#he deserves to have these few years of the typical teenage experience that he so desperately longs for

[astrolavas]

it's sound weird, but i have headcanon that Hunter didn't go hexside, because he too old to shool(according to my feelings, at the end of the he is 16-17 y.o (except for the post-credits scene), and at that age it is already too late to go to school):p

i mean, well- in my opinion he rather certainly did go to hexside, since one of the things he'd said during his TTT monologue was "i'd like to attend hexside like a normal student and play flyer derby with my friends" and all of his "wishes" were supposed to sort of foreshadow his goals and his future (carving palismen, studying wild magic, etc etc) so i feel like it's safe to say he succeeded in becoming a hexside student as well. we also know he attended grom with the rest of his friend group, and like- since he's 16 before the timeskip (no canon certainty whether he's recently turned 16 or is going on 17 already though, but like... around 16 canonically) that means he'd get at least 1 year of school, but most likely 2+.

my personal headcanon is that he went to hexside for around 2 years (full or not quite, depending on when the school year starts in the boiling isles and how long it lasts; possibly even 3), and during that time he picked up a mentorship/apprenticeship at del's palisman carving shop, and after he graduated from hexside he started carving palismen professionally with the clawthornes (i like to think that he also takes some courses at eda's wild magic university in his spare time, simply cuz . funny uni hexsquad shenanigans)

[bitterchocoo]

Well Deserved Rest

Dr. Veritas Ratio | M. Reader as Medicine Pocket [Reverse: 1999]

----------

Tsundere Ratio will forever live rent free in my head. That was totally canon!

----------

"Hey hey! Veritas!"

That annoying voice again.. how many times has he heard it today? It's so annoying.. so high pitched and loud, like a dog, happily barking at their favorite person.

"For the last time, it's Dr. Ratio! Don't call me by name so casually!" He groans at the other's enthusiasm and seemingly endless energy. For the past few years he had known the researcher. [Name] never fails to get on his nerves. Be it the constant teasing or the dog-like demeanor. The only thing he ever decided to tolerate the man is because of his reputation for being a genius amongst geniuses and gaining his current position when he was a mere teenager.

"Look look! I made this serum that presumably—" "I swear if this is one of your unauthorized experiments!"

Not only is he a genius amongst geniuses.. [Name] seems to have a reputation of doing whatever the hell he wants. Paperwork? That can wait! Research? Why should he care about following the status quo? Only when something had caught his attention, that's when the researcher began to actually do his work.

Sometimes Ratio feels like he's babysitting a child—or rather a dog. Given the other's background.

How many times has [Name] decided to chew on the ends of his robe? How many times has [Name] licked his cheek without a second thought?

Honestly...

"Aw come on, Veritas! Can't you live a little?" [Name] asked teasingly, tilting his head to the side, acting all adorable in order to persuade the doctor. Which didn't work. Or so he told himself. "It's not living if you constantly experiment on dangerous unauthorized things! It's called being foolish!"

This earns a chuckle from the other. He sure knows how to get on Ratio's nerves like it's merely looking at the back of his hand. It seems like second nature to him. "You're so boring! Didn't take you to be a stickler to the rules!"

"It's called self preservation!"

----------

How did this happen..? How in the galaxy had he managed to land himself in this position..? What is it? Nap time? He's out like a light!

Earlier, [Name] had decided to annoy him again, typical, but Ratio was having none of it. So like any other sane person, he ignores the genius in favor of the book he's currently reading. But of course that didn't stop [Name] from teasing and poking him. Trying to get a reaction.

But as time went on. The researcher seems to have worn himself out and started to doze off. Now, Ratio sits there with a book in hand but despite that, his mind was in other places as his gaze shifted towards the sleeping genius who had his head on his shoulder and his right arm being hugged by the other in his sleep.

He's out like a light! What time even is it? Nap time? Maybe it's [Name]'s constant all-nighter he pulls whenever he's so absorbed by his research and experiment? Or is this a by product of his dog-like nature?

Either way, this can't continue!

But when Ratio tries to wake him up, [Name] doesn't seem to respond to it, at all. Sleeping like a rock. So... Ratio decided to just.. let him rest..

Maybe he needs it?

Every time Ratio tries to focus on the book he's reading his mind would always drift towards the sleeping researcher that's using him as a human pillow.

He could feel [Name]'s warm breath hitting his exposed biceps, his shallow and calm breathing, it never fails to send a shiver down his spine. He's so.. comfortable.. so.. at peace..

He's far different than the usual hyperactive, seemingly endless energy researcher he's known for! And that.. makes him feel.. warm..

To think he'll have the honors of witnessing such a rare, vulnerable, and.. intimate side of [Name].. it's..

Ratio snapped out of his thoughts once he felt the other began to stir and slowly woke up from their nap. A nice and comfortable nap. [Name] blinks, once, twice. Before letting out an adorable yawn.

Letting out an annoyed sigh, Ratio spoke up, his voice laced with sarcasm. "I assume you've had a nice nap."

"Oh I did! It was sooo nice~" [Name] took the chance to tease the other as he hugged Ratio's arm closer to his chest with a huge grin plastered on his face. The doctor huffs as he begins trying to shake the other's hold on his arm. "Then get off of me, you damn dog. My arm is tired."

[Name] chuckles in response as he tightens his grip. He hums softly and rests his cheek on Ratio's shoulder, looking at him with big puppy eyes. Trying to act all cute and adorable. "But if your arm's tired, why didn't you just shoved me? You could have done that earlier, right doctor?"

This caught him off guard for a few moments. What is he supposed to say to that? [Name] let out a gasp upon seeing his hesitation. "Don't tell me that you actually enjoy it! Aw~ Ratio you could have just said so! I could have been your cuddle buddy from the start!"

"Cuddle buddy!? How absurd! You dare think that I—Dr. Veritas Ratio. Would ever need such things!? Especially from you?!"

"But your face is red~ I'm right aren't I~?"

"?!"

[alllsunday]

A few thoughts on how Portgas D. Ace is the epitome of the Tragic Hero. For one, his entire life was a tragedy.

“A tragic hero is the protagonist of a tragic story or drama, in which, despite their virtuous and sympathetic traits and ambitions, they ultimately meet defeat, suffering, or even an untimely end. They are often imperfect or wounded with some sort of fraught experience, and typically have some sort of fatal flaw.”

He fits the criteria :

1.) “High status/noble”

Ace is the sole heir of the notorious Pirate King and the only known female Will of D carrier. Yes, he’s not a noble, but he is obviously a high status pirate and a person with the “noble” qualities Aristotle was talking about even if he wasn’t literally one. Honourable, generous, polite.

2.) “Flawed”

The fatal flaw (hamartia) that brings about the hero’s downfall, destruction caused by their own hands. In Ace’s case … well, if I had to narrow it down, I’d say wrath, arrogance, and never backing down were the most key to his downfall, but the title of #1 has to go to his hubris (excessive arrogance/pride). It was because of this he went to Wano to challenge Kaido, the monster not even Oden could slay. Izou himself pointed out Ace’s arrogance. It was because of this he challenged Whitebeard, went after Teach, and ultimately ended in tragedy. Ace had been the strongest almost his entire life, losing was.. new. It doesn’t matter, cause everytime Ace is in a situation where he fucks up he always gets himself out of it, and when it comes to fighting as a whole, strength is his one constant. Even in the face of Teach’s power, he underestimated him, thinking that he’d win, which brings me to my next point :

3.) “A reversal of fortune”

“The character should suffer a terrible reversal of fortune, from good to bad. Such a reversal does not merely mean a loss of money or status. It means that the work should end with the character dead or in immense suffering, and to a degree that outweighs what it seems like the character deserved.”

Ace was a traumatised and heavily wounded character who spent his childhood suffering. It was not quite a childhood. As an older teenager, he was tearing up the world of piracy (the first pirate of the new generation, super rookie, all at an insanely fast rate, even much moreso than Luffy) before joining Whitebeard and settling down. Though not eradicated, his internal struggles cooled down slightly. Maybe by the time he was a fully wisened man and not a boy fresh out of his teenage years, he could have been on the road to healing - but his belief that he could obviously beat Teach, his subordinate, was the catalyst for the events that were to come.

It was seemingly going alright - Ace had fit in, made friends, had the family he had so needed.

That flipped over almost instantly, and ended in his painfully premature death. During the fight, Ace realised he’d been overconfident. But this time he couldn’t back it up. Teach had won.

On his deathbed, Ace finally realised that he wanted to live. Death was the thing he’d wondered about for his entire life, and now that he was actually on the brink of it - he had changed his mind. After 20 years, he genuinely wanted to keep going for the first time. Yet it was snatched away from him.

To add insult to injury, Sabo’s death, one of Ace’s many traumatic experiences, ended up being a misunderstanding. Sabo was alive and didn’t remember him… until he had died.

[babytarttdoodoo]

The team somehow find out about what Jamie’s dad did in Amsterdam and are horrified/furious.

I’m skipping ahead to write this one because it won’t leave my brain alone. I apologise to all readers for the pain this is about to inflict.

If it makes you feel better, I am not okay after writing it.

It will also be in multiple parts since I really feel like the Reveal and the Reaction are things that need separate room to breathe.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 (pending)

(Prompt Fill Masterpost)

—

It came down to the timing, really.

Every locker room Jamie had ever been in had worked its way around to this topic sooner or later. Especially in the Academy, where the typical teenaged obsession with ‘who had done it’ reigned supreme.

Jamie had never had a problem with it. He’d shrugged or laughed or lied and no one ever called him out. He was Jamie Fucking Tartt, after all.

He’d never had to breathe a word about Amsterdam.

Telling Roy had been a spur of the moment decision, and one that hadn’t really bothered him at the time. It hadn’t fundamentally altered their friendship or made Roy tiptoe around him (thank fuck).

But his reaction - Jesus. Must have been traumatising. - had played on Jamie’s mind. So much so that when his talks with Dr Sharon had broached the subject of ‘intimacy’, he thought it was probably worth bringing up.

Yeah. That conversation had gone a bit differently.

And now, here Jamie was, two days into processing his freshly unpacked trauma and his teammates were cheerfully regaling each other with stories about losing their virginity.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

“It was my last night before flying out here.” Sam was telling the group, a sweet, bashful smile on his face.

“Didn’t know you’d had a girlfriend back home.” Isaac chimed in.

“We had already decided to break up, instead of doing the whole long-distance thing,” Sam explained. “It was a nice way to say goodbye, though.”

There was a general sound of agreement and Richard took the opportunity to launch into a questionable story about charming a runway model at the ripe age of 17.

Jamie just continued getting changed in silence, letting the voices wash over him and trying not to let the sudden nausea show on his face. Removing his jersey felt like a Herculean task when all he wanted to do was get the fuck out of here.

Sam’s experience sounded like something out of one of Ted’s rom-coms. That was good. That’s what someone as nice as Sam deserved.

What had Jamie deserved, then?

He quickly cut off that line of thought. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to think about it. Not here. Not now.

It was like trying to cover up an open wound when everyone else had a morbid impulse to poke at it.

A ripple of laughter pulled him back to the room and set his teeth on edge. He pulled a fresh shirt over his head and tried to breathe through the swelling, pulsating anger and shame that threatened to surface.

It was utter bullshit. He hadn’t thought about what had happened with anything more than vague disgust and detachment for years. A whole decade, even. Fuck Dr Sharon and Roy and all these giggling idiots for changing that.

“Oi, you’ve gone quiet, Jamie.”

A few curious eyes turned in his direction and the only thing that stopped him from shrinking away was years of playing at being untouchable.

Instead, Jamie scoffed and plastered on a smile, hiding his fists in his clothes and digging his nails as deep into his palms as they would go. “Eh, a gentleman never tells, mate.”

But he had hesitated a second too long and he saw the potential for mischief light up in a few faces. They knew him too well, he realised, the knowledge churning in his gut.

He wasn’t Jamie Fucking Tartt here. He was just Jamie.

“You are not a gentleman.” Richard stated bluntly, eyebrows raised and a grin playing at the corners of his mouth.

“That is true.” Jan agreed, because of course he fucking did. “You have bragged many times about being with women.”

“What happened, amigo?” It wasn’t fucking fair that Dani sounded so genuinely interested.

“Maybe she didn’t like his pink pants.” Isaac threw in and it drew another round of laughter. The noise echoed in Jamie’s head.

He knew, he knew they were just teasing because they didn’t know better. They were being dickheads because they were always kind of dickheads to each other. It was banter. On any other day it would be fine.

His neon underwear had nearly caused a riot the week before and it had been hilarious.

Why couldn’t he just act like it was funny now?

“It’s none of your fucking business.” he finally managed, not quite keeping the harsh edge out of his tone. He turned away and pretended to be looking for something in his bag so he wouldn’t have to meet anyone’s eyes.

“C’mon, mate, can’t be more embarrassing than mine.” Colin added easily, utterly comfortable with the conversation, in spite of all the implications it had for him specifically. Jamie really fucking admired that.

He was ridiculously, fiercely envious of it.

“Guys, he doesn’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t want to.” Sam admonished lightly. He was offering him a liferaft and it rankled at Jamie in all the wrong ways.

He didn’t need fucking saving. He wasn’t some soft, delicate little thing that needed Sam Obisanya of all people rushing to his rescue.

Suddenly, he was speaking without having made any conscious decision to do so.

“14.” Jamie’s voice was too loud, too sharp in this safe space that on any other day felt like home. But his fingers were clenching and unclenching, and his shoulders were coiled tight, and there was a rushing in his ears.

The vitriol pooled like acid on his tongue and Jamie couldn’t help but spew it out before it began to eat him away.

“I were 14.” He smirked and it felt wrong. It felt cruel and bitter. He rounded on Colin and relished in the flicker of unease that crossed his face. “No fucking idea how old she were but I can tell you how much my dad paid for her to fuck me straight.”

The silence should have been oppressive, he thought distantly. The way the air stilled should have made it hard to breathe. The colour leaching from not just Colin’s face, but Jan’s and Richard’s on either side, should have been concerning.

It just felt freeing, in a twisted, emptying sort of way.

“Jamie-”

“No! No, it’s alright!” Jamie turned wild eyes and a manic grin on Sam, finding it abstractly funny that the younger player took a step back. “You wanted details, right?”

He shrugged, looking around at the slack faces of his teammates. He’d moved forward, he realised, making himself the centre of attention. Typical.

“Tell you what, yeah? Next time we’re in Amsterdam, I’ll take you all on a little tour. Don’t remember her name but I’m pretty sure I could find the place again, no problem.”

And he probably could. He remembered his dad talking to some bloke smoking in a doorway while Jamie stood in the rain, confused. He remembered loud people and neon lights all around. He remembered how the place had smelled when he’d been pulled inside…

Someone else was saying his name now. He didn’t care. He just got louder.

“You wanted a show, didn’t you Thierry? We could put on a repeat performance. Play-by-play reenactment, ‘cept you’ve got to think I can do better now, right? Better with age and all that.”

Arms closed around him from behind and whatever vile shit he was about to spray out into the atmosphere died in his throat. Jamie’s entire body bucked, trying to break away.

“Fuck off!”

It didn’t sound like his voice, a screeching snarl that cracked partway through.

“Jamie.” Roy’s voice in his ear. Roy’s arms around his chest. “Jamie. Stop. Don’t make it worse.”

And what response was there to that except to laugh? Fucking hilarious, that one. Too little too fucking late.

Jamie only registered that he was being half pulled, half carried out of the locker room when the laughter started to hitch in his chest. When the air wasn’t coming like it was supposed to. When Roy manhandled him into an office chair and the tears started in earnest.

All the fight went out of him like a marionette with its strings cut and he just cried.

(TBC)

[floodwarning]

i have been overthinking about death

tw??

specifically feeling shame when it comes to young girls.

i was in positions where it should've been me. and then i think if i would've gotten any jsutice. i feel like if something terrible happened to little me, the town would talk about how i did it to myself. or that i deserved it.

there was this girl (well call her Mia) that i met in a group of friends in 2017. she was with a good friend of mine, a sketchy guy and another girl ill call liz.

weeks after "meeting" her, my good friend tells me that mia and liz had been spreading rumors about me and gossiped about typical teenage girl drama. Confused that i never met these girls, but i knew i was already doomed for female friendships.

fast forward to august, i am acting out and behaving poorly. 16 year old me gets into a 2 door with two 19 year olds that loved to flex their fast cars & booze. after praying in the backseat we got back to their apartment where they drunkenly fought over who was going to attempt to have. s3x with me. i tricked the dumb one and snuck off at 5 am when everyone was sleeping.

a week later i get a call from someone that one of the 19 year olds crashed & killed a 17 year old girl at 6 am. it was mia.

i felt detached. i felt really emotionally numb and guilty. thinking that it could've been me, but now feeling so much guilt for a girl that dented my reputation. for a while i had hoped that i switched her places. she was older than me, almost graduating. i was young and disobeying my father, barley passing the 10th grade.

i went to her funeral. i seen her swollen lifeless body. she was buried in her prom dress. her brother was standing stiff with nothing behind his eyes. for a moment i felt his pain.

the sketchy guy who i had mentioned, we can call him J.

J was the cutest. He was tall, had fitting tattoos, and all of the girls here thought he was so handsome. That night i met liz & mia, he taught my bestfriend and i how to smoke a cigarette. Bad older boy with a car?! Yes!

My bestfriend and i smoked weed for the first time one day, and we were stoned for literal hours. We begged J to take us home. On our way home, we realized he missed a turn. And he dropped us off at the mall ( at closing time) and left us there.

I didn't know why I couldn't swoon J. Just like me already!!! It makes me laugh thinking back on it. But also slightly upset.

I was at a halloween party, when i noticed J looking bored. I asked him to hit up another party & he agreed. On our way he asked if I just wanted to crash at his place since he had a long day. I agreed.

We went back to his house & he had given me a hoodie and boxers. I felt safe. I told him that i was shy, and a virgin and that i take it slow. We laid listening to a movie, making out. we fell asleep. i said goodbye to his mother leaving his house in the morning & she complimented my crocs. she called me pretty.

That night i had so much adrenaline. I kept checking my phone. I received a dm from 3 or 4 people and my heart sank.

J is telling people that i r*ped him in his truck. that was my first ever panic attack. I couldnt even kiss a boy first, let alone have sx with him without his consent? long story short, that was devastating and i never thought everyone would believe his word over mine.

I bring J up also because, well, a few months later he also passed away in a horrific accident. and here i am, feeling guilty, again.

with my ocd, i can start believing false memory. to hear rumors about myself over and over is so difficult because i will start to question my own reality. I fought with that, and what J said about me, for a long long time.

i wish i knew a word other than guilty. i really do. i think about these poeple who i was not close with, but i shared some really traumatic experiences with. both of which, unfortunately, made my life a living hell. am i to blame to say i felt a slight relief? do i try to validate that feeling by saying "well i do feel an urge to beg whatever higher power out there to switch me places with them" . both thoughts make me feel terrible.

after all of these pillow thoughts you may say. damn bitch you need therapy. well, luckily its going 3 years strong. i think i need to dig deeper though. I am working on family based trauma, but without opening up these deep voids of tramatic experiences i got myself into ( with the help of neglectful parents i suppose) i dont think i can get to the deep rooted family issue without processing what all happened to me as a vulnerable girl growing up amongst other boys and girls.

[phoenixyfriend]

Auntie ‘Soka and Little Leia (and Rex)

The counterpart to Uncle Ben and Little Luke (Original Post, Chrono)

Listen. You all knew this was coming.

This got... very long and detailed and I’m going to have to clean it up and post to AO3. As in, this was supposed to be 2-3k and is literally ten times that long. It crossed 25k. And the initial section actually glosses over a bunch, actual fic-style writing starts at “That, of course, is when things get interesting.”

Warnings: discussion of various canon traumas (most relating to being child soldiers), general PTSD, several scenes featuring dissociation or panic attacks upon being triggered, and canon-typical violence.

Rated T, gen.

I still want there to be de-aging nonsense involved so Ahsoka is physically a late teenager despite having a solid two decades of field experience behind her (we’re pulling her from Malachor).

Leia, much like Luke, is now six. She just came from being a rebellion general. She is not happy about being a child. She was already short, this is just mean.  She’s a human espresso.

UNLIKE BEN, Ahsoka is not happy about this turn of events. Being seventeen-ish is not helpful in the outer rim. She’s a female togruta, young and healthy, and in the Outer Rim, caring for a small human child. Sure, she has her lightsabers and plenty of combat experience, and she can keep them safe, but she’s just one person, and a major target for those looking to make some quick cash. It doesn’t matter how good she is; she needs sleep at some point.

It makes my heart happy to treat Ahsoka and Rex as two halves of the same black ops specialist so you know what, he’s there too! He’s physically like... 10-12 in natborn, maybe. They’re not sure, because clones age weird. He’s moderately more useful than Leia (who is very competent but also physically six, and short for that age), but he’s still... very small.

Reminder that none of them have been born yet.

Ahsoka has a harder time explaining WHY she has children with her, since she's barely more than a kid herself, and clearly unrelated by species. She sometimes just says “Oh, my adoptive brother’s kids” since it’s kind of the truth for Leia and she’s not touching the actual truth about Rex with a ten foot pole.

Ahsoka definitely knows about Leia being a Skywalker, or at least has suspicions that Bail never outright confirmed but was conspicuously quiet about. She does tell Leia about it, but it’s not like that means anything, right? Just, you know, your dad was my teacher! I don’t have to tell you he became Va--oh shit, you already knew that part. Well, fuck. What do you mean he had a son? OH SHIT, PADME HAD TWINS.

Alt take for explaining why she’s got kids: She’s my foundling, I know her name as my child (Leia shut up!!!)

(Ahsoka can fake Mandalore. Sometimes.)

That said, there is... significantly less gambling and significantly more theft to get to Coruscant.

As previously stated, Ahsoka is a black ops kinda gal, and more importantly, she looks like a fairly attractive young woman in the Outer Rim, with two children in good health. She’s a target, and also not the kind of person one generally gambles with. If she does gamble, people get upset when she doesn’t lose, in ways they don’t get upset about Ben doing the same, because she’s, again, a cute teenage girl. It’s exhausting.

As things go, she largely ends up stealing from people who deserve it and/or smuggling herself and her charges into someone else’s ship. They’re small, they can hide. Sometimes she can get them all passage by working as a mechanic, she’s good at that.

Once they’ve got a handle on when they are, they have to decide on Names. None of them have been born yet, so technically they could use their own names without anyone Knowing. Rex and Leia might not even be born, depending on how successful they are at, you know, stopping the war and everything. Ahsoka, though, she’s going be born in two years, and there’s no reason to prevent it, so... she doesn’t want to steal baby-her’s name. That would be mean.

Leia is already calling her “Auntie ‘Soka” when she can for reasons like “selling the bit” and “manipulating adults” and “making us both feel better after we had a mutual breakdown about Anakin being Vader.” Ergo, she decides that whatever new name she picks better include that in some way, and decides on “Sokari” because it sounds pretty.

Overall, they don’t... they don’t actually make it very far before there’s an Incident. Again, teenager with small children. They spend a lot of time hiding out in space ports looking for an opportunity.

That, of course, is when things get interesting.

Specifically, Ahsoka spots a Mandalorian.

She doesn’t recognize the armor. She does recognize the sigil, and thinks ‘well, they’re more likely to help than some,’ because from what she’s heard, the Haat Mando’ade are Decent People Overall. Her view is a little biased, mostly on account of the sheer level of grudge she has against Kyr’tsad. It’s fine! The True Mandalorians have the same grudge, right? And Mandalorians like kids and Ahsoka hasn’t slept in five days and it’s fine. It’s fine! IT’S FINE.

“Oh shit,” Rex whispers, before she can suggest anything. “Oh fuck.”

“Stop cursing,” Leia hisses, elbowing him. “People are going to notice.”

“That’s the Prime,” Rex panics, mostly quiet. Ahsoka’s heart drops, because fuck is right. “That’s Fett.”

Leia isn’t impressed. Ahsoka just angles herself between Fett and Rex and hopes that he doesn’t see them. That’s just asking for trouble.

Unfortunately, Ahsoka is in fact running on none sleep with left trauma, and doesn’t notice Fett walking up and dropping into a seat across from them until he’s actually done so, removing his helmet to glare a little more efficiently.

“Wanna explain why your kid has my face?”

Ahsoka later tells herself that he’s killed Jedi and that’s why he can sneak up on her, and that she can be forgiven some slip-ups with the exhaustion being what it is, and that she’s obviously going to be dealing with some emotional instability in light of the sudden return of teenage hormones and new forms of anxiety that are markedly different from those she was dealing with a few weeks ago.

What Ahsoka wants to say is “that’s kind of a long story,” or “maybe he’s a cousin,” or “kriff off, I don’t know you,” or maybe even “he’s a clone.”

What Ahsoka actually does is burst into tears, which is embarrassing for her, for Fett, for the kids, and for the entire rest of the bar.

It really is the straw that broke the eopie’s back. Even when she was actually this age, she didn’t exactly cry much. Objectively, Fett quasi-aggressively asking a valid question shouldn’t send her into a panic. She’s been through torture and worse. She shouldn’t be crying.

But she is, sobbing her eyes out with no control, and he’s just sitting across from her and looking uncomfortable while Rex wraps his little arms--oh Force he’s so small--around her, and both ‘children’ glare at Fett.

“So, I’m going to take it she didn’t kidnap you from a loving family or do something illicit with a blood sample,” Fett says, after it becomes obvious that Ahsoka’s not going to be ready to talk any time soon.

“She didn’t,” Rex says stiffly, with just the right emphasis for Fett to catch what’s implied. Ahsoka just keeps her head down, eyes pressed against the heels of her palms, trying to get her body to stop rebelling against her.

Fett’s eyes dart to Leia, who folds her arms and draws herself up, every bit the unimpressed princess. “My father claimed her as a sister, so she’s my Auntie ‘Soka.”

The man dithers a bit, the conversation clearly not going where he’d expected. “Right,” he says. “You--you’re all kids. I thought she was a little older, at least, but I didn’t have a good look at her face before.”

She is older, but actually admitting that is only going to make this worse, both for her pride and for her chances of making it out alive.

“Where are you staying?”

“What?” Leia bites out.

“You’re kids, you’re alone, and you’re clearly not okay if you were trying to hide the one with my face as blatantly as you did, and then... whatever this is, when I confronted you,” Fett explains. Ahsoka lifts her head to glare at him, but it’s probably not doing much with the way her eyes are rimmed with red and still wet. “Don’t give me that look, ad’ika, your kids looked as confused and horrified by that as the bartender did. They obviously didn’t think it was normal either.”

Well, kriff you too, Ahsoka thinks.

“And what do you mean by ‘blatantly,’ here?” Leia challenges. It’s adorable, but Ahsoka watched this tiny girl shoot a man last week, and wonders when people are going to start taking that seriously.

“There’s a lot of people in this galaxy, and I don’t exactly have the clearest memory of what I looked like at that age,” Fett says, slow and careful like he thinks they’re dumb. Ahsoka decides to chalk it up as being because Leia’s visibly six. “I would have thought it was just a coincidence if you hadn’t put in effort to hide him.”

Leia huffs, and Rex glares harder. Fett just sighs, like they’re all going to give him grey hairs.

“You can explain whatever the hell’s going on,” Fett says. “I’ll let you stay on my ship, there’s a spare bunk and you’re small.”

“For free?” Rex demands.

“A night on a bunk in exchange for information,” Fett clarifies. “We can negotiate from there.”

Ahsoka takes a few moments, notes that both of the others are waiting on her for the decision, and cringes. She doesn’t feel steady enough to carry that. She has to anyway.

“Rex?” she asks, voice rasping after the breakdown of the past few minutes.

“Yeah?”

“How much?”

He looks up at her, eyes calculating, and grimaces. “We don’t want Order 66. A warning is better, even if we... share information.”

She nods, and turns to Leia. “Any premonitions, princess?”

Leia glowers, cute and furious. “No.”

“No, don’t tell, or no, you aren’t getting any vibes about sharing info one way or the other?”

“The latter,” Leia clarifies, huffy to the last.

“Right,” Ahsoka says, and then just... hesitates. “Fett...”

“You’ve got conditions,” he guesses.

She bares her teeth in what could have, through a squint and perhaps a few drinks, been called an apologetic smile. “Just one, really.”

“Yeah?”

“No hurting, killing, or turning us in for bounties,” she says. “Any of us.”

“You’re children, I wouldn’t.”

She blinks at him, slow and careful. She hesitates. She reaches down, out of sight, sees him stiffen.

She unclips her sabers from her belt and puts them on the table.

His eyes are fixed on the weapons the second they enter his line of sight, and don’t move as he clearly realizes why she made the condition she did.

“I left years ago, because I couldn’t stay without it ruining me,” she says. Still slow. Still careful. She’s so tired. “But if I want to keep Leia safe, I have to get back to Coruscant.”

