#garazeb orellios x reader | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

goosewriting · 2 years ago

Text

Why? Because.

summary: reader gets trapped with an injured Zeb in a cave, and they come clean about their feelings.

relationship: Zeb Orellios x GN reader

warnings: mention of injury, blood, age gap i guess?

word count: 3.6k

A/N: i loved zeb in rebels and lost my marbles when he appeared in the mandalorian. and statistically speaking i can’t be the only zeb girlie (gender neutral), right? so this one goes to all of you out there, wherever you may be <3

(english is not my first language. constructive criticism and grammar corrections are very appreciated!)

— — —

It has been some time since you joined the Ghost crew, and you’re happy to say that you get along with everyone (except maybe Chopper at times). They had kinda taken you in like they ended up letting Ezra stay, though you were no Jedi. So the running joke was that Kanan brought “strays” on board. But you did and still do try your best to pull your weight around. You’re extremely thankful they decided to let you stay and considered you skilled enough to keep around.

Your homeworld had been brought to near extinction, similar to how Zeb’s planet got destroyed, so now you have no place to go back home to either. Hence why you got along with him from the start. He seemed gruff on the outside but you could see through it; that was the façade of a man who lived through pain and regret. But you know beneath it lies a rather charming personality and a caring friend.

A friend you like a little bit too much perhaps. A friend you find yourself drawn to constantly, torn between pushing your feelings aside and letting them out into the world.

That’s a problem for later though, because right now, you find yourself running for your life next to Zeb.

The latest mission brought the team to a wild jungle on some desolate planet, and you and Zeb got separated from the group. With the Empire hot on your trails, no less, because why would you have a normal, relaxing day? That would be boring.

You trip over a root peeking out from the ground littered in leaves, but catch your step just in time to keep running. The vegetation is dense, and you can’t really see much ahead of you except for splotches in several shades of green. Your legs are carrying you as fast as they can, but you can feel their stamina draining rapidly as your lungs burn, begging for a break.

From somewhere above you, you can hear the unequivocal engine of a TIE fighter, and you instinctively duck. You call out to Zeb, who’s a couple of metres ahead of you.

“They’re getting closer!” you scream at him.

“Then run faster!” he retorts over his shoulder.

“Well that’s easy for you to say!” you tell him between your breaths. “Look at your legs compared to mine!”

Suddenly, Zeb disappears from your view, swallowed by a dense bush. You do hear him cry out in surprise though.

“Zeb!” you call for him, worried.

Without lowering your speed, you take the last couple of steps to reach the point where he was, pushing the leaves out of your way, when your foot suddenly lands on air instead of the ground. Imitating the Lasat’s earlier scream, you also fall, as the vegetation had hidden away the very abrupt stop the cliff came to, the edge ending at a nearly perfect 90 degree angle, which sent you tumbling downwards.

On the way down, you feel yourself hit the side of the hill with an “oomph!”, then continue rolling down, protectively holding your arms over your head however you can, given the speed you’re spinning at.

When you finally make it to the ground, you hit a dead trunk with your back. For a second all air is knocked out of your lungs as you come to a sudden stop, and you need a second to recover your breath. Everything is still spinning, you hold your head, and all you can see are blurs of greens, yellows and browns.

After taking a moment to reorient yourself, you call out to Zeb. The only response you get is a pained groan from a little further away. You get to your feet, ignoring the pain that shoots up from your knee to your hip. The contents of your backpack got strewn around, so you go around hurriedly collecting everything before looking for Zeb. Following the sound of his grunts and heavy breaths, you find him leaning on a rock. You almost drop your pack when you notice the thick branch impaled in his side. He must have hit a tree on the way down.

You approach him quickly, kneeling down at his side.

“Hey, hey,” you say, waving your hand in front of his face. “Stay with me!”

“Ugh…” is all the response he can muster.

You check your comm; it’s busted.

“Where’s your comm, Zeb?” you ask. He paws at his leg with a groan.

You rummage through his pockets and take out the device, which is all but flattened. Great.

“We have to find shelter somewhere,” you say, getting up to your feet.

Taking a look around, you realise it all looks the same. The trees are so dense that you can’t even properly see the sky. Turning back to Zeb, you catch him just in time how he’s about to pull out the branch stuck in his abdomen. You fall back to your knees and swat away his hand.

