#clone medic sponge

[mwolf0epsilon]

After Order 66, hundreds of clones were either left to rot in the clutches of the Empire, or simply faded from memory after escaping to the uncharted depths of the Unknown Regions. Living the rest of their lives in the confines of a cell, or constantly looking over their shoulders. There were a lucky handful that got to live regular lives however. Such is the case of Sponge and the family unit they stitched together from the wreckage of a war that had given them nothing but grief. It seems the Force really does work in mysterious ways.

At long last I can finally share with you my submission for the @cloneoczine, which unfortunately did not pan out the way we all hoped for due to unforeseen circumstances. Either way, a lot of really impressive pieces came out of this collaborative project, and I am very excited to be able to share what everyone else made!

This is also my first proper drawing of all of the Spongelings! Cameo appearances also include @lost-on-kamino's clone medic (Pitch) and scuba trooper (Penguin) who are a part of Sponge's family unit on Epifania, so they deserved to be a part of this clone beach picnic party (which uh, is about to become a whole lot more interesting once those gullmingos get to Lich...).

[milfcutlawquane]

@mwolf0epsilon Sponge and baby Rex being WAY cooler than you, right?

[brother-genitivi]

I don't often ask for my own OCs because I'm shy about requesting stuff for myself, but could you maybe draw my clone medic, Sponge? I finally drew them properly so I can actually send a ref of them.

They aren't much of a smiler, they're actually quite grouchy unless they're interacting with their barghest, Beautiful.

Sponge!! What a fitting name for a medic. I especially love the scissor motifs in their design!!

Taglist (link in bio or dm to join): @canichangemyblogname @clone-bar-79s @jekyllnahyena @kohtoyah @laz-laz-ace-pilot @lost-on-kamino @that-demigirl @tx-828

[lost-on-kamino]

The sinking feeling

In which Kix tries to fix what he can and Scully makes a choice in what they must do when the world turns upside down

(Something a bit different and wanted to explore; our main Focus today is Kix and Scully! Some warning of Order 66 and how i imagine it all fell into place...)

Kix wasn't sure what he was expecting when the General returned with Clone Force 99 and Rex after retrieving the 'Algorithm' which ended up being a familiar face in the form of Echo.

One of his Vod'ika.

Twin to… Fives…

Fives was a constant nightmare. The moment in 79s when he was… not right. Not like how Tup had been but… He was scared.

Kix had never known Fives to be so scared of… everything. He was jumpy and doubted everything enough to convince Kix that what he had to tell was important. Though he passed on the co ordinates like he'd ask…

Only to find out from Rex that Fives had died from a blast from a Brother. Kix and Jesse had remained by their captain, some of the last pillars of Torrent still standing. Denal, Redeye, Mixer, Del, Attie, Zeer… then followed by Echo, Hardcase, Dogma, Tup and now Fives… Coric took one look at the three in the bunkroom and just asked the off duty medics to keep watch. Sometimes it was Sponge and Beautiful who would rest by their feet, sometimes it was Twitch and Pitch who would involve the three in conversations to take their mind away.

And then Anaxes happened, the 501st had been drawn away to assist General Windu and General Kenobi with recent losses.

He didn't want to think more about recent events… Sponge and Coric were watching Cody's recovery, so he would request Twitch and call Pitch to service with Echo who was more than welcomed back into his Brother's arms. The three worked like clockwork as they checked over their lost brother, Kix gently brushing his recently grown curls back. To hide the evidence of what he had done.

Twitch had commented that Kix had looked a lot more tired than usual, the on duty medic had only responded that he was still dealing with the result of what happened to Fives. Which hadn't convinced his vod'ika what so ever.

So Kix took Twitch aside while Pitch watched over Echo's check up, he spilled everything. Explained about Fives, the chips in their heads and a plot to destroy the republic; he just needed the evidence. And so, Twitch had offered his help. And then there were two.

They reasoned that once they had more information, the rest of the medics could be pulled in and then they could work on a mass execution over removing the chips from their brothers, sisters and siblings. And there was a brief spark of hope in Kix's heart. That they could save the Republic… he just needed more time before the next deployment.

It came in the form of shore leave, the 501st touching down after losing Echo to Clone Force 99, Kix had held his vod so tightly Jesse was worried he was going to dent the cybernetics of their younger vod. The 501st medic team had also seen Echo off with their own wishes and many threats towards the batch if they would hear anything off from their vod. Kix liked to think that their combined glares had unsettled Crosshair at least. And with that, officially from the original Torrent Company stood; Rex, Jesse and Kix as Echo blasted off to his new life.

Kix hoped Echo knew that he was always welcome back home with his family.

Kix had leaned back in his seat as he watched the day turn to night. Scully had snuck in to catch up; he had remembered meeting them with Jesse and Hardcase one night after 79s. Someone had been harassing a Twi'lek and the three had gone to intervene only for the Twi'lek to suddenly change, changing their form to disguise between the three clones. The offender soon walked off, scoffing how it was another meat droid; Hardcase had noted how the second Kix seemed to have greener eyes to which their once Twi'lek now Clone turned friend finally shifted back into the form of a Chiss.

She had been extremely grateful towards the trio and offered them a reward. That had been the first night the trio had settled to watch what had been a story about a princess and her lost love, a holofilm that Hardcase had eventually quoted every so often. And that was how they met their new informant; Scully and her Jedi friend; Erin.

Scully had been missing the company and had invited Jesse and Kix over to chill in quiet company. Only for the Medic team to joke that he would leave them for a civvie's movie night. Kix swore he would join them tomorrow on an outing while they had the chance.

Strangely enough he felt sad, as if he was saying goodbye to them, turning to walk away with the Clawdite and Jesse.

Coric, Sponge, Pitch, Twitch and the others… He was so happy to have them as his medic team and family. Thick as thieves and a strong bond over everything that had happened. He gave one look to Twitch who nodded back before moving off with the other medics to finish off their duties to join the rest of the battalion at 79s.

Jesse gently nudged Kix as Scully began to catch them up on what they had missed.

Kix paused as he looked to the two ahead, Scully rapidly going on about one of their misadventures over helping the Guard on their cases. The medic looked behind him, it was the same feeling since arriving back at Coruscant. He didn’t notice his feet slowing down until they came to a stop in front of an alleyway.

Scully and Jesse realised their numbers had shrunk before turning their heads to see Kix’s face. He looked paler, as if he was sick to his stomach The medic faltered slightly as he gripped his hands into fists, his mouth shifting to a grimace.

He needed to tell Jesse, his remaining batchmate. And Scully… they’d know what to do to help… maybe warn the Guard, especially Fox if it came to it.

He took a deep breath-

And then immediately lost it as a stun bolt slammed into him and he crumbled.

All he could remember seeing as Jesse calling his name and Scully transforming into one of the Coruscant Guard, one of the Riot Troopers, his mind thinks before he fades to black and Kix falls into oblivion.

-

When Rex heard a commotion within the barracks, he thought it was the men playing boloball… When he spotted a panicked Jesse and a Riot Troo- no wait… it was that Clawdite, Scully he recalled. The Captain made his way through the crowd; landing on his knees as he looked over at the ARC Trooper who was cursing as Scully looked at him.

“Kix.” Was the word uttered and Rex’s heart shattered more. He looked to Jesse and Scully, pulling them into his small room the Commanders would be allowed to use.

“What happened with Kix?” Rex looked between the two, Jesse’s back towards him, hands tightly gripped. Scully looked back and forth, seemingly lost as she glanced at the Captain.

“….Kix was taken… We didn’t get to see… who… We were too far ahead…” Scully was distraught and it was no secret they had gained a fancy for the Medic.

“We tried to give chase but… they vanished…” Jesse spoke up with a grunt as he looked to Rex, his face was red as he tried to control the overwhelming emotions.

“Listen, it wasn’t your fault, the both of you did what you could… You were taken unaware.” Rex reasoned before his comm went off. Jesse’s comm also lit up.

Which only meant one thing.

Orders were coming in. Jesse cursed as he kick out at the spare chair and Rex glanced to his bucket perched on the desk.

“Yerbana” Rex muttered. “We’re to support General Kenobi and the 212th. We… won’t be able to search.”

“…Leave that to me.” Scully looked up, determined. “I’ll search for Kix… Considering at this point, let’s believe he won’t make the time to deployment… Just try and keep his position open… I’ll search the whole of Coruscant if I have to.”

Jesse looked to Rex who nodded, pulling his brother in close with a hug and a gentle keldabe.

“Please do… and keep us updated.”

Scully nodded, but didn’t move until Jesse pulled them in close, her arms wrapping around and clenching his armour tight.

“You were going to tell him.”

“…I will.” She reasoned. And it was in the silence of that office, the three stayed until the call came and Scully saw the Captain and Arc Trooper off to board.

Now she had her job to do… And it would be best to question a few friends lower down.

-

Kix found himself, flickering between states of consciousness and the void. He talking, people questioning why a Clone was wanted by Count Dooku, something else about him knowing something he shouldn’t.

Dooku?

What information… His mind froze at the realisation. The Chips. Dooku knew.

It was real, this was proof. But how to escape? He needed to warn the General. From where he was pinned, a medical grade table with straps by the looks of it, he didn’t recall seeing his commlink nor the top half of his armour at all.

It was when he opened his eyes in panic that he saw flashes of red and white. The Guard.

His eyes stared in horror before he strained against the table.

“Help… Help me please.” He begged.

The Clones stood firm, though he saw one subconsciously grip his blaster while frozen like a droid.

The Guard… they were being controlled by the Chips, how long had this been happening? His mind wept for his lost brothers and sisters. He recognised one of the markings on the armor.

The Communications Officer, Pitch’s batchmate. He was seemingly leading the group to wherever they were taking Kix… Probably to a ship to take the medic to Dooku. Kix grimaced and fought his bindings.

When the droids came to position to collect their prize, a droid jabbed his neck and he cursed loudly.

As his vision slowly fades again and his body relaxed, Kix swore he heard the faintest voice… But he could always tell a Clone from anyone.

“…I’m sorry"

-

How could everything spiral so suddenly?

Just days after the 501st left, the Droid Army decided to rain down upon Coruscant, prompting them to return to Coruscant to fight off the invasion. Then the Chancellor was taken and rescued all in the space of like 3 hours, Dooku died along the way.

Scully had just left the underground infirmary after a visit to a dear friend for any information. Some of the Guard were acting funny, they could tell… the Commanders were gone for long hours, nor had they been open as much after Scipio. Considering how Thorn had died alone in the fields of battle and after Rhythm had brought his helmet back for them, mumbling how he didn’t want Thorn alone anymore. Olly had instantly taken his vod’ika to the side to help clean the armour from the stains of war, Remedy ensuring Rhythm knew he wasn’t alone in that thought. After all, the Guard watched out for themselves most of all.

It was when they smelt smoke, their eyes shot up and they began to run.

The great temple was burning alive, they could almost feel the pain oozing from the brickwork. For how long this Temple had stood… and there was dashes of white and blue scattered around the blasterfire and sabermarks.

Their hearts fell to pieces as screams of children suddenly died out, the Jedi Knights clamouring to defend their home and then to fall to the floor in eternal sleep. Scully looked around and took the form of the fallen body of a clone. A poor 501st member who had gained a nasty saber slash.

And they ran into the fray.

Must be something they can do… Why would they turn… Was Jesse and Rex doing this? Was Kix??

They paused and moved into position as they saw a squad of Clones move past. Her heart fell even more when she recognised crosshatched armour and a solid blue right arm with surgical marks. Running in even further, they could recognise a stern medic’s posture and the pale vambrace followed by blue lines.

The medics all kept close together. Though they couldn’t see Jesse or Rex…

Were they further in?

