#he was trembling with emotion when I told him about galaxy's edge

[darth-memes]

You know, sometimes you go through the Internet and it seems that most of the Star Wars fans actively hate the saga just for the sake of hating it and drama is the only thing going on in the fandom. And it can get pretty tiresome.

Then, there are days when your six-year-old cousin, recognizes the Rebellion symbol in your jacket and comes running to talk to you about his BB-8 knee pads and how he can't wait to see The Return of the Jedi for the first time. And how much they love Grogu and if you will send them a picture when you finish building your Lego X-Wing. And all seems right again.

#not memes #star wars #seriously he is a sweetheart #it was one of the sweetest conversations i had #with someone about the saga #he was trembling with emotion when I told him about galaxy's edge #it was just #0 drama #a kid enjoying star wars #as it should be #he is also a massive hp fan #which was even more bittersweet #and I was about his age when I read harry potter #and i never trully stopped loving the saga #but jk seems determined to spoil that for everyone

[darthzero22]

Hi idk if your taking requests but i just thought it would be really cute if Crosshair had a really happy/bubbly/positive girlfriend, but one day he sees her REALLY upset and its beacuse some person hurt her and Cross gets PISSED, because he's never seen her upset before and wants whoever hurt her to pay

Hi! I hope you have a nice day! I will open request later, I don't know when, but I will 😊

But I loved your idea, anon! I'm inspired now, so here you go. I hope it's what you wanted, or looks like it.

Crosshair x Fem!Reader

Crosshair, a serious, cold, distant man with a crude personality, fell in love with you, a woman who always sees the positive side of everything. He doesn't remember you ever getting upset, whenever you could you smiled. That would change and he wouldn't take it very well.

Warning: strong language

You and your squad had landed on a planet to get fuel and repair the Marauder after that complicated mission. You went into the city to get a couple of things Tech needed for the ship, and Crosshair had seen you leave the ship with a smile on your face, but when you came back you didn't have that beautiful smile. 

You were upset, very upset. 

You didn't want to talk to him, in fact you didn't want him to know, but he could instantly see that something or someone was upsetting you.

The door to your room opens. Crosshair enters to find you sitting on the edge of your bed with your head down. Something wasn't right, he had never seen you like this, and he felt his stomach clench at the sight of you in that mood.

“Mesh’la"

"Hey, Cross..."

"What happened?”

“I don't know what you're talking about"

“Don't try to hide it from me” he rests one knee on the floor in front of you, to face you.

“I'm not hiding anything from you, really"

"I don't believe you"

"I..."

“Look at me” he grabs your chin gently.

You lift your face to look at him, and Crosshair is surprised. That beautiful smile that characterized you was gone, and now there were only sad and wet eyes as tears wanted to come out, but you did not allow it.

“Is it bad to help people, Cross?” you were suffering all those negative emotions. Anger, sadness and disappointment. “Is it wrong to want to help someone?”

“It depends on the situation"

"I am beginning to believe that..."

"What happened? I need to know”

He starts to get angry because he suspected someone had hurt you.

“When I was returning to the ship, the owner of this port needed help with some boxes that fell on the floor and I helped him, but...”

“But? Mesh’la, come on. I need to know what else happened”

“I accidentally knocked over a box and whatever was inside broke. I don't know what it was, possibly droid parts or something? I was really sorry… I wanted to help him again because I was really sorry, but he yelled at me saying that if I was so bad at helping, then don't help him anymore… and practically pushed me away”

That man pushed you? That guy dared to lay a finger on you? Crosshair felt his blood boiling more and more.

“He… Don't tell me he dared to push you” he grits his teeth, feeling increasingly pissed off.

“Yes… He even called me useless and pathetic. I... I've never been called that before, especially when I tried to help…”

That was disappointment and anger because you couldn't believe that there were such ungrateful people, and sadness because that man humiliated you in public. That man didn't care that you had helped him before, because at the slightest and simple mistake you made he treated you like a useless and pathetic woman.

You didn't want to cry because you were aware that bad things happen, but it hit you hard because you were treated like garbage when you simply wanted to help. Crosshair frowns, you've never seen him so pissed off. He squeezed the bed sheets with his hand, as he had them resting on the edge on either side of you.

“It's silly, I know…"

"Mesh'la"

"I know some people are ungrateful, but I've never been treated like this before...”

Crosshair was about to say something, but he couldn't because you hugged him by wrapping your arms around his neck, as he was still in front of you. He rests a hand on your back and I could feel you start to tremble.

“People turned to look at me and judge me…” you rested your eyes on his shoulder.

"Mesh'la"

Your shortness of breath made another horrible sensation appear in him.

"You're not... crying, are you?" his tone of voice indicated fear and concern.

Yes, you were crying. Crosshair took that very personally, something in his heart hurt. You were his girlfriend, the most important person in his life. You were always in a good mood, you always found it easy to smile, but now you only cried out of anger and sadness. Now it was hard for you to smile. He had never seen you like this before, which made the pain in his heart increase.

“He pushed you, insulted you and also humiliated you… all because you tried to help him”

"I guess..."

Crosshair hugged you back, while thinking of a thousand ways to make that guy pay for what he did. You were so beautiful, unique in this galaxy that someone dared to hurt you, and above all to prevent you from smiling again. He was stroking your back in an attempt to reassure you, and while he was succeeding, it wasn't enough.

"I'm going to kill that guy"

“Cross…"

Before you could stop him, Crosshair stands up and leaves the room. To say he was pissed was an understatement to describe how he was. He exits the ship, meeting Tech who was surprised to see him.

“Where are you going, Crosshair? We have to take off now”

Crosshair simply ignored Tech and with his eyes found the ungrateful man who hurt you from a distance. That man was just tidying up those damn boxes, so he walks over there. He was clenching his fists, it was very likely that he would beat him up, and you got out of the Marauder too to stop him. You didn't want him to get in trouble because of you.

“Hey, you!”

The man turns around when he hears that, and raises an eyebrow as he sees the tall, angry figure of Crosshair approaching him.

“Yeah? Do you need something...?”

Crosshair didn't let him finish speaking because he punched him in the nose so hard that he managed to knock him to the ground. He did not even give him time to recover because he grabbed him by his clothes in the neck area, and forced him to get up and slam him against the wall. That man had blood coming out of his nose.

“What the…?!”

“Shut up! You think you're brave for humiliating my girlfriend?” Crosshair's eyes showed nothing but fury.

“Your girlfriend…?"

"Yeah. That beautiful woman who dared to help a scumbag like you"

"Oh! I don't know what she told you, but it wasn't like that! She broke…”

“Wait. You dare to call her a liar?!”

“No, no…!"

"You are ungrateful!"

"If you don't let go, I'm going to call the authorities!”

“She helped you, you piece of shit. She helped your disgusting ass when she didn't have to! And you dared to push her? You humiliated her!"

“Please, I didn't mean to treat her like that!”

“You made her cry. You have no idea how pissed off I am... A punch will be the least of your problems”

“No!”

Crosshair was going to punch him again, harder than the first, but a hand grabbing his shoulder stops him. That hand was yours, so he lowers his fist.

“There is no need for this!”

“He hurt you! It is more than necessary”

“I don't want you to get in trouble because of me!"

"I don't care"

"Please... Let that guy go”

Seeing those sad eyes of yours convinced him, even though he didn't want to. Crosshair sighs, but before letting go of the man, he knees him in the crotch, and then the guy falls to the ground in pain from the blow. No one dares to mess with you, that message was more than clear.

"You deserve worse, you idiot"

"Stop..." you grab his hand. "Let's go back to the ship"

You begin to walk back to the ship, but before Crosshair kicks one of the guy's many boxes causing it to fall, and therefore whatever was inside to break.

"I'm a little better now, just a little" he said.

"Was all that necessary?

"He hurt you, he had to pay. No one makes my girlfriend cry"

Even though you didn't quite agree with the violence Crosshair used, it made you feel better to know that he really cared about you. You knew he didn't like public affection, so you waited until you were alone back in your ship's room to hug him. He reciprocates the hug by placing a hand on your back, and you rested your face on his shoulder.

"You could have gotten into a lot of trouble..."

"I told you, I didn't care"

"Cross..."

"Nothing you can say will change my mind. You always find it easy to smile, and then to see you like this..." he sighs. "I wanted to make him pay"

"Cross, the reason I always smile is because of you... You make me smile"

Well, Crosshair didn't expect that. A blush appears on his cheeks, he even frowns, but you feel him hug you a little tighter now.

"I hate to see you sad and to see you cry.... You have no idea how much"

"I am much better now... and thanks to you" you raise your head to look at him, and finally smile.

There was the smile that he loved, even though he loved everything about you. Crosshair brings a hand to your face and strokes one cheek with his thumb, then strokes your lower lip.

"No one will ever hurt you again, I promise" he said.

"I know..."

You give him a kiss on the corner of his lips, but he wanted something more, so he moves his face and they make you kiss each other on the mouth. You knew that with him you felt safe, loved, and above all he was the reason for your happiness. To Crosshair you were his life, so if someone dared to hurt you, it was as if someone would hurt him. He wasn't going to let them hurt you again, he wasn't going to let anyone take that smile away from you.

#crosshair x reader #crosshair x you #crosshair #crosshair the bad batch #crosshair tbb #the bad batch #clone force 99 #tbb crosshair x reader #crosshair x f!reader #crosshair x fem!reader

[the-last-kenobi]

I love your writing so much!! If you’re still taking requests, could you do 9 with Obi-Wan and Anakin?

Thank you!! <3 And of course! I hope you enjoy.

From this various prompts list.

Set after The Wrong Jedi arc. And it’s way... way longer than I meant it to be. Whoops. I told myself, make this one short. Actually a prompt fill. And then I laughed at myself and wrote a fic and I don’t know exactly how long it is because I was too scared to look at the word count.

I tagged it as long post so I hope those of you who aren’t in the mood for my rambling bs are as to skip it!

I will add a reading cut when I get my hands on a laptop.

_

When Skywalker stormed into the training bay, his fists clenched by his sides, troopers scattered out of his way like silver-fish before a Bloodfin.

Even without Force-sensitivity, it was impossible to miss the potent fury rolling off the young General in waves, almost visible on the air, scalding anyone who got too near. His eyes glided right over the Clones, however, and fixed on a single figure standing alone on a mat, performing a slow exercise.

Anakin strode over to the edge of the mat and stamped his foot on the edge, twisting it a few inches just as the other man’s foot came back down from a stretch. He slipped. At the last second he caught himself, turning on the spot to regain his balance.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan spoke calmly, as if nothing had just happened. As if his friend wasn’t glaring at him with rage and disdain.

“A duel,” said Anakin, in a tone that brokered no argument.

General Kenobi’s face tightened slightly. But he nodded graciously and summoned his lightsaber to his hands, drawing backwards towards the opposite wall and raising his blue blade in a low Soresu opening.

Skywalker waited only half a second before launching himself at the other man in a blur of blue light and red-hot anger.

Cody, watching from the wall, clasped his hands behind his back as he watched the two Jedi spar at bewildering speeds.

Dizzying swirls of colliding blue light. Last-moment maneuvers, a blade hot as a sun missing moving limbs by inches. Skywalker always on the offensive. Kenobi always giving ground.

Obi-Wan’s eyes widened slightly as his entire body trembled under the weight of a blow that could have removed his head from his shoulders had he not blocked it; his own serenity seemed to shrink in the face of Anakin’s fire and desperation.

There was a blur of motion, and Skywalker stood triumphant as Kenobi crashed to the floor with the younger man’s saber an inch from his chest.

Obi-Wan stared up at his friend. “Solah,” he whispered.

For a moment more, the scene hung suspended. The lightsaber burning close, too close, to Obi-Wan’s vulnerable body, Anakin looming over him with anger in his eyes.

Then Anakin turned and stalked out of the room, leaving his former Master on the floor with a faint scorch mark on his pale tunics.

“Sir.” Cody strode over to his General immediately and helped him to his feet, watching him wince, feeling a surge of helpless anger at the nagging realization that he had never anticipated a time when his General would be hurting because of Skywalker. “Sir.”

“Cody,” the Jedi said wearily. “I need to get up to the bridge.”

“You need to see Hoop,” said Cody, referring to the 212th’s medic.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “No. We’re still two days out through hyperspace and we need to find a way to make contact with the ground troops on Ryloth before we go barging in.”

Cody clenched his jaw but assented, knowing that there was no dissuading his General, not now. He had just one more thing to say.

“General.” He waited until Kenobi looked at him. “You threw that fight.”

Obi-Wan inhaled slowly, a look of what his Commander recognized as pain — grief — flickering behind his blue eyes. “Anakin needed the win,” he said quietly.

=

The second time Anakin Skywalker stormed into the training bay, everyone moved aside to watch even before Obi-Wan had turned around to greet his former apprentice.

Men from the 501st and the 212th, thrown together on this joint mission as if to both aggravate and soothe the hurt of Ahsoka’s departure, stood side by side and watched as their Generals flung themselves into the fight as if lives depended on it.

As Kenobi let Skywalker take the offensive. As he let Skywalker come to the edge of victory again and again and then held him off at the last second.

As Anakin’s rage grew, as he began to resent Obi-Wan for dragging the battle out and denying Anakin the victory he craved and deserved. Holding him back as always.

As for the second time Kenobi threw the fight in a way that Anakin didn’t notice.

Letting him walk off with his rage dispersed for awhile, the relieved and triumphant victor, while the bruised and shaken loser climbed to his feet and went back to work with an air of gravity around him. As if Obi-Wan had absorbed the weight of his friend’s anger and carried it like a shroud.

Maybe he did.

=

The third time Anakin confronted Obi-Wan, he won by punching Obi-Wan in the face.

The fourth time Anakin confronted Obi-Wan, he won by burning his leg from hip to ankle.

The sixth time Anakin confronted Obi-Wan, he won by pressing his foot down on the other man’s throat almost to the point of unconsciousness.

The eighth time, he won by knocking Obi-Wan’s lightsaber from his hands and driving him back against a wall with his own saber at Obi-Wan’s neck.

=

“You have to stop,” Hoop said.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “He... needs this.” A hiss escaped his lips as the medic dabbed bacta along the abrasion above his eye, the bacta he had tried to say he didn’t need.

“He needs a therapist and an ass kicking,” retorted Hoop, disregarding standard respect. He didn’t care about protocol in general, and certainly not when his General turned up every other day — usually dragged in by Cody — with bruises and cuts and strained muscles.

Obi-Wan only shook his head again.

=

Cody, Rex, Hoop, and many of the others had hoped that the battles on Ryloth would serve as a good outlet for General Skywalker.

They did.

But it wasn’t enough.

Fighting what felt like a futile war for the planet’s freedom, being back on Ryloth yet again, and the gaping hole in the 501st where Ahsoka had once stood only seemed to drive Skywalker’s pain upwards. And for Anakin, all emotions led to rage, eventually.

He could not stand the depths of his emotions, the dark days, the low times. If he was not happy, he chose rage over sorrow.

And there was so much sorrow.

=

There was a two-day reprieve after the campaign on Ryloth. Temporary victory had been purchased yet again with the blood of the natives and the GAR, and the 501st and 212th departed for another campaign halfway across the galaxy at once.

And for two days there was time to rest and think.

And then Anakin stalked into the training bay again. Not finding Obi-Wan, he waited for him, and as soon as the older Jedi entered the room, raised his lightsaber in an Ataru salute.

=

The thirteenth time Anakin challenged Obi-Wan, they dueled for over three hours, and both fell exhausted to the ground.

The nineteenth time, Anakin left Obi-Wan with a leg broken in two places. Cody had to physically restrain Hoop — and himself, frankly — from jumping General Skywalker and throttling him.

The twenty-eighth time, Obi-Wan’s guard slipped, and Anakin’s saber drove straight through Obi-Wan’s thigh. A mirror image of the wound Dooku had inflicted on his other leg, a lifetime ago it seemed, back when they had been on the same side.

Were they still?

Anakin’s face had dropped with shock at the injury, and before any of the men could react, he had picked Obi-Wan up in his arms and rushed him to the med bay.

And then the Council called to speak with Kenobi privately, and Anakin’s rage and hurt against them for their role in handing his Padawan over to the authorities rose up again like a serpent reading to strike.

The thirtieth time Anakin challenged Obi-Wan, he fought with his left hand, as if taunting his Master that he was still superior.

The thirty-sixth time Anakin challenged Obi-Wan, the older Jedi fought back, taking the offensive just long enough that it seemed he would be victorious — and then something in Anakin’s face broke. Grief and dismay were revealed in the cracks of his wrath, and Obi-Wan retreated again, and then fell.

The fortieth time Anakin challenged Obi-Wan, he was met with silence.

Anakin stared, his saber already lit in his hands, as Obi-Wan stood up slowly from where he had been meditating.

He dragged himself to his feet like a man on the verge of collapse, but he was as irritatingly graceful as ever, composed, serene. Anakin’s hands tightened on his weapon.

“Well?” he prompted.

Obi-Wan said nothing.

He looked down at the floor, and some of his burnished, ruddy hair fell over his eyes, concealing his face from view. Anakin waited impatiently. A strange feeling rose inside him, something nauseous and uncertain, and he did not want to know what it was.

“Well?” he demanded more aggressively.

Obi-Wan swallowed hard and looked up at him.

And Anakin was struck by how small his Master looked.

Shorter than him by a few inches, yes, but somehow that larger-than-life quality that hung about the man had fallen away. He looked tired. Beaten, humbled, hurt — like a child, like a man driven to the edge and then over it without anyone pausing to take notice of his fall.

His blue eyes were shattered by unshed tears.

Anakin recoiled.

“I can’t,” Obi-Wan croaked. His voice was tight as a wire, strained with the effort of holding back tears. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Anakin. I... I’m too tired to be your emotional punching bag today.”

“Obi-Wan—” said Anakin, not even knowing what he was going to say, and stopped there.

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan repeated. And he sounded it. Looked it. Was dripping remorse into the air like a sky about to storm. “Please. If this is what you need, I can keep doing it, but I just need today. I need a day to breathe. And — and if you’re —”

A tear trickled down over one cheek and into his beard. Then another.

Anakin was watching with his expression frozen between anger and shock.

Cody leaned forward as if about to spring. Rex’s hand settled on his shoulder.

“If you just need more time, I’ll give it to you,” Obi-Wan whispered. “But if you’re angry enough to strike me down unarmed... do it. I don’t — I don’t want — I can’t —”

Cody jolted under Rex’s grip.

And still, Anakin’s saber blazed in his hands, casting Obi-Wan in blue light, reflected in his shining eyes.

“I can’t,” Obi-Wan said helplessly.

Anakin hesitated.

Conflicting emotions ran across his face one after the other, grief chasing pain chasing anger chasing despair chasing rage, like shadows passing over deeper waters.

He raised his saber a little higher.

=

#and that there is an ambiguous ending #obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #star wars #my writing #prompt fill #commander cody #captain rex #501st battalion #212th attack battalion #ahsoka tano #the wrong jedi #Anakin has issues #obi wan has issues #someone hug them #long post #very long post #very very long post

[writingsbychlo]

smoke and fire (12)

word count; 8943

summary; you and newt are called to another unusual call.

notes; this is the first half (technically) of a mini sub-plot. the end comes in the next part.

warnings; violence, gun use, description of injury, slight gore, intentional harm, attempted murder, reference to drowning.

“I feel disgusting.” You mumbled, water still dripping from your arms as you stood, shaking yourself odd a little and groaning at the chill that was beginning to sweep in. The lights on the firetruck were flashing, equipment still being loaded back up, and Newt was standing on the other side of the ambulance, a water bottle Minho had given him sitting in his hand as he took another large sip, gargling the water loudly and frothing it around his mouth before spitting it out onto the concrete and grimacing.

“I think I swallowed, like, half the lake.”

You felt bad for him, you really did, and you tried to peel the wet material of the shirt away from yourself. Unbuttoning it slowly, you frowned, wet hair plastered to the back of your neck in the ponytail you wore, and Newt choked on his drink, laughing loudly and spitting up water again. He patted at his chest, turning away from you, his cheeks going red as he tries to hack up water that had gone down the wrong pipe, and you patted his back, startled at his sudden reaction.

His eyes were watering when he recovered, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “You know, if I was straight, I’d be very flattered.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your nipples.” He beamed, and your brows furrowed, before you glanced down, noting the hardened peaks from the cold, showing clearly through your tank that had gone clear enough in its pale grey colour to show off the plain design of your bra, and you scoffed. “Truly, it’s an honour, but it’s doing nothing for me.”

“Oh, no, whatever will I do now?” You mused, voice flat of any emotions, and he only laughed again, peeling off his shirt, and ringing it out, goosebumps rising along pale skin as the chill of the air washed over his skin. The lake was clear now, a group of kids who had stupidly enough decided it would be a good idea to jump off the edge of the dock before realising the wall was too tall and slippery with algae to get out, beginnings of hypothermia and ingestions of dirty water before anybody had wandered past close enough to hear them calling for help.

Sometimes, you really hated teenagers.

“Think if we’re fast enough, we can get back to the house before the firefighters? First dibs on the showers with the best water pressure, and guaranteed hot water.”

His eyes twinkled a little as he lifted a still damp but no longer sodden shirt back onto his shoulders, grimy and covered in green and brown stains from the water, no bothering to button it back up. “I take that as a challenge, and I accept.”

You climbed in through the back of the van, pulling open the bottom drawer and finding the plastic seat coverings, chucking one of the sheet packages to Newt for his own chair, before he slammed the doors with you in the back, and rounded to the driver’s side. Smoothing the plastic over your chair to make sure it was covered, your shoes squelched a little as you collapsed down into it. Newt did the same, and the second the keys were twisted into the lock once he was shuffling uncomfortably on the plastic, you were flicking the heating on to the highest temperature you could get it.

The downside of working in a van filled with drugs and medicine? The heat didn’t get very high in order to keep what needed to be refrigerated at the temperature is was required to be at. His eyes checked the mirrors as he reversed, noting the firetruck that was beginning to back out, the Squad truck leaving first, Gally and Fry still milling around to talk to the cops, and so you and Squad had a head start.

It would seem that they had the same idea, because Minho had a positively dangerous look in her eyes as she pulled up towards the entrance alongside you both, and Newt smirked, hand on the gearstick as he switched gears and pressed his foot down on the pedal. He surged forwards, the van moving faster than the trucks due to their added weight, a delay in its start-up, and the pair of you shot across the uneven gravelly path towards the main highway.

The red truck wasn’t far behind, and yet you were laughing a little at the determined look on your partners face, what had been a modest challenge was now becoming a battle between yourselves and the Squad team. You had the edge, being a lightweight vehicle, easy navigation and more speed, but they had the edge, the big red truck was more noticeable to other driver’s and they tended to move out of the way more for firetrucks than they did for ambulances.

As you met the junction for the highway, Newt flicked on the indicators and swerved onto the highway in a gap between cars that was too small to be considered safe. The move left you pressed into the side door of the ambo’, turning to look at him as his eyes stayed fixed on the road, a smirk on his face as the red truck was left in the dust, having to wait much longer to be able to pull out.

“Alright, Vin Diesel, settle down.”

“You want a hot shower to get clean? Or do you want lukewarm water with weak pressure that takes hours to get you clean?” You considered it, knowing that the more the showers were used, the weaker the water pressure got and the colder they ran as the hot water was distributed out, and you weighed out the pros and cons. You gave in with a reluctant sigh, watching Newt weave between cars, and he let out a triumphant noise. “Exactly. So, be a good co-driver, and play something exciting.”

“This is an ambulance, Newt. We have the classical jazz station, the news station, the emergency radio, or static and silence.”

“Sing something.” He offered, and you laughed loudly. “Maybe just yell exciting things at the top of your voice like it’s a James Bond movie. You can be my Bond woman.”

“Exciting things? You mean like ‘Quick, Newt, watch out for the rock slide’ or ‘Oh my God, Newt, he’s shooting at us’?” He hummed, rolling his lips together a little, and looking into the mirror where the red van wasn’t all that far behind anymore. “Oh, okay, I got it. How about ‘Quick! Newt! The bomb that will destroy world peace and the alien trade federation is about to go off, hurry so you can disarm it and save the galaxy!”

“That’s the one!” He shouted back, laughter taking up the cabin between you both as he picked up a little more speed, growling under his breath as distant wailing took place. “Did they just turn the fucking sirens on?”

“That’s illegal! A crime! Disqualified!”

Only a moment later, the truck was passing you by, Thomas lounging in the front seat with a smirk on his face, not even bothering to look at the two of you as he held up his middle finger, feet popped up on the dashboard, before they were pulling ahead, and you gaped at it.

“He flipped us off!”

“He did what?” Newt sounded like he had been told that Thomas had run over his dog, before his face was growing stormy, and he peeled off towards one of the exits, and you sat up a little more in your seat.

“Newt, this isn’t our exit, why are we slowing down? This is war now!”

“We’re taking a shortcut! I think.”

You pouted, watching as he pulled off onto the quieter roads, already resigning yourself to the loss. The van moved slower, not by much and certainly still considered fast for these roads, and you didn’t recognise the area you were driving through until you were almost at the house, coming at it from a completely different angle. It was a side that the trucks would be unaware of, the roads on this side of the house too narrow for the trucks to navigate on, but an ambulance could definitely weave and dodge along them.

You were expecting the grey garage to already be stained with bright and shiny flashes of colour, but as you approached it, the bay was still empty, and you gasped.

Unclipping your seatbelt before the vehicle had even rolled to a halt, and as soon as it was in park, haphazardly and slightly wonky within the designated space but still inside the lines, and Newt was ripping the keys from the ignition. You didn’t even bother peeling away the plastic overs, both hopping down from the van, doors slamming, uncomfortable runs in wet shoes from the vehicle to the changing rooms, the door practically bounding from the wall with the urgency that you forced it open.

Your fingers were trembling with both the cold and the adrenaline as you opened your locker, grabbing for the towel and washbag that sat on the middle shelf, slamming the metal canister shut a second behind Newt, and on the other side of the room, you heard a shower curtain swipe open, before the water spray was coming on.

Kicking off your shoes onto the white tile, your socks were ridden with water, and you stopped into the basin, flimsy curtain closing behind you. Switching on the water, you didn’t care about clothes getting wet as they were all drenched regardless. The water was hot and strong, pouring down over you as you let out a breath in relief, sighing out at the feeling, and stripping the partially unbuttons shirt the rest of the way down.

