“It’s also quite possible that your friend is dead…”
Sabine woke with a start, her heart racing and her body drenched in sweat. She frantically looked around the room as the all too familiar sensation of a panic attack threatened to consume her.
Her eyes fell on Ezra sleeping peacefully a few feet away and her body and mind started to relax. He wasn’t dead like Thrawn had assumed. He was alive and well and here with her.
She sighed and put her head in her hands, taking a couple deep breaths, before getting up and taking a seat at the foot of Ezra’s bed.
As she looked him over, there was so much she wanted to tell him. So much she wanted to hear from him too. But it could wait until the morning.
Despite the time that had passed, Ezra was still the same person Sabine had apprehended and later come to love. He had grown quite handsome and the beard suited him she thought, though she’d never admit it to him.
She recognized the scar on his cheek from a fight he and Kanan had had with some inquisitors, but his body was littered with new scars as well as a few bumps and bruises here and there. She gently traced the scar on his cheek with her fingers as well as a particularly bad scar on one of his muscular arms, causing him to awake to her touch.
“Morning already?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.
“No,” Sabine replied, shaking her head, “I had a nightmare.”
“What about?”
“It’s not important.”
Sabine could tell Ezra didn’t believe her, but he refrained from asking anything else.
There was a small pause with the two of them just taking the other in.
“Come here” Ezra said, pulling back the covers.
“A-are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Sabine climbed into bed beside him and he instinctively moved closer and wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her cheek, speaking sweet nothings to her until she dozed off and the nightmare was a thing of the past.
Sabine smiled in her sleep that night because for the first time in ten years she felt truly safe.
I Absoultly love this! You have written the characters on POINT! Man, this just made me smile so hard, how cute and adorable! I need more.
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uhh inspired by the Winter embrace, Lissa’s chappy 2, and that one joel and ellie post-David hug that Paws did where they’re sitting next to each other and joel hugs her. you know the one
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“Cee!”
It was a guttural plea. He’d been screaming her name so much that it became a mix of unorganized sounds amidst heavy pants—no longer a comprehensible word. His voice was shaking, breaking more with every breath.
His stump was bleeding. Cee was gone. The hallways were a maze. Cee was gone.
Ezra raced through the halls, propelling himself past each turn with his only arm. His stump stung with every step and attempted swing of his arm, blood still pouring out from the newly opened wound. His right side was coated in it, the blood starting to seep into his waistband and trickle down his leg.
He approached another turn in the hallway and extended his arm, bracing himself for another quick swing around the corner. His fingers grazed the wall but he didn’t catch the corner. Ezra’s built up momentum sent him into the opposite wall and brought him to his knees. He coughed, using the wall and his good arm to try and push himself up to continue his search for Cee.
He coughed again once he was back on his feet. “Ce-”he started before his eyes fixed to the scene in front of him.
It all came into Ezra’s focus slowly. Cee, first. She was kneeling on someone. Her left leg was bent, kneeling on the unnamed person’s chest. Her right leg was also bent, the tip of her shoe to her knee pressed flat into the ground beside the body. She was bent over, her face and both her hands close to the body’s head. He watched her back intently, watching for it to move in tandem with her breath. Her breathing was sporadic and uncontrolled, full of panic. Her hair was disheveled, multiple knots coating the back of her head. She was without a shoe on her left foot and there was a gash along her calf on the same leg.
Second, the man beneath her. The dead man. There was a hint of pride in Ezra seeing the corpse under her and knowing she did it. But his pride quickly soured when he realized that she did it.
He wasn’t there to do it. Whatever this man did or attempted to do to her, he wasn’t there. She had to defend herself. His little bird ended up in a dangerous situation that he couldn’t save her from.
He’s supposed to protect her. Even with one arm, he’d sworn to protect her. That’s his job, anyway. She’s capable, but she shouldn’t have to be.
He should’ve been there. He should’ve strung the man up by the muscles in his fingers. He should’ve spent what strength he had left in his only arm to bruise each and every one of the man's ribs. He should’ve made small but painful cuts in the man's limbs—incisions along the major arteries in his arms and legs. He should’ve taken an ear, teeth, his tongue, or any number of toes from the man while he was alive. Anything, anything to prove that no one goes near Cee.
