#like literally why? ao3 is a safe space. why fuck it up like this
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Oh wow! The commenter from earlier escalated! Folks- here is a perfect example of what NOT to comment on AO3 works :))
#no longer hiding the name bc once you start making threats like that??? you deserve to be exposed#like literally why? ao3 is a safe space. why fuck it up like this#i am so sorry to the people who commented in my defense- yall did not deserve those reply’s#archive of our own#ao3#fandoms#hazbin hotel#radioapple#appleradio#ao3 comments#ao3 community#ao3 things
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32 with Dreamling? 👀
Smut Prompts:
#32: A suffers from pent-up stress and frustration. B offers their body for them to use to get rid of negative emotions.
Edit: Full fic on AO3
Wordcount: 6977 (nice)
Warnings: Canon typical descriptions of violence. Dream being an unhinged little nightmare, but Hob is so down for it. Also, it's a smut prompt. So there is smut. Dicks abound. In typical fashion it took me a while to get to said dicks though. No beta and only the barest editing.
Summary: Service Dom Hob is here to give his bizarre Eldritch boyfriend the tenderest, gentlest domming of his Endles existence. Dream is still going to be a hissing little brat about it. Tbh I waffled a bit on which way to go with this one, but realized that what I really want sometimes is to have Hob scruff Dream like the pissy wet cat that he is and tell him to SHUSH while Dream goes all ragdoll. I also fully embraced a horny headcanon of mine where Dream is more sensitive to physical touch in the Waking.
Shout out to @amahhi, because I picked little bits from our RP here and there for this. What can I say, we got a good Dream and Hob.
Edit 2.0: trying to get the blog unflagged, so the read more has the fic up to the spicy bits. Full fic is in the AO3 link 🙃
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It's been a very normal, mundane, and drab sort of day when Hob comes home at the end of it. There's the standard London drizzle tapping away at his window, transforming the world outside into a melting blur of darkening gray shot through with bright smears from electric street lights coming on one by one.
Electric lights. Brilliant. Literally brilliant. They're all going to pay for it in the long run of course, but fuck is it nice to just come home and flick a switch - like so - to light a room up.
There's a corpse on his sofa.
The corpse is on its back, arms rigid at its side. Its skin has a drained, cold paleness with veins as gray as the current sky. The face is perfectly still and perfectly expressionless, with flat blue eyes open and unseeing towards the ceiling. The startling ghastliness of the corpse is offset by the soft black t-shirt, along with black pajama bottoms decorated with alarmingly cheerful blue stars.
This is also, increasingly, a normal part of his day.
"All right, love?" He asks, shutting the door behind him. The first time he came home to Dream lying out stiff and apparently lifeless in his flat there had been a bit more yelling and panicking, followed by careful explanations about what the unexpected sight of a pale and unmoving body with open, unseeing eyes showing up in a safe and comfortable space can do to someone who has been through a few wars.
It kept happening, which meant Dream did not actually understand. But now Dream always makes an effort to put his form into pajamas first, possibly with the logic that if he were dressed comfortably for sleep, then he couldn’t possibly look like a corpse. Which meant he was trying, even if severely misguided. It's more touching than it should be.
The corpse on the sofa routine all started when they became...whatever they are now. The best explanation Hob ever got was that a chunk of Dream’s duties involve delving into the vast unconsciousness of himself, sinking into the wild depths that were made of every dreaming mind that created him to make sure everything was flowing smoothly.
It was all very metaphysical in all the ways that Hob tries not to think about too much. When he compared it to a computer shutting down for maintenance, he got himself a curdled look of such offended disgust that he knew he was on the money. He compared it to sleep instead, which mollified Dream at the time.
In the past this deeper delving into himself was done from the throne room. Then Dream started showing up in Hob's flat every now and again, refusing to explain why. Hob isn't stupid, so he doesn't ask why after the first few times. Whatever the metaphysics of it, Dream wants to come here and lie on Hob's furniture being vulnerable in the Waking world, despite all his grumblings about said world. Dream may not be able to explain the want for a space outside of work to go to, but Hob gets the difference between grading papers at his office and doing it in his living room. The fact that Dream seeks this space out makes Hob's chest go all fluttery and hot, and he will never question it ever.
It's why he doesn't make a fuss about the fact that Dream hasn't figured out that he looks like a fucking horror movie prop when he does it.
“Obviously.” Dream rumbles in answer. His voice has a deep, slow resonance that's being dragged up from the darkest fathoms. It's a growling sneer, the sharp warning crack of a cliff face about to give. It says that asking things like “all right?” is the most low, simple mindedly human thing Hob could ask, because there is no reason Dream would be otherwise.