Dropping it to the floor outside, your vest followed, bra dropping by your feet for modesty, not all too thrilled about the idea of the entire team seeing your underwear. One fireman was plenty enough. Your trousers came next, panties following your bra, and socks lastly, before you were freeing your hair from its bobble and scrubbing dirt from the tendrils. The water was murky as it pooled around your feet, and you grinned through the suds as you heard the locker room door open up.

“Nice of you guys to finally join us!”

Newt laughed at your words, and you scowled at the taste of shampoo that got in your mouth, eyes squeezed closed tightly, but you couldn't hold back your laughter at the several complaints that burst out.

The shower next to yours clicked into gear, a slight dip in the flow of water as it adjusted, and it was steadily growing weaker as the firemen all changed and climbed into a shower, but you had already shampooed, only some soap and conditioner to go.  

“How the fuck did you guys beat us here?”

“We played by the rules, Bren! Flicking on sirens, that was cheating.” You tutted, the girl scoffing from the cubicle beside you.

“Uh, playing it smart isn’t cheating!” She retaliated, and you scrubbed a bar of exfoliating soap over your skin, the extra shrub helping to rid you of the feeling of grunge from the lake away from your flesh. “But seriously, how the hell did you beat us here with so much time?”

“Newt knew a short cut, apparently.” She made a vague sound of agreement, the boys all chatting loudly from the other side of the room, and the build-up of steam was beginning to give you a headache. Running some conditioner through your hair and combing the knots out quickly, you finished up, switching off the water and finding your towel, hand fumbling outside of the stall for the material, before you were finding it, and wrapping it around your body. Wringing out your hair, you pushed back the shower curtain and stepped free.

Newt was at the lockers, pulling a shirt over his head, almost fully dressed, the plastic washing basket from the corner was sitting outside him, water pooling through the cracks to the floor as his clothes dripped, and you scooped up your own, dropping them in with his and flashing him a grateful smile as he all but nodded in a promise to load them into the washer.

His fluffy hair was almost dry already, messy and sticking up from his towel, and you envied how quickly he could get ready again. How quickly all men could get dressed, really.

Taking your kit over to the sink, you fastened your towel a little tighter around yourself again to make sure it would stay tight, before wiping a patch in the steamed-up glass to see your reflection. Running a collection of moisturisers and serums over your cheeks, keeping it at it’s best despite the smoky and dirty conundrums you found yourself in on a day to day basis, you rehydrated and cleansed your skin, before moving on to your hair.

Heading to your locker to get a new set of clothes, you lifted the catch open, the door swinging as you gathered belongings, checking you had everything for a new uniform in your back-up bag, before placing it down on the bench. As you closed it, you jumped, a body leaning on the metal on the other side, and a mumbled curse fell from your lips at the shock. Reaching up to clutch at the edge of your towel and ensure it didn’t fall, you glared at the laughing attacker.

“You fucking suck. Why are you scaring me when I’m in a towel? Dumbass.”

“Oh, ouch. Cranky today, huh?” Thomas teased, reaching out a finger to poke at your stomach through the towel, and you jumped, slapping his hand away as he chuckled more.

“I’m cranky when I’m in a towel, and risking flashing the entire team because you wanna’ startle me!” He smirked, eyes scanning over your body particularly slowly, as if to make a point, and you rolled your eyes, despite the heat forming on your face. Adjusting your towel again, he watched your fingers move, and you kicked at his shin, watching him hop around in his towel at the aggression.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“You know what that was for!” You held your fingers up, pointing them from your chest to your eyes, and he got a wicked grin once again as he clocked onto what you were saying. “Go away so I can get dressed in peace!”

“So now you don’t want me around? That’s not how you felt a couple of weeks ago.” You glared at him again, crossing your arms and stomping your foot a little, knowing what he was referring to, and he hadn't been any less affectionate since. At the action, though, he gave in, hands held up in a surrender and his laughter following him all the way around to his locker on the other side, leaving you alone.

Members of the team were still wandering around, and so you tried to be as quick but as discreet as you possibly could, tugging your panties and trousers up under your towel. Your spare shoes were uncomfortable and tight, barely worn in as opposed to your regular ones, and you were cold as you put on the clothes that had been chilling in the metal canister, bag ready to be taken home to refill.

Rubbing your towel across your hair to dry it out better, you left it as it was, towel folding in the bag to be taken home, and you placed it all back inside. Adjusting your fresh uniform to sit a little more comfortably on your body, your fingers smoothed along the collar and flattened it down, before sweeping still damp locks away from your clothes.

The men were all filtering from the room, a faster turn around as they dried, all carrying dirty and sodden uniforms to the laundry room to try and get them sorted, hoping to find themselves with one less task to do when they go home, and not wanting to stink up their cars with the foul smell that came with the water from the dock by trailing the wet garments home.

The dull buzzing of the only hairdryer the fire station had was already in use by Brenda, shorter hair looking a little crazy as she only had her fingers to come through instead of her usual styling brush, and she was scowling at her reflection in the mirror as her hair curved up in the wrong directions at the edges, bangs looking untamed. She glared at your snickering as you approached, finger flipping over the switch to turn it off, clearly deeming the effort good enough, and she stuck her tongue out at you and handed it over, letting you start it up to reduce some of the water trapped in your own hair as she tried desperately to do something to control it a little better.

“Why don’t you just comb it all back?”

“And look like a starring member from ‘Grease’? Want me to start singing ‘Go Grease Lightning’ on the top of one of the fire trucks, huh?” She was so over-dramatic, and yet you loved that about her, shaking your head and smirking a little as she continued to struggle. You weren’t all that bothered about getting it completely dry, just enough that you wouldn’t catch a chill from it. You didn’t really feel like facing the next few weeks with a sore throat and a blocked nose.

“Would it make you feel better if I told you that I’m pretty sure I have a curled brush in my bag?”

She paused her work, arms crossing over her chest, hip leaning on the porcelain of the sink, and you could feel her burning glare on you as you continued to keep your one hair tame just with the use of the machine and your fingers. “You’ve had a blow-dry brush this whole time and you let me suffer?”

“Uh, first off, it’s not a blow-dry brush. It’s just a round brush. Make do. Secondly, you make it sound like I had food and you’ve not eaten for three days.”

“Same thing.” She hissed, playfully through it all, and she didn’t wait for permission, before she was meandering to your locker over hers and letting herself in, beginning to dig through the items in there to find the brush. She let out a triumphant little noise, and as she all but skipped back across the room, you decided you were close enough to dry, shaking your head to tame fly-aways and handing her the dryer back. You turned, walking away from her, and she let out a sound of complaint. “You’re just gonna’ leave me in here, alone?”

“It’s the changing rooms, not a back-alley at a nightclub at 3am.”

“What if I get lonely?” She pouted, turning the heat up and power down, the whirring going quieter so neither of you had to shout quite as loudly to one another, and you shrugged, backing away from her a little more, and smirking.

“Talk to your reflection. I’m going to make a snack.”

She huffed, but smiled, turning back to her plans, and you were the only one to what your soft chuckle as you left, the chill out in the corridor being shocking as you stepped from the steam-filled room to the breeze-filled hall to the main bay, shuddering as goosebumps rose over your arms, and you crossed them across your chest to keep your heat in.

Thomas was standing at the entrance of the laundry room, a basket full of wet clothes, nose turned up a little as Newt and Jeff loaded the machines, and you didn’t envy them at all. The doors to the common room were sealed shut tightly, presumably to keep in the warmth, because Fry had turned on both of the space heaters, and the room was already warming up to being hot. The smell of garlic bread was filling the room, some kind of cheesy pasta following it, and Fry was already singing loudly to the song playing over the radio, almost drawing out the television as Gally watched a movie that was so old it was in black and white, but he wasn’t paying attention, rather, he was texting on his phone and enjoying the background noise.

Minho was sitting beside him much the same, fingers moving swiftly over the screen, and Clint was chewing on a pen at the table as he filled out the puzzles in one of the newspapers from last week's stack.

“What’cha making, Fry?”

“Chicken and mushroom pasta, you want some?” Your face screwed up, shaking your head, and he laughed. “Let me guess, you don’t like mushrooms?”

“They’re gross and slimy. No offence to your pasta.”

“They’re delicious, and healthy.” He corrected, and you grunted, opening the fridge, and pulling out a loaf of bread, shuffling through the contents of the fridge to find a topping you wanted. As you searched, a soft bumping at your ankle caught your attention, a sharp and chipper bark to follow it, and you glanced down, finding a wagging tail and a ball of golden fur staring up at you expectantly. “That dog is a bottomless pit of food!”

“He’s a growing boy!” You waved the cook off, taking a packet of ham out and peeling a slice off from the inside of the pack, holding it up at about waist height, and watching as the dog shuffled backwards, staring up at it and preparing himself. “C’mon, Scoot, jump!”

The dog did so, a happy yip sounding from him as he did, snatching half of the slice as it tore in your hands, and chewing down on it happily, pieces falling from its mouth and onto the floor, and he was quick to lick those up too. “He’s never going to learn any tricks if you pamper him like that.”

You looked up, Thomas having come through the doorway, Newt following behind him, your partner raising his shirt to his nose and sniffing at it, trying to determine whether the stench had transferred to his uniform just from doing the laundry, before collapsing down in the armchair. “He just did a trick! He jumped!” Scooter did it again, snatching the rest of the ham from your fingers, and you gasped as teeth brushed over your fingers, your hand snatching back, and Thomas chuckled, coming to a stop before you and taking the ham from your fingers.

“He did not jump on command, he just jumped for food.”

“Fine! You try!” You raised a brow, and Thomas took the challenge, a smirk forming.

“Scooter!” The dog’s head snapped to face him, from where he’d been occupying himself with pawing at one of your undone laces, now focused on Thomas. “Scooter, sit.” The dog remained still for a second, your lips pursing as he continued to pant and wag happily, stood on all four paws.

“What was it you were saying?”

Thomas’ eyes flicked up to you, narrowing for a second, before he was trying again. “Scooter, sit.” Your jaw was slack as the dog did exactly as told, sitting neatly and letting his tail brush over the flooring patterns, hearing the fridge behind you opening and closing, jars and tins rattling as Fry continued to cook. “Good boy, Scoot! No, lay down.” Thomas clicked his fingers, pointing at the floor, and the dog flattened out, staring up at Thomas expectantly, and you huffed. “Good boy. You want a treat?”

A bark signalled that, and Thomas rolled up a piece of the honey-glazed delicacy that Fry was snatching back a second later with mumbles about it being wasted, and Scooter stood up to snatch it, running away across the room in a pitter-patter of movements, scurrying away to his bed in the corner.

“See?”

“How the hell did you do that?” You demanded, washing your hands under the tap and drying them off, before going back to the sandwich you’d been preparing, and Thomas seated himself on one of the island stools with a shrug.

“I’ve been practising. Wanted to surprise you.”

“Well, consider me surprised.” You offered, grabbing a knife from one of the drawers, and Fry groaned beside you, shooting you both a dirty look as you began to spread the butter.

“Consider me revolted.” He gagged, and you rolled your eyes, swinging your foot out to kick at his shin, Thomas flipping him off despite the heat that was building on his cheek, and the chef wasn’t deterred from mimicking your conversation. “Seriously, get a room.”

“We have a room. It’s this kitchen. Two out of three, we win, majority rules.”

“Nice.” Thomas grinned, holding his hand out, and you slammed your palm against his in a satisfying high five, before pressing the knife down and cleaning it off, sealing the butter back up and putting it in the fridge, before grabbing your fillings. Layering them on carefully, you started slowly, constructing your sandwich carefully, and building it on your plate, before slicing it evenly down the middle, starting at your lunch proudly.

You only had a second to appreciate it, before a large hand was picking up a piece of it, taking it away and biting the corner off or it happily. “Hey! Who the hell said you could eat my sandwich?”

“Sharing is caring, sweetheart.” He winked, taking another large bite and speaking through his food, hopping down from the stool, and your face screwed up. You took your now half a sandwich, walking towards the empty couch and hearing Thomas trail after you, the couch the wrong way to the screen, but you weren’t all that bothered about what was happening in this movie anyway, and so you faced away from it, spreading out along the couch. “Move your legs.”

“Give me my sandwich back!”

“It’s half gone now!” He held it up, showing you the evidence of the half-eaten piece, and you shrugged. As if to prove a point, he pushed the rest of it all into his mouth at once, cheeks feeling with food and lips barely able to close, before he was brushing crumbs from his shirt, and picking your legs up at the ankles, lifting them up to be able to sit down.

“You’re disgusting.”

“Yep.” His words were muffled, your feet being laid back down across his lap, and you took a more polite bite of the remaining half. His fingers moved to your shoes, finding the undone laces and wrapping them around his fingers, before pulling them tightly and looping them into neat knots. He repeated the same on the other foot, before slumping back into the couch a little, still trying to chew the whole mouthful, and you wiggled a little as you got more comfortable, sliding further down until it was your calves in his lap instead of your feet, and your shoulders could rest on the armrest.

His hand rested on your knee, thumb smoothing over you lightly as his other hand produced his phone from his pocket, beginning to swipe at it absentmindedly.

“You two are honestly sickening. I have toothache.”

“Oh, cut the crap, Newt. You spent a half-hour on the phone to me two days ago talking about Derek.” Newt looked shocked for a second, pale cheeks flushing with warm colour, before he was shrugging it off.

“Yeah, well, at least me and Derek have never cuddled in a waiting room at his job.”

“We aren’t cuddling right now!” You scoffed, taking another bite of your sandwich, and chewing it as you process what to say next. “Besides, it would be unprofessional to cuddle in a waiting room where patients could see. This is totally different because we’re inside the house, an-”

Your words went flat as you heard the siren overhead go off, even Thomas’ thumb on your knee pausing its motions, everybody going silent, only the sounds of sizzling oil and the muted television static to go as the alarm went off. You deflated, only yourself and Newt being called for, and you heaved yourself to a sitting position, Newt already beginning to peel his body back up out of the comfy chair he’d seated himself in.

“At least it’s only a local call, we’ll be back before the shift even ends.”

Your partner’s words did little to comfort you, and he chuckled as you continued to glare, before forcing yourself into action.

Swinging your legs down to sit up, you looked mournfully at your only half-eaten meal, before handing the plate to Thomas, who beamed at the offering, your fingers tousling his hair before you were wandering away, and attempting to pull your hair back into something that resembled a pony-tail using on the bobble on your wrist and your fingers.

Newt grabbed the keys, ready to set off, and you followed after him as the doors remained yet to even start swinging shut in his haste. Reaching the van, you hesitated as you neared climbing in, stripping away the plastic over your seat and dropping it down into the footwell of the van, watching Newt do the same. Starting up the ambulance and fastening your seatbelt, Newt flicked on the SatNav, the machine taking a second to load up, before it was programming in your given destination and beginning to guide you.

“So, that’s something pretty new.”

“What is?” Your eyes flickered over yourself, the same uniform you always wore clad on your body, and a pair of sneakers, your brow raising as you turned to your friend, the silence saying everything, and he scoffed. Switching gears as he pulled out onto the faster roads, he spared you a look, dubious and unbelieving of your confusion.

“You know what.”

“I assure you, I don’t.” You shuffled a little, the radio crackling, but none of the chatter directed toward the two of you was coming through yet, and you waited.

He sighed, flicking on the indicators and pulling out onto the highway. “You and Tommy. That’s what I’m talking about. What’s up with you two?”

Heat flushed over your face, and you sank back a little further into your seat, but your lips wanted to form a smile, and you had to bite down on the inside of your cheek just to contain it. “I’m not totally sure.”

“You’re not sure?”

“Well, I kinda’ know. It’s all so new. It’s scary, but exhilarating.” Newt only smiled, eyes flicking to the mirror to check over everything he was looking at, before taking another turn following the SatNav, a side road to leave the highway, and you were still waiting on call details to come through on the radio. “I mean, I know it’s something. He knows that, too. We’ve talked about it, but we’re just, sort of, waiting.”

“Waiting for what, exactly?”

“The right time, I guess.” You sighed, realising how odd it all sounded out loud, to be talking like a teenager to your friend about a guy you liked, but it also felt natural and right. “Everything has just been crazy lately. I don’t think we would be like we were without the craziness, and it’s kinda’ weird to think that this job has changed my life so much, that this house has changed my life so much, when none of the others did before. I think we’re just waiting to see if it’s real, or just an in-the-moment emotional deal.”

“Seems pretty real to me.”

You smiled, knowing that Newt’s words were intended to be soothing, but instead, they made your heart race a little more.

Everything made your heart race nowadays, like you were in overdrive all the time, you were constantly on the edge, and not in an anxious way. You’d spent so much of your life feeling closed off and locked down that you weren’t used to how it felt to be on the opposite end of the scale. You had anxiety, and fear, and loneliness, that was your normal status, but since settling into Firehouse ‘21, everything had been turned upside down.

Your heart would race with thrill and excitement, and the heat flushing over you wasn’t so much from rage - after you’d sorted your problems with Thomas, anyway - but from flustered shyness. On the days when you felt lonely, when the urge to be around someone else was stronger, your phone was there, lighting up with notifications from a group chat and you knew you had friends you could call, someone who would spend time with you, when they weren’t on duty.

It was all still new, and a little scary, and still thrilling.

Then, there was Thomas. You weren’t sure what it was with Thomas, because you had nothing to compare it to. Your previous relationships had been quick and spinning. A fling that ended just as fast as it started, almost always ending after a first date with tumbling into bed and shutting down when the first signs of intimacy began to rear their heads. You moved around and you never stayed put long enough to invest in something, but you had no plans of leaving Firehouse ‘21 any time soon, and so you’d allowed yourself to let Thomas in before you’d even realised it was happening.

Intimate and emotional, a connection that wasn’t physical yet, you didn’t even know what it felt like to kiss him, and yet it still made you feel a little breathless and lightheaded to imagine it because there was a weight and meaning hanging to it now. There was something deeper than you’d ever had, a relationship that wasn’t pinned on sex and quick connections to chase away the cold sheets when you felt truly alone, but instead, left you feeling warm and loved even when no one was around.

“So, what about you and Derek?”

It was Newt’s turn to be embarrassed, the gravel and shale under the tires crunching loudly as the two of you began to trail up abandoned dirt roads, the rickety and deafening sounds of the trains of the metal bridges overhead shooting past were like the banging of metal against metal, hitting a spoon against a pan or steel-tipped work boots on metal platforms.

Pale skin turned dark pink, and he flashed a cheesy grin, eyes sparkling a little, and you already knew how excited he was. “That good, huh?”

“Things with Derek are awesome.”

“I take full responsibility for that awesomeness.” You teased, and he chuckled, the van coming to a halt, and your brows furrowed, amusement disappearing and confusion over as you stared out at the empty scene. The SatNav on the dashboard clicked green and shut down as you reached your destination, clearly telling you both that this was the correct location, and yet there was nothing, and nobody to be seen. “Put a pin in that conversation.”

He only mumbled his response, equally as confused, and the two of you stepped out of the car, a chill sweeping over you as it became eerily similar to the last case you’d received with nobody present, still so recent that the police investigation into it was still open, the court case over Chuck’s death was yet to be closed and the arson investigators hadn't even completed their analysis. “Check the radio. Is it turned on?”

You moved back in, knowing that it was because the static had been playing lowly in your ears all the way through, but there was nothing else. Normally, at a call on the edge of a town like this, the two of you would be greeted by someone, a frantic pedestrian, friend or family member, the person who had made the call would arrive to lead you to the person, and even as you listened, you couldn't hear anything.

No loud groaning or yells of pain, no mangled screams for help or even a blood trail to guide you. There was absolutely nothing to suggest why the two of you would be here, and it all became more and more suspicious as each second ticked by. Newt tucked his hands into his pockets, and you picked up the receiver, sitting sideways on your seat and turning the dial, before pressing the button down on the side.

“House ‘21 ambulance, calling in. We haven't had any more details, can we get an update?”

You waited for a second, eyes narrowing as the machine clicked you through to an operator, and there were muffled voices in the background of the call centre, before a clearer voice rang through. “‘21 ambulance, can you confirm your location, registration number and ID for me.”

Newt smirked at the frown on your face, knowing that every so often a caller came who actually required you to cite the information. While you couldn't deny that it was protocol, and they should be doing it every time, most of them took it simply at your word of being the paramedics, because they knew that most robbers wouldn't be bothering to call in on the radio of they were stealing from an ambulance, they’d just clear out all the medicines and run.

Listing off the information she requested, you listened and waited, the sound of long nails typing quickly at a keyboard sounded out, and you turned up the volume, holding the device out from you a little, so Newt could hear more clearly, even as he wandered a few feet away, looking around some more. “Still there, ‘21?”

“Yep.” You paused, hearing a few more clicks, before the woman was sighing.

“My files don’t have much. The caller didn’t leave a name or an identification, the only notes here are the address, and that you’re looking for a stab wound victim.” Newt's brows raised as he heard the words, and you only felt more confused. If someone had been stabbed, there should be a trail of blood or someone calling for help, you should be able to see them, they couldn't have gotten far without leaving a pathway of where they were, and yet, there was nothing here except the trains on the bridge overhead. “That all?”

“That's all.”

She hung up not long after, and you grabbed for your go-bag, chucking Newt his bag too, and he only just managed to catch it as the breath was knocked from his lungs, sticking his tongue out at you childishly as you grinned, before slamming your door back shut, and letting Newt lock it up, the van chirping and flashing as it sealed.

Swinging your bag onto your shoulder, your partner mimicked you. Wandering away together, you paced a few minutes from the van, staring out across the empty area, and crossing your arms. “I gave up my lunch for this shit.”

“You go left, I’ll go right, we’ll sweep around, and in ten minutes we meet at the van?” You only nodded, kicking at a particularly large pebble under your foot, and turning to face the direction you were told to go in. You heard Newt stepping away, pebbles shifting underfoot, and you followed suit, glancing back at the blond over your shoulder for a second. “Yell if you find something.”

“Will do.” You saluted, a grin thrown over his shoulder to you, before fixing your gaze ahead of you once again.

There were a few old houses, run-down and abandoned, nobody having lived in them for at least a decade. Broken windows were boarded up and front doors were hanging on their hinges, spray paint that was old and faded, drips and chips on the wood that was stained with years of abandonment, and wire fences with chains on that had been long since cut away. The grass was dead, yellowed and brown and overrun with weeds, and spoke spots ere charred blank with ash, where you suspected kids had come to light fires and get away from parents when they were bored; empty bottles of booze and cans of pop littered the ground, among wrappers and boxes for things too old to see the labels on.

You checked every garden, standing in the gate and calling out to offer help, but nothing except for silence came back. The rusty metal creaked as you stepped out from the last row, three random houses in an area of town that had clearly been skipped in the surrounding gentrification, left to fall into disrepair, and you didn’t blame it. The constant source of trains of the tracks overhead was already beginning to give you a headache, there were no real roads built to this area, and it was miles to the closest bus stop or shopping centre.

Turning back around, you didn’t walk straight back to him, but you walked a little to the side, taking an angle back towards the van just to be sure you were covering the maximum space that you could, checking over it all thoroughly, and just as you’d been giving up, your eyes caught the flicker of movement in your peripherals. When you focused on it, it took you a second to find it again, the trembling of metal stilts holding the bridge up forty feet above you disguising it, but then there was a twitch again.

In the shadows, easily missed, but then there they were. Sitting, leaned up against one of the bars from the other side, hand-pressed weakly over their stomach, head lolled to the side. You weren’t even sure if they had moved, or if they’d simply slumped forward because of the vibrations of the rickety bridge legs, and you felt a jolt of adrenaline race through you as you tried to jump into action.

“Shit!” You muttered, a slight rise on the hill before you as you tried to climb up it, the dust forming clouds behind you as the stones slipped at the sudden and uncoordinated movements, before you were stumbling closer to the person. “Newt!”

Another train shot overhead, drowning out the sounds of your shouts, and you hoped Newt had actually heard it, because you’d walked so far that he was more like a blur away from you, and you certainly couldn't hear his yells as he offered help anymore, they’d faded away a few minutes ago, but you couldn't be occupied with it now. The second the train had passed, you tried yelling again, out of breath and panting as you dropped to your knees before the person.

Their head was lying forward, chin pressed to their chest, fresh red blood seeping out between their fingers in weak bursts, and at least you knew they were still alive. Cupping their face, you pushed their head back, skin sickly pale and flushed with sweat, a very quiet groan leaving his lips, and hooded eyes cracked open barely at all to look at you. “Did you make that call?”

“Call?” He echoed, seemingly confused about what was even happening, but with the amount of blood that was staining the pebbles around you and clumping in the dust and dirt as it turned dark, you weren’t all that surprised.

“Alright, buddy, we’ll get you all sorted out, okay?” You circled a hand around behind his neck, the other on his side, and you needed to lay him down just to be able to get to the wound, because you couldn't see anything with him slumped over like this, daylight partially blocked out from the bridge overhead and shadows forming over the man. “I need to get you laying down, think you can handle that?”

He didn’t even nod, simply made a broken hum under his breath that you decided to take as an acknowledgement, before pulling him forwards. He let out a louder cry this time, the pain taking him over, and you heard the rapid-fire crunches of Newt running towards you, slightly uneven footsteps on his hurt leg, but you didn’t pay any attention to it, grateful that he’d heard you, but focusing on your patient.

His hands had fallen away from his wounds, and you fumbled for your torch, the light designed to check eyes did little to light up the wound but blood was staining the pale shirt he wore, leaving wet red patches as far up as his ribs. Newt skidded to a stop behind you, a hand running through the longer fringe in his face as he pushed it back, eyes wide.

“Well, shit, I’ll be damned.”

“Knife wound, pretty deep, can you hold the torch for me?” He nodded, stains of red smeared across it from where you’d already got blood on your fingers, and you pushed up the edge of his shirt, getting a look at the wound. He sank to his knees, holding the light over it more clearly, and you hoped he could sense your silent appreciation. It helped you to see, but didn’t clarify much, because blood was smeared over his skin and gave illusions about where his injuries started and ended, bubbling blood still leaving the gash. Dropping your bag down to your side, you opened it up, fumbling through for a pair of rubber gloves, and a tissue to be able to wipe away the blood with.

