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prokaryotics · 3 years

Text

love left fallow

pairing: Cobb Vanth x Fem!Reader

words: 4.2k+

warnings: No (Y/N), 18+ unprotected bathtub sex + angst and brief mentions of blood and injury

a/n: space cowboy i love yewwww

The air is soft, quiet, brewing with the gentle tension of a summer storm.

Outside, the wind touches and brushes up against everything, its caress echoing the music of the stars, twisting up sand and dirt in small cyclones that travel down the path that splits Mos Pelgo in half. In the morning, everything will be covered in dust. Already, the farmers have put their banthas in for the evening, under shelter for preparation of what’s to come, an almost mindless act now - the practice of a people well accustomed to their land.

Over the next half hour, what was once sweet and careful will have become violent, but for now you’re content to let the stillness of the night lull you into suspension.

The refresher is warm with the steam of bathwater, its walls illuminated in the low orange glow of the bloggin-oil lamp. Both items are a luxury on a planet like this one, in which water needs to be harvested from the atmosphere because so little of it falls naturally, near enough to the Jundland Wastes that the canyons - extensive and rocky and hot - might as well make Mos Pelgo No Man’s Land as well.

An old mining settlement, forgotten by time and eroded by high winds.

Life is at a standstill here, halted by the starshine, uncomfortable and dragging until it’s nearly impossible to distinguish if an hour has passed or just a few seconds.

Whatever is left of what used to be stretches only about a quarter mile in both directions, the air thick with dust and heat. Everything moves in slow motion. Where the sun is oppressive, the people have grown a second skin, standing in the doorways of buildings, gazes set hard, but you figure they’ve done that to themselves, making themselves useful by working hard to reestablish the city after the krayt dragon has gone moseying through it, pushing up floorboards and eating pack animals. Done this by trying to keep the Sand People out. To recover from their brief occupation.

It had once been under the control of the Mining Collective, a group of bastard enforcers that placed, in not so negotiable terms, the entire population into slavery after the explosion of the second Death Star.

Just as soon liberated, you know, not long before your arrival.

Still, it had weakened the town, just as these things do. They never quite recovered. And now it isn’t even on modern maps, and most people don’t even know it still exists.

You hear Cobb approaching. Footsteps. You see him without seeing him.

You don’t open your eyes, not yet.

Cobb is careful as he maneuvers through the apartment, a small series of rooms above Freetown’s only cantina. He had refused, you learned, to take a home for himself. Resources had been scarce already, and with many of his citizens put out, he declined to allow them to extend this act of kindness, knowing any of the remaining homes and buildings still standing would be put to much better use by a family or business than his singular inhabitance of it.

Then you came along, and he thought it was kind of funny, made him - admittedly - a little sheepish, to say that his place wasn’t some nicer looking complex fit for the marshal and that rather, he lives in a bar, but you’re making it work.

Stepping through your living quarters, he’s mindful of his heavy footsteps. Treads lightly and peels himself of his armor in stilted, half measured movements, places his helmet, then his chest plate, gauntlets and everything else down with just as much caution.

It’s late. Well past midnight, somewhere around the time when the sky begins to brighten and sand begins to heat up - when he really should be in bed himself instead of listening to the quiet, low mooing of banthas.

Stripped to only his under clothes, he inhales. Loosens his shoulders, allows himself to relax, enveloped by the soft aroma of old govath-wool and the scent of cooking spices.

You feel him, his presence, eventually standing in the sloping doorway of the refresher.

“‘S there room for one more?” He murmurs and you open your eyes, looking up into his handsome face. His silhouette is all you can decipher. Tall and lean, slightly hunched in on himself, shadows catching the angular features of his face.

You blink, then nod.

He looks tired tonight, exhausted. The days recently have not been kind to him, and you want nothing more than to smooth out the wrinkles worrying between his eyebrows, to ease the fear and expectation from his eyelids.

Cobb undresses, drops his clothes into a pile of reds and tans next to the sink to be collected later, murmurs quietly for you to scoot forward, then slips into the tub behind you, the water rising slightly, moving in artificial tides as it dips beneath his weight. The warmth of his body behind you dares you to let it thaw your concerns for him into nothing, smelling safe and familiar, like persimmon and copal, like the spent smoke surrounding a blaster after it’s been fired.

You swallow, find your voice.

“What happened, Cobb?” your whisper pierces the atmosphere without breaking it - not as vicious as he was expecting - sounding almost defeated, hoarse with fatigue and it makes him want to reach out for you on purpose, pull you into his chest and keep you there instead of remaining content with the way you lean against him, but he knows now that if he makes any sudden movement, tries too hard or too fast that he’ll only be crossing a line you aren’t comfortable with. He has to let you come to him, let the first move be yours.

Your relationship isn’t perfect. Most nights consist of this weird dance in which the both of you struggle to maintain your footing. Neither sure what the other might do, might say. Caring so deeply for one another that most of the time it’s painful even looking at each other. He needs to be better. You need to be patient. You’ve both got your own responsibilities.

He remembers when he met you. Had squinted into the sunslight, standing at the entrance of the bar, covered his brow with his hand, deceived neither by your hood nor by your closely guarded weapons as you strolled unerringly down the path running through the center of town.

He liked to think that he had the ability to both praise and appraise women, people in general, intrigued by the way you held yourself, the delineation of your stance. And the moment the thought occurred to him, he was convinced of it: you’re not from here, not just Mos Pelgro, but Tatooine at all. Stamped in your posture, in the way you stood, balancing on your heels like a boxer, your feet planted apart. On a more inhabited planet, somewhere gritty among a crowd of different species, you might not have looked entirely out of place, but here, against the scorching backdrop of a vast desert, in a pinpoint city no one remembers, your appearance seemed out of place.

Suspicious.

He looked over his shoulder, whistled quietly and made a gesture with his fingers to the bartender. The alien looked up, nodded in understanding, and bent down. Then returned to his full height with a large glass of bright blue, nearly fluorescent alcohol. Cobb smiled in thanks, returned to the street just as you began to ascend the two or three steps in front of the cantina and his heart just fucking stopped.

It skipped a beat. Hiccupped. All those incredibly unbelievable clichés about attraction, about love at first sight.

Shot you with a half smirk and perhaps what followed might have been one of his most mystifying cases of poor judgement, but he didn’t really care because it got him you. He invited you inside, offered you a drink.

And it occurs to him now that he had the power to keep things platonic, impersonal, to mind his business.

But he hadn’t and he’s here now, regretting only that he’s managed to screw it all up.

Cobb’s quiet, his guilt charging the air, and your words dangle from the ceiling for a few long, dragging moments before he curls against you and kisses your shoulder, his breath hot, a day’s worth of silver stubble grating against the sensitive skin as he speaks.

“Rontos. A couple a’ unruly ones at that.”

You nod, grabbing a washcloth. His hands, resting on the lips of the tub, are bruised. Fruit pit red and swollen.

He watches as you take his wrist and lift his right hand away, your left beginning to carefully clean the delicate skin of his knuckles. At first not realizing that your scrubbing was leaving marks until he winced, hissed through his teeth, and you quickly stopped, having been lost in the rhythm of your movements.

“No.” he says. “It feels nice. Good. Don’t stop.”

A saccharine kind of pain you’re familiar with too, something akin, maybe, to your relationship.

So you keep going, putting more soap onto the rag before starting to move down the rough expanse of his palm, rubbing at the tender joints and muscles beneath cracking, rope burned calluses.

And you brace yourself for what’s coming: the apology, the feelings and emotions that are easier to face and digest when you’re alone and he’s somewhere across the desert rather than this close - inches away and touching you - alive and safe and if he’s actually kriffing telling the truth you don’t really care. There’s an ellipsis in his voice that has you holding your breath. A pause that signifys him thinking through what he wants to say next, maybe if it’s even worth saying them when he knows a concession, a small and meaningless gift, without changing his actions means nothing, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t just as guilty. That you can’t be held accountable for how fucking awful things have been lately.

How weird and awkward.

Locking eyes across the cantina, across the street, in the middle of doing something else, but galaxies away from whatever it is.

It takes two, right?

Because he’s it and it’s unfair. It’s cruel. Makes you feel off-balance, helpless, not sure of anything other than that you love him. A lot. Love that makes every tense silence feel as if it is solidifying like wet concrete, the kind that cracks because it wasn’t mixed right. Makes heat pool somewhere low in your stomach - searing and unavoidable - makes it feel like you’ve got knives lining your windpipe every time you look at him after a long period apart. A kind of love that isn’t easy. A kind of love that seeps, warm and liquid as molasses, into your bones, in which you can bury your loneliness, let it remain suspended and frozen.

Because loneliness is the worst feeling of them all, a feeling so infinite that it echoes.

And maybe you’ve been a little unfair to hold expectations of him over things he cannot control.

“I’m sorry…I am. I know this-” He stops, swallows. “I know this must be tough for you, but I’m doin’ my best here, sweetheart. Protectin’ these people. Keeping them safe. It’s my job. I’m just askin’ you to cut me some slack…please…”

The room hums with listless, tiny, organic sounds of the world slowly waking up, filtering into the room through a splinter in the window near the ceiling, reinforced to keep the wind and sand out, but broken anyway after the last earthquake - and he thinks that you might be ignoring him, that he’s been talking into dead air when really you aren’t sure what to say, or if you’re ready to forgive him or not. Cobb purses his lips - begins to back up, the water sloshing - already dreading when morning will really come and really reveal itself, the sunlight exposing every flaw and every crack in your foundation and surely boiling over whatever tensions were left to simmer overnight. Everything else just ceases to exist outside the blood rushing in his head. Outside the fear of losing you and he thinks that maybe it’s the spotchka because he had been drinking or maybe it’s the mounting tension in his body that’s accumulated over the course of this fucking thing - of being mayor, of having to be in control of everything, of worrying - or maybe it’s just the way he’s been pretending to be okay that’s finally getting to him.

Then you’re moving, rolling over to face him and he stops - looks down at you in expectant relief - brings his hand to your hair and strokes it lightly.

“I hate this-”

“Me too.”

The waiting. The wondering. The anguish. You hate it all and yet it’s a double edged sword because for as long as you’re afraid and thinking about him and losing sleep, catching glimpses of each other in crowded rooms, it means he’s still alive - still breathing and still able to come home to you.

Cobb sighs, leans down to press a kiss to the crown of your head before resting his forehead against your own, and you savor the feel of it, letting your body finally relax, his presence like drinking something hot after being left to freeze, like the first drop of water after years of drought.

“And I know you do. I’m real sorry for it, I really am, and I wish things were different, but they won’t always be like this. I’m making sure of that.”

You’ll have to take his word for it, then, won’t you? Even the worst nightmares have to come to an end at some point, you’re just not sure how long you’ll be able to survive this one - it’s end date uncertain - if it will ever end. If Freetown will ever be completely at peace. You love him so much that it makes your lungs feel heavy, like you’ve got weights attached to the bottom of them, and every time you’re around him you forget how to breathe. Forget how to function like a normal fucking person because he makes you feel so many things all at once, so if anything were to happen to him you’d probably be left unable to feel anything at all - every emotion combusting into some fiery, searing outburst leaving only the inky black absence it made in its wake.

So your anger dies, fizzling out like a match doused in a cup of ice-water.

His nose brushes against your own and your mouth opens like you’re about to say something but nothing comes out, choking on the gravity of your affection for him, a knot growing in your throat. His hand goes further into your hair, water dripping from his fingers, down your neck, pressing into the delicate hollow where the base of your skull meets your spine and he uses his hold as leverage to tilt your head just enough to brush his lips against yours; testing, waiting, and when you don’t pull away he kisses you fully - again and again and again - softening your veneer.

And you reach up, tangle your fingers in his hair, your tongue sweeping through his mouth with an undercurrent of aggression he isn’t surprised to find because you’re pissed and you’re afraid and you’ve got every right to be, so he’ll let you take it out on him - let you grope and grab and pull until you get it all out - until you no longer shake with fury when you touch him.

His lips are chapped and he tastes a little like metal, like he’s been chewing on them, like what you have let your appetite for love do to you, sunburned and dry, but it’s okay because it’s him, and the emotion he’s pulling from you is starting to grow large and monstrous and overwhelming to the point where it doesn’t matter.

You taste like sleep, feel like being blanketed in the warm sun, and he’s overwhelmed with the heartache of active loss, the kind that happens when people aren’t paying attention, had missed this without really realizing it until now. All of it, even the bad parts, but mostly the way you feel beneath his hands. You’re perfect. Perfect and so maker-forsaken good to him he doesn’t deserve even an ounce of it and now he might be ruining everything because he’s stuck doing his job, unable to come up with any more excuses for himself other than that it is what it is and it will end when it ends. Hopeful that maybe one day he’ll retire, be able to pass off his title to someone else before the decision is made for him. He wishes there was a way he could have warned you - could have told you of the things to come - but he also thinks that even if he had that ability, he wouldn’t tell you a fucking thing because going through this is hard but going through it alone seems unbearable. He had lived that way for so long before you arrived, has forgotten the way he’s managed to do it, and is certain that if he was forced to go back, it’d just be a case of surviving.

He’d no longer be living.

His words make you reach for him with renewed purpose, press your fingers into his back, desperate to absorb him like a cloth soaking up water trying to keep this feeling, make it permanent.

“I don’t want to lose you. They need you, Cobb, but I need you more.”

You can’t go saying things like that and you both know it. It isn’t fair that this is the way things are, but that’s just how it goes. You can’t put that kind of pressure on him, can’t expect that he’ll just give in to you like that - even if, even though, he desperately wants to - but you’re careening, falling over the edge of your surmounting feelings for him, so you won’t follow up your honesty with a but I know that you can’t. You won’t follow it up with a lie.

“Shh…you can’t be tellin’ me these things, honey.” He warns, but your immediate thought is why not, despite the reasons you know you can’t, the ones you’ve already listed in your head, far more apparent when he isn’t beneath you and touching you like this.

“But it’s true.” You protest, grinding against him with a needy sigh, bracing your hands on his shoulders, nails digging into his skin and muscle like he’s the only thing anchoring you to this planet. And he knows without you telling him, the sudden stab of awareness that shoots through your body, a whistling arrow that makes it feel like at any moment you might lose yourself completely, so he lifts your hips, works a finger inside of you and curls it before you get thinking too hard about what you’re saying, his thumb finding the bundle of nerves just above the entrance of your cunt - then adds another until you’re panting against his jaw, his presence warm and raw and honest, all consuming in a way that has you realizing you had forgiven him long before he ever needed forgiving, and that even if he ends up giving his life to this town, loving him will have been worth it.

“Hey.” You don’t register it, the command in his voice, not until he says it again. “Hey, look at me.”

He ducks his head, keeps his eyes on your face and all but forces you to look at him, his movements slowing, but still just as devastating. “You don’t need me. Never have. Thing is, I’m the one that needs you, sweetheart. Probably always have, I just didn’t know it. But I do now, so whatever happens…”

You have to keep yourself from turning away, from getting out of the bathtub and away from him before he can finish, each of your shaky inhales starting to feel like the rush of a wave, hard crashing and aggressive with the weight of what he’s implying.

“To me…to this town, you’ll be fine.” He says it with so much certainty that it breaks your heart. Immediately you want to protest, to tell him that he’s wrong, but he keeps going.

“And in the meantime, I’ll be doin’ my damn best to keep myself worthy of lovin’ you.”

Cell by cell you slip away, then resurrect. And you tell him that you love him, wishing the words would somehow help fix everything, that when this was over things would be okay, just so that you don’t have to hear the undercurrent of self-loathing and fear in his voice anymore. Things are confusing and you’ve hurt each other, by accident, maybe on purpose, but it’s fine now. You’re fine, in a way you can’t understand, in a way that makes everything seem small and insignificant in comparison to what you harbor in your heart for him.

Cobb removes his fingers, takes ahold of himself and pushes into you with one long thrust, looks down into the water and watches the way it sinks into you, spreading you open; warm and wet and tight as your muscles clench around the width of it, of him.

He groans as you gasp, your fingers flexing against him like they’ve got nothing to do, nowhere to go, the sensation of being filled and consumed bordering on annihilating, tripling exponentially in its ruin as you arch your hips and press down on him, sending bright flickers of pleasure through your belly and up your ribs.

“Cobb-”

There’s something buried beneath the meaning of your plea that makes his breath hitch, a word, his name he can’t distinguish between a fact or weapon, overwhelmed with this feeling that it isn’t just the need to be closer to him you’re talking about - makes something unidentifiable pressed against the back of his teeth, waiting to be said, burning an iron hot hole in the center of his chest, coating him in a restless warmth that only ever cools when he looks at you.

“ShhShhShh, I got you.”

His first real thrust makes your breath catch - hitch, dissolve into something that might have ended up being words, but quickly ends up only becoming a trembling, high-pitched moan, your eyes fluttering closed and your mouth parting and he’s -

He’s fucking struck dumb by it.

By you.

And he’s pretty sure his fucking soul careens with shame, makes him wonder what the fuck is wrong with him that he ever could have possibly hurt you so bad, even by accident, ever could have possibly convinced himself that everything he does isn’t just in devotion of you. And the thought of hurting you again makes something split open in his chest, makes him not even want to think about it, not later and especially not now.

“I’m right here, kid. I’m not goin’ anywhere. You’re alright.”

His comfort causes something in your chest to twist, to tighten, spun over and over itself like a cable of rope until you’re hitched on it, unable to expel the air in your lungs. You lift your hand from his shoulder and reach out, brush the sweat-damp and water wet pieces of hair out of his face and away from his eyes with the ghost of an impression that barely counts as a full, solid, touch - so tender it makes him close his eyes and swallow.

Every day he’s reminded how much he doesn’t deserve you. Every day you do something like this and shatter his heart.

The heat of his mouth finds your breasts all the while he continues to fuck into you slowly, taking his time, one arm curled around your waist, keeping you pressed against his chest while the other is dragging his thumb over your clit - trying to stay careful, mindful, find the words to speak a language so fucking primal and ingrained in his head that enunciating them requires more brain power than he possesses, and you’re right there with him, attempting some kind of effort to explain to him the way this is making you feel, but unable to find the words. It’s okay, though, because all of it is mingling together - harrowingly acute and sharp and so fucking intense already that you flutter around him, helplessly keening.

“I’m not gonna last much longer.” You shake from the exertion of being on top of him, the muscles in your thighs taunt and aching, the coil inside you getting tighter and tighter, waiting to snap as the bathwater sloshes, displaced by your movements.

“Me neither.” He grunts, clenching his teeth, releasing your waist to cup the back of your head, his fingers curling into your hair. He guides you down, rests your forehead against his own, your breathing mingled and mixed and hot against each other’s faces.

Then your hands are spreading, stiffening and gripping, digging into the meat of his biceps, your entire body going rigid before shaking, the head of his cock catching something soft and electric inside you, ripping a broken moan from just below your rib cage.

Cobb stops moving, exhaling sharply through his nose.

The both of you go slack against each other, and several long minutes pass before either of you attempt to move.

“Did you mean it?” You lift your head only to rest it on his shoulder, skin pruned and tired.

He looks down at you in his arms.

“Every word.”

That’ll just have to be enough.

#cobb vanth x reader #cobb vanth x you #the mandalorian #cobb vanth/reader #cobb vanth/you #sw #star wars fics #star wars fanfiction

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outropeace · 3 years

Photo

🍑 Venus, planet of love (2k) by theankletattoo [@hadestyles]

The moon is too high up in the sky, the blooms are forgotten, they are expanses of barren land, stripped off and nude, sharing secrets like ripe nectarines, afraid of heavy hands and bruising fingers, holding them in a hollow beside their hearts, building an orchard of love.

heaven in these sheets (3k) by thepolourryexpress [@thepolourryexpress]

Bunny Hybrid Louis has it out for his boyfriend’s phone.

🍑 pits of love (5k) by lilliandherself [@vogueharrystan]

Harry smells Louis' sweat for the first time after they've moved in together. His alpha goes a bit wild.

To Love Without Reason (8k) by MuggleMirror [@mugglemirror]

“Come on in, soldier,” Louis pats Harry’s chest and walks away, leaving Harry to follow behind.

Harry stands in the living room, looking around at Louis’ dwelling. Family pictures placed high on a shelf, certificates of Louis’ practice, and other trinkets that make Harry entirely too nostalgic.

🍑 Floating (10k) by littleLouve

The one where Louis has control over water in every form but he doesn't know what to do with it. Harry is here to guide him.

🍑 if you're feeling lonely (12k) by ifthat [@lovehl]

The guest list is on the desk. Louis runs through it and stops a third of the way down, a familiar name catching his attention.

Harry Styles.

All he needs to do is confirm whether Harry Styles is the same Alpha whose scent left such a memorable impression on his body.

🍑 no good unless it's real (17k) by fackinglouis [@fackinglouis]

Louis is a very busy farmer who’s just trying to make it to his next nap and Harry’s the new hot vet that’s determined to infiltrate every area of his life.

🍑 Short and Sweet (29k) by 5ft9

Louis is a shy university student in a world scarce of male omegas. He's always dreamt of having an alpha despite his sheltered upbringing, fantasizing about being loved and cared for. He's immediately smitten by the mysterious alpha with curly hair, broad shoulders, and the addictive coffee scent.

🍑 Starlight's Crossing (30k) by smittenwithlouis [@smittenwithlouis]

All it takes is one night for Harry and Louis' life to change forever. Fast-forward four years, and they embark on an adventure of a lifetime across the universe.

🍑 The Pirate and The Piper (38k) by jacaranda_bloom [@jacaranda-bloom]

Harry is Hook, Louis is Pan, and nothing is what it seems.

🍑 don't want no other shade of blue (43k) by padfootyoudog [@louisisworthit]

it was foretold that Alpha Prince Harry would be mated to a beautiful male omega with eyes that could rival the stone amethyst, but Omega Prince Louis refuses to believe it.

🍑 No Easy Choice, But You’re Mine (44k) by alltheselights [@alltheselights]

Louis is an omega hitman with one last job that goes a little sideways. Harry is the alpha bartender that looks a little too closely and cares a little too much.

🍑 Sedative Duty. (46k) by daddyharrie [@daddyharrie]

Pop-star of the moment Louis Tomlinson is on his third-world tour. He decides to hire renowned professional dominant Harry Styles to unwind while on the road. In an effort not to raise suspicion by the crew, fans, and press, Harry pretends to be his bodyguard. He ends up being far more than that.