“Leave it!” you order. “If you pull it out now you’ll bleed out.”

He growls, but doesn’t fight you. Taking in his state, you suddenly feel lost and small and helpless.

“Don’t you dare die on me, Zeb!” You try to sound threatening.

“‘Tis but a flesh wound,” he says with a chuckle that quickly turns into unpleasant sounding coughs.

Great, he's delusional.

“Did you break anything?” you ask him, checking for injuries. “Can you move your arms, legs, fingers?”

He first moves his ankles around, then slightly lifts one leg. With the other one he inhales sharply as it is the one on the side where he got hit.

“How about your hands?” you continue.

You talk to him in an attempt to keep him conscious. Meanwhile you rummage through your backpack for a rope. Zeb tries moving his arms but with his right one he groans in pain.

“Think i’s broken,” he says through gritted teeth, then his face starts relaxing, his eyes about to close shut.

“Hey, no no no. Look at me,” you demand, waving your hand in front of his face again; no response. “Hey!”

You slightly slap his cheeks, and his eyes snap open to shoot you a half-glare. Then you look down and see he’s losing blood, fast.

“Dank farrik, Zeb!” you curse, looking around again. Your gaze falls on the Lasat one last time before you run in the opposite direction you fell from, looking for some sort of shelter. Not far, you luckily find a cave.

Running back to him, you fall to your knees at his side once again.

“Wake up! I can’t carry you alone!” you demand, desperation starting to creep into your voice.

But he’s too weak to stand up, so you pass the rope you had under his armpits and back, throwing the ends over your shoulder, and pulling with all your might to drag him. He drifts in and out of consciousness but tries helping you with his legs and good arm.

It takes you what feels like an eternity and a full workout to drag him into the cave, and just in time. Of course, it has to start raining. You wonder how the water even gets down here when the trees seem to have built a solid roof over the whole place.

Once you have Zeb in the cave, you take a moment to shake some life back into your limbs. Don’t fail me now! you plead with your arms and legs, and you get to work. Using some wood you found on the way here you build a makeshift splint for his broken arm. Then you prepare some bandages, bacta patches and bacta gel. You’re glad that you weren’t carrying anything in glass vials in your backpack that could have broken; all supplies survived the fall.

You kneel at Zeb's side, whose forehead is now covered in a thin layer of sweat; he’s probably running a fever. You exhale slowly through your nose, trying to calm yourself for what you’re about to do.

“Zeb, I’m gonna take it out now, okay?” you warn him, pointing to the branch he got impaled with. “This is gonna hurt… I’m sorry.”

“Ugh… Just- just do it,” he replies with shallow breaths.

“Okay,” you say more to yourself than him, and place your hands around the splintered branch. “One, two, three!”

As you pull out the piece of wood, Zeb clenches his teeth with a groan, and blood comes gurgling out of the wound. You’re quick to generously apply the bacta gel to disinfect the area, put a bacta patch on top and some gauze over it all to stop the bleeding. It takes a little bit of effort on both sides to get Zeb to lift his back enough so you can wrap the bandage around him, but it works.

Now that the most critical part is taken care of, you inspect him further. He’s got a couple of scratches on his arms and face. You take a clean piece of gauze and step to the cave entrance to dampen it in the rain, then come back inside and start cleaning the dried blood and grime off him as best as you can. He tries swatting you away with his good arm a couple of times.

“‘S okay. Take care of yourself first,” he speaks through heavy breaths. But you insist.

Once you're sure you cleaned him up to the best of your abilities and minimised the risk of something getting infected given your precarious situation, only then do you repeat the process for yourself. You also got a couple scratches all over you, and you're sure your back and hip are gonna bruise because of that rock earlier.

Once you're done cleaning yourself up, you sit back and heave a deep sigh. For a moment, the cave is silent save for Zeb’s laboured breathing and the patter of the rain. You take a moment to think about what the next best course of action is. You need water, food, and you have to find a way to contact the Ghost.

From your backpack you take out your busted comm. Zeb’s one got absolutely obliterated, but yours seems in better condition.

“Hey, do you think that we could fix this and send some message to Hera at all?” you ask.

Zeb is struggling to keep his eyes open, trying to focus on the device you’re holding in front of him.

“Do- d’you know how to… rewire?”, he asks.

“Not really… but you can talk me through it?” you offer.