His eyes finally lift from the sabers, expression blank. “Just her?”

“Rex doesn’t have the same monsters coming after him,” she says. “If it were just me and him, I’d worry less. Leia’s a different kind of target.”

“You’re putting a lot of faith on the table by telling me that,” Fett says, voice flat and toneless. “Considering my occupation.”

“She’s a child,” Ahsoka says, feeling heavy and boneless. “Even with what I was and will be, even with what money you would get from the right buyer, you wouldn’t.”

“There are other risks.”

“There are.”

They stare at each other for too long, probably, and then Fett jerks as Rex kicks him under the table. The boys glare for a moment, and then Rex says, “If she weren’t good, I’d still be a slave to those who grew me.”

Fett blinks, and then nearly growls the word, “What?”

“She freed me,” Rex reiterates. “While I was trying to shoot her.”

Ahsoka lifts a hand and puts it on his far shoulder, pulling him into her side. She doesn’t meet Fett’s eyes again, because part of her is back on Mandalore, dodging her own soldiers and crying out as her family dies across the galaxy.

Fett breathes in. Breathes out. He puts a hand to his head, visibly frustrated. “Fine. A good Jedi kid, and two smaller kids, one of which is apparently in some way mine.”

Rex makes a face, which is fair, but also not helping.

“To the ship,” Ahsoka says, putting her sabers back on her belt and sliding out of the seat. “I’m... I’m Sokari.”

“You already know my name.”

“I do.”

---------------------------

Fett watches her like she’s a predator, which has the benefit of being accurate and slightly flattering. She lets other two take care of most of talking, and then Fett tells her to sleep first, and talk in the morning.

“You’re dead on your feet, jetii,” he snorts. “And that crying jag didn’t do you any favors. Sleep.”

So she does, and Fett doesn’t even wake her. He just lets her sleep. He watches her in the way of a guard. She sees him when she gets up to use the ‘fresher in the middle of the night, but he doesn’t even comment when she collapses right back into the mediocre cot she’s borrowed for the cycle.

Rex and Leia are safe, her hindbrain tells her, even in the depths of sleep. Her mind curls around theirs in the Force, and she trusts that they are here. They are not happy, but they are alive and unharmed, and that has to be enough.

When she stumbles her way to true wakefulness, groggy and loose-limbed, Fett greets her with caf.

“The kids wouldn’t let me near you,” he tells her.

“They’re good,” she says, cupping her hands around the mug. She feels wobbly, in every sense. Her body, her mind, her emotions, her connection to the Force. Nothing is on-kilter right now. “Did they tell you anything?”

“They waited for you,” he says. “But the little miss needed a nap of her own. They’re down in the other bunk.”

“I didn’t notice,” she admits. She should have. She’s Fulcrum. She’s a veteran of the Clone Wars. She’s... she’s supposed to be better than this.

“How long?” he asks, and then when she squints up at him, he clarifies. “How long did you fight?”

“My last fight--”

“No, whatever war you came out of,” he says. Her chest twists cold. “I don’t know if the Jedi sent you into it or if you waded in yourself once you left, but you move like a soldier.”

“I was,” she confirms. “But... but I don’t want to talk about the details. Not until the other two are here.”

He frowns at her. “Is there anything you can talk about?”

She shrugs and looks away, trying to take solace in the warmth of the caff she holds above the table, as if it can hide her, guard her, from the disgraced Mand’alor across the table.

“Jedi?”

“I’m not officially a Jedi,” she says, voice quiet. “Not anymore.”

“Then what do I call you?” he asks. “We’re not exactly close enough for names.”

“Torrent,” she says. “It’s not--I can’t claim my family name anymore. But I can claim Torrent, so I will. And if you want a title, I was a commander.”

“Bit young for that.”

“I got the rank when I was fourteen,” she says, and watches his face do something complicated and unpleasant. “Don’t. I know your own culture puts children on the field that young.”

“Not in command.”

She shrugs. “Yeah, well... the soldiers were technically younger. Adults, but...”

Ahsoka can see the way he casts about to figure out what species grows at that rate. He guesses a few, and she shoots all of it down.

She won’t tell him. Not until Rex is awake.

This part of the story is his.

--------------------------

When Leia tries to sit alone, a foot away on the bench like a proper adult, Ahsoka refuses to let it happen. She pulls the younger girl to her side and quells protests with a glance. It’s a decent skill, but she’s not sure how long it’s going to work on her niece-in-spirit.

“Your body needs the chemical release of skinship,” she says, and Leia glares at her. “I spent way too much time with the boys to not know about this. Deal.”

Rex sits close enough to knock their knees together under the table, and his warmth is the old comfort she needs.

“Do you want the story you’ll believe, or the truth?” Ahsoka asks.

“What’s the difference?”

“One of them involves something so impossible that even most Jedi wouldn’t believe it,” she tells him.

Fett folds his arms and leans forward to rest them on the table, challenging but oddly open. “Try me.”

“Time travel.”

He blinks, just once, fully controlled. “That’s a tough one.”

“There were only three Jedi left alive when I died,” she says. “Or... whatever it is that happened to me. I think I died. All I know is that one moment, I was thirty-two and dying, and the next, I was... seventeen again, and had these two with me. All of us younger than we were. None of us have even been born yet.”

She refuses to look him in the eye. “They both outlived me by... six years, maybe. Got caught up while traveling instead of dying. Leia was twenty-two. Rex was thirty-five. I’m not technically the oldest anymore. I mean, physically I am, but that doesn’t mean anything, and it’s not exactly doing us any good, and--”

Rex bumps his shoulder to her arm. “I dunno, Commander. I’ve spent a long time looking older than I should. Nice to look younger for once.”

She shoots him a small, pained grin. “Could be worse, yeah.”

“Let’s say I believe you.”

Her attention snaps back to Fett, who’s looking damnably blank, and is showing even less in the Force.

He waits a second for her to relax back into her seat.

“Let’s say I believe you,” he repeats. “How’s ‘Rex’ connected to me? What’s so special about Leia there? And what war did you fight in that has you acting like a veteran?”

“Three years in the clone wars,” she whispers, glancing to Rex and forcing herself to not go for her sabers to defend against an attack that her paranoia says is coming and the Force says is not. “Then almost all the Jedi were wiped out at once, and I spent a year... drifting. Then black ops for the next fifteen.”

“Black ops,” he repeats, still damnably flat.

“There was a Sith Empire,” she says, and she can hear her own tone growing somehow emptier. “Glassing planets. Enslaving entire species. Committing genocides all over. Of course, there was a rebellion, and of course I joined it. I was one of the only people left with Jedi training. For all that I’d left the Order, I still had a duty to the universe.”

His eyes flit to Leia, who shrugs and tries to look prim. “I was adopted and raised by one of the founders of the rebellion, a movement built on the desire to instate freedom and democracy in a galaxy that had lost even the pretense.”

“That why you’re special?”

Leia smiles, thin and patronizing. It doesn’t fit on her little face. “I’m special because my biological father was one of the most powerful Force users in history, and his Fall to the dark side and choice to become a Sith is why the Emperor’s rise was nearly uncontested. I do not like power, but it’s in my veins and I can’t change that. Force users are... a lucrative trade, and I’m still the size of a child, so I can’t fight back. I’ll be safer in the Jedi Temple, even if I don’t want to be a Jedi.”

Fett looks to Ahsoka, makes to ask a question, and then shakes his head. Not the time, maybe.

“So, that’s all... very complicated and I don’t know how much of it I believe, but it doesn’t explain...” he trails off, and sighs. “My kid, or whatever you are. I heard you mention clones.”

Rex grins. It is not a kind expression.

“Let me tell you about Kamino.”

---------------------------

Ahsoka has no idea if Fett believes them. Either he thinks they’re telling the truth, or he thinks their delusional kids. Whatever the case, he offers to take them closer to the Core. Ahsoka quietly offers to take a look at his engine in return, and then pretends not to notice when Fett awkwardly drifts to and away from Rex.

“They put chips in our brains to make us kill the Jedi we respected, cared for, even loved. I tried to shoot ‘Soka, Fett. She was seventeen and risked her life to get that chip out of my head while I was trying to kill her. I have never hated myself more than when I woke up and realized what I’d almost done, and I was one of the few that were able to fight it. I heard the stories of dozens of brothers who woke with their chips having degraded and chose to eat their blaster rather than live with the guilt of the orders they’d followed without question because of a thrice-damned Sith slave chip in their head.”

“So no, I won’t call you father or acknowledge you as clan until you do something to prove you’re worth it, shared blood or not.”

What Ahsoka does get out of the arrangement, for all that Fett’s route mostly takes them on a meandering path that isn’t faster than their previous system, is sleep. She gets to rest. She gets to trust that Fett won’t kill Rex, out of guilt for something he hasn’t done, that he won’t kill Leia out of a worry that she’s just a delusional child, a real child, that he won’t kill ‘Sokari’ because it would ruin any chance of gaining Rex’s favor, ever.

She’s not safe, won’t believe she can be until she’s in the Temple and Sidious is dead dead dead, but she’s safer than she’s been in a long time.

Every night, Ahsoka wakes up and stumbles to the little galley, deaths and torture sparkling behind her eyes with the energy of a thousand lost Jedi, ten thousand mourned brothers and sisters.

She is not the only one of their little group to be a survivor of a near-total genocide, but Rex could not feel his brothers die in the Force, even if his nightmares featured what they heard of suicide missions by the emperor’s favored shock troopers, and Leia had... Alderaan had more off-world survivors than there had been Jedi at all.

It’s not worth comparing their pain. It’s stupid to even think it. Part of her can’t help but do it anyway.

“Caf?”

She feels a lek twitch in response to the voice of the only other person on board who can reach the top shelf. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“Whiskey?”

“That’s a definitely shouldn’t.”

“Hoth chocolate?”

“...please.”

She doesn’t lift her head from her arms until the mug clicks down in front of her, ceramic on plastisteel.

“Do I ask what it was this time?”

She shrugs. “It’s hard to explain to non-sensitives.”

“Try me anyway.”

Ahsoka twists the Hoth chocolate in her hands, takes a sip as she thinks. “The Force isn’t just one thing. It’s... energy and philosophy and spirit, a sense of being that ties the entire universe together. Sentient and inanimate and living and dead, empty space and lush forests and stifled cities. For those of us who are sensitive to it, it’s possible to feel the life of everyone around you, theoretically possible to feel entire systems. If you have a Force bond, like a master and padawan, that can stretch across planets, even systems if one or both are particularly powerful.

“So just... just imagine, for a moment, what it’s like to feel the screaming of all those Jedi in the Force as their trusted men shot them down.

“Some of them were close enough that I could feel them die,” she manages. “I... it’s horrible. It’s horrific. It’s not something I can ever forget, and I want to. I want to forget what that moment was like. Not that it happened, but...”

She can feel the tears. Fuck..

“You want to dull the edges.”

“Don’t we all?” she asks, scrubbing the back of her hand across her eyes. “Leia lost her entire planet, billions of people, and she was forced to watch. Rex... Force, I can barely imagine, and I was there for most of it.”

Fett watches her, measuring. “From what he said, they were as much your brothers as his, by the end.”

“No,” she immediately denies. “They could have been, maybe, but the ones I was closest to died earlier, and then I left, and by the time the Empire rose, all but a handful were... no. Rex, I will claim as a brother in all the ways that matter, but I don’t get to do that with the rest. I don’t have the right.”

“You’re hard on yourself.”

“Fate of the galaxy, my good bitch. Guess who’s got it on her shoulders.”

He snorts at her, and nods at the mug. “Drink your Hoth chocolate. We’re landing in eight hours, and you’ve got kids to look out for.”

---------------------------

There’s a twitch in the Force when they land, something pulling at her in a way she barely feels. She’s had her shields up so fully for so long that it’s natural to hide away what she is to the point where she can hardly tell what anyone else is, either. It takes more than a moment to remember how to let herself spread out across the world.

“Auntie ‘Soka? Why’d you stop?”

She doesn’t have an answer to Leia’s prodding question. “I don’t know.”

It’s almost familiar. Old and half-forgotten, not the same as what she remembers, but--

“This way,” she says, and wanders off into the crowd. Leia and Rex follow without question. Fett curses and rushes through the rest of his transaction with the docking attendant. The sound of him jogging after them is almost funny, with the armor, but she can’t focus on that.

Ahsoka slips between people with the ease of a career built on such a habit, children trailing like ducklings. She knows this feeling, she knows this person, what is she missi--

“Oh,” she breathes, going stock still. She knows that face. She knows those braids. She even knows the presence.

Younger than Ahsoka had ever seen her, but unmistakably Master Billaba.

“Torrent, what the hell?” Fett demands, finally catching up. “You can’t just run off like that!”

“It’s Depa,” she says, eyes still fixed on the woman parsing through a datapad with an irritated vendor. She has a padawan braid. It doesn’t feel like Master Windu is on-planet, so this might be a solo mission, a... oh. Senior Padawan, Knight Elect. This is the kind of mission taken to test if she’s ready to be promoted.

Ahsoka feels light-headed.

Fett waits for her to elaborate, but she can’t. This was Kanan’s master. This was a member of the High Council. This was a woman who died and--

“You need to sit down,” Fett says, not a touch gruff. He puts a hand on her shoulder and guides her off the main walkway. “I’m... going to talk to the woman in the Jedi robes. You three just stay there and don’t get kidnapped.”

Ahsoka nods, feeling like she’s not quite inhabiting her own body.

It’s Depa.

Her eyes track Fett without conscious control, and her montrals pick up the sound.

Depa looks up when the armor comes close enough, free hand tensed in a way that says she’s preventing herself from reaching for a saber in reaction to the heavily-armored individual standing several feet away.

“Mando,” the woman says. “May I help you?”

“Are you Depa?”

Depa doesn’t do anything so dramatic as gape or step back, but she does blink rapidly for a moment. She then folds her hands down in front of her, drawing her spine up ramrod straight. “I am Jedi Padawan Depa Billaba, yes. May I ask why it is that you need to know?”

Ahsoka imagines Fett grimacing, or rolling his eyes, or maybe dithering. She can’t tell from this angle, and he has a helmet on besides. It turns his awkward silences into judgmental ones.

“I’ve had some Jedi kids on my ship, hitching a ride,” he says at length. “One of them recognized you and then just... froze.”

“You have our younglings in your care,” Depa says, carefully not accusatory, but close enough to be a warning.

“Not quite,” he says. “The one that actually came from the temple is seventeen. One of ‘em isn’t Force Sensitive, and the last one is but hasn’t been to Coruscant before. They’re trying to get the little one to the Temple for her own safety.”

Depa considers that, and then passes the datapad to the vendor. “Lead on.”

It’s surprisingly simple, really. Fett did all the talking.

And then Depa is standing right in front of her.

“Like I said,” Fett sighs. “She froze up.”

“Hello,” Depa says, hands laced together inside her sleeves. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Ahsoka shakes her head. “I know of you. I’ve seen you spar. You’ve never spoken to me.”

All true. A little misleading, but it’s fine, it’s all fine.

Depa waits a moment, and then says, “You seem to have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“Sokari T-Torrent,” she manages. The words feel clunky in her mouth, the sound abrasive for all that it’s just her own voice, no different from usual. A little shaky, maybe. She can feel a cool breeze on her upper arms. Shouldn’t she have armor? She should have armor. “It... it’s been a long time since I’ve seen another Jedi. I’m having a hard time believing you’re real.”

“I see,” Depa says. “Perhaps we should take this somewhere more private? You seem a little unsteady.”

Ahsoka lets herself be led back to the ship, in the company of Mand’alor Jango Fett, Jedi Padawan Depa Billaba, Princess-General Leia Organa, and good old Captain Rex.

It’s like the start of a sick joke.

---------------------------

Fett and Depa talk where she can hear, but they rarely address her directly. Both seem to realize that she’s not particularly useful right now. Leia and Rex are pressing up against her at the little table in the galley, and Ahsoka lets them.

This is real. She can feel Depa in the Force, recognizes her energy even if it’s not quite what it will-was-could-have-been. This is happening.

It’s a textbook Traumatic Stress Response case, one of them says.

Fett has his helmet off. Ahsoka’s sure that’s wrong for some reason. She thinks he might already be on wanted lists. Should she worry about Depa trying to arrest him?

Depa asks about Rex at one point. Fett tells her that someone cloned him without his knowing, but the kid is more comfortable with Ahsoka so they’re still working on what that means for him.

It’s more or less true. Rex squeezes her hand the one time someone suggests separating them. She’s not letting that happen unless Rex wants to leave for whatever reason. They’ve worked apart before. They can do it again.

“Auntie Soka? You’re shivering.”

Is she?

Leia cuddles in closer, and Ahsoka runs a hand over her hair. It’s an absentminded motion, and for all that she knows Leia’s hair is fine as silk, it feels like plastic in the moment.

“I don’t think I’m okay,” Ahsoka announces. The words hang in the air like lead balloons, and she can feel Depa staring at her. “I haven’t been for a very long time.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Fett says. “Do you need to lay down, Torrent?”

Does she?

“No,” she says. “I... I don’t know what I need.”

“The spicy drink,” Rex tells them. “It’s grounding.”

Right. That.

Fett goes to grab it, and Depa continues to watch.

“How long ago did you leave your master?” Depa asks. “Or... did he die?”

Ahsoka closes her eyes and shakes her head. She can feel the shivers now, tremors in her biceps and a shudder she can’t control in the height of her ribcage. Her teeth grind together, jaw like stone.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Depa assures her. “I’m... going to recommend you see a mind healer on Coruscant.”

That was a forgone conclusion.

A cup clinks onto the table. Fett’s back. “Drink.”

She does.

Depa and Fett continue discussing it as “the adults” at the table. She’s older than both of them. Rex is older than all of them. Ahsoka follows about half of what they say. She agrees with most of it. Rex bullies his way into speaking when she doesn’t, without her even asking, because he knows her mind as well as she does. Fett rolls with it. Depa lets him.

She’s going to reach out to the Temple and see about getting them a ride back to Imperial Center Coruscant.

Fett makes Soka go to bed, taking Leia with her.

---------------------------

She feels more like a person come morning.

Depa’s sitting at the table, datapad in her hands and caff on the table in front of her.

“Good morning,” Ahsoka says, rough and croaking, and Depa’s eyes flick up to meet hers. She nods a shallow hello.

“Feeling better?”

“Much,” Ahsoka says, and goes about gathering a breakfast. There’s definitely some dried meat in here. She can get something fresh when they stop by the market later.

“I was hoping to speak with you about your options,” Depa tells her, once she’s sat at the table. “Fett and your friend Rex took care of most of the negotiation, and I feel like I have an idea of what would work best for you.”

Ahsoka nods slowly. “Okay.”

“There is a Master-Padawan pair a few planets away,” Depa says. “The Council informed me when I spoke with them about you and your wards. They’d be headed back to the Temple in a few days anyway, and the Council has agreed to extend an offer to Fett to handle the transportation. The presence of a Jedi Master on board will allow for him to get in and out of the Core unmolested, and we’d like for you and yours to have a Jedi escort, given what happened yesterday afternoon.”

Her complete spiral into nonbeing?

“I understand,” she says instead. “I suppose Fett agreed because he’s still trying to get Rex to like him?”

Depa shrugs. “That part isn’t my business.”

Of course it isn’t.

“Rex can stay with me for a while, right?” Ahsoka finally asks. “I know it’s not exactly protocol, but I’m...”

“In need of a support system until you’ve seen a mind healer, and against all odds, the child is part of it,” Depa summarizes. “Yes, I recognized as much. I think the Council will be able to allow some leeway there. I don’t know if he’ll enjoy it, given that all the others his age are Initiates, but we can adjust as necessary. On that note... Do you know Leia’s midichlorian count?”

“No,” Ahsoka says, and hesitantly adds, “But her biological father was my Jedi Master, and I’m told his count broke records even as a child. Given what Leia’s shown so far... it’s why I’ve been in a hurry to get her to the Temple.”

Depa frowns at her, clearly working through the implications of a Jedi having a daughter and still teaching... and then visibly dismisses the situation, eyes closing to breathe in the steam of her caff.

Biological father certainly implies a child that was raised by her mother or adopted out so the Jedi father could remain in their chosen career without a conflict of interest or duty.

She’ll tell the council the truth, or... at least Master Koon. Master Kenobi is still a padawan, but she can tell Master Koon.

She already told Jango Fett, of all people.

“Padawan Torrent?”

Her head snaps up. She hasn’t been a padawan in over fifteen years. It’s weird to hear. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I asked if you wanted some time to think it over before I presented the offer to Fett,” Depa says.

Ahsoka gets the distinct feeling that Depa is planning a report to the Council that has ‘needs a mind healer’ underlined at least three times.

“No, I’m--I’m fine. That sounds like a good plan.”

“I’ll speak with him, then. Would you like to come with?”

"No, thank you.”

---------------------------

Fett agrees. Ahsoka’s pretty sure it’s all to do with Rex and maybe Leia. It’s probably nothing to do with ‘Sokari.’ She’s a Jedi, an adult in mind and in body, or at least close enough to count. She’s a damn sight more ‘enemy’ to Fett than the other two are. Not as much as Depa, maybe, but Fett’s been playing nice with her for Leia’s sake.

He plays nice with Ahsoka for Rex’s. That’s all.

They’re only a few planets over from the meeting point, and they have a few days to hang around before the escort meets them. Depa hadn’t given them a name--apparently it could have compromised the opsec for the Jedi team--but Ahsoka’s pretty sure she’ll be able to identify almost anyone. She gets the feeling that the Force is going to send her a familiar face, just as it did Master Padawan Billaba.

Ahsoka lets herself feel the world around her. It’s dark and dreary, in the sense that the beaten-down port is full of petty crimes and less petty horrors, but it’s still lighter than most of the Empire had been. She sneaks away from the ship at night, ignoring Fett at her back, and performs a bit of vigilante justice while she can. She’ll be banned from doing so as soon as she’s reinstated as a Jedi, probably, but for now... for now, she can look at the drug cartels and ‘they’re not slaves, really’ workers and do something to help.

She doesn’t use her sabers. She doesn’t need to. It’s been a long time since she has, for small fry like these.

“What are you doing?” Fett asks her, landing heavily behind her back.

“Chip removal,” she says, hand pressed to the slave’s leg. Her eyes are closed, but she can hear him shifting. “Let me concentrate, I don’t have a meddroid for this.”

He’s silent until she finishes, and waits until the people she’s helped are on their way to the planet’s freedom routes. He doesn’t ask what she did with the owners.

“You’ve done this before.”

“Regularly,” she confirms. “You?”

He doesn’t answer that, just ambles over to the the chains and stares down at them.

“Fett?”

“You go through this like it’s as easy as breathing,” he says. “It’s... impressive.”

“I guess?” she hesitates to continue. “I’m... I don’t think of it that way. This is the easy stuff. A time-waster that helps people. If I wanted to help for real, I’d been going after Jabba or Sidious or--”

“How old were you?” he asks, turning on his heel to face her dead-on. The vocoder of his helmet pulls the emotion from his voice. “When did this... these missions, the slavery battles, when did that start for you?”

“Fourteen,” she says. She’s not entirely sure, really, what counted as a mission for ending slavery and what counted as just a part of war, but she can round down. “Maybe fifteen. It’s a bit of a blur.”

“And you just kept doing it.”

“Of course,” she says. “If I have the time and the energy, if I need to do something and there’s nothing official on my hands, why not?”

He doesn’t answer her.

---------------------------

Rex greets them before she does.

Ahsoka, in her defense, is asleep at the time. It’s a restless sleep, but it’s enough that she doesn’t sense the nearing Force signatures until they’re almost at the ship.

She recognizes one of them.

“Auntie ‘Soka?” Leia questions, when she lurches to her feet and starts pulling on her boots with all the energy of a zombie. “Where are you going?”

“Jedi,” Ahsoka grunts. “Here.”

“I see.”

Leia dresses to follow her, in a little coat that’ll withstand the chill of the outside air, and Ahsoka makes it to the cargo hold just in time to hear Rex saying, “I’m not shaking your hand until you put your gloves on, Vos.”

She laughs to herself, breathless with the knowledge of what she’s about to find. She jumps the railing of the upper walkway, drops down just in front of the Master-Padawan team, and keeps her back to Fett and Rex. “Hello, there.”

One human, one Kiffar. She knows the latter.

“Would you be Sokari Torrent?” the Master asks.

“I am,” she says, with a slight bow. She can tell there’s a bit of judgement for how she’s dressed, but they’re covering it well. A Shadow and his trainee know the value of armor better than most Jedi bother with. “I’m afraid Padawan Billaba didn’t inform me of your names before we met.”

“And yet your friend knew my padawan,” the Master says.

“By reputation,” she says, as smoothly as she can. “I’ve encountered Quinlan Vos before, though I doubt he remembers--”

“I’d remember someone like you,” Quinlan interrupts, with a grin she’s sure is meant to be charming and rogueish.

He’s... very young for her, and not her type. Mostly, she wants to pat him on the head, but that probably wouldn’t go over very well. She still looks like she’s younger than him.

“Anyway,” she says, turning back to the master, “I’m afraid I still don’t know who you are, Master.”

“I am Tholme,” he says, with the bow that a Master gives a Padawan. She feels a little slighted, but it’s fine. She looks the right age, it’s fine.

It’s not like they know.

“It’s nice to meet you, Master Tholme,” she says. “My charges are Rex Torrent, the young man behind me, and currently coming down the ladder is Leia Antilles. I’m sure you’re aware of Jango Fett.”

“The Mand’alor,” Quinlan volunteers, and Ahsoka can almost hear Fett’s teeth grinding.

“Don’t call me that,” he says. She’s sure he’s got a hand drifting for his blaster.

“There isn’t a whole lot of room on the ship,” she says before the men can get into whatever weird contest she’s sure someone might start. Her bet’s on Fett. “But Leia and Rex are small enough to share with me, so I’m sure we can make it work.”

“There’s spare rolls for anyone comfortable with sleeping in the hold,” Fett grunts. “Or on the floor in the passenger room.”

“Well, I guess I could ask for a little help fi--”

“Vos,” Ahsoka snaps, letting her voice take on the kind of ‘obey me or get fresher duty’ irritation that she’d perfected back when the rebellion still had her managing people, before they’d realized she was more use in the field. “Do not.”

There’s a moment’s pause, and Tholme looks unimpressed with that raised eyebrow, but the kind of unimpressed that’s split between his own padawan and the stranger before him.

“Um,” Quinlan says. “I just--”

“No,” she cuts him off. “No flirting.”

It’s weird and uncomfortable and she’d have maybe been okay with it if she was actually the seventeen-or-eighteen-ish(?) that she looked, but she’s not. She’s in her thirties and Vos is... what, twenty? Twenty-one? No.

He stares at her, and she wonders momentarily if she’d gone too far in the direction of judging his intentions in the Force and preempted actual flirtations.

“I’m sorry?” He offers, looking confused, but ashamed. “I, uh, I’ll keep that in mind.”

She definitely preempted the actual flirtation.

Fuck.

Ahsoka closes her eyes and breathes in. Breathes out. Opens her eyes. “Right. That was... I’m not sure how much Padawan Billaba told you about me.”

“Enough,” Tholme says. He moves forward and puts a hand on Quinlan’s shoulder. Ahsoka has no idea if it’s to comfort him or hold him back. “I didn’t share most of it with my padawan, but I have a general understanding of what’s going on.”

Quinlan darts a look at his teacher, but Ahsoka doesn’t acknowledge it. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

“Thank you for your understanding,” she says, and bows, and stiffly turns away to walk to the galley.

---------------------------

Leia squirms into the bench seat, shoving her way under Ahsoka’s arm like a particularly wriggly tooka.

“What was that?” Leia demands, the authority of a rebellion general rather useless in the squeaky voice of a child.

“What was what?”

“The whole thing with Padawan Vos,” Leia says. “You blew up at him before he even did anything.”

That’s pretty true.

“I felt the flirtation coming before it happened and reacted inappropriately because I panicked. I’m significantly older than him, but I can’t tell him that, so it’s just awkward and uncomfortable and... I’m not okay, Princess. I haven’t been for a long time.”

“Yeah, we can tell.”

“Leia.”

“What? I need therapy too! Captain Rex needs therapy! I’m pretty sure Fett needs therapy! You, Fulcrum, you really need therapy. None of us are okay.” She huffs, wiggling impossibly closer. “I don’t like it, but it’s true.”

“I know,” Ahsoka groans. “I just... I just need to hold out until the Temple.”

“Will you be able to hold it together if you see someone you actually care about?” Leia demands. “What are you going to do when you see Kenobi?”

“Stop.”

“I’m serious, you--”

“Leia, that’s enough,” she snaps. “I was fighting that war before you were even born, and I’ve dealt with the consequences since. I know the risks and I’ll thank you to remember who taught you to control your own mind.”

Leia stiffens, sucking in a sharp breath. “That was uncalled for.”