🍑 dirty laundry looks good on you (50k) by tomlinvelvet [@tomlinvelvetfics]

the utility room is a great place to fall in love.

🍑 Hamartia (66k) by tomlinvelvet [@tomlinvelvetfics]

Six years is a long time for Louis to mend his heart back and erase every lingering, stubborn memory of his ex-lover, Harry Styles. But when news of the war being over spreads across the world like wildfire, and he stumbles upon the alpha he vowed himself to never see ever again, he realises that not even a lifetime will be enough for him to pick up the scattered, broken parts of his soul. He's far from expecting the alpha he loved to be struggling in the same way.

🍑 feeling borrowed, always blue (68k) by falsegoodnight [@falsegoodnight]

Louis has been dreaming of his wedding since he was young - he just never expected it to happen like this.

🍑 Mind Over Matter (You Under Me) (73k) by youreyesonlarry [@youreyesonlarry]

Harry stopped playing hockey (after 10 years of a professional career) because of a severe injury. The dream he worked so hard for vanished in the blink of an eye. His family insisted that he had to go to physical therapy, even if it only helped his health. Cue to personal assistant Louis, the most efficient and kind PA one could hire

#larry fanfiction #hlcreators #hlsource #hljournal #larry fic

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gabriel4sam · 3 years

Text

Not love at first sight (But love at the sixty-third life defying idiocy), a CodyWan story

Written for @swbigbang, with the help of @kitcatkim in the role of the patient beta and @outernorth for artist (art just there)

Because all the other members of their small outpost were not in shape (read, hungover), Cody and Obi-Wan go on a small, simple, totally not possibilities of explosions supply run.

Cody comes back with a headache the size of Coruscant, a new hate of insectoids life. And a brand new significant other, in the shape of his exasperating General

It’s not a hangover, it’s a hecatomb. Whatever Boil had put in his new still was a terrible, terrible idea. The entire Separatist Council could do pointes in tutus on the flight deck and the vode would neither see it, nor care about it.

Cody and Obi-Wan were the only ones not drinking the day before, them and the communication officers on duty. The communication officers because they were working, and Cody and Obi-Wan, well, because they like the occasion for the men to feel free, and they can’t with their superior officers in their company.

That doesn’t mean the men are supposed to feel free enough to incapacitate the whole bunch of idiots they are apparently in charge off.

“Latrine duties, the first time we do planet fall. The whole of them.” Cody grumbles, assessing the damage with a cold, clinical eye.

“How does that even work? Does every man have latrine duties for his own latrines? Do you make them install as many latrines as they are? ” Obi-Wan remarks. He’s the usual calm and composed Jedi Master Cody knows on the outside, but the Commander is pretty sure he’s laughing on the inside. Cody had met Quinlan Vos, ok? And he poured enough hard liquor in the man to obtain confidences. Confidences which horrified him, Obi-Wan had even less survival instincts than Cody thought, but confidences he can’t un-hear. He will know forever!

Or at least, he will know until a luckier droid kills him. Cody is not an optimist about clones living long, happy, fulfilling lives. He has eyes after all and a functioning brain.

Cody glares at Obi-Wan, just in case. He has learnt, in the two years since he took his position with his General, that Jedi react pretty well to glaring. Not that it stops them from doing stupid stuff, but at least, they feel guilty about it.

If they like the glaring party only. Commander Ponds had a lot of things to narrate about Mace Windu and the horrible, horrible conglomerate mogul.

Obi-Wan takes his most innocent air, something Cody stopped believing two days in their acquaintance, when his newly minted General had destroyed a whole block of warehouses on an unnamed moon and made a grown Hutt call for its parent. It had been a bad month for Obi-Wan. No need to judge. When innocents are in danger, the cost of the repairs is less a problem and more a number for the politicians to handle. And yes, Obi-Wan knows the money used could certainly be used in other useful ways, but no amount of credits could ever buy a life, in the eyes of a Jedi. But that day, when Cody, after a few, very stressful hours of radio-silence, had finally gotten back his General, slightly charred, the hostages, hungry and thirsty and exhausted but all of them in one piece, and a terrified Hutt, in the middle of a devastated battleground, he had understood better the warning of Alpha-17. There, Cody had sworn in petto to never underestimate his Jedi, despite the irreproachable manners, the swishing hair and the smile of a holo-star.

Together, they take the time to check every soldier, to make sure nobody was busy drowning in their own fluid because they were too hangover/still drunk, to roll over. Everybody is alive, and the communication officers are getting ready to do a double shift, and ready to nib their vode about it later.

“It’s a good thing we’re on down time,” Obi-Wan remarks, “I must confess, despite the talents of your brothers, I’m not quite sure we could withstand an attack from Grievous and his various cronies right now.”

“We would get our asses handed to us, you mean.”

“Exactly.”

Obi-Wan cautiously touches one of the abandoned drink containers, with more care than he gives to explosives.

“What did he put in this thing?” he asks, fascinated.

“You’re not testing it!” Cody immediately retorts, because he knows his Jedi, “not in the name of science, curiosity or whatever.”

Obi-Wan touches the container a second time.

Cody could swear the thing moves in return, like it wants to be pet. Obi-Wan hums, his face interested and he leans a little more in the direction of the container. If the thing starts growing whatever strange means of locomotion is on its mind, Cody is using his blaster, no matter the General’s opinion. That’s how bad holo-dramas start, with an unknown thing unleashed on an unsuspecting ship/outpost/space station. He refuses to star in one of those plot-lacking dramas his brother Wolffe pretends he doesn’t love.

The thing doesn’t move anymore and Obi-Wan loses interest and goes back to helping troopers into their quarters and their bunks.

Cody helps, but that doesn’t mean he’s not plotting terrible retributions. He knows the last few weeks have been pretty hard, the hardest in a long time, that’s one of the reasons Obi-Wan and himself made themselves scarce last night.

Now, they have a week just waiting for the Negotiator to come pick them up. One week for the men to rest and to heal and perhaps to train lightly…but that’s no reason for the sort of screw-up Cody is seeing right now. Boil and his still should be transferred from the 501th and put into whatever part of the army that handles studies about biological warfare. Biological warfare that the Republic officially doesn’t indulge in, studying it only as a way to protect its worlds against it. But Cody isn’t convinced. He has a lot of questions he will never ask about parts of the army which are not led by Jedi, and that the Jedi are trying, with no success, to have access too. Obi-Wan has promoted him so much that the Commander now has access to documents he’s pretty sure nobody thought a clone ever would. He’s staying silent for now. If the Jedi need help with that, if they fail, the vode will try, but Cody is keeping this ammunition in reserve. He can only fire it once, because when natural-borns who aren’t Jedi realize exactly how much power Obi-Wan and the Jedi council has given him and some of the other commanders, they will try to strip them of it, he just knows it.

At the end, everybody is moaning in their bunks, or manning communication, and Cody and Obi-Wan raid the nice rations, the ones with the green seals, no less food of unkown origins than the rest of it, but certainly the tastiest. They sit down at the entry of the outpost, sharing a canteen of water between them. They don’t talk, most of the time they don’t need to.

Cody isn’t really hungry but it’s easier to trick Obi-Wan into eating something when those who surround him do too. The warmth of the sun, the sounds of nature, the nice, and so rare, oh so rare, knowledge that they have a little free time instead of having to run to put out another fire. All of this is making Obi-Wan soften, like a carving of stone suddenly becoming pliable.

“Commander?” Cody’s holocom disturbs them, and Cody startles, suddenly realizing he was lost in the light playing into the copper of Obi-Wan’s hair.

“It’s nothing, really nothing probably,” the shiny in charge of this particular console explains to them, “ one of the new models of probes should have been back twenty minutes ago. I tried to raise it per the procedure, but it isn’t answering.”

“We’re supposed to be alone on this world,” Obi-Wan remarks, a line forming between his brows.

“They are still working the kicks out of this model,” the shiny admits, “that’s why we used them specifically on this planet where they are in no danger. We’re supposed to go back with all of them, for study, to hammer out the last problems.”

The line between the General’s brows is growing deeper.

“I will make a report to the Council about the danger it could pose to you, to send any vode on the field with materials not totally ready, and the Jedi Order will issue a formal protest.” His shoulders are tense. No matter the number of tries, the Jedi are blocked at every corner in the Senate in their efforts to better the life of the clones, even in the small things and it’s a terrible possibility that this time will be the same.

“You know what? We should go check ourselves,” Cody decides, because he wants to erase that line, that tension. “Since Boil poisoned the men, we could do it. A little trek in fresh air before breathing the recycled air in the Negotiator again.”

“Oh Cody, I can do it myself,” Obi-Wan offers immediately, “you don’t have a lot of free time-“

“Funny, I would have sworn you didn’t know the concept…”

“I am perfectly capable of knowing when my body needs down time.”

“That’s not what Master Erin said.”

And that’s how they leave the base.

It’s almost noon, birds or other small things Cody can’t honestly identify are chirping, the air is crisp and fresh, and the sky is only slightly purple, with no risk of rain. No matter how many worlds he sees, Cody is still out of countenance on worlds where the combination of gases in the atmospheres and stars emitting other waves than the Kamino sun combine to give entire landscapes strange colours. Most of the time, he’s wearing his helmet which filters the strangeness of it, and it’s only at the end of the battle, when he takes it off, that he realizes everything is weirdly green-tainted.

Also, he’s pretty sure Arc Trooper Fives was lying when he told him once he visited a world on a body guarding mission with his own Jedi were everything was glittering. He’s not putting any money on it, because Skywalker and his men were guarding the Naboo Senator. From what Cody observes, when Naboo people enter the scene, glitter just happens. He also thinks Fives is much better being Rex’s problem than his own.

Most of their supplies have already been packed for retrieval, so Cody and Obi-Wan only took one hover bike out, and for now Obi-Wan is piloting, Cody behind, and the Commander is beginning to think he made a tactical error. The plastoid of his armour is supposed to stop him from feeling Obi-Wan’s warmth, but Cody could swear he can still feel it. For all that the Jedi can seem aloof and strange, nothing makes him remember his General is flesh and blood than encircling a linen-warped waist with his arms.

The world passes around them, the colours of the trees, the playful course of the clouds in the sky, the peaceful scenery of a wild world, with its inherent qualities and defaults. Cody likes those worlds better, untouched by sentient life. Growing up in the sterility of Kamino, there is something intoxicating in nature running its course, forests giving way to meadows, biotopes decided by climates and geology, and not by a careful hand arranging them for the maximal profits in their exploitation.

Cody understands about the need for fresh territory, with the growth of population, but certainly, certainly the most carefully hidden part of him insists quite vehemently, there must be another solution than the desolation of grey and pollution that is Coruscant. Something else than seeing the poorest people of the Republic living in deplorable conditions, never seeing the fresh green of a new leaf, as the richest ones can sample the delights of nature in carefully constructed reserves?

More and more, Cody is curious about the Agricorps, and their works to restore degraded biotopes, but he had the vague impression, when he asked questions about it to his General, that it’s a difficult subject for him.

Probably, Obi-Wan wanted to go into the Agricorps and they didn’t want him to, for whatever reasons. Cody thinks it’s more glorious to restore nature and to help feed a community than to go to war, like Obi-Wan is doing right now, or to negotiate treaties, which he vaguely thinks is Obi-Wan’s job in time of peace.

Cody’s thoughts drift gently as the journey continues, going from nature’s beauty to the exact shade of Obi-Wan’s hair when he has been under a natural sun for more than a few hours. The way the copper of it becomes richer and richer…. After a little less than two hours, they switch pilots, and Cody does his best to keep his thoughts on track. It would be stupid to crash just because he’s distracted by a flight of birds taking off with the noise of the bikes, no matter how graceful they are. He concentrates on piloting, and not on the presence of Obi-Wan behind him, his arms around Cody, and not in the colours of the forest around them, and the bucolic impression of their little expedition.

The last known position of their wayward probe put it next to a small lake, four hours away on hover bike, at the base of the mountainous regions. If this part of the world was in winter season, the most logical reason for their missing probe would be a mudslide. Cody told in his reports time and time again that the probes should fly higher, that the field itself is much less friendlier than believed in the labs, but apparently nobody listens to him.

It’s the end of spring on this part of the planet, the probe was probably eaten by a giant fish, or something equally undignified.

They unseat on a single beach, the last known location. No more probe there than dignity and decency in the Senate. Nothing. No blackened hull of the thing if it had exploded under mysterious circumstances, best known as shoddy work in the conception. Not even a trace they could track back.

Cody turns on himself, surveying the landscape. Vegetation, mountains, peaceful lapping of water on the beach, more mountains with their snowy capes, a lot of weird looking trees. For a vacation, it would be peaceful. For missing military equipment, it’s sadly lacking.

“By incredible luck, you wouldn’t sense our missing flying friend in the Force?” Cody asks, because that would simplify things. That would simplify things, so of course the answer is no. As Obi-Wan struggles with putting together the scanner, Cody gathers pieces of driftwood, intending to start a fire. If they have to circle on foot, on uneven ground, to find the probes, nothing says they can’t do it after another meal next to a warm fire. In the harsh reality of war, Cody has learnt to wisely enjoy the few moments of peace, and he would very much like to teach that skill to his General. Obi-Wan is supposed to have decades of experience in him, but apparently he’s not aware that every sentient has their limits.

Cody is less than twenty meters from the Jedi and the hoverbike, facing Obi-Wan, his arms already full of a nice load when he sees Obi-Wan let go of the scanner, which tumbles on the stones, and turns to him, a hand already at his waist, reaching for his lightsaber.

“Cod-“ Obi-Wan yells, but the sound doesn’t reach Cody, as the stones give way under him, shifting in a dip of grey sand and Cody is gulped down like Master Yoda gobbles a small fish.

For a second, he can’t breathe, there is sand everywhere around him, on his skin, in his mouth, infiltrating his armour by the neck, and the wood in his arms squeeze against his ribs. He feels he’s gonna get crushed alive and he struggles with all his strength. Death has always been the end but he wanted to leave in combat. He can feel unconsciousness threatening and just before it would take him, he’s spit up violently and he rolls over with the momentum, the driftwood, the sand, and a few bits of the armour which didn’t survive the experience.

He can see someone lean over him, no more than a silhouette, because it’s so dark, he can feel the sand under his head, and also the head wound and the blood seeping out of it, and he takes a long breath, and it burns, all the way to his lungs, and then he knows no more.

For a long time, Cody floats. He dreams. Or he hallucinates.

He’s on Kamino again and he learns the world is without mercy for him and his brothers.

He’s training and he can feel Alpha-17’s eyes on him, pensive.

He’s very young and he doesn’t understand where the last of his batche went.

He’s older and he’s meeting his first Jedi, General Tii, and she always has a nice word for every clone, but her eyes are terribly sad every step she takes on Kamino.

He’s meeting Rex and their friendship soars instantly.

He’s seeing brothers dying and he’s seeing rescues and the world is a never ending war, but Cody refuses to let that be the only thing his brothers will know. He watches and he checks and he learns and he places his brothers the best he can, and he’s evaluating Jedi and people, and planets and his mind never stops.

Cody wakes up. General Plo Koon is leaning over him and Cody lets relief seize him, until he realizes something is wrong. No eye covers, no breathing masks, and as much as Cody can see in the very low light, the thick leathery hide acting as skin is much lighter than Plo Koon’s. A Kel Dor, but not the Jedi Master that the Wolffe’s pack would follow to the end of the galaxy and beyond.

After a few seconds of his brain going round in circles, it finally stops at a very important point: Kel Dor and humans don’t breathe the same atmosphere, and this Kel Dor is without breathing apparels. Cody goes to put a hand on his mouth in instinctual movement, like he could stop himself from suffocating, but the other lays a hand on Cody’s forearm, his entire body language non-threatening, and says something he can’t understand. That’s when Cody realizes something translucent is surrounding his head, like a bubble inflating and deflating with every breath he takes. He pokes it, very carefully. It’s flexible, slightly sticky and it smells earthy, a little like those mushrooms his General insisted he try once, when he took him to his friend Dex dinner.

Cody takes a careful breath. He doesn’t die in terrible suffering, so he takes another one. The air entering his lungs still seems appropriate for his species. He tries to sit up, moving very slowly to make the stranger understand he’s not attacking, and the Kel Dor helps him.

Seated, he can better observe the place around him. He has been placed on a pallet of light fur, in some sort of carved place, the walls decorated, not in paint, but in carving, and his armour is against one of the walls, carefully stacked. Cody wants to touch his head, where he was hurt, but once again the Kel Dor stops him before he touches the bubble. The only light comes from a small clay bowl full of sizzling oil, where a wick has been adapted. It doesn’t give enough light to help Cody see more than the small room and a crude overture in the stone, leading to more darkness. He can’t even study perfectly the features of the Kel Dor, more than to be sure it’s definitely not Master Koon.

The Kel Dor says something again and Cody makes a frustrated noise.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak your language.” The other doesn’t seem to understand that, so Cody tries Mando’a, with the same result.

He tries the Galactic Sign Language, no results.

He knows a few signs of the Alderaan Sign Language, the one from their Southern Hemisphere. Queen Organa taught him a few lessons once during a lockdown in the Royal Palace when he was guarding her, between grumbling about clones’s rights and what her husband better do about it in the Senate, and Cody learns fast. The Kel Dor still doesn’t react in any useful way.

“A common language would be pretty useful to know if I’m your guest or your prisoner,” Cody jokes. Sarcasm now. He’s spending too much time with his General.

He shifts, trying to see if he will be stopped from standing, but the other only helps him, carefully arranging on Cody’s torso the ending of the bubble. Now that Cody studies it more attentively, he’s sure the stuff is organic. It’s like they forced his head and the superior part of his torso into some sort of ring of weird looking mushrooms, the mycelium of one of them extended around his head. If this is producing oxygen for him, he really doesn’t want to disturb it.

The world tilts when he stands up but the Kel Dor pushes a shoulder under Cody’s arm and they go out. When Cody passes his armour, he fetches his blaster, and the other doesn’t stop him. Either he doesn’t understand it’s a weapon, or he doesn’t think Cody will attack him. Her? Them? Are Kel Dol gendered beings?

Exiting the small room, Cody can’t see. Everything is dark around them. He can hear movements and the air around him has the quality of an enormous space. A cave, he would think, but the little lamp his new friend has in his claws is not enough.

“Of course,” Cody remarks, “your eyes are much much better. You don’t need a bank of lamps.” He almost jumps when someone joins them and if his head wasn’t still ringing, he probably would have attacked, but it’s only another Kel Dor, smaller, with a skin more brown. They ask something to the first one, but again, there is no sense for Cody.

He’s guided to a stone bench and the little lamp is pushed into his hands. Kel Dor are going in and out of the little circle and Cody tries to evaluate how many of them there are, but he’s, to his great shame, not good enough to distinguish between the Kel Dor easily. He can isolate one or two who have more evident features for a human, like one missing an arm, but the rest of them, all dressed in a very similar way with some furs identical to those Cody woke up on, and the alien features. Cody feels anger against himself. He judges natural borns for not making an effort to distinguish between the vode, despite their efforts to gain their own identity by tattoos or dyes, and he shouldn’t be victim of the same bias.

Finally, someone sits next to him. Cody studies their face, trying to commit them to memory.

People don’t seem unfriendly. He’s pretty sure the one he woke up with is some sort of local healer, and that it is this one who came back to him several times. Children even come to him, chattering in their language in a way which makes him think of the younger ones on Kamino, before some of their batches started to disappear and they started to understand what their fate in the world would be. A particularly daring little one climbs onto his lap and Cody looks around, ready to see the parent arrive and take its offspring from the strange being. But this community seems so peaceful nobody sees a problem with the child on the stranger's lap.

The little one shows him his treasure, a cube deeply carved with symbols Cody can’t decipher. Of course. In a world without sun, carving must be a medium and painting, or writing, must be inexistent.

“It’s a very nice cube,” he says to the little one, whose gender he can’t decipher. If Kel Dor have gender. He’s pretty sure he heard once that the biggest number of genders registered for a sentient species was eight, and the smaller zero, but he has no idea for this species.

The child seems pretty happy with the answer, even if they can’t understand it any more than Cody can understand their own opinion, expressed in an uninterrupted flow.

Around him, he can vaguely perceive people going about their day. How calm. How reposing. Nevertheless, peaceful or not, Cody can’t breathe the same atmosphere as them, and the strange organic concoction they put on his head to help will soon find its limits. He’s getting thirsty, for once, and he can’t drink without taking the thing off, which he can't. And that’s not even thinking about his General, who must be trying to reach him by any means the Force gives him.

If he knows Cody is alive.

No, no, he must know.

And even if the Force, whose exact limitations Cody is quite unsure of, even if the Force can’t tell Obi-Wan Cody is alive, Obi-Wan is not exactly a man to just go back to the outpost and declare him dead. He will search and search and search, and bring Cody back alive to his vode, or his body for his brothers to honour.

Cody knows: it had been a terrible row between the Jedi on one part and the Kaminoan and the Senate on another, this refusal to abandon dead clones bodies to the elements.

And, to the surprise of the Senate who was in the habits to bully the Jedi for centuries, the Jedi hadn’t budged. But Cody had seen what it had cost them: the Senate had made them pay, in late important reports who the Jedi needed for the war efforts, on refusal of important supplies, suddenly labelled unessential…

So, Obi-Wan is searching for him at the moment, and Cody needs to go to him. The ringing in his head, present since he woke up, has slightly diminished, and he has walked with more grievous wounds.

The question is now: how to mime exit to the Kel Dor, how to ask for a guide? Because if he has to feel around the cave until he finds an exit, he will, but that would be so much easier.

“Hoping there is an exit into your cave, little one,” he says to the child, who is falling asleep on his lap, “because if I have to drill through the roof to the exterior of the planet, it’s gonna cause breathing problems for your city.”

An adult approaches them, a long plaid in their hands, and they mime Cody putting it around his shoulders. Instead, Cody wraps the little one in it and puts the resulting bundle into the adult’s arms.

“I don’t suppose you could send me to the nearest exit?” He asks, and of course, the Kel Dor doesn’t have an answer.

He takes the little lamp and leaves to explore. He can’t see well more than two meters from the circle of light, and even with it, his eyes are struggling.

Soon, he’s stopped by a wall, which he follows until he finds a low door, with only a curtain. He risks an eye, feeling quite voyeuristic, but he only sees something resembling a storage space, big amphoras against a wall.

