#bossniner

[rexsterss]

Hi! I love your work and uh, for the request ask can you draw Boss/Niner? I think they're neat ✨️

Send me an ask of your fav ships or blorbos and I’ll sketch em out! (REQUESTS ARE CLOSED!)

The sergeants are tired, let’s be honest

[cabezadeperro]

Hiiiiii,

Ever since I read your other Niner/Boss snippet I've been head over heels for that ship!

Would you feel up to writing another one for them with uhmmm number 3? :D

hiiii! the song was cubs in five, by the mountain goats.

this turned out pretty bittersweet, but with a hopeful ending. post-order 66 fic, post/pre-established relationship. they're going to be just fine; they just don't know it yet. (also. it got.... long.)

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Boss reviews the navcomp’s calculations for the third time and breathes out. The cockpit of their stolen shuttle is tiny and cold, and the harsh blue light that fills the viewport makes his head hurt worse than it already did. The hum of the hyperdrive fills his ears, and the vessel’s so quiet it’s hard to remember he’s not alone. Boss glances at the navcomp one last time, anxiety burning a hole in his stomach, and then he exhales and makes himself push the pilot’s seat back, away from the panels.

This is usually Fixer’s job. He’s better at it than Boss has ever been, because Boss never had to learn to be perfect at it in that way he never had to be the best shot in the squad because that used to be Sev’s job.

The hallway beyond the cockpit is empty and very dark. Boss blinks, gives his eyes some time to adjust. The whole ship stinks of engine grease, from the hold to the tiny fresher tucked between the two berths, and everything feels sticky-smooth to the touch, even the recycled air Boss now forces into his lungs with every single measured inhale. 

It is actually a pretty good ship. Not too small, with a functioning hyperdrive and decent sublight engines and a row of tidy little cannons tucked close to its spine. It beats an Imperial shuttle, and it’s certainly better than staying with the army, caught behind enemy lines.

At first it wasn’t too bad—it was more of the same, really. And then it wasn’t. 

Boss shakes himself. He starts walking again, and then realises he doesn’t know where to go. Fixer and Scorch are in one of the cabins, what’s left of Omega will be in the other. He is unsure of his welcome to any of those two places. The knowledge hurts, but it’s such an old pain. Boss makes himself look at it, poke at it, standing alone in the dark hallway. He knows grief is like a bruise: you just have to give it time. And he used to think of himself as a patient man, but there’s something about the rawness of new hurts, especially when they are not so new: Sev has been on Kashyyyk for two years.

In the end, he returns to the cockpit. He takes a seat on the uncomfortable pilot chair and  leans back, hands knitted together over his belly and legs awkwardly folded against the panel in front of him. Boss rubs his hands together, cold despite the katarn, and stares into the blue, his headache growing sharper, deeper, worse.

He just wanted to sleep. A few hours of uninterrupted sleep in a cot somewhere. 

Something rattles at his back. Boss turns to look over the back of the seat at the door; half a second later it opens on its own to reveal Niner. The smell of caf—cheap, bitter, warm—fills the cockpit, tries and fails to drown the stink of engine grease; Boss feels his mouth fill with spit in turn.

He accepts the offered mug of caf without a word, feeling off-balance, caught by surprise. Niner pauses there, eyes thoughtful. He looks tired, older. The last time they saw each other he was smiling.

Boss missed him: he accepted Niner’s was just another absence he had to grieve, and got to it. Now he finds he does not know how to deal with Niner’s presence.

He knows he’s staring. Niner looks back calmly, steady. He expects nothing from Boss, not really. The certainty is—freeing. Boss exhales. He grunts his thanks and turns back to the viewport, hot mug of caf cradled in his hands. It’s bitter and full of dregs, but he sighs into it, burns his tongue and his lips.

In the end, the caf just makes his headache worse. Boss falls asleep in the pilot seat: Fixer wakes him up three hours later, face blank and eyes flat, bare hand heavy on Boss’s shoulder, and Boss allows himself to be herded into a cot in an empty cabin, into someone else’s bed.

Darman stares at him from the other cot, but Boss’s too tired. He buries his face in Niner’s pillow, breathing him in, and falls back into dreams.

[cabezadeperro]

Hi! Would you be willing to do #24 for Boss/Niner, where it's antagonistic on the surface but they low-key need each other or have something in common that they have with nobody else?

hi anon!!! the prompt was whispering in the other's ear, and i went with something else. post-war, everything's well and fine and sev's alive. established relationship, 560w, G. it's my first writing these two, so i hope it doesn't disappoint!

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Niner’s the one charged with waiting for Delta in Enceri’s spaceport, buy’ce under his arm and the cold, cold wind of late autumn filling his nose with the smell of hot metal and rotting leaves. The veshok don’t lose their needles once winter hits, but everything else does: the land around Kyrimorut looks burnt yellow and grey by lack of sunlight, the sky pregnant with storm clouds that slip down the mountains to the north and flood the valley where Skirata built his vhett with heavy, dense mist. 

He doesn’t quite know why Delta won’t go directly to the vhett—everyone else does. Something tells him it might have to do with the same reason they don’t live in Skirata’s land anymore.

Their ship—an old, souped-up gunship big enough to act as a home—finally lands. Niner shifts his weight and watches the vessel cool down and one of the spaceport workers step closer to the lowering ramp, splashing around the puddles on the tarmac, checking something on their datapad. 

There’s a part of him that can’t help but tense at the obvious lack of—of care the worker reserves for their job. He tucks it away: they’re just some birther. They simply don’t know better, and anyway—it probably doesn’t matter. Enceri is just a tiny, forgotten town in the middle of nowhere. 

Niner shifts his weight again. They were rounding up the animals when he left. They don’t need him, not really, but he can’t help it. Fi’s been having a few bad days, and Kad got sick last week, so Dar’s been distracted, and Atin’s too busy helping out his wife with her new business, and Ordo and Prudii are the only Nulls not offworld, and Skirata—well. Prime knows the old man tries, but he isn’t as young as he used to be, and the cold and the damp always mess with his joints.

The first to exit the ship is Scorch, as always. He immediately strikes up a conversation with the spaceport worker, tugs him aside. Sev follows, hair messier than ever, a distracted scowl on his face, and Fixer’s hot on his heels, one hand on Sev’s shoulder and his bucket on. 

Boss the last to step off the ramp. First he locks down the ship, and then he effortlessly corrals his old squadmates, aiming them towards Niner with the ease of practice, and Niner feels his mouth twitch, the warmth inside his chest butting heads with grief.

Niner still remembers the days they spent in Triple Zero holed up at Qibbu’s, he remembers the tension and the fights and the arguments, so it always shocks him, how genuinely happy they are to see him. Scorch hugs him, short and tight, and then there’s Fixer rattling his vambrace against Niner’s, and Sev’s arm wrapped around his neck.

Boss waits his turn patiently, bucket off and a tiny smile on his face, his eyes warm. Niner elbows Sev right under his plates and ducks away, and then Boss’s arms are around him in a bonecrushing hug, his stubbled chin rasping Niner’s neck, dry lips on his ear.

Boss sighs, almost too soft to be heard, and Niner can’t help it—he darts in, brushes a quick kiss on his hair, still regulation-short and so soft, and then he lifts him slightly, arms wrapped tight around Boss’s middle, until Niner hears him wheeze out in laughter.