Third, all the blood. There was a pool of warm, crimson blood still pouring out from the man's abdomen and flowing towards the opposite wall. It was building up under Cee’s right leg, seeping into her pant leg and starting to flow towards Ezra.
His hearing then caught up with his vision. Cee. She was panting, dry heaving… crying. Her form was shaking, her shoulders bouncing with each hiccup she let out.
Ezra’s breath caught in his throat hearing her cries. “Cee!” He shouted, urgently pushing off the wall towards her. He didn’t make it four steps before he tripped over himself, his knees colliding with the floor again. He caught himself with his arm, immediately pushing himself back up and half-crawling the rest of the way to Cee.
He crawled to the left side of the body, settling on his knees on Cee’s left side. He could see what had transpired now that he was up close.
The five inch blade of her knife was plunged into the man’s jugular. Cee’s right hand, covered in blood, was shaking while still holding onto the handle. Tears were hastily falling down her cheeks and dropping off her chin, mixing with the blood on the man’s neck. She was still dry heaving and hiccuping, unaware Ezra was next to her. He looked at Cee’s face, her gaze locked on the man.
Ezra looked where her gaze was fixed. The man’s eyes were wide open—dead and bleak. He reached over and closed them. That’s when Cee noticed him.
She turned, her knee still pressed into the man’s chest. The bloody knife that was just hidden in the man’s throat was now held a hair from Ezra’s. He caught her forearm just in time, holding it tightly as he found her eyes and checked her face.
Four traces of blood followed her jawline down to the bottom of her neck—traces that accurately resembled bloody fingers and the streaks they leave when they’re dragged along a surface. There was a gash in her lip and blood in the corners of her mouth. Her nose and cheeks were covered in speckled blood as well.
“Little bird,” he whispered, his eyes begging for her to recognize him, “it’s me. It’s Ezra.”
Cee’s eyebrows twitched as her eyes darted between his. In his hand, her arm started to shake. She opened her mouth and quickly closed it, swallowing the bile that was building up. Cee tore her gaze from Ezra’s and looked past him, then between them, then beside her. Before her eyes even made it to the dead man’s face, Ezra let go of her arm and immediately found her right cheek.
“Hey, no…” he said, gently directing her face back to see him. “Look at me.”
He kept his hand against her cheek as she glanced back at him. She swallowed again before focusing on her shaking hand that found a resting place on his good shoulder. Her lips quivered as she dropped the blood covered knife, the blade clanking on the floor beside Ezra.
“Birdie,” he breathed, a small stroke of his thumb over her cheek. “Are you with me, Cee?”
Her breathing hitched. Her voice cracked as she choked on tears. “Ezra?” She questioned.
Ezra let out a breath he was subconsciously holding. “It’s me, little bird,” he said.
Her breathing continued in uneven sputters as she bowed her head and let her forehead hit his chest. Ezra moved his hand from her cheek to her back and wrapped it securely across it, squeezing her right shoulder.
His missing arm, a phantom longing he could only describe as agonizing and desperate, craved to hold her. If there wasn’t someone in his life who deserved it, he wouldn’t have cared less about losing it. If there wasn’t a kid in his life who deserved more than 50% of what he could give, he wouldn't have cared less about losing it. If there wasn’t a little girl in his life who, now, he realized all he wanted to do was give 110% for, he wouldn’t have cared less about losing it.
But now there was.
He squeezed her shoulder tight, pulling her body against him. She buried her face deeper into his neck as he pulled her into him, rocking them lightly back and forth. She heaved and coughed beside his neck, trying to catch the breath she’d so desperately lost.
“Here, birdie…” he whispered, falling backwards to sit on the ground next to the body. Cee pulled from him slightly, helping them scoot back to the wall. Once his back hit it, Cee sat beside him, slightly embarrassed.
She was still crying, dried tears and blood along her chin and down her neck. “I lost… track o’ you… and then he… he was… he said…” she stopped, rubbing her forearm across her nose to wipe the snot away.
Ezra took that opportunity to squeeze his arm between her back and the wall and pull her body towards him again. He wrapped his arm across her back again, pulling her into his chest and keeping his hand held tightly to her left shoulder.