He continues to follow the wall, finds another one, loses himself in what is a succession of low houses. Above him, the roof of the cavern is still invisible and he can’t see the walls. He finds another little place with stone benches.

Or is it the same?

No, even underground, Cody is sure of his sense of direction. It’s another one place, and the city is bigger than he thought possible. He’s also walking way too slowly, because of the problem of light and his still ringing head.

“Kriff,” he whispers, sitting down on one of the benches.

“Obi-Wan, please find me,” he whispers before scolding himself. He’s no melodrama maiden, he is perfectly capable of finding the surface again by himself.

A burly Kel Dor approaches him, mushrooms in his claws and says something.

“I’m sorry, I can’t understand what you’re saying,” Cody tries to explain. The other sits next to him and gesticulates to the mushrooms helping, he thinks, him to breath, and when Cody doesn’t do anything, he starts placing the ones he brought against the first ones. They seem to merge in a frankly disgusting scene which is probably mushrooms porn.

“Does that mean you need to change them regularly for me to breathe?” Cody asks, despite knowing he won’t receive an answer he can understand.

To add another problem to the long list Cody is already shouldering on, the cave floor starts to tremble and people start yelling.

People are yelling, and despite the language barrier, Cody can understand the panic with no problems.

The soil beneath his feet grumbles again. There is a sound like a rockslide, and more yells, and terror is the taste at the back of Cody’s throat, because he still can’t kriffin see.

Finally, the trembling is so terrible he’s thrown on his knees and the sound reaches a crescendo as a great light emerges from the rock soil, three hundred meters from where Cody is kneeling. It’s some sort of giant worm, with a maw higher than Cody. It roars and glows even brighter, the bioluminescence of its chitin almost dazzling for Cody himself.

All around Cody, Kel Dor are yelling and struggling on their feet with great difficulties, as the rock soil is still trembling. The beast roars again and it sounds like a thousand ships taking off at the same time in the confined environment. As Cody is helping a Kel Dor to their feet, the pandemonium reaches an even higher spike as another worm emerges, further than the first, and the quake of the rock sends them flat on their bellies.

Cody really regrets letting Boil distribute his production yesterday, what he wouldn’t give for ten men and a rotary canon right now! Even for Hardcase, who he’s really happy is most of the time Rex’s problem, and his tastes for explosives.

He hoists himself more or less vertical, swearing all he can at the same time. He helps the Kel Dor to their feet again and then assesses the situation.

The lights of the worms let him have a good gaze for the first time at the enormous cavern they are in and the low buildings in it. Behind them he can even see big overtures, probably an entire network of caverns. An entire city in the dark, deep in the soil, protected from the outside world and its atmosphere which the Kel Dor can’t breathe, and from the Republic scanners which never knew they were there.

Protected from the sun, too.

And now that the light has come to them in the form of predators, they are defenceless. Cody can see people trying to flee, with a hand on their eyes, and with no success. By the time Cody has succeeded in approaching the scene of the disaster, at least three Kel Dor have been swallowed.

One of the worms, the closest, roars again and Cody doesn’t lose time: the maw, unprotected by the chitin covering the body, seems like a perfect target.

He raises his blaster and fires.

Another roar, even more deafening, as blood splatters all around in a gorish scene. A good part of the mandible has exploded, but the beast isn’t dead. It strikes, trying to gobble Cody like it did the poor Kel Dor. The difference is that the Commander can see in the light, on the contrary of the first victims. He evades just in time to escape certain death.

He rolls over and raises his blaster a second time, but the angle is worse than the first time, and the shot dampens itself on the chitin with no more effect than darkening it, and enraging the worm even more.

Again, it tries to kill Cody and the man dances out of range, blessing the hours of training the Jedi gave all of them. It had been the first thing the Jedi had done, because they thought the training the vode had received on Kamino didn’t focus enough on the art of dodging.

Cody never told them it was because the trainers and the Kaminoans thought the vode easily expandable and more useful for a suicide strike. He suspects the Jedi knew, if the way they act around the Kaminoans is proof.

Dodging, advancing, retreating, taking a shot every time he sees an overture, Cody fights, more a reflex than anything, to protect the Kel Dor. He wouldn’t refuse a little help; with spears even if they don’t have other weapons, but the cavern inhabitants are useless. They are not even running away from the worms, full of the terror of death, and the light, which have come in their city.

Nevertheless, the issue of the fight was never a real question. Even hurt and far away from his usual fighting grounds, Cody was bred a warrior and he had honed the skills given to him by his genetic donor all his life. The worm, a female, is in the habit of only fighting other female worms during the mating season for access to the best breeding ponds and to gobble Kel Dor and every animal it could. It never had to fight a sentient being, especially one with a blaster.

The blaster’ shots finally damage the roof of its mouth enough and one of them burns its path to the brain. The beast dies immediately, but the nervous system needs time to receive that message. For a moment, Cody fears the convulsions of the enormous body will cause the entire caves system to collapse on their heads.

When the movements finally stop, he vaults himself over a rock slide, caused by the events, and approaches carefully. The worm is still partially obscured by the rock he emerges from, but Cody can see a good twenty meters of it. He’s bringing back a chitin part to the GAR, because he wants ships protected like that!

A sudden movement to his left makes him turn, but too late. His zoological fascination has caused Cody to make a horrible, rookie mistake, the sort of mistake which makes a rookie never have an occasion to become something other than a rookie.

For a moment, he had forgotten there was a second worm.

He brandishes his weapon, but it’s too late. Only his reflexes save him from being cut in two, but a razor sharp incisor scraps against his armour, parting it like butter and only missing the skin by half a centimetre. The worm has no interest in the Kel Dor, no matter how easy prey they are. It just wants to kill the stubborn little creature who just killed its mother. His blaster clatters on the rock, too kriffin far away. Cody rolls on himself, tries for it, but he already knows it’s too late, when the sound of a lightsaber being ignited announces the arrival of the cavalry, just in time.

Obi-Wan Kenobi arrives on the scene like an armed deux ex machina. He’s wearing Cody’s helmet in order to breath in the cavern and death is burning light-blue in his hand. Rare are the materials which can resist the power of a lightsaber, and Obi-Wan doesn’t take chances with Cody’s life, no matter how he is repelled by the taking of a life, even an animal one. The head of the worm falls on the other side of the body as Obi-Wan is still airborne from one of those improbable jumps Force Sensitive do. The second his feet touch the rock; he’s rushing to Cody, trying to assess his health.

Across the galaxy, Anakin suddenly sits down in the marital bed, sending Padmé, who was asleep across his torso, tumbling into the sheets by the violence of his movements. The vision of a chitinous torso opening, full of meaty juice, dances before his eyes.

“Ani?” The young Senator asks, once he has succeeded in making her put down the blaster she retrieved from even the Force doesn’t know where. Padmé doesn’t do peaceful when she’s woken up abruptly, something he learned quickly in their marriage. Convincing the handmaiden that every noise inside their bedroom wasn’t a murder attempt and that they shouldn’t rush in, weapons drawn, was another interesting adjustment to the married life.

“I just.….I’m not sure…” He tries to grip what woke him up, but it already has disappeared. “I think I’m hungry,” he admits, “sorry to have interrupted your sleep.”

“The droids can make you something,” she suggests, burrowing into the nest of pillows, less prone to sudden shifting.

“Do you think we have insects?” He asks.

****************************

“Cody! Cody, are you alright?”

“Obi-Wan, General, are you hurt?” Cody and Obi-Wan ask at the same time, hands searching, patting the other bodies in gestures less destined to triage of wounds and more to the simple animal need for contact.

“The air of the cavern isn’t breathable for us,” Obi-Wan says, after a few seconds and Cody nods: “I deduced that, but the thing on my head….it’s helping.”

“How did you deduce such a- Oh, um, hello.”

Around them, the Kel Dor have begun to assemble, all of them an arm on their face, trying to protect their eyes.

“Your lightsaber, turn it off,” Cody says and, making something purr in the Commander’s chest, Obi-Wan immediately obeys, no question, no hesitation.

The Kel Dors guide them away from the scene of the carnage. Cody sees a few of them with stone machetes and axes, already working on taking apart the pale flesh of the worms, working from the wounds Cody and Obi-Wan made, as the chitin is too hard on other places of the big bodies.

Cody watches for a few seconds. One of a Kel Dor yanks open the cranial cavity. Cody turns to the other side very quickly, because butchering enormous worms is apparently more than his battle-hardened stomach can take. Nothing should make the noise an axe makes against flesh.

Cody finds his little lamp again. It’s not even extinguished, the events haven’t probably lasted more than ten minutes. The universe is a hard place, thinks Cody, where he could get eaten by any abomination with too much teeth in less time than an oil lamp runs its course.

They sit next to each other on the closest bench and in the halo of the lamp, Cody inspects his General better. He’s covered in stone dust and whatever else disgusting stuff is on his tunic: he probably crawled his way there.

The adrenaline is still burning through Cody, and joy too, as he turns to his General. On the whole, he misses the days life was simpler on Kamino, with no worms for example, but on Kamino, he never heard the sound of a lightsaber and knew, with a certainty so burning it could have well resonated in the Force, that he was saved. There is comfort, in the hard world he’s living in, in the certainty that his General will tear apart entire solar systems to rescue any clones. That all Jedi would. For a clone, raised to be interchangeable, this strong-willed refusal to leave even one of them behind is a balm to the soul.

“You found me,” he says, and he tries to infuse that with professionalism, and fails miserably.

“I will always find you,” Obi-Wan promises. It’s strange to talk to him like that, with Cody’s helmet on his head. Cody hadn’t realized he relied so much on the Jedi’s face to understand him.

“Yes, sir, but for a moment, I confess I thought you would more, avenge me or something.”

Obi-Wan touches his shoulder.

“I’m sorry to have been so long,” he says, “the system of caves proved itself tricky, and the Force insisted I couldn’t just blow up my way inside.”

“That would let the atmosphere on the outside enter,” Cody theorized, “and I think, our hosts….”

Like they have been summoned, two Kel Dor approach them. They are dressed as simply as all the others Cody has seen, but on the bust of the smaller one, there is some sort of ceremonial pectoral and it has a very big difference with everything Cody has seen since stepping into the cave. It’s in metal.

“Obi-Wan”, Cody whispers, “look at that.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t speak the language more than Cody. He can recognize it’s not the actual principal language of Kel Dor, which he has heard before, but no more than that. Nevertheless, it’s less a problem for a Jedi. He can feel in the Force other’s intentions, enough to understand easily that the people here don’t want to harm them, which Cody had deduced himself hours ago, and that they want to bring them to see something.

Cody is very happy to leave the dead bodies of the worms behind them.

And to General Skywalker eats insects! Bless the Force that Skywalker is Rex’s Jedi.

One cave. Another. Another one.

“How many are there? How big are these caves?'' Cody asks. He’s tired, hungry, thirsty, and more or less ready to go back to camp, thank you very much.

They find a ship, or more, the skeleton of a ship, in the last part of the caves system, the deepest one. It’s less a cave, and more the memory of a crash. The ship has been cannibalized, years after years, of everything useful, to the latest scrap of metal, except for the framework.

“It was probably made with a metal too dense for the meagre set of tools they have,” Obi-Wan theorizes.

“I can’t recognize the type of ship that is, the form itself is so strange,” Cody remarks, watching it with the eye of a man trained to recognize enemy and ally ships in a nano second in the middle of battle. Obi-Wan is touching the metal with his bare skin, with great reverence.

He always loved old things, his Jedi.

The happiest Cody had seen him was for a protection mission in a dusty archive, on a faraway world. General Skywalker was with them, and the young Ahsoka too, and the intel had been faulty. There had been no attack, Obi-Wan had had his Padawan and GrandPadawan close and safe, and spent his days making amorous noises at poetry treaties centuries old.

“It’s incredibly old. Probably before the foundation of the Republic."

"But that’s….that’s old as kriff."

"During the first time of space travel, ships weren’t as reliable. They probably are the descendants of a crew of explorers. After the crash, staying inside the caves was the only long-term possibility for them, if they hadn’t the means to produce enough respiratory apparatuses. It was the only way to survive for them. Nevertheless, it stopped anyone from finding them. And little by little, they regressed technically and lost the way to contact the outside."

"Do you really think they would have travelled from their world without a way to breath on other planets?"

"Perhaps it was stocked in a part of the ship lost during the crash. Perhaps it was so long ago, it was long before the Kel Dor knew very few worlds have an atmosphere breathable for them…Every species has the tendency to think the world at large tailored for them.”

They don’t leave immediately. Obi-Wan is of the opinion that Cody is too tired to use the path he himself used to find him. And he’s probably right. Cody’s head is throbbing where he hurt it during his fall, but he doesn’t see how he could get better here, where he can’t eat or drink.

What follows is a game of mime between Obi-Wan and the Kel Dors which Cody won’t forget, ever, no matter how much Obi-Wan asks, and he regrets he doesn’t have a holocamera.

After a time, and an unforgettable time it was, Obi-Wan and he find themselves stashed in a little room, so low they can’t stand. It’s more a bed stuffed inside some sort of structure made in the same weird-looking, weird-smelling mushrooms. Cody takes off the bubble around his head and Obi-Wan takes off Cody’s helmet.

The red head has the worst case of helmet’s hair Cody has seen, ever and Cody can’t stop an unprofessional laugh around his first mouthful of fresh water.

“I don't Not a head made for helmets, do I?” the Jedi smiles, as he tore in two a strange looking loaf of bread.

They fall on the food, famished, and tease each other at the same time. There is water and what Cody thinks is some root vegetables, and flatbread, and some meat he isn’t touching with a ten foot pool, just in case it's giant worm.

“If you swear to wear armour instead of linen in battle, I swear to the Force I will never mock your hair,” Cody smiles in return, and Obi-Wan makes a face, like he did already wear good, solid protection instead of tunic and leggings and whatever he calls the multiple layers of his Jedi’s clothes.

“I thought….for a moment, I thought…” Obi-Wan stops. It’s rare to see him lost for words, he of the Silver tongue, the Negotiator.

“I’m not dead,” Cody reiterates, because there is no need to beat around the bush. Even risking their lives every day the Force makes, nobody likes the kick of adrenaline when one of your men is missing. It never becomes normal. It never should.

“And yet, for a second I thought you were. When I saw the earth opening under your feet and gobbling you. And when I arrived during your battle, the Force trumpeting in my heart about the mortal danger you were running to.”

“The Kel Dor were pretty useless against those things. Couldn’t let them get eaten like that. Not when they rescued me and helped me.”

“I know. I know. And I would have done exactly the same thing.”

Obi-Wan sits on the bed, less gracefully than he usually does. From where he’s leaning against the mushroom wall, Cody stares. He can see the lines around his mouth, and after his late-night conversation with Master Quinlan Vos, he knows they aren’t from laughing. He can see the lines at the edges of the eyes, discreet for now, a little more present every day. He can see the first traces of grey on the temples, simply a trace of silver in the red mane…. He’s, almost, sure there was no grey at the beginning of the war, he has seen the holos of Obi-Wan against Prime, against Jango, all those years ago, on Kamino.

Obi-Wan is burning too bright, burning himself.

And Obi-Wan isn’t the only one not getting younger. The accelerated aging isn’t exactly good for Cody’s health, starting with his knees.

One day, he won’t be quick enough for the next giant, bioluminescent man-gobbling worm. Or Obi-Wan will be too tired against Grievous. Since they met, an assignment Commander- General decided by Alpha-17 himself, their life has been full of Separatist assassins, murderous fauna, Sith assassins, murderous geology, Separatist assassins pretending to be Sith assassins, and Sith assassins pretending to be Separatists assassins, brain-washed murderous Senators, murderous flora, murderous black holes, and one time a murderous sentient ship.

The whole galaxy is conspiring to kill clones and Jedi, for what Cody can see.

If his math is right, he survived today the sixty-third attempt on his life from Fate since he left Kamino. Obi-Wan was there for most of them, and Cody was around for the latest attempts on Obi-Wan’s life.

And one day, it will stop.

Cody opens his mouth before he can talk himself out of it. Life is short and he’s a soldier slave, he doesn’t have the luxury to wait for another time.

“I think I’m falling in love with you,” he says, and Obi-Wan looks like he has been whacked on the skull with a heavy object. It’s not exactly his best face, mouth round in surprise, and Cody only feels affection. Then Obi-Wan’s lips curve into a smile like a sun, blinding, warm, and the Jedi touches the side of Cody’s face.

The Jedi touches the side of Cody’s face.

He doesn’t speak. Not yet. His head against Cody, his breath sharing Cody’s own air, they close their eyes, and Cody experiences the strange idea that he’s detaching himself from his brothers.

For the first time, there is something in his hands, or well, in his heart, that he doesn’t want to share with Wolffe or Boil, or even Rex, who has become his closest brother.

He doesn’t want to hide Obi-Wan from them, but he wants….

He hasn’t the words. Not yet.

But, with Obi-Wan at his side, he hopes he will learn them.

And he hopes his brothers too can find something, or someone, so precious they need to share the joy of knowing it, but also to keep it to themselves, like he wants to keep to himself the smile of Obi-Wan when Cody tells “I love you”, or the small freckles at the side of his mouth, visible only so, so, so close.

The first “I love you” Cody hears from Obi-Wan is whispered against his lips.

The first kiss tastes of the bread offered by the Kel Dor, of the cave’s dust and it’s perfect.

They’re still in the same situation, two exhausted men, in a cave full of toxic gases, only protected from them by some unknown mushrooms exuding oxygen, and Cody feels like he could take over the entire Republic. He sleeps curved around Obi-Wan, like two parts of the same whole, touching as much as they can, and if the headache from his head wound brings Cody to the surface a few times during their nap, he feels rejuvenated after it.

After, the Kel Dor help them find the surface and Cody and Obi-Wan leave their new friends, hand in hand, quite happy to find back the sun and the sky, the fresh air of a late morning…and almost all their men crawling around their area, trying desperately to find them.

Obi-Wan keeps Cody’s hand in his and a few brothers less intimidated than others by Cody’s glare, embarrassed and proud at the same time, even bumped their big brother’s shoulders as a sign of congratulation. Obi-Wan immediately goes red, like he’s a teen on his first crush, and not a seasoned Jedi Master whose touch can bring life or death.

Cody finds it adorable.

*******************

It’s the middle of the night shift on the Negotiator, but Cody is still working on a different time zone, so he lets Obi-Wan sleep peacefully in their shared bunk. Their shared bunk! A notion that still makes him giddy like a shiny at their first kiss, even a month after getting together. They are taking things pretty slow, or in the wrong order, Cody isn’t sure, they sleep in the same bunk every night, but haven’t got very far in term of sex, and this perfect, because this is them, and not some sort of artificial list of relationship’s milestone. And Cody already knows, deep in his soul, that he will never love a man like he loves this one, even if Obi-Wan is killed tomorrow, and he’s sure it’s the same for Obi-Wan.

The Negotiator is in route to join with the Steadfast, so General Koth is on board after a conjoined mission where Obi-Wan and him gave Cody new grey hairs. He finds him easily in the mess, demolishing a healthy serving. The stamps outside the rations are a different colour than the ones Cody and his brothers eat.

“Can I join you?” Cody asks.

“Of course,” Eeth Koth immediately answers and the chair on the other side of the table moves on its own, offering itself for the Commander. Cody arches a brow.

“Don’t tell Obi-Wan,” the General jokes, “or I will endure a lesson for frivolous use of the Force.”

Cody sits and they stay silent for a moment, the General apparently happy to let him come to his questions in peace, continuing to eat his meal. Despite being tailored for a different species’ nutritional needs, it looks exactly as unappetizing as most rations Cody is used too.

“General Ke-“

“You can call him Obi-Wan in front of me,” Eeth Koth interrupts. “There is no need to be ashamed of what binds you.” He grimaces. “Force knows we will all need all the comfort we can get before everything is set and done in this war.”

“Obi-Wan and I, we had a bit of an adventure, last month.”

“From what I heard, you have a lot of them.”

“Yes but….it was…it was the first time I was around civilians. Normal people, I mean.”

“Not Jedi and not clones, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Putting apart the fact that you are normal people, and that we are too, that it is a slippery slope to consider us different, because then the rights…”

“I know you’re fighting for us in the Senate. I know. That isn’t the question…I just mean. They were civilians. Even more civilian than usual. I have only met natural borns who are Jedi and Senators and politicians or some sort of official. This was different. And I realized how little we know about the world outside the GAR. And how little we know about societies, and species who aren’t us. They raised us for war only…” Cody was almost trembling with it. Eeth Koth put a comforting hand on his wrist and Cody continued:

“Obi-Wan, I don’t want Obi-Wan to become my teacher. It’s not his role. But if we want to have a chance outside the war, us, the vode, we need to learn about the outside world. I wanted to ask you if there was something…a way…”

Eeth Koth had totally abandoned his meal and Cody could feel the weight of his gaze, the same gaze as Obi-Wan, transcending their species.

“Let me call a few people,” the Jedi said.

**********

Years later, Cody thinks a lot about that moment. Eeth Koth joined the Force during the war and Cody has to remember this moment for the two of them, this simple moment around a table, this moment which became one of the tipping point of his life. Not the too numerous almost-death, not the many battles, not even his first kiss with his dear Obi-Wan. This moment, in Cody’s mind, is the one which changed his fate.

Eeth Koth died not even two months after that, one among a lot of Jedi who gave their life, alongside the vode, for a chance for the galaxy and its people. Not that people are particularly thankful about it: the discovery of the Sith engineering the two sides of the conflict rocked the easy confidence of the Republic in the solidity of its system.

Democracy is never forever, if people don’t work for it.

No, democracy is only saved for now, and never will it be saved forever and ever. But that shock to the system is treated by the most intelligent of the bunch like a chance to seize. All across the reunited Republic people are working hard, entering politics, creating organizations to teach the population, to hold those in power accountable….

It’s a sad thing so many vode, jedi and civilians had to die and suffer for that. It’s even sadder to think it didn’t almost happen. The Republic almost burned, the Sith almost won, the beloved former Padawan of Obi-Wan Kenobi almost helped murder Mace Windu, Master of the Order...Mace Windu isn’t exactly the type to hold a grunge, but Obi-Wan still needed months after that to stay in his presence, the guilt that should have eaten Anakin transfered.

