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narkinafive · 5 years

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fic draft for a sw/rvb au i have w @evaceratops; i’ll post it here to get it out of my system, then clean it up and put it on ao3, so comment w your thoughts if you want!!!!

ghosts that linger, 3k, gen, ft. ezra, kanan, and kallus

Not for the first time, Kanan regretted saving Kallus’ life, if only because the man forced them to change bars every time they met. Kanan had really liked the bartender at the last one.

Tonight’s bar was cleaner, classier, a hell of a lot more expensive. Crowded, too--women and men with dangerously low cut tops and glossy lips hang off the arms of their increasingly drunken patrons, identical smiles painted on their beautiful faces, delicate fingers drawing patterns in the sweet, fruity smoke that permeated every corner of the room. Kanan knew that smoke well; just one pack of Shento cigarras would cost him about a fifth of a good smuggling run. He preferred the cheap shit, not because it tasted any better, but he didn’t refuse the one the tall, pretty Togruta boy offered him, flipping him a fifty-credit chit and a wink in exchange. Kallus already had his lighter out by the time he turned around to face his dinner guest.

“I was under the impression you were trying to quit,” he said, one blond eyebrow carefully raised, a familiar opening to a familiar routine. Normally Kanan wasn’t one to back down from a verbal fight, but tonight, something felt… off. The air was thick with more than expensive smoke and pheromones; there was an itch between his shoulders that he just couldn’t reach. Beneath their table, his leg was bouncing so violently you could almost see it in the glow of the cigarette, vibrating despite his steady hands.

Kanan took a long, long drag of the cigarra, held it, then released, and it did absolutely nothing to calm his nerves. “Any word?”

Kallus hmmed, thoughtfully. Usually a bad sign. “Down to business, I see?”

“Got a girl at home for a few days,” said Kanan, flicking ash into the crystal tray in the center of the smooth, dark table. “She doesn’t want me to stay out too late tonight--said she had a surprise for me if I made it back in time.” He grinned a leering, toothy grin, one he had perfected over years and years of sexual conquests, though he and Kallus both know full well that he hadn’t slept with anyone in months. “So, any reason you insisted on seeing me tonight? You wanna join us?” He felt himself smile wider, baring his teeth.

Kallus rolled his eyes, Kanan detecting a hint of sincerity behind the action, then slid him a thin, beat-up data pad he had pulled from his jacket, a silhouette of a pretty young thing painted in black, scuffed in that telltale way of repeated re-recording. “Far be it from me to encourage your predilections,” he sneered, “but here: the video file you requested.”

And only now did Kanan finally understand the reason for tonight’s setting: Cinisia Club was one of the last places on the planet that didn’t regulate the sale and exchange of sensitive or explicit information. Hiding extremely confidential Imperial data in a porno-vid? Honestly, it was genius. Kanan groaned appreciatively, loud enough that even the eavesdropping droid would be convinced. “Fuck yeah,” he breathed, “the little miss and I are gonna enjoy this one.” The droid, satisfied for the moment, turned its attention elsewhere.

But as Kanan made to slip the datapad into his pocket, Kallus stopped him with a hand. “As much as I disapprove of your little hobby,” he said, each word perfectly shaped, perfectly chosen, “might I suggest enjoying this one without your, ah, little miss? I fear it may be a bit too… much for her, seeing a family member like that.”

Kanan froze. A split second, but he froze. Kallus’ face revealed nothing, perfectly composed as he sipped at his drink. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means,” said Kallus, “that this video might upset your lovely date, and then who would warm your bed for the night? Certainly not I.”

His heart beat so hard in his chest that he thought it might pop out. He knew. He knew about Ezra. He knew what they were looking for. “Anything else?” he asked, mouth dry enough that he was surprised he could even get the words out.

Kallus shook his head. “Enjoy.” And with that ominous blessing, Kallus returned to the remains of his drink, dismissing Kanan without so much as a second glance.

Sliding out of the booth, Kanan thought for a second that he might faint, then thanked the god he no longer believed in as the lightheadedness passed without incident. But he was sure everyone could see his pale face, his trembling hands, his sweaty brow. It was like every set of eyes in the club tracked his every step as he made his way to the exit, each mocking smile haunting him with the question: do they know, too?