Snapping the latex onto your wrists and taking the folded clump of paper, dragging it delicately but firmly over the spot to try and get a better look. A second, maybe two, was all you got of clear skin before blood was beginning to fill the space once again, the man’s shallow pants and groans getting lighter and weaker, and you knew you had to hurry, lost time in having to search for him taking its toll now, but it was long enough to get a good look.

“We’re going to need some stuff from the van, probably the stretcher, but I don’t know how well we can wheel him across that gravel.”

“I can just pull up the van?” He offered, clicking off the torch to hand it back to you as you put the correct pressure down on the wound to stop the bleeding, pinching around the edges and holding tight to seal the wound, and you nodded.

“Yeah, yeah. That’s good. Pull up the van!”

He nodded, brushing dust from his knees as he stood, and you used your other hand to begin searching through your bag for the disinfectant spray you needed to start cleaning up his wound so you could put a provisionary seal on it.

You found the canister, shaking it carefully and trying to squeeze the lid with two fingers to get it off, a ‘pop’ sounding before the fading footsteps Newt was making came to a sudden halt.

“Woah, woah, woah..” You looked up, eyes widening and blood running cold at the sight. Newt had his hand held up, a man who’d ace you couldn't quite see behind the baseball cap and the hood he had pulled up to obscure his features, sleeves reaching gloved hands, and a gun in one hand, finger pressed over the trigger as Newt took a few steps back toward you both and stumbling slightly, his leg going weak as he stood unevenly on a rock, and you couldn't help the gasp in fear that left you. “Look, man, we don’t want any trouble. We just got a call, for that guy.”

He reached out one hand, pointing to where you were kneeling still, and you leaned forwards, moving very slowly as you tried to press down gently on the top of the canister, spraying gently on the wound, but as the man let out a sudden and pained noise, the gun moved to you, and you froze, jumping back from the actions and dropping the can.

“I know, because I made the call.”

“You made the call?” You repeated, the face of the shadowed man becoming a little clearer, a large tattoo taking up one side of his face, and you shifted, the uncomfortable stones digging into your knees making you wince as you tried to hold still, an ache in your muscles as your heart raced with fear once again. “If you made the call, why can’t we help him.”

“You’re not here to help him, his wound is just to get you here.”

“You stabbed a man to get ahold of a paramedic?” The gun clicked, the safety catch off, and you swallowed thickly, internally berating yourself for asking such a question when the moment was so tense. “Look, we’ll come with you, we’re more than happy to, but just let me help him and then we’ll go wherever y-”

“Lady, if you don’t stop talking, I will blow your fucking brains all over these stones.” Your jaw snapped shut, heart freezing in your chest entirely, and you nodded dumbly. “Great, now get the fuck up, grab your bag, and walk over here real slow.”

You hesitated, only for a second, before lifting your hand from the man’s wound, hearing him groan out a little, and you ducked your head, knocking your bag over and the contents falling out across the gravel. “I don’t know if you’re even sentient enough to hear me right now,”

Your words were as low as you could get them, hoping then standing a few metres away wouldn't pick them up as he focused back on Newt, and you packed away slowly,

“If you can, I’m leaving the antiseptic and some gauze here. You need to pinch the sides of your wound, lay still, take deep breaths, and hold as much pressure as you can. In about forty minutes, we’d be due to make a call in, we’re supposed to every hour we’re out; when we don’t report in, they’ll send another ambulance. Just hold on, alright?”

You nudged the items a little further into the shadows, hoping the man had caught your words and had the strength to hold on, before you were peeling off your gloves, tucking them into your bag, and zipping it up to sit on your shoulder. Holding your hands up to show they were empty, you stepped beside Newt, the look on his face silently questioning if you were alright, and you gave him a subtle nod, raising a brow in return, and he ducked his head once in reply.

He stood behind you both, pushing the edge of the gun against Newt’s head to urge you both forward, and you matched his steps, the three of you walking slowly as you allowed yourself to be guided. There was a sleek black car pulled up, one you’d missed when arriving, and you suspected he’d driven away and waited somewhere for the ambulance to go past before pulling up again, because it wasn’t exactly hidden.

“Look, we’re going willingly, alright? No fight here, I’ll help. Our ambulance is right there,” You pointed to it, hands still raised up, arms beginning to ache and tire, and Newt folded his, resting his hands behind his head, and turning to look at you as you spoke, “Just let me call in for someone else to come help the other guy, they won’t even get here until after we’ve gone anyway, it’ll t-”

Your ears were ringing, the sound of the bang going off, the rush of air, and the way it felt like an explosion had gone off inside of your own head. You stumbled, falling to your knees at the impact as your entire body went weak, and your vision went black for a second as you tried to process it. You couldn't focus, everything seeming a little blurry, and you could feel Newt’s hands on your shoulders, shaking you, a very muffled shout of your name, before it was all torn backwards once again, and you felt nauseous as the shock swept through your body.

The man crouched down, pulling his hood back and directing an angry gaze straight at you as you blinked to clear your vision, barely able to hear a thing. “That was a fucking warning shot, speak again, and the next bullet won’t miss.”

You had to read his lips for half of the words he said, barely processing them, the bullet that had flown past your ear was making everything fade around the edges, and you were hauled roughly to your feet by a hand under your arm, leaning you against Newt as you staggered the final few feet to the car that was your destination. You could barely clear your head, shaking it a little bit finding even that action was too painful.

Blood was rushing, your headache felt like it was about to split your skull in half, and your shoulder ached as you were tossed down roughly into the open boot, unable to catch yourself in time. Newt followed, the lid slamming shut, darkness surrounding instead. You could feel Newt’s hands on you, the flash of light from his keyring over your irises making you wince, his fingers pressing along your jaw and around your ears, checking for any signs of a ruptured eardrum or any bleeding, but as the car rumbled to life, peeling out of abandoned area everything felt like it was slipping.

Your fingers scratched at the flooring of the car, nails digging into the felt, grains and dirt stuck under your fingernails, and then the car jolted, dipping into a pothole on the road, your head hitting against the floor of the car, and everything you were still clinging to was lost as well as you blacked out.

#thomas #thomas x reader #thomas/reader #smoke and fire #SAF #firefighter!tommy #ff!tommy #the maze runner #thomas the maze runner #dylan obrien #dylan o'brien #dylan obrien x reader #dylan obrien/reader #dylan obrien thomas #dylan obrien the maze runner #dylan obrien x reader smut #dylan obrien/reader smut #thomas x reader smut #thomas/reader smut

[the-lady-of-stars]

In Another Life

Fives x Jedi ! Reader

Requested by: @marvel-starwars-nerd​ and an anon (I combined your prompts, hope thats okay!)  “I don’t want this to end” and “Whatever you do don’t cry, because if you cry I’ll start crying too”

A/N: Sorry in advance, troopers.

A traitor to the Republic. That’s what they’d called him. They had said that Fives was conspiring against them, accusing the Kaminoans of planting chips in the clones’ brains to control them.

The chip, which Fives had broken protocol to remove from Tup, was called an ‘inhibitor chip’ by the Kaminoans. Something to keep them from adopting Fett’s strong will and violence. Fives insisted otherwise, leading you to this very moment on the lower levels of Coruscant.

With Anakin and Rex by your side you slowly edged into the darkened warehouse, calling out for Fives as you went. The lightsaber ignited in your hands was merely standard protocol. You knew that Fives would never hurt you, but the Republic branding him as a dangerous individual meant you had to keep up the act. The excuse of Fives being your boyfriend wasn’t exactly something that could be put on the reports.

The deeper you went into the building, the more you could sense him. The force signiature coming off of Fives was something you would normally bask in and draw peace from, but not today. He radiated nothing but fear, anger and mistrust, still not showing himself to you and your companions. The boys all knew about the relationship between you and Fives. He wasn’t quite the most secretive man in the galaxy, and had the tendency to brag.

Anakin, clearly sensing the pure worry and unease radiating from you, sent you a reasurring look, although it never met his eyes.

“Fives,” you called out, trying to pinpoint his location. “It’s okay, we’re not here to hurt you. Just come out, everything will be okay.”

“Thank you, thank you for trusting me,” Fives’ voice echoed through the crate-filled warehouse, making it hard to figure out where it had come from. The three of you span slowly, trying to catch a glimpse of the rogue trooper. His voice was shaky, the notes wavering in his throat. “Have you come without troops?” He insisted, too nervous to keep his fear hidden.

“We have,” Anakin reassured, voice steady so as not to startle Fives.

“Put down your weapons then!” Fives sounded frantic, like a loth cat cornered by hungry varactyls. You felt your heart twist at the notion that your own boyfriend felt the need to defend himself against you, his brother and his friend.

Anakin, casting aside emotion to stick to military protocol, denied Fives’ request, still slightly on edge about his accusations about the Jedi and the chips.

“Please sir, please- I’m unarmed,” Fives pleaded. You turned to find Rex and Anakin both with expressions of sorrow that matched your own.

With a nod, Anakin sheathed his saber, and Rex set his pistols down on a nearby crate. You copied them, attaching your saber to its hilt at your belt.

“What are we here for, Fives?” Anakin pressed, knowing that every moment they wasted was a moment the Coruscant Guard gained on them, and he knew they wouldn’t be as willing to accomodate.

“I need your help,” he called, desperation thick in his words.

Anakin reassured the trooper that he was here to help, telling Fives that he understood he ‘wasn’t well.’ Clearly, this was the wrong thing to say, as Fives suddenly became upset, voice raising.

“I’m not crazy! Please- just hear what I have to say,” he begged, voice growing clearer, allowing you to pinpoint him behind two stacks of crates.

With one last shared look, the three of you drew closer to Fives’ location. Before you could reach him, Fives entrapped you all in a ray shield, then finally emerged once he knew you couldn’t harm him.

Anakin, knowing this wouldn’t do Fives any good once the Coruscant Guard arrived, slammed his fist against the shield in anger. He already knew how low the chances were for his friend, the Kaminoans were fond of reconditioning for even the slightest misbehaviour, but this would only serve to make things ten times worse.

“I just need you to listen to me,” Fives reassured, raising his empty hands to show that he meant no harm. “Please!” he cried out.

“I’m not really sure we have any other choice!” Anakin snapped, worry for Fives turning into anger due to his lack of control in the situation.

Fives’ voice broke, almost whimpering as he yelled “I was framed- because I know the truth! The truth about a plot- a massive deception!”

Fives’ body was shaking, arms restless as he panicked, pacing fearfully, clutching his head and tensing his fists. He looked wildly overwhelmed, almost in pain at how he couldn’t get anyone to believe him.

“There’s a sinister plot,” he shouted, “in the works, against the Jedi! I have proof of it! I can prove- that everything that I know is true beyond a shadow of a doubt!”

“Fives, please-” you tried to speak calmly but you were nearly in tears over seeing your Fives like this, your voice trembling. His eyes raced from side to side, peeled wide in terror, desperation in every breath he took.

Anakin interrupted you, voice stern. “Show me the evidence.”

Fives dug his fingers back into his head, as though he were trying to rip the thoughts out of his brain. Pink marks crowned his head from the way he was scratching into it.

“The evidence- it’s- it’s in here-” Fives pointed aggressively at his brain, fully aware that the Kaminoans had injected him with something to make him lose his memories before he could speak to the Chancellor. His eyes held nothing but devastation, gleaming with unshed tears and pain. “It’s in all of us!” he recalled, desperately trying to explain, “every clone!”

“What is it?” Rex pushed, trying to extract clear words from his brother.

“Organic chips- built into our genetic code,” Fives said, defeat swallowing up his voice. He leaned exhausted to rest on a stack of crates, pressing his arm and forehead against them. “To make us do whatever someone wants.” Fives felt powerless in that moment. The Republic had always made him feel like a pawn, but this was the first time Fives truly understood what his older brothers meant when they spoke about being nothing but property. What difference could one clone make, especially one who had the entire coruscant guard and a Jedi on the hunt for him. “Even kill the Jedi. It’s all in here-” he repeated in a frenzy, poking his head again and again.

Anakin scowled, not believing Fives’ words. You turned to look at Rex, seeing how upset he looked. He ran his hand over his hair in stress, sending you a dejected look when he caught your gaze.

“Let’s just get you some help first then we can review everything,” Anakin spoke, trying to deescalate the situation. “It’ll be okay, Fives, we’ll sort this out.” Anakin said the words as though nothing major were happening, as if everything was fine.

Fives finally reached his limit, feeling shattered at the lack of understanding.

“You don’t believe me!” he howled.

“Fives,” Rex tried to soothe him, brotherly instinct overwhelming him. “We are listening to you. We only want to help.”

“How do I know you’re not tricking me?” Fives asked rapidly. “How do I know it won’t be a trap?”

You couldn’t stand back and listen any more.

“Fives, please, look at me. You know for a fact that not one of us would lay a finger on you. We all care about you Fives, and we want to hear everything you have to say. I mean it. We’ll listen,” you pleaded with him, pressing one hand up against the ray shield.

Fives shakily stumbled forward, lifting a trembling hand to press it against where yours lay on the other side of the shield. He looked deep into your eyes, the look he gave you making you want to sweep him away and hold him for the rest of your life. You wished more than anything that you could take him away from all of this. Why did it have to be your Fives getting caught up in this mess. If only you could take him to some outer-rim planet where you would never be found, and soothe all of his worries with tender kisses and soft spoken words.

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

“Princess?”

“Yeah, Fives?”

“You ever thought about after the war?”

“What about it?”

You lay secure on Fives’ chest in your bed, resting your eyes as he swept patterns into the skin of your back.

“What you’d like life to be like, I mean. Like, I d’uno, a family maybe?”

Maybe you were just tired, but you were sure you could detect a hint of hopefulness in his words.

“A family, huh? Yeah, I s’pose have. Is that something you’d like?”

“Y-yeah,” Fives felt himself flush. Get it together, trooper. “W-with you, I mean. Maybe a kid or two if you want. We could have a little house out on Naboo. It could be in the countryside. We could go swimming in the waterfalls. I’m sure General Skywalker could set us up with a place. Get- get married maybe?” Fives subtly wiped his sweaty palms on the sheets, hoping you wouldn’t notice how nervous the proposition made him.

“I’d like that.”

He let out a sigh.

“I’d like that a lot.”

If you had secretly been awake when Fives had whispered “gn’a make you my wife,” he didn’t need to find out.

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

Fives gasped, thinking about what would happen if the clones were ordered to take out the Jedi. Even the brief thought of him mindlessly shooting you caused him to jolt back. He began to explain how he thought everything linked back to the Chancellor, how every part of his intuition told him to believe it.

“He’s capable of it, I swear to you, General,” he tried to reason with Anakin, but before he could get another word in the Coruscant Guard leapt out from behind some crates, pointing their blasters at Fives.

Calls of “stand down, trooper” and “get on your knees” rang through the building. You watched in horror as Fives turned his gaze to Rex’s abandoned pistols.

“Fives, no- stop!” you screamed, but it was too late.

He lunged for the pistols, clutching one with a yell of “get away from me!”

Then silence, deafening silence. Your vision turned to slow-motion as Commander Fox fired a shot square into Fives’ chest. You felt a cry escape your throat but never heard it, feeling like you were about to faint.

Fives collapsed, hitting the ground in a position which allowed you to see the large short-range blaster shot staining the pure white duraplast of his armour. Rex beat his hands against the barrier, desperatley trying to break through to hold his brother. The second a member of the Guard shot the shield down you fell to your knees at his side, Rex at your side.

“Fives,” you sobbed, tears flowing freely. You reached over to cup his cheek, bringing his gaze to look at you. Fives was dazed, feeling the life force drain from him as he bled out on the duracrete floor. The blood loss began to make him dizzy, his thoughts no longer focused on the conspiracy, turning to you instead. You were crying. His girl was crying and he wasn’t doing anything about it. He’d always hated seeing you cry.

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

“Hey, Princess, I’m hom- woah, woah, woah-” Fives froze, startled by the image of you curled up in a ball on the floor leaning against your bed while crying your eyes out. He immediately ran over, sliding to his knees by your side. “Hey, what’s the matter?” he cooed, reaching to pull your hands from your eyes. He felt his heart tighten at the sight of your reddened eyes, the tears clinging to your eyelashes. “Oh, shhh,” he soothed, bringing you into his chest as you sobbed wildly. Fives sat and rocked you gently in his arms until your sobs slowed into hiccups and gasps, murmuring sweet nothings tenderly into your ear.

“Feelin’ better?” he spoke softly, punctuating his question with a kiss to your cheek.

“Mmhmm,” you nodded, leaning into his touch as he wiped away your tears.

“That’s my girl. You’re okay, Princess. I’ve got you. I’ll always take care of you I swear. Now, make a promise for me?”

You hummed in agreement, waiting for him to state his promise.

“I need you to promise me that you won’t cry alone ever again. Next time you need to cry, come find me or send me a quick comm and I swear I’ll be right there to hold you. Promise?”

You smiled lovingly, “promise.”

“Thas’ my girl.”

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

“H-hey- hey, don’t you go crying on me now, pretty thing. ‘Cos if you cry I’ll start cryin’, you hear me?”

This only made you weep harder, clutching at his shoulder.

“Fives, no, no- don’t do this. Don’t. You’re gonna be okay, you’re gonna be fine. I’m here, Rex is here, we’ve got you,” your voice shook heavily as you barely managed to get the words out between choked sobs.

Fives chuckled after a gasp, shooting a beaming smile in your direction.

“C’mon, you’re a clever girl. You and I both know this is the end of the line for me. I’m not gonna be here too much longer, Princess, but you remember that promise you made me, yeah? When I’m gone, you’re not gonna spend your time cryin’ over me. You’re gonna go find a friend, someone you trust, and cry it out with them so they can look after you. Okay?”

You burst into tears again, unable to respond to him.

“I’ll look after her, vod. I swear it, you have my word. We’ll look after eachother,” Rex choked, tears flowing down his face. He reached over and grasped his brother’s hand tightly, squeezing it in reassurance.

Fives smiled, a look of peace overcoming him at the thought of his girl and his brother looking out for eachother when he wasn’t there to do it himself.

“Thas’ good. Mmm. Good.” Fives blinked, finding the idea of sinking into the darkness more and more tempting every second.

“Fives, no, don’t go. Please- I don’t want this to end. I love you, I love you so much Fives, please don’t leave me!”

Fives mustered up all the energy he had left to grin at you, the cheeky grin that showed off his teeth he’d always give you when he’d make fun of you.

“I love you too, Princess. I always will. I’m sorry I have to go, but I promise I’ll see you again some day. Even in another life, I’ll find you. You’ll always be my girl.”

And with that, Fives slipped away, succumbing to the peace that was sinking into his heart. He’d find you again. In another life.

#fives x reader #arc trooper fives x reader #clone wars imagine #star wars imagine #star wars x reader

[scarlet-star-witch]

The Wedding

A/N: I am so excited to share this moment with you all! There will probably be a smutty part 2 if that’s something that you guys want xx

Pairing: Din x Iella

Word Count: 1352

Fade Into You Masterlist

~~

Iella stared in shock at the man in front of her, her mouth agape and her eyes wide with disbelief. Surely she had heard him wrong.

“W-what?” She stammered, her voice barely above a whisper. 

Din chuckled softly and reached out, taking her hand in his. “Cyare, will you marry me?” He asked again. 

Her breath hitched and tears sprung to her eyes as the question finally registered in her mind. She squeezed his hand and nodded rapidly, not able to get her voice to work to speak the most important word in her entire life.

“Really?” He breathed out, his own emotions bubbling to the surface. He let out a delighted laugh as she nodded frantically and he raced forward, almost bowling her over with the force of his embrace.

Iella let out a watery laugh and held onto him tightly. Her heart pounded within her chest rapidly as happiness bloomed within her so strongly. But a terrifying realization soon crashed over her.

“Wait, Din, are you sure? You know what this means, what I’ll be able to-” See. The word drifted in the air of the lingering silence. 

Din swallowed thickly, his heart racing. He’d been thinking over this decision for a long time. They’d been together for a decade and had been friends even longer. The decision to show her his face wasn’t an easy one, but it was one he was finally ready for.

He was ready to give her everything. 

“I’m sure.” He told her with conviction. “El, there’s nothing in this galaxy I want more than to be your riduur and for you to be mine.” 

Iella’s expression shifted, revealing how purely touched she was by his devotion and trust in her. 

“That’s all I want, too.” She whispered, her eyes closing in pleasure as he leaned down, his forehead resting against hers. 

“So, how do we do this? Do we have to go to the covert?” 

“Mandalorian’s don’t have ceremonies like other religions typically do. It’s just the vows that matter.” He explained, taking a pause as he thought hard about what he really wanted and, as always, it was just simply her. “I think it should be just us.” 

Iella smiled and nodded, squeezing his hand in hers. “Yeah, I think so, too. We should make it special though. This piece of junk isn’t exactly romantic.” 

“Hey, we’ve had plenty of romantic moments here.”

Iella rolled her eyes at what he was insinuating, making him laugh lightly.

“But I know what you mean.” He agreed. “And I have an idea in mind.”

“Yeah?” He nodded and she could just tell he had a smirk on his face. “You’re not gonna tell me are you?”

“Nope.” 

For the rest of the day, Iella and Din scouted for what they would need. As she looked for a dress, he looked for rings and by the end of the day, as they had what they needed, they set the course for their special destination. 

They were both practically bouncing in their seats as they travelled through light speed, Iella nervously looking over at Din, her eyes flickering over every inch of that familiar helmet. She had wondered what he looked like for so long and the knowledge that she soon wouldn’t have to wonder left her reeling.

Soon, they were landing and Din let out a shaking breath, his nerves spiking so intensely it made his hands tremble. 

“Din, are you sure you’re ready for this?” She asked carefully, knowing this was an enormous step for him.

He turned to face her, standing up from his seat and reached his hand out for hers, gently pulling her up from her own seat so they were standing chest to chest.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment with you for a long time.” He admitted and tears quickly gathered in her eyes at his words. 

Iella cleared her throat and smoothed out her simple, knee length white dress and together, they exited the ship. Her jaw dropped slightly, her wide eyes taking in the sight before her with wonder.

“Din… are we… you really…?” She trailed off in awe as she looked at the sandy beaches and crashing waves below them.

“I took you to the ocean.” 

She let out a delighted laugh and wiped under her eyes. With barely a second to waste, she kicked her shoes off, holding them in her hands and ran towards the water. She let out a gasp as she felt the cool waves hit her shins, her face splitting into a wide grin. 

Din watched her fondly, his own smile growing behind his helmet as he saw the wonder in her eyes.

Yes, I’m making the right decision.

“Are you ready?” He asked, making her turn to face him and she reached out her hand, beckoning for him to join her at the water’s edge and he followed her instantly. 

They joined hands, but before they could make it official, Iella looked over her shoulder, her eyes scanning the empty beach for any sign of incoming villagers. 

“There’s no one here. It’s just us.” He assured her, desperate for her eyes to meet his again. 

Iella faced him again and they let out mirroring heavy exhales of anticipation. Their hands held each other tightly, their eyes already swimming with tears of emotion.

“Just repeat after me.” He explained and she nodded eagerly, hoping her voice would work through the lump in her throat that was growing with each passing second.

"Mhi solus tome,”

“Mhi solus dar'tome,”

“Mhi me'dinui an,”

“Mhi ba'juri verde,"

She repeated each vow he spoke, both their voices growing slightly hoarse after each one. 

Din’s heart was blooming with a love he never thought he would find. As he stared at her, his wife, he thanked every deity that existed for bringing him to her. 

Swallowing thickly, he forced his shaking hands to move upwards until they gripped the edge of his helmet. Iella’s eyes widened and she reached out, placing her hands over his.

“You don’t have to do this if you aren’t ready. We can wait.” 

“I’m ready.” I’m ready for you to finally see me.

Iella kept her hands over his as he slowly raised his helmet, her eyes following the movement, only watching the helmet, as if she still wasn’t allowed to see the face revealed to her just yet. As the helmet fell to the ground, she kept her eyes down, until she felt his fingers brush against her chin.

“Iella.” His soft voice spoke, cracking slightly, prompting her to raise her gaze.

Her breath got caught in her throat the second she saw those brown eyes staring back at her. Her heart stuttered in her chest as she took in every gorgeous inch of his face. She couldn’t believe this is what he had been hiding for so long. 

Her hand reached out, cradling his cheek and, although it was a gesture she had done before in the pitch dark or blindfolded, Din still reacted as if it were the first time. In a way it was. His eyes fluttered closed at the wonderful sensation.

“Din,” She whispered, eagerly wanting to see his eyes again. Those eyes she instantly loved. “You’re beautiful.” She breathed out, overwhelmed. 

He let out a shaking breath that bordered on a sob as tears fell down his cheeks. Iella was quick to wipe them away and she leaned forward, kissing him softly.

He moaned against her and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her tightly to him as he kissed her with desperation. His hands still trembled against her, still reeling from what he’d done, what he’d shown her. 

But he felt no regrets. He never did when it came to her.

They broke the kiss when the need to breathe became too much and he kept his forehead against hers, noticing her eyes still drinking him in eagerly and he blushed slightly.

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Cyare.” He pressed his lips to hers again, planting frantic kisses in between delighted laughs. “My riduur.” 

#the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian imagine #din djarin x reader #din djarin imagine #the mandalorian fanfiction #pedro pascal x reader

[paper-n-ashes]

sparks and embers - chapter 6

Characters: Poe Dameron x Original Female Character, Kylo Ren x Original Female Character

Story Tags: Explicit (18+), Canon Compliant/Divergent (Set after TLJ), First Person POV, Love Triangle, Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Porn with Plot, Hurt/Comfort, Kylo Ren hates Poe Dameron 

Chapter 6 - Ruin

Words: 5.9k

Chapter Tags/Warnings: Mentions of war/death, kissing, a healthy dose of the ‘sharing a bed’ trope, ANGST, sexual education because who doesn’t want to read about that in fanfiction, vague description of a female medical procedure

Read on AO3 or Start from the beginning

~

A softened sigh left me, knowing it was probably time to let Poe say his piece. He’d been so silent until now that I felt compelled to hear what had been stirring inside his mind while I’d held him in quiet contempt.

“Alright. I’m listening.”