Honestly, if Obi-Wan forgave Anakin much too quickly, and Windu too, the vod needed a much longer time. Skywalker had almost helped the man who had engineered them as slave soldiers, the man who would have wiped out their free will, the poor part of it they still had. The vod had needed a long time to forgive, and would never forget, but Cody still has the desagreable impression Rex’s anger is a most important consequence in Skywalker’s mind that the almost death of the democratic system and the almost rise of a dictatorship.

Sometimes, late in the night, Obi-Wan stays awake, something lost in his eyes than mediation never totally makes disappear, and Cody is sure that day figures in a good part in his dark thoughts.

Obi-Wan, and Cody too, think about what could have been. If Cody hadn’t been there that day, in the Temple, who would have been in charge of keeping an eye on Skywalker in the Council Room? No one, that who. Because Skywalker was a Council member, if a very fresh one, and there wasn’t on hand a Jedi Master with enough years to take a look at a Council Member and decide he needed baby-sitting. All those Masters were deployed, or in beds in the halls of healing. But Cody, Cody was there, and since he and his General had become an item, he had taken sometimes to act, despite what his logical brain told him, not like a soldier Anakin could order around, but like an exasperated step-father. Exasperated and concerned, as the war advanced and Anakin seemed less and less attached to his morals.

Who would have followed him to the Senate when Skywalker had refused to wait anymore, and tackled him at the last minute? Who would have stopped Anakin Skywalker from doing something as tremendously stupid as to save a Sith pitted against Mace Windu?

And all of that had been possible because Jocasta Nu had taken the first excuse she could to keep Cody on Coruscant that month. A well-known linguist was visiting for a series of talks, and she thought he could be a good professor for Cody, and more importantly that well-know linguist had enough political power to obtain permission for a clone following his courses.

And the Republic had lived, because Cody loved linguistics, or more because he had loved the little he understood of it at the time.

But Cody refuses to let the horrors of those years of war, and his terrible first years on Kamino, define him. He prefers to think, again and again, to that moment with Eeth Koth.

Cody didn’t know exactly what he wanted. His accelerated childhood, raised for war and war only, hadn’t given him the words for it. He just knew that for his brothers and he to have a chance after the war, they needed more. Or even more terrible horrors would certainly befall them. Soldiers without wars aren’t useful anymore, and tools with no use are only fated to be dismantled for parts.

Following Eeth Koth’s call, Jocasta Nu and her assistants had descended on the GAR with determination, great efficiency and anger that they hadn’t thought about that themselves. By dint of foraging the Jedi Archives, and every friendly archives of the galaxy, for legal precedent to help the Vode, they had forgotten all answers weren’t found between the terabytes of a datapad.

Master Nu is seated right next to Obi-Wan in the public and trying very hard to pretend her eyes aren’t misty, as Cody receives his diploma, earning himself the title of Doctor in linguistics, for his work with the forgotten Kel Dor city, right next to the first Kel Dor of said city to have made the jump to Coruscant.

Cody isn’t the first clone to finish his thesis. Not surprising: he left the GAR years later than some of them, refusing to leave before his lover, who had been pressed into service as long as the Senate could justify it, and even longer. With Anakin leaving the Jedi Order, Obi-Wan was certainly the most famous member of it for the public, and it was as if the Senate tried to make him pay the Jedi’s refusal to abandon the vode. But Cody was the first clone Jocasta Nu talked with, when she arrived to try to help the vode not in pleading that they shouldn’t be slave soldiers, but in demonstrating they were so much more.

Cody wasn’t the first clone to leave the GAR officially, that honour went to Rex who followed Ashoka to Orto Plutonia, the first clone to be officially accepted as a member of the Jedi Corps. For what Cody understands, his life consists of almost losing his toes ten times a month, hunting with the Taz and flirting desperately with every passing skirts, as Ahsoka flirts desperately with her own Senator and supervises Republic-Taz contacts. Obi-Wan and Cody went once during permission, and Cody swore to himself that the next time Rex and Ahsoka wanted to see them, it could be on a tropical atoll.

Cody wasn’t the first clone to find a job outside of the Jedi orbit. That honour went to Fives and Tup, who left together and chose the most pacifist world they could. “We were almost separated once, never again. I’m not touching a weapon again in my life” Fives had said to Cody that day, watching Tup, busy hugging Rex, with something ferociously possessive in his eyes. Now, they have a nursery of succulent plants on a small island, in the south hemisphere of Alderaan, and Cody still isn’t sure if they are the best friends in the world, or one of those pairs who took brothers in a quite different sense, and frankly, he doesn’t care. There is a small potted thing they sent as a gift on Cody’s desk, with red undertones and white flowers once a year, but the former Commander has a black thumb, and only Obi-Wan’s careful nursing in the Force saved the poor thing already thrice.

Cody wasn’t the first clone to enter academia, that honour went to Waxer, who now teaches mathematics on Mandalore and is busy reintroducing Fett’s genes into the population with a long string of ex-partners, who still like him very much and with who he raises an army of children, at least three of them bearing a name honouring Waxer.

Cody wasn’t the first clone to marry, that honour went to Jesse and Cody isn’t touching that choice of spouse with a ten-foot pool.

Cody wasn’t the first in a lot of things. But it’s ok. He doesn’t have to lead his brothers anymore. He doesn’t have to bear responsibilities for death and help who didn’t come, and for the horrors that were their life.

The vode are free and Cody can only be a brother like any other.

He can be only Obi-Wan’s husband, even if Obi-Wan jokes that now, it’s more him that will be only the husband of Doctor Cody Kenobi, his arm candy in gatherings.

#star wars #obi wan kenobi #commander cody #codywan #my fics

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joel-millerr · 3 years

Text

Kijimi

Chapter One of We Are One When Together (formerly A Mandalorian and a Smuggler)

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 8.5K

Warnings: Reader cauterizes a wound, so read with caution if that makes you uncomfortable

Summary: You've become quite a good spice smuggler. You always managed to evade capture, and now the New Republic is getting desperate. After meeting a friend on Kijimi, you planned to get the hell off that planet quietly, but you've never had to deal with someone like The Mandalorian. // This chapter establishes the reader and is more of an introduction than plot driven tbh

A/N: I’ve never written a second person POV before so pls be gentle. Also, this story takes place after Chapter 12.

You're sitting in a booth at the back of the cantina. Periodically, you take the time to scan your surroundings. There’s a steady flow of individuals coming in and out, therefore it’s hard to keep track of everyone, but you try to monitor their movements anyway. Being in such a crowded area is risky right now, but when Tye asked you to meet him on Kijimi, you couldn’t pass up the opportunity to catch up. Besides, you’re currently on a work hiatus, and now seemed like the perfect time to get back into the spice smuggling game.

It’s not that you wouldn’t have been able to do anything else. You’re quite skillful with your hands because you used to help your father fix ships back on Tatooine. Theoretically, you could have kept doing that for the rest of your days, but there was always a part of you deep down that made you believe you were meant for more important things. Granted, this isn’t exactly what you had in mind, but it is considerably more exhilarating than just cleaning and fixing ships.

It was Tye who first mentioned this “job”. You were busy fixing a T-14 hyperdrive generator that had been destroyed during a dumb gambling game of chicken. Why people would purposely charge at each other in space, you’ll never understand.

Anyway, he knew you were starting to get tired of the same routine every day. He could see it in the way your shoulders slumped while you were working, and how your voice grew tired of talking about re-wiring, and the maintenance of spaceships.

Ever since you were a child, your father had taken you with him to work and you loved it. You loved being able to spend time with your father and also learn the ins and outs of any spaceship. You could probably take a whole ship apart and put it back together in less than a week, but ever since your parents died, the work became mundane and repetitive. You no longer enjoyed doing the work. You did it just to get by.

“It’s a fairly easy job,” He started to say. You were sitting with your legs crossed, hyperdrive in your lap, rewiring the chunk of metal. “We meet the manufacturer on Kijmi and then come back to Tatooine and bring it to the client.”

“I don’t know, Tye,” You craved adventure, but your friend had a bad habit of getting into trouble. Unlike you, he didn’t have a steady job. Instead, he took whatever was offered to him, no matter how legit it was. You were usually the voice of reason and tried your best to get him on a straight path, but his spirit always craved danger, and while you fantasized about going on epic adventures, you tried to keep it on the legal sides of things.

Tye laid a hand on your shoulder, and in turn you looked up at him. His eyes were gentle, inviting and trusting. More often than not, you attempted your best to avoid his gaze whenever he tried to reel you into something because you knew as soon as you’d look at him, your walls would come crumbling down and whatever he asked you to do would get done. You crossed your left arm over your torso, placed your hand over his, and let a deep breath escape your lips.

“What are we transporting?” You asked, rising to your feet to look at him properly.

He hesitated to answer. Biting down on his bottom lip, his eyes broke contact and shifted down to his feet.

“Tye?” You inquired, leaning down to try to catch his eyes again.

“Uh…” His hand began rubbing the nape of his neck. You came to the conclusion by his behavior that this job wasn’t going to be something along the lines of transporting pieces of scrap metal and he knew you very rarely took on an illegal job. You had done maybe one or two over the years but if you could avoid it, you tried to keep your employment on the side that wouldn’t get your ass thrown in a cell.

“What’s the transport, Tye?” Your voice was more stern this time. This seemed to snap his mind back into reality and he finally met your eyes.

“Spice,” His voice was barely above a whisper and if you weren’t entirely focusing on his tone, you wouldn’t have heard him at all. Your muscles went rigid and you swallowed the lump in your throat you didn’t know was there. Once the empire fell, the New Republic had the impossible task of trying to keep the peace as well as police the entire galaxy, and wherever they were unable to properly govern, spice runners thrived. You had heard stories about spice runners. How every single one was a highly wanted criminal but were almost impossible to find. They worked quietly and discreetly and were able to smuggle spice on pretty much every corner of the galaxy.

“It’s foolproof. They supply the ship and give the location. All we have to do is meet the supplier on Kijimi and then bring the product back here. It’s simple enough,”

You began shaking your head immediately. The risk of getting caught was too high, and spice running was a hard limit for you.

“No, I can’t. What you’re asking is insane, Tye. Spice running?” You emphasized the last two words to make sure you heard him clearly.

“I wouldn’t have offered it to you unless I was absolutely sure nothing bad would happen.” Tye reached out and gently pressed his palm to your elbow, begging you to hear him out. “I can see you don’t love doing this anymore. Ever since your parents passed, I could see the passion disappear. It’s completely drained out of you. We do this one job and then you can go back to fixing hyperdrives in this kriffing hangar.” He waved his arms around the store. “Don’t you want to see what else is out there?”

You opened your mouth to protest but the words never came. He was right. Since you were a child, you dreamed of leaving Tatooine. You were tired of the sand, of the heat, of the kriffing dryness that was always eating at your skin. You dreamed of worlds where lush green ran rampant. Trees that grew so high you couldn’t make out the top. Grass that would tickle your hips as you travelled through it. Clean, fresh oxygen instead of the dry, dirty air you had grown accustomed to here. You had heard stories from travelers whose ships you’d fix about waterfalls, lakes, beaches. A large body of water? All these things you couldn’t even fathom. How beautiful must it be to live on a planet where water wasn’t fucking scarce. What did an actual shower feel like? Not some sonic shower that merely got you sterile enough to do about your daily business, but an actual shower, with water.

So yeah, you wanted to get the fuck off of Tatooine, but was this really the only option you had?

Tye could sense your apprehensiveness, but he knew the idea was tempting. Closing the gap between you, he wrapped his arms around your body. He was much larger than you, and you almost disappeared in his embrace. Taking a deep breath in his chest, you let yourself imagine a better life.

A life where you got to visit new worlds, encounter people from different walks of life, an existence where you truly got to experience the greatest things the galaxy had to offer. As a child, you’d lie in your cot and wish for an extraordinary life. One you could recount to your kids with awe, not wasting your years away on a desert planet that no longer had anything to give you. When your family passed away, you worked yourself to the bone, trying to lose yourself in repairing ships. You wished someone; anyone, would help you escape off this godforsaken wasteland one day.

You’d regret not taking the risk, you thought to yourself.

Before you knew the words had slipped from your lips, you were agreeing to the job.

You’ve been a spice runner ever since, and you were pretty damn good at your job too. Since your frame was relatively small, it was easy for you to slip in and out of towns without ever being seen, and because you had been working on crafts your whole life, you had become pretty good at flying them too. You had made an impressive name for yourself. Even if you had someone on your tail, you were always able to lose them once you left the port. Your movements were sharp as a tack and was always thinking one step ahead. It enabled you to outrun any hunter or whatever sad, inexperienced New Republic officer that tried to snag you. When you first joined, all your runs were with Tye, but soon after getting accustomed to how runs operated, you were able to go solo. After realizing how much quicker the job went by without having to rely on another person, you became a strict lone wolf. On your own, you could take higher risks, and that made the thrill of the job even more exhilarating. You had become quite the adrenaline junkie, taking some chances even your fellow smugglers would find questionable.

On one job, you were purposely sloppy and let some officers tail you right up to the moment you fought them off in your ship just because of the way the blood in your veins fired through your body. The threat of being caught ignited every nerve-ending in your body, and you constantly chased that feeling.

You were staying on a quiet, uneventful planet when you had gotten a hologram from Tye asking to meet you on Kijimi. “For old time’s sake” he said. Since you had no other run lined up, you figured it was a good time to meet him. It had been a couple months since you last saw him, and now seemed like the perfect time to catch up. Maybe he had a job in mind, too.

The life of a spice runner typically wasn’t very long. It was a physically exhausting profession, and often times a spice runner would get captured by either a bounty hunter or an officer of the New Republic, or die at the hands of a rival smuggler. You knew your days as a runner was limited, so you made sure to have the time of your life while you had the opportunity.

Lately though, a lot of your peers were getting caught by some highly skilled hunter. Whoever it was had managed to trap four of your closest counterparts and you were on high alert. No one had ever been able to snatch that many smugglers in such a short period of time, and your particular crew was starting to get anxious. The runs were beginning to get more sporadic, and spending more time underground, only going out when absolutely necessary, hence the reason you were camping out on lightly populated planet. Technically, you shouldn’t even be in this cantina right now. You should be laying low, waiting for the right moment to jump back into action, but because you now have a taste for the wilder things in life, you take the chance anyway. Plus, if Tye is still walking around then it couldn’t be that bad. He had become a lot more cautious than you, so you’re not all that worried.

You continue to keep your head down, only peering up whenever you hear the door opening. From the corner of your eye, you catch the glimpse of a dark maroon shape coming through the door. Tye. He preferred to wear dark colors, as not to draw any attention to himself. Tonight, he’s wearing a dark maroon jumpsuit, a long-ranged rifle strapped around his back. You—on the other hand, believed hiding in plain sight. You tended to wear neutral, earthy colors. It permitted you to blend in with your surroundings. Every run, you’d switch your uniform according to the conditions of the planet. White for cold environments, dark clothes for desolate, bleak planets, and so on.

He stands in the doorway of the cantina, taking a scan of the bar. He knows you usually like to sit in the back so that you have eyes on everyone that comes and goes, and it doesn’t take long for him to spot you. He walks over to your booth with a kind of swagger you’ve grown to love about him. He’s a pretty confident man, without being cocky. The way he carries himself has always fascinated you. His shoulders are always back, arms swaying at his sides, never looking down. He takes long strides as he saunters over to where you’re sitting. As you both have grown, he also has become a pretty well-respected member of your crew and he exudes that in his every step.

You scoot out of your booth to meet him as he gets closer to your table. Big toothy smiles are exchanged between the two of you and he just about runs to close the space between you. His large arms quickly pull you to his chest and all the air nearly punches right out of your lungs. He actually lifts you a couple inches off the ground in your embrace.

“Tye! I have a reputation over here. You can’t just pick me up like that,” However, you’re unable to hide the joy in your tone. You’ve missed him more than you realized. Yeah, you prefer doing jobs alone, but sometimes the solitude can get the best of you. Having someone to banter with, play sabacc with—you miss it, but you both have very different ways of transporting the product, so you know the days of you working together are long gone.

Tye finally lets you down and you both slide into the booth, sitting opposite of each other. You still have a clear view of the door.

“You couldn’t have picked a better shithole to meet?” You remark.

It’s not that Kijimi was a total shithole, it’s just that it was the biggest shithole of a planet you could ever set foot on. The weather was brutal, the people even more so. The New Republic wasn’t able to control the crime here, so criminal activity ran rampant here. Luckily, the main interest in the city was spice smuggling so you had the respect of most of the local spice lords, but there was always the threat of some travelers who couldn’t care less who you were or how important you were to come after you; to kill without mercy and take your corpse to the New Republic. Therefore, you tried to limit your visits unless they were absolutely necessary.

“I figured since we haven’t been together on Kijimi in a while, it might be worth the visit,” Tye answers honestly. Lifting a hand to the bartender behind the bar, they rushed over holding an empty cup in one hand a jug of bright blue liquid in the other. They place the jug between the both of you. Tye reaches into his pockets and places come credits on the table, giving the tender a small nod before they excuse themselves, grabbing the credits and stuffing them in a small bag that was tied to their waist.

“How nostalgic of you,” You mock, lighthearted enough for it to make him chuckle.

Despite trying to keep your mind focused on Tye, part of you is still observing the door behind him. In the short time you’ve been smuggling, not only had your reputation amongst other smugglers grown, but so had the price on your head. The last few jobs had been particularly difficult. Not only were you trying to fight off New Republic officers, but several bounty hunters had been tracking you. Apparently, you had become a huge pain in the ass. Unfortunately for them, that just made the game way more interesting, and honestly it really fueled your ego.

“Any news on the next run?” You inquire. It had been a few weeks since you last had a contract, and the itch for adventure was starting to get under your skin.

Tye’s eyebrows furrow. He looks at you quizzically. “I didn’t ask you to meet you to tell you about another run. I just wanted to see my best friend.”

“Oh come on. There’s always another job. Always someone who needs spice and someone who wants to get rid of it.”

He looks at you like he doesn’t know you. Leaning back in his seat, he begins shaking his head in disbelief.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” You can feel beads of anger building deep inside you. He was the one that got you into this, and now he has the audacity to look at you like he doesn’t know you?

“You’ve changed.”

You scoff and let out a laugh, a laugh that drips with irritation. “Of course I’ve changed, Tye. Did you really think I was going to stay the doe-eyed girl you met on Tatooine?”

Tye reaches over and pours spotchka in both cups before taking his and throwing his head back to swallow every bit of it. “No,” He begins to say, using the back of his tunic to wipe his mouth clean. “I think those two young kids who grew up on Tatooine are long gone.”

Your lips form into a firm line, not entirely sure how to respond without sounding too cynical.

“I’ve heard stories, you know.”

“Oh have you, now?” Your eyebrow raises, and elbows firmly plant on the tabletop. The joy seems to drain from his face. Smile disappearing, and his eyes begin wandering, looking everywhere but into yours. Curiosity is starting to get the best of you, your eyes squinting and burning into him. Testing to see how he reacts; you push him again. “And what have you heard, Tye?”

Green eyes still refusing to meet yours, he’s busy eyeing his fingers that are fidgeting on the piece of wood that separates you. “That you’re becoming too reckless,” His voice is steady, but much lower than his usual tone. “You’re taking too many risks and causing problems where there doesn’t have to be.”

Your hard expression scorches into him. He starts squirming in his seat. Back on Tatooine, it would have been the other way around: you succumbing to his will, but now you’re the one with authority.

“Look,” He says, leaning in towards you. “I’m not gonna sit here and tell you how to do the job. I know you’re good at it.” There’s regret in his voice. It hasn’t gone unnoticed how he looks at you occasionally, almost like he’s ashamed of what he’s done to you. If it wasn’t for that day, you wouldn’t have turned out the way you have. You think he wants to take it all back. Wishing that you stayed some nobody who lived their life fixing and repairing shit.

“But I’m told you have a high bounty on your head. Maybe it’s best if you continue to lay low for a while. Just until the heat cools down.”

You chew on your bottom lip, and your body relaxes into the booth behind you. Deep down you know he’s right. He just wants for you to be safe and admittedly, the way you’ve been acting lately is as if you think you’re invincible. You chase the thrill and the danger but it’s just making everyday life so much harder. Some merchants are too scared to sell to you, locals steer clear of you, and those who aren’t scared get too confident and try to pick fights with you. Despite your size, you’re able to carry your own surprisingly well during a fight. You don’t quite understand it yourself. Each time you’ve had to defend yourself, there was an energy you conjured that came from deep inside you that helped you manipulate your opponent. This energy allowed you to levitate objects or people in mid-air, assisted you to kill them without ever touching them, or even influence them to say and do what you wanted them to.

It was after a late night of sabacc. You were on your way back to your ship when three male figures blocked your path in a nearby alley. Three blasters pointed directly at you.

“Can’t let you pass, sweetheart.” One of them sneered.

Bounty hunters.

One hand slowly glided to the blaster strapped to your upper thigh, the other extending in front of you. “Okay, fellas. I’m sure we can make a deal here.”

“Don’t try that shit with us. You couldn’t possibly come close to the price the Republic is offering.” The man in the middle—a Twi’ you realize, warned.

“The bounty asks to bring you in alive, so let’s not compromise that, okay sweetheart?”

Adrenaline and wrath were starting to seep into your muscles. If there’s one thing you hated, it was chauvinistic men calling you ‘sweetheart’.

“Call me sweetheart again, and it’ll be the last thing you ever say.”

All three men’s cackle echoed through the stone walls.

“I’d hate to ruin a pretty hair on that head, but if you’re going to act like a little bitch then maybe—”

Cutting him off, one of their blasters wiggled out of their reach and smacked the first hunter right in the face before he could finish his threat, blood spraying from his mouth. Your blaster found its way into your hand, raising it to strike him straight in the chest. Simultaneously, your left hand targeted the second assailant’s throat, your hands violently gripping around the pressure of his neck. The hunter attempted to scream, his hands wrapping around his throat as your grip tightened. Fire consumed you, and as your grip on the man’s throat intensified, his body started to lift off the ground. The Twi’ eyes nearly bulged out of his sockets; horror plastered on his face.

“What the fuck are you?!” The Twi’s voice bellowed, spitting as he charged at you, a vibroblade in each hand. Your eyes shifted to him coming right at you with pure fury in his eyes.

“Come here, you little bitch!” He roared.

