#he looks like he hasn’t had a decent nights sleep in years and also like he’d give me a uti and yet….. i want him biblically

[obfontri]

best kraglin look is always gonna be vol 1….. the mohawk, the eyebags, the shit eating grin when he welcomes peter back onto the ship……. my bastard king

#・ﾟ✩ ➶ ⠀i'm not mysterious and quiet i'm just iron deficient. ⸻ ooc. #he looks like he hasn’t had a decent nights sleep in years and also like he’d give me a uti and yet….. i want him biblically

[golden-eye-ramblings]

Renatus Revol Headcanon Dump Part 1

Woo wooo!! Time for Renatus headcanons! He’s not just a simple delinquent and I intend to convince y’all on why :3c. This will have manga spoilers! Gif credit to @fallinblossoms

————

Renatus Revol

Height: 5’10/180cm

Age: 26

Birthdate: November 1st

Sign: Scorpio

Gender: Cisgender

Pronouns: He/Him

Sexuality: Bisexual

• While Renatus fits into the category of a delinquent brute with how lackadaisical and extreme he can be in terms of delivering punishment. He’s actually quite amicable like Ryoh and Kaldo. He’s just incredibly tired 24/7 due to his role and hasn’t gotten proper sleep in years(except for holidays, which he yearns for every day).

• Has developed the ability to sleep standing upright.

• His favorite food is fast food because it’s the only thing that’s usually available super late at night to eat. My man can NOT cook.

• Conversely his favorite drink is cheap beer because, once again, of how easily accessible it is during late hours.

• He enjoys reading ghost stories because it helps keep him up at night.

• Compared to the others who at least have decent homes or lavish spaces, Renatus lives in a cheap apartment. He still has things in boxes because he’s never had time to go home and truly unpack anything. The first thing one sees when entering his place is a single mattress on the floor, stacks of magazines and books, dirty containers of fast food and empty bottles. Truly a Male Living Space™️.

• Is actually quite the academic, although his memory isn’t what it used to be.

• And speaking of his memory issues. While I am inclined to believe that sleep may be a factor in it, I am also inclined to believe his immortality also plays a role in it.

• While he can regenerate at incredible speeds, it’s not entirely perfect. A crick in the neck? Simple, he just breaks his neck so the bones can set properly again. Back problems? Just break his back, no biggie. After his fight with Doom, his regeneration couldn’t keep up and he lost consciousness. And the healing process was not completely perfect when he came to(huge time shenanigans and mega manga spoilers aside). To summarize, he ended up with brain damage.

• People often think he’s forgetful because he’s just tired or lazy and doesn’t care enough to remember properly. While that’s *partially* true, it’s also because he has yet to really fully grasp how bad it really is. And he’s certainly not being careful with himself either. He’s always had memory issues but his lack of self preservation only exacerbated the problem.

• While he recalls that he gave up his mortality in order to save a girl he loved, he can’t recall if he did in fact save her. Nor even remember her name, or what she looked liked. He doesn’t think on it much in recent times, save for this weird funny feeling he gets in his chest whenever he traces his only scar.

• Renatus’ coworkers have yet to notice how bad his memory has gotten, Agito however has been assisting him in little ways. Such as leaving behind notes and helping him grab lunch and remind him of important events or work related things. He hasn’t noticed the changes fully.

• In terms of closeness with the other Divine Visionaries. He is closest with Agito, amicable with Tsurara, Ryoh and Rayne. Neutral with Orter. And on negative terms with Kaldo and Sophina. He enjoys teasing Sophina the most due to her strict school president like attitude.

• Does not remember Nerey. At all. Repeatedly even after Nerey has introduced himself several times. It’s unclear on whether or not he’s doing this as a bit or because Nerey’s genuinely not interesting enough to be remembered by Renatus.

#renatus revol #mashle magic and muscles #mashle headcanons #mashle #agito tyrone #sophina biblia #kaldo gehenna #ryoh grantz #orter madl #rayne ames #tsurara halestone #hits you with my surprise angst beam #mashle manga spoilers #Mashle gives me crumbs of information that I immediately devour and look into more #nerey shawn

[im-a-king-baby]

I love the laura bonus ficlet! Do you maybe can write about her thoughts of when she found out that it was Wilhelm who was there with Simon in Bjärstad?

Thank you for loving Laura! (The previous Laura ficlet is here to give context)

Also for the reblogs, this is a bonus ficlet from my longer YR fic Everybody Loves You Now!

This picks up from slightly later in the conversation in the car between Simon and Laura.

Laura considers her next question for all of thirty seconds before going with her gut. “Is ‘Fuck this Motherfucker’ about Candace?”

Simme laughs. She made Simme laugh! There's a little buzz of pride in her stomach. “Is that what people think? You guys know I didn’t write it, right?”

“I know, but you said you always try to have a concept in mind when you sing, to make the songs about something.”

He gives a little nod, acknowledging her point. “True. I guess it’s about Candace a lot.” He shrugs. “But one time it was definitely about this stretch of highway we’d been on the night before that was so full of potholes -”

“Atlanta to Nashville,” she says, instinctively, like this is some Simme trivia game and not just her knowing a weird number of facts about his actual life. “Sorry. I just… I saw the video.”

She glances sideways at him again. He looks amused rather than mad, and he hasn’t refused to answer any of her questions yet so she kind of has to. “Can I ask… Who do you think about when you sing the love songs?”

“Wilhelm.”

There’s no hesitation to it. No equivocations, no questioning. Just the name, said so softly that it takes her a moment to connect it to the reality of Crown Prince Wilhelm who gives speeches on Year with the Royal Family and gets photographed in suits hugging babies and opening hospitals.

It’s a weird crossing of streams, realising The Crown Prince is a person and there are people he dated in high school who say his name like it’s something precious they want to keep hold of.

But like, that was four years ago. And Simme hasn’t even been back to Sweden since. “Still?” she finds herself asking.

“Yeah.” He’s looking out the window, at the shadows of trees in the darkness. “He’s the only… there’s never been anyone else.”

There have been four years of constant wall to wall news coverage of Simme with this popstar or that actor or this reality TV star. Simme laughing off his high school relationship with the Prince of Sweden like it was nothing at all. “I thought… I mean we all heard about Alfonso…”

He laughs something bitter lingering at the edges to it. “I thought it was a marketing stunt, he thought it was true love. We didn’t last.”

“But you and Wilhelm are still…”

“No,” he says. “We’re not.” His fingers drum against the door handle. “Can you pull over? Just for a minute. I need to do something.”

*

She’s at that point where she’s basically awake but is refusing to admit it, nestled down into the covers trying to avoid opening her eyes, half thinking that if she does everything that happened last night is going to turn out to be a wild dream and she’ll be back in Gothenburg about to wake up and drive to Stockholm to meet Stan and see the show.

Then there’s a gentle knock on the door and an unmistakable voice says, “Hey? Can I come in?” and Laura opens her eyes to a closet-sized bedroom with posters of horses on the walls.

She’d found a nightshirt to sleep in that falls all the way down to her knees, so she’s decent enough to sit up and say, “Okay?”

Simme steps into the room. He’s changed into a purple hoodie, but otherwise he looks much the same. Like he hasn’t slept or showered since he dug out a silk pillowcase from the depths of the linen cupboard. His eyes catch on the horse posters, lingering a moment too long before he looks down at her. “There’s lunch. If you’re hungry.”

She wants to ask ‘are you okay?’ but his eyes keep darting back to the walls, his hands are twitching and he had to pull over multiple times so he could snort a powder that she’s really hoping was not cocaine so she’s not sure she’s ready for the answer.

Also now he’s mentioned food, she’s realising she’s starving. “Sure.”

He nods, takes a step back so she can stand up and then leads her back down the tiny hallway, past family photos that she resists the urge to stop and peer at, and into the kitchen where there are two strangers setting the table and one of them is Crown Prince Wilhelm.

She lets out a noise that might be a yelp, starts a, “You’re-” but thankfully cuts herself off before she can say something completely idiotic like ‘you’re here’ or ‘you’re the prince’ or ‘you’re taller than you look on TV.’

It turns out there is a difference between knowing there is something going on between Simme and the Prince and actually seeing said prince in the flesh wearing Simme’s white hoodie instead of a neatly pressed suit and setting out plates on the kitchen table.

Only the hoodie was oversize on Simme but clearly fits Prince Wilhelm just fine so that’s… a thing.

“Hello,” she says, trying to get back to normal only this isn’t normal because he’s a prince so like. “I mean, your majesty.”

Prince Wilhelm smiles. Up close, it’s the same kind of smile Simme keeps giving her, the one he seems able to paste over whatever he’s really feeling in the moment. “Your majesty is my mother,” he says. “Call me Wilhelm.”

Which of course just reminds her of being in the car the night before, the way Simme’s voice softened on Wilhelm’s name. And Simme had said they weren’t still… but Wilhelm is here, in this middle-of-nowhere town. Not Simme’s team, not Candace, just Wilhelm.

A good half of the internet would pay a large fortune for a glimpse of what she's seeing now. The way Wilhelm's eyes track Simme's progress through the room, the way Simme's whole body seems angled towards the Prince even when they're not interacting at all.

"Have you told anyone you're here?" Wilhelm's bodyguard asks her.

She hasn't. And as Wilhelm and Simon both reach for a plate at the same time and flinch back a moment before their fingers brush, she knows she never will.

#elyn fic #commentary meme #bonus content meme #tw drugs mention #at one point I wanted to write a whole laura spin-off just about how wild it would be to be in the car with Your Blorbo for two hours #just imagine the awkward weirdness

[msjr0119]

This Life

The majority of characters belong to Pixelberry from The Royal Romance/Heir.

Series warnings ⚠️: Adult language, sexual.

Based on the Netflix series- Sex/life. Some situations are based on canon.

Tags: Because I’ve been gone MIA in like forever I don’t know who’s here anymore 🙈… so I’m not tagging specific people.

****

School psychologists aren't supposed to write books or diaries about sex. Doing so would be considered 'unethical' and 'a fireable offense'. Lucky for you, ethics was never my strong suit.

****

January 3rd

New year. New start? No. Same shit, different year. It hasn’t always been ‘bad’ though.

There was a time in my life where I was; wild, fun, happy. I was living the time of my life. As if there was no tomorrow. No worries. Anxiety- what anxiety? No sleep. It didn’t matter to me. Caffeine was my best friend as well as Liv. Both getting me through each day. Thinking back to those days- I was vulnerable. The reason why… HIM.

The man who has not been named ‘out loud’ in nearly a decade. However, just recently the memories keep flooding in my mind. I’m not sure why? As much as I try to erase them, they return immediately. Today I spent the afternoon vacantly staring at my child as he caused chaos around me. Typical toddler, some may suggest. My boy- he was…is, a blessing. To begin with, I wasn’t sure if I could be a mother. Half of the time, I’m surprised that I’ve managed to look after myself all of these years. Motherhood- that was never a high priority in my future when I imagined my fairytale life in my adolescence. Honestly, my only goal in life was to achieve my PHD in Psychology. Oh, how that went ‘tits up’.

My husband- he was my saviour five years ago. Most of our close friends and family assumed that Nate was just a rebound. Deep down, I probably believed that too back then. However, he proved everyone wrong- including myself. For the last five years he’s provided for me but for also for Preston. Most people would think that I sound ungrateful for the life that I have. Maybe I am?

The majority would dream for what I have; the wonderful house outside the city. The opportunity to not have to work for now- the life of a typical housewife. The privilege to own nice yet expensive cars due to Nate’s promotion. And not forgetting the support from Preston’s nanny- Ioana. Why isn’t all of this enough for me? I often think…What if, I had never agreed to that coffee date with Nate on our first meeting? Would my life have been any different? Could I have rekindled with the man who made me feel invisible- electrified? The intimacy with him. God, I miss it. I miss him. Back then, I was caught up in the euphoria of the moment. ‘For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, to love and cherish, until parted by death’ I keep reminding myself about the vows that we made- ‘I am happily married’. But, is that true?

“Shit!” Looking at her watch, Riley realised that the day had rapidly disappeared. Nate could be returning home at any point.

“Mommy, you….”

“I know, Preston. I’m sorry I said a naughty word.” Scrutinising the mess surrounding them- Riley deleted all of what she had noted down, before rushing around like a headless chicken in her night wear still. Hearing the door open, she panicked slightly before recognising the familiar face. Phew.

“Excuse me, Miss Riley- but your sister and Mr Liam have just got here. I can take Preston for his bath if you’d like?”

Shit.

“Erm, Ioana- let them in, I’ll quickly run upstairs and make myself decent. Preston, honey- why don’t you show Ioana the train track that we made earlier on? It’s amazing isn’t it?”

“Okay, Mommy.”

“I don’t know why they are here?!” Ioana provided a soft smile towards Riley as she mouthed this and guested that she would be one minute.

Running back downstairs dodging the washing and stray toys, Riley realised that she had two missed calls and voicemails.

Hey, girl.

Sorry I didn’t return your call earlier on. It’s been a busy crazy day. I’m back in the city- you sounded a bit upset on the voicemail. Meet up, tomorrow? Let me know.

Hello beautiful,

Just to let you know, I’m running slightly behind tonight. Emergency meeting with Katrina and ‘the big boy bosses’. I hopefully won’t be too long. I will grab some food at work- just see to yourself and Preston. Love you.

“Nothing new there, then. Working late again wasn’t expecting that at all- oh silly, me. He’s probably so far up her arse…..”

“Riley.” Lindsey shouted interrupting her sisters negative thoughts regarding her husband and his new boss.

“Hey guys. Sorry about the mess. Erm… it was Nate’s first day back at work and myself and Preston are still in the holiday mood. We still need to get back into the normal routine… anyway…. What are you doing here?” Lindsey and Liam gave each other a look- they both didn’t know how to ‘sweet talk’ the discussion that they needed to have with Riley.

“Well… we haven’t seen you since Christmas. So we thought that we’d pay you a visit.”

“It was less than two weeks ago, we’ve gone months without seeing each other before.”

“Erm…” Lindsey stuttered which encouraged Liam to continue the conversation. “Well we know that Nate is working longer hours now- we know that you have Ioana for company but if you wanted a different change of scenery…. We are here. Always.” Focusing her attention towards her sister instead of Liam - Lindsey provided a sheepish smile towards Riley.

“Linz you’ve always been a rubbish liar. What’s the real reason as to why you’ve spontaneously shown up here?”

“Ioana, are you okay looking after Preston for a couple of extra hours whilst we take Riley to the city? Mommy’s night off. I believe she deserves it?”

“Of course, Mr Liam. That is no problem. I agree, Miss Riley should go and enjoy herself.”

****

New York is a city of diversity and dynamism. As well as a city of politics, economy and culture. Even though I don’t live within the city anymore- this is home. The natural feeling of ‘home’ occurs every time that I enter the city. Each corner has a different story to tell. Mixed emotions. Memories both bad and good that will last a lifetime.

To begin with- Riley kept looking over her shoulder in the bars that the trio had entered. Was there some hope that she could see him? If there was to be an unexpected meeting she wasn’t quite sure on how to react. Due to anxiety and nerves - Riley began to take advantage of the alcohol as well as the child free night. The last known location for the man in question was California. Because of this she began to let her hair loose - something which pleased Lindsey but also worried her at the same time.

“Liv’s flat is literally next door. I’ll just go and surprise her and see if she wants to join us, okay?”

“Okay, we’ll get you both a drink. Gin and tonic?” Liam asked.

“No, make it two JD and cokes. It’s what myself and Liv always had during our… fun… days. Nights. Mornings…. I’ll be two minutes.”

“Liam- JD and coke, minus the JD for Ri.” Lindsey whispered to her husband, as they watched Riley enter the flat safely.

“I think she will need a coffee rather than fizzy pop to attempt to conceal the alcohol consumption from Nate. When Riley returns with or without Liv we are telling her the truth, Linz. Olivia will be the extra support that she may require.”

****

“Surprise!”

“Ri… what are you doing here? I suggested to meet up tomorrow on the voicemail.”

“Yeah I know, but….” Stumbling against the wall, Olivia stepped out quickly shutting the door quietly.

“Are you drunk?”

“No! Maybe. Only, slightly.” Shrugging her shoulders, she knew that Nate would berate her for being in this position. However, she didn’t care for now.

“Anyway Linz and Liam sort of dragged me out to the city- because I can never get out, I thought you could join me- us. Like old times…. But obviously old times were just you and I. It’ll be fun though…. I need to talk to you anyway…. I’ve been having these weird dreams. Memories keep rushing back of me and him….” Before Riley could continue with her word vomit - Olivia prevented her from continuing.

“Now isn’t a good time….I’m still jet-lagged from Paris. Tomorrow would better, honey. For me. I can come to you… or you could come back to the city with Preston. Whichever is easier….”

“Who’s Preston?” Standing frozen as if she had seen a ghost, Riley’s brain began to shrivel and not function properly. “I’m assuming he’s the new lucky man in your life?” Not responding to the questions- Riley couldn’t distinguish reality from fantasy.

“It’s good to see you, Brooks.”

#the royal romance #Riley x drake #riley brooks #drake Walker #Liam Rys #trr fanfic #trr au fanfic #tw swearing #tw mention of sex #theroyalromance #choices trr

[alecsalamander]

He hasn’t dreamed since he was a teenager.

Not really. Not in the way a person is meant to dream. Obviously he knows it’s because he hasn’t slept a decent night through since all of this started; he’s learned just enough about REM sleep to know he barely gets any, and that that tends to be the time the true dreaming takes place. Logically, he knows this. But sometimes, in the dark, in the dreamless nights, he wonders if maybe he hasn’t just died and come back so many times now that parts of him, the vital ones, are missing.

Right now, though? He’s dreaming.

He’s in Bibio’s kitchen. The old one, from before the remodel, back when he was a teenager. Back at the beginning of everything, that terrible year that he lived and died and learned to make sense of the world from the sanctuary of her upstairs bedroom. From the days and days and days of lessons in this exact kitchen, just like this, learning an entire universe that had been denied to him. He knows that he’s dreaming because the temperamental gas stove died sometime around 9/11, and also because Bibio is speaking English.

“How do we know when we’re done?” she asks him around her familiar crooked smile, her familiar crooked teeth. She feels warm and safe in the way she always has, even though the words sound foreign on her tongue; she’s never allowed her family to speak English in her home, imposing the strict rules of those who have survived despite it all to reclaim their heritage. It had been rough, those first few weeks, the surliest of her grandchildren dragged across state lines and through the rusty Romanian of his childhood until he’d realized it was only out of deference to his trauma that she was allowing even that. It had taken him the better part of the next decade to learn enough Vlax to satisfy her. Instead, he looks around the kitchen, familiar in a forgotten sort of way, for context clues – what are they making?

The kitchen is bare. The stove cold. “Ni hačarav.”

“Catalin,” she reaches up, up – she’s never felt this small to him before, even when he was a gangly youth surviving only on spite and bitterness – to cup his cheek. She’s the only one who ever says his name correctly anymore. He was named for her, after all. “Ćhavorro. How do we know when we’re done?”

He doesn’t. That’s the problem. There are songs and prayers and blessings to time every step in the kitchen and he knows them all, except for the one he’s currently on.

Bibio is smiling up at him in a kitchen that has not been hers in years, and nothing is boiling or baking or bubbling – he’s dreaming, and not of their recipes. He’s dreaming, or remembering maybe, of a kitchen that is old, and his grandmother is small and speaking with him in a tongue that has never found welcome in her mouth. The stove is cold but his hands are warm, his skin, all of him all the way down to his bones… and he knows he shouldn’t be. He doesn’t remember falling asleep but he remembers jumping, remembers cold and snow and the sharp knife in his ribs of a too wet, too icy breath gasping out when he went beneath the surface and—

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, mostly because he’s fairly certain he hasn’t. This is the kitchen he first learned to die in, after all.

How do we know when we’re done? his grandmother asks him, and there’s no urgency behind it; he might not know where or when he is now, but he knows that she’s safe. The first and last time he saw Lacey since the terrible day that they lost her and she was the closest to home she could ever be, wrapped in her father’s arms. If she means this day, this mission, this ordeal, this whatever nightmare it’s been, then he knows that he’s done by the way the strange borrowed warmth in his body is urging him to rest. That he can sleep now. She is safe.

They both are.

It had never even been a choice for him, only a decision – in any world that demands a choice be made between them, one for the other, he would trade every single one of his stolen lifetimes for theirs. Lacey is safe, and she is with Wendy, and there is nothing else in his universe that could ever matter more.

One moment more, maybe.

There hadn’t been time, between the realization and the ice – he’d had Lacey in his grasp before he knew he needed to treasure it, this one last time, and then he’d been passing her off and getting them away and then— It hadn’t been a choice, couldn’t ever be, but if it had been then he would have taken one moment more. One glance back.

How do we know when we’re done? his grandmother asks him, and he knows because the songs and prayers and blessings all tell him the same thing. That these keep my son safe until his time, and fill him with kindness and love.

The kitchen is bare. The stove is cold. The songs and the prayers and the blessings have ended.

He knows how to die. He’s had a lifetime of practice. This is just the first time that it’s been easy. And that’s the part that has him hung up like this, trapped in the past and the present all at once, the way that this time, of all of them, feels like the only time he’s gotten it right.

“I understand now,” he tells her. She presses her touch against his cheek, one moment more, and then she takes his hand in her familiar, crooked grip; it’s not magic, people’s hands, simply where they hold it. She reads them like books, a learned language, has taught him every line of his own story. He thinks, maybe, they’ve both known the ending all along.

The kitchen is bare. The stove is cold. His grandmother is only a dream, and then she is gone.

And he—

He wakes, fighting back the fog of painkillers and the rush of nausea and the all too familiar clinical burn of a hospital at the back of his throat, to the quiet brush of a hand against his. It’s gentle, reverent, tracing the lines of his palm like reading a map; like finding the way home.

Here is my life line, he thinks, remembers the familiar path of his grandmother’s thumb, here is my heart line. They converge at the point where Wendy touches him.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks out, his own unfamiliar survivor’s tongue, and squeezes the hand against his palm. Much like his own, he can feel the moment Wendy’s heart starts to beat again. “I thought I was done.”

Wendy presses his forehead and a shaky breath against that sole point of contact between them. “You might have been,” he agrees wetly, “but we weren’t. She wasn’t.” A moment of quiet, something stolen around the beeps and whirs of the mostly forgotten machines, and then Cat allows himself to look. His father is passed out in the chair in the corner. Lacey is draped halfway across the foot of his bed, hands fisted into the blankets like she’s trying to dig him out; her hair is golden and the bruises under her eyes are purple, and even in sleep her expression is ferociously stubborn. There’s something desperate about it, the determination, and altogether drained. She’s never looked more like him in her life. “She doesn’t like being told no.”

Cat grins, soft and crooked. He knows he’s spoiled her. “That’s my girl,” he praises softly; she probably doesn’t hear him, but her hand loosens against the sheets like maybe she did. It’s enough.

“Yeah,” Wendy agrees. “We did good.”

#my writing #universe: witchhunters #happy 3 year anniversary of dying only to have the asshole kid he raised refuse to allow it to my favorite son

[mediocre-eternity]

It is 8 December 2022

I haven’t really been sleeping in a substantial way. Once in a while the roar of my mind is endless and overrides this apparent supernatural curse to sleep. I envy younger vampires because the call seems to leave them no choice. Daniel is an absolute corpse but his schedule has become more erratic in recent years. Louis loves to sleep as well. Though maybe I have the wrong assumption because my memory of my own sleep when I was younger is so corroded… and I’ve definitely spent time with Lestat well into sunlight hours. I digress. It doesn’t matter. I’m being haunted by dark sided thoughts.

The sight of Daniel in the Blood is, at times, far too much for my mind to bare. This is simultaneous with the knowledge that he is also very, very precious to me. His rarity as an immortal is absolute. I have never met another like Daniel. This understanding is how I know Daniel will become a greater power than that of myself and of my maker. Perhaps that’s the idea that terrifies me the most.

I was thinking back on some months ago, where Daniel had caught himself in a mirror. I think it must have been the first time he recognized himself since his decent to madness. In one of the galleries of Trinity Gate I aligned quite a few mirrors against the walls and some against the big windows and he caught himself in these. He picked at his face for quite some time, moving in all different directions, stunned.

“I just think it’s the first time I thought about it.” He told me. “I’m not dying anymore.”

This realization bludgeoned me and hasn’t left. Coming and going from Florida hasn’t been treacherous but staying at length in New York has. Probably because it was the first city we both settled in and it was the first modern American city I really grew fond of. I can sit right at the edge of our large windows and look out across the never ending skyline with all of it’s rooftops sparkled with their little window lights and remember each and every detail about the nights we spent as vagabonds on the streets below. There is a little carousel of brightly colored fish in The Battery we discovered by accident, or Daniel’s favorite Chinese food restaurant that still exists. We live very close to Coney Island now which was one of Daniel’s favorite places to visit in the city. I haven’t taken him back and strangely, he hasn’t asked. In the spring when the tourists are back I’ll be sure to take him again.

Daniel still hasn’t mastered the Cloud Gift even though his pedigree would suggest he’d be very good at it. I’ve been told that this lacking comes from a mental block and perhaps the trauma he’s past doesn’t allow him to really grasp how. But I am a horrid teacher because I can’t describe how to master it. I just do it. Much like the Mind Gift I’m famed for, it’s an instinct. So instead we’ve sat upon every high rise we’ve fancied.

A cat and mouse game enraptured us a few nights ago and when I thought I had lost him I realized he had stayed right at my back the entire time. Such speed, I mused as I stared at him from the rooftop across from me. There is nothing I can say to describe Daniel’s eyes as they were transfixed on my gaze, like amethysts reflecting light. For some moments I was frozen in terror at the man I thought I’d witness a mortal death and instead becoming the monster that delivered it to him.

His plain expression as he watched me might as well have been that of some old-world angel. Something of a different plane, and a far more powerful being than myself. Then he hopped that roof to mine, his arm circling my waist in an instant and breaking me of my despair for losing the mortal boy I once so worshipped. He is so different now, though maybe he is just coming into his own. His witticisms do remain and his awkward smile but I don’t think Daniel would have been holding me like that before. And he did hold me, smiling, laughing, pressing on my back so my chest crashed against his. The feeling of him taking this control with me was rapturous— I was dazed by his lips descending on my neck. Yes, take, and that was what you were begging me so greedily for when your skin was still warm. I’m only your’s now, and you should take from me all that you desire. Oh, how do I rectify this sorrowful feeling while I’m also begging for him?

When we returned home, our romancing continued but I couldn’t let go of this drastic shift within my lover when I should have been reveling in it. He is so beautiful now, like a jewel. The only evidence of the couple we once were is a deep scar on his right cheekbone, a scar that cannot soften in immortality. A scar that Daniel holds no resentment for.