“That sort of day then? Budge up.” Hob tosses his coat to the chair, which earns him an annoyed huff of a sound, and shoves a space for himself by Dream's hip, which earns him a growl.
“What. Sort of. Day?” Dream asks darkly. He turns his head, slowly. His movements are always slow when he's coming up from his not-sleep, and Hob is always fascinated by the process. He imagines Dream reeling himself back from wherever he has gone to, a long thread of his consciousness spooling up to refill the shape of his body. The waxy deadness in his skin doesn't exactly liven up, but it becomes more luminous. The stiffness melts from carved stone to…well not relaxed but something with a bit more give to it than stone anyway. The eyes change the most. The empty flatness of them turns into a clear, bright blue. They're flashing with liquid fire when Dream looks up at Hob, even if the rest of him is still an angrily stiff bunch of sharp edges.
“Not a great one, I think.” Hob leans, propping his shoulders on the back of the couch with Dreams waist and arm against the small of his back. Dream turns his head with his jaw clenched, and Hob reaches out, brushing the backs of his curled fingers in the barest caress over the plane of Dreams cheek.
There's a nearly imperceptible tremor in the core of the body he's leaned himself against. The corners of Dreams mouth tightens, and his eyes flare, like that lightest touch has opened a raw nerve.
“Maybe the sort of day I could help you forget?” Hob murmurs. He hasn't decided exactly what he's offering when he offers it. They could just stay here, watching some meaningless picture while Dream stays pressed between Hob and the sofa, and Hob combs his fingers through that downy soft black hair until all the tension melts from him. Hob could make that milky, sugary lavender infusion Dream is fond of and kiss him slow and sweet for hours. They could have a wild shag or the easiest love making. Whatever will help ease the coiled tension that’s churning just beneath Dream’s carefully still surface. Anything.
The caress continues. Hob traces his fingertips up the edge of Dreams cheekbone and sinks them back into the wild black hair to cradle around that impossible skull. There's a suspicious scraping sound down by his hip.
“That better not be you clawing up my upholstery.” He hums, rubbing his thumb over the hairline at Dreams temple. “Come on love, what do you want?”
“What. I. Want?”
The stillness breaks. A hand snaps up and clamps around Hob's wrist. Dream surges up, sitting awkwardly with Hob nearly in his lap, his eyes flashing dark and his teeth bared close to Hob's mouth.
“You would offer yourself then? A sacrifice to what you would call a bad day?” Dream asks, his voice dropping into a hard scrape. There's a sharp prick against the skin of Hob's wrist as claws grow from Dreams fingers. “You ask for what I want?”
“Obviously.” Hob repeats Dream’s earlier answer back at him. This is always the most uncertain part, when Dream is in one of these moods. This night could go a million different ways, but Hob finds himself keen for any of them. Any that keep Dream right here with all of his attention, snarling or otherwise, right on Hob that is.
There's a hiss of sound, sharp and explosive. The sharp pricks against Hob's skin turn into bright bursts of hot pain, and he feels the wet slide of blood down the inside of his arm. There's a shudder, and Dream suddenly curls down against him with his forehead ground into the curve of Hob's shoulder at the base of his throat. It's an awkward reach, but Hob brings his far arm around to run his palm up the knobbed curve of Dreams spine.
“It's alright, love.” He whispers. The slump is not a loosening at all. Hob can feel the jerky tension in every line of Dream’s body, and his love feels like a spring winding tighter and tighter.
“No.” Dream spits. “You ask what I want. The things I want. You are foolhardy. Brash. You understand nothing. Ignorant.”
“Flattery gets you nowhere, my Dream.” Hob keeps running his hand up and down Dream’s spine, thinking that he really is wound up if those are the best insults he can come up with.
There's a bizarre, inhuman sound. A sharp, jagged, snarling grind. Dream's other hand splays against his ribs, vibrating and sharp. The Endless goes quiet again, and Hob keeps stroking his back, happy to wait for whatever comes next.
“The way you say my name.” Dream whispers. “I want to open your ribs and make you say it. I want to pull each apart, one by one, like the petals of the rarest flower. I want to splay them, pin them. Expose the secret parts of you. I want to see how your lungs fill and shrink when you say my name, when you scream it. I want to see how your heart beats when you dream of me. I want to put my hand around it and feel the precious fluttering of it when I punch my fingers through the chambers. I want to feel it burst like the most wondrous fruit plucked out and crushed in my grasp. I want to feel the pockets of your lungs crackle against my palms when they fill with air. I want you to be screaming my name when I do it.”
His hand moves as he talks. Long fingers drag along the valleys between Hob's ribs, slow and methodical. They're also shaking, a sharp electric buzzing of claws through Hob's button down shirt.
