powered off her datapad, coming around to the front of the desk.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she said softly as he closed the distance between them. He pulled her against him, and he felt her arms wrap around him, her fingers carding through his mohawk again. He buried his nose in her neck, inhaling deeply as his lips brushed against her skin.

“I’ve got you,” she whispered, stroking the nape of his neck. “I’m right here.”

His head was still hurting, but he no longer cared. Chuckles grounded himself in the feel over her, the way her pulse leapt when his lips grazed the skin of her throat, the way he could smell the sweat of the day and her perfume, the way she shuddered slightly when his breath tickled her ear, the way her fingers tightened their grip on him as he pressed closer.

He wanted more.

Endi seemed to understand and denied him nothing, scooting back to sit on the desk and wrapping her legs around him.

It was almost like the first night as he kissed her, his hands reaching under her skirts as her fingers fumbled with his belt, but it was a different type of urgency, a need to have her, a need to feel alive when death had brushed past him again. He leaned over Endi as she laid back on the desk, her heels digging into his back as he pumped himself a few times before sheathing his cock in her in one stroke.

His pace was frantic, each snap of his hips scooting the desk slightly across the floor. Every muscle in his body was protesting and pain was flaring across his ribcage, but he ignored it all, focusing on the way Endi’s eyes found his, the way she sat up, gripping the front of his shirt, the way she kept whispering to him and kissing him and touching him.

“I’m right here.”

“I need y-you,” he stuttered out.

“Take what you want from me. I’m yours. I’m right here, Chuckles.”

He came once, but his cock didn’t soften, and he only allowed himself a few moments to catch his breath before he resumed his pace, relishing in the way Endi writhed and mewled beneath him and the way his spend was pushed back out of her with every thrust. Sweat trickled down his brow, stinging the cuts on his skin, but all he cared about was the way Endi felt around him, pulsing and warm and his. He wanted to get lost in her, to fuck her until he forgot everything else that had happened, and when he came again, his knees buckled underneath him. Endi caught him and managed to ease him to the floor before he just collapsed.

“Sorry,” he mumbled in between panted breaths.

“Don’t be. I’ll be right back,” she murmured, and he wasn’t certain if he acknowledged her or not.

A few minutes later, she returned carrying two glasses of water, offering one to him. He took it and drank greedily before sitting back heavily against the front of her desk. Endi sank to the floor beside him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“Did that help?” she asked softly.

“Probably not the concussion or the busted ribs, but I do feel a bit better,” he joked.

“You have a concussion?” He could hear the worry in her voice.

“Not my first and definitely not my worst.” It was clear the humor did nothing to alleviate her worry, but she also didn’t fuss over him further.

They sat in silence for a few moments, their fingers slowly intertwining as they both emptied their glasses of water. He could feel her fidgeting, wanting to ask but not wanting to push him.

“It was Lu,” he said finally, his voice feeling rough. Saying it out loud made all of the emotions of the day come running back, and he took a deep shuddering breath. He felt Endi’s eyes on him, but he wasn’t ready to meet her gaze. “Lu blew up the mine. On purpose.”

“What?” Her shock was genuine.

Good. Word wasn’t getting out yet.

“I’m sure there’ll be an investigation,” he continued, letting the words tumble out of him. “Two Imperial inspectors were on site. Don’t think they made it out.”

He was tired, and his head was hurting again, but this time, with worries he hadn’t disclosed to anyone. Of course there would be an investigation. They’d want to talk to everyone, especially the clone that showed up here out of the blue, the one that was in the mine when it happened. By and large, after the decommissioning, he hadn’t heard anything about clones in the newsfeeds. It was as though they’d essentially vanished from the galaxy, and with them, any trust and appreciation the public had for the soldiers that had fought for the Republic.

Well, the Empire now.

Would they look into his service record? Or would they only care about what he saw that day? He didn’t know anything. But would they believe that?

“You’re worried.”

Of course she could see it. She knew him. And he was tired of her not knowing all of him.

It would be so easy. I can trust her. I trusted Ry and Oks and certainly didn’t spend as much time with them as I have with her.

It would be so much easier. To tell her. To let there be no secrets between us.

She was a source of comfort, and he needed to lean on someone right now. Her delicate fingers stroked the back of his neck soothingly, and he finally turned to meet her gaze. Golden irises searched his for answers he didn’t have. He rested his forehead against hers, allowing his eyes to drift closed. Her other hand rested against his unmarred cheek, and he basked in its warmth.

It would be so much easier.

“I don’t know what Lu was thinking,” she muttered, a sudden surge of anger creeping into her voice. “He’s put you all at risk now. Jerrno and Teef’s reputation. Anj’s leadership. Everything that’s been built here, everything you fought for.” She sighed. “After everything the Empire’s done in the past year, I can’t understand why he’d do such a thing.”

Chuckles’s eyes opened. Endi kept talking, not noticing the way he was looking at her.

“All you and your brothers fought for, so that we could have the life we have today, and here he is, tearing it down.” Her voice had changed. She wasn’t exactly shouting, but every word dripped with venom. “All these small terrorist uprisings and wasted lives and efforts, only making it harder on those around them, destroying instead of building. What a waste.” She blinked, exhaling sharply as if to calm herself. Her voice quieted. “I hope the fact that you and your brothers were able to win the war and quash the Jedi uprising brings you some peace in this moment. You’re heroes, and the Empire couldn’t have risen without you, Chuckles. It’ll persist in spite of these ill-intentioned anarchists, and for that, I’m thankful.”