“He certainly earned it,” Louis had reminded me one night, admitting this softly because he knew my time with Daniel was coming again. We couldn’t recall another in the Blood as voracious and willing as Daniel. He holds no grudges, no complaints, no fears, no resentments… Daniel is immortality in it’s purest form. He is somebody who sold their every freedom to me for it. I may deeply cry for the torment I put his fragile mortal body through, but he thanks me all the same. Even more frustrating is when I beg of him to vilify my naked body, to atone for any sins I may have committed, he admits he’s terrified of hurting me. But what else beside physical pain could distract me?

Moreover, there are only two vampires now that can see me as I am. One is my maker and the other is my fledgeling. Without the link of our minds, I am merely a small and callous creature in the corners of bed chambers. How horrifying to think that Daniel can now know me so completely. The failure of everything that I am so obvious with the silence between us now. In these moments of anguish I lose my ability to speak out loud almost completely and am relegated to watching him from afar. Even so, he fails to find me a revolting boy. Calmly he moves over to me to guide me to where he was sitting and watching the television. He asks me over and over if this was an issue I had, the non speaking, and I wanted to put the very image into his head that why yes, I was in fact… very defective. When I couldn’t answer he stopped asking, wiping my face of any blood tears instead. I wanted to burn him alive for showing me this patience. I wanted Daniel so selfishly and so deeply yet I cannot bear it now that he can be mine forever. Perhaps because I will have to witness him leaving again someday when he is strong enough to explore on his own.

“Boss, we have cellphones.” He reminds me.

#woof #this is a doozy but I had to get it out of me lmao #the vampire armand #the vampire chronicles #tvc #interview with the vampire #iwtv #queen of the damned #devil’s minion #daniel molloy #journal entry

[electricbluebutterflies]

JessLeto + is it too soon to do this?

Vague nsfw of a first-postpartum-Encounter variety. Also on ao3.

There is a part of her, sometimes, that worries she is not enough.

Jessica is tired, so tired in the months after, her body compromised and her lover-

It has been half a year since he last put his hands on her in any way that meant something. She wonders, in the depths of her heart, if it will ever happen again.

She has slept alone since a week after the birth of their son, and that first week could be blamed on mutual worry but after that-

They cross paths daily, but she barely gets fingertips on her skin, she hasn’t even been held in-

If she had been betrayed as a woman, she would know. Even in her current state, she would know.

Her partner adores her; her partner is mildly, respectfully frightened by her. Their balance had almost gotten good and then she went and functionally destroyed it by-

Four months of recovery, Jessica decides, is an adequate waiting period before deciding to fix her domestic life.

She walks down the hallway in the quiet of night and she is haunted by a similar night just over a year ago, another moment that changed the structure of her life forever. She’d still tried back then, pretty nightgown, a level of effort she’d thought was appropriate for her position, like-

She certainly isn’t trying now. She’s used her abilities to make sure their son sleeps through the night so that she can, and she knows that’s dangerous precedent so early but there is truly no harm in it, but that still hasn’t-

She was pretty before this, she remembers, and she’d almost thought that was all she was good for, and-

Four years in this place that has become home to her and her hand still almost shakes as she knocks on her partner’s door. She has not sought him out; he has slipped into her spaces in daylight, daily, and she has not needed to-

“Is everything-“

She kisses him, because she hasn’t managed to do that in four damn months and she misses the taste of him, scruff where she is soft, and she misses him, and she-

“Are you-“

“I could have six weeks ago,” she breathes. Timelines for recovery are so vague and fluid, but she hasn’t actively hurt in weeks, and it was all supposedly easy, and-

Her son will be an only child, she was sure of it beforehand and even more so now. She regrets nothing, but the idea of doing all of that again is-

“Is it too soon?” her partner asks, tethering her with his hands on her shoulders, oh how she loves him, this caution when it matters, sometimes too much but-

“All I’ve done is kiss you,” she murmurs, almost a laugh. “That’s hardly-“

“But you want more. I do know that look in your eyes.”

“I do. And I do not need any more gentleness than you have always given me.”

He kisses her, hands wandering into her loose hair, holding her close and she has missed-

“I was unsure what you would allow,” he breathes against her skin.

“You know my boundaries have never been-“

“Exactly my point, my storm.”

He has been decent to her, she thinks as they move back into the bedroom that was almost hers before her body was compromised; he has been more than decent, committed from their first encounter to treating her well and still-

She wants to cry, and she bites her lip as her fingertips clutch the hem of his shirt, and-

“If you are-“

“Am I still enough, like this?”

She had been taught, once, that a man who has seen her weakness would not voluntarily lie with her. This one… closest she’s ever come to controlling him was when his worry turned into something she could practically feel, and if he’d been just a little less cooperative about doing that in the hallway outside instead…

She is loved. She knows, most important thing in the known universe, that she is loved. Whether she is desired is another matter.

“Did I-“

“It has been four months since you’ve asked for me. Six since I’ve said yes. I do trust that you have not betrayed me, but-“

“Why would you ever think-“

If there has been one pleasant thing about their distance during her recovery, it is that they can’t spar if they barely speak. She is in no mood to ruin this streak, and instead of words it seems easier to just pull her nightgown over her head and present her body as it is, almost but not quite what it was before, new places she carries tension and her breasts are never quite going to be the same and-

“What imperfection am I supposed to be looking for?”

No mood for a fight, Jessica reminds herself over and over again, no mood for-

“I have-“

“May I touch you?”

She nods, stands still as he circles her. They have done this before; they did this the first time they were alone together, and she was a similar level of scared then but for wildly different reasons, and-

Her partner’s fingertips are as light on her skin as ever, curious and innocent, the smallest smile on his lips as he touches everywhere he’s ever liked to and-

“You are as you have been,” he murmurs.

“Not even close. Not-”

“If you would stop me-“

She twirls and takes a kiss, deep desperate almost brutal. She wants this, guides his hand between her thighs so he can feel that she is normal enough, and when it is inevitably different-

“I have missed you too.”

This is how she feels warm, she thinks as they begin to move together in patterns that still feel right, like constant embers somewhere safe and hidden inside her, like-

Six months is, she will admit, a frightfully long time between encounters, and they are not doing again, and-

It is more cautious than she had become used to, and better for it, and her body remembers the feel of his, and she has done both better and worse than this, and-

The longing is clear enough in his face above hers, how much he missed the presence of her, how he worries even now. Desire above all else, but never just that, that is not who he is and he is a better man for that restraint and-

She is not sure who collapses first and even less sure she cares.

After, she hides her body in sheets and lets her partner play with her hair like she almost never tolerates, and-

“Will you stay, my love?”

“Will you have me?”

“Your side of our bed has become too cold, but-“

She kisses the side of his face, the line of his jaw, whatever she can turn her head to reach.

“And you are very warm by comparison…”

“Says the woman whose body seems to carry an entire ice planet worth of cold even after-“

“As I said. By comparison.”

They will not become what they were, she thinks as she shifts her body closer. If all goes well, they will become something better instead.

#ebf writes fic #leto x jessica #queue

[teasty]

hold on tight || b.c (m)

"hi! can you write something about streetracer!chan x f reader where things got heated up 🥺🥺 i really like your works by the way, kiss yourself really is one of my jisung’s fav fic !!" - anon

a/n: holyashjdljzhldsa just the thought of streetracer!chan makes me... omg i don’t even KNOW, i'd actually go crazy... and omg tysm! that means so much to me :,( and you're gonna have to excuse me since there's so many things heated could mean i'm just gonna make it angsty and smutty,, also kinda went off for a fluffy ending because it's bang chan, the christiano bangnaldo, how can i not???

● pairing: bang chan x (fem) reader

● genre: a lil bit of fluff at the beginning | angst | smut (mdi!)

● warnings: chan acts like a dick but he really isn't | illegal gambling/street racing | established relationship | angry sex | (of course) car sex | hair pulling | degradation + praise | dom!chan, sub!reader | fighting :( | semi - public sex | profanity | suggestive dialogue | reader slaps chan once :( | unprotected sex (please be safe!) | choking | kind of a quickie???? | super happy ending because i'm sappy like that

● requested? yes!

● words: 8.7k

→ summary:

You’ve never known about your boyfriend’s secret and very illegal job, if you could even call it that.

"Shut up, buckle up and hold on tight 'cause it's gonna be one hell of a night for us, darling."

It’s a cold, rainy night. You’re waiting comfortably on the couch, sitting there wrapped up in one of Chan’s blankets, waiting ever so patiently for his return. He’s not usually out this late, neither did his job usually end this late. Your mind was getting the worst kinds of ideas as you held your phone in your hand, more worry than anger coming over you. You couldn’t be mad at him, really, you were just worried something happened to him, since he wasn’t picking up your calls or even looking at your texts.

It’s around midnight, and you swore you wouldn’t sleep until you watched Chan, in all his glory, walk through the front door of your guys’s shared apartment. You’ve been dating Chan for years, ever since high school. And, now, even after graduating college and finding a stable job and apartment, Chan still tended to keep things from you. It was a bad habit of his, yes, but you couldn’t really be too mad at him for it. Besides, you’ll be able to help him out of that habit. Once he comes back, at least.

To wait, you decided to watch a bit of television to let your mind wander from the thought of something bad happening to Chan. Of course, the subtle thought of him cheating crossed your mind a few times, but Chan’s only ever been the most loyal and dedicated boyfriend, even past his pretty hard shell. He acts pretty tough sometimes, but you know that he’s just a little bit insecure about himself on the inside. Which, to you, is completely normal. Everyone’s at least a little bit insecure. You couldn’t blame him for that.

Getting with Chan was actually very difficult at first. You both had a rocky start before you started dating, since Chan was kind of like the cliche popular bad boy, and you were the snarky book nerd. You both started off arguing and bickering about everything. But, when you both got closer and closer, you began to see a softer, kinder side to him. And, like magic, you two started dating. You don’t really remember how it happened. It might’ve been just Chan saying, “Wanna date me?” or something like that just ‘cause it’s simple. However, getting it past your parents about your relationship with Chan was the most difficult in the world. They did not approve of him whatsoever. Even today, they’re still cautious of him even though Chan’s already proven his loyalty to you and swore to your parents that he’d never lay an aggressive finger on you.

You’re parents didn’t really like him because of his choice of outfits and friends, which was a stupid way to judge somebody in your opinion. So, no matter how many times they tried to break things off or distance you from Chan, you two always found your way back to each other. Though it was fun, all the sneaking out at three in the morning, saying you’re going over to a friends house when you’re really going to go see Chan and all the late night calls in a hushed tone, you’re glad you can finally relax about it and live peacefully with Chan without the need to sneak around.

But, your mind hasn’t been so peaceful these last few hours. There’s still no sign of Chan and no opened messages. You gave up on calling him after the fifth call had gone unanswered, and just decided to wait. Clutching your phone to your chest in case he were to call or text. Your eyes switch between the screen and the front door (which led into the living room).

You nearly jumped out of your blanket when your phone started ringing obnoxiously loud. Your heart beat loudly as you scrambled to look at the caller’s I.D. And, thankfully, it’s Chan. You’ve never answered so quickly.

“Chan?” Your excited voice squeaked out when you brought the phone close to your ear, a bright smile etching over your lips. Just happy that he’s in contact with you.

“Hey, darling,” Chan’s voice was husky and tired, and a little deeper than you remember. He must be exhausted, and you wondered if he had to stay late at work, “I’m so sorry for being out late. I’ll be home soon.”

“Alright… Is everything okay? What were you doing out so late?” You ask carefully, wrapping the blanket tightly around you.

“Work. My boss had me work over time. I would have texted you, but I was pretty busy,” in the distance, you can hear the sound of his car’s engine. He must be driving pretty fast. Chan also has a really nice car he saved up for and worked really hard for. It’s a smaller, good looking and really, really fast car. You could recognize that engine anywhere.

“Oh… I’m sorry about that,” You respond after a moment.

“It’s alright. Nothing to worry too much over,” you can hear Chan’s smile even through the phone, “And, by the way, could you do something for me before I get home?”

“Sure.”

“Could you make me something small to eat? I didn’t have the chance to eat dinner at work. If you could do that, that’d be so great, baby.” Chan says, and you get up off of the couch. Already heading for the kitchen.

“I could make you some jjajangmyeon? We have all the ingredients,” you say, surfing through your pantry.

“That’d be great, (Y/N). Thank you,” Chan sighs through the phone, and you pull out the ingredients.

“Of course. When will you be home?” You ask before he could hang up.

“I’ll be home in the next ten to fifteen minutes, at the least.” He says, and you can hear the engine get a little bit louder behind him, “I have to focus on the road. I’ll be home soon. I love you, baby.”

“Love you, too, Chan.” You respond, and hang up. Now with the satisfaction and the relief of knowing Chan’s coming home, you separate the ingredients out and start cooking (thank god you took that home economics class back in high school. You couldn’t cook for shit before that). Since Jjajangmyeon is a pretty slow cooked dish, you try your best with temperature control to fit it into the timeframe for when Chan gets home, wanting it to be ready for him.

You had your hair tied back as you cooked, occasionally looking up to watch the television, which was still on the random news channel from before. It talked about things you weren’t too interested in, so you only kept it on for background noise.

You were so immersed in cooking, you didn’t even notice the door slamming open and closed and a pair of heavy footsteps walking up to the kitchen. You jumped when Chan’s arms wrapped around your waist, his chin planting itself on your shoulder. He laughs tiredly at your reaction, and you turn to give him a subtle glare, but your smile deceived you.

“Hey, baby. I’m sorry for coming home so late. I promise it wasn’t my intention,” Chan grumbles out, his words low and slightly slurred, mostly because he’s tired.

“It’s alright, don’t apologize,” you chuckle softly as you arrange two portions of the jjajangmyeon into two different bowls. Chan watches silently over your shoulder, “I’m just glad you’re home. You worried me. Please text me next time, before you stay overtime and don’t bother texting me. I worry a lot, you know?”

“I know, (Y/N). I know you worry too much for your own good,” Chan smiles softly, chuckling tiredly, “It’s one of the reasons I love you so much.”

You smile, flustered, and raise a warm hand to press against Chan’s cheek, turning your head to press a loving kiss to his temple, which is cold, even in the warm kitchen. “Dinner’s ready. Do you want to eat in bed?”

“Not if you’ll make me do the dishes directly afterwards,” Chan lets go of you to take his dish, and you take yours.

You cock a brow at him, “I was going to make you do them anyways. You’re not getting out of it that easily.” You giggle and tap his nose with the tip of your finger. “Come on. Take mine, too. I’ll shut everything down.” You hand your bowl to Chan, who takes it quickly as you scurry around, turning off the television. Turning off lights and putting the dishes in the sink.

Once Chan’s changed into more comfortable wear and you’re both comfortable in bed, watching some show on the TV while eating. Time at home was usually like this; relaxing. You’re cuddled up to Chan while he ate slowly. Once you both finished, you placed them on the nightstands for the time being.

Chan was asleep instantly. You were up a bit longer, still a bit run on adrenaline from worrying so much earlier, despite knowing you have to be up early for work. Chan didn’t have to work till the afternoon, but you had to be up early since you’re a librarian at the local public high school. Chan’s an assistant producer and works under a decently big entertainment company. It’s quite the drastic difference, but you being a pretty big book worm yourself, you decided it would be fun to be a librarian (mostly using your literature degree), even if it’s stressful at times. Chan’s work, however, is much more tedious than your own. Where you can usually go at your own pace, he has more strict deadlines and sometimes more difficult work.

So, you let Chan sleep on your stomach. His arms wrapped around you securely as his face nuzzled into the soft fabric of the oversized shirt you were wearing. You were up a bit longer, watching the TV while running your hands through Chan’s soft hair. Enjoying the moment for the time being before you, yourself, drifted off into a deep sleep.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

You were the first one to wake up the next morning, per usual. You woke up to your alarm that Chan thankfully slept through. You got ready as quickly and quietly as you could. Since you work in a pretty professional environment, you wear something modest, but fits well with the fall weather and your fashion style. You wore a white long sleeved shirt and a pair of black slacks under a jacket with your university’s logo on it and a pair of sneakers. They weren’t too big on dress code for the teachers at the school, but the students still had to wear uniforms.

Before you left, you made Chan lunch for the day and yourself a lunch. You even bothered to wake him up briefly to give him a kiss goodbye and that you’ll be back early afternoon, although he’ll probably be at work, then. Chan, although three fourths asleep, gave you a tight hug and a kiss with a slurred ‘Love you’ before plopping back onto the bed and instantly falling back asleep.

Although Chan had quite the expensive car, he wasn’t quite fond of you driving it. You have your own car, and it’s fine. Mostly used to drive to and from work and nothing more, since most other things you were with Chan, so you both usually took his car. It’s not so much a matter of richer and poorer, his car just had more little trinkets and things that are just more convenient. You’re not completely sure what model his car is, all you know is that it’s expensive.

The school isn’t too far. It’s actually a ten minute drive from your apartment. You have to make it there pretty early, so the roads aren’t jam packed like they would be when Chan has to drive to work. So, you have a bit of an advantage there. When you get there, you’re met with the people in the front office, who bow respectfully to you, and you make your way to the library.

You set up at the large, round desk. You especially like being a librarian, because it’s quiet. You don’t think you’d do too well as a teacher, so you settled for a librarian since it was a good and easy way to use your literature degree and put it to good use, other than the fact you’re writing a novel, but that’s a whole other story (hehet).

It’s about half an hour before some students pile in, bidding you good morning and sitting down at the tables to study for whatever assignment or test they have, or to finish homework. Some of them go around to look at books, but most just sit by their lonesome and work on whatever while blasting profane music into their poor ears.

You were busying yourself going through overdue books, and emailing parents about student’s overdue books. You were immersed in your work, so you were somewhat shocked when someone tapped your shoulder. When you turned, you were met with the smiling face of your coworker. A middle aged, pretty woman named Jung Migyeong, who gave you the permission to call her ‘unnie’. She’s considerably your work - best friend. She’s the only person who really delved into conversation with you, unlike most of the other teachers who only talked to you about whatever book they’re class reading or for book suggestions (and you just choose the first book in the library that comes to mind).

“Oh, you scared me!” You giggle in a hushed tone, and Eunmi smiled brightly, her motherly aura giving you a sense of calmness.

“Sorry, sorry!” Eunmi sits on your desk, more leaning against it. Eunmi is really a pretty lady. Her hair is cut short to her shoulders, and she never wears makeup. Her natural tone is without blemishes or acne. She always wears pretty dresses to work, and she always carries around her purse for some odd reason. “I wanted to catch up with you. I didn’t realize you were so immersed in your work. I should’ve known, you’re more responsible than half the teachers here.”

“I try, I really do,” You respond, leaning back in the chair and smiling up at her, “Do you have a free period for the first hour?”

Eunmi nods, “Yes, I do. They switched it up just ‘cause of something wrong in the student's schedules. But, that’s past the point. How have things been going? In the home life?”

You shrug a shoulder, your smile dropping, “It’s… going. My boyfriend didn’t come home until, like, twelve - thirty last night. He said he had to stay late for work, but I don’t get it, Eunmi. He wouldn’t answer my calls or texts, and I don’t think his job prevents him from at least opening a text until he gets off, you know?”

“You said he’s a producer, right?” Eunmi asks, her head tilting down to look at you more clearly. You nod, “Well, he might’ve been busy with the idol. It’s pretty difficult work, I’m surprised he’s been able to keep up with it well.”

“Well, he came home hungry and tired,” you sigh again, “Which is weird because if he stays late he usually grabs something from the kitchen at the company building or fast food and eats it before he comes home. But, he was hungry… not super hungry, but I made him jjajangmyeon.”

"Jajangmyeon?" Eunmi’s head tilts, and one brow lifts and she scoffs, “That’s like a fifty minute dinner.”

“Not if you toy around with the temperatures, no,” you smile, and Eunmi shrugs a shoulder, “Eh, I was the one who suggested it to him. It’s one of his favorites, and he sounded exhausted and overworked so I though, you know, might as well. But, after eating, he was out like a light. You wouldn’t think that producing would make someone so tired.”

“You never know,” Eunmi reassures, “You seem to be really worried about this. You don’t think he’s cheating, do you?”

You quickly shake your head, “No, no! I know him, and I know that he would never do that to me. I think he’s just trying to hide something from me. I’m not mad at him, I just don’t want him to keep anything from me.”

“You’re not mad… yet!” Eunmi corrects, and your lips purse, “If he’s really hiding something from you, it must be pretty big. I would personally be surprised if you were able to keep your temper if you found out whatever it is he’s hiding. Cheating or not.”

You’ve never really been one to get extremely mad or even start arguments. As said before, you and Chan did have petty arguments back in high school, but since then, you’ve both matured. Chan always shut down a fight if you were getting too agitated, and you were usually never the first one to start up an argument, since your patience isn’t as thin as before. You will admit, though, you’d be decently upset if you found out Chan really was hiding something from you. You trust him so much, you thought there should’ve been nothing to hide.

“I suppose you’re right,” you lean your head against your hand, resting your elbow on the desk, “If there’s a good chance, I’ll talk to him about it tonight. If I want things to really work out with him, then there has to be complete trust and honesty with each other.”

“That’s the spirit,” Eunmi proudly says, placing a gentle hand on your shoulder.

“I want to spend the rest of my life with him, unnie,” you admit shamelessly, and Eunmi smiles wistfully, “I want to grow old with him. But I don’t want to live waking up every day at four in the morning and coming home to no one for hours on end. And, sometimes he won't come till midnight or morning.”

“Well, my husband and I used to have a lot of secrets, too. That we kept from each other,” Eunmi admits, reassuring you that you’re not the only one going through something like this, “The only way we were able to sort things through was by sitting down and talking to each other. Just telling all of our secrets to each other, even if they’re embarrassing or stupid. Just knowing the fact that we can trust each other with everything gives us that reassurance that we’re meant to be. Honesty is everything.”

You look down, thinking about the advice Eunmi had just given you, and you swallow down the growing lump of frustration in your throat, “Thank you for the advice, unnie. It means a lot to me.”

“Of course. I’m always free to talk, and you have my number if anything happens,” Eunmi smiles fondly, “And my doors are always open to you. I’ve spoken to my husband about you and he said that he’s always willing to keep our doors open. Just in case anything happens. You can’t be too careful, right?”

“Right,” you smile, flustered by Eunmi’s kindness, “Thank you so much. I’m… you’re right. If the worst of the worst happens and I’m booted out of my own apartment, then I’m at least glad to know that there’s some place I can go to that’s not three cities over.”

Eunmi laughs softly, and you laugh along with her, “I’m glad. Anyways, it’s about that time. I’m going to start heading back to my classroom. Let Chan know that I said hello, and that I wish you both well. Good luck, (Y/N).”

“Thanks, unnie. I’ll call you later,” you wave briefly as Eunmi makes her way out of the library, students bowing briefly to her as she passes.

You’re glad to have a friend like Eunmi. You’re lucky to have someone open their doors to you. Sometimes, you wonder if Eunmi views you as a younger sister, since she constantly rambles on and on about how she loves being called unnie or noona by her younger coworkers, even if she’s among the younger teachers. She’s like the sister you’ve never had. Sure, things had to be professional, but you’d like to spend more time with her out of the workplace. That would be fun.

The rest of the day is pretty slow. You had a few classes come in to pick up literature books, math books and to check out some books, but that was really it. You didn’t see Eunmi again, and left a few hours after the school closed. There was a bit of traffic on the way home, but it was mostly cleared up.

When you got home, you weren’t surprised to be met with an empty house. No sign of Chan, except the lunch you made him was gone, meaning he took it with him, thankfully, and he left a cute little note on a sticky note saying his thanks to you for making it for him. Which he usually did for you (you never bothered to throw them away. You actually kept them all in a little cigar box for safekeeping. Why? You didn’t know. You just felt like it.)

Like every day when you come home, you change into a pair of more comfortable clothing, which was just one of Chan’s hoodies you took out of his side of the closet, and a pair of ripped jeans. Since Chan didn’t do the dishes before he left, like you thought he would, you decided to do them to pass the time. In doing so, you turned on the TV for some background noise as you rolled up your sleeves to start scrubbing the dishes.

However, your attention was soon caught by the TV when the regular news anchor started talking about crime. At first, it was just about a robbery that took place in uptown, and that didn’t really suit your interest. What did catch your attention, enough to turn off the faucet and ignore the dishes to watch the TV, was when an all - too familiar black car with tinted windows and no license plate appeared on the screen, and there was a red car, too, but you didn’t recognize that one.

You turned up the volume, “Today, police are trying to look for these cars with no license plates caught on camera last night. They were suspected to be illegally street racing and gambling last night at around eleven o’ clock at night before being caught on security footage of a hotel nearby. If you can identify these cars, please contact the police immediately. One has been identified as a black Ferrari SF90 Stradale. The other has yet to be identified. If you see anything suspicious on the streets, please contact authorities. Here’s a clearer picture of both cars.”

And, that’s when it sparked you. One of the pictures of the black Ferrari was of the front. Despite the tinted window, you could clearly see a black ice Little Tree air freshener hanging from the mirror and a familiar hand gripping the wheel tightly. How could you recognize it? Despite the low quality, you can see a familiar ring on the middle finger. A celtic design Chan loved so much.

“Oh… my fucking god,” your mouth drops open as realization hits, and you immediately dash to the bedroom to yank open Chan’s dresser drawer, one left vacant for paperwork to “keep things safe”, and you pull out his insurance for his car. And, there it is, in plain sight. Ferrari SF90 Stradale. Color; black. Windows; tinted. At first, shock pools through you. Doubt climbing up. There’s no way Chan’s a criminal. There’s no way that he’s the one in the Ferrari. It has to be someone else.

But, there was only one way to find out. You had to be sure it was him.

So, you grabbed your purse and your keys and threw on a pair of slip - on vans. The sun was already setting, and you nearly forgot to lock up before running to your car. Barely unlocking it before you throw yourself into it, not even bothering to buckle your seatbelt before driving off to god knows where. Your gut leading you, immediately driving towards the area shown on the news. You pull out your phone, trusting the wheel in one hand as you pull up Chan’s profile and call him, pressing the phone to your ear.

The ringing carries on and on until the familiar voice of Chan speaks up, telling you that he’s not available and to leave a message after the beep.

“Oh, fuck off!” You scream at your phone before trying to call him again. Again and again it led to voicemail. Voicemail after voicemail. You couldn’t text him, not with you driving.

After the tenth call, you let out a frustrated yell, hitting your wheel with your palm and trying your best not to cry. You might be overreacting, since there’s a large chance that it isn’t Chan. But, for some reason, you believed it. You believed, at least somewhat, that it was Chan’s car. That it was Chan in the car. You didn’t want to believe it, but you did.

