#(we really need to assign an 'official' name for this ship soon)
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People talk about how Noah was inside Mirage, but there's another interesting detail: the implication that Mirage could change his height in robot mode; I mean, I suppose he technically was in robot mode when he became a suit/armor, so... 👀
#rotb#rotb mirage#mirage/noah#noah/mirage#(we really need to assign an 'official' name for this ship soon)#rotb spoilers#suggestive
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For the WIP game- 10 ObiClones Blind
Please and Thank you ❤️
Hello Friend!
You're in luck because this one has officially gone into edits so I've got about 66k of material on it. XD
This one follows The Clone Wars with a couple of differences. Obi-Wan is blinded on Bandomeer during a fight with Xanatos and so by the time the 212th is assigned him as a general he has already lost his sight. It follows them through The Clone Wars and eventually comes to a turn when Palpatine blames Obi-Wan's lack of sight for Jabiim and Cody and some of his brothers start looking for blackmail material on the man, which leads to them uncovering his plot to destroy the Jedi.
Snippet Under the Cut
This is the game mentioned.
“What do you mean your side of the ship? Is there something that I’m not aware of?”
General Kenobi’s face was serious, his eyes just as clear and sharp as ever, his gaze landing on the natborn even though he shouldn’t have been able to figure out exactly where the man was.
The force allowed General Kenobi to do a lot that they hadn’t expected him to be able to do and at this point they’d just accepted that they’d never quite understand how the man did what he did.
“General Kenobi,” the man spit out his name like it was a curse and it raised Trapper’s hackles, even though he wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t his fight and he was sure that he shouldn’t be worrying about it. If he went around sticking his nose in other people’s business it wouldn’t be long before their troubles made their way on to his plate.
“Eoghan,” General Kenobi said, nodding his head slightly, “Is there any particular reason you’ve got your hand on your weapon? I don’t see any threat around.”
The joke was clear but the man’s scowl only increased.
“This part was worth thousands of credits,” he responded tightly, “It took us three days to get it and now not only will I have to wait another three days but I’m going to have to explain what happened to the part that I just had.”
“Well it sounds to me like you’ll have to explain that you broke it,” the General said and Trapper couldn’t keep the shock off of his face at the man’s words.
“I didn’t-,” the man started to protest.
“If the part was really worth that much you should have been paying a great deal of attention and yet somehow you ended up running into someone who was trying to side step you,” the General cut in severely, “That sounds like you broke it, not him. I suggest that if you have something that you’d like to report that you go through the proper channels. I’m sure there’s footage around to let us see what really happened, however, threatening to pull out your blaster is not the appropriate response and we will be talking about this later.”
“Yes sir,” Eoghan bit out angrily, “Whatever you say.”
“Good. Now that, that is settled, what could I do for you, Trapper?” General Kenobi’s gaze settled on Trapper and for a moment he couldn’t breathe.
“Uh yes, sir,” Trapper agreed, “CC-22- I mean Cody has requested your presence. We will be planet side soon and he’d like to go over the plan of attack and the contingencies in place in case should something go wrong as well as talk about whether or not you will be needing some kind of accommodations. Since it’s supposed to be a negotiation had had some questions for you.”
“Of course, Trapper,” the General said, warm hand landing on Trapper’s forearm, “Thank you. If you wouldn’t mind leading the way I’ve got some time now. I can handle this at a later time. I don’t suppose he normally uses the same planning room? I can usually sense his presence just fine but with those rooms, all of the security equipment and silencing insulation that they use gets in the way of my usual method for locating him.”
Trapper was taken aback. He wasn’t sure how the General had figured out who he was with nothing more than a touch to his arm. Normally, even when people could see them they still had trouble telling them apart, although he supposed that, that could speak more to their willingness to tell them apart and less of their actual ability to do so.
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If you're still taking requests, can I request either Echo or Tech with hurtReader + fluff? 👀
(your writing is amazing and it melts my heart sndnfjdjdb)
Hi, friend! Thank you for the compliment - you're so sweet! I went a little lighter on the fluff than I meant to, but this is what I ended up with. Thanks for the request! Enjoy!
Tech + Injured Reader + (Minor) Fluff
*WARNING: Slight mention of gore. Nothing graphic, but a head's up.*
Watching the Havoc Marauder touch down was a ritual you followed every time the Bad Batch went anywhere without you on board. Tech liked to believe he was an excellent pilot, but you were of the opinion that flying took more than encyclopedic knowledge of a ship’s internal systems. It took instinct, a feel for the ship’s personality, and a good bit of luck to fly in a war zone.
Tech disagreed vehemently, but you had been assigned to them for a reason. Even if he had found your belief in luck - okay, slight obsession with luck - to be ridiculous, Tech admitted that you were an excellent pilot. It hadn’t been enough for you to accompany them on their mission, but it was something.
The real problem was that the members of the Bad Batch were insanely protective of anything or anyone they saw as ‘theirs’. Privately, you thought it was because they hadn’t had any personal belongings on Kamino. And they definitely hadn't had friends outside of their group. Unfortunately for you, you were also considered ‘theirs’ now and the Batch could be… restrictive when they felt you could be in danger. And since you were assigned to help them fight a literal war, you were always in danger and they were always protective. Especially Tech. You had been dating in secret for a few weeks now - too short a time for anything serious, but Tech let you take absolutely zero chances.
“Sir, we need to get you inside,” one of the troopers on deck told you, his light touch to your arm pulling your attention away from scanning the star-littered space above the hangar bay. The trooper's regulation armor looked oddly plain to you, even with the medic's symbol and the touches of gray that told you he was a member of the Wolfpack.
“I’m sorry, what was your name again?” you asked, partially to stall and partially because your luck senses were tingling.
“That isn’t important right-”
“Please?” you asked again. It was another quirk of luck. If a trooper touched you, you needed to know their name or they ended up dying. Statistically, you knew that probably wasn’t true, but who really wanted to mess around with fate if they didn’t have to?
The trooper blew out a sigh that crackled his annoyance through the speakers of his helmet. “Curl, sir. We really should be-”
“I’m sorry, Curl,” you apologized, interrupting the poor medic again. “I got separated from my team and I need to see that they’re back okay before I can leave. Does that make sense?”
“What team isn’t back yet?” Curl asked, seeming concerned. “I thought Commander Wolffe said that everyone had checked back in?”
“I’m with the Ba- with Clone Force 99,” you told him, changing your explanation to use the group’s official name at the last minute. Professionalism never hurt anyone.
“You’re with the Bad Batch?” Curl asked, sounding impressed despite himself. Without waiting for an answer, he gave a curt nod and lifted his wrist toward the speakers of his helmet. “Sergeant Sinker, Medic Curl.”
“Sinker here,” a voice answered immediately.
“Do we have an ETA on Clone Force Nine-Nine?”
“Hold.”
“Copy.” Curl glanced at you and you nodded to show that you were following the conversation.
“Curl, bridge says they’re inbound, expected to hit the hangar in about a minute.”
“Copy,” Curl said again. “Thanks, Sarge.”
“I’d stand clear,” Sergeant Sinker warned. “The good pilot isn’t on.”
“Are you the good pilot?” Curl asked you. You swore you could hear a smile in his voice.
You smiled back and nodded. “That would be me.”
“Understood, I’ve got the good pilot with me,” Curl replied over his comlink. “We’re gonna spectate, make sure they don’t scratch the paint job.”
“There’s no reason to worry,” Sinker said consolingly. “The GAR stopped springing for paint two months ago. There’ll be none left on that ship.”
Curl laughed aloud at that, shaking his head.
“Cut the chatter,” a harsh voice reprimanded. “This is an official channel. Save your jokes for the clubs on the Triple Zero, Sergeant.”
“Yes sir, Commander,” Sinker agreed chipperly.
The Solidarity’s deck shuddered as the hyperdrive activated, ready to take off as soon as the Havoc Marauder landed, and you stumbled with the movement. Curl caught you - his grip uncomfortable given the harsh plastoid planes of his armor - and shook his head.
“We really need to get you inside, sir,” Curl said again, sounding reluctant but concerned. “You have an appointment in the medbay with me, and I’ll be very offended if you’re late.”
You were about to point out that he would be late, too, when the Marauder zoomed up and around the Solidarity, clearly following a path to land.
“Wait, they’re right there,” you protested. “Give ‘em ten seconds to land and a bit longer for me to gloat, then I’ll gladly go to the medbay.” Curl hesitated and you pressed your advantage. “I’ll be a model patient, Curl. No arguments, no debates, no complaining.”
“I never believe anyone when they say that,” Curl said dryly, “but I guess you’ll survive without treatment for a little while longer.”
“Thanks, Curl!” your enthusiasm was a little… off… but you blamed it on the pain you were finally beginning to feel.
Tech was flying, you knew that beyond a doubt. Not only was he the only person allowed to fly, but the landing performed by the small cruiser was proof that the wickedly intelligent trooper was behind the controls.
As soon as they had landed, Wrecker burst out of the side door. “Ha! Told ya we would make it back in one piece.”
“More luck than skill, that,” Crosshair countered sourly, slouching from the door as well with Hunter behind him.
“As I said multiple times, everything was under control,” Tech disagreed. He caught sight of you and started in your direction, eyes taking in the way Curl’s gloved hand was still gripping your bicep.
“There, you saw ‘em,” Curl muttered to you. “We really need to go now.”
“I beg your pardon, but where exactly are you trying to go?” Tech asked sharply, glancing between the two of you.
“Medbay,” Curl replied, slipping into the vocal brevity of a career soldier. “Your pilot was injured, but wouldn’t accept treatment until you had touched down.”
“Luck, you know,” you told Tech, who was already scanning your form with his goggled gaze. You smirked at him and shrugged off Curl, who seemed ready to tow you to the medbay himself. “Also, statistical likelihood be karked! I stayed in the ‘safest possible place’ like you told me and I’m the only one who ended up injured! You should listen to me from now on.”
“What?!”
“Injured?”
"How? Where?"
The rest of the Bad Batch had surrounded you and Curl in a moment, all asking different variations of the same question. Hunter’s voice cut through them all. “Trooper, why is she not in the medbay?”
Curl held up his hands as if despairing of the entire situation. “Sorry, Sergeant. Your pilot refused to leave until we saw your ship land. It would be a big help to me if you would just issue an order to report to the medbay so I can start treating the injuries.”
For all that he liked to take a laid-back approach to non-combat leadership, Hunter took the safety of his team seriously and you knew he was about to do as Curl had suggested.
“It’s not even that bad an injury,” you argued before Hunter could speak. “I just got hit with some debris."
You tugged up the rough, canvas-like material of the uniform pants you wore while you weren’t actively flying and showed them your lower leg. You were busy looking at the faces of the Batch rather than the injury, but you knew something was wrong when Tech swore. Tech never swore.
With a frown, you glanced down at your leg. Your mind refused to make too much sense of things, but you saw smears of crimson and a pale flash of something before the dizziness returned worse than ever.
Fortunately, Curl caught you before you could actually fall and Wrecker scooped you up a moment later. He was already muttering soothing nonsense as he lifted you, and it was almost enough to keep you from noticing the pain. “All right, here we are. Everything is fine. Just don’t puke on me.”
“Medbay,” Hunter ordered severely. “Now .”
“Yes, sir,” you agreed, your voice more weak than you liked.
“Finally,” Curl muttered.
“Tech, go with them,” you heard Hunter say from a rapidly growing distance.
There was a sound of jogging steps, but when you tried to look for Tech’s familiar face, the Solidarity leapt into hyperspace and you felt like you might actually pass out.
“What will treatment consist of?” Tech asked. He was trying to mask his worry by being professional, but you could hear a hint of it in his voice.
“Some stitches, probably an antibiotic shot since the debris was metallic, and a check of the nerves in the area of injury,” Curl answered easily. The lack of concern from the medic was comforting in a strange sort of way.
The silence hung for a few moments, interrupted only by the sound of everyone’s footsteps. Eventually, Tech admitted, “I should have been able to calculate the risks more closely. This never should have happened.”
“Aw, how were you supposed to know?” Wrecker asked loudly.
“That’s right,” Curl agreed. “This is war. Unexpected variables are the norm and there are no safe spots. My only advice is to take all of your people with you. After all, your pilot accepted the assignment to be part of your team. Trying to keep people out of the action never works. Take the lesson, learn from it, and make adjustments in the future. You don’t need to do anything more than that.”
“He’s right,” you agreed, the sentiment muffled against Wrecker’s broad chestplate. “Let me do my job and trust that I’ll do everything I can to keep us all out of danger.”
You blindly stuck your hand out behind Wrecker’s back, searching until you connected with Tech’s familiar fingers. His grip was hesitant but steady, and you gave his hand a squeeze of reassurance.
“It’s probably true,” Curl said, apparently backing you up. “Pain is like a truth serum. And with that gash… it’s probably the truth. Even if you did lie about being a perfect patient.”
You chuckled at that, despite the discomfort from your injury, and relaxed a bit as you felt Tech press a kiss to the back of your hand.
---
A/N - This chapter could realistically be called 'Ink will do anything to avoid using the y/n designation'. For those who are unfamiliar, Curl is my OC medic for the Wolfpack and you can read more featuring him in Just for Kix on my masterlist. As always, I'm still taking requests! Thanks again, Anon, for this idea and I'm sorry again about skimping on the fluff! If you want me to rewrite or expand on it, please feel free to let me know.
#star wars#star wars the clone wars#star wars the bad batch#star wars fic#tech x you#tech x reader#tcw#tcw fanfic#sw tbb#tbb tech#tech#hunter#crosshair#wrecker#sinker#104th battalion#wolfpack#request#clone troopers deserve better
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15, please
Ooooh this one I was really thinking about do we go full fluff or angst or what? Sooooo let us return to a universe that may have been forgotten....Princess Daenerys and her bodyguard Jon (spoiler alert) from my weird mysterious angsty fic bird on a wire. Well in that one he is FORMER and in this one it is set a bit before. Forbidden Love! 💗
Moodboard to come! Enjoy and thank you for the prompt!!
Romantic One Liner Prompts
15. “I’ve missed you so much.”
"Daenerys you look a bit peaky, are you feeling well?"
"I'm fine, mother." She really needed a drink. And not the ancient Dornish red they were currently drinking with their meal. It was the weekly family dinner, something her brother instituted the second he became King, in effort to "foster better familial relationships." It was basically his way of trying to turn them into as normal a family as possible, when they were anything but that.
She lightly touched her fingertips to her temple, a dull ache forming. It would rage later, she had no doubt, but for now she could only ignore it and listen to Rhaegar wax on about a dull meeting he had with the Minister of Finance, Willas Tyrell, who was near her age but a bit of a wunderkind in finance and politics.
The empty seat across from her was ignored by Rhaegar, and her mother, and it irked Dany. Viserys was back in the hospital, not that they would acknowledge it beyond simply saying his doctors thought they had his medications worked out and he would be home soon. She took a deep breath, crumpling her napkin in her lap. "You know Muna, I am a bit under the weather, I think I will retire early."
Rhaella glanced away from Rhaegar, who was annoyed she'd interrupted him. Her mother furrowed her brow, concerned. "Of course darling, I'll send something to your room later..."
"No thank you, I'm not hungry." She tossed the napkin onto the chair as she stood, shooting a dark look at Rhaegar, who ignored her and sipped his wine. "Perhaps it's the weather....or the company."
"Daenerys," Rhaella began, sighing.
She shook her head, rolling her eyes. "Forget it Muna. Rhae, always a displeasure."
"Daenerys," he began, but it was their mother who cut him off.
"Rhaegar, please. I'll not have to fight right now." It was the Queen Dowager who now looked exhausted and peaky, touching her fingertips to her head. She waved her hand. "I will see you later Daenerys, I'll check in on you."
I'm not a child, she wanted to say, but bit her tongue, nodding curtly. She left the dining room, one of the smaller ones they used solely for family functions-- not that there were any of those beyond weekly dinner-- entering the corridor.
Maegor's Holdfast, where the official family residence happened to be, was free of security during non-working hours, to give the resemblance that they lived in a normal home. If your home happened to be multiple levels of an ancient castle built by dragonriders. It was a joke to her, an illusion, something out of a movie. This is not the home you're looking for, type of thing.
Her heels clicked on the stone floors, barely covered with carpets, chilly in the late evening. She shivered, an impressive feat given her dragonblood that normally kept her hot, and wondered where her security detail happened to be lurking that evening. She could call them, if she wanted to go out, but this late they might say no, they couldn't guarantee anything.
Trapped would be a word for it. Caged, another. They meant the same thing, but that wasn't it at all. Daenerys felt like her wings were clipped. She could flit about and pretend she could fly, but she really couldn't. Not unless she escaped from under their noses.
She went to her room and picked up one of her dump phones, texting missandei. A moment later she had the address for a party, should she want to go out. But she didn't. She sighed, walking through the big open doors onto her terrace. Her suite was in a tower, because that's what she wanted as a girl, and overlooked the Blackwater Bay, in the direction of Essos.
Wishing she was at Dragonstone, she closed her eyes, allowing the cool night breeze, salty from the sea, to brush through her hair and across her skin, like a lover's caress, gentle and soft. On Dragonstone the air might have a burnt, ashy tinge to it, curling your nose, but she loved it. She missed it.
Her eyelids flickered up, spotting the ships in the harbor, scanning the horizon, to the Dragonpit ruins and then to the Sept of baelor. She could slip out easily. Ser Gerold, their Chief of Security, was probably asleep in his bed in the Lord Commander's tower. Arthur would likely be on duty for Rhaegar well into the night, Barristan was her mother's keeper and then there was Jamie Lannister floating about somewhere.
She named off the Kingsguard in her head, the ones that all had their assignments, some off duty that night, some no doubt in a control room, buzzing in anticipation there might be a plot afoot to kidnap the Princess or assassinate the King. It had happened once. Actually, twice, if she included that time Rhaegar's car had flipped on the way to Summerhall. They said it was an accident, but she knew better. It was Baratheon supporters.
Her nails dug into the stone, her heart empty, achy. "Brienne might let me leave," she murmured. Brienne was their newest guard, she was eager to please.
At her feet, her massive leopard-sized cat Drogon fussed, emerging from wherever he'd been hiding. He yowled, clawing her feet. "Is this how you greet me?" she teased, leaning down to lift him up. She hefted him up and down a couple times, chuckling. "I think you need a diet, young man."
Drogon yowled, protesting. She knew he was just saying he was big-boned. She kissed the top of his head, scratching under his chin. He clawed into her arm, demanding he be put down, and she obliged lest her arm become a new scratching post for him. He sauntered his fat butt back into her room and over to the tapestry of the three Targaryens and their dragons, pawing at the edge.
Her lips twitched, heart leaping hopefully, and soon her relief washed over her, the tapestry pushing aside and the secret passageway opening to reveal him.
"Oh," she exclaimed, pushing away from the stone wall, hurrying towards him. Her arms flung around his neck, embracing him tight, her face buried in his dark curls, inhaling the scent that had been fading from her sheets and the oversized sweatshirt she'd stolen from his apartment, with each passing day.
He gripped her close, his exhale hard enough to knock her earrings aside. He swayed, with her in his arms, her toes touching the tops of his feet, lifting her slightly off the floor. "I've missed you so much," he mumbled, voice raspy.
"I've missed you too."
Falling back to her feet, she pushed his hair aside, tucking it behind his ear, fingertips stroking down his recently cropped beard. Regulations being what they were, he had to make sure it wasn't unkempt, which he sometimes preferred it to be, especially when he was gone for a long time, like he had been. His eyes crinkled with his warm smile, his own hands mapping her face, both reacquainting with the other, until she could take no more.
She cried out, muffled, kissing him before she could stop herself, fingers digging into the back of his neck, her mouth opening easily under his, desperate. He held her tight, hands branding her hips, pushing her towards the nearest surface, which happened to be a chaise lounge near the door.
The chaise’s soft silk fabric brushed over the back of her legs when she reclined onto it, pulling him over her, kissing hard and demanding, pouring her happiness at seeing him after so long into the kiss. He broke it, when the need for air forced them apart, and touched his forehead to hers, whispering. "I was worried about you, that security breach last week."
It was just a drunk, the Aegon's Hill Academy frat boys daring each other to try to jump the fence, but of course he would see it as a legitimate problem. "I wasn't even here, I was with Missandei," she murmured.
He frowned, tracing his finger down her nose, thumb skimming her swollen bottom lip. "I wish you wouldn't do that without me."
"Because you want to party too?" she teased, but she knew what he meant. He was her protector, her shadow, and she was never fully usafe unless he was near her.
He smirked. "No, because it's been six months."
"Six months," she sobbed. She had barely spoken to him, sneaking messages when she could. She laughed again, rolling her eyes. "Remind me to tell Lord Commander Hightower to never approve your military leave again."
"Better tell your Minister of War to stop fighting with the Free Folk at the Wall."
Her nose wrinkled; she detested Rhaegar's pick for Minister of War, Lord Tywin Lannister, and only knew he gave ihm that position because it meant he could keep an eye on him. Better to have him near than across the continent, her brother said. Dany would prefer he be in jail.
She nuzzled into his chest, needing to hold him, listen to his heart, and reassure herself he was there with her and not traipsing about in the snow thousands and thousands of miles away. "Will you be back on my detail?" she breathed, her heart stilling as she awaited his reply.
He moved so she could stretch over him, so he could play with her hair, and he nodded. "Aye, I believe so. Last I heard."
"We have to be more careful, I think Viserys knows."
He stilled his movements. "He...is he good?"
She shrugged. "Who knows...they keep medicating him. Regardless, if he says something...I don't know."
"We'll be more careful."
They couldn't be any more careful at this point. They hardly looked at each other, every interaction strictly professional. He was her bodyguard, nothing more, nothing less. She treated him like she did everyone else. Little did they know that five years ago, since Captain Jon Snow, reserve Night's Watch, walked into the solar and Ser Arthur introduced him to her as her newest lead bodyguard, she had been hopelessly in love with him.
Well, not exactly five months. It took some time. He was annoying the first six months. Then she started to become friends with him. They grew close. Closer. Until about a year in she'd kissed him, when he'd found her after she'd given him the slip, at a warehouse party in Vaes Dothrak, while they'd been over in Essos for a 'goodwill tour.'
It was wrong. They both knew it. They both couldn't stop it. He'd get reassigned at the least, fired at the most, and she didn't want anything to happen to him.
It was a matter of time.
Someone would find out.
She was sure that this latest assignment of him from reserves to active duty for the last six months might have been a sign. Except he was a drug, she couldn't stop it. She loved him and he loved her. "Jon," she murmured, pressing her nose into the shadow dent between his shoulder and collarbone, idly pressing a kiss against his steady pulse.
"Hmm?" He pulled lazily at her hair, twisting braids around his fingers. She could die and be the happiest she'd ever been.
Lifting her face to his, she whispered. "Make love to me."
He smiled slowly and leaned down, kissing her so tenderly, she thought she might break. Except she wouldn't, because she was a dragon. She relaxed against him and he lifted her up, carrying her across the sitting area into her bedroom suite.
Some time later, she lay against him as he slept, and stared out the open doors to the balcony and beyond, the moon full and as silver as her hair, glowing into the darkness over them. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, ignoring the sound of reality beating at the door, and returned to sleep, where in dreams she could be Daenerys and he could be Jon.
And not the princess and her bodyguard.
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Will You Marry Me (For Financial Aid)
Summary:
The fake dating/real feelings college au no one asked for.
Based on that text exchange between two friends in college wanting a better FAFSA Application.
Notes: Major credit to @labelma (AKA Leilah) for betaing this and for encouraging me to post it.
I wrote this about a year ago and got distracted by life. Decided I would put it out into the world for other people to enjoy as a little birthday present for myself, enjoy!
David - italicized
Patrick - bold
Stevie - both
You wouldn’t expect David Rose to be friends with someone like Patrick Brewer. Not only was he a business major, but also a huge sports fan and equally versed in the arts, which David certainly didn’t mind. Patrick was liked by everyone he met and no one really understood how he could be friends with someone as abrasive and standoffish as David. And somehow they were best friends.
Stevie simultaneously regrets, is overly enthused, and is extremely amused by their friendship and takes full credit for the dynamic of their tiny but mighty friend group. She and David had met during orientation their freshman year of college, bonding over their shared disdain for their overly peppy orientation leaders. They quickly became inseparable, spending the majority of their down time together. A few weeks into school Stevie showed up with this average looking guy she had met in her Intro to Business course to their weekly dinner. Patrick had woven his way into their little duo with a few little teasing jabs at David to which David made complaints of an ‘unbalanced social dynamic’ but loved nonetheless.
Nothing has really changed after two years of friendship. They would do pretty much everything together; homework, meals, vacations (thanks to David’s parents), you name it, they were probably doing it together. Even a few classes, obviously with a lot of pushing on Stevie and Patrick’s end and reluctance on David’s. David mostly stuck to his art classes but was convinced that a few business classes would help if he ever wanted to manage a gallery, good business acumen ran in the family after all.
David came from money, but that money was almost never of conversation and often forgotten all together. It only came up when he casually name dropped or mentioned his designer and high end products. That was until they lost it all. Thankfully school and his apartment were already paid for through the year but it left David questioning his very near future plans. He worried if he would be able to finish out his schooling and where he would live once school was over. By some small miracle, his parents and younger sister found themselves moved to a town that they had bought as a joke at the pinnacle of his family’s financial success. Even better was the fact they were now living in the motel that Stevie’s family owned.
After a long night of anxiety and research on financial aid for the next year, he discovered there were certain situations in which he could receive more aid. David never had to worry about filling out a FAFSA application when he still had money, it was never an issue if he received aid or not, but now it was the most important thing for his life to stay somewhat stable. His anxiety got the better of him and decided to decompress with the little bit of the weed he had left.
Once he got a nice buzz going, he grabbed his phone to come up with a plan to get some of that aid. His finger hovered over his conversations with Patrick and Stevie. He thought Stevie would go along with his plan but would ridicule him to no end and decided that Patrick was probably the safer bet in this particular scenario.
Hi
Can you marry me?
The rational part of his brain told him Patrick was likely at one of his many clubs or doing homework or maybe even doing something only good people do. But the rational part of his brain was not steering the ship. The part in control kept yelling at him that Patrick was mad at him for coming on like that and he had ruined the friendship with just four words.
I just looked at the financial aid website and it said I cannot get any aid except for unsubsidized loans unless I have a child, get married or turn 24, so I have to get married
It didn’t take long for Patrick to respond. He would do pretty much anything for his friends and it’s not like it was actually a real marriage and could benefit himself.
Yeah, okay. I’ll marry you. I need a better fafsa application too
That certainly wasn’t the response David had expected and certainly not that fast. David was used to people letting him down even though Patrick, and more often than not Stevie, had proven that people won’t always do that.
Wait. Seriously?
Would you really do it?
I’m going to do actual research on this.
‘After I sober’ up David said to his phone after he sent that final text.
Are we doing this?
It would have to happen like lightning fast. I’ve never had to do one of those applications aren’t they due soon?
Patrick knew David was likely either high or drunk, he hadn’t been dealing with the complete upheaval of his life all that well, and figured he would do all of the specific research as he enjoyed it and was painfully aware of the application and financial aid process. He felt the tiniest bit of disbelief pass through his brain as he started looking into this particular part of the process. Whether this was the idea of marrying David or marrying David to benefit their financial aid packages. He never really thought of his best friend like that before but it felt like a tiny part of his brain was saying this was a good thing. He shut that voice down and focused on his research instead.