He flicked on one of the dimmed lamps next to the bed, a gentle glow illuminating the room, watching as he proceeded to carefully extricate himself from under the sheets, the soreness as a result of the rehab we’d performed today now evident in his concentrated expression.

I drew myself up into a seated position on the sofa as he made his way to sit on the small table at my front, not attempting to meet my eyes until he’d slowly placed himself down on the metal. His face was less than a meter from mine, pupils drifting upwards until finally, our stares locked.

“I’m sorry,” he declared, his words heavy. “I understand why you’re angry. I get it, okay? Years of battle after battle, fight after fight, it becomes difficult to consider those working under the First Order’s control as people. People with families, loved ones, even children. They appear as targets, there simply to be eliminated. And it’s you or them. Either you perish, or you put the rational thought into the back of your mind and fight back.”

Poe glanced down, fixated to the floor, his jaw tight. “I do think about it sometimes, the people I’ve... murdered. I’ve spent sleepless nights wondering if killing in the name of freedom was a good enough reason to send people to an early death. When you don’t see their faces it’s…. easier. You don’t see the bloodshed, the corpses. You just see the fiery explosion of their ships fading into the black void of space.”

I stayed rigid in the sofa, hands clutching the into cushions. It was difficult to hold down the simmer of anger that boiled in my stomach, since everything so far only reinforced what I felt like I’d determined hours ago. Even while my demeanour remained stormy, Poe continued.

“All I heard in my childhood was my father reminding me of the way he and my mother fought for what they believed to be right. Both of them lived and battled through a time like ours, under the thumb of a regime hungry for power, sparing no innocents in their pursuit of it.” He became lost in memory, the aura drifting around him stained with a subtle sorrow. “‘People were hurting. People were suffering. Your father and I couldn’t sit and do nothing.’ That’s what my mother had told me, a child of two, as her reasoning for joining the Alliance in their efforts to push back against what threatened all type of freedom in this galaxy. My parents offered to sacrifice their lives on the tiniest shred of hope that me, and every other being on every planet, would see peace in their lifetime.”

His eyes finally shifted back to focus on mine. They were determined, yet soft, the chocolate fibers of his irises melting together. “I just... wanted to be like her. Like them. I wanted to do what they did. I wanted them to be proud of me, to have faith that their legacy would live on after they were gone. To provide freedom and peace like they had. Even if that meant sacrificing my own life, even if that meant killing those who opposed it. I had to. I had to join the people that wanted the same thing as me.”

A growing ferocity began to radiate, his voice severe. “I witnessed so many of my fellow soldiers, my friends, die thoughtlessly at the hands of others. And I wanted them to feel the same pain that I felt. Is it hypocritical? Of course, I know that. Is it cruel? Yes, murder is rarely not. But it's in the name of protection, defiance against control from an overpowering force. Those who fight with the First Order, who take over planets and kill innocents for the sake of power, they know what they’re doing. They know the consequences, the outcome, the hold the galaxy will be strangled under if they succeed. And they do it anyway. Our cause isn’t more noble, it’s self-defence. We’re trying to protect the ones who aren’t able to fight back, and those who don’t deserve to be born into a world that will crush them into submission.”

Poe’s features turned darker, leaning in close. “I will never stop thinking about the lives I’ve taken. I will never not hold myself accountable for the sins I’ve committed. But I will also not sit and do nothing. I don’t need you to accept it, but at least try to understand. You and I want the same thing, in the end, to save as many people as possible in our short lifetime. I’m just doing the best I can to see that through.”

While I instinctively took a breath in preparation to speak, nothing came. He’d rendered me speechless.

I had no reply to give, no counterargument, no flaw to point out. His honesty floored me, raw emotion and long-felt guilt rising up for me to observe so openly. The pain behind his eyes seemed so much more acute than any of the other injuries he’d sustained, not trying to shield it from my view as he spoke.

I tried to find words, anything to articulate my forgiveness. Because I did understand. He’d made me see it, the same anguish over death that I felt. But he’d also made me realise what a coward I was.

Against the people who would kill him or control him, he fought back. While I hid myself away under the guise of selflessness.

I thought I was the hero of my story, giving up my home, my old life, for the benefit of the downtrodden people of this planet. In reality, I was a scared little girl, too gutless to push back against those I, and so many others in this galaxy, feared. And here Poe was, putting himself in harm’s way, every day, in the hopes that he could take away our fear forever.  

He began to rise in front of me, taking my lack of reply as an answer in itself. He seemed despondent, his face sullen as he turned to limp back to the bed.

A different kind of fury coursed through me, fury at myself for how easily I’d judged him, at how cruelly I’d treated him.

I couldn’t let the night end this way.

I picked myself up from the sofa and quickly lunged at his wrist, pulling him to face me. He was surprised, glancing with wide eyes to where my hand had caught him, then to my face. I tried desperately to convey it there, everything I wanted to say, struggling to find my voice. Poe waited for me to speak the words I clearly had sitting on the edge of my tongue, but everything I conjured didn’t seem to be enough, the jumbled thoughts swirling incoherently in my mind, never letting me quite grasp onto them long enough to form exactly what I needed to express.

Tension filled the space between us, thick and overwhelming. I soon began outlining the lines of his face, the crease currently stuck in his brow, the curve of his nose, the contour of his jaw, the arch of his lips.

My hands found themselves catching each side of his face, pulling his mouth to mine in a desperate kiss.

I’d held it back for so long, too long, now unable to deny the burning urge to melt my lips into his. He was alarmed at first, his mouth frozen from movement as he comprehended my sudden attack.

Yet quickly he was syncing his lips fluidly with mine, a hand rising to clutch the back of my neck, pulling me closer. His casted arm curled around my waist, pressing my body into his, feeling the heat radiating off his chest.

The fire in my lower abdomen roared into bright red flames again, spreading into the rest of my body like molten lava. He tasted even better than I’d imagined, our tongues beginning to find each other through parted mouths. Fingers moved into his hair, hungrily grasping at the curled strands, causing a low moan to seep from his throat. The sound made me even more forceful in my need for his lips to be connected with mine, barely having time to breathe in-between our eager kisses.

I wanted to have him, all of him, so deeply it was painful, the searing burn lighting up in my veins.

Don’t do this Alexys. It will ruin you.

My breath hitched as I reluctantly pulled away, looking up, seeing his pupils swollen. He was cautious then, moving his hand from my neck to push a strand of hair behind my ear, almost if at any moment I would flee from his embrace.

And that’s what half of me was begging to do, the other screaming at me to lock our lips together again. I felt split into two, a cracking beginning to divide me roughly in the middle.

I could see Poe searching through my gaze, trying to assess my thoughts, whether it was safe to continue. He leaned in gradually, testing my reaction. I didn’t recoil this time. I didn’t want to.

His lips melted into mine, less insistent than before, although somehow just as intimate. Inhibitions lowered, my hands slid down to his chest, noticing the hard muscles underneath my palms and feeling the fire inside me surge. I wanted to feel the bare skin underneath, to have it pressed against my own. To explore the other parts of him covered by clothes. To forget even for a short time that this was wrong, that I shouldn’t be doing this.

Poe gently withdrew, leaning his forehead into mine. “I know.”

“Know what?��

He exhaled a long breath. “I know you don’t want to do this.”

I replaced my hands to his cheeks. “You have no idea how much I want this. How much I want you.” The truth of the words made me feel both vulnerable and safe, for the first time giving in to the yearning I’d hoped to keep locked inside my chest.

He tensed, a slight tremble in the arm that curved around my body. But his face grew sombre, almost... sad. “You don’t. Not completely. I can feel you wanting to hold back,” he murmured. “I can feel your fear.”

I swallowed hard, unable to refute him. “…I’m sorry. I want to. But I just… I can’t."

We both looked down, my confirmation making the tone of our connection shift. He was silent for what felt like a long time, and we stayed motionless in our embrace, neither wanting it to end, knowing it was inevitable that we would have to part.

“Why?” he breathed. “Why are you afraid?”

I wanted to be honest with him, like he had been for me, so much the sensation felt like it was clawing out from inside me, determined to burst through the skin. But there was a barrier there, one I had forged long ago. Unyielding and impenetrable to anything or anyone.

Although, I felt another realisation simmer to the surface of my mind, one that was not nearly as exposing, but still true.

“You’re going to leave. And I have to stay here. I don’t… I don’t want that to hurt any more than it has to.”

It seemed to hit him then, like he hadn’t let the thought enter his mind before. The awareness of our predicament shone brightly in his eyes, a light switch flickering on.

His hand moved to my cheek, grazing his thumb softly against the skin, my heart throbbing inside its cage at his light touch. I watched as eyes scanned over my face, back and forth, as if memorising the features. It was then I knew he’d come to the same conclusion.

It wouldn’t be long before we would part, most likely to never see each other again. If we went any further, if we crossed that line, the pain of saying goodbye would become so much more unbearable.

Almost simultaneously, we let our hold on each other loosen, the disappointment in the air almost palatable on my tongue. The smouldering inside had burnt out, suffocated by the gloom weighing heavy in my chest. Poe took my hand in his, his eyes pleading. “Can I ask one thing of you?’

I moved my head in a slow nod.

“Sleep in this bed with me tonight. Just sleep. I promise.” It was an earnest request, his face imploring and unguarded.

In contempt of the voice in my head bellowing at me that this was a terrible idea, I agreed. “Okay.”

Together we tentatively walked to each side of the mattress, making no rush to slip under the covers and settle into the pillows. I faced away, fearing if I looked at Poe's charming face any longer, I would surrender to the pull of desire that never seemed to relent. I didn’t know how I was ever going to be able to fall asleep like this, his body radiating an energy that vibrated into the space between us, keeping me all too aware of his presence.

There was movement, a dip in the mattress, Poe’s arms curling around my torso, pulling me close. His face buried itself into my hair, the warmth of his gradual exhale sending charged shivers down my spine. Placing my arms over his, silently accepting his embrace, I felt my heart thump a calming glow through my chest, all the way to the end of my limbs.

I’d never felt so peaceful, so whole, becoming lost in the comfort of his hold, wishing I could bask in it forever.

But reality bit at me, cold and uninvited, reminding me of the goodbye I would have to give soon enough.

*

We were still entangled when consciousness came again, the dim light of early sunrise leaking through my window. Poe’s arms circled around me, my body fitting perfectly into his.

He was still asleep, his face resting just at the back of my head, slow breaths bristling into my hair. I relished the feeling of it all, trying to commit it to my memory.

I stayed there, motionless, waiting for time to run out, knowing I would be chasing the feeling of this in the months, maybe years, to come. Thinking about his future absence made me terrifyingly lonely, even with his arms wrapped around now.

Eventually the seconds ticked down to my chronometer alarm buzzing, rustling Poe awake from his slumber. I assumed he would begin to move, pulling away, this one night that bonded us together finally ending. Yet he stayed as unmoving as I had been, the only indication he had awoken the increased depth of his inhale, a small tense of his muscles. I went to move, to switch the screeching sound off, but he clutched me back into his chest, squeezing tight.

As much as my heart thumped at the pressure of his hips into mine, the noise of my alarm was grating. “Let me turn it off,” I whispered. “I’ll come right back.”

Poe loosened his grip reluctantly, allowing me to reach over to the screeching machine and mute its sound. I settled back comfortably into his arms again, as he nuzzled his face into my neck, lips faintly placing a kiss on the skin.

“Poe… please… don’t…”

His sigh whistled past my neck. “Come with me, when I leave.”

It annoyed me, his fleeting demand so easily spoken. As if I could suddenly give up all that encompassed my life before he appeared, the beings that depended on me. But his voice was so sincere, so entreating in the early morning, that the irritation dashed away from the forefront of my mind.

“You know I can’t do that.”

He acknowledged my answer in the shift of his body from around me, moving himself out of the bed we had shared for the night and leaving me alone underneath the sheets.

It burned, the unprecedented disconnection of his shape from mine, my chest forming into a black hole in the realisation I might never feel him that close again.

I wanted to let my emotion to take over, to give in to the pain that rushed to me now as the finality of our night cradled together became evident. But I refused to release it, my resolve from the night before holding strong. I knew I’d made it harder by giving in to Poe's innocent plea of sharing a slumber within his embrace, but I wasn’t going to let our farewell completely ruin me.

With a forced composure, I rose from my bedside, focusing on the appointments scheduled to fill my day. Through my haze I recalled many of them being young female patients in need of birth control. I would somehow have to shut Poe away, wanting to give these women the privacy they deserved.

*

Poe and I appeared to use the ‘freshers at the same time, the searing heat I usually liked being showered with restrained no matter how high I pushed the temperature button. Eventually I’d readied myself for the workday ahead, deciding on a pencil skirt and lightened blue blouse tucked into the waist, working my hair into a ponytail.

It was when I’d begun making breakfast, for both myself and all the company that I kept in the clinic at the moment, that Poe emerged back into my quarters in a set of dark black hospital clothes. I glanced at him only briefly as he entered, hearing him pull out a chair, not daring to look at his face yet.

“Smells good,” he uttered, breaking the silence that existed in exemption to the sautéed chicken eggs and nuna bacon sizzling in the large pan in front of me.

“It’s almost ready,” I remarked, feeling completely the disconnection between us in his tone. Half of me was glad he accepted the separation we needed to make, the other mourning the severed bond we had formed in the connection of our bodies. But I had to let it go, whatever was left of the fragile link that survived the night.

I continued preparing the hot meal, separating the foodstuff between Poe and Vixur’s crew. Once I’d gently placed a share in front of Poe at the table, a smile meeting him fleetingly, I took the rest with me, balancing the four dishes on my hands and forearms, moving cautiously through the hallway.

With impeccable timing Vixur and his students were conversing between each other, obviously having woken just before I came to greet them.

“I’ve got breakfast for you all,” I announced, setting it down at the meeting table across from my computer. It was generally used as a place I could sit with patients and their families when giving them their diagnosis or explaining treatment plans, but today it would have to work as a secondary dining table. All four men jabbered back thankyous as they moved quickly to sit and eat, their appreciation evident in the way they gulped down the meal without hesitation. I returned to my quarters to find Poe picking lazily at his food, only a few bites eaten.

“Does it taste bad?” I asked from behind him, before circling to my seat at the table.

He looked up swiftly, as if I’d startled him. He must have been deeply lost in thought not to hear me treading down the hallway.

“It’s delicious,” he urged. “I’m just… not that hungry.”

“Are you feeling alright? Are you still sore? Are you-“

“Alex, I’m fine,” he interrupted. “You can’t fix a bad mood with any of your treatments.”

I looked at him curiously. “Bad mood?”

Did I do that to him?

“Did you not sleep well?”

He didn’t answer me right away, a subtle scowl settling in his lips. “It was actually... the most restful sleep I’ve had in a long time.”

I fought the urge to beam at him, a smile waiting to form, but the gloomy expression he wore held it down. I had to agree with him - it truly was the most comfortable rest I’d experienced in recent memory. And knowing I would never feel that peaceful, dreamless slumber in his arms again made me fully understand why he was frowning.

“Thank you so much for the meal Alex. I just... don’t have an appetite right now.” Poe rose from his seat and took his plate to clean, his sombre mood spilling into my body and taking over. Wringing his hands dry, He turned back to me. “Is it still alright if I keep using your office to continue working on BB-8?”

I nodded. “It would actually be preferable. Most of my patients today are women, and I need privacy for their appointments. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come out, okay?”

Poe understood what I’d only hinted at. “Sure thing. I won’t step a foot out that room without your permission.”

A kind smile formed on his lips, but it fell as he moved from my quarters, leaving me to my breakfast, which now seemed extremely unappetizing.

*

“Well, Kaia, you’ve got a couple of options,” I started. It was my 5th appointment of the day, and I was starting to lose all hope in the young generation that followed mine. “You can get the implant, which lasts 5 years and protects you from pregnancy. But it can be a painful procedure, and unfortunately the implant itself is quite expensive. There are injections which last 3 months, but you’ll have to see me again in that time frame. I know that’s hard for you being from the South village. But there’s always prophylactics, which your partner has to use, every separate time you want to be intimate.”

Kaia was a 17-year-old human girl who had obviously not been taught any helpful sex education. Although, that wasn’t uncommon in these villages.

“But, like,” she began to question. “Can’t he just, like, not, um, finish in there?”

I drew in a deep breath. This wasn’t the first time I’d explained this today. “Technically yes, if he withdraws from you before that moment comes, it does lessen the chance of pregnancy. But Kaia, there’s a lot of fluid already leaking from him before then, fluid that can contain sperm. It doesn’t protect you. Not fully.”

Kaia was thoughtful, taking in my words. “But what if he doesn’t want to use the sheath?”

“Well... that’s his decision. But then you have to make yours. A decision that you’re more than allowed to make. One night could lead to either a future of motherhood or even diseases that could cause a great deal of damage to your body.”

“Ew,” Kaia recoiled. “I mean, I get what you’re saying. But Miss Jago, haven’t you ever been so swept up in the moment that you didn’t think about any of that?”

My jaw clenched, catching me off guard with her question. None of the other women had posed it to me. “It’s not been an issue for me,” I said flatly.

“Because of the birth control, right?” she surmised. “Which one do you use then?”

Oof, caught me out again.

“I don’t have the need for it. Kaia, this is not about me-”

“Wait, what?” she gasped. “But you’re so pretty?”

I soaked my voice in its professional tone. “This is your appointment Kaia, we’re not here to discuss my personal life.”

Kaia refused to comply. “But you’ve done it, right?”

I sighed, irritated. “Yes Kaia, but we took all the necessary precautions.”

“Well that doesn’t make it sound very fun,” Kaia huffed.

I tried desperately to hold back the aversion wanting to show on my face. It hadn’t been fun. It was clunky, awkward and somewhat painful. And I felt a spike of envy that this teenager already seemed to have had better experience with the opposite sex than I did.

“Look, your options are there. If I had to choose one, and I was with a partner I could trust had nothing that could spread to me, I’d go with the implant.”

She contemplated my advice, pulling her hands up to let her chin rest on them. “I think you’re right Miss Jago. But my parents would never help me pay for it.”

“That’s alright,” I replied, already knowing the home situation Kaia found herself in. She’d made the trek to my clinic alone, without her parent’s knowledge, just to see me for this single reason. I doubted they even knew she had a boyfriend. “How about I put the implant in today, and we figure out payment later?”

Kaia’s face lit up, eyes brimming with delight. “Really?”

I smiled at her and nodded.

“Thank you!” she squealed, face barely containing her excitement.

Really, this was for both her benefit and my own. I wasn’t about to face her parents when it would ultimately be me providing the news their daughter was pregnant. I didn’t want Kaia to go through that, a young pregnancy in a poor village after her parents would most likely cast her out.

“Remember I said this can be a painful procedure, and you’ll be sore for a day or two afterwards.”

Kaia nodded, understanding, yet unable to hold back her joy.

*

I worked my way through the process of setting her implant, my mind on autopilot while I thought more about the question Kaia innocently queried. I’d never come close to the type of desire that would have caused me to throw away all caution and rational thought. Not until-

“Hey Alex!” I heard from the other side of the curtain I’d drawn for Kaia’s discretion. “I know I said I wouldn’t come out until you said, but I’ve got something I need to show you.”

Poe’s voice was exuberant and proud, annoyingly unaware of the fact I had my hand in a very delicate place. My eyes shot to Kaia’s, her cheeks already flushing red with mortification.

“Poe!” I fumed, not hiding my anger. “I asked you to do one thing!”

I sensed his panic from behind the fabric separating us. “Kriff! Sorry!” His voice changed when he spoke next, a hurried whisper. “BB, come back here! We can’t show her yet!”

A streaming mechanical movement could be heard in my periphery, turning my head to see a shadow moving along the bottom of the curtain. I took the moment to stop what I was doing, covering Kaia with a sheet.

I was thankful I did that when the BB-8 droid slip through a break in the drape, caring little for what Poe had ordered him to do. His little head sat hovering above his balled body, for the first time actually staying in position. The photoreceptor, which looked like a singular eye, was also finally lit as he zoomed closer. While an impressed smirk started to beam as I realised Poe had managed to get his little friend working, it was rapidly overtaken by irritation at the droid’s lack of courtesy.

Poe was cursing under his breath, then apologetic. “Alex and uh, patient, I am so sorry. BB, get out of there!” BB-8 let out a few indiscernible beeps, a language I didn’t understand, although Poe seemed to. “I don’t care! They need privacy. You can see her later!” he hollered.

The droid made what sounded like a high-pitched huff as its head dropped, like it knew it had been scolded. Its head swivelled around on top it’s body and rolled away, again sliding through the break in the curtain.

“Come on, back this way.” I listened to the combination of footsteps and mechanical whirring move back into the hallway, a door eventually clicking closed. Looking apologetically back to Kaia, her face was still stunned at the intrusion.

“I am so sorry. I told him to stay put until my appointments were over. It’s okay if you want to stop for a moment,” I offered, trying to stay as calm as possible.

Kaia blinked purposefully a few times before being able to focus back to me. “No it’s okay. I’m ready.”

I admired her composure, while I remained silently boiling under the surface.

*

“What the hell Poe?” I snarled, barging into my office where Poe sat, seemingly interrupting a conversation he was having with BB-8. I’d clawed my anger into submission for the rest of Kaia’s appointment, but now it was ready to surge outward.

Poe stood, arms held up in surrender. “I know! I’m sorry! I didn’t think, and it was just really bad timing.” BB-8 beeped in what sounded like agreeance, rolling around from behind the office desk into my view.

“It was the worst timing!” I snapped. “That girl was 17, in a very vulnerable position, and you scared the living daylights out of her!”

“I know, and I can’t apologise enough Alex, really!” His face was pleading, brown eyes soft yet desperate. “I was just so excited about BB working again, and I wanted to show you.”

His sincerity disarmed me, my fury sizzling down, suffocated by his apology. I took a slow breath in, eyes closed, reigning it in further. “Please don’t disregard my instructions again,” I grumbled.

He nodded, as did BB-8, and my eyes focused on the droid. He was oddly cute in his appearance, his small beeps already annoyingly adorable. “Hello,” I greeted, all frustration now clean from my voice. “My name is Alexys.” I kneeled down to his eye level and he immediately wheeled directly in front of me, beeping somewhat of his own introduction.

“He said it’s nice to meet you,” Poe clarified, still hesitant at the easy change in my mood.

I looked up at him, curious. “You can understand those sounds he makes?”

“Most of it,” Poe answered. “It’s a form of Binary. Having him with me for so long helped me grow accustomed to the pitch and time changes in his beeps.”

My eyebrows rose, fascinated. “That’s so impressive.” BB-8 squealed in uneven time, his eye looking over to Poe, who almost looked bashful. “What? What did he say?”

He shot BB-8 an irritated look before meeting his eyes to mine. “It’s nothing important. His circuits are still a little fried.”

I wasn’t convinced, but then again I didn’t speak droid. "I'm glad you got him working,” I said earnestly, pleased there hadn’t been any type of casualty from his crash.

Poe sighed, relieved. “Me too. He’s the best co-pilot I’ve ever had.”

BB-8 whistled happily, evidently pleased with the praise, and its sweetness made me smile.

“Alexys?” Vixur suddenly called, his voice echoing down the hall. “Are you back there?”

I left Poe and BB-8 without a word, finding Vixur standing at the hallway entrance, his clothes smeared in dirt and dark grease. “Everything okay?”

Vixur nodded, evidently tired, still an accomplished grin filled his face. “We’re done actually. The comm-tower’s fixed.”

I wanted to smile back, to show my appreciation for his hard work, but it all became too hard to fake anymore.

This was it, the beginning of my goodbye to Poe. He would now be able to contact the Resistance, his friends, and he would soon be gone from my life just as suddenly as he arrived.

I forced the tears back as I hugged Vixur, doing all I could to hide my pain and show some kind of gratitude for the selfless work he had done.

Somehow Vixur sensed the turmoil simmering through me, patting my back softly. He pulled out of our embrace, speaking softly enough so Poe wouldn’t hear. “You needed this done for him, didn’t you?”

I nodded, the sadness hard to contain on my face. Vixur’s own expression was sympathetic as he squeezed my arm reassuringly. I didn’t need to explain anything, he just seemed to know.

“If it’s meant to be, you’ll find each other again.”

I drew in a long breath, furiously smothering the need to cry. I wanted to thank him more, for giving his time to me for little in return, but I couldn’t say the words out of fear the sudden sorrow would overwhelm me if I spoke out loud.

Vixur understood this, giving me a caring smile as he took his leave. “Well, we best be heading back to the village. I’ll see you sometime soon Alex. If I don’t, I wish you luck.”

And he was gone, the clinic door closing behind him, leaving me frozen in dread. A large part of me was reluctant to tell Poe the ‘good news’, but he’d waited long enough for his rescue from this planet.

I didn’t need to turn around to know he’d slinked out of the office to find me stuck where I stood, BB-8’s soft whirring following him.

“The comm-tower is ready, isn’t it?” Poe asked gently.

I forced myself to smile as I turned around, Poe’s expression not showing the relief I would have expected.

“Sure is,” I replied, the hint of quiver in my voice. “You can finally go home.”

I saw Poe’s lip tremble as he too attempted a smile, the disappointment in his eyes more indicative of his actual reaction to my answer.

Neither of us spoke for a long time, BB-8 looking back and forth quizzically, a few unsure beeps finally pierced in Poe’s direction. The sounds knocked us back into reality, as I moved to find the transmitter I’d stashed back into my tech station after determining its redundancy days ago.

The memories felt foreign, like they were from a different age. So little time had changed me so much, making me feel the most unstable and fragile I had felt in so long, on the verge of tipping into an overwhelming pain.

Poe had watched me in silence, unmoving. I eventually shifted the transmitter into his arms, an extremely aged, large box with an array of dusty buttons poking out of the rusted metal.

“It’s old, but it still works,” I insisted in a monotone, the emotion sucked from my voice. Poe only nodded, and gave me one last despairing glance as he turned away, carrying the machine into the study, BB-8 trailing behind him.

When the door closed, I couldn’t hold onto it any longer, the overpowering misery bursting free, its icy presence consuming me in a singular moment, the cold burn stinging as a few tears trickled down my cheeks.

What did I tell you?

The tears came faster at the sound of the voice, it’s condescension only making the suffering more excruciating.

No.

You’re wrong. I’m stronger than this.

