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demis-alted · 2 months

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@askingkyborg's main here to being you another emo chip mini fic! Spoilers for 33-36 and SHHH i know it doesnt make sense timeline wise because they go straight to the vampspire from town but shut up no they dont

this will be posted on ao3 when i fix my account btws!!

also also heavilyly implied OCD chip because yes <3

TW: Suicidal actions, ideation, etc. also minor disordered eating talk.

‘Care to spar with me, mon ami?” Chip looks up from the campfire at that point, maybe for the first time all day. His eyes focused up on Mathilde, the bird's eyes glinting softly. Of course, if Chip was honest with himself, that was a flat out no. Chip wasn't in the mood for being tactical, which is normally his thing. The only thing he wanted was for everyone to leave him alone. His brain has been on autopilot for the past two days and all he's done is sleep, eat and walk.

Chip isn't dumb. He knows mathilde is just trying to get him to do something, but what's even the point any more?

“Sure. I’ll spar, but we both know I'll lose.” The forced smile on his face wavers a bit.

Chip stands up, popping his back with a deep crackle. He sighs gingerly, and unlatches his arm blade. He knows I'd be smarter to use his crossbow if mathilde is going to fly, but it's not like he was intending to win. Chip is not a bad fighter, of course. No, he's actually quite good. It's just hard to think about when your mind is static and ocean foam.

Absently he loosens his neck, one of his habits that never ceased to leave him from years of assassin work. He always seems to have a crick in his neck, but it’s not really surprising. Chip had found himself in and out of jails, hostage situations, and attempted murder more times than he could shake a stick at. His body was a wheat maze of scars and old wounds, of torture and strain. But it was all part of the job, or at least that's the half assed excuse he gave himself.

The other part of Chip's fight ritual was coming into his surroundings. He followed mathildes movements in the clearing with lidded eyes, focusing in on the world for the first time since-...

Mathilde was moving cockily, as they almost always do. Slowly and elegant, feathers smoothed and freshly preened, it looks like. Chip raises his heels up off the ground, eyes narrowing in, trying to get lighter on his feet. His own body is different, and he feels less familiar with it. He's lost weight recently- not having eaten in a few days- too sick to his stomach from the previous weeks to even think about it. It wasn't a lot, but his shouldie hung off him in a different way. It made him wish he still had his D.A.G.A.R suit for training. His hand smelt like wild onions, and the rest of him like ash. He's been lighting the campfires with his tiefling abilities lately, instead of using his boy scout training from his childhood. Using that fire always drained him, but he can't help but be glad it helps him pass out at night rather than lie awake. He needed to sleep, to sleep, to dream and fight it off for a while. It's been his only time of peace for quite some time.

A few more seconds till the battle begins, mathilde is counting down, but he doesn't dare let the sound get into his ears. You focus on your target and your target alone when you fight. He’ll read their beaks movements for days instead of breaking his focus if he needs to.

Chip repositions, moving his left side forward. Not only is it the hand he's got his armblade on, but it helps hide his weak spot- the crossbow wounds still healing from the previous night. Barney had given him some healing in between, but in the night he'd gently picked at it. The red stains have always calmed him down, and on himself no different. Red meant alive still, red was the enemy, but red meant weakened and ready to die. To embrace the people they miss… so…so…bad.

Mathilde moves, battle begins. He knows they're saying something snarky but he's too tuned out to regard it. He's watching and commanding from third person, and that's just how he wants it. Bob down, weave right. Mathilde lands a firm noncorporeal blow to his face, and he gasps out a little, breaking part of his concentration. A smooth trickle of blood drips from a now busted lip, and chip can't help but smile.

The chipper killer. That's what people used to call him, back in the day. Always had a smile when he killed, made jokes and jabs. This was basically the same, just less lethal. A laugh busts through chips teeth, and he smiles. Mathilde obviously looks a little shocked by his reaction.