She reciprocated it as best she could. She turned into him, her left arm going down by his right side and holding onto the fabric at his waist. Her right hand held onto the fabric on his left side. She buried her face in his chest, right next to his bloody stump.
Ezra rested his chin atop her head. He exhaled, rubbing his hand up and down her back. “Kevva, Cee, I…” he trailed off.
For once, he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to express the panic when she was no longer beside him. He didn’t know how to express the urgency in his strides as he raced to find her. He didn’t know how to express the desperation in his kills, not knowing who could’ve taken her and making sure that every single person took their last, most painful breath. He didn’t know how to express the fear that there was a chance she was gone—not that he’d ever truly let that chance reach any level of certainty.
She rested her cheek against his chest, eyeing his stump. She pulled her left hand back from his waist and pressed it to his stump. When she brought it back, fresh blood was on her fingers. “Wait, what…” she stopped, attempting to choke her tears away, “why’s your stump bleeding?”
Ezra smiled lightly, but kept it to himself. I suppose my worried reaction and urgency looking for you surprised some unkind onlookers. “Nothin’ you need to worry about, birdie.” He rubbed her back again. “Soon, once you’ve relaxed, I can take care of you. Then, we can focus on that.”
“But it could get infected…”
“So could that gash in your leg.”
Cee sighed, pulling at the fabric of his shirt. She kept her cheek pressed to his chest, focused on calming her breathing and slowing her heartbeat.
Ezra pressed his lips to her head briefly before pulling away. “I commend your concern, little bird, I do, but I will be fine. Let me take care of you.”
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magnolia.
pairing: minho x reader
genre/warnings: established relationship, kinda fluffy, kinda angsty idek, hurt/comfort; unedited and self-indulgent as hell !!
word count: 0.4k
listen to 🎧: hold my girl - george ezra
as always, i’d appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, and please drop a like and/or reblog if you enjoy reading ♡
navigation › masterlist › ko-fi
sometimes, it's crazy just how in tune minho is with you, how he can sense that something's wrong before you even have to say it.
he knows all of your signs - smiles that don't quite reach your eyes; soft, barely audible sighs instead of frustrated ones like when you're angry; talking about insignificant things throughout dinner with a distinct lack of energy just for the sake of holding a conversation and not letting your home fall into a state of depressing silence. an overall aloofness that can't simply be blamed on exhaustion.
when you're upset, you shut down.
minho doesn't need you to justify your defense mechanism, doesn't try to coax you out of your shell because he's the same way. when something is eating away at him, he detaches himself from the world too.
in those instances, the last thing he wants is for someone else to offer unhelpful advice when no one but him knows what's going through his mind.
there are some things that you just have to process on your own, some motions you have go through by yourself.
minho can only be by your side while you deal with your inner turmoil. hold your hand and give you a shoulder to lean on, whatever you need until you're ready to come back to him again.
that's what he does this time too. he doesn't ask you any questions; he just puts on the kettle and lights your favorite vanilla and magnolia scented candle. makes you a steaming mug of tea and peels some oranges, arranging the slices neatly on a plate afterward. then he sits on the couch next to you, a random movie playing on the tv that no one's really watching.
at some point, you move closer to tuck yourself under his arm. minho instantly pulls you to rest against his body, a hand on your shoulder giving you comforting squeezes over your sweatshirt.
just the two of you, the willingness to be there for the other especially when it's hard, and the occasional meows reverberating from somewhere nearby.
when he thinks you might've fallen asleep just like that, you start sniffling. the ache that minho feels in his chest is almost immediate.
even then, all he says is, "i'm here."
you meekly nod in acknowledgment as you continue to cry, painful sobs making you fist the material of his shirt in your hands.
he knows that you'll talk when you want to, when you're ready. he gets that in this moment, you just don't have the capacity to articulate your thoughts and explain your feelings in a way that other people could understand.
so he simply presses a kiss to your forehead and hugs you a little closer. he sits with you until it passes. he loves you enough to wait for you, to hold you through all of the lowest lows.
"i'm here. i love you. i'm right here."
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all rights reserved © withleeknow. reposting, translating and/or modifying is not permitted by any means. [posted 28.01.2024]
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