#listen they've given me brainworms

[eddiehashands]

hello! brainworms got me again so... quick lil cyberpunk steddie. enjoy!

Eddie is waiting for him outside the tech shop. He's hooded, crouched up on the six foot wall to the side, off in the darkness like he thinks he's being sneaky. The neon lights of the sign behind him silhouette him perfectly, though, making him especially visible given the enhanced lens Steve has in his left eye now.

Steve, of course, pretends not to notice him. He fixes his attention on the tech he just bought, an update chip for those combat boots Eddie wears, one that'll make them stick to walls, as well as decreasing their noise output. It's completely useless to Steve, his shoes aren't for any sort of sneaking.

Eddie jumps down behind him, already kind of quiet even without the update, but still audible - doubly so, since Steve was listening out for him. Still, he lets him play his game. The cute nose-wrinkling smile he gets when Eddie thinks he's beaten Steve is reward enough.

Steve keeps walking, hyper-aware of Eddie's presence behind him, and throws the spherical chip up on the air, turning it and catching it like it's just a toy.

Eddie's presence behind him becomes his breath on Steve's neck, a tickling at the hairs at his nape. That's how he knows it's not serious, the fact that Eddie doesn't make even the base effort of a handkerchief around his nose and mouth to hide his identity. He wants Steve to know it's him.

Steve rolls his eyes, takes one more step, and then pretends to hesitate. Pretends to listen out for someone tailing him. Eddie's breath halts, and Steve takes the opportunity to spin on his heel and land face to face with him.

"Can I help you?" he asks, one eyebrow raised, smile outwardly unimpressed (inwardly - thrilled, buzzing through with excitement like some fifteen year old with a crush)

"Hey, Harrington," comes the drawling response, and Eddie pulls back his hood to shake his curls free of their confines. God, Steve wants to run his fingers through - but not yet. They're not there yet. There's a few steps still to go in this weird ritual they've got going - fuck if he knows how many, but he knows it's not time yet.

"Hey, yourself, sneak," Steve replies, pretending to tighten his grip on the chip in his hand.

Eddie smirks. "What's a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?"

It's not the first time he's used that line, and certainly won't be the last. Once upon a time it would've had Steve's cheeks pinked with something akin to humiliation, but now -- well, maybe his cheeks are still pink. It's just the neon lights, though.

"Think you know the answer to that, Eddie," Steve says, moves the hand holding the chip behind his back.

"Mm, I do," Eddie grins. "Whatcha got there?"

Steve answers with only a raise of his eyebrow, and shifts his hand a little further back, rolling his shoulder for good measure.

He sees it coming, and does nothing about it, when Eddie darts behind him and grabs his wrist, using his other hand to pry Steve's fingers away from the chip. He's not putting up any sort of fight, and Eddie knows it. Still.

"You know you gotta pay tax for coming into Hellfire territory, Harrington," he says. "I'll take this and call it even, whaddya say?"

"Do I have a choice?" Steve asks, turning as soon as Eddie lets him go, and watching with way-too-thinly-veiled delight as Eddie realises what the chip is, and lifts up his heel to click it straight into place with a wide smile.

"Nope!" Eddie replies. "But thanks, Harrington. This one'll be good." He catches Steve's eye for a second, daring him to challenge, then darts quickly forward, pressing his lips to Steve's cheek - and then he's off up the high walls of the alleyway before Steve can react.

"See you around, Harrington," Eddie calls down, and then he's gone.

Meanwhile, Steve is left frozen down on the ground, pink neon lights perfectly illuminating his blush.

Eddie just kissed his cheek.

[tiredassmage]

🖊️ for whoever you’re having the most brainworms about right now :) (-justiceforc3po from main)

Send me a “🖊+an OC“ and I will talk about that OC!

Thank you so much! Going to take this open invitation to be a little unwell about the au for Rhyst that is making the brain worms really dance and jiggle lately.