You let your hold of his partner relax slightly, then your arm swung to the right, forcing the hunter to lift completely off the ground. Once he became jelly in your grasp, you launch him towards the Twi. Both men slammed into the concrete wall next to them. You heard the sound of skull making contact with the cement, then watched them fall to the ground hard. The Twi cried out, “Please don’t!” but you blasted him right between the eyes before he could say anything else.

You stood there, chest heaving. Your eyes examined the men in front of you, not fully understanding how you were able to fight them off. You were outnumbered and they were much larger than you were. Holding out your hands, you stared down at your palms. Squeezing your eyes shut, you tried to focus on the power that expelled from your fingertips. Where did it come from? How do you control it? What was happening to you?

You had never felt such power before. For a moment, you were no longer in control of your movements. In that split second where you gave into that rage, it bended you to its will, driving you to do cause more harm than necessary. This voice inside of you wanted them to hurt, for them to suffer, and you couldn’t resist it.

Tye repeatedly calling you brings you back to the present. “You okay?”

Shaking your head, the corner of your mouth curls into a smile. “Fine.”

The rest of the evening is much more lighthearted. After the initial awkward tension between the two of you, you’re able to enjoy a couple drinks of spotchka and reminisce about old times. You’ve definitely missed his company. Tye is the closest thing you have to family and you cherish him deeply. Your energies mesh together so well, and you have to admit, sometimes you daydream about settling down together, living on a quiet planet and drinking spotchka for the rest of your days until you’re finally arrested. Those are quickly replaced by reality, because the reality is, it’s just not attainable anymore.

The cantina never empties, no matter what time of day it is, and given that there aren’t any windows, you have no clue as to what time it is anymore. You came in just as the sun was setting—what little sun is even offered on Kijimi. It’s easily been a couple hours since then, and you begin to feel the fatigue creeping up on you.

“Where are you staying?” You ask, stretching your arms and your back as much as you can in the booth.

“I have a place not too far from here. It’s tiny, but it’s not like I spend enough time on this planet to need anything bigger. You can stay with me for the night, if you want?”

“That’s okay,” You start to say, shaking your head. “I’m probably going to leave first thing in the morning anyway. I don’t like to linger.”

Tye’s head bobs a few times. “Sure. I have a couple things I need to take care of here before I can leave.”

You cock your head to the left. What could he possibly have to do? You don’t ask though. It’s a common thing for smugglers not to ask questions. Staying in the dark about your crew’s whereabouts and jobs make it easy not to catch too many folks in the same squad. It’s how smugglers have been able to evade capture. If one person is snatched in a team, it’s almost impossible to catch another because chances are, they have no idea what anyone else is up to.

“I should probably head back to my ship then,”

After announcing your leave, you both shimmy out of the booth and rise to your feet. Tye is the first to move into your body and wrap his biceps around your entire torso. Quickly, your arms find their way around his back and you allow yourself to sink into his body. You’ve missed the warmth of another person. For a second, you allow yourself to be vulnerable and really appreciate the physical intimacy. Tye’s the one who finally breaks the embrace, but he keeps you at arm’s length, both hands squeezing your shoulders. Yours drop at your sides and you can’t stop the grin that forms on your lips.

“Sometimes I can hardly believe we used to be a bunch of nobodies on Tatooine,” He says. Before you can come up with a snarky remark, he leans in and presses a gentle kiss to your forehead.

“Bye, kiddo.” Slapping some credits on the table, he turns on his heel and heads to the door. “You’re not even a year older!” You shout, and you’re not entirely sure he hears you given the amount of noise in the cantina, but you see his shoulders bounce, so you assume he heard you. You linger for a couple minutes, finishing off the remaining spotchka on the table. Once you’ve downed the final drop, you thank the bartender for their kind service, toss them some coins and head out the door.

It’s in the late hours when the cold Kijimi winds hit your face. The freezing air is a drastic change from the heat of the cantina and the cold immediately sends chills down your spine. Pulling your hood over your head, you cross your arms across your chest, trying to conserve a little bit of heat. The streets are dimly lit and dirty with mud and snow. It’s a long, dangerous trek back to your ship, so you keep your head down but still keeping an eye out for any potential mercenary or hunter who might want that pretty bounty on your head. Keeping your hand close to the blaster strapped to your thigh, you dart through stone made arches, and small huts. Instead of taking the straight route, you opt to zig-zag through the city, knowing it would be more difficult to track your footsteps this way. It takes more time, but you know this is the safer way to go.

The cold is starting to really get to you, now. Despite wearing gloves, the tips of your fingers are starting to go numb and you thank the Maker once you catch a glimpse of your ship not too far into the distance. You fight the urge to walk straight towards it, instead listening to your gut. You come to an alley, lit only by a small streetlight that’s flickering slowly.

“I can’t wait to get off this shithole of a planet,” You whisper to yourself.

Just as you turn the corner of the alley, you suddenly feel a presence behind you. The adrenaline pumps through your veins, causing your heart to pulse quicker than you’ve felt in a long time. Any sound person would be afraid, knowing they were in for a bout, but not you. No, you chase this feeling on your runs. This is when you thrive.

You stand tall, straightening your shoulders and slowly turn to where you assume the figure is behind you. At the end of the alley, you see the shape of a man—what you think is a man, anyway. The light bounces off the blob in front of you, and realize they’re covered almost head-to-toe in shiny armor. A droid?

“Can I help you?” You question. Your hand rests directly over your blaster, slowly flicking the safety off.

The mystery man/droid doesn’t say anything. He stands completely still, and for the first time in a long time, panic prods at you. Swallowing the lump in your throat, you take a deep breath, hoping it’ll calm the nerves in your stomach.

“Can I help you?” You say through gritted teeth.

Again, you hear nothing.

You stand your ground, refusing to run from the figure. You’ve never been one to run from a fight, and you’re not about to start now. “I’m going to give you one more chance to tell me who the hell you are before I blast you on your ass.” Your voice is stern, now becoming more annoyed with the fact that they haven’t said anything. What the hell is this thing’s problem?

The figured dressed in armor takes a small step forward and finally speaks. “I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold,” His voice comes out low, but is nothing short of terrifying.

You suddenly realize who stands fifteen feet in front of you. It’s him. The hunter who’s created quite the name for himself. The bounty hunter who almost every smuggler has grown to fear. The one who never lets a bounty get away.

The Mandalorian.

As much as you are terrified right now, you can’t help but let a little bit of pride consume you. For the New Republic to have him come after you, it means they’ve gotten desperate. It also means they see you as a threat, and that makes you feel good. So good in fact, that you accidentally let a chuckle escape you.

“How much are they paying you?”

No answer.

You know he’s going to blast you any moment, and you’re trying to buy yourself some time.

“Oh come on. If I’m gonna go down, I should at least know how much I’m worth, don’t you think?”

Your ship is a quick sprint away (if you go straight ahead) but you’re not stupid enough to do that. He’s probably none the wiser and thinks you would, so you have that advantage. Instead, you know running to your left is the safer option. Even though there’s no actual street to your left, you did notice a split in the foundation just big enough for your body to slide through and make it to the next adjacent path, but you’ll need to do it quick. You gauge your assailant’s body language. He’s standing with his legs shoulder-width apart and you think you see his hand resting on his blaster, but you can’t be sure. You do catch the shadow of a rifle strapped to his back, and you know that that armor looks expensive which means it’s probably beskar, which unfortunately for you is basically indestructible. No amount of blasts will penetrate that armor.

Thinking impulsively, you grab the blaster out of your holster and shoot the light, hoping he’ll struggle to find your shape in the dark and praying to the Maker that it’ll give you enough time to wiggle through the stone walls. You sprint for the wall and see blaster fire shoot passed your head. Fuck, he must have night-vision with that helmet.

You manage to squeeze through the crack and end up on the other side. Most likely he’d come by the right, so you avoid that side entirely. Breaking into a sprint, you run down the cobblestoned road. It’s horribly uneven and you trip a few times, but always manage to recover without actually falling. The air cuts at your face and makes it harder to breathe but you persevere. If you were to stop, even for a moment, you risk getting caught. Your mind is running a million miles a minute, trying not to look back but also trying to imagine the more tactical way to capture you. Before you can think of your next move, the door to a hut opens and someone seizes your left arm and pulls you into the house with such force, it almost feels like your arm was ripped right out of its socket. The door shuts behind you immediately but before you can make a sound, Tye’s hand comes to cover your mind.

“Shh,” he warns, pressing a finger from his free hand to his lips.

You nod and he releases the grip he had over your mouth.

Tye crouches near the window by the door, checking to see if the hunter is out there.

“I can’t see him,” He says, turning his gaze towards you. You move from the doorway and crouch next to him by the window. Both of you continue to scan the street, looking for any sign of the attacker.

After a few minutes of looking with no luck, you conclude that he’s lost you. You retreat from the window to examine the room. It’s tiny, the bed almost immediately to your left and you wonder how anyone could possibly sleep there. The door is just a few feet away and you can assume the cold penetrates the door easily enough. Sleeping there must be miserable. The only source of light emanates from a few candles scattered throughout the room.

“This is my place,” Tye explains before you can ask. “It’s not much but it’s better than sleeping in one of the taverns.” He passes you and lowers himself in an armchair, rubbing the palms of his hands against his face.

“How did you know?”

“Call it intuition.”

The adrenaline is slowly wearing off and now you feel an ache in your bicep. You look down and notice a section of your coat has been ripped right off. Then you notice blood, a lot of it.

“Maker!” Tye all but jumps right out of his seat and rushes to your side. Gently grabbing your elbow, he inspects your wound. It’s pretty deep and will need to be cauterized.

Realizing it at the same time, your eyes meet. “Just do it.” You whisper to break the silence.

“I can use bacta spray instead. It’ll hurt less,” He says, before turning towards the cupboards, rummaging through the shelves and tossing whatever he can find, on the ground. You carefully remove your coat without touching the gash on your arm.

“Bacta spray will hard to find at this hour,” Your voice is barely above a whisper. The pain is starting to disorient you, and you manage to sit down on the bed before collapsing. “Just do it, Tye.”

Your friend stops searching for the spray, and he’s quickly by your side again with a clean cloth. He begins wiping the blood away. It stings and you swear under your breath.

“If you think this hurts…” His voice trails off. Yeah, you both know cauterizing it will hurt even more.

Trying to lighten the tension, you force a laugh. “Don’t worry. I’m a big girl, I can handle it.”

It’s true. You’ve broken bones and you’ve been hit a lot worse. If you ever manage to successfully make a run without injuring yourself, it’s a miracle. This is nothing new.

Tye leaves your side to warm up his vibroblade on one of the candles nearby. Once the blade is steaming, he returns to you. He holds out the blade, and you take it from his hand. Releasing a deep breath, you hold the blade to your arm and press it into your flesh. It sizzles and smells awful. Tye squeezes his eyes shut, like he thinks it’ll stop the whole ordeal. You stifle down the scream that desperately tries to come to the surface, and groan instead. Pressing the blade to your skin in short bursts, the blood slowly stops spewing and the pain from the actual blast begins to subside. Once the sting begins to slow, you drop the blade on the ground. Tye’s eyebrows relax as he inspects your skin.

“You should still put some bacta spray on that, to avoid getting it infected.”

Nodding slowly, you let out another deep breath through your lips. “I have some on my ship. I’ll head out in the morning and hopefully get to it before metal man out there can get me.” You try to be lighthearted with a joke. Tye either doesn’t catch it or think it’s funny because he’s shaking his head at you. He meets your eyes and whispers your name. “Having a Mandalorian after you is serious business. Those guys don’t fuck around.”

You sit up straight and look at his defensively. “Yeah, I know Tye.”

“Do you? Because you’re still making jokes. Do you know that Mandalorians are like the best killers in the galaxy?”

That sends daggers through your entire body. You rise to your feet, slowly until you’re almost towering over him. “I’m well aware of their abilities, Tye.”

“Why do I get the feeling that this is just a giant ego boost for you?”

That you actually scoff at. “Kriff…” Taking a step away from him, your hands rest on your hips. “Am I a little proud that they had to get a Mandalorian to arrest me? Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to act reckless and change my tacti-“

“But you are reckless!” Tye pushes against his knees to stand eye level with you. “You always do this. This is why no one wants to work with you!”

Your eyes widen, mouth dropping. “I don’t want to work with anyone because they slow me down!”

Immediately, your friend’s shaking his head. “No, that’s not why. Everyone’s deemed you too dangerous to actually work with. It’s a miracle you haven’t been caught yet.”

You try to interject but Tye holds a hand up to stop you. “I’m not done. Yeah, you’re good at smuggling, probably one of the best, but at what cost? Where’s the girl that was gentle, kind? Where’s that girl who would fix ships with her dad and play in the sand dunes with me? That girl who nursed an injured womp rat back to health because you saw some stupid kids shoot at it? Where did my best friend go?”

The laugh that erupts in the room is anything but joyful. It’s resentful, it’s anger. Your best friend stands inches away from your face, insulting who you are. Who he essentially created.

“She grew up, Tye! My parents died and left me all alone on a planet that shouldn’t even exist. I had no choice. You think a ‘gentle, kind’ girl can survive in this galaxy?”

Tye’s fists ball up at his sides. “I miss that girl. Who you are now, it’s not who I remember. This job has tainted you.”

“Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you dragged me into this world five years ago!”

“Don’t do that…” His shoulders drop, his head hanging in defeat.

“I love you Tye, but I can take care of myself. I’m not scared of some Mandalorian. I’m not afraid of anything.” A lie, but you refuse to look weak.

“I know…” He admits, his head still looking at the ground. “That’s the problem.”

A few moments pass in silence. Neither of you try to break the apprehension in the air. You can sense that Tye’s been waiting a long time to admit that. That he doesn’t like what you’ve become, and maybe he’s right. Maybe you do act impulsively, maybe you do put yourself at risk unnecessarily just to fill this void inside of you. A void that’s been eating at you since you were a child, but it’s not something you want to hear right now, or maybe ever.

“I’m heading to my ship.” Grabbing your coat off the cot, you slip into it, groaning as the material slides against your sensitive flesh.

That appears to snap Tye out of his thoughts because he looks right into your eyes.

“Please don’t. He’s probably still out there.”

“Well it’s like you said,” Usually, your voice is soft. You’ve never spoken to Tye with such anger before, but something inside of you now sees him in a different light. You resent him. “I’m too reckless.” You growl.

Tye mouth is agape and it almost looks like tears are forming in the corners of his eyes. He takes a step back like he’s been stabbed, which I guess is true. Your tone said it all.

You both realize at the same time that this is probably the last time you’ll see each other.

Turning on your heel, you head towards the door. “Take care, Tye.” You say over your shoulder before pressing the button to open the entrance. It lifts off the ground and you step out, not even looking at your surroundings before throwing the hood back over your head and heading straight for your ship.

If you want me, come get me, Mandalorian.

You’re not careful about the walk to the ship. You’re not careful passing corners or getting to the port. You’re behaving stupidly on purpose. You want to fight him; you want to prove to everyone and yourself that not even a Mandalorian can catch you. It’s extremely naïve but your blood’s boiling and its currently clouding your judgement. You spot your ship and march towards it, without a damn care in the world. Clicking the button on your bracelet, the ramp opens, and you begin to walk towards the slope. Once your foot touches the metal, you catch a glimpse of something shiny at the very top of the ramp. A sly smile creeps on your lips.

“You know, it’s rude to hijack someone’s ship.” You peer up at him.

The Mandalorian’s tense, with his hand hovering over the blaster strapped to his right thigh. Legs once again spread shoulder width apart, he oozes authority. The metal—beskar, glistening against the moonlight. You fight the submissiveness that begins to creep up on you. You refuse to show him weakness. If you’re gonna get caught, you’re gonna make sure you put up a fight.

Your strides up the ramp get smaller and smaller. Adrenaline fully pumping now through your entire body. You wonder how close he’ll let you get to him before blasting you right off your feet.

“I do have to admit, getting caught by a mandalorian is pretty admirable.” You taunt.

His hand gets closer to the blaster and you think this is your moment. Just as he rips the blaster from its holster and fires at you, your right hand comes up, catching the blast mid-air and deflecting it. It hits one of the cargo boxes and explodes. Before he can fire another shot, the blaster is ripped right out of his hand and goes flying into your palm. As soon as you get both blasters in your hands, a grappling line exits his vambrace and wraps tightly around your ankles, causing you to slightly lose your balance. He pulls hard on the rope and it sends you flying backwards. Your head hits the metal hard, and for a second your vision begins to fog. You blink repeatedly, trying to get your damn vision to clear, but before you can even begin to push yourself to the ground, the Mandalorian is hovering over your body. One leg on each side of your thighs, he leans down and grasps both your wrists with one hand and straps some binds around them. You give it one last ditch effort and try to kick up at him, but his reflexes are surprisingly quick and catches your calf with his free hand.

“Maybe if you stayed with your friend, you might’ve gotten away without me catching you.” He says through the helmet. The baritone of his voice immediately causes your breathing to hitch. Your heart is pounding in your chest and heat begins to form in your stomach.

“Then again,” He begins to say, pulling you to your feet. “because you’re so careless, I’d find you again.”

In any other circumstance, you’d have a sly comment, but right now you can’t even remember how to speak. Once on your feet, you notice just how big he actually is. Sure, the armor might add to his demeanor, but you can’t help but be intimidated now. He towers over you, and you have to strain your neck just to look at him. You try to see his eyes through the ‘T’ of his visor, but it’s too tinted. He loops his forearm around your bound arms and guides you down the ramp.

“I can walk on my own, you know?”

The Mandalorian doesn’t answer. He simply continues to drag you whichever way he wants. As you make your way to his ship, your heart is still hammering in your chest. The way he carries himself, you’ve never seen anything like it. He’s definitely intense, but nothing short of fucking mesmerizing. Most of the hunters you’ve encountered were cruel and mouthy. But the Mandalorian? He barely spoke to you; he didn’t let his any emotion come through. You can outtalk any hunter, but you couldn’t do that with him. He was one step ahead of you, which you have to admit has never happened before.

Once you reach what you assume is his ship, you can’t help but be taken aback by it.

“Whoa, is that a pre-Empire ship? I didn’t think those things still existed.”

He says nothing, as per usual. In the very short time you’ve known the Mandalorian, you noticed he’s a man of few words.

You’ve spent your whole life around ships, but you’ve never seen one quite like this. It’s pretty dated and looks in pretty shit condition, honestly. Several panels are completely dented, and whatever isn’t dented is scratched up badly. You can tell it’s been in a good number of shootouts. It’s a miracle this ship is still operational.

He presses a button on his vambrace, and the ramp opens up, creaking as it lowers to the ground. The Mandalorian lets go of the grip he had on you, and gently pushes you in front of him, instructing you to walk ahead of him. You head up the ship, turning back to look over your shoulder one more time. In that moment, reality hits you. You’ve been caught. You’re going to live the rest of your days in a cell. Actually, with your reputation, you’d be lucky if you get a cell. The New Republic will probably have you sentenced to death. While you didn’t expect to live to an old age, you didn’t think you’d die this young, but it comes with the job description. Everyone’s gonna get it sooner or later, and unfortunately for you, it seems like the former.

You take notice of the three other quarries in carbonite to your right. Heating beating so fast, you’re sure it’ll burst out of your chest, you start babbling.

“Please don’t put me in carbonite,” You plead, turning around to face your captor. He’s already closed the ramp and is busy removing the rifle off his back, placing it back on the wall of the ship. “You already have me in binds, I can’t go anywhere. I won’t cause any more trouble. Just please, no carbonite.”

At first, he doesn’t bother to look at you. He lingers there for a few seconds, probably arguing with himself on the best way to handle you. Your eyes burn into his helmet, praying to the Maker that he’ll give into you. You’re chewing down on your bottom lip so hard, you’re sure you’ll break skin. Eventually, he turns to face you and begins a slow, tantalizing walk towards you. Panic overwhelms you, and you begin to shake your head frantically. Since when did you become such a submissive? Under any other circumstance, you’d be throwing insults, trying to get under his skin, manipulating words in an effort to aggravate them. You might even try to manipulate him into doing what you ask but your brain is shut off. You can barely form a coherent thought. Therefore, you resort to begging and pleading with the Mandalorian.

You can’t stop your body from trembling, and as he reaches to grab your wrist, you shudder at his touch. You swear his glove is on fire because how the hell is it possible that his touch burns into your skin? You keep your head down, not having the strength to meet his visor. You’re crumbling under him, letting him take absolute control of you.

“Up,” is all he says, as he gestures you to the ladder that goes up to the cockpit. Swallowing the lump in your throat, you nod and let him guide you to the ladder. It’s hard to climb with your hands bound but you do your best.

Once you reach the top, you wait for him to catch up. Putting a hand on your lower back, your breathing hitches when he touches you. His hand nearly cover your entire waist and you can’t help but imagine that thick hand wrapped around your throat.

Maker this shouldn’t be turning you on. He captured you.

He guides you into the seat that’s to the right of the pilot, and then sits himself in the pilot’s seat. He begins the take-off sequence, and the ship’s thrusters roar to life. As the ship lifts off the ground, it creaks and makes you shift in your seat. You take one last look at Kijimi as his ship climbs higher and higher into the air, realizing that for the first time ever, you lost.

#the mandalorian x reader #mando x reader #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian #din djarin #Star Wars #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #mando x you #we are one when together #fics

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sweetiepie08 · 3 years

Text

RebelZ (Chapter 9)

Invader Zim fanfic

While analyzing Zim’s PAK for weaknesses, Tak discovers strange coding that sends her on a search for answers. The clues lead her to uncover a conspiracy that governs all of Irken society. When the truth sends her on the run, she has no choice but to return to the one place the Tallest would never willingly go: Urth.

Meanwhile, Dib has noticed odd changes in Zim’s behavior. Has the invader simply grown bored of his mission over the last few years, or is there something more interesting going on?

People who asked to be tagged: @incorrect-invader-zim , @messinwitheddie, @reblogstupids, @cate-r-gunn, @agentpinerulesall

If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list feel free to message me. Also, if you’re on the tag list and you changed your name, please just let me know.

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10.

[-]

“Care to tell us what the fuck that was?” the Dib shouted as they ran down the hall.

“A coup, obviously,” Zim shot back. “Just not one where you seize power at the end. So, half a coup.”

“So then who seizes power now?”