“You’re not the child you appear to be,” Ahsoka reminds her, not a little sharply. “You want to dish it out, be ready to take it. What will you do when we see Bail Organa? When we see the toddler that is Anakin Skywalker?”

“I get it.”

“I’m not sure you do,” Ahsoka mutters. She isn’t surprised when Leia ducks out of the embrace and leaves the galley. She lets the girl go, guilt warring with the memory of how Master Kenobi had more than once spoken that way to Anakin at the height of the war. The fact that she’s an adult in the body of a child isn’t an excuse for poking at Ahsoka’s open wounds. It was cruel and unnecessary, and unbecoming of a... not a Jedi. A princess. A politician.

She rests her head on her arms and zones out. She should meditate, but that seems like... too much effort.

She can feel Vos and Tholme setting up in the room they’ve been assigned. Neither seems particularly angry. Most likely, Tholme’s given the absolute shortest explanation of ‘child soldier, dead master, highly traumatized and emotionally unstable’ to Vos to smooth over the incident in the cargo hold. Rex is with Leia; he’s agitated, but less so than Leia herself. Fett’s annoyed, in the cockpit, but he seems annoyed as often as not. There’s a shudder at lift-off, and a few minutes later, they’re in hyperspace, headed for the Core.

Fett finds her, falls into the other bench in full armor, and drops his elbows onto the table. The helmet clunks down a moment later.

She doesn’t lift her head. “What do you want?”

“Do I need to keep Vos away from you?”

“What?”

“Vos. He made you uncomfortable. Was that him being someone that hurt you in the future, or just the interaction being awkward?”

She lifts her head. She stares at him. “What?”

He leans back and crosses his arms. “Do you need me to tell Vos to stay the hell away from you?”

She’s gaping. “You realize I’m thirty-two, right? I can handle my own battles.”

“You’re also traumatized as hell and everyone can see it,” Fett argues back. “If Vos himself is a trigger, I can handle it.”

“He’s not,” she tells him. This is strange. Fett’s being strange. “He was actually a friend of my grandmaster’s. I’m just uncomfortable with the flirting because I’m a lot older than he realizes, and I can’t tell him that.”

He nods sharply, and then looks away. The silence sits.

“Thanks for asking?” Ahsoka says, well aware of how her confusion over the offer turns it into a question. “I mean, thank you for... caring.”

I guess, she finishes in the privacy of her own head. Or at least pretending to.

Fett makes a face, still not facing her. He eyes the galley instead. She can guess where his thoughts are going. The galley is... not very big, especially with six people on board instead of one, but she’s sure they’ve stocked up enough. On the off chance they do go through more than expected, because of how many growing bodies are in residence, they can stop off and buy more. They have those resources now.

Jango never does ask what she did with the slavers.

“Who’s going to cry if I spice things properly?” he asks.

“Probably Leia,” she says immediately. “Vos will try to power through it even though he’s going to be overwhelmed. No idea about Tholme, but I think he’ll keep a straight face whether he likes it or not. Rex and I are fine, ‘hot’ was pretty much the only flavor of seasoning the GAR had.”

“GAR?”

“Grand Army of the Republic.”

He finally looks at her.

“You already knew I was a child soldier, Fett; don’t act surprised.”

“That doesn’t mean I like hearing about it.”

“I was fourteen. That’s old enough by Mando standards, Fett. Just think back, when did you get on the battlefield?”

“I take your point,” he says, lip curling unpleasantly. “It just hits different now that I’m old enough to look back and think of how damned young fourteen really is.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “Yeah, well--”

“You said the clones were ten.”

There’s the rub, isn’t it?

Of course it was about the clones.

“...closer to seven, by the end. Kamino was just making speedies at that point. Triple growth on the average instead of double, but averages in that case meant they’d been growing at double rates for six years and then got forced through four growth cycles in a single year to beef up the army when we kept losing men.” She looks down at the table, picking at a scratch in the plastipaint with her nail. “Rex and the rest of the ones from the beginning were basically twenty in mind and body, even if they’d only been decanted ten years earlier. The speedies... I always wondered. They’d gone from functionally twelve to functionally twenty in a year. That’s not... even in Kamino, that can’t have been normal. They didn’t act like adults, not the way the originals did.”

Fett rubs at his face, groaning. He swears under his breath in three different languages.

She pities him, if only because he hasn’t actually done any of this yet. He’s paying for the crimes of a man he likely won’t ever become.

She kicks him under the table. “Wanna make tiingilar and see how long it takes Vos to start crying while he insists it’s fine?”

---------------------------

Dinner is when the questions start. Some are relatively easy. Others, not so much.

“My Master was Leia’s biological father,” is an easy truth to share. “She inherited his power, so I need to get her to the temple for her own safety, because home no longer is.”

“Yes, her adoptive parents were unfortunately killed rather recently. We’d prefer not to talk about it.”

“Rex is with me. Where he goes, I go, and vice versa.”

That one gets her an odd look.

“I thought...” Quinlan trails off, gesturing between Rex and Fett.

Fett keeps his face impassive, but his discomfort and guilt leak into the Force. “I didn’t know Rex existed until I ran into these three in a spaceport cantina a few weeks ago.”

Quinlan blinks at him, looks at Rex again, and then turns back to Fett with a grin that might have been described as ‘saucy’ if he were less smug about it. “Wild oats, huh?”

“Are you shitting me right now,” Leia whispers, and Ahsoka elbows her.

“That was inappropriate, padawan.”

Quinlan’s grin fades as Fett just continues to eye him.

“Um, so--”

“How old is the kid?” Fett interrupts.

Darting eyes answer him, as Quinlan tries to gauge Rex. “Ten? Maybe twelve?”

“And how old am I?”

“...early thirties?”

“I’m twenty-seven.”

Quinlan’s grin fades further as he does the math.

“I’d have been between fifteen and seventeen when he was born,” Fett says, tone flat. “Between fourteen and sixteen at conception. I know damn well I wasn’t doing anything that could have resulted in a kid at that age.”

Quinlan rallies. “So, brothers?”

Tholme sighs loudly, hand over his eyes.

“I’m a clone,” Rex says, and Ahsoka can feel the amusement he gets out of Quinlan’s confused shock. They’d both had plenty of respect for Master Vos, but Padawan Vos was nothing but trouble. “Harvested genetic material, grown in a tube, inconsistent aging meaning I don’t even know how old I am for sure.”

“I broke him out,” Ahsoka adds, which is half true.

“There was a chip in my head,” Rex adds, with a bright smile. Quinlan’s discomfort grows. “She got it out. Also, lots of brothers. None of them are... around anymore. The creators were trying to make an army.”

Vos and Tholme have no response. Fett looks like he’s been carved out of stone. Leia’s just ignoring them and picking at her food.

Ahsoka lifts a hand and, without looking, Rex high-fives her.

---------------------------

“Drop your elbow.”

Ahsoka tries to cover her smile at the dirty look that Leia shoots Fett. Fett remains unimpressed by the glare of royalty, just gestures for the girl to do as he said.

“I know how to fight,” Leia grumbles. “I took lessons. I was good at them.”

“And I’m better,” Fett says, leaving no room for argument. “You want the Torrents to take over?”

The Torrents. Rex and Soka. She likes being referred to that way. Like they’re a team that never got split up.

Force, she wished they’d never gotten split up.

“Again,” Fett orders, and Leia moves through the Mandalorian kata with ill grace in her emotions and all grace in her sweeping limbs.

Well, as much grace as an undersized six-year-old can, at any rate.

“Think he’ll ask me to spar her again?” Rex asks, dropping down into the seat next to Ahsoka and passing her a drink.

“Maybe,” she acknowledges. “I think he’s wondering if it’s worth asking Vos to spar with her, so she gets more experience with size differences.”

“Hm?”

“She flinched at his face again,” she tells him. “The whole... thing with Boba, I guess. She still won’t tell me why Fett triggers her sometimes, but he’s not pressing her to spar with him, and there’s only so much she can get out of fighting me. Asking Tholme would be presumptuous, but Vos is just a padawan. I think it’d work out.”

“And you?”

She looks at him, already feeling a cresting wave of bullshit she doesn’t want to deal with. “What about me?”

“Are you going to spar with the Jedi?”

She should. She hasn’t sparred with a saber since she got tossed back into a body only half-familiar to her. She’s let Leia borrow the shorter one to learn some basic blocking moves, Shii-Cho and then, with hesitance, the first Soresu form. Another time, she loaned it to Rex to practice some attacks; they both know that the next time he picks up her saber in battle, having lost his weapons or she her grip, it will be neither the first or last time he wields a sword of light. None of that, however, is... sparring.

None of that is against someone who knows what they’re doing.

How long has it been since she sparred with anyone other than Kanan and Ezra?

How long has it been since she sparred without the looming specter of Darth Vader in the back of her mind, without fear of the Inquisitors, without the knowledge that any saber held by someone other than her two friends would be red as blood and twice as drenched.

Would she be able to hold back as she fought?

“I should,” she acknowledges, eyes on where Fett is nudging Leia’s feet into position for some kind of leveraging flip. She’s so small. “It would probably be a good idea to spar against a master at some point.”

“Do you think you can?” Rex asks.

“I never knew him,” she says. “And he isn’t Dark. It should be fine.”

Rex nods, taking her word for it. They watch as Leia stumbles on a final move, and Fett gestures for her to sit down and get a drink.

“That man is a terror,” she informs them.

(She’d once described him as a slave-driver. She had not made that mistake twice.)

“Least it’s not Kamino!” Rex tells her cheerfully. When Leia refuses to look impressed, he laughs at her.

Ahsoka has a half-second’s warning before heavy boots thud to the ground next to her. “What’s Kamino?”

“Hello, Vos, it’s nice to see you too,” she drawls. “I’m good, thanks for asking, and yourself?”

The boy-not-quite-man rolls his eyes. “Hi, Torrents; hi, tiny one.”

Leia glares at him next.

“So, Kamino?”

“Planet by Rishi,” Rex says.

“Why were you there?”

“They specialize in cloning.”

Ahsoka covers her mouth as the conversation drops into the same awkward gap that always happens when Quinlan stumbles into a subject he didn’t know to avoid.

“Like... you were made there, or you were researching how it works for your own--”

Ahsoka slaps a hand over his mouth. “Now’s a great time to stop talking.”

He licks her palm.

She bares her teeth and arches her fingers just enough to press nails into his cheek.

He bites at her palm, and she yanks her hand away.

“You’re all children,” Leia accuses, conveniently forgetting that Ahsoka and Rex are both over a decade older than her.

“I can throw you the length of a swimming pool,” Ahsoka tells her. “One of the fancy competition-ready ones that would make a Tatooinian cry. You are absolutely the child here.”

“Using the Force is cheating, sir,” Rex informs her.

“Only if there’s a competition,” Ahsoka shoots back. “And proving that a certain princess is a small child is not a competition. It’s a declarative fact.”

“I’m going to rip open the seams on all your tops except the ugliest one,” Leia decides.

“Try me,” Ahsoka challenges. “Adi’ka.”

A low, rough cough interrupts them. “Are you done?”

Fett has his arms crossed, and an eyebrow raised. He knows they’re all adults here, and is entirely unamused. As the silence drags, the eyebrow climbs a little higher.

“Done with what?” Quinlan finally asks, thereby volunteering himself to spar in hand-to-hand with Jango Fett, as one does.

“Poor, poor Vos,” Rex laughs, watching as Fett barks out orders at Quinlan every five seconds to fix his footwork, to stop dropping his guard, to stop wasting energy on flips instead of just dodging the easy way.

“Throw him!” Ahsoka calls. To her delight, Fett obliges.

The thing is, Quinlan isn’t bad at brawling. He’s got training, endurance, skill. The man knows what he’s doing, objectively. He’s just not a match for Fett, and is used enough to relying on his saber that his hand-to-hand skills are rusty. They are perhaps less rusty than those Jedi who don’t take questionable jobs in the Mid-Outer Rim, and Ahsoka’s got a suspicion that Vos regularly gets into bar fights in his downtime, but none of that is enough for him to actually do more than survive against Fett without his saber.

Even the saber wouldn’t help, if Fett had his armor.

“Whose idea was this?”

Ahsoka cranes her head back and smiles. “Hello, Master Tholme. Vos... volunteered.”

“Did he know he was volunteering?”

“No comment.”

Tholme snorts, crossing his arms and eyeing the spar in front of him. “I thought Fett hated Jedi. Giving us a ride for the sake of you three is one thing, but why is he teaching my padawan?”

Ahsoka shrugs. “Constructive bullying?”

There’s a small twitch of a smile, quickly gone. “He said something wrong, I’m guessing?”

“There was no way he could have known,” she dismisses. “We’re just, like, ninety-percent tragic backstories.”

“You’d think the Force would warn him,” Rex notes.

“That’s not how the Force works,” Leia chides.

“No, no, he’s right,” Ahsoka corrects. “The Force does sometimes step in to stop a person from saying something stupid. However, Padawan Vos is at an age where people think they are very rational while being more irrational than they likely ever will be again.”

“Do I want to ask what you were doing at that age?” Tholme asks.

“Running bla...” she trails off, then whips around to gape at him.

He smiles, bland and unassuming. “Does Fett know?”

“Know... what?” Ahsoka asks.

“That you’re significantly older than you look,” he says, voice just low enough that the sparring duo can’t hear him. “All three of you.”

Ahsoka turns back to the spar, only catching Tholme out of the corner of her eye. “He knows.”

“Mm. Were you planning on telling the Council?”

“Yes.” That part was never in question. “How did you figure it out?”

“I am a good investigator,” he says. “And you rely a little too heavily on your physical forms to obfuscate. Were it just one of you, that wouldn’t be a problem, but the pattern repeated across three is a little easier to discern.”

“I hoped the whole ‘child soldiers’ thing would be a bigger distraction,” Ahsoka mutters. She glances at Leia and Rex. Both of them are used to being in charge to some degree, giving orders and making contingency plans, but in this... in this, Ahsoka is in charge. They’d decided that at the very start. It didn’t matter that Rex had lived longer and had more experience, or that Leia had held the highest Rebellion rank of the three of them. Ahsoka had been agreed as leader, and they were relying on her.

They’re waiting on her orders. Stiff and unhappy, in Leia’s case, but they trust her.

“Will you be telling Vos?” She asks.

“No,” Tholme says. “Your secrets remain your own unless they endanger us, and I’ve a feeling they won’t be.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Rex jokes, smile not reaching his eyes. “I’ve been working with this family for too long to trust that trouble won’t find them around the next corner.”

“This family?” Tholme repeats.

“Sokari was telling the truth about her master being Leia’s biological father,” Rex says. He shrugs. “I worked with him, with his wife, with both of his kids, with his master and his padawan. All of them, to a one, are trouble magnets.”

“Ah, but that’s not the secret that’s putting us in danger,” Tholme points out. “Simply existence as a Jedi.”

Rex shrugs. “Fair enough. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.”

Ahsoka lurches to her feet, turning with a smile and dancing backward into the the stretch of empty cargo hold they used for such things. “A spar, Master Tholme?”

He looks past her, to Quinlan, and raises a brow. “Would you not prefer to spar with someone a little closer to your level first?”

She barks out a laugh. “Master Tholme, I’m afraid I’ve spent more of my life fighting to survive than having normal friendly spars. My style is more lethal than the average, and you’ve already seen what war’s done to my mind. I ask to spar with you because, if I lose control, if I slip in time or react on an instinct that isn’t appropriate, I trust that you’ll be more able to stop me than a senior padawan.”

He smiles. “Yes, I gathered as much. Still, better to ask. Shall we wait for them to finish up?”

Ahsoka shrugs, turns, and yells. “Clear the deck!”

Rex snorts behind her, and lowly mutters, “Sir, yes, sir.”

She smirks at him over her shoulder. “At ease, Captain.”

“That’s ‘Commander’ to you, I got promoted,” he sniffs, chin held high.

Heavy steps herald Fett’s arrival at their little group. “The hells are you doing?”

“I’m going to have a spar with a Jedi Master, and I want you and Vos to not get stabbed.”

“I’m not that easy to injure in an actual fight, let alone by accident,” Fett grouses. He looks up and over at Vos, who is already significantly taller, if a fair shot less built. “This one, on the other hand...”

“Hey!”

Ahsoka laughs and backs into the center of the cargo hold, drawing her sabers. “Don’t worry, Vos, I won’t play dirty. You’ll probably get your master back in one piece.”

He wrinkles his nose at her. “Getting a bit ahead of yourself there, aren’t you? He’s a Jedi Master and former Watchman. You’re... what, eighteen?”

Ahsoka raises a brow and activates her sabers, tapping the blades together and watching as more than one person winces. “Wanna bet on how long I last?”

“No,” he says immediately, stepping back to join Rex on the bench. “You’ve already blindsided me enough. I’m not dumb enough to fall for whatever you’ve got up your sleeve.”

“I don’t have sleeves.”

“Armwarmers-slash-greaves, then.”

“Greaves go on the legs, these are vambraces.”

He throws his hands up in the air. “I’m just going to stop talking now!”

“Good plan,” Leia snarks, and then literally hisses when Rex ruffles her hair.

Tholme lights his saber and sinks into an opening stance.

Ahsoka mirrors him.

---------------------------

She wins, but barely. She's had a few weeks to practice her forms, has sparred hands-only with Rex and Fett, but this is her first real try at using her sabers against a person, instead of a blaster or thin air, since she arrived in the past. She’s only mostly adjusted to her body.

But Tholme is a healer and a watchman, not a duelist. Ahsoka held her own against Ventress, against Grievous, against Maul when she was this age. Still adjusting to her body or not, her lineage is one of battle, and it bled true.

“You’re terrifying,” Quinlan tells her after they’re done, smiling like the sun as he hands her a towel. “Please never turn that on me.”

She laughs at him. “Would you believe that I’m out of practice?”

“Out of practice with what?” he asks, horrified and fascinated. “Fighting Sith Lords?”

“Among other things,” she says, and smirks when he chokes on his drink. “Multiple darkside users who claimed to be Sith, at least. One being a full Lord, one that was disowned by his master, and one that was apprenticed to a Banite apprentice, so she wasn’t technically allowed to be a Darth because of the rule of two.”

Tholme meets her eyes past Quinlan’s shoulder, head tilted and eyes half-shut in consideration. He’s taking her seriously. He knows what she’s not saying.

“How...” Quinlan trails off and shakes his head. “You know what, no. Asking you people questions never ends well.”

“Good plan,” Ahsoka says, clapping a hand down on his shoulder. “Also, you need to spar with Fett more. Your footwork is shit.”

“It is not,” Quinlan gripes. “You’re all just scary good at this stuff.”

“You mean surviving?” Leia pipes up, and smiles innocently when Quinlan turns to pout at her.

“You’re getting bullied by a six-year-old,” Rex informs him.

“Yeah,” Quinlan sighs. “I know.”

Ahsoka laughs, and it’s fine. It’s all fine. For a week, everything is honestly great. She trains, she laughs, she works through the nightmares.

Then fucking Denon happens.

---------------------------

Denon is a city-planet on the intersection of two major hyperlanes. It’s the kind of place where they stop for two things:

Fuel.

Paperwork.

Technically, there’s a whole mess of paperwork they have to fill out to continue along this specific hyperlane, since they aren’t official Republic ships, and don’t have the licenses to just pass along like ships that are pre-registered to the Trade Federation or the like. They could sneak past--literally all of them know smuggler’s routes--but it’s honestly less of a pain to do things legally. They have a Jedi Master. They have cash. Some of that cash wasn’t quite legally acquired, but nobody needs to know that.

It’s supposed to be a pit stop. That’s all.

It’s just a pit stop.

But no, the galaxy isn’t that kind and Ahsoka’s luck is currently being compounded with a Skywalker, two Fetts, and Vos, which means that of course they run into trouble. Of course they do. There was never any other option, was there?

“Motherfucker,” Ahsoka snaps, lifting her head up and slamming her drink on the table.

The glass is empty. That’s good. They’re in a restaurant right now, a little splurging after weeks with only each others’ company, and spilling the sugary child-friendly juice with that move would have drawn way too much attention from the servers.

“Language,” Tholme says, voice idly unconcerned.

“Sir?” Rex asks, kicking Ahsoka under the table. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wr--that jackass,” she hisses, getting to her feet. “Rex, grab a blaster, I’ve got shebs to kick.”

“Okay,” Rex says, grabbing one out of Fett’s holster and scooting out of the booth before anyone can tell him not to. “Whose?”

“I didn’t even know that he was... osik, I don’t have jurisdiction,” she realizes. “I don’t have any record of wrongdoing. I can’t arrest him since we don’t have evidence of criminal wrongdoing...”

“Are you two going to explain what’s going on?” Vos asks. “Or sit down, maybe?”

Ahsoka makes her decision. She eyes the window--the restaurant in question is a little dingy, but it’s also several dozen stories in the air. “Rex, remember the thing we did on Geonosis that you hated?”

He pauses, and then sighs heavily. “Yes, sir. I remember the... yeeting.”

Hah. That slang doesn’t even exist yet.

“Great. With me!”

It’s a good thing the windows are forcefields instead of transparisteel. A bit of a twist to the energy and they’re gone.

She only hears a little screaming before the wind tears all noises away while they plummet.

They land lightly--of course--and Ahsoka wraps them both in a don’t notice me aura. Nobody even notices that they’ve just come from above. It’s great that she can just Do These Things again, and get brushed off as Weird Jedi Shit, instead of worrying about the Empire. She’s missed being able to jump out of windows without fear.

Rex follows her as she starts running through the city. They don’t have comms, and he’s still so small, which means he can’t keep up with her even if she runs at normal speeds without Force enhancement.

“Should you carry me?” he asks, before she can figure out if it’s worth suggesting. She did it a few times before they joined up with Jango.

“It’s not... urgent, I think,” she says. She hesitates to speak, even as she keeps jogging with Rex at her heels. “Honestly, I’m trying to figure out if there’s anything I can ding him for so we can attack him. It’s all well and good that I can beat him right now, but all the crimes I know about haven’t happened yet, so it wouldn’t be legal...”

“Commander?”

“Hm?”

“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

She scrolls the conversation back mentally, considers, and says, “Oh.”

“Who’s getting steamrolled?”

“Uh, Maul’s here,” Ahsoka admits.

“Ah,” Rex says. He makes a face. “I understand the desire to jump out a window, now. I don’t agree with it, but I understand.”

Ahsoka laughs. “I mean, I just... every time I’ve seen him for almost twenty years, it’s been like... on sight, you know? We’ve never not attacked each other, except when I needed him to cause problems on Mandalore. But I always knew I was in the right, then.”

“So... what do we arrest him for?” Rex prompts.

“Um... carrying a lightsaber without a license?” she hazards. “We’ll need Tholme there. Hopefully I can just shout at him and he’ll attack me, but I think he only went full nutjob after Master Kenobi cut his legs off. He might be too controlled to try to kill me just for yelling at him.”

“...do we have to stalk him?” Rex asks, sounding like he’d most likely sigh if he weren’t mid-run.

She scoops him up and swings him around onto her back before she answers. “I think we have to stalk him, Rex’ika.”

“Don’t call me that.”

---------------------------

Maul is... exceptionally sneaky, actually. Either that, or he hasn’t done anything wrong yet. Ahsoka’s betting on the former, because she’s seen this particular skocha kung take over a planet before anyone realized he was the most dangerous person around.

Or maybe he’s just not committing crimes, and is in fact just here to buy groceries.

He’s examining a papaya.

She fantasizes about jumping across the market and greeting him with a heel to the cheekbone.

“Are you imagining a flying kick, Sir?”

“Yeah...”

“He’s examining a papaya, Sir.”

“I know...”

“Does he know we’re here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? Do you think I should go hit him?”

“No.”

“Should I hit on him?”

“No, Sir. I would not advise that.”

“He’s looking at the neloms.”

“I can see that.”

“Why does he have to be so bo--did he just fucking bite a nelom?”

“It appears so, Sir.”

“Like... like rind and all. Just bit the little fucker.”

“Seems it.”

A scuff of metal. “What the fuck are you two doing?”

Ahsoka tips her head around to peer through the grate. “We’re spying, Fett, what does it look like we’re doing?”

Rex cranes his head. “We’re hanging upside-down from a fire escape to get a look at a suspected Sith Apprentice that is currently shopping for various fruits, Mand’alor.”

Ahsoka waves. “Hi, Master Tholme.”

“Sokari,” the master greets. “This seems a very conspicuous way to spy.”

She shrugs as well as she can from this angle. “Yes, but you see, this way’s more fun.”

“Is it now.”

Rex shifted. “He’s on the move!”

“To kill someone?!”

“No, to the deli meats.”

“Kriff.”

---------------------------

Apparently, Tholme and Fett had told Quinlan to take care of Leia, as Leia had wanted to finish her juice and refused to get involved in the Torrents’ nonsense. According to her, if they couldn’t be bothered to explain the nonsense, they didn’t need her.

This was true and accurate.

Quinlan shows up while they’re still stalking Maul, having moved to a low rooftop for a decent vantage point with less likelihood of being spotted. He’s giving Leia an eopie-back ride, and the pout on her face at needing it is adorable. She pouts harder when she sees them.

“Are you even trying to hide?” Leia scoffs.

“Not really,” Ahsoka admits. She’s got Fett’s binoculars out. “I’m not sure he’s caught wind of the fact that we’re here yet.”

“Or he has and he’s just biding his time to escape while we’re distracted,” Tholme points out.

“Meh,” Ahsoka says, avidly devouring the visual that is a teenage Maul glaring at leafy vegetables. “I just want him to do something so I have an excuse to beat his ass.”

“Do I get to know who?” Quinlan asks, setting Leia down on the roof. “Or are we going to keep being completely unwilling to share information?”

“Baby Sith Lord,” Ahsoka says. “He’s fifteen. A child.”

“A baby,” Rex agrees.

“You’re... that’s... ugh,” Quinlan groans as loudly and as dramatically as he dares, flopping down to the rooftop. “Master Tholme, please tell me this isn’t a real Sith.”

“He’s Dark,” Tholme confirms. “Sith is... up for debate until we have evidence.”

“He’s a bitch is what he is,” Ahsoka mutters. She observes the teenager in question stop to poke at some pink tomatoes. “E chu ta, break the law, already!”

“Does he have a lightsaber?” Quinlan asks. “If he has a lightsaber and no Jedi ID or specialty license, we can probably arrest him.”

“Auntie Soka doesn’t have a license or ID,” Leia points out.

“She’s got a Jedi escort,” Tholme says. “And if our supposed Sith is polite and plays nice, we can probably escort him to the Temple as well.”

Rex snorts derisively.

“Do you know why he’s on Denon?” Fett asks.

“No clue,” Ahsoka admits. “Evil reasons, probably.”

“You’re useless,” Leia tells her.

“Thanks, princess, how’s that attempt to open the jam jar by yourself coming?”

Leia says something very inappropriate for a princess, for a child, and for a lady. It’s fairly appropriate for a soldier, which is admittedly what she’s been for a few years now. Ahsoka sticks her tongue out at the girl like the mature operative she is.

“I wish we could still get him to lose his osik by just showing up and insulting him,” Rex mutters, low enough that Quinlan probably can’t hear.

“I wanna punch him in the face,” Ahsoka confesses. “I want him to try to punch me in the face, and fail.”

“Don’t bully the baby Sith,” Rex admonishes.

“He’s a Sith.”

“He’s fifteen, it’s tacky.”

“But it’s Maul.”

“I know, but you’re tw--significantly older than him.”

“But... but it’s the motherfucker himself.”

“...you can bully him a little, but only because he’s a Sith.”

Fett steals the binoculars. “You can borrow them again when you stop acting like children.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Rex says, dry as Ryloth. “I’m ten.”

“Pretty tall for your age,” Ahsoka mutters, and then giggles.

“Don’t steal my jokes,” Rex says. He elbows her, hard.

“You know,” Quinlan says, slow and tired. “Master Tholme and I are trained investigators.”

Ahsoka and Rex look at each other, and then up at him.

“Okay?”

“...do you want me to find actual evidence of this guy doing something criminal?”

“Oh, yes please.”

---------------------------

Quinlan, as it turns out, is not overselling his skills. He does catch Maul doing something illegal later that day. It’s a little more ‘stealing corporate secrets in the dead of night’ and less ‘torturing people for kicks,’ but it’s still enough to legally arrest him. Quinlan attempts to do so.

Quinlan does not succeed, and is forced to jump out a window to avoid getting cut in half. Maul follows, steals a passing speeder by throwing out the driver, and takes off. Someone--looks like Tholme--drops back to save the driver, but the rest of them give chase. Ahsoka gleefully takes point on that, of course. She’s the best pilot.

(Rex looks bored, but someone is likely to puke by the end of the night. She hopes it’s not Leia, who insisted on coming for some fucking reason.)

“How the kriff is a teenager that good?!” Quinlan yells, clinging to the edge of the speeder to avoid getting tipped out as Ahsoka swerves around a corner with a wild laugh.