First, a brief touch on Rhyst as he is in 'canon' - my main Jedi Knight, a Shadow, someone who does not enjoy that the Republic and the Order forge him more and more into a warrior and who quickly finds some strain in seeing so first-hand several of the Republic's failures. The mantle of 'hero' hangs heavy and he never asked for it, never sought such high stakes or praise. He struggles in the end to hold fast to his own advice (to use a few lines from my ever beast under the floorboards Ziost fic that I could not top if I tried to summarize him): "...It won’t be easy. But nothing about this ever was.” He offered her a hand. “We would not be Jedi if we did not continue to try. Will you come with us?”

Rhyst tickles my brain because he struggles far more than I think he ever lets on, or even his story lets on. And part of it is his support network; the very people he relies on, that hold him up, also, unfortunately, play an unintentional hand in some of his burdens. Generally, I list these people in his main story as Kira and Savosta. To be clear, they mean perfectly well. In short, though, a lot of the people Rhyst is close to are also people that share in some level of the idolization of him as the Hero of Tython. They've seen his strengths and it's inspired them, so when they speak of that inspiration, Rhyst tends to listen and offer gentle smiles. He has a very difficult time naming that as part of what worries him and wears on him because he knows of their intentions and he values that it helped them, even if he doesn't necessarily believe as they do that all of his deeds are worthy of such praise as tends to be given to him. He is no model of the Jedi, he thinks, but so many have placed similar accolades upon his shoulders.

[This is already getting really long and there's more specific Knight spoilers I'd like to get into, so throwing in a cut here. Spoilers for mainly the transition between Chapters 2 & 3 of the Knight origin and what follows, essentially.]

Rhyst does keep fighting for the Republic and the Jedi for a very long time; he becomes... a bit resigned to this role as a warrior that isn't exactly what he wanted out of his duties, nor does he feel he is their strongest. But it's what they need him to be, where they say he can help, so he dutifully accepts their pleas for aid and their askance of him to fight among the troops. More and more does he find himself suffocated in the armor of a trooper and less and less in the robes so common among the Order - particularly their scholars, diplomats, and learners.

Which is. already a lot. I do not talk about him enough, but he's such an interesting character to me, actually. There's a lot about him that's hidden that I didn't quite notice on first pass either. I do have to thank @hyrohkaah for a lot of that, hehe, essentially my #1 fanclub member, I say, of Rhyst and Savosta, so I got to actually dig through how they tick when talking about them.

So. The AU. Shorthand SithAU, but more an exploration of like... the conceptual premise that what if the Warrior storyline as what happens to the Knight during Vitiate's control of them in Chapter Two [which, brief side note, I cannot remember for the life of me where I first encountered this idea, if it was another post or if it was trigged by just... a series of posts and discussions etc, or if it just... stumbled out of the woods of my brain one day and now I'm finally doing something with it], and then I got running with myself and it grew sort of into its own beast.

If the original events as they play out more canon to the Knight story is what it looks like when Rhyst can reconnect with and rely, somewhat, on his main support network in his crew, his former Masters Maltaf Orathuse and Satia Lerann, then the ~Sith AU is sort of... what happens when that initial reconnect, even, isn't there. Because not that Rhyst is ever given a whole lot of time to really figure himself out in the wake of everything, considering the war on and the urgency of thwarting Vitiate's plans, but... what if less of that.

Because Rhyst does have a lot of uncertainties about his place in the Order, the direction the Republic is taking given all the weapons projects he watched fail, etc... and that's always a very large part of what Vitiate uses against him there.

So, what if, eventually, Vitiate's control stuck long enough, and the Sith re-training to focus on emotions as a source of power, to moreso feed into them and stew with them rather than sit with them to understand and find new takeaways for learning stuck... And with Scourge absent, what more fun a ploy against the Jedi than to turn one of their poster Knights into his own right hand, perhaps even a new Wrath?

After a bit of a kolto soak and some... repairing of the damage from that ill-fated Strike Team visit to the Fortress, of course.