Chip plants his left foot, pressing all of his weight on his toes and not his heels to keep him flighty. He takes a slash with his arm blade. His eyes shut, but fly back open in seconds. Mathilde has a sting of blood dripping from the cut over his chest, red plumage soaking even redder. Chip laughs, and he sounds wild. A snarky insult comes to his lips but he presses it down.He can't cause hesitation, you hesitate you die. He needs to get his target.

Chips' eyes are blurry, and he can hardly make out the figure in front of him. He's used to shots in the dark though. The blurriness backs up, and a sneer falls into his face. Kill. His ears flicker down a bit, and he moves forward. The kill drive of his nature was seizing him, hands steady and brain calculated. A stab at the shadows, voice howling in his own skull. “DIE!”

Blood was splattered onto his hands, and it didn't matter whos it was. There's shouting all around him. He wants his target dead. He wants everything to die. He wants to die-

“CHIIIPPP!” a high pitched squeak breaks his brain, and the haze fades. The dark shadows reform, and suddenly he sees mathilde, blood dripping down their front and hands in front of their face, not in cowardice but in preparation for attack. An attack from him.

Chips eyes shoot down at ellga, who was the one who snapped him out of it. His arm blade glistened in the draining sun, wet blood still on it. He looks up at mathilde, and the bird gives a sympathetic look at the absolute horror streaked across Chip's face.

“Mathilde i am so-’ “Don't be sorry, we were sparing, you just got a little into it is all. im fine, barney can heal me right up-”

“Already on it” the old man blurts, but looks at Chip with a spike of fear that makes the tiefling want to dry heave.

“I-I-”

Chip runs a hand through his hair, unable to talk. He knew his killing nature was catching back up to him with carol dying, but now he's going back to how he was.

Chip stumbles a little, back into ellga. He jumps forward and turns, pulling his hands all the way away. Sweat beads down in a streak off his chin.

‘IM- i- I'm gonna go forage-!” Chip announces with his most normal smile, his fakest smile, and turns on his heel. Mathilde makes a noise like they're going to talk, but just sighs, and it wills Chip into walking even faster in the opposite direction. He stumbles his way down the hill, moving away from the patch of grass they'd been at and into the main town of vania. He bumps into every person there, and several ask him if hes alright from the blood on his hands and his face. They don't know him, they don't know he's a monster. They don't know he's a friend hurter, or that he's the reason his wife is dead. They don't know anything, so Chip doesn't say anything. He just walks.

By the time the sun starts setting, Chip doesn't even know where he is. Vania isn't huge by any stretch of the imagination, but chip is already lost enough in his own mind to know where exactly he is in this unfamiliar place. After a while, he settles, tucked behind a building and hidden, breathing heavily.

He stares at the blood on his hands, and he twitches. Chip has never been a messy killer. Blood makes his hands itch, too wet then too dry. Dirty and disgusting. As much as he hates the smell of bleach, he always uses it for crime scenes. Blood was too dirty. Filthy, nasty, and wrong. He's been nervously rubbing his hands for hours, the blood mainly off, but still feeling like it's on there. He rubs some more at it, and curses under his breath.

He hurt his friend.

He's a bad omen. An omen of death.

He's killed hundreds.

He's a bad person. An omen of death.

He's the reason his wife is dead.

He's a bad husband. An omen of death.

He's the real problem.

A monster. An omen of death.

Why does he even bother being ALIVE?

Chip sighs, running a hand through his hair and then wincing. Now that's contaminated too. Everything about him is dirty and wrong. Tears threaten his eyes, pushing into the corners and making a soft noise as they roll over his cheeks.Days of lapsing suicidal urges and injuries have snapped him into a terrible, terrible place. Softly he presses his forehead onto his knees, feeling the cool scared up skin over his hot face.

He's not sure how long he rests but his dreams are uncomfortable. Swirling memories of killings past. Bad bad memories. They never bothered him before, but now he knows what it's like to lose somebody. Now he knows how much of a monster he really is.