And your questions coursing through your mind were soon answered when you pulled up to the spot from the news, it now twilight, the sun just being set over the city’s horizon. You pulled onto an empty freeway, and parked in an alley between two buildings. There’s a group of people and a ton of expensive cars around the freeway. There were people crowded around a table. Some girls sat on top of cars, talking and laughing to each other while wearing vulgar and revealing clothes. Your brows furrow, deciding to stay low for a while. You turn off the engine to your car and watch carefully, gripping your phone in your hand. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, popping beer bottles, laughing and talking amongst themselves.

But, it’s when the sound of a loud engine came into earshot, and everyone, including you, turned to see the source of the sound. The moment the crowd of people see who it is, they start to cheer loudly. Throwing up their hands. However, your mouth falls open once more as the black Ferrari SF90 Stradale with tinted windows and a black ice Little Tree air freshener hanging from the rear - view mirror. It pulls up to the crowd, and they all part to make way for it.

Instead of shock or sadness, anger and rage begins to boil inside of you, and you grip your steering wheel tightly as you watch Chan, Christopher Bang, step out of the car. People pat his shoulder, and he smiles widely at them. Giving a few people hugs and even smiling to some of the women, who tried to steal a hug from him, too. He’s wearing clothes you don’t ever remember seeing. He wears a black leather jacket over a white button up and black skinny jeans. You’d be impressed by how good he looks if you weren’t so upset.

You didn’t even have to look at your phone as you pulled up Chan’s profile and called him, pressing the phone roughly to your ear.

“Pick up… Pick the fuck up,” you grumble under your breath as you watch Chan. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, and looks at it briefly.

Not even hesitating to hang up.

As you heard the familiar sound of Chan’s sweet voice telling you he’s not available at the moment and to leave a message after the beep, you finally have enough courage to get out of your car. Slamming the door shut and making your way out of the alley. They’re not too far, but it's a long enough walk for you to catch the eye of some people. You don’t even pause to rethink your decisions when a girl taps the chest of one of the guys, who glares at you with a raised brow.

The man that glared at you stepped away from the crowd, and you could barely see Chan over the people. He walks over to you, and you stop when the man is right in front of you, peering down you. The smell of cheap beer oozing off of him.

“And who the fuck are you?”

“Chan’s girlfriend, now get the fuck out of my way,” you try to push past him, but he grabs you by the arm. Tightly, too. Probably tight enough to leave a bruise after a while. “Hey! Let go of me.”

“No can do, princess,” the man says, smirking mercilessly down at you, his grip not loosening one bit, “Whether or not you’re Chan’s bitch doesn’t matter to me. It’s either you leave or I take you home and we have a good time. Well, I will, at least.” So, you tried to yank your arm from his, trying your best not to use your free hand to punch him in the face.

“Where’s Chan? Bring him to me.” You demand, and the man scoffs, chuckling.

“Fine, have it your way,” the man turns his head towards the crowd, a few people watch, and he says, “Grab Chan. This chick says she’s his girlfriend.” A few of them laugh at him, thinking it’s a joke. But, you stand your ground, glaring through the crowd. One of the people that laughed pushed through a few people. It takes a minute, and there’s a tense silence between you and the man as you try to pry his hand off.

But, as you suspected, a smiling Chan pushes through, but his smile instantly drops when he sees you.

“Hey, Chan. This chick’s babbling on about being your girl. Should I kick-”

“Get your hands off her right now before I shoot you in the face.” Chan interrupts, anger lacing his dark, deep voice. The man holding your arm instantly lets go and steps away, his hands rising in defense. Mumbling something about just ‘trying to keep things safe’. Once the man is away, Chan walks up to you, now being the one tightly gripping your arms. Leaning down so his face is close to yours.

“Why are you here, (Y/N)? Why the hell are you here?” He asks harshly, his voice full of surprise and desperation. He even shakes you slightly.

“You seriously thought I wouldn’t find out?” You snap, ignoring his question all together, “You thought I was dumb enough to let this go under? Well, I’ve been dumb for too long, Christopher. I’m not going to be like that anymore.” You know he’s not too big a fan of being called by his real name, but you do it anyway.

“Go home (Y/N). I’ll explain everything to you afterwards.” Chan says, placing a hand on your shoulder, trying to turn you away.

“No!” You yell, pushing his arms off you, “I am not going home, Chan! I am staying with you. I need to know what the hell all of this is. Right. Now.” You demand, and Chan shakes his head.

“No. You’re going home, (Y/N),” Chan tries to push you away again, his hands gripping your shoulders tightly and trying to turn you from the curious crowd. However, you weren’t going to be let off so easily. You swiftly turned around, letting your flying hand come in contact with Chan’s cheek. Smacking him. You made sure not to backhand him, knowing how much that could hurt. Besides, you don’t want to hurt him too much, you just want to get your point across, and he wasn’t listening to your words. He lets go of you again, his head flinging to the side because of the impact.

“I said no. I’m staying here,” You repeat yourself, and Chan’s eyes no longer lace with aggression, but worry. He doesn’t seem upset that you hit him. In fact, he seems to gloss over it. “I need to know what’s going on-”

You weren’t able to finish your sentence until Chan grabs you by the wrist and pulls you into the crowd. They part to make way for him, and you aren’t able to muster out a sentence before Chan unlocked his car and shoves you forcefully into the passenger seat.

“Chan, what -”

“Shut up, buckle up and hold on tight ‘cause it’s gonna be one hell of a night for us, darling,” Chan snaps, and your lips clamp close at his harsh words. You didn’t expect that out of him. You could nearly cry right there. Chan backs away and slams the door shut, and you quickly scramble to put the seatbelt on as Chan yells something at the crowd, and they erupt in cheers. A few people scramble to get into different cars, and the rest stay back, keeping their distance. However, Chan didn’t seem too pleased as he walked around the car and into the passenger’s seat, locking the doors.

“Chan…”

“Quiet,” Chan snaps, revving the engine of the car. You can faintly hear the cheer of the onlookers behind as Chan pulls alongside the other three cars. A young woman wearing small shorts and an exposed shirt too small for fall walks ahead, and pulls a red cloth out of her back pocket. Her red lips smile bright as she lifts her red cloth. She holds up one finger, and Chan’s engine growls from behind, the car shaking along with it. Your hands go to grip the first thing, which is the cup holder in the center console and the door. Bracing yourself for what’s about to happen.

“Chan!”

“I said quiet!” Chan yells, sparing you a glance and your brows creased with worry as the woman holds up a second finger, and Chan’s hand grips the wheel as the other rests over the buttons.

She doesn’t hold up a third finger. Instead, she throws down the red cloth, and the moment she does so, Chan is off on the road. His foot slammed against the gas as he pushed his back against the seat and used one hand to effortlessly steer. You feel so impossibly scared in the car. A small part of you was debating whether or not you should have gone home, but you knew that it was the right decision to stay. To truly understand what’s been going on and what this is all about.

You try your best not to scream as the loud engine nearly bursts your eardrums.

“Chan… Chan, stop the car!” You scream, the need to vomit creeping up, even though you try to gulp it down.

“I can’t, (Y/N). I really can’t right now.” He says loudly over the engine.

“Please, Chan, just stop the car…!” You yell out again, and Chan finally glances at you, seeing your distressed look before his head snaps ahead again.

His hand swiftly reaches over to grip your thigh, as if trying to prove that you’re secure, “Calm down, (Y/N). You’ll be fine. We’re fine. I’m not stopping the car. Sorry, but I just can’t.”

“I should hate you for this, Chan!” You say, and you can see the way his knuckles turn white from gripping the wheel. “But I can’t… I just… Goddamn it, why!?”

“I can’t tell you that right now!” He yells back, looking over briefly before making a sharp turn, making you clutch onto the seat belt for protection, his hand now back over the buttons, “You just need to sit there until this is over, got it? I don’t care how scared you are, you’re gonna get through it like the strong woman you are, (Y/N), and I’m not taking no for an answer.”

You look over to Chan, and his lips are downturned, his brows furrowed and his eyes glossed over, as if he could cry right there.

“But why didn’t you just tell me?! We wouldn’t be like this right now if you just told me, Chan, and that’s the truth.” You yell over the engine, and Chan bitterly and breathily chuckles, shaking his head as an angry smile casts over his lips.

“You wouldn’t have stayed with me if I told you, (Y/N), you know that.” His voice is a little softer. If any softer, you wouldn’t have heard him. “You would’ve left me.”

Your mouth falls open, and you shake your head, “Never… Never! Never, ever, accuse me of that. I would never leave you even if you killed a man, Chan, and that’s the truth!” He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t even look at you as he turns another sharp corner, and you can see the other cars following behind, closing in. He sees it, too, and he presses some buttons you didn’t bother reading and slams his foot on the gas again. You let out a deep breath, still clutching the seat belt, “I just want to know why, Chan. Why are you resulting to this even though you have a stable job at the entertainment company, I-... I just want you to be honest with me.”

“I’ll tell you later, (Y/N). Just sit tight and keep your mouth shut. I need to focus or we’ll fucking crash, you got it!” He yells, and you flinch at his harsh tone. Finally keeping quiet.

The race seems like it lasts forever, when it was probably only five minutes. With sharp twists and turns and screeching of the engine in wheels, it feels like torture. You hate this, but there’s no backing out yet.

Chan doesn’t utter a word. Only cursing at the other cars when they do something that they weren’t supposed to do, or somehow start catching up to him. You let a few tears slip as you watch his hands and Chan as he focuses solely on the road. The lump in your throat is growing bigger and bigger, and swallowing it down seems to get more and more difficult.

But, it’s over at some point. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding and Chan finally slowed down after reaching a pathetic excuse of a finish line. Your trembling hands grip the hem of the hoodie you were wearing as Chan comes to a steady stop. People come cheering as the other three cars pull up behind, being careful not to bump into anyone from the crowd. You breath heavily, and look over to Chan, who rolls down his window, plastering a triumphant smile on his lips.

“I don’t even get why I race against you, mate. You always win. Just take the money and get outta here,” says one of the racers playfully, tossing Chan a briefcase through the window.

“Thanks man. Good race,” Chan says, “Now, I have business to attend to. If you’ll excuse me.”

He rolls up the window, and the man who handed Chan the briefcase smacks the window playfully as Chan rushes off, his smile instantly vanishing as he goes through backgrounds to try and get to a main road without drawing too much attention. Chan’s smile drops, and he hands you the briefcase.

“You want to know so badly? Open it and be careful. It’ll be hell to clean up if you drop it,” Chan grumbles, looking over as you look to him for reassurance. He only gives you a cocked brow as you look back to the case in your lap before unlocking it and opening it. Your jaw falls as you look at the thousands of bills stacked on top of each other, rubber bands holding equal stacks together, and you gawk at just how much money Chan won from one race.

After a minute of you staring at the money, Chan slams the case closed in your lap, locking it with one hand and tossing it in the backseat making you jump at how hasty he is.

You both sit there, Chan driving to god knows where in tense silence. You're holding your head in your hands as Chan shifted his gaze between you and the road.

It’s about fifteen minutes until you look up, surprised that he’s still driving and nowhere near home. It’s an emptier city, but Chan seems to know the area well.

“Chan, where are we?” You ask, but Chan gives no answer. Only driving a bit further before pulling into an alley between two old buildings. “Chan, I said -”

You were quickly by Chan yanking off his seatbelt and leaning over the center console to firmly grab your face and pull you into a rough kiss. It isn’t too rushed, but it’s not at all gentle. You’re caught by surprise at first, but couldn’t help melting into it. It’s almost instinct at this point to kiss him back, but you push him away after a moment. “What… What the fuck are you doing?”

“Kissing you,” Chan answers briefly before grabbing locks of your hair at the back of your head and pulling you into another kiss, his other hand creeping down to unbuckle your seatbelt, and you let it slam against the car as it flies off you.

“No, Chan… We need to talk,” You grumble out as you try to pull away, and he presses wet, sloppy kisses to the side of your mouth. His eyes are fluttered shut, and your’s are half lidded. You will admit, you love this. The kisses and how unnaturally aggressive Chan is being. But, you knew that you have to talk things out, or you’d never get to figure out how the hell things turned out like this, “Chan, I’m serious right now.”

“Then relax, baby,” Chan breathily whispers out, and your thighs squeeze together, “Let me make things up to you, okay? I’ll fuck you so good, baby.” He pulls away for a moment, and he stares at you with a teasing smirk, “Think of it as my apology, alright?”

“Chan, I’m… I’m - ah! Chan!” You gasp when Chan’s lips come in contact with the side of your neck. Your neck is already tilting to give him more room, despite trying pathetically to push him away. There’s no getting through to him anymore. You’ve passed the point of no return, and there’s not much you could get past him without slapping him again. And that didn’t seem like a very good idea to you. Your hand flies up to grip the back of his neck, the other loosely clutching the hem of his button up.

“You know that… ah… that we are going to talk about this at some point…” you groan out, and Chan only groans against your neck, sucking on the sensitive skin. “You can’t get out of it like this…”

“Shut it, (Y/N),” Chan snaps, and your head falls back. Chan leans his seat back, aggressively grabbing you by the thighs to pull you over and sit on top of him. Straddling his waist despite it being such a tight environment. He pulls you down by the hoodie, into another kiss. You could feel how frustrated Chan is by the way he grips you tightly, as if you’re going to magically vanish, and by how he talks to you.

It’s rushed, too. Chan is impossibly quick to pull up your hoodie, his hot, sweaty hands creeping up your warm back, caressing it with a different, quick sense of gentleness. His lips connect with yours once again. His tongue already pressing against your lips. The quick, sloppy kiss all too lust filled. The erotic sounds coming from the both of you almost making you gloss over the fact that you should still be very mad at Chan. But, you just can’t find the need to pull away from him. You need to let off the steam, too.

You flush your body firm against him, one hand on his chest and the other by his head, holding onto the head of the seat for support. Breathing as slowly as you can through your nose to savor the air Chan so selfishly takes from you from the heated kiss. Your thoughts begin to vanish and your worry and concern for Chan’s life choices begin to falter for the time being. So immersed in the heated kiss to forget about it entirely. All your focus is now on Chan. You can tell how stressed he is, and the loving part of you wants to help him let off that steam. But, now, you’re in the same boat. So, he’s going to have to do so much for you as you’ve been doing for him.

Chan’s hands don’t bother to hesitate before they loop underneath your jeans, not caring to unbutton them as he tries his best to pull them off by himself. Because of how restricted you both are because of the size of the car, you had to do it yourself. You parted from the kiss and pressed your head against his shoulder to unbutton your jeans and pull them down as quickly as you could before throwing them in the back (along with your shoes and socks. You can already see how hard Chan’s gotten as his rough hands massage and knead your ass, only covered by the thin, black cloth keeping you at least somewhat covered. But, if this was like any other time, they’d be gone quicker than you’d imagine.

Your hands fly up again once your pants are thrown to the back, resting on either side of Chan’s head as he grips your hips, grinding your womanhood against his clothed hardon (you’re also clothed, but it’s so wet from your juices that it basically attaches itself to your skin). His head throws itself back, his eyes closing and a pleasure filled smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. You press yourself against him, now propped up to be looming over him, sitting on him.

When you do press against him, his head snaps forward again, and his dark eyes glare up at you, “Don’t start getting proud, (Y/N). I’m gonna fucking break you.” His hand crawls up to grip your face in his hand. One of your hands weakly comes up to grip his wrist. His hand moving down to grip your throat, and your lips part blissfully as his fingers press into the sides of your neck, still allowing airflow through you. “Oh, fuck. You like being choked, huh? You like being choked like a slut don’t you?” You don’t answer, too nervous to and too caught up in the pleasure to actually let something other than a moan escape your lips.

“Talk to me, (Y/N). Use your fucking words,” Chan growls, and you swallow. The lump in your throat pressing painfully, yet blissfully against Chan’s hand.

“Fuck me, Chris. Fuck me…” You utter out his name, and Chan’s brow raises. But, he smirks nonetheless and lets go of your neck, and you let out a breath as he undoes his jeans and pulls them down to his feet. His hand palming his clothed cock briefly before pulling it out. His hard dick already leaking with precum.

“Condom…” You mutter, and Chan shakes his head. You look up to him with worry.

“Trust me, baby,” he mutters, and you sigh, leaning against him, pressing your body against his as Chan moves your panties out of the way before he aligns your throbbing cunt with his dick, and slowly pushing himself into you, raw. As his raw cock slowly becomes engulfed by your heat, Chan lets out low groans. Your face nuzzles into the side of his neck as Chan slowly guides you down until you’re sitting on his cock.

At first, he stays there like that. Not moving. You suspect it’s because the sane part of him wants you to get used to the feeling of his cock so deep in you without a condom, but Chan seems to keep you there for a few moments just for the sake of how good it feels without a condom. The way his head is leaned back, his lips slightly ajar and his eyes fluttered shut.

But, it doesn’t last long before Chan’s strong arms wrap around your waist, holding you up and starts ramming into you. His hips move so quickly, yet so efficiently as he burns your wet walls. You erupt in a series of loud moans, mixtures of Chan’s name and curses spilling out, too. Chan groans sometimes, right next to your ear. The sound of skin slapping against the fabric of Chan’s boxers echoing through the air tight car.

Your pussy burns from how fast Chan thrusts into you, keeping you at a steady position so he could have an easier time ramming himself into you without the difficulty of it being such a confined and restrictive place in the car (especially in the driver’s seat). The burn is so good for you, though. It’s such a numbing, euphoric feeling that you’ll crave later. A type of burn you could never provide yourself, only Chan.

Chan’s hands go from gripping your body to sliding up your side to gripping your hair and yanking your head back so he could look at you. A judgemental, sexy smirk adorning his lips as he sees how fucked out you are. Your mouth open as you moan, and your half lidded eyes occasionally closing from the bliss.

“Fucking hell… you’re so good for me, (Y/N). You take my cock so fucking well, don’t you?” You let out a choked moan as Chan’s hand grips harder on your hair, craning your neck. “Mmm… Baby girl can’t even talk to me… I know I said to shut it…” he laughs darkly through his moans, and your moans get louder when Chan lets go of your hair, letting your face fall back onto his shoulder as his hands grip your ass. Kneading them as he fucks himself into you. You clench helplessly around his cock.

“Oh… fuck, you’re gonna cum, aren’t you? You wanna cum around my cock, baby girl?” You nod frantically, your climax climbing up as you push your body back to meet with Chan’s aggressive thrusts. Your overstimulated cunt only being destroyed by Chan’s cock as he thrusts harder into you, his hips staggering slightly as you clench around him. “Mmm! - Cum for me, baby. Cum for me.” Chan growls out as his hand grips your face again, forcing your head up as your eyes roll into the back of your head, a loud string of moans escaping your lips as you cum all over Chan’s cock, and he pulls out just quick enough to spurt out a string of cum along your ass.

He lets go of your face, and you breath heavily as you rest your head on Chan’s chest, closing your eyes to catch your breath. A burning sensation still resting in your core as you relax, your womanhood’s muscles contracting every now and then from the orgasm.

Chan cleans you both up with a napkin he had in the center console and helped you put your jeans back on (deciding to toss your soiled panties) and he slipped his jeans back on silently. It’s not until you’re sitting on his lap, resting your head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat when he speaks.

“You know I love you so much, right?” Chan mumbles out, and you look up to him. “I was so mean to you today… when you must’ve been so confused.” His head falls back, and he looks out the window with a longing look in his eyes, “I’m the worst boyfriend in the world, aren’t I?”

“No, you’re not. Don’t even think things like that. Yes, I am still a bit upset, but you know what? We’re going to get past this because I love you, too, Channie.” You stare at him with an adoring expression adorning your sparkling eyes (trying to ignore the burning in your core).

“You… You want to know the real reason I’m a street racer, (Y/N)? Why the fuck I'm doing this?” Chan asks softly, his hand stroking your hair.

“If you could… I’ve been asking all day,” you chuckle softly, and Chan smiles bitterly.

“Well… I… I’m doing this all for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“No job will pay for the things I want to give you, (Y/N).” He turns over, reaching into the center console to pull out a black box, and your eyes widen as he opens it. You can’t see it, but you can barely see the sparkle of a something reflective. “I… I couldn’t pay for this myself. I knew I couldn’t. I hate how this is how I’m asking you… but, (Y/N), will you-”

“Oh my god, yes!”

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[phoenixyfriend]

Auntie ‘Soka and Little Leia (and Rex)

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

Listen. You all knew this was coming.

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

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

Rated T, gen.

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

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

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

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

Reminder that none of them have been born yet.

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

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

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

(Ahsoka can fake Mandalore. Sometimes.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

That, of course, is when things get interesting.

Specifically, Ahsoka spots a Mandalorian.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Wanna explain why your kid has my face?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Where are you staying?”

“What?” Leia bites out.

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

Well, kriff you too, Ahsoka thinks.

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

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

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

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

“For free?” Rex demands.

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

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

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

“Yeah?”

“How much?”

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

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

Leia glowers, cute and furious. “No.”

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

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

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

“You’ve got conditions,” he guesses.

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

“Yeah?”

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

“You’re children, I wouldn’t.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“There are other risks.”

“There are.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You already know my name.”

“I do.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“My last fight--”

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

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

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

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

“Jedi?”

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

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

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

“Bit young for that.”

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

“Not in command.”

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

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

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

This part of the story is his.

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

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

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

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

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

“What’s the difference?”

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

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

“Time travel.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Let’s say I believe you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That why you’re special?”

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

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

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

Rex grins. It is not a kind expression.

“Let me tell you about Kamino.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Caf?”

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

“Whiskey?”

“That’s a definitely shouldn’t.”

“Hoth chocolate?”

“...please.”

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

“Do I ask what it was this time?”

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

“Try me anyway.”

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

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

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

She can feel the tears. Fuck..

“You want to dull the edges.”

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

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

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

“You’re hard on yourself.”

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

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

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

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

“Auntie ‘Soka? Why’d you stop?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ahsoka feels light-headed.

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

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

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

It’s Depa.

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

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

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

“Are you Depa?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then Depa is standing right in front of her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s like the start of a sick joke.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Auntie Soka? You’re shivering.”

Is she?

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

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

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

Does she?

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

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

Right. That.

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

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

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

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

That was a forgone conclusion.

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

She does.

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

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

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

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

She feels more like a person come morning.

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

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

“Feeling better?”

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

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

Ahsoka nods slowly. “Okay.”

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

Her complete spiral into nonbeing?

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

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

Of course it isn’t.

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

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

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

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

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

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

She already told Jango Fett, of all people.

“Padawan Torrent?”

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

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

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

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

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

"No, thank you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You’ve done this before.”

“Regularly,” she confirms. “You?”

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

“Fett?”

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

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

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

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

“And you just kept doing it.”

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

He doesn’t answer her.

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

Rex greets them before she does.

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

She recognizes one of them.

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

“Jedi,” Ahsoka grunts. “Here.”

“I see.”

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

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

One human, one Kiffar. She knows the latter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s not like they know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Um,” Quinlan says. “I just--”

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

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

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

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

She definitely preempted the actual flirtation.

Fuck.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What was what?”

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

That’s pretty true.

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

“Yeah, we can tell.”

“Leia.”

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

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

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

“Stop.”

“I’m serious, you--”

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

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

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

“I get it.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jango never does ask what she did with the slavers.

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

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

“GAR?”

“Grand Army of the Republic.”

He finally looks at her.

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

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

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

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

Ahsoka shrugs. “Yeah, well--”

“You said the clones were ten.”

There’s the rub, isn’t it?

Of course it was about the clones.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That one gets her an odd look.

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

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

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

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

“That was inappropriate, padawan.”

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

“Um, so--”

“How old is the kid?” Fett interrupts.

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

“And how old am I?”

“...early thirties?”

“I’m twenty-seven.”

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

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

Quinlan rallies. “So, brothers?”

Tholme sighs loudly, hand over his eyes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Drop your elbow.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hm?”

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

“And you?”

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

“Are you going to spar with the Jedi?”

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

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

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

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

Would she be able to hold back as she fought?

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

“Do you think you can?” Rex asks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leia glares at him next.

“So, Kamino?”

“Planet by Rishi,” Rex says.

“Why were you there?”

“They specialize in cloning.”

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

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

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

He licks her palm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Whose idea was this?”

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

“Did he know he was volunteering?”

“No comment.”

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

Ahsoka shrugs. “Constructive bullying?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Know... what?” Ahsoka asks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Will you be telling Vos?” She asks.

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

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

“This family?” Tholme repeats.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey!”

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

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

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

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

“I don’t have sleeves.”

“Armwarmers-slash-greaves, then.”

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

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

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

Tholme lights his saber and sinks into an opening stance.

Ahsoka mirrors him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah,” Quinlan sighs. “I know.”

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

Then fucking Denon happens.

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

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

Fuel.

Paperwork.

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

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

It’s just a pit stop.

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

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

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

“Language,” Tholme says, voice idly unconcerned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hah. That slang doesn’t even exist yet.

“Great. With me!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Commander?”

“Hm?”

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

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

“Who’s getting steamrolled?”

“Uh, Maul’s here,” Ahsoka admits.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Don’t call me that.”

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

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

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

He’s examining a papaya.

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

“Are you imagining a flying kick, Sir?”

“Yeah...”

“He’s examining a papaya, Sir.”

“I know...”

“Does he know we’re here?”

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

“No.”

“Should I hit on him?”

“No, Sir. I would not advise that.”

“He’s looking at the neloms.”

“I can see that.”

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

“It appears so, Sir.”

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

“Seems it.”

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

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

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

Ahsoka waves. “Hi, Master Tholme.”

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

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

“Is it now.”

Rex shifted. “He’s on the move!”

“To kill someone?!”

“No, to the deli meats.”

“Kriff.”

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

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

This was true and accurate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“A baby,” Rex agrees.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rex snorts derisively.

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

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

“You’re useless,” Leia tells her.

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

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

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

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

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

“He’s a Sith.”

“He’s fifteen, it’s tacky.”

“But it’s Maul.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Okay?”

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

“Oh, yes please.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quinlan is not impressed by the claim of Sith.

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

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

“Uh, decent?”

“Great! Fett’s the projectile!”

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

“I’m wh--”

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

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

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

Hm.

That definitely dislocated something.

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

He’s utterly silent.

That’s disturbing. Expected, but disturbing.

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

“No, Vos threw you.”

“Because you told him to!”

“Yeah, it’s a good strategy!”

“It is not!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, Master Tholme has them.”

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

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

Rex snorts.

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

“About?”

“Throwing people being standard practice for the GAR.”

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

“What’s the GAR?” Quinlan asks.

“None of your damn business,” Fett snaps.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I am not a child!” Maul spits.

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

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

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

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

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

“I--what? No, that’s--what?”

Ahsoka smiles brightly. “You asked.”

Tholme finally shows up with the cuffs.

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

“You should eat something.”

He glares at her.

“Baby Sith Lords need to eat.”

He keeps glaring at her.

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

He bares his teeth.

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

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

“Not to.”

“And what are you doing?”

“Making him eat his vegetables.”