Okay.
We’d need to get a marriage license which can be up to $300 depending on where we get it, and then we need to file for a marriage certificate.
I’m an ordained minister but idk if I could file my own marriage certificate
During all of the craziness that had been the last hour and asking Patrick to marry him, he totally forgot that Stevie was coming over.
“David?” she called out opening the door and approached his bedroom.
“You smoked without me? You suck.”
David stilled. He had his phone still in his hand and a small smile on his face. As soon as he saw Stevie in the doorway his smile twisted to the side of his face.
“David.”
“Stevie.”
“You never smile like that. What bit of celebrity gossip are you hiding on your phone?” She asked, grabbing the phone from his hands with little protest as David’s reaction time was slowed by his now depleting high.
“What is this?” She paused to read the conversation. “You’re marrying Patrick? And for financial aid? I don’t know if I should be offended you didn’t ask me or not.”
“I thought about it! I thought you would make fun of me for it. I’m sorry!”
“It’s fine. I’m ordained by the way.”
David gave her a confused look questioning her random fact.
“I was bored in high school one day and did it online after I finished the assignment we were doing. It took like 15 minutes and now I can marry people.” She shrugged it off as if it were nothing.
“And you’re telling me this because..” David trailed off trying to follow the conversation.
“Because I can marry you and Patrick if you need me to.”
Finally David was caught up on the conversation. He took his phone back from Stevie wanting to tell Patrick. He couldn’t help the smile that came back on his face as hard as he tried to hide it.
Stevie’s ordained and said she can marry us. So one problem down!
“I like this for you.”
“Like what? There’s nothing to like!” David shrieked.
David went back to his laptop to do further research into the actual benefits of marrying Patrick. Stevie nodded and pulled out her own phone. She figured if David was going to be preoccupied she could at least have some fun.
So I hear you’re going to marry David?
And you’re officiating?
You’re not mad he asked me and not you right? I don't want this to put a strain on our friendship.
Stevie laughed. She had secretly hoped they would end up together. She loved David but she couldn’t ever marry him, not even a staged marriage.
I may have offered my services, yes.
And absolutely not. He’s all yours.
The extra financial aid would have been nice but I could never marry David.
Fake marry.
Okay, fine. Fake marry. Either way I am NOT interested.
She looked back up to see David’s face now buried in his phone. He had to be texting Patrick.
It’s possible that I can get fafsa to pay for an entire apartment!
Where you would live with me obviously
David stopped and looked up at Stevie nervously.
“I think I just asked Patrick to move in with me.”
I mean only if you want. You have no obligations to do that.
You probably don’t. I mean bringing home a girl would be weird or whatever.
Patrick had left his phone playing music on the counter as he made himself dinner. He didn’t think to check it until he was back in front of his computer with his dinner. He opened his messages to see four new messages from David.
He can’t say he’s not surprised to see David spiraling after those first two messages. He still never understood why David thought Patrick would reject him as he had never shown signs of that during their friendship. He felt a certain sadness for his best friend.
Of course I’d live with you.
The thought of living with David didn’t scare him as much as it should. He knows David is high maintenance. He’s shared spaces with him during vacations. It’s not really something that bothers him. If anything he finds David endearing, especially when he’s a little frazzled making this encounter all the more fun.
Think they would go for a nice little two bedroom apartment?
The relief David feels seeing that first response doesn’t last long. He doesn’t know why he feels a sense of sadness when Patrick mentions a two bedroom. They’re friends. A couple of bros getting married. Just for financial aid purposes.
Do you think we could convince them for two baths? I’ve shared a bathroom with you. You don’t have much but what you do is wildly incorrect and I’d rather not ruin our friendship with that.
Marriage is a compromise David. You’ll just have to deal with my incorrect bathroom products.
We’re really doing this.
Yes we are.
Can we talk more about this tomorrow? I need to get some work done tonight.
We can talk about this whenever you want.
Just
Preferably not before 10 AM.
Never. I know you David. Lunch after my class tomorrow? Just us?
Stevie hates that we’re ditching her.
But, yes. Lunch sounds great.
“So you’re marrying Patrick and ditching me to go on dates with him?” Stevie remarked after reading their exchange.
David seemed shocked but hummed shaking his head in some sort of hybrid of no and yes. He stood up and shook his arms out. Stevie knew he was getting flustered proving that this might just be more than just an easy way to get some help with tuition.
#david x patrick#schitt's creek#first fic#there is a second chapter to this#they sorta go on a date?#let me know if I should post it
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“My Imaginary Friend”
That old crone at the orphanage told me that my parents abandoned me, that I was cursed. For years, I believed her - it was true. When I was six, my face changed. I was always of pale skin, but for just a few minutes in the mirror that morning, my skin was a deep green. Just like one of my friends. The next morning? I had horns. The exact same horns that grew from my bullies head. It took a few weeks until I realised I could mimic the voice of one of the older children. The twins cut off my ponytail, but it came back when I looked in the mirror. But the mirror wasn’t important - not then, at least. I changed because I wanted to.
My parents didn’t abandon me. They died when I was too young to remember them. He told me they loved me more than I could ever know. The man in the closet told me. Sometimes, when it was dark, he’d stand in the corner of the bedroom that the girls my age shared, and he’d speak to me, hidden in the shadows. He should have terrified me, but there was something about him. His voice, soft and calming. No one heard him when he spoke, and they never saw his silhouette. I was glad.
When I was eleven, I fell ill with a terrible cold. I couldn’t keep anything I ate down, and every night was filled with fitful attempts to sleep. I thought I was dying. An older boy said I was, so I threw up on him. I thought it was worth it, until the nice caregiver sent me to bed without dinner that night. It was safe underneath my blankets, but lonely. Until it wasn’t, until his voice called my name from below my bed. He had never been that close before. Perhaps that’s why I believed him when he said that I’d be okay.
I was so excited to speak to him again that I didn’t even try to lie when he asked if I hated that boy. To be near him again, a friend that I didn’t have to compete over, or worry that would leave. He was my friend, and mine alone. The next thing I remembered was waking up, still safe beneath my blankets and the moon still outside the window. I didn’t feel so tired, and I had such an appetite that I snuck back into the kitchen. I was caught, of course, but they weren’t angry. They were confused.
It didn’t take long to realise that I had lost a day. I must’ve needed the sleep, they reasoned. I learned the following morning that the older boy who probably didn’t yet have his hair clean, was adopted whilst I slept. I couldn’t help but be jealous. He was taken in by a famous blacksmith who worked for the guard - he always wanted to be a smith. I didn’t care for the status, or the opportunity to learn. Just having someone care enough to take you.
It was my fifteenth birthday, according to the day the orphanage assigned to me, when I first questioned the man’s existence. He was supposed to be my imaginary friend, the one who kept me comfortable and happy. But I knew I was too old for such a thing. He wasn’t imaginary. It was rare, but a few of my dreams as I approached my sixteenth began to take form more reliably, and he was always there. Dreams that involved my friends, or strangers, or anywhere in between, he was one of them. There was this... air around those few that I could lucidly pinpoint, that I just knew was him.
No one wanted to adopt the child that changed every day. I didn’t quite understand the implications those first few weeks, but it became clearer as the years passed. To the parents that came in search for a boy, I was clearly not an option for them, but to the ones wanting a girl? I was unreliable, a risk. No one’s going to adopt the girl that might be a boy tomorrow, nor a child that grows and loses tusks in the span of an hour. No one wanted the cursed child.
I was a month away from being officially recognised as an adult and thus being thrown out of the orphanage, when I first met my dead father. I knew I was asleep, I remembered laying down and curling up into a ball and falling into sleep, and I knew beyond a doubt that I was dreaming. He stood there, a human man of... average appearance, really. I knew not the faces of my parents, but once his features set into my memory, something clicked into place. There was no way for me to, but I knew it was my father. Being excited was an understatement, but I couldn’t help but notice that he was nothing like me. Gentle features, long flowing black hair, blue eyes, and no obvious sign of old age.
It was an early birthday present from him. My imaginary friend. The gift of knowing the face of my father. And the moment I longed for my mother, she was there too, a second gift. Sharper features belonging to elven blood, a curt explanation of my ears’ tendency to end in points. Blonde hair that felt just as soft as it looked, alongside tasteful red lipstick. When they spoke, their voices met my ears like a lullaby. We sat in a café, and I told them about all the time they missed. Of how I’d wish for them on a shooting star that I didn’t actually see, of the friends I made and lost once a family took them in, and of my body’s need to change. They asked questions of me just like I’d expect parents to - asking of my favourite memories. And I regaled them with stories of the man under the bed, knowing that I’d just be telling him of himself. Just before that living dream came to an end, the woman that was my mother told me of an inheritance that I’d soon receive.
If you’re taken into an orphanage without a name, they give you one, which is how mine came into being. And yet, two days after the orphanage celebrated my birthday (and more importantly to them, my entrance into the real world), there was a parcel left on the doorstep of the orphanage. No one claimed it, for it held a name of someone unknown. But he was in my ear that afternoon, whispering. It was mine.
Fianna. The name written on the parcel, and what my parents must have intended for me. My fear of finding a way to live outside of the orphanage was dissuaded by the platinum coins stacked neatly in a fine wooden box. A smaller box held a silver ring, the ring my father must have proposed to mother with. There was an empty journal, clothes that fit surprisingly well without my body adjusting to them, and countless other gifts from beyond.
It was lucky break after lucky break. A ship leaving the city just as I longed to see the world, a room all to myself after eighteen years of shared quarters, and my favourite food being brought on the voyage. Platinum speaks volumes, especially when you’re looking for an apartment in the more well-off circles of a city, and I welcomed the change from the arguable-squalor of where I once lived.
He was with me everywhere I went. I feared that once I left the orphanage, he’d be gone, but his voice rung in my ears, and he lived in my dreams each night. And one evening, as I prepared for my first fancy party, he sat in my reflection. It should have scared me. A being of shadow despite the light. He knew I needed help getting ready, but only did so once I asked him for it. He guided me to the parcel I still kept with me, and to one gift I had been getting better at using, despite the fact I didn’t need it. Incredibly expensive makeup.
He stood behind me in my reflection, offering guided tips as I prepared, but even after we should have been done, we knew something was missing. Something that would pop - make me stand out. He leaned forward over my reflected shoulder and poked his upper-torso straight through the mirror, meeting me face to face. It was comforting, how he applied the final touches to my eyes before rescinding back, content.
I had come into my own after meeting my parents, which was only confirmed by the mirror I looked at myself in. Wearing blonde hair and red lipstick just like mother, blue eyes and pale skin like father, and a designed softness to my otherwise sharp features. Covering me was a fine yellow dress that was worryingly not fine enough considering the circles I intended to mingle with that night, and no jewellery to speak of except for my father’s simple ring. And as I prepared to leave, I couldn’t help but smile brightly at my own reflection in the mirror. He knows what he’s doing.
The rainbow eyeliner really pops.
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Mistakes Like This ↠ Obi-Wan Kenobi (Obi-Wan x Reader) Chapter 6
Word count: 4.5k
Warnings: SMUT! 18+ only!!!!! plz scroll away and shield your eyes dkdkdkdk.
Masterlist
Chapter 7
Tags: @blondekel77 @jediknight-22 @wellhellothere1002
Just as you expected the Council had ordered you and Obi-Wan to the next mission. They had to get you away from making any more mistakes. Now the ship was set for the planet of Vewiku. When you heard about the news you stopped seeing Obi-Wan around. Now that the mission was officially over the little promise you made together is done. Honestly, you felt that it was Obi-Wan that tried his best to avoid you and not the other way around. On top of that, you were frustrated that your mission is a security escort for an ambassador. You hated these kinds of assignments because the days felt like they dragged on and whenever you were assigned to one it would always bore you to death with all the meetings and briefings.
The quarters have been empty for a while now and Obi-Wan has not retired since leaving Darilia. While you meditated you felt around for his force and it was so muted like he wasn't even on the ship. The doors opened and you turned around immediately hoping to see Obi-Wan but it was one of the protocol droids. "Hello, I am J-3PO! I have your assignment instructions," the droid stood at the doorway and you sighed.
"Hello," you got up and dusted off your robes. "Let's hear it then."
_
There was so much tension when the ship was docking since Obi-Wan decided to finally make an appearance. This was worse than before and he couldn't even look at you. You frowned as the both of you walked down the ramp and onto the landing pad. There was an audience and it made you uncomfortable with how many people were there. You weren't expecting this size of a crowd and it honestly defeats the purpose of why you were here. "What is all of this?" You whispered to Obi-Wan.
"They are excited to see Jedi," he replies. There were a few near-humans who stepped up and greeted the both of you. You assumed they were the ones you had to make contact with and you bowed following the actions of Obi-Wan.
"Welcome to Vewiku City," it was a woman who was dressed in all black that addressed the two of you. "My name is Odrella Vah. I will be your guide." She had human features but there were these striations on her face that appeared to change from a light pink to neutral skin color. The protocol droid as you recalled told you about their species. Those marks are connected to their circulatory system and would change in color when they were under stress or feeling hot. Her platinum hair was twisted into a braid around her head and you can see a red ribbon twisting through it.
"It is a pleasure for us to be here with you!" you smiled and she returned the gesture.
"You must excuse the crowds that came today. It's just new spreads fast here and it's been years since we have seen a Jedi," she smiles and the striations on her face turned slightly pink. It would be very easy to tell the mood of these people you thought to yourself. "Now we have two Jedi." She guides you and Obi-Wan with the rest of her group trailing behind her. The guards and clones held back the curious crowd and you were looking around getting a feel for the people. Many of them were the same near-human species as Odrella with the striations on their faces. They all were excited and you see that clearly on their markings. There were also a few alien species you were familiar and unfamiliar with. "The whole city has been buzzing because we are having a ball," she looked over her shoulder at you.
"Yes, we were briefed about that," you nod and glanced over at Obi-Wan who has been silent. "
"Yann Threl is excited to meet the both of you," Odrella lead the group onto a shuttle. "It is his first assignment after being promoted to an ambassador." That was the name you were waiting to hear. The high-ranking official had numerous assassination attempts since his promotion and he is to be escorted out of Vewiku as soon as possible. The briefings with the Council didn't elucidate why he is a target but Neo and you were guessing he owed lots of money here on Vewiku.
The ride to the castle was a smooth one and Obi-Wan was speaking with the guards the entire time. Odrella explained different sectors in the city. There was shipbuilding, farming, and living sectors. The ship landed in the shipbuilding sector so you were able to see the different levels. It reminded you of Coruscant but on a smaller scale. You were excited to see the farming sector because you thought it would be the typical farmland scenery but it was not. Buildings were covered in greenery and Ordella explained since the planet lacked resources they resorted to vertical farming instead. You looked in awe out the shuttle window and in the reflection of the glass you saw Obi-Wan watching you. He turned away once he saw you looking directly at him.
Once the shuttle moved into the living sector you were shocked to see the infrastructure. Everything looked so pristine and clean. There were so many people walking around and some kids playing waved at you. You smiled and gave a smile back. They reminded you of the Younglings back home and you missed them dearly.
The shuttle moved on to the gates of the castle. As they opened Ordella rose up from her seat and stood by the door. "Here we are!" Ordella exclaimed. Obi-Wan let you walk ahead of him and you followed Ordella. The guards walked beside you like you were the one that needs to be protected. You looked up at the castle and it didn't look too imposing or intimidating to you. It was pleasing to look at with its soft neutral colors and a little overgrowth of plants.
It wasn't long till you were finally inside and waiting in some kind of chambers with Obi-Wan. Ordella went to get Yann and his other guards. "This is definitely not my style," you were sitting on a cushion and watched Obi-Wan pace around. This specific room was decked out in different tapestries and everything was over the top.
"Really?" he looked under the large table at the center of the room. "I thought you would like it."
"It feels claustrophobic," you looked at your boots. They were polished and you can see your reflection on them.
"It's because I'm here," he stood up straight and you glanced up at him. Before you can say anything the doors opened and Ordella appeared with guards behind her and who you assumed was Yann Threl. You got up and bowed along with Obi-Wan. Once you lifted your head you immediately saw the darker shade of blue-green eyes staring back at you. Just like Ordella he had striations on his face that were actually a deep pink shade right at that moment. His brown hair was cropped short and combed neatly back. Yann's full lips formed into a smirk as you avert your eyes from him. He must only be a few years younger than Obi-Wan.
"I'm so happy to finally meet both of you," Yann went to shake Obi-Wan's hand first and then to you. His hand clasped around yours and he held onto it a moment longer even Obi-Wan glanced at it. "I trust the both of you can keep me safe with the remaining time we have here and on our travel." You observed the ambassador and you wondered why a man of his size was not intimidated by others. He looks more built than his other guards.
"We can assure you that you are in safe hands, Ambassador," Obi-Wan slips his hands into the sleeves of his robe and you lingered farther away from the group. The ambassador was staring you down and you stared right back at him. It was his turn to look away with a smile. The striations on his face turned bloodshot and you rolled your eyes. Obi-Wan cleared his throat and stood by you."I will be in charge of the security team."
"I will be by your side at all times," you spoke up.
"Wonderful," Yann sat down and stretched out his legs. "Ordella I feel safer already." She nods and then looked over to you and Obi-Wan.
"I will see you both soon. Your quarters have been prepared. The rooms are adjacent to the ambassador so if anything were to happen you're right there. Aira will be around if you need any assistance," Ordella smiled before bowing to the both of you and then to the ambassador. She leaves the room and you see that there were guards stationed right outside.
"Both of you should sit. I'd like to get to know you first," Yann gestured to the seats in front of him. Obi-Wan went on ahead and sat down while you took a while to follow in suit. You felt Obi-Wan's force surrounding you and you tried pushing that away. He's been confining it on the ship and now he wants to hog up your space. "As you probably both know there have been three failed assassination attempts on me." Yann starts off and you nod. "I will be honest. I have no idea as to why I suddenly became a target. I made no enemies in government." You became distracted as he continued to speak about other reasons and your focus was suddenly on Obi-Wan's hands. He was no longer wearing his gloves and you can see his masculine hands placed on the handle of the seat. While he spoke he would tighten and loosen his grip on the handle. All you could think about was the night on Darilia.
"Are you alright?" Obi-Wan looked over at you with concern sketched all over his face. He got up and you raised a hand.
"I'm fine," you wave him down so he does sit back.
"The travel must have been exhausting I should ask for our meal to be prepared," Yann leaned over and placed a hand on your knee.
_
It wasn't long till you were escorting Yann back to his suite along with two other guards. The dinner has been prepared and Obi-Wan went on ahead to double check the room. "You are very pretty for a Jedi," Yann glanced quickly while you walked down the long halls.
"Thank you but you'd be surprise I'm not the only one," you replied. He chuckled and sighed before stopping in front of a door.
"Well here we are General," he looked at you and opened the door. Obi-Wan was standing inside with his hands behind his back. He gives you a nod and you stepped to the side so Yann can walk in.
"Everything is clear," Obi-Wan announced and you smell all the good food that was prepared on the table. It has been so long since you had a meal like this and your mouth was watering. Yann went to stand at the head of the table and he motioned for you to sit next to him. Obi-Wan was seated further away as Yann's other guards sat at the table.
"I hope you don't mind. I allow some of my guards to dine with me. Keeps me company since this job has been very lonely," Yann sits down and you do the same.
"That's fine," you say and there was only the sound of the clinking of utensils and glass. You didn't know what to eat first because a lot of the things prepared were unfamiliar to you but there was one thing you wanted to try. They looked like red jewels in a bowl but you assumed it was fruit and when you reached for it Yann also did. "I'm sorry." You withdrew your hand and he smiled. The ambassador scooped the fruit and placed some on your plate.
"These are my favorites. I hope you like them too," he grinned. You nod and looked at the other food where Obi-Wan was sitting by and you see him tossing his food around on his plate. You start to eat first with the fruit and you loved the taste. There was silence as everyone filled themselves up with food. Obi-Wan was the only one who wasn't eating and it bothered you. He probably has not eaten or slept in days. On the way here he never showed up for the small meals."So you were General Kenobi's Padawan?"
"Yes. Not so long ago," you looked at Yann and then to Obi-Wan.
"How does it feel to go on missions with your former master? Do you feel like it is just another lesson for you?" Yann poured himself another glass of some dark purple liquid.
"It feels familiar like I am going on another learning expedition but I definitely feel I have more independence," you break off a piece of bread.
"No more lectures I assume?" Yann smiled.
"Oh sometimes he still thinks I'm a Padawan and he would go on and on," you glanced at Obi-Wan and he has a small smile behind that beard of his.
"And what about you General Kenobi," Yann turned his attention to him. "Do you still see her as your Padawan?"
"No I see her as a powerful Jedi Knight," Obi-Wan had his eyes on you. "My equal." Your eye contact lasted longer than you expected that Yann had to clear his throat.
"That's touching," Yann clasped his hands together and you looked back down at your plate. What Obi-Wan said had your heart racing fast and you were thankful that you had no striations on your face that would give you away.
There was more conversation for an hour or so. It bored you but you had to be there. Yann kept on making side comments towards you which you would give a remark in return. Obi-Wan kept his conversations short as he also was not in the mood but he was respectful enough to carry on. The guards had already left the table and returned to their stations. "I must retire now," Yann stood up and downed the drink in his glass. "I did enjoy our first evening together. I hope from now on everything can run smoothly. Goodnight." He bows his head and leaves to go into his quarters. Two guards followed him and Obi-Wan watched as they scanned the room and cleared it.
It was just the two of you in the dining area and the silence was even heavier now. A droid came around to start clearing the table and Obi-Wan got up and sat closer to you. "I didn't see you eat a thing," you said without looking at him.
"I lost my appetite," he crossed his arms.
"So. . .you're avoiding me now," you turned to him and he tensed up.
"I'm giving you space. That's what I'm doing," he whispered. "You said we forget about what happened after Darilia." That hurt you a little bit and he looked at you quickly. "Tell me isn't that what you asked me?"
"I did," you dig your nails into your palms. You knew this would happen. Once you got a taste of what it is like to be with him you could never let it go. Right now you just wanted to embrace him and feel his kiss again. "I didn't expect you to feel so cold and shut me out."
"I'm doing this to control myself," he replied softly.
"How is it working for you?" you slipped your hands into the sleeves of your robes.
"Difficult especially since the ambassador is making advances on you," he looked back at the door to Yann's quarters.
"Oh, so you noticed," you laughed a little. Then it was quiet again. He reached over and touched your knee and it gave you goosebumps.
"Be careful with him," he says.
"You're jealous Obi-Wan," you whispered. "I can sense it." He squeezed your knee and you placed a hand over his. Obi-Wan leaned closer to you and placed a kiss on your forehead.
"Get some rest. I'll take your first watch for you," he takes his hand away from you and you get up. "We should change the deal. Once we go back to Coruscant we stop this." You stopped in your tracks.
"We can do that," you say before leaving him there to think about what you guys are getting yourselves into.
_
You were meditating because you were having trouble sleeping and because you were thinking about what he proposed. He knows damn well that both of you aren't going to be back on Coruscant for a while. The longer this is going on the deeper you bury yourself in this situation. It was so tempting you had to say yes but now thinking about it you want to take it back and just do what he's doing. Give each other space and have minimal contact with one another. You opened your eyes once you realized someone was right outside your door. The door unlocks and you feel Obi-Wan at the entrance. "What happened to knocking?" you don't look back at him.
"I have access to all the doors here," he steps right in and you turn around. The door once again looks with a beep. Obi-Wan had left his outer robes somewhere else and you had a feeling about what he was here for.
"You caught me at the wrong time Obi-Wan," you fiddled with the tassle on a pillow and he makes a few strides towards the bed. "And who's watching the ambassador."
"I left four guards outside his room," he crossed his arms. "Were you meditating?"
"Yes," you nod and he looked around the room. "I was contemplating whether or not I should take back what I said."
"What did you decide?"
"You interrupted me," you tilt your head to the side. He sighs and sits down on the bed. He's doing these things on purpose.
"So let's figure it out right now what you want to do," he leans towards you. Obi-Wan always manages to look so handsome even when he's running low on sleep and as you look at him right now in the soft light in your quarters it made your heart skip a beat. He reached up to your face and allowed the back of his fingers to graze your cheek. "What's it going to be?" You take his hand and you moved towards him before swiftly straddling his lap. He lets out a breath and you pushed him down on the bed.
"Deal," you smiled and he holds your face in his hands.
"So let me kiss you again," he whispered. You leaned down and placed one kiss on his lips. He lowers his grip on the back of your neck. "That's not enough." You kissed him again and he holds you there. The warmness of your bodies radiated off one another and he starts pulling away the linen shirt you were wearing.
"They'll hear us," you hold Obi-Wan's wrist.
"Then you must stay quiet," he successfully removed your shirt and he looked up at you with the same look he gave you the first time he saw you naked. Oh, it did things to you. He cupped one breast and lowered his mouth onto the other. The sensation you loved shocked your body and it caused you to moan. Your arms held you up on top of him and you would run your hands into his hair. His teeth grazed the skin around your breast and you pull at his hair. You sit right on his bulge and he lets out a moan as you grind on him. He holds your hips and he maneuvers the both of you backwards on the bed. Obi-Wan finally leans back on the headboard and you start to remove his robes. The layers were annoying as always and he would give you a kiss as you successfully removed each one. You hold his lightsaber in your hand and he watched as you lift his chin up with the hilt.
"I can't believe you still manage to be jealous of the ambassador," you whispered. He reached for his lightsaber and you move it away and placed it on the nightstand next to your own.
"He touched you," he squeezed your waist.
"And so?" you poked his now bare chest.
"I'm the only one allowed to do that," he pulled you into a kiss, and this time he slips his tongue into your mouth. When you part he looks into your eyes and they were dark with lust. You sit back up and he puts his hands around your wrist. "What are you doing?"
"Figuring out what I'll do to you," you replied looking down at the bulge you were sitting on. "What do you think?"
"No, I want to please you first," he tried to sit up straight but you held him down with the force. He says your name but you ignore him. "Oh, Maker." You had your hand in his pants and you look him in the eyes.
"Will you tell me how?" you move down his body and took off his boots and pants for him.
"Y-yes," he swallowed as you reached for his cock. The shaft was throbbing already and you grinned and you free from the force he took hold of your forearm and pulled you closer. Obi-Wan hissed when your lips circled around the tip of his cock. You tasted his pre-cum and licked it right off. He muttered a curse and then he slips his fingers into your hair. You take him into your mouth and were surprised at what you could handle. The gagging commenced when his entire shaft was almost down your throat. He was holding back from thrusting into your mouth because he worried that you'd freak out.
With a pop, you removed his cock from your mouth and looked up at him. "Keep going, darling. It feels good." His member was coated in your saliva and you placed a kiss here and there. "The tip feels best." You smiled and started to circle your tongue around where he told you to focus your attention. Obi-Wan's head lolled to the side as he watched you please him. He pushed back his hair and licked his lips as you used your hands to grip the shaft which you didn't want to neglect. With a slight squeeze, you got another moan from him.
You can feel your own wetness between your legs and Obi-Wan reached over and started to pull down the pants you were wearing to sleep. He gives one of your asscheeks a rub before he placed one hard slap on it. It was loud and you removed your mouth from him. "Ow!" you frowned. He chuckled and rubs the part where it was stinging. "That was loud." You squeezed the tip of his cock and he moaned.