He took his speeder to the opposite side of town, ran a loop around the back alleys, just in case someone decided to follow. No one did, as far as Kanan could see. The lights were always on in this part of town, illuminating the unceasing river of sentients crossing into and over the space port, leaving very little shadow to hide in. Imperial propaganda sounded triumphantly from every corner, an overlapping cacophony of music and commands, screens cheerfully brandishing shuttle times and wanted posters. Helmet on, he waited in a dim corner, eyes fixed on the screen as it worked through its roster of suspects. Senator Mon Mothma, it read. General Jan Dodonna. Saw Gerrera. Admiral Gial Ackbar. Travia Chan. Cham Syndulla. Fulcrum, real identity unknown.

No “Kanan.” No “Caleb” either, for that matter. No other names.

Though who knew how many names there would be tomorrow.

He watched it cycle through again. “If you see something, say something!” Chirped a woman’s voice from the loudspeakers, her words echoing across every surface, broadcast as far as it could possibly go. Kanan could still hear her as he sped away, twenty minutes later. He heard her even as he got out of range, her words ringing in his ears as loudly as any alarm.

Kanan had docked his ship in the bad part of town, but he hadn’t been worried. The Kasmiri wasn’t anything too flashy; spacious quarters had been sacrificed for smuggling compartments long ago, and Kanan had had her repainted as soon as he was sure Janus Kasmir wouldn’t be able to track them down again. Still, his heart lifted somewhat as he approached, lowering the ramp to reveal the soft, warm glow of the cargo bay. Despite her rough exterior, she was still home, a home he hadn’t had in a long, long time.

As Kanan ascended the ladder to the galley, he found that Ezra was still awake, and apparently helping himself to a late night snack, pilfered from Kanan’s emergency stash. “Where were you?” he demanded, perched on the dejarik table, mouthful of a half eaten ration bar.

“Out,” was all Kanan replied, even knowing full well that such a vague answer would do absolutely jackshit to nip Ezra’s curiosity in the bud. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Ezra swallowed. “Were you out with Fulcrum?”

“You, bed. Now,” he ordered at Ezra’s glare.

“Did you get any info?”

“What part of ‘bed’ was a little too hard for you to understand?”

Hopping off the table, Ezra followed Kanan to his bunk, dogging his heels the whole way. “You reek of Shento smoke, and the only place on this dirtball high rolling enough for cigarras like that is going to be the Cinisia Club, which I know for a fact that you refuse, on principle, to even go within three blocks, so the only reason you would go into Cinisia would be to meet with your contact, and the only reason you would actually physically meet Fulcrum instead of just comming them would be because they have something really important to tell you!” He was practically jumping up and down, pacing the very short length of Kanan’s cabin. “Am I right?”

The kid had been hanging around him for way too long. “Not even a little.” Ezra harrumphed, crossing his arms. “Seriously, you should get some sleep. We’ve got an early morning tomorrow, be ready at 0500, sharp.”

Eza groaned, throwing his hands up in the air. “And now we’re running away!” He turned on his heel and stalked out, heavy footfalls and bitter muttering echoing off the walls.

Kanan almost thought about calling him back. He had promised the kid to keep him in the loop, and if this file was what he thought it was… but Kallus’ warning surfaced in his memory. A family member.

How in the hell did Kallus know that he was looking for information on Ezra’s father? Moreover, how in the hell did he even know Ezra existed? How the fuck had Kanan let that happen? He thought he had been so clever, so careful, and he had failed, and it was only a matter of time before--

He shook his head. Kallus wouldn’t betray him, Kanan’s leverage was too strong, at least for now. Once again, Kanan regretted saving the man’s life: even if having an ISB agent in his back pocket was ridiculously useful from time to time, he was certain that, eventually, the secrets he knew would cease to be a good enough threat to keep Kallus from talking.

The ancient datapad booted up agonizingly slowly, heat radiating off the back of it. The screen was scuffed and distorted, laser-pixels clumped together at the corners, but the picture was as clear as it could be. The dark windowless room, the slanted table with attached restraints, the sharp, yellow grin of the Grand Inquisitor, it was all a horribly familiar scene to Kanan. “Prisoner Oh-five-seven-seven-four,” he said, his back to the struggling man on the table. “Ephraim Bridger, is it? I understand that you and your wife once had a son. Ezra, yes?” The man--Ezra’s father--Ezra’s father--spit at the Grand Inquisitor in lieu of an answer. “According to our records, he died in the riots at the age of seven. A shame, really; he showed remarkable aptitude in his Academy exam. With the right training, he could have been a great asset to the Empire, had his mother not foolishly chosen to--”

Ezra’s father swore in his native language. “Don’t you dare talk about her! Don’t you dare!”