“He’s a Sith!” Leia shouts over the wind. “What do you think?”

Quinlan is not impressed by the claim of Sith.

Ahsoka screeches as she drifts across four lanes of traffic and into an alleyway to pursue Maul. He’s pretty good at dodging cross-building walkways, but she’s better. She bares her teeth, hissing, and tries to pick a plan.

“Vos, how’s your aim with Force throws?” She calls to the backseat.

“Uh, decent?”

“Great! Fett’s the projectile!”

Vos takes a second longer to process that than Jango does.

“I’m wh--”

He cuts off, screaming, and is flung forward by Quinlan to crash headfirst into a teenage Sith.

“Take the wheel!” Ahsoka commands, not waiting to see who follows the order, because Fett and Maul are both getting to their feet, the other speeder is about to crash, and she’s not sure who’s going to win that fight.

She jumps from the speeder they’ve been violently dragging around Denon, and lands feet-first on Maul’s... shoulder.

Hm.

That definitely dislocated something.

“You should wear armor!” she chirps at him, drawing both sabers and grinning as he whirls to face her, eyes wide with hate.

He’s utterly silent.

That’s disturbing. Expected, but disturbing.

“Did you just throw me?” Fett demands, higher pitched than she’d normally expect.

“No, Vos threw you.”

“Because you told him to!”

“Yeah, it’s a good strategy!”

“It is not!”

“Why not? Throwing people was standard practice in the GAR.”

She can’t see his face, but she’s pretty sure he’s about ready to strangle her.

Ahsoka cannot, at that point, continue snarking with the father of her best friend, because there’s a red lightsaber coming for her throat, and she should probably worry about that. Maul’s very good at killing people and she’d like to avoid becoming part of that statistic.

As she is quickly reminded, he is... fifteen. And shorter than she’s used to. And already injured.

It’s really, really easy to take him out, actually.

At some point, the other speeder was safely recovered before it caused property damage, and their own is landing a few meters away with Vos and the kids.

“You have Force-negating cuffs, right?” Ahsoka asks.

“No, Master Tholme has them.”

“Oh,” she says, and grimaces. “I guess I’ll just... keep sitting on him then.”

Maul snarls, and she raps him on the skull. “Stop that, it’s uncivilized.”

Rex snorts.

Jango makes a noise that is incredibly frustrated with the lot of them, and turns on Rex. “Was she telling the truth?”

“About?”

“Throwing people being standard practice for the GAR.”

Rex’s face goes pained. “It was in the five-oh-first. And a few others.”

“What’s the GAR?” Quinlan asks.

“None of your damn business,” Fett snaps.

Quinlan throws his hands up in the air again. “Come on! I just proved I know what I’m doing!”

“And their tragic backstory is none of your business, prudii!”

Quinlan blinks at him, and then glances at Ahsoka. “Um.”

“He called you a shadow since your training, um, seems to be pointing in that direction,” she says as carefully as she can. “We were theorizing.”

“Wh... you actually paid attention?” Quinlan asks, looking horribly confused. “I thought I was just annoying you.”

Ahsoka laughs at him. “Oh, Vos... I’ve been running black ops for... much longer than most would guess. Trust me, I know another spy when I see them.”

She smiles as kindly as she can, because she hadn’t actually meant to make him feel left out or unwanted or... well, she’d been pretty patronizing, especially for someone seemingly younger than him. The smile does not work. Quinlan just looks kind of horrified about how young she just implied she started spy work.

Granted, she’d been sixteen for Zygerria...

Deciding to ignore him for a bit, she shifts on Maul’s back and pats him on the cheek. “Don’t worry, Baby Sith. We’re going to get you lots of nice therapy. Mind healers, no Sith tortures, all that fun stuff. Maybe some plushies.”

“You’re also getting therapy, right?” Quinlan asks. “Please say you are. I’m required for the specifics of my training and if anything you’ve said is true, I feel like you really need it and I’m scared of what’ll happen if you don’t.”

Ahsoka laughs, knowing exactly how empty it sounds. “Oh hell, if I didn’t get therapy, I imagine Kix would rise from the grave to force me into it.”

The name means nothing to anyone except Rex, and... ah, yeah, she told Fett about Kix a few weeks ago.

“No more throwing me without warning,” Fett grumbles, dropping to sit on the ground next to her. “Especially not at baby Sith Lords.”

“I am not a child!” Maul spits.

“He speaks!” Ahsoka cheers. “Aw, I knew you could do it.”

“’Soka, I told you not to bully him,” Rex complains. “It’s tacky. You’re being tacky.”

“I’m allowed to be tacky,” Ahsoka declares. “I’ve died twice, that’s, like, permission from the universe.”

“You’ve died twice?” Quinlan asks, back in ‘fascinated horror’ territory. “Wait, no, I shouldn’t ask--”

“Too late! The first time was on a planet that doesn’t exist and my Master lost his mind, killed a god, and used the good favor of another god to have me brought back to life at her expense. Not in that order.”

“I--what? No, that’s--what?”

Ahsoka smiles brightly. “You asked.”

Tholme finally shows up with the cuffs.

---------------------------

“You should eat something.”

He glares at her.

“Baby Sith Lords need to eat.”

He keeps glaring at her.

“Maul, you’ll never get big and strong and ready to kill if you don’t eat your vegetables.”

He bares his teeth.

“No, I don’t eat my veggies, but I’m a Togruta, so if I eat too many vegetables I throw up.”

Rex kicks her thigh, right on the faulds. “What did I say about bullying the Sith Lord?”

“Not to.”

“And what are you doing?”

“Making him eat his vegetables.”

“Soka.”

“Rex’ika.”

He kicks at her again. “Get up, we’re swapping out the watch.”

“But I wanted to hang out with my favorite little criminal mastermind.”

Rex drops to the floor and presses his forehead to her shoulder. “How the hell is being around this guy the first thing to make you cheer up in weeks?”

“I’m allowed to be mean to him.”

“He’s going to bite you.”

“I’ll bite back.”

Rex jabs a finger into her ribs, and she squeaks. “Go get something to eat, Commander.”

“Fine,” she huffs, rolling to her feet and moseying along to the galley. She walks in on Tholme and Fett having an argument about the ways in which Jedi and Mandalorians differ. Quinlan’s on the side, watching with wide eyes, and little Leia’s drinking a juice box at his side, tucked up under his arm and occasionally saying things to fan the flames. Ahsoka assumes she’s enjoying herself.

She opens the cooling unit, looks over the contents, and pulls out a raw leg of eopie mutton. She leans against the counter, bites into the chilled-but-not-frozen meat, and uses the back of one hand to wipe the blood off her chin. The ‘real adults’ don’t notice.

“I’m like ninety percent sure you’re doing this to mess with me but also...” Quinlan trails off, staring at her with horror. “Why?”

“A girl’s gotta eat.”

“Yeah, but all the obligate carnivores I know are like... generally holding to basic rules of courtesy when it comes to not grossing people out,” Quinlan says. “Like, I don’t chew with my mouth open. You don’t... eat in the most intimidating--did you just crack the bone with your teeth?!”

Ahsoka smirks at him, using her free hand to take away the shard of bone so she can suck out the marrow without eating the bones themselves. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this isn’t polite society. We’re in a galley on a bounty hunter’s ship, and I’ve been living on the run or in an army for most of my life. Table manners are optional.”

“No, they’re not,” Leia orders. “Fett, it’s your ship, tell her to--”

“--and another thing!” Fett snaps at Tholme, clearly paying less than no attention to the food argument.

Ahsoka keeps on eating, trying to catch wind of where the discussion’s at. Mostly, it seems to be at ‘talking past each other.’ Neither of them seems to have fully grasped more than the absolute most basic parts of the other culture, and that’s only enough to insult each other, not actually have a constructive conversation. She’d have expected more out of Tholme, at least. He’s not exactly young.

“Hey, quick question,” she says, in a moment where both of them have paused for breath and the opportunity to seethe. “Fett, when’s the last time you worked with a Jedi, or any member of a Force-based religion, before I popped into your life?”

His nose scrunches up as he makes a face.

“And Tholme, when’s the last time you worked with anyone from the Mandalorian system?”

Tholme’s reaction isn’t any more gracious than Fett’s.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she says. “Vos, were either of them actually interested in that conversation, or just looking for an excuse to yell?”

“Now listen here, jetiika--”

“Fett,” she snaps. “I am not a child.”

“And neither am I,” he growls right back. “This is my ship, and I damn well don’t need you treating me like a misbehaving youngling. You’ve got a problem, you bring it to my face, not get all smug about people’s tempers blowing over.”

Well, then.

She smiles thinly. “Of course.”

He stands with his arms crossed, in full armor save for the helmet. She puts aside the eopie meat and wipes her hands, smiling until she can put her hands on her hips and let it drop to a challenge.

“You know, I’m just--I’m just gonna go,” Quinlan mutters, pulling Leia out with him, the girl hanging from under one of his arms. “This, uh, this looks like a problem for... you folks. Um. Yeah.”

He sidles out.

Tholme doesn’t.

Fett rubs at the bridge of his nose, and then gestures at the table. “Sit.”

“I’d prefer not to.”

He drops his hand and glares at her. “We have another week on this ship together. We are going to have this conversation. Sit.”

She sits, right on the warm spot left behind by Quinlan and Leia. She crosses her arms, lifts a brow, and waits.

Fett takes the seat across from her. Tholme leans against the counter.

“We all know you’re older than you look,” Fett says. “I heard Tholme mention it, I know that much has been shared. You’re acting like an actual teenager, and I’ve... I’ve put up with a lot. I am trying to keep things civil, particularly with you. I’ve tried to be friendly. You’ve been fucked up since we met, fine, everyone’s got trauma. The thing where you’ve started talking shit to our faces for what seems like your own amusement? That has to stop. You’re older than me, Torrent. Fucking act like it.”

She blinks at him, slow and not exactly happy, and turns to Tholme.

The man shrugs. “I was planning to put up with it until we arrived to the temple and handed you over to some mind healers. Fett doesn’t have that kind of time.”

There’s a curdle in her stomach, defensive and angry and guilty.

“You’ve been... a bitch,” Fett finally says. “You know that. I’m not going to mince words. You’ve been holier-than-thou and rude and condescending, and aiming that at Antilles is one thing, when you’ve apparently known her since she was a toddler and taught her things. Aiming at the rest of us isn’t going to fly. We’re all adults trying to share a space. Stop acting like... just like you have been.”

There is no defense to be made that they aren’t both already aware of.

She closes her eyes and tries to strangle the burst of irrational rage.

Their accusations aren’t unfounded.

They deserve an apology.

She is in the wrong.

She’s felt freer than she had in years, and in that freedom allowed herself too much rein, let herself lace her words with barbed wires and poison instead of sparks and spices, comments that were cruel instead of just joking. Too familiar. Too comfortable.

“My behavior’s been inappropriate,” she finally says, the words clumsy and too big in her mouth. “You’re right about that. I’m sorry, and I’ll endeavor to keep a tighter rein on my less pleasant behaviors in the future.”

At least she only lashes out with words. It could be worse.

She opens her eyes, fixes her gaze on the wall behind Fett, wrestles her expression into stiff neutrality. “Am I dismissed?”

“...uh, no, not after that,” Fett says, sounding just a little horrified. “What the hell was that?”

Tholme hisses out a breath. “Let her go.”

“No, this needs to be discussed, that’s not a healthy rea--”

“Fett, let her go,” Tholme insists, low and heavy.

Fett looks between the two for a moment, seems to come to a realization he doesn’t like, and then gestures almost violently towards the door. “Fine. Go.”

She walks out, doesn’t sprint. She’s stiff. She’s controlled. She’s the one that fucked up, so it’s fine if she doesn’t feel great right now. Getting called out on one’s own failings as a person isn’t something to get upset about if the failings are real. The feelings are real and normal, but this was her fault, and so it’s up to her to fix it, and she can’t let them know it hurt her, because this was her mistake.

She goes to the cargo hold.

---------------------------

Ahsoka works out her frustrations on Fett’s punching bag. She does not augment herself with the Force, just uses raw strength and technique, ignoring the tears that press at her eyes.

She’s fine.

It’s not weird. It’s not odd. It’s not strange to not notice she’s been kind of a bitch since her mood came up with the whole Depa thing, and then Maul. She’s been mean, mostly to Vos and Fett, and nobody’s confronted her about it until now. They let her have room for her trauma, and she hadn’t reined it in. She’s just gotten worse.

‘Snippy’ she’d always been, but age apparently hadn’t fucking tempered it.

“Um.”

She catches the punching bag, breathing heavily and covered in sweat. She hasn’t worked out all the twitchy, nervous energy yet.

“Vos,” she greets, once she’s caught herself enough that her voice won’t waver. He’s on the other side of the bag, but she knows his voice. “Do you need something?”

“You’re kind of... projecting,” he tells her, drifting to where she can actually see him. “Not self-loathing, but, um, recrimination? You just don’t feel very good and I was hoping to help”

Why in all the Sith hells does he have to be nice.

“I got called out on my behavior and wasn’t ready to face the fact that I’d kriffed up,” she tells him. “I’ll be fine. And I’m... sorry. I haven’t been fair to you and was using you as an easy target for some of my ruder comments.”

“I mean, I kind of figured,” he admits, coming closer. “I’ve been tutored by Shadows before, and a lot of them act like you. I just assumed it was more of that.”

“I still shouldn’t have let myself run loose like that,” she says. “I’m... it wasn’t appropriate. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

He shrugs, not meeting her eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she says. “Not with... not with you. Or anyone other than Rex and a mind healer, really. Most of it is...”

She trails off, distantly noticing that her eyes are tearing up enough to blur her vision, and her nails are digging into the bag in a way Fett won’t appreciate.

There’s so much that beat her down, never quite breaking her, that she doesn’t even know what made her act the way she does.

“Want to spar?”

She looks over at him, wonders what he sees that makes him want to fight her when she’s visibly unstable.

He smiles, kind and easy, and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It’s genuine in intent, if not in energy. He wants to help. “You all keep saying I could work on my hand-to-hand. Just take off the armor so I don’t break a finger, maybe.”

“You’re serious.”

“No, I’m Quinlan.”

She’s going to wipe the floor with this boy. “You sure you wanna fight me?”

“You won’t be able to meditate until you do,” he says. He’s right, damn him. “The other option is that I go get your... vod, I think? I go get Rex and you two can talk it out since you trust him with more. I don’t want to do that, though, he’s still a kid.”

She eyes him, lips pressed together and mind awhirl with emotions and thoughts she’d tried to beat out of her head and into the bag. “Ever fought someone without the Force?”

“...yes?”

“Was it cuffs?”

“Oh, you meant me not having the Force,” he realizes. “Er, no. Is... is that something you’ve done a lot?”

She smiles at him. “You’re planning on Shadow work. That means getting captured and stripped of everything you are at some point, Force included. Unfortunately, the cuffs are in use on a very annoying Dathomirian right now, so we’ll have to make do with you shielding like your mind’s a Kessel Spice Mine.”

“...do I want to know how often you’ve been captured?”

“No, you don’t.”

When he comes at her, it’s easy to dodge. It’s easy to tap him on target points, little pokes that show she could take him out, but isn’t going to until he’s learned something. He stays grinning throughout, letting her take the lead, and he treats her like... like a knight. Like a teacher. He’s stepped back and gone from trying to impress her as a fellow padawan, to proving himself to a full knight.

She’s not sure when that change happened, or why or how, but it makes things much smoother. She wants to think that it would have even if she hadn’t gotten a wakeup call from Fett.

So she treats him the way she treated Ezra, for the year she’d spent traveling with Kanan. She treats him as a student that’s willing to learn, good but not yet great, competent but not yet ready to survive. She draws him into the kind of chest-heaving exhaustion that tells a fighter just how much energy they waste.

(Ahsoka may have had her own style, but her grandmaster had been the pinnacle of a Soresu user. She’d spent years on the frontlines of a war. She knew the worth of conserving energy, and she’d teach it to any who stepped in to challenge her.)

“Who taught you to fight like this?” He asks, when they’ve taken a handful of moments to circle each other. His steps are heavy, sure, planted. Her own are light and ready.

“Soldiers,” she says. It’s true enough.

“Not your Master?” he asks, just as he tries to kick for her upper arm. It’s a safe question. For anyone else, it would be a safe question.

But for Ahsoka, it’s another chink in the armor, after a maelstrom of emotion, a storm of self-loathing, a dervish of instability.

She doesn’t break right away.

She spirals. She fights Quinlan, but doesn’t quite see him. Her strikes get sloppy, her feet stumble. She can’t make herself meet Quinlan’s eyes, not when the scrape of his heel against the metal sounds like the rasp of a breathing machine. Her shields get fuzzy, she knows, and she leaks what she feels into the air, making it sour and thick. She doesn’t notice, because all she can see, all she can--all she can hear and feel and--

She drops to her knees and grabs at her head, trying to stop it.

“Sokari?”

She breathes. In and out, harsh and jagged but natural in a way that the damned respirator wasn’t.

Her master her teacher her brother the traitor the hound the executioner

Her face is hot. Something prickles. It might be tears.

She tries to say something, tries to say a name or a request, tries to make anything come out of her mouth that isn’t the broken wail of a woman who hasn’t let herself think about how she died.

She feels herself pulled into someone’s arms, and she can’t quite tell who, but they’re bigger than she is, and feel warm and worried. They care. They don’t understand, they’re scared, but they care.

Her hands shake, clutched to her chest and she can’t breathe she can’t make herself take in enough air to do a Force-damned thing the empire is going to feel her her shields are down and broken and her emotions are spilling and the empire is going to find HER ANAKIN IS GOING TO FIND HER AND--

“COMMANDER!”

Rex.

Rex is here.

Her breath is coming so fast that she’s hiccupping more than she’s actually inhaling. She feels small hands in gloves on either side of her face, and then her forehead presses to something warm.

Rex. A Keldabe kiss. Her brother, her partner, her other half. He’s here. He’s calm. If he’s calm, then things are fine.

“What happened?” Light voice, high voice, small and distant. Leia. Little Leia little princess Leia she’s in danger she’s in trouble Anakin will--

“Commander.”

No. Here and now. She needs to focus on here and now. Her throat feels cold. She breathes too fast, still. She can’t stop it.

“I don’t know.” That’s Vos. He was... they were doing something. He was here. Talking to her. “We were sparring, and she just--”

Right, sparring.

“I don’t know if I said something?” He offers, voice pitching up, unsure and worried. Is he the one holding her? He’s the one holding her. That’s embarrassing.

“Commander?” Rex prompts. “Commander, can you open your eyes?”

She tries. She can’t. She shakes her head.

“Soka?” he asks, voice quiet. “Where are you?”

“F-F-Fett,” she manages. It’s enough.

“And where were you?”

His voice is so soft. So worried. She held him the same way after Mandalore, after Order 66, after all his brothers, all her friends...

“Soka.”

Her mind is spinning, and suddenly all she can hear is Anakin Skywalker is dead. I destroyed him.

Her breath hitches, and she wails.

“Commander,” Rex tries again, but her head is a vortex of Then you will die and Perhaps this child and not the Jedi way.

Our long awaited meeting.

I destroyed him.

Then you will die.

She can’t breathe she can’t breathe she can only see that yellow eye that’s too familiar but belongs to a stranger can only hear a voice that shouldn’t exist can only mourn and break and--

“Soka?”

“Malachor,” she manages. “I--h-he--I died.”

“What did you say?” someone asks. A vod. It’s the right voice, almost, rough and business-like, not accusing anyone yet, and... and... no. No. Not one of her boys. It’s Fett.

“Um, right at the end? I asked her who taught her to fight like this,” Quinlan says, nervous. “And she said it was soldiers. And I joked, I asked that it wasn’t her Master, and she didn’t answer that. A couple minutes later, she just started...”

“Oh, Soka,” Rex whispers, pulling her closer. “Commander, just breathe with me.”

“H-h-he, he just--R-Rex, he j-just--and I c-c-couldn’t--”

“I know,” her captain whispers. “I know, just breathe with me.”

“He k-k-k-killed me,” she sobs, falling out of the Keldabe and into too-small arms. “I l-loved--he was my broth-ther and--and he just--he killed me, he didn’t even stop.”

“I know,” Rex whispers. “Soka, I know.”

Of course he does.

---------------------------

“It was just bad timing,” Rex says, once they’re in the room she’s been sharing with her little family, curled up under a blanket and watching the floor like it has all the secrets to how she lost her world three times over.

“Is there anything we need to keep in mind?” Fett asks, gruff and uncomfortable. She wonders if he’s angry that she took his necessary confrontation and turned it into this mess.

“Don’t bring up her Jedi Master,” Rex says, and pulls her in when she shivers. Her eyes squeeze shut before she can stop them, tears beading up again. “Just... don’t. It’s too soon.”

“He’s--”

“He Fell,” Ahsoka interrupts. “I thought he died, but he became a Sith. And fifteen years later, we ran into each other, and I refused to join him in the Dark, so he tried to kill me.”

Fett swears, low and muffled. She thinks he has a hand over his mouth.

Quin and Leia aren’t there. She thinks they’re keeping an eye on their Baby Sith prisoner. That’s good.

“Soka,” Rex whispers, and she buries her face in his shoulder. She’s too old to be this kind of mess. She’s thirty-two. She’s Fulcrum. She’s...

She’s in need of a lot of therapy.

“We can avoid the subject unless you bring it up,” Tholme promises. “Definitely until the Temple. Is there anything else we shouldn’t talk about?”

Ahsoka can practically feel Rex’s deadpan look. “Sir, we’re a trio of child soldiers ripped from everything we know. Every other sentence is a risk. We’re just... working our way through.”

There’s a knock at the door. Oh. Quin and Leia.

“Just figured we’d drop this off before we went down to visit Mr. Grumpy-Face,” Quinlan whispers. He still thinks Leia’s a child. He’s trying to make things less terrible for her. That’s nice. “We decided he’ll be less angry if he tries Hoth chocolate, and made some for everyone.”

They definitely made it for Ahsoka herself, and Maul was an afterthought. Still. It’s sweet.

“Commander?” Rex prompts, jostling her a little to try and get her to sit up.

“Gimme a sec,” she manages. It takes longer than it should to push herself away from him, to accept the mug that Leia gives her, too-serious worry in the furrow of her brow and the twist of her soul.

She doesn’t look six. She doesn’t even look twenty-two. This girl was always too old for her skin, forced to grow up in the hostile fear of the Empire.

“Thank you, Princess.”

She sips.

She can barely taste it beyond the ashes she imagines coating her tongue.

I destroyed him, her memory echoes. His slightest hesitation before he made the final move, it haunts her. She almost reached him. If only she’d tried harder, yelled louder, been better...

She shivers.

“Do you need help falling asleep?” Tholme asks. “I’m a regular healer, not a mind healer, but...”

She probably should.

She takes another sip of her drink, willing herself to taste it. It’s good. She likes it. She knows she does.

“Can you make it dreamless?” she whispers.

“It doesn’t always work, but I can try,” he tells her.

She nods. “When I finish the chocolate.”

“Of course.”

---------------------------

Everyone’s careful around her for days. The whole decision to be nicer doesn’t mean anything when she’s walking about in a daze of too few emotions, drained of everything she could feel in favor of a grey cloud of fluff in everything she does.

She does forms. Single saber and Jar’kai. Ataru and Djem so and Soresu. Reverse grip, regular grip, partial reverse on either side.

Again. Again. Again.

She loses herself in the motions, not meditating so much as just empty.

Rex worries. Fett worries. Vos worries.

Leia and Tholme keep their shields locked up tight, and she doesn’t know how they feel. She thinks Leia might be judging her. She think Tholme might be pitying.

Maul simply hates. It’s an old and familiar sensation to walk into, and she takes unthinking comfort in his rage. She’s silent instead of snippy, when she plays the role of guard, and they stare at each other in silence. His eyes burn, and she wonders how much he’s heard of her nightmares.

“You need to talk,” Rex tells her, when he finds her with a cold cup of caff, eyes fixed somewhere beyond it all. She lifts her head. “Soka.”

She just stares at him.

He sighs and pulls her into a hug. “Commander, please.”

She can’t.

Ahsoka stares at the wall behind him, resting her chin on his head. Her neck itches under the lek at the back of her head, a little tingle of a feeling that she can’t bring herself to do anything about. The pale light of the galley is sharp against the chipped paint of the metal that surrounds them. It hurts her eyes to look, but it’s not the deep and dark lit only by red--

Then you will die, her memory growls.

She flinches.

“Breathe,” Rex tells her, too-small hands clinging at her back. “Just breathe, ‘Soka.”

She curls in tighter and tries to just breathe.

---------------------------

“Tell me something good.”

Ahsoka blinks. She looks at Leia. She doesn’t have the energy to parse that.

Leia chances a look at Rex, who isn’t leaving Ahsoka’s side any more than he has to, and Fett on the other side. Tholme’s asleep and Quin’s on Baby Sith duty. It’s just people who know, right now.

The little girl across the table, the child senator, the spy, purses her lips and huffs in irritation. “You knew my biological father before he became one of the worst people in the galaxy. Both of you did. Tell me something good about him.”

Good things.

About Anakin.

“You fought a war as a Jedi,” Leia prompts. “Surely you must have done some good things with him, or at least thought you were.”

Did they?

Every mission ended in tragedy or was just a ploy of Palpatine’s. Every saved life was just...

Wait.

“He built Threepio,” she finally says. “Your father wi--I mean, Bail wiped Threepio’s memory after the Empire rose, for your safety, but Anakin was the one who built him.”

Leia sits up, eyes brighter. “I didn’t know that. I... was Artoo involved? Did he build R2D2, or...”

“No,” Rex says, “But Artoo was his favorite astromech, and they always pushed each other into stupid stunts. We risked a hell of a lot to save that droid, more than once, and I didn’t find out until you started working with the Rebellion full-time, but Artoo and Threepio were the witnesses for your bio-parents’ wedding.”

Leia gapes at him. So does Ahsoka. (Fett doesn’t know enough to care.)

Rex grins, and if it looks a little forced, that’s fine. “He had a holo recording. I was one of the few people left that knew about the marriage that might have wanted to see, so Artoo offered. It was... sweet.”

He waits, probably for Ahsoka to add something herself, but she has nothing.

“I think that’s when they swapped droids, since Threepio was more useful to a politician and Artoo did his best work when we set him loose on the enemy.”

“He never changed,” Leia muses. “Did he always swear that much?”

“Yes,” Ahsoka answers, as Rex laughs. “Always. All the binary I learned started with the best swears.”

She tries to think of another good memory, something else that Leia might appreciate. Her mind ticks back to saving Stinky, which is just a terrible option, because that mission started with Hutts and ended with the Battle of Teth. That massive loss of life, all for the son of the creature that had put Leia in chains.

She wonders if she has anything in her memory that doesn’t end in blood and graves.

“Soka.” Rex.

“Hm?”

“Remember that time Fives and Echo got lost in the undercity their first time on leave, and we had to get the General to help us find them?”

She does.

He’s right, that’s a good story.

“Okay, so what you have to understand,” Ahsoka says, already digging the faint details out and dusting them off, “is that these boys were ARC troopers, top-notch, terrifyingly competent once they got through specialty training, and loyal as hell. Echo had memorized the reg manuals front to back, and Fives was... well, Fives ended up being the only person to figure out the chips before they went into action. Point is, the Domino twins were good... eventually. Just like everyone else, though, they started out shiny.”

---------------------------

“Tholme’s hiding something.”

Ahsoka wonders if Leia will just leave if she ignores her enough. Probably not. This was the girl that got kicked out of boarding school for leading a sit-in at age seven. She’s got patience.

“His job requires him to hide a lot of things,” Ahsoka says instead. “Not as many as Vos will have to, eventually, but a lot.”

“He’s hiding something from us,” Leia insists, visibly frustrated that Ahsoka isn’t as upset about this as she is. “Something important.”

The way she says ‘important’ is clumsy and impacted by the missing baby tooth. She can’t say the r. It comes out as ‘im-poh-ten,’ which is adorable, and if Ahsoka comments on it, she’s probably going to get punched by a six-year-old.

“The Force doesn’t care,” Ahsoka says. “I trust his intentions, if not him as a person.”

“If you don’t trust him, then why trust his intentions?”

“Leia, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I trust one and a half people in the galaxy,” Ahsoka points out. “Me not trusting a person isn’t a sign of anything except my paranoia. The only person I trust fully and without reservation is Rex. Even you, I only mostly trust, because my brain starts screaming if I think too hard. That’s why you’re the half.”

“Okay, whatever, paranoia aside,” Leia barrels on, “He should tell us. Whatever it is that he’s hiding, we deserve to know. We’re not children that he can just hide things from for our own good.”

Ahsoka presses her lips together. “Leia. Princess. I know you’re used to holding all the cards--”

“This isn’t about me being a control freak!”

