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#fun fact. nocte is a fuckign liar by omission :) methinks he ran into wolffe when he was first on the run
purgetrooperfox · 1 year
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got any wip snippets (wippets?) you'd like to share?
just for you. a Quin + Nocte character study thing about survivor's guilt that I'll probably never finish :) unedited, obviously. yw
cw for brief reference to character death I guess
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Vos sticks a cigarette in his mouth and sparks a lighter then pauses, raising a questioning brow. Only once Nocte shrugs and pushes a window open does he light up. The smell of burning tobacco used to turn Nocte's stomach, now it's something familiar. Something that signals the end of the day. Something that makes his chest clench for reasons more related to addiction than disgust.
Neatly, he plucks the cigarette from Vos' fingers and takes a long drag that does little to thaw him out. If Vos takes it as a challenge, he doesn't show it, simply lighting another and watching Nocte like he's a puzzle to be solved. His expression is hard to read.
"Are you on your own out here?" Vos eventually asks.
"For the most part. I'll have someone stick around from time to time, after recovery, but not often."
It's usually kids with nowhere else to go, and they typically go their own way after a few weeks. Staying mobile is for safety. Staying alone is dangerous, but it protects the soft side of him. Less about blasters and laser swords than loss and heartache.
Vos hesitates to spit out whatever's weighing on him. His free hand drums quietly on the windowsill. "None of the others?"
"What, the other clones?" Nocte swallows a scornful laugh. "No. I haven't run into any survivors since I got away." From the control chip. From the Empire. From the past. "I reckon we're about as spread out as the rest of the Jedi."
Grief has dulled into something manageable over the years, no longer the crushing, bleeding wound it was when he first woke up. "Fox was…" he tries to continue, to answer the unspoken question. Stops. Pulls more smoke into his lungs. "No one was lucky that day, but Fox didn't have to suffer it for long. It was quick. Painless."
"Vader?"
"Mm."
The scene makes regular appearances in Nocte's nightmares – the wave of cold in the air, the sound of Fox's breath catching in his chest, the resounding snap and unnatural angle of his neck, his body unmoving on the ground. No one could have saved him.
Still.
Someone should have.
"Rumor has it that Skywalker's captain got himself and Ahsoka free," Vos offers in turn. "Rex, I think."
Rumor also has it that an experimental batch is running loose in the Mid Rim with Echo in tow. He doesn't put much stock in rumors, but a smile tugs at the corner of Nocte's mouth. "Of course Rex would be the one to manage that. He's a good kid. Stubborn as a damn mule."
Vos huffs a laugh. "Between him and Ahsoka, the galaxy better watch its back."
It goes without saying that the galaxy has bigger issues to worry about than a pair of outcasts.
Nocte nods instead. "You run into any Jedi?"
The suspicion that shadows Vos' face is only fair, and it only lasts a moment. "A couple. I doubt you ever knew them."
By virtue of being part of the Guard's medical corps, Nocte and his crew rarely got face time with the Jedi. He mostly knew Vos by proximity to Fox. Kit and Dara were exceptions, and he's not about to probe whether Vos ever knew about any of that.
He probably did. The Shadows had their noses in everyone’s business, for better and for worse.
Besides, Nocte is well aware that Kit was one of the first Jedi to go down. He used to talk about Force bonds, these intangible threads that tie people together, strengthened as relationships grow. By all accounts, there are probably rocks with more Force sensitivity than Nocte. Those bonds were so far beyond his awareness that he forgot they existed until Kit mentioned them.
He felt it though, when they broke.
The instant it happened, despite the distance between them, he felt it when Kit died. A razor sharp pain through his chest. He thought it was a heart attack at first. Then he didn't think much of anything about it.
Or about anything else.
Sometimes, he wonders how much of that – the memory lapses and dissociation and loss of control – was the chip, and how much was a subconscious attempt at coping.
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