He's only ever startled awake by voices. Mushing noises of high and low pitches. He opened his eyes, and they flooded over with brightness. He stifled a groan, headache and ready airdropping into his skull and ears ringing like a kenku scream. His eyes focus, and he sees several balls of gleaming light, and his party in front of them.

“What is tarnation…?” he grumbles, and the light speckles vanish, the sun's last entrails covered by mathilde spreading their wings. His eyes go up to his team mates who are staring at him with worry in their eyes. He winces distantly, feeling a spike of guilt as he sees mathildes feathers pushed out of place and puffed up.

‘Oh.. uh… hey guys..” He rubs the back of his now sore neck.

“Chip crétin! Je devrais avoir ton visage pour ça, pourquoi diable m'enfuirais-tu comme ça, Ellga était inquiète, Barney était inquiet, j'étais inquiet d'avoir crié à haute voix ! Ce n'est pas si mal, je vais bien, c'est bien!” mathilde scolds in panicked sounding French, grabbing Chip by the collar of his hoodie and yanking him up.

Ellga huffs. “Why’d you run off? It's fine! You two were having fun! It was a play fight. It's not real! Mathildes is not dead- well, they are, but it's unrelated!”

“I-” chip sighs heavily, shutting his eyes a bit. “You're right. Sorry. I guess…” chip searches for the words in his head, scrambling to think of what to say. Tiredness flushes over him in a wave, and he lets out a sigh, throwing his hands up. He lets his head embrace the wall behind him, and his horns click on it.

‘I'm just.. I'm just so..so..tired.” he gives. “I didn't mean to hurtcha’ mathilde, I just got lost in my own head. Guess my…killer ways are catching up with me…” “Well you’d never intentionally hurt any of us. You told me coming into town that you're a good assassin.” Barney tries to encourage, but chips heart falls. “Yeah, well…is there really such a thing?I'm still a murderer” he chokes, and his body tingles with the feeling of blood splats from past kills all surging up and bubbling under his purple skin.

“Nonsense. Words are all made up, mon ami. One isn't worse than another. An assassin is a profession, and a murderer is apparently a death sentence to ‘za living. It dos’ant matt’ar! Those titles don't dictate who you a’hre, the people who love you do. And I say you're perfectly fine. We all do bad t’ings sometimes.” Chip sighs at mathildes word, ever wise in their later later years. “I suppose.” he says, not at all convinced. Ellga frowns, and it makes Chip want to bury his head in the vanian dirt. She turns to the alchemist, who Chip had almost forgotten about.

“Mr alchemist, do you have any cures for sadness?” “Not…quite, ellga, but i have somethings that may help, if chip here is willing.” The room pauses, and all eyes form onto Chip. “Awh, what da heck..?”

“Give me your arm blade.”

“What?” Chip stares at Robert like he's crazy. “Just hand it to me.” Chip sighs, and unties the arm band to it and tosses it over to the alchemist, who catches deftly. He looks at it for a moment, and then tucks it into his bag.

“How's that supposed to help? That's my best stealth weapon.'' Chip finds himself grumbling.

“Exactly. That way if you try to hurt yourself, you don't have anything silent to do it with.”

“Oh.” He momentarily wants to fight off the claim, but the arrow wounds in his foot and his lower neck burn with a shot of pain to remind him.

“Okay.”

“Besides that-” Robert continues momentarily, digging around in his bag, tophat sliding down his head, “I've got a potion I want you to try. It should help.”

He extends out a vial filled with a shimmering blue liquid. Chip extends a gloved hand, and takes it. He removes the cap with a pop, and tips it back. He drains the liquid in a quick motion, and wipes the corner of his mouth.

“I don't feel any different. I just feel really tired and useless, mainly.” He says, and his head flinches back at his own words. Robert smiles, and taps the vile.

“Truth telling serum. Now you can't hide anything from us.” he pats his shoulder as he chuckles.