That sort of night then?
“If you're trying to scare me off, you’ve already done that sort of thing in a few of my more exciting dreams.” Hob points out.
“I want to do it here.” It isn't even a whisper now. It's just an exhale shaped into words. Hob notices that it isn't a threatening snarl, or the low purr of Dream enjoying the build up to a grand old violently nightmarish time. There's a shivery dread. A horror deeper than the obvious goriness of it all.
“You fantasize about killing me?” Hob asks, curious. Ok fine, it wouldn't actually kill him, but it would feel like it.
“You can't die.”
It's an immediate response. Breathless. Rapturous. Terrified. Hob is starting to get the idea of what's going on here.
“Scariest thing you've said to me, that was.” He observes with some interest. It's true, after all. He's just learned that his immortality fuels his love's apparent wish to vivisect him in the plane where they both know it would hurt the worst, where the violence of it would be all of the bloody screaming reality without the cushioned fantasy of the Dreaming. Dream admitted that in a way that was clear that he thinks about it regularly. It is, objectively, a scary thing to learn. There it is. Horrifying and alarming. Huh! How about that.
He doesn’t pretend to be surprised at himself when his cock twitches against his jeans. The only thing he isn’t sure of is if it’s the violent idea itself, or the fact that Dream is very obviously holding himself back from affectionately mauling him right this instant.
He's still petting his hand up and down Dream's spine, and he can feel the way his love bunches in on himself with a cracked whining sound that makes Hob's chest ache like his heart’s already been torn and exposed for the soft tender thing it is. There are talons still scraping anxiously at Hob's ribcage. There are still claws dug into his arm, but with less force than before. Dream is tense, already in a state, and in the fine process of working himself up into what could possibly be a legendary tantrum of self loathing.
“Right.” Hob declares, coming to a decision. “First thing: put a pin in that idea. I have to sit on it a bit and work up to it, but I did just get a little hard there, so it's not entirely off the table. I don't think that's what you want right now though.”
Dream froze with shock halfway through that, and Hob knows the best course of action is to keep moving before that impossible head has enough time to tangle itself up in a new way. The hand on Dream's spine sweeps up and grabs Dream by the nape, hard.
There is an explosive hiss of incredulous shock when Hob yanks him back. The face that Hob pulls off of his shoulder has wide obsidian eyes and a snarl with a wicked set of fangs. He holds the nightmare scruffed, meeting glittering dark eyes while his heart pounds with what isn't nearly enough actual fear.
“You want me to stop you.”
Dream’s eyes widen further, the hand on Hob's wrist drops lifeless to the sofa. Hob watches a burst of pink bloom across the unnatural white of his cheeks before the response is wrestled back down. Dream’s eyes narrow, but he's watching Hob closely.
“You are. Incapable. Of stopping me.” He growls. It's not a threat, just reality. Which is how most of Dream’s threats go.
“You're going to let me though, I think.” Hob says. He digs his fingers a little into the hard muscle of the back of Dream's neck, and takes several mental notes on the way the nightmare’s head lolls back and the hand on his ribs goes still. Hob turns where he's sitting to bring one leg up on the sofa, to bring himself closer to the odd monster he loves so dearly. He pulls Dream further, already feeling dizzy at the way the jagged, black eyed nightmare with his luminous white skin and razor teeth goes pliantly until he's leant back, practically being dipped with Hob over him.
“I think you need to let go, love. But you don't like what you might do if you let go.” He says with a smile. “How about we try things my way hm? You let go, but you hand the reins to me. Let me take charge.”
Dreams face goes through some fascinating shifts. He gazes up at Hob with such a raw, wounded want that it looks painful before the expression flinches when Hob's other hand comes up to stroke his cheek again. There's a jerk though Dream's limbs, and Hob is sure the joints are doing things that would make him feel queasy if he looked.
“You…here?” Dream asks, and his voice is thin and sharp and shivery. Hob knows why Dream’s clarifying that, and why here is making Dream writhe and flush with his mouth stretched a little too far on teeth that weren't meant for a human jawline. Hob knows that things feel different for Dream, when he's in the Waking. He's a creature of thought and idea, and touches in the more physical Waking world come across stronger than he's used to, more overwhelming. It’s not that Dream never bottoms, or even that he never submits. But it’s always in Dream’s own realm, where his submission isn’t really submission at all, but a coy play where he acts up the part of a sweet wilting fae lover or a wanton hedonist. He has a harder time staying in control of the situation, when they’re in Hob’s world, where there are less heated fantasies for him to sink himself into.
And the Dreamlord would never admit it, but Hob has noticed the way he keeps showing up in the Waking world to initiate things, even if it's just to cuddle up against Hob and find ways to get petted until he turns into a shivering puddle of nerves. But cuddling here is one thing, this is something else, something new.