"Sorry darling," he kissed you and you let him suck the tongue that was just lapping up his pre-cum. You grinned at this and when you part he smirked. You were back to swirling your tongue all over his cock and he stifled some moans and he twists your hair into his fist pulling once and a while you gag on him. This time around he sense that you were getting used to him so he'd gently thrust himself into your mouth and your eyes were starting to water as the tip of his cock met with the back of your throat at his own accord. You paused to catch your breath and he lifts your chin up and wipes the saliva dripping down your lips. "Everything alright?" he brushed the hair that was always in your face and you nod. You were back to pleasing him and your hand fondled with the tip once and a while and you let the saliva drip down.
"How do you feel Master?" you know he liked that. He swallowed and you felt his cock twitch in your hand.
"So good," he strokes the skin on your shoulder and he lifts your chin up. "That pretty mouth of yours is not only good at cheeky remarks but at this too." You giggled and he lets you do your thing and he moans your name as you take him back deeper into your throat. "Look up at me darling." You do as he says and his face contorts in pleasure. You bobbed your head up and down while your tongue worked its way on his shaft. You can feel him starting to tense up and he was breathing harder. The top of his chest and neck were tinged pink and you feel his hand grip your hair harder. "Keep going I'm almost there. You're doing so well." The sound of your gagging mixed with his moans turned you on that you had to keep up so you can be rewarded. He thrust into your mouth again and you just let him. He hissed and cursed pushing your head down onto him. He says your name before you can even release that there was a stream of warm cum in your mouth. It surprised you and he holds your face in his hand as you continue to suck him off.
You took your mouth off him and you had his cum dripping off your lips. Obi-Wan used his thumb to clean it up and put it back into your mouth. You swallowed and he smiled. "Good girl," he kissed you. There was still a slow release of cum coming out of him and you lapped it up.
"An interesting taste," you giggled and he squeezed your cheeks. Obi-Wan leans closer to you and he looked so dazed and there was even a pink tinge on his cheeks. Oh, he looked so good.
"You want some more?" he bites down on your neck and places hot kisses all over it and your shoulder.
"Later," you pushed him back on the bed and crawled back on him. He gives you a growl and you placed both your hands on his chest. "It's my turn."
Next chapter
#star wars#obi-wan x reader#obi-wan kenobi x reader#star wars fanfic#obi-wan kenobi#obi wan kenobi#all I gotta say is ooomf#Mistakes Like This (Obi-Wan Kenobi Fic)
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Meet the Family: Obey Me! One Master to Rule Them All!
Fanfic Series by: @cynergy-laughter
Featuring: (Defined MC) (Comedy, Fluff, Shipping, Angst) (PG-Rated)
Chapter 3: Unconvinced and Understood (2311 words)
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Diavolo was happy to greet his fellow board and his favorite exchange student today. Even though this was the Devildom’s version of Summer Vacation, there was still work to be done. Diavolo went over the typical topics, addressing the different ways to improve the Exchange program, budgets, and of course, planning events for next school term. Brendon was looking for a good time to interject, have the floor and ask his question.
“... Alright… oh, that reminds me! Brendon?” Diavolo asked, looking at Brendon with a curious smile, “I heard through the grapevine that you got a letter from the new Devildom human mail program.”
“O-Oh yes! I did. I got a letter from my family… which brings me to my question… umm… My family is going to be holding their annual family summer vacation in Kyoto, and they invited me… I wanted to go.” Brendon expressed nervously.
“Oh? Well, of course, you’re welcome to go.” Diavolo said with a smile.
“Thank you, but that’s not it… I was wondering if… I could bring Lucifer and his brothers with me to Kyoto…”
Diavolo blinked and looked at everyone. “You wanted to bring Lucifer and the entire student council? I mean, it would be good for what we are trying to accomplish here with the exchange program… but I… I don’t know if that would be a wise decision. I need my council to help reach difficult decisions with our meetings. I could probably spare one or two members, but all of them?” Diavolo bit his lip, “That and I was planning a summer vacation for them too.”
Brendon looked down, “That’s what I thought… I didn’t want to have to pick, because I think they all deserve to meet my family…”
Diavolo frowned. “I’m sorry Brendon.”
“May we put it up for discussion? I don’t have to leave until 3 days for the vacation, maybe we can find a compromise?”
“Brendon, I’ve said my case. And as well, there is a lot of paperwork to do for the students at RAD.” Diavolo shook his head, “Plus I would have to appoint temporary officials as well…”
“Well… I have a suggestion… why don’t you assign some of the members certain tasks and they can join me when they get done with them?” Brendon kept trying to push for something.
“Brendon. Two members of the council, and that is final. Now, please, you need to pack for your trip. And then you have to fill out this form so we can prepare the teleportation runes of the portal, and give you a way to travel back.” Diavolo said firmly, handing Brendon a slip of paper.
Brendon looked like he wanted to protest more, but he didn’t want to push his luck, so he resigned to the decision made, took the paper, got his stuff, and was dismissed from the meeting. Brendon didn’t even know what went on inside the student council hall, but he wasn’t concerned about that, he was concerned about who he was gonna pick. He went straight home and changed, before heading out to the shopping district. He was doing a bit of window shopping, looking for something new he could wear for Kyoto.
As he was shopping, his head was getting clouded up by the thought of who to pick. Whom could he choose? There were so many combinations and possibilities that were both good and bad… Lucifer and Satan wouldn’t be a good pairing, neither is Mammon and Levi… Beel and Belphie might be good, but at the same time, they could cause some trouble too. Asmo would be a good choice… if it wasn’t for the fact that he would be with his brothers as well as himself… All of these went on through Brendon’s mind that he didn’t even see who was walking in front of him. He had bumped into someone, and Brendon had dropped a few bags, stumbling backward a bit.
“Oh Brendon, there you are.” Satan said, leaning down and helping him pick his bags up.
“O-Oh! Satan, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to bump into you… I got a lot on my mind…” Brendon trailed off, getting some of his other bags as well.
“Don’t worry about it. I can imagine what you must be going through… you have 2 out of 7 of us to choose to go with you to Kyoto this summer.” Satan said, nodding. “But, I would just be careful and aware of your surroundings… are you finished shopping?”
“R-Right… umm no, I’m not finished yet, I was just looking around.”
“Well, why don’t we take a break? I know, let’s have lunch.” Satan smiled and led Brendon over to a cafe.
Brendon sat right across from Satan, waiting for their lunch to be served. Satan was reading while Brendon was looking around at the different shops he could see from his seat.
“Is your family good to you?” Satan asked all of a sudden, not looking up from his book.
Brendon blinked and snapped back to his company. “Umm, I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Tell me about your family, are they good to you?” Satan asked again, this time closing his book, putting it safely in his messenger bag, and leaning in, charmingly sipping his tea.
“O-Oh… yeah, they’re good to me… my mom is the sweetest woman, always asking if you need anything, always there to listen to your troubles, and she gives the warmest hugs…” Brendon blushes embarrassedly, “She can be a bit pushy, sometimes invasive, but she means well.”
“Hmm… How about your brothers? Tell me about them… well first, you said you are the second youngest, right?”
Brendon nods and smiles. “Yeah, second youngest. My little brother is 22, I’m 25.”
“Hmm… what’s your little brother like?” Satan put his hand on his chin.
“Well, he’s like you, Satan; studious, intelligent, independent, but he’s pretty chill, and go-with-the-flow, like Belphie. His name’s Will.”
“Oh? Interesting… I should make sure to make myself acquainted with him.” Satan said.
“Hehe, yeah, I have this thing with my brothers, I nicknamed them after various mythological deities, it was kind of a brotherly code to piss off and confuse our dad. Will’s nickname was Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom, who started as a deity of the moon.” Brendon said, chuckling and giving a smile.
“Oh? I would love to know everyone’s nickname… that’s fascinating.” Satan said, and chuckled with Brendon. “You know, that’s the first time you voluntarily smiled all day. You have a wonderful smile.”
Brendon blushes and chuckled sheepishly. “Thank you… I think you have the better smile though…”
Satan shakes his head. “I would disagree, your smile makes me smile.”
Brendon and Satan laughed a bit more until their food arrived. Brendon smiled at Satan while they ate lunch. As much as Satan could be a bit of a know-it-all, and a bit destructive when he was angered, he was a good conversationalist, proper and polite to an extent. He also was mischievous, playful, and the most curious, and learned out of all the brothers. And he loved cats, which is always a plus. He really appreciated him helping to get his mind off of this choice.
After lunch, Satan and Brendon made one last trip around the shopping district before heading back to the house. Satan walked Brendon to his room before leaving with a, “See you at dinner.”
Brendon walked into his room and began to pack for the trip. He knew that he would be there for two months, so this was bound to be interesting, especially with the luggage set he bought, two huge one, one medium, and one small, as well as his backpack and messenger bag. He also made a checklist of things to do tomorrow, as well as things he would need. Suddenly, his D.D.D. pinged.
It was Leviathan.
“Hey! Brendon! I got a new game!” Levi texted
“Oh? That’s awesome, Levi!”
“... Well? What are you waiting for? Come on over to my room so we can play it!”
“Levi… I have to start packing for my trip…”
“Eh, you have 3 days til you go, come on, you deserve a break. I need my player 2.”
“... Alright, but please don’t mention the trip… the decision is still killing me…”
“Okay! As long as you get here as soon as possible!”
Brendon smiled as he got up, went out of his room, and went over to Levi’s room, saying the secret phrase and gained entry.
“Brendon! Come on, this new Last Legend Remake has two player capability!” Levi said, smiling excitedly, stars in his eyes.
“Hehe, you know, you remind me so much of one of my older brothers, I think you would like him.” Brendon said as he sat down next to Levi and took up the controller offered up to him.
“Oh? Really? Is he an Otaku like me?” Levi asked, tilting his head.
“Hehe, yeah, he’s an Otaku, he’s a streamer, but the only difference is that he isn’t as shy as you. In fact, he is always down to talk and joke. He’s kind of like Mammon and you fused together with a touch of Asmo, he also is into drag. You might have heard of him… umm… he goes by PanDionysia online.” Brendon said, but then his head shot over to Levi when he heard his controller drop.
“Y-Your older brother is… P-PanDionysia?! Y-You know what this means?! Your brother is one of the cosplaying, and streaming Legends! I’m such a huge fan! Gah! I’m so jealous! You grew up with such greatness…” Levi said, taking Brendon’s shoulders and shaking him slightly, and then stopped, and his face flushed as he realized the horrifying reality. “... And I’ve been calling you, the younger brother of PanDionysia... a normie this whole time…”
Brendon blinked and began laughing, before taking Levi’s hands off his shoulders and held them. “Levi, it’s okay… he doesn’t really mention anything about his family to the world… So you couldn’t have known… He takes his gaming seriously… but he also keeps his gaming and family life separate.” Brendon reassured, lightly squeezing his hands.
“Are you sure? I… I guess you’re right… he’s a pretty big deal in the convention scene, getting the most exclusive spots at concerts… and winning tournaments and raids in his streams… he’s so cool… I’m so jealous of him… I want to live his life…” Levi said, longing, silently sighing and biting his lip.
Brendon smiles. “Yeah, he’s a pretty cool person when you get to know him. ” Brendon looks at Levi, “...Kind of like you, except you’re more… quiet than aloof.”
Levi blushed a bit, and looked into Brendon’s eyes. “Y-You think I’m cool? Me? The Yucky Otaku… cool?”
“Oh stop, Levi, you’re not a Yucky Otaku. I mean, at least you don’t smell like stagnant body odor and corn chips” Brendon chuckled and nudged Levi.
Levi blushed a bit more at that. “I mean… before I met you… probably… but, I started being more hygienic when you started hanging out with me… I’ve never wanted to impress anyone, not until you came along…”
Brendon blinked, “You wanted to impress me?”
Levi shrugged, “I-I mean, I guess… I noticed how good you smelled, how bright your smile was… how much you liked playing games and watching anime with me… so, I began to make an effort to stop smelling and I started inviting you to play games, you make me feel like I have a best friend.”
Brendon smiles at Levi, pulled him into a hug, and gave a cheek a bit of a smooch. “I’m glad to be your best friend, Levi. I’m glad that you allowed me to be a part of your life.” Brendon said, watching Levi.exe stop working.
Levi was blushing madly as he was trying to compute what was happening. “W-WHAAA?! C-Come on, I’m still not used to the whole kissing thing! Warn me next time…” Levi babbled, but didn’t pull away, instead, leaned in closer.
Brendon held him close and stroked his hair. He knew that Levi was a bit reclusive, had niche interests in both conversation topics, and activity. He was prone to envious behavior, as well as high standards to be included in his circle of friends, as well as harsh to himself. But, he was always willing to give people a chance. He was funny, adorable, and the most passionate of his brothers, except for Asmo, but his passion was different from Levi’s passion.
“Well, let’s get to playing, I’ve been wanting to see how this compares to the original!” Brendon said, patting Levi’s back and picked his controller back up.
“O-Oh! Yeah! Definitely! I’m so excited for the continuation coming soon!” Levi said as he started the game on his player one controller.
They both played together until Mammon texted that it was time for dinner. It was a typical dinner as usual, Mammon and Levi getting into it, Satan and Asmo discussing how stupid Mammon is, and their purchases. Beel was eating everything, Belphie had finished part of his food early and gave the rest to Beel so he could fall asleep at the table, and Lucifer was as cool as always, eating his food and silently thinking about how to punish Mammon tonight, and Brendon was a bit silent, still trying to figure out who to take on his vacation.
Brendon was the one to wash dishes tonight, so he was busy scrubbing away at the kitchen utensils, cookware, silverware, plates, and glasses. He heard his D.D.D. buzz suddenly and he swiftly turned the water off and dried his hands to try and put his earbuds with the mic in the jack and answered the phone before going back to washing his dishes, “Hello? Brendon DeHallow speaking.”
#obey me fic#obey me#one master to rule them all#obey me main character#my main character#obey me lucifer#obey me mammon#obey me leviathan#obey me satan#obey me asmodeus#obey me beelzebub#obey me belphegor#leviathan x mc#mc x satan#obey me diavolo#mc’s brothers#brothers#obey me fluff#obey me comedy#obey me angst#obey me ships#story time#storytelling#i love the bois#i love them all
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Where I Belong | Chapter 1 | Prologue
Story Summary: The only family she’d ever known gave her a name; back when she belonged to something. But when that family is lost, she leaves it all behind. When destiny drops her in the last place she ever wanted to be, she has to earn back the trust and respect of the Republic that left her to die. Caught between the Jedi and the Grand Army of the Republic, she'll discover where she belongs.
Fandom: Star Wars | Galaxy Far Far Away
Rating: T+
Story Genre/Warnings: action/adventure/found family | war violence, death, torture, discrimination, angst, fluff, [more]
Words: 13,623
Disclaimer: Majority of properties within this fanfic are owned by Lucasfilm/Disney. My OCs, as well as a few other things within this fanfic are of my own creation. Republic Cog header made by me :)
CHAPTER NOTE: Haha I know you’re having a hard time getting past that terrifying word count above if you haven’t already said ‘to hell with this’ and kept scrolling, but I like writing long chapters because I don’t update as frequently as other writers so I wanna provide some good stuff to keep readers busy while they wait... Hope that’s alright? (All chapters aren’t that long; usually around 5k. Don’t worry there’s just a lot to unpack in this first chapter) If you’re still here I hope you enjoy :)
Masterlist | Next Chapter | Chapter Art & Map | Echo & Trauma Squad
“We’ve entered the atmosphere, Sergeant. You boys are clear to get ready.”
Pressing the button connected to the cockpit via a control panel on the wall, CC-4811, Sergeant Mash, went to respond.
“Roger that. Drop us 3 klicks south of RV point Axe.”
“Will do, sir.”
Lowering his hand, Mash turned, gaze finding his team doing a last minute equipment check before their coming drop into hostile territory. It was helmets on at 100 klicks, they still had another minute or so.
“Alright, listen up.” Mash held up a datapad, tapping briskly on the screen, a holo of the location of interest shown up into the semi-lit shuttle bay. “Intelligence spotted a Separatist fleet five rotations ago within the Duluur sector. They lingered for one standard Coruscant rotation above Devaron before departing from this sector. It is unknown whether hostiles have taken RV point Bullseye.”
“Why couldn’t we get the debrief on Kamino?” CC-4999, or as they called him, Nines muttered. The squad member was finishing the assemblement of his Deece with a sniper attachment.
“This is a priority mission,” Mash continued. “Retaking Bullseye needs to be done quickly, quietly, and efficiently. Minimal destruction which means no rockets, detonators, or explosives of any kind, hence our silent entry - sorry Hawk.” The smidgen of sympathy in Mash’s voice for their demolition man causes CC-4998, Hawk, to give a small jut of his chin and a twitch of a smile. “The Republic seeks to turn this Temple into a staging ground for Surveillance Operations. Keeping Bullseye standing is top priority; sweep the grounds and wipe out any Separatist forces that may have taken it; preferably all in under a 12 hour window.”
“100 klicks out,” The pilot’s voice came over the shuttle’s com systems.
Shutting off the datapad, Mash tossed it to one of the shuttle seats lining the bay wall before grabbing his helmet. The rest of his squad did the same as they all put their helmets on.
“Didn’t really answer the question, Sarg.” Nines uttered while rolling his shoulders, the action causing the armored plates to clunk against one another.
“Skipper said the Jedi were touchy about it, Nines.”
The kid was a bit of a hot shot but his skill with a rifle more than made up for the snarky attitude.
“They give us confidential assignments for a reason. They want this done quickly and quietly without word getting out.”
The sniper tipped his trigger and middle finger around in a salute that would have most likely made their training sergeant fume at the lack of maturity before turning towards Hawk.
“Bit strange they revived us so quickly.” CC-4803, Corporal Razor stepped up next to Mash. “From what Skipper told me- most get a couple months before they’re pulled for assignment again.”
Like the rest of their kind, they were kept in stasis when not on assignment. Infantry weren’t because they dealt with the bulk of the war.
“Personally I don’t mind - I guess it’s gotta mean we’re doing something right if they keep pulling us for jobs,” Razor added.
Their advisor on Kamino, Skipper, acted as their go-to man during missions. He’d feed them intel on the ground and organize quick and dirty drops and extractions if the need arose.
“Trying not to think about it, ner vod (my brother/comprade).” Mash said, the mando’a slipping through his mouth with ease. It wasn’t something other clones knew… More of a perk from their branch of the GAR. If you were lucky, your training sergeant may have taught you the Mandalorian language. The clone flash training made it stick too, so they were fairly fluent.
Like the rest of their kind, they were kept in stasis when not on assignment. Infantry weren’t because they dealt with the bulk of the war.
Not long after the Battle of Geonosis, their squad, Echo squad, was formed. It was created in the wake of each of their losses. Mash had lost all his men, his brothers, and so had Razor who had been Sergeant of his own men. Nines and Hawk together lost their Corporal and Sergeant. Higher ups had pushed them all together for a follow up assignment shortly after Geonosis and they had to get to know each other on the ground the hard way.
Since then they’d done a few jobs here and there. They all had the same training sergeant so while there was a small grimmer of familiarity, they were still strangers to each other. It took some getting used to, but things had since smoothed out.
“Sounds like this assignment really is priority. For the Jedi at least. Whatever Jedi was occupying the Temple previously was recalled to Coruscant. It didn’t take long for the Separatists to get word of the outpost’s vacancy it seems.”
“I’ll say,” Razor chuckled beneath his helmet before finishing the tie on his rappelling gear. They’d be dropping into the dense jungle soon. “From what I hear, intelligence still has holes in it. Intel is leaked more often than it isn’t, gotta wonder you know?”
Checking the knot of his rappelling gear a final time, Mash hesitated to respond to Razor’s comment. Razor had always been one for the gossip regarding the Republic’s works. Sometimes that curiosity was useful, but more often than not Mash wished his brother were more discreet.
Word had gotten around, but since the Republic were officially handed control of the army, they’d begun making changes. Their branch of the GAR was getting quite the makeover, however whether the changes were doing more harm than good was still up for debate. Clone Advisors was just one change that had been temporary, but had since stuck around. Certain Clone Officers without fieldwork would act as advisors or middlemen to non-Clone Republic Officers, like the Jedi, still getting a handle on how to efficiently induct the different clones into the conflicts.
It was a surprise to the Clones when the Jedi, the legendary warriors they’d been told of all their lives, didn’t exactly meet textbook expectations.
It wasn’t their place to ponder the Jedi abilities as Military Leaders, but their corner of the GAR was quickly developing opinions, a ship Mash was hesitant to board.
“You implying its a higher ups problem?” Mash asked.
“Not necessarily,” Razor responded. “Just something to think about is all. Although, I know you prefer not to.”
He’d known Razor long before they’d been thrown together in a squad. He’d met him several times on the simulation battlefields during training, and he knew him well enough to detect the humor laced through his voice to understand when he was pulling his leg.
“Stay focused, vod.” Mash muttered, thankful he could hide his own grin as a chuckle from Razor radiated through helmet comms.
“Coming in, we’ll be over the drop zone in 30 seconds.”
The turbulence picked up in the shuttle as they approached their destination and all members of the squad made their way towards the back of the shuttle bay.
Hawk hit the button for the shuttle’s ramp on the wall control panel and soon enough the roar of the ship's engines took over, causing the sound dampeners in their helmets to kick in.
The shuttle trembled as the pilots pulled up on the controls and the ship stalled above an area of jungle which was where their assignment was to begin.
“Go go go,” Mash ushered each of his men out before going himself. One hand on the rappelling line and the other holding his Deece at the ready, Mash kept his eyes on his comrades heading down the 60 or so meter distance passed a layer of fog into the darkness of the Devaronian jungle.
Large vines as thick as the bay of the shuttle covered the planet as far as Mash could see, even through his helmet display. Data on the planet mentioned the unique flora which they would encounter; the vines breached the landscape like borrowing Rishi eels, knotted and intertwined together creating a blanket covering the terrain.
Watching as each of his squad hit the ground, Mash followed as they did in stripping themselves of their rappelling gear as it zipped back up into the shuttle.
Switching comm frequencies, Mash looked up to the hovering shuttle around 100 meters about them.
“We’re clear, pilot.”
“Roger that sir, have fun down there,” The ramp of the shuttle began to close before it headed off.
The jungle had fallen quiet once the ship was out of range, and soon enough, the chirping and rustling of native fauna began to grow in the shuttle’s absence. Looking around the terrain, Mash was quick to notice how the ground under the vine canopy was rather barren aside from sparse foliage in the form of smaller vine systems and shrub-like plants. They were going in under the impression that there would be greater amounts of foliage; it would complicate matters for reconnaissance and stealth-based action going forward.
It was the first bump in the road, but it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Improvisation; its what they trained for in situations like this.
In a series of blinks, Mash pulled up specs on the surrounding landscape, including humidity levels. They were high enough. Readings indicated it had rained recently.
“Start dirtying up the armor. Foliage won’t provide enough cover so we’ll need to-”
An aggravated grunt caused Mash to turn, finding Nines with his hands braced on his lower back as he craned into a stretch, his Deece in the hands of Hawk.
“They changed this di'kutla (useless/stupid) armor again, didn’t they.” He grunted.
“The Manual outlined the upgrades,” Hawk reminded his brother with a slight tilt of his helmet, only to receive a mild clock on the shoulder plate from Nines as he got his footing back.
“Who the hell has time for that, do I look like I got time for that?”
“Cut the chatter,” The statement came out firm, although the mild distraction of the hostile territory around them softened his words. “This is hostile territory, so let’s shift it,” Mash gestured forward with his Deece.
“Dirty up.” Razor shrugged, emphasizing on the Sergeant’s first order before popping off in one direction to start camouflaging his armor.
Mash watched as Nines lingered on their Corporal walking away before he audibly grumbled, going off in a somewhat similar direction with Hawk.
“I long for the day when I can put this armor to actual use.”
“And how would you go about doing that, Nines?” Hawk asked.
“By using it how it was meant to be used- urban warfare, close quarters… actual fire fights. Not writhing around on a dust ball like Geonosis or making mud angels on this heap.”
The comment caused Hawk to openly laugh, something that if Mash was being honest, wasn’t customary of his younger comprade; however he had to admit it pleased him. He’d always been less of a talker than Nines; more hesitant to accept the new squad; whether it was because of the fate of their old one, or maybe who he had ended up with, Mash wasn’t certain.
“Keep your trash talk on internal comms, Nines.” Razor reiterated the words as if he had done so multiple times already, which he most likely had.
“Trash talk… Kebbur haar haat (try the truth).” Nines grumbled, before throwing a glob of mud onto his thigh plating, coating one leg in the darkly colored mud.
The kid was all talk. As soon as a superior was around he would 180 and they’d be none the wiser.
Another minute passed before the squad’s signature white armor with red and orange accents were covered helmet to boots in Devaronian mud. The humidity would prove troublesome as they’d need to reapply the camouflage again within the hour.
Exchanging a couple of nods with the men, Mash made a final glance exchange with Razor.
“We’re ready,” The Corporal gave him a nod.
“Then let’s move out.”
A couple hours had passed, and the position of Devaron’s two moons had since shifted across the night sky; they could be seen in the distance adjacent to RV point Bullseye’s structure. The thick layer of fog had been ever present since their arrival, and while it didn’t completely inhibit their line of sight, it was keeping them on their toes.
Spotting subtle obstruction on the ground ahead, Mash held up a fist before gesturing for the men to move forward to a position of cover cautiously.
The Sergeant came to a stop at a large vine almost a meter thick. He kept his back to it as Hawk stopped behind him.
“I’ve got eyes on the South road.” Nines came to a stop a few meters to their 3 o’clock, kneeling down on one leg before resting his rifle over a low vine breaching the ground, leaning in to look through the scope.
The Temple had four roads that branched out in each direction, the primary Northern and Southern Roads drew an imaginary line through RV point Bullseye while the secondary Western and Eastern roads connected the courtyards and other smaller facilities to the overall structure.
“It’s called a promenade, not a road.” Razor muttered as he came to a stop beside the sniper, blaster raised and alert as he observed the surrounding area.
“Yeah I know, the HUD said that, but what the hell is the difference- its a road.” Nines grunted. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to hear they’ve updated the HUD’s terminology index on architecture. I can’t think of more vital information to the mission.” The cock of Nines’ helmet only enhanced the sarcasm leaking from his filtered voice as he glanced up at their Corporal. “Looks clear up ahead.”
“No droids?” Mash questioned.
“Doesn’t look like it, Sarg. Zero movement.” Nines responded, gaze back through the scope.
From his crouched position on the ground, Hawk looked up at the Sergeant for a brief moment before glancing towards Razor.
Going in they’d be simultaneously at an advantage and disadvantage. The enemy had the high ground and not to mention the location in question that needed to be retaken, but the squad had the element of surprise.
“Alright. Let’s start moving in. Stay sharp and switch to internal comms,” Mash instructed and with a couple of hand gestures, fleshed out their movements going forward.
Like the vigorously tested training exercises on Kamino, the squad began to move in on the target location quickly and quietly. Using the native flora to their cover advantage, the small group made their way up to the Temple road before branching off to the structure’s right side. They’d stay between the Eastern and Southern roads in order to get as close to RV point Bullseye as possible without leaving the cover that the Devaronian vines provided. Once close enough, they could make their way across the courtyard and to the Temple. From there execution of the mission would change. How, was something Mash didn’t know yet.