The gears in Chuckles’s mind ground to a screeching halt as he processed her words. He was certain he’d misheard her, but the way she was looking at him was as if she’d just commented on the weather rather than the murder of children and allies, assured him he had not.

“Heroes?” he asked stupidly. “You think what we did at the end of the war was heroic?”

“Well of course. Otherwise, the Jedi may have succeeded in killing Emperor Palpatine and overthrowing the Republic. The war may have dragged on for years if they hadn’t been stopped.”

“Children were killed,” he gritted out without thinking, confusion and anger and renewed grief ripping through him. “Jedi younglings.” He glanced at her, trying to keep his face neutral. He wanted her to take back the words, to clarify her meaning, to show him that he had misunderstood her. Surely his concussion had made his mind foggy. His head really did hurt.

Surely this was wrong.

Endi blinked at him with confusion, her brow furrowing slightly.

“War is an awful business. I understand that, Chuckles. I don’t think less of the clones for doing what needed to be done.”

What needed to be done.

He had to keep his grip in check as his mind faltered, trying to keep himself from shattering the empty water glass between his hands.

“I wasn’t around for the end of the war. Wasn’t planetside. Didn’t follow the order,” he mumbled aimlessly, trying to weave his way through this conversation, trying to give her any out he could. “And we weren’t really given a choice in the matter.”

Her fingers wrapped around his, less comforting than they had been a moment before, but still sickeningly warm. She took the glass from his hand, setting it down as she clasped his hands, and he met her golden eyes, the eyes he’d stared into so many nights, getting lost in them. Now, it felt as though he was looking at a stranger.

She thinks what we did was heroic. That having our minds turned against us was the right thing. That killing all of those people, killing younglings was necessary?

How is that possible? How could I not see it?

“Whether or not you were there for the finale, you contributed, Chuckles. The galaxy we have today wouldn’t exist without your efforts,” she insisted. “Besides, from what I understand, the chips were just an insurance policy. To ensure loyalty amongst the clones where it didn’t already exist.”

You shouldn’t need chips that control minds to garner loyalty. And my brothers would never have done that willingly. Ever.

His stomach curdled at that thought. He resisted the urge to withdraw his hand from hers, but he could still feel himself leaning away from her, putting distance between the two of them.

I never really knew her at all.

Just like Lu.

“I… I don’t know what to say,” he stuttered out.

It was true enough. She smiled warmly at him, and that soft, sweet smile sickened him now. His mind was racing for justifications, that she was just buying into the propaganda, that she didn’t understand what had actually happened, because there was no universe in which Endi, his version of her, would ever be alright with what had happened at the end of the war. This woman that sat across from him now wouldn’t have batted an eye if his children had been slaughtered, thinking it was justified, for the greater good.

And here she sat, smiling at him.

He’d kissed her. He’d bedded her. He might have loved her.

“Is everything alright?” she asked.

It felt as though Chuckles’s mouth had gone dry, his tongue a heavy leaden weight. He wanted to scream and shake her, to wake up from what was surely a nightmare. He dug his nails into his palm to be sure, and he felt a pinch of pain as they broke the top layer of skin.

This was real.

And now he had to be careful. He was concussed, he was hurt, he was reeling, but he couldn’t reveal anything that would condemn him or the kids.

Endi was still watching him, concern etching her delicate features that he’d once found beautiful. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “Today was hard enough without me ranting and raving about politics. Why don’t we go to bed?” She stood and reached for him, and before he could think about it, he recoiled. Her brows knitted together in confusion, and he internally swore at himself.

Politics. That’s all she thinks this is. Just politics.

For the greater good.

He tried to focus, but his brain was racing through memories he had with Endi, trying to remember if they’d ever talked about the Empire before. Surely they had. This had to be wrong. He had to have misunderstood. And then, with startling clarity in the fog of his concussion, it clicked into place.

You made an assumption. You assumed she’d never support the Empire because she was too kind to, because how could someone so caring do that?

And she assumed you did because you’re a clone soldier.

“I-I don’t think I should stay tonight. The kids… they shouldn’t be alone tonight after everything,” he said hurriedly, awkwardly pushing himself to his feet while trying to meet her eyes. Her face was still pinched with confusion as she smoothed her skirts, but she seemed to accept his haphazard excuse. He forced what he hoped read as an apologetic smile into place. “Plus, not supposed to sleep much because of the concussion,” he choked out, tapping his temple with a finger. “Maybe another night.”

She nodded, unable to hide her disappointment. “Maybe.”

Chuckles forced himself to lean down and place a kiss on her cheek. She felt stiff under his touch. She wasn’t a fool; she knew something had shifted. He could tell, and he hated that he knew that, and he feared what suspicion it might draw.

“Thanks for helping with the kids today,” he said quietly. “And… thanks for this.”

She dipped her head. “Of course. Goodnight then.”

“Good night,” he replied.

She was hurt, and he wanted to fix it because he hated hurting people he cared about.

How can you still care?

Because you haven’t accepted that she’s the person you just spoke to.

He wanted to stand there and argue with her, but he knew he couldn’t, not with the physical and mental state he was in. Instead, he stumbled back out into the night, leaving a bewildered Endi standing in the empty schoolhouse.

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