Scully proceeded inwards. Looking around before opening a door to the muffled sobbing of children. Two kids surrounded by their dead creche mates… Where was their Creche Master?? They would have died protecting them…

Did they…?

Scully looked over raising their hands, free of any weapon.

“You can sense it…? I’m not one of them…”

The younglings looked at each other.

“Yes…”

“I’m here to help y-'' She was cut off when she gained a Bothan in one arm and a Xexto child in the other. She had to control herself or she’d lose focus.

Take them somewhere safe.

-

They managed to smuggle the two kids out, shifting back into their Nautolan form as they ran; chest aching as they moved to the lower floors. Having stolen laundry to change the kid’s outfits to make them not stand out, stopping past their apartment for a rest and making plans to the Spaceport.

They needed to go. Find Erin… Erin would know what’s happening.

They would help these kids…

They’d gather all they could, tell these kids to keep close… and leave Coruscant. As much as it pained them… and that they couldn’t go to the Guard and work out what had happened. Their Galaxy had turned upside down instantly… and they hoped it would reverse soon.

Their search for Kix would have to be on hold… it would be what he’d want… Right?

-----

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[kybercrystals94]

Redolence

By KyberCrystals94

Find here on Ao3!

Whumptober 2023 | Day 1 | Alternative Prompt: Lab Rats

Bad Things Happen Bingo | Prompt: Homesickness

Rating:G

Words: 1,070

Summary: Omega and Echo have a conversation about their pasts.

Omega presses her face between Lula’s long ears and breathes deeply the scent of her brothers: stale sweat, blaster residue, motor oil, aftershave, regulation soap, and a few other things she can’t quite place. Lula is like a sponge, soaking up the redolence of the soldiers she lives with. While the stuffed tooka doesn’t smell pleasant , Lula smells of love and safety and comfort. Therefore, she smells wonderful, and Omega gives the creature an extra tight squeeze as she tries to hold in the tears that threaten to spill. She should be happy. She is happy. She is. She is.

“Omega, are you alright?”

Omega is surprised by the generic reg voice. She would have expected Hunter or Wrecker to check on her...maybe even Tech. Not Echo. He isn’t unkind, but he is distant, almost unsure of her. Like he doesn’t want to get attached. Omega understands, even though it makes her heart hurt a little.

“I’m fine,” Omega lies easily, lifting her face so that her voice isn’t muffled against Lula’s soft stuffing.

There is a pause, but Omega knows the cyborg clone hasn’t walked away. After an uncomfortable stretch of silence, Echo clears his throat. “Are you sure? Hunter – uh – sent me to check on you.”

Omega forces a smile and carefully blinks back the tears that have been forming before she pulls back the curtain, letting Lula topple from her arms. “I’m okay, Echo,” she assures him.

The shadows on Echo’s face in the warm glow of her strung lights accentuate his gaunt features, and Omega suppresses the shudder that reflexively comes. Nala Se had Omega study Echo’s medical files as part of her training. The horrors he suffered at the hands of the Techno Union still haunt Omega’s imagination, and the cool, professional terminology she poured over in the files did not do his tragedy justice. It must’ve been hard for him to join the Batch too, starting over after all he’d been through. She admires him endlessly for it, but she isn’t sure how she could ever tell him without also admitting to having read his files. Not that she’d had a choice, or was snooping, but...

Echo matches her striving grin with one of his own. “Alright. If you say so,” he says, shrugging one shoulder, telling her without telling her that he knows she’s lying.

He starts to turn away when Omega bites out, “Wait, Echo...”

“Yeah?” he asks, the familiar gruff of his voice catching on the edge of the word.

Omega swallows, hoping he isn’t annoyed with her indecisiveness. “I just...can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, kid,” he says, and leans his weight against the wall casually.

“When you first joined Clone Force 99, did you – or do you – ever feel...” Omega searches for the right word, pressing her lips together before saying in a whisper, “homesick? For what you had before?”

Echo looks startled by the question, his eyes widening a little. However, the expression is brief, and his face returns to his normal air in a blink. To Omega’s dismay, he answers her question with one of his own, “Do you feel homesick for Kamino?”

“Sometimes,” Omega admits, pinching one of Lula’s ears between her fingers, “but I don’t want to go back. I’m happy here, with all of you. But if I’m happy here, why do I miss what I don’t want?”

Echo’s face softens. “Because you miss what is familiar, even if it wasn’t better.”

“Is that bad?” Omega asks.

“Of course not,” Echo says, “I missed living with my reg brothers. It’s all I knew most of my life. Doesn’t mean I care about my enhanced brothers any less.” He rolls his eyes good naturedly at the terminology adopted from the Batch, and it makes Omega giggle.

“I guess you and me are kind of the same,” Omega says softly, wistfully. “Taken in by the Bad Batch when..." Echo visibly stiffens, and Omega clamps her mouth shut, now gripping Lula’s ear in a fist. She shouldn’t have said that. She knew the moment the words left her mouth. She and Echo are nothing alike. Not really. Not at all.

But they are. In some ways.

Right?

To her surprise, Echo leans forward, folding his arms and resting them on the floor of her gunner’s mount room. “Nala Se,” he says, his voice softer and gentler than she’s ever heard it, “she experimented on you, didn’t she.” Not a question.

Omega bites down on the inside of her cheek. She has never wanted to tell any of them about that. But Echo knows, because she told him in a roundabout way. In the medical wing, after his accident in the mess hall. He woke up in a panic, and she’d comforted him. I don’t like being hooked up to their machines either.

She didn’t think he’d remember that, but why wouldn’t he?

So, she nods a small, jerky affirmative.

“I don’t remember much about the Techno Union,” Echo says, his voice still low, almost a whisper. Like his words are just for her ears. “I mean...I know what they did. And I live with what they did everyday...but it’s what the Kaminoans did that I remember well. They had to see that I was fit for duty, and their tests...” Echo falters, his words dropping off in an expanse of hidden emotions. He blinks, looking a little lost.

She isn’t sure why she does it, but she reaches out and rests a hand on Echo’s face, her thumb brushing over the sharp edge of his cheekbone. “I know,” she whispers, because she does. She was Nala Se’s “assistant” from her earliest memories. She saw the tests firsthand. Experienced some of them herself.

“You shouldn’t though,” Echo says, “No kid should know that.”

“Maybe,” Omega shrugs, “But we’re safe from them now...the Kaminoans, I mean.”

Echo’s eyes find hers and he smiles sadly. “Yeah, we are.”

Omega’s touch lingers a moment longer before she pulls away and hugs Lula close to her chest. “I’m not homesick for the Kaminoans. I’m homesick for Kamino...for AZI and helping with the babies. I hope they’re alright.”

“I hope so too,” Echo says, and he gives her knee a squeeze with his flesh hand. “You’re a good kid, Omega. I’m glad the Batch found...both of us.”

Omega smiles at her brother who understands. “Me too.”

END

[arcsimper5]

Episode 5 - Rants!

Okay, so, first off WHAT AN AMAZING EPISODE!

Putting spoilers below the cut just in case, and this is gonna be way out of order, but my brain is still firing on all cylinders lol.

So first off - Echo!

Our baby is back! And he is taking no shit which is just perfect. His reaction to Crosshair is interesting though. I imagine, with him having been with the 501st and around Jedi, he may well have heard 'the stories' about Jedi falling to the Dark Side and being welcomed back. He's also probably heard about Slick from Rex, and seeing other clones turn on the empire despite being loyal, he is likely more sympathetic towards Crosshair than the others.

The 'What, no hug for me?' did have me cackling though. Such snark, such sass. Cross and Echo are underrated as friends, honestly.

Omega on Pabu. That opening was so lovely, her cuddled up with Lula and being so happy! And I LOVE how when she leaves to find Crosshair, Wrecker and Hunter have an entire conversation just through facial expressions. They've been through so much together, they can read each other better than ever, and it's wonderful.

Crosshair and AZ! I love how much that little droid wants to help. Crosshair's line about Lyanna and Shep's ability to find him being 'uncanny' also made me smile. Shep is just a homing missile of care, and of course his daughter is going to be the same!

Him explaining sniping to Omega as well, her just being a sponge of information must remind him of Tech at least a little. Then Wrecker and Hunter peeking over the rocks. Sorry, had to laugh!

Wrecker telling Hunter that if Omega trusts Crosshair, that's enough for him. YES! He's not letting things go, but he's giving it a chance, unlike Mr Face Tattoo Grumpy Pants.

ANOTHER WHISTLE!!!!

Echo hug, and that is just wonderful. Not long enough, but hey, Echo's always been straight down to business.

Batcher's relationship with the moon-yos is also beautiful, them asleep on her by the table is just lovely!

The dining table scene, Tech mention, heartbreaking, but it shows there is still a void there. They're all aware, and all working to fill it, but it's still gaping and raw.

As soon as Crosshair said he knew an outpost, I was like, NO, THEY'RE GOING BACK TO BARTON IV *crying*

Then Wrecker giving him back the armour and the way Crosshair's eyes WIDEN when he sees it. Just UUUUUGH!

The 'little brother' moment and the chuckle made my heart SING. These two are just peak sibling and I AM HERE FOR IT!

And man, did I ever want them to turn up and Mayday be there, alive and having survived thanks to Crosshair and telling them all what he did and how amazing he was.

Sadly no :(

But Mayday's helmet, and Crosshair making a memorial to him with the rest of his squad beside him as well, it shows real growth, and THE MUSIC! Ooof!

Hunter being all side-eye-y by the door, what a dramatic bitch lol

Echo and Omega work so well together, and the tension between Crosshair and Hunter is ridiculous. Just fight already! And make it a good one!

So close, but Mama Echo stopped it lol

The entire scene with the wyrm was wonderful, from the beginning argument (I could write an entire novel on how much I love Crosshair calling Hunter out on his BS in a way no-one else does) and Hunter being an angry boi.

But the innate trust that comes out as soon as Hunter falls in that hole.

Also... 'HUNTER!!!!!' :')

The nods at the end, then loading onto the ship. I REALLY wanted Crosshair to tell Hunter about Mayday, that he shot the officer for a Reg, because they refused to help him. I wanted him to tell him how he was tortured, how he kept them safe.

I only hope Echo goes through the medical records and finds what they did to Crosshair, shows it to Hunter and they finally get a bit more understanding.

Overall, it was AMAZING!

My only gripe is with the perimeter - Hunter has enhanced senses but it seems like they write him like he can turn them on and off lol. If it's high pitched enough to keep the wyrm away AND bother Batcher, he's sure as hell going to be hearing it, helmet or not! And it wouldn't be pleasant!

But no, he has to look through his helmet to pick it up? Yeah, I call BS on that :P

But considering that is the only complaint I really have, 9.9/10!

[mioshuncorg]

Dogs

Dogs are secretly human aliens. I'm sure there are some aliens with dog DNA that were running around, before dogs. Dogs, in some way, all humans share. And dogs can tell the difference between us and other dogs. I know it! Don't dog owners make it difficult? When someone with a friendly dog comes up to me in a restaurant or wherever I'm eating, and the dog just goes for me, and I freak out and jump. It's getting worse in the airport. Is there any legal action I can take? Being a dog, this is a hard question. I'm not making any medical suggestions. Caring for your dog and making sure he's healthy and happy is one of the most important things you can do for him. But if you could clone yourself or one of your dogs, would you do that? I think I'd clone one of my dogs. I have the most favorite human, my husband. But he's not a dog lover. I'm not saying we don't have a great marriage, we do. We are a great team. But I do believe dogs love their people more. Dogs want you to be happy. . . People who love dogs are happier people than people who don't. Dogs are incredible. I recently had an incredible visit with my granddaughter Liza, who is 11 months old, and she loves dogs! She also loves my dog Charlie, who is a pitbull, and she's extremely gentle with him. We got her on my second birthday, and she's a sponge. She can pick up the phone and talk to me. I can't wait until she's old enough to go to dog camp! The movie your mom was in is called "A Dog's Purpose." How did that come about? It's an incredible story. I'm the lead dog in the movie. A dog named Bailey brings souls back to their living bodies. And in my case, I go back to a dog named Poppy. I see her before she passes, and I see her when she's about to pass. And it's an amazing story that is based on a true one. I was on "The Colbert Report" on Thursday. I played a new fern gerbil that has a bright green cage. I say "Hi" and I play peek - a - boo. They took one look at me, and said "We need another dog!" [Laughs] I'm currently working on a book called "The Voice of Reason," and I'm about to open a dog daycare and boarding facility.