“Soka.”

“Rex’ika.”

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

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

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

“I’m allowed to be mean to him.”

“He’s going to bite you.”

“I’ll bite back.”

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

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

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

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

“A girl’s gotta eat.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

His nose scrunches up as he makes a face.

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

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

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

“Now listen here, jetiika--”

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

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

Well, then.

She smiles thinly. “Of course.”

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

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

He sidles out.

Tholme doesn’t.

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

“I’d prefer not to.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Their accusations aren’t unfounded.

They deserve an apology.

She is in the wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She goes to the cargo hold.

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

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

She’s fine.

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

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

“Um.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Want to spar?”

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

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

“You’re serious.”

“No, I’m Quinlan.”

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

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

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

“...yes?”

“Was it cuffs?”

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

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

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

“No, you don’t.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She doesn’t break right away.

She spirals. She fights Quinlan, but doesn’t quite see him. Her strikes get sloppy, her feet stumble. She can’t make herself meet Quinlan’s eyes, not when the scrape of his heel against the metal sounds like the rasp of a breathing machine. Her shields get fuzzy, she knows, and she leaks what she feels into the air, making it sour and thick. She doesn’t notice, because all she can see, all she can--all she can hear and feel and--

She drops to her knees and grabs at her head, trying to stop it.

“Sokari?”

She breathes. In and out, harsh and jagged but natural in a way that the damned respirator wasn’t.

Her master her teacher her brother the traitor the hound the executioner

Her face is hot. Something prickles. It might be tears.

She tries to say something, tries to say a name or a request, tries to make anything come out of her mouth that isn’t the broken wail of a woman who hasn’t let herself think about how she died.

She feels herself pulled into someone’s arms, and she can’t quite tell who, but they’re bigger than she is, and feel warm and worried. They care. They don’t understand, they’re scared, but they care.

Her hands shake, clutched to her chest and she can’t breathe she can’t make herself take in enough air to do a Force-damned thing the empire is going to feel her her shields are down and broken and her emotions are spilling and the empire is going to find HER ANAKIN IS GOING TO FIND HER AND--

“COMMANDER!”

Rex.

Rex is here.

Her breath is coming so fast that she’s hiccupping more than she’s actually inhaling. She feels small hands in gloves on either side of her face, and then her forehead presses to something warm.

Rex. A Keldabe kiss. Her brother, her partner, her other half. He’s here. He’s calm. If he’s calm, then things are fine.

“What happened?” Light voice, high voice, small and distant. Leia. Little Leia little princess Leia she’s in danger she’s in trouble Anakin will--

“Commander.”

No. Here and now. She needs to focus on here and now. Her throat feels cold. She breathes too fast, still. She can’t stop it.

“I don’t know.” That’s Vos. He was... they were doing something. He was here. Talking to her. “We were sparring, and she just--”

Right, sparring.

“I don’t know if I said something?” He offers, voice pitching up, unsure and worried. Is he the one holding her? He’s the one holding her. That’s embarrassing.

“Commander?” Rex prompts. “Commander, can you open your eyes?”

She tries. She can’t. She shakes her head.

“Soka?” he asks, voice quiet. “Where are you?”

“F-F-Fett,” she manages. It’s enough.

“And where were you?”

His voice is so soft. So worried. She held him the same way after Mandalore, after Order 66, after all his brothers, all her friends...

“Soka.”

Her mind is spinning, and suddenly all she can hear is Anakin Skywalker is dead. I destroyed him.

Her breath hitches, and she wails.

“Commander,” Rex tries again, but her head is a vortex of Then you will die and Perhaps this child and not the Jedi way.

Our long awaited meeting.

I destroyed him.

Then you will die.

She can’t breathe she can’t breathe she can only see that yellow eye that’s too familiar but belongs to a stranger can only hear a voice that shouldn’t exist can only mourn and break and--

“Soka?”

“Malachor,” she manages. “I--h-he--I died.”

“What did you say?” someone asks. A vod. It’s the right voice, almost, rough and business-like, not accusing anyone yet, and... and... no. No. Not one of her boys. It’s Fett.

“Um, right at the end? I asked her who taught her to fight like this,” Quinlan says, nervous. “And she said it was soldiers. And I joked, I asked that it wasn’t her Master, and she didn’t answer that. A couple minutes later, she just started...”

“Oh, Soka,” Rex whispers, pulling her closer. “Commander, just breathe with me.”

“H-h-he, he just--R-Rex, he j-just--and I c-c-couldn’t--”

“I know,” her captain whispers. “I know, just breathe with me.”

“He k-k-k-killed me,” she sobs, falling out of the Keldabe and into too-small arms. “I l-loved--he was my broth-ther and--and he just--he killed me, he didn’t even stop.”

“I know,” Rex whispers. “Soka, I know.”

Of course he does.

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

“It was just bad timing,” Rex says, once they’re in the room she’s been sharing with her little family, curled up under a blanket and watching the floor like it has all the secrets to how she lost her world three times over.

“Is there anything we need to keep in mind?” Fett asks, gruff and uncomfortable. She wonders if he’s angry that she took his necessary confrontation and turned it into this mess.

“Don’t bring up her Jedi Master,” Rex says, and pulls her in when she shivers. Her eyes squeeze shut before she can stop them, tears beading up again. “Just... don’t. It’s too soon.”

“He’s--”

“He Fell,” Ahsoka interrupts. “I thought he died, but he became a Sith. And fifteen years later, we ran into each other, and I refused to join him in the Dark, so he tried to kill me.”

Fett swears, low and muffled. She thinks he has a hand over his mouth.

Quin and Leia aren’t there. She thinks they’re keeping an eye on their Baby Sith prisoner. That’s good.

“Soka,” Rex whispers, and she buries her face in his shoulder. She’s too old to be this kind of mess. She’s thirty-two. She’s Fulcrum. She’s...

She’s in need of a lot of therapy.

“We can avoid the subject unless you bring it up,” Tholme promises. “Definitely until the Temple. Is there anything else we shouldn’t talk about?”

Ahsoka can practically feel Rex’s deadpan look. “Sir, we’re a trio of child soldiers ripped from everything we know. Every other sentence is a risk. We’re just... working our way through.”

There’s a knock at the door. Oh. Quin and Leia.

“Just figured we’d drop this off before we went down to visit Mr. Grumpy-Face,” Quinlan whispers. He still thinks Leia’s a child. He’s trying to make things less terrible for her. That’s nice. “We decided he’ll be less angry if he tries Hoth chocolate, and made some for everyone.”

They definitely made it for Ahsoka herself, and Maul was an afterthought. Still. It’s sweet.

“Commander?” Rex prompts, jostling her a little to try and get her to sit up.

“Gimme a sec,” she manages. It takes longer than it should to push herself away from him, to accept the mug that Leia gives her, too-serious worry in the furrow of her brow and the twist of her soul.

She doesn’t look six. She doesn’t even look twenty-two. This girl was always too old for her skin, forced to grow up in the hostile fear of the Empire.

“Thank you, Princess.”

She sips.

She can barely taste it beyond the ashes she imagines coating her tongue.

I destroyed him, her memory echoes. His slightest hesitation before he made the final move, it haunts her. She almost reached him. If only she’d tried harder, yelled louder, been better...

She shivers.

“Do you need help falling asleep?” Tholme asks. “I’m a regular healer, not a mind healer, but...”

She probably should.

She takes another sip of her drink, willing herself to taste it. It’s good. She likes it. She knows she does.

“Can you make it dreamless?” she whispers.

“It doesn’t always work, but I can try,” he tells her.

She nods. “When I finish the chocolate.”

“Of course.”

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

Everyone’s careful around her for days. The whole decision to be nicer doesn’t mean anything when she’s walking about in a daze of too few emotions, drained of everything she could feel in favor of a grey cloud of fluff in everything she does.

She does forms. Single saber and Jar’kai. Ataru and Djem so and Soresu. Reverse grip, regular grip, partial reverse on either side.

Again. Again. Again.

She loses herself in the motions, not meditating so much as just empty.

Rex worries. Fett worries. Vos worries.

Leia and Tholme keep their shields locked up tight, and she doesn’t know how they feel. She thinks Leia might be judging her. She think Tholme might be pitying.

Maul simply hates. It’s an old and familiar sensation to walk into, and she takes unthinking comfort in his rage. She’s silent instead of snippy, when she plays the role of guard, and they stare at each other in silence. His eyes burn, and she wonders how much he’s heard of her nightmares.

“You need to talk,” Rex tells her, when he finds her with a cold cup of caff, eyes fixed somewhere beyond it all. She lifts her head. “Soka.”

She just stares at him.

He sighs and pulls her into a hug. “Commander, please.”

She can’t.

Ahsoka stares at the wall behind him, resting her chin on his head. Her neck itches under the lek at the back of her head, a little tingle of a feeling that she can’t bring herself to do anything about. The pale light of the galley is sharp against the chipped paint of the metal that surrounds them. It hurts her eyes to look, but it’s not the deep and dark lit only by red--

Then you will die, her memory growls.

She flinches.

“Breathe,” Rex tells her, too-small hands clinging at her back. “Just breathe, ‘Soka.”

She curls in tighter and tries to just breathe.

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

“Tell me something good.”

Ahsoka blinks. She looks at Leia. She doesn’t have the energy to parse that.

Leia chances a look at Rex, who isn’t leaving Ahsoka’s side any more than he has to, and Fett on the other side. Tholme’s asleep and Quin’s on Baby Sith duty. It’s just people who know, right now.

The little girl across the table, the child senator, the spy, purses her lips and huffs in irritation. “You knew my biological father before he became one of the worst people in the galaxy. Both of you did. Tell me something good about him.”

Good things.

About Anakin.

“You fought a war as a Jedi,” Leia prompts. “Surely you must have done some good things with him, or at least thought you were.”

Did they?

Every mission ended in tragedy or was just a ploy of Palpatine’s. Every saved life was just...

Wait.

“He built Threepio,” she finally says. “Your father wi--I mean, Bail wiped Threepio’s memory after the Empire rose, for your safety, but Anakin was the one who built him.”

Leia sits up, eyes brighter. “I didn’t know that. I... was Artoo involved? Did he build R2D2, or...”

“No,” Rex says, “But Artoo was his favorite astromech, and they always pushed each other into stupid stunts. We risked a hell of a lot to save that droid, more than once, and I didn’t find out until you started working with the Rebellion full-time, but Artoo and Threepio were the witnesses for your bio-parents’ wedding.”

Leia gapes at him. So does Ahsoka. (Fett doesn’t know enough to care.)

Rex grins, and if it looks a little forced, that’s fine. “He had a holo recording. I was one of the few people left that knew about the marriage that might have wanted to see, so Artoo offered. It was... sweet.”

He waits, probably for Ahsoka to add something herself, but she has nothing.

“I think that’s when they swapped droids, since Threepio was more useful to a politician and Artoo did his best work when we set him loose on the enemy.”

“He never changed,” Leia muses. “Did he always swear that much?”

“Yes,” Ahsoka answers, as Rex laughs. “Always. All the binary I learned started with the best swears.”

She tries to think of another good memory, something else that Leia might appreciate. Her mind ticks back to saving Stinky, which is just a terrible option, because that mission started with Hutts and ended with the Battle of Teth. That massive loss of life, all for the son of the creature that had put Leia in chains.

She wonders if she has anything in her memory that doesn’t end in blood and graves.

“Soka.” Rex.

“Hm?”

“Remember that time Fives and Echo got lost in the undercity their first time on leave, and we had to get the General to help us find them?”

She does.

He’s right, that’s a good story.

“Okay, so what you have to understand,” Ahsoka says, already digging the faint details out and dusting them off, “is that these boys were ARC troopers, top-notch, terrifyingly competent once they got through specialty training, and loyal as hell. Echo had memorized the reg manuals front to back, and Fives was... well, Fives ended up being the only person to figure out the chips before they went into action. Point is, the Domino twins were good... eventually. Just like everyone else, though, they started out shiny.”

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

“Tholme’s hiding something.”

Ahsoka wonders if Leia will just leave if she ignores her enough. Probably not. This was the girl that got kicked out of boarding school for leading a sit-in at age seven. She’s got patience.

“His job requires him to hide a lot of things,” Ahsoka says instead. “Not as many as Vos will have to, eventually, but a lot.”

“He’s hiding something from us,” Leia insists, visibly frustrated that Ahsoka isn’t as upset about this as she is. “Something important.”

The way she says ‘important’ is clumsy and impacted by the missing baby tooth. She can’t say the r. It comes out as ‘im-poh-ten,’ which is adorable, and if Ahsoka comments on it, she’s probably going to get punched by a six-year-old.

“The Force doesn’t care,” Ahsoka says. “I trust his intentions, if not him as a person.”

“If you don’t trust him, then why trust his intentions?”

“Leia, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I trust one and a half people in the galaxy,” Ahsoka points out. “Me not trusting a person isn’t a sign of anything except my paranoia. The only person I trust fully and without reservation is Rex. Even you, I only mostly trust, because my brain starts screaming if I think too hard. That’s why you’re the half.”

“Okay, whatever, paranoia aside,” Leia barrels on, “He should tell us. Whatever it is that he’s hiding, we deserve to know. We’re not children that he can just hide things from for our own good.”

Ahsoka presses her lips together. “Leia. Princess. I know you’re used to holding all the cards--”

“This isn’t about me being a control freak!”

“It is, though,” Ahsoka soothes, and smiles. “Your mother--the bio one--was the same way. You spent years as one of the leaders of the Rebellion, so obviously you’re used to having all the information, and people reporting to you... but Tholme is a Jedi Master. He reports to the Council and the Republic. Do you know how many people I kept secrets from while I was a padawan? We’re an unknown, Leia. They have no proof that we’re on their side, especially since we’re traveling with Fett.”

Leia crosses her arms and glares as hard as she can.

“I’m not going to bother him,” Ahsoka says. “I’ve already had, like, five unrelated mental breakdowns. I’m putting this on hold until we get to the Temple and I can trust that there’s a healer on hand to sedate me or something.”

“You... want to be sedated?”

“Leia, this... really should be obvious, but a Force-Sensitive losing their osik the way I have been isn’t actually safe. I know I broke a weapons rack last week.” Ahsoka gestures vaguely. “If the Jedi Master isn’t telling me something for reasons that might relate to my clear and obvious mental instability, I’m going to assume he’s got a point.”

“So he should tell me or Rex.”

“We’ll be on Coruscant in four days,” Ahsoka soothes. “Just... let it be. They won’t hurt us.”

“You don’t know that.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “I don’t have to. The Force leads me in all things, including this.”

Leia isn’t impressed by that, but Leia isn’t impressed by much in the first place.

She strides off in a fit that is, perhaps, more influenced by her six-year-old emotional control than she’d like to admit. Ahsoka lets her. It’s not worth the argument.

It’s only a few minutes later that Fett strides in, takes the seat Leia was just in, and asks, “What would it take for you to teach me how to use a jetii’kad?”

She blinks at him. “You want to learn how to use a lightsaber?”

“Yes.”

“...why?”

“Viszla.”

“I see.”

She does.

Ahsoka taps her fingers against the table, eyeing him with the kind of interest she copied from Master Kenobi, years ago. Fett doesn’t fidget, but she thinks he might want to. He just looks back, waiting for her judgement.

“You’ll need to justify it,” she finally says. “It’s a significant difference from what you actually did, so I need to know your reasoning for doing it, and your plans for once it’s done.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s step one,” she corrects. She tilts her head, considering. “My standards for you aren’t built in a vacuum, and you know that. Explain to me what you plan to do and how you plan to do it, and if I approve...”

“You’ll help me achieve it.”

“Maybe,” she allows. “A lot of that depends on Rex.”

“I expected as much,” Fett says. “He is... an admittedly large part of the reason.”

“He would be,” she says. She gives the silence a few more seconds to sit awkwardly between them, and then stands up. “I’d guess you’ve been brainstorming already. Do you have it written down or is it mostly just in your head so far?”

“I’m still... debating options, so to speak.”

She grins, and the shape of the predator’s smile, the baring of teeth... that almost makes him step back. She can see it in the twitch of his muscles. Smart man.

“Follow me,” she says, and doesn’t wait for him to stand. She strides out with tooka-light steps, hears the heavy beskar tread behind her, and goes to the cargo hold. Fett’s confusion grows tangibly behind her, especially when she tosses him a wooden quarterstaff. She picks up the other and spins it in one hand.

“You’re going to fight me,” she tells him, stretching and letting the staff help with the process. “And while we fight, you’re going to tell me what your plans for Mandalore are.”

He mimics her, but there’s a frown on his face. “And why staffs?”

“You and I, we’ve only sparred bare-handed,” she says. “I need a feel for how you fight with a weapon anyway. These are a good start.”

“Not the beskad?”

She grins, and the twitch is back. “No. That can wait. We start with the staffs.”

He takes a stance, and she mirrors him. She lets him strike first with a weapon, but she’s the one that asks all the questions.

(He is the only one on the ship that can fight her one-on-one right now, and he can win. Still, she makes him work for every inch, and what she doesn’t win in bruises, she wins in words.)

(Fett might yet be a proper Mand’alor, but Ahsoka learned war from her brothers, negotiation at the knee of a general and in the shadow of a prince, and government at the side of duchesses and queens.)

(If he wants her help uniting his people, he needs to prove that he can hold them together once she’s gone.)

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

Ahsoka’s interrogation of Jango’s plans is thorough, and she’s not the only one involved. She brings Leia in, and has her join in on the grilling. She maybe laughs as the twenty-seven-year-old survivor of Galidraan, the Mand’alor, a man who has killed Master Jedi with his bare hands, gets lectured on various government structures by a tiny girl that's missing several teeth and needs to sit on books to see the table properly.

Still, Leia knows this better than any of the rest of them do. The girl might have grown up heir to a monarchy, but she got a classical education and was drilled on democracy and all associated forms of government. Where Ahsoka knows military protocol and law enforcement, intersystem relations and defensive measures, Leia knows agricultural subsidies and welfare programs, infrastructure and education.

Ahsoka may know how to find out if someone’s breaking a zoning law, but Leia knows why it exists in the first place.

“And I grew up in a cult,” Rex says, when an argument on that topic breaks out. Everyone that hasn’t heard the joke-that-isn’t-a-joke stares at him. “The Jedi grew up in a religious meritocracy; Leia grew up in a monarchy; and I grew up in a cult.”

Ahsoka elbows him. He’s not wrong, but still.

Unfortunately, Ahsoka is about forty-seven percent sure that Leia will put her foot in her mouth when it comes to Mandalorian culture, blunt as the girl is. That prefrontal cortex isn’t anywhere near as developed as it should be, either, so impulse control for the princess isn’t great. Ahsoka refuses to let Leia and Fett talk about ways to mend the breaks between tradition and the pacifism of the New Mandalorians without either Rex or Ahsoka herself as a mediating presence. Tholme sits in a few times, but while he knows that Leia isn’t really six--though not about the time-travel, yet--Quinlan doesn’t.

They admittedly end up doing this while he’s on Maul-sitting duty.

“It’s like he doesn’t even care about making nice with the people that, at this point, make up the majority of his people!” Leia grumbles one night, as Ahsoka kicks over a step stool so the girl can brush her teeth. “He may not like the New Mandalorians, but from what I understand, it’s still early enough to prevent the majority of the cultural bleaching you brought up. If he stays this stubborn--”

“Leia,” Ahsoka says, and the girl’s mouth snaps shut. “I’m aware of your reasons for not trusting his intentions. But if I may say? Chill.”

“He’s not even trying!”

“He’s trying a hell of a lot harder than he did in the original timeline,” Ahsoka reminds her. “Brush your teeth.”

“I’m not a--”

“Teeth.”

It’s a little worrying, how the child’s brain affects Leia, but... well. That’ll pass in time, hopefully. Until then, Ahsoka gets to be the aunt she should have been. This includes tucking Leia in, which the girl grumbles about despite the fond waves of comfort that enter the Force around her. Ahsoka doesn’t call her out on it, just brushes back wisps of hair to plant a kiss on Leia’s forehead, and then does the same once Rex stumbles in, grumbling about the limitations of a cadet’s body, but far more ready to follow the protocol that is bedtime.

Rex doesn’t pretend to not like getting tucked in, for all that he’s sharing with a grumbly, already-asleep princess. He smiles up at Ahsoka, lets her hug him, and pretends they can be a normal family for five seconds.

Quinlan’s making a late night snack for himself in the galley. Tholme is guarding the Baby Sith. Fett...

Ahsoka goes to the cockpit, takes the copilot’s seat, and watches hyperspace pass them by.

It takes long minutes before either of them say anything.

“Do Jedi believe in souls?”

His shields are up, locked up tighter than the innermost chambers of the Imperial Palace. She has no idea where he’s taking this question. She has to cast about for an answer.

“That depends on how you define a soul,” she finally says. “Leia told me about Force Ghosts. A Jedi Master who underwent the right meditations and training could pass into the Force upon their death without losing their sense of self. They could remain themselves, to an extent, and interact with force-sensitive individuals. I don’t know if they could last that way indefinitely, but depending on your definition, I could argue those ghosts were evidence of a form of soul.”

“So you believe that the dead pass into the Force, but that what passes could be a soul. Something must exist for a sense of self to disappear at death in a way that impacts the Force as you understand it, and many would use the word ‘soul’ for that something.”

“Mm,” Ahsoka considers it. “I’d say that’s pretty accurate. You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

“What about those not yet born?”

Her fingers feel cold, and she finds herself no longer able to watch the passage of hyperspace as passively as she had, and her eyes catch on streaks and motes of what is not dust, her vision unable to keep any more still than her heart.

“Oh,” she hears herself say. “The clones.”

It’s a long time before he answers, but the walls come down. He carries a confused sort of grief with him, guilty and a mite resentful. His questions have been building for longer than she’d thought. His voice is rough. “I’ve taken plenty of lives, but I’ve never known the name of someone I erased from existence before they were even born.”

“The stories we told Leia about the brothers.”

There’s a grunt of agreement from Fett, so those dots at least connect.

“I take it my answer wasn’t helpful,” she manages to say.

“Will they still exist?” Fett asks. “Will they be born elsewhere? Or is... is a soul something that only comes into existence after the body does?”

“I have no idea,” Ahsoka admits. “I want... I want to think that I’d be able to find them eventually, to recognize them, if their souls are still born into this world elsewhere.”

“And if your Sith finds someone else to build his army out of?”

Ahsoka looks at him, sharp and pointed. “You wouldn’t.”

“They’ll be doing it anyway, if their plans are as ironclad as you say.”

“You’re already associating with Jedi,” Ahsoka says, fighting the urge to break his nose. “They wouldn’t approach you, not now. They can’t leverage your anger against you. They won’t know everything, but they’ll know that you have friends among the Jedi.”

“You think they can’t come up with better lies?”

He has a point. He has more than one point and she hate hate hates it.

A Jedi does not hate.

I am no Jedi.

“You’re going to have to convince me,” she says. “Especially if you want to somehow balance this with the darksaber thing. I won’t teach you how to fight with it if you’re not planning to retake Mandalore.”

“That’s how they’d sell it,” he says. “Retaking Mandalore. An army ostensibly for the Jedi, and ultimately...”

“You’d build an army of slaves.”

“No, I’d be the inside man for when they build that army anyway.”

She holds his gaze. She looks away first.

“Torrent?”

“I’m thinking.”

He lets her.

“I’ll need to talk to Rex. Probably Leia.”

“Understandable.”

“I don’t like this.”

“I’m only just considering it. It’s an idea, not a plan.”

“That’s the only reason I haven’t ripped your throat out with my teeth.”

“Hyperbole doesn’t suit you.”

She glares at him, and leaves, her mind chopping up and laying out every possible angle on Fett volunteering to do the exact same thing as last time, but somehow worse.

Great. Just what she needed.

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

Ahsoka isn’t there for the shouting match between Rex and Fett, but she doesn’t have to be. She can hear it form clear across the ship, and Rex comes to her afterwars. He’s been crying, which isn’t as surprising as it could be. These bodies are still prone to such things, and will be for years. She doesn’t comment.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

“We need to take out Sidious before he starts anything on Kamino.”

“Agreed,” she says. “It’ll be hard, though.”

“I don’t care.”

“What did Fett say?”

“That if it wasn’t going to be my brothers, it would be someone else’s. Either we stopped the cloning from happening at all, or we mitigated damage by being there.”

“I don’t think Sidious is going to tap him for it,” Ahsoka admits. “Not unless you’re willing to stage that kind of fight publicly enough for Fett to claim the Jedi poisoned you, family, against him. It could work, but it’s a gamble.”

He knows all of this.

“I miss them,” he says, and she cards her fingers though the curls he’s managed to grow in the past weeks. “I just... even at the end, I had Wolffe. I knew Boba was out there; I wouldn’t be surprised if the beskar let him survive a Sarlacc. I had brothers. Not as many as I used to, but there was always someone. I miss them all, so much it hurts.”

“It wouldn’t be them,” she reminds him. She pulls him closer, puts her cheek to his head. “It would be the same process, the same faces, the same training, even, but the boys themselves...”

He clings to her and shudders.

“Rex?”

“I can’t force them to grow up the way I did. I want them back. Sidious is going to make the army no matter what. Someone’s going to suffer, and I don’t want it to be my brothers, but they won’t exist otherwise, and...”

“And it’s an impossible choice,” she summarizes. “And it sucks.”

“It’s sucks Gungan balls, ‘Soka.”

She laughs, and feels him smile against her shoulder. Good. He needs to smile more.

“He’s still trying to get me to like him,” Rex says. "He’s still making an effort, and he never did that for anyone except Boba, and it’s weird. I don’t know what to do with any of that.”

“Gain a brother,” Ahsoka whispers, and she feels him jerk against her. “If that’s what you want.”

“He’s not vod.”

“Same blood as all the rest, and you’re older than him, so he’s not really in a position to be a parent to you like he was to Boba,” she says carefully. “You don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to, but... I think he’s trying. I think this means a lot to him, and that he isn’t any more sure of what to do than you are. You don’t have to forgive him for what he did in the future, you don’t have to accept when he reaches out, you don’t have to ever talk to him again after we reach Coruscant if you don’t want, but I think... I think it’s worth at least considering what you have to gain. I think it’s worth looking at what he’s trying to give you.”

Rex huffs. “Why couldn’t he just be the shabuir I knew in training?”

“Something happened between now and then?” she offers. “I don’t know. I never met him in the original timeline. I just know the guy that keeps trying to get on my good side so you’ll like him.”

He outright scoffs. “Soka, that’s not the only reason he’s trying to get on your good side.”

“...I’m a former Jedi who talks trash to his face,” she says slowly. “And I cried on him. There is no reason for him to be nice to me, other than you.”

“He thinks you’re cool and a good person and wants you to be his friend.”

“Bantha poodoo.”