Chip goes to scold, but realises everything would get turned on its head when he says it.

Mathilde snickers. "There isn't any way to heal depression with a potion, but now our too clever rogue cant hide anything from us.”

“You guys are my favourite people.” chip sighs, exasperatedly. Ellga squeezes his hand.

“Come on, let's go to the vampspire. Maybe seeing my home will cheer you up.”

“Yeah… maybe it will.”

#tales from the stinky dragon #stinky dragon pod #chip haney #barney farney #mathilde confiseuse #ellga von brath #mini fic

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jinmukangwrites · 11 months

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Bad Things Happen Bingo; living at the mercy of pain and fear

@badthingshappenbingo

Fandom: Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor Rating: G Warnings: Minor panic attacks, minor description of canon character death, angst, SURVIVOR SPOILERS. Ao3 Notes: sorry for the late Tumblr update, uploaded this on AO3 but couldn't on Tumblr until I had an updated card, and then I came home to find my iPad out of battery. So I made due with my phone. That goes to say that I usually upload things on Ao3 before Tumblr, you can find me @ jinmukang.

Summary: Cal and Merrin run into a mysterious Inquisitor while on a mission to disrupt supply lines. Turns out, Cal's not the only one who knows how to confuse an enemy into fighting their allies.

-----

Cal ducks under the glowing, red-hot blade.

His opponent, while they wield a lightsaber, is no Jedi.

He snarls and brings up his own blade, parrying the next blow before it can slice through his neck. His enemy grunts, their entire body covered in black and their face covered by a familiar, demonic helmet. He can't tell what gender they are, nor have they even introduced themselves. All he knows is that they're at least not human, though he can't be sure of any other exact race. Thin, uncannily tall. Arms too long, torso too lanky.

But one thing is for sure, this is an Inquisitor.

Now, Cal's fought his fair share of Inquisitors, three to be exact, however only the Ninth Sister he could ever really count as one he personally defeated. That doesn't help him here, however, as every Inquisitor seems to have a different fighting style, a different motivation, a different determination to remove Cal's heart from his chest while it still beats.

Vader's been cracking down on tracking Cal down ever since he had personally torn Nova Garon asunder; sending more deadly groups of foes to track him down every time he left Tanalor; even going as far as to work with the Haxion Brood.

This time, they've managed to corner him and Merrin on a Mid-Rim forest planet just as they've entered what they thought would be a mostly-unguarded, uninhabited warehouse considering the time of night it was. They had planned to burn the place down, participating in an old time Mantis Crew practice called disrupting Imperial supply lines. And yet, the second Cal and Merrin made a step too far inside the warehouse, the shadowed, mysterious enemy appeared, blood in the visors of their helmet.

The fight was immediate, Cal sprinting forward to engage before Merrin could become a target. The Inquisitor met him blade on, sparks flying off the clashing blades, only separating when Cal attempted to shoot them with his blaster.

From then, it's constant block and dodge while Cal attempts to find their attack pattern. They fight elegantly, only one blade lit, but each swing seems brutally heavy. Every time Cal attempts to get a hit in, the Inquisitor seems to anticipate it. Frustratingly, Cal seems more easy to read for them than the other way around.

Merrin stalks from the shadows, occasionally trying to hit or break the stance of the mysterious attacker, but each ball of green flame as the Inquisitor side-steps easily, like gravity, doesn't apply to them.

Their blade swings violently for Cal again, and Cal gives everything he's got into the next parry, finally causing the enemy to stumble back to catch their balance. Cal rushes forward, not wasting a second, swinging his saber down over their head. The Inquisitor just manages to recover, igniting their second blade just as Cal's saber lands a hair's-breadth from their neck.

I see.

Cal almost startles at the sudden voice he... hears? It's disembodied, almost directly in his head, similar to how Merrin had used to taunt him on his first exploration of Dathomir.

So this is the Jedi Darth Vader wants to replace the empty seats with, they continue, I'm almost impressed.