[m0mmat0rtle]

Star Light Chapter One

Pairing: Tech x Pantoran!OC

Words: 1498

Warnings: none (future warning: major angst & character death)

Summary: Tech seeks the medical attention of a medic in training due to regularly staffed medic’s of Kamino being over staffed. He meets the curious Pantoran, Star Light who has a secret that he feels he must find out.

Tech looked down at the small abrasion on his forearm from today’s training with his brothers. It wasn’t often that members of the Bad Batch ever got injured, they never got injured on a major scale. But Hunter had miscalculated ever so slightly with his knives and accidentally snagged Tech’s arm in the process. The cut wasn’t bad but it was enough to warrant some medical attention. And so Tech was heading to the wing of the cloning facility on Kamino. He held his forearm in his hand, glancing down at it every so often. The cut was still there with blood smeared around it. On his way to the facility he passed a group of regs who had been stationed on cleaning duty, cleaning up another mural that had mysteriously appeared on the walls of the facility. Tech and every other clone on Kamino was familiar with these murals. They would mysteriously appear over night and have to be scrubbed away the next day by order of the Kaminoans. However they were always beautiful, this particular mural showcased a sunset over green grassy plains that reflected the soft light of the setting sun. Tech seemed to get lost in the artistic nature and skill of the piece that he was a bit shaken when a reg swiped his soapy sponge right over the center of the painting, washing away the very focal point of the painting and taking out the setting sun. Just like that the light of the painting was gone. Tech felt his heart drop for a mere moment. The art that was so stunning was now permanently messed up, but a spark of hope ignited in him when he remembered each mural that was washed away would soon be replaced by another even more lovely then the last. And another thought dawned on him before he continued to walk, the sun must always set. He thought to himself as he moved on to the medical wing. Because if the sun does not set then it is impossible to see the STARLIGHT.

“We can’t help you trooper.” A busy medica said as she worked diligently to disinfect a blaster wound on the shoulder of another trooper. “We are understaffed and overworked. And the 212th just came back from a terrible battle. We don’t have the space for a clone with a small cut, I’m sorry.” She added as she wiped the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve before taking out the supplies needed to stitch up the same wound that she had just disinfected. “We could send him to that medic in training.” Another medic suggested. “Would Lama Su be okay with that?” The first medic replied and the other one shrugged. “I don’t see why not. I mean she never gets to see any action and it’s not like this is a major wound, it’s just a small abrasion. Just a little disinfectant and maybe a batcha patch and he’ll be fine.” The other medic replied as they turned from one injured clone to the other, taking on two of the injured clones as to show just how short staffed they were. The first medic sighed before turning back to Tech. “Alright, go see Star Light. She’s down the hall to the right. Second door. She can help you.” Tech nodded and thanked the medic before leaving the busy medical wing.

Star flipped the page of the only book in her possession as she laid on her stomach on her bed. Her quarters on Kamino weren’t large or spacious by any means but they were enough for one person. “GONK” Her gonk droid spoke as it waddled up to her, nudging her bed as it did so. “Yes, Gink, I know I have read this book at least a dozen times this week.” She muttered to the droid. “GONK” It replied, the word being the only word in it’s vocabulary. “Well what do you wanna do? It’s not like I have anything else to do and Lama Su won’t let me leave without her permission.” “GONK” “I can’t sneak out now! It’s daytime! Someone will notice!” She replied as she looked down at her droid. “I like it in here and so do you.” “GONK” “Oh come on, Gink it’s not so bad in hear.” Before the droid could even respond the door to her quarters swooshed open and Star sat straight up in her bed, yellow eyes wide and nervous. She was expecting to see Lama Su or another Kaminoan visit her to remind her of the rules in place for her stay on Kamino but instead she was met with a clone. And not just any old run of the mill clone, this one was different. Unlike any of the others she had seen before. “Are you Star Light?” The clone asked, his accent was also different from the others which only peaked Star’s curiosity. “I am.” She replied as she stood from her bed and brushed a loose strand of violet hair away from her face. “Hi.” She added meekly with a small wave. “What are you doing here?” She asked once it clicked that there was someone who probably shouldn’t be in her quarters now standing across from her. “My name is Tech. The medical wing sent me here because they were overwhelmed.” “They sent you to me?” Star asked as she pointed a blue finger at herself and her yellow eyes widened once more in surprise. “But I’m just a medic in training- I don’t know how to-” “It’s just a small cut, miss Star Light.” Tech said as he lifted his arm, showing her the wound and Star sighed in relief. “Oh.” She said softly. “Well let me see what I can do, please sit.” She offered as she gestured to her bed where her singular book stayed open to the page she was just reading. Gink watched the clone sit down on her bed and turned in the direction Star went to get a bachta patch. “GONK” “It’s fine Gink let him sit.” Star replied as she got the supplies and walked over to him. She sat down next to him and gently took his arm in her hands. “Can you either roll up your sleeve or take off your shirt?” She asked politely and Tech nodded. He removed the shirt of his blacks leaving his upper half bare and giving her a clear space on his arm to work. She quickly used a clean cloth to wipe away the blood from the cut and clean the wound. Tech’s eyes wondered as she worked and looked over to the open book on her bed. “You were reading about Naboo?” He asked, making small conversation. And indigo flush covered her cheeks as she worked. “Oh, um, yes. It’s an Atlas it has information on all kinds of planets I’ve never seen and probably won’t ever get to see. It’s also the only book I have so I spend a lot of time reading it over and over again.” Tech’s eyes focused on the picture at the top of one of the pages in the book. A sunset. It was identical to the one he had seen painted outside on his way to the medical facility. Perhaps Starlight was the artist responsible for the murals that always seemed to spontaneously appear.

“What did you mean when you said you will probably never be able to see these planets?” Tech asked as he gestured to the book and Star put the Bacta patch on his arm. “Well, I’m not exactly supposed to leave my quarters on Kamino.” “Why not?” “Well-” “GONK” Star flinched as she heard Gink interrupt their conversation. “You need to go.” She said quickly to Tech. “What why?” He asked as she quickly pushed him up and out of her bed before tossing his shirt to him. “I’m not supposed to have visitors.” Sher replied. “And Lama Su is on her way here now.” Star added in a panic. “But why can’t you have visitors?” He asked, wanting answers. Tech was only doing what he knew best, research and investigating. There was something about this Pantoran that was being kept from him and naturally, Tech wanted to know everything that he possibly could. “There’s no time for me to explain. You need to go now!” Star ushered him one more time before finally her door swooshed open and she got the man to step outside and leave. Once the door swooshed shut she let out a sigh of relief. “GONK” Her droid barked again. Lama Su was closer and therefore, Star was in danger. She quickly moved to “act natural” and threw herself back on to her bed and continue reading her one book. And it was just in time too, the doors swooshed open and there was the Kaminoan who monitored her every move. “Good afternoon, Lama Su.” Star said quickly and politely. “Hello Star.”

Chapter Two >

[hannagoldworthy]

AWOL 2

(In which Maul is a little shit, and Barriss is not having it at all, and Savage continues to carry on without losing too much of his own sanity.)

She awoke after two hours’ sleep, tucked into the cozy darkness of the little drawer-cot.  The drawer, when pulled shut, proved to have an alcove above it with a reading light, leaving more than enough space for her to sleep there comfortably without the lingering sense of claustrophobia she felt in most star destroyer bunks.  The mattress was also much softer than any bunk in the GAR, which was nice.  Now, if only she could stop her mind racing long enough to actually get some proper rest.

Upon dressing – really just brushing out her hair and putting her head covering back on, for she had no real change of clothing – Barriss stopped in the tiny medbay to check on the patient.

He was awake.  Because of course he was awake…why would an application of Force anesthesia strong enough to put a full-grown clone into a week-long coma keep him down for longer than an hour?

She’d call the look Maul gave her a glare if she had any evidence that he had alternative expressions.  “Who are you?” he demanded imperiously; Savage, who had been filing his brother’s horns down to a manageable length, glanced quickly between the two of them in expectation of a fight.

The medics on Ord Cestus had taught her to treat the medbay as her personal domain.  She had been a General who outranked most of the army in military matters, and a physician on top of that, who outranked the entire army in medical matters.  High General Mace Windu had gladly followed her orders in the event of a medical emergency.  And this little rat pulled from the gutter dared to address her as an errant servant, as if he had any authority whatsoever to speak of?

In that moment, years of training snapped into place for tired Barriss Offee, completely eclipsing her personal tendency toward timidity.

“The doctor responsible for the fact that you’re able to string a complete sentence together instead of repeating the Sith Code two thousand times in an hour.  You’re welcome.”  She glanced up at Savage, who stared in abject horror at her.  “I see you’ve taken the liberty of giving him a sponge bath. Thank you.  That can’t have been pleasant.”

“Um…”

“Your name, you insolent…”

“Name-calling isn’t going to change the fact that you are, in fact, indebted to me for putting your mind at least halfway to rights.  If you want me to stop healing you, then by all means, keep addressing me as you would the slime beneath your boot.”

Savage stared at the wall, avoiding eye-contact with both of them, and very obviously holding his breath.

Maul kept up the glare for another two seconds, before weariness claimed him again; he shut his eyes, lay back against the pillow, and breathed in quietly.  “I…owe you my thanks,” he gritted out between his teeth.

“And I shall accept them, graciously.”  She glided to his side, studying the heart monitor.  It was, not surprisingly, quite strong for a Zabrak male on dialysis, especially one in Maul’s condition; there was some witchcraft about this that she had no intention of understanding, but she could damn well account for it.  “My name is Barriss Coffee…Offee.  Barriss Offee.”

“My brother tells me you are Jedi Knight Barriss…Offee.”

She smiled pleasantly.  “Formerly Jedi Knight, but I now simply go as Doctor.  And you?  Shall I address you as Darth Maul?”

Ah, his glare was back on again, in full force.  “You can address me as Lord Maul, or simply Lord.”

“Well, your Grace,” she knew how to address lords, thank you, “how are you feeling today?”

“Not well.”

“That’s to be expected,” she said, retrieving a pen light from a drawer and flicking it into both poisonous eyes to check his pupils. “We worked on your brain last; are there any new thoughts of suicide, visual or auditory hallucinations, pain that is more intense than usual, nausea, vomiting…?”

He rolled his eyes.  “No, but there are plenty of thoughts of vengeance, against a Jedi.  Perhaps you’ve heard of…”

“Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, youngest member of the High Jedi Council, High General of the Third Systems Army, and mentor to a young Knight thought by some to be the Chosen One?”

He blinked.  “You were in my mind.”

“You were chewing on the cargo bay doors. Yes, I was in your mind.”  She set the pen light aside, held up her hands, and gestured to his temples.  He nodded, and she gently began to palpate his skull with both her fingers and the Force, searching for signs of injury.  “Unfortunately, Kenobi is likely halfway across the galaxy at this current moment, and you are in no condition to fight him no matter where you are.  There are hairline fractures all across your skull, and likely in every bone of your body. Fighting him or anyone else at this current moment would only increase the pain you have to live with every day.”

“I’m not afraid of pain.”