I wiped away the errant tears defiantly, pulling myself together at the seams that had broken a few minutes ago, calming my breathing, trying to settle the trembling on inhale.

I’d made it through so much worse, pushed past crushing loneliness, fear and sadness, to make myself more resilient than I was behaving now. And I wasn’t going to let myself be caught in this vortex of emotion any longer.

I will not let this ruin me. 

~

Next Chapter

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[my-writings-and-musings]

hello!! i am really really sorry if this sounds pushy or somethin but, will you ever publicly release that post swearth drabble you made?? i just curious

Today is actually the scheduled day, and on my partner's birthday no less, how fitting! Originally posted to my kofi for early access to supporters, now it's here for everyone!

Synopsis: Swerve and a human reader share a talk when he awakens after Swearth.

You were the first thing he thought about when he woke up, or so he would tell you later. Moments after he'd confessed how it was your touch, your tiny body clinging so tightly to him, that had welcomed him back to the land of the living. Apparently that had been the clue he needed to realize he wasn't dead.

It had been just you and him in the medical bay for hours following the... Swearth Incident, save for brief check ups from Velocity. The crew had given the two of you ample space and alone time once it was confirmed Swerve would soon awaken, both out of respect and to avoid the talk that would doubtless be needed between the two of you. There had been more than one occasion where you'd drifted off in the eternity it had taken for him to completely return to consciousness, your much smaller body protectively clinging to his beneath a blanket some unknown visitor had been kind enough to lay over you.

It seemed silly now, but you'd actually been angry when he'd come to so casually, yawning and rubbing his visor as if he was just waking from a nap. There'd been happiness as well, obviously, but you were still struggling too deeply to pretend everything was okay. Quite frankly, things had never been less okay between the two of you. 

Had you not been able to project down onto his fantasy world, joining the rescue party despite the copious limits of your biology, who was to say you'd have ever seen him awake again? He'd been hiding away in his room for months, dissuading you from visiting him by claiming there was "a huge mess that I'm too lazy to clean up"... Knowing that you weren't sure which hug had last been with his real self hurt more than you were ready to accept.

"Y/N...?"

Anger was briefly swallowed by a tsunami of relief when he sleepily murmured your name, his helm turning to let your face reflect on the newly polished surface of his visor, where your tear slicked expression dissapeared as you hugged him as securely as his broad shoulders allowed. 

"I thought I'd lost you..."

A knot in your throat prevented any further words from tumbling out, but the sobs that started to shake your whole body conveyed your thoughts just as well, sending a surge of hot tears splashing against his chest. Arms thicker than you wrapped gently about your smaller body, as calmly as if he were comforting you after a nightmare. A slight tremble in his grip made you hiccup in despair, your experience with his rather frequent hugs telling you the exhaustion from his still recent brush with death was still weighing him down, as ordinarily he would hold you like a lifeline for even the most casual embrace. Too many terrible things were finally registering as real far too quickly for you to process them all.

"I thought... when they called me into the medical bay..." You lost the tirade you'd been saving up to a storm of long buried grief. The memory of that call would forever haunt you, and now it was so recent the words were still burning in your ears, even though they'd been delivered so carefully... Agony from the sight of a familiar body lying broken on a medical slab made you nauseous, enough that only his increasingly desperate hug kept you grounded enough not to puke. Words poured forth in a cracked whisper, all the fear you'd been holding back for his sake rushing out of you without restraint, and interrupted only by an occasional hiccup or sob. "First Aid said you had days... That we'd been talking to a hologram for months, while you... you..."

The servos holding you tight maneuvered you to look him in the visor, keeping you in a loose hug while he put on what was probably intended to be a reassuring smile, though it failed to convince. "Hey, it was no big deal! Just my old shoulder wound playing up!"

"No big deal?" you repeated incredulously. A full body wince beneath you made it seem as if the words had physically hurt him, and while your heart ached as it always did when he was in pain, your other feelings could no longer be contained. He needed help for the suffering he'd endured in private, but in doing what he'd done you had nearly lost the one you cherished more than anything in the galaxy. You couldn't be expected to just let that go. 

"You nearly died! You were dying for months!" you said, disbelief still strong at the very idea. The bot you'd adored had been dying in secret with no symptoms, making it impossible to truly believe he was okay in this moment either. It seemed as if he might crumble beneath you at the slightest movement, but you kept talking, refusing to be quiet. "No one knew, not even me, that you were wasting away while we thought everything was fine! I didn't know! How many times did you hold me, or tell me you wanted to be together forever, while you..."

Sobs made it impossible to breathe, and therefore impossible to talk. 

"Y/N, I'm sorry..." Swerve said, softer than he'd ever been before. Careful servos pulled in your crying body against his and stroked your shaking shoulders, allowing you to vent everything you'd been enduring. Whether it took moments or hours before you were mostly quiet, he didn't interrupt you for anything, and he was silent until you were and he spoke again. "I never wanted to hurt anyone... I never wanted to hurt you... I... I didn't even know how bad of shape I was in."

"But you knew you were lying." you said, getting back to the core of the problem. Awareness of his condition mattered far less in the face of what he'd known and kept on doing. Though he did flinch yet again, Swerve didn't deflect this point, and instead nodded glumly in agreement. 

"That... yeah, I did."

"To everyone." you emphasized, pushing for an answer in regards to why. Not a single soul on the ship had known what was happening, until it was almost too late. Had Skids not acted so quickly and carried his friend to the medical bay directly... You made a mental note to thank him later, then returned to the present when the minibot in question finally looked ready to really talk. 

Taking more than a few starting vents, he finally got his thoughts gathered and his nerves primed, but every single word was unnaturally heavy. "It... it really didn't seem like a big deal. You were the only one who ever wanted to see me, in my own place, but it felt like I was doing you a favor..." Swallowing hard, he managed something like a smile and tried to sound reassuring, even if only to himself. "We still got to talk and everything else!"

There was too much to sort through in his partial explanation, thus you only stared. You'd always known he had issues when it came to self worth, but to hear him say teetering on the edge of death was no big deal? That by ridding you of himself he was doing you a favor? It wasn't something you could really wrap your brain around, but you supposed that wasn't important at the moment, not compared to what still needed to be done. There were more questions to be asked.

"You're hurting, and that's... I know you'd never try to hurt me, but you did. I want you to feel better, and I'll help, but I have to ask..." you said softly, finding the strength only as you came to each individual word to continue. Swerve showed in his braced expression that he anticipated something heavy was coming, a question he really didn't want to answer, but he didn't do anything to stop you.

"Y/N..."

Trying not to cry but still hiccuping, you forced yourself to keep looking in his visor. This wasn't supposed to be easy, after all, you repeated in your head as you finally croaked out the question. "Did you think about me at all? What this would do to me? Did you really think I wouldn't care?"

Something within him, something physical, seemed to break quickly and painfully. You felt it in how he flinched his much larger body as you lay curled over him. The unique way his visor light sputtered when he was hit with deep emotion told you he was reeling, and in that moment you forgot all about the complexities of the situation.

"I... I didn't-" he choked out on a sob, vents pulling air back and forth quickly in the Cybertronian equivalent of breathless crying. Heart breaking, you registered in some deep part of your brain that a dam he'd been relying on had just cracked.  Embracing his helm against your chest, you gently stroked his cheek, whispering his nickname to try and convey your support.

"Swervy..."

Clipped by sobs, his words tumbled out mostly coherently, and you held him as they did. "I r-really thought you could... could do better. I'm just h-holding you back and... and if I wasn't there... but I couldn't make myself stop seeing you!" A few hard sobs stopped him for a good minute, at which point your shirt began to dampen with his tears. What you were hearing had been simmering for ages, and as much as it hurt to hear, you knew just letting it out was progress. That didn't make it any easier to listen as he continued... 

"The holo... it was s-slow and made it like... like I was saving us both from hurt by slipping away. I didn't have to end things, we could pull back bit by bit and then... then you'd find someone better... but I didn't pull back at all, did I? I even made a second you, because I'm too selfish-"

You couldn't let him finish that thought. "Stop. No more of that."

Swerve looked surprised at your firmness, and admittedly had reason to feel as such. Swearth had included a holomatter of you already, albeit one that lived completely separate from his split personas... It had been you in the simplest, happiest of ways, living your dream life on his fictional escape from reality. Clearly he expected you to still be furious at what had only made you sad.

"B-but I ruined everyt-thing! If I'd just been brave enough to break up with you before-" 

"I don't want you to break up with me!" you cried, lifting your upper body to look down at him. Emotions raged inside you with enough ferocity to make you tremble, and for an instant you had to gather yourself. You'd known he was suffering, that he struggled with inadequacy, but for it to have gotten so bad? How had you not known he felt like this? 

Swerve looked absolutely baffled at your words, as if he'd heard you wrong or misunderstood. "But... I-"

"I love you! Even if there's some voice in your head that won't let you believe it, it's true! I want to be with you, and even after all this I still do!" you insisted, holding onto him as if he might vanish in a flash like before. Unable to stop yourself from crying at the raw emotions you didn't have the ability to handle, you wiped away the tears on the back of your arm, fighting to keep talking despite the pain. He had to know how you really felt, and if this moment was the only one you could break through to him you were going to use it. His cheeks were hot in your hands as you cupped his face. "I just need you to work on getting better! No more hiding, or lying, or any of that, I want you to be with me as you, because that's who I fell in love with!"

Swerve was totally silent, his little dentae gap showing between his slightly parted lips as he stared at you. His feelings were beyond guessing, but you were growing exhausted, too much to even hope you could keep this up. Sniffling, you laid back down over him. The frame beneath you was warm and alive, but just that morning it had been... he'd been so close to leaving you. Then again, he'd felt fine all the times you'd held him in the prior months, how did you know this was any different?

"I want to be with you. The real you. I don't know how to be sure this you is real either..." 

Exhaustion dragged you down against him, and you lost the ability to even lift your head as it all seemed to sink in. You hadn't wanted to make this about yourself, but your pain was just too intense to shove aside. Tears, more than you knew you had, continued to fall onto his chest. As they dripped onto the newly cleaned armor, you felt him suddenly shift beneath you. Curling up partway, he scooped you up completely in his arms and hugged you close.

"It's me this time, babe. A hundred percent. I k-know it's hard to believe that, but I... I want to help you trust me." he said, shaky but firm as he made his promise. For all the hours you'd spent listening to him you'd never once heard him use such a tone. There was conviction in the depths of his visor as he held you close, tapping his forehead against your forehelm. While you could also see pain, there was a desire to fight it now. His request for help came on a quiet murmur. "I don't know how to do that, but I don't wanna hurt anymore..."

"I can help with that. Not all by myself, but I'll be here for you as long as you try." you vowed, stumbling over your words as you found them. There was a strange solace in the idea, as if planning your recovery together was healing in and of itself. Too relieved to care, you pressed your face into his cheek. The faintest hint of his usual scent; sweet energon blends and brews, was still apparent beneath the sterile medical air. It soothed you as you allowed yourself to rest on top of him. "From now on, no more hiding this stuff. We're gonna get you feeling better, I promise."

"I love you..." Swerve whispered, hopefully but tentatively. A lifetime of doubt wouldn't just dissapear after one massive event, you knew that, but the start was good enough for you. Kissing his tear stained cheek, you held him close, hoping your unconditional love was clear in every word. It would be a journey, but you hoped someday he'd understand how much you meant it.

"I love you too, Swervey. Always will."

#transformers #maccadam #mtmte #more than meets the eye #lost light imagine #lostlight #lost light #idw #tf #ll #my writing #swerve x reader #swerve #swearth #kofi

[yoditorian]

lacuna- part 8

din/reader

SURPRISE DROP!!!!! there’s only one more part left after this can you bELIEVE???? i’ll leave the emotional spiel until then and for now i’ll just apologise for the pain you’re about to go through in such a short amount of time💛

series masterlist // main masterlist

word count: 2.3k

warnings: angst angst angst, some swears, no seriously this is just pain they don’t even bang, a confession

“Have you ever removed your helmet?”

“No.”

“Has it ever been removed by others?”

“Never.”

He’s lying.

Din has always been so careful with his words. Lying makes his voice tremble, it always has done. So he is careful, he never says more than he needs to, thinks on the phrasing of the promises he makes. He has only outright lied once in his adult life, to you. To protect you. Maybe that’s what keeps him steady now. Even with a blade at his throat and half the covert watching on. He does not falter.

You’d think they would make engine parts easier to clean. 

You’re perched on a crate in the hangar at your old work station, legs crossed beneath you, as you scrub away at the dull metal of the second-hand hyperdrive motivator that some vendor in a backwater scrapyard had, frankly, swindled you for. The stupid thing isn’t worth the credits you’d paid for it, but it’s still a hell of a lot more useful than the one that sits completely dead in the transport’s engine. But this was your decision, and you have to live with it.

What’s the alternative? Spend the rest of your life working your way around the galaxy, flying for whoever’s paying? Settling down in the little house on the edge of the Damerons’ farm? Going back to the New Republic? None of your options sound appealing enough to move on. You know this place, you know how it works. That’s enough.

“Wasn’t just me who stuck around either,” Ran’s voice pulls you from a particularly stubborn lump of grease, “You remember this one?”

Your heart leaps into your throat, when he’d told you he was expecting company you’d assumed it was another one of his contacts. A black market buyer or seller, they usually are. Not him. You were expecting anybody but Din.

His armour shines under the lights, sparks reflecting off the unpainted beskar. It’s beautiful. But your stomach lurches at how new it is, that his old armour had somehow gotten damaged enough that he needed an entirely new set. Except one of his thigh plates, dented to hell and back but still usable. There’s something of the man you know, the man you thought you knew, under all that.

The way Ran talks about you like you’re not even there is enough to calm you. He has no idea about your history with Din. Good, one less thing he can hold over your head. It’s far from the most dangerous situation you’ve ever been in, but you’re not about to let your guard down. Not with the team you know is heading out alongside him. Although nobody’s told you where they’re heading off to, which alone is enough to confirm that you wouldn’t approve of whatever it is. 

You’re grateful you’d tucked your old blanket into a drawer in your workstation, the hangar gets cold. Especially when the Crest returns and brings the chill of hyperspace with it. The knit of it loose with age now, but it’s the last of your life before. The last remnant of a time when you thought you knew who you were. 

You don’t expect Qin to be the prisoner they’d gone to break out. Although, now that you look back, who else could it have been? Who else did enough people on the station give enough of a shit about to warrant sending a team after? The old team, specifically.

Nobody follows him out. 

You’re moving towards the ship before you’re even really aware of yourself. Qin looks surprised to see you, but you bypass a greeting to glance into the Crest’s hull. Empty. Did no one make it out? Did Din-

He’s there, suddenly, walking down the ramp and catching the pouch of credits that Ran tosses him. You try to cover your sigh of relief with a cough, but you’re not sure how successful you are. 

“Something the droid said, about the hyperdrive. Could you come take a look?” Din turns to face you, and for a second it’s like neither of you left the station. You’re rocketed right back to before everything as you nod and pull the blanket tighter around your shoulders. You don’t quite catch what Qin says when you disappear into the hull and unlatch the access panel, you’re not sure you really want to know, but you don’t miss the hatch closing up behind you.

“Mando?”

If Din hears you, he ignores your question, and the rumble of the engines lifting off almost takes you off your feet. You hurry to latch the access panel back up and wait until the ship steadies to shoot up the ladder and confront him. 

Stars. Stars and three X-Wings dropping out of lightspeed right ahead of you.

Oh.

“Tracking beacon. They wouldn’t have let me leave alive.” So he did hear you. 

He’s saved you. He risked precious seconds, ones he didn’t really have, just to make sure he got you out before the fighters got there. Something twinges in your chest when you think about your A-Wing sitting in the corner of the hangar, abandoned without a second thought and now blown to pieces. Suddenly your blanket feels a lot heavier around your shoulders. 

You go to sink into a passenger seat, before you notice a pair of big brown eyes staring up at you. A child, not like any species you’ve seen before, but a child nonetheless.

“Who’s this?” You hate the way your voice comes out all squeaky, like you’re afraid of the answer. You are, there’s no doubt about that. But you don’t need either of them to know that.

“He’s a friend.” 

There’s more to it than that, obviously, but you’re satisfied. One of your best friends is a six year old after all. 

The child chirps as you take the other passenger seat, holding out a little metal ball in his three fingers. He waves it around, desperate to show it to you. It’s the knob from the landing gear shift. You’d know it anywhere, you were the one to screw it in the first time. Now that you glance out at the console, there’s not anything that’s changed about it at all. Even your A-Wing, in all it’s years of service, had had bits and pieces pulled out and replaced, and that had been brand new when you got it. So why hasn’t the Razor Crest?

“What were you doing back there?” He asks, and you’ve half a mind to tell him it’s none of his business. But you’re tired, and he’s using that soft tone that you only ever hear in the dark. You’re powerless against it.

“I went back after the war. It’s good money,” You frown, “It was, anyway.”

“You’ve been there since then?”

“Everybody belongs somewhere, Mando.” You don’t spit the nickname the way you might have wanted to in the past, but he recoils like you do.

But you don’t belong there, you never did. No, you belong in that little room at the inn in Mos Espa. You belong in the sky in a starfighter. You belong in some busy Yavin marketplace chatting with your friend, with the kid on your hip and Din by your side. You belong wherever you want to, he knows that’s not Ran’s station. And Din? He belongs with you. But it’s too late now.

He punches in the nav code for Yavin IV without even needing to ask where you want to go. It stabs the knife a little deeper, the way he knows you so well. The way he always has. 

The child scrambles off of his seat and toddles over to yours, determined to pull himself up onto your lap by your bootlaces. Din doesn’t tell you not to let him up, so you haul the little green thing up and settle him on your thighs.

“Hi.” You introduce yourself, although it feels a little silly. You’re not sure how much he understands but he chirps in place of a reply before he gets distracted by the blanket around your shoulders. His little claws disappear into the wool and he drops his ball, utterly fascinated. You catch the discarded ball with your foot before it can roll too far and snap it up with your free hand. Din’s relieved you’re preoccupied with the little one, at least you don’t notice him staring. 

“Is there a-?” The child snores softly in your lap, buried in the blanket he’d pulled off of you and wrapped himself in. You don’t mind. It should be used to comfort a kid again, the same way it’s provided for you all these years. Letting this baby borrow it is the least you can do for him. The kid has a history, if the way he twitches in his sleep is any indication, and you’re not about to deny him something he might never have had. 

“In the hull, I’ll take him. You take the wheel?” Din easily, naturally, takes the child from you as you slide into the pilot’s seat. You don’t expect the easy domesticity to hurt quite so much. It feels like the galaxy is taunting you, forcing you to live a moment of a life you always knew you’d never get to have. You let yourself heave a shaky sigh when you hear Din’s feet hit the floor of the hull. 

It’s been a long, long time since you sat in control of the Razor Crest, but it’s just as familiar as the day you told him to take it. You flick the autopilot switch off. Any idiot can fly in hyperspace, all you need to do is keep the ship straight, but you need to feel the controls under your hands. Anything to distract from the gaping hole in your chest.

Din doesn’t ask to swap back when he returns. He only settles in your abandoned seat, and you can feel his eyes heavy on your back. If he has anything to say, he keeps it to himself.

You hope he doesn’t notice how the house is exactly the same as when he was last here, when you were last here. There’s a fine layer of dust that’s settled over the furniture but two sets of footprints, one about your size and another smaller set, lead to the fridge. Several new drawings have been stuck up among the others. You might cry if you were in different company. 

“Will he be alright?” You ask. Din had elected to leave the baby sleeping on the ship, as you’d touched down in a disused field across the track. He nods, trailing a gloved finger through the dust on the table. 

“Will you?”

He’s not expecting that. But maybe he should have. You’ve never not been worried about him, not since the first time you let him touch you, but it takes him out at the knees every time. Even when he’s pushed you away, even when you’ve been suffering yourself, you have always opened your arms to him. He doesn’t deserve it. 

“You could,” The words almost get stuck in your throat, but you know you’ll regret it if he leaves before you ask, “Stay.”

Din reels back. He can’t. You know he can’t, but you asked anyway. It’s enough to make his blood boil. He’s not angry with you, he never is, it’s his fault he can’t say yes. That’s all he wants. To stay.

“There’s schools, and other kids. You’d both have protection here. You’d be safe.”

The sun starts to disappear behind Yavin, plunging the kitchen into a red glow the way it did last time, but there’s none of the peace it brought before. It glints off his armour as the hope in your eyes starts to die. 

“I love you.”

How can the words he’s always wanted to hear make him so angry?

“Please! Every time I think I’m over you, you come back and turn everything upside down again. Please just give me something.” You can’t hold back anymore. You can’t stand here and pour your heart and soul out to a man who says nothing.

“You already have far too much of me!” He’s never raised his voice at you before, that alone stuns you speechless. So you just stare, chest heaving, waiting for anything to break the tension. And Din does another thing he never has with you, he fills the silence. 

“You have my name. You have my creed. I have nothing left to give you.” 

He leaves without another word, for the last time, and you can’t help but heave a choking sob before he’s even shut the door. His absence is everywhere.

He hurts.

Hurts like nothing’s ever hurt before in his life. Walking away from you, disappearing out of the door and knowing it’s the last time. You won’t let him back in after this. 

He can’t get back to the Crest fast enough.

Din practically falls through the side entrance of the hull, ripping his armour off before the door’s even fully closed. His guts twist and his lungs burn and he wrenches his helmet off, sends it scattering into a corner. He’ll find it later. Right now he needs to find the hole he knows is burned into his flight suit. A blaster bolt, a stab wound- something. But he only finds old scars and skin where your touch still lingers. 

No smoking hole in his side. No blood or wound. Just the absence of something important in his chest. An unfilled space. A gap between his ribs, something missing. He knows what it is.

His veins are somehow filled with fire and empty at the same time, knowing that would be the last time. The last time he gets to see you. And even though the hatred was so clear on your face, even though you were merciless in the words you hurled at him, he still thought you were beautiful. He’ll always think you’re beautiful, no matter how angry you are. 

Because he loves you. And now it’s too fucking late.

-

TAGLIST (add yourself here):

@brothersdrxke @rebloogggs @keeper0fthestars @remmysbounty @sirianisrock @thevoiceinyourheadx @firstofficerwiggles @1800-fight-me @ew-erin @chatterbean​ 

#i wanna say i'm sorry but i'm not #lacuna #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #star wars #fic #liz does words #sfw

[theoriginalladya]

Destiny's Fate (Update) (main story)

Destiny’s Fate is the main story in my ShepShep world.John and Jane Shepard have known one another since they were fifteen years old. Through thick and thin they’ve been friend, lover, and spouse to one another. Destiny has a grand plan for them.

Until Jane dies over Alchera and John finally finds a way to live again. When they meet up again on Horizon, both their worlds are shattered. Harsh words and bitterness ensue, as does a divorce, leaving them on a different sort of battlefield. A personal one.

But Destiny’s grand plan cannot be changed, and as the promised Reaper attack gets underway, they are brought together once more to face the greatest threat all civilization in the galaxy has ever known. Can they set aside their differences enough to partner up and defeat the common enemy? Or will their own personal battles defeat them in the process?

Summary: Once united in all things, Destiny has guided John and Jane Shepard to separate, divergent paths; however, both know the future holds a far greater threat than the rest of the galaxy is willing to acknowledge. Can they join together one last time to complete the mission they started together, or will Fate deal them a final losing hand …

Tags: marriage, divorce, strained relationships, angst, pregnancy (past), loss of pregnancy (past), emotional hurt/comfort, death, descrption of battle, biotics, injury

Chapter: Kettle of Fish

Word Count: approximately 3400

Excerpt:

While Jane is in with Thane, Kaidan remains out in the waiting area with John and Ashley. He doesn’t speak much, except to offer to find more coffee or food, and it is during one such run sometime later as he is heading through the halls that he discovers Jane standing outside of a room, leaning against the wall, her head resting on crossed forearms. Without hesitation, he heads over and slides an arm around her shoulders. “Are you alright?”

Beneath his touch, he feels her body tremble. Eventually, she moves her head back and forth. “Thane’s gone, Kaidan,” she rasps, pain in every word. “They couldn’t… he couldn’t…”

Kaidan gently turns her, guiding her into his arms. “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs near her ear. “I know he was a good friend.”

She sniffles and he feels dampness at his neck, no doubt tears, and for just a moment, she clings to him, her hands tightening around the edges of his armor until he can see her knuckles turn white. After another moment or two, she straightens, swipes her hands over her eyes, and hisses, “Dammit, he should have died peacefully, not like that!”

Without releasing her, Kaidan waits for her to look at him. She’s angry, and it’ll burn for a moment or two, but he knows she’ll eventually look. When she does, he says quietly, “From what you’ve told me about him, I get the impression he preferred to die like this – helping you, feeling like he was helping others. He didn’t strike me as the type who would want to die peacefully in his sleep.”