“The Tallest Red and Purple still have it,”

Dib nearly tripped over his own feet in his shock. “You mean you didn’t kill them?”

“It’s nearly impossible to poison an Irken,” Tak explained. “The PAK filters out most toxins. You can incapacitate them, though, for a short period of time.”

“So you basically just quit your job in spectacular fashion,” Dib said indignantly.

Tak almost couldn’t believe it. Zim must be sincere in his betrayal. He poisoned the Tallest and declared to the entire upper crust of the Irken military that it was intentional. There was no coming back from that. Every other disaster he caused could reasonably be argued as a mistake. But there could be no doubt here. Zim truly had turned on the empire.

Yet, something still didn’t sit quite right with her. If he had gone rebel, if he had truly turned traitor, then his life clock would have gone off like hers did. One would reasonably assume the impotence for this betrayal was her discovery of the Control Brains parasite, but she was with him ever since she told him that news and she never saw his life clock go off. But that could only mean something else prompted him at an earlier date. So the question was, what made Zim finally snap?

They came to a split in the hallway. Tak started going right while Zim went left.

“Uh, the Voot is this way,” Tak called.

“I’m not going to the Voot,” Zim yelled back. “I’m going to the control room.”

Dib and Tak cast each other a glance, then followed him. They found him crouched behind a door at the end of the hall and joined him in his hiding spot. Dib took a peak inside. There, dozens of Irkens worked at their stations. They seemed unaware that, for now, their leaders were incapacitated.

Zim tapped his PAK and a metal ball flew into his hands. He pulled a pin, tossed it in, and smashed the control panel, shutting the door. They heard coughing from the other side and, after a few minutes, opened the door to find the Irkens unconscious on the floor.

“So, what are we doing in here again?” Dib asked, as they stepped into the room.

Zim grabbed one of the Irkens who still slouched in their chair and threw them to the floor. “Wiping Urth off the navigation map.” He sat down and the monitor and started messing with the buttons. “If I’m going to continue to use it as my home base, I can’t have them finding it.”

“Not so fast,” Tak slapped his fingers away from the buttons. “Before this goes any further, I need answers. If you’re truly on our side, there’s only one way your life clock didn’t go off.”

“We don’t have time for this!”

“You had a rebellious thought!” Tak declared. “When?”

“Three Urth years ago.”

“Three years?” Dib shouted, stepping up to them. “But I’ve been watching you. Why were you still trying to conquer Earth if you kinda-quit three years ago?”

“I wasn’t.”

“But I saw you building machines!” Dib argued.

“They weren’t for me!” Zim shot back.

Tak began to ask “But how-” before Zim cut her off.

“Silence!” he shouted. “Silence your questions! I need to concentrate.”

Zim continued typing on the buttons until a picture of the Earth appeared on the screen. The stats were scarce, save for the coordinates and the note, ‘that place where Zim is.’ The little blue ball of dirt and water had gone unnoticed by the empire, noteworthy only as a banishment site. To them, it was merely a place to keep Zim contained, far away from anything important. But after the stunt they pulled today, it would be a target.

Another few clicks of a button and the Urth was gone, leaving only a blank file in its wake. All Irken military ships automatically synced with the Massive. If it was gone from this data base, it was essentially invisible to all Irkens. If they wanted to find Urth again, they’d have to scour the universe for it. But why stop at Urth?

“Let’s dump it all,” Tak said.

“What?”

“Erase the database,” she said. “It’ll be a crippling blow to the empire.”

“Do we really have time to erase everything?” Dib asked. The human made a good point.

“Jut the maps then,” she suggested. “They would have to rebuild their navigation systems from scratch and it would send the fleet into disarray.”

“Zim is no radical!” Zim snapped. “I’m only doing this to cover my own ass.”

“Not a raical?” Dib scoffed. “You just poisoned your own leaders.”

“That was personal,” Zim argued. “This is political.”

“And what about those weapons you’re building?!” Dib shot back. “If they’re not for Irk, then who are they for?”

“Zim’s business deals are none of your… um… business!”

“Shut up!” Tak commanded, taking a seat at another monitor. “We don’t have time for this! Let’s get these maps erased and get out of here.”

“If you even make it that far,” a chorus of voices answered.

Dib looked around. “Who said that?”

“We did, human.”

Every Irken in the room rose to their feet. Tak prepared herself for a fight. Her eyes darted as she watched them all, poised to deploy the weapons in her PAK. But none made a move to attack. They all stood there, stalk still, with a dead look in their eyes.

Dib gaped at the sight. “H-how are you…”

“Silence Urth Creature!” the possessed Irkens shouted in unison, turning their cold eyes toward Dib. “Do not interrupt us again!” Dib shut his mouth and the Irkens calmed. “Congratulations defectives” they said, now addressing Zim and Tak. “It’s been centuries since we had to resort to total override, but mark our words, you will pay for this waste of food.”

“What do you care for waste?” Tak spat back at them. “You throw Irken lives away every day in your conquest.”

“A calculated cost to bring me more to feed from in the long term,” the Irkens explained with their eerily monotone voices. “You should know about calculated risks. Don’t forget, we see everything you do.”

“When have I ever sacrificed good soldiers?”

Every possessed Irken in the room wore the same mocking smirk. “All through your training days. Don’t you remember? We saw everything you did, every little cheat to get ahead.”

The Irkens tapped buttons on their control boards and soon, every monitor showed various scenes from Tak’s training years. “Electrodes hidden in your boots to cripple race opponents. Stealing test answers and planting them in a rival’s locker after copying them for yourself. You got top scores on your exams and excelled at your drills, but is it really victory if you have to sabotage your competitions? Oh sure, you studied and trained, but it never felt like enough, did it? Never thought you could win a fair fight. Had to tear someone else down first. Maybe, if it weren’t for all your cheating, we’d have let you make up your Elite ranking test. After all, we allowed everyone else who was inconvenienced by the blackout to take it.” Their smirks grew as they twisted the knife further. “Just not you.”

Tak ground her teeth together as she watched the images play out on the screen. There was no denying them. The monitors played footage from her own memory bank. They showed her and everyone else who she really was. She work so hard. She clawed her way to the top and did everything she could to stay there. But it was all a lie. And now they knew it. What was worse, Zim knew it. That little pain in the ass managed to make it to elite the first time, even while being a walking disaster, and he never had to deliberately cheat. The idea of him lording that over her was enough to make her blood boil.

“Perhaps you can prove everyone wrong, though,” the Irken voices went on. “Take the honest route for once in your life. Tell Zim what you learned on your little trip to Refirencee. Tell him what you suspect.”

“Fool!” Zim scoffed. “Zim already accessed Tak’s memories. I know everything she knows about the Control Brain parasite.”

“Yes, you saw the same books. But did you reach the same conclusions?”

“Guys! Don’t you see what it’s doing?” The Dib burst in. “It’s distracting you. It’s keeping you here until your leaders recover. Let’s erase those maps and get out of here!”

“Silence!” Zim snapped at Dib, then turned back to the dead-eyed Irkens. “Tell Zim what you know, creepy hive-mind…thing!”

“Have you ever wondered why you’re such a failure? Why you destroy everything you touch? Why, no matter what you do, everything always blows up in your face? It’s because you have no choice in the matter. It’s what you were made for.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Before we push for something big, we require extra sustenance. We take this sustenance in what some have called a blood toll. On our first planet, we made many mistakes, one was asking our hosts directly for sacrifices. We know better now.”

“Ans what does this have to do with me?” Zim growled impatiently.

“Since the beginning of our reign, one PAK has been passed down through generations, carrying a suppressed impulse for destruction. We need only to activate it and we have our blood toll. Clearly our PAK has become quite damaged over the years. It no longer works quite right. You’re so defective, you couldn’t even declare your name right.”

The screen flashed the name Zim across it. It then reversed the letters and spread them out to reveal an acronym. ZIM became MIZ. And MIZ became Massacre Initiator Z.

“You were supposed to live as a low-ranking drone until we activated your destructive impulse and die in the disaster. You, however, defied us at every turn. We kept you alive out of sheer curiosity. We wanted to see how your life would play out. It’s been entertaining, however, you’ve become too great a burden to bare.”

Zim stood motionless, staring straight ahead. They waited for the typical Zim outburst of “lies!” or declaring his greatness, but nothing came. His eyes looked as dead as the possessed Irkens around them. He said nothing, did nothing. As much as Tak couldn’t stand Zim’s obnoxious voice or erratic behavior, watching him be so still was chilling.

Tak’s antenna perks at the sound of footsteps trooping down the hall. The Dib’s head darted for the door. “Guy! Come on! We’re out of time!”

Tak smacked Zim’s lifeless body away from the control panel. “Do you think you can stop us by getting into our heads?”

“Oh simple Tak,” the Irkens sighed. “We've lived in your heads since you were fitted with your packs.”

Tak sneered at them. “I cut you off for me and I won't rest until every Irken is free of you.”

“Please, you worked your whole life to get our attention. You finally have it. Do you want to throw that away? Perhaps we can find a place with someone of your drive and ingenuity.”

“Liars!” Did they think she was stupid? She knew as well as it that treason of this scale would never go unpunished. Even if they tried to appease her with a higher rank or a cushy job, it’d only be a matter of time before they got rid of her. But even the fact that it was trying to negotiate meant something. She was a threat to it, and she would stay a threat until the day she died.

“We you know you, Tak. You’re a plotter. You won't do anything rash.”

They don’t know me half as well as they think. “Want a bet?” She started hitting buttons on the control board. An alert came up on the screen and the voice blared from the speakers. “All maps queued for deletion. Are you sure you want to proceed?”

She hit one more button and the screen went black. “Deletion successful.”

“Take that you parasite bitch.”

“Come on,” Dib begged, pulling on her arm. The footsteps were noticeably louder. “We have to go now!”

Tak took off running and Dib pulled on the frozen Zim until his legs moved. They burst into the hall and immediately came across a group of Irkan soldiers. “There they are!” one of the soldiers cried.

Tak led the way as they ran toward the ship’s hanger. The soldiers fired at them. A laser cannon popped out of Tak’s pack and returned fire, but it was difficult for her to aim while leading the dash to the Voot. She wished one of her companions had could back her up with a pistol but Zim was still barely conscious and Dib was preoccupied with keeping his legs moving. The sound of little metallic feet running beside them gave her an idea.

“Zim, tell me your SIR unit to go into defensive mode.

There was no response. Zim was as helpful as a sack of empty ginzor cans.

“Hey Zim’s robot,” Dib said to the little SIR unit.

Gir looked up at him curiously. “Hmm?”

“Don't you have any weapons or something?”

“Huh?”

“You know, something that makes pretty lights and goes ‘pew, pew’?”

“Oh that. I got that.” A giant laser cannon popped out of his head and he fired wildly into the soldiers behind them, forcing the Irkens to scatter for cover

Finally, they made it to the hangar and all jumped in the Voot. Zim slid zombie-like into the pilot seat.

“Come on,” Dib said, shaking Zim’s shoulder. “Get us out of here!”

“Zim!” Tak snapped. “If you don't fly this ship, I will!”

That seemed to work. Zim shook off whatever stupor he was in and his usual look of single-minded determination returned to his eyes. “No one pilots Zim’s ship but Zim!” He took hold of the controls and the ship roared to life. In a flash, they took off into the stars.

#invader zim #invader zim fanfic #invader zim fanfiction #parasite au #iz parasite au #zim #tak #dib #gir #rebel zim #rebel leader tak #iz #zadf #sweetiepie writes #sweetipiewrites #sweetiepie fanfiction #sweetiepie fanfic #sweetiepie08

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not-majestic-bluenicorn · 3 years

Text

Crescent || Chapter 5

Fandom(s): ATEEZ

AU: Treasure Hunters

Genre: Action, Fantasy, Sci-Fi

Relationship: Everyone x Everyone, Established Hongjoong x Yunho

Language: English

Status: Ongoing

Chapter WC: 5,789 words

Warnings: Character Death, Stabbing, Fighting, Blood, Aliens, War, Funerals, Kidnapping, Attempted Kidnapping, Mentions of Child Abuse / Child Work, Explosions, Murder Attempt, Robbery, Homeless/Runaway Character, more will be added.

Chapter Warnings: Robbery, Homeless/Runaway Character

Summary:

"My name is Jung Wooyoung..." He looked at the sword and then back up, locking eyes with the man. It was overwhelming to know this was one of the people he was destined to be with, now pointing a sword at him. "What is your name?"

"Kang Yeosang."

AO3

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Tagged: @angel0taiyo

Wooyoung had arrived at Sonne U-28 about a week ago. He had managed to locate the port Captain Hongjoong's ship had sailed from, but nothing more. No one knew where it was headed, and he hadn't had any more prophetic dreams since then; he had also been too afraid to use the necklace the Interpreter had given him. Since he didn't know where to leave, he spent the week trying to figure out more about Hongjoong and his crew from the people that had built the boat.

He didn't get much out of them though, both because of confidentiality and because they didn't truly know who Hongjoong was, just that he was well off. Wooyoung already knew Hongjoong was wealthy from what he had gathered in his dreams, after all, Hongjoong was a prince. But he needed to know where they were headed to.

The options had long run out and he was left with only one choice, to try using the necklace or to give up on his mission, and that wasn't an option to him. Wooyoung spent the whole day preparing himself mentally to use the necklace. It was fairly simple, he just had to sleep with it on. His body would be able to draw on the power of the necklace by itself and his soul would take him where he needed to go in order to progress.

When the night came, Wooyoung sat down on his bed with the collar in his hands and observed it, making one last attempt at calming himself down before attempting to use the necklace for the first time. It was nerve wracking. Still, he knew he didn't have much of an option, so he put it on and laid down. It took him longer than usual to fall asleep, even with the smell of syndesia working to calm him down.

As soon as he entered the dream world, however, he could tell he was no longer in his own mind. The place felt foreigner to him. It was wild and full of raw, uncontrolled energy, and Wooyoung had no idea who it could belong to. He only figured it out once he stumbled upon another man, roughly his same height, but lean and with a certain roughness around the edges.

There was no doubt in Wooyoung's mind that this man was the owner of the dream. Even though he looked calm and composed, there was a certain fierceness in his eyes that left him no doubt about it. As Wooyoung approached him, the space transformed around him into an enormous ship, and once Wooyoung was standing close enough, he noticed this was one of the men that had appeared in his vision next to Captain Hongjoong and Yunho.

"Who are you?" The man asked once he noticed Wooyoung, immediately pointing at him with a sword. Wooyoung knew it couldn't hurt him, but he still put his hands up.

"Kang Yeosang," The man replied as he put the sword down, looking at Wooyoung with a certain confusion. "Is this a dream?" He asked, and Wooyoung nodded, a little bit too enthusiastically. "Are you part of my dream?" Now this question was a little bit more complicated.

"You could say so,yes." Wooyoung nodded, apologetically. Yeosang didn't seem to know what he was, and it felt like telling him would only make things more complicated. "Consider me an omen."

Yeosang smiled, chuckling softly. He had a pretty smile, Wooyoung noticed, immediately slapping himself mentally for it. Sure, he was supposed to eventually end up together with him, but this still felt a little too early. Yeosang didn't even know yet he was a real person! Still, his smile was pretty.

"Sure, if you say so." Yeosang put the sword away. "Why would an omen appear in my dreams?

"Well, naturally, because there is something you should look forward to in your future, don't you think?" Wooyoung tilted his head. He liked that Yeosang was playing along with him, because truth be told, he had no idea about what he could or couldn't do while in someone else's dream.

"Then you're not an omen." Yeosang smiled suddenly, approaching him. "Omen sounds creepy and scary, you're more like a..." Yeosang's hand reached forward to touch Wooyoung's hair. His eyes were so focused, wondering how any of this could be real. "Like a very cute sign or prediction." He finished, looking Wooyoung in the eye.

Wooyoung coughed softly and pushed Yeosang's hand away, embarrassed. It was ridiculous how much his face could blush even in a dream. The fact that Yeosang was laughing again didn't help much either, but made him feel even worse. Was this how it was supposed to go? Was he supposed to be flirting with Yeosang like this? He had no idea.

"Omens can be good too!" He retaliated, for a lack of a better comeback.

"Okay, okay, you're an omen." Yeosang raised his hands in defeat, placating him. "Now, why is Mr. Omen visiting my dream? What are you here to warn me about?"

"There's a ship and some people you should find." Wooyoung explained. "The ship is not very big, made of very dark wood and white sails, it has a crescent moon on its sides, it's called Crescent." As Wooyoung described it, the image of the ship he had seen in his own vision and in the pictures he had been able to get in Sonne U-28 materialized in front of them. Yeosang gasped.

"How are you controlling my dream?" He asked, eyes wide open as he admired the beautiful vessel.

"Omen things." Said Wooyoung, which was code for 'I have no idea either'.

"And why do I have to find them?" Yeosang asked, still not entirely convinced.

"That... I cannot tell you." Wooyoung shook his head. "I have to go now though."

It was clear that Yeosang didn't know what he was yet, and Wooyoung didn't want to scare him away by telling him he was destined to meet seven men and recover a legendary treasure most people didn't even believe to be real. Honestly, Wooyoung was only doing this because he fully believed in the mission and abilities of his people. If he were in Yeosang's position he would have probably refused outright and called the Interpreter crazy.

"Alright, I guess that's part of your 'omen things'." Yeosang chuckled. "Will you come again if I need more guidance?"

"Probably." Wooyoung nodded. At least he hoped so, since he still had no idea of how to fully control his abilities and the necklace. "Sweet dreams Yeosang." He smiled at Yeosang, and when he opened his eyes again, he was awake.

Yeosang regretted it immediately when his eyes fluttered open, as the dream he had just had was reduced to only a few figments. Two things remained in his mind though, Jung Wooyoung and The Crescent. He had never before had such a vivid dream in his life, and he regretted not being able to remember it more clearly, especially because Wooyoung had felt so real he wanted to believe it hadn't been entirely a dream.

He let out a deep sigh and looked around. The bridge he had been living under ever since running away from his house was usually void of other 'residents'. It was easier if you didn't have to fight for space with other homeless people, but when there wasn't a community with a sense of loyalty to watch out for your back, it put you in pretty dangerous situations.

The good thing was that Yeosang wasn't stupid. He lived day by day, watchful eyes paying attention to the movements in the street so he could choose a new target to steal from that day. He was good at this, and the fact that soldiers assigned to his planet barely cared about it was a huge benefit. He spent part of his fortune on food and water for the day and hid the rest to save until he was able to buy himself a passage off that damned planet and go find his father.

He remembered the last fight with his mother clear as day. She had never been quite the same after discovering his father was an asshole cheater and had turned to vices to try and heal her broken heart. Yeosang loved her dearly, and had tried his best to remain by her side and help her get through it, but she was so angry at him everyday. The abuse had become too much and when she yelled at Yeosang to disappear, he left.

There was nothing in his possession worth taking with him, so he pushed a couple of clothes into his backpack and left after a particularly nasty fight that had ended with a cut on his cheek. Yeosang did regret leaving her a little, so he passed by his own house everyday, trying to see how she was doing. Her anger had seemed to dissipate now that there was no one to be angry at, but she cried almost every day and it shattered his heart to pieces.

Yeosang wanted to find his father and bring him back so maybe his mother could get some sort of closure and go on with her life. The planet they lived in, Tebos, didn't help much either. The resources in Tebos were scarce, and since it wasn't a main producer of the Kim Empire, it had been left almost forgotten. Yeosang had wanted to get out of there for the longest time, but now he wanted to even more.

Thanks to the poor support of the empire, the guards were underpaid and it was easier for him to steal his way out of the city. Of course, even though he was good at it, he wasn't the best. Some people in his town already had his eyes set on him, but Yeosang slipped out of their grasp every time. He just needed to hold on as long as he could until he was able to leave that place.

San looked at Hongjoong as he mumbled Thisa's poem to himself for the nth time. The two of them were alone in Hongjoong's quarters while Yunho took care of things outside, every once in a while someone would come in to check if they needed anything but would leave after only a couple of minutes after noticing Hongjoong hadn't even touched his food. San wondered if he should kill him now.

It would be so simple. Hongjoong wasn't paying attention to him and he knew no one would come check on them in a while. The question was, was it worth it? San wasn't particularly appreciative of his life, but he also didn't want to die for a cause he didn't believe in or care for. Still, if he didn't kill Hongjoong, he'd be killed by his own boss. This was a loss-loss situation.

Just as he was trying to make up his mind, the door opened with a quick motion and Jongho stepped inside, slightly panicked. Hongjoong raised his head, and as soon as he took in the other's expression, he stood up and left everything he was doing behind. San followed behind them, a little confused.

"What happened?" Hongjoong was quick to ask.

"The fuel tank is damaged and we're losing fuel very quickly." Jongho explained.

"San, check the coordinates to the nearest planet and send them to quarterdeck." Hongjoong was quick to order, his thoughts racing.

"Yes, sir." San went back to the table and got to work.

"Jongho, go back to the fuel tank and figure out if there's a way you can patch it up temporarily, you can take someone with you if you need assistance." Hongjoong instructed.

"Yessir!" Jongho exclaimed and left quickly, taking a couple other crew members he found on his way to the maintenance room.

Hongjoong rushed out of his quarters and to the deck, where Yunho was directing some other crew members on what to do. He didn't even stop to ask him about it and just made his way to the wheel, the coordinates for a planet named Tebos were already there, waiting for him. With quick precision, Hongjoong stirred the wheel and changed the direction of the ship. Tebos was almost in the complete opposite direction they were going in originally, but it was the closest planet to where they were, so a little sacrifice would have to be made.

"Someone contact Tebos and inform them we will be doing an emergency landing!" He yelled.

The crew mobilized immediately and Hongjoong centered himself on directing the ship. He needed to make sure that they made it to Tebos so they could get more fuel and continue with their journey. If they ran through the fuel, they could be rescued, but the ship would need to be towed and they would just lose too much time.

"Captain! We're approaching Tebos!" Siyeon informed him.

With the velocity they were going at, it wasn't long before they were right outside Tebos' atmosphere. The fuel levels were dangerously low, but Hongjoong didn't have much of an option as he had to slow down before they came in. He pressed a couple of buttons and activated the protection field which would keep the ship safe from the effects of breaking through the ozone layer of a planet.