“Of course you’re not, but the simple fact is that Kenobi is in his prime, whereas you have the skeleton of a geriatric, non-medicated human of non-Zabrak origin.  He’d snap you like a toothpick.  And that’s not something I can fix until we can get around to stealing some proper medical supplies for you from the Republic.”

For the first time, Maul’s expression softened by just the barest bit.  “You’re not going to try to dissuade me from my revenge?”

“No, only get you to postpone it until you might live long enough to savor it afterwards.”  She was flying by the seat of her pants here.  For once, being Ahsoka Tano’s best friend was paying dividends.

Maul studied her for a long moment.  “Very well…Doctor. Where do you plan on getting the supplies?”

“Ord Cestus Medstation.”

“How far away is that?”

She glanced at her watch.  “About a day’s journey on our current heading.”

He considered her, and nodded regally toward the door.  “Thank you, Doctor.”

If he thought he could dismiss her from her medbay, he had another thing coming.  “Lord Savage,” she said quickly, “would you check the autopilot?  It is purrgil mating season; sometimes they can offset the hyperdrive.”

Savage looked to Maul, who nodded curtly.  When he was out of the room, Barriss leaned in as close as she dared; Maul looked like he had a penchant for biting noses even when he was in possession of his faculties.  “Exactly how many medical degrees do you have, your Grace?”

He glowered petulantly.  “None.”

“Precisely.  So, I do not care whether you were the Ruler of the Galaxy or Lord of the Trash, in this medbay I am in charge.  You do not order me around, and you do not order Savage around in front of me, because you haven’t even the slightest idea where to start in healing yourself without running crying home to Mommy to be brainwashed again.”

“...I ought to break your disrespectful neck.”

“And when I am no longer useful to you, you’re perfectly welcome to do so.  Until then, you will cheerfully delegate to my superior training in this field.  Is that understood?”

He growled weakly.  “Perfectly.”

“Good.  Now.  I am going to get some breakfast for myself. Do try to thank your brother for bathing you, please; this whole operation was his idea.”

She walked out of the medbay with her head high, made it to the refectory, and backed up against a wall, holding her arms tightly to her chest in order to suppress the sound of her sudden weeping.  She’d just gotten mouthy with a Sith Lord.  Her days were numbered.  What was she thinking?

***

Savage crept back into the medbay, wincing at the quiet sobs that came from the refectory.  “Brother.”

Maul tilted his head at him.  “Did you see that, my apprentice?”

He cringed.  “I’m sorry, Master…”

“Don’t apologize, for one thing.  And Savage. Did you see that?”

“…No?”

“Well you are going to have to watch more closely, because that is precisely the sort of spine I’m going to require you to grow.”  His younger brother flopped back against the cushions Savage had managed to find for him. “Oh, if only her training were not complete…the things I could accomplish…”

He continued in this vein for a few more minutes, and Savage elected to leave him to it quietly.  He never thought he’d miss Dathomir, but the greater galaxy was a strange and befuddling place at times.

***

They arrived at Ord Cestus Medstation in record time, just when Barriss had been expecting; they stalled the ship in a spot where she knew the sensors were never replaced because of the Banking Clan’s machinations. Savage looked dubiously at the gigantic installation and then back at Barriss.

“You’re really going to try to steal supplies from there?”

“I’ve stolen supplies from here before without much fuss,” she replied.

He bent over the console in order to get to her eye level. “Please tell me you’re working up some bravado, or joking.”

She allowed herself one subtle roll of her eyes.  “I wish I could.  But the Banking Clan was finding inroads into our supplies even when I worked there; I made more than a few fraudulent transfers to prevent our medicine from enriching the Banking Clan’s coffers on Muunilist’s black market.”  She took a deep breath, studying the comings and goings of the station.  “In truth, we don’t need to assault the station itself.  We just need to find a suitable vessel to follow and pirate.”

A small freighter lifted off from the Medstation’s loading dock. Barriss nodded toward it.  “Your eyes are keener than mine.  Does it have the Banking Clan Insignia painted upon it?

“…Yes.”

“Excellent.  I’m cloning their hyperspace heading.  Get ready to board.”

***

The vessel had been crewed entirely by droids, much to Barriss’s disgust.  “It’s like the Banking Clan aren’t even trying anymore.”

“Or, they’ve deliberately engineered the shipments to be vulnerable to the Separatists.  Dooku likes that the corporations play both ends of the game.”  Savage dispatched the final remaining droid pieces out of the airlock then hurried over to help her with the unloading.  “You think this will be enough?”

Barriss finished skimming the manifest, nodding absently. “Enough for a good while, at least…here.”

With one coordinated shove of the Force, they got the last box into their cargo bay.  “Now we just need a good place to lay low,” Savage said as they jumped back into the ship themselves.

“Do you have any ideas?”

“Not really.  You?”

“The entire galaxy seems to be at war…Maul, what the hell are you doing?”

Somehow, the self-styled Sith Lord had managed to load himself and all his necessary equipment onto the vessel’s single gurney.  He seemed fairly pleased with himself too, looking up from the computer where he had wheeled himself.

“Florrum is out of the way.”

“That’s pirate territory, Brother.”

“One tube out of place and you could have bled to death in seconds.”

Maul smiled.  “It’s good to make new friends, Brother.”

“Not with pirates…”

“Aren’t we pirates now?”

The only thing that was saving Maul from getting beat to death with the scattered remains of his own prosthesis was the fact that Barriss had sworn an oath before her gods never to willfully kill a patient.  And her gods could be very forgiving of crimes committed if the person who committed them was sufficiently repentant.  “GET. Your RUDDY SHEBS.  BACK in the medbay.  THIS.  INSTANT.”

“Shebs is the Mando’a word for ass, right?  I don’t currently have one of those.”

“YOU ARE THE ASS!”  She had to fight from violently seizing the gurney, because she had not been joking about how fragile the equipment was.  Her hands were shaking again, but not, this time, of fear.

As she pushed Maul away from the computer and back toward the medbay, the idiot grinned manically over her shoulder at his brother.  “Florrum, Savage, Florrum!  It’s nice this time of year!”

“YOU MAY NOT LIVE TO SEE IT!”

He rubbed his hands together with glee.  “Good, good, I can feel your hate...”

She smacked him on the forehead with her lightsaber hilt, hard.  “Damn straight you can feel my hate. You utter and complete moron, don’t you realize what the two of us have had to put up with…”

***

Savage stared after the two lunatics with whom he currently shared a crappy two-ton shoebox freighter in the void of space, and wondered, for neither the first nor the last time, if Feral could have been better able to cope with this bullshit.

***

This Doctor Barriss Offee was unnecessarily rough when she intubated him for several different antibiotics, painkillers, and intravenous nutrition.  Maul loved it…just out of enforced early retirement, and he already had two excellent candidates for apprentices to play off each other.  If only they didn’t get along so well!  Ah, but there was time to make them hate each other when he was back on some semblance of his feet…

“Quit your plotting.  The testosterone is going in your right arm.”

“How do you know my preferred hormone is testosterone?”

She scantly avoided rolling her eyes at him by an eyelash.  “Your Grace, you are, in fact, a Zabrak.  Even female-at-birth Zabrak produce enough testosterone to kill a typical specimen of any other humanoid.  And the fact that you do not, currently, produce testosterone by yourself means that you have the most advanced case of osteoporosis I have ever seen in my admittedly short career.”

Ooh, but she was so entertaining when he teased her like this!  “What if I want estrogen?”

“Then the packet needs a separate hole from the testosterone, and you. Will.  Like.  It.”

He bit back a grin.  “Just the testosterone is fine, then.”

She jammed the needle in his arm, taped it down correctly despite the obvious temptation to make it too tight, and glided out of the medbay with practiced ease. In minutes she was back, carefully carrying a small tub of gel and a handheld computer.  She sat opposite his bed, scanned the gel through its plastic container, and began fervently typing data into the little keyboard.

Maul’s eyelids were beginning to sag from the effects of the painkillers, but he was determined to be awake as long as possible.  He was well aware that the only reason he’d survived was from a continuous act of hateful will; sleep was for those who did not have the Dark Side.  So he fought the painkillers by occupying his mind in every way possible.

Barriss Offee seemed to have the same idea, with whatever she was doing.  There were dark circles under her large blue eyes, and she constantly wore the haggard expression of one who does not sleep well. He had no idea what could haunt one such as her in her sleep, but if she was distracted, he could be distracted.

“What is that?” he asked, politely this time.

She pinched the bridge of her nose hard enough to whiten her knuckles, blinked, and continued to study the little handheld screen.  “I’m studying the specifications for the nano-droids we managed to acquire.  There’s no need to calibrate them just yet, but it pays to be prepared.”

“Are they the appropriate type of droids?”

“They’ll do,” she said briefly.  Then her eyelids fluttered shut, and she jerked herself back into wakefulness, speaking to cover the lapse in her willpower.  “I designed them myself.”

That…that explained a great deal.  “Are you angry that you found your creation on the black market?”

She shot him a Look.  “You’re benefitting quite nicely from the fact that I did, aren’t you?”

He shrugged.  “But it’s not about me, is it?”

“There are many things that are not about you, your Grace.”

“Which of them made you throw your lot in with my brother?”

“Fickle chance and sleep deprivation.”

He shook his head and lay back against the pillows to rest his eyes.  “I’ll find what motivates you, Doctor.  One way or…”

***

He didn’t remember falling asleep.  But he did wake a few hours later to find the bed linen turned up to cover him to his chin.  He noted the change briefly, shifting slightly under the blanket, before drifting off again…it had been so long since he’d actually been able to enjoy a good sleep…

[mwolf0epsilon]

Plushies and Gingerbread Men, oh my!

[milfcutlawquane]

@mwolf0epsilon not me obsessing over the fact that Sponge would wear a jellyfish necklace..... obsessing on a normal amount........

[countessofbiscuit]

all this devotion

Shaak Ti/Rancor Squad, Mature, 2600 words, 1/2 chapters . . .

Three things are certain in life: death, the Force, and the insistence of a togruta’s heat. Stationed on Kamino, Shaak Ti can now add rain and the dedication of ARC troopers to that list. 

View all tags/warnings and read on Ao3 or find chapter 1 below the cut.

“Are you alright, General?”

The map on the viewscreen expanded. Shaak Ti stared at the dispersal of the Second Army, pointedly, more bothered than she cared to admit by how closely Blitz had chosen to stand. “Yes, Commander, quite,” she lied.

Blitz was one of the more solicitous Alphas, all of whom married intuition with professional pride in a way that said they wouldn’t want the Force even were it offered. He did not accept this untruth. “Lama Su called you mistress three times. You didn’t correct him.”

“There are battles enough, some days,” Shaak Ti said. Tackling the Prime Minister’s insistence on outdated titles was not one for today.

“And you never shy from any.” Blitz hadn’t moved, but somehow his presence grew with his confidence in being right. “You’re very hot.”

The bottom of Shaak Ti’s stomach puddled into her groin. Her stripes flushed. It was the worst thing he could have said. “Excuse me?” she demanded, finally turning to face him.

“Infrared doesn’t lie, sir.”

Shaak Ti felt incredibly exposed. Unfairly observed. She swallowed the impulse to tell him not to flag her with his senors, just as Commander Colt had firmly requested her not to flag them with the Force. Blitz was trying to be helpful. Kamino was their home, their area of responsibility. And although she was trying to be helpful, too, she was an interloper, a stranger whose character and peculiarities needed to be roundly understood in order for them to do their jobs.

And her body was candid.

It was determined to make an honest togruta out of Shaak Ti. She was more than warm. The burn was beginning. The kindling was there, dry and licked into flame by pheromones. The best air-scrubbers in the galaxy couldn’t hide some things from a predatory plains species. She’d smelt the lust on them for weeks, here in this bleached city where sterility was an art form, where nature was scoured clean. But where virility could not be controlled. Her arrival had caused a flurry of activity among the clone staff that had nothing to do with the presence of a Jedi or an outsider in their midst. It was in the unreserved awe of their deep eyes. In the damp patches on their training blacks. In the lingering ache in their wrists. Shaak Ti’s many senses had discerned it all.