"What do you want," Cal snarls. "You're not capturing me."

No, the Inquisitor says, I am done here. I just wanted to see.

Suddenly, they turn off their clashing blades, causing Cal to stumble forwards. His own saber blade grazes across their pauldrons before they jerk their body out of the way from real damage. Cal can barely right himself before a hand is swiped across his face. There's no contact. No wound.

But Cal sees red anyways.

You're surrounded.

Cal shouts, stumbling back and grabbing his head. BD-1 boops worriedly. He tries to push through the red, fight it, but the fog closes in and- and he hears Merrin scream his name.

Adrenaline surges through his veins, his eyes flying open and his lightsaber raised. There's troopers everywhere. Stormtroopers raising their blasters, scouts with electro-batons raised, Purge Troopers laughing menacingly.

Merrin screams again, and he whips around desperately, but all he sees are more enemies. He cannot see their faces, but he can see their leering. A heartbeat is all that passes before a Purge Trooper charges him, electro-staff flaring a violent purple.

"Merrin?!" He shouts, swinging his blade up to block. "BD-1?!" His heart is pounding so hard he can hear it. The staff lands on his blade, and he pulls back and slams forward, knocking the Purge Trooper off balance for just long enough for Cal to thrust his lightsaber forward and through their chest.

Cere blinks back at him, mouth gaped in a cut off gasp, a lightsaber through her gut. His lightsaber through her chest. He pulls back, choking on a scream as she falls dead onto the floor; his blade stained red with her blood. His clothes black, skin-tight. Wrong.

"No-" he gasps, but he cannot even think a moment longer before another enemy is charging towards him. He reacts on instinct, whipping his blaster out and shooting the trooper in the head.

Bode stumbles back, eyes foggy before he hits the ground.

The red spreads. It's everywhere. Every enemy he kills, he blinks to find a dead loved-one in their place. Prauf. Gabs. Bravo. The Twins. Trilla.

Bodies pile up around him. People he couldn't save. People who are dead because of him.

The Inquisitor outfit feels suffocating around him. Constricting his chest as he's forced to fight on. They're not even Troopers any longer. They're innocent civilians he was forced to watch be killed. Scrappers beaten for accusations of stealing from the guild. Soldiers working for Saw Gerrera who couldn't keep up.

Zombies of the past swarm him, and he screams, defending himself out of pure fear and instinct despite how badly he wants to drop to the floor and weep.

Merrin continues to scream somewhere around him.

He- he has to find her.

He spins on his heels as a presence invades his senses. Mechanic breathing rips through the air and a single red lightsaber erupts; the vibrations feel like a swarm of buzzing bugs has invaded every bit of his sinuses.

Darth Vader stands before him, and Cal feels terror rip its claws through his ribs.

-o-o-o-o-

The Inquisitor had left, and Merrin missed where they had gone when Cal had cried out in pain. She didn't know what the Inquisitor had done to him before disappearing into the shadows, but she knew it had affected Cal in some way. By the time he stumbled away and quit clutching his head like his hands are the only thing keeping his skull from splitting open, she knew he'd been hit with some sort of mental attack.

Her fears were confirmed when he looked up, eyes blown wide, staring directly at something that wasn't there with his lightsaber lifted in defense.

At first, she tried to shout at him, hoping her voice alone would be enough to snap him out of it as she didn't want to risk herself being perceived as a threat in whatever lie he's trapped in, but the more he swung his blade around blindly, shouting her name, the names of the long gone, begging the Empire to stop, she knew she had to be more hands-on for this. Eventually, even BD-1 gives up trying to convince him out of it, flying off his back and onto Merrin's shoulder, demanding her to do something.

He's hyperventilating, his knuckles must be white under his gloves with how tightly he grips his lightsaber, and once she finally steps close enough for him to notice her, she sees tears streaming down his cheeks.