Rex grins in a way that goes straight to smirking. “Soka, I’m not joking. Jango Fett wants you to be his friend.”

“Kriffing why?” she asks, more than a little horrified. “I’m a mess, look like I’m ten years younger than him, have gleefully kicked his ass in front of an audience; I even told Vos to throw him at a baby Sith Lord. Putting up with me is one thing, but I’m... I’m only barely not a Jedi. I’m a historical enemy of Mandalore, and part of the community he hates more than anything, and--”

“And his reaction to you kicking his ass was pure Mando,” Rex says. “In that he now thinks you’re a badass, and thus worth being friends with.”

“I can’t believe that. I physically cannot.”

“Soka, just accept it. The Mand’alor wants to be friends with you.” He scratches at his scalp. “I mean, he met you while you were protecting what appeared to be children, and it’s apparently still early enough for him to care about that.”

She leans back in her seat, eyes on the wall ahead of her and back against the cool metal of the other side. Rex falls back with her. She wonders if Rex changed the subject so they didn’t have to talk about deciding how many of his brothers get to exist, and whether or not he can swallow the bitterness of his history to have a connection with at least one member of his blood. She doesn’t ask. If he wants to change the subject, that’s his right.

“I don’t... no.” She denies it as well as she can, and then the implications dig a little deeper. “Is this me accidentally signing up to be the Jedi Order’s official liaison to the Mand’alor?”

“I mean, this point in time... they’ve got Kenobi for the Duchess, yeah?” Rex shrugs. “Good relations with the system are probably a good thing, and you’ve got a stronger connection than Tholme and Vos.”

“Ugh,” she says. She rubs a hand against her head, and then lurches to her feet. “Fine! Fine. If it’ll get him to retake Mandalore before the Sith decide to bribe him with an army he doesn’t get to keep, I’ll teach him how to fight for the kriffin’ Darksaber.”

“That’s what makes the decision for you?”

“Well something had to!”

They only get one lesson in before Coruscant, but the lesson lasts a full day, and Ahsoka’s got his comm number. Fett’s a quick learner anyway, and Tholme was there to give pointers where Ahsoka couldn’t.

He won’t measure up to a Jedi in saber-to-saber combat, but he doesn’t need to. He just needs to learn enough to turn all those skills with a beskad to something that works with a jetii’kad.

(The balance of a saber is wrong to those used to a physical weapon. The inertia doesn’t work the way anyone expects. There’s no need to worry about damaging the blade.)

(Fett is good. Ahsoka is better. And, bless his heart, he knows it.)

(She will mold him into the shape of someone who not only can, but should rule a system with a history like that, and he damn well knows that too.)

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

“Dropping out of hyperspace in T-minus twenty seconds.”

The Slave I is not, in fact, a Venator-class starship, or anything else near the size and smoothness of the ships that Ahsoka grew up on. This is a bounty hunter’s vessel, and the drop to real space jolts like nothing else. Ahsoka’s in the copilot seat for the return, but Tholme’s going to swap with her as soon as they’ve got confirmation that there were no problems with exiting hyperspace, and nobody’s shooting at them.

“We’re not going to get shot at,” Tholme had assured her.

“I always get shot at,” she’d told him.

“I have our clearance,” he reminded her, seeming more amused than frustrated. “There’s no need to worry about getting shot at.”

“I also always get shot at,” Jango had thrown in.

“Okay,” Tholme had allowed, after several minutes of his trust in the Temple warring against Ahsoka and Jango’s learned paranoia. The looks Quinlan had darted around the room when Leia and Rex also claimed ‘chronic getting-shot-at disease’ had been a treat. The paranoia of a Watchman and a future Shadow was great, but the paranoia of three revolutionaries and a galaxy-wide criminal was greater. “You can take us in close enough to get in radio contact, but the second we have to ask for clearance and a vector, I’m in the seat.”

She’d agreed, of course. She was paranoid, not inexperienced.

“We’re much less likely to get shot down by ground control if you tell them we’re with you,” she’d said, to his hilariously apparent metaphysical exhaustion. “Obviously.”

“Good enough,” he’d sighed.

What that means is mostly just that Ahsoka gets to watch the distant star at the center of Coruscant’s system grow rapidly brighter. She can pick out the constellations she’d grown up with, the stars the creche had projected on the ceiling every night, the ones that she may not have seen from the surface, but had greeted her and then sent her on her way every time she left on yet another campaign that lost her men their lives for a Sith Lord's wretched plans. These were the shapes and stories she’d never seen again as Fulcrum, a woman so hunted that to come within a dozen subsectors of the planet was to court her death.

For sixteen years, she hadn’t ventured closer than Alderaan, save for a single trip to Chandrila.

And now, maybe twenty minutes away at this speed, was the Temple. It was home.

A home that didn’t know her, that had sentenced her to death, that had hosted the rampage of her former master... but home nonetheless.

“Stable?” Fett grunts.

“Thrusters are good,” she confirms.

“I meant you.”

Ah. “I’m... fine. As good as I could be, anyway.”

She hesitates, but manages to speak before he does. “You?”

“I’m not the one walking into an entire building of triggers.”

“Only because you’re not entering it,” she says. “It’s the home of your ancestral enemies who, bad info or no, killed off a whole lot of your friends.”

“I get to leave,” he says. “You don’t.”

She plans to needle him a bit more, maybe on something a little less based in both their traumas. She needs to talk, if only to fill up the silence and keep herself from reaching out to all the lights in the Force. It’ll be too much, she knows.

Tholme enters the cockpit. “Change of plans.”

“Better be a good reason,” Jango says, voice flat.

“Leia’s crying.”

Ahsoka’s unbuckling herself before she can process the words fully. “What?”

Leia doesn’t cry for no reason. Her emotional control is as difficult as the body makes it, but she doesn’t just cry. There’s always a cause.

“I don’t know. Rex said to get you,” Tholme explains. “She was saying a name. He seemed to recognize it.”

Not good not good not good. If Leia was feeling the Emper--No. She cuts the thought off there. No catastrophizing. Information first.

“What name.”

“Luke. Mean anything to--and she’s gone.”

Ahsoka ignores him, just sprints to where she knows the ‘young ones’ are. They’re all in Maul’s room, because nobody wants to be alone with him now, but it’s the worst time to leave him without supervision. It’s not the worst option; he mostly refuses to talk, still.

This holds true, because he definitely isn’t talking when she bursts in. He’s sitting on the bench, in a corner, hugging his knees and watching Quinlan try to calm Leia down.

“Captain, sitrep.”

“Vos and Tholme attempted to show Leia how to reach out to feel the Temple from a distance. They felt that it would be a good use of the time, and an interesting exercise at this distance. She attempted to do so, struggled for several minutes, and then reacted with shock. She has repeated the name ‘Luke’ several times since then, and we’ve been unable to fully calm her down. I asked Tholme to get you, as you are the only Force-Sensitive on board that understands the situation in full.”

“Understood.” She nods to him, and then goes to nudge at Quinlan. “Vos, move.”

“Torre--”

“You can sit behind her, hold her in your lap like you did when we had lunch the other day, but I need to get in her face.” She waits for him to comply, and then drops to her knees and takes Leia’s hands in her own. She radiates calm and assurance, even though she knows Quinlan’s probably been doing the same since this started. She dips her head enough to get in the girl’s line of sight, waits for her to meet eyes.

“Princess,” she says, and meets Leia’s eyes. “What did you feel?”

“Luke.”

From this distance... they’ve got half the system to go, at least, and Leia’s training shouldn’t reach that far for anything more than the fact that the Temple is there. Ahsoka could feel unshielded individuals from here, if she focused, but she’s also been doing this much, much longer. The twins theory holds more water than ever.

“Can you show me?” Ahsoka asks, instead of asking for more clarification. She squeezes Leia’s hands and smiles. “In the Force?”

Leia nods, and closes her eyes. It’s not the first time they’ve done this, but it’s the first time in a while that Leia’s needed Ahsoka to guide her through.

Luke’s light, for all that it’s unfamiliar to Ahsoka, is brilliant among the rest of the signatures in Coruscant. Like Anakin and Leia, he’s a star in his own right, but he’s brighter. He doesn’t have Anakin’s bitterness or Leia’s righteous anger, just... light. Ahsoka had asked Leia to show her instead of looking for herself because she’d expected to not recognize the boy, but she needn’t have. He’s unmistakable.

He’s so bright that she almost misses the other signature that she does recognize. She shies away, knowing that it would be there, but... but it’s almost twinned with another nearby. Not identical, but different in a way that comes with age, with trauma, with... death.

Leia hadn’t arrived alone, after all.

Why would Luke?

Her eyes snap open, her hand coming up not-quite-fast enough to clap over her mouth as she gasps. She feels a shudder, one that starts in her shoulders and reaches deep into her ribcage, finds a home in her chest and doesn’t stop.

“Oh fuck,” Quinlan whispers. “Torrent? Um, Sokari?”

Rex steps closer. “Commander?”

“That shabuir faked his death again,” she manages. “Three times, Rex!”

He blinks at her. “...I know way too many people who fit that description, Soka.”

“Master Ke--” she cuts herself off. He might have changed his name, just like she had. There’s already an Obi-Wan here. Rex seems to be figuring it out, but she needs to give him another hint.

“He pulled a Hardeen,” she stresses, and Rex’s eyes snap shut with a tired groan.

“Who?” Leia asks, her own tumult of emotion paused in the wake of Ahsoka’s shock. There’s a hope and relief to her, and Ahsoka belatedly realizes that her main worry had been that she’d misidentified what was going on, that she’d given herself a false hope. Ahsoka’s internal reaction, her approval and awe at Luke’s presence, had trickled over enough to give Leia the reassurance she’d needed.

Unintentional as it was, Ahsoka was glad that she’d succeeded in helping her charge.

“Er...” she trails off. “I don’t know what name he’s going by, right now. We’ve spent so long in hiding...”

“The man Luke knew as Crazy Old Ben,” Rex says, and Leia’s eyes light up.

“Oh,” she breathes. “General O--no, names. The High General, then.”

“Yeah,” Ahsoka says, not a little soft. “Yeah, I guess death didn’t stop him any more than it stopped me.”

“I could have told you that,” Leia says, smiling far too widely. She squirms where she still sits on Quinlan’s lap. “He was... he taught you, right?”

“As much my master as the official one,” Ahsoka says. She glances as Quinlan, feels Maul’s gaze on the back of her head. “Your f... my official master was very young when I was assigned to him. He wasn’t ready to teach, wasn’t even ready to be a knight, entirely, so my training was split between him and his master.”

Quinlan pops in at that moment, “Your grandmaster was military, too?”

We all were, she thinks. Even you, in your own way.

“I landed in their care mid-battle,” she says carefully. “It was a complicated situation.”

He nods, and she vaguely notes that he’s got his arms wrapped around Leia, and his chin tucked on top of her head. She isn’t sure if Leia’s noticed, but Quinlan’s picked up ‘baby’-sitting duty so often recently that she’s fairly certain he’s all but declared her ‘little-sister shaped.’ It doesn’t matter that Leia’s older--she’s still taking the juice boxes and gummy snacks that Quinlan shoves at her every single snacktime.

“Do you think...” Rex trails off, something uncomfortable twisting in the Force, even though his face keeps it mostly hidden. “My brothers. If the General survived and... and made it back...”

“I didn’t feel any,” Ahsoka says, because she knows she’d have noticed if it was anyone she’d met, and likely any clone at all. They all felt different in the Force, but they all held a spark that made her know it was one of them. “I’m sorry, Rex’ika.”

“A long shot,” he says, that dash of hope shriveling up. He must see something in her face, because there’s a curl of warmth in him, even if his smile is brittle. “It’s fine, really. I have you, ‘Soka.”

Rex and Ahsoka. Two halves of one whole.

She can’t wait to hear the lectures on attachment, the way people who haven’t seen her wars try to criticize her for clinging to any chance at still having a will to live. She can’t wait to see them justify telling her that it’s selfish to hold her sanity in her hands and refuse to let the grief take it away. She can’t wait to stare someone down for asking her to ‘learn to let go’ after she’s lost her family, her life, her universe three times over.

Most of the Jedi are more sensible than that, are reasonable enough to see those shades of grey and how to approach rules in the spirit they are meant instead of the rigid letter, but there will be some.

There will be more than enough telling her she is wrong to hold her oldest, closest, best friend as dear as she can.

Attachment, they’ll say.

What they’ll mean is ‘codepedence.’

They won’t be entirely wrong.

She reaches out for him, lets him fall into her side and stay there, closes her eyes and reaches out for the man she’d long called father, when they’d still been in each other’s lives.

This time, past the deafening flare of surprise-love-hope of the little star next to him, she can feel him reach back.

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

The second the ship has landed, even before Tholme and Fett are done with the checks, Ahsoka’s waiting at the exit. She strains her hearing so she’ll know the second the system will let her open the massive door of the cargo hold.

Leia clings to her side, and the boys stand to her back.

Quinlan’s stressed enough that she can feel it like a cloud. She is very much not trying to feel that stress. Quinlan’s stress levels, back where he’s got Maul so he can keep an eye on Ahsoka and the Baby Sith at the same time, are so low on her priorities list that it’s a a little sad.

It doesn’t take long for her to be able to punch the button and open the damn door.

It opens slowly. She bounces on her toes, because there’s a beacon of light and a steady, familiar glow on the other side, and she’s so, so close. She can’t see through the crack yet, because it’s day in this part of Coruscant, and the sunlight is blinding against the dark of the hold. So close. She’s so close.

“The hell’s wrong with you?”

Fett? Fett. He’s already here to get off? This door’s slow.

She doesn’t answer him, because the door is finally open enough to let her out, and she leaps through the gap.

She lands on a pourstone floor, feels pebbles and grit compress under her boots, frantically looks around as her eyes adjust to light and--

The High General, the Negotiator, Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, looking just as he did when she first met him, if a little less armored and a little more fed. The hair, the beard, the crinkle in the corner of his eyes. His spirit is a little older, his smile a little more strained, his posture a little more tired, but it’s him.

He spreads his arms, low enough that she could have dismissed it if she’d cared less for hugs, except she’s almost as small as she was when they met.

And every other hug she’d given back then had been, functionally, her being a living missile aiming her montrals for someone’s organs.

She’s a little more aware of how to avoid stabbing her friends in the intestine now.

“Master!”

She sprints for him, collides and sobs, feels him stumble back and then sink to his knees on the too-hard floor, and can feel the tears pouring out of her already. Her breath hitches, and she wails like a child, and that last part of her that couldn’t even grasp at safety shreds itself. His arms are tight around her, warm and strong and Master Kenobi don’t you dare leave again.

It doesn’t matter that Sidious is out there, that the Republic’s been building towards war for a century, that even now someone’s kicking up the Trade Federation. Her dad is here.

“I’ve missed you too, my dear,” he says, pressing a kiss to the side of her head, the bristles of his beard scratching along the skin of her forehead. Off to the side, the binary suns that are Luke and Leia grow brighter in proximity, so bright she can barely bear it.

(“Fett, why the kriff are you reaching for your blaster?!”)

(“Torrent said her master tried to kill her.”)

(“Different guy, that was a different guy, put the blaster away.”)

(“You could have just warned me.”)

(“I didn’t expect you to go for a shot on sight!”)

(”Calm down, Jetiika, if I was going to shoot on sight, we’d already be in a firefight.”)

She ignores everything.

“If you fake your death one more time, I swear I’m going to kill you myself.”

He tries to pull away to talk to her more directly. She does not let him. He apparently resigns himself to this, because he just adjusts how he’s sitting and pulls her in closer.

“In my defense, I was far from the only one presumed dead that took advantage of that status, by the end,” he says, letting her slump into his lap and cry herself dry. “I’m proud of you. You know that, I hope.”

She nods against his chest, smearing tears and snot across the linen and wool. She doesn’t care that they’ll need a thorough washing. She can have her public breakdown and it’s fine because Master Kenobi is here.

He doesn’t even know what she’s spent the past fifteen years doing. Luke wouldn’t have known. He doesn’t know she’s thirty-two and broken, beyond a shadow and cut down by her own master. There’s so much he doesn’t know but the Force rings with the truth of it: he’s proud of her anyway.

“I’m going by Ben, now,” he mutters against her montral. “There’s already an Obi-Wan here, after all. Still, I remain a Kenobi.”

She can’t make the words come out of her mouth. She’s overwhelmed, so much so that speech is a mite bit beyond her.

Sokari Torrent, she presses along the frayed bond that’s knitting itself back to life with every breath they take. Leia was already calling me Auntie Soka, and Rex and I both took Torrent, for...

“For the men you lost,” he mutters. “Yes, that’s fitting.”

He smells like sapir tea and a spiced beard oil.

There’s a whirl of activity about her, greetings and ‘a Sith apprentice?’ and introductions. She distantly notes when Fett almost shoots Dooku before Rex shuts that down and advises the Master to leave the area before things spiral out of control. She feels Ben stand, and she stands with him, clings to his side like a child and trusts that whatever happens, whatever needs to happen, he’ll take care of it until she can stand on her own two feet without swaying.

Rex grabs her free hand, and she feels herself settle back into her skin, bit by bit.

She’s back at the Temple. The twins are safe. Her grandmaster is here. She has her other half.

They can save the galaxy this time.

She’s alive she’s home she’s okay.

She’s okay.

Everything’s going to be okay.

#Ahsoka Tano #Captain Rex #Leia Organa #Jango Fett #rex and ahsoka #Quinlan Vos #Tholme #Depa Billaba #Obi Wan Kenobi #Ben Kenobi #Maul #Darth Maul #time travel #de aging #ptsd #trauma #child soldiers #Phoenix Files #Uncle Ben and Little Luke #Auntie Soka and Little Leia #disaster lineage

[englishstrawbie]

Station 19 5x18

- That finale was not as suspenseful as I was expecting it to be - considering they knew that they have a season 6, I thought we’d get a big cliffhanger. 

- I enjoyed the green card interview scenes. Of course Carina says too much about the night they first met and Maya keeps interupting - the bickering was cute and finally they felt more in character.

- Also, can I gloat for a minute that when I wrote the first chapter of Serendipity, I made the choice that they didn’t sleep together that night? Ha! (And at least I don’t have to worry that my story isn’t 100% accurate.)

- “We got married during the pandemic and yes my visa was expiring, but at the time we had been dating for a couple of years” ...um, WHAT?! There’s tweaking history and COMPLETELY RE-WRITING IT! 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️ (Or was she lying…???)

- One part that annoyed me: of all the questions for Maya to laugh at, I don’t think human trafficking was the right one considering how/why Andrew was murdered, but hey. 🤷🏼‍♀️

- The call out to the bus was decent, but you’d think Hazmat would have a quicker response time than 15 minutes. 

- I rolled my eyes when Carina said that Jack could be there when she took the pregnancy test. “I don’t need to be part of everything” - no, Jack, you don’t and I’m glad someone finally said it! 👏🏻

- Is Jack gone? Does that mean we get some peace next season? (After Carina gets over her distress at him not being around, obviously.) Jack leaving means there’s a spot for Andy at 19, so what happens if he comes back? As much as I haven’t liked his role in the baby-making story, I’ve been interested in his (own) family arc and it doesn’t feel like he got a proper resolution to his story. Where is he going? What’s he going to do next? Will he get to know his biological family? I have so many questions! 

- Are they stepping back from the baby storyline a little? Jack gone, no pregnancy test, a chance for something to change... do we get our hopes up that there are conversations happening behind the scenes about how to tell this story in season 6 or am I a clown? 🤡

- So Travis is going to run for mayor, can he do that at the same time as working as a firefighter? Tbh, I’m not looking forward to this being an add-on to the show next season. Give me fires and scary rescues, please! 🔥

- Maya threatening Chief Ross to get her job back feels like a bold move, not necessarily a good one, but then what choice does she have? Playing by the rules - which is fundamentally who she is - hasn’t got her anywhere, so it’s interesting to see this side of her and I’m curious about what that means for her next season.

- I’m glad they wrapped up Andy’s storyline and there’s no drawn out trial.

- Enjoy the hiatus, folks! 🥂

#station 19 #maya bishop #carina deluca #jack gibson #my rambles

[neonlights92]

RUN: Chapter VII (Epilogue.)

Jeon Jungkook hops from bed to bed, sleeping with as many beautiful, rich women as he can possibly find time for.  He’s young and attractive, with a silver tongue that gets him practically anything he wants.  So when his friend and boss, Kim Taehyung, tells him it’s time to settle down, Jungkook takes it pretty badly.  And when he finds out that the woman he’s destined to marry is, in fact, his little sister’s best friend, he is less than impressed.

You have spent your entire life trying to forget the way you feel about Jeon Jungkook.   So when you find out that Jungkook is to be your husband - and that he is anything but pleased about it - your world is thrown into chaos.  How can you survive a loveless marriage with the man you are hopelessly in love with?

Hey friends! Enjoy the epilogue <3  Namjoonie next..

You were pissed.

Jungkook had promised you he wouldn’t be late tonight.

It was your one year anniversary - one whole year of being married to the love of your life - and you were meant to be celebrating at a fancy restaurant with champagne and good food. 

You’d gotten all dressed up - squeezed yourself into some ridiculous contraption of a dress - just for him, and now it looked like you were going to miss your booking.

Eight o’clock passed…

Then eight-thirty…

Then nine…

By the time your husband finally decided to make an appearance it was more than an hour passed your reservation time.  You’d taken off your dress - kicked off your heels - and made a move on your makeup when the door to your bedroom clicked open.

“Hi Angel…” 

Jungkook’s sheepish tone greeted - and you chose not to answer - instead glaring at his reflection in your vanity mirror.

“I know, I know I’m late,” He’s pulled his tie and blazer off, the sleeves of his crisp white shirt rolled up to his forearms.  You chose not to comment on the suspiciously red coloured stains peppering his collar.

“Happy anniversary to us, I guess.”  Your own voice was sharp and angry - in the year you’d been married to Jungkook he had made you feel special and loved - but that didn’t mean he still didn’t fuck up.

“I’m sorry baby,”  He moved towards you quickly, and you stood turning to face him, “It was - y’know… God.  It’s Bangtan.” The desperation on his face pulled at your heart strings.

You knew your husband’s job was important - you knew that as a member of the Special Seven - as Bangtan’s shadow he had more responsibilities than he would probably ever tell you. 

And you knew that you wouldn’t be able to stay mad at him for long.

But still.  It was meant to be a special night for the two of you.  An acknowledgement of everything you’d been through together.

An acknowledgement of your love for one another.

You couldn’t help that you were disappointed.

“It’s alright,” You shrugged, “It’s part of the package, right?”

He sighed heavily and reached up to push some of your hair out of your face, “I hate disappointing you.”  His tone was tender and a little more of your anger fizzled out, “I love you so much Angel.  I always want to be with you - I always want to make you happy.  But I’m not always very good at it, huh?”

You chose not to say anything - slipping your bottom lip between your teeth and staring into the eyes of the man who had changed your life.

God.  Your heart swelled to nearly three times it’s size at the look on his face.

Such reverence and adoration - like you were a work of art.

He always made you feel special, like that.  

“I’m sorry baby,” His voice was sincere, “I really am.  I know tonight was meant to be special…. God.  What kind of husband leaves their wife waiting for them on their anniversary?” 

He laughed without humour, and you felt a stab of guilt.

“It’s okay Jungkook,” You licked your bottom lip and shrugged, “We’ll celebrate another time.”

He touched your face gently and frowned, “I know you’re disappointed… And you have every right to be, Y/N.  Tonight should’ve been about us.”

You sighed heavily, “What kept you out so late?”

His eyes darkened and you noticed for the first time how tired he seemed.  He’d been out all day - and if the blood on his shirt was any indicator it hadn’t been easy.

“Namjoon.”  He answered hoarsely, “He barely comes out on missions with us anymore.  Barely wants to be around any of us…” 

You felt a stab of guilt.

Since the night you’d been kidnapped almost four months ago, Kim Namjoon had turned into a shell of his former self.  You knew you couldn’t have done anything - you were just as much a victim of Sana’s brutality as he was - but you still felt awful.

“What happened?”

“We tried to help him… Lord knows we’re all emotionally constipated.  But Jimin thought it might be nice to take him out for lunch.  So we did.  And then…” Jungkook shook his head, “Namjoon cut himself with his steak knife.  He hasn’t gotten used to his prosthetics yet.” 

“The blood?” He clicked his tongue, “He was sitting beside me.”

You instantly felt terrible.  You moved to wrap your arms around your husband, pulling him down for a fierce kiss.

“I’m sorry baby,” You whispered against his mouth, “I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head and frowned, “No stop - don’t.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry I can’t take you out for anniversary meals like normal couples.  I’m sorry I come home with blood on my shirt -” 

“It’s okay Jungkookie.”  You pressed a hand to his cheek and he smiled softly at the nickname he’d begrudgingly accepted, “I know who you are - I know the world we live in.  I accept it.  I accept you.  Is it annoying? Of course.  But I won’t give up on us.  Ever.”

He leaned into your touch and kissed your palm, “I love you baby.”

“Me too.”

“Next time though, text me alright?” You pulled a face, “I wouldn’t have bothered getting dressed up.”

He nodded and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“I will Angel.”

He spent the rest of the evening showing you just how sorry he was, and how much he absolutely adored you.

Needless to say, it wasn’t the worst way to spend an anniversary.

//

“I have something to tell you.”  Nayeon had shown up not five minutes ago, with a promise that you had to sit down and listen to her.

You’d obliged of course - she was your best friend after all.

But her confession had knocked the air out of you.

“I’m getting married.”

She was grinning from ear to ear.  You almost dropped the cup of tea you were drinking.

“What?”

“I’m getting married.”  She didn’t seem upset, “That’s why I came round.”

“To who?”

Her smile widened, “Song Mino.”

“Oh!” You mirrored her expression, “Song Mino.  He’s… Nice.”

“And hot.”  

Your face flushed and you nudged Nayeon playfully, “Stop it.”

“I’m happy.”  She told you honestly, “I might not know him very well but he seems like a decent guy.  And like I said… Hot.” You laughed this time at your friend’s unabashed appreciation of her husband-to-be and clicked your tongue, “Well if you’re happy sweetie, then so am I.”

“My dad told me last night.  Mino’s father approves - so does Taehyung….”  Her eyes flitted to yours guiltily and immediately you realised what this was.

A setup.

“You want me to tell Jungkook.”

Her lips stretched into a thin line.  She grimaced.

“Yes.” 

“Why can’t you tell him?”

She frowned deeply, “Because Jungkook’s hated Song Mino ever since they were kids and he stole Jungkook’s first girlfriend.”

“Your brother is not that petty.”

“Yes he is.”  She raised a brow and scoffed, “Don’t tell me you don’t know that about him.”

You bit back a laugh at the thought of Jungkook holding a grudge for as long as he apparently had with Mino.  Then you frowned.  Tonight was meant to be a different kind of surprise for your husband.