“Here.” Hob nods, stroking his thumb slow and firm over Dream's nape, feeling the little vibration that goes down Dream's spine from that point. “I need you to say you want me to though, ok?”
That gets a furious, low hiss of a growl. Dream’s eyes flash and he snaps his mouth full of razor teeth with the sound like a bear trap. Hob lets him squirm and hiss and shudder. He's always such a trembling little thing, like there is too much going on inside for his outer shell to hold in. One day, Hob is going to properly catalog all of the ways his cosmic power of a lover shivers like a leaf when he thinks he's keeping himself all grim and stoic.
“You. Wish me …complicit.” Dream hisses, the words grinding out from his chest, as there's no way the wide maw of needle teeth is currently capable of speaking that clearly. “You would have me voice it. Admit to it. To be brought low and ragged.”
“I want your consent,” Hob huffs a small laugh, which might not be the best response but God does he love this proud twit, “you pretty, deranged little thing. I'm not doing anything if you don't actually want me to, and we can stop at any point. It's important to me that you get that.”
“My consent,” Dream spits, and this time there's a tearing sound when he does start clawing up Hob's upholstery, “is that I am allowing it.”
On paper, true enough. Dream is thrashing and snarling and gnashing his monstrous teeth with eyes like flaming pits. He's also kept in place by the weak, flesh and blood human hand holding him by the back of the neck. The only reason Hob is able to scruff him and have his head tilted pliantly back to expose the long white throat, is because Dream is letting it happen.
“I think you would allow me to do a lot of things you don't want me to.” Hob says gently. The thrashing stills, the snarling quiets, Dream's teeth finally shrink down into more standard shapes.
“There we are.” Hob breathes, smiling. His chest feels like it may burst, like Dream may end up getting his dark little fantasy after all. It's more than any man could deserve, seeing the way Dream goes quiet and panting, eyes fixed wide and blue again as they stare up at Hob. He keeps the hold on Dreams neck, and smoothes the other hand back through Dreams hair.
Dream makes a thin, fragile sound, eyes flashing black before returning to their clear blue.
“I need to know you actually want this, darling.” Hob explains again. “Not just that you're allowing it. I can't go thinking that you might just be going along with what you think I want from you.”
There's a shift of movement, more of a little squirm than the furious thrashing from a few seconds ago. Dream clenches his jaw together and stares, eyes glittering with new wetness. Christ. Hob is going to get a complex. It can't be good for his ego, having Dream like this.
“Yes.” Dream finally whispers, swallowing thickly. He even nods with little jerky movements against Hob's grip. “I want…what it is, you are planning. Here. In the Waking. I want you to have me. Your way.”
Hob rewards him with a hard kiss, mostly because if he doesn't get his mouth on those quivering pink lips he might explode. Dream goes lax with a whining sound that is absolutely going to give Hob a complex. Plush lips part immediately under his, as sweet as anything. Then teeth flash against his mouth, still sharp and wild but followed fast by Dream’s tongue lapping hungrily at the bite. There are hands clawing at him again, pawing at his back, twisting in his hair, digging into his hips. Dream is doing some impossible wiggling and Hob realizes that there is more than one pair of legs hitching around his hips and tangling between his own legs. It must look like he's snogging an enthusiastic spider.
“Enough of that.” He chides, pushing a hand on Dream's chest. Teeth sink into his lip again, and there's a low growl when Hob pulls his head back so Dream can't start trying to get his tongue down Hob's throat. Or trying to affectionately bite his lips off. “Shush. Lie back, and settle down dearest. Christ, you're all wound up.”
Another small push does the trick. Dream goes down with a little huff when his back hits the sofa. He’s suddenly as meek as a kitten, if that kitten had blood on its lips and a sharp intrigued glint to its eyes. Rather like a kitten then, actually.
Not that Hob is thinking much about kittens. He's far more focused on the way Dream’s skin has gained a more human flush to it, on the curious little chirrup noise that comes from him. He's looking up at Hob with swollen pink lips and his eyes still blue, but the dark blue of a deep ocean. The shirt he's wearing is stretched at the collar, revealing the tantalizing dip of his clavicles, and his ruffled hair is the most adorable thing Hob could imagine. It's such a flip from the snarling monstrous thing Hob had scruffed less than a minute ago, and all of it is so wonderfully Dream. Objectively terrifying in his violence, objectively sexier than sin.
“You're horrible for my ego.” Hob declares, sitting up kneeling between long legs that are still clad in the damn cartoon star pajamas. Dream answers this with a velvety pleased sound, and Hob feels legs bent around his hips and hitched up his waist and one bends a