#it's okay khel quinn's got you!

[kemendin]

So thrilled with this battle scene commission of Quinn and Khel done by the fantastic artAlais on dA! Because I love me some soldier Quinn protecting his love lord.

[kemendin]

6, 12 & 29 for ao3 wrapped!

6. Favorite title you used?

Ooooh this is a tough one. Probably One Final Act or Cover Your Crystal Eyes (can you tell I am partial to those fics haha).

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

Actual ‘I have at least started jotting down dialogue or outlining ideas’ WIPS: Six (when did that happen oh gawd), four of which are partially written.

Ideas for future fics: Probably at least twenty by this point send help can’t write fast enough

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

YOU CAN’T ASK ME TO CHOOSE JUST ONE so here are a few (under cut because uhh got kinda long whoops, I love my writing okay):

The Price of Mercy

Scourge closes in. “Listen to me, Caspian,” he urges, and Cas turns towards him again, automatically. In spite of all their differences, he can’t help but want to listen whenever the Sith speaks. There’s an allure in the way Scourge seems to taste each word as he utters it, the sounds precise yet just alien enough to catch the listener off guard.

Shadows on Belsavis

But this was another kind of healing altogether, the sort that reached into his very cells and dragged them back together, forcibly mending them through the darkness of his companion’s will. His surroundings spun as he buckled beneath Scourge’s hand, and then he wasn’t in the depths of Belsavis anymore, but a place of shining, shadowed metal; Scourge was standing over him, black-armoured, forcing him back to life again and again; and a shrouded husk of a voice was clamped around his mind like a shock collar, numbing him with an endless command of submit, submit, submit -

~

Sharp light spilled towards them as the floor of the passage levelled off, and the exit to Belsavis’ surface came into view. After the dark warren of the vaults below, Cas found himself squinting a bit as he and Scourge emerged into daylight.

He had to pause again as a flurry of snow dove at them from the high rocks on either side of the entrance. The open air felt even colder than the underground corridors; the wind was erratic but harsh, the sunlight turned aside by the towering enclosures of ice that walled off most of this area. Cas hunched over, wishing he’d thought to bring a robe to bundle around himself.

Cover Your Crystal Eyes

He’d never seen Scourge wear them, never seen him change out the simply etched rings that hung about his face for something like these exquisite ornaments. But he could imagine how fine they would have looked. And so he’d stood there, in the endless, unbearable quiet, with a dusty box clutched to his chest, and drowned in the slow agony of what might have been.

~

“I should never have let you board Marr’s ship on your own! I should have gone with you, and protected you, and ripped Vitiate from the Eternal Throne with my bare hands! I would have killed him then and there, and his children as well, and then none of this would have happened -”

~

“I thought my life would be complete, when Vitiate was dealt his final end. That I would know some sense of satisfaction. But instead I felt a… a profound emptiness. I’ve spent so long with my life’s focus on him, and him alone, that I didn’t know what to do, what to be, without it. Even all the new emotions rising within me were not enough to fill that void.”

~

“I have no need for dreams, Jedi. I have you.”

One Final Act

There is no walking away from this. Failure is not an option. He is damned no matter what he does, and so he might as well be damned doing what he does best - following orders.

~

As the room thunders with the scream of high-powered energy bolts, and the droids spit a death sentence at the Emperor’s Wrath, Quinn forces himself to watch. It is both his pride and his penance, to bear witness to Khel Sutek’s fall.

~

“I should kill you for what you did.” It’s an almost idle remark.

Malavai is still rather dazed as he washes his tongue across his lower lip.

“At this point, my lord, I wouldn’t be entirely averse. It would save us both a great deal of embarrassment.”

“And Vette says you haven’t got a sense of humour,” Khel murmurs drily.

Worth Anything

Now Caspian’s presence is like unwillingly tempered steel - worn down, yet still edged, hard to read and harder to break. Scourge would have approved of this, once - a part of him still does, proud of how far the Jedi has come - but another, quieter piece murmurs a surprising lament for the young knight with a silver gaze still wide-eyed in wonder.

~

There is so much brightness here, so much life. This, he realises, is the Force as the Jedi know it, the harmony of simple existence; and to a being such as Scourge - shaped by darkness, and emptiness, and pain - the sheer gentleness that flows around him, and through him, is overwhelming. Almost before he notices, the cloth around his eyes is damp with salt, and then he is spread out across the fluttering grass, weeping for an instant, and then laughing, certain that nothing before has ever given him such a strange joy, except perhaps his love for the Jedi who has brought him here.

~

“Not every monument has to be built in the name of war, Scourge. Peace… is its own kind of triumph.”

~

Scourge emits a soft groan and lies back on a patch of blanket still warmed by the sun. He closes his eyes, basking. More than his belly feels full and sated; his very being is swollen with it, relaxed and unburdened and happy to sprawl back like a predator after the success of the hunt.

Cleansing Our Ashes

The binders were biting into his already chafed and stinging wrists, and the blindfold was too low, making it feel as though he couldn’t get enough air in through his nose. He sucked in harsh, shallow breaths through his mouth instead, rainwater slicking from his sodden hair and past his panting lips. His body was quivering no matter how sternly he told it to stop, and his heart was trying to compete against the entire percussion section of the Kaas City Orchestra (and not doing badly, at that). But his mind had gone strangely blank.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, was all he could think. This wasn’t how his life of service was supposed to end - shot for his loyalties with a rifle of his own beloved Empire. They’d toss his body in the waste disposal, and all that would be left of Captain Malavai Quinn would be a smear on the wall below Kaas City.

~

“I spent far too long searching for you to let you slip away when you’re finally here,” replied Malavai bluntly. For an instant his eyes flashed with a familiar blue gleam. “And I’m not going to be coy about that, not after what it’s cost me.”

~

“You,” Quinn gritted out, “are a miserable, spineless, snivelling imitation of something that was squeezed out of a Hutt’s back end.” His icy gaze pinned Lorman to the floor. “Now say it.”

Lorman’s whimpers became another howl of pain as Quinn pressed the sole of his boot to the blaster wound, leaning on it. Hard.

“Say it! Tell me what you are!”