It takes several attempts, but through broken sentences and you having to shake Zeb awake a couple of times, you actually do it. You manage to more or less recall your coordinates given your last known position before the fall, and send that plus the fact that Zeb is hurt. You couldn't fix it enough to know if it actually got through or if you received a response. But you hope and pray to the Force and every other deity out there that Hera and Kanan got the message and come to find you soon.

Now that that is taken care of, you go through your mental list again. Next up: water and food.

You give your past self a pat on the back for packing so much stuff when everyone said the weight would just slow you down. You could really never know when you’d need all this.

You find your emergency light; it's like a bag filled with gel that emits both light and warmth. You hit it in the right spot to activate it and place it next to Zeb, who’s starting to tremble slightly, you now notice.

Your water canteen is a bit banged up but still usable, so you step to the cave entrance to collect some rainwater. While you're here you focus on any sounds of ships or blasters, but you only hear the jungle around you.

You take a couple of swigs from the bottle, then fill it back up. With a sigh, you go back into the cave and take out one last thing from your backpack: ration bars. Not the yummiest but enough to get out of a pinch.

You offer Zeb some water, which he accepts. After he’s done drinking, he leans his head back down with a groan. It must be uncomfortable. Unfortunately, you didn't bring any shock blankets or anything. In fact you don't even have a jacket because of the planet’s tropical weather.

You look up at the cave’s roof again, ticking off the items from your mental list. Now that everything is taken care of, there’s only one thing to do: wait. And hope for the best. Your nose crinkles at the thought. Waiting is the worst part.

Zeb’s shuffling as he moves around trying to find a comfortable position to lie in catches your attention. You grab your blaster and move in between him and the cave wall.

“Here,” you say softly and carefully lift his head to sit down, so he can use your lap as a pillow while you lean back onto the cave wall. You prop up your hand with the blaster on your other leg, aiming at the cave entrance. “You rest up now. I’ll wake you up if anything happens.”

He groans, trying to get comfortable, and then silence surrounds you two.

You’re trying to keep watch but your eyes keep drifting back to the Lasat on your lap. His breathing is evening out, so you assume he’s trying to fall asleep. You take a moment to roam over his face, his meiloorun shaped head, his big ears, his beard. You notice the wrinkles between his brows, a testament to his almost constant scowl, and you have to gather every ounce of self control in your body not to smooth out the skin with your fingers.

“I can feel you staring,” he remarked suddenly, startling you. He opens his eyes and looks up at you.

“Sorry…” you apologise with a sheepish smile.

He holds your gaze for a second longer than you’d have deemed necessary, then closes his eyes again and turns his head slightly away from you.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says, softer this time.

“Huh? Like what?” you ask.

“Like a sad, lovestruck Loth-pup.”

Heat rises up to your cheeks, and you turn your face away as well, but then realise that you don’t care anymore if he sees you. You knew that at some point you had developed a crush for the guy but you’ve been trying your hardest to push the feelings down, and evidently failed. It did occur to you that lately things seemed to have changed; but you didn’t want to get your hopes up. So you weren’t imagining it after all, the lingering looks and quick glances your way when he thought you weren’t looking.

And if he really decides to bring this up in a cave in who knows where, then so be it. You might as well have the conversation you’ve been procrastinating on right here and now, since he can’t really run away either.

“That’s not how I would describe it,” you start. “But I can’t help it…”

“You can do better,” he says, still not looking at you.

“Try me,” you retort.

He hesitates for a second, considering if he should give in to this or not. For an instant you think that’s it, and are about to keep watch again, but then he speaks.

“I’m old, and scarred,” he tries to convince you.

“You’ve lived through a lot of things, and yet you kept your kind soul,” you counter, ready to disarm any argument he gives you.

“I get angry easily.”

“You have a strong sense of justice.”

“I’m stubborn.”

“So am I,” you say with a chuckle.

He sighs deeply, and finally turns to face you.

“Why? Why me?” he asks and you can tell he’s genuinely wondering.

“Do I need a reason?” you ask, slightly shrugging your shoulders. “When I’m with you, I feel safe, and understood.”

“Who knew the bar was so low,” he teases, and you playfully nudge his shoulder.

“I’m serious. You’re someone I know I can confide in, someone who can read the room and differentiate playtime from ‘time to be serious’. You get things done. You’re loyal. You know what you want and what you fight for,” you recount. Then with a smile and a poke to his cheek, you add, “And for all it’s worth, I do think you’re rather handsome.”