A patrol ship that had received their emergency call was already waiting for them, and helped guide them to the nearest port. As soon as they had landed, Hongjoong told Yunho to check with the patrol guards and he ran to the maintenance room to look for Jongho and the crew members that had helped him deal with the leak temporarily. He found them easily, all of them sitting on the floor covered in oil and whatnot and looking completely defeated.

"Are you alright?" Hongjoong asked, paying no mind to the mess as he approached to check on them.

"Don't come close Captain, you'll get dirty." Jongho warned him, holding his hands up in an attempt to stop him.

"As if that matters," Hongjoong scoffed, taking Jongho's hand instead and helping him stand. "You all did an amazing job here, go get clean and changed, we're having a meeting on the main deck shortly." He ordered, yet his voice was gentle.

The crew members obeyed without making any comments and Hongjoong stayed back to inspect the mess for a moment. He wasn't an expert in ship mechanisms, but even he could tell it looked bad. As he walked back to the deck, he thought that maybe he should ask Jongho to teach him a little bit about it. He should, at the very least, know how to take care of his ship properly.

"What did the officers say?" Hongjoong asked Yunho once he was outside, standing next to him.

"Well, we explained the situation to them, and since our documentation is in order, they said it was fine." Yunho explained, pointing towards the patrol ship that was just leaving.

"That's good," Hongjoong nodded. "Do me a favor and get everyone here, I'll go change my clothes."

Yunho agreed and Hongjoong went back to his quarters. San was still there, looking at the poem that Hongjoong had left behind to deal with the emergency. He only looked up when Hongjoong cleared his throat.

"Oh, is everything alright Captain?" San asked, a little bit startled.

"You know, it's fine if you call me Hongjoong when there's no one else around, I feel like through all this map deciphering we've gotten close enough." Hongjoong shrugged.

"Ah..." San stared at him wide-eyed, at a loss of words. Great, this was exactly what he needed: to get all friendly with his target. "Okay..." Hongjoong looked at him expectantly and San cursed himself inside. "Hongjoong."

Hongjoong hummed happily and proceeded to walk towards the part of the quarters that was his room. It was separated by the rest by a wall, giving him some sense of privacy. Yunho and him slept together there, even though theoretically Yunho wasn't supposed to be there, but that was no one's business.

"I'm gonna get changed, you should go meet the others at the deck." Hongjoong hair popped out from behind the wall. "Unless you want to wait for me?" Hongjoong asked playfully, his hands already unbuttoning his shirt.

"I'm going!" San turned around without wasting a second and left the quarters.

San left the room and joined the others on deck. He threw his 'cool' image outside the window and messed up his hair until it was standing in all sorts of directions, muttering to himself at the same time. The other crew members who were already on deck looked at him strangely, but didn't ask. Everyone found San slightly intimidating, and while they didn't see him much because he was always helping the captain, the fact that they didn't know him did the opposite of helping.

"Is everything alright?" Yunho asked him, eyebrows raised as he observed San try to fix his hair again.

"Yes, everything is fine." San regretted only slightly the way his voice sounded a little too sharp.

"Did something happen with Hongjoong?" Yunho insisted, and he knew he was right when San's voice rose one octave and he tried to deny everything.

"No!" San almost yelled, but he quickly composed himself and cleared his throat. "No, nothing happened with Captain Hongjoong." Unconsciously, he accentuated the word captain, feeling better after putting some imaginary distance between him and Hongjoong. "He'll be here shortly."

Said and done, Hongjoong joined them after a couple of minutes, changed into a clean set of clothes. He greeted everyone with a smile and began explaining the situation to those who hadn't heard during the ruckus and had simply followed orders. He then let Jongho detail the status of the ship.

"It's not too bad that I can't fix it, we won't need to buy a new fuel tank." Jongho concluded.

"That does take some weight off of out shoulders." Hongjoong smiled. "The next pressing issue is that we need to get more fuel..."

"That might be a problem." Siyeon spoke, gathering everyone's attention. "Tebos is a very poor planet, it might be expensive to find fuel. We could potentially refill the tank enough to get us to another planet and buy from there." She suggested. Hongjoong hummed and considered it for a few seconds.

"This sure looks like home, then." San muttered to himself, but Hongjoong heard him and looked at him for a moment before continuing with the discussion.

"Let's try to find us a good deal in fuel, if we can't do that then I'll ask San to find us the closest planet so we can calculate how much fuel we need to get there." Hongjoong concluded, and everyone else nodded. "I'll take Yunho and Siyeon with me to barter for the price, Second Mate?"

"Yes sir?" Hwanwoong asked, although it was more of a formal exchange, since he already knew what Hongjoong was going to say.

"You're in charge for the time being, make sure Jongho has everything he needs to fix the ship." Hongjoong ordered, briefly smiling at Jongho. "If something is missing, let us know and we'll buy it."

"Alright, sir." Hwanwoong nodded.

"Let's get to work then!" Hongjoong clapped his hands twice and the ship went back to life as everyone mobilized.

Yunho and Siyeon followed him off the ship and into the port, where they would try gathering information on where to get fuel first. Yunho immediately approached Hongjoong as they descended, grabbing his arm to pull him close and whisper to him. Siyeon, way too used to these displays of affection, just ignored them and walked a little bit ahead of them.

"What did you do to San?" Yunho asked. His face looked serious but his voice was playful, so Hongjoong knew there was nothing to worry about.

"I did nothing!" Hongjoong exclaimed, looking offended.

"He looked really...flustered, when he came out to deck." Yunho explained.

"Oh really?" Hongjoong smiled. "I told him to call me only by name when there's just the two of us, since we spend so much time together and sometimes I need a break from hearing the word Captain, you know?" Yunho hummed in understanding.

"Was that all you did to him or...?" Yunho pressed, still not satisfied with the answer.

"Okay, maybe I did offer him to wait for me while I changed clothes..." Hongjoong continued. Yunho opened his mouth in a fake gasp and Hongjoong punched him on the arm for it. "I was behind the wall! He couldn't even see anything." Hongjoong rolled his eyes.

"He's gonna report you for unwanted sexual advances." Yunho joked.

"Oh shut up! Don't even joke about that." Hongjoong groaned, shoving Yunho away.

"I'm sorry, it was in bad taste." He smiled sheepishly and put his arm around Hongjoong's shoulders. "Won't do it again." He kissed Hongjoong's temple and Hongjoong pushed him away softly.

"Alright, alright, but we're in public Mr. First Mate, let's keep things professional." Hongjoong warned him. Yunho let go of him but not without scoffing.

"Professional, sure."

Yeosang had been wandering around town for the day, stealing petty things to trade with other homeless people or sell them for a few coins and get himself some breakfast or lunch. He was just biding his time. He had overheard some guards talking about the cargo ships that were coming in that day and he had already planned out what he would do to ensure he could get a good bounty.

If he did well enough, he might be able to buy the cheapest ticket out of this planet and make his way elsewhere, look for better opportunities. If he did complete his goal, he would need to go back home to get all his documentation. He didn't really want to see his mother again, afraid that even glancing at her would make him want to not leave Tebos, but he knew it was a trial he would need to overcome by himself.

As he went around the main plaza, he glanced at the clock and noticed it was time for him to start moving towards the port. He was a little bit nervous, as this was the biggest robbery he had attempted so far, but he had studied the place carefully to ensure there would be no mistakes. Plus, he had invited some others to his little heist. At best, they would all get a good bounty and go on with their lives; at worst, Yeosang could use the distraction and escape to safety.

He knew it was cruel to think of the others as a distraction, but it was something they all knew would happen if it came down to it. It was, as some would say, survival of the fittest, and they would all willingly drop each other if it meant getting out unscathed. Yeosang tried not to think too much about how that mentality was wrong, because if he did, he would be easily left behind by the others.

The path he followed towards the port was dark and small. His town was full of tall, crooked buildings that extended towards the sky and were too close together, making perfect alleyways to escape from the soldiers or to lure inexperienced people. He had spent his childhood memorizing them, and now they had become his temporary home.

As he walked, others joined him on his way to the port, taking slightly different routes to make it less suspicious. When they finally arrived, there were several cargo ships lined across the port. The guards supposed to be taking care of the security were scattered around, lingering with no real intention of doing much. One or two ships had their own security, but they seemed from one of those cheap private agencies.

While they scanned the ships and planned how to divide them and what they would do, Yeosang's eyes fell upon a different, smaller ship that seemed out of place among the cargo ships. Something about it felt familiar to him, but he couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. The ship was gorgeous, and it also looked quite expensive, so he felt the need to check it out.

"I'll take that small ship over there," he informed the others, who looked at him like he was crazy.

"That's not a cargo ship." One commented, feeling the need to state the obvious.

"I know, I still want to check it out." Yeosang insisted.

"That is not what we agreed on, you're alone on this one." Another person commented, and Yeosang shrugged.

"I don't mind that." For some reason, he didn't want to bring them with him. It felt like that ship was only meant for him, and he felt okay not getting their help. "Let's go."

"You look upset." Yunho told Hongjoong as they waited for Siyeon to come back. She was the best at bartering from the three of them, and she insisted on doing it alone or they would slow her down.

"Yeah..." Hongjoong nodded, but was too lost in thought to reply.

"What is it? Maybe I can help." Yunho insisted softly.

"I'm just thinking about what San said, that this place was much like home." Hongjoon explained, letting out a long sigh.

"And it bothers you to think that he lived on a planet like this one." Yunho complemented.

"Just look at this place! This planet is part of the Kim Empire..." Hongjoong huffed. "I wasn't sure at first but I recognized the uniforms of the patrol soldiers, what is my father doing?" His voice was low but Yunho could tell he was in a bad mood.

“And what do you want to do?” Yunho asked.

“I don’t know, I’m not sure there is something I can actually do right now, since I am undercover.” Hongjoong sighed, ruffling his hair in frustration. Yunho grabbed his hands tightly and pushed them down. “We don’t have money to help a whole planet, which shouldn’t even need help.”

“Alright, we can’t help them now, but as the Prince, what can you do to help them in the future?” Yunho continued, helping Hongjoong think things through.

“Remember them,” Hongjoong said with certainty. “I can remember them and take note of the things that need to be changed, and then present it to my father.” Yunho smiled and nodded.

“What a smart Prince.” Yunho squeezed his hands softly. Hongjoong smiled and took a deep breath.

“Thank you for helping ground me.” Hongjoong said.

“Anytime,” Yunho pressed a kiss to his forehead and let go of his hands.

Hongjoong took a few deep breaths and made a mental note of everything he had observed about Tebos so far. At that moment, Siyeon returned to them. Her face indicated that she didn’t bring the best of news, but they kept their hopes up.

“The least expensive place so far, but still pretty expensive.” She sighed. “Plus, I heard some bad news.” Hongjoong groaned.

“What is it now?” He asked.

“Now? Did something else happen?” Siyeon raised an eyebrow, but Yunho shook his head.

“I’ll fill you in later, what happened?” Yunho insisted, not wanting to stress Hongjoong out again.

“Apparently the amount of robberies has gone up recently, and some people heard rumors of a group stealing from cargo ships.” Siyeon explained. “And we’re surrounded by cargo ships today.” Hongjoong sighed.

“Let’s head back,” the Captain said. “Let’s make sure everything is in order and then we’ll deal with the fuel.”

—

Yeosang approached the beautiful dark vessel with white sails carefully. He was mesmerized by it. Something about it called to him, and it felt almost familiar, but he couldn’t quite remember what it was. He paced around the ship for a moment, admiring it, before he focused on finding an entrance.

He recognized the ship model from a ship his father had worked in previously. Everything he knew about ships was thanks to his father, even if he somewhat hated to admit it. Still, he had to admit that his father had given him the dream of becoming the captain of a ship. This particular model was refined and less common, since it possessed very high specs and it wasn’t particularly cheap to produce.

Whoever owned this ship was a person of fortune and power, exactly what Yeosang was looking for. If he remembered correctly, there was a little entrance close to the propellers, made for ease of access when they needed maintenance in space. It wasn't a strong point of the vessel, since it was necessary to ensure that a person doing maintenance wouldn't be locked out, but it was also well hidden due to this. Yeosang passed his hands around the ship over and over until eventually he found the little latch and pulled on it.

"Got it," he grinned when he noticed it hadn't been locked from the inside and the door opened to the maintenance area of the ship.

Someone had probably left it open from a previous maintenance check and had forgotten to lock it. That was a beginners move. If things went well, maybe they could learn a lesson from their stuff being stolen by Yeosang; if not, well, Yeosang would have more important things to worry about than teach them a lesson.

He pressed his arms against the floor of the ship and pulled himself up, trying to keep his voice quiet as he struggled to lift his own weight. He hadn't been eating properly for days so it was difficult to make use of all his strength, but eventually he made it in. After some careful consideration, he decided to close the hatch and just hope it would be unlocked when he came back, since living it open could attract other burglars.

Slowly, he made his way around the maintenance area of the ship, paying special attention to any noises that could indicate someone else was there with him. It was a risky move, truly, since when else would be a better time to perform maintenance on a ship than when at port, but it was also his best shot. The ship was dead silent however, and as he gained confidence, he started moving quicker with his goal set on the captain's quarters.

"Stop right there." A cool voice said.

Yeosang turned around as his hand went towards his belt, where he kept a dagger he had been using during his life in the streets. His hand didn't make it that far, however, as he stopped as soon as he felt the tip of a sword pressing against his neck. In front of him stood a man, eyes dead cold and expression serious. His stance was flawless as he held the sword perfectly still against Yeosang, and he knew that this could only come from years of training. Whoever was on board this ship wasn't just any rich merchant if they could hire people with these skills.

His expression went blank, giving away nothing as he stared the man down with a similar glare, almost daring him to go further. Yeosang's hand inched little by little towards his knife. He knew he couldn't win against an electric chimera with a common dagger he had found among his dad's left behind belongings, but he wasn't going down without a fight either. Just as his fingers grazed the handle of his dagger, another voice spoke from behind him.

"I wouldn't try that if I were you." Said the voice, as the mouth of a gun pressed against his back. Yeosang sighed.

"Don't bring a knife to a gun fight, or so they say." Yeosang moved his hand away from the dagger and raised both of his arms, admitting defeat.

"Wise choice." The man in front of him said, but his sword pressed more against Yeosang's neck, prickling him sightly. Yeosang hissed.

"Don't do that San!" The man behind him sounded scandalized as he moved the gun away and forced Yeosang's arms behind his back, easily holding both wrists with one hand.

"Sorry, I am not kin to people stealing on my ship." The man named San said as he sheathed his sword.

Yeosang noticed they were putting nothing on his wrists, so he made an attempt to pull them away and run, but the grip only grew tighter, making him yelp. How could someone be so strong? He turned his head around as much as he could, trying to take a glance at the person holding him down, but all he got was an uncomfortably kind smile and a shrug. That made no sense.

"I wouldn't try that if I were you, I don't want to accidentally break your wrists." The man warned, looking only slightly apologetic.

"We should tie him up and take him to the main deck," San suggested, turning around. "I'll go look for something to tie him up with, keep an eye on him."

San left and the two of them stood in the middle of the little hallway in uncomfortable silence. This was, by far, the most humiliating thing Yeosang had gone through since he had started living on the streets, stealing to make his days. How could someone hold him down so easily with one hand? He knew he wasn't the strongest, and he certainly wasn't in the best shape due to his situation, but it still felt like a little too much.

"Who are you?" The man asked him. Yeosang could tell there was curiosity in his voice, but he remained silent. "I guess not telling me anything about you might be better for you..."

"How are you so strong?" Yeosang asked instead, exasperated because he couldn't move.

"I've been doing heavy work since I was young?" The man replied, but he didn't sound very certain.

They stayed in silence after that until San came back and changed places with the other man, who held him down while San tied up a complicated knot around Yeosang's wrists. He tugged at the knot but it didn't shift even slightly, which raised his suspicions that San had definitely been trained as something. Just who was the owner of this ship?

"Let's go Jongho, the Captain will want to see him once he gets back." San ordered, and the other man, Jongho, nodded and pushed Yeosang towards the main deck.

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bonesaldente · 4 years

Text

Caliginous I Darth Maul x Reader

Chapter 4: The Flight

read this on ao3

read the last chapter here

words: 3100+

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He turns and walks the same way he came, not bothering to check if you’re following him. Which, of course, you are. What’s the alternative?

His spaceship is well hidden in a small clearing in the forest. It looks like a star courier, but you aren’t sure: They are diplomats’ ships, and not many diplomats make it all the way out to Kessel; or bother to, that is.

The ship seems to be in pristine condition, and the ramp extends to the ground smoothly after the Sith types something on the keypad. All the ships you’ve flown so far have been old, heavily modified and recycled ships that did the job, but not much more. This is on a whole new level and you’re somewhat excited, inwardly, to see the interior.

Maul enters first and you follow suit. The interior is illuminated by red lights, which seems to be the color scheme the Sith follows.

There is a sleep compartment on your right and you can see one more straight ahead, next to what appears to be a lift at the side of the round ready-room.

Together, you take the lift to the next floor and exit it into a rather large room with six seats lined up against the dark grey oval back wall, and the pilot’s seat in the cockpit in the front.

Darth Maul takes his place in the cockpit and you decide on one of the passenger’s seats in the back.

It’s the first time you speak up.

“Where are we going?”

The Sith doesn’t turn around to face you.

“Nar Shaddaa.”

“The smuggler’s moon? What kind of business do you have there?”

“Somebody is late on a payment to us. We will pay them a visit.”

“I see.”

There is silence between you as he starts the engine which comes to life with a smooth rumble.

You can feel the ship take off and accelerate to a faster speed than any ship you’ve ever flown.

“How long until we reach the moon?”

“Navigation says one day.”

His eyes are still trained on the large viewport.

“Leaving atmosphere now.” The computer announces.

This seems as good a time as any to wash off the dirt and blood from both your last mission and the fight with the man in the seat before you.

You clear your throat. “You got a refresher?”

“Downstairs, straight ahead,” he replies, the gentle bass of his voice filling the room. His voice is too nice to be used so scarcely, you think to yourself.

The refresher is small but big enough to fit a shower, which is all you want at the moment.

You pile up the dirty clothes in a heap on the floor, next to a stack of fresh ones.

The warm water is pleasant on your worn-out body, but you have to physically restrain yourself from wincing when the soap gets into all the cuts and minor injuries you’ve sustained in the fight, though you’re probably the one to blame for those. The detonator did more damage than the rest of the fight, with the bruises on your neck and your lightly burned wrist being the only exceptions. However, if this is what you look like after the explosion, Maul must be hurt even worse- he was a lot closer than you to the detonator when it went off.

You can’t say you feel bad about it. It was self-defense, after all.

Drying yourself off with a small towel, you freeze when you reach your feet.

“Blast!” you whisper, looking at the thin layer of synthetic skin that’s now clung to your finger. Staring at your ankle, you see the black marking visible again.

Dread fills you as you realize that you didn’t think to bring any more synthskin.

Sighing heavily, you stand up straight again and look in the mirror. The tattoo on your ankle is far from being the only one you have. Adorning your midriff, black lines, shaped into a pattern of curves, stand out against your skin.

“Please don’t kick me out!”, you sobbed, begging the man standing in front of you.

“You’ve violated our code, have you not? Why should I make an exception for you?”

“Please, understand! He… She was right there and he… was fine. Why should she have to suffer and not him? How could I live with myself knowing he had a fast death, when he choked her to death?” Your fingernails dug into your palms so hard, blood was drawn.

“How many times, hm? How many times did you stab him, breaking the rules we gave you?”

“Twenty-three”, you pressed out between clenched teeth. “Magnus…” you said hoarsely, “his eyes looked like mine.”

His gaze softens slightly.

“How do I know it won’t happen again? How will you learn?”

“Please…”

“We will need to find a way to remind you of how you failed us today. Something that will stick with you for eternity.”

Eternity, indeed. Ever since you were fifteen, every day when you look at your reflection in the mirror, the black inkings on your skin remind you of the day you lost your mother and killed your father, or at least presumably your father. Each painstakingly inked line is made to resemble a wound inflicted by you. Twenty-three lines, arranged into a pattern.

There must be something about you that makes people want to give you tattoos against your will.

But you stand by the tattoo on your midriff. It’s the one on your ankle that you want to - no, need to - cover up.

Damp hair pulled into a loose braid, you re-emerge from the lift on the upper floor.

You don’t expect to see Maul sitting on the floor cross-legged, eyes closed, meditating.

Unsure of what to do, you awkwardly stay where you are.

“Do you…” It feels wrong to break the silence. “Do you have any synthskin?”

His eyes open slowly, intense gaze focused on you, before moving to your wrist, which has been burned by his lightsaber.

“Your injury doesn’t look severe enough for synthskin.”

His tone isn’t condescending, or dismissive. It’s questioning.

“It’s not for the injury.”

His eyes bore into yours once again, unwilling to answer you without a more elaborate answer.

You sigh and take your left boot off, pushing the sock down far enough to expose the sign that’s eternalized in your skin.

He musters it for a moment, not moving from his place on the floor.

“A slave tattoo.” He remarks in a matter-of-factly tone.

“Yes.”

He holds your gaze until you give in. “I was born into slavery, before being taken in by the Concinnity.” You make your unwillingness to talk about the sore topic very clear and readjust your boot.

To your surprise, the zabrak gets up from his previous position and walks past you, into the lift.

“Wait here.” Is all he says, then the doors to the lift slide closed.

You just stand there for a moment, staring at the closed doors, before plopping down on the closest seat.

Through the viewport in the front, you can see the dark nothingness of space, only disturbed by the gleaming lights of stars far out of reach for you. You used to despise flying when you did jobs on other planets. It made you feel alone in the universe.

Flying with a companion, however—as quiet as he may be—is somewhat comforting.

The Sith returns, a packet of synthskin in his hand.

“We will need to restock soon.”

You are briefly stunned by the act of kindness, before taking the item from his outstretched hand.

He didn’t need to do that. He could’ve told you to get over it, but he even went so far as planning ahead for you.

“Thank you,” is all you manage to say.

He just nods and sits back down on the floor, going straight back to meditating.

You take him having his eyes closed as a chance to openly stare at him; The red light illuminating his skin makes him blend into his surroundings easily, the black markings on his face, around his eyes, at first glance making him look like he is scowling, but the longer you look, the more you can see that his face is actually relaxed.

You notice he is wearing different, lighter robes than he was when you were fighting, though it was hard to see what he was wearing in the dark of the alley, and you were pretty preoccupied with other things. The robes on him now, though still quite unrevealing, have a looser neckline, exposing more of the art that’s tattooed on him.