Her heat was upon her, and it was inflamed. And she wasn’t in the Temple, anymore.

“Alright. I will own it.” She lowered her voice. “I’m not well, and I'll be even worse for the next day or two.”

Blitz’s helmet canted slightly to the left. He stepped even closer. “What’s wrong?”

How much I want to bite you. “That’s personal, Commander.”

“With respect, sir, we’re in a heightened state of readiness, and anything that may compromise your health — ”

“Command devolves the same.”

“If you expect to be incapacitated in any way, Commander Colt should be informed.”

Oh, please don’t name him, too. An idea was germinating in Shaak Ti’s mind, rooted in biology and matriarchal instincts — and in the kindness the command cadre had shown her when she’d stepped off that shuttle, Geonosian dust still clinging to her robes. Commanders Colt, Blitz, and Havoc had removed their helmets unbidden, in unison. They were the first fresh clone faces she’d seen, not bloodied or twisted in agony. And they were very handsome.

On Shili, she would’ve had a harem to protect and cherish and serve. And who would have served her in turn —

She banished the thought before she flared whiter in Blitz’s HUD.

The Council had sent her here that she might grow confident in her ability to teach and nurture success once again. To oversee a programme she feared rife with ethical abuse. To counsel the Kaminoans on sapient integrity and encourage them to regard the clones as something more than product. She was not here to satisfy herself with her subordinates, singly or otherwise.

She was a Jedi Master. If she couldn’t master herself in this, after all these years, how could she claim mastery of the Force that flowed through her? A Jedi had to rise above base needs — and be humble enough to admit problems and devise solutions with peers. Historically, the solution to this issue involved much meditation and a temporary relocation to a sealed chamber at the distant end of the itinerants’ hall.

Shaak Ti returned her attention to the commander still lingering with unnerving focus. “Fine. I will inform him.”

“Fine,” clipped Blitz. “Thank you, Mistress Ti.” He turned heel and left her gaping at his nerve.

And at the sway of his patterned kama below his belt. And the subtle smell of rain-damp wood he left behind him.

Later, when the ache between her legs gnawed at her brain, Shaak Ti hurried to the medbay to beg soporifics from a droid. A familiar lightness had set into her limbs, as her inguinal organs sponged up blood. Her awareness tunnelled. It became harder to hold onto the serenity of the Force — it was sensitive and slippery like that, like trying to grip a current of water. Existing in the moment, too, demanded great effort. She had to concentrate on exchanging a cold nod with Hina Me, on acknowledging the waist-high salutes of a cadet company, their backs straight against the bowed walls.

Shaak Ti finally reached her room. Tipoca City wasn’t warm, and still she blasted the air cooler in the colorless, compact space, made larger by the transparisteel wall that overlooked the ocean; a meditation stool, Fe’s beads, some cacti from the Temple Gardens — a reminder of rain’s blessing, not its ubiquity — formed the sum of its personal effects. She began to strip with trembling hands.

Maturation brought much relief. Her biannual cycles weren’t as long, nor dangerous; she’d been in the habit of meditating her way through them, though she always crashed afterwards, bandwidth of mind and body maxed out. When that failed, downers, a device, and some do-not-disturb instructions could set her right after a day or three. That would be her method here, where the Force flowed thinly and the air was thick with androgens.

Commander Colt was not told. Not explicitly. As her tool warmed in the nanowave, Shaak Ti fired off a simple message to him: she was seriously unwell, and he was to consider himself in temporary command of the Grand Army stationed on Kamino, along with its reserves and training facilities. She was on comms for emergencies, but was not to be physically disturbed for love or credits.

Alphas were headstrong. They were never satisfied when they’d found the end of a problem; they had to pull it up by the roots with both hands and ask the grass why it grew. She had come to appreciate this about them. Her respect had been earned three, four, five times over by their blistering competence that ran circles around her own sluggish climb up the learning curve.

But when they knocked on her door just as the nanowave dinged, Shaak Ti wished she’d never met them at all.

There were two of them. They had moved in step down the quiet hall, but her montrals weren’t fooled, picking up the mass of their footfalls. The Force practically shouted their signatures. Blitz she knew best: cool and supple, yet columnar, like the limb of some great, unseen god; and Havoc, gritty and shifting, the scree slope of a mountain. Shaak Ti had the disconcerting feeling that they could smell her — not in any conscious way, like she could smell them. Just enough that it reinforced a need to roam in pairs, which they never did. It was Havoc’s shift now. But it wasn’t her place to question their duty rostering, just as it wasn’t his place to come here as shift commander and order her from her quarters. Only the Prime Minister could do that.

“Sir, Commander Colt insists we escort you to the medbay.” Blitz’s voice was full and clear, without the canniness of a helmet.

Shaak Ti frowned. “My compliments to the Commander, but that’s not necessary,” she said, affecting an authority she didn’t feel. She felt drunk. It was a heavy intoxication that sagged in her lekku, not the giddiness that bubbled in her tips after one too many passes at the punchbowl.

The silence was mighty. If they were discussing next steps, it was in handsign.

“We know,” Blitz finally replied. “We’re here to help.”

Shaak Ti stood stunned, keeping her distance from the door. She would not open it. But she called her shimmersilk robe to hand, all the same.

Jango Fett, the Clone Template, their progenitor, had ordered the Alphas to obey and serve the Jedi. That was their prime directive. Shaak Ti wasn’t even sure what oath they’d taken, if any. But she was bound by many things; she’d spent nights committing the Republic Code of Military Justice to memory. Ill-treatment of subordinates and misapplication of service property came presently to mind. If she accepted their help, they would ask all manner of questions and seek her direction and would be bound to comply. It would not be right.

She gathered herself against the want clamoring in her body. “I’ve made myself clear, gentlemen. No assistance is needed. Medical or otherwise. Goodnight.”

Blitz spoke up again. “With respect, sir, we know about your condition — ”

“We may be Alpha planks, sir,” Havoc cut in, “but we can read. And you’re a textbook example of a togruta in estrus.”

Shaak Ti stifled a mewl in her fist. She hadn’t made a noise like that since her feral teenage years. She sagged against the wall. How did they ... ? It wasn’t a secret phenomenon, true — as mundane as any bodily function, really. But they had conspired! They had bored a peephole into her life. For the second time that day, she felt rudely observed.

It was, however, rather rich to be affronted by that, when she’d come here to oversee, monitor, inspect and otherwise snoop.

“Let us help you, sir. Isn’t it better that way?” Blitz offered.

So much better: gorged on pleasure, in throbbing harmony with all life, magnified by her own gifts. She’d done it once, with a clan on Shili during her maturation rites. It’d been almost enough to sway her from a different kind of service, as she’d lain there, an open vessel for every feeling, carnal and uncomplicated.

These men were under no duress, not in this moment. They were consenting, volunteering freely. Outside of Shili, no one had done that for her before, not even fellow knights; certainly no masters, even when she’d reached their ranks. Was it not a honor to the Force, to offer a kindness unbidden to someone in need? It would be over sooner, too: just a standard day, if they kept up the pace. She was well-matured and no longer in the prime of reproductive life. And there was more of them, in every sense ...

Shaak Ti’s hand had slithered between her legs, fingering into her wetness. She didn’t have to imagine how big they’d be. With the height of scientific pride and the depths of indelicacy, Hina Me had paraded four naked clones before her, one of each patented Fett type, bemoaning that she had no sample from their first test batch, for though deranged, the viable half had been remarkable specimens of human physicality. Their statures differed subtly, but Shaak Ti couldn’t help noticing that they were uniformly well-endowed. All eyes front, but only the Alpha clone had met hers, deliberate and defiant. Asking his name seemed inappropriate, and her embarrassment had only compounded with time, to still not know which officer had been made to endure that humiliation.

Had it been one of hers who thickened before her, until he hung heavy in her peripheral — ?

Shaak Ti squeezed her eyes shut. She skirted around her bed to the far corner of her room, under the cooling air duct, and stared out at the roiling deep. The silk glued to her, dampening with her heat. It would be fouled. So much the better, perhaps: it was a strange and shameful gift from Halle Burtoni.

“You cannot help,” she said, more to her reflection than to the men in the hall. What would her peers say? The opinion of the Kaminoans didn’t concern her, but they would surely go red in the fin and sniff at her. “I am responsible for you. As a — ” She didn’t want to say Jedi. It seemed unfair. A brevetship of chance, when they were more capable in many respects. “A representative of the Republic.”

“An administrative detail,” Blitz countered. “We were no one’s responsibility until you came along.”

Heat surged down her lekku. The primal excitement of a threat. “You question my authority?” Her white brow scowled back at her in the pane. Fett might have ordered them to obey, but had clearly said nothing about holding their tongues; they took grumbling and constructive criticism as an act of religion.

“No, sir. We respect it,” said Blitz. “Just as we respect your ability to act responsibly towards us when this is all over. Do you think we can’t do the same?”

Surely this constituted some form of entrapment. But Shaak Ti couldn’t find the logic to argue. Not when she felt like a besh with a body attached. “I cannot ask this of you,” she said. When the silence stretched, she realized she’d whispered it to the waves. She repeated herself, louder. “I cannot ask this of you.”

“You aren’t,” Blitz clarified for the record. “We’re offering.”

Havoc spoke up. “Honestly, sir, you’d be doing Blitz a favor. He’s been rutting into his cod ever since you got here.”

Shaak Ti wheeled round, lekku spinning, feeling the pressure wave of something imminent.

Then came the thunderclap of armor against the door. A scuffling ensued. They were fighting. Something absolutely unheard of in togruta males, and it was not attractive. At the same time, it was also potentially embarrassing for everyone involved in this bizarre negotiation.

If only her door had been locked from without, too. It was altogether too easy for Shaak Ti to slide it open with a flick of her wrist, allowing two clone officers to stumble into her room and out of sight.

Blitz and Havoc clipped halfway to attention in their confusion, shuffling their helmets under their arms. Their pauldrons kissing, their eyes not diverted. They looked surprised — youthful, like two Padawans whose Force antics had granted them access to the larder.

Or maybe that was her.

The room was suddenly so much smaller. Suffused with their scent, too: musky, undisguised, and mouthwatering.

Shaak Ti's loneliness burst its buried dam. She worked in separation, she lived in isolation. Nala Se was courteous, as welcoming as any Kaminoan could be, but she was not a fellow master. There was no community here that she might join. There were the troops and there were the natives with their rigid caste system. She understood a cadre of off-world trainers had lived here alongside the Prime Clone, but his death and the outbreak of the war apparently ended their contracts; a handful remained in the Special Operations wing, but they were Mandalorians — they made the Kaminoans look friendly.

These persistent men had changed everything. They’d just shifted the center of gravity. Shaak Ti’s every thought rolled down into her besh, hungrily. She needed to consume and be consumed.

She let her robe slip, giving in, only if for a night.

[lost-on-kamino]

Records

Changing the Disk

A brief interlude before we continue our scheduled playlist

(It’s been a while! But i finally picked up speed again for this part of Rhythm’s story, though it’s now a look over the other side of things... Please don’t hate me, Eps is already hunting me-) Small Cameos by: Remedy ( @kkrazy256) Twitch ( @gaeasun) , Sponge and Olly (@mwolf0epsilon)

<Chapter 5   Chapter 7>

The wind was calmer today, Pitch found as he peered from the building. He scratched his beard as he looked back to the sleeping brothers and sisters and siblings, recovering from their time in the front.

Granted he had been requested to stay with Coric as Kix and Twitch went off following the ‘Chosen One’.