“I also had some big news for Jungkook tonight.  I was going to wait to tell you but since you’re already here….”

For a brief moment Nayeon seemed confused by what you’d said before her eyes widened and she shot out of her seat.  She moved towards you like you were a glass of water and she hadn’t drunk in a week.

“Oh my god.  Oh my god.”  She pulled you in for a hug, “You’re pregnant aren’t you?  Oh my God! How far along?”

You laughed at your friend, “I only found out this morning.  We’ve been trying for a couple of months… But I’ve only missed one period.” 

Nayeon’s eyes were sparkling with tears and you were sure your own weren’t too far off, “Oh my god!  Don’t worry about telling him about the wedding.  I’ll do that sweetie.  You just worry about telling my brother he’s going to be a dad!” 

A loud thud caught both your attention and you turned sharply to find the brother in question - your husband - staring at you both in shock.

“Wait… What?”

Jungkook’s eyes flitted between yours and his sister’s.  He blinked slowly, as if slotting everything into place.

Nayeon pulled away from you quickly and shot you an apologetic look.

“Surprise?”  She said to her brother with a weak smile before grabbing her things and making a nervous beeline for the exit. 

Nayeon mouthed “I’m sorry” to you as she disappeared and you had to stop yourself from laughing at the entire situation.  Of course it would all happen like this.

“Was she… Was that…”

You stood quickly and moved towards your husband, cupping his face in your hands softly.  Your eyes roved his his features carefully, looking for any sign of apprehension.  But all you saw was surprise… And joy.

“I’m going to be a dad?” He whispered, eyes wide, “For real?”

“For real.”  You smiled up at him and pressed a kiss to his lips, “You’re going to be the best dad.”

He broke out into a wide grin and bundled you up in a hug, raining  his own kisses down across your face.

“Oh my god Angel.  We’re going to be parents.  Oh my God!” 

You giggled at his reaction and squealed when he lifted you off your feet.

“Pregnant wife.”  You warned him, and he put you down quickly, patting your head and shoulders to check for signs of injury.

“Oh my god.  Pregnant wife,” His smile was dazzling, “I love you so much Angel.”

“I love you too Jungkookie.”

You had spent so long running from your feelings for Jungkook.  And he’d done the same.

Thank God you finally decided to stop and rest.

Things would never be perfect - but you were happy.  And so was he. 

And that was all that really mattered to you.

//

#jungkook x reader #jungkook #run #mafia au #bts #romance #arranged marriage au #kpop x reader

[ptergwen]

only you and me

w/c: 6.7k

warnings: angst, mentions of weed, and some swearing

summary: whenever peter tries to tell you how he feels, harry gets in the way

a/n: ahhhh hi my loves! my mini writing break is over :,) life has been just a mess for me and i’ve been way more critical than usual about my work but i’m doing a little better and ready to get back into everything! this helped me a lot so i’m excited to share it with y’all <3 it’s also my first time writing harry osborn so lmk how i did lmaooofwfjj but yeah pls enjoy

-

“dude, she’s right there! just tell her!” ned whisper yells to peter, elbowing him for emphasis. they’re hidden behind a wall to watch you at your locker. you’re grabbing books while betty rants to you and mj rolls her eyes. “not now. she looks... busy,” peter gulps, gaze trailing down your body. he always finds excuses to put off telling you how he feels.

or rather, excuses find him. something comes up every time he gets the courage to do it. he has no idea why he’s so scared because he’s pretty sure you like him back. pretty sure. there are a few reasons why you might not. also, plenty why you might. you stay up late texting most nights, and you’ve even flirted a couple of times. it never fails to make peter blush. he trips over his words whenever he tries to flirt back.

he’s had feelings for you since the first time you two hung out alone. none of your other friends could make it, but you happily took him up on his offer to come over. you grinned through his whole apartment tour, asked about may and what she does. when peter showed you his room, you even complimented his movie posters, much to his surprise.

“really? you don’t think they’re, like, dorky?”

“no, peter. your interests aren’t dorky. everyone likes what they like.”

and, he liked you. he knew it from that point on. you’d know it too if the universe wouldn’t keep stopping him from saying that.

“she’s so...” peter pauses for a second. him and ned watch you pull betty in by her shoulders as if you’re going to kiss her. she dodges you, mj pushing her back, all three of you giggling about it before you grab betty’s hands and give her words of encouragement. “cool,” peter finishes, turning back to ned. “i mean, how she puts herself out there like that.”

“what’s stopping you from doing the same thing?” ned points out with a knowing smile that peter returns. you make it look so easy. whenever you’re comfortable around people, you can let go of any doubts you have. you stop worrying about what they might think and instead do what you want. it’s inspiring to peter, and heart warming getting to be one of the people you’re fully you with.

he wishes he could apply your wisdom himself.

peter shakes his head, staring down at the floor. “oh, you know. anxiety, fear of rejection. that fun stuff.” “so, yourself,” ned concludes, clapping peter’s backpack so hard it makes him stumble forward. betty and mj wave goodbye to you before heading to their first class. you’re still getting your things together at your locker. this is peter’s moment.

“come on, dude! y/n’s not busy anymore. you got this.” ned keeps his hand on peter’s back, adding on, “it’s been a year already.” “half a year,” peter corrects him in a mumble. he’s liked you for a really long time. “ok, i’m going. wish me luck.” he takes a deep breath and focuses in on you. “aw, dude. you don’t need it.” ned gives him one last pat on the back. “good luck, though.” “thanks, man. see you in trig.”

right as peter starts heading over, harry comes up behind you and covers your eyes. you squeal, jumping up and turning to him, laughing as you playfully hit at his chest. he brings you into a hug where your face is buried in his sweater and probably inhaling his super strong, super expensive cologne.

that’s what’s stopping peter, harry freaking osborn. his own friend.

peter quickly loses the tiny bit of confidence ned gave him. he figures it might be better to hold off on his confession and get an early start to class. unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen. harry has already spotted him and calls him over.

“hey, pete! come give us some love, eh?” harry beams, an arm slung around your shoulders and you smiling up at him. you direct your smile to peter when he slumps his way to your locker. his lips pull into a barely noticeable frown. you notice. “there’s my guy. why so down, sunshine?” harry offers his fist for a fist bump. peter gives it to him, eyes staying on you.

harry osborn. where to begin with such a specimen? he’s the perfect combination of everything you’d want in a guy. he gets good grades, he’s a star player on on the basketball team, nice to everyone and makes you laugh, popular yet fits right into your small group.

he was friends with you before the popular thing. what kicked it off was him making varsity basketball while only being a sophomore. yep, he’s unreal. since then, he’s been balancing his cool life and also hanging with “the nerds,” as he likes to call you. he got his own feelings for you along the way. peter can tell.

he’ll give you rides home, compliment how you look, basically act like your boyfriend without really being it. it absolutely infuriates peter because he doesn’t compare to harry in the slightest. if he were you and had the choice between himself or harry, he would pick harry.

it’s been a factor in why he hasn’t come clean about how he feels yet. he’s not trying to create a love triangle that he doesn’t stand a chance surviving in.

“for real, peter. you good?” you ask him, eyebrows knitted together in concern. “fine,” peter lies and musters up a smile. “i’m just tired. didn’t sleep too good last night.” you’re only more concerned now. this has been happening to him a lot lately. you search for his eyes. “again?”

“aw, man. you need something for it?” harry punches peter’s shoulder and lowers his voice. “i know this kid who-“ “harry, stop.” your words are serious, tone lighthearted. you throw your head back on his arm. “do you really know a kid?” “i’m not telling you,” he says in an overly happy voice, you humming the same way. peter feels like he’s third wheeling.

“i was telling pete.” harry looks at him expectantly, peter’s mouth dropping open while he thinks of what to say. harry likes to mess around. this is a different level, though. “no thanks. i- i shouldn’t. i’m-“ “relax, i don’t know a kid,” harry chuckles and points at peter. “your face right now.” it’s completely flushed. you knock into harry’s side.

“ok, well literally no one laughed. you’re scaring him,” you tell harry sternly. peter tugs tight on one of his backpack straps. he doesn’t feel like he’s third wheeling you two now. he feels like your kid. he’ll never let ned mettle in his love life ever again if this is where it gets him. “he knows i’m kidding, y/n/n. right?” harry checks with peter. you make a face at him that says you aren’t convinced.

he switches his arm from you to peter, drawing him into his side. “look, pete. i’m sorry. the only kid i know who’s selling is chocolates for his band trip.” you’re satisfied with that, grinning at both of them. peter forces a laugh and nods. “no worries, man. i gotta get to class.” “good boy,” harry lets him go. “bye, pete. we’ll see you at lunch,” you remind him. he gives you a tight lipped smile. “see you, y/n/n.”

you and harry continue practically spooning each other as soon as peter is out of sight.

what the hell is going on?

peter is back to being grumpy, plopping down in his seat next to ned. their teacher has the lesson plan pulled up on the smart board. ned looks from it to peter, almost jumping in his seat. “oh, you’re back already? how’d it go?” “it didn’t go,” peter huffs, copying down the aim. he’s only doing it so he doesn’t have to look ned in the eyes while telling him he bailed. again.

“you didn’t do it?” ned repeats, peter writing something about pi and a unit circle in his notebook. he bites the inside of his cheek. “you have to do it at some point,” ned sighs out and picks up his pencil. even he’s getting tired of this, and ned never gets tired of a good friends to lovers moment. “i think she likes harry,” peter says under his breath. “huh?” ned gasps.

peter doesn’t feel like explaining the extremely awkward moment he just finished living. although, it wouldn’t hurt to get a second opinion. “y/n. he came over, and they kept hugging and whatever.” “they always do that,” ned almost scoffs, their trigonometry teacher moving to stand in front of the class. “yeah, but he had his arm around her the whole time we-“

the bell rings and cuts their conversation short. peter struggles to label the unit circle they learn about when his mind is filled to its capacity with images of you and harry all over each other. it’s not daydreaming. this is a nightmare. maybe, he actually will be having sleep problems.

peter’s morning is relatively decent after that. he gets to do an experiment with mj in chemistry, and she lets him take the lead for once. spanish is easy, health is okay, then he has a free period, then it’s lunch. things can only go downhill from here.

he thinks about hiding in the library until it’s over, but it’s the thought of harry eating your face that gets him to drag himself to the cafeteria.

flash is at the head of your table talking to harry when peter gets there. great, now he can’t eat his soggy chicken fingers in peace. “sounds dope. let’s go on the-“ flash stops saying what he was saying and nods at peter. “penis parker, you’re late.” peter takes his seat on your left, harry on your right. you glance over at him to make sure he’s okay. he acts like he doesn’t care, peeling open his milk carton.

“just text me later, man. get outta here,” harry dismisses flash, the two of them doing a bro handshake before he leaves. he’s well aware of his and peter’s history. he keeps them separate for the obvious reasons. peter appreciates it because saying no to flash is nearly impossible. he shouldn’t be so mad at harry, should he? he’s a good friend.

harry’s arm snakes around your waist and brings you closer to him. never mind.

“who’s up for sushi later?” he asks the table, everyone agreeing and saying how awesome that sounds. everyone except peter. you tap his shoulder with a small smile. “what about you, peter? you coming?” he realizes you’re all waiting for him to respond and puts down his milk. “uh, i can’t. homework,” he lamely answers.

“dude, we have homework, too. just do it a little later,” ned suggests, betty laying her head on his shoulder. you share a look with her, your eyes wide and a grin on your lips. that must have been what you were talking about this morning. she asked for boy advice. ned advice. why can’t this crap work out for peter?

“i really can’t. sorry, guys,” peter half heartedly apologizes.

he misses the disappointment that crosses your features because he’s pouting at his lunch again.

“homework, huh?” mj tests him, squinting as she takes a sip of apple juice. harry nudges peter’s side with two fingers. “you still mad about the sleeping thing?” “sleeping thing? what sleeping thing?” betty wonders while ned rests his head against hers. a quiet laugh slips out of you as you lean in to tell her.

“peter said he couldn’t sleep last night, so harry offered him...” you mime rolling a joint. “i said no,” peter clarifies, rolling his eyes at the inevitable teasing he’s about to get. none of you have even smoked besides harry. you’re being annoying about it. “of course you did,” mj sighs and kicks her feet up on the table. “unrelated to what y/n just said... harry, i have insomnia.”

everyone bursts into laughter at that, betty shoving her side and you pulling harry by his torso as he pretends to go into his backpack. peter wants nothing to do with any of this. he usually enjoys joking around with the group, even if it’s at his expense because it’s from a place of love.

today feels like you’re straight up making fun of him. harry might as well invite flash to join in.

“alright, alright, alright. enough of the weed talk,” harry decides, you removing your arms from him and grabbing your coffee. “you’re such a bad influence.” your voice drips with sarcasm. you bend the straw and take a sip while scooting closer to peter. “you really can’t come later? i feel like i’ve barely seen you today.” that’s on harry. “i wish i could, y/n/n,” peter exhales. “i’ll text you later, okay?”

you don’t get to answer because mj tugs on your arm, distracting you from peter. she explains how she has to do an art project on what it means to be a woman and needs help brainstorming ideas. you’re full of them, offering up an interesting perspective for her to use. peter smiles to himself as he listens in. you find a new way to impress him every day.

he should tell you that.

“hey, y/n?” “listen to her! you’re seriously my idol,” betty gushes, so loudly you don’t hear peter. not a single thing has gone in his favor at this table. he gives up.

peter locks himself in his room when he gets home from his overall terrible day. he does homework like he said he would, only taking a break for dinner, giving one word replies to may’s questions about school. he’d much rather be having sushi with you. he would’ve gone if the others didn’t.

after dinner, it’s back to grumbling and scribbling down answers. there’s a knock at peter’s door around ten o’clock, which he assumes is may saying goodnight. “i’ll be done in a few minutes, may! love you.” “it’s y/n,” you reply, the smile clear in your voice. his eyes go comically wide. that’s the last thing he expected to hear. “oh. uh, come in.”

you’re holding a small takeout bag, shutting the door behind you and walking over to his desk. you meet his twinkling eyes in the dim light that hits off his walls. from his open window, you faintly hear cars as they rush by and honk their horns in the distance, accompanied by a fresh breeze. it’s cozy, safe. it’s peter.

“hey. what’re you doing here?” peter questions, leaving his pencil in his binder and shutting it. you shake around the plastic bag. “i saved you a roll.” he bites back a smile, getting up from his chair. “may let me in. she was really chill about it,” you continue and hold out the sushi for him. “it’s a california roll. i wasn’t sure what you wanted, and everyone likes those.”

peter lets his smile spread out and takes the bag from you. “thanks, y/n/n. i was honestly hoping one of you would have leftovers.” you laugh softly, peter setting the bag down on his desk. he scratches the back of his neck. “did you guys have fun?” “yeah. i missed you, though.” you clasp your hands behind your back. “everyone did.”

“i feel bad i didn’t go. just... things felt off today,” peter admits the real reason he stayed home, you letting out a breath. “it was harry, wasn’t it? god, he was being so weird.” your arms drop back to your sides. “there’s a difference between playing around and actually upsetting people.” by people, you mean peter. no one else seemed too bothered by him. “i’m sorry, peter. i tried to make him stop.”

“no, you don’t have to apologize,” peter assures you sweetly, grabbing one of your hands. “it’s not your fault, okay? he probably didn’t realize what he was doing. the jokes landed.” he’s referring to ned, mj, and betty finding harry’s comments hilarious. you lace your fingers with peter’s and frown. “this isn’t like him. maybe he’s stressed about a game.” your gaze drifts off to the side, what you see getting you to perk up.

“is that new?” you ask peter, leading him by his hand over to a poster he put up recently. it’s for 13 going on 30. you showed it to him a couple of weeks ago, and he clearly liked it a lot. any movie that makes it to peter’s wall is a special one. “mhm. i got it literally right after you went home the night we watched,” he chuckles and looks over at you while you study the poster.

you turn to face peter again, keeping your hand tight in his. “were you gonna tell me something earlier? at lunch?” he’s confused for a second, then he remembers your ideas for mj’s art project. the fact that you cared enough to bring it up after all these hours makes his stomach do summersaults in the best way. he shrugs and gives you a smile.

“the stuff you were saying about femininity and how there are so many ways to define it,” peter starts, you grinning back at him, at how he took an interest in what you were saying. “you’re so smart, y/n. you make me wanna be better.” a light pink dusts his cheeks. “peter, you’re a feminist?” you coo, joking but genuinely wondering at the same time. he squeezes your hand. “duh.”

“i thought so,” you nod, taking in the rest of what he said. “you think i’m smart? i trust you because you’re way smarter.” peter pffts in response. “i’m only good at, like, physics. you’re good at things that really matter. smart in that way.” you’re feeling your own face get hot. you swing yours and peter’s hands back and forth. “why are you the nicest person ever?”

the answer to that, may, peeks her head into the room. “hey, kids. it’s getting late.” she notices your intertwined hands and shoots peter a smirk. “i thought you were a cool aunt,” he teases, you sadly letting go of him. “she is. thanks for having me over so late,” you tell may on your way to the door. “oh, stop it. you can come over any time.” she puts a hand on your arm. “thank you so much,” you murmur back.

you walk backwards to the doorway, may leaving you two to say your goodbyes. “wanna hang out only you and me? on friday maybe?” that should make up for everything earlier. “yeah, of course. friday is perfect,” peter agrees and bounces on his feet as excitement takes over him. “thanks again for the sushi.”

“no problem. goodnight.” it’s taking every last bit of power in you to not freak out. “night. text me when you get home.” he presses his tongue into his cheek. you slowly pull the door shut. “ok, i will. bye!” it closes, leaving peter skipping across his room to his bed on one side and you doing a little happy dance on the other.

the next day at school, everything is back to normal. honestly, better than normal. your hangout with peter is tomorrow, and he’s planning on telling he likes you then. he already talked it over with ned. he’s relieved it’s finally happening, especially since him and betty have their own thing. she’ll be taking up most of his free time from here.

your group is spending lunch outside today, lounging across a picnic table, surrounded by trees and the shining sun in a bright blue sky. mj sits on the table and has her feet on the bench, which would usually bug peter to no end. he doesn’t mind this time because it takes up enough room that harry has to sit with ned and betty instead of you. you lean into peter’s side and stab a piece of lettuce from your salad.

“it’s so nice out,” betty sighs, ripping off half her cookie and giving it to ned. “we should ditch.” “oh my god, you sound like harry,” you groan between bites of salad. peter lets out a breathy laugh, you looping your arm through his. he grins down at where you’re linked. harry crosses his own arms over his chest. “she wishes.” betty only nods because her mouth is full of m&m’s.

“nah, seriously. i’d take us out somewhere, but i have practice after school.” he speaks quieter than he normally does, less confident. your theory about him having basketball drama was right. “what did we tell you? talk about the sports shit with your sports friends,” mj complains, sitting back on her hands. she glances at harry over her shoulder and catches ned mouthing you can’t say that.

sitting criss cross, she spins around to face harry, unenthusiastically saying, “what i meant was, you sound upset. what’s wrong?” harry gets into it right away, like he’s been waiting for someone to ask. “coach says there might be a scout at the next game. it’s a really good opportunity even though i don’t have to worry about... college yet.” the word makes him cringe.

“oh, damn. that’s a big deal. scary,” mj snorts, turning back to you and peter. her behavior makes ned internally face palm. “that’s awesome, dude. you’re gonna play amazing like always.” he gives harry a high five, who smiles nervously in response. he’s never nervous. “thanks, bro. you guys wanna come and watch?” he’s never invited you to one of his games before either.

this isn’t a group of friends that likes to spend their weekends in bleachers while angry teens shout around them.

“definitely. we’ll be there to support you, harry,” betty answers for everyone, ned pecking her cheek in satisfaction. mj cusses to herself before replying. “if i absolutely must, sure.” only you and peter haven’t said anything yet. he’s been chewing his lower lip, and you your salad. harry looks between you two hopefully. it’s more so at you, which peter doesn’t like.

“y/n? pete? it would help a lot, i’m serious.” he taps his fingers on the table until one of you speaks up. you’re the one who does. “i’ll go. this is pretty huge, right? congrats.” you reach across the table and squeeze his shoulder while simultaneously tightening your arm around peter’s. he takes that as a cue. “i’ll go, too. happy for you, man.”

though peter isn’t currently in the best place with harry, he should show his support by showing up. it can’t be too bad since the rest of you will be there.

a loud, long chuckle leaves harry as he hops up from his bench and comes to yours and peter’s. he bends over and wraps both of you in a hug from behind at the same time. his arms are around each of your shoulders, holding you so close his cheeks are squished against either of your heads. you giggle at that, peter finding himself laughing along and reaching back to ruffle harry’s hair.

staying mad at him is one of the world’s greatest challenges.

“you’re saints, both of you. my angels.” he kisses the back of your head, then lays one right on peter’s cheek, leaving him blushing red and grinning. “what about the rest of us? i never go to shit like this,” mj huffs and seems genuinely offended. harry wiggles his eyebrows. “you want a kiss?” his offer gets her flustered, which she can’t manage to hide. that’s a first.

“shut up. i’m just saying... never mind.” mj glares at you and peter, ned and betty making kissing noises behind her. “someone change the subject.” peter steps in. “when’s the game, harry?” he asks, harry snapping and waving his finger. “tomorrow! cancel your plans, kiddos.” “like we had any,” betty retorts.

some of you did. that was going to be peter’s hangout with you.

ned smiles sympathetically at peter before betty is getting his attention. you‘re unfazed and rambling to harry how proud you are of him.

did last night mean nothing? was it an empty gesture? were you only doing it out of guilt? peter must have read your visit wrong. he’s been wrong the whole time he’s liked you. you don’t like him back, you pity him. harry is who you’re really interested in.

may always says he should trust his instincts.

peter pulls his arm from yours suddenly, swinging his backpack onto his shoulders. you’re taken back because it’s so out of no where. you stop talking to harry so you can figure out his deal. “where are you going?” “bell’s gonna ring,” peter mumbles and picks up his lunch tray. he heads to the garbage can without another word or goodbye to anyone.

“i’m gonna go check on him,” you tell harry, already getting up from the bench. “you do that,” he acknowledges and calls mj’s name again.

peter tosses his mostly untouched food in the trash, seeing you make your way over from the corner of his eye. he tries to speed walk inside so he doesn’t have to talk to you. you’re too quick, cornering him between the door and brick wall.

“we still have ten minutes,” you state, worry flashing across your face. he’s avoiding you. well, attempting to. “what’s wrong?” peter gulps before saying anything. “my next class is on the other side of the-“ “no,” you cut him off. “what’s really wrong?”

he doesn’t feel like having this discussion. it’s bad enough he came to the realization his feelings are one sided. must he break that down for you so soon?

you toy with your sleeve while you speak because peter doesn’t. “i thought you and harry were fine again. i mean, he kissed you.” peter clenches his jaw so hard he can imagine the sound of it cracking. “it’s not about harry.” “what, then? what the fuck happened?” your sleeves are now balled in your fists. you hate it when peter does this angsty routine.

he keeps his voice low and calm so he doesn’t come off as jealous or hurt. he’s both of those things. “the game is tomorrow. friday. when we were supposed to hang out.” you meet peter’s eyes with nothing but remorse in yours. “i... i forgot,” is all you have to say.

you feel awful. he’s had a tough couple of days, and you fell through on your promise to cheer him up.

“clearly,” peter remarks, voice sharp. the way you’re looking at him makes him think he won’t like what’s coming. “peter, we have to go,” you almost whine. “i’m really sorry, i am, but this is a big night for harry. he needs us there.” peter stays silent. you’re twisting the knife deeper into him with every word. “i wouldn’t be cancelling if this wasn’t important.”

now you’re cancelling?

you reach for peter’s hand, but he shoves it into his pocket. that stings for you and him. “please, peter. we’ll hang out at the game, i swear.” this is the last chance you’ve got, so you pile it on. “harry won’t even be there, technically. he’ll... he’ll be on the court.” peter hadn’t thought about that. he lets himself unclench, starting to see the appeal. you add one more thing to lighten the mood and persuade him.

“i’ll buy you popcorn, all you can eat.” it’s that easy. cracking a smile, peter accepts. he’ll deal with his unresolved, unreciprocated feelings after he stuffs his face, courtesy of you. “you better. i’m gonna need it for this long ass game.” your face lights up, grabbing his wrist in both hands.

“so, you’ll come?” “i’ll be there,” he confirms. you throw your arms around his neck. he laughs into the hug and holds you by your middle. “i promise this’ll be the first and last game we ever go to,” you say and mean it. harry is lucky you’re even suffering through this a first time. “thank god,” peter exhales, resting his chin on your head.

that interaction leaves peter confused as hell. you’re crushing his mind and soul one minute, then hugging him the next. you were making him feel so special lasts night, and treating harry the same way today. it’s so jumbled that he isn’t sure if he’s in the friend zone or something more zone.

there are a ton of mixed signals coming his way, and he sucks at reading people as is.

he can’t take another second of this. he’d rather you come out and say you like harry already because it’s torture. knowing you don’t want him in that way would at least eliminate the possibility of anything happening between you two, and allow him to stop driving himself insane.

he’d be able to stop taking it out on harry, too.

the hold you have on peter, that you’re oblivious to, rules his every thought and decision. he’s constantly analyzing what you say to him, debating whether or not your affection is simply platonic. it’s been half a year of this madness, the night of harry’s game blurring every line so much more.

your group arrives a bit early to find seats and hype harry up before he plays. peter gets there after all of you because he’s not exactly in a rush to watch sweaty guys be aggressive. there’s only one upside, which is spending the night with you... and everyone else.

he steps into the gym that’s filling up fast with family members, friends, and the college scout harry was talking about. midtown has a different feeling to it at night. the smell of pencils is oddly stronger, and it’s a lot less intimidating.

cheerleaders are huddled in a circle while the team supervisor has them run their chants. the “leading official,” who peter thought was called a referee, takes his place off to the side. coaches give their players last minute instructions, players fool around with each other, a lot is going on.

peter scans the room for you, and grins a toothy grin when you catch his eyes. you’re sitting by yourself in one of the middle bleachers, only a bag of skinny pop in your lap. you return the smile once you spot him and wave him over.

“i don’t know why, but i thought they’d have an actual concession stand,” you explain the lack of fresh, buttery popcorn as peter takes a seat next to you. he catches the prepackaged bag you toss him. “it’s just a snack table.” “works either way,” peter hums and pokes the bag. “i’m not sure skinny pop is all i can eat, though.” “it’s good!” you defend the snack you chose for him.

“i’m kidding! you’re right, it’s kind of addicting.” he puts it by his feet for now and gives you a half smile. “you’re welcome,” you deadpan in a playful tone. “thanks.” he narrows his eyes. “where’s everyone else?” “right,” you twist around and gesture to the bleacher above you. mj is gloomily seated near the back. ned and betty are a few behind you.