“It is, though,” Ahsoka soothes, and smiles. “Your mother--the bio one--was the same way. You spent years as one of the leaders of the Rebellion, so obviously you’re used to having all the information, and people reporting to you... but Tholme is a Jedi Master. He reports to the Council and the Republic. Do you know how many people I kept secrets from while I was a padawan? We’re an unknown, Leia. They have no proof that we’re on their side, especially since we’re traveling with Fett.”

Leia crosses her arms and glares as hard as she can.

“I’m not going to bother him,” Ahsoka says. “I’ve already had, like, five unrelated mental breakdowns. I’m putting this on hold until we get to the Temple and I can trust that there’s a healer on hand to sedate me or something.”

“You... want to be sedated?”

“Leia, this... really should be obvious, but a Force-Sensitive losing their osik the way I have been isn’t actually safe. I know I broke a weapons rack last week.” Ahsoka gestures vaguely. “If the Jedi Master isn’t telling me something for reasons that might relate to my clear and obvious mental instability, I’m going to assume he’s got a point.”

“So he should tell me or Rex.”

“We’ll be on Coruscant in four days,” Ahsoka soothes. “Just... let it be. They won’t hurt us.”

“You don’t know that.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “I don’t have to. The Force leads me in all things, including this.”

Leia isn’t impressed by that, but Leia isn’t impressed by much in the first place.

She strides off in a fit that is, perhaps, more influenced by her six-year-old emotional control than she’d like to admit. Ahsoka lets her. It’s not worth the argument.

It’s only a few minutes later that Fett strides in, takes the seat Leia was just in, and asks, “What would it take for you to teach me how to use a jetii’kad?”

She blinks at him. “You want to learn how to use a lightsaber?”

“Yes.”

“...why?”

“Viszla.”

“I see.”

She does.

Ahsoka taps her fingers against the table, eyeing him with the kind of interest she copied from Master Kenobi, years ago. Fett doesn’t fidget, but she thinks he might want to. He just looks back, waiting for her judgement.

“You’ll need to justify it,” she finally says. “It’s a significant difference from what you actually did, so I need to know your reasoning for doing it, and your plans for once it’s done.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s step one,” she corrects. She tilts her head, considering. “My standards for you aren’t built in a vacuum, and you know that. Explain to me what you plan to do and how you plan to do it, and if I approve...”

“You’ll help me achieve it.”

“Maybe,” she allows. “A lot of that depends on Rex.”

“I expected as much,” Fett says. “He is... an admittedly large part of the reason.”

“He would be,” she says. She gives the silence a few more seconds to sit awkwardly between them, and then stands up. “I’d guess you’ve been brainstorming already. Do you have it written down or is it mostly just in your head so far?”

“I’m still... debating options, so to speak.”

She grins, and the shape of the predator’s smile, the baring of teeth... that almost makes him step back. She can see it in the twitch of his muscles. Smart man.

“Follow me,” she says, and doesn’t wait for him to stand. She strides out with tooka-light steps, hears the heavy beskar tread behind her, and goes to the cargo hold. Fett’s confusion grows tangibly behind her, especially when she tosses him a wooden quarterstaff. She picks up the other and spins it in one hand.

“You’re going to fight me,” she tells him, stretching and letting the staff help with the process. “And while we fight, you’re going to tell me what your plans for Mandalore are.”

He mimics her, but there’s a frown on his face. “And why staffs?”

“You and I, we’ve only sparred bare-handed,” she says. “I need a feel for how you fight with a weapon anyway. These are a good start.”

“Not the beskad?”

She grins, and the twitch is back. “No. That can wait. We start with the staffs.”

He takes a stance, and she mirrors him. She lets him strike first with a weapon, but she’s the one that asks all the questions.

(He is the only one on the ship that can fight her one-on-one right now, and he can win. Still, she makes him work for every inch, and what she doesn’t win in bruises, she wins in words.)

(Fett might yet be a proper Mand’alor, but Ahsoka learned war from her brothers, negotiation at the knee of a general and in the shadow of a prince, and government at the side of duchesses and queens.)

(If he wants her help uniting his people, he needs to prove that he can hold them together once she’s gone.)

---------------------------

Ahsoka’s interrogation of Jango’s plans is thorough, and she’s not the only one involved. She brings Leia in, and has her join in on the grilling. She maybe laughs as the twenty-seven-year-old survivor of Galidraan, the Mand’alor, a man who has killed Master Jedi with his bare hands, gets lectured on various government structures by a tiny girl that's missing several teeth and needs to sit on books to see the table properly.

Still, Leia knows this better than any of the rest of them do. The girl might have grown up heir to a monarchy, but she got a classical education and was drilled on democracy and all associated forms of government. Where Ahsoka knows military protocol and law enforcement, intersystem relations and defensive measures, Leia knows agricultural subsidies and welfare programs, infrastructure and education.

Ahsoka may know how to find out if someone’s breaking a zoning law, but Leia knows why it exists in the first place.

“And I grew up in a cult,” Rex says, when an argument on that topic breaks out. Everyone that hasn’t heard the joke-that-isn’t-a-joke stares at him. “The Jedi grew up in a religious meritocracy; Leia grew up in a monarchy; and I grew up in a cult.”

Ahsoka elbows him. He’s not wrong, but still.

Unfortunately, Ahsoka is about forty-seven percent sure that Leia will put her foot in her mouth when it comes to Mandalorian culture, blunt as the girl is. That prefrontal cortex isn’t anywhere near as developed as it should be, either, so impulse control for the princess isn’t great. Ahsoka refuses to let Leia and Fett talk about ways to mend the breaks between tradition and the pacifism of the New Mandalorians without either Rex or Ahsoka herself as a mediating presence. Tholme sits in a few times, but while he knows that Leia isn’t really six--though not about the time-travel, yet--Quinlan doesn’t.

They admittedly end up doing this while he’s on Maul-sitting duty.

“It’s like he doesn’t even care about making nice with the people that, at this point, make up the majority of his people!” Leia grumbles one night, as Ahsoka kicks over a step stool so the girl can brush her teeth. “He may not like the New Mandalorians, but from what I understand, it’s still early enough to prevent the majority of the cultural bleaching you brought up. If he stays this stubborn--”

“Leia,” Ahsoka says, and the girl’s mouth snaps shut. “I’m aware of your reasons for not trusting his intentions. But if I may say? Chill.”

“He’s not even trying!”

“He’s trying a hell of a lot harder than he did in the original timeline,” Ahsoka reminds her. “Brush your teeth.”

“I’m not a--”

“Teeth.”

It’s a little worrying, how the child’s brain affects Leia, but... well. That’ll pass in time, hopefully. Until then, Ahsoka gets to be the aunt she should have been. This includes tucking Leia in, which the girl grumbles about despite the fond waves of comfort that enter the Force around her. Ahsoka doesn’t call her out on it, just brushes back wisps of hair to plant a kiss on Leia’s forehead, and then does the same once Rex stumbles in, grumbling about the limitations of a cadet’s body, but far more ready to follow the protocol that is bedtime.

Rex doesn’t pretend to not like getting tucked in, for all that he’s sharing with a grumbly, already-asleep princess. He smiles up at Ahsoka, lets her hug him, and pretends they can be a normal family for five seconds.

Quinlan’s making a late night snack for himself in the galley. Tholme is guarding the Baby Sith. Fett...

Ahsoka goes to the cockpit, takes the copilot’s seat, and watches hyperspace pass them by.

It takes long minutes before either of them say anything.

“Do Jedi believe in souls?”

His shields are up, locked up tighter than the innermost chambers of the Imperial Palace. She has no idea where he’s taking this question. She has to cast about for an answer.

“That depends on how you define a soul,” she finally says. “Leia told me about Force Ghosts. A Jedi Master who underwent the right meditations and training could pass into the Force upon their death without losing their sense of self. They could remain themselves, to an extent, and interact with force-sensitive individuals. I don’t know if they could last that way indefinitely, but depending on your definition, I could argue those ghosts were evidence of a form of soul.”

“So you believe that the dead pass into the Force, but that what passes could be a soul. Something must exist for a sense of self to disappear at death in a way that impacts the Force as you understand it, and many would use the word ‘soul’ for that something.”

“Mm,” Ahsoka considers it. “I’d say that’s pretty accurate. You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

“What about those not yet born?”

Her fingers feel cold, and she finds herself no longer able to watch the passage of hyperspace as passively as she had, and her eyes catch on streaks and motes of what is not dust, her vision unable to keep any more still than her heart.

“Oh,” she hears herself say. “The clones.”

It’s a long time before he answers, but the walls come down. He carries a confused sort of grief with him, guilty and a mite resentful. His questions have been building for longer than she’d thought. His voice is rough. “I’ve taken plenty of lives, but I’ve never known the name of someone I erased from existence before they were even born.”

“The stories we told Leia about the brothers.”

There’s a grunt of agreement from Fett, so those dots at least connect.

“I take it my answer wasn’t helpful,” she manages to say.

“Will they still exist?” Fett asks. “Will they be born elsewhere? Or is... is a soul something that only comes into existence after the body does?”

“I have no idea,” Ahsoka admits. “I want... I want to think that I’d be able to find them eventually, to recognize them, if their souls are still born into this world elsewhere.”

“And if your Sith finds someone else to build his army out of?”

Ahsoka looks at him, sharp and pointed. “You wouldn’t.”

“They’ll be doing it anyway, if their plans are as ironclad as you say.”

“You’re already associating with Jedi,” Ahsoka says, fighting the urge to break his nose. “They wouldn’t approach you, not now. They can’t leverage your anger against you. They won’t know everything, but they’ll know that you have friends among the Jedi.”

“You think they can’t come up with better lies?”

He has a point. He has more than one point and she hate hate hates it.

A Jedi does not hate.

I am no Jedi.

“You’re going to have to convince me,” she says. “Especially if you want to somehow balance this with the darksaber thing. I won’t teach you how to fight with it if you’re not planning to retake Mandalore.”

“That’s how they’d sell it,” he says. “Retaking Mandalore. An army ostensibly for the Jedi, and ultimately...”

“You’d build an army of slaves.”

“No, I’d be the inside man for when they build that army anyway.”

She holds his gaze. She looks away first.

“Torrent?”

“I’m thinking.”

He lets her.

“I’ll need to talk to Rex. Probably Leia.”

“Understandable.”

“I don’t like this.”

“I’m only just considering it. It’s an idea, not a plan.”

“That’s the only reason I haven’t ripped your throat out with my teeth.”

“Hyperbole doesn’t suit you.”

She glares at him, and leaves, her mind chopping up and laying out every possible angle on Fett volunteering to do the exact same thing as last time, but somehow worse.

Great. Just what she needed.

---------------------------

Ahsoka isn’t there for the shouting match between Rex and Fett, but she doesn’t have to be. She can hear it form clear across the ship, and Rex comes to her afterwars. He’s been crying, which isn’t as surprising as it could be. These bodies are still prone to such things, and will be for years. She doesn’t comment.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

“We need to take out Sidious before he starts anything on Kamino.”

“Agreed,” she says. “It’ll be hard, though.”

“I don’t care.”

“What did Fett say?”

“That if it wasn’t going to be my brothers, it would be someone else’s. Either we stopped the cloning from happening at all, or we mitigated damage by being there.”

“I don’t think Sidious is going to tap him for it,” Ahsoka admits. “Not unless you’re willing to stage that kind of fight publicly enough for Fett to claim the Jedi poisoned you, family, against him. It could work, but it’s a gamble.”

He knows all of this.

“I miss them,” he says, and she cards her fingers though the curls he’s managed to grow in the past weeks. “I just... even at the end, I had Wolffe. I knew Boba was out there; I wouldn’t be surprised if the beskar let him survive a Sarlacc. I had brothers. Not as many as I used to, but there was always someone. I miss them all, so much it hurts.”

“It wouldn’t be them,” she reminds him. She pulls him closer, puts her cheek to his head. “It would be the same process, the same faces, the same training, even, but the boys themselves...”

He clings to her and shudders.

“Rex?”

“I can’t force them to grow up the way I did. I want them back. Sidious is going to make the army no matter what. Someone’s going to suffer, and I don’t want it to be my brothers, but they won’t exist otherwise, and...”

“And it’s an impossible choice,” she summarizes. “And it sucks.”

“It’s sucks Gungan balls, ‘Soka.”

She laughs, and feels him smile against her shoulder. Good. He needs to smile more.

“He’s still trying to get me to like him,” Rex says. "He’s still making an effort, and he never did that for anyone except Boba, and it’s weird. I don’t know what to do with any of that.”

“Gain a brother,” Ahsoka whispers, and she feels him jerk against her. “If that’s what you want.”

“He’s not vod.”

“Same blood as all the rest, and you’re older than him, so he’s not really in a position to be a parent to you like he was to Boba,” she says carefully. “You don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to, but... I think he’s trying. I think this means a lot to him, and that he isn’t any more sure of what to do than you are. You don’t have to forgive him for what he did in the future, you don’t have to accept when he reaches out, you don’t have to ever talk to him again after we reach Coruscant if you don’t want, but I think... I think it’s worth at least considering what you have to gain. I think it’s worth looking at what he’s trying to give you.”

Rex huffs. “Why couldn’t he just be the shabuir I knew in training?”

“Something happened between now and then?” she offers. “I don’t know. I never met him in the original timeline. I just know the guy that keeps trying to get on my good side so you’ll like him.”

He outright scoffs. “Soka, that’s not the only reason he’s trying to get on your good side.”

“...I’m a former Jedi who talks trash to his face,” she says slowly. “And I cried on him. There is no reason for him to be nice to me, other than you.”

“He thinks you’re cool and a good person and wants you to be his friend.”

“Bantha poodoo.”

Rex grins in a way that goes straight to smirking. “Soka, I’m not joking. Jango Fett wants you to be his friend.”

“Kriffing why?” she asks, more than a little horrified. “I’m a mess, look like I’m ten years younger than him, have gleefully kicked his ass in front of an audience; I even told Vos to throw him at a baby Sith Lord. Putting up with me is one thing, but I’m... I’m only barely not a Jedi. I’m a historical enemy of Mandalore, and part of the community he hates more than anything, and--”

“And his reaction to you kicking his ass was pure Mando,” Rex says. “In that he now thinks you’re a badass, and thus worth being friends with.”

“I can’t believe that. I physically cannot.”

“Soka, just accept it. The Mand’alor wants to be friends with you.” He scratches at his scalp. “I mean, he met you while you were protecting what appeared to be children, and it’s apparently still early enough for him to care about that.”

She leans back in her seat, eyes on the wall ahead of her and back against the cool metal of the other side. Rex falls back with her. She wonders if Rex changed the subject so they didn’t have to talk about deciding how many of his brothers get to exist, and whether or not he can swallow the bitterness of his history to have a connection with at least one member of his blood. She doesn’t ask. If he wants to change the subject, that’s his right.

“I don’t... no.” She denies it as well as she can, and then the implications dig a little deeper. “Is this me accidentally signing up to be the Jedi Order’s official liaison to the Mand’alor?”

“I mean, this point in time... they’ve got Kenobi for the Duchess, yeah?” Rex shrugs. “Good relations with the system are probably a good thing, and you’ve got a stronger connection than Tholme and Vos.”

“Ugh,” she says. She rubs a hand against her head, and then lurches to her feet. “Fine! Fine. If it’ll get him to retake Mandalore before the Sith decide to bribe him with an army he doesn’t get to keep, I’ll teach him how to fight for the kriffin’ Darksaber.”

“That’s what makes the decision for you?”

“Well something had to!”

They only get one lesson in before Coruscant, but the lesson lasts a full day, and Ahsoka’s got his comm number. Fett’s a quick learner anyway, and Tholme was there to give pointers where Ahsoka couldn’t.

He won’t measure up to a Jedi in saber-to-saber combat, but he doesn’t need to. He just needs to learn enough to turn all those skills with a beskad to something that works with a jetii’kad.

(The balance of a saber is wrong to those used to a physical weapon. The inertia doesn’t work the way anyone expects. There’s no need to worry about damaging the blade.)

(Fett is good. Ahsoka is better. And, bless his heart, he knows it.)

(She will mold him into the shape of someone who not only can, but should rule a system with a history like that, and he damn well knows that too.)

---------------------------

“Dropping out of hyperspace in T-minus twenty seconds.”

The Slave I is not, in fact, a Venator-class starship, or anything else near the size and smoothness of the ships that Ahsoka grew up on. This is a bounty hunter’s vessel, and the drop to real space jolts like nothing else. Ahsoka’s in the copilot seat for the return, but Tholme’s going to swap with her as soon as they’ve got confirmation that there were no problems with exiting hyperspace, and nobody’s shooting at them.

“We’re not going to get shot at,” Tholme had assured her.

“I always get shot at,” she’d told him.

“I have our clearance,” he reminded her, seeming more amused than frustrated. “There’s no need to worry about getting shot at.”

“I also always get shot at,” Jango had thrown in.

“Okay,” Tholme had allowed, after several minutes of his trust in the Temple warring against Ahsoka and Jango’s learned paranoia. The looks Quinlan had darted around the room when Leia and Rex also claimed ‘chronic getting-shot-at disease’ had been a treat. The paranoia of a Watchman and a future Shadow was great, but the paranoia of three revolutionaries and a galaxy-wide criminal was greater. “You can take us in close enough to get in radio contact, but the second we have to ask for clearance and a vector, I’m in the seat.”

She’d agreed, of course. She was paranoid, not inexperienced.

“We’re much less likely to get shot down by ground control if you tell them we’re with you,” she’d said, to his hilariously apparent metaphysical exhaustion. “Obviously.”

“Good enough,” he’d sighed.

What that means is mostly just that Ahsoka gets to watch the distant star at the center of Coruscant’s system grow rapidly brighter. She can pick out the constellations she’d grown up with, the stars the creche had projected on the ceiling every night, the ones that she may not have seen from the surface, but had greeted her and then sent her on her way every time she left on yet another campaign that lost her men their lives for a Sith Lord's wretched plans. These were the shapes and stories she’d never seen again as Fulcrum, a woman so hunted that to come within a dozen subsectors of the planet was to court her death.

For sixteen years, she hadn’t ventured closer than Alderaan, save for a single trip to Chandrila.

And now, maybe twenty minutes away at this speed, was the Temple. It was home.

A home that didn’t know her, that had sentenced her to death, that had hosted the rampage of her former master... but home nonetheless.

“Stable?” Fett grunts.

“Thrusters are good,” she confirms.

“I meant you.”

Ah. “I’m... fine. As good as I could be, anyway.”

She hesitates, but manages to speak before he does. “You?”

“I’m not the one walking into an entire building of triggers.”

“Only because you’re not entering it,” she says. “It’s the home of your ancestral enemies who, bad info or no, killed off a whole lot of your friends.”

“I get to leave,” he says. “You don’t.”

She plans to needle him a bit more, maybe on something a little less based in both their traumas. She needs to talk, if only to fill up the silence and keep herself from reaching out to all the lights in the Force. It’ll be too much, she knows.

Tholme enters the cockpit. “Change of plans.”

“Better be a good reason,” Jango says, voice flat.

“Leia’s crying.”

Ahsoka’s unbuckling herself before she can process the words fully. “What?”

Leia doesn’t cry for no reason. Her emotional control is as difficult as the body makes it, but she doesn’t just cry. There’s always a cause.

“I don’t know. Rex said to get you,” Tholme explains. “She was saying a name. He seemed to recognize it.”

Not good not good not good. If Leia was feeling the Emper--No. She cuts the thought off there. No catastrophizing. Information first.

“What name.”

“Luke. Mean anything to--and she’s gone.”

Ahsoka ignores him, just sprints to where she knows the ‘young ones’ are. They’re all in Maul’s room, because nobody wants to be alone with him now, but it’s the worst time to leave him without supervision. It’s not the worst option; he mostly refuses to talk, still.

This holds true, because he definitely isn’t talking when she bursts in. He’s sitting on the bench, in a corner, hugging his knees and watching Quinlan try to calm Leia down.

“Captain, sitrep.”

“Vos and Tholme attempted to show Leia how to reach out to feel the Temple from a distance. They felt that it would be a good use of the time, and an interesting exercise at this distance. She attempted to do so, struggled for several minutes, and then reacted with shock. She has repeated the name ‘Luke’ several times since then, and we’ve been unable to fully calm her down. I asked Tholme to get you, as you are the only Force-Sensitive on board that understands the situation in full.”

“Understood.” She nods to him, and then goes to nudge at Quinlan. “Vos, move.”

“Torre--”

“You can sit behind her, hold her in your lap like you did when we had lunch the other day, but I need to get in her face.” She waits for him to comply, and then drops to her knees and takes Leia’s hands in her own. She radiates calm and assurance, even though she knows Quinlan’s probably been doing the same since this started. She dips her head enough to get in the girl’s line of sight, waits for her to meet eyes.

“Princess,” she says, and meets Leia’s eyes. “What did you feel?”

“Luke.”

From this distance... they’ve got half the system to go, at least, and Leia’s training shouldn’t reach that far for anything more than the fact that the Temple is there. Ahsoka could feel unshielded individuals from here, if she focused, but she’s also been doing this much, much longer. The twins theory holds more water than ever.

“Can you show me?” Ahsoka asks, instead of asking for more clarification. She squeezes Leia’s hands and smiles. “In the Force?”

Leia nods, and closes her eyes. It’s not the first time they’ve done this, but it’s the first time in a while that Leia’s needed Ahsoka to guide her through.

Luke’s light, for all that it’s unfamiliar to Ahsoka, is brilliant among the rest of the signatures in Coruscant. Like Anakin and Leia, he’s a star in his own right, but he’s brighter. He doesn’t have Anakin’s bitterness or Leia’s righteous anger, just... light. Ahsoka had asked Leia to show her instead of looking for herself because she’d expected to not recognize the boy, but she needn’t have. He’s unmistakable.

He’s so bright that she almost misses the other signature that she does recognize. She shies away, knowing that it would be there, but... but it’s almost twinned with another nearby. Not identical, but different in a way that comes with age, with trauma, with... death.

Leia hadn’t arrived alone, after all.

Why would Luke?

Her eyes snap open, her hand coming up not-quite-fast enough to clap over her mouth as she gasps. She feels a shudder, one that starts in her shoulders and reaches deep into her ribcage, finds a home in her chest and doesn’t stop.

“Oh fuck,” Quinlan whispers. “Torrent? Um, Sokari?”

Rex steps closer. “Commander?”

“That shabuir faked his death again,” she manages. “Three times, Rex!”

He blinks at her. “...I know way too many people who fit that description, Soka.”

“Master Ke--” she cuts herself off. He might have changed his name, just like she had. There’s already an Obi-Wan here. Rex seems to be figuring it out, but she needs to give him another hint.

“He pulled a Hardeen,” she stresses, and Rex’s eyes snap shut with a tired groan.

“Who?” Leia asks, her own tumult of emotion paused in the wake of Ahsoka’s shock. There’s a hope and relief to her, and Ahsoka belatedly realizes that her main worry had been that she’d misidentified what was going on, that she’d given herself a false hope. Ahsoka’s internal reaction, her approval and awe at Luke’s presence, had trickled over enough to give Leia the reassurance she’d needed.

Unintentional as it was, Ahsoka was glad that she’d succeeded in helping her charge.

“Er...” she trails off. “I don’t know what name he’s going by, right now. We’ve spent so long in hiding...”

“The man Luke knew as Crazy Old Ben,” Rex says, and Leia’s eyes light up.

“Oh,” she breathes. “General O--no, names. The High General, then.”

“Yeah,” Ahsoka says, not a little soft. “Yeah, I guess death didn’t stop him any more than it stopped me.”

“I could have told you that,” Leia says, smiling far too widely. She squirms where she still sits on Quinlan’s lap. “He was... he taught you, right?”

“As much my master as the official one,” Ahsoka says. She glances as Quinlan, feels Maul’s gaze on the back of her head. “Your f... my official master was very young when I was assigned to him. He wasn’t ready to teach, wasn’t even ready to be a knight, entirely, so my training was split between him and his master.”

Quinlan pops in at that moment, “Your grandmaster was military, too?”

We all were, she thinks. Even you, in your own way.

“I landed in their care mid-battle,” she says carefully. “It was a complicated situation.”

He nods, and she vaguely notes that he’s got his arms wrapped around Leia, and his chin tucked on top of her head. She isn’t sure if Leia’s noticed, but Quinlan’s picked up ‘baby’-sitting duty so often recently that she’s fairly certain he’s all but declared her ‘little-sister shaped.’ It doesn’t matter that Leia’s older--she’s still taking the juice boxes and gummy snacks that Quinlan shoves at her every single snacktime.

“Do you think...” Rex trails off, something uncomfortable twisting in the Force, even though his face keeps it mostly hidden. “My brothers. If the General survived and... and made it back...”

“I didn’t feel any,” Ahsoka says, because she knows she’d have noticed if it was anyone she’d met, and likely any clone at all. They all felt different in the Force, but they all held a spark that made her know it was one of them. “I’m sorry, Rex’ika.”

“A long shot,” he says, that dash of hope shriveling up. He must see something in her face, because there’s a curl of warmth in him, even if his smile is brittle. “It’s fine, really. I have you, ‘Soka.”

Rex and Ahsoka. Two halves of one whole.

She can’t wait to hear the lectures on attachment, the way people who haven’t seen her wars try to criticize her for clinging to any chance at still having a will to live. She can’t wait to see them justify telling her that it’s selfish to hold her sanity in her hands and refuse to let the grief take it away. She can’t wait to stare someone down for asking her to ‘learn to let go’ after she’s lost her family, her life, her universe three times over.

Most of the Jedi are more sensible than that, are reasonable enough to see those shades of grey and how to approach rules in the spirit they are meant instead of the rigid letter, but there will be some.

There will be more than enough telling her she is wrong to hold her oldest, closest, best friend as dear as she can.

Attachment, they’ll say.

What they’ll mean is ‘codepedence.’

They won’t be entirely wrong.

She reaches out for him, lets him fall into her side and stay there, closes her eyes and reaches out for the man she’d long called father, when they’d still been in each other’s lives.

This time, past the deafening flare of surprise-love-hope of the little star next to him, she can feel him reach back.

---------------------------

The second the ship has landed, even before Tholme and Fett are done with the checks, Ahsoka’s waiting at the exit. She strains her hearing so she’ll know the second the system will let her open the massive door of the cargo hold.

Leia clings to her side, and the boys stand to her back.

Quinlan’s stressed enough that she can feel it like a cloud. She is very much not trying to feel that stress. Quinlan’s stress levels, back where he’s got Maul so he can keep an eye on Ahsoka and the Baby Sith at the same time, are so low on her priorities list that it’s a a little sad.

It doesn’t take long for her to be able to punch the button and open the damn door.

It opens slowly. She bounces on her toes, because there’s a beacon of light and a steady, familiar glow on the other side, and she’s so, so close. She can’t see through the crack yet, because it’s day in this part of Coruscant, and the sunlight is blinding against the dark of the hold. So close. She’s so close.

“The hell’s wrong with you?”

Fett? Fett. He’s already here to get off? This door’s slow.

She doesn’t answer him, because the door is finally open enough to let her out, and she leaps through the gap.

She lands on a pourstone floor, feels pebbles and grit compress under her boots, frantically looks around as her eyes adjust to light and--

The High General, the Negotiator, Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, looking just as he did when she first met him, if a little less armored and a little more fed. The hair, the beard, the crinkle in the corner of his eyes. His spirit is a little older, his smile a little more strained, his posture a little more tired, but it’s him.

He spreads his arms, low enough that she could have dismissed it if she’d cared less for hugs, except she’s almost as small as she was when they met.

And every other hug she’d given back then had been, functionally, her being a living missile aiming her montrals for someone’s organs.

She’s a little more aware of how to avoid stabbing her friends in the intestine now.

“Master!”

She sprints for him, collides and sobs, feels him stumble back and then sink to his knees on the too-hard floor, and can feel the tears pouring out of her already. Her breath hitches, and she wails like a child, and that last part of her that couldn’t even grasp at safety shreds itself. His arms are tight around her, warm and strong and Master Kenobi don’t you dare leave again.

It doesn’t matter that Sidious is out there, that the Republic’s been building towards war for a century, that even now someone’s kicking up the Trade Federation. Her dad is here.

“I’ve missed you too, my dear,” he says, pressing a kiss to the side of her head, the bristles of his beard scratching along the skin of her forehead. Off to the side, the binary suns that are Luke and Leia grow brighter in proximity, so bright she can barely bear it.

(“Fett, why the kriff are you reaching for your blaster?!”)

(“Torrent said her master tried to kill her.”)

(“Different guy, that was a different guy, put the blaster away.”)

(“You could have just warned me.”)

(“I didn’t expect you to go for a shot on sight!”)

(”Calm down, Jetiika, if I was going to shoot on sight, we’d already be in a firefight.”)

She ignores everything.

“If you fake your death one more time, I swear I’m going to kill you myself.”