He spins on her, and for a moment she's hopeful that seeing her is all he needs as he freezes in place like he's been suddenly doused under carbonite. However, her hopes are dashed as his hands quickly and expertly switch the stance on his lightsaber, splitting the two halves of hilt and stuffing the blaster to where it goes on his hip. He widens his footing, his duel blades running parallel to each other in front of his body.

"I'm," he chokes, "I'm not afraid of you."

"Cal," she says softly, yet firmly, "whatever you are seeing, it isn't real."

"I- I won't join you."

Offense bleeds through his posture. This is the most tense she's seen him in what must be years. He looks one pin-drop away from snapping.

"Cal, stand down."

His back foot slides just a fraction, and she pulls out her staff. Talking will do nothing. She doubts he's hearing her words, let alone seeing her.

She must do what she must. She cannot allow himself to hurt himself like this.

"Stand back, BD-1. I will get him back." BD-1 reluctantly complies, rocketing off her shoulders and onto a nearby crate to worriedly watch.

The second her staff is in her hands, Cal pounces like every ounce of muscle in his body was sprung tight to release.

Cal is a terrifying force of nature even in the best headspace. And the thing is, the intensity that he comes at her, fire in his eyes, it almost startles her. She's never seen that look on his face directed at herself. She's been Cal's enemy before, yes, but she's never seriously fought him directly. They've sparred before as well, but... but a fight to the death is something entirely different no matter who your sparring partner is.

Her staff is decently lightsaber resistant. She hadn't spent most of her early life fearing the Jedi and distrusting Malicos to not have researched what materials could slow their swings. Then, she didn't spend most of her adult life traveling the Galaxy to not get her hands on some.

So, when she blocks, Cal's saber hits her staff but doesn't cut through.

A sigh of relief almost pushes through her lips; despite her persistence in gathering material for this exact weapon, she's never actually gone against a lightsaber since she's gotten her hands on it. For all she knew, the merchant could have sold her fake materials and she wouldn't have known until it was too late.

Regardless, she shoves back against Cal to create distance. He comes back at her however in a flurry of brutal blows. His two blades are nearly impossible to track, moving quickly in succession, barely giving her enough time to deal with one after another.

She manages though.

She blocks, ducks, weaves, pushes and pushes against the little cracks in his guard that have begun to form due to his exhaustion and desperation.

The burning blade of his lightsaber gets a few good skims across her skin here and there, even a few singes at the tips of her hair, but eventually she's the one to make the first contacting blow.

She goes to block the swing of his weapon, but gathers her energy to teleport away before he can actually hit her. He crashes forward, struggling to keep his balance. She does him no favors by swinging her staff across the ground at ankle level.

He trips and lands hard on his hands and knees.

She doesn't waste a second, scrambling to charge at him and tackle into his prone form.

Cal shouts desperately as they tumble together, arms and legs flailing as staff and sabers fall out of grasps at the initial contact.

Merrin manages to get him on his back, one hand pinning one of his own besides his head and the other struggling to pull the blaster that he had grabbed in the scuffle out of his own free hand. His finger squeezes the trigger, and she throws her head to the side, almost losing balance.

Almost. The blaster bolt flies past her ear.

"Stop!" Cal screams, his cheeks stained with fresh tears. "Let me go!"

He attempts to shoot her once again, but she rips the blaster out of his hand and throws it across the warehouse.

He shouts, fear and anger roughening his vocal chords, before he gives one final full-bodied shove against her balance.

She loses it. He attempts to switch the position, digging a knee into her gut, but she cannot allow that. She slams an elbow across his jaw, then uses her legs to get underneath him while he's recovering and kicks him off. He goes tumbling.

Scrambling to her feet, she ignores the pain in her stomach to rush at Cal before he can fully find his footing again, grabbing him around the torso and pushing the both of them back. Her tailbone protests at the landing, and Cal grunts as he lands between her legs, back against her chest.