“i told them to find their own seats so we can sit together, alone.” you look over at peter and move ever so slightly closer. “welcome to our friday hangout. just the two of us.” “aw, you didn’t have to do that,” peter laughs out, his knee bumping yours. “but, i’m happy you did.” he goes to put an arm around you, then harry comes racing up the stairs.

just the two of you didn’t last so long.

“y/n, i’m freaking out,” harry announces, zooming through your row to get over to you. he stops once he’s standing in front of peter and shakes him by his shoulder. “hey, pete. you made it.” “yup,” peter replies, pressing his lips together. you wince at his reaction, then quirk an eyebrow at harry. “you’re freaking out? why?”

harry sits down between you and peter, blissfully unaware of the moment he interrupted.

“i found the scout. he’s fucking terrifying as fuck. this super ripped guy, looks like he’d rather be anywhere else,” he talks quietly, like the man will hear him. “he’s not the only one,” peter says to himself, kicking around his bag of popcorn to pass time. you ignore him and grimace.

“shit. wait, how do you know it’s him? did they tell you?” you’re not sure how these things go. harry casually shrugs a shoulder. “dude has a clipboard. seems legit to me.” he gives you a cocky smile. “he’s also in the row before mj. that’s how i noticed. um...” his back now facing peter, he whispers something in your ear that makes you giggle.

peter’s face scrunches up as the spark of anger the past few days have lit reignites itself.

when harry pulls away, you motion for him to come closer with your index finger, cupping your hand around his ear and speaking into it.

nope, no more. peter is entirely about to explode. you cancelled your plans so you can force him to watch basketball, you sweet talk him so he’ll let it go, and you’re running right back to harry after all of that? what the hell does that mean?

peter stands up from his seat. “y/n, we need to talk,” he demands, you moving away from harry to respond. “ok, gimme a minute. we’re-“ “no, we need to talk now.” you don’t have time to refute because he’s taking your arm and dragging you away. harry squints at you in utter confusion.

“um, have a good game! we’ll talk later,” you call back to him, walking with peter even though you have no idea what his issue is and aren’t a fan of how he’s acting.

he releases you once you’re in the hallway. you make a point of harshly yanking your arm back, a scowl painting your lips. “jesus, peter. i was having a conversation.” “do you like harry?” peter blurts out. you’re so shocked at his abruptness that you don’t give him much to work with, only, “what?” “do you like harry?” he asks you again, this time less accusing and more curious.

“do i like...” you’re too aware of the seemingly hundreds of people surrounding you to answer comfortably. “can we talk about this somewhere else?” “sure,” peter nods, letting you lead the way since he did to get out here. you two go down the hall and choose the first room you see, which happens to be the custodian’s closet. it’s thankfully unlocked.

things were tense between you and peter on the way over, and it’s physically mirrored when you step into the room, air thick and smelling of lemon cleaning supplies. you tug on the string hanging down to turn on the light. it casts a faded glow, leaving you in mostly darkness. you sort of like it. this feels more intimate, which is fitting for what you’re both about to say.

neither one of you knows where to begin. peter’s question is ringing in the back of your mind, and you could touch on that, but there’s more to it than a simple yes or no. you don’t have to worry about it because peter gets his words out first.

“i think harry likes you, and i think you like him back,” peter restarts, already sounding deflated by what he came up with. “he doesn’t, and i don’t.” you take a step towards him. “he likes mj.” it’s peter’s turn to be shocked. the hint of a smile sets on your lips. “that’s what we were talking about. harry asked if he should take her to dinner after the game, and i said yes.”

this is going better than he expected.

“mj is the one who likes him, not me,” you reiterate and watch some life enter peter again, a tiny bit. he’s coming around, and he wants to believe you. his trust issues don’t. “but, you’re so... touchy with each other. the hugging the other day?” he mentions. you tilt your head to the side in amusement. “friends can’t hug?”

to be fair, you hugged peter yesterday. that’s a point rightfully shut down.

“he calls you pretty,” peter tries, raising both eyebrows. you have to laugh at this one. “you call may pretty.”

obviously, peter’s analysis skills could use some serious improvements. it sounds like he had the right idea, wrong person. your relationship with harry is platonic. hell, he’s crushing on a whole different person. this actually opens up the possibility of you liking peter in the romantic way, of him being in the something more zone. he had it backwards.

in case peter isn’t convinced yet, and because you really want to, you use one more trick to prove to him you don’t like harry.

“do me and harry do this?” your lips speak for you, colliding with peter’s unexpectedly yet easily. he feels like he’s floating, like he’s in some sort of magical wonderland until it hits him that this is real, and he should probably kiss you back. he does so softly and tangles his fingers in your locks. his hand supports the back of your head as the kiss goes on.

you push forward so your bodies are almost fused together, the closest you can be while you hold his jaw. peter breaks the kiss for a short breather, going back in without more than a moment passing. this one is feverish, his free arm looping around your lower back, hand resting on the small of it. you let out a giggle against his swollen lips and stroke your thumb over his jawline.

he’s been waiting to do this for the longest time, but he doesn’t have to tell you that. it shows in how eager he was to reciprocate, his shyness blossoming into passion. you feel yourself melting under his touch, the kiss eventually becoming a series of short pecks. peter gives you the final one. his pink lips form a grin when you pull apart. your hands stay on each other, not in a rush to go anywhere.

“woah, i like you so much,” peter laughs out. the words roll off his tongue naturally. “you know i like you,” you drawl, smiling at him, a full body smile while you caress his skin. he winds both arms around you and dips his head down to steal another kiss. you’re loving what’s happening. however, you don’t feel like making out while dirty brooms stare at you. you should take this back home.

“wanna get out of here? i do,” you suggest, voice muffled from his lips. they detach from yours and brush your cheek gently. peter makes a funny face. “hm, i thought we had to come. harry needs us,” he says what you did yesterday, earning a groan back. “you’re joking.” “i’m not. what kind of friends would we be, ditching him like that?”

he’s going to end you one day.

“yeah, no. i have no idea how basketball works, and i’d like to keep it that way,” peter drops the act, pressing his fingers into your sides. “i’ve been so mean to harry. i was...” “a dick?” you finish for him. it’s more of a statement than a question. to soften the blow, you rub his cheek with the tips of your fingers. “yup. he’s gonna think i hate him or something if we don’t stay.” his formerly smiley face is frowning.

“harry of all people will understand after we tell him our reasons,” you reassure him, nudging under his chin with your nose. “besides, he has other things to worry about. mj, the scout. it’s fine.” peter considers it, ultimately giving in to you like he always does, resting his forehead on yours. “i guess so. less distractions for him, yeah.” “exactly. that’s what i wanna hear.”

having his approval, you unwind yourself from him and head to the door. his fingers wrap around your wrist gently. “what about my popcorn?” a giggle escapes your lips. “you’re still on that?” “you said all i can eat!” his voice comes out high pitched, adorably high pitched.

“fine. i might have those bags you put in the microwave.” you smile when his fingers lock with yours, peter kissing the side of your head.

“even better. let’s go home.”

#peter parker #peter parker fluff #peter parker imagine #peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker smut #peter parker fic #peter parker fanfiction #tom holland #tom holland fluff #tom holland smut #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland fic #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland imagine

[miekasa]

mie!! i’m so late to the party but i absolutely loved ‘NICE’, it made me feel so warm and fuzzy <33 it’s so unique to its own and the flow of it is beyond wonderful!

what is married life like for oc and eren in ‘NICE’? is it just like before/do you have any nice!husband!eren headcanons?

AHH I’m so happy you liked it and that you took the time to come and tell me!! Married life for them... doesn’t really differ from what their lives looked like before actually hehe. They were basically married without knowing it 🙄🙄 idiots to lovers or something like that; but here are a few head canons of the months immediately following NICE!

You officially got married in Paris on the fourth, not too long after Carla’s wedding. You guys flew in some officials, checked through all the technicalities, and signed the papers right on top of the Eiffel Tower (access granted by the city of Paris upon request of one Carla Jaeger, of course). 

Aside from having the most picturesque location in the world to sign your marriage certificate, there wasn’t anything lavish in celebration after that. Carla’s wedding was just three days earlier, after all, and was still the talk of the local press. You did have a small party with your friends (Jean, Armin, Mikasa, Marco, Erwin, Levi, Hange came from the Alps for Carla’s wedding) in your overly large hotel room. Just some music, room service, and lots and lots of champagne.

Eren extended your winter break vacation by two weeks for an impromptu honeymoon to the Bahamas before you went home. Let’s just say you did not leave the safe haven of your hotel room very often, except to dip into the ocean a few nights (benefits of a private beach).

After getting married, the rings swapped places; the band with diamonds previously on your pointer finger was put on a chain (a new one since Eren threw the other one on the ground 💀), and you now wear the engagement ring on your ring finger.

Eren doesn’t like it when you take off the ring (the ring being the engagement ring). The first time you were going into the water, you were going to put it on the chain for safekeeping, but he protested very strongly. He would rather it rest safely in your suitcase than go around your neck again.

Your wedding bands are actually very similar to the band you already have: gold and diamond encrusted. Eren’s, however, has an emerald in the center, like the two emeralds that serve as the pistils of the sunflowers in your engagement ring (for reference, that ring looks something like this, but with a gold band). The bands were the first thing Eren bought when you guys got home.

Your friends in Dubai (Ymir, Reiner, Annie, Connie, Sasha) had no idea that you and Eren got married over winter break. Safe to say they were all… very surprised to hear the news. Connie was a little bit bitter because he missed it, and wolf whistles every time he sees your ring (even though he’s seen it before because you wore it on the necklace every day).

You got married in January, but have an official wedding in the process of being planned sometime around late summer/early fall. Carla insisted that you guys have a wedding despite already being married, and Eren agreed whole heartedly. They are both very into planning it, and yes, Eren is somewhat of a bridezilla, and his mom is enabling him 100% please.

The night you signed the wedding papers, Carla lent you an off-white satin couture gown from one of her past collections. She is designing and making your official wedding dress by hand, with the help of Mikasa.

The two of them are also making Eren’s suit, and all the outfits for your wedding party. Carla will murder you if you even so much as hint at just buying other suits/dresses. This is her baby’s wedding, and she runs one of the most renowned fashion houses of the modern century; she’ll be damned if you guys wear something off the rack.

You considered a destination wedding, but settled on having it in New York. You haven’t decided a location yet, and it’s the one thing Eren isn’t actually picky about (because you know he’s gonna go ham on the decor no matter where it is bye).

Jean doesn’t know it yet, but he’s your maid of honor. Good luck and best of wishes to Eren picking between Mikasa and Armin for best man.

Even before confessing and getting married, Eren never slept much in his own bedroom. You both have California king sized beds in your rooms, and more often than not, Eren would sleep with you in your bed. You didn’t always cuddle, but he just liked to be there (for your presence, and because he was grossly in love bye)… you ended up cuddling a lot of the time tho.

He wants to renovate your apartment now that you both “officially” live in the same bedroom, even though it’s not necessary. He just likes renovating things.

You guys go to dinner every weekend, and sometimes you even go dancing. Eren still can’t dance and he doesn’t actually care to learn; it just reminds him of being in Nice with you.

He kisses your ring finger every morning waking up and every night before going to bed; sometimes he even does it subconsciously in his sleep.

He holds your hand way more often. Not just because you guys are together now, but because he likes seeing the ring where it’s meant to be. He also notices that it helps to curb your anxiety, which is a good bonus.

Eren wants kids, but he hasn’t really brought it up yet. He knows you both are fairly young, and that you’re still technically in school, but that’s not really a deterrent for him.

The only reason he’s waiting to say something is because you guys have a lot going on with wedding planning and settling in to “married life”—there’s a lot of tedious paperwork to be done and documents to update. He’ll bring it up next year when all that is settled.

On the subject of school, you are still attending university, but have been eligible for graduation for a year now. You had enough credits to graduate last (the year before NICE) December, but there were a few more classes you wanted to take out of interest that hadn’t been running in past years, so you stayed for all four years. Eren picks you up from your lectures.

Eren graduated in December before you guys went on vacation. By normal standards, that’s a semester early. However, he was supposed to be in this Honors Arts and Sciences program, that should have taken him another two semesters. He decided it wasn’t worth it, and dropped the honors part, and with that, had enough credits to graduate, so he did.

A college degree is really more of an accessory for him anyway, and school was never his thing. He’s decently smart, sure, but he never enjoyed school because of the emphasis on exams; he’s more of a creative person, a dreamer if you will. The only reason he even went to Columbia was because you decided to go there. 

He and you both have enough money to live more than comfortably if neither of you decided to get a job after graduation… way more than enough/ But Eren isn’t doing nothing; he’s actually sorta been working his way into the world of professional interior design, and he really loves it. You’re proud of him, and more than anything, happy that he decided to go for something he loves.

Armin and Jean also graduated a semester early. Armin’s been living with Mikasa since Connie got his own place off-campus in January. Jean is a little upset blondie is living with his girlfriend before he is, but it’s whatever 🙄if it’s gonna be anyone, at least it’s Armin. 

Carla mentioned that Eren got married sometime during a NYFW interview (along with talking about her own recent marriage), and since then you both have interviewed for two magazines, one of which featured pictures from your smaller party in Paris. You’ve gotten requests from Vanity Fair and Vogue about your bigger wedding later in the year, but you guys haven’t invited any media officials as of yet.

You and Eren attend the MET Gala almost every year. You don’t walk the red carpet and nobody is scrambling to take your pictures; but you have passes because of Carla. Also, you could just buy your way in if you wanted you (and your friends have in the past). This year, Eren had to pay two security officers $10k in bribes because you two snuck away to fuck in… a part of the museum not sectioned off for the event. Whoopsies.

Even before Eren got him arrested, going out to brunch was kind of your and Armin’s thing. Eren insists he should be invited now that he’s your husband. He is not. (His bitterness grows when he learns that Jean has secured himself an invite somehow).

Eren sold the car he got arrested for drag racing in. He never told you why—and as far as transportation goes, it wasn’t a big deal because you guys have other cars—but, to him, it was a kind of symbol. He thinks it’s dumb if he thinks too long about it, but he just didn’t wanna have that there are a reminder of how he’d hurt you and his mom.

Jean still drives you to your therapy appointments, but now Eren picks you up. Eren also goes to therapy himself, and has been before you guys got married; his therapist says he’s undoubtedly happier in recent sessions… like a weight’s been lifted off his shoulder.

As far as drugs go, there’s, of course, weed on a happy occasion, or at a party; but he hasn’t touched coke since that one time (which was also the first time he’d ever done it). That’s not even him being a changed man, he just didn’t like it—he only argued with you about it because he was being stubborn. He’s more of a drinker than anything, and absolutely loves to get you drunk on a special occasion, too; he always has. He thinks you look cute, and he likes taking care of you.

You have lived in that apartment with Eren for years before marrying him, yet he insisted you needed to christen the place like it was brand new… at this point, the only places you haven’t fucked in are the elevator itself, the foyer, the storage closet, and the pool. The latter only because it’s been too cold in NYC… trust and believe pool sex is coming lmfao.

Eren bought the apartment and renovated and designed it, but he never did like being in it all alone, and that’s been magnified since you got married. If he’s there by himself, he’s usually in the living area, napping on the daybed. He waits for your faithfully every day, and is hardly in the bedroom if you’re not.

Eren has not stopped introducing you as his wife since January. Even to people in passing like cashiers and bartenders, everyone in the whole damn city probably knows you guys got hitched.

#anonymous #oh i forgot how much i love this couple eren's so baby :((((( he loves her SO much its unberable #its A MIRACLE they didnt get together sooner #yes theyre only 21 in the fic but he was literally ready at 19 god i love him i love him i love himmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm #fic.ask #eren x reader

[myhockeyworld87]

What Happens in Vegas...Doesn’t Always Stay There - Jacob Markstrom - Part 1

Word Count: 4,885

POV: Reader

Warnings: NSFW, Language, Smut, Drinking (all the good stuff)

Notes: Well here it is the new fic that’s been in my head. I tossed around a couple different guys for this, but some of you suggested Marky and well looks like it stuck. Trying to do this a little different and keep this in an all read POV, so we shall see how that works. I don’t see this being super long maybe between 5 or 6 parts. Hope you guys enjoy. As always feedback is welcome. Happy Reading!

They say that New York is the city that never sleeps but whoever 'they' is, well, they got it wrong. It has to be Vegas. Lights are always flashing whether you were indoors or out, the jangly sound of slot machines can be heard at all hours and the seven deadly sins seem to be on full display twenty-four hours a day. It's no wonder their tagline for years was 'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.' If only that were true.

You wish you could blame someone else but you can't. Vegas was all your idea. As maid of honor, it fell to you to plan your best friend's bachelorette party, and in your mind, there was only one spot, Vegas. Now, you were second-guessing your choice as your head was pounding like there were a thousand drummers who decided to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show, only in your brain. There was only one thought that made it through the marching band playing in your head. What the hell happened last night?

 Maybe you should start off small, like where were you first, considering that the little drummer boy was now doing backflips in your head. You were definitely in bed, which was evident as you could feel the mattress underneath you. You could also feel the duvet comforter covering your body, but there was something else. Something a bit heavier, almost as if a weighted blanket was covering your stomach and your breast, but it wasn't that. It was an arm slung across your midsection and a very large hand cupping your one boob. God, you hoped it was still attached to a body. You should really take a peek. It would be the only decent thing to do.

 As you gradually lifted one eyelid open, the first thing you noticed was that you were not in your hotel room, as the wall looked completely different. No reason to panic, you told yourself. Everything would come back to you as soon as this god blessed pounding ceased. Peering the other eye open, you got back to business at seeing if there was a body attached to the arm currently trapping you to the bed. Carefully, you turned your head to the side to see a very large and very naked man firmly attached to the aforementioned arm. He was gorgeous as he lay there sleeping ever so peacefully. You drank in his features, kind of like you downed drink after drink last night. His brown hair had this golden hue to it that made your fingers want to reach out and touch it, though you refrained. Then there was the beard covering his face, not too much and not too little, and now that you were thinking about it; you definitely felt some of that beard burn on your thighs. If you could only remember last night. The only logical thing to do was to go back to the start of this, back to a time when you were sober.

 It started months ago when your best friend Kennedy got engaged. You honestly didn't see it coming that fast. She'd only been dating Ryan for a little less than a year, but he asked and she said yes, and when she asked you to be her maid of honor you screamed and laughed and cried, and told her you couldn't wait to plan her bachelorette party. Everyone knew the bridal shower was only for boring stuffy old aunts so that they could buy her the latest air fryer or new dish pattern. The bachelorette party was where all the fun was, and what better place to have it than Las Vegas.

 Of course, everyone agreed with you. The only wrench in the plan was that Kennedy decided to up her wedding date and make it a nine-month engagement. That barely left time to find a dress let alone plan the most outrageous bachelorette party of the century. You would've said decade but twenty-twenty was fastly approaching. Thankfully, you had connections. Night one was more sedate since you all were just arriving at the MGM hotel at different times; eleven of you in total when Ryan's sister decided to join at the last minute. You booked a private room at Lago in the Bellagio for all of you to enjoy.

 It was the second night, that was the piece de resistance. A limo picked you all up and took you over to Excalibur to see the legendary Australian group, Thunder from Down Under. I mean what was Vegas without seeing a male stripper or two. The next day, a private bungalow was waiting for you at Wet Republic in the MGM Hotel. One would've thought the night watching men strip naked would've been your undoing but apparently, it all started poolside.

 "I seriously can't believe he pulled you up on stage and proceeded to dry hump you up there," Kelsey rehashed.

 "Really, Kels?" Kennedy said downing another mimosa. "How could you not see that happening? (Y/N) has known Nate for a couple years. I mean he did get us front row tickets." This was all true. Nate, the emcee for Thunder from Down Under and you were friends, had been since your firm had done their calendar shoot two years ago. He had generously given you prime seating to the show that night and also set you up with a few other perks for the trip. "The only thing I'm surprised at, is that this one," she bumped you with her hip, spilling both hers and your mimosas. "Didn't end up going home with him last night."

 "Oh my god, Kenny you did not just say that." She may be the bride and your best friend but really, she was pushing the line.

 "Come on, it's not like it hasn't happened before."

 At least four pairs of eyes turned towards you, Ryan's sister Gretchen being one of them. "Ok, admittedly, I slept with him, once." Both Kennedy and Kelsey gave you that look. "Ok, maybe it was twice, but he has a girlfriend now, and we are just friends."

 "I'll give you that," Jade spoke up in your defense and suddenly she was going to earn the title of new best friend, not that the lines weren't blurred in your little group as you were all sort of best friends. "But what about Edward, the one with the turtle tattoo on his hip."

 "You were so looking at more than his hip." Eva teased while Jade simply hid behind her champagne glass. "But yeah (Y/N), he was totally hitting on you."

 "He was not."

 "Oh, he was," Kennedy added her two cents. "And as the bride I take offense, they should've been hitting on me."

 "Wait, why would they hit on you?" Jade sputtered. "You're taken bitch." Of course, bitch was said in the most loving way.

 "I'm not dead."

 "No, but I'm sure my brother wouldn't appreciate it." Leave it to Gretchen to be the mood killer. "I think I'm going to go take a nap. I'll meet you at the pool later."

 She headed out the door, and honestly, you were ecstatic about it, for she was too judgmental for your liking.  "Wait, Gretch, that's not what I meant."

 "Leave her go, maybe a nap would do her good." They were Jade's words but your sentiments. "Now back to why (Y/N) did not take that beautiful man up on his offer last night."

 "There was no offer," you insisted.

 "Come on (Y/N), there was an offer. There's always an offer. Remember when you were doing promo for that Batman flick." You tried to shut Kennedy up with a death glare, but she continued to prattle on. "We all know you ended up doing the nasty with Superman."

 "WHAT?!?!" Yeah, that definitely came out of the other nine people's mouths in the room.

 "Thanks, Ken. No one knew that but you."

 "Oops, my bad." She had the grace to at least be embarrassed about the whole thing.

 "You mean you slept with that guy, the British one, tall, all muscular, extremely good looking. Damn it what's his name." You could see Eva wracking her brain for his name and you just didn't want to go there.

 "Hen…"

 "Yes, him," you admitted, stopping Jade before she could finish his name. "Can we please change the subject?"

 "Why, when we are all living vicariously through you," Kelsey added. "Especially poor Kennedy, who is now committed to spending the rest of her life with one man."

 "Geez, you make it sound like a death sentence. I love Ryan and I'm perfectly fine spending the rest of my days with him."

 You had to suppress an eye roll. Not because you didn't think that Ryan and Kennedy weren't in love. If you were being honest, you just thought they were rushing things a bit. The problem was telling your best friend that; you tried in the past and never succeeded. "We know you're in love Kenny." And then because you couldn't stop yourself, you added. "It's just are you sure you want to be tied down so young? We still have our whole life to live."

 "Jesus, (Y/N). We all know you're not ready for marriage and what comes with it, but we can't all be you with your fancy job in LA, meeting celebrities all the time. Some of us have real lives and want to settle down and have a family."

 "Kenny, that's not what I meant." The last thing you wanted to do was argue with her at her bachelorette party. "I only want you to be happy."

 "You have a funny way of showing it." The air in the room took on a chill and not from the air conditioning. If you didn't do something soon this party was going to go downhill.

 "Oh, would you look at the time," Jade chimed in. "We should probably be heading down to the pool." Everyone grabbed their stuff, Kennedy giving you the cold shoulder as you made your way out of the hotel suite. Jade came up and wrapped an arm around you. "She'll be fine. She's just on edge after the whole Gretchen thing. We'll give her a few shots and you two will be good as new."

 "I hope so." Unfortunately, things weren't fine. Kennedy seemed to avoid you and your attempt to make things right, even after a few shots. That didn't stop you from taking a few more. You had a strict one drink to one water rule, that you threw out the door today. Downing shots like it was your job. It was probably an hour later when you were in one of the private pools, with a few of the girls that a large group of very attractive men walked in. They were definitely different from Nate and the guys from Thunder, and at first, you thought it was some fraternity get together with how young some of them looked, but at second glance there were some gentlemen that were your age or older.

 "They've gotta be baseball players," Eva whispered over after they took up residence in the three bungalows next to you.

 "Nah, none of them have a dad bod." Jade was right, they were too fit to be in the MLB. You'd been around enough major leaguers to know while some were incredibly in shape, some were not. That didn't seem to be the case with this group.

 "I'm gonna rule out NFL as well," you told the girls. "None of these guys look like they're an offensive guard. Those guys are huge." You noticed a few of them staring at the six of you that were in the smaller pool reserved only for the bungalows. Grabbing another shot, this had to be your fourth in just sixty minutes, you downed the drink really starting to feel its effects.

 "Looks like we may just find out here," Jade said, nodding to let you know some of the guys were headed your way.

 "Ladies, care if we join you?" One of the men asked, you had to admit he was extremely handsome but also gave off an air that he had more than a few notches in his bedpost.

 A couple of the girls nodded, but when no one said anything, you found yourself saying, "Come on in."

 "So, what brings you to Vegas?" This from a different guy, who had quite a number of tattoos covering his arms, and you had to admit that the ink just made him more attractive, that and his height. He was well over six feet tall and you didn't mind looking up to see his face as he took the seat next to you.

 "Bachelorette party," Jade blurted out and you saw a few eyebrows raise.

 "Tell me you're not the bride?" His breath was warm or maybe it was the sun, either way, you definitely felt a warmth in your belly that wasn't there moments ago.

 "I am definitely not the bride." Shit that sounded desperate. "Though I am the maid of honor, at least I hope I still am." You looked inside the bungalow to see Kennedy in deep conversation with Gretchen.

 "Hmm, sounds like there's a story there. Care to tell me? I'm Jacob by the way, though the guys call me Marky."

 He held out his hand, the one that didn't have a beer in it, and you took it. "(Y/N), and I'll tell you though it's rather dull, on one condition." He quirked a brow at you. "You tell me what sport you play."

 He chuckled. "What makes you think I play a sport? Maybe I'm an investment banker."

 "Well, first there's your accent, though I suppose you could pull off investment banker with that. Second, you are all…how shall I say this…physically fit. A quality most athletes have and considering the number of you; I doubt this is some kind of investment banker convention."

 "Ok, I'll give you that, though we could be bodybuilders or…" the lights on the billboard on the strip changed to a Thunder From Down Under ad and you saw a light bulb in his head go off. "Or male strippers." Shit, you almost spit your drink out on that one. "What, too much a stretch? Maybe it's your lucky day." He started to sway his hips in the pool, one of his friends joining him while you and Jade tried to contain your laughter.

 "Nah, it's already been (Y/N)'s lucky day with them. She knows them all rather intimately."

 "Jade!" you yelled at your friend, or ex-friend, though you weren't in a position to be losing anymore at the moment.