He tries to pull away to talk to her more directly. She does not let him. He apparently resigns himself to this, because he just adjusts how he’s sitting and pulls her in closer.

“In my defense, I was far from the only one presumed dead that took advantage of that status, by the end,” he says, letting her slump into his lap and cry herself dry. “I’m proud of you. You know that, I hope.”

She nods against his chest, smearing tears and snot across the linen and wool. She doesn’t care that they’ll need a thorough washing. She can have her public breakdown and it’s fine because Master Kenobi is here.

He doesn’t even know what she’s spent the past fifteen years doing. Luke wouldn’t have known. He doesn’t know she’s thirty-two and broken, beyond a shadow and cut down by her own master. There’s so much he doesn’t know but the Force rings with the truth of it: he’s proud of her anyway.

“I’m going by Ben, now,” he mutters against her montral. “There’s already an Obi-Wan here, after all. Still, I remain a Kenobi.”

She can’t make the words come out of her mouth. She’s overwhelmed, so much so that speech is a mite bit beyond her.

Sokari Torrent, she presses along the frayed bond that’s knitting itself back to life with every breath they take. Leia was already calling me Auntie Soka, and Rex and I both took Torrent, for...

“For the men you lost,” he mutters. “Yes, that’s fitting.”

He smells like sapir tea and a spiced beard oil.

There’s a whirl of activity about her, greetings and ‘a Sith apprentice?’ and introductions. She distantly notes when Fett almost shoots Dooku before Rex shuts that down and advises the Master to leave the area before things spiral out of control. She feels Ben stand, and she stands with him, clings to his side like a child and trusts that whatever happens, whatever needs to happen, he’ll take care of it until she can stand on her own two feet without swaying.

Rex grabs her free hand, and she feels herself settle back into her skin, bit by bit.

She’s back at the Temple. The twins are safe. Her grandmaster is here. She has her other half.

They can save the galaxy this time.

She’s alive she’s home she’s okay.

She’s okay.

Everything’s going to be okay.

[hanibalistic]

#FFD500 | PARK JISUNG.

genre | fluff, meet cute au, strangers au

word count | 1781

warning | smoking ​

with suit and tie, styled hair, minimal makeup, and a heavy name on his back, jisung realized he could not do it. he could not bring himself to enter the main scene of high school prom.

nervous sweat drenched his hands and he hastily wiped away at the side of his hips. the blinking neon lights coming through the small windows of the assembly hall doors, and the loud blasty music that belonged to none other than his very own idol group made him feel isolated in this dark, empty school hallway he has barely walked across since he got accepted into the school.

there was no point in this. there was no point in attending. donghyuck had encouraged him the most when he was debating whether he wanted to go to prom; he said it could help with blowing off some steam, and there might even be a possibility of meeting someone eccentric, like how he did when he decided to attend prom two years back. jisung had believed him, and now he realized he should not have.

he barely attended school because of his conflicting schedule as a worldwide idol. logically speaking, he shouldn't even be allowed to graduate with the number of absences in his record, but he did so with flying colors anyway. he was everyone's friend and he has no friends; there would be no one to talk to inside, and the clear superiority in accomplishment he held might make things embarrassing and awkward for him.

he understood why donghyuck would deem his experience at his prom great. it was because he knew how to talk, he knew how to charm, and he was never shy around people. jisung believed his story when he talked about the student he frantically danced with under artificial lights. for donghyuck, having met someone eccentric was merely a fortunate coincidence, if not a miracle that he met someone exactly like him.

jisung was nothing like that. he knew he was nothing like that. dealing with strangers, let alone the mysteriously off ones, was never his forte. he would just make a fool of himself, he would not be having a good time.

going to prom was a bad idea. he should leave.

"jesus–watch it!"

"ah..." his voice dimmed as he immediately turned toward the direction of where the explosive voice came from. his hurrying steps halted to a stumble before a stop, and he eyed you up and down carefully before he dipped his head. "sorry... i–i didn't mean to scare you."

"i wasn't scared, just startled," you retorted quickly, but your voice was much calmer than your initial snap. tapping the lit cigarette in your hand lightly with your index finger, you mumbled as you eyed him with mild curiosity after your angry brows faded, "you came out in a hurry. forgot you had an award show to attend to, hmm?"

"oh–no, it's not that–" jisung paused abruptly, he wasn't sure why. when you raised a brow at him, almost impatiently it seemed, he gulped down a nervous knot and scratched the back of his head. "sorry, i just.. i didn't think you would know me."

you blinked at him as you swiped your tongue against your teeth, clicking with what jisung could not tell was menace or disinterest. either way, they were both bad. taking a short puff of the cigarette, you exhaled a cloud of smoke before you mused, "who said i know you, park jisung?"

he gulped, visibly distraught and confused.

"you just said–"

"i just what?"

he gulped again when his meek sentence was cut off so quickly. not even his brothers have interrupted him like this before, at least not with the genuine intention to anyway. it seemed that at this moment, he further came to the realization just how well he was taken care of by everyone around him, because could such a simple jab to a social interaction cause him such anxiety if he was used to it?

(he was glad he wasn't used to it.)

"what is a hotshot like you doing here anyway?" you fired the sudden question, looking to him with intrigue.

you were never one to engage in idol activities. you weren't even in this school to become an artist; you were forced here by your parents who stood somewhere in the industry. one day they realized you had the voice and the range to deserve the spotlight, and here you were stuck in those shit-ugly, overdue-banana-colored uniforms, trying to be a star you didn't want to be.

but jisung—you knew jisung. everybody knew jisung. your classmates, the teachers, that random american tourist who asked you for directions in the street, that kpop warrior online who kept screenshots of netizen articles and translating them out of context. everybody knew jisung, but very few knew him enough.

you didn't care much for him, but your curiosity just had to be fulfilled now that you were seeing him in person. what was he doing here, in a suit and sweating through his hair? did he always talked this shyly or was it your typical idol persona act? were you scaring him and should you do it even more to purposefully leave a bad impression?

your stare was confronting in this silence. granted, it was his turn to speak, so he was at blame for your lingering gaze on him. "i thought... i thought maybe i could go to prom," he finally replied quietly.

you hummed in acknowledgment, then you tilted your head. you looked behind your shoulder into the school, your eyes briefly grazing past the colorful doors that were the entrance to literal teenage hell, and you jabbed your thumb toward the direction. "prom is that way, though, dumbo."

"i know that," jisung said, embarrassed. "i just... i don't have friends."

you laughed, and once again jisung couldn't tell if you were genuinely amused or it was a response of mockery. inhaling carefully, you longing exhaled the smoke as your dazed eyes looked past him, with a smile so vague it seemed unnatural.

"what are you talking about? you've got friends. you got friends everywhere!"

"i... i don't?"

"sure you do!" you exclaimed boldly as you stretched your arms out to the sky, eyes ablaze at the stars above. "they are everywhere for you, jisung. you got friends everywhere because everyone wants to be your friend. you have options, you are just not taking them!"

"but they're not–" he licked his lower lip nervously, feeling a sense of sorrow cast over him upon the teenage loneliness he gained in trade for his success. "they're not real friends."

you paused.

real friends?

you paused; motions stopped, arms empty without strength, and eyes hallow with confused questioning. you stared at jisung as if he was a foreign creature who had said something absurd, so absurd you had to decide whether you wanted to ridicule him or interrogate him first.

what are real friends, anyway?

people who love you but do nothing about it, people who say they love you but do not, people who act upon loving you but do not? people who leave you alone at a bad time because you asked them to, people who would not leave you alone at a bad time even if you asked them to, people who knew how to juggle in between? people who comfort you because they understood you, people who advise because they could not understand you, people who try to relate to you because it was what they knew to be comfortable?

which one of those was real? were any of them fake simply because you didn't like it? when did you get crowned the decision-maker?

what are real friends, anyway? why does it matter, anyway?

why does truth matter if the lies treat you so well?

when you made up your mind to do both, you began to move fluidly again. your lips opened to breathe, and you chuckled sardonically at his naivety.

"what do you need the realness for? lies are lies only if it bothers you, essentially meaning you don't really need the absence of lies," you said. "who cares about real friends, you just need friends. don't you think you are expecting too much from humanity?"

there was sympathy in jisung that he did not know had risen. the basis of the situation, of why you came to the conclusion that people were less than gentle and kind, he knew nothing of but he was sorry for. whether something has happened in your life, or if you simply grew to be cynical, the lack of tiny joys in life must be a terrible feast.

he also knew he hasn't the energy and wit to argue himself to victory; his humanism, the desire to prove that people are good because his people have been good, would not be enough to shake you.

"shouldn't you stop smoking?" he asked, promptly changing the subject.

you removed the cigarette from your mouth, brows furrowed in annoyance now that the attention was directed toward you. you exhaled the smoke slowly from your throat, and you tilted your head up to the sky where you gently said, "maybe not. i just can't seem to die."

your god-given voice just wouldn't let off.

"do you plan to go back in after then? smelling like smoke?" he asked.

"don't mock me boy." you grinned with a glare hanging off the corner of your mouth. "and no, i am not going back in. i don't have friends, but unlike you, i just don't have friends because i am a raging asshole."

jisung finally breathed out a giggle, but it was abruptly short. he covered his mouth and lowered his head, only peeking up at you occasionally. "well, if it's any consolation, i don't think you're all that bad."

your eyes fluttered as you silently tapped your cigarette. he was just as you expected but a little more. you could understand why people like him so much now; his innocence wasn’t a drag, it was a charm. 

you gave him a silent but thankful smile before you looked away. "yeah. thanks."

jisung thought you looked less angry now; eyes at the stars, wishful and longing to be above. the blush that blossomed on his cheeks remained despite the faded nervousness, maybe it was because he felt a fondness toward you he usually wouldn't toward the people he spend his time around; you were a classmate, someone his age, someone who could understand him if allowed.

an eccentric stranger that donghyuck suspected he might meet.

maybe it was a good idea that he never went to prom.

[calpalirwin]

Phantom Pain

Summary: Trauma bonding turns into a full blown crush with Bucky

Word Count: 2.9k

And away, and away we go!

__

You heard the startled gasps behind you as you lowered your body before pulling yourself up on the pull up bar again. “Yes?” you questioned, repeating another rep.

“I-I-I-” a teenage boy's voice stuttered. “Mr. Stark!” he yelled in slight panic.

You sighed, letting go of the bar and landing on your feet. “Yes?” you repeated, turning to face the lanky teenager with his mop of brown hair, and his companion, a girl a few years older, stifling giggles into her hands, both of their cheeks flushed. “Oh,” you said in realization. “You must be Peter. Uh, Tony’s in the lab, I think.”

Peter nodded mutely, before quickly dashing out of the training room, leaving you face to face with the young woman. “Gay,” you said simply. “And I think Vision’s with Tony.”

Her blush deepened, as she too, hightailed it out of the room with a muttered “Tony has a brother?”

You chuckled quietly to yourself. Of course your brother wouldn’t have told his newest members about you. Something about it not being vital information, and liking the shock value of it.

“And this is the training room,” a voice you did recognize said as Steve came into your line of sight, a man matching his stature trailing behind him silently. “Oh, hey, Stark.”

“Capsicle,” you greeted with a salute.

“Stark?” the other man asked in confusion. “I thought-”

“Fortunately there’s two of us,” you corrected. “Or unfortunately, depending on your opinion of Starks in general. Y/N,” you introduced yourself, offering out your hand.

“Bucky,” the man said, shaking your hand.

“Nightmares, again?” Steve asked you, his eyes glancing about the room.

“Sometimes you frighten me with how observant you are, Rogers,” you said grimly.

“Nightmares?” Bucky questioned, intrigue painting the features of his perfectly sculpted face.

“An unfortunate lingering side effect of my time in the Army, yeah,” you explained. “Something I’m sure you can relate to,” you added with a pointed glance at Bucky’s left arm which was completely metal, your mind already curious to how it worked, and how to make it better. “Working out helps. Something about physical exertion canceling out mental exertion.”

“Well, I might have to join you some time. See if your theory holds up.”

You held out your arms, gesturing about the giant training room. “Feel free. Everything here is open 24/7 to accommodate the mad geniuses and PTSD freaks.”

“And which one are you?” Bucky asked. And you knew it was a stupid question given what little information you had already provided him with. But you could also recognize a flirting edge when you heard one.

“I feel like the answer’s obvious. But, in the event that it’s not, I’m both. Pleasure to meet you, Bucky. And welcome to Avengers headquarters.”

~~~

A couple nights later, you were in the lab tinkering about, when you saw Bucky walk by in gym shorts and a tank top, his hair pulled back in a small bun. “Can’t sleep, huh?” you called out.

His body tensed as he whirled around, relaxing when he saw it was you. “Yeah. Thought I’d try out your theory.”

“It’s a good theory,” you assured, before refocusing on what you’d been working on.

“You have a lot of faith in a theory I’ve yet to test for myself,” Bucky said, stepping into the lab with you.

“I don’t do faith. I do facts,” you replied bluntly.

“Mmm, then how do you know it’s a good theory?”

“A good theory isn't whether it’s proven to be correct or not. A good theory is about being able to be repeated and replicated. Tested multiple times over and over. My theory just also happens to be correct.”

“Wow, you are a Stark.”

“I’m not an idiot, is what you mean. But rest assured I don’t have the same level of arrogance my brother inherited from our father. Or at least, I like to believe I don’t. But, results don’t lie. The physical exertion that comes from working out is enough to distract the brain from the mental exertion that comes from unwanted memories. Is it perfect? No, because it’s not a cure. But it does well enough anyway. And you can take my word for it. Or Rhodey’s, or Sam’s, or Steve’s. And that’s just the military crew. Or, you can test it for yourself. As I said, it’s a good theory. Very testable.”

Bucky’s tongue clicked in his cheek. “Mmm, and if it’s such a good theory, why are you here in the lab instead of in the training room?”

“A distraction, is a distraction, is a distraction. And I have work to do.”

“And what is it that you’re working on?” he asked, stepping closer to peer over your shoulder.

“Prosthetic limbs for amputees. Ones that aren’t hunks of metal. No offense.”

“None taken. I didn’t exactly get a say in the matter.”

“Right… Sorry…”

“No, don’t apologize. Something more… realistic looking would be nice. But the metal’s worked so far. Enhances already enhanced abilities.”

A shudder went down your spine. “Right. Super soldier strength mixed in with whatever tech is loaded up in that thing. I’ve taken a lot of hits in my day that I’d hate to experience again, but I’d do it if it meant a guarantee of never being on the receiving end of being hit by that. Like… the damage you were able to inflict on Tony, even in his suit…” you let out a low whistle. “Damn… no thanks.”

“Sorry? I think?”

You laughed, waving a hand dismissively. “Please. It’s not that he didn’t deserve it. The amount of times I wish I could clock him myself… My only regret was having not been there to actually see it.”

“Why do I get the feeling you and Tony don’t actually get along?”

“Oh, we do. It’s just… typical sibling shit, I suppose. We had different ways of coping with our parents dying. He went the standard billionaire spoiled brat route. I went to the Army. He took over the company. I stayed in the Army. He realized the damage the company was actually doing and became Iron Man. I was part of that damage.”

“Shit…”

Again, you waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t get me wrong. He’s my older brother. I love him. He’s rectified a lot of his past by helping turn Stark Industries into the Avengers. He's, dare I say, gained a conscience. But he’s also far from perfect. Still too arrogant for his own good. But I like him a lot better these days than I used to. I mean, I’m here.”

“So… you work for him? Doing what exactly?”

“Yes, and no. I live and work here, yes. But I don’t necessarily work for my brother. I help him and Bruce out a lot. Perks of not being an Avenger myself means I’m here to keep working when they’re gone. But, for the most part I keep to myself doing my own project.”

“Right, the prosthetic limbs. Personal reasons?”

“Yeah, you could say that. Seen my fair share of wounded vets. And seen my fair share of their struggle with shitty prosthetics. And even if they are complete shit, they’re also expensive. But I’m in a position where I can make non-shitty ones and, pun not intended, not have them cost people an arm and a leg. So, that’s what I do. Each prototype gets me closer and closer to making them as realistic as possible. Restoring range of motion you won’t get with cheap plastic wrapped around steel. It’s like… a complete limb transplant. Or that’s the ultimate goal anyway. Make prosthetics so real it’s like you never lost a limb in the first place.”

“That’s… noble of you.”

You shrugged. “Let’s just say I have a soft spot for broken things.”

Bucky smiled at that.

~~~

For the next handful of months, it wasn’t uncommon for Bucky to find you awake in the lab, or for you to find him awake in the training room.

Some nights, the two of you would work out your frustrations of the memories that haunted you both, and you’d tease him about how it wasn’t fair you always drenched through your shirt while he barely broke a sweat, smiling at the way he’d laugh.

Other nights, the two of you would swap war stories while he watched you work in the lab, and when you gathered up the courage to ask to run tests on how the tech in his arm worked to further your own research, he willingly obliged.

“So… were you just an enlisted soldier, or an officer?” he asked one night while you tinkered away.

“An officer. Made First Lieutenant.”

“That’s just below Steve. Which…”

“Is still lower than Sergeant, yes,” you laughed. “Technically anyway. But as an officer, I would still outrank you.”

“What happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… no offense, but First Lieutenant isn’t exactly brag worthy. I imagine you meant to go further. What happened? Was it the damage you mentioned with Tony?”

You nodded. “Yeah. The same accident that started his whole Iron Man gimmick was the same accident that ended my career.”

Bucky nodded, and you knew he wanted to ask more, but didn’t want to pry or overstep. And you were grateful for that. It was one thing to own up that your PTSD stemmed from an incident that ended your military career. It was also one thing to own up to how your experience in the military drove you towards creating prosthetic limbs. But to admit that there was a deep personal connection between the two? That wasn’t something you liked to fess up to. “I’m sorry,” Bucky finally said, feeling the need to say something about your half confession. To acknowledge it without asking more.

You smiled wryly at him. “It’s f-” Your face twisted, and your fingers white-knuckled the table as pain flashed through your leg.

Bucky’s eyes went wide. “You okay?” he asked, moving around the table towards you, his hands hovering nearby in case you fell.

“Knife!” you gasped out, gritting your teeth and humming loudly to keep from screaming out in the pain you knew wasn’t real. “Get me a knife!”

Bucky stood there, frozen, staring at you in horror.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” you barked at him. “I know you have a knife on you! Give it to me! That’s an order, Sergeant!”

That snapped Bucky into action. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, rummaging in his pockets. “Here!”

The sharp steel glinted in the lights as you took it from him and promptly shoved it deep into your right shin.

“What the fuck?!” Bucky yelped, jumping back. “WHAT THE FUCK?!” he repeated when no blood came pouring out of the wound as you yanked the knife back out.

“Aaaahhhh,” you sighed in relief, the pain ebbing away. You relaxed the tension in your body, breathing slowly. “Fuck… hate when that happens.”

“What… the… actual… fuck?” Bucky asked for a third time in a low whisper.

“Relax, it’s fake,” you said, flashing the knife. “See? No blood.”

“I- I-” he stammered.

“It’s called phantom limb pain. Happens in amputees all the time.” You took a seat, pushing up your pant leg to your knee, detaching the prosthetic and tossing it uselessly onto the work table. “Piece of shit,” you muttered, before pulling a tape-recorder out of your pocket. “Prototype 27. Failure, as of,” you spared a glance down at the date on your watch, speaking that into the tape recorder as well. “What?” you asked Bucky who was staring at you with his mouth hanging open.

“That explains… so much. But… why didn’t you just tell me?”

You shrugged. “It’s not something I tell people. Lost my leg in an explosion caused by weapons my family made? Yeah, not exactly a conversation starter.”

“I get that, but… c’mon. It’s me.” He gestured at his left arm.

“Yes, you who- and please don’t take offense to this- doesn’t remember the trauma of losing his arm, and has never experienced the pain that is phantom limb pain.”

“I don’t remember the trauma thanks to years of more trauma that is being brain-washed, and having my mind controlled,” he replied in a clipped tone.

“Yes, the entire world is aware of your trauma, Barnes. Must be nice to have people be aware of what you’ve gone through.”

“People would be aware of what you’ve gone through too, if you’d tell us instead of hiding in jeans and sweatpants!”

“Why would I tell people?! For sympathy?! Or to hear them tell me that I deserved it?! Because news flash, both of those outcomes fucking suck!”

His face crumpled. “Why would anyone think you deserved this?”

You scoffed at his naivety. “It’s poetic justice, Bucky. My own family took my leg. They took Tony’s heart, too, but hey! Look what he made as a result! Isn’t it fuckin’ marvelous?! Tony Stark loses his heart, but gains a soul. Y/N Stark. Loses his leg, and nobody cares.” The words were bitter on your tongue.

“You don’t strike me as the pity party type.”

“I’m not. That’s why I don’t tell people. And yes, maybe there’s a selfish part of me that does what I do strictly for me. Maybe I never would have thought to do all this if I wasn’t an amputee myself. But I’m here, and I’m doing it. And I’m not going to use my story to gain attention and credit that I don’t even want in the first place. Tony thrives in the spotlight. Me? Never been my thing.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I think your project’s pretty great. And I don’t see your personal attachment to it as a hindrance. If anything, I bet it pushes you further. To keep trying, even when what you have is already worlds better than what’s available already. But I also get wanting to keep parts of you to yourself. The sympathy vote isn’t the best feeling.”

“Thank you,” you mumbled. “And I’m sorry for what I said about how it must be nice to have people aware of your trauma. Well… I’m sorry for how I said it. There’s quite a laundry list of things that will turn me into an asshole, and phantom limb pain ranks pretty high on that list. But I didn’t mean it as an attack, and if it came across that way, I do apologize.”

“Don’t worry about it. To an extent you’re right. The whole world knowing what happened to me… it dulls the shock value of a lot of things. Justifies a lot of my actions. So, for the most part, it’s incredibly beneficial. But sometimes I wish I could just… I dunno. Be Bucky without people making their assumptions about what that means.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I try to make it a habit of drawing my own conclusions about people rather than listening to the assumptions others have made about them. So, at least with me, you can be Bucky, and that can be however you want it to look.”

“Thanks. I’d uh… I’d like that.” He smiled softly at you, and you smiled back, watching as a blush crept over his face. “Um… Are you going to need help back to your room? Cuz I can help, if you need me to.” The blush grew darker as he shifted his eyes about the room.

“Uh…” you stammered, a blush coming to your own face. Normally when you tossed aside a rejected prosthetic, you either stayed in the lab until you made a new one, reattached the useless one and begrudgingly dealt with it until you felt up to making a new one, or, in super rare cases when you were sure you were alone, wheeled yourself about the headquarters in a chair. But, here was Bucky, offering to help hobble you off to your room. And the thought of him helping support your weight, or God forbid carry you was enough to make your heart sped up. “Even without the weight of a leg, I’m still not exactly light, or small,” you told him. You weren’t as tall as Bucky, that was true, and you certainly didn’t have super soldier serum running through your veins. But you were still very much the standard rugged American soldier type with broad shoulders and well-defined muscles of your own.

Bucky just scoffed at the notion before picking you up in his arms.

“Jesus, fuck!” you exclaimed, throwing an arm around his neck to help support your weight as he headed for the door of the lab. “I swear if you drop me…”

Bucky chuckled, his chest rumbling into your side. “Relax. I’m not gonna drop you. Now, tell me where I’m going.”

You rattled off the quickest route to your room, both hating the vulnerability of being carried in his arms, and loving the security of it.

“See?” he beamed proudly, as he set you on your bed. “Told ya I wouldn’t drop you.”

“Thanks…”

“Anytime.”

“Bucky, wait,” you called out when he turned to leave. “Um… Would you mind maybe staying?”

“Here? With you? In your room?”

You rolled your eyes. “Yeah, yeah, the 1940s gentleman thing is real charming.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s um… You know I’m gay, right?”

“Well… That makes the, uh… oh, I can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but that makes having a crush on you a lot easier. Or a lot worse, depending on how things go.”

He blinked at you in confusion, not sure if he was hearing you correctly.

“I like you, Bucky. So are you gonna stay?”

He grinned, happily walking back over to you. “I like you too. And yeah, I’ll stay.”

__

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[rainbow-shine]

the odyssey of labels, pins and acceptance

@spnprideweek's day 1: coming out/flags

Here’s the thing.

Dean didn’t exactly come out to anyone. And that wasn’t his fault, not entirely at least. After all, he spent much of his life denying the existence of that part of himself, that by the time he could finally begin to accept that what he felt wasn’t as bad as his father always wanted him to believe, well, it no longer seemed necessary to go through an experience that was aimed mainly at teenagers.

Also, Dean didn't need a label to know that he was totally and utterly in love with a man. Dean had accepted his feelings for Cas, at least on a subconscious level, long before he even began to come to terms with his sexuality.

Besides, all the people he cared about knew to some degree that he wasn’t straight (being married to an angel in a man's body hardly left any room for doubt) and he finally felt comfortable in his own skin, without having to prove anything to anyone and without having a script to follow. He had finally gotten off the hamster wheel and something as insignificant as having to label himself wasn’t going to ruin his much-deserved happiness, thank you very much.

Or so he thought until he saw those stupid pins.

Cas had texted him in the middle of his shift at the workshop complaining that he needed more seeds from a flower that grew specifically during this time of year and Dean who since their relationship began after a very epic interdimensional rescue was simply unable to deny his angel anything, ended up making a quick stop at the store after work.

And that's when he saw them.

In any other circumstance Dean probably wouldn’t have noticed them, but considering that it was june and apparently this month was important for the LGTB community, next to the checkout there were a series of pins representing the flags of the different sexual orientations. Dean watched them for a second, wondering which flag would be the one for him before forcing himself out of stupor, paying for the seeds that Cas needed and practically running towards the store's exit.

What did it matter which flag would be the one for him? It's not like at some point he has even bothered to think of a label that he feels comfortable with. Furthermore, he was no longer a teenager discovering the world for the first time and taking pride in sharing with the world who he really was. His chance for that had already passed.

But had he really pass it? Dean remembers a vague conversation he overheard of Claire and Jody about how there wasn't an age to try to figure out who you are and that it was okay to even spend years trying.

Dean had always known that he was attracted to women, with their soft curves and charming smiles. But he also had to admit that on more than one occasion he had been curious about men with strong arms, a stubble brushing against his face and a deep voice.

(Though now that he thought about it, his current thoughts regarding his attraction to men may have been biased because of Cas.)

By the time Dean arrived at the small house he shared with Cas and occasionally with Jack (the fact that your son was god is more or less as if he was studying abroad and only came home for the holidays), the subject had completely ruined his good mood and he knew he had to do something about it before Cas looked at him with his bright blue eyes full of concern and started asking questions that Dean still had no answers for.

"Here are the seeds," was the first thing Dean said when he entered the house and found Cas sitting on the couch, fully focused on a book. With an involuntary smile curving his lips, Dean approached his husband and gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead in greeting, his previous thoughts almost completely forgotten.

“Did you have a good day?” Cas asked, giving him a soft smile and tilting his head slightly in a clear invitation that Dean didn't even bother to resist, connecting their lips in a brief kiss.

"Yeah" Dean replied, kissing his husband a second time to erase the frown of concern that had taken over Cas' expression at his unconvincing response before heading up to the bathroom to take a shower and start making dinner.

Following his routine helped Dean ignore his little crisis in the store and by the time he was playfully hitting Cas with the spoon to stop his husband from stealing more pieces of cheese that were meant to melt above the pasta, the subject had been all but forgotten.

But see, Cas wasn’t only his husband, he was also his best friend and probably the person who knew him best in the whole wide world, so when they were both laying in bed, preparing to sleep until their respective alarms woke them up, Dean must have expected that the subject would resurface.

"Are you okay, Dean?" Cas asked, sounding so genuinely concerned that Dean couldn't help but lean in to capture his lips in a soft kiss. When the kiss ended, Dean spent a few seconds trying to organize his thoughts so that he could answer honestly.

"It's stupid," he decided to say, if he couldn't pretend he was okay, he would at least try to get them to ignore the subject.

"Nothing you can say is stupid," Cas murmured, placing a series of quick kisses on his face. Then, with an amused smile taking over his lips, he added: “Well, except when you say that western movies are actually good”.

“They are!”

"Whatever you say, dear".

Knowing that he probably wouldn't be able to look at Cas in the face as he made this stupid confession, Dean pulled his husband's body more firmly against him before hiding his face in the curve of Cas’ neck, breathing in the soothing scent of cotton and sunshine that was just Cas to calm down.

"I think…" Dean began, clearing his throat to force his voice to formulate the words. He had absolutely no idea why this was so difficult for him. “I think I’m bisexual".

Now, Dean had expected many reactions from Cas: from the typical "duh" as it was obvious that Dean had to be something other than straight to be in a relationship with a man, to an overwhelming and emotional reaction like the ones that he had seen on TV, or even an indifferent or confused reaction.

Dean hadn't expected this.