And that, in short, is the premise which we work off of! As a Sith then, Rhyst settles first as something of a hunting dog, an efficient warrior Vitiate can assign to strike against his enemies, to taunt the Republic in an idle gesture to support the Empire's war - except his latest project is and isn't ever particularly recognized as part of the Empire's forces, given Vitiate's secrecy [and, as we learn later, his interest in other projects]. Ultimately, Rhyst becomes the keeper of Vitiate's secrets - a guardian of artifacts and ritual knowledge as well as an assassin for the Emperor in seclusion.

Kira takes over the hunt for the rest of the Jedi Strike Team and a way to stop Vitiate's plans with Lord Scourge in the meantime, but, eventually, the one to strike at Vitiate is still Rhyst - with Caolan!!! Who is. a whole other ramble, blorbo from friend's brain, etc etc belonging to enabler @hyrohkaah again and simply I'm in love w/Caolan but. but. that's liable to get me off topic. But, in an attempt to keep it short, Caolan has similar 'Vitiate's project a little off the leash and slightly to the left' syndrome and they become 'do not separate' about it.

The interlude years then are spent with Caolan on the hunt for lingering specters of Vitiate's influence in the galaxy. Rhyst is... unclaimed by either major power in the aftermath. While his style is not entirely Sith, it definitely more heavily and openly relies upon dark side tendencies somewhat informed by his previous Jedi training. He'd self-identify as a Dark Side user, but not particularly affiliated with the Sith. He's still too much of an ex-Jedi to be claimed by the Empire and, of course, the suspicion that he struck at their former Emperor does little to win him potential favor (not that he seeks it) on that side of the metaphorical galactic fence.

And then his reasons for avoiding return to the Jedi Order are somewhat two-fold; Rhyst is still driven deeply by a sense of duty. Vitiate became so certain of his control over him - and, eventually, Rhyst's genuine give to servitude to this master - that he's one of the few in the galaxy to know some of the former Emperor's trickier secrets. He knows just enough to be dangerous - even if only as a nuisance in the grand scheme of matters (to speak to the retreat to Wild Space and Zakuul), enough to make Vitiate seek his other avenues as Valkorian. That sense of duty drives him to act on this knowledge. Returning to the Jedi would delay this, he thinks. They would offer something like redemption and Rhyst has... again, essentially, resigned himself to his fate, his new purpose, this new flavor of his life. He is not exactly happy with what he has become, but it is... serviceable. And eventually accepting that with Caolan, helping each other through their own struggles with Vitiate's mark upon their lives, is... its own kind of freedom. It's their truth. It's honest to who they are and who they aim to be. It... accepts what was outside of their control and is permission to continue to be - that survival has no inherent moral value. And Rhyst will not tolerate either of them to be chained to dispassionate leaders again - not Vitiate as a manipulator and crafter of tools, and not the Jedi Council and Republic Senate as even well-meaning commanders of change and bickering definitions of "justice." He cannot abide by handing them over to shackles - literal or figurative - when they have a duty to stop Vitiate in his entirety to complete.

So, in a way... he comes to a lot more of an honest conclusion of self in this whole ordeal. In fighting alongside Caolan for their own directives, without that constant need to perform to a mold or an image that weighs upon them in the Jedi, Rhyst has a far easier time determining what's important to him and carving out those boundaries of what he is and isn't fighting for, what's important to him.

Which, of course, I can't leave well enough alone, so... naturally, when Lana Beniko and Theron Shan team up to investigate the Revanites and turn to investigating Imperial and Republic ghost stories alike about potentially a fallen Jedi or rogue Sith agents when they're short on allies among their own people... the narrative just has to catch back up to them and wrest away some of that little sliver of control over their own lives, and Rhyst may just have to reckon with both sides' expectations of him again after all. :3

[eredins-a-king-aint-he]

“Buttercups (and a witcher) in a Field”