Sure, Pitch trusted the man; but he often found Slick’s words rotating. He hadn’t been deployed for Christophis… But he heard the stories.

It had left him a lot of time to think when he was on watch as Coric caught up on some much needed sleep. The older Medic had decided to keep watch over him which was its own blessing in disguise… as much as he did annoy his ori’vod from his habit of bringing food into the Medbay.

You named it; Berries, cookies, fruit, chips, lollies; Pitch had brought it in to help his family feel more at ease. It was a quirk he called it… from past experiences of- Actually he didn’t want to think about it… He just always had food around, just in case. Always on hand.

He rubbed his face, likely smudging it with dirt as he kept his focus and leaned back on his perch. Pitch kept a silent watch, a soft smile on his face.

He could hear the distant roar of blasters and cannons in the trees and hoped they’d have time to evacuate if it came to it. Though he wondered how his brother lost on Coruscant was… Pitch only heard the news from the newly formed ARF Trooper, Bumblebee who had transferred from the 212th… Pitch had gotten to be good friends with him before his incident on Coruscant; which he then transferred to to keep with the Medic who was monitoring him.

Pitch shared it with his older siblings. Beat had cursed and remained off line, likely blowing steam over not being able to keep her promise while Tacet remained levelled headed and kept mediating between their siblings.

He felt a hand brush his hair and a whisper.

“He’s home.”

Pitch turned to his right, spotting no one as he narrowed his eyes. But the tone and… that feeling… That felt like Chord. Rhythm’s twin would always brush his hair and even joked about the former pilot to change his hair style. Pitch relaxed into his seat, Coric walking over and offering a canteen as Sponge joined them.

He had a feeling… It was ok.

 ~~

Beat was keeping up with the other members of the Wolfpack. Though she could tell they were watching her, after her outburst in the training room. Fight after fight, keeping her head down. Any clone that offered to spar would be pummelled until Commander Wolffe got hold of her. It was not until after General Plo had offered to duel her and destroyed her that she admitted the words that prayed on her mind.

 My Vod is missing.

 Until then, nothing had really changed, but she could tell Boost and Sinker would join her in morning sprints as they made their way towards another relief mission. Comet sat with her during lunch and talked to her, Warthog would ask for her help looking over the ships and Wildfire kept her busy with inventory. They were all keeping her busy and away from a path of self destruction.

 What had meant to most was when Wolffe sat down with her and asked why she felt so strongly that it was her fault. That was when she told him about Chord.

That it was her push and plan that caused the explosives to rattle the citadel challenge, Chord was the medic and rushed to save Rhythm, his twin and was bludgeoned to death.

She was the eldest. She needed to watch her siblings and protect them, that was her promise to Chord. And Chord helped her work out who she was. Wolffe had simply listened and thanked her for letting him learn about Chord. That Chord would be proud of her growth and he wouldn’t blame her as they were all following orders… and sometimes, it doesn’t go all to plan.

You lose everything and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

You watch as everyone dies around you yet continue to live when the Captain should have gone down with the ship.

You can only watch as your remaining brothers fight with your general and you can only hope whatever force is out there. The one who could barely breathe as the Escape pod came close to releasing the precious air as you called for help, locating the one person who was close to your battalion as a sister.

 Then the wait as you and your remaining two brothers recover, hoping for the news of sweet revenge as the wolf’s fangs to kill off the one who had taken so much from you.

Beat could listen in quiet horror, realising she could relate to her commander more than she knew. That was the day she swore her loyalty to the pack. It was when Beat had returned to training; slow punches as Sinker cheered her on; she felt a tremor.

A distant humming on the breeze.

A song that she and Chord would hum, copied from their trainers, to ease their brothers.

He’s home.

His voice sung softly as Beat stumbled in her next punch and fell to the floor, catching herself as Sinker knelt by her. She sobs, tucking herself in as the Wolfpack surrounds her. Wolffe walks in and knows as Warthog dashes in like a hot landing, holding a chat message likely from his Batchmate, Hound.

It will be okay.

-

Tacet found themselves watching as the transport ship took them back to the Negotiator. The ARF Trooper sinking slightly in which knowing he had done his darn hardest to look for his batchmate. As the second eldest… it was his duty.

They heard their name as Boil waved and they quickly clipped their helmet to sign back ‘Hello’, waving their hand.

 “Any luck?” Boil questioned as they walked towards their stations. Tacet shook their head.

They held their hands to their chest and shook them, mouthing the word.

‘Nothing’

Boil pulled Tacet close.

 “They’ll find something.” He reassured as Waxer soon joined them and the three slowly chatted quietly among themselves. They had worked out what Tacet had been doing when he quietly returned to the barracks late in the Coruscant night and they had also kept an eye out for Tacet’s vod’ika.

The ARF Trooper stretched from his position at the desk, looking over the channels for distress calls, Boil and Waxer within his group before the big jump to their next battlefield. The thing is with Tacet, would be that the thoughts would linger in his mind, circling.

Was there more they could have done? Did they search hard enough for Rhythm? And those thoughts would remain until he knew about his Vod’s whereabouts. He sunk slightly, a nudge from Waxer and an soft smile pressed him on. Boil looked over and muttered about getting Caf for the three, moving off as Tacet paused at a message that flicked on his comm channel.

Olly.

Waxer saw Tacet frozen and peered over. It had been sent about 10 minutes ago and Tacet was hovering over the channel. But it wasn’t the fear of checking. A soft murmur had rattled his mind.

You know its good news, Tacet.

“Easy, Vod.” Waxer smiled, taking the place of Chord as Tacet flinched and looked over, rapidly apologising. Waxer took the lead and pressed the channel.

 When Boil returned, the sight of Tacet leaning into Waxer’s arms, face hidden and arms trembling; he knew Rhythm would be alright.

 It was perfectly okay.

-

Rhythm curled up in his covers, head down as he prepared himself for another day.

Tomorrow he’d catch up with Lenta and the kids, something he looked forward to as he needed to return Vite’s Massif plush. Remedy had cleared him finally to start heading out again after his leg was fixed up despite the scarring around the knee and shin.

He smiled to himself.

Everything should be back to normal again, he can return calls and catch people out in their language… He would patrol with Bumblebee and Bulkhead to get used to stretching his leg in armor…

Everything was good.

  …

Blank eyes shot open late at night. The buzzing of the room and soft snores of the other guardsmen hummed in the air as CT-2895 prepared and suited himself up.

He paused when he saw the Riot Trooper shift in his bed, turning to walk off.

He froze again when he stepped on something. Looking down at what appeared to be a stuffed Massif, he stared blankly before pressing down more and walked off into the night, helmet on tight.

 After all, Good soldiers follow orders.

[catsnkooks]

Home

Hi hello there, one of your asks inspired me and I got hit over the head with this idea for Rex x doc fem!reader that wouldn’t leave me alone until all 2.3k of it was written. I’ve never posted a fic before, and I felt more comfortable submitting it for your consideration rather than throwing it into the void. Also I have no idea how the formatting transferred over so apologies if it’s messed up. Anyway, here’s a fic with some definite pandemic themes, oral (f receiving), unprotected intercourse (reader has a birth control implant), uhhh I think that’s it. This is v soft. 

Please enjoy. It’s called Home.

The key and the lock struggled, as usual, with you having to try it four times to get into your apartment. If this didn’t finish off your patience, nothing could. It had been three weeks now since you had had a day off, and two since you had managed to sleep without being interrupted by some poor trainee’s panicked phone call. But tonight? Tonight, you were going to sleep. You finally had a colleague join you in the medical center, and the trainees were under strict instructions to ‘leave Doc alone unless the entire center had literally exploded and someone lived long enough to literally find a speeder, grab her, and drag her here’. You opened the door and dropped your shoulder bag in the tub you kept by the door and opened your small bleach solution bucket. Decon time.  

You started with your shoes, toeing them off with the door still open, shaking them into the bleach to soak overnight. Next came your scrubs, pursing your lips and closing your eyes to minimize contact with the fabric. Into the disposable bag they went, followed by your socks and undergarments. To the sink you went, washing your hands and grabbing the disinfectant spray for your bag. You hosed it off and picked up your clothes bag; to the washing machine with them.  

After starting the wash cycle, you made your way to the ‘fresher, ready to wash the day off both literally and figuratively. 

“Kriff!” 

The sudden pain in your poor toes gave you pause, interrupting your autopilot cycle. You clicked on the hall light and were met with a neat pile of armor with familiar blue paint.  

Rex was home.  

But you were too tired to do anything other than produce a soft smile. You wanted your shower and you wanted your bed, now with the welcome addition of your sweet trooper, home for who knows how long. You side stepped the pile and went on to get the water heating up. The welcome water drifted through your hair and over your face, making you groan softly with the small pleasure. You took your time washing, scrubbing over every inch with suds and a sponge you would throw out immediately. 

No one knew what was making the clones sick, but it was everywhere, and it was spreading to the populations of several systems that the clones had never been in the first place. As one of the senior providers in the med bay known for a cool head and soothing personality, you had been pulled to the isolation units and tasked with keeping the sickest clones alive until a cause and cure could be found. It was easier said than done, and you would be damned if you brought it home and hurt someone you loved dearly. 

So, you scrubbed and rinsed and scrubbed again, thankful Rex was still asleep and not trying to ‘help’ as he would call it. Make you panic thinking he would get sick was a more accurate description of what he would be doing. 

You turned off the water and grabbed your towel, drying off and brushing your teeth before pulling on your sweatshirt. 

You crept into the bedroom, tonight somewhat illuminated with the curtains open, allowing you to see the lights of the city. It was enough you could see Rex sleeping on his side of the bed, having moved your pillow from the center. Your dark blue weighted blanket was relegated to the floor. Leaning against the doorway for a moment, you watched the captain sleep, resting on his side facing the windows. Straightening up, you walked over and slipped under the covers, careful not to interrupt the stillness and wake him up. It would be enough to feel the warmth he radiated, comforted by him just being there. Your plan to let him sleep almost worked. 

“You could have said hello ya know,” came his sleep thickened voice from the other side of the bed. 

“Yeah, but you looked so sweet drooling all over the pillow,” you teased. 

“Oh, come on now,” came the reply as he rolled over to face you.

“Hello.” 

 You ran your fingers across his cheek, stealing a quick kiss as you did. He leaned into you, planting a soft kiss on your palm. 

 “Hello.”

 You scooted closer to him, head resting on his chest and arm moving to drape over him. 

 “I’m so glad yo—” a yawned interrupted you. “So glad you’re here,” you finished. 

“I didn’t think they were ever going to let me off that maker-forsaken cruiser. I was so sure we were going to be dropped back on Ryloth before I could get back here to you.”

“Well, luckily we figured out how long it takes for you all to show signs. You’re welcome, by the way.” 

“My clever doc.” He kissed your forehead as your eyelids got heavier, sleep threatening to take over. 

Before you could whisper another sweet everything, sleep overtook you. Rex chuckled, adjusting slightly so his arm didn’t go numb overnight and drifted off too. 

***

You woke gently, early morning sunlight streaming into your room, generating an ethereal glow and making you perk up slowly like the plants in your windowsill as you stretched gently. Wait, plants, you could see the plants, Rex! Where was Rex? 

A ripple of pleasure caught you off guard, eliciting a soft sigh and finally bringing your attention to the calloused hands softly stroking your hips, the warm tongue laving at your clit. You gripped the covers and flipped them back, exposing a smiling, shirtless, blonde clone resting between your legs. You really had gotten used to sleeping sprawled out. 

“Mornin’ love,” he whispered, crawling over you to kiss you softly. You groaned at the taste of him mixed with you. 

“Good morning, indeed.” You deepened the kiss, running your nails over his scalp and down to his shoulders, before reaching down to pull your sweatshirt off. 