Do all Zabraks get their entire bodies tattooed?

You can’t help but wonder what their meaning is. He doesn’t seem like the type to get a tattoo solely for the aesthetic, though you would be lying if you said they don’t somehow enhance his dark appeal.

Glancing at the computer screen in the cockpit, you see that you still have over twenty-three hours to go.

You suppress a yawn and stand up from your seat, getting into the lift.

Downstairs, you examine the two sleeping compartments. One of them seems to be Maul’s, though the only way you can tell is through the covers that are draped over the bed neatly, instead of being folded up like the ones on the apparently unused bed. Something inside you snickers at the thought of the all-mighty Sith lord making his bed in the morning, but you do wonder if he even sleeps that much, or if his meditation thing is how he gets most of his rest.

You wouldn’t judge, you aren’t exactly a picture book example of healthy sleeping habits either.

Now, however, you unfold the covers on the sleeping compartment you claim as yours, seeing as you’re the only other person on the ship. First, you sit down on the surprisingly comfortable bed and start covering up your tattoo. The synthskin doesn’t take long to apply to your ankle, you have gotten pretty good at it over the past few years.

Trying to get comfortable under the thin covering next, you twist and turn, but can’t seem to shake off the feeling that something is wrong.

It doesn’t take you long to realize what’s bothering you - you sit up straight in the bed and reach out for your bag that you discarded earlier when boarding the ship. You pull out a small knife and place it under the pillow. It’s a habit most inhabitants of your city pick up over time, and the continuously rising crime rate on Kessel is indicating it won’t stop anytime soon. Obviously, the measure is obsolete on a ship with only two passengers, but old habits die hard.

Settling back down, you finally close your eyes and let the constant hum of the ship lull you to sleep.

You awaken to your stomach rumbling. On the wall to your left, a small projection lets you know you’ve slept for five hours - a more than decent amount, you think.

But now, you’re hungry. You feel somewhat embarrassed to ask him for something again, but your body is not really giving you a choice in the matter, so you get up and into the lift, fixing your hair on the way.

Maul is no longer meditating, but instead seated in the pilot’s seat again, typing something on a keypad you can’t see.

“Do you have food rations somewhere?” Your quiet voice sounds louder than you expected.

His hand hovers over the keypad, before moving to the side. A box moves out of a shelf to his right and floats over to one of the seats in the back, gently settling down.

You sit down next to it and open the lid, examining its contents. It’s all fairly basic stuff - some ration bars, and powders that, mixed with hot water, turn into a kind of bread. You don’t know why you’re surprised, not knowing what your subconscious expected. Siths need to somehow sustain themselves too.

You grab a ration bar and contemplate offering him one too. No, this is his own ship, if he wants one he’ll take one - you can’t just offer him something that’s his in the first place, can you? You’ve learned a lot as a member of the Concinnity, but they weren’t really big on social skills, something you never regretted until now.

Luckily, it doesn’t look like your travel companion is much of an extrovert either.

Chewing on the somewhat tasteless bar brings back memories from when you had just moved into your first and only own apartment and lived off these things for nearly two years, not knowing how to cook and not making enough money on jobs to be able to afford to buy every meal. You are the living proof ration bars contain everything you need to survive.

There’s still so much time left, and you are not used to having off-time… at all. For a minute, you wonder if the zabrak will mind if you make yourself a bit more at home and go through some training exercises, and you decide that since he forced you to go with him, he can’t complain if you keep up part of what makes you this good in the first place, so you decide to use the time on your hands now to practice your flexibility and balance. Down in the ready room, you get out the small ball you have for that purpose and look around you. Unsatisfied, you shake your head. This won’t do, the room is too small, and you need space to stretch out your body.

You go back upstairs, trying to fight the impression that your presence disturbs Maul, who doesn’t even acknowledge you entering the room again, his back turned to you.

You start out with your basic stretches but quickly move along to the more advanced moves, balancing the ball on your foot while in a handstand, slowly lifting your one hand off the ground while keeping your balance.

Your instructor when you were young taught you that combat skills won fights, but that stealthiness prevented them, which has been proven true on multiple occasions in your life. You may not be a member of the guild anymore, but that doesn’t mean you believe what they taught you is not still true.

Carefully, eyes closed in deep focus, you kick the ball up in the air with your foot, catching it in your hand, still maintaining your one-handed handstand.

After a few more moves, you decide you’ve had enough and get back on your feet.

“How long have you been trained?” His question startles you and you turn around to see those intense eyes focused on you.

“Since I was four.” You meet his gaze, waiting for a follow-up question, while you put on the boots that you had taken off for your practice.

He blinks at you.

“The man. You called him your brother.”

You freeze in your movements, almost having forgotten that he had looked into your mind.

Choosing not to answer, you train your eyes on the task of tying up your boots again, but you can feel his eyes boring into you still. You sigh almost inaudibly.

“He was the legitimate son, I was born to a slave his father bedded. A bastard.”

You pause for a second.

“I didn’t know him until yesterday. I mean I knew of his existence, but I have never met him.”

“And the father?”

You glare at him. “I don’t see how that’s relevant. It doesn’t make any difference.”

“But it does.” He says calmly, insisting. “How can I trust your loyalty to our cause when you hide things from me?”

You stare at each other for an eternal moment again, until you finally avert your gaze.

“Four years ago. He killed my mother, I killed him. I was fifteen.”

The memory resurfaces despite your efforts to suppress it. The limp, beaten-up body of your mother. The bruises on her neck. The stench from Lycus, lying next to her, passed out from alcohol and spice, but alive.

The look on his face when he looked you in the eyes, the realization. And the feeling of your blade buried in his chest.

The day you were officially an orphan, and the same day you had officially become a fully instructed member of the Concinnity, after completing your first kill, no matter how you had broken their code.

Again you get the feeling he is looking into your mind and seeing this scarring, but most importantly personal memory.

‘Get out of my head.’ you think, trying to put as much weight into the thought as you can.

You could swear he flinches, but it might just be a product of your imagination.

He blinks and turns back to the controls in front of him, flicking a few switches.

“Watch over this,” he says, getting up from his chair and swiftly moving past you into the lift. The doors close before you can answer.

Nervously, you move to the pilot’s seat and sit down in it uncomfortably. You know how to fly, yes, but you are not a great pilot, so you can just hope nothing happens that would require you to leave autopilot.

The sound of water running downstairs confirms your guess that Maul is taking a shower. Without wanting to, your mind wanders, wondering how the tattoos on his torso look, spanning across his no doubt toned body…

You mentally slap yourself for the thought, telling yourself you are above daydreaming about a man who is coercing you into working for him.

Sitting up straighter, you shake all thoughts, however appealing they may be, off and force yourself to just focus on the space before you.

If it weren’t for the sound of water running, the well-known loneliness would settle in again. But for now, you’re fine, just watching the stars.

The next few hours are uneventful. You decide to get your equipment ready about four hours before your predicted arrival on Nar Shaddaa, which is when you realize the Sith hasn’t let you in on his plan yet.

“There is no plan. We go meet them and ask them why they’re late on their payment. If a fight ensues, so be it.”

You furrow your eyebrows, which he, turned away from you, of course can’t see.

“On Nar Shaddaa? Three out of four times you come there to meet someone, especially the Hutts, it’s a trap. You can’t trust them.”

He turns to face you.

“You’ve been there?”

You huff. “Aside from Kessel, it’s where we get most of our jobs from. And most of them end in some kind of dispute about the payment.”

He narrows his eyes in thought.

“So what do you suggest?”

You’re taken aback by him asking for your opinion, your advice.

“They don’t know I’m coming, do they?” He shakes his head slightly. “Then I say, you go in there, I wait outside and watch. If all is well, you collect their money and leave. If it’s a trap, I can jump in and help.”

He thinks about it for a moment, then nods in approval. “Fine.”

Satisfied, you lean back in your chair.

“What are you going to do if they refuse to pay?��

He turns back to his original position, facing the viewport in front of you.

“We kill them.”

That’s very much your way of doing things.

You’ve got the feeling you’ll get along well.

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next chapter

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@princessayveke

#darth maul #darth maul x reader #maul #maul x reader #reader insert #star wars x reader #star wars x you

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darthlorddiamond · 4 years

Text

In the Center of Everything

Request: Hello love! Can you write with something like rebel and force sensetive reader and Kylo kidnaps her but he doesn't want rebels to come so he takes her to Naboo instead? They spend time there and reader is nice person so they slowly start falling for each other? I was thinking like kinda fairytale setup like dresses he gives her, fancy meals etc. Picnic next to the waterfalls like Anakin and padme would be a nice bonus for @imaginesyes

Words: 3,260

Reading Time: 14 min

Category: Fluff

Warnings: None

Check my Masterlist for more.

In the Center of Everything

There's something sweet and almost kind

But he was mean and he was coarse and unrefined

It has been some time since I have been, how to put it... In captivity on this planet? It all started a long time ago, for several years I had done everything possible to try to go unnoticed by the war that was happening everywhere, I knew perfectly well that something in me made me different from others, and for that reason, I decided to live with a low profile, I didn´t want to attract the attention of anyone, not the separatist groups, or those who called themselves rebels and much less the First Order, at the end of the day I was sure that if someone noticed that peculiarity that I had, they wouldn't hesitate to spread the word and eventually I would have someone behind me looking for me.

I realized that I was able to connect with the Force when I was a teenager and to be honest, at first, I was very scared, I didn't understand what was happening or how I could do what I was doing, but with the passage of the years, I accepted that that was my nature and I couldn't deny it, so I cultivated it as best I could.

When my parents passed away, I completely put aside the business and commercial life we had and isolated myself, I built a small cabin from scratch in a quarry near our town and dedicated myself to planting what I could, slowly, I became a self-sufficient person. All this time I stayed out of the conflicts that were happening outside, never in my life did I think that I would end up in the center of everything.

One night, I still remember it perfectly, while I was meditating, I connected with a strange energy. At first, I was very scared, I couldn´t understand what was responding to me, so I immediately cut my meditation. It took a few weeks before I was encouraged to do it again.

The next time I connect with that energy, try to prolong it as long as I can. Little by little, night after night, I connected with that entity more often. I didn't know what it was, who it was, or where in the Galaxy it was, but I felt quite comfortable and intrigued to have made such a connection. I never suspected anything, I never thought that it could be something that would hurt me, I simply felt that it was someone like me out there and that, even with my self-exile in the middle, it made me feel accompanied... Until that night arrived.

It all started like a small whisper that intensified, “Where are you?”; A pair of eyes that pierced the gloom of the space that divided us. One question only. An answer from me that I would later regret "Cantonica".

And now he's dear and so unsure

I wonder why I didn't see it there before

A couple of days passed until the consequence of my actions resonated. It was a day like any other, I never thought that something out of my routine would happen. I woke up, had breakfast, and planned my day: check and maintain my herbs, fetch some water from a nearby well, take the opportunity to wash some clothes, and go quickly to town to find some supplies that I had scarce.

When I returned home, it was already beginning to get dark, the door was closed and everything in my home seemed to be in order until I entered the living room.

A shadowy black figure was sitting on my sofa, slightly lit by the fire in the fireplace, which he had surely lit while waiting for my return.

I was completely paralyzed in place, the basket in my hands fell to the ground and some of the apples that I had collected during the day rolled on the ground, reaching his feet.

The silence was sepulchral, I could see how his body curved towards the floor and slowly, one of his hands took one of the apples that was at his feet. Immediately afterward, his entire body rose from my sofa, he was a huge black mass, I couldn´t distinguish any feature in his figure, his shoulders were wide, his entire body was covered by a black cape that seemed to blend with the shadows of the stay and his face was covered by a mask.

My only reaction was to try to run away. In seconds one of his hands grabbed my arm and my back hit his chest, where he wrapped both arms around me and lifted me off the ground.

I screamed, kicked, tried my best to break his hold on my body. Little by little I ended up getting tired, my mind kept bringing a thousand scenarios: He will it kill me? What is he doing here, what does he want? Who is he? Why me? Just when I stopped fighting him, he released me, and my feet hit the ground again, I immediately turned to look at him.

"Don't you recognize me?" A distorted metallic voice came out of him, I shook my head slightly as I took a step back. My body was tired of trying to get rid of him, my legs were shaking, a cold chill ran down my spine and the room was slowly beginning to darken.

"It was you who brought me here..." He spoke again, at that moment I understood everything, that Beast was the source of the energy with which I had connected the previous nights, what had I done? At that moment, the panic completely seized me, with one last effort, I tried to run, but with a few steps he grabbed me again "No!" I yelled as loud as I could "What are you doing here?" I tried to separate my body from his with all my might "You know perfectly what I have come for" that metallic screech resounded in my ears with peculiar annoyance.

No, no, no. I didn´t want to, I couldn´t believe it, "Please..." the tears ran down my cheeks "Please... Leave me alone..." I sobbed uncontrollably, while my body collapsed on his, rendered by the struggle "Inside you, you know that I can't" his arms held me tighter "Please..." my cry was already a single whisper "Just sleep" he passed one of his hands in front of my face.

He lifted me in his arms, while my eyelids closed completely.

The firelight was completely extinguished.

The last I remember of that night is the sound of his footsteps, I never understood why it had happened.

And now he's dear and so unsure

I wonder why I didn't see it there before

When I woke up I was in a foreign place. It was a small cabin, quite minimalist in the middle of a forest, surrounded by absolutely nothing but trees, I could suspect that near where I was there was a body of water since I could hear it, a small waterfall perhaps, or a small lake.

I walked a little through that small place, I had everything I needed, clothes, food, products for my care. Even though the place was a bit cozy, I felt quite scared, I still didn´t understand what was happening, however, I found enough comfort in the fact that that black figure wasn´t with me.

I spent a few days in solitude, days that I took the opportunity to go into the surroundings of the cabin. I wanted to know if there was a nearby place where I could ask for help, but I didn't find anything.

One afternoon, returning home, I noticed that there was something strange, the door of the cabin was open, smoke was coming out of the chimney and a small light illuminated the main room, I understood that that black figure had returned and before entering I contemplated the possibility to flee, but where? Besides, if he had been able to trace me to Cantonica, he would be more than capable of finding me in this place, so, despite my desire to do so, I entered the cabin.

He was sitting again on a sofa in front of the fire, this time I could observe him better, he wasn´t wearing his helmet, so I could see his long, black and wavy hair "Where were you?" his voice sounded very deep, very different without that mask, I didn't know what to answer so I remained silent "I asked you a question!" he yelled and his voice echoed through all the walls "I went out to see the surroundings" I answered fearfully, with a blow he got up from his place and in a few steps he reached where I was, one of his hands held my chin and looked at me in the eyes "You will never leave this place if I don´t allow it!" at that moment panic took hold of me again, my legs were shaking and I closed my eyes and a few tears escaped. His hand left my face and I could feel him walking past me "I left food in the kitchen..." I could hear a small sigh from him "I also left you some clothes and supplies in your room" and without saying more he left the cabin slamming the door.

These types of encounters were repeated a few more times, every time he came to see me he left me supplies, dresses made with fabrics that I had never seen before, and some other gifts, such as necklaces, bracelets, and sweets. I didn't understand what was happening. Who was this man? Why had he brought me to this place? What did he want from me?

One of those many nights that he had come to see me I decided it was time to confront him, I appreciated the details he had with me, but I couldn't say that I was grateful, at the end of the day, this man had kidnapped me and I still didn't know why.

"Who you are?" I asked before he went out the door again "That doesn't matter" he answered without even turning to look at me, for a moment my blood boiled, I was tired of him appearing and disappearing without giving me explanations, without saying anything "Of course it matters!" I didn't notice the tone of my voice, and yet he kept walking without saying anything to me "Is this all a twisted little fantasy of yours?", he was about to reach the door when he turned his face suddenly, I could notice how his brow frowned "You´re exceeding a limit that you should not cross" he threatened me raising one of his hands and pointing one of his fingers at me, something in my stomach told me that I should stop with this confrontation, but I couldn't… "I need answers!" now it was me who was walking towards him with an outstretched hand and a finger pointing at him "I know you have brought me here because I manipulate the Force!" I yelled at him as my finger sank into his chest "But I don't know why I'm here or why you're doing this and..." his always stoic face, began to flood with a red color "I'm done! I will not continue with this! " Suddenly a roar was present and all the furniture in the house went flying "You will do what I tell you!" he yelled as he paced back and forth "I'm not your toy!" Even though my body was shaking with fear and helplessness, my anger was even greater, "You can't have me here" I threw it in his face once more "Of course I can and I will continue to do so" he turned his back on me once more and went out the door, I ran after him to reach him, but the darkness of the forest didn´t let me see him...

She glanced this way, I thought I saw

And when we touched she didn't shudder at my paw

Once again, I was alone in that place, without knowing what to do or why, full of anger, anger, and fear...

A few weeks went by without him showing up at the cabin, so I take advantage of all those days to tidy up the house, clean, and review some of the things that he had brought. The truth is that I refused to wear several of the clothes that he had given me, as well as the jewels, so I had simply put it away without paying any more attention, but now, with many time alone, I looked closely at it and I could notice each one of it were quite exquisite.

The days continued to pass without knowing anything about him, for some strange reason, I was beginning to miss his presence, I hadn´t noticed before, but the truth is that he was quite a handsome man, although, every time this idea crossed my mind I felt quite guilty and angry at me.

The weeks became months, I began to wonder if I would see him again or if I had to accept the idea that I was stranded in that place with no one else around me. I began to have small panic attacks due to my loneliness and some nights I implored to see him again.

One morning I went for a walk to the nearby stream, indeed, it had a small waterfall, it was a comfortable place that filled me with tranquility, when I returned to the cabin, I noticed that the door was open and my heart jumped, I didn't know if it jolts with joy or scared, but I ran inside right away.

There were a few pieces of furniture lying around, I started to feel scared. I kept going until I reached the bathroom, where I found him lying on the floor, he was injured. I immediately rushed to the ground and tried to hold him "Don't touch me!" he growled as his hands tried to remove mine from his body "You're bleeding!" I insisted holding his hands with mine "I don't need your pity..." he growled again, I turned to see him, our eyes were fixed for a few seconds, I could see that he felt pain and I weighed all that we had previously experienced and I felt the need to attend to him "Let me help you…” I spoke softly “Please…” he nodded slightly and I took it for a yes, despite his pride wasn´t allowing him to say it, he wanted my help.

No it can't be, I'll just ignore

But then she's never looked at me that way before

That night he slept in my bed. When I woke up the next morning, I assumed that it was likely that he was no longer in the cabin. I was so surprised to see him still asleep that a small smile spread across my face. He was a completely different person, calm. The little light that filtered in through the window finely illuminated the features of his face and my heart jumped slightly with a strangely warm, not out of fear or insecurity, so I left that room a bit confused by what I just felt.

The days went by, and he… He stayed with me in the cabin. Little by little, we began to exchange more words, although not many, he was a man who spoke little. He began to help me with the little chores of the house, although he was quite clumsy at first, he improved as the days went by. He even offered to help me with the little herb garden that I had started to build in the garden.

Slowly his laughter began to flood our meals, and his stories about his travels across the Galaxy catch me at night. I learned about things that I didn´t know existed thanks to him and my heart kept jumping every hour that I enjoyed his company.

On one occasion I asked him if he wouldn´t go away again, the only thing he answered was that there was no place out there where he belonged. At that moment I understood that the Beast that had appeared a year ago in the room of my old home no longer existed and it was in that moment that I decided that that place where we were, in the middle of nowhere and far from everything, was now the home of both, however, I still felt my doubts, what if the bond that we were beginning to have was just a product of my imagination.

New and a bit alarming

Who'd have ever thought that this could be?

One morning, after waking up next to him, I wanted to put a plan to the test: the night before I had prepared a basket with some food, my idea was to ask him to accompany me to the forest to find some berries to plant in the garden. That morning I fixed myself with one of the dresses that he had brought me during one of his first visits and that I had never worn. When he got up, I had everything ready.

"I'm going to need your help today...", he just looked at me a little confused "Please get ready before we get late". A few minutes later he left the room towards the kitchen where I was "Hold this" I gave him the basket, his face was full of confusion, he couldn´t understand what was happening, I walked to the door and turned to see him "What are you waiting? Let's go!" and I smiled at him as I walked out the door.

We walked for a few minutes in the forest without saying anything until we reached the stream. Once on the shore, I spread the blanket, I approached him, took the basket, and sat on the ground, he just imitated my steps. I took out some of the bites that were in the basket and we began to eat, we never speak. When we finished, I looked back at him.

"I don't know much about you...", he just fixed his eyes on mine "And you don't know much about me..." I started to take off my shoes "But we´re both... Living in this place..." the sound of the waterfall was like little sinfonie behind us "I didn't get here of my own free will and I still don't understand why..." I plunged my feet into the water "But I've grown to love this place..." I turned to look at him and a huge smile was painted on my lips "And I've started to take a strange affection for you, although I don't know if I should..." and suddenly, everything changed.

The birds sang around us, the sound of the waterfall became louder, and his lips... His lips were on mine with an intensity that I had never felt. One of his hands was holding my neck, while the other was holding one of mine firmly. His caress was soft, however, somewhat desperate, but full of passion "Ben..." he whispered as a smile touched his lips and his hand caressed my cheek "My name is Ben". At no time did his eyes leave mine and my heart burned completely "Well, Hello Ben" I went over to kiss him again "Welcome home".

True that he's not Prince Charming

But there's something in him that I simply didn't see

#kylo ren #kylo ren fanfiction #kylo ren fic #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren x yn #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren fluff #kylo ren smut #ben solo #ben solo x you #ben solo x reader #ben solo imagine #ben solo fluff #ben solo smut

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yasbxxgie · 4 years

Text

Why Octavia E Butler’s novels are so relevant today

It’s campaign season in the US, and a charismatic dark horse is running with the slogan ‘make America great again’. According to his opponent, he’s a demagogue; a rabble-rouser; a hypocrite. When his supporters form mobs and burn people to death, he condemns their violence “in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want to hear”. He accuses, without grounds, whole groups of people of being rapists and drug dealers. How much of this rhetoric he actually believes and how much he spouts “just because he knows the value of dividing in order to conquer and to rule” is at once debatable, and increasingly beside the point, as he strives to return the country to a “simpler” bygone era that never actually existed.