Loosely following the road’s edge closer and closer to the Temple which was growing up into the sky the further they traveled, Echo Squad finally came to the wall of the courtyard, an area that surrounded the Temple. The wall was just under two meters; a quick scale.
Stepping up to the wall, Nines lowered his rifle, resting its barrel on the wall before perusing the open and exposed ground ahead.
“No visuals. All quiet.”
“I’m not liking this,” Razor muttered, tilting his body only slightly towards the Sergeant. “Its sloppy. Even for the droids.”
“Maybe we just came at a bad time,” Nines offered, continuing to scope out the area. “Caf break or… battery recharge- quiet time. What’d droids have these days?”
“Let’s give it another minute.” Mash decided, craning to look up towards the main Temple structure which was significantly larger than its sibling tower. “We’ll move in if we don’t get-”
“Wait, I’ve got a visual.”
Mash jerked his head to the right to see where Nines’ scope was aligned, towards the smaller of the two towers. The shutter and chung of metal clanking together in a uniform manner was a sound that had since become familiar to them.
On Kamino they trained against other clone squads, training staff, and simulation targets. The droids which were now being used by the Separatists weren’t entirely unfamiliar, but it was a somewhat impersonal enemy nonetheless. The droids were designed to overwhelm, something that proved effective against the Republic at Geonosis, especially their branch of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Part of the reason missions concerning their branch of the GAR were no longer to overlap with Infantry (unless under special circumstances) was because the Jedi thankfully came to their senses on that account. Their branch lost half of their entire force at Geonosis. Their first battle and their kind were cut in half… It unsettled Mash to the point where he preferred to not think about it, but his head constantly reminded him that those nerves wouldn’t help whether he ignored them or not. The Jedi, while they may not have been what they’d expected, were warriors and leaders nonetheless and they’d been taught all their lives that they’d been created to help the Jedi. Things were seemingly off to a rocky start but they’d level out. It seemed they already were, which Mash was thankfully for. He hadn’t worked directly with a Jedi yet, but when the day came he hoped they’d be up to the task of using him and his men to the best of their ability.
The enemy force finally emerged from around the farthest tower, revealing a squad of eight B1 battle droids. The standard, not a problem. However whatever forces may wait within the Temple or around the perimeter was the standing issue. If they had more time, Mash would have ordered a sweep of the perimeter to be safe. But they didn’t have that luxury. Looks like they’d be doing a hard contact entry, sweeping room to room and floor to floor until the entire structure was clear.
“Well you wanted close quarter combat, ner vod.” Mash finally stated, watching alongside his squad as the droid squad went about their patrol of the Temple grounds. “We’ll eliminate this squad first.”
“Soft entry?” Hawk questioned.
“We’ll have to improvise on that front. Debrief mentioned a security system in the Temple. Nothing the droids can figure out, apparently its more of a force user problem, but with the cams they’ll most likely see us coming. We’ll have to hit quick enough to have the advantage inside.”
“What’d you call that, a medium entry, sir?” Nines chuckled, still zoning in on the droids.
“Call it what you want, Nines.” Mash nodded with minor amusement before giving his rifle one last check just to be safe.
“I’ve got a second droid squad coming in, 2 o’clock off the Eastern road… Looks like it might be a rotation change.”
“Watch em, Nines.”
“Roger that Sarg,”
“Razor?” Mash turned his attention to the Corporal.
They always threw ideas off of each other. While Mash was officially in charge, he preferred to keep the title as loose as possible. Razor used to be Sergeant of his old squad, and was demoted to Corporal when transferred to Echo Squad. While they had differing ways of handling situations, Mash understood the wisdom in getting a second opinion.
An audible sigh came through the Corporal's helmet as Razor looked up at the structure.
“No easy way we’re getting in there without almost immediate detection. Without the use of explosives or detonators-” The nod he gave was decisive, his voice level and collected. “Looks like we gotta do this t-”
The fading of clanking metal from the droids was quickly and suddenly overpowered by the rumble of a familiar sound.
Looking up through the vine canopy, the members of Echo Squad are met with the image of a Republic Nu-class Shuttle swooping in over RV point Bullseye.
“No,” Mash muttered. “No no no- what the hell are they doing!?”
“You get anything over comms? Change of plans?”
“No,” Mash growled through grit teeth before quickly swinging a leg up, getting over the wall before gesturing for the squad to follow.
The uninvited guest had already caught the attention of the two squads of B1s as they all began to open fire on the vessel. The fire would do little against the shuttle’s shields.
As Echo Squad members quickly finish entering the courtyard, the Attack Shuttle’s ramp lowers and four similarly dressed troopers begin rappelling down to the adjacent courtyard.
“I don’t believe this-” Mash snapped before gesturing for the squad to move out and join the fire fight on the other side of the Temple grounds around fifty meters away.
“There go our medium entry plans!” Nines laughed over the growing sound of blaster fire as they ran to join the conflict.
“Not the time, kid!” Mash barked.
As they entered the Eastern courtyard that wrapped around the structure, a couple more droid squads came into view. The other Squad of clones that had arrived were keeping a relatively loose formation as they took out the enemy force, for their kind it looked pretty sloppy; or at least not Echo Squad’s style.
Mash knew his squad was on him, and he didn’t have to remind them to keep it tight. They’d cover the enemy force closer to Bullseye and leave the straggling droids to the newcomers.
B1 Battle Droids had a rather standard targeting system; as they clunked along on a relatively straight path, they’d fire their blasters off in even intervals. They were a fairly easy nuisance to deal with on assignment. When high grades of Separatist droids joined in, and their numbers increased tenfold, that’s when their years of training met their match.
As they made their way across the courtyard and towards danger, Mash got that liquid feeling in his lower body, like his legs would give out and he felt ten times heavier running towards the firefight, he knew that feeling would always disappear as quickly as it appeared. As his training Sergeant would say: It’s your forebrain shutting down; a fear reflex. He wondered if his brothers ever felt the same; that trickle of fear. He didn’t doubt it. You’d have to be a fool not to to some extent.
As soon as their presence was made known, and the droids turned their attention to the second squad of troopers approaching, the weight was lifted from Mash’s body and the noise in his head quieted. Time to get to work.
The sound of blaster bolts firing off rang loudly into the silence of the surrounding jungle. Picking off the droids one by one, Echo Squad drew further out into the courtyard, near where the newly arrived squad was.
The last couple shots came from Hawk as he took down a few straggling droids before the men exchanged a couple of quick glances. The spike of adrenaline that one got during the fight was almost euphoric; relaxing when a brief moment of silence came during the action.
That feeling was cut short when Mash and Razor turned in time to see the Sergeant of the other clone squad about to throw a detonator at another squad of droids approaching from the Eastern road, most likely coming back from another patrol.
“Hey!” Mash barked before running over.
By the time the Echo Squad leader was within fifty yards of the other squad, the small explosive had detonated; dirt, droid parts, and some rubble from the road shot up into the air.
“Haar'chak (Damn it).” Hawk muttered, exchanging a brief look with Nines before going after their Sergeant.
“Are you insane?!”
The shouting caused the members of the other squad to draw their attention back, and eventually the Sergeant turned as well.
“Who the hell are these guys-” The Sergeant muttered, patting the shoulder plate of one of his men before continuing towards Mash. “Can I help point you back in the direction of whatever mud pit you all crawled out of?” The sarcasm was strong in his voice as he looked over Echo Squad. To be fair they were all completely caked in the Devaronian mud.
“Sarg-” Razor tried to subtly stop his brother from getting physical but Mash was already close enough to shove the other Sergeant backwards a couple of steps. “Udesii, vod! (take it easy/calm down, brother!)”
“Under what authority do you think you can just waltz in here an-”
“Authority? Listen here vod,” The armored clone points towards Mash. “I’ve got orders to secure that building back there, so unless you’re here to sit back and run recon while covered in that osik (feces/dung) I suggest you back off and let us take it from here.” The other Sergeant seemed all too eager to start smack talking and it took what was left of Mash’s self control to not get any more physical. Ten years of systematic, precise, orderly training, and as soon as the Republic is given control of the military, everyone seemingly falls off the rails.
“I don’t know what kind of information you’re running on, but our orders came directly from the Jedi Temple that we were to scout this location for enemy activity and retake the building with minimal sustained damage.” Mash made clear. “It is obvious that you did not receive the debrief.”
Taking a step forward, the other Sergeant came within inches of the Echo leader’s helmet with his own.
“What are you implying?”
“Read between the lines.”
“I’m warning you now, vod. Ne shab'rud'niÖ (Don’t mess with me).”
“Bax, come on, vod.”
Razor inched his way between the two Sergeants as the other squad member that had spoken up tried to coax his Sergeant into taking a step backwards.
“Regardless of who should or shouldn't be here- the objective appears to be the same.” Razor made clear, his hand residing on the breastplate of his Sergeant, his other held out towards the other Sergeant who was being held back by who now appeared to be their squad’s Corporal. The tension could've been cut with a vibroblade in that moment.
Razor knew Mash preferred to work alone; at least he preferred their squad working alone. If it was one thing the man hated, it was the liability of variables he couldn’t control - other people potentially ruining his way of doing things. Whether it be Infantry clones, Jedi, or other squads like them, Mash preferred the assignments where it was just their squad, and their squad alone.
“Taking Bullseye is priority.”
“Taking what?” The other Sergeant muttered. His posture had since relaxed but it was clear he was ticked off and eager to get a move on.
“RV point Bullseye.” Mash said. It sounded like he spit the statement out through his teeth.
“...You mean the Tower?” The other Sergeant deadpanned.
Silence followed and Razor exchanged a small glance with the other presumed Corporal.
“I’m Corporal fifty-one-thirty-four… 34.” The Corporal stated, lowering his hand from his Sergeant’s breastplate. It was common to just use the last two numbers. Your name was almost always kept within your squad group, and maybe with your training sergeant unless you were comfortable sharing it. It wasn’t the time to exchange such personal details even if the atmosphere wasn’t so tense. “This is fifty-seven-eighty-seven and five-two-sixty.” The Corporal, 34, pointed to the other two men part of their squad.
The one identified as 87 appeared to be their tech man, while 60 appeared to be carrying the demolitions ordnance.
34 gave his Sergeant the smallest nudge with his shoulder and the man seemed to begrudgingly think over his options before his shoulders lowered a fraction.
“Sergeant five-one-eighteen.” He muttered.
“I’m Corporal four-eight-oh-three,” Razor gestured to himself. “This is forty-nine-ninety-eight and forty-nine-ninety-nine.” Pointing the two out, Razor watched as Nines gave the other squad a jut of his helmet, a sort of nod, and Hawk dipped his helmet down in acknowledgement.
Razor only had to turn a fraction towards Mash for his brother to know he would have to speak up.
“Sergeant four-eight-eleven.” His voice was tight, the remnants of his frustration still hung heavy.
“Now that that’s out of the way, would you all mind moving so we can get to work?” Sergeant 18 gestures somewhat dramatically with his blaster in one hand and a cock of his helmet, swinging the barrel of the blaster with smooth precision to the side.
The silence of the courtyard was growing increasingly harder to ignore, no doubt more droids were on their way from within the Temple walls.
“Sarg-” Corporal 34 started to speak
“We got here first, I suggest you step aside and let us take it from here.”
“I’ve been dragging my men through the mud of that jungle for five hours- We were on the ground working this mission before you dropped in on the front karking door-”
“I don't give a mott's backside if you’ve been stuck here for weeks I-!”
“Sir, I’ve got movement, south entrance,” The statement came from Nines, currently training his rifle on two squads of droids, including some SBDs (super battle droids), exiting the main doors of the Temple.
Both Sergeants having turned to see the incoming hostiles seemed to quickly come to the realization that neither of them were getting what they wanted.
Sergeant 18 shot his Corporal a look before cursing under his breath and 34 nodded before he turned more so to face Echo Squad.
“Your call. You were here first.”
Mash clenched his jaw from under his helmet. He didn’t need this but… He couldn’t have it completely his way.
“Can you manage taking the East Tower without blowing it up?” Mash questioned.
The reluctance was evident in Sergeant 18’s movement as he turned towards Mash and finally nodded.
“...We’ll clear it.”
Exchanging a glance with Razor, Mash returned the nod to the other Sergeant.
“We’ll take the main structure; meet up in the communications center after the Temple has been cleared. If you need to, use comm frequency 0374.”
“Roger that,” Sergeant 18 quickly signals to his men and they take off hastily towards the oncoming droids.
With a shake of his head, Mash turned and watched for a brief moment as the squad of newcomers ran off and began blasting away at the droid force.
Nines watched their Sergeant for a moment before exchanging a glance with Hawk before clearing his throat.
“We uh- clear to move in, sir? I’d rather not let them have all the fun.”
Breathing out through his nose, the Echo Squad Sergeant gave his brother a nod before gesturing for them to get moving.
“Keep it tight.”
“You say that like we’re gonna run off, Sarg.” Hawk chuckled, falling into a loose formation at Nines’ side with Mash and Razor behind them.
“Just don’t follow in that crack squad’s shoes, please.”
“Looks like their Sergeant is just a little…” Razor trails off, swallowing the breathy laugh he almost let loose.
“Dini'la? (insane?)” Nines tried.
He managed to earn a few chuckles with the comment.
“Let’s just focus on the task at hand, vod.” Mash responded, voice a little more at ease. Razor had a tendency to keep the atmosphere as light as he was able, especially in instances like this when tension was high. Nines had his own way of trying to do the same, which usually consisted of poking fun at someone or something. “Same rules apply; no explosives. This building needs to be standing by the time we clear it.”
“Copy that, Sarg.” The humor was laced through Hawk’s voice.
He was the most mellow one of the squad. Mash didn’t really consider himself to have a great sense of humor, but somewhere along the line, Mash subconsciously decided to always play with Hawk and pretend like he was the trigger “explosive” happy one of the bunch. Hawk played along with it.
“I call entry,” Nines called out, causing Razor to chuckle before moving up closer to the younger clone to cover his six.
Despite their mismatched squad, formulated as a result of the losses they’d each received, they were quickly becoming a working unit. If it was one thing Mash knew they all took away from their training, it was the constant snippets of advice and encouragement they’d received from their training sergeant. Traat'aliit gar besbe'trayc (The squad is your weapon). Remember that; you are nothing on your own, and everything together.
“I’ve got movement in the dining hall,” Nines muttered over comms. They were using their internal comm frequency so the droids wouldn’t overhear anything. The other squad hadn’t initiated contact with them on the channel yet, but perhaps that was a blessing in disguise.
“Tion'solet? (how many?)” Hawk spoke up.
“I said I’ve got movement not a five course meal worth of information ready for you,” Nines shot back.
Hawk just shook his head at his brother’s humor.
Leaning around the corner, Nines’ HUD marked the number of droids in the room within a beat and he quickly retreated around the corner where the squad was.
“Twelve including a B1 Sergeant and five SBDs. We can use the EMPs right?” Nines questioned quietly to Mash, despite knowing they were on internal comms.
Electromagnetic Pulse Grenades… Debrief didn’t specifically outline that they couldn’t use them.
Mash audibly sighed before lowering his rifle a fraction.
“This is the dining hall. If we end up stuck here a couple days I’d rather raid the pantry than eat ration bars.”
“That’s your argument for not going in with blasters?” Razor questioned, cocking his helmet to the side.
“.... Yes.”
“Just this one room.” Mash grunted while shaking his head. “We need to hold onto that ordnance.”
Giving a jut of his helmet, Nines lifted a hand towards Hawk who had the EMP grenades on hand.
Tossing one to his brother, Nines made his way around the corner and activated the grenade before rolling it into the large room.
A few beats passed before the shuffling and clunking of the metal droids moving about became prominent.
“What’s that?” The high pitched, animatronic voice was becoming reluctantly familiar before the grenade went off, cutting off any chatter from the hostiles.
Echo Squad swarmed into the space with deadly precision, shooting down the few remaining droids that were outside the EMPs blast radius before covering the bases of the room.
“Clear!”
“Clear,”
The room was relatively small for a dining facility. Then again, the debrief did reveal this Temple was rarely occupied by more than a few Jedi at a time.
“What’s left?” Hawk looked towards the Corporal.
“Just Communications; top floor.” Razor turned towards Mash who nodded in agreement.
“While I’m not complaining, the fact that the crack squad hasn’t made contact is a little unsettling,” Nines spoke up once more, taking a seat on one of the tables, slinging his rifle over his lap.
“Nines-” Mash muttered, waving a hand towards the younger clone. “You're covered in filth, try not to get it all over everything.”
“This building is still under Separatist control last time I checked. I think they’ve got bigger problems then my dirty shebs (backside/rear/“ass”) sitting on their dining tables. Just saying.” Nines shrugged, catching the way Razor quickly looked down and breathed out sharply.
“Don’t encourage him.” Mash didn’t skip a beat in lightly scolding Razor’s reaction to Nines’ humor.
Wearing full armor and helmets did inhibit one’s ability to read some body language, but they all grew up learning how to read it. He wasn’t completely there yet, but Mash was beginning to pick up on the little details that clued him into each new brother of his. He could almost identify each of them by their breathing in combat. Nines was the easiest to pick out because he always breathed in such an even and controlled manner; a sign of a sniper; the slightest inhale or exhale could mean the hit or miss of a shot. Hawk and Razor were a little harder to tell apart but Mash was getting there.
“Let’s head up to the top floor.” Mash gestured out of the room with his Deece. “Keep it tight.”
B1 Battle Droids littered the hallway farther down where they had come from. Every floor and room below them had been cleared. All that remained of the main structure was the top floor, the communications center. Whether the other squad had cleared the East Tower was a question Mash hated leaving up in the air. More droids could pour into the lower levels that they had already cleared if the squad didn’t hold up their end.
Making their way to the end of the hall, they came to an open spiral staircase heading up. Sure there was also a lift, but they didn’t know what they were walking into. The stairs would allow them to survey the situation better.
It didn’t take long for the squad to make their way up to the top level and to a small hall that led to the opening of the communications center. No doors. They’d just have to move in relatively quickly to get the jump.
Mash followed behind Nines on the left side of the hallway as Hawk and Razor did the same on the right side of the hall.
“Tactical Droid 12 o’clock.” Hawk said.
“I got it,” Nines had already raised his Deece.
“Pare (wait),” Mash held a hand out, Deece still trained forward, held by another hand despite the pressure it put on his wrist. “Keep it intact, if we get the jump we might be able to salvage information out of it.”
“...Fine.” Nines uttered but kept his rifle in position.
Evaluating the room for a moment, Mash’s HUD marked the hostiles in a moment. Fourteen, a mix of B1s and SBDs not including the Tactical Droid.
“Razor?” Mash questioned.
“Hawk and I got the right side, you guys take left?”
“Copy.” Gesturing forward with his pointed middle and forefinger Mash quickly grasped his Deece as they moved in.
Nines headed into the room quicker than the others, shooting down several of the droids before making a run for the Tactical droid before it could register the situation playing out.
Mash shot down what droids remained around Nines, dodging a couple of blaster bolts that came close to his body.
Razor and Hawk went about taking down droids on the other side of the room, conscious of the blaster charge they were using as they took the droids down as quickly and efficiently as possible; a head shot or correctly positioned body shot; nothing else would do.
Mash had barely caught Nines finishing off the Tactical droid as he finished ripping the droid’s head from its body before standing up with a laugh, tossing it in his hands twice before looking the intact head over.
“Vod, gaanaylir (brother, catch).” Nines tossed the droid head towards Hawk who fumbled for a moment, only one hand free as the other grasped his Deece. The droid part clattered against his armor before he secured it properly in his grasp. Hawk then handed the droid head to Razor without much thought and Echo Squad’s slicer made his way towards the command console a couple meters away.
“Nines, door.” Mash said.
“Copy that.”
Heading to the front of the room where computer stations lined the walls, Mash lightly ran his fingers over the controls of one of the stations before stepping once to the side to where the security cam screens were. Cycling through them briefly, it took Mash a while to finally find a cam that showed the other squad. By the looks they were making their way towards the communications center and they looked calm enough so they must’ve held up their end.
“Anything, Sarg?” Hawk asked.
“No droid activity. That squad’s on there way it looks like. Hawk-” Mash got the attention of his comrade and gestured to the console in front of him with a nod.
Hawk nodded and approached him.
“Refresh security systems and realign motion sensors in the building.”
“Sir,” Hawk gave a nod before getting to work.
“So what’s the plan now?” Nines looked over his shoulder back into the room towards his brothers.
Mash exchanged a glance with Razor who was standing over the command console; the hub for long range communication.
“I’ll start securing a line to Kamino,” Razor decided. “Enlighten Skipper on our progress.” He turned away and got to work on the console.
Mash’s eyes dotted over the console where Razor began working before his eyeline fell to the floor and followed the path of destruction towards the door where Nines was. From there his eyes found several moving figures coming down the hall, the other squad. Great.
“Well well,” Sergeant 18 began, the eyeline of his helmet shifting around the room for a moment before settling on Mash. “Su cuy’gar (you’re still alive).”
“Don’t act so surprised.” Mash muttered before gesturing them over.
“The East Tower is clear.” The Sergeant continued to look around the room for a brief time before his gaze landed on Mash once more, giving the littlest dip of his head. Mash was quick to reciprocate the gesture in gratitude.
“Looks like the droids were tampering with the transmitter,” Razor called over. “It’s gonna take some time to get to working.”
“Alright.” Mash’s eyes had quickly found the squad of men who had since entered the room once more. They were so familiar to him and his brothers yet so incredibly different it almost made his blood boil with just how different they were - how different they approached the mission. “In the meantime we need to secure the greater perimeter.”
“You know how long that’ll take?” The Sergeant reprimanded.
“It needs to be done,” Mash countered before turning towards Nines. Hesitating in his words for a moment, Mash evaluated the men he had present in the room.
“Let’s send three men, including a Corporal.” Mash wasted little time in subtly waving Nines over.
“If you’ve all got a slicer who can take over this, I’ll take a few men out.” Razor called over, now lying on his back with his head inside a compartment under the command console, helmet on the ground next to his legs. One of the other squad’s men, 87, had since traveled over to where Razor was. After a moment he looked up from where he was knelt down near Razor.
“I can handle this, sir, if you wanna send someone out with them.” His voice was just a hair higher in pitch and the detail, as small as it was, already told Mash that the clone was younger to some degree; maybe closer in age to Hawk and Nines.
Sergeant 18 turned towards Mash for a brief time before turning towards the two of his men still at his side. He nodded to one of them and he stepped forward.
“Alright 11… We’ll play it your way. 60 will go with’em on the scouting,” He nods to the comprade that had since stepped up.
Clenching his jaw for a brief time, Mash reluctantly thought over his next move before carefully removing his helmet. Positioning it under his arm, he relaxed his jaw before holding out a hand to the Sergeant.
The soldier was still but the slight movement of his helmet indicated he saw the outstretched hand.
“Echo Squad. They call me Mash.” It was a longshot. But it might make things easier going forward if they stepped past the formalities of numbers for names.
The Sergeant was unusually still for his seemingly gung ho attitude prior; but the man finally looked down at the hand after an uncomfortable beat of silence before raising his hands to his helmet. Removing the piece of armor, he went to tuck the helmet under his arm before returning the gesture.
Mash met the same set of eyes. “Trauma Squad... Baxter.” His hair was relatively unkempt, but part of that might have been due to helmet hair. It was not the standard military cut all clones were required to maintain on Kamino; it appeared as if he’d let it grow out a bit, his bangs were just teasing his brow.
Mash shook his hand once before they each pulled away from the gesture.
Looking to his left, Mash met Razor’s eyes as his brother walked over.
“This is our Corporal’n slicer.” Mash nodded towards him.
“Razor.” He responds.
“That’s ours.” Baxter nods to his right to the clone next to him.
“Ram, Corporal and sniper” The Corporal previously known as 34 chimed in with a dip of his helmet.
Mash gave a small nod in response to the clone.
“Nines, sniper.” Nines took the opportunity of silence to speak up.
“Hawk, demo.” Hawk waved a loose hand while continuing to fool around with the security system console on the other side of the room.
The man behind Baxter adjusted his stance before clearing his throat. “Char, demo.”
Mash gave the man a small nod of acknowledgement before he met the eyes of the Trauma Squad sergeant.
Baxter turned and gestured towards the last man who hadn’t been named, currently with his head inside the command console where Razor had previously been.
“The kid over there’s Jack; our slicer.”
“Razor, you alright taking Nines and Char on a perimeter sweep?”
“Just the courtyard or do we wanna start covering this in sectors?” Razor inquired, looking between the two Sergeants.
Mash glanced at Baxter momentarily and the Trauma Squad Sergeant did the same.
“I don’t think we need to start heading off into the jungle just yet,” Baxter’s voice was controlled and somewhat reluctant.
“Maybe just walk the perimeter outside of the courtyard for now. Take an hour and sweep it; check each road for damage or foot traffic and call in if you see any signs of more droid patrols.” Mash continued to eye Baxter as he spoke.
“Alright,” Razor nodded before briefly meeting the eyes of Nines and then the one identified as Char, giving them a small nod to move out.
Mash firmly gripped Razor’s shoulder plating as his brother went to walk by before leaving with the two soldiers in tow.
“How’s it coming, Jack?”
“Corporal Razor mentioned the power cell might’ve been tampered with.” Jack strained to look out from the small space he had his head in, hands up under the console inside the cylinder structure.
“Well if that’s the case then we can’t get any messages out at the moment. Not even to a nearby fleet.” Baxter muttered, kneeling down next to his comrade. “May not be the time,” Baxter raised his voice enough to catch Mash’s attention. “But what exactly did your mission debrief necessitate… In detail?”
Mash watched the Sergeant for a moment and remained silent until he got to his feet to face him fully.
“I’m not sure if we’re there yet.” Mash was calm in his statement but still firm. This could get ugly again and Razor wasn’t there to mediate. Not that he needed it… But when it came to this Sergeant, he found his fuse seemingly much shorter than normal.
“Not sure if we’re there yet.” Baxter repeats with a nod, a hand coming to the back of his head before he ran his fingers through his hair quickly. “Y’know if I didn’t know better I’d say-”
“Go on,” Mash cut him off slightly.
Baxter almost smiled before glancing around the room for a brief time. While his expression said amusement, his eyes held a certain reluctance similar to Mash’s.
“... Let’s just contact Kamino and get this mess sorted.”
“Good answer.” Mash gave a nod and crossed his arms; as well as he could in the armor at least while watching the Sergeant walk over to his man at the command console.
Shaking his head, Mash headed over to Hawk.
“Any luck?” Mash braced a hand on the station Hawk was sitting at and let his eyes graze over some of the cam screens.
“Systems should be finished with the reboot soon.” Hawk nods. “I’ve got no trips on the sensors aside from us so… I think we’re clear for now.”
Mash lifted his gaze and looked out one of the transparisteel viewports of the Tower, eyes picking up on the large vines that coated the planet surface.
“For now.”
The jungle just surrounding the Temple held an eerie silence. One that hadn’t been present when Echo Squad was on their approach from RV point Axe. The firefight had since quieted any fauna in the vicinity of the Towers.
Making their way across the courtyard and towards the East road, Nines kicked a few crippled B1s out of his path as they walked. While the sniper was content to keep his eyes forward and on the task at hand, his eyes eventually traveled over to the Trauma Squad member with them; Char.