“Ah ah ah, not yet, c’yare.” He caught your wrists, twining his fingers with yours. “We’ve got all the time in the galaxy today and I intend to use every bit of it. Just relax for now.” 

Guiding your hands back to the bed, he slid down to where you had found him. He gently grabbed your calves, moving your knees a bit further apart and resting them on the bed, your feet landing on the small of his back so that there was no pressure on your joints. 

 “Comfortable, c’yare? If you need to adjust let me know.” 

 “Mm, never better, love.” You grabbed his pillow as you spoke, propping up so you could watch him without putting strain on your back. 

 He stared at you now that he could see, not covered in blankets anymore. Your cheeks warmed, but he was looking with such reverence you couldn’t be embarrassed. His thumbs gently guided your lips apart, giving his tongue free rein to resume its ministrations. Starting at your entrance, he lapped softly, making his way up to your clit, circling twice before making his way back down and starting again. You sighed quietly at the attention, wanting more but at the same time never wanting him to stop this. 

 Rex added a finger to the little dance, teasing your entrance while his tongue circled your clit, swapping when he licked back down. After the fourth pass, he slipped his finger all the way in, and you accepted him easily after so much attention and time away from him. A second followed shortly after, both sliding along your walls, crooking just slightly and causing your hips to buck as he found that one place easily. He knew you. 

 “Rex,” his name left you like a prayer, the only thing you had begged the maker for since this whole disaster had started weeks before. Him.

 "It’s okay, c’yare, I’m here now.” He looked up at you and smiled, lips shining with you, hand still moving in and out, knowing he had you on the edge. He lapped at your clit, picking up speed slightly to finish you off. Your orgasm spread through you slowly like lava on a flat road, melting you further into the bed. You sighed softly as he slid his fingers out, careful not to overstimulate you yet. “I had almost forgotten how quiet you can be in the morning, thank you for reminding me.”

 “Oh, get up here and kiss me like you mean it already.” 

 He threaded his fingers in yours, gently bringing your hands over your head as he kissed you deeply. His chin was wet but you didn’t care. He was here, in your bed, in your home, kissing you again. His tongue slid over yours, showing just as much attention to you here. His hands left yours and stroked your hair before coming to cup your face. He pulled back, eyes locking with yours while his thumb stroked your cheek. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders and pulled him flush to you. 

 “I missed you so much, love.” 

 “I know, c’yare. I know. The whole time I was on that cruiser, all I could think about was getting home to you and trying to figure how I was going to do that without getting you sick.” 

 “I was so scared you had gotten it. News about the 212th was all anyone would give, no one would tell me where you were. All they would say is ‘the 501st is under isolation orders on a cruiser’. They wouldn’t say which one, what systems you had been to since this all started, how many of you were sick, none of it!” You couldn’t stop the tears that started building when you were reminded of the worry that had slithered under your skin, eating away at the back of your mind while you focused on trying to find a treatment algorithm for all the other victims. 

“C’yare, it’s okay. None of us are sick. Somehow, we got off the infected planets before it started spreading quickly. They had us in isolation for the incubation period to make sure, but all of us are fine, even Fives and Echo if you can believe that miracle.”

 You couldn’t help yourself, you smiled and kissed him again. He was here now and that was all that mattered. Before he could protest, you made some space and shucked your sweatshirt. You moaned at finally feeling his warm skin on yours. Your hand found the side of his neck as you let your lips migrate to his ear and as far down his neck as you could reach comfortably. 

 He groaned and his had found your breast, cupping it and giving a gentle squeeze before his thumb swiped over your nipple, pebbling under the attention. He turned to capture your lips again, slowly moving down so he could gently kiss at your throat, making you whine. His other hand moved to down your chest and stomach to your hip, where it came to rest. His lips moved a little lower, sucking a mark where it met your collarbone. 

 “Mm, do that again.”

 “I don’t want to get you in trouble, c’yare.”

 “I have at least a week off, more if I’m lucky. Do it again.”

 “Doc, you know I can’t say no to you.” He starting nibbling and sucking on your delicate skin in earnest, scattering marks along both sides of your collarbone, before biting softly on the meat of your shoulder. You gasped as he let his hips rest on yours for a moment, reminding you that he still had pants on, a crime if ever there was one. 

“Rex, let me see you.”

 He groaned both in anticipation and frustration at your words, stopping what he was doing to roll over and get his pants off, erection slipping free and giving you just enough to time to straddle him. 

 “Gotcha.” You laughed as he brought his hands up behind his head. 

 “Ah, it would seem you do. Now that you’ve got me, what do you intend to do with me?”

 “Oh, a little of this a little of that,” you teased, running your nails down his chest, tweaking his nipples. One hand left its place and trailed down to palm him, eliciting a low groan. You adjusted your grip, swiping your thumb over his glans, using the slick he had produced to ease your hands journey. 

 “Kriff,” he groaned. You knew him. 

 He sat up, rolling over to pin you underneath him, fitting himself against you like he was made for you. He finally, finally, slid into you, eliciting a deep groan from the both of you. He rested his forehead against yours and you both stilled, breathing each other in. After a moment, you moved your head slightly, kissing him again. Rex moved slowly, savoring the feel of you around him and under him and on his lips. He pressed the heel of one palm to your mound, while one of your fingers made its way to your clit. He let his lips trail over to your ear, teasing the shell.

 “Are you going to come again, c’yare?” 

 The best you could done was moan in response, your orgasm washing over you as he started to move faster. He kept moving as you wrapped your arms around him again, kissing him deeply. His hips stuttered, the only sign he was close. 

 “Please, love, please come for me.” And that was it. He stilled, burying his face in your neck. 

 “I missed you, mesh’la. So much.” 

 “I know, Rex. I know.” 

 He lifted himself off of you, stepping quickly to the ‘fresher, or so you thought. He came back with two glasses of ice water, and a cloth for good measure. He set the glasses on the cloth on the nightstand before climbing back into the bed with you. You adjusted the pillows and sheets, making a place for the two of you. Home.

---

omg!!! i am so honored that you would send me something!!!!

this is sooooo good..........rex............ily.................

[itsilvermorny]

Blue is the Warmest Color || Obi Wan Kenobi x reader

Hello everyone! Today I was hit with a wave of inspiration and decided to write something for my favorite Jedi, Obi Wan Kenobi. I’m a huge star wars fan and avid reader of Obi Wan fanfiction, but only now I had the guts to actually post something, so please be gentle :)

(I reread this over 100 times, but I’m sure there’s still some typos somewhere so ignore that.)

Let me know what you think?

______________________________________________________________

It’s been a long time coming – that feeling of being home, the warmth of his heavy wool robes on her cheek, being engulfed by his scent. It’s probably what she had missed the most if she’s honest with herself, the way his spicy, wooden smell surrounded her every time he was near. Always a comfort, always a taunt – it would make her insides curl in the best way, yearning to be in his arms in the worst possible moments, with her face resting against his neck, where his skin is soft and warm, and where she could feel his heart beat slightly increase upon placing a soft kiss on his Adam’s apple. It was her favourite place to kiss, right after the moles on his forehead and underneath his right eye, because she was guaranteed to earn back a shiver.

He loved it just as much (if not more) as her, she knew.

He had once confessed how the feeling of being wanted and loved was foreign to him still, how sometimes he inadvertently pinched his thigh, not quite believing the look in her eyes was directed at him.

The Jedi life was a life of solitude, and as such it’s expected of him to find comfort in the Force, not on the valley between her breasts, where he was certain to fall into a slumber, lulled by her even breaths, warm skin and the feeling of her fingers combing through his hair. And so, he loved when he felt her sponge a kiss on that spot on his neck, because it reminded him how she was his as much as he was hers, and he loved how she kissed the birthmarks on his face, as he knew it was her way of telling him she would always worry for him, care for him, and think of him when he was away on missions, willing him to come back home safely, to her.

Often when his assignments turned out unexpectedly sour he would think back and let himself remember the feel of her, of her kisses and the sweet nothings she loved to whisper on his ear – she was very vocal, always making sure to tell him how precious he was, how good, and how valued, even after being together for almost a year she knew of his insecurities and never failed to battle them away in any way she could.

And so, to finally be back in Coruscant, after what was supposed to have been a simple extraction, but turned out to be a gruesome four days of torture, after being made a slave, he could finally breathe again. Rushed to the medical facilities after collapsing on the tarmac (much to his chagrin, as General Kenobi never wished to be seen as vulnerable), he was now laid on his stomach on a cold bed, a medical droid fussing over the whip imprints on his back and Ashoka crouched near his head, willing him to keep his eyes open. Not one for sentimentality, he would seldom voice out loud how much he cared for his grandpadawan, as much as his own apprentice, but at that moment he would wish for nothing more than her silence, as her tries to gather details on what had happened during his mission were only reminding him of the crack of the whip, the insults and the cold dungeon he had been kept on.

“Ashoka, please”, was all he could mutter, as his strength failed him and he fought to keep his eyes open – with his malnourishment and the state of shock his body was under, it wasn’t advisable to fall asleep, he knew, before the doctors finished their examination, lest his body give into a comatose state.

Obi Wan willed he droids to assess his wounds faster, so he could finally be treated and then give his body the rest it so desperately needed, as it was getting increasingly harder to fight the weight on his eyelids. His prayers were answered when the door opened and in hurriedly strolled his padawan, followed by none other than the person he most ached to see, even if he could feel his heart constricting at the thought of her seeing him in such a mangled condition. He should have guessed, really, that she would be the one responsible for tending to him, not only due to her control of the force and ability to heal through it, but also because of the unspoken understanding between him and Anakin, and the nights both Jedi would each seek shelter in the arms of the ones they loved – something they never openly spoke about, but nonetheless acknowledged. Her being brought to him was surely Anakin’s doing.

He couldn’t not keep his eyes open then, he couldn’t not let himself get his fill of her, of how she had her hair in a tidy up do, the way she always insisted on having whilst working, on how her mismatched eyes quickly swept over his whole body, inquisitive, assessing all the damage he had suffered, and finally lingering on his back, on the gashes of raw flesh he knew were there – the beautiful, unique eyes he loved so much, now filled with worry and sadness. He was suddenly hit by the realisation of the scars he would undoubtedly have once his back healed, would it affect the way she saw him? Would she still want him? Desire him, touch him? He closed his eyes then, swallowing the bile that had risen on his throat, he couldn’t let himself think about that then, or his body would surely give in.

Efficient as ever, she started instructing the two other droids to make a concoction that would help close his wounds faster and dull the pain he was feeling. Anakin had pulled Ashoka aside, leading her away from his bed and out of the room, to make way for the doctors. He knew his master better than Obi Wan liked to admit, and knew he was bound to be feeling exposed, vulnerable and, most of all, embarrassed (stupidly, if anyone asked him). Obi Wan was one of the most respected and well regarded Jedi and even had recently been invited to become a part of the Council, and thus Anakin knew letting the people he was responsible for protecting seeing him broken was only adding a burden to his master’s worn down shoulders.

Soon it was just them both in the room. No words had been exchanged yet, but then again, one was too immersed battling his dark thoughts, and the other didn’t think anything could be said to erase the last four days of pain from his mind, as she desperately wished to do. So she resorted to do her job as best she could, and, closing her eyes, she hovered her hands over his body, one over his auburn hair and the other over the bottom of his spine, untouching, letting the Force guide her through is injuries, first the superficial, then the internal ones.

It was a relief to see he had not sustained any internal bleeding, as she had initially thought from the purple bruises he was sporting on his sides and arms. The lacerations on his back would take a few weeks to close properly and his body required a few days of bed rest, as well as full meals to restore its energy, but Obi Wan would be fine. She couldn’t hold in a sigh anymore, as the weight she had on her chest ever since she had learnt of his captivity finally lifted. Her Obi Wan was back, and he would be fine. Stars, her knees almost buckled at the realisation.