Jane bites her lip, shakes her head again, clearly wanting to argue the point, but she doesn’t. As much as she might want to fight it, he suspects she knows the truth when she hears it....

~~~

Read on AO3 // Read from Beginning // Read Destiny’s Fate:Downtime// Read Series

Thank you all for reading and your comments! Feel free to drop an ask if you have questions about ShepShep or just want to talk about them! :)

Also, for those interested, I've recreated my ShepShep Playlist over on Spotify. It includes songs I've listened to at various times throughout the writing of the Destiny series, not just this story.

#Destiny's Fate #ladya writes #ShepShep #Jane Shepard #John Shepard #Kaidan Alenko #Ashley Williams #Mass Effect Fanfiction #Mass Effect AU fanfiction #Chapter Update

[vocalyunho]

Why’d you only call me when you’re high?

pairing — San x reader (fem)

genre — angst, smut

word count — 2.8k

warnings — mentions of alcohol, oral, fingering, spanking, choking (not really), explicit unprotected sex.

synopsis — San’s on your doorstep again, high and needy, like every other time. You can’t bring yourself to say no to him though, not when your emotions for him are this strong.

A/N: AM’s “Why’d you only call me when you’re high?” was the inspiration of this.

“are you up?”

San’s text got followed by one more shot that made his throat feel like he’d breathe out fire in the form of bright blue flames. He tried to walk to the bathroom and once he reached it, his already blurry vision got blurrier, as he held himself up by holding on the sink. The clean mirror in front of him, that reflected his -not so good- state, told him it was about time he left but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. Not with his mind on how you weren’t there with him, by his side, and he knew, very well, he shouldn’t want you there.

All his calls to you went unanswered and all his texts got overlooked with one single text that said it all “why’d you only call me when you’re high, San?”. He couldn’t bring his mind to logically answer to that, not because he wasn’t sober -even when he was he couldn’t answer to that- but because there was no answer to his liking that could explain that.

Exiting the -God knows what type of- place he was in, all the streets were empty. The dim yellow lighting from the streetlights was the only thing that helped him walk on the sidewalk and not in the middle of the road. His jacket felt heavier than ever, but the cold breeze of the spring night didn’t let him take it off. He walked slowly, his mind going dizzier by the bright lights of the ‘twenty four hours open’ little shops that were there for people who were out for the night, like him.

He walked past one of them and, turning his head to the right, he thought he saw you in there. His eyes widened but after a while, your -almost too real form- vanished proving him that this was just his mind playing tricks at 3:30AM. San shook his head in an attempt to make it see things as they were but as he kept walking, he passed in front of a dark alley in which two dudes were smoking something illegal, probably. His heart skipped two or three beats when he thought he saw you there again. This time though, he wasn’t so naïve. He shook his head harder and when he opened his eyes again, he was sure you weren’t there. His legs continued walking on their own. The sounds of the meager cars passing by him, echoed in his ears making his head throb at the too much noise pollution. He thought he saw you everywhere…

He didn’t have a final destination when he left the bar, he walked and walked but when he reached your neighborhood, he felt like he was finally home.

Your bell rang, echoing in the silent apartment, and you flinched at the unexpected visit at such hour. Your eyes left the tv and, walking to the door, you looked through the peephole before opening it with a heavy heart. And there he was, at your doorstep. Again. His eyes filled with lust and need like every other time but, this time, there was something else there too that you couldn’t figure out. You’re tired, so tired of it, but you can’t bring yourself to refuse to his request…to refuse to him.

“I was so worried”, he said with heavy eyes, his hand against the door frame, holding him up “why didn’t you answer to my calls, I didn’t know if you were okay”

“you need to leave, San”

“let me stay just for the night”

It’s funny how many times you’ve heard that sentence leaving his plump lips and it’s even funnier that you let him stay every time, even though things always end up the same. With you under him and his lips on your hot flesh that feels like it needs him and only him.

…And his lips were on yours in a second, this time too, after the door was shut close. His hands all over your body worshiping the curves sculpted by heaven itself or so he thought. San got rid of his jacket fast, that was now laying on the wooden floor of your small living room and his shoes were here and there as he took them off without glancing at them. He was too busy sucking on your neck, marking it, making it his but at the same time, not his, at all.

Your mind said no, but your heart could only scream yes. You could smell every single drop of alcohol he’s consumed tonight, you could sense every bit of need in his actions and every bit of desire in his breathy moans against your neck, but not a single hint of love.

His body was so close to yours, you could feel every inhale and exhale and he kept coming closer, moving your body backwards until you reached the plum bedroom. He knew your house better than you at this point, but what hurt you the most is that he also knew your body better than you. He’s kissed, marked, licked, explored all of it and you’d lie if you said you didn’t like it. But it hurt.

San reached for the hem of your white t-shirt and only detached his lips from your neck for a second to take it off. Like a starved man, he attacked your lips moaning your name in the process. Before you could think of it, he started unbuttoning his own shirt and once it was completely open, your fingertips moved to his exposed body like they had a mind of their own. You caressed the toned chest and flexed abs up and down the same way your tongue had done millions of times before. He moaned in your mouth and your knees weakened.

Your body was aching both because of need and pain. San always kept coming back to you and the gullible hope in your heart, always thought it was because he wanted you like you wanted him. He needed you like you needed him…with the actual meaning of the word, not just for the animalistic drunk sex you had.

He pushed you on the edge of the bed and slid your pajama pants to your ankles till they were off and thrown somewhere on the floor along with his own. You crawled further up the bed as he got rid of his boxers, like it was the most useless piece of clothing ever. His cock sprung up, red, swollen, needy as always, with pre-cum already leaking from the tip and you knew how this would go but you still stayed there, anticipating for it.

You only needed him to care. You only needed to wake up the next morning and find him next to you on the bed, but it never went like this.

He crawled on top of you and before he could move, you held his wrists tightly. You just wanted to see him for a bit, to know that he was really there, to let him know that this means more than he thinks to you…and he stayed. He stayed staring at you and you felt like this was the first time he’s ever looked in your eyes. You always thought his face was a masterpiece, a painting in a museum where all other works of art would be jealous of the beauty it held. His lips were always red and plump, his nose high and elegant like a Greek god’s and his eyes…these were your favorite. They held the entire sky and all of galaxy’s stars, no matter how corny that sounds.

“I don’t have a condom”, he broke the silence but you expected that from him, he couldn’t keep himself any longer, probably.

“you never do”

“you’re on birth control, right?”

“yeah”

“that’s my baby”

He kissed your temple and you wished he could, for once, mean both the “my” and the kiss.

“you’ll do as I say and you won’t come before a let you?”

“yes”

San was always slightly aggressive when drunk, but especially talkative and very much horny.

He lowered his body until his face was in between your legs and grasping your thighs, he didn’t even dare to take your panties off. The fabric was in between his fingers in a second and when he slid it to the side, he pecked your clit softly. The familiar tingling feeling washed your spine. He ran his tongue along the entirety of your center, collecting some of your silk and once it was down his throat, he pressed his tongue on the bundle of nerves. Your eyes shut close fast and a small moan left your lips, and before you could even get used to his actions, he puckered his lips and sucked hard “o-ohmygod”

You grabbed his hair and your fingers got clumsily tangled in the waves. Your hips backed up asking for more but he only dug his fingers on the soft flesh of your thighs, keeping you down and open for him to do as he wished. The lewd sounds of your silk getting sucked echoed in the silent apartment, driving you crazy and you felt your center burn. San’s eyes were closed until he took one hand away from your thigh to wipe the wetness from your cunt, before pushing two digits in. “holy shit-”

He only moaned at your curse as he synchronized the quick thrusting of his fingers with the lapping of his tongue and you pulled his hair when you felt your climax reaching you “S-San imgonna come”.

“don’t you dare baby”

He took his face away from your cunt and brought it on your level, but the thrusting of his fingers quickened making your eyes roll back and your head pin to the pillow. “let me see that pretty face of yours”, he groaned and pulled your chin down. You couldn’t care less at how he stared you, you only needed to chase after your orgasm even if he told you not to. The sounds from between your legs got squelchier and he bit his bottom lip in an attempt to make his hand keep going. You moaned loudly when your legs started trembling and San pulled his fingers out of you fast.

You whined at the sudden lack of penetration but he straddled you and brought his fingers to your lips, tapping them softly “open up”. You did and he inserted them to the pit, making you gag but as he pulled them slowly backwards you got to taste yourself, moaning both at the taste and the feeling of his fingers in your mouth. San twitched.

“I think you should be a good girl and fall on all fours, mhm?”

He said and took your underwear off as he left your lap. He always loved it doggy and as you held yourself up and turned around, he grabbed your hips bringing them higher than the rest of your body. Your face fell on the mattress and before you could see him from the corner of your eye, a loud smack landed on your ass.

“fuck baby, why so sensitive today?”

The way you backed your hips down made him wonder what changed today. You usually push them higher to earn more but not this time.

“I need you San-”

“you need what?”

“you”

He caressed the reddened flesh before landing another, harder smack on it “you need what?”

“your cock-”

“that’s right”

“inside me, pplease”

He guided himself to your entrance but only nudged it up and down, earning a loud sigh from you.

“San- please”

“I love it when you beg”

“fuck please”

Every pleading felt like music to his ears. He adored it when the walls of your pride fell apart for him, mostly because he knew you weren’t like this in other spectrums of your life. You never begged anyone for anything, but you did beg him because you needed him.

“your pretty begs only get me harder, babygirl”

Your heart clenched at the nickname “please San, let me feel you”

“only because it’s you”

He took his hand off his member and held on your sides as he pushed in slowly, groaning at the tightness around him.

“fuck yes”

It felt more relieving than painful and you sighed loudly at the long-awaited stretch. He went halfway in before drawing his hips back and snapping them forward again. His hands roamed your sides, moving you against his dick slowly and it would feel like lovers making love, if only there was the tiniest hint of love hidden in his actions or words. Sometimes it fooled you, making you feel like there really is something bigger there, something that could grow and even reach the level of love but you were wrong. If love exists in one party, it can never be called proper love…

His thrusts started getting faster and you clutched on the sheets on each side of your body for support. The force of his hips made you bounce against him and every time he drew back and in again, your bodies collided rhythmically.

“shit-”

San’s eyes narrowed as he tried to thrust faster, but he didn’t warn you, and once he bottomed out, a loud cry got mixed with your whimpers. Your knees weakened and you felt like collapsing while San only went faster, shortening his thrusts but hitting deep.

“S-San”

You tried to hold his thigh as your legs spread further without realizing, but he grabbed your knees and brought them up as they should be again. You cried out and pushed your ass up to help him reach deeper but he throbbed and the groan the left him came from deep in his chest.

“d-do you like that?”

“ohmygodd”

He slapped your ass and it hurt more than before but a smile creeped up your lips knowing how you would see his mark on you the next morning, once again. When your hand on his thigh got held, it took you by surprise. Your wrist was in his palm and, in a moment, he brought it up on his lips and kissed it softly contrasting the way his hips treated yours.

“fuck baby, you’re so good”

“San I’m-”

“come for me”, he almost growled and wrapped his hand around your throat to bring you up against his chest. The warmth on your back made you give yourself completely in him. He held you as he wished, he moved you as he wished, he fucked you as he wished…and you could only love it. Your head fell back, on his shoulder and you could see him from a new angle. His jaw was clenched and sweat was already dripping from the side of his face. He looked too good like that.

He saw you staring at him and the exposed flesh of your neck was more than enough to occupy his lips. He kissed on it like when he first came in your apartment tonight, but this time he nibbled and sucked more gently. He wanted to hear all your sounds, to know that he was the one responsible for them. Your eyes rolled on the back of your head when he hit your g-spot and his lips on your neck made it feel like heaven. He twitched and let a deep groan tickle your skin, you felt him trembling…

Cries of his name rolled off your tongue and your walls clenched hard. He held your side tightly with his left hand while the other was still around your throat, holding gently rather than harshly. His thrusts began to slow down and get longer but your mind went dizzier and dizzier. It was like you were drunk on the pain of him not loving you back instead of the bliss he was sending you to. There was no way you could take it anymore, you couldn’t keep bearing this pain, you needed him to be with you on daylight too, not only during the night when he’s drunk and in need of your comfort.

“baby-”

“San…pplease come-”

Your voice was desperate and almost a real cry as your climax got over you and you came around him, trembling and falling forward but he kept you steady. He forced his hips forward, with heavy pants and quivering thighs.

“can I stay afterwards?”, he spoke softly even though he was on the verge too.

“you already are”

“not only till the sun rises”

He kissed your lips and came with a deep groan, painting you like a canvas.

#ateez san #san smut #san angst #choi san #choi san smut #ateez smut #ateez angst #kpop scenarios #kpop fics #kpop smut #san x reader #ateez au #if you haven't yet please listen to 'why'd you only call me when you're high' by the Arctic Monkeys

[corrupt-fvcker]

Good Grief (Din Djarin x fem!Reader)

Good Grief ( Din Djarin x fem!Reader )

Warning: angst!angst!angst!, sweet ‘n fluffy ending

Word Count: 3.3K

Author’s Note: inspired by bastille's song good grief as well as this one sad poem my sister read to me a while ago that i just can't remember the name of. i originally wrote this as a din x ofc but i didn’t like it as much. 

Nothing would ever be the same. His absence like a lost limb; a supposed constant, something you relied on — but now it's missing. He's missing. And it still catches you off guard, making your heart stutter tightly in your chest with the shock of it, sharp like twisting a rusty knife. You are no longer sure of which pain was worse — the piercing shock of what happened or the longing ache of what never will.

You can still hear his voice echoing in the caves of your mind, urging you to take the Child and run. Asking you to leave him behind, granting him his wish of a warrior's death even if that meant leaving you in return.

Perhaps it was selfish, but you had refused to leave him for death. Because Din Djarin was not the Grim Reaper's to take. He was Mando, your Mando. The father of your adopted green child that ate frogs and almost killed Cara with some sort of fucking magic because he thought she was hurting his dad. The Mandalorian that removed his layers of beskar so that you could feel something new, something other than cold cuffs around your wrists and the incessant emptiness that had hollowed out your chest all those years ago. The man that trusted you with his entire life despite your reputation of being dishonest and greedy. Din Djarin, who you loved even though you’re reluctant and too stubborn to ever mutter the three words that always caught in your throat whenever you looked at him.

And you selfishly didn't want to lose him.

You didn't want to feel yourself missing him whenever you heard his favorite song on the radio -- an old tune by some one-hit-wonder that had been popular decades ago. You’d always catch Din tapping his foot to the beat when it played in dingy cantinas despite claiming that he didn't like music because it was just orchestrated excess noise. And maybe that was true with all the other songs in the galaxy, but this one particular song managed to seep through the thick layers of beskar and sneak into Din's ears. But if he left you, you could only grow to hate the song, dreading to hear it because you wouldn't be able to stop yourself from instinctively turning your head to flash a teasing grin where he would've been standing, tapping his foot along. 

But more than you could ever hate a song, you’d hate yourself. For allowing someone to hold such a firm grasp around your heart when you know that they could be ripped away from you at any moment, surely taking your heart along with them. But most of all, you’d hate yourself for not being enough — fast enough to save him, brave enough to give him the final goodbye he wholly deserves.

He had collapsed, lying helplessly on top of a table that only Cara was strong enough to lay him on. You couldn't see the blood but you could smell it, flooding and then suffocating your senses until your head spun and you felt yourself stifling back a sob until a coarse lump lodged in you throat.

"This is the Way," he told you, choking through the phrase as his visor steadily focused on you after you insisted on removing his helmet so that his head wound could be treated. And you could feel a shred of dignity wither and welt as the words left your quivering, chapped lips. You knew just as well as Din what it meant to break such an oath, you knew how deeply Din was devoted to the Creed. Din was a Mandalorian, he was before he met you on Arvala-7 on the vapor farm. When he had met you all that time ago, he had intended to die a Mandalorian and some things just never change.

Your muscles had turned to stone as you stared down at him, your lips parted but no air filling your restricting lungs. You didn't need to remove his helmet to know that he was gazing up at you through the black visor, memorizing every curve, freckle, blush, and blemish of your face because he had the feeling that this was going to be the very last time he would ever have the pleasure of admiring your beauty for a long while.

Tell him, the voice in your mind prodded, tearing through your dazed state.

You blinked, your wide eyes lining with tears that threatened to spill over. A shaky breath hissing through your clenched teeth as you unwillingly cried, salty droplets streaking down your soot and blood dusted cheeks before dropping off the edge of your jaw.

Din's heart tightened. In all the time he's known you, he's never once seen you cry. You shed no tears even when a blaster bolt had hit you directly in your torso, stumbling to the ground and seething with pain. Your eyes were dry from the point the plasma struck you up until Din was spraying a thick layer of bacta over the wound. He had thought it was strange that you had never cried, wondering if you just bottled up your emotions until you are in the privacy of the 'fresher or if you had a weird anti-crying medical condition that you didn’t like to talk about. All Din knew was that he never wanted to see you cry — but now you’re bawling and it was because of him.

Words strangled through thick and heavy sobs, your hands lifting to press against your eyes, rubbing at the tears, and blocking your vision. "What's gonna be left of the world if you're not in it?"

His chest deflates. 

You hear him call your name, though between the thrumming of your heart and the crackling fire surrounding the two of you, his voice sounds distant. 

The cracked leather of his hand startles you as it brushes against the soft skin of your wrist before seizing your trembling hands. His grip is strong and firm, his thumb stroking the lines of your palm as if he was trying to determine your future so he could promise you that you’d be okay. Even though you knew you wouldn't be.

And as you clasp your other hand over his, holding him in place, the painful lump solidifies in your throat and blocks of any words that your mind is desperately trying to push through your paling lips.

"You need to go," Din told you, giving your hand a squeeze that was supposed to be reassuring but only made your chest rack with another pathetic sob.

Now or never.

"Din," you mutter in a broken voice, savoring his name on your tongue like it was your last meal. His helmet tilts slightly, his grasp on your hand tightening as he awaits you to say your goodbye. Because even though you are dreading the three words that you could only ever think quietly in your own mind, Din was praying for them because he wanted so desperately to know. He would've told you if he surely wasn't going to die, it would only be cruel to tell you now.

You swallow thickly, the lump strangling you. You pause, forcing yourself to kriffing breathe before squeezing your eyes shut tightly, focusing on the feeling of his hand.

You choked. "Thank you."

It's like the entire world— the entire universe stops. Halting as Din gives your hand one last final squeeze and nodding because he too would forever be grateful to have stumbled across someone as beautiful as you on Arvala-7. He'd forever be thankful for you for being so easy to love.

And then you left, stumbling through the kicked open grate without daring to turn to look over her shoulder, leaving the only man you could ever love behind in thick clouds of smoke. 

Your mind is broken, all you knew was that you had to get to Cara and Karga.

You’re sprinting faster than you’ve ever in your life, tears streaming down your face as you race through the tunnels. 

Karga and Cara lower their raised weapons when you round the corner of the tunnel, your usual mischievous and calculating eyes bloodshot and burning.

Your heart is pounding in your ears, deafening loud as your footsteps falter and you nearly fall flat on your face if it wasn't for Cara's strong arms that caught you. You’re still sobbing, uncontrollably and you can't fucking hear or see now because the tears are so damn thick and your heartbeat is so loud.

In the distance, hidden in the thick and constant thrumming of your heart, you can hear Cara calling your name. Her voice was fainter than a whisper, despite Cara nearly yelling in your numb face as she shakes your trembling form. But every word Cara spoke slipped through your ears, your thoughts on Din who was now only a memory that would involuntarily fade in time.

He's dead. He's dead. He's dead.

Din and probably the Child. Your weird little family that you had accidentally found was gone. Like it was never there to begin with. Leaving you with nothing but the sweet memories that would surely turn painful.

You didn't know how long you were in Cara's arms, losing all control of your senses and your words. You don’t remember when but you’re suddenly begging Cara to help you, grabbing at the arms that are pulling you into former-shock trooper. Pleading through your tears, asking over and over again like a chanting of a prayer to help you. Save you from this misery and put you in your place. Show you what you need to do because there's nothing else that you want to do.

You’re about to ask Cara to just put a bolt between your eyes — because nothing is worth it if you had to suffer through such emptiness for the rest of your life — when you are yanked from Cara's embrace, too numb to yelp or fight back as two strong arms heave you into a solid chest.

Tears are still streaming down your face unable to care to stop them, not that you could have if you even wanted to. Your mind too hazy to fully understand the blur of it all. Din's arms wrapped around your waist and the Child cradled by IG-11.

Your world had been torn away from you so quickly that when it all snapped back into place you were still stumbling, the sudden shift of everything knocking you over again.

"Cyar'ika?"

You’re suddenly back on the Razor Crest, you’re still in Din's arms but everything else is different. You’re no longer on Nevarro, on another planet that you don’t remember the name of. The Child wasn't in the arms of droid but rather tucked away in his pod sound asleep. Din isn't wearing any armor, not even his helmet, the two of you basked in the safety of darkness as you laid in your shared cramped cot. You’re not crying and you no longer feel the blinding numbness of grief, but rather an aching pull of guilt.

Din calls out to you again, propping himself up on an elbow with a small grunt so that he can tilt your chin to face him. You can't see him in this degree of darkness, and luckily he can't see the look of pain etched in your features.

"What's wrong?" His voice is familiar and solid, grounding.

You don’t answer, not even willing to give him the simplicity of a dismissive "it's nothing."

Din puffs out a small breath through his nose, fanning faintly over your face. You close your eyes, focusing on the comforting warmth that radiates off his bare body like a furnace. You don’t want him to pry because you knows that no good could come from it. You feel too guilty to face him, but yet you are still too cowardly to admit your feelings. You’re not sure that it's rejection that you fear but rather the spoken acknowledgment of your attachment to him. Because once you speak of your love and the words are out in the open, the universe is free to rip your love away from you.

He leans forward, his nose brushing against yours delicately as he rests his forehead atop of yours. The action was stabilizing, pushing your broken pieces together and sealing them back in place. But you felt intoxicatingly lost in his touch, his skin invitingly warm yet you knew that if you allowed herself to touch him you’d completely lose it.

"Kal Viinir'ika," Din coos, running the calloused pad of his thumb along your cheek as his fingers weave through your hair. Blade Runner — a title given to you by mercenaries and bounty hunters because you are fast on your feet and even faster with your swords, but you had never been too fond of it. But then you met Din and he had somehow managed to turn it into a teasing nickname that you grew to adore when it came from his mouth in his native tongue.

His nose grazes your nose before he presses it into your cheek, kissing you purposefully on the corner of your lips. "Please talk to me."

And his words shatter you, breaking you into a million pieces so that you are too far gone to repair. The lump in your throat is firm and strong, scaring you of what your voice might sound like in his ears.

"I'm sorry." It comes out as pathetic as you had expected, barely a whisper and wavering, you aren’t even sure that Din heard you.

Din's eyebrows draw together, lifting his head up and gazing down at you blindly. "For what?"

He doesn't know why you’re practically shaking in your small bed, you had seemed more than fine a few moments ago. You had fallen asleep in the cockpit and Din had somehow managed to carry you down to bed without waking you.

"For being a coward," you replied weakly, your eyes screwed shut to keep yourself from crying. You refused to cry in front of him for a second time.

Din would've laughed if he didn't hear the unadulterated pain and sincerity in your voice.

"What?" Din scoffed, cupping your face in his warm hand. He was confused and a little hurt that you’d even try to speak that way about yourself. "Cyar'ika, what's the meaning of this?"

Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

"I couldn't say goodbye," you murmured, your throat aching as your muscles restrained a sob from racking through your form. Your whole body was shivering, Din's warmth unable to break through your unforgiving emotions bottled in your chest. "You were dying, and I couldn't say it."

And then it clicked, the mixed puzzle of Din's brain coming together in an instant as the words stumbling from your lips. All of it made perfect sense. How you wouldn't look at him in the eyes for days after you’d left Nevarro. The way you would practically hide from him, not wanting to touch him or speak to him, closing yourself off from him to keep yourself safe — maybe to keep both of you safe. He had initially thought you were just pissed at him for some reason that he must've missed, but this, this made sense.

"You're not a coward," Din assures, brushing his fingers through the wisps of hair that framed your face. He can feel your gaze on him, burning through his silhouette like a beam of plasma. He kisses you softly on her cheek, his facial hair prickling your soft skin. "You're the bravest person I know."

You shake your head, ripping his words to shreds. "I couldn't say it."

A heavy breath swells in Din's chest, pressing himself a little closer to your trembling form. "Then tell me now, cyar'ika. I'm here, I'm alive, so tell me now."

Your body stiffens, your muscles tightening at the thought. Why does it have to be so hard?

"I can't."

Din huffs out a chuckle, shaking his head. "Yes, you can, Kal Viinir'ika."

It should've been simple, it was three simple words that carried great weight. You had never spoken them before, the only times they were spoken to you ended with you running off. You didn't do love. Love was dangerous, it would kill you.

"Tell me," Din urges, pressing his lips delicately against yours like he was wary that you might shatter if he applied too much pressure.

Fuck.

It hurt that he was so sweet to you, it hurt to know that you were denying the one thing that he deserved to know.

Din Djarin deserved to know that he was loved unconditionally and completely by you. 

You swallowed thickly, praying that the words don't get caught in your throat because you suddenly feel like you might die if you lose him and never got the chance to tell him.