 "Oops." She at least had the decency to look embarrassed. Alcohol made everyone do some crazy things and Jade was no exception to the rule.

 "Intimately huh?" Jacob asked as you splashed water on Jade causing her to shriek and hide behind Jacob's friend who you learned was someone named Erik. "Have I lost the competition before it even starts?"

 "There's no competition."

 "So, you're single then?"

 "Yes, though you still haven't answered my question." As soon as Jacob heard you say yes, he slid a little closer to you.

 "What was that question again?" He said with laughter in his eyes and before you could get annoyed with him, though you doubted that would happen, he added. "I remember, just giving you a hard time. Anyhow, we play hockey."

 "Oh, nice. Like professional level? Or are there minors in that sport?" You really weren't one hundred percent sure. You'd taken in a game here and there but not really paid any particular attention to it.

 "We're in the NHL, playing for Vancouver. Just came out to do a little team bonding before the season starts. So, are we going to talk about this intimate encounter or why you think your maid of honor duties are getting revoked?"

 "I think I need another drink to talk about either of them."

 Jacob flagged down one of the personal waitresses for the area, requesting a couple of shots and drinks for you both, and you had to admit you liked the way he worked. "Now that that's taken care of…"

 You blew out a frustrated breath, more with yourself than anything else. "I said something stupid right before we came down here." He kept silent, his eyes totally focused on you and what you were saying. A refreshing change from some of the men you spoke to. "I just think she's rushing into things. They've only known each other a year and we are too young to get married. She's only twenty-five, we have our whole lives ahead of us. You know?" He simply nodded his agreement before you continued. "I want to see the world, go places, and do things before I'm strapped down to one man forever. Not to mention being tied down with kids. How can Kenny not want that too?"

 "I totally agree. I've gotten to see a lot with hockey but there's no way I want to be tied down just yet."

 "Exactly, you totally get me." Your drinks arrived then and Jacob took one shot and handed it to you before taking the other.

 "Well, I say we toast to being young and free with no commitments."

 "I'll drink to that." He clinked his glass to yours and the two of you downed the drinks. It seemed like the DJ noticed the change in your mood, as the music got louder and the energy seemed to kick up a notch. You got up and started to dance in the pool; the other girls joining in. It wasn't long before you felt Jacob behind you. His hips grinding into your backside, as his large hands encircled your waist.

 Drinks flowed freely the entire day, and if you were being honest, you couldn't remember a time you'd been that drunk before the sun had even set. You were laughing and dancing, and quite literally having the time of your life; your maid of honor duties completely forgotten at this point. Gretchen came up to you at some point and told you that she, Kennedy, and Kelsey were heading up and would catch up with the rest of you later. Everyone else was having too much fun with the Canucks to want to leave.

 A few more drinks and an hour later, the party was winding down. Most of your friends had headed up to their room to pass out, only a few stayed behind. Jacob had somehow maneuvered you into one of the bungalows that was empty. You shared a few kisses here and there out in the pool area, but now that you were out of view of prying eyes things were getting a bit more heated. Jacob's hands were on your ass, as his tongue was down your throat; not that yours wasn't doing the same thing to him. He moaned into your mouth, the sound going straight to your core. Your bikini bottom was no longer wet from the water of the pool, but the press of Jacob's cock against it.

 You both stumbled back, landing down on the large daybed in the bungalow, though somehow Jacob's reflexes softened your fall. His hands went straight to your breasts, kneading the flesh there. He was just about to untie the string of your bikini top when someone walked in. "Jesus, Marky! Take it upstairs would you!" You squinted trying to make out who it was but at this point not remembering anyone's name besides the man that was on top of you.

 "Oh, shit…thought I was in my room." It was funny, you thought the same thing. "Sorry, Jay."

 "His name is Jay? Like the letter?" you mumbled as Jacob helped you off the couch. "What comes after J?" Fuck you were drunk and when you were drunk you tended to ramble. You once actually talked to a damn parking meter because you thought it was a person, and you were pretty sure you could talk to one now if there was one around.

 "Doesn't matter, babe," Jacob said kissing your lips. "Wanna head up to my room?"

 You had to go up on your tiptoes to loop your arms around his neck. "Yes, I do." He planted a kiss on your lips then cupped your ass cheeks causing you to jump a bit.

 "Let's go," he finally said breaking the kiss. You had enough sense to grab your things and tell your friends not to worry that you'd catch up with them tomorrow. They all winked and nodded or at least that's what it looked like in your head because that's when things started to get hazy. You had vague recollections of making your way through the casino, stopping here and there. Part of you thought that the two of you even stopped to play roulette only so you could have another drink.

 You did remember tumbling through the door of Jacob's suite. His lips were on yours and neither of you were paying attention as he unlocked it. Thankfully his quick reflexes caught you; apparently, even when drunk, goalies couldn't lose some of those natural instincts.

 His hands, you remember them being everywhere on your body, and how incredible they made you feel. His calloused touch lit a fire inside you, that had nothing to do with the alcohol. He rid you of your white swim cover-up easily, flinging the garment across the room, and then his lips were all over your body. It was easy to recall the way he made you feel, as he softly bit down on your nipple through the fabric of your bikini. You'd craved this all afternoon. It had been a couple months since you'd been with a man and Jacob was everything you'd been waiting for.

 You ripped off his shirt. Your hands immediately going to his chest and roaming down his tattooed arms. He was all muscle, hard and lean everywhere, but when you slid your hand down inside his swim trunks to his cock; oh, it was hard all right, but lean was not a word you'd used to describe it. You were barely able to wrap your fingers around his girth, and as you stroked him, you realized God had not only blessed him with height but length as well. The man was made to star in a porno, you thought as you shoved his trunks down.

 Somehow, during that time Jacob had managed to get your bikini top off, though you supposed with its simple string ties it wasn't a hard feat to manage. You dropped to your knees, licking your lips before taking your tongue and swirling it around the head of Jacob's cock. "Det kanns sa bra min vackra prinsessa (that feels so good my beautiful princess)." Jacob's mumblings had you pulling back and looking up at him. "Don't stop, baby." This time you knew what he said as you slowly sucked him into your mouth. There was no way that you could take him all in, so you pumped the rest of him with your fist. You hollowed out your cheeks as you sucked him inside, using every trick in the book you knew. Jacob muttered more in Swedish to you, things you had no clue as to what they meant, but judging by his reaction they were things he was enjoying very much. He threaded his hands through your hair, pulling it back so you could look up at him with big doe eyes. "Jesus," he swore, his hips bucking into your mouth at the sight of you with his cock in it, looking like that. After a few more thrusts, he pulled out shouting," Tillrackligt, enough. I think you're trying to kill me, princess."

 There was something about the way he called you princess. It wasn't anything you'd been called before and most times you'd preferred babe or baby, but the way the word rolled off his tongue did things to your insides.

 Jacob helped you off the ground, his lips ghosting over yours before picking you up and tossing you onto the bed. His large form handled you easily, arranging your body just the way he wanted to before slipping off your bikini bottoms. His large hands worked their way from your ankles to your calves, all the way up to your thighs; spreading your legs as he went. "So beautiful." He traced his fingers lightly over your pussy lips and you quivered in anticipation of what was to come. One long finger slid between your folds all the way up to your clit, once, then twice, and then once again. "So wet, prinsessa, and all because of me."

 "Mmm, yes, Jacob." He dipped that same finger inside you then. The digit slipping in easily and so he added another. Then his mouth was there. Tongue flicking over your clit in a way that made you squirm with pleasure. "Oh yes," you moaned, caught up in the pleasure that was coursing through your veins. "Just like that." Your hips lifted up on their own accord, seeking more of what this giant of a man was doing to you. Jacob never let up, making a come-hither motion with his fingers and you found yourself unraveling around him; legs shaking, breath panting as your orgasm overtook you.

 “So pretty when you cum, prinsessa.” He pulled his fingers from your pussy then brought them to your lips. You opened without any thought, licking your juices off of them. Before you could get them clean, Jacob’s mouth joined yours, kissing you while you sucked on his index and middle fingers. Your tongues mingled together, as Jacob positioned himself between your thighs. The head of his cock nudged between your folds and you sighed into his mouth at just that first touch. Slowly, he filled your pussy, until he bottomed out. Only then did he release your lips. “Fuck you feel so good.”

 Jacob loved the feel of you clenching around him. It felt like he was in heaven. Part of him didn’t even want to move that’s how good your body felt, but then you shifted your hips up just a hair bit and he had to suck in a breath at the pleasure that went straight to his groin for fear he would spend inside you right then and there. He willed his body under control and only then started to move.

 With every snap of Jacob’s hips, a wave of pleasure crashed over you. Your nails raked down his back, probably leaving marks, but it seemed to only spur him on. “Yes, Prinsessa,” he moaned out, as you bent your knees allowing him to go deeper. You moaned as he hit that treasured spot that had you seeing stars. “You like that?” Another moan was his answer, as he continued to fuck you.

 That peculiar feeling started to wash over you. Your pussy fluttering around Jacob’s cock as the orgasm finally broke. Back arching, legs trembling, you were moaning out his name as the climax seemed to continue, as Jacob drove wildly into you. As you came down off your high, Jacob found his. With a few erratic thrusts, he was spending deep inside you with a loud groan. He slumped forward, his sweety forehead resting on yours. “Det dar var otroligt.” You looked at him curiously, your brain not working at all but also knowing he was speaking something in Swedish to you. He smiled, a glorious one that you found yourself getting lost in and you found yourself returning it. “I said that was amazing.”

 “Yes, it was,” you breathed out. Jacob rolled you both onto your sides, tucking you into his. It wasn’t long before both of you were passing out.

 Now here you were, finally putting most of the pieces together from last night. You looked back over at the sleeping man, who had given you such pleasure even in your inebriated state. He really was gorgeous. You honestly wouldn’t mind going for round two, after a couple of Tylenol, of course. Speaking of which you needed to get up and see if you had any in your bag. If only you could move him without waking him. You carefully took your right arm and went to move his left which was slung across you, but then something caught your eye. There on his ring finger was a ring. Oh, it wasn’t just any ring, it was a wedding ring! You knew he didn’t have it on when you were in the pool. You were not the type of woman to go hitting on a married man, let alone sleep with him.

 You pulled your other arm out from underneath him, fully intending to grab your stuff and get the hell out of there when you noticed a bright and shiny diamond on your ring finger. There was also a matching wedding band. Then like a tsunami hitting the beach of a small island a memory came flooding back to you of the two of you entering the hotel chapel. This man wasn’t married to just anyone, he was married to you!  

.

#jacob markstrom #jacob markstrom smut #jacob markstrom imagine #jacob markstrom imagines #nhl fanfic #nhl imagine #nhl imagines #hockey smut #nhl smut #hockey imagine #hockey imagines #hockey fanfic #what happens in Vegas series

[space-mermaid-writing]

House Arrest [Loki X Reader] Chapter 1

Summary: You are Clint’s 'little' sister and actually a trained Shield agent. But you gave that up a few years ago and became a Chef, because you wanted a normal live. Then one day Natasha shows up at your door and takes you to the Avenger Tower for a while for security reasons.

Tags: Reader is an former Shield Agent, chef!reader, Reader Barton, 2012 Avenger vibes, everything is still alright, Slice of Life, Avengers Family, Loki has a good heart, still the god of mischief, Slow Burn, mention of food and cooking

Read it on AO3

Chapter 1: New Home

It's just before midnight when you finally get off work. You really like your job, but the hours are murder. Being a chef at one of the most expensive five-star restaurants in Philadelphia has its price. You take off your apron, which has hardly any stains from the last few hours on it, and throw it in the wash. The white jacket goes neatly into your locker and is replaced by a cardigan and a scarf. It’s a cool night. With a last good bye to your colleagues, who are still putting the dishes into the dishwashers, you make your way home.

The night is dark, but the streets are lit by lanterns and the windows of closed stores. Even if it had been pitch black, it wouldn't have worried you to have to walk alone through the empty alleys. Last year a guy had tried to rob you and threatened you with a knife. You had given him a broken nose and several stab wounds in the shoulder. After all, you had been trained at Shield. But the poor guy didn’t know that.

Half an hour later you arrive at your apartment. It's more functional than nicely furnished, and everything is a bit of a pick 'n' mix. But you don't mind it, because you spend most of your time at work anyway. At home you don't feel such great importance to culinary variety when it comes to your own food. A pizza or French fries with ketchup were always welcome. After all, you've been standing at the stove long enough at work. Tired, you decide to wait until breakfast for your next meal and, after a quick change of clothes, just fall into bed.

Fortunately, the next day is your day off. You make good use of it and sleep in. Afterwards you have an nice brunch with eggs, bacon and toast and after a short shower you go into town to do some errands. The sun is shining warmly from the sky and it's a beautiful spring day. If this holds up until the weekend, maybe you'd visit the weekly market and see what exotic and rare foods you can grab there. You love these little trips, even if you rarely find the time.

About two hours later and with three full shopping bags, you re-enter your apartment. It's on the second floor of a rather nondescript building, but the interior is very modern, with pastel-colored, high walls. You put everything in the kitchen cabinets and then brew yourself a tea/coffee, with which you make yourself comfortable on the couch and turn on the TV. It's time to relax a little. So you zap through the programs, watch the rest of an episode of your favorite series and then decide to watch a reality series, which is not exactly known for its quality but is entertaining. So the noon goes by until suddenly the doorbell rings. You get up to see if it's the mailman or a neighbor with a package. But a look through the peephole shows you that it is neither. Surprised, you open the door "Nat!" Natasha Romanoff is a friend of you and your brother, as well as the godmother of his children. But due to her job you rarely see each other. "Hey," she greets you with a small smile. "Can I come in?" "Sure." You lead her into the living room, where you turn off the TV. "What can I get you? Tea, coffee, milkshake?" "Coffee is fine." You disappear into the kitchen for a moment as she sits down in the armchair. Natasha was a rare visitor. Mostly she came with some news from Clint. You see him even less because he spends what little free time he has mostly with his wife and the two kids. Understandable. You don't hold it against him and try to visit them on holidays or for birthdays at her farm.

It doesn't take long until you return to the Russian woman with a new cup and some pastries and sit down on the couch again. "Well," you ask her curiously. "What do I owe the pleasure?" Natasha reaches for her cup. "It’s rather inconvenience. But first tell me if you’ve observed anything unusual lately." Questioningly, you look at her. "What do you mean?" "Nothing weird? You sure?", she asks. "Tell me what I'm supposed to have seen, please," you prompt her, both impatient and confused. Natasha gets right to the point. "You're being monitored." "By Shield?" "By Hydra." Stunned by this news, you remain silent. Natasha uses this pause to drink her coffee. "Oh, this is really good." But you don't listen to her at all, because various thoughts are circling in your head. And again you try to remember if you have noticed anything: same people you met, vehicles, anything. But you got pretty used to your life and didn't pay attention at these things. "Anyway, I'm here to pick you up. For your own safety it’s best if you stay with us for a while," Natasha finally breaks the silence and you look up. "What could Hydra possibly want from me? I don't know any internal secrets anymore. There are better to kidnap than me." "That's what we're trying to figure out right now." "Well, the danger doesn't seem to be acute", you note. "If they wanted to grab me, I wouldn't be sitting here by now. Thanks, but I decline and prefer to stay here. I have my job and the apartment." And now that you know what's going on, you can pay attention and take the necessary precautions, too. "Thanks for warning me." Natasha, on the other hand, doesn't look like she gives you a choice. "You know Shield has its ways to convince you?", she reminds you, but you shrug. Why would such a large organization bother with a single civilian like you? "What does my dear brother say about this matter?", you ask instead. "He hasn't been informed yet." Ergo, they deliberately leave him out of it so that he can't protest. You know this kind of approach of Shield.

Clint understands and supports you in your civilian life, even though he protested the loudest back when you announced your exit. "How’s he?", you want to know from Natasha, who is now finishing her coffee. "He's alive." That can mean just about anything from being happy and healthy to badly hurt but breathing. Better than being dead, you guess. "He's out in Africa with Steve right now." "Busy, huh?" "As usual." She stands up as a sign that she has nothing more to say for the day, and you walk her to the door, where you bid her farewell. "We'll talk again soon," she promises, but admittedly you have little desire to do so right now. "Sure," you reply and close the door behind her.

Well, that were some news. You put her empty cup in the sink and pause thoughtfully by the window. How could you have missed Hydra's agent, you ask yourself while glancing out. Your new life made you too comfortable. But it also takes up a lot of time and energy. And anyway, you dropped out because you didn't want to be cautiousness all the time anymore. You wanted a normal life with a normal job and normal problems. Away from agents, assassinations and super powers. You didn't want to check every day on your way to work if you were being followed, secretly monitored or if someone else was out to get you. That's why you’ve chosen this life. With a sigh, you sit back down on the couch. The past never leaves you alone, you guess. But tomorrow would be a long day even without these new old worries.

~~

The advantage of being a chef is usually that you don't have to get up at the crack of dawn for work. Most Restaurants open at noon, some even in the evening. So does the one where you work. There are preparations to be made before opening time, but you can still sleep through the morning, do some housework, and then head to the restaurant in the sunny afternoon. That's where the trouble starts, though. Just as you're about to open your locker to change your clothes, someone taps you on the shoulder. It's your boss, who hands you a letter. You can tell immediately from his serious expression that something is wrong. And when you open the envelope, you discover your resignation. You look up, perplexed, but you lose out in the following discussion. You don't even get a decent explanation, and that’s what annoys you the most. You're pretty sure your skills aren’t the issue, neither is the way you work. Nor the way you treat your colleagues, with whom you get along very well, even if the tone among cooks is a bit rough. You go back to your apartment, now in a bad mood. It‘s unbelievable! The sunny weather seems like a mockery to you now, and the people you meet along the way are in far too good a mood, in your opinion. It will be hell to find another good job as this was.

Arriving back home you immediately get more bad news: your landlord put a notice on your apartment door. The bathrooms in the building will get completely renovated soon and will be unusable for several weeks. Plus the heavy construction noise during the day. And the water would be turned off. It would be best to find temporary substitute apartment, so they recommend. "Haha...ha..." You laugh dryly and unlock the door. Was that a coincidence? When Natasha had been here yesterday? Probably not. You know Shield's methods and that it’s easy for them to take away your job and your apartment just to get their way. You have two options: either you accept the offer before Shield gets any more stupid ideas, or you run away and try to hide. With a sigh you go into your bedroom and throw a suitcase on the bed, in which you pack clothes, the most important documents and some things from the kitchen you need for work. Not everything fits, so you add a second travel bag. Meanwhile, you think about who you could complain to. Your brother was a favorite target of yours, but he a) had nothing to do with this matter and b) was not in the country. Which’s a shame, because you'd really like to have him by your side right now. If you wanted to complain to Shield directly, Fury would probably be the best person to do it. But you hold too much respect for him to vent your anger to him. Maybe just the next Shield agent who would come to you on this matter would have to step in. You know someone would definitely get back to you. With one last look around your apartment, you leave it and lock the door. Then you shoulder your bag and make your way out.

Just as you're thinking about getting a large coffee from Starbucks down the street, a red sports car pulls up to the side of the road. Natasha at the wheel. "Hmph..." You walk over to her and throw your luggage in the back seat. Then you take a seat in the passenger seat yourself. "Just for the record, I'm not happy with this." "I can see that." She tries to give a sympathetic smile, but you know this is just a job to her. "Well then, off to the Bat Cave, Wayne." "Does that make you Robin?", the Russian asks, driving off. "I guess", you reply snippy, not interested in keeping the conversation going. Fortunately, Natasha wasn't exactly the talkative sort either, so you have some peace and quiet to get your thoughts in order.

It takes you just under two hours to drive from Philadelphia to New York with city traffic slowing you down a bit. Otherwise, you would have arrived earlier at the former Stark Tower. It's been the Avenger Tower for some time now, but that doesn't make much difference, except that Tony Stark seems to be too lazy to put the remaining letters back on it.

Natasha parks in the private underground garage and you take the elevator up to the grand lobby. She tells you about the current residents here. There’s the usual staff, who are of course always present. Of all the Avengers, Bruce Banner is living here permanently. "He actually hardly ever leaves the lab," the Russian explains. "I'm currently living here, too. Every now and then Thor stops by, but mostly he prefers to explore the world. And his brother Loki is here. There have been some...problems with him and he's sort of under supervision here. Tony trusts technology more than Asgard. The owner of the house, by the way, is out visiting an outpost right now." "There are even Avengers outposts?" Natasha nods as she walks you down the halls to the living area. "But don't tell Hydra." "Sure", you promise unfazed. "Speaking of which, if I want to go out to visit someone, do I need a key or how does this work?" "It's better if you stay here in the house for now. It's for your safety, after all." "For how long?", you want to know. The answer is short. "As long as necessary." "So I'm sort of locked in here”, you state. That's typical Shield. As soon as there's any problem, an agent is sent in to put everything in solitary arrest or quarantine. As long as it’s shielded from the rest of the world. Natasha stops in front of a door that is now yours, but doesn't look directly at you, which as much of an answer as you get. "I'll be fine on my own now, thanks," you smile politely but not genuinely at her, and after she assures you that you're free to move around inside the building, you head off with your luggage in your new apartment.

#Loki #Loki x Reader #House Arrest #Chapter 1 #my writing #Clint #clint barton #hawkeye #loki laufeyson #imagine #chef reader #mcu #marvel

[xheykyjx]

hold me close

joonas isn't doing too hot, and joel comes to his rescue

prompts from touching prompt #10: spooning at night + kisses prompt #19: forehead kisses from @creativepromptsforwriting

rating: gen

tw: non-graphic depictions of vomiting, minor swearing, anxiety, minor self-deprication

Joel knows something is up almost as soon as the clock hits 8:00 and Joonas has yet to appear. For almost two weeks now, it’s been their shared, unspoken schedule: whether Joel sleeps or not, Joonas comes over around seven thirty with breakfast, they eat together, and then they go off to the studio. Sometimes, if Joel is feeling particularly pitiful or lonely, he’ll text Joonas during the earliest hours of morning to see if he might come over. He usually does.

But now it’s just past eight, and Joonas still isn’t here, and no matter how many times Joel compulsively checks his phone, nothing has changed: there aren’t even any messages explaining why he’s late or where he might be.

Joel feels a little stupid for being so caught up on this, because it’s not like Joonas doesn’t live right down the hallway, but—but this is their schedule, and it’s been like this for two weeks now, and Joonas knows how Joel feels about going off schedule. He doesn’t like being caught unawares, and it hurts him more than it should that Joonas seems to have forgotten.

yo where u at, Joel texts him at last, when the clock reads 8:05. He stares at the time on his phone until it’s 8:07, and then he drags himself out of bed and throws on a hoodie, pulling it up over his tangled hair. He steps into his slides at the door, making sure he has his keys on him before staggering into the hallway. He is not in the mood to get locked out.

It takes him only a few steps before he’s standing outside Joonas’ apartment, face-to-face with the door. It strikes Joel, suddenly, that he hasn’t shaved in at least three days. Maybe Joonas is tired of Joel’s anxiety and hygiene issues. Maybe Joonas is mad at him. Maybe Joonas hates him.

Self-consciously, Joel shoves some of his hair into his hood. He’s never had to worry about this kind of stuff around Joonas before, and who’s to say—maybe he doesn’t need to now, but his anxiety is unrelenting. Before he can get cold feet, Joel inserts the correct key into the lock, opening the door as quietly as he can.

“Joonas?” He calls quietly, kicking off his shoes. None of the lights are on, but the sunlight pouring in through the windows highlights a nearly-spotless living room, minus a blanket strewn haphazardly over the couch. It’s the same blanket Joonas always used to bring to sleepovers or movie marathons, made of navy fabric patterned with cartoonish stars and planets. It’s been a while since Joel has seen it, and it looks to be in decent shape, even after all these years.

Joel is about to go touch it, because it reminds him so strongly of his childhood and he’s also curious about how well it’s actually held up since then, but then he hears a distant coughing sort of sound, and he freezes in his tracks. He would recognize that sound anywhere; it’s the noise Joonas makes when he’s about to puke. Joel can’t even count anymore how many times he’s watched Joonas vomit throughout the years of their friendship, from nasty hangovers to seasickness, and he makes his way through the apartment. Strangely, he feels less anxious now than he did earlier—the confirmation that Joonas didn’t necessarily forget about their plans, that he’s actually cooped up somewhere with a sick stomach, is somehow comforting. This is something Joel knows how to deal with.

Their apartments have the exact same layout, so Joel knows where he’s going. Either way, he comes over here so often that he wouldn’t have any trouble finding his way around the place. After a quick inspection, Joel finds that Joonas’ bedroom is empty. His sheets are draping nearly off the bed, and the blinds are still shut. As Joel steps further into the room, he sees that Joonas’ phone is still charging on his nightstand, seemingly untouched. He must’ve woken up in a hurry.

Another guttural cough draws Joel’s attention to the en-suite bathroom. The door is just barely cracked, and Joel risks a peek inside. Joonas is slumped over the toilet, sweaty and pale, and he’s shaking like a leaf. He looks miserable, and Joel takes that thought as his cue to swoop in and save the day… or something.

“Shit, man,” he says, crouching down to move into Joonas’ space. He presses a hand against Joonas’ back over his sweat-damp t-shirt, making a tsk sound at the heat he feels there. “What’s going on?” Joonas spits into the toilet bowl, weakly reaching up to flush it. Joel does him the favor of tearing off a few squares of toilet paper for him to wipe his mouth with.

“Dunno,” Joonas mutters. His voice is low and hoarse, and it sounds painful. Joel grimaces at it without meaning to. “Jus’... woke up feelin’ shitty.” Joel hums, rubbing little circles into his back. He waits for a moment to see if Joonas has anything else to say, but evidently he doesn’t, so Joel stands up from his squatting position and curls his hands beneath Joonas’ arms. “C’mon, then,” he grunts, trying to pull Joonas to his feet. “Let’s go back to bed.” Joonas groans but complies, stumbling to his feet and allowing Joel to guide him back into bed. He immediately curls up on his side, shoving his arms down between bent legs like he always does when he’s cold. “Lay with me?” He asks, looking up at Joel with big, bloodshot blue eyes, and Joel sighs, stooping down to grab at the discarded bedclothes and pull them up around Joonas’ shoulders. “Clingy,” he jokes, and the pout Joonas gives him in response is so pathetic that Joel leans down to plant a soft, quick kiss against Joonas’ warm forehead. He doesn’t give Joonas the time to respond, instead climbing over his prone body to lay behind him and wrap an arm over his side, squirming his hand about until his palm is settled comfortably against the steady rise-and-fall of Joonas’ chest.

“Love you,” Joonas mumbles, already nearly unconscious as he presses back into Joel, and Joel smiles, closing his eyes. “Love you too.” They fall asleep.

#so i'm a sucker for cute sick boys what about it #blind channel #joel hokka #joonas porko #my writing