Nines let himself look the clone up and down for a beat. He walked different; fought different; no doubt probably did everything a little different too. While your average civvy probably couldn’t comprehend that fact, for a clone, it was just part of the job - part of the job that the Kaminoans never taught them. It was something they just learned early in their lives, despite being manufactured to be the same, there was always that little bit of human that the longnecks could never fully scrub out. Nines figured every training sergeant probably instilled some sort of mindset that reinforced their tendency to individualize themselves; he’d heard rumors about other trainers.
The Trauma Squad member, like the rest of his squad, had green-like color accents on his white armor. While there was no way in hell that the other squad could tell due to the mud they were still covered in, Echo Squad’s color was red; their armor was accented in the red to orange colors.
Nines’ eyes caught the couple of stairs ahead that went down a foot before smoothing out into the road heading into the Jungle; the place where one of Trauma Squad had thrown a grenade was prominent in the blasted off pieces of stair that littered the vicinity.
“You’re demo right?” Nines gestured down to the rubble with the barrel of his Deece. “This you?” He laughed.
The Trauma Squad member came to a stop and slowly looked towards Nines, taking a beat to process the question.
“Was the Sarg,” Char finally responded. He had a somewhat deeper voice, more so than Mash or Baxter too.
“Guy’s not one for the rulebook is he?” Nines raised an eyebrow from under his helmet before maneuvering down what intact stairs were left.
“Least he didn’t have us rolling in osik,” The man chuckled and Nines felt annoyance prickle his skin.
“First off its mud. We were running recon and needed to take precautions. Second, we were following a strict outline from the Jedi… They wanted the location taken quickly and quietly to avoid making a scene; I imagine they didn’t want their meditation-force-Temple lookin like a battleground when we were done.” He gestures back to the blown up set of stairs that were getting further away as they continued down the road, checking for any droid activity.
“...Smells like osik.” Char stated.
Nines clenched his jaw and caught the way Razor gave him the littlest shake of his helmet.
Don’t.
Nines let silence fall, although it took every ounce of self control he had left not to start picking this guy apart. It was in his nature to just… Wind people up. This guy was winding him up and was looking like he wasn’t even giving it his full attention.
Glancing down at himself for the briefest second he caught the sight of the thick layer of mud still caked to his armor… It did smell terrible.... But it was mud…. Hopefully.
The soldiers continued down the quiet path that led deeper into the jungle until they reached the end of the architectural road that ended at some stairs and a small dirt path, not even a road, that continued into the wilderness.
“Well that was eventful.” Nines muttered before turning to head back in the other direction.
They still had the north and south roads to walk. They’d already swept the west road now opposite their position. “Remind me again why they needed us for this job. This is infantry level work.”
“Says the talking osik pile.” Char surmised, following the sniper with his gaze as he went to leave.
“Wayii- copaani mirshmure'cye, vod? (Good grief- are you looking for a smack in the face, mate?)” Nines had whipped around, coming relatively face to face or- helmet to helmet with the Trauma Squad member.
“Alright, easy you two!” Razor interrupted the two, putting a hand on each of their shoulders before pushing them apart. “Same team.”
Char glanced towards Razor for a brief time before bowing his head in a small nod. Turning towards Nines he eyed the sniper for a brief time before stepping past him to continue their patrol back to the Temple.
Nines muttered once more under his breath before meeting the gaze of the Corporal.
“You may know how to wind people up, but you make it relatively easy for others to do the same to you, vod.” Razor chuckled before patting his brother’s shoulder plating.
Nines rolled his eyes before walking alongside his older brother back down the road to continue their sweep.
“How about- now?” Jack grunted, half of his armored body cramped into the small compartment under the command console.
“Nothing,” Baxter responded, staring at the dark holotable.
Mash watched the two quietly while his arms crossed, trying to keep his expression as blank as possible before he exchanged the smallest glance with Hawk and Ram who was standing a meter or two from them.
A string of curses in Mando’a left the clone before the clattering of metal parts followed. The holotable flickered to life moments later.
“Wait that did it,” Baxter held a hand down to the opening where Jack was.
“You serious? The power cell isn’t even in place I’m holding it-”
“Just don’t move.” Baxter cut him off before going about the controls.
Mash took a couple of steps forward and began putting in a secure channel code.
“I’ll contact our advisor,” Mash explained, fingers working quickly along the bottoms of the console.
Baxter seemed to stall in his movements as the Echo Squad Sergeant stepped up and he retracted his hands from the console. “You do that,” The Trauma Squad Sergeant moved back slowly before crossing his own arms.
Mash slowed his actions as he processed the dramatic response from the soldier before resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Finishing the code, Mash activated the transmitter and stood up straight, watching as the holotable, now illuminated, hummed to life.
It seemed much longer, but a few seconds later a hologramic figure emerged from the table and Mash was quick to recognize him.
“Sergeant, how is your assignment going?” Skipper questioned, hands loosely on his armor belt.
It was a relief to see their Clone Advisor, but Mash found the words leaving his mouth to be far from that thought that grazed his mind.
“Temple’s been retaken, but sir, would you mind explaining to me what the hell high command is playing at?” Mash leaned forward on the console, hands on either side of the controls.
“...Excuse me, Sergeant?” Mash rarely ever talked to a superior with such an aggressive tone.
“Let me,” Baxter less than gently shoved Mash out of the way before taking his spot in front of the hologram. “What he means to ask is what high command’s been doing with their thumbs up their shebs while we trip over our own feet down here trying to recapture a Jedi timeshare.”
“Wayii.” Mash roughly rubbed a hand over his shaved head before cursing. “Show a little decorum,” Mash seethed.
“Me show decorum?” Baxter turned towards the Echo Squad leader, a hand to his armored chest.
“Alright, settle down!” Skipper almost had to yell to get the attention of the two Sergeants before they both finally directed their attention to him. “Mash, what’s the state of the Temple? Enemy activity?”
“We’ve secured the position, sir.” Mash said. “We eliminated a small Separatist force holding the location; wasn’t nearly enough to hold it indefinitely; most likely just a temporary force to hold the grounds.”
“They may send reinforcements then. Be on guard.” Skipper warned.
Mash gave a nod before glancing around at the others temporarily. “When will the Jedi be arriving?”
His question was followed by silence, and Baxter was the first to react as he adjusted his stance and took a step forward.
“Well?”
“...The Jedi don’t have a replacement lined up yet.” Not only did his reluctance to respond clue them in, but the hesitation in his voice as well.
“Excuse me?” Baxter slowly blinked in response, posture twitching.
“Meaning?” Mash questioned.
“Meaning,” Skippered sighed lightly. “You all aren’t going anywhere until they send a Jedi.”
Baxter, being the first to react again, kicked the command console, causing the hologram to flicker.
“Hey!” Jack called from under the console.
“You gotta be-” A string of curses in mando’a followed Baxter’s proclamation as he took a couple steps away from the console.
“Take it easy,” Mash put a hand up.
Returning to the console, Baxter rests both hands on the rim.
“I need to talk to our advisor. He’ll get us out of here.” Baxter made clear.
“Sergeant, your advisor has been pulled for an assignment, so Trauma is officially under my jurisdiction until he returns.”
The man was fuming, but he remained quiet, much to Mash’s surprise.
“You both are to hold the location and report back any Separatist activity or attempts to retake the Temple. It shouldn’t be more than a couple of days.” Skipper eased, holding out a hand as he spoke. “The Temple has a storage facility with foodstuffs and rations to keep you comfortable if you all are stuck longer than your dry ration packs will allow.”
“We better not be,” Baxter grumbled under his breath, glancing towards Ram.
“You don’t have to worry about a thing, sir.” Mash reassured the Advisor. “We’ll keep the Temple secure.”
“I’ll contact you when I have word on the Jedi.” Skipper gives them a final nod before the hologram disappears and it falls quiet.
“...Can I get up now?” Jack grunted, a foot kicking slightly as the man was still on his back halfway under the console.
“Alright,” Mash mumbles quietly, meeting Hawk’s eyes before glancing towards Baxter as the man had since began pacing around slowly. “Well-”
“Jetiise (Jedi; plural),” Baxter uttered under his breath before shaking his head.
“Hey,” Mash’s tone lowered in a warning manner. The man seemed quick to want to bash on any of the higher ups.
“It’ll only be for a few days.” Ram spoke up, meeting Mash’s gaze for a brief moment before looking towards his Sergeant.
Walking over to the computer stations lining the far wall, Mash stepped past Baxter to grab his helmet and put it on.
A couple careful blinks later, he activated their secure comm channel.
“Razor? How’s the patrol going?” Mash spoke up, eyeline shifting to the left as Jack crawled out from under the commander console and put a hand through his hair with a mumble.
The comms crackled briefly before he got a response.
“All qui… out here, Mash. No sign u-... oid traffic around the T… ple yet. We’re almost done ch... south road th… be heading back.”
“Transmission was fuzzy but I understand. Let me know if anything changes,” Mash responded.
“Yes sir. Any news?”
Mash clenched his jaw and thought it over for a moment before shaking his head.
“Long story short- we’re stuck here together until the Jedi can send someone. Could be a few days.”
“Did he j… ays!?”
That was Nines alright.
“I see,” Razor responded. “Brief us when w…. back.”
“Will do,” Mash finished the transmission before taking his helmet off with a sigh.
“Just great.” Nines growled under his breath, his grasp on his Deece tightening and loosening as he fidgeted. “Stuck with crack squad for-”
“Who’re you calling a crack squad, mate?” Char cut him off. “We’re not the squad looking like they just crawled out of a swamp.”
“Keep talking and I’ll make sure they find your body at the bottom a swamp, mate.” Nines barked back, having turned on his heel to stop Char in his tracks.
“Gev! Take it down!” Razor ordered, shouldering Nines to get his younger comrade to back off. “Both of you,” Razor turned a look on Char before gesturing them both forward. “Squabbling like Infantry cadets for galaxy’s sake-” He cursed before walking ahead of both of them.
Nines begrudgingly followed, but not before exchanging a small glance with Char before they began heading back to the Temple.
The walk back was quiet and by the time they’d gotten up to the communications center, the atmosphere had leveled out.
“The perimeter is clear.” Razor announced, removing his helmet as he entered the communications room.
Mash turned and met the eyes of his Corporal with a nod.
“Seppies won’t stay quiet for long,” Baxter chimed in, leaning against the command console with his armed crossed, expression almost belligerent as he looked back down at the ground with a scowl. “They’ll send reinforcements and soon.”
“We’ll be ready,” Mash agreed, hands resting on his armor belt. “First things first, we need to start organizing patrols; keep an eye on local air traffic an-”
“Who- put you in charge exactly?” Baxter questioned, his expression revealing genuine confusion but also fatigue.
Mash clenched his jaw and breathed out quietly through his nose before shooting Razor the smallest look.
“It’ll only be a couple days, I’m sure we can balance leadership.” Ram proposed, sitting at one of the chairs at the computer stations at the opposite side of the room.
Baxter’s body jolted as if he was trying to prevent a scoff before he nodded.
“Better only be a couple days.”
ONE WEEK LATER…
Nines clenched his jaw, staring down towards his hands before his gaze lifted and he met Char’s eyes. The Trauma Squad member stared back at him, expression hardly set but relatively at ease despite the fact.
Tapping his finger lightly, Nines swallowed before he finally nodded.
“I’ll raise you three Nuna jerky strips.” Nines finally stated before tossing the packaged meat into the center of the table.
“I’ll match that, vod.” Char nodded before grabbing some packaged jerky strips from the backpack next to his feet, tossing them into their pot where other small foods and rations resided.
From the other side of the communications center, Ram watched the two playing cards with a tightly knit brow.
“I don’t get it,” Ram finally muttered, giving a shake of his head.
“What?” Razor questioned while chewing on a ration stick, eyes on the SOP manual up on the datapad balanced on his propped up leg.
“They’ll be at each other's throats night and day- but as soon as the Sabacc cards come out they turn more civil than jetiise.”
Razor let a hard breath out through his nose in amusement before shrugging lightly, using a knuckle to scroll down on the datapad.
Those two were always going at each other, but over the past several days they’d each discovered their love of the card game, Sabacc. They’d started developing an awkward love/hate relationship with the game at the center.
“As long as they’re quiet,”
The week had passed by slowly. Razor and Ram were getting along alright during the time, however Mash and Baxter were still at opposite ends of a spectrum. They butted heads but a brotherly atmosphere was starting to settle in.
Turning in his chair, Ram faces the computer station and quickly goes about cycling through the comm channels, listening for any chatter that might clue them into a hostile force. Alongside that chore was looking for any Separatist activity on the air traffic scanners. So far they’d had nothing all week.
The beeping of one of the air traffic scanners causes both Ram and Razor to look up from their distractions. Ram is the first to swing around in his chair and lean over to the neighboring computer station.
Razor got up from his chair and walked over.
“Got something?” He questioned.
Ram evaluated the reading before narrowing the scanner range.
“I’ve got a ship entering the atmosphere, around 50 klicks out.” Ram responded, brow knit as he watched the screen on the station plot a hypothetical course for the ship that was approaching. “Computer's plotting its course; it looks like they’re heading for us.” Ram muttered before getting to his feet. Cycling through the channels for a moment, Ram found the only other active one and pressed one of the buttons on the panel to unmute the transmission.
“Incoming ship, you are entering restricted Republic Military airspace,”
Razor eyed the image on the screen that estimated the ship’s trajectory as Ram continued to recite one of the standard messages from the SOPs manual.
“Do you copy?” Ram waited but only static came through on the comms.
“I repeat, incoming ship, you have entered restricted Republic Military airspace-”
“They’re coming in way too fast.” Razor muttered, eyeing the readings on the computer screen built into the station. “Reads are coming through… Ships heavily damaged.”
“Specs?” Ram inquired.
“Hull integrity is at critical levels, heat spikes all over the ship, scanner’s reading engine failure. That ship’s not being piloted, it’s going down.”
“What’s the estimated crash path?” Ram asked, finger hovering over the comm button, allowing the static to come through.
Going about the controls on the station, Razor expanded the aerial map of the surrounding area and the computer AI marked an estimated crash zone.
At seeing the area, Razor leaned in further, brow knitting tightly.
“Something wrong?” Ram questions.
“That’s just near RV point Axe… Aren’t they patrolling that area?” Razor questioned, turning to the fellow Corporal.
At processing his comrade’s words, Ram quickly abandoned the comm frequency he was using to contact the unknown ship and set the frequency to their squad comm channel.
“Sergeants we’ve got a ship coming in with a projected crash zone in your area… Baxter? Sergeant Mash?”
Razor watched the fellow soldier quietly before glancing to the side seeing Nines and Char had since approached, similarly reflected expressions of concern.
“Haar'chak, I can’t get anything through,” Ram swore before shaking his head; meeting Razor’s eyes. “Wanna head out?”
In the past few days, they’d discovered how communications were difficult on the planet. If a party was out in the jungle, comms were always very sensitive. They knew it would complicate matters if the Separatists organized an attempt to retake the Temple.
“... Yeah, let’s go.” Razor agreed before quickly going to grab his helmet. “You two hold down here,” Razor looked to both Nines and Char.
“Let us know if you need any help.” Nines nodded before shrugging. “... Well I guess you won’t be able to so-... If it looks bad from here we’ll- consider coming to help.”
“Good to know,” Ram smirked before throwing his helmet on.
Nodding to the other Corporal, they both began running for the hall.
There had been a short rain shower earlier in the morning. The ground was soft and their armored boots sunk into the soil as they treaded through the jungle.
Baxter was walking a few yards ahead with Jack at his side, and Mash followed closely behind with Hawk.
The Trauma squad members were chatting lightly amongst themselves and Mash and Hawk chatted on and off.
They had fallen into a relatively simple routine over the past few days. They’d hit bumps now and again, but everyone usually did their best to stay out of each other’s way.
The ease of the atmosphere around them came to a screeching halt however, when the crackling of sticks sounds off to their 9 o’clock.
Baxter is the first to ready his rifle before anyone else had time to process the sound disruption. They may not have been a squad, but they knew how to make it work, and everyone worked off of each other in accordance with the developments around them.
All of them trained on an assortment of foliage several meters away, more rustling follows before small chirp-like noises emit from the bushes.
It was a familiar sound. One of the native fauna from the planet, a small reptilian species. However the familiarity didn’t stop Baxter from watching the position from which the sound radiated with a raised weapon.
Jack had his weapon raised hesitantly as well, although Sergeant Mash’s lack of reaction caused him to second guess his own. They hadn’t seen any action in weeks. It was obvious Sergeant Baxter was getting an itchy trigger finger to shoot something.
“S’nothing, brother.” Mash mumbled, rifle loosely held in front of him.
Baxter rolled his eyes from under his helmet and muttered under his breath before continuing on their patrol.
“Jedi are wasting Special Forces; as if Geonosis wasn’t enough of a wake up call for em,” Baxter said, his pace picking up.
Mash tries not to roll his shoulders in an effort to ease the prickle of uneasiness he got from Baxter’s comment. How had this clone survived this long without getting himself terminated.
“C’mon, vod,” Mash mumbled, knowing Baxter would understand his comment.
In training, they were taught that Jedi leadership was invaluable. However at the Battle of Geonosis, the clone army was in for a somewhat rude awakening at just how unprepared the Jedi seemed to be in leading the army. Special Forces lost half of their numbers, and strategically, the Battle was a mess. Many clones came out of their first battle confused, even angered, but still unwaveringly loyal to the Jedi… well most of them did. Baxter made Mash rethink that part.
“Maybe the next assignment will have us mopping floors in the Jedi Temple, who knows you gotta remain optimistic.” Baxter called over his shoulder.
Mash just shook his head and exchanged a small glance with Hawk.
Crackling over the comms caused Mash to slow his pace, a hand raising subconsciously towards his helmet.
“Razor? That you?” Mash spoke up.
“We-.... ip comi… cra… yo-...”
“Damn it,” Mash muttered before using his knuckles to knock the side of his helmet a couple of times. “Are you getting anything clear Baxter?”
“No,” The Trauma Sergeant grumbled, eyeline on the ground as he tried to listen to the gargled transmission. “Come on boys, spit it out.”
“Repe… shi… proj… crash…”
Mash shook his head lightly as he tried to listen only to start hearing a roar of a ship in the background of the transmission.
“...You hear that?” Mash turned towards Hawk who nodded.
“Hey Max,” Baxter suddenly spoke up.
The Sergeant’s expression fell from under his helmet. “It’s Mash,” He grumbled before turning around to look at the Sergeant.
He was looking up through the vine canopy.
Mash’s brow knit in response to seeing the Sergeant before he followed the man’s eyeline to the sky, eyes widening at the sight.
“Uh… That doesn’t look good.” Jack stated, also finding the ship that was hurtling down towards them in a ball of fire.
“GO GO GO!” Mash yelled, waving the men off. They began running towards the ship and managed to avoid most of the debris coming off of the craft as it crashed through the vine canopy and barreled into the mud around forty yards away.
Half of the men had dived for cover from broken pieces of the ship that had rained down.
“Everyone alright?” Mash called out, the question leaving his mouth before he could register his own state.
“Fine here sir,”
“All good.”
Mash quickly got to his feet, seeing Baxter had already done the same.
“Not what I was expecting when I hoped for some action but I won’t complain,” The Trauma Sergeant didn’t waste any time, and Mash wasn’t going to slow him down as they quickly began making their way towards the wreckage. “Wanna bet they were trying to warn us?” Baxter laughed, referring to the rest of their group at the Temple.
Mash nodded to the side in agreement, feeling Hawk come up on his right as they followed the canyoned trail the ship had left in its wake.
It was a fairly large craft, a freighter by the look of what was left.
A small explosion off of one of the dislodged engines causes the team to jump back a step.
Baxter suddenly patted Mash had on the back before going closer to the wreck.
“We’ll cover the cockpit area,” He practically threw the comment over his shoulder before jogging off with Jack close behind him.
“But- I- Erm,” Mash shook his head and quieted his objection before it could pass through his lips.
“Let’s cover the back of the ship,” Mash responded, looking towards his comrade. “Looks like the ship’s main structure is still relatively intact. We might be able to enter through the cargo bay.”
Hawk acknowledged his Sergeant with a nod before going to follow the clone. Both keep a close eye on the wreckage as they approach. Parts of the hull were missing, revealing little hints of darkness within the craft. There could still be lifeforms on board.
Hawk let his eyes run along the side of the crashed ship as they made their way closer. Most of the ship wasn’t ablaze, the engines had been, but they’d broken off the main craft when it struck the ground.
Giving the side of the ship another once over, Hawk cleared his throat. “My HUD isn’t recognizing this freighter, sir.”
“It isn’t Republic, keep your eyes open.” Mash responded, rifle raised.
They get to the back of the ship and the ramp is dislodged from the freighter. Giving the dark opening a quick once over, Mash nodded to Hawk and they began making their way inside.
Cargo boxes and cages of supplies littered the space. Despite the wreckage everywhere, Mash was quick to spot an outlying object.
“10 o’clock,” Mash nodded to the corpse off to the left as they headed further into the ship.
Hawk noted the body, as well as another farther away against the wall and followed the Sergeant. Their HUDs could pick up life signs and so far, there weren’t any.
“Hey Mack!” Baxter called out suddenly. “We’ve got some dead lizards up here!” Baxter appears from an elevated platform up the wall at the back of the cargo bay that they had been heading towards. There was most likely a door to the cockpit and a ladder somewhere.
Mash shook his head and looked up, noting the ship was relatively small now, from what was remaining intact; the ship was now clear.
“It’s Mash.” The Echo squad Sergeant responded under his breath, lowering his rifle in front of him
“Trandoshans?” Hawk inquired, craning his neck to look up to where Baxter and Jack were.
“Lizards. Did I stutter, kid?” Baxter responded.
“Yeah Hawk, Trandoshans,” The remnants of a chuckle sounded through Jack’s helmet as he softened Baxter’s sarcastic response.
Both jumped down into the cargo area and Baxter playfully knocked Hawk’s shoulder plating with his knuckles.
A sudden shudder of cargo crates in the back right corner of the ship’s cargo bay causes the soldiers to jump into action. Mash and Hawk have their weapons trained on the origin of where the sound originated and Baxter and Jack did the same. The first sign of a potential hostile in a week. It was safe to say they were anticipating a threat.
Taking a couple steps closer, Baxter kept his rifle trained at the corner of the damaged ship’s bay before hand signaling to the others.
Mash, Hawk and Jack all gave nods in response before Baxter spoke up.
“Come out!” Voice alone, Baxter’s ranged on the lower end of what was common for clones; coupled with the helmet filtering his voice, he sounded even more menacing.
When nothing followed the demand, Baxter knocked the crates with a calculated kick of his armored leg, jostling them a good bit but not moving them enough to reveal the hostile.
“NOW!”
Changing the settings on his HUD, Mash changed his helmet display to thermal and after a couple seconds, his brow knit together at the readings coming from behind the crates.
“Bax-”
“Am I speaking Huttese? Get out here you di-”
“Take it easy, Baxter!” Mash finally snapped, jabbing the other Sergeant with his armored elbow before lowering his weapon.
“Er you crazy?” Baxter growled, helmeted gaze whipping around to the other Sergeant.
“Alright you,” Mash took a couple of steps closer, “C’mon out,” Voice still significantly firm, but lower in volume to Baxter’s, Mash waited for some kind of response to the changed approach.
The silence that followed doesn’t ease Baxter’s caution as he kept his rifle trained on the crates before eyes peek over one of the boxes.
“Yeah you- out.” Mash muttered pointing to the ground in front of his feet with his forefinger, rifle still held up in one hand trained ahead.
A small being made their way out from behind the crates and Hawk slowly lowered his rifle; Jack followed the action not far behind.
Taking a moment to process the lifeform, Baxter felt his shoulders fall. “Too bad,” Baxter finally muttered. “Was looking for an excuse to unload on somethin,” Baxter’s eyes trail over the young girl now standing in front of him with slight disappointment.
“Sir,” Jack breathed out a laugh.
“Told you Jay,” Baxter glanced back towards his slicer, “I got more of that sociopathic blood in my system than the others.”
Mash looked over the being quietly. She was young, probably an early adolescent; dirty and emaciated. His HUD was picking up on an accelerated heart rate.
“Sir,”
Mash turned and looked over his shoulder to see his Corporal, Razor, along with Trauma Squad Corporal, Ram.
“We went ahead and did an extra sweep of the crash site perimeter. Any life in he- Oh,” Razor caught sight of the small being that barely met the soldiers chest plates in height.
“Affirmative,” Hawk shrugged lightly, rifle at ease in front of him before he looked back down to the girl who had taken a few steps back towards the crates she’d been hiding behind.
“So we’ve got no other survivors,” Baxter stated, processing the fact before nodding.
“The ship didn’t come up on my HU-”
“Didn’t on ours either,” Baxter cut Razor off as he looked over the torn up ship around them.
“I’ll begin scanning the haul,” Ram offered before leaving the damaged cargo bay.
Mash looked around further before turning his eyes to Baxter as he moved out of his peripheral.
“A miracle she survived this,” The Sergeant of Trauma Squad grunted while evaluating the ship’s seemingly nonexistent roof before turning his eyes to the child. “You’re lucky, kid.”
Masterlist | Next Chapter | Chapter Art & Map | Echo & Trauma Squad
CHAPTER NOTE: If you’re reading this, well first off congratulations. I’m frankly quite surprised you haven’t fallen asleep yet or given up. Second of all, I hope you enjoyed!!! One note: Mando’a is littered throughout, I apologize if I made mistakes, I’m still learning!
Support is appreciated if you had fun reading :) I hope to post the next chapter soon!
#my fic#clone wars fanfiction#star wars fanfiction#clones#jedi#grand army of the republic#star wars ocs#clone wars ocs#republic military#temple of eedit#devaron#galaxy far far away
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Arranged Chapter 23 Work
AO3
She pulls her hair up in a ponytail. Tightens the laces on her brand new work boots. Tucks in the big flannel shirt, borrowed from Jamie, into her jeans. She is ready.
Jamie watches her nervously prepare. He wishes he could assure her that all would go smoothly. He doesn’t because he knows what she is walking into. The people are nice, he can tell her that. But the work is bloody hard. He will be by her side today and for the week until she has a handle on it. But that is all the reassurance he can give.
“I’m ready.” Her voice doesn’t wobble, she is proud of that. She has decided to fake confidence until she feels it. He walks up, takes her hands and gives them a squeeze.
“You are. I will be right there. You can do this.” He then gently but thoroughly kisses her. “To tide us over, eh?”
“That will do nicely.” They both smile.
The warehouse, Mackenzie Shipping, is only a kilometer away. It takes mere minutes in the early morning traffic to get there. He brings her in early to complete the paperwork. She takes several fortifying breaths before stepping out of the car. He leads her in. They walk up the metal stairs that lead to the office where Colum waits. He stands at their entrance.
“Jamie and you must be Claire.”
“Yes sir. Claire Beauchamp. Thank you for hiring me.”
“Lass, any recommendation from Jamie here, we take seriously. He is one of our best workers. Please have a seat.” She does and Jamie takes a seat beside her.
“I really haven’t any work experience.” She confesses, her hands clasps nervously on her lap.
“I ken lass. Don’t fret. Most of our workers start out with the same. This is a good starting job and Jamie is a good trainer. Trained many first timers.” She nods, feeling slightly better. Jamie places his hand over hers, under the desk and she relaxes farther. “Now I just need you to fill out some papers, sign others, and we will be all set.”
For the next half hour, she does. It is nice to sign Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp, instead of Randall. She signs the last and passes it over to him.