Din hummed, waiting patiently for you to speak.

You quickly wondered if anyone had ever told him before.

I love you. You think it, questioning if those words were even ones you deserved to speak. Probably not.

Din nudges you softly. "Cyar'ika—"

"I love you."

Your blood runs cold and you feels like the entire universe freezes over, trapping you in this insufferable moment of vulnerability. And you wait for the urge to flee to take you, or for it to instead seize Din, but neither of you move.

"You love me?"

The question hurts a lot more than it should. 

You nod, not knowing whether your voice would work if you tried speaking. Your silence followed by an eternity of nothing except for an uncomfortable tension that makes you beg that Din does something, anything. Tell you to leave, storm out of the room, kriffing shoot her— absolutely anything.

And thank the Maker, he moves. His thumb brushing against your plush bottom lip, applying the smallest amount of pressure before dipping his head forward. His kiss strange, almost out of character, but it sets you on fire nonetheless. It wasn't the first kiss you’ve shared and you prayed that it wouldn't be the last.

His lips are desperate, pouring every flicker of affection and adoration out of his body and into yours, filling you with his love. It's intensely carnal, yet almost too sweet for you to comprehend that it's Din Djarin kissing you.

Then he's pulling away, ripping his lips away from you painfully and sudden, gazing down at you half in a daze as you whimper at the loss of his warmth. You crave his affection.

"Cyar'ika." Not even the darkness can hide Din's grin, his forehead resting atop yours as an airy chuckle shakes through his chest. It's heavenly. You relish in the sound of his rare blissful laughter, wishing to bask in the warmth that fills your chest as it echoes in your ears. And for the first time in your life, you feel nothing but peace.

His deep baritone voice is lifted from a mixture of relief and bliss.

"I love you too."

━ ━ ━ ━

so... this is no edited, hehe... i’ll tryyyyyy to edit tomorrow but i always forget. i originally wrote this in third person but i changed it so there might be some weird sentences. i’ll proof read tomorrow. pinky promise :D

Also, quick PSA, if you ever find that my “reader” isn’t a true reader insert (i mean if i have description about the reader that may not fit everyone), please tell me. i want all of my readers to feel welcomed.

translations: Cyar'ika = darling, beloved, sweetheart Kal Viinir'ika = Blade Runner

#the mandalorian #my writing #corrupt-fvcker #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin #din djarin x reader #pedro pascal #fanfic #fanfiction #star wars #self insert #reader insert #angst #fluff

[auty-ren]

Congrats on 900!!! And Happy Birthday 🥳🥳🥳 I was thinking about a fluffy (maybe smutty if you so chose) Din drabble or hcs where the reader was kidnapped for not giving the child up and Din rescues them. So maybe the aftermath of that, and neither one have admitted their feelings yet but it all comes to a head when they get back to safety. And congrats again 🥰🥰🥰

Word Count: 1.3k

Warnings: canonical violence, trauma, mentions of sex

A/n: Wow I loved this. (Thank you babe💕)

Saved

You finally felt like you could breathe.

Everything seemed to relax at once, the tension in your muscles melting away at the familiar feel of home. You still felt so sick, your stomach turning into a pit from the emptiness that spread inside of you until it felt like your entire being was consumed by it.

You hand was shaking as you touched your face, finally becoming aware of the tears that streamed down your cheeks, their bitterness soured in your mouth like the potent taste of Trandoshan ale. You frantically rubbed then away, trying your best to erase any bad memory that was attached to them. You scrubbed at the skin of your face and neck until all you could feel was the burn left in the wake of your fingertips.

You’re not sure how long you've been alone, the cold air, and the shinning walls of the Razor Crest being your only company.

You had hoped he would've cared more.

It was foolish to think that he didn't, all things considered. He had found you, had rescued you. It had to count for something. You had been alone for what felt like weeks, in that pitiful cell, waiting for the moment they would come for you. Your fate was unknown as they dragged you away kicking and screaming just like every else who sat in the cells beside you.

But he saved you, he had to care a little. He tracked you halfway across the galaxy, and part of you couldn't understand why. There was no logical thinking behind his actions, anyone else would've left you to rot.

Then again, he was different than anyone you had ever met.

He had to care about you, or at least that's what you wanted to be true. He was all you thought of, even as you sat captor to the very people you had been running from, you worried about him. Part of you hoping he had gotten away, that he had taken the kid somewhere safe and they were living happily far from the reaches of anyone.

You'll never forget the way he looked at you. It wasn't something that you could see, but something you had felt. Something that felt so genuine, like the right pieces had finally clicked together, and the space that had been between the two of you dissipated. He had hauled you up off the dirty floor, his grip nearly bruising on your arms. Something had been said between the two of you, but it was foggy, nothing you had spoken or heard could be remembered.

But you remembered how it felt, the relief of seeing him again, you had nearly sobbed. Or maybe you had. He embraced you and it felt so warm, his arms strong as they wrapped around you, carrying you back to the Razor Crest. When the sunlight finally hit your face, you buried your face into the cowl around Din's neck, your eyes stinging from the brightness.

You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to remember exactly how it felt to be held by him, the scent of leather and gunpowder flooding your senses as you melted against him.

If only he was really with you.

He had sealed himself off in the cockpit, leaving you to the drowning silence in the hull of the ship. It felt pointless to try and relive moments that you're sure we're just some product of a hopeful desire that flooded you anytime Mando was around. No matter how much it would hurt later, you'd let yourself have this. You'd let yourself fall asleep to daydreams of him, your heart aching for something that seemed almost impossible to obtain

-

You still think you're dreaming when you wake up. It all felt too warm, a blanket was thrown around your shoulders that was soft to the touch. There was a ghost of touches, warm hands that grazed over your skin, brushing away your hair and rubbing gently at your cheeks. Someone was speaking to you, words that were soft and whispered like it was a secret only the walls of the Razor Crest could carry.

It was dark, a single light over the bench in the engineering bay being the only source of light. You could see Din fiddling with something, even with his back turned you could hear him cursing beneath his breath, sparks flying off his cuirass as he repaired it. You sat up, the rickety cot squeaking beneath you as you shifted your weight. Din turns towards you, sitting up a little straighter, just watching you.

"Are you alright?"

He finally broke the silence, but you couldn't bring yourself to say anything. You stared at your hands as they fell in your lap, your fingers playing with the edge of the blanket you wore.

Is this my blanket?

It felt different, at least you don't think you had seen it before but it became a distant thought. Din caught your attention, he slowly moved from his seat across the room, coming to sit on the edge of your cot.

He only wore his underclothes, a simple black tunic, and trousers. If it weren't for the beskar helmet he almost would look...normal? In all the time you had traveled with him, you don't ever remember him being this exposed. Sometimes it was hard to remember that under the layers of beskar he was just a man.

A man that you were sure you loved more than anything.

And now he was just a hairbreadth away, but you still couldn't bring yourself to do anything about it. You don't know why you said anything, why you felt the need to pour salt into a still fresh wound, but you did. Your voice shaking and weak as you spoke to him.

"Why did you come back for me?"

He was silent, and you regretted every word that fell from your lips. Although you wanted an answer you would give anything to get him to speak again, to have everything go back to the way it was; comfortable but always longing for something more. You wanted to sneak away, to put distance between the two of you before you burst from the tension in the room.

"You're kidding, right?"

He seemed genuine like there was something that baffled him about the situation. You just looked at him, greeted by the familiar darkness of his visor, hoping that in some way you were looking at him. You broke his heart, your eyes puffy and red, lip trembling as you held back whatever storm of emotion had been brewing inside of you.

"Cyar'ika, I-"

He wasn't used to this, being so vulnerable to someone; but he would try, for you. He would do anything for you, and it was time he told you that.

"Cyar'ika, I would tear the galaxy apart to get you back."

A million things were said that night, most of them the results of everything the two of you had pent up, words flowing out like water that drowned you in the most blissful feeling. He was so gentle to you like he was afraid the slightest touch would break you.

You held onto each other, your hands searching and feeling as you tried to make up for lost time, for a time when you both were in denial that you could be something more. You didn't sleep much, too afraid that if you fell asleep it would all turn out to be a dream, another story you concocted to lull yourself to sleep. When the lights finally went out, he kissed you; slow and tender as your mouths molded together. This moment would be burned in your memory, the feeling of him against you, the taste of his lips, the sound of his voice as he whispered into your ear.

"I love you."

Hours passed like this, laying together on your tiny cot. The two of you didn't dare to move, until you heard a faint shriek, signaling you that the baby had woken from his pram in the cockpit. Din peeled himself away from you, promising to return with a kiss to your lips.

You could hear him walking to the upper deck, the faintest sound of a one-sided conversation filtering through the walls, and bringing a soft smile to your face.

There was nowhere you'd rather be.

Got a ‘Sinday’ thot?

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[yeojaa]

( GHOST IN MY BED. )

Sometimes, hating someone is the only thing you can do.

pairing.  jjk x (named) f!reader. 

genre + rating.   rockstar!au.  e2l (exes n enemies!).  general angst.    

tags / warnings.  everything about this is pain.  you can literally spin in a circle and point at somewhere on the page and it’ll be pain.  i’m sorry.

beta reader(s).  @midnighttifa​ (your comments make my days better, @pars-ley​ (you’re so lovely), and @papillonsgf​ (i owe you my life and all my love).  thank you, my dears!  💖

wc.  3k

chapter three.

You’d thought they’d left - all the memories of him.  Packed into cardboard boxes and plastic bins, folded between clothes and bare picture frames.     

You realise now, they’d only been hiding, waiting for his return.  

The smell of your perfume.  His favourite one, strawberry jam and cosy cedar wood.  It calls to moments together, of his face buried into the side of your neck.  Wandering hands and wondrous laughter, warmth crowding everywhere.  The wet of his teeth against your skin as he’d smile.  Springtime and Sunday matinees, fresh picked fruit and messy kisses.  

The mirror in your hallway - the one you’d taken too many photos in front of, that’d you almost broke one drunken stumbling night.  The one he’d loved you breathless in, with a hand at your throat and another on your waist.  Where he’d whisper sweet nothings with eyes only for you.  Where your little piece of paradise was preserved by a pretty iron frame. 

The tee shirt that you’d washed and promised to return but never had, keeping it as a trophy.  A rightful reminder of his love.  How it fits you just right without fitting you at all, comfortable and lazy and effortless.  A mirror image to the one he wears now.  

You find pieces of him scattered everywhere, swept under rugs and tucked within cupboards.  He’s there in the kettle that whistles and the tea that steeps, dipped in the honey pot and hidden behind your curtains.  He’s there in your thoughts, tucked away on the top shelf that you pretend doesn’t exist.  

Even as he sits, still and unimposing on the couch you’d both picked, he’s everywhere.

How is he everywhere?

“Want some help?”  It floats across the space, comfortably as if he’d never left.  It fits easily, familiar and lovely.  You hate it.  You hate how it makes you feel, digging up emotions you’d buried from their rightful place in the ground.  

“I’m fine.”  

A lie.  Lily white and inconsequential, in the grand scheme of things. 

You’re not quite sure why you bother.  Whose feelings were you sparing - his or yours?

“You sure?”  It’s closer than you anticipate, a ghost of a breath over your shoulder.  It sends your mind reeling, feet following in the same fashion as you all but slam into the hard block edge of your counter.  You nearly topple mugs as you go, only avoiding a disastrous mess when hands find you, catch you like that’s what they were made for. 

Jungkook’s an indomitable figure, palms searing heat into every nerve ending beneath his touch.  You can’t help the way you instinctively lean into him.  You love him somewhere deep in your bones, in the stardust that makes up every atom - a moth drawn to his flame. 

But you knew better now.  Fly too close to the sun - you’ll only get burned. 

“Please don’t touch me.”  

It’s you who breaks away first, turned towards the scent of chamomile and lavender.  You can only imagine his expression;  it’ll twist out of shape, crooked like you’ve just kicked him while he’s down.  

You suppose you have, but he’d thrown the first punch.

“Why’d you invite me in if you’re only going to ignore me?”  It hits like a shot to the gut, exactly as it’s meant to.  He isn’t asking for the sake of asking - he’s asking so you’ll cry yourself hoarse and find comfort in his arms.  He’s asking because he knows the answer and he wants you to regret it.  

You know it.  You know this side of him, even if you wish you didn’t.  

Even if you wish he was still the same boy who you’d fallen in love with years ago, full of sunshine and promise.  The one who’d have held you all night, kissed you senseless under the moon and held your hand through the sunrise.  Who’d break his own back bending over, weather a hundred storms for the people he loved. 

It’s a silly wish - a useless one, wasted on shooting stars and broken bones.  

He would never be that boy again.  He’d come too far, changed too much.  You hardly even recognise him now, cut from stone rather than cloth.  A thousand sharp edges you catch your hands on when you foolishly reach for him.  He is an incomplete masterpiece and you’ve never been artistic.  There’s nothing for you here.  

A mug is extended - an unnecessary apology.  An olive branch in the form of your old ritual.  “Please don’t say that.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?  Can’t do or say anything.”  It’s petulant and angry, a riot crowded behind his teeth.  You’re worried what the words might do - how they’ll beat you black and blue. 

“I don’t know what you expected.”  You can’t hide the exasperation, the overwhelming sadness that starts in your heart and branches out into your veins.  It creeps further, presents itself prettily in jewels nestled along your lash line and the tremble of your chin.  You’d cry if you weren’t so tired, every ounce of your effort eaten up by the boy that glares at you now and demands more than you can possibly give.  

He sighs - a long, unbroken sound - and something shifts, snaps into place as if the entire cosmos has aligned to allow this moment.  

He looks like him suddenly, like the version of himself you’d thought long lost.  It’s hidden in the peculiar shape of his mouth, uneven around his frown;  it’s there in the light of his stare, where sunbeams pour past boarded up windows.  It’s there, even where you can’t quite see it, in the corner of his soul and his drifting heart.  He’s always been a wanderer.

But then he moves, retreats back to his seat and to himself.  

He feels farther away than the moon, his silence that of the stars.

You take a careful sip of the liquid that burns through ceramic - anything to distract from the cold hands of memory that claw at your neck.  You turn words over in your hand - test them for clarity and weight, a jeweller inspecting their most prized possessions.   Was there anything you could say that would make this better? That would fix this gaping, Jungkook-shaped silhouette that tore a hole right through you?

You remember how you’d fallen for him, tumbled headlong into love with him - intensely, blindly, wholeheartedly.  It’d been easy then.  You’d dived into depths too shallow, climbed trees too fall;  you hadn’t thought your heart would break, even if every other part of you did. 

You’d thought it’d all be worth it.  

Instead you’re left with alkaline bones calcified under paper-thin skin, parchment sewn together by shaking hands and sodden by saltwater.  It’s hardly a body at all, ripe for the picking and bruising and tearing beneath teeth like knives.  

Can you blame him for how he hurts you when you’d already hurt yourself?

There’s a tang on your tongue.  It pools between seams, dripping misery into your mouth and swallowing the sob that’s formed in a wave.  It crashes against your teeth, stings the pink of your gums with salt;  it rises and crests, engulfing sandy shores you’d once built your home upon.  It comes and comes and you can’t stop it - sound bursting forth like a siren song.

He’s upon you then, utterly defenseless to your call.  He crowds you before he can think twice about it;  a drowning man seeking air.  It’s a pretty metaphor for a pretty boy.  What he doesn’t realise is that he is a galaxy all his own - not a sailor lost at sea but a swirling vortex not fit for human life.  Jungkook contains no oxygen of his own, smothering you in what he calls love and feels more like hell. 

“I’m sorry.”  It disappears into velvet, clinging to silk like electricity.  They spark in your eyes, electrifying your thoughts.  “I’m so fucking sorry, baby.”  

Arms do the opposite of what they’re meant to.  They crush your resolve beneath the weight of them - pry open your insides - and you’re crumbling.  The agony comes in sheets, like September rain.  It streaks down your cheeks and soaks your clothes, sinking beneath your skin until you’re waterlogged. 

“Don’t say that.  Don’t you say that to me.”  

Don’t lie to me, you think.  

He speaks the words he thinks you want to hear, weaving them until they’re a muzzle for your sadness.  “I’m sorry.  I never meant to hurt you.”  As if good intentions make up for the way your heart aches. 

They don’t. .

“Forgive me.  Please.  I need you.” 

Forgive him.  Forgive him?  You don’t even know what you’d forgive him for.  You’re certain there are more skeletons in his closet than in the ground.  Dig one up and another three would rise - some sort of awful hydra’s head born from your nightmares.

“I can’t.”  It claws itself out of your throat and into the air that suffocates, ripping it apart with teeth and nails.  Hands find the collar of his shirt and it isn’t clear whether you’re shoving him away or clinging to him.  You can’t make up your mind, fisting the material between your fingers until the strands might snap.  It feels terribly familiar, like the thing behind your ribs that’s six seconds from tearing.  

You’re pushing and pulling, hitting and halting.  Hauled in a million different directions.  It’s too much.

“What’re you sorry for?”  A fist to his chest, right where your heart lives (or dies, rather).  Your demands are barely coherent, words with no beginning and no end.  “Tell me.  Tell me what you’re sorry for.”  

He could push you away.  It’d be easy, really.  You half expect him to.  He hates being told what to do.

“I’m sorry for hurting you.  I’m sorry for not realising how good I had it.  I’m sorry for forgetting about what we had.  I’m so fucking sorry.”  They’re confessions you’ve heard a hundred times.  Over the phone, through the door, on his knees.  It never changes - a recital he knows intimately well.  “I’m sorry for letting you down.”  

You shouldn’t have expected more.  It would never come - not with him.  Not from him.  He had too much to lose and you’d never be enough.  Nothing in comparison to those thin white lines, those flashing lights, those women. 

You thought you’d known that.  You’d had three long years to learn that.

These apologies aren’t answers;  they’re excuses.

You peer up at him - into those wondrous eyes, so full of light and swirling with constellations - that you don’t think he expects it when you thrust your hand into his chest, past sinew and gristle to find the truth.  It squeezes, incremental, around the organ that you’d once thought beat in time with yours.  Silly girl.  It hardly beats at all.  

“That’s not what you should be sorry for.”  The tears still fall.  They come, relentless, as if his mere presence undoes all your hard work;  they carry your words, pull them off your tongue like white water rapids.  “You should be sorry you’re asking me to forgive you.  You should be sorry you’re putting me through this.”  It’s those same fists, over and over again, as if you might force something more out of him.

“I’m sorry I can’t let you go.”

“Please let me go.”

“I can’t.  I can’t.”  Jungkook cries like his tears might sway the tide.  “Stay with me.  I can’t do this without you.”  It’s a lie - a terrible, poorly-dressed lie - but he speaks it like the truth, like you’re his truth.  

He begs as if he doesn’t remember the harsh sting of reality and how it fits within your story.  He pretends like these chapters haven’t been written together, passages underlined in garish red ink.  He acts oblivious to the mistakes you point out, refusing to read between the lines even when they’re written in. 

Fault lies with him - mostly, wholly - carried in the palm of his hands with small portions - sections of his knuckles - divided up to reflect the ache of your mutual loss. 

He knows that - but knowing something doesn’t mean facing it.  

“I need you, Pumpkin.”  

“You don’t need me.”  Hasn’t needed you in years, far longer than even the last three.  He’d found others to need, others to fill the gaping you-shaped hole he swore was real.  

Women with beguiling eyes and beseeching mouths.  Women whose names you never learnt but whose perfume found a home somewhere along your shelves, whose clothes masqueraded as yours when you’d find a wayward scrap of lace in the back pocket of his jeans.  Women who took your everything - but only because he’d been ripe for the taking.  

I miss you, he’d insisted over those first few weeks.  I can’t wait to come home to you.  Nothing’s the same without you. 

You should’ve known then that someone so used to having it all would never let go so easily.  

In a perfect world, you would’ve fought less, given more - uprooted your whole life to travel across the world with him.  He would’ve stayed at your side, found his vice in the shape of your smile, the beat of your heart.  You would’ve been happy.  Together. 

You wonder - would it have made a difference?  Or would all paths have led to this?  Had you been doomed from the start?  Star-crossed lovers?  

You’d like to think so.  Passing blame helps - softens the pain and drowns out the what-ifs. 

You never had a chance.

He wants to tell you it’s true, that none of them mean anything close to you.  He wants to tell you that you’re the love of his life and that, when he gives this all up - flickers out like a star that’s burned too bright - you’ll be the one he crashes into.  You’ll be the only arms he seeks, his northern star in human form.

But you told him not to lie and you’d insist he was, so he doesn’t. 

He stares at you instead, soft and sad and so desperate he can trace the fractures in your composure as he levels you with that unwavering intensity.  It stutters to life a hundred hummingbird wings;  he can practically hear them buzzing about in your chest.  He thinks they’d burst out of your chest if you weren’t careful, caging them beneath brass.

“I love you,”  he tells you, words so sweet, so tender - a melody he strings together only for your ears.  It warms your cheeks and fizzles quietly in your stomach, melting away the ice that crystallises your heart and turns it cold.  He strips you bare with the admission, hoping to find some sort of acceptance in your eyes.

He forgets that he is not a blameless boy and your body is more than a confessional booth.

You believe it when you say it, half-hearted and defensive.  It would hurt more if it weren’t so wet.  “You don’t love me.” 

“I do.”  What can he do to convince you it’s true?  He thinks he’d do anything if it brought you back to him - where he wants you most - tucked away in his arms and his head and his heart.  “I swear I do.”  

He reaches for you with high hopes.  It’s silly of him, he knows.  You’re lightyears away, tucked among the stars.  It’s where you belong, out of reach and shining bright.  He can’t deny how badly it hurts.  He wants you here, beside him;  he wants it selfishly, as he wants most things.

“You don’t love me, because you don’t hurt the people you love.”  It’s a phrase Jungkook’s heard before.  From your lips, from movie screens, from god knows fucking where.  What a stupid phrase.  He didn’t mean to hurt you.  He didn’t mean a lot of things and didn’t that mean anything?

Each time it comes, it agitates him, stewing his blood to a boil.  It simmers in his veins like witch’s brew, a love potion rotten and ruined - sweet milk gone sour.. 

Was this that - a relationship that had run its course?  A bond past its expiration date?

“I love you,”  he repeats, ever harder.  As if the words might turn to amber, remain forever on the top of his tongue, crystallised and perfect.  It feels like it.  He’s told you enough times, ever since he was fifteen years old - practically an eternity.

“”You don’t.”  It’s your own insistence, biting and cold and yet somehow still a summer’s day.  You weren’t always like this.  He’d driven you to this.  But you were never very good at keeping him out;  warmth always crept in, sunlight streaming through the clouds.  That was the glory of your love.  It was irrefutable.  

Your skin may have thickened but the fire roars on.  

“I love you.  I love you so fucking much.”  He holds you, seeks to burn the truth of his words into your marrow.  Thumbs sweep the point of your chin, right below where he’d like to leave the impression of his mouth.  

There’s a sadness in your eyes - an ocean of melancholy that turns them bitter blue.  “Love is sacrifice.”  You pry each finger from your face, turn knuckles alabaster with your gentle ministrations.  A part of him wishes you’d tear them clean off;  your kindness hurts more than your hate.  “And sacrifice is something you’ll never understand.”

You lead him to leave, just as he’s led you through hell.  You don’t falter when the door of your home swings open, the one in your heart slamming shut in tandem.  

When you tell him to go, he isn’t ready - wants to spend the rest of his life in this place with you - so you guide him out, with a tiny shake of your head and a click of the lock.  He stares at the wood grain when it shuts in his face - memorises the patterns of the home you’d built together.  He stands there longer than he should, setting sun searing upon his shoulders.  He should leave, he knows.  

But you’re his weakness and he doesn’t know whether he loves you or hates you for it.

author note.  this was really meant to just... explore their past a little bit?  so i hope that comes across?  actual plot movement will be forthcoming.  tysm for reading!!!  💜 

tag list.  @jalexad​​​ @aa-ronpa​​ @kookiesbreaky​​ @celestialflamefairy​​ @xjoonchildx​​ @pars-ley​​ @seokjinssi​​ @youwannabelostandnotbefound​​ @patpus​ @dazedjjk​ @koozui​ @jinhitwhore​ @always-wishing-for-rain​

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[glimmerglanger]

Whumptober 2020 - Day 15

Part 15 of the oof!au. (One part left! And it’s really more of an epilogue than a full chapter, so). It’s been a long haul and I have plans for a sequel (and some snippets that might go INTO the sequel). 

General Information: Post Order 66 Vader-Captures-Obi-Wan AU. Eventual happy(ish) ending. Codywan. Past one-sided Vaderwan.

WARNINGS: Past torture, non-con, and mind control. Attempt at suicide and discussions of suicide. Mental and emotional trauma. 

Alt 10. Nightmares

 Cody stiffened down his spine when Rex and Ahsoka came back onboard the Recompense. It should have been good to see one of his brothers again - to see another Jedi - but he hadn’t managed to be happy about it when they showed up. They were just another factor, something he couldn’t control, something he didn’t know how to predict.

And then Ahsoka had told Obi-Wan he should have done a better job saving kriffing Skywalker and--

Cody didn’t even know they were back on the Recompense until they turned around the corner that led to Obi-Wan’s room. It was, technically, morning. Cody’d slept a bit, on his feet. He’d tried, once or twice, to go bunk down, but…

But he never managed to keep his eyes closed very long, worries about Obi-Wan across the ship, in a room by himself, eating away at him if he tried. He could snag a few clicks of sleep leaning against the wall, confident he’d wake up if anything happened.

Usually, it was the sounds Obi-Wan made in his quarters that woke Cody.

He screamed, sometimes, in his sleep.

Rex and Ahsoka woke him, coming down the hall. He blinked to wakefulness, pushing away from the wall, glad he’d stayed close even as Ahsoka’s steps faltered. “Commander,” she said, glancing towards Rex and then back at him. She grimaced, looking miserable before she added, “I’m sorry. I didn’t--I’m just sorry. I wanted to…” she gestured at the door to Obi-Wan’s room. “Apologize.”

“He’s asleep,” Cody said, because Force knew Obi-Wan wasn’t sleeping enough - none of them were sleeping enough - and he wouldn’t interrupt that.

Ahsoka’s expression tensed further, mouth twisting and pressing thin. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, and said, softly, “He’s--not really, it’s…” She clenched and unclenched her hands, and said, raw, “It would be a kindness to wake him. But I - I may be able to help. Let him sleep better.”

Cody’d listened to Obi-Wan wake himself up screaming or - worse, somehow - trying to swallow screams back, for far too long. He swore, under his breath, and said, stepping forward to open the door, “Do it, then.”

Ahsoka didn’t hesitate, sliding into the room, the light flowing in around her. Obi-Wan was tangled in the sheets on his little bunk, jerking, just a little, making sounds too quiet to carry through the door, awful sounds, and--

“Sh,” Ahsoka said, sitting on the edge of the bunk, stretching a hand out, palm over his forehead. “Sh, sh, Master, it’s only a dream.”