Kanan paused the vid, listening out for footsteps around his door, and heard nothing. Good. Ezra couldn’t keep quiet to save his life, usually. He did not want the kid to see this. Hell, he hardly wanted to watch it himself.

He hadn’t been on the assignment, but he remembered the incident well. Kanan had been twenty-two, and so green, relegated to desk work while his superiors thought of ways to fix his “problems,” but he had been called out to the scene anyway. Sometimes he could still picture the scene in his mind, perfect in his memory: the dark night, the wet, hard ground, Mira Bridger’s body. The way her arms had been outstretched, like she was reaching for something. The tear tracks on her face, the slackness of death unable to hide her terror and despair.

And he remembered his orders. Sit on this one, Dume, the Grand Inquisitor--then the Counselor--had coldly informed him. And then, The Director sees no need to include that information in the incident report. And then, You have been taken off this case. Moving forward, this will be handled by more qualified agents.

Ephraim Bridger’s face snarled at him from years ago, eyes blazing. He’d seen that same look before, on Ezra’s face as he saw Troopers harassing those street kids on Garel.

Kanan pressed play again.

“Very well,” said the Grand Inquisitor, “What would you like to speak of, Mr. Bridger?”

“I know you took my son,” Ephraim growled, weak, defiant.

The Grand Inquisitor smiled, thin as the interrogator droid’s needle, and just as sharp. “Mr. Bridger, your son has been dead for years.”

“You lie,” he said. “We knew you wanted him for your little cult, and when Mira and I wouldn’t simply lay down and let you take him, you killed my wife and stole him!”

The needle moved, and Ephraim writhed on the table, the twitch of his jaw as he struggled to hold in his shouts evident as the clenching of his fists. “You are mistaken, Mr. Bridger.”

And on it went, for forty-eight minutes. Forty-eight minutes of torture, and lies, and the strength and ferocity of Ephraim’s will, unyielding against the Grand Inquisitor’s attempts to break it. “Don’t lie to me,” Ephraim gasped, face thunderous. “Why did you take my son?”

“Your son died in the riots, Mr. Bridger.”

“Where is he?!”

Kanan paused the vid, scrubbing a hand over his face. It just didn’t make any sense. The JEDI program had been dissolved when Palpatine took control, so why would the Grand Inquisitor be looking for new recruits? And if they were looking for new soldiers, why didn’t they take Ezra? The kid was smart, quick on his feet, great with machines--he should have been a prime target for the JEDI. Could they just have completely missed him?

No, Kanan decided, this was deliberate. Maybe it was because of his parents, but he didn’t see how leaving alone the child of two known insurrectionists would have benefitted the JEDI; if anything, it would have made him even more of a prize, a big fat slap in the face of the movement. So why leave him alone? And why, if you’re going to leave him alone, go through all the trouble of relocating him?

Too many things didn’t add up, he wasn’t nearly drunk enough for any of this, and outside his cabin was the telltale shuffle of someone listening through the door.

Sure enough, he palmed open the door, and Ezra was there, jerking away from the hole where the wall used to be. “Did you say my name?” he asked, smiling like he hadn’t just been attempting to eavesdrop.

“No.”

“I heard my name. What were you watching?”

“Why aren’t you asleep?” Ezra was a right terror all the time; a tired Ezra even more so. “I told you we had an early start tomorrow.”

The transformation was startling. Where once had been an obstinate teenager, a kid who enjoyed glaring daggers at him from across the dinner table, disobeying orders in flight, and refusing to come to blaster practice, stood a repentant child, his eyes wide in that rarely-seen puppy-dog way that he never outgrew from the street. “Look,” he said, arms raised, placating, “I’m sorry for snooping. You’re the boss, and your business isn’t mine. You’re entitled to your secrets, and that includes not telling me what you were up to tonight, even though you promised not to hide information from me if I thought it was important. Right?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Okay,” said Ezra, unperturbed, “but I just think--”

Kanan groaned.