“Congratulations Miss Beauchamp, you are now an official employee of Mackenzie Shipping. We pay every Friday. Fifteen minute breaks every three hours. Lunch at noon until twelve thirty. Punch out it four. Jamie will show you where the break room and loos are. Welcome to the team.” She takes his offered hand and shakes it.
“Thank you sir.”
They head back down the stairs and he takes her to the break room and shows her how to use the time card. The tables are old but clean. The vending machines are varied. It has a few microwaves and a coffee pot.
“First one in makes coffee.” He explains then shows her how on the industrial machine. “No food or drink, other then water, on the floor.” He leads her out and shows her where the ladies loos are. Then he takes her to where they will be working. “The lorries pull up here. Pallets here. For the heavy ones, they use a fork lift. Lighter pallet jack. But either way, they expect loaded pallets.” She nods staring at the dock doors that will soon open to a whole new world.
People start entering dressed as she and Jamie are. Several come up to them. “Jamie lad, who is this?” the short man with full facial hair, asks.
“Angus Mhor, meet Claire Beauchamp, a new hire. Claire, Angus.”
“Nice to meet you lass.” He bows. She is charmed.
“Hello lass, I am Rupert Mackenzie, no relation to the owners.” He is a tall, chubby guy with an easy smile.
“Hello Rupert.” He takes her hand and firmly shakes it.
“These lads will be working along side of you. I will introduce you to the others as they arrive.”
She is introduced to two Mary’s. One a short little woman who seems painfully shy. The other tall with a slightly more commanding air. An older gentleman named Murtagh who seems grumpy, maybe due to it being Monday. A distinguished looking man named John who is also a re-assigned. Lastly, a young lady with blond hair named Leery. She gives her a look she can’t translate.
The first lorry arrives and they are soon busy. Lift and drop. Lift and drop. Pallet full. Pull another. Go again. It takes an hour to unload the first lorry. Jamie says that is good. Nothing was to heavy but the physicality of bending, using her legs, as Jamie directed, took it’s toil. She is panting by the time it is done.
“Grand job.” John praises. She nods. “It is tough, eh, coming from where we were.”
“Yes. Quite. But at least there is freedom here to chose who we are partners with.”
“There is that.”
“Claire,” she turns towards the blond. “You know this was an easy one, right? It will only get harder from here.”
“I am well aware of that Leery.” They stare at each other and Leery drops her eyes first. She walks away. John chuckles.
“Good on you lass. She is jealous. Wants to be the prettiest girl here. She isn’t self aware enough to know beauty comes from the inside first.”
“Another lorry is on the way.” Jamie reports and they head back to work.
By the end of the day, Claire has discovered muscles she didn’t know she had. She aches all over but is satisfied. She had done it. One day down. She crawls into Jamie’s car and lays her head back. Jamie takes her hand.
“I am quite proud of you.” She smiles, to tired to respond.
#my writing#outlander fanfic#arranged#work#jamie and claire#cannon divergence#outlander fandom#modern au
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Hello love I would like to request a Hux x Reader oneshot where the reader interferes with a potential abusive episode from Brendol. He would be so grateful and I just can't handle ittttt thank youuuu
Free of Charge
😭😭😭😭 Thank you for this! Someone needs to help our boy.
Requests are open ✨
“Tell me,” Brendol says, breaking the silence that had been threatening to swallow the room whole, “exactly how idiotic can you manage to be?” There’s nothing Armitage can say in response, but his father waits anyways, determined to embarrass him, and the worst part about it is—even after all this time—his tactics still work. Armitage clenches his fists tighter in his lap, determined not to show any weakness.
“General, I-”
“I’m not interested in hearing any excuses, boy!” the man shouts, banging his fist down on the board room table, and a few of the other officers jump at the sound. Armitage refuses to break eye contact with his father, but his palms are becoming slick inside of his leather gloves and the prickling sensation at the back of his neck grows stronger as he anticipates the worst possible outcome. It’s alright, he tries to soothe himself, he’s all talk. There are still witnesses. The silence returns, oppressive and heavy and no one will look at Armitage—the other officers flitting their eyes from place to place and refusing to land anywhere near him. They’re all pretending that he’s not there, and somehow that’s worse than being seen as a failure in front of his peers because Brendol is determined to make it so, and he is a man who always gets what he wants.
“Everyone out,” Brendol’s voice is a dangerous hum, and the other men practically trip over themselves as they leap out of their seats. The race to the doorway is quick and quiet, and soon the shuffling stops and Armitage is alone with his father.
“I have given you every opportunity to complete this one simple task, and yet you have failed me still. How can you expect to advance in this organization when you can’t complete one simple fucking task?” Armitage blocks out the crescendos of his father’s voice, and retreats into a safer space, deep in the back of his mind. His father’s words begin to blur together, the same insults and abuse repeated once again. Armitage could still get out of this, if he stays quiet. If he stays firm. After all, Brendol is still wearing his gloves, which means that the worst of it is not yet on the horizon.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you, boy!” His father reaches out too fast for Armitage to dodge, grabbing him by the jaw and holding him tight, forcing him to take in the arrant loathing on Brendol’s face. The grip of his father’s hand burns along his jawline, but he knows it won’t bruise. Brendol has perfected the ability to cause his son pain without leaving any visible markings; he’s had a lifetime to do it. Armitage resists the urge to shift out of his father’s grasp but he’s losing his nerve, and just when the pain reaches a breaking point, his father lets go. A wave of nausea rolls through him as he watches his father begin to remove the leather covering his hands.
“It seems I have to teach you a lesson, boy, and this will not be one that you soon forget.” Brendol’s gloves hit the table with a soft slap as Armitage braces himself for the first punch, but he can never be sure where his father will strike. Maybe it’s his imagination, but Brendol seems less controlled than the last time, a little more wild, and those bruises had stayed around for weeks; the shame for much longer. Would it be worse? It’s impossible to say, and the only thing Armitage can think of to calm himself is rather disappointing: it will have to end eventually.
The door slides open without warning, the mechanical swish echoing loudly off the walls in the empty room. Brendol drops his fist and turns to the source of the noise, taking his eyes off Armitage, and he looks to the door as well, curious to see who was brave enough to interrupt the general in a moment like this one.
You’re standing there in the doorway, fresh from your most recent assignment, and for a moment Armitage allows himself to be happy to see you, and happier this time, knowing that you had inadvertently delayed something awful.
“What is it?” Brendol asks, and his demeanor is changed now that he realizes it’s you. He reaches for his gloves and forces them back over his hands, seemingly composed, his previous rage gone, at least for the moment. Armitage isn’t sure if he believes in a higher power, but right now he’s ready to thank the Maker as you stroll through the doorway and into the conference room. There are many bounty hunters employed by the First Order with more experience than you, but you’ve certainly made a name for yourself already, quickly becoming a favorite of his father. This successful mission would be the 33rd that you’ve completed for Brendol … not that Armitage was keeping track.
“Sorry to interrupt, General,” you say, “I just came to report that the target has been eliminated, as requested.”
“Excellent,” Brendol says, and he claps his hands together with approval, “I’ll have the credits transferred to your account immediately.” He reaches for his data pad to initiate the transfer, and Armitage hears him mumble under his breath, “at least someone can do their job right.”
A blush rises to Armitage cheeks—one of the few reactions he hasn’t yet learned how to control—and he hopes that you didn’t hear the taunt. It’s one thing to look incompetent in front of the other officers aboard the ship, but in front of you …
“Thank you, general,” you say, tapping your fingers absentmindedly on the blaster strapped to your thigh as you wait. Your eyes land on Armitage, and he stiffens under your gaze, his neck growing warm under the collar.
“Hello, Lieutenant,” you nod to him, and Armitage can hardly speak. He had been under the impression that you didn’t know who he was, and your acknowledgement, in addition to the relief that his father’s hands had been stayed momentarily, is more than he can currently bear. His throat is dry—he’s not sure what he would say even if he could speak—so he opts to nod instead. Once again Armitage is forced to thank whatever higher power out there that his father is still distracted with the credit transfer. If Brendol noticed the effect you had on him, he would never be able to escape the torment the man would enact.
“The transfer has been initiated,” Brendol drops his data pad back on the table, and any pleasant feeling Armitage had experienced from your recognition has quickly disappeared, replaced with the dread of facing his father alone once again. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, I have to deal with my son.”
“Actually, sir, I was hoping I could discuss something with the lieutenant briefly.”
Armitage’s eyes snap to his father, waiting to see his reaction. It’s obvious that Brendol is surprised by your request, traces of anger flashing across his face, but his father is capable of being charming when needed, and he masks his annoyance.
“Why?” Despite his attempts to cover it, there’s still a hint of disgust in Brendol’s voice, one that always appears when Armitage is brought up, but you don’t seem to notice.
“It’s nothing, really, just a bit of intel I picked up and thought I’d pass along. I know you’re a busy man, General, and I’d love to explain it to you directly but I have urgent business on Hosnian Prime and I need to return to my ship as soon as possible. I thought it might be easier for you if I reported to the Lieutenant now on the way back to the hangar, and he could impart the information to you when it would be more convenient.”
Brendol looks to his son, and Armitage tries to seem disappointed, annoyed even, under his father’s gaze. He knows that if Brendol suspects that leaving with you would bring Armitage any kind of pleasure, he would immediately refuse. Apparently his act is sufficient, because Brendol hesitates, and then concedes.
“Very well,” he says, “but we’ll continue this conversation later.” Armitage can’t find any place in his mind to worry about that now; he’s too elated at the thought of spending a moment alone with you, and finally being away from his father.
You walk silently down the corridors of the ship at a leisurely pace, and Armitage grows nervous. Should he say something to you? He tries to muster the courage, but he can’t think of the right words when he’s too busy sneaking glances from the corner of his eye. He thinks he’s being subtle, but you catch him looking and look back, a small smirk on your face.
“There was no intel, in case you were wondering,” you say, “but I thought you might want an excuse to get away.”
“Oh?” Armitage is not feeling very articulate, and it’s the only thing he can manage to say in response as he tries to process all the information he’s being presented: the fact that you know who he is—which is already disorienting enough on its own—and that you recognized the threat Brendol posed, then still put yourself at risk for Armitage’s sake. He’s never had someone look out for him like this before.
“I haven’t known the general for long, but I’ve seen enough to know that he’s a man who has lived to control others through fear,” you look straight ahead as you speak, and Armitage is afraid to hear you talk this way. Statements like that could be seen as treason, even if you weren’t an official member of the Order.
“The general is a good leader,” Armitage says, but it doesn’t sound convincing, even to his own ears, “a strong leader. The one that we need.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” you respond, so casual in your defiance of one of the most powerful men in the galaxy, “leaders who control others through terror are easily overpowered. No one stays afraid forever.” Oh, how Armitage wishes that were true. He should not be participating in this conversation, but he likes to hear you speak. The ease with which you defy his father is refreshing, and maybe a little addicting. Maybe his father’s abuse is not as inevitable as he once thought.
“Then who do you think would make a good leader?”
“Actually, Lieutenant, I would say you.” A solid swell of pleasure wells up in Armitage’s chest, and he has to swallow it down before he can speak again.
“What?” He needs you to say more, knows that he could live off your praise for the rest of his life, and he wants to take in as much as he can before he has to face his father again.
“I mean, I’m no expert, of course,” you say then, stopping outside the entrance to your ship and turning to face him, “but I have seen you work with some of the other men here, and they seem to have a decent amount of respect for you, when the general isn’t around,” you shift from foot to foot, delaying your departure, “I think that you would make a fine general for the First Order.”
“Thank you,” The gratitude falls unbidden and unplanned from his lips, even though it’s not enough; Armitage can’t possibly express how much your words mean to him. It’s not just the compliment that he values, but all of it: your candor, your aid in escaping his father, and most of all, that you noticed him. The weight of it all is making it hard for him to breathe, but he thinks he could die happily, if it was in your presence. You step closer to him, lowering the volume of your voice so that only he can hear, and he wants to engrave this moment to memory—the sound of your whisper in his ear, the electric feeling of you in such close proximity.
“I know how you feel,” you say, “and I know what it’s like to be treated poorly by someone who is supposed to care for you. So if you ever find yourself in need of my services for, ah, personal reasons, just know that I’ll take care of him, free of charge.” You step away from him and onto the loading dock of your ship, turning back once more before you leave.
“Whatever you decide, you know how to find me,” you wink when you say it, and Armitage nods in confirmation. You disappear into your ship, but he doesn’t leave the hangar just yet, wanting to stay in this feeling for as long as possible. Suddenly, facing his father doesn’t seem so daunting, and he thinks that he will take you up on your offer. There’s not much he wouldn’t do, if it meant seeing you again.
#armitage hux x reader#armitage hux x you#armitage hux fanfiction#armitage hux oneshot#my writing#requests#amadwomanrambles#abuse tw#general hux x you#general hux x reader#hux x reader#hux x you
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more aos!trek sense8 au
hi! I’ve decided to commit to the crazy and continue writing this au. i have no fucking clue what I’m doing, but I am a sucker for outsider POV, so uh. have some outsider POV.
—
Little Nyota has a voracious appetite for languages and alien cultures and the stars; smart as a whip, too. None of them laugh when her five-year old brow furrows and she declares she’s going to learn all of the languages, because—
Well. If Lela would believe it of anyone, it would be her niece.
But this is...unexpected.
After that Starfleet recruiter turned up at their class, she begs and begs and begs, twirling around the yard to find one old-enough relative to take her on a tour of the outpost in their city.
Lela knows what it feels like to be so excited about the future you can’t breathe, so she smiles and agrees.
The tour guide for the Starfleet outpost is Vulcan, of all things; a rarity, though more common here than other parts of the world. The dry heat of their city is apparently similar to that of Vulcan.
And when the Lieutenant greets their group, Nyota straightens her spine and offers the ta’al right back, with a carefully articulated Vulcan phrase. A greeting.
Lela stares at her niece in shock. No Uhura had taught her that, and it wasn’t offered in school yet. How...
The Lieutenant raises an eyebrow, more expression than Lela’s ever seen on a Vulcan, and says something else to Nyota, who nearly vibrates with excitement before screwing up her face and replying again. She didn’t just pick up stock phrases, she’s actually speaking Vulcan.
They head out for the tour soon after; Nyota whispering to one of her invisible friends the entire time.
No one seems to know how Nyota learned to speak Vulcan, when Lela asks, and eventually they write it off as part and parcel of raising a linguistic genius.
—
Alexei watches on, curious, as his nephew goes through what looks like basic fencing sets: lunge, parry, riposte, repeat.
Every so often he will adjust his stance, as though he’s being corrected.
Another one of his mind-friends, no doubt. After everything he’s seen in his life, Alexei saw no reason to doubt Pavel’s claim that he shared a telepathic bond with six other people.
It didn’t hurt that verifying their existence was relatively easy, once Alexei had their names.
“Watch your footwork on your retreat, Pashenka,” he calls firmly, observing how Pavel reacts to the interruption and the criticism. Smiles, when his nephew corrects himself again and throws him a grin without pausing.
These mind-friends of his are good for Pavel.
—
Amanda retreats to the balcony in the early morning, as she always does. The cool night air hasn’t entirely dissipated yet, allowing her to enjoy the fresh air until the heat of the Vulcan day chases her back inside.
Today, Spock follows her. He’s spent less and less time sitting with her as his schooling progresses. It hurts her heart, a little, to watch him draw away, and she suspects the attitudes of his classmates may have something to do with it, but she also knows her son’s devotion to be just like his father would have pulled him in that direction anyway.
So she gives him as big a smile as he can be comfortable with when he settles across the table from her.
“Mother, I have a query,” he says solemnly. Her mouth twitches at the expression on his face, just a little, but she knows better than to laugh at her serious boy.
“Go ahead, Spock.”
“Do humans ever exhibit signs of telepathy or empathetic abilities?”
She blinks. “Certainly. Humans of non-human descent often take on such abilities.”
He frowns, just a little, and she sees she must have misunderstood him. “But do humans ever spontaneously develop telepathic bonds with one another as children?”
Something in her stills. She recalls her studies of the Eugenics Wars on Earth and takes a deep breath. “Not in recent memory, but there are unconfirmed reports of such bonds developing before the Eugenics Wars. It’s believed if the ability ever did exist naturally in humanity, it died out then.” Amanda hesitates, then says, “There are some family records of that period to indicate that my ancestors may have possessed something like this ability.”
Spock’s face clears, and Amanda knows she guessed correctly. “Spock,” she says gently, “have you experienced one of these bonds?”
“Yes, mother. Six of them. Nyota and Jim were unable to determine the origins of the bonds through their research, but I predicted you would have some knowledge of it.” Something she wouldn’t hesitate to call satisfaction or pride on a human brushes across his face.
“Six,” she breathes. There is no reason to lie, and Spock’s preternatural telepathic abilities are well documented. This is not beyond the realm of possibility.
Sarek, she knows, will ask how long this has been happening, want to calculate the distance between Spock and these other people, measure the strength of the bonds. But those are questions for Sarek to ask.
Instead, Amanda asks, “What are their names?” and sees her son’s face brighten for the first time in ages
—
Sharon monitors the signals from USS Shenzhou, USS Farragut, and USS Prometheus, all schedule to check in with Command today, when she notices a sonic anomaly in one of the transmissions. Only, they don’t look like subspace, more—
“..hear me? —lo, can you hear me? —fleet command, —me?”
Her eyes narrow. That voice doesn’t sound right, and they’re not hailing from any assigned frequencies. How the hell...
She boosts the transmission. “This is Starfleet command; state your name and location.”
“Oh, thank god! Uh, my name is Nyota Uhura and you have to send a ship to Tarsus IV, now! Governor Kodos, he’s—”
The voice cuts out again. Sharon frowns and responds. “Kid, I have no idea how you got on this frequency, but this is reserved for Starfleet communications only.” She makes a note in the log and then scrambles the line.
Only, five minutes later it happens again.
“Starfleet command, can you hear me? This is Nyota Uhura again, you have to listen, please he’s ki—”
Who the hell is this girl? “Listen, Uhura, this frequency is reserved for Starfleet Command. You need to clear it for official business.” She reaches out to scramble the line again when her voice comes through, much clearer this time.
“Please, he’s killing them, he’s shooting them! You have to listen, please!”
Killing? “Who’s killing who?” She says sharply, hands hovering over the controls. God, what the hell, the girl sounds genuinely distressed. Val’tk turns to look at her questioningly and she waves her hand at him.
“Governor Kodos, on Tarsus IV. He’s—he shooting them. He told them he had to kill them, the crops are failing, they don’t have enough food, please you have to send someone right now!”
“Tarsus IV?” Sharon replies. “The new colony near uncharted space?” She hesitates. This would be a hell of a prank to play, but...
Muting her transmitter, she turns to Val’tk. “When was the last transmission from Tarsus IV?”
He eyes her, but pulls up the logs anyway. His eyes race over the data. “A few days ago; nothing out of the ordinary.”
She frowns, and unmutes. “Look, nice try, kid, but seeing as you’re on Earth and Tarsus hasn’t reported crop failures of any kind, there’s no way what you’re saying is true.” A few more seconds and she initiates traceback on the signal, putting her somewhere in eastern African Confederation.
“Now, I’m ordering you to surrender this line, as it’s reserved for Starfleet Command only.” And she scrambles it again, kicking Uhura, whoever she is, off the frequency.
But then the kid comes back again.
“Starfleet Command, this is Nyota Uhura, again. I’m not going to stop until you listen to me! Please, just—please. Jim needs your help! They’re running away from the guards now but I think—I think everyone’s dead,” her voice breaks, and Sharon hesitates again.
Jesus, this is crazy, there’s no way. But...oh, fuck it.
“Look, Uhura, there’s no proof what you’re saying is true. Where are you even getting this information?” She asks.
The line falls silent, for long enough that she considers switching it off again, but then Uhura comes back.
“You can...you can contact the Vulcan embassy. What’s your name?”
And now they’re back to crazy, but there’s still something about this...”Lieutenant Sharon Cartwright.”
“Lieutenant, contact the Vulcan embassy and tell them your name. They’ll put you through to...to someone who can confirm what’s happening.”
“Look, kid, I don’t have time for—”
“Please, I’m begging you, please. The longer you wait the more people are going to die, just contact the embassy!”
Fuck. Is she really doing this?
“Hey, there’s...” Val’tk interrupts. “Someone from United Earth just requested access to the Tarsus IV data transmissions. It’s here in the logs.” Sharon turns to him and feels something uneasy work through her stomach.
She stares at Val’tk for a long moment. “Alright, kid. Please hold.”
What even is the line for the Vulcan Embassy in San Francisco? Her fingers fly through the contact list, and she pulls up their number.
Man, she’s going to get in so much trouble for this if they’re wrong. “Vulcan embassy, this is,” she blows out, “Lieutenant Sharon Cartwright from Starfleet Command. I’m told you can put me through to someone to confirm what’s happening on Tarsus IV?”
A pause, a long pause, where Sharon goes back to thinking, this is nuts, I just got pnked by some asshole with a ham radio, when the Vulcan says, “One moment. Connecting you to Ambassador Sarek now.”
“Ambassador Sarek?” she blurts, but they’re already putting her through.
The ambassador doesn’t waste any time. “Lieutenant Cartwright, I can indeed confirm what Ms. Uhura has told you about Tarsus IV. Governor Kodos’s guards have opened fired on the colonists, for reasons unknown at this time. We do not yet know how many are dead.”
Sharon just...stops. Checks that she’s really taking to the Ambassador from Vulcan again. Stares back at Val’tk, who hasn’t stopped looking at her.
“I’m going to...put you through to Commander Aldrin, Ambassador.” She mechanically transfer’s the Ambassador’s line, sends a notification that her CO needs to pick up the comm right the fuck now what the fuck is happening.
Then she takes Uhura off hold. “Uhura, the Ambassador confirmed your story. I don’t,” Sharon laughs shortly, hysteria bubbling up her chest, “I have no clue what’s going on, kid, but I’m pretty sure you do. Where are you getting your information?”
Crackling silence, then, “I share a telepathic bond with one of the colonists.”
“And what’s his name, kid?”
“Jim Kirk.”
Telepathic bond, fuck. How clear is it? “What’s Jim Kirk,” she looks at Val’tk pointedly, “doing right now?” Val’tk moves hurriedly to pull the information up. Fuck if this isn’t either of their jobs, but also fuck if Sharon’s going to foist this off on someone else.
“Running. He’s—they’re running. When he figured it out he grabbed people and they starting running and the guards started shooting and now they’re outside and it’s loud and—”
I put this kid on hold, Sharon thinks. I kicked her off the line, twice. “Okay, Uhura. It’ll be—” alright? no it won’t, fuck, “the Ambassador is talking to Starfleet right now, we’re aware of the situation. Just keep talking to me, okay? Can you do that, Uhura?”
“...yes. Yes, I can do that, Lieutenant.”
—
Chris blinks at the sight of that crazy Russian genius kid everyone keeps going on about waving his hands in Spock’s face yelling about math.
And then raises his eyebrows when Spock starts clearly arguing back, with more agitation in his movements than Chris has ever seen before, even that one time they got into it with the Tellarite delegation on that one planet.
Huh. Now that he thinks about it, they’re about the same age, even though Spock seems so much older in Chris’s head.
“Lieutenant Commander Spock,” he calls out, stepping forward to insert himself into the conversation, just because he’s curious.
Spock immediately straightens and pulls out of whatever staring contest he’d been in. “Yes, Captain.” He salutes, picture perfect, while the Russian kid is still pulling himself out of whatever fugue math-rage he’s in.
“At ease.” Chris nods to the kid. “And who’s this?”
“Oh!” He gets off a salute and immediately starts babbling. “Chekov, sir, Pavel Andreievich. Sorry, sir. We were just arguing about the mass gap and Yang-Mills existence.”
“Of course you were.”
—
Hendorff spend the entire shuttle ride trying not to send angry, confused glances at Uhura. His abdomen is still bruised like a peach from where she planted her foot in his stomach out of nowhere, just because he hit the townie hitting on her.
Yeah, he was buzzed, but she was clearly miles ahead of this asshole. She should be thanking him.
But instead, she and the asshole spend the entire ride sitting next to each other, leaning into the space between them. He’s had classes with Uhura before, last year, and they see each other in passing around campus; not once did she seem like she was...basking in anyone’s presence like she is right now. Even helped him with his fucking seatbelt!
At least the asshole seems just as awed to be sitting next to her, but come on. He calls bullshit.
And then the shuttle lands.
They dock right on campus and the other cadets start unlatching and pouring out the hatch, bleeding off in twos and threes while Captain Pike does final checks before shutdown. Uhura and the asshole practically leap out the door, and Hendorff catches up just in time to see them crash into a group of cadets waiting just outside.
He recognizes them, mostly; the same guys Uhura spends all her time with. Not that Hendorff is keeping tabs, its just that everyone knows who they are. Academy rumor has it they’re either going to run the ‘fleet someday, or burn it to the ground.
All four of them, Uhura, Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov, have the asshole in a death grip, seeming to clutch at whatever part of him and each other they can reach. He feels something like unease run down his spine. Maybe...maybe they know each other?
Fuck, of course they knew each other, you don’t hug a stranger like that. Now the question is how the hell do they know each other.
As he sidesteps them (still basically right in front of the shuttle hatch, like they hadn’t noticed they were in the way and about fifteen different people stopped to gawk) he hears the asshole say, “When does Bones get in? And where the hell is Spock, huh?”
At that point, he mentally throws up his hands and surrenders to the confusion. No fucking way he’ll figure out how a dumb hick from Iowa knows Starfleet’s brightest cadets and Lieutenant Commander Spock before even setting foot on campus.
#nyota uhura#spock#jim kirk#hikaru sulu#montgomery scott#pavel chekov#leonard mccoy#sense8#sense8 au#star trek#star trek au#star trek fic#star trek fanfic#have i watched sense8?? no#also this part doesn't have a ton of...sense8-y stuff?? because outsider pov#outsider pov#fic#fanfic#tarsus iv#long post
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Tim Drake & The Good Samaritan
hi i wrote something on ao3 so here it is
Description: Tim Drake tries to kill himself, whenever a therapist just so happens to stumble upon him. Tim opens up to her and realizes that maybe he's worth more than he thinks.
Warning: Suicide attempt, depression
dedicating this to @super-sons-a-bitches bc what a supportive mutual
_
He was done.
Tim Drake was done.
He'd known for a while what was true and what was not. Was he a good son? Not true. Was he simply a placeholder between Jason and Damian? True. Did anybody truly love him? Not true. Was he simply a burden? True.
Did he deserve to be alive? Definitely not true.
Tonight had been the last straw.
It had been him, Damian and Dick. They were going to bust a human trafficking operation. Tim had been paying attention, he would swear that up and down, but it wasn't enough. He had accidentally kicked a rock, and the traffickers noticed right as they started to pull into Gotham Harbor. With a yell of several crew members, the ship turned back around, into the open sea.
Where the brothers could not get them.
Damian was furious. "You incompetent fice!" he had snarled, "We almost had them! We were going to save fifty women and children, Drake, fifty!"
"You should've been more careful," Dick added, his arms crossed, "You scared them off." Dick never scolded like this. He only did it whenever he was truly upset.
And it was Tim's fault.
"I'm sorry!" he said, Dick clenched his jaw.
"Go home, Red Robin," he ordered. Tim stepped back.
"Good riddance, we'll be much better off without you, Drake," Damian sneered.