Cas held him tighter for a few seconds before slightly pulling away from him, cradling his face in his hands and gazing at him with the deepest adoration anyone could ever feel. Cas gave him a soft smile before leaning in to capture his lips in a tender kiss with which he seemed to want to convey all his love for him.

"Thank you," Cas said, surprising Dean even more. “Thank you for trusting me with this part of you”.

And that was it.

Dean felt like a weight that he didn’t even know he was carrying was lifted from his back and, although he would deny it to the grave, he felt his eyes water at the sudden wave of love he felt for the man in his arms.

The next time he was in the store, Dean didn't even hesitate before buying the pin of the pink, purple and blue striped flag.

[navalcriminalimagines]

“Hi ma’am. Uh—I’m looking for Jethro Gibbs?” The 15 years old boy asked to Ellie Bishop. Who’s that kid? She’s never seen him before, or heard her boss talked about a teenager. And she doesn’t recall how it could be link to any case.

“You are?” She asked, intrigued.

“It’s—personal,” the teenager said. Now, she’s even more intrigued. If he had blue eyes, she’d have asked herself if he shared DNA with her boss.

“I’m gonna call him but I just need your name,” she said, grabbing her phone.

“Harry! What are you doing here, bud?” Gibbs approached the teenager and Harry immediately ran into his arms. Gibbs hugged him tight.

“Can I stay with you today?”

“I—“ Gibbs wanted to tell him that he was working. But he was the sad eyes on Harry’s face. The kid has been though a lot lately, he can’t tell him no. “Let him call your mum, okay?”

Gibbs stood aside the bullpen while he called you, Harry was right next to him and the rest of the team came back. Tony and McGee stood next to Ellie, following where her eyes were watching. “Who’s that kid?” Tony asked first.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Bishop answered.

While on the phone, they saw their boss smiling. A real smile. And then he put his hands in Harry’s curly hair.

“Does Gibbs has a kid we don’t know about?” Tim asked.

“He has green eyes,” Bishop stated.

“So? Do I look like my father?” Tony said, without thinking. Tim and Ellie turned their heads to look at their coworker. “Yeah, bad example, but you get the point.”

Right after Tony’s sentence, Gibbs hang up. The three agents pretended to be occupied at their own desk. Their boss had his arm around Harry’s shoulders as they came back to the bullpen. “Harry is going to be our honorary agent for the day. This is Tim, Tony and Ellie,”

“Hi,” Harry shyly waved at them.

“Hello Honorary agent Harry,” Tony stood up to check the teenager’s hand. “And he is?” Tony asked his boss.

“None of your business,” Gibbs simply answered. Tony growled, unhappy about not having an answer. “Update,”

While the team updated Gibbs on the case and what they found, Harry stayed really close to the boss. Gibbs always had a protective and special warmth towards kids and teenagers, but there was something special there. Tony promised himself to find what was the relationship there, by the end of the day.

Abby knew Gibbs would entered her lab any minute, but he never expected him to come in with a very young special agent. “Abby, Harry. Harry, Abby. Lab tech,” Gibbs said, and both Harry and Abby waved at each other. “What you got, Abs?”

“Many questions,” she said, looking at the teenager’s green eyes.

“Unhappy look,” Harry whispered to her, looking at Gibbs that was standing right behind her, waiting for her report.

“We call it the Gibbs stare, here,” she quickly said, before telling her boss what we wanted to know.

Harry was impressed. We knew things about Gibbs’ job, just like he knows what yours, since you’re a cop too. But what Abby is doing is very impressive to him, he would love to her multiple questions. “Can I stay with her?” Harry asked Gibbs, as they were about to leave the lab.

Jethro definitely hates how weak he can be with Harry. “Okay but a few rules,” Abby and Harry listened carefully, “First, Abby, do not interrogate him. And do not show him weird things his mother can be mad about. And you, bud,” Gibbs took a few steps closer to Harry, “enjoy your day, okay? I’ll come get you for lunch,” Gibbs kissed Harry’s forehead and left.

Abby didn’t waste any time, “Okay, bud,”

“Nope. Only Jethro calls me that. I hate it, but it’s an habit now,”

“Fine. Who are you to my boss?”

“Stepson, I guess. I think?—I’m not sure. Jethro and mum has—“ Harry stopped in the middle on the sentence and turned around. “God, I thought he was standing behind,” he said.

“Does he do that outside of work, too?” Abby asked, super exciting about knowing personal things.

“Yeah, it’s like he has a detector every time we say his name,”

“Today’s going to be so fun!”

Harry has never been into sciences at school, he’s more into languages and literature, just like his father. But Abby Sciuto made it so fun that his curiosity was exploding. Pretty much like the experience he was doing. “What did I do wrong?” Harry said, frustrated about failing.

“You took this,” Abby said, showing a product, “instead of that,” she showed another product.

“Damn!” Harry said. And of course, Gibbs has entered the lab at the very same moment. He extended his hand to his stepson, “do we have to do it even when Joe’s not around?” Harry complained. “I’m not a kid anymore,”

“Fine, but don’t tell your mother. And—what happened here? A tornado?” Gibbs asked, looking at the mess.

“I’m definitely not good at sciences,”

“You just need a good teacher, sweetie,” Abby said. “You can come around when you need help, if your—stepdad is okay,” Abby grinned at Gibbs, happy to know that info.

“What happened in that lab—better stay in that lab,” Gibbs said, “Hungry, bud?”

Gibbs and Harry went to the diner for lunch. “Text your mum, Harry. She’s worried,”

“Dad broke up with Lindsay. He wants me to come back and live with him again,”

“Is that what you want?”

“No—yes—maybe. I don’t know,”

“Hey, whatever you want to do, your parents will agree to it. All they want is for you to be happy, wherever you are,”

“Even if it’s in Australia?” Gibbs looked at Harry, confused. Last he knew, your ex husband is living in California. “Dad had a job offer in Sydney, he said yes. And he’s leaving next month,”

“If you want to go with him, do it,”

“How would you feel about it, J?”

“It doesn’t mat—“

“It matters to me. You’ve been in my life for almost ten years now. At some points, you were more a dad to me than Dad was. And you’re my baby brother’s father. I care about you, and I care about what you think,”

This is typically what Gibbs doesn’t like. He hates that kind of conversation, he hates to let people know how he feels and what he thinks. But if someone deserves to know a little about it, it’s definitely Harry.

“For me, there’s no difference between you and your brother— Family’s more than DNA. It’s about people who care and take care of each other.”

“Stop with those sentences all made up! Tell me how you’d feel if I move to Australia,”

Gibbs chuckled. The shy little boy he met 8 years ago was now becoming a confident young man. “I’ll miss you, okay? Just like I missed when you left for California! Are you happy now?”

“No! I’ll be happy when you and mum stop acting like children, and finally give Joe a stable family,”

“Your mum and I are dysfunctional, but we work that way. Did Joe tell you something?”

“He’s 5 and he wants what any other 5 years old want; he wants to live with his mother and his father, 24/7. In the same household,”

“With his big brother too, right?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point,”

After a blank during which Gibbs intensely stared at Harry, “I didn’t see you grow up. I’m proud of the young man you’re becoming,”

Harry smiled, “Say it,”

“What?” Gibbs asked, his mouth full of his burger.

“You know it! Say it,”

“Nope,”

“Why? Why is it so hard?” Harry paused. “Look— it can be easy when it’s true. I love you, dad.”

Harry called Gibbs “dad” occasionally. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. Jethro remembered the first time he heard it from him and the first Joe said it. He felt the same for both. That’s how he knew there was so difference between his real son and his stepson. They are both his sons.

“I love you,” Gibbs mumbled, with French fries in his mouth.

“Didn’t understand. What did you say?”

Gibbs swallowed. “I love you, son! Okay? You happy? Can I eat in silence now?”

“Yes, you can,” Harry proudly smiled.

In the afternoon, Harry stayed with Gibbs until the agent had no choice but to go on a run for the case. Gibbs let his stepson with Ducky. The doc showed Harry around, avoiding the autopsy and corpses obviously. By the end of the day, Ducky and Harry were playing chess at Gibbs’ desk, waiting for everyone to come back. But when they heard the elevator opening, here you were, with Joe in your arms. The little boy got down and ran to his brother as soon as he saw him. You hugged your son tight. “How are you, baby?” You asked.

“I’m good mum,” he smiled and kissed you on the cheek. “I’m beating Ducky,”

“Not yet, young man,” Ducky stood and hugged you. “How’s my favorite Gibbs?” He asked to Joe, who was holding onto his brother like a koala bear.

“Say hi to Ducky, sweetheart,” you told your youngest son and the little boy waved at the doc. Ducky and Harry sat back in their chairs, Joe was still holding Harry and you sat on Jethro’s desk.

“Where’s J?” You asked.

“Followed a lead, he should be back soon,”

The four of you stayed together, talking about everything and nothing until the elevator opened again. This time, it was Gibbs with his team. As soon as Joe saw his dad, he jumped from his brother’s lap and ran into Gibbs’ arm. “Hey baby,”

Tony, Tim and Ellie were more confused than they were hours ago when they met Harry. Ducky couldn’t help but smiling big. Before anyone could say anything, Abby appeared with Jimmy in the bullpen. The entire team was there. “How’d it go?” She asked.

The team explained that it led to nowhere, and they had to go back to the beginning on that case. While they did that, Jethro stole you a quick kiss, and he whispered something in Harry’s ears. “Checkmate!” Your son told Ducky as he made his final move.

“That’s cheating,” Ducky said.

“Nope. Dad and I share one brain,”

When the word “dad” was heard in the bullpen, everyone stopped talking and turned like one man towards Gibbs and you. Your boyfriend laughed, and moved Joe on his back, “Hang on Monkey!” He said.

“Can we go to McDonald’s?” The little boy asked.

“Nope,” “yes!” Gibbs and you answered at the same time. Jethro looked at you, but you were looking at Harry with a smile. “Boys!” You said.

In a second, Joe was tickling his father in the neck, and Harry was searching for his car keys while you were holding his arms. When your oldest found the keys, he handed them to you and the three of you ran to the elevator. “Team work!” You high five the boys.

Gibbs’ team was looking at him, more confused than they have never been in their life. Their boss laughed and walked towards the elevator and his family, “Good night everyone!”

[thirstyforcharacters]

Tequila (Bucky Barnes x Reader)

Summary: Every person has a soulmate. When your soulmate experiences pain, so do you, and any bruises, scars, or other markings that they get appear on your skin. Or, the story of how aliens attacking Las Vegas was the best thing to ever happen to you.

Notes: Hello! I already did a very similar soulmate AU for Sam Wilson (which you can read here), but I love soulmate AU’s so much that I decided to do one for Bucky, too! Hopefully, I made them different enough that they don’t seem too repetitive. Did I write this while I was supposed to be watching a documentary on Bach for music history? Maybe. But I think this was a much better use of my time. Hope you enjoy! (no y/n, no pronouns)

Warnings: canon typical violence, alien invasion, blood (not too much tho), car crash

WC: 1.9 k

For all of your life, you couldn’t feel your left arm.

When you started to crawl, your parents noticed you only used your right arm to pull yourself forward while your left would hang limply at your side. Your parents brought you to the doctor, deeply concerned, but when she examined your arm, she found nothing wrong. No x-rays showed broken or deformed bones, and no MRI’s showed any problems in the brain. By all medical standards, you should be able to move your left arm. You just couldn’t. Everyone hoped that it would go away, but to their chagrin, it remained unmoving throughout your childhood. You obviously knew your arm was there since you could clearly see it, but you couldn’t feel the nerve endings inside it. When you poked your arm with your other finger, you felt absolutely nothing. And weirdly enough, your family said it was always cold to the touch, no matter how warm the rest of your body was.

You had a feeling that it had something to do with your soulmate, and when you reached adulthood (specifically around 24), you were almost positive that was the reason. You often woke up with random injuries that you knew you didn’t give yourself. Gunshot wounds, deep slashes, broken bones, and large bruises were commonly branded on your skin. You were positive that if your soulmate was getting shot at every other night, then they almost definitely had some sort of damage done to their arm that affected your own. But if they had had this condition since you were born, how old were they? That was always a question that kind of weirded you out. You didn’t particularly want to be “meant to be” with some wrinkly, old person! Especially if they were somehow getting themselves into this much trouble. And now that you thought about it, none of these injuries were on your (or their) left arm. How could that be if they’ve literally been hurt everywhere else on their body?

When you weren’t in and out of the hospital with randomly serious injuries, you were quite busy cooking up a storm in Turkey, Tacos, and Tequila, your restaurant in Las Vegas. You and your best friend, Nicolás, had opened it three years ago; you were the head chef and he ran the business side of things. The two of you had talked about opening a restaurant together since you were teenagers, so both of you had moved to Vegas together after college/culinary school. Together, you found that you were an unstoppable team, and within a year of opening, you were one of the most popular restaurants throughout all of Vegas! Most times, because you were so busy, your soulmate problem stayed in the back of your mind. But every once in a while, a bruise would appear on your eye or a large cut down the length of your leg, and you would be reminded again.

Nic, as you called him, already found his soulmate. Oliver had moved in with you a year ago, and joined you side by side in the kitchen. You became almost as close with him as you had with Nic. They were adorable together, and never made you feel like the third wheel. There were some times, though, where you found yourself a little bit jealous that they had found each other so quickly, and that neither of them had ever suddenly started bleeding all over a nearly complete order of mango fish tacos.

Whenever you got a little down about it, Nic would always clap you on the shoulder and say, “You’ll find them someday. And when you do, break their nose. They deserve it for the hell they’re accidentally putting you through.”

It never failed to make you laugh. You had half a mind to do just that when you met the love of your life. You just didn’t know when that would be.

On yet another hot and dry Nevada night, you were closing up at the restaurant (or morning, you supposed, since it was nearly 1 am). Nic, Oliver, and your other employees had gone home already, so it was only you that remained. You turned off the lights and locked the door. You pushed your way through the drunken crowds and tourists on the street and made your way to your car. As you were opening the door, you could hear gasps of shock coming from the crowd of people roaming the streets. You looked up and saw an eerie flash of green across the sky, and a strange-looking, portal appeared in the sky! Shrieks of fear permeated the air as grotesque, reptilian creatures began spilling from the portal.

Frantically, you flung yourself into your car and turned over the engine, hoping to escape the clutches of these aliens. Though your apartment was in the opposite direction of the portal, as per usual, there was a decent amount of traffic, so you weren’t sure how good your chances were. But you figured you’d at least be safer in your car than exposed outside of it.

You were able to pull into traffic and weave through it fairly well, making good use of the side streets that only the locals knew about. But the creatures were overtaking the city faster than you could drive. You knew you didn’t have long before they caught up with you.

Just when that thought popped into your head, a blinding flash of light appeared in your rearview mirror. A loud bang, almost like a cannon, sounded, and through your mirror, you saw a truck hurtling toward you at breakneck speed! You attempted to swerve out of the way, but the truck crashed into your car, shoving it against a street light! The driver’s side of your car crumpled against the lamppost, and the glass in your window shattered at the contact. You attempted to cover your face with your hands, but a piece of glass still managed to make a pretty deep cut above your left eye, as well as a few pieces of shrapnel sinking into your legs. The whiplash from the contact damaged your neck as well; pain spread throughout your neck and back. All you could do was sob in agony. You had never felt this much pain in your life.

Your hand was trembling as you unbuckled your seatbelt, but you found yourself unable to leave your car! The driver’s side door was crushed, the truck was smushed against your passenger door, and there was no way you would be able to climb out of the backseat, nor lift yourself out of the broken window with the injuries you sustained. You were trapped. You waited for a little bit, until some of the chaos surrounding you died down; even in your damaged state, you knew that no one would be able to hear you even if you screamed for help as loudly as you could.

You strained your ears, and were able to hear gunfire, commands being shouted, and the hissing of these reptilian creatures. Eventually, instead of the noise of a battle, you could hear voices trying to dig people out of the rubble. Somehow, they sounded familiar, but you couldn’t place how. Well, if they were rescuing people, you figured they were your only chance.

“Help,” you screamed, “I’m trapped in my car! Please help me!”

You heard footsteps sprinting in your direction and a voice call, “Don’t worry, we’ll get you out of there!”

You watched in amazement as the truck on your passenger’s side was surrounded by a glowing, red presence, and moved out of the way! It had to be the Avengers! Who else would be able to do something that crazy? You were brought out of your thoughts by your car being dragged away from the pole, making you jump. A face popped up in your shattered window. He was gorgeous; bright, blue eyes, short, chestnut hair, and a warm smile. He took hold of the broken door and wrenched it from its fastenings.

“Hi. My name is Bucky Barnes. This is Wanda Maximoff,” the man said, gesturing back to a woman wearing scarlet, “we’re going to get you out of here, okay?”

“Okay,” you replied, relieved, “thank you so much!”

He smiled again, “Oh, it’s no problem. You should probably stay there until the EMT’s get here. Moving might make your injuries even worse.”

You nodded slightly in reply, but the pull in your neck made you groan in pain.

He winced, “Try not to move that, either. You may not be bleeding there, but I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“Okay.”

“Here, let me help you with that. I can at least stop the bleeding,” he offered, gesturing to your forehead and leg.

“Oh, thank you!” you answered.

He nodded and reached for some bandages he had in his jacket with his metal arm. His left arm. Suddenly, you noticed things you didn’t notice before. He also had a large cut above his left eye, in the same spot as your injury. It wasn’t bleeding, though, perhaps because of his enhancements. You noticed him moving his neck in a circular motion, seemingly to stretch it out. He had holes in his pants and small puncture wounds on his legs, in the same spots where glass was sticking out of you. Again, though, they were already healing. Could that be why you had never felt your arm before? Because your soulmate’s was metal? It would make complete sense.

“Are you okay?”

You didn’t even realize you had zoned out until Bucky addressed you. He was gently cleaning the wound on your forehead.

“Yes,” you whispered, fixated on the wound on his forehead.

His eyebrow raised, “Are you sure? You seem a little out of it.”

“I-I’m fine. I just noticed something kind of strange. I think the cut on your forehead matches mine.”

He touched his forehead, “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that with the adrenaline and everything. Only got it maybe 20 minutes ago.”

“That’s when my car crashed. And you’re having neck pain, like me,” you murmured, “and your arm is metal. I’ve never been able to feel my arm.”

His eyes widened, “Really? You think we’re meant to be?”

“Maybe,” you replied.

He nodded, “It seems likely. What’s your name?”

You gave him your name and he smiled again.

“I’ve been waiting for this for a century.”

You giggled softly, “I guess that explains why I’ve been experiencing this since I was born. I was afraid you’d be gross and wrinkly.”

He chuckled, “Well, hopefully you don’t think I’m either of those things.”

“Definitely not.”

The EMT’s arrived then. Bucky stepped aside and the medics removed you from your car.

As you were being loaded into the ambulance, Bucky approached you.

“How can I get in contact with you after this?”

“Just come by Turkey, Tacos, and Tequila. It’s my restaurant, I’m almost always there,” you told him.

“Okay. I’ll drop by sometime soon, when you’re better of course.”

“Looking forward to it.”

“Me too.”

As he was walking away, you couldn’t stop the grin forming on your lips. Sure, what had happened to you today was terrible. But you knew you would heal, and now, you had also finally met your soulmate. No wonder why you were randomly injured all of the time! If today was any indicator of what the rest of your relationship would look like, though, you’d probably need all of that tequila you were selling for yourself.

[tenthgrove]

An (Incredibly Loose and Unfounded) Analysis of Dolcio Cioccolata

Content Warnings: Typical Cioccolata behaviour such as murder and manipulation. One mention of suicide. Discussion of child abuse.

(A/N: I do not know much about psychology, nor do I pretend to. Instead, I'm essentially going to be listing out headcanons of educated guesses about his motivations and behaviours based on his canon actions.)

Cioccolata is one of the most rightfully despised villains in the entirety of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Beyond his egotistical, rotten behaviour around other characters, the reason for his notoriety arguably lies in the disturbing reality of his evil. He isn't motivated by a cartoonish desire for world domination or an explicable feud with our protagonists that could really only arise in fiction, but a simple, sadistic desire to observe the suffering of others and revel in the power it gives him. Although he is in possession of a highly lethal stand, his weapons of choice are natural tools. Medical tools. He scares us, because his evil is grounded in reality.

One of the most perplexing things about Cioccolata's behaviour is the inconsistency in his demeanour. Despite initially appearing to be a flat, one-dimensional incarnation of pure sadism, he has a number of highly distinct moods that, despite their diversity, are all recognisably his. There's the manic joy that usually comes to mind when you first think of the character, but there are also moments of uncontrolled anger, fear, and even calmness.

It's the fact his emotional exterior can change very suddenly that makes it so unnerving. Notice how calm he initially appears when he carves into one of his victims during his backstory segment. Until the point he breaks into a sickening smile, there's not even a hint of a twitching lip to indicate his usual sadistic joy at doing what he loves.

There are other similar instances, such as occasions where he suddenly bursts into emotion during his fight with Giorno, or interacts very inconsistently with Secco.

One possible explanation for this behaviour is that he treats his life like a grand piece of drama in which he is the star actor. You know that trope of the actor character who's just a bit too full of himself and takes his performances to an obnoxious level of serious? That's how Cioccolata treats his whole life. It pleases him to turn every word, every expression, every movement of his limbs into the work of an intellectual genius, something the audience in his mind will clap and cheer for as he enters the scene.

Unlike Kira, a more major villain who follows the similar role of a serial killer who at least some of the time follows 'realistic' urges and methodologies in his crimes, we don't have anything in the way of an explanation for Cioccolata as to how his murderous urges arose. Nonetheless, I believe there are most likely some similarities between the pair.

Some might assume that the sheer brutality of Cioccolata's crimes would point towards a highly traumatic childhood, with abuses to rival the fates of some of his victims. In real life, while it is common for serial killers to have had such childhoods, they don't usually create the behaviour patterns seen in Cioccolata. Such killers often lash out against specific groups, women being a common target especially if the killer was abused by a maternal figure. As far as we know, Cioccolata has no specific target demographic other than the incredibly broad category of 'the weak.'

Additionally, we know from canon that Cioccolata was able to seek voluntary work at a home for the elderly at the tender age of 14, and judging by what he got away with, was clearly trusted by the institute's staff a lot. This would point towards Cioccolata having a family life that at least externally appeared respectable, and left Cioccolata stable enough to hide his deviancies where necessary.

The backstory I have created for Cioccolata is a middle-ground between a childhood of abject misery and trauma, and a childhood of perfect normalcy (in which Cioccolata's evil would have arisen purely from nature).

It begins with Cioccolata's birth to a teenage mother, hailing from a wealthy conservative Italian family, and a foreign tourist who had already made his getaway months ago. The circumstances of the birth brought about great shame that caused the mother and child to be severely chastised by the rest of the family. Within a few years, the shame brought the young mother to a breaking point and resulted in her suicide, beginning Cioccolata's fascination with death.

After this, Cioccolata's life continued roughly the same. He did not mourn his mother as the pair never properly bonded and his grandparents continued to treat him with the same coldness. That was until, around the age of 10, it became undeniable that Cioccolata possessed a profound innate genius, and would likely go on to be incredibly successful. Suddenly, the boy was showered in praise and encouragement, teaching him the crucial lesson that love is conditional, and only owed to those who are strong.

On this subject, we arrive at the most tantalising question of Cioccolata's psychology, that being whether he is truly capable of love. The short answer is: yes. His love for Secco is genuine in the context of his own behaviour, and if he were to have lived a full life it can't be ruled out that he would have experienced love of some form again. Everything we see of Cioccolata's relationship with Secco points to a genuine love, from the way he apologises for throwing one of the sugar cubes too far to his heartfelt goodbye over the phone. Even if their relationship is unhealthy, Cioccolata has goodwill towards his companion.

The issue that then has to be reconciled is how Cioccolata is capable of this kind of companionship when the vast majority of the population are nothing but lab rats to him. In short, Cioccolata's morality is whatever he wants it to be. He is the ultimate worthy being and hence, if he cares about someone, he can break the rules of his philosophy to do so because, if they weren't deserving of it, why would someone so important as him have feelings for them?

You can take this back to the point about Cioccolata's life being a performance to him. We already know the fascination he experiences with fear, so perhaps he has similar curiosities about other emotions, like love? Perhaps having someone like Secco fills him with a grand sense of poeticism, as though he is the misunderstood hero of some acclaimed play, playing out the scene of a beautiful romance against the backdrop of a bloody tragedy.

If there's one thing to be taken away from this, it's that Cioccolata's entire existence, his whole world-view, is built around his self-importance. A fairly moot point, now it comes down to it, given everything about the character's actions, but it's interesting to see how this profound egoism plays out in his more subtler interactions. Perhaps it's not only the realism of his crimes that makes him so terrifying, but also the realism of the particular way he regards his fellow humans like dirt. If you survive him, it's for his pleasure.

[mrsgiovanna]

Enraptured

This was quite a specific ask, the reader in this story is a female of African descent.

My sweet nonnie mouse, I'm hoping this is what you were looking for, I took a lot of creative liberties here so I apologize in advance😅💭💜🐞

Word count: 1005

The sunshine had never felt as good, the organic light drawing out the beautiful golden, brown glow of your skin. You needed to meet the team at the base before tackling your assigned missions for the day, so you hurried to make sure you wouldn’t be late. On your arrival, you were greeted by a noisy atmosphere, which meant that Bucciarati and Giorno hadn’t arrived as yet.

“Good morning guys, are you all okay?” you say as you set down your purse and put on the coffee machine.

“Hey (y/n), come settle an argument for us, who’s the better dancer? Me or Mista?” called out Narancia, eager to get your opinion.

“Please, you know it’s me, (y/n), let Narancia down gently and tell him okay?”

You sighed loudly with a dramatic eye-roll… every so often you’d get roped into their silly arguments, most of the time you tried to diffuse the situation, but occasionally you would want to set another cat amongst the pigeons. “I don’t know how to say this guys, but if I’m using the boat ride to Capri as a reference, I’m afraid Fugo has you both beaten,”

“What? Do we need to ask Giorno to heal your eyes?” argued Narancia. You just smiled sweetly and shrugged it off.

From the corner of your eye you see Fugo smirking in the far corner of the room, sitting opposite Abbacchio who was listening to his music and reading, blissfully unaware of ramblings of the rest of the group.

Mista came around to you and slung an arm around your shoulder, “you could always teach us those dances you do when you think nobody else is looking, then you can judge.”

“Fine, fine, but we need some music with a different flavor, these hips have a mind of their own you know,”

“What’s this about a dance tutorial?” asked a soft voice, you turned around to meet Giorno’s serene gaze as he walked in with Bruno. As a wave of shyness hit you, you gently shook off Mista’s arm and coyly greeted the Don and his underboss.

“Sorry for keeping everyone waiting, shall we begin now that we’re all here? Suggested Bruno, eager to get the day started. With that, everyone settled down in their respective places. ‘Typical Bruno’ you thought, as he was still able to put everyone in order with just one line, it’s no wonder Giorno chose him as his right hand when he had taken over Passione after that crazy week a few years ago.

You were one of the first people to be recruited by Bruno for the Squadra Guardie del corpo, with Fugo already being a member when you were brought in. You were a natural born stand user born to parents who were African immigrants that had settled in Italy. For much of your early life, you had lived a quiet and content, albeit isolated existence, until fate had dealt you a particularly unfair hand, forcing you join Passione in your early teenage years. Because you already had a stand ability, you had aced Polpo’s initiation test without having the flame of the accursed lighter go out. You had integrated seamlessly into Bruno’s unit, forming warm attachments with just about everyone. It was not difficult for you, your naturally warm and caring personality had made short work of winning people over, and your easygoing nature had instantly put everyone who was around you at ease. You had shared a special relationship with each of the members of your squad, from bonding with Narancia over music and dance, to training with Mista, and assisting Fugo with Narancia’s education as he attempted to tutor you both. Just as all light produces shadows, however, your light, airy personality also held a fighting spirit that protected all that you held dear.

It was obvious that you had cared for everyone deeply, but you and Giorno had formed the strongest bond, connecting over your shared experiences of being both stand users from birth, and descendants of foreign nationals. You admired his unshakable resolve and how he was able to achieve so much despite his difficult beginnings, and Giorno loved how your kind, selfless personality held as much strength as it did, a perfect balance of gentleness and savagery, with the wisdom know which one to employ and when.

Once everyone had had their say, you all went off in your separate directions to complete your tasks for the day. When you had arrived at the base, you all decided that instead of going to Libeccio for dinner as it was usually done, you would all go to a trendy new African gastro pub that you had suggested instead. Food and drinks were ordered and everyone was excitedly absorbing the eclectic vibe of place.

“This place is amazing, (y/n), thanks for the suggestion, I love it here!” beamed Mista.

“I’m glad you like it, everyone, I hope you enjoy.” You had to admit, it warmed your heart to see your closest allies being able to wind down and enjoy themselves, they definitely deserved it.