She wraps her legs around his waist, then works to pin his arms beneath her own. He struggles, swearing, cursing, begging, but she eventually manages to grab both of his hands with both of her own. She crosses her arms across his chest, then holds tight while he struggles and struggles.

The sound of his cursing turns into helpless sobs as exhaustion catches up to him. His begging becomes unintelligible. She presses her head between his shoulder-blades, her arms burning against his weakening struggles. His legs are barely kicking.

She doesn't know how long they stay like this, only that it takes some time for anything to change.

Tension melts through Cal's muscles pressed against hers. He almost goes limp, the dead weight nearly making her lose her grasp.

With lethargic movements, Cal's chin slowly lowers to his chest, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands twisting. He shakes his head, groaning.

"Cal?" She asks. "Cal, can you hear me?"

-o-o-o-o-

He blinks sluggishly, his head aching. There's a pressure around him, squeezing him, but it's different from what it had been a few moments before. Last thing he knew, he was on the ground struggling against the pressure of Darth Vader's Force, like air itself had turned against him and wanted him nice and still for the killing blow.

But a flash of light-headedness had overcome him, and he blinks to find there's nothing in front of him. When his chin lands on his chest, he sees his clothes are back to normal; a not-loose but not-skin-tight shirt accessorized by lightweight leather pauldrons and a chestplate. His arms are wrapped around his own chest, and holding them are very familiar chalky-white hands covered by a black leather jacket. Around his waist a pair of legs belonging to the same person as the arms restrain him.

"-can you hear me?" a voice asks. Merrin.

She's right behind him. Not somewhere in the darkness, screaming.

He clears his throat. His sinuses are a wreck right now. He's embarrassingly aware he's been crying.

"I'm," he croaks, "I'm back. You can let go."

She does, unwrapping herself from him. She skooches away from his back and towards his side where she sits, their hips and shoulders one lean away from touching.

He welcomes it, leaning into her, resting his head on her shoulder and wiping his eyes and cheeks.

BD-1 beeps, nuzzling in by his knees.

Nothing goes said between the two of them while he recovers. The more time Cal sits here, the more he realizes how obvious it was that none of that... was real.

It felt real. The terror felt real.

"The Inquisitor?" He asks.

Merrin shakes her head, her jaw brushing the top of his hair. "Left. What was that?"

Cal sighs. "Some sort of mind trick. You've seen me use them before."

"Not like that," Merrin says. "You confuse enemies into fighting each other, but whatever this was, it was sadistic."

"Fueled by fear," Cal agrees softly. Silence settles between them for a moment and he closes his eyes, rationalizing the illusions like he usually does after a bad nightmare. Once his heart doesn't feel like it's going to pound out of his aching ribcage he reaches over and grabs her hand, giving it a squeeze. "Thanks for having my back."

From the top corners of his eyes, he can see her smile. It doesn't fix everything, the lingering anxiety, but her smile makes him think the stars are ugly and dim in comparison. "Literally, yes?"

"And metaphorically," Cal agrees, finding a small smile twitching on his lips too.

"What do you say we get out of here," Merrin asks. "Get you back to the Mantis and rest. Do you think burning this place down to the ground would make you feel better?"

Cal hums lightly, as if considering. "Yeah," he says easily, "a little."

Merrin helps get him to his feet, her hand never leaving his as BD-1 chirps and climbs on his shoulders. He feels shaky and on-edge, embarrassed by what his companions must have seen and uneasy at the thought of running into that Inquisitor again. He needs to train on his mental walls, he should have known one of his own tricks would be used against him someday.

However, for now, he finds a fraction of relief helping Merrin line fuel over the supply crates, then tossing a spark to set the whole place ablaze so not a single memory, not even one he can sense later, remains.

#jedi survivor spoilers #jedi fallen order #jedi survivor #cal kestis #merrin #star wars jedi survivor #star wars jedi fallen order #sw jedi fallen order #sw jedi survivor #fanfiction #jin writes #bad things happen bingo

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