We'll be much better off without you.
Those were the words ringing in Tim's ears as he swung from building to building. The wind was whistling through his hair, and usually, it invigorated Tim.
But not tonight.
Tonight, it just reminded him of what he didn't deserve.
All he did was mess things up. He'd messed things up with Stephanie. He'd messed up not only this mission but countless missions beforehand. He'd even messed up his goddamn immune system, now that he didn't have a spleen.
Tim knew he wasn't enough. He wasn't enough to make his father, Jack Drake, proud of him. He wasn't enough to make his other father, Bruce Wayne, proud of him either. He wasn't good enough to be Robin, either. Dick had made that clear whenever he'd ripped the title away from him as soon as he laid eyes on Damian, even after he had tried to kill Tim.
Dick probably wished that Damian had succeeded, Tim thought, because Dick would have his Robin, and nobody would have to deal with Tim.
Tim decided at that moment that he was going to take it upon himself to finish what Damian hadn't been able to do.
He was going to kill himself.
Tim landed on the roof of an apartment building. He took out his earpiece, which doubled as a tracking device, throwing it on the ground and stomping on it. If he was going to die, he at least wanted to do it without Damian's voice in his ear.
How to do it? Tim thought. He knew some heroes kept cyanide pills on them in case they were ever captured, but Bruce had refused to allow that. Tim could jump off of the roof, but he was worried that he'd lose his nerve and grapple to safety before he could reach the ground.
There was only one way that he could think of.
Tim pulled off his gloves one at a time, letting them land on the ground. He took a Batarang, razor-sharp, out of his utility belt, and held it to his wrist. He took a deep breath, excited. He would finally be free. He would be free from the pain, from the knowledge that he was worthless. Better yet, his family would be free of him.
We'll be much better off without you.
With a small smile, Tim started to slide the blade across his wris-
"No!"
Tim whirled around, now poised to throw the Batarang. Hey, just because Tim was going to die, didn't mean he was going to let someone else die first. His eyes slid around the rooftop, looking for danger, but he only saw a woman.
She looked to be around Bruce's age, but there was something about her that was completely different than Bruce; her eyes had feeling in them.
"Please don't do it, Red Robin," the woman urged, "Please. Please stay."
"No," Tim replied stiffly. The woman took a deep breath.
"Okay," she said slowly, "But will you please have a cup of tea with me first? It isn't every day I get to meet a hero.
A hero. She thought he was a hero.
But she was wrong.
Before he could stop himself, he had thrown himself in her arms. She wrapped them around him, holding him tightly.
Tim gripped the lady's shoulders as hard as he dared- God, he didn't even know her name and he was crying on her shoulder -as she ran her fingers through his hair.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked gently. Tim shakes his head, choking back another sob.
"I don't want to think about it anymore," he croaked. The woman nodded.
"Okay," she said, "Then are you any good at geometry?"
Tim sniffed, then replied, "Yeah." The woman smiled.
"Would you mind helping my son, then? He's a freshman at Southwest High, and he's having trouble with his homework right now. And I think you could really help him."
You could really help him.
Tim nodded, shakily stepping back from the woman. She smiled warmly, grasping his hand as she led him off of the roof and down the stairs. "My name's Emira," she introduced herself, "But you can call me Emma. All of my friends do."
Friend.
"My name's-" he broke off, unsure of what he should say. Emma seemed to understand his hesitation.
"You don't have to tell me your real name," she assured him, "How about I call you Red?" Tim smiled weakly, and Emma took that to mean he agreed. "Alright, Red, here's the door." she fished a key out of her pocket, and opened the door to her apartment, Tim following.
The first thing he noticed was the Cross. There was a portrait of Jesus Christ on the Cross sitting above their table.
The table which had a young boy, around Damian's age, sitting at it, his brows scrunched in concentration.
"Hey, Danny!" Emma said, flashing her son a brilliant smile, "I found you a tutor!"
"Mom, I don't need a-" Danny stopped talking as he turned around, his jaw dropped. "Red Robin!?" he squeaked, "You're my favorite hero! And you're in my house!" he jumped up, smiling so wide it was almost unsettling, "You're the coolest! Holy crap!"
You're the coolest.
"Hi, Danny!" Tim greeted, putting on the smile he used for paparazzi. "It's nice to meet you! So your mom says you need help with geometry?"
It took ten minutes, but Emma and Tim finally wrangled Danny to the table, where Tim was now helping him.
"See, you just gotta remember SohCahToa," Tim explained, "It's the easiest way to remember sine, cosine, and tangent."
Danny stuck his tongue out slightly in a way that reminded him of Damian. Tim's heart sank at the realization, all of his positive feelings sank with it.
We'll be much better off without you.
"Thanks, Red Robin!" Danny said excitedly after he'd finished his assignment and Tim had double-checked it, making sure that all of the answers were correct.
"Okay, Danny," Emma spoke up from where she'd been silently watching the two, "It's eleven. Time for bed."
"But Mom Red Robin is here-"
"You know what else is here? A big test tomorrow. You need your sleep."
Danny sighed, before looking at Tim and fishing his phone out of his pocket. "Do you mind if we take a picture? My friends will never believe I met the coolest of the Bat People!"
The coolest of the Bat People.
"Of course, Danny!" Tim replied, ruffling the kid's hair. After five minutes of multiple selfies on Snapchat, Danny gave Tim a hug, which Tim returned without hesitation.
"Goodnight!" Danny chirped and walked to what Tim presumed to be his bedroom.
After hearing the door shut, Emma turned to the hero. "Now, how do you like your tea?"
"Earl Gray, please."
As Emma set the kettle on the stove, she turned back to Tim. "He adores you," she said, referring to her son, "He wasn't lying. You mean so much to him."
You mean so much to him.
Tim sighed, putting his head in his hands. "Yeah, well, he's the only one then," he muttered. Emma waited for him to continue, and when he didn't, she spoke.
"I'm a therapist, you know," she stated, "So I can't tell anybody anything you say. HIPPA violation, jail time, huge fine and all that."
"This isn't an official session, so it doesn't apply."
Emma shrugged. "Maybe not legally, but if anybody gets wind of me telling anybody anything someone tells me in confidence, my clients will stop trusting me and stop coming, So my point's still there."
Tim bit his lip, looking up. This woman didn't know who he was, and judging from the average apartment, she had no connections to Bruce, which meant she wouldn't tell him- not that he'd care, of course, but still. Besides, it isn't like he'd ever see her again. "Maybe... maybe it wouldn't hurt."
Emma smiled warmly. "I promise, it won't," she turned back to the kettle as it whistled, and she poured the tea into two cups. Walking over to the table, she handed one to Tim, before sitting down herself. "Can I ask what led up to tonight?"
Tim looked down at his tea, not meeting her eyes. "I messed up bad tonight," he whispered, "Real bad."
"What do you think you did?"
"I-" Tim swallowed a gulp, "Nightwing and Robin and I were going to bust a human trafficking ring. Their ship was about to pull into the harbor, but I wasn't being careful enough. I knew they had motion detectors around the area, but I still wasn't paying attention enough not to kick a rock," He ran a hand through his hair, "And of course they saw, and they got away. And it was my fault."
"Who told you that it was your fault?"
"Nightwing and Robin."
Emma reached across the table to clasp his left hand in her right. "Tell me, Red, has Nightwing or Robin ever messed up a mission?"
Tim paused. There was one time where Dick was arguing with Jason, and Dick pushed Jason into the warehouse they were staking out, ruining any chance at catching a serial rapist for months. And then there was the time where Damian had been too hasty and let a serial killer get away because he refused to listen for Nightwing's signal. "Yeah, a few times," Tim finally said.
"See?" Emma said with another one of her warm smiles, "They aren't perfect either. So why do you have to be?"
They aren't perfect either.
"Because!" Tim groaned, "Batman chose them. He wanted them to be apart of the hero business. Me? I forced him to make me Robin. Nobody chose me. I wasn't wanted!"
"How old were you when you became Robin?"
"Like, eleven."
"Do you honestly think that Batman couldn't have simply wiped an eleven-year old's brain and sent him home if he didn't see something special in you?"
See something special in you.
Tim took a sip of his tea. "I... I guess not. But still! The Robin before me had just... quit. Batman probably just used me as a distraction from the pain of it. I was just a placeholder."
Emma took a sip of her own tea, thinking. "A placeholder? Because there's a new Robin?"
"Yes," Tim confirmed, "Exactly. I was Robin for a while, but as soon as Batman and Nightwing found someone else who had already been trained, who was Batman's... nephew," he paused, "They got rid of me! They made me stop being Robin! Nightwing retired, the other one quit, but me? I didn't have a choice!"
"And why do you think that-"
"And the worst part!?" Tim interrupted her, "This new kid? He tried to kill me! He had a sword and he was trying to kill me because he thought he deserved the title just because he was Batman's nephew! And he never got in trouble for it! They rewarded him with what he wanted!" he stopped nervously. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you." Emma waved her hand dismissively.
"Don't worry about it," she paused she took a sip of her tea, "Do you think there could be any possible reason as to why they made him Robin?"
Tim snorted. "Yeah, I know exactly why. They liked him better than me. He was better than me at fighting. He wasn't as scared as I was at first," he laughed bitterly, "Honestly, Emma? I think the reason they rewarded him was because he had the guts to do what the others were too apprehensive to do; get rid of me."
"Can I tell you what I think might have had something to do with it?" Emma asked, and Tim nodded his permission. "It sounds like this new Robin has a lot of rage. Do you think that maybe Batman and Nightwing knew that he needed an outlet for that and that the safest way to do that might be if they could keep an eye on him?"
"I... guess," Tim admitted begrudgingly, "But still! They didn't punish him or anything!"
"How are you so sure? Did you see what happened after?"
Tim bit his lip again. "I mean, not really? I left whenever Nightwing told me I couldn't be Robin anymore." he shook his head. "Even if maybe Nightwing didn't see any other way, that doesn't explain why they treat me like shit now."
"How so?" Emma asked, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze.
"Like, I'll be gone on a mission for weeks and when I get back, they hadn't even noticed I was gone!" Tim counted off the reasons on his fingers, "Or when it's clear I'm upset, nobody bothers to ask! And nobody ever reprimands Robin for all the terrible things to me! And all Batman does it tell me what I do wrong!"
"What things does Robin say to you?"
"Oh, you know," Tim rolled his eyes, "That I'm useless. That I'm slow. I’m abysmal. Just today, like an hour ago, he said that everyone would be better off if I was gone. I hate that he has this much power over me, but his words won't leave my head; we'll be much better off without you."
"Well, I can tell you right now that Danny wouldn't be," Emma said, "Because if he had failed that assignment, he would've gotten detention, and I wouldn't have time to pick up his new inhaler."
"Danny has asthma?" Tim asked with a frown. Emma nodded.
"Yes, but it's okay now because I'll be able to get the medicine. Now, back to you. Do you think that the reason Robin is so mean to you is that he's insecure?"
"Robin? Insecure?" Tim snorted, "As if. He's the most arrogant person I know."
"The most insecure people are almost always the most arrogant. Is there anything he would have to be insecure about? Maybe that... he's intimidated by you?"
That made Tim laugh out loud. Damian? Intimidated by Tim? Never. "Definitely not."
"Are you sure? Because it sounds like he just wants to prove that he's just as good as you," Emma countered, "Or maybe- not saying that it's your fault because you definitely don't deserve to be treated like that-"
You don't deserve to be treated like that.
"Maybe you haven't tried to show him that you don't want to be enemies?"
Tim took a sip of his tea. "I mean, yeah, I don't want our relationship to be like this. I'd love to be close to him. I was so excited when I first heard about him- before I met him, obviously -because I was finally getting a younger brother."
"Have you ever let him know that?"
"I guess not," Tim said with a frown, "But it doesn't really matter. He won't care. None of them will, even if they did know I'm hurting."
"Why don't you try?" Emma offered, "It couldn't hurt, right?"
"Yeah, except then they'll think I'm even weaker than they thought. They'll think I'm pathetic, and then Batman will make me stop being Red Robin, too." His grip around his cup tightened. "And then they'd kick me out. And I live with Batman, Emma. I don't have a place to go."
"You could come here," Emma offered, "I really don't think they'd kick you out, but if you're right, you are absolutely welcome here. I promise. You're wonderful company, Red."
You're wonderful company.
Tim sighed. "Thanks, that means a lot, but you don't have to lie," his bottom lip trembled, "I know I'm worthless. I don't matter. All I do is screw up."
The pair were silent for a minute, the only noise being Tim's tears falling into his cup of tea. Emma was the first one to break the silence.
"Say, do you happen to be the first Robin that wore pants?"
Tim sniffled. "Yeah." Emma's face broke into another warm smile.
"Well, that Robin saved my life. Two men were dragging me into an alley, whenever you stopped them. Without Batman, I might add."
Tim blinked. "Without Batman?" he whispered.
Emma nodded. "Without Batman. All on your own, Red. If it weren't for you, I'd probably be dead, and Danny would be an orphan."
Tim smiled weakly. "It wasn't a problem, really."
"I know it wasn't, because that's what you do. You save people," she gave him another reassuring squeeze. "Now, Red, have you ever been in a position where Batman or Nightwing saved you?"
That's what you do. You save people.
"Yeah," Tim answered, once again not meeting her eyes, "I was locked in a warehouse. A bomb was strapped to me, about to go off. Batman came in and- and I've never seen him like that. So... a mess," he paused, "I haven't thought about that in a while. I guess that means he cares."
"That definitely means he cares," Emma corrected him. Tim smiled, but it was replaced by a frown as he began to sob again.
"Maybe he did then, but now- now he has his new Robin. He doesn't care, none of them do," he blinked back tears, "I don't have anything to look forward to. My days are filled with insults and complaints. There's nothing good." His hands shaking, he took another sip of his Earl Gray.
"Then look forward to this," Emma said, "Every week. Eat dinner with Danny and I, and then when he goes to bed we can drink tea and talk some. And if you ever, and I mean ever, need a place to crash, you can always come here."
If Tim thought he'd run out of tears before, he was wrong. He started crying again. Nobody had been so nice, so warm to him, in years.
Emma got up and enveloped him in another hug. "Will you promise me something, Red?" she whispered, and at Tim's nod, she continued. "Promise me you'll tell your family how you feel, okay? And promise me you'll come back and tell me next week. And if you need something from me between then and now, promise me that you'll come, okay?"
"I promise," Tim agreed, sobbing into her shirt.
The next thirty minutes were spent with Tim wrapped up in Emma's arm, still in full Red Robin uniform minus the gloves, watching Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Tim hadn't been so at peace in as long as he could remember. His mom had always been distant, and Catwoman wasn't exactly a mother figure, so honestly? Being curled up in Emma was the closest he'd ever gotten to feeling a mother's love.
He would go back to the Manor after the movie, he told himself. He would tell them how he felt. He would try to mend his relationship with Damian. But first, he was going to soak in the feeling of a mother's embrace.
He was still nervous about it, but little did he know. Little did he know that Dick would break down crying and hug him, whispering apology after apology into his ear. Little did he know that Bruce would be riddled with guilt because how could he not have noticed that his son was hurting and would tell him he loved him so much. Little did he know that Damian, although he didn't show how much he regretted his harsh words, would shake Tim's hand and agree to try. Little did he know that every Thursday after he would have dinner and tea with Emma and Danny, to the point that he would reveal his secret identity to the family and make sure that Danny was enrolled at Gotham Academy. Little did he know that it wouldn't take long for Emma to start seeing him as another son, and she would not be scared to tell him how much she loved him and how proud of him she was.
Tim would find out these things later. But for now?
Tim just let himself sink into a mother's embrace.
#in honor of mental health awareness month#tim drake#depressed tim drake#red robin#damian wayne#robin#jason todd#red hood#dick grayson#nightwing#batfam#batfamily fanfic#tim drake fanfic#tim drake needs therapy#sucide tw#damian's a shit but we still love him#depressed! tim drake
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A Soul to Mend His Own | Ch. 18
Warning, if it hasn’t been obvious in the movies there is Nazi symbolism within the First Order. I will expand on this much more throughout the story. If this is something that bothers you, please just exit the story. The author does not condone any Nazi ideals, this is just for fictional uses only.
A Kylo Ren x Modern! Reader in a soulmate au with some canon divergence. —————————————SLOWBURN————————————–
He is already the Supreme leader, searching the universe to find you, his Empress. Your name on his wrist has been the only constant in his life, while you have doubts about his existence and his acceptance of you. He isn’t in the database and why did the name Kylo Ren cover Ben Solo?
MASTERLIST
Chapter 18: Before the Committee
You woke up early to your alarm. Pausing before getting up you relived the events of the last two days. It was a whirlwind, and you wondered if it was always going to be like this. Shaking your head you got out of bed and ready for the day. You wore one of your work ‘uniforms’ as you deemed them more appropriate for the meetings you had ahead of yourself today. You also decided that you should put on some light makeup, as to make a good impression that you took good care in self-grooming.
When you were finished getting ready you grabbed your phone and started to head out of your room. You noticed that Kylo was not in his room, you entered the living room and Lieutenant Mitaka was there once again.
“Good morning m’lady,” said the lieutenant.
“Good morning lieutenant have you eaten this morning,” you ask while walking to the dining room.
“Yes, ma’am,” replied the short man.
“Well can I order you a cup of coffee or tea? And I am assuming you have been assigned to me again this morning,” you asked.
“I have been assigned to be your personal assistant of sorts, by the Supreme Leader. And a cup of tea would be most appreciated,” you could see relief cross his face. You reminded yourself that the Kylo that you see is not the Supreme Leader everyone else deals with.
You ordered from your phone for the first time. Unlike Kylo’s data pad there seemed to be a long list of Earth foods, and there seemed to be a list of your favorite foods in the favorites tab. How Kylo was able to do this you didn’t know, but you were too nervous to ask him.
The droid arrived in a matter of three minutes before you were really able to ask the Lieutenant anything. But you enjoyed your breakfast and the Mitaka thanked you for the tea.
“I know I have to be at the Health Committee by around 10. I know I need to arrange for transport. If I could I would like materials sent to me on my phone, about what the First Order’s current health policies are,” as you were saying this Mitaka was typing on his data pad.
“I will have everything sent to you. I can arrange for transport at 0800 hours this morning. I have been informed that the Finalizer’s chief medical officer would like to meet with you before the meeting. He would like you to debrief him on what you and the Supreme Leader have discussed on the subject,” said the lieutenant. You received a notification on your phone informing you that the First Order health regulations documents have been delivered.
You thanked the lieutenant and saw that the time was only 7 AM. You walked into your room and took out your work tote. You pulled out a notebook and pen and walked back to the living room. You started to make notes on what you were reading.
Several manuals, the biggest being 'Field Hygiene and Sanitation.’ This seemed very obvious to you. The purpose of the command, which person is responsible for what in terms of their own health. The individual is first and foremost responsible for their own health, then their immediate commander, then the medical/dental officer, then upper chains of command.
The manual went over personal cleanliness, care of the mouth and teeth, care of the feet, food, and drink, exercise, rest and recreation, protection against the elements, protection against disease-carrying insects, avoidance of the sources of disease, special protective measures, cultivation of a healthy mind, and finally rules for avoiding illness in the field. Many of these things could be translated into civilian life and so you made proper notes on this.
You glanced at the time seeing it was 7:45 by the time you were done making these notes. You decided that you should brainstorm some marketing tactics for this health regime. You made a more encompassing list that you previously stated the day before; Posters, pamphlets, video, radio, press releases, and large advertisements.
“Ma’am we should head to the hangar to depart for your meeting,” said the lieutenant.
You nodded and packed up your things. You followed the lieutenant to the hangar to which you saw the command shuttle and Commander Pyre once more.
“Everything is ready for your departure my lady,” said the gold plated commander.
You climbed aboard the ship and everyone strapped in for take-off.
“Tell me commander, am I to expect you to escort me every time I leave the ship,” you ask.
“Yes, ma’am unless Captain Phasma or the Supreme Leader is here. I have been put in charge of your immediate safety otherwise. General Pryde will meet us with the Finalizer’s chief medical officer. Pryde is also in charge of your safety and your movements,” responded the commander.
You thanked him and thought about what he said, that General Pryde was in charge of your movements. Why did you need to be watched or guarded so heavily? You shook that thought from your head as you received a ding from your phone.
There was a notification from the First Order messaging center. You opened it seeing a message from Kylo, ‘Good morning. I will be in strategic meetings all morning but I would like to join you for a late lunch.’
You responded, ‘Good morning to you too. That sounds perfect, I have no idea how long the Health Committee meeting will go, but I will notify you when we are done or at recess.’
The ship landed and you were greeted by the gray-haired general and an equally gray-haired medical officer.
“Hello, my lady. My name is Dr. Crale Koroban I am the chief medical officer aboard the Finalizer. You and I will be working together on the Health Committee as assigned by the Supreme Leader,” said the medical officer. He bowed slightly when introducing himself with his hands resigned behind his back.
“Hello, Dr. Koroban. I was informed that you were wanting to meet with me before the official committee meeting. Why is this,” you ask. You were now all moving into the White House to a conference room similar to the one you were in yesterday.
“Yes. You have some background and first-hand knowledge as to the health and hygiene of your planet. I was also informed that you were quite frank when you recalled the health of many of the countries. It is this honesty that I need before we meet with the health officials from your planet. The First Order cannot afford a large unhealthy population on your planet,” said the doctor.
“What would you like to know,” you ask. The general had taken a seat on the other side of the table, whereas the doctor sat near you as did the lieutenant with the commander guarding the door.
“I know that many of your third world countries do not have access to proper hygiene facilities let alone water. They have no way of properly cleaning themselves nor do they have proper health care, this is not my initial concern. They are easier to rectify. Your ‘first world’ countries, on the other hand, seem reluctant to want to improve their hygiene and health as they view themselves to be clean and healthy when in fact they are not,” responded the doctor. “What I would like to know is what you know and have observed as a ‘first world’ citizen on the health practices of your class. It is obvious that civilians have not been keeping things up to standard and we need to rectify this.”
You thought for a few moments about what the doctor said, “Like you said, we believe we are clean when in fact we are not. It is sad when the Center for Disease Control needs to remind us constantly during flu season or during any disease outbreak that we need to wash our hands, avoid touching our face and to not share food and drink with others. Many adults fail to wash their hands after using the restroom, but they always make sure to scold children if they forget. One of the officers gave a really accurate statistic about it and honestly, it didn’t shock me. We also don’t tend to stay home when we are sick, like we are supposed to because we tend to be workaholics. During outbreaks, people fear things but don’t really change their habits.”
The doctor nodded to you and was taking notes on the data pad you didn’t notice he had until now. “Reminding people is part of their job, but I see your point. Personal hygiene is step number one in preventing the spread of disease.”
“I also know there has been a rise in people against vaccinations, they fear side effects that have been disproven by medical professionals. There are also people seeking out home remedies for things that can only be cured or treated by a doctor. I am not talking about the occasional headache or stomachache, I am talking about skin rashes, diseases, and even cancer. Not that I am opposed to being prescribed rest, fluids and a healthy diet but there are some things only a medical professional can effectively treat. In third world countries, people will walk for miles to receive medicine, vaccines, and the ability to clean themselves, but in ‘first world’ countries we seem to deny these things as a privilege. It can be very frustrating.”
This time the doctor took more time taking notes and seemed to think a bit more before responding, “I agree with you. Your planet seems to have shifting parallels when it comes to health and hygiene. Your input on this is very valuable to me. We will be meeting with the others soon, but tell me who the three officials you have chosen are.”
You did not remember choosing anyone, you had simply mentioned that it may be best to include someone from the CDC, the WHO, and the Surgeon General. This may be what the doctor is asking.
“While I never directly chose anyone I merely suggested that we have some of the most respected health officials in the room,” you said.
At this point the lieutenant spoke up, “we have the director of the CDC and the director from the WHO coming along with the Surgeon General.”
“Explain to me why you chose the CDC and the WHO,” asked the doctor.
“The CDC is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention here in the U.S. they help set medical standards and are a resource many people trust. The WHO or the World Health Organization does the same thing but worldwide. The Surgeon General is one of the top public health officials in the world. They are chosen by the president of the united states and have significant experience in public health programs. I chose these three because they care for health and not for maintaining public appearances as to how clean we really are. They would like for the world to have high standards and health practices, unlike the politicians who like to refuse the truth about how unhygienic we really are.”
The doctor nodded at this response and seemed to be in deep thought for a moment. “If these are people whom your world trusts than it is of utmost importance that we get them to agree to First Order health practices. Dr. Xero Dabrini will be assisting me in this committee along with a handful of other First Order doctors and nurses. I hope to look to you for help with any mediation that may need to happen between us and these health officials. Note that the First Order wants healthy and hygienic citizens. We want to be able to provide the health care necessary for this to happen.”
You nodded and agreed with the doctor. The First Order is a military. They need healthy soldiers and citizens. You knew Kylo was counting on you to assist the doctor in this committee and you did not want to disappoint him you were ready for this meeting. The first meeting that you would handle on your own, helping him with the First Order.
A/N: Note that this is a PSA from the Author: WASH YOUR HANDS, AVOID TOUCHING YOUR FACE, STAY HOME IF YOU ARE SICK, AND GET PLENTY OF REST AND FLUIDS. The COVID-19 is going around and the next few chapters will be centered around health. In my worldbuilding propaganda, there will be useful hygiene and health tips. Heed them if you would like, and stay safe from the virus and listen to the CDC and the WHO.
A PSA from your lovely Author.
#kylo ren#kylo ren x reader#kylo ren imagine#kylo x reader#kylo x you#first order#sw first order imagine#star wars first order#first order propaganda#star wars#star wars imagine#Star wars soulmate au#a soul to mend his own
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Conversations
Chapter 2
Description: You accompany your friends on a day trip to Animal Kingdom Theme Park where you meet Scott Evans by chance. This one afternoon leads to a year long friendship with both Chris and Scott over text messages and phone calls.
Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader
Warning: Cursing
A/N: Here is chapter two! Cast members are what Disney calls its employees. Italics are internal thoughts. Tag list is open, please send an ask if you would like to be added. Likes, comments, and reblogs are wonderful.
Chapter 1
When he added you on Twitter, that was strange enough. You could reason it out that he saw your name spread through the tagged post and he did it on a whim. Or maybe he followed a lot of people. But that one was easily debunked after a quick glance at his profile showed he only followed about three hundred people. Maybe he was just friendly in that way. A quick add here and you’d be unfollowed by Thanksgiving. There was no chance he actually liked you as a person. Right?
You hit reply before you could overthink it more than you already had.
Y/N: I’m not always grumpy, I’ll have you know.
Y/N: Are you guys still on vacation or back home?
When he didn’t immediately reply, you decided to put your phone away and actually go to sleep. You’d be bringing Jana coffee in the morning which meant you actually had to get up before noon.
Your alarm sounded at eight which it hadn’t done in at least a year. Since you worked mainly on assignment, you rarely went into the office until well past noon. Some days you didn’t even go in. You were a night owl, so unless there was a morning meeting you slept in. Living alone also brought less interruptions to your schedule. You’d been in your sleepy vacation style home for the last two years. Your father regularly lectured you on the importance of homeowner ship. Paying rent wasn’t doing anything to build equity. Blah. Blah. Blah. He was only looking out for your future, but between lectures about settling down and having a family, the house stuff pushed you over the top. You still weren’t sure where you wanted to end up, so buying wasn’t on the top of your priority list.