“I could really help you out!”

“Ezra--”

“I’m still pretty small, I’m quiet, I’m awesome at pick-pocketing,” he counted off, “I could be a really great spy!”

Kanan sighed, the telltale signs of an Ezra-induced headache beginning to manifest, a subtle throbbing beneath his temple overcoming his need to stay as rational as possible. “We’ve been over this,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “and under no circumstances will I use you as a spy. You are not getting involved!”

“I’m already involved!” Ezra said. “You think if you got caught then they wouldn’t arrest your ‘mechanic’ for treason, too?”

He was right, of course. “Ezra,” said Kanan, bringing his hands down on his shoulders, tilting his head up to look him in the eye so that he could see, so that he could understand, “you listen to me. If there is the slightest chance that you can get out of this with your nose clean, then you take it. Do you understand?”

“Kanan--”

“Ezra!” He shook him. “Do you understand me?!”

“Fuck you!” Ezra roared as he shoved him off, nearly knocking Kanan into the strut of his bunk. “Just, fuck you! They were my parents, and I have the goddamn right to know why they died!”

“I know!” Kanan shouted back. “Of course you do.”

“Then tell me what’s going on!” Ezra advanced, hands balled into fists, jaw clenching with barely contained rage. Just like his father.

He couldn’t keep this from him for much longer.

“I don’t--” He broke off, willing the right words to come, “I don’t want to be wrong about this.” Ezra faltered at that, his shoulders losing some of their rigidity as his anger started to bleed out of him. “I have my suspicions, but that’s all they are right now: suspicions. This isn’t just a simple matter of corruption. What I’m--what we’re investigating might involve people so far up the chain of command that they could take us out in broad daylight and walk away without a single scratch on their reputation. These people,” for Kanan knew them well, knew them so intimately it still made him sick sometimes, “these people don’t care about right or wrong, or justice, or anything like that. And they certainly won’t think twice about killing you for what you know.”

Heavily, Kanan sat on his bunk, the lumpy bed sinking even further under his weight, under the weight of the goddamn world. He was so goddamn tired.

The mattress dipped as Ezra sat beside him, never taking his eyes off of him. “I can’t sit by and do nothing, Kanan,” he said, softly. “They were my parents.”

Something tried to crawl its way up Kanan’s throat, sitting heavily. This kid. “I know. And I promise, I won’t keep anything from if I think it’s important enough for you to know. But right now, the less you know, the better.”

His mouth twisted, but, eventually, he nodded. “Can…” he looked away, arms coming up to hug himself, the scrape of fabric on fabric seeming to center him. “Can you at least tell me what was on the vid?”

Kanan’s stomach plummeted. He closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of recycled air, dirty laundry, the lingering stench of Shento on his skin. When he opened them, Ezra was looking at him again, the bright blue of his eyes somehow dimmer in the low light of his cabin.

He would rather have the obstinate teenager than this.

“It was an interrogation archive,” Kanan said.

“The Grand Inquisitor?”

“Yeah.” Ezra shuddered, and one hand rubbed at his wrist, almost subconsciously. “I thought it might have some new info, but… he was just torturing the prisoner. Trying to make him forget something he had seen.” Which was true. Nothing in that vid was news to Kanan.

Beside him, Ezra dipped his head, dark hair in his eyes, and tilted slowly until it could be said that he was leaning on Kanan. Kanan’s shoulder twitched, but he knew better than to try to hug the kid. “And the prisoner?” he asked. “What did he know?”

“He knew…” Kallus’ voice in his head, again. “He thought he knew why they were targeting your mother.”

“Did he?”

“Honestly? I don’t know.” And the truth was, he didn’t. The Rebellion, the JEDI, the Grand Inquisitor, the Bridgers, and their son; every answer to every question revealed a whole new web of entanglements, of money and power and depraved individuals, and Kanan was still so lost, adrift in the void of space without a heading. “There’s so much that just isn’t adding up, and I want--I have to be sure, beyond the shadow of a doubt, before I can go any further with this.”

He felt, rather than saw, Ezra’s nod. He wondered what Ezra could feel from him, if he could tell that Kanan still, despite his promises, was lying to him.

#sasha fics #gtl

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