Zeb makes a sound between a snort and a mock-offended gasp, averting his eyes from yours. You could swear his ear just twitched as well. Is that his tell-tale sign for when he’s flustered? Cute.

He remains silent, looking back to you with a soft gaze that holds something else, maybe resignation, or a little bit of sadness.

“But, you know, now that we’ve established how I feel, I do wonder about you,” you point out. “You don’t have to answer now, though. In fact, you don’t have to answer at all if you don’t want to–”

“That wouldn’t be fair, now would it?” he cuts you short.

“Then, do you have anything you want to add?” you ask, hopeful.

He thinks about it for a moment, then gives you an apologetic look.

“Whatever it is I want to say, I don’t think I could properly put it into words right now,” he says, gesturing to himself. “Let’s continue this conversation when I’m… not on the possible brink of death?”

“Right,” you answer, only slightly disappointed, but you try not to show it.

“And hey,” he calls for your attention, and you look back at him. “Thank you.”

“You would have done the same thing for me,” you smile back at him, thinking he means treating his wound.

“Not just for patching me up”, he remarks. “Also for… For your words. And honesty. I can’t deny it’s nice to have someone like you looking at me the way you do. Hopefully I can be half as eloquent as you.”

He then takes your hand with his good one, bringing it to his chest. Once again, you feel your face burn. Zeb Orellios is holding your hand. While his head rests on your lap no less. With that little spurt of courage you just got from his gesture, you lean down and place a gentle kiss on his forehead. He squeezes your hand lightly at that, sighs, and closes his eyes.

You lean back up, resting your head on the hard cave wall behind you, but you don’t mind. You’re on cloud nine right now.

Just as you remind yourself that you’re supposed to be on watch, you hear some rustling from outside. Quickly you lift the blaster, pointing at the entrance. It sounds like someone is approaching. You aim, and–

“Found them!”

It’s Sabine.

You slump back onto the wall, lowering your weapon, letting go of the breath you were holding.

“Are you guys okay?” she asks as she approaches you.

“I got away with just a couple bruises, but Zeb got essentially skewered, and I think his arm is broken,” you explain, turning to show her the wound on his abdomen and tell her how it happened, when you realise Zeb is still holding your hand.

You stop mid-sentence, your eyes meeting Zeb’s, who’s looking at you with a cheeky smirk. That little–

“What happened? Are you okay?” Now it’s Ezra’s turn to step into the cave.

You let go of Zeb’s hand to carefully remove yourself from under him and stand up. You manage to get up but are a little wobbly on your legs, since you’ve been sitting for so long. Sabine quickly helps to support you and guides you outside.

Kanan is the last to get into the cave. With Ezra they try their best to support Zeb to walk but he’s still too weak to get up, so they decide to essentially fly him just outside of the cave by means of the Force, where the Phantom is parked. Zeb did not like that one bit.

– – – – –

Bonus:

Once Zeb is in his bunk on the Ghost with fresh bacta patches and bandages, you give him one last once-over to check if he’s comfortable.

“Anything else you need?” you ask him, packing the remaining gauze and bacta you didn’t use into the first aid kit.

“I think a ‘get better kiss’ would help,” he says matter-of-factly.

You jump a little, his comment having taken you off-guard.

“Well I’m no doctor, but let’s see what I can do,” you try saying as nonchalantly as possible, but your flustered cheeks betray you.

You gently hold his face as you kiss the bridge of his nose, right between his eyes.

“Uhm?!” comes a startled noise from Ezra who’s standing at the now open door. Oh right, for a second there you forgot they shared the room.

“Is this gonna be a thing from now on?” the boy asks, pointing between you and Zeb.

You don’t really know how to answer because you haven’t had the second part of your conversation yet, but the Lasat chuckles and folds his good arm under his head.

“You better knock from now on,” is all he says and proceeds to close his eyes to nap.

“But it’s my room too?” Ezra looks at you for help, but you just shrug with an apologetic smile.

Walking past him, you go to your own bunk, trying to calm your pounding heart on the way.

#goose feathers #sw rebels #zeb x reader #zeb orellios x reader #star wars zeb x reader #star wars rebels x reader #star wars x reader #garazeb orrelios x reader

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