Florida really was a mixed bag. Between the retires that lived in Florida during the winter months, the tourists, the general crazies that you heard about on the national and local news each night, and those like yourself that were just trying to live your life, you never officially settled in. The ocean called to you, but the pricey lifestyle and fear of evacuating each year due to a hurricane did not. Being fifteen minutes from both the Disney and Universal parks would also be nice, but the traffic and long lines at Target were not appealing. You were currently living in a cute two-bedroom home fifteen minutes outside the parks bubble where life was a little more affordable and groceries weren’t inflated. It was still technically a vacation rental, but the owner liked the idea of having a long-term leaser. The fact that it had its own pool that you didn’t have to maintain was just an added bonus. Driving into Orlando wasn’t great, but at least you missed the bulk of rush hour by sleeping in.
You texted Jana to let her know you just pulled in to the parking lot. Balancing your laptop bag, oversized purse, and two coffees through a busy office rotunda wasn’t easy. Thank goodness for stylish flats. If you had to navigate in heels every day, you’d probably never get out of bed. God bless Jana. How she handled it, you had no idea.
The security desk knew you by name, but due to protocol, Jana actually had to sign you in. After exchanging a few good mornings, you set both cups on the desk and waited. Most of the time she was already in the lobby when you walked through the double doors. No doubt this was a form of punishment for not telling her about meeting the two boys from Boston. Not that you looked that up or anything. You totally didn’t Google anything that night when you got home. And she calls you the brat. Ten minutes later her smiling face walks out of the elevator and up to the security desk. She signs you in while you stare her down.
“Let’s go pokey,” she says before turning away from you, leaving you to carry your bags and both of your coffees.
You huff but manage anyway, making it to the waiting elevator she holds open with her hand.
“Did you know Phil’s wife just had another baby?” She shakes her head no. “Yeah, it’s their third. These are things I wouldn’t know if you didn’t take your sweet time signing me in. Coffee’s cold by the way,” you add for good measure.
“I already had some, that’s fine,” she said, one eyebrow pointed daring you to complain.
When the elevator stops on the twelfth floor, Jana gracefully exits on three inch heels, swaying her hips in the tight and posh pencil skirt with matching blazer. You get it. It’s a well-established law firm full of sharks all trying to get ahead. She exudes confidence. There are whispers of her making partner in the next year. At least that’s what Brooks has told you. Jana’s mum on the subject, not wanting to jinx or tempt fate or whatever.
You drop her coffee in the trash bin just outside the elevator doors and hurry after.
“Y/N! Nice to see you gracing us with your presence.”
Jana turns around to see Ethan’s predatory stare. You don’t mind it. Ethan’s a sheep in wolf’s clothing and has been coming on to you for the better part of a year. He’s good looking with his sandy brown hair coiffed in the front and bright green eyes. He’s up for partner as well. You know this because he tells you this at least once a week. He’s harmless and always has a kind word for you.
“Well, good morning to you too. Any word on getting partner yet?” you practically whisper. You have to give him something.
“Soon. It’ll happen.” He looks behind you and then meets your eyes again. “Here by yourself? Come to see me?” he asked.
You gesture behind him. “Nope. Just here to see my bestie.” You move past him, but turn your head to him as you do. “Have a good day, Ethan,” you reply.
Jana enters her office and closes the door after you enter. You take a seat in front of her desk as she walks around to sit behind it.
“Are you ever going to throw him a bone? Not that I want to see you with him, but it’s hard to watch sometimes,” she says picking up her phone, fingers moving quickly before setting it back down.
“Am I here to talk about Ethan? I thought I was here to beg for your forgiveness and tell you what happened,” you asked.
“Grovel first. Ethan next week,” Jana says with a smile. She taps her desk in a ‘speak now’ fashion.
Taking a quick sip of your coffee before setting it on her desk, you take a deep breath and lick your lips.
“Okay, so I found a table at Nomad, which was packed by the way. The sever was apparently pulling double duty as Mickey as she just never showed up. You know me, I was impatient and probably drew attention to myself with excessive eyerolls or whatever.”
Jana mouths “no way.”
“Anyway. Scott Evans was sitting at a couch across the aisle from my table. I didn’t know it was him until later. Apparently, I caught his attention, so he bought us both a drink and sat at my table. We chatted for a while, did a shot, no big deal.” You smirk and shrug a shoulder. Jana’s mouth is hanging open. “He somehow drags me to Everest and because they had a cast member with them, we got ushered right to the front of the line where I end up sitting next to Chris. That’s when I knew who I was with. Had no idea before that because I hadn’t talked to Chris at the bar. I thought that was the end of it until you mentioned the photo of me last night. I still hate that ride by the way.”
You down the rest of your coffee because it’s cold, but damnit if you don’t need the caffeine.
“Well, fuck. Who would ever see that coming? It’s a fun story you can tell at parties or I don’t know, to your best friend,” she said.
“Oh, I planned to tell Brooks at work,” you said with a grin.
“Wow. I’m really hurt,” Jana said while clutching her chest.
“You love me.”
“Hmph. Maybe,” Jana added.
You don’t check your Twitter account again until you get home from work. You don’t even want to utter the word Twitter or have it on your screen in case someone sees it and starts asking how you were able to sit next to a celebrity on a ride. You didn’t think anyone would have seen it anyway. No one outwardly admitted to being a die-hard Chris Evans fan at the Sentinel. At least not in the circles you ran in.
Grabbing yourself a beer from the fridge, you made your way onto your lanai. The weather had just started to become reasonable at night with temps dropping into the mid seventies after dark. Still warm, but comfortable.
Opening your Twitter app, you did indeed have a message from Scott.
Scott: I’m pretty sure you’re always sassy.
Scott: Nope, in Boston for the next week. Left the other night.
Y/N: I Hope you all had a good trip.
I mean really, what do you say to someone you just met?
You took the time to go through your follow requests, deleting every one of them as you had no idea who they were. Most likely they were only adding your because they saw that you were tagged in the picture. On the positive, Jana was smart enough to tag your personal account rather than your work account. Your personal account was one you made up in college and did not include your actual name. As hard as it is to keep your anonymity in this day and age, some things you could still keep private.
Your mail notification lit up on the app again so you clicked into.
Scott: Oh my god she’s alive. That was like a full day for you to respond to me.
Oh boy.
Y/N: Sorry. I’m trying to lay low after my Twitter kind of blew up.
Scott: Yeah, sorry about that. Didn’t see that coming.
Y/N: Not like you released the picture. If anyone is to blame, it’s the tequila.
Scott: It’s always the tequila.
Your new formed friendship continued like that. The two of you messaging each other at odd times of the day and taking several hours to respond to one another. Scott was back in LA, putting a three hour time difference between the two of you. It wasn’t uncommon for you to wake up to see you had a message that came in at three in the morning.
It was just before midnight when you noticed you had a message from Scott.
Scott: It’s been a shit day.
It was only sent about twenty minutes earlier, which was pretty much a record for the two of you in seeing the other’s messages.
Y/N: Do you want to call me?
Crap! Why did I type that? He probably doesn’t want me to have his number. Twitter is one thing. A telephone number is too personal.
You wanted to close the app and get ready for bed, but you were worried that you’d miss a message from Scott in case he did want to talk. Not necessarily on the phone, but in direct messages. You did the only thing that made since, you walked around your house with the phone in your hand and direct messages open. This was your life now. Apparently. If it ever got out that you spent thirty minutes with your phone in your hand while brushing your teeth, combing your hair, removing your makeup, changing into pajama shorts and a tee, and prepping the coffee maker for the morning, you’d blame it on lack of sleep and the neighbor’s dog. When you were about to call it quits and crawl into bed, a message came through.
Scott: What’s your number?
So, we’re doing this.
You replied back with your number and waited. Deciding to crawl into bed in case he didn’t actually call you tonight seemed like a wise choice. The air conditioning was blasting as it always was because you needed to sleep cold, so you pulled your warm flower comforter up to your elbows and waited for a call from your acquaintance that was maybe becoming a friend.
To your surprise your phone did ring with an out of state area code. Answering it on the second ring you heard him sigh when you answered with “Hello, this is Grumpy.”
“Really? I’m the grumpy one tonight, we both can’t be,” he whined out.
“Fine. Fine. Hello, this is Sassy,” you said.
“Better,” he muttered.
“You know, I’m just going to enter you as Grumpy in my phone contacts now,” you said.
“I expect nothing less. You’ll just have to wait to see what I’m adding you as.”
“Why? Are you making a return trip to Florida so soon?” you asked.
“Nah. Maybe Miami, but I’m good on Orlando for a while. Just don’t tell my brother that.”
“And here I was going to invite you to my wedding. One less mouth to feed,” you said, him chuckling at your response. “Was even going to let you get the steak.”
“Wait. Are you really getting married?” He sounded surprised which you weren’t sure how to take.
“Do I not seem the marrying type? I know this friendship is new, but dude.”
“No. No. No. Don’t start that. I just meant that you didn’t mention anyone while we chatted. Just that you were there with friends,” he explained.
“Single as a bird. Wait, that’s not right. Free as a bird?” you laughed out.
“Got it,” he chuckled. “When you do get married, I will be attending.”
“Perfect. You’re back on the short list for steak as your entrée. Now, tell my why you’re having a shit day,” you asked.
Two weeks had passed with you and Scott exchanging short text conversations each day. You took to calling him before you went to bed once or twice a week if you had a funny story to tell him. Eleven at night your time seemed to be the right time to catch each other. Besides, it was nice to head to dreamland with a smile on your face because Scott always had a joke.
Jana picked up on your happier mood after a week.
“What’s going on with you? And don’t say it’s nothing,” she demanded.
Picking up your pint of beer, you took a mouthful of the amber liquid before addressing her.
“So, don’t get mad.” She shook her head, resting one palm on her forehead. “Scott and I have been chatting. He’s become a real friend.”
You knew she wouldn’t be upset about you having a new friend, but you were worried she would be because you hadn’t told her right away. First you didn’t mention meeting the Evans brothers, now you were corresponding with one on the regular.
“Just like that? You meet the guy one time and now you’re friends?” she questioned.
“He DM’d me on Twitter when that ride photo came out and we just started chatting. It’s like how you and I text every day. It’s similar except I don’t see him because he doesn’t live here. It’s just nice to have a new friend,” you said shrugging your shoulders.
She laid her slender arms on the table, resting her chin on her down facing palms. “Does this mean you are replacing me?” she says with her bottom lip jutting out.
“Of course not. Did you not catch that he doesn’t live here?” Some days you couldn’t help but be a huge smartass at the expense of your friends.
Her head slumped forward even more as she let of a groan.
“Babe. You know you’re my one and only. I lub you,” you said with your lips puckering out.
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“Cah’mon, that’s it. Can you put the damn phone down for two minutes?” Chris asked.
Scott shushed him, placing his fingers in front of his lips, but eyes still locked on the phone screen in his other hand. “Give me a second,” he said.
Chris sighed and sat further back against the couch cushion in his living room. His wide stretched legs kicked out further in front of him, hitting the coffee table before pulling his feet back a bit. “Fuck. Ouch,” he muttered to himself.
Scott chuckled to himself as he typed out something before setting the phone on the cushion beside him. “Now, what do you need big brother?”
“I don’t need anything. You just seem to be more involved with your phone than the person your visiting,” he spits out, hand wildly gesturing in front of his chest.
Scott puffs out a laugh and shakes his head. He straightens up a bit and turns his phone face down. “Sorry. Truly. How’ve you been?” he asks.
“How’ve I been? Pfft. Really?” Chris asks.
Scott shakes his head in all seriousness.
“I’m fine. Just bored out of my fahckin’ mind, but fine.” Chris says, running a hand through his hair before brushing it back down. “Look, I know I said I wanted a break before starting up another project, but I just thought I’d have more goin’ on. Seems like everyone’s so busy all of a sudden. I can only get drinks with Frankie so many times before I want to check into rehab,” he said.
Scott laughed at his brother’s tantrum. “I get it. Wish I was around more. Maybe go back to Mass. Or go to Disney! M’sure I could get Y/N to meet you at Magic Kingdom,” he said.
Chris tilted his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “Who?” he asked.
“Y/N,” Scott said matter-of-factly. When the confusion didn’t wipe off Chris’ face, he closed his eyes and shook his head. “Y/N! The woman that you sat next to on Everest. The one in the ride photo.”
Realization struck Chris. “Excuse me. I didn’t remember her name,” he said.
“Ouch. I’ll have to remember not to tell her that,” he said picking up his phone to see a new message from you.
“What do you mean?” Chris asked.
Scott set his phone back down, turning his body to face Chris head on. “Huh?”
“You said you wouldn’t tell her that I didn’t remember her name,” Chris said.
Scott shrugged one shoulder, lifting up one hand in the process before plopping it back on his knee. “Yeah?”
“Wait a minute. Are you still talkin’ to her? How?” Chris asked, eyebrows furrowed.
“That picture. She got tagged in it and I happened to see it. Messaged her on there and now we talk. She’s frickin’ hilarious.”
Scott grabbed his phone again, scrolling a bit before flashing the screen to Chris. It was a picture of you with a woman next to you who had one of the overly large lollipops in her hand. Your mouth is wide open and your pretending to bite the large candy right out of her hand while she laughs in the picture.
A small smile curls up on Chris’ face but he shakes it away immediately. “Dude, you don’t know her. Ever think she’s just nice to you because of who you are?”
Scott rolls his eyes. “First off punk, she’s not like that. She’s pretty private. She didn’t know who any of us were until after you said your name on the ride. Secondly, she didn’t even ask for a photo nor did she try to keep hanging out with us after riding Everest.” Chris rolled his eyes this time. “Thirdly, I contacted her, not the other way around. And lastly, she’s a friend now, so just deal with it.”
Scott was right. You hadn’t behaved like most others would have.
“Fine. Whatever,” Chris said. “You can be friends with whoever you like.”
“Thanks, dad,” Scott said lamely. “Anyway, like I said, she’s great. Her Twitter blew up after that picture. She did a good job of locking her account down and ignoring comments. It’s hard to be pictured with the likes of you.” Chris chuckled and shook his head. “Smart that her handle isn’t actually her name. Crappy that her friend tagged her, but at least she didn’t tag her work one. Like I said, she’s a pretty private person, so she didn’t like the attention.”
Chris nodded his head. “Yeah. Glad it wasn’t worse for her. Think I should apologize?”
It was Scott’s turn to be shocked. His head whipping back and forth a couple of times eyeing his brother. “Okaaay. Not your fault, but maybe don’t add her on Twitter. That’ll just draw more attention. If you’re serious, I’ll give you her number,” Scott said.
“You know what? Never mind. Just tell her sorry for me.” Chris slapped his hands down on his jean clad legs before getting up and walking into the kitchen.
“Too late,” Scott called out. “I just texted you her number. Do what you want.”
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The Jonas Brothers’ concert was tomorrow night, so you were doing your best to get stuff done at the paper before heading home. You planned to sleep in extra late and get some errands done before heading to the venue. Your press pass got you into some reserved places at concerts, but it didn’t get you an interview. While you had been writing and covering entertainment for years, you were mostly known for theme park and tourism coverage in Florida. So, yes you could always land an interview with a Disney Parks or Universal Studios park executive, but other doors in entertainment weren’t flying open.
Grabbing your purse and zip file, you shut down your computer and pushed in your chair. Your phone dinged with a text message. It was probably Jana asking you to get her a t-shirt at the concert tomorrow. Fancy attorney or not, your friend loved a concert tee.
Once you arrived home, you put a frozen meal in the microwave and changed into a pair of sweats and a comfy t-shirt. Grabbing your phone out of your bag, you took a seat sat at your kitchen bar top to wait for your meal to be done. Opening your texts, you saw a new one from an unknown number.
Unknown Number: Hey Y/N, this is Chris. Scott gave me your number.
Unknown Number: Evans
Unknow Number: Should have typed that the first time. Just wanted to say I’m sorry that ride photo got out.
You dropped your phone out of your hand. It hit the quartz countertop hard which jolted you out of your daze.
“What?!” you yelled into your empty home.
It was crazy enough when Scott messaged you, but the fact that the two of you had drank together made this whole friendship make a tiny bit of sense. But Chris now? This was just not real. And it made you feel weird. On one hand it was nice that he reached out even though it wasn’t his fault at all. One the other hand, was this it? The one text and then you move on?
The microwave beeped at your harshly indicating your meal was done. Leaving your phone on the countertop, you moved to grab your food, picking up the hot plate with a potholder. You made your way into the living room, setting the potholder and plate on your lap. You picked up the remote for the TV, flipping through the channels and settling on The Golden Girls. Maybe a little Rose and Dorothy banter could settle your mind.
This was silly. You were going to text him back. Of course, you were going to text him back. You weren’t a rude person. This whole exchange didn’t have to mean anything. This would be a one and done conversation and to Chris you would go on being nothing more than Scott’s friend.
After scarfing down your cheese ravioli, you made your way back to the kitchen to clean up. You eyed the phone on the counter where you left it. You quickly scooped it up and plopped yourself back on the couch, opening Chris’ text again before you could change your mind.
Y/N: Thank you for reaching out, but that photo getting released was not your fault at all. I appreciate the gesture though.
You threw your head back against your couch cushion and groaned. Why am I responding like it’s a work e-mail?
You shot Jana a text to get your mind off of the message you just sent Chris.
Y/N: What size Jonas Brothers shirt am I picking up for you?
Your phone buzzed in your hand before you even had the chance to set it down, but it wasn’t Jana responding. Clicking the back arrow, you saw that Chris had responded.
Wait, he responded? Already? And at all?
Chris: I still feel bad that you were dragged into it.
Chris: Hope I’m not interrupting a Friday night out.
You chewed your bottom lip, trying to think of how to respond. Should you tell the truth that your life is pretty lame and you’re watching The Golden Girls? Did Scott talk about you to Chris? Maybe it was best not to lie.
Y/N: Just hanging out with my friends Dorothy, Blanche, and Rose.
Y/N: You’re actually saving me from another long drawn out story about Rose’s hometown of St. Olaf Minnesota.
Chris: I’m surprised your friend Blanche is home on a Friday night.
Y/N: Oh, you know Blanche? Is this going to become awkward?
Chris: 😂😂😂
Chapter 3
Tag list: @mustangshelby04 @bellaireland1981 @carolina-thiell @sullyosully @straightforwardly @torntaltos @denise1605 @mcuclintasha @southerngracela @iam-cj @trynnabemultifandom @chrisevansforever-blog @kelbabyblue @broadwayandnetflix @kyjey @thevelvetseries @i-just-feel-like @daddieslittlefangirl @stankface @denisemarieangelina @im-not-an-armrest-im-short @whymalu @the-doctors-fallen-angel @mariswritingforfun @tessabb7 @hista-girl @tanelle83 @pinknerdpanda @allaboutthebooz @estillion14 @panicfob @patzammit @heartislubbingdubbing @collinsstanharbour @twittytelly @thefandomzoneisdangerous @linki-locks11 @mywinterwolf @ab-baybay @rda1989 @impalaimages @jesseswartzwelder @rainbowkisses31
#chris evans#chris evans x reader#chris evans fan fiction#chris evans fanfiction#chris evans imagine#chris evans au#chris evans x you#chris evans x y/n#conversations
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Fight or Flight, Rider [4]
Poe Dameron X Pilot!Reader
A/N: MEET THE SILVER SQUADRON PEOPLE! My babies, my pet project, my post precious creation! - Nemo
Summary: (y/n) has never been so excited - today she gets to meet her Resistance Squadron. She finds they all are rather different, but at the end of the dy they still get the job done.
Series Masterlist
Masterlist
[Gif isn’t mine, t’was a Google find. Credit to it’s creator.]
You and Poe didn’t really talk about what happened last night. As cliche as it sounds, you didn’t need to.
You both decided not to bring it up, not because you were embarrassed or avoiding it, but because it would simply be easier that way. Word spread fast in the Resistance, for better or worse, and that could get anywhere by the end of the day.
Today you weren’t worrying about it though, because today was a big day.
Today you officially met your new Squadron, and today you got to fly with them for the first time.
You were even more excited now than what you were when you raced Poe. Joon, your fellow Nephimmian, stood beside you, shaking his head. Not only was he assigned as one of the Lieutenants of your Squad, but you pulled him out of his bunk at daybreak just to get him to wait around with you for the past hour.
“You’re being too loud,” he said, “You need to calm down.”
“Oh,” you scoffed, “I’ve barely said anything since I greeted you!”
“You think very loudly.”
“Shut up Joon, look they’re coming!” you said, ignoring him as he rolled his eyes, looking over at a crew of pilots headed your way.
A blond man approached your first, holding out his hand for you both to shake as he introduced himself.
“Hey, I’m Commander Gareth Longo, Poe’s told me a little about you two and your venture to help everyone off Creit. Very noble thing for you to do.”
“It wasn’t just us, sir.” Joon said, staying professional as ever, while you rolled on the balls of your feet.
“It’s appreciated just the same Lieutenant. Now let’s introduce you to the others.” Gareth said, turning to the others that came with him.
“That’s Captain Dalyn Menryth,” he said, gesturing to a man with greenish hair, “He’s from Naboo, one of their pilots.”
“One of Naboo’s best pilots, don’t forget!” Dalyn said, catching your eye and sending you a wink.
“Sure. Next to him is Lieutenant Grey Saeth and Cadet Amry, they both came together from Tatooine.” A taller man waved at you with a very wide grin - he seemed as excited as you - and next to him was a much smaller woman - she seemed much less excited.
“We’re a team, Amry and I.” Grey said, pulling Amry to his side as he grinned down at her.
She shot him a smile, before pulling herself away from his side.
“Over there is Lieutenant Lup’ia Tetsuu,” a yellow Twi’lek looked over at you nodding, “She’s a little more of a mechanic than a pilot, but she’s just as useful either way.”
“I’m Cyro Sythen. Cadet. I can introduce myself.” A teal Mirialan stepped forwards, thrusting her hand out to yours. “I heard about you - you almost beat Commander Dameron in a race. You’re cool.” she said as she shook your hand.
You looked back at Joon, smiling.
“You hear that, I’m cool! Sadly, Dameron just happened to beat me by that much.” you said, sucking in a breath through your teeth. “He’s just too good.”
“No such thing Major,” Gareth said, turning his helmet over in his hands, “You can never be too good, only too confident. Now get your ships in the air, let’s get this thing started!”
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“I must say, you all were pretty good. Saw some nice moves out there today.”
Your Squad - the Silver Squadron - had all been out for hours, practicing moves, perfecting comms, and learning how each other flew. More training would be needed, but for a first day you all did rather well, even if you thought so yourself. Poe seemed to agree.
“You can all get out there and do it again tomorrow. Fun, right!” he said, enthusiastic as ever.
Grey was bouncing in his seat across from you - which you could already tell was normal for him - while Lup’ia was stuck in the seat next to him, rather unimpressed at being placed next to the human embodiment of sunshine and optimism.
She wasn’t a people person at all.
At least not until Finn came in. Then she brightened up - ever so slightly.
Joon was by your side, tapping his fingers on his leg as he always did when his superiors were droning on about post-flight checks. While on your other side was Dalyn, he’d practically stuck to you since he got his ship in the air next to yours.
“... And I think that’s about it. You’re just about free to go clean up or whatever.” Poe said, dropping the datapad on the table as he smiled everyone’s way. “See you this time tomorrow.”
“You busy tonight Rider?” Dalyn asked, slinging an arm around the back of your seat. “I know a really cool place just down the hall that serves some of the best food in the base.”
“It’s the only place with food in the base, you fool.” Amry said, as she stood from her seat, leaving promptly after with Grey trailing after her.
“Pfft, sure it ain’t exactly delicacies, but maybe we could snag a table and chat for a bit?”
“No thank you.” You said, shaking your head with a light smile.
“Why,” he asked, suddenly going a little quieter, “You busy?”
“No.” You stood, making your way behind him also. Joon was holding back snickers from his seat, while you were caught between sending sympathetic looks at Dalyn and smirking over at Poe.
“Okay.” he drawled, “So you’re not busy, you just don’t wanna eat with me?”
“Listen, Dalyn, you’re a decent guy, and a hell of a pilot, but you’re also a serial flirt.” You said, letting out a quipped laugh at the knowing smile that reached his face. “The other gals and I in the Squad all pulled together before we came in here. You’re a ‘no’, but if you wanna hang over dinner then that’s cool - I’m sure you have more than your fair share of stories to tell.”
“That’s true!” Dalyn said, practically dismissing you and leaning over the table to speak to Gareth. “Did you know, this scar came from a lady -”
“- Captain, I couldn’t care less.”
“Nonsense, of course you’d wanna know, it’s one great story!”
“Joon,” you leant down to whisper in Joon’s ear, “Let’s scram before we get caught too.”
You’d never seen him get out of a chair quicker.
___________
You’d barely gotten out the hallways when footsteps came after you.
“(y/n)! Jeez, you and Joon are fast walkers.” Poe said, finally catching up to you both. “I was gonna ask you something but now I’ve forgotten what it was.” he huffed, resting his hands on his hips.
“So what, are you gonna stand there and breathe really heavily, or are you gonna walk with us to get some food?”
“I was actually contemplating retracing my steps to see if I could remember my question, but I like the sound of food a little more.”
“Ayee,” you smiled, “I knew we were similar!” With that you went back on your quest to the cafeteria.
It was a decent sized place, although smaller than the one back of Nephimm, but it was cosy and snug like that. You rather liked it. The food even tasted a little better, despite the fact it looked a little less appetizing.
Practically as soon as you were seated, Rey came over and took the spot on your left, while Poe was on your right. Joon was unimpressed at his seat being taken, but decided Finn was probably a less rowdy person to be sat next to anyway.
“Dalyn was trying to pull one move on you back there.” Poe said, smirking at you as he sat sideways facing you in his seat.
“Yeah, well, takes more than a wink and a good-looking smile to get me to do things for you.” You said, looking over at him while stuffing your mouth full of food.
“Did you know you’re a vision when you eat (y/n)?”
“It’s her goal in life, I’m sure.” Cyro said, stepping up to the empty seat next to Joon. “Can I sit?”
“Of course.”
“I’m always a vision, so it doesn’t matter what I’m doing.” you said, holding back a snicker. Poe looked over at you, resting his chin on his hand, and just smiled over at you.
“What is he doing?” Cyro asked Joon, the two of them looking between Poe staring at you and you unceremoniously eating your dinner.
“The common name for it, I think, is called ‘giving her heart-eyes’.” Joon said, looking up at Cyro. “In other words he just really, really likes her.”
“What?” Both you and Poe looked up at the duo across from you, you cast a glance beside you to Rey - she only smiled widely at you - before looking to Poe at your other side.
“You’re not really making it a secret.” Joon said. “At times you’re both as subtle as a shotgun.”
“Harsh.” you said, smiling slightly.
“I’m not sure I’m following?” Poe trailed off, his chin now back to resting on his hand.
“Dameron! The General wants to see you.” An officer said, choosing to call across the hall rather than make his way over to the confused pilot.
“Later. Poe. We’ll explain later.” Finn said, showing he was in fact listening, despite being more invested in eating than you were.So with that Poe upped and left, shooting goodbyes to your group as he went.
“You think it’s serious?” Cryo asked, both her eyes and yours keeping on Poe and the Officer as they left.
“If they want Poe?” Rey said, snickering. “No one can answer that.”
__________
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