“Say, (y/n), isn’t this the song you’re always dancing to? Come on, you’ve gotta show me, we’re going,” with that Narancia whisked you off to the dance floor with Mista following closely behind. It had been an eternity since you were able enjoy yourself without any inhibitions and it showed in the sensual sway of your hips and the ethereal expression on your face, which had everyone around you floored, attracting the attention of Bruno, Fugo and even Abbacchio who watched you from the table.

Giorno observed you with fervor, enthralled by your otherworldly beauty. The muted lighting brought out the honeyed flecks in your eyes and your body moved like water, not missing a single beat of the song that was playing. All to soon was the song over, but the feelings that had enraptured the young Don had persisted. With a mischievous glint in his eye and a confident smirk, he knew what he needed to do…

[aweecrush]

Prologue

Tuesday, October 16th 2007

“Jesus, I can’t believe you’re actually in the fucking plane - took you long enough! If I had known it took a wedding to get your arse back home, I would have had a couple by now, for God’s sake .”

“Michelle, you promised you wouldn’t start! ” Clare’s reproachful voice rose.

“Aye, first, I didn’t promise shit, and second, I told you, she’s not chickening out so chill out - right Erin?”

Despite the culpability and shame pricking at her skin, her heart warmed at their traditional bickering she wished she’d hear more often. At their voices. And, most of all, at knowing that in a few hours, she’d get to hear them for real.

Feck, she’d missed these eejits.

“Well, I’m not actually in the plane yet, we’re waiting to board. And then I still have that stupid long flight, and then the stupid long wait at stupid London, so don’t wait up - but yes, I’m definitely on my way,” she promised, earning herself an earful of high pitched cackles and happy swears.

Her heart welled up.

“So, how is the bride doing? She wasn’t home when I called earlier, and all Mammy could talk about was how the caterer was driving her crazy and how aunt Sarah almost set her own hair on fire trying a new hairdo she’d like to nail for the ceremony.”

Michelle snorted. “ Yeah, hilarious so it was. You should have seen your dad’s face, mental. ”

“It was terrifying,” Clare corrected, apparently still shaken.

Then, perked up. “Orla’s going to look so cute though - I can’t wait for you to see the dress!” Erin tried to ignore the sting of not having been there for such an important moment.

“We’re still trying to convince her out of drawing anything on it, but I’m not sure we’ll win this one, to be honest. Also, we’ve got everything almost ready to go for the bachelorette party, although I do need you to help me stop Michelle from bringing the tons of drugs she wants to, because - ”

“For feck’s sake Clare, Orla would love it! The girl is tying the knot, she deserves to get properly shit faced.”

“She said she wanted something small!”

“She said she would have liked to have a little something with just the five of us the night before. She never said anything about the actual bachelorette party being small - or fucking boring for that matter!”

“Just the five of us?”

The words spilled out before she could stop them, stupid that she was. At the other end of the line, the girls went uncharastically silent, and Erin cursed herself.

Feck.

“I mean, that’s grand. It’s cool, I thought it was just going to be one big night for the bachelorette party before the big day, but - I mean, that’s even better! Grand - cool.”

Christ on a bike, that was pathetic. She was.

“Yeah...The thing is, Orla wanted a wee night with just us Derry girls the night before the bachelorette party, hanging at the bar and stuff you know, because - Well, just because.” Poor Clare was rambling now, in a typical panicked Clare kind of way. “And we thought - Well, then we thought about it, and it turns out it’s not going to work, just timing-wise and stuff, so - “

“So the point is we dropped it.”

“Right. Yep.”

Again, silence, only betrayed by the hammering in her chest that she hoped her friends wouldn’t hear over her cellphone.

“Oh okay, well - that’s a shame.” Her casual slash over the top fake disappointment tone did nothing to help convince anyone, of course, herself included. She winced.

She promised herself it wasn’t going to be like this, though. She wasn’t going to ruin this for anyone - not a chance.

For God’s sake, catch yourself on Erin.

Pushing all dangerous thoughts aside, Erin took a deep breath. “In any case, I’m sure it’ll all be fine - really fine.”

There were another few seconds of silence, and she could just picture the worried look they were sharing - probably very similar to the one they had that particular, fateful day. To the one they had again when she told them she was moving away. Then -

“You bet it’ll be fine - feck, it will be absolutely brilliant is what it is! Wait til you see my dress, Erin - my tits look amazing in it.”

*

As it turned out, running all over the city for work for the past ten days and dangerously flirting with the limits of sleep deprivation did have a perk: her whole, eight hours flight, Erin slept like a log.

(Truth was, she could have done without the look of contempt and the ‘Miss? You have drool on your face’ from that stupid flight attendant who woke her up when they landed, but still - all in all, it went well.)

The wait at Stansted airport, however, was pure hell.

Because of the jitters, mostly.

Growing up, despite how much she loved to complain about them, Erin had never actually considered living away from her family. Well, not that far, at least - she’d always known she would leave Derry after high school, which they did, and it was glorious. War or not, she had a pretty nice life as a child and then a teenager, but those college years and the first ones that had followed - they were the best of her life.

Still, it was only Belfast at the time, and Belfast was a two hours drive from home. Erin knew that at some point, she wanted to go out in the world, maybe live abroad for a while, but this - New-York, all on her own, away for so long? She hadn’t planned that. Didn’t, really - it all went so fast, in the end.

It was a good thing too, because if she had stopped and thought about it for too long, she wasn’t sure she would have gone through with it.

(Then again, what else could she have done?)

Despite her dreams, and her need for independence, and her eagerness to see the world, Erin had never thought that she’d leave her family for that far, for that long. Orla had come to see her once, thank goodness, but Jesus -

On the last picture her Ma had sent her, Anna had grown so much, she almost looked like a wee woman. She’d forgotten the exact colour of that lipstick aunt Sarah wore all the time, she couldn’t remember each wrinkle on Granda’s beautiful face like she used to, and sometimes, she was afraid she was forgetting her Da’s smell and what her Ma’s voice sounded like in real life. She’d missed them so much, it hurt (a lot, often).

She just couldn’t wait any longer to get back to that crazy bunch, and those last, endless few hours? Torture so it was.

She was half considering starting to work on her next article to pass the time when across from her, Erin spotted a young couple bickering, their luggages next to their seats. She was a beautiful thing, red hair tied in a messy bun, and his brown curls fell above his forehead, all messed up.

She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could make out their accents. He looked like he was trying to make her smile, leaning over so he could kiss her, and she was doing everything she could not to laugh, weakly trying to escape his arms around hers, her pretense wavering with every second.

They were probably in their early twenties, just out of uni or something. They looked happy.

Her chest tightened, and suddenly, Erin felt the urge to cry.

Well, that was quick.

Shite. Shite shite shite.

It was okay, though - it was all fine. She knew herself by now - she was emotional as heck most days of the year (crazy, her Ma would say), but the day of her returning back home, with accumulated fatigue and an Atlantic crossing flight in her feet? Of course she'd get misty eyed at the first occasion. At anything, this just happened to be what, because they were very cute and - it was a coincidence, nothing more.

It was nothing.

The girl laughed, though, giving him a small slap over the head before she let him nuzzle his face in the crook of her neck. She brushed his forehead with her lips, a soft smile on them, and kept talking.

It was difficult, then, not to think about another time, another long wait, at the Bali airport this time. It was difficult, not to think about another English fella with wild, brown curls.

It was impossible, really, not to think about him.

Memories of a perfect trip came flooding back, of burnt skin and drunken smiles, of blue waters and green eyes. The tickles of the sun, the softness of his fingers over her exposed neck, her naked arms. Sweaty bodies pressed together during hot nights, slow breathes, so many new sights discovered, fingers intertwined.

Sometimes, the memory of his face hidden against her neck was so vivid, she could almost feel it. Just like she did now.

Her breath caught.

Sweet suffering Jesus.

Experience had taught her that she had to stop now - needed to, really, before her mind wandered to anything more. To everything else, every little thing that could, and would, make her heart ache even more than it already did.

(That’s another thing she’d found out: as it happened, the expression “heartbreak” wasn’t, in fact, an overly dramatic turn of words. Quite accurately descriptive it was, actually.

She often wondered when hers would stop feeling like it had been ripped into a million little pieces, but she was starting to lose faith that it ever would.)

Of course, she should have seen it coming, she knew that. She had, in fact. True to herself, she’d tried to ignore it, but she knew full well that with her coming back home, it would come back.

This painful, sneaky way every little thing seemed to remind her of before - of a life that felt so far away now.

Over the months, the many months since she’d been gone, she’d gotten it almost under control. Everyday life brought its distractions, particularly in a city like New-York: running between brunches and dinners, partying with her cool American friends, writing for a newspaper in the Big Apple, it was easy, forgetting what you wanted to, if only for so long. She was becoming a real life city girl, a full time one, and that was exactly what her busy brain - her treacherous heart - needed.

With time, every sight, every sound, every smell no longer reminded her of home - the place, the person. With time, she’d moved on.

Yes, sometimes - often - she’d wavered, but that was normal: having been close to someone meant that they lived with you forever, she couldn’t help that. At some point, it would just die down enough that she’d just be able to call it the past without her insides hurting.

(She thought it would, with Matt. Maybe not with the others before him, they were just passing through - but with him, she thought it would. She couldn’t really explain how it all made the permanent weight on her chest even heavier instead, somehow.)

But it hadn’t died down yet, and even though it was normal and okay and to be expected, six weeks ago, Erin had booked her tickets, and six weeks ago, she had lost the grip over the carefully built barriers she’d made sure to rise in the meantime for - well, self-preservation, really.

It started small. The song that had played this one special night, resonating through Starbucks as she waited for her drink. That sweatshirt her colleague bought one day that reminded her of another one. That scarf in the store that looked so much like Doctor Who’s.

But then...Then, it was every day, every damn day, just like the beginning - even worse, if she was being honest. Up until yesterday, when she boarded that damn plane.

Up until now, in this stupid airport where she didn’t want to cry.

Arms tightened around her own chest, Erin willed herself not to, even though it was becoming evident that there was no ignoring the memories and the aching now. Even though, just like she feared, it was becoming perfectly clear that there was no escaping anymore, no pretending that she wasn’t the worst person in this Goddamn country, that the worst hadn’t happened.

Even though she could feel the fear mixed with longing and excitement and dread and a million other emotions that had painfully, permanently taken residence in her stomach now that she was home.

(That had taken roots there ever since the day she left, so it did.)

Shite.

Sitting back up, Erin shook herself. No, no, no, no - she could do this.

She’d grown, she’d prepared herself. She’d even planned what to say if...She was ready. Responsable, mature, and ready. And she won’t have to face this alone.

In a few hours, she was going to see the people who raised her. In a couple of days, wee Orla was getting married. She’d come up with excuses after excuses not to come home, even for Christmas - babbling something about being overloaded with work even though it made her heart ache to know she’ll be alone for the holidays for the first time in her life. Even though she knew full well her Ma didn’t buy a single word, very aware of the real reason she was staying away. She didn’t say a single word, though, and Erin was grateful.

No more, though.

For months and months, Erin had found reasons to stay away for the exact reasons that were chipping away at her heart more and more by the second, but now her baby cousin was getting married, and she’d see her family, and they’ll hold her close, and she’ll find a way to bury all the stuff that was so, so much more difficult to ignore now that she was coming home.

Maybe - maybe it will be difficult, but they’ll be here to help her through it. She’ll be there for her family, and they’ll be here for her.

Fighting the urge to reach out for the folded photograph in her wallet (the one that brought so much comfort and so much else she’d rather avoid at the same time, the one she clinged to but pretended she didn’t), Erin just breathed, and moved to change seats.

Everything would be fine, in the end. It will be grand.

*

Except her family didn’t come.

No one did.

It was eight thirty in the morning, and, her cellphone penibly stuck between her ear and shoulder as she struggled to zip her jacket to protect herself from the freezing cold, Erin tried to swallow her disappointment.

“Aye I’m sorry love, it looks like you’re going to have to get a cab,” her Ma announced before yelling something at her Granda in the distance.

Erin couldn’t help but notice the fact that she didn’t seem that sorry, not at all in fact. “Your Da was going to come get you, but there’s a problem of some kind where the reception is, and he had to take Orla.”

Erin nodded, even though her Ma couldn’t see her. “Yeah, sure. I’ll just - ”

“We’ll give you the money back for the cab when you arrive. Alright, I gotta go love, we’re checking the hair accessories for the big day - see you in a bit.” And with that, she hung up.

Well.

Here went her big welcome home, eh.

Again, it was nothing, though, she reasoned. She was a grown up now, of course she understood that something had come up, and that this all delayed their big reunion from only an hour, tops. So really, there was no reason to get upset.

None.

She wished she wasn’t getting upset.

From what she told her, Clare would be putting together gift bags now, and there was absolutely no doubt that Michelle was still snoring. Pocketing her cell as best as she could, Erin bit the inside of her cheek and started looking for the only plan B she had left, ignoring the burning in her eyes. It really was nothing - she’ll be fine.

It didn’t matter that she took forever to get a cab, for some reason, or that her luggage fell over her foot when they tried to put it in the truck, or that her handbag crashed on the floor and spilled everywhere.

Erin did know she tended to be over dramatic - and yes, maybe borderline crazy, Ma wasn't completely wrong - but she was more mature now, so instead of getting riled up, instead of being crushed by the fact that her family didn’t seem to have missed her as much as she did them, and that the land she grew up on was sending her sign after sign that she wasn’t welcomed back, Erin breathed.

Instead of being violently overwhelmed by memories at every corner of the place she’d grown up in, the place where they met and it all began, she did - she tried to breathe, slowly, carefully, squeezing her scarf in her hand a little too tight.

(That was another thing about your close ones not coming to get you at the airport after you left your country to run away: there wasn’t much to distract you from the memories you were running away from.)

She wouldn’t cry. She was just tired, and being stupid, and she wasn’t coming home with puffy red eyes - no way.

They passed the mall they all used to hang out at, and her throat tightened so much, it felt like the air had left the inside of the car. She saw the movie theater he was always so eager to bring her to in the distance, and a familiar pang of missing shot through her chest. Her heart twisted that particular way when they drove by the hiding spot of their early days, but even though she wondered how she was still holding her tears, she did.

After what felt like an eternity, the car finally pulled up her street, and Erin hadn’t shed one silly tear. She’d done it. She could do it.

By the time she pushed their small barrier and started for the couple of stairs, all Erin wanted was to collapse into bed and black out. Orla and Da wouldn’t be home, Ana would probably still be asleep, and given the day and time, Grandda would have gone for his walk. She’d give a big hug to Ma and Aunt Sarah, pretext a headache, and go lie down.

As she struggled to get her bags through the door while keeping the damn thing open, Erin shouted, cursing herself at how strangled her voice sounded. “I’m home!”

Finally managing to get everything and herself inside, she collapsed on the wall behind her, only now taking in the wallpaper, the coat hangers, the shoes by the entry.

Damn - she was home.

The emotion was so striking, she didn’t quite have the time to stop the tears from welling up in her yes, taken by surprise.

She moved before it all became too much and shrugged off her coat, feeling her insides warm at the familiar surroundings, and yet her heart ache at not having the usual voices that went with it, the faces that she wanted so much to see. She shouted again, but there was still no response.

Ma and aunt Sarah must have had something to do, then. It was fine, she thought as she pushed the living door open. It was, she’d just grab a glass of water and -

“SURPRISE!”

And just like that, Saturday Night started playing from somewhere, overcoming the shouting and the party whistles that had broken the silence so suddenly, Erin had jumped out, her back hitting doorframe behind her. There was colours and and noise and arms waving in every direction, and Erin vaguely realized that she was covered in confetti that matched the balloons and the hats.

Somehow, she noticed that they all had one: Michelle, up on the sofa, Clare, jumping in place at the other side of the room, Orla and the giant teddy bear she was holding. Anna, her pink one stuck on top of her mass of blond hair. Aunt Sarah and Grandda, both holding hands and arboring the same green one. Her Ma, her Da, tears in their eyes, huge grins on their faces, red and yellow ones falling over.

Her brain had stopped functionning, so she couldn't be sure, but Erin thought that her legs were giving out.

Before they did, though, both her parents closed the distance and hugged her close, whispering things she couldn't quite make sense of just yet. Their voices in her ear, their smell surrounding her, Erin broke her promise to herself, and finally let the tears come flooding as she held them back as close as she could.

She was home.

[decodingellipses]

Modern Love: He Made Affection Feel Simple

[courtesy of Brian Rea]

"Dating as a transgender woman, in my experience, meant low expectations and casual sex. Then I met Jack."

This piece is part of the Modern Love column at The New York Times

by Denny

My bio on Grindr read: “Be trans friendly. Send face to chat.”

It was difficult to be on a gay hookup app as a trans woman. Most men in my feed desired to only sleep with each other. But I knew there were straight men on Grindr who hungered for a woman like me. I wanted them too.

That’s where I met Jack. At 22, he was a few months older than me, and, other than his age, his entire profile was blank, usually an indicator of a cisgender straight man who was guarded about his attraction to trans women. Typically, the messages I received would start with a vulgar sext, sometimes an unwanted nude photo.

Living in Morningside Heights, I was attending Fordham University for my master’s degree in strategic communication. One night I was up late working when I received a Grindr message from him, a selfie. Amid his light brown hair, two-day scruff and meek gaze, his lacrosse T-shirt stood out to me the most. He looked like a sporty boy I would have crushed on in high school.

He followed up his photo with “Hello.”

Messages in my Grindr inbox tended to cut to the chase: “Down for now?” “Car sesh?” Men who contacted me because they fantasized about trans women made it difficult for me to feel seen as a person in general, let alone a person worthy of respect.

Although my interest was piqued by Jack’s picture, it was his gentleness that drew me in.

Our sporadic small talk was harmless, spanning two months. I brushed him off, but as I commuted to school and spent hours in the library, he was persistent.

“My sex drive is pretty low these days,” I wrote. “Give me a bit and I’ll hit you up.”

“OK.”

When I turned back to my studies, he added, “Just so you know, we can do non-sex things and hang out too. It would be fun.”

This became our pattern: he being distant enough to show interest without pressure, and me appreciating his laxity, given my demanding schoolwork. His ease led me to trust him, so we set up a day to meet.

The first afternoon Jack came over, he admired my bathtub and drank his cup of water with two hands. His poised demeanor in a beige wool peacoat and long scarf reminded me, in a good way, of John Bender in “The Breakfast Club.” In my bedroom, he fixated on my yellow Power Ranger figurines, noticing my framed academic award next to them on the windowsill.

“You went to SUNY Oneonta?” he said. “I went to SUNY Potsdam.”

I pictured my friends who also attended Potsdam eating in the same cafeteria as Jack, getting drunk at the same frat party. Suddenly, the person I’d seen as a stranger now fit into my world.

I imagined what the deer looked like from his dorm room window, roaming the grass at dawn. Or how he spent his day when the school canceled classes because of snow. Or where he would have gone if his parents were able to afford private school.

We sat on my bed, my back leaning against the wall. He slouched his head onto my hip and wrapped his arms around my waist. “This is weird,” I thought. Aside from sexual intimacy, my hookups were typically aromantic, absent of cuddling and expressions of affection.

I kissed him and rolled on top. I took off my shirt and he hugged me tight. His face dug into my chest as he said, “I like you. I think you’re really cool.”

Unsure how I actually felt, I said, “Oh. I think you’re really cool, too.”

The next time I saw Jack, he spent the night at my place. It was then, awake in bed at 4 a.m., that I realized I had never let a guy sleep over before. His heat warmed the bed, so I crept to the bathroom to cool off. I Snapchatted a disoriented selfie to my friends, my hair messy and eyes bloodshot.

“How do you guys do this sleepover thing?” I wrote. “I can’t sleep at all.”

Customarily, my flings with strange men were brief. The men did not take note of my bathtub or my educational history before sex, and they did not linger after.

I came back into bed, disturbed by the rumble of his snoring, but his sleeping face on my pillow struck me. For the first time, the thought of sharing a bed with a man did not come from pure imagination. I now had a real image for this fantasy; I could pretend Jack was my boyfriend, reach for his face and whisper “I love you, good night,” then fall asleep and meet him somewhere in his dream as if we had done this a hundred times before.

The next day, he flew off to see his family for the holidays and the first weeks of the new year.

“merry crimmus,” I texted.

“u too, babygirl,” he replied.

After our sleepover, I didn’t hear from him unless I initiated — an unexpected change. Instead of giving in to my insecurity that the sleepover meant little to him, and therefore I meant little, I imagined other scenarios: him asking me to sleep at his place, for a change, or spontaneously calling me while I’m in line for my morning coffee. But because I had presumed a sex-only expectation from the start, I shamed myself for developing feelings.

“miss u,” he texted one random morning.

“really?”

We stayed in touch and occasionally saw each other, weeks in between. On a hot morning, he snored behind me as I sat on the floor beside my bed, working on my final thesis. He put his hand up to my face, letting me know he was awake. With my eyes on the laptop screen, I took his hand and planted kisses in his palm, wallowing in these ordinary joys — the kind of affection I slowly grew comfortable displaying.

Longing to be more than casual with him, I sought a therapist to guide me through my growing feelings.

Jack’s periodic “miss u” texts progressed with heart emojis, an unprecedented closeness. And I returned the sentiment. It felt thrilling to express my adoration so directly, until the weeks between seeing each other and texting ultimately turned into months of silence I knew to be ghosting.

I relied on Grindr as my safe dock because dating as trans is complicated. Sleeping around was easier for me. I had set the bar low, then met Jack, who saw me as more than a fantasized body, only to have his mysterious exit echo a looming insecurity I avoided for years: Being trans implies I am not real enough to deserve decency.

I broke down in therapy, mustering the courage to say out loud what was undeniably true: “He left me.”

“I don’t mean to put this on you,” my therapist said, “but could him being a cis straight man and you being a trans woman play a part?”

I didn’t want to blame Jack, who showed me a new realm of affection that made desire feel as simple as just a boy and a girl who liked each other. But he made leaving simple, too; all of this could still not be enough.

Deep down, I denied how my mere existence as a trans woman could ever cost him. Jack, in wooing me, nurtured the possibility that my romantic fantasies could come true, that I could be seen as a complex person rather than a fetishized token of someone’s imagination. After being deserted by him, I ruminated on my insecurity that being trans denied me of even a simple goodbye.

And yet I know myself to be real because my transition, as a teenager, required exceptional certainty. Doctors and psychiatrists double-checked my decision constantly.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I repeated, and I became more real each year. With Jack, I felt even realer. Not only had he seen me as a woman, but as a woman worthy of being held.

I could blame my being trans for Jack’s ghosting, but maybe it had nothing to do with that. Maybe he hated his job. Maybe his family fell apart. Maybe the pleasure we felt together contrasted whatever pain remained of our baggage.

On lonely days, I imagine myself at SUNY Potsdam. At a frat party, I drunkenly dance across from Jack, cheap blue lights grazing the curves of our cheekbones, sweat dripping like cyan fireflies. Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” roars through the party. “Good times never seemed so good,” everyone shouts. “I’ve been inclined to believe they never would.”

I put myself in the cafeteria, where Jack and I approach the salad bar at the same time. When he sees me, he steps back and says, “You go first,” with a grin so big I would need both hands to hold it.

———

Denny is a writer, actor and musician living in New York City.

[killianmesmalls]

Seeing the Signs

A short fic with Cas and Jack that takes place between 14x03 and 14x06, directly after their hunt in Sarasota. Just some father/son stuff for no reason. 

---

Castiel could feel the humidity sticking to his vessel’s skin, could sense the odd looks from passersby. A trenchcoat over a suit in the middle of Florida, he admitted to himself, was a strange sight even while driving in a thunderstorm. Just a few years ago, he wouldn’t have noticed the difference, but so much time amongst humans and a wave of pop culture knowledge allowed him to at least understand the glances in his direction.

Then again, this was Florida. They had seen weirder. Besides, he had bigger concerns.

Jack had been talkative the whole drive to Sarasota. Hell, there had been a time or two that Cas had attempted the age-old “quiet game” he’d read about in at least 20 of his child-rearing books in order to get the boy to settle. A pang of guilt snapped at his chest, knowing how much his son’s energy was due to pure excitement of just being allowed on a hunt.

Now? Jack was quiet, staring out the window as the typical afternoon storm made its way through. His thin finger traced the tracks of a raindrop before it gathered at the base of the passenger side window.

“Jack?” he tried, glancing at the boy. “Everything all right?”

“Yeah.”

“If there’s something you want to talk about—”

“I’m fine, Cas. I promise.”

The winding interstate traffic around Tampa began to peter off along with the rain. Suddenly, Jack’s focus turned upward as signs indicated exits for Orlando and Kissimmee before he seemed to remember whatever thoughts he had been locked in.

“Jack—”

“I said I’m fine.”

The rise of parental frustration bubbled inside Cas. He knew, in spite of everything the boy had been through and everything he had learned, he was still very much a child. It was occasionally difficult for humans to see, considering they assigned such importance to smaller units of time: months, years, decades, and even more importance to appearance. As an angel, his eons made all other increments or visages almost inconsequentially different. Sam and Dean were human adults with more experience and trauma than he’d wish on any other of his father’s imperfect, perfect creations. Still, they were blips in existence compared to him.

Jack? Nephilim, human, whatever he may be now, Cas could never shake just how very young he was. Eighteen months. Eighteen months of trauma and responsibility and weight on his shoulders, but only eighteen months.

Still an infant by human standards, not that he had the chance to experience proper infancy, Jack was physically confusing to describe even for Sam and Dean. Was he eighteen? Twenty? Twenty-two? Not that any of those made a difference to Cas. Eighteen months in a teenage-to-young-adult body with the lost powers of an eldritch being wasn’t something they discussed in parenting books.

Cas heaved a sigh and, just as the last of the rain trickled off, pulled the car over.

“What? I said I’m fine,” insisted Jack before the car had even come to a full stop.

“We both know that is not true. Now, Jack, I want you to know that I respect your right to privacy and, should you need time on your own to sort out anything you’re thinking through, then I will continue on and we can hopefully work this through together if you cannot do it on your own. However, I am unable to ignore a marked difference in your behavior from the start of this trip to now and, if there is anything in my power I am able to do, I wish to help. Something is on your mind and I am here to listen if you’re willing to talk.”

A long quiet stretched between them. Just as Cas was about ready to restart the car and call it a temporarily lost cause, Jack shrugged.

“I just… I kept seeing signs.”

“Signs? Like, from heaven?”

“No,” the boy replied, shoulders curling slightly, “I mean road signs.”

“Well, Jack, we are on the road. Is there a specific one that upset you?”

“No, that’s not….” he trailed off and Cas could hear the teenage grunt of annoyance in the back of his throat. “I saw some signs for Disney World.”

Cas’s mind recalculated for a moment. “Disney World?”

“It’s stupid, never mind.”

At the dejected sound of his kid’s voice, Cas turned off the engine and fully glanced at him, admiring for a moment how very much this boy had been through hell and still looked like kindness personified. He felt a brief wave of remembrance for touching Kelly’s belly as the child kicked, solidifying in an instant their bond. Somehow, warzones and countless losses had not stripped that from them.

He’d be damned if continuing the wrong route down the interstate did.

“It is not stupid. Your feelings are never stupid. Misplaced maybe, depending on the circumstances, but never stupid, and certainly not now.”

Jack perked up as Cas finished, finally glancing his chosen father in the eyes. The look sent a swell through the angel, pushing him forward.

“We have some time before we need to be back home, and Sam and Dean will understand if we’re later than expected. Let’s go take a look and maybe, if you want, we can spend an extra day or two here and see a few things. Maybe meet this Mickey everyone has been discussing for so long.”

“Wait, really?” asked Jack, eyes wide.

“Really,” he said, placing a hand on his son’s shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. “While we’re here, we might as well. Besides, all work and no play—”

“Makes Jack a dull boy?”

“I was going to say ‘isn’t fun for anyone’ but I suppose I understand that reference. Though, remind me to tell Dean that The Shining is not appropriate viewing material for you.”

Jack rolled his eyes but, to Cas’s delight, at least shed a smile. “I kill monsters, I can watch horror movies.”

“Did you or did you not get nightmares after that one?”

Jack faked a cough and went back to looking out the window, smile broadening. “Innocent until proven guilty.”

“Remind me to also tell Sam not to give you law terms to use against us,” Cas said as he started the car back up and eased back onto the interstate.

From time to time, Cas took glimpses at the boy as they made way to Disney, spotting the smiles from him searching what he may want to experience in the parks in between counting down the miles. Though he didn’t like to spend the money they truly didn’t have on frivolous things like resort rooms and meal plans, there was nothing frivolous about this. For all that Jack had been through, he deserved this. He deserved to be a kid, to ride rides, to build a plastic lightsaber and hug a costumed character.

And, as Cas took the exit, he figured maybe a small part of him deserved it, as well.