Hearing her reaction, he slightly craned his neck to better see her face. His mouth was dry, but he still licked his lips to speak, “Hi”. His voice sounded foreign to him, rough and deeper than it usually was, he had barely spoken a word since his extraction. She looked at him and softly smiled, her eyes shining with tears as the adrenaline of tending to him started to subside. “Don’t cry”, his voice sounded again, and, instincts kicking, he tried to lift himself on the mattress. His body protested immediately, and he sagged back down, taking a deep breath in as he fought through the tremors caused by the sudden effort.

She was at his bedside at once, seeing how the medicine the droids had applied had yet to kick in, and getting a tiny neon green pill from a bottle, she made him take it with some water. Her dearest Obi Wan, who even barely able to move, still couldn’t bare to see his people suffer. She threaded her fingers in the hair flopped over his forehead and kneeled at his bedside to be at his eye level. He was blinking slowly, the weariness and exhaustion he felt clear on his eyes, “You can rest now, Obi Wan. You suffered no internal damage. You’re home, you’re safe”, she willed her voice to come out strong to try and provide him with the assurance she imagined he needed, but he wasn’t having it. He slowly lifted his right arm from the bed and grasped the hand she had rested next to his head. They had a strong bond, stronger than he thought possible for two people to have, least of all Jedi. He knew he was breaking his oath by giving in to his feelings for her, but after their first meetings, when he came to realize how connected they were – not just their bodies, but their souls -, he couldn’t deny it, them, any longer.

The first time they met had been during the Clone Wars, as she had been a part of their medical team. But after the war, as time went on, they kept crossing paths, randomly and repeatedly, as if the Force were driving them to know each other. He started to be able to clearly see her force signature, then feel it, as well as her presence, and even share her emotions, and he knew from his padawan days that even the Jedi who decided to dedicate themselves to medicine had to complete the Jedi training in its entirety, which meant she knew how to protect and close her mind. They found themselves intertwined though, as they had gotten closer, and who was he to contest a wish from the Force?

She rested her head on their joined hands, faces so close her nose almost touched his cheek. “You need sleep”, she whispered softly, “I’ll stay if you’d like me to.” There was nothing that would be able to drag her away from him, she knew.

He nodded slowly; his eyes fixed on hers. They had always been one of his favourite features, because he had never seen nothing like it before, not even on his adventures with his late master, who had made sure to teach him all there was to know about each species that inhabited the planets they visited. She was human, like him, quite ordinary as well, in juxtaposition to the multitude of species in Coruscant, except for her eyes – one was blue, clear as the water of the rivers in Naboo, and the other was a soft lilac, the same shade the sky of Tatooine would adopt in the dusk. Her eyes that told him so much, even when she wished to guard herself and her thoughts – he could always read her (as he knew she could always read him) because there were no reservations between them.

So, he saw, deep into her mind, her love and care for him, the worry she had felt in his absence painted in the circles beneath her eyes. He felt her force signature, a soft, mint green, enveloping his body, providing him with the comfort he craved, like a breath of fresh air consuming his being and washing his body into a deep sense of calm.

And when she softly left a lingering kiss on the mole beneath his right eye, he knew he was safe and that she would love him back to health.

[nimsajlove]

Not leaving you

Brothers-AU  Ao3

Her fingers trembled when she repeatedly asked unsuccessfully about Droidbait. "No, didn't show up.", Kix reported, his voice sounding tinny and empty through the comlink. "I'll let you know when I hear something.", he quickly assured her and cut the connection, of course he had to go back to work. Ahsoka felt really bad when she thought about keeping him away from other injured people. But slowly she was losing patience, and maybe a little bit of hope, to find the clone under the heap of rubble. Even so, she returned to the excavation team and began to move stones out of the way.

It didn't take long for her arms to ache. Her hands were open, burning with every touch with the bluish dust that seemed to cover every surface. All the clones that could be dispensed dug around her, her Master also hoped to be able to rescue survivors from the hole. So he gladly accepted a delay in the schedule in order to be able to give his padawan more men. Panting, she hung from a stone and, not for the first time, wished that her Master had come too. She cursed loudly when the stone didn't move an inch. As if Anakin Skywalker had heard her thoughts, her comlink flashed and she swallowed more phrases. "Already found something?" Ahsoka shook her head, her Master's voice sounding as hopeless as she felt... "No Master, but we haven't hit the ground yet either. I hope that the overhang-” “Commander!” The call interrupted her and she looked up, one of the men waved and then pointed to something at his feet. “Maybe we have something. I'll get back to you later.", she hurriedly said goodbye and ran to the soldier.

In fact, there was a hole at his feet, more like a gap. It pulled itself long and narrow through the rubble and revealed a cavity. Ahsoka's heart contracted frantically, her hopes that the ledge would create a cave had been confirmed. Carefully she pushed around on the surrounding rubble. "I don't think we can open it any further from the outside.", one of the men, Appo, announced from behind her. "I think so too. I'll squeeze in there and see what I can do.", she agreed and sat down on the edge of the gap, her feet dangling in the air. It was dark down there, but the fall couldn't be deep! Carefully she slid further and further in until she was only hanging by her arms in the crevice and tried to make out something. Nothing, just pitch black darkness. So she dropped on luck, the ground was actually not far away. After only two more meters she came up and landed safely like a cat, immediately she pulled out her lightsaber and illuminated her surroundings.

 The heavy dust had settled quickly down there and Ahsoka was glad to have a good view and clean air to breathe. She stretched out all her senses before taking a closer look. She didn't have to look far, a small group of clones had gathered right under the ledge that had caught most of the debris. As she got closer, some of them stood up and came towards her, one had taken off his helmet and was beaming with relief. "You have come." He was so happy and Ahsoka slipped a smile. “How are you?” “Three of us can't walk, Wall is not responsive and Hang is totally confused. Always wants to run away and keep looking, although his legs can hardly support him.” They approached the group and Ahsoka recognized what the clone meant. The men looked battered... "Wait here."

With quick steps she hurried back to the crack and contacted Appo. “I found a group. I will try to enlarge the hole a bit, then we can get them out of here.", she communicated and heard a general agreement. Without hesitation, she got to work.

 *~*

 Most of them had already been brought up, but Droidbait wasn't among those found. Ahsoka looked around nervously as she helped another man up. The rubble ceiling trickled softly over her, how long would all of this last? "I'll go and search on, you can do the rest of this by yourself, won't you?" Appo nodded above her.

Carefully she found her way through the darkness, she felt sick when she came across the first corpse. The clone hadn't had a chance and she was slowly getting a stomach ache, what if Droidbait hadn't had a chance either? She took three steps further and raised her lightsaber further, the rubble dome sloping into a steep wall in front of her. There was no getting through here. She wanted to turn away when a scrape made her look again along the wall. Three times her gaze slid from one end of the illuminated area to the other until she discovered him. The dust colored the white equipment with the blue drawings almost black and she hurriedly jumped over some stones to the clone, when she was only a few steps away she realized that it was indeed her brother.

His hip was buried under a rock, but when she grabbed his arm, his legs moved. "Commander.", he gasped and carefully she grabbed his helmet, he looked terrible. With gentle fingers she examined the huge laceration on his head, he would survive that. One of her hands was on Droidbait's chest while she radioed Appo. Two heartbeats passed before she heard the pawing footsteps approaching. "Over here.", Ahsoka called and as soon as the clones were in sight, they threw the blasters to the ground and hurried over to her. "I can only lift this thing up for a moment.", said the girl, her fingers trembling. She was sure she could get the rock of from Droidbait. But then? The men grabbed her brother by the shoulders and waited, so she didn't have time to think.

Lifting the rock was harder than she had expected, the day had asked a lot of her and gradually her strength was exhausted. As soon as the rock had slipped out of her control and fell to the ground, she turned around and leaned down to the Medic, he bandaged the other's hip as best he could and tried to support it. "And?", she asked, the Medic shook his head slightly. "Pray that no arteries are injured.", he growled and she went freezing, she knew that an internal bleeding in the pelvis was practically a death sentence. The porous bone would soak up all the blood like a sponge.

"Well, lets get out of here.", she growled and the men lifted Droidbait as carefully as they could, he barely reacted and Ahsoka patted his face worriedly. No reaction.

 *~*

 It was late, no clone had passed her or the other Dominos in a while. Cutup next to her chewed his lip bloodily while Hevy seemed to be asleep. His clenched fists told her he wasn't. Fives and Echo didn't seem to be able to stand it on the floor, they were leaning against the wall across from her and seemed worried, but far less tense than the others. Not particularly fair, ARC-training seemed to prepare them for such things better than any Jedi-training.

Growling, she turned her gaze down to her feet, her neck ached from looking down and her fingers were so rigid and cramped that they could hardly be moved. Her thoughts in her head were hollow and cold. They did not want to let go of the images of the battle and something kept replacing all the dead with more familiar faces. Briefly she screwed up her eyes, only to tear them open again. No, it wasn't any better that way! Concentrated, she stared at her fingers, maybe she could try to move one... She felt her hand on her shoulder and raised her hands at the newcomer. The clone caught her fist and for a moment she didn't know who she was looking at. Then her eyes cleared and she blinked at Jesse. "Hey Mini-Commander.", he smiled and loosened his grip on her fist, her arm slumped limply onto the floor. "Hi.", she mumbled and pulled her knees to her chest, Jesse sat down next to her on the floor and she could now see Rex quietly exchanging a few words with Fives and Echo, who then grabbed Cutup and Hevy and brought them away. Then the Captain came over to her and leaned against the wall. "Hey kid." She huffed and stared up at him. "Don't do that, I'm not a child anymore." „Then I'll just take this ration back with me and let you make your adult decision.", teased Hardcase, who actually came around the corner with a ration from the canteen and slumped to the floor in front of her with a thud. He grinned broadly. How did he always grin?

At the sight of the food her stomach growled loudly, but she felt nothing that could have reconciled the sound. "I'm not hungry," she muttered and buried her forehead in her pants. She wished she had ears to cover. As it was, she was forced to hear the growling of Hardcase and Jesse. Suddenly a hand was there and forced the ration on her. Sighing, she straightened up a bit, it couldn't hurt to do a favor for the others. So she forced a few bites into herself before rubbing her forehead with both hands. Where was Kix? Why did it take so long? "I'll give him another half an hour.", Jesse mused aloud, could he read minds? But what if... "How am I ever supposed to survive this?", she mumbled choked, the lump in her her throat made it hard to breathe and she shivered. "You mean?", asked Hardcase, sliding closer, his knees now touching hers and she hastily rubbed her eyes. "If either of you leaves." The first dry sob broke free and she shuddered painfully. Jesse made a pressed sound and Hardcase hastily patted her lower legs to calm her down. Then she heard Rex crouch down beside her. "We're not going anywhere," he said, putting his hand on her arm. Now they were all close together and the touch grounded her, she sobbed again. The idea of ​​having to live without this feeling scared her. "What's going on here?", came another voice and the next sob died in her throat, she almost choked on it in surprise. Then she looked up at Kix, he looked tired and there were hard lines around his mouth. "There's nothing to mourn here, so get up Commander.", he then smiled thinly and she was on her feet immediately, stumbled over to him and wrapped her arms around him. "Thank you!", she muttered and he patted her head. "I will not allow anyone to leave you vod'ika."

 *~*

 "Droidbait!" Laughing, she stormed into the medbay, Kix gave her a gently reproachful look. Coric a few steps further, however, seemed to be delighted at the sight of Ahsoka half hanging in the bed of the injured clone, almost crushing him. "Please don't take your job so literally next time.", she said, then loosened up and beamed at him. Droidbait laughed, and Ahsoka decided that nothing was more beautiful to see than a laughing brother.