Cody stood in the doorway, gripping the frame of it, and shivered down his back, watching Obi-Wan slowly go still, his breathing getting even and deeper, some of the lines around his eyes and mouth easing. His face was wet, catching the light, though his eyes remained closed as he settled.

Ahsoka didn’t make any move to get up off the bed or to take away her hand. She’d closed her eyes as well, expression set with determination. Cody wondered what, exactly, she was doing, but it hardly mattered.

It was helping. He could see it helping, soothing Obi-Wan in a way none of them had been able to accomplish. They’d found assistance. Someone to help, and--and Cody had promised - to himself - that he’d get his brothers and Obi-Wan out. That he’d save them.

He looked at Ahsoka, murmuring soft words with a lilting cadence, and realized that, perhaps, he’d done it. He exhaled shakily, turned on his heel, and walked away. 

# 

Rex waited, for a while, in the doorway to Kenobi’s quarters. He’d never seen Ahsoka soothe someone through a nightmare from this perspective before. He knew she’d done it for him, after - after the world fell apart. He’d woken up more than once to find his head resting against her leg, her palm cool over his forehead, all his nightmares kept away, at least for a few hours.

She had nightmares, too. He soothed them as best he could, without the benefit of the Force.

He lacked the ability to help soothe Kenobi, and he was fairly certain that if he made a move towards the bed he’d end up regretting it. Cody hadn’t been the only one of his brothers lingering around in the hall. They were all watching him, assessingly. He nodded, decided to leave the door open so they could keep an eye on their General, and took a breath.

He couldn’t help with Kenobi’s nightmares, but he’d seen the look on Cody’s face, before he left. It didn’t take more than a question to get a location for Cody’s quarters. Rex braced himself and went to find his brother.

Rex expected Cody’s door to be locked, when he arrived, but it opened at his touch. The space within was lit, revealing the little bunk and Cody, sitting on it, back to the door. Rex bit his tongue, hard, because Cody didn’t even turn to look at him, just...stared forward, blaster in hand and resting on his thigh.

Rex said, softly, “Hey, there.”

“Rex,” Cody said, voice flat and empty. He kept staring forward, even as Rex edged a step into the room, heart slamming against his ribs, blood burning in his veins. Rex had… anticipated something like this, after talking to Cody and the others in the mess.

He could remember, too easily, what had happened after they rescued Bly, after they pulled the chip out of his head, walking into his room the next morning and--and Rex hadn’t managed to get Ahsoka turned away before she saw the wall--

“Thought maybe we could grab some breakfast,” Rex said, with forced lightness. He’d made it far enough in to get a look at Cody’s expression and it was terrible. Blank and fixed, his face streaked with tears.

“You go ahead,” Cody said, and he had his finger curled around the trigger of the blaster, Rex noted, the cold in his gut spreading further. They’d all been trained, indoctrinated, not to draw their blaster unless they planned to shoot something.

“No, I’ll wait for you.” Rex shifted another step closer. He wondered, vaguely, if he could wrestle the blaster away. Cody had always been stronger than him, but Cody didn’t look up to struggling with anyone, at the moment. Then again, he knew better than most how stubborn his brothers could be, when they wanted to do something badly enough.

And he knew that Cody had - had broken that thing in his head, to get his way. He’d obviously lost none of his stubborn drive over the last three years.

Rex took another step, wetted his lips, and said, soft, “Why don’t you give that to me?”

Cody shook his head. He said, “I want you to look after him.”

“Yeah?” Rex edged nearer, close enough that he could grab Cody’s arm, if necessary. He didn’t bother asking who him was. They both knew. Everyone on the ship knew. Kriff, everyone in the galaxy with eyes knew. “You know, he wants you looking after him.”

Cody made a short, sharp sound. He said, “No.”

Rex flexed his fingers in and out, tried to tell himself it was a good sign that Cody was willing to talk to him, that he hadn’t just jerked his arm up and pulled the trigger. He picked his words carefully, wishing he were better at this kind of thing. “He does. Come on. Give it to me, please. Don’t do this to him.”

Cody blinked, for the first time. “I’m doing this for him.”

Rex shuddered, down his back. He wished, for just a click, that Skywalker was still alive, just so Rex could make him pay for what he’d done. “He’s not going to appreciate it,” he said, quiet. “You know that. Ahsoka said he’s already blaming himself for what happened. He’ll blame himself, every day, if you do this. It’ll be more pain. More nightmares.”

Cody’s breath hitched, and Rex could identify a weak spot when he saw one. Kriff, everyone had always known where Cody’s was. Rex touched Cody’s shoulder, soft, and said, “He needs help, handling what happened. The Jedi - they’re like us, not meant to be alone. He needs--”

“Not from me,” Cody snapped back, quickly, more life coming into his voice.

Rex drew in a breath, trying to play this correctly. “Ahsoka says she can tell he--”

“Not from me,” Cody cut in, gritting the words out, each one bitten off, snapped. “I enjoyed it,” he added, gutted. “What I did. To him.”

Rex almost recoiled back, restraining the urge at the last moment. He tried to imagine the possibility of the words being true and found he couldn’t. “No,” he said, firm, “you didn’t.”

Cody looked up at him, finally, his eyes wide and full of bottomless anger and guilt. He snarled, “You weren’t there. I--” 

“You want to do it again, then?” Rex cut in, because they were getting somewhere, dragging Cody out of his head, out of whatever terrible pit he’d fallen into. And because the words needed said, probably. He continued, the words tearing like glass in his throat, even just saying them making his stomach ache with disgust, while Cody stared at him, “You could, you know. He looks like a strong breeze would knock him down. You could walk into his quarters right now and hold him down and--”

The wall caught Rex’s shoulders and the back of his head when Cody surged to his feet and shoved him back, hard. Rex saw stars, terribly aware of the fact that Cody was still holding the blaster, of Cody’s hand, pressed hard against his chest. Cody snarled, eyes blazing, “Don’t you kriffing ever--”

“See?” Rex cut in, ignoring the pain, because getting Cody fully off the ledge he’d thrown himself onto was more important than a headache. Possibly a concussion.“You don’t want to. You never wanted to. Va--Skywalker raped him.” He stared across into Cody’s eyes, and gentled his voice. “Raped you, too, Cody.”

Cody flinched, looking to the side and keeping his hand where it was, terrible strength in him, for all that he was trembling, a bit. “You don’t understand. I--Obi-Wan didn’t--but I--finished--I--”

Rex swallowed, hard, second-hand agony moving through him. He reached up, slowly, and - when Cody didn’t twitch towards shooting him - gripped both of Cody’s shoulders, softly. He said, careful, “You can’t always help the things your body does. No, you can’t, not even - even without the chip. Some things just - just happen. That doesn’t mean you wanted it.” He slid one hand down, towards the blaster in Cody’s hand. “It’s not your fault.”

Cody gritted out, “That’s what Obi-Wan says.”

Rex nodded, reaching the blaster, feeling the tension in Cody’s hand. He was gripping it far too tightly for Rex to just strip it away. He said, gentling, in a way he’d only learned how to be because Ahsoka had needed it, so much, after the war, “Well, he’s right.”

Cody shook his head, sounding hoarse when he said, “He says it’s his fault.”

That was a whole other nightmare, Rex considered. Hopefully one that Ahsoka would be able to help with, because Rex had no idea how to go about addressing it. “And he’s wrong about that.”

“Commander Tano having this conversation with him?” Cody asked, as though picking up the slant of Rex’s thoughts. It felt odd, to hear him call her by her rank, after so long without them, but Rex got the feeling they were all hanging onto the scraps of structure they had left behind, trying to keep the world held together, desperately.

And so he offered no correction, only said, “She might be. But she’s not the one he needs to hear it from. He’s not going to believe her.”

Cody grimaced. Rex got an up-close look at the expression. “Rex--”

“We all know how he feels about you,” Rex interrupted, because he could see chinks in the armor, and because he thought his heart might break through his ribs if he didn’t get the blaster away from Cody sooner rather than later. He felt Cody freeze, sucking in a breath and holding it. “It never was a secret.”

“He doesn’t anymore,” Cody said, voice broken, and Rex ached for him. “He can’t. Not after what I did.”

“Ahsoka says otherwise,” Rex said, a lie, because he and Ahsoka hadn’t discussed...that. But Rex didn’t need Jedi intel to see the truth of it. He’d watched the way Kenobi looked at Cody, yearning, full of hurt and the barest glimmers of hope, all at once, when they were around one another, yesterday. He’d seen Kenobi reach towards Cody, multiple times, only to draw back.

Cody dropped his head, gritting out, “Don’t.”

Rex pressed his advantage, such as it was. “Why is that so hard for you to believe? You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?” 

Cody flinched back, away from him. “That’s not--”

Rex followed, focus split between Cody’s curved shoulders and the blaster, insisting, “Aren’t you?” Cody let out a terrible sound, not much of a reply, and Rex continued, testing each word, “Kriff, you broke your brain to help him. You killed Skywalker for him. Are you really going to let him suffer now because you want to take all the blame for something that wasn’t your fault?”

Cody looked up at him, slowly, eyes shining, face streaked with tears. Rex reached out towards the blaster. “They made us tools. They tried to kill us. They - they abused you and tortured you. You and him. But you lived. He lived. Because you had each other. You beat them, Cody, because you had him and he had you. Don’t let them win, now. Please.”

He restrained a relieved cry when Cody’s fingers loosened around the blaster. Rex stripped it from his hand, ejected the clip, threw the clip to the side, and then sagged back, breathing raggedly as he leaned against the wall, pulse pounding against his skin.

“Kriffing hell,” he said, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth, adrenaline still burning him up. He hadn’t been sure how things were going to play out, hadn’t been fully confident that Cody was going to hand over the blaster without a fight. He drew in a deep breath and reached out, curling an arm around Cody’s shoulder and pulling him in.

“You scared the fuck out of me,” he said, Cody going stiff for just a moment before he slumped. “But it’s alright,” Rex said, because he’d come back from the chip. They’d all taken the first step to coming back, and Rex could help them travel the rest of the way. He wasn’t going to lose any more of his brothers. Not if he could help it. He tipped his head against Cody’s, and said, “We’re going to get through this.”

And standing there, just for a few moments, he tried not to think about the fact that everyone else on the Recompense probably needed to hear the same thing. Well. He’d be there to tell them. As many times as they needed to hear it.

He hoped, though, that Ahsoka managed to help General Kenobi. It would probably come across better, coming from him.

“I don’t know what to do,” Cody said, voice all emptied out, shredded, and Rex wasn’t sure that he’d ever expected to hear Cody admit that. Not even at the end of the war, when they’d both been tattered and shredded by constant loss. 

Cody had always known what to do.

Rex shuddered. He said, “Well, sleeping would be a good start. When was the last time you did that?”

Cody shook his head, which wasn’t an answer, and said, “I need to go make sure Obi-Wan is alright.”

“He’s fine,” Rex said, relieved, in a way, that Cody had switched tracks back to worrying about Kenobi. It meant he was another step further away from going for a blaster. He doubted the fixation was strictly healthy, but… “Ahsoka is looking after him.” But Cody was already pulling away, expression drawn and tense, and Rex had learned to pick his battles long ago.

He followed Cody back through the halls. They weren’t, he noticed, very far at all from Kenobi’s rooms. The door was still open. A half-dozen of their brothers were lingering around, without making any pretense for their presence, just… keeping an eye on things.

Rex nodded at them as Cody stepped up to the door, peering in. 

Obi-Wan slept still, rolled onto his side, and he looked more like himself asleep, some of the lines erased from his face. Ahsoka sat on the side of the bed, her elbows on her knees and her head hanging down, turned to one side.

She looked up at their shadows in the doorway, her face streaked with tears, and Rex didn’t need to ask what she’d seen in the dreams. He could guess. “He’ll sleep for at least half a day,” she said, her voice raspy, when Cody drifted a step into the room, moving like a sleepwalker. 

“There won’t be nightmares?” Cody asked, voice quiet as well. He started to reach out, towards Obi-Wan’s shoulder, and caught himself, drawing back.

Ahsoka cleared her throat. “Shouldn’t be,” she said, scrubbing at her cheeks. She stood, curling an arm around her chest, looking smaller, all at once. Cody nodded and then, without another word, sank down to sit beside the bed, shoulders pressing against the mattress. “Oh,” she said, “you don’t have to--”

“Just in case,” he said, drawing a knee up, arm resting across it.

Ahsoka opened her mouth, and Rex reached out, curling fingers around her elbow, squeezing pointedly when she looked over at him. “Of course,” she said, after a moment, and reached her hand out, carefully, fingertips brushing across Cody’s brow.

Rex watched him frown, just for a moment, but he was most of the way to asleep already. It barely took a nudge to send him the rest of the way down, his head dropping back against the mattress, his eyes falling closed.

“Get some rest,” Rex said, quietly, tugging Ahsoka a step back. He promised Cody’s sleeping form, “We’ll look after them.”

#

Nightmares had plagued Cody for as long as he could remember. Even before the chips, he’d had ill dreams. Most of his brothers had, he knew. Dreams of battle and blood and death. Dreams where they turned on their Jedi and executed them, calm and sure and--

Cody had always had nightmares.

They’d just gotten worse, lately. He hadn’t slept much, since Mustafar. When he had, memories and twisted horrors moved through his mind. He dreamed of Obi-Wan, hunched in a corner, bloody and--

And he woke up with a jerk, in a room that felt strange, his heart threatening to rip apart in his chest. There was a hand on his shoulder, familiar, Obi-Wan saying, “--up, Cody--”

For a moment, the dream and the waking world blended all together, disjointed and confusing. In the dream, he’d been unable to control himself, but he could move his body again, abruptly, the way he wanted to, and Obi-Wan was right there, crouching beside him, radiating concern, and--

There was no thought to Cody grabbing him, his nerves all burning with alarm, with a need to make Obi-Wan safe. Cody pulled Obi-Wan closer and twisted, putting him against the bed. Cody curled his shoulders over, sure, in the confused mess left behind by the nightmares, that a blow was about to fall, ready for his own fist to come down against his back.

It didn’t land, and he blinked, after a beat, the nightmare washing out of his head. Later, he’d realize Obi-Wan probably had a hand in that, pulling it out of his mind and releasing it. It left him shivering, braced, with an arm curled around Obi-Wan, pushed close and into his space, and--

Horror made him jerk back. He’d just grabbed Obi-Wan, without so much as a by-your-leave, put hands on him again. His gut twisted, hard, bitterness flooding his mouth. He made to pull away totally, only to freeze into place when a snag of pressure made him realize that Obi-Wan had, for some reason, grabbed his shirt, fingers clenched tight, holding on.

Cody stared at his grip, for a moment. Obi-Wan’s knuckles were white against his skin. Desperate, just for a moment, before Obi-Wan released his grip, pulling his hand back and turning his face away, panting out, “I’m sorry.”

Cody’s gut twisted, terrible, and he said, “Don’t, you don’t have to--” 

“I do. I know,” Obi-Wan said, his eyes focused on the far wall. He looked… better, Cody noticed, with a lurch in his chest. There was some trace of color in his cheeks. “I know you don’t want to touch me, I know, I’m sorry, for--” he dragged in a breath, strangling himself off. 

Memories sleeted back through Cody’s head, all at once. He’d… almost put a blaster against the side of his head, hadn’t he? Would have done, and happily pulled the trigger, if Rex hadn’t found him.

He shuddered, swallowing hard, trying to focus on the present moment. He was sitting on the floor of Obi-Wan’s quarters, the door open almost directly across from him. The lights were dim and he ached in approximately a dozen places, both from old wounds and the position he’d slouched into while sleeping.

None of that seemed to matter very much with Obi-Wan saying: I know you don’t want to touch me. 

And Rex had - had said all kinds of things, only half of which Cody actually remembered clearly, the previous day had been a blur, but… “I do,” he said, fighting to force the words out, watching Obi-Wan blink towards him, control of his expression slipping. “I want to--make you safe. But I, fuck. I hurt you, Obi-Wan, I--”

“It wasn’t you,” Obi-Wan started, again, and Cody shook his head, hard, knowing he should shift back, give Obi-Wan more space, but…. But the door was open, and Cody itched, all down his spine, and he could restrain himself, but keeping his body between Obi-Wan and everything else made things easier.

He said, hoarse, “But I still remember doing it.” Obi-Wan went still. Cody felt it happen, felt him suck in a breath and hold it. “I remember hitting you. I remember what it felt like to - to force you, and I failed you,” Cody said, the past dragging at him, his voice ruined. “I hurt you. I -- couldn’t stop. I--” And he could almost see Obi-Wan gearing up to disagree, to try to take all the blame for everything onto his own shoulders, Rex’s words echoing in his ears and--

“No,” Obi-Wan said, reaching towards him again and stopping, his hand just frozen there, fingers outstretched, and Cody could read need in his expression, there and gone and buried. “Please, Cody, I should have--”

“Don’t,” Cody bit out, because he wasn’t sure he could actually bear to listen to Obi-Wan trying to blame himself for what had happened again. And he knew, bone-deep, that Obi-Wan was never going to agree that it was his fault. He’d fight, tooth and nail, over it, punishing himself for - for everything Skywalker had done. 

Cody shifted, made a choice, thinking about Rex reminding him of things he already knew, that the Jedi weren’t meant to be alone, and lifted a hand, slowly, towards Obi-Wan’s. He went slow, gave Obi-Wan plenty of time to jerk away, and Obi-Wan made a gutted, punched out sound when Cody brushed their fingers together.

Obi-Wan jerked towards him, not away, fingers clenching around Cody’s, tight, as Cody said, “It’s not your fault Skywalker tortured you. Us.”

Obi-Wan froze in the middle of opening his mouth, eyes going wide, shiny in the dark room. “It’s not,” Cody kept going, words catching at his tongue and his teeth, “your responsibility. What he did to all of us. You’re not to blame. How could you have stopped him?”

Obi-Wan blinked, flinching, as though perhaps he’d searched his own mind and fabricated some ways he could have possibly done the impossible. Cody shifted his grip, bringing his other hand up, palm pressed to the back of Obi-Wan’s hand. “It’s not,” Cody repeated, quietly, as Obi-Wan stared across at him, eyes wide and stunned, “your fault.”

Obi-Wan exhaled, shakily, his skin cool as he shifted his fingers, just a little. Cody asked, swallowing, bracing, “Is this alright?”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan said, quickly, before his expression shuttered just a little. “But you don’t have to--”

“Obi-Wan,” Cody tried to find the words to explain the ball of pressure in his chest, the knot that refused to ease, worry and tension and a driving need to make Obi-Wan alright, and-- There was no way to speak it into being, he didn’t know how. He shook his head, instead, and rasped, “I want - if you want - I need--”

And maybe something he said made sense, or maybe Obi-Wan had just always known him well enough to decipher the things he couldn’t say, because Obi-Wan shifted, tugging his hand free; Cody released his grip, worried that he’d squeezed too hard, that he’d hurt Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan took a little breath, met his gaze, and reached his hand forward, towards Cody’s shoulder. He stopped, a breath away, and asked, “You need this?”

Cody jerked out a nod, shamed to need it, to ask, to expect Obi-Wan to excuse what he’d done, but--

But he could not help the way his shoulders curled over, when Obi-Wan touched him, radiating soothing peace towards him, emotions curling around him, and none of them hurt, it was impossible--

“Sh,” Obi-Wan said, hand sliding to his back, tugging, just a little, and Cody heard the broken noise that came out of his own throat as Obi-Wan shifted closer to him, murmuring, so soft, “Cody, it’s alright.”

Cody made a harsh sound, half-disagreement, but it was muffled because he seemed to have pressed his face against the side of Obi-Wan’s head. His hands shook as he curled an arm up, careful, around Obi-Wan’s back.

Obi-Wan exhaled, ragged, and Cody had not expected him to collapse forward, to grip tight, holding on as Cody made a nonsense sound, holding him carefully, waiting to wake up from this dream, or to have it warp into something awful and nightmarish.

Cody squeezed his eyes closed, wondering if Obi-Wan had needed this all along, if he’d failed, again, and--

And he set all those thoughts aside, for at least a while, curling his other arm around Obi-Wan, holding him there, on the floor, until it stopped feeling like a dream.

#whumptober2020 #alt.10 #nightmares #clone wars #fic #references to past torture and non con #suicide attempt #discussions of suicide #mental anguish #my writing #oof!au #codywan #the last big chunk! #please heed the warnings #fall out of mind control

[sovonight]

(sith exile au)

recruit

potential

approval

rejection

truth (end)

✧ — ✧

"Pace!" Revan says, when Cela enters. "You're back with us. Heard you got into a little fight."

Revan sounds as amiable as ever, and doesn't comment on the reason for Cela's absence. Cela had, at least, expected to be asked why she hadn't accepted Revan's assistance, in the form of Sion’s visit.

"It was necessary," Cela says. "I'm ready to resume my duties."

Revan looks up from mixing her drink, tapping the stirrer on the edge of her glass twice to clear the remaining droplets.

"Not so fast, Pace." Revan takes a leisurely sip from her drink, and says, "Your apprentice stormed into our records and cleared the place out, save for him. To anyone who dares to peek in, it looks like he's doing research."

"He's not my apprentice anymore," Cela says. Revan looks like she'd suspected she'd hear that, and smiles over the rim of her glass.

"Ah, but he is your project. Your project, your problem, Pace," Revan says. "Isn't that what you said to me when my prototype assassin droid went on a rampage?"

That is an entirely separate case, Cela wants to say. The droid only had to be put down. Jaq is different: she's known him too deeply to destroy him now. And to see him again, after how they parted... she doesn’t know how to stand before him in a way that does not leave her vulnerable.

Revan, patiently watching Cela's face, suddenly claps her on the shoulder.

"Well! I don't have time for this," Revan says. "Go clean your mess up."

✧ — ✧

The doors have been blown open with no regard for their sliding mechanisms. Cela observes the damage dealt to the doors and their internal circuitry, and even still, admires how Jaq's power has grown. Jaq lies within—she can feel it, his storm of emotion that persists still—and she allows her feet to take her towards its center.

"What are you looking for?" Cela calls, as she walks. His response echos to her.

"A way to save you."

"There's nothing to save, Jaq. These years I've lived since Malachor, I've stolen from the Force. I am on a path towards death; I'm at peace with that."

She finds him: a lone figure in a dark room, dressed once more in the standard garb of a Sith soldier, rather than the robes she'd given him. From within the shadows, his eyes glare, and he abandons his work, stalking forward towards her.

"Listen to yourself. You sound like the Jedi you left behind," Jaq says. "You’re not at peace; you're giving up, like a coward."

"You're wrong."

"Am I? Why else did you choose me? I can get you what you need—but for some reason, you decided not to use me."

They stand just an arm's length apart, now, separated only by Cela's reluctance. She breaks her eyes away from the passion of his gaze.

"I chose you because I saw potential in you," Cela says. "One that's been realized. You've progressed faster than any other I've trained. With time, you could become truly great."

"I don't care about—"

"With time, you could replace me."

Jaq's anger stalls, giving way to disbelief. She continues.

"I don’t trust Revan, or any of the Sith Lords under her foot, to run this empire in a way that does not drive it to destroy itself," Cela says. "When I can no longer influence them, I want you to keep them in check."

"That's not what you want," Jaq says. "This life bores you. Leave, and let them burn."

Cela can't imagine leaving. After Malachor V, when Revan had shown her how she could continue to live as she had before, she'd known that she could never return to the Jedi bearing such a technique. Then, when Revan told her of the war she planned to wage against the Jedi, Cela knew that if she chose to run from it, she would deprive herself of sources of the Force. Unwilling to make herself an outcast caught between two sides of the war, scavenging what she could from either side, she chose to join Revan in a position of power.

"I can find you Force users to drain," Jaq continues, as though sensing her wavering will. "The Jedi, the Sith—I can hunt them and their deserters to the furthest reaches of the galaxy. You will live; I promise it."

Yes… deserters. Her mistake was in assuming that all would stay and fight. Students slip away from the academy, and soldiers disappear in the dead of night. And what of the ignorant, whose affinity with the Force lays dormant, just waiting to be awakened with the guidance of the right master?

She looks to Jaq, once more, and the mesmerizing depths of his gray eyes. He looks so alive, so animated—it compels her to live as he does. But he has sacrificed himself to her once before.

"No. I will not have you serve me," Cela says.

"That's not what I'm offering," Jaq says. He is more serious than she's ever seen him, each word a step towards an admission she has never allowed him to reach. "I've never served you. I've—"

She silences him with a hand over his lips.

"Don't say it," Cela says. "Not yet."

When she takes her hand away, it trembles on its path of return to her side. Jaq stands silent, impatient but waiting, and she drops her gaze from his, unable to endure his stare any more.

"Listen to me. Allowing me to drain you should have killed you. It should have left you nothing more than a husk, a void where the Force once was." The fear she'd felt when she'd realized what he'd done—it was little compared to what she'd felt in the quiet of the room afterwards. "I don't know what truly happened. I—I don't know what I've done to you."

Jaq is calm in the face of her fear.

"Does it matter?" He asks. "I'm alive, and so are you."

"I will not ruin you, and lose you, like the others," she says.

"You've already ruined me," Jaq says, taking the curve of her face into his hands, the way she did him so long before. "You ruined me the moment you saved me. You ruin me every time you look at me, like this."

Her breath is caught once again, and her heart—her heart wants her to close her eyes, and give in. But these are not her quarters, and they are not alone; she is too conscious of the fact that they are an impending spectacle.

"Not here?" Jaq asks.

"Not here," Cela answers.

But despite it all, they've reached an understanding. And as they exit, walking past the stray onlookers who scramble to clear out of their way, she turns her thoughts towards their escape.

✧ — ✧

"I've figured it out," Jaq says.

"Have you?" Cela says. Her eyes remain closed, and the volume of her voice barely above a murmur, as she rests beside the steady beating of Jaq's heart. He's abandoned the stiff fabric of his old standard issue shirts, and traded it for one no less dark, but far more comfortable. She sighs in content.

"You're not even listening to me, are you," Jaq says. To the responding shake of her head, he sighs and says, "Guess I am just an instrument to you, after all."

"You are nothing to me," Cela confirms, pulling him closer with the arm she's looped around his waist. It does little, so to indulge her, Jaq shifts so that he lies a little closer, himself.

"What is it?" Cela asks, after a time. "What you figured out."

"Oh. Nothing—I was going to say that you must've spared me back then to use me for my warmth. All that talk about achieving my potential as a Sith Lord must've been a misdirect: you've turned me into a handsome, heated pillow."

"…I've been thinking about it," Cela says.

"The pillow? You're already using it." Idly, Jaq brushes a few untidy strands of hair back from her face, to tuck behind her ear. She gazes up at him.

"Not that. What happened, to allow you to survive," Cela says. "I think it's because it was you."

Jaq looks at her a moment, then laughs.

"Me?" Jaq says. "Alright. What's so special about me?"

"That I loved you," Cela says. "That you returned it. That our bond was of a kind I hadn't allowed myself since Malachor. I think—"

She searches for her next words, then sighs.

"Revan would have known how to explain it fully," Cela says. "But it is something."

She expects them both to fall silent once more, but Jaq considers what she'd said for a moment, then smirks down at her.

"No, I see," Jaq says. "So you're finally admitting that you loved me even then."

Her face grows warm.

"Well—of course," Cela says. "You know this."

"Mm," he acknowledges, "But you've never said it."

"You could feel it. Why would I need to say it?" Closing her eyes, she buries her face in his shirt, seeking her paradise of contentment once more.

"Come on, Cela, just once," Jaq prompts her. "You could do it now. I swear I'm not listening."

"Your lies are useless," she says, muffled against his chest.

But, indulging him, she abandons her realm of comfort. She lifts her lips to his ear, and whispers the true nature of her love to him, one that he has always known.

#sith exile au #spoiler for everything i write but given the choice between consequences and no consequences i will always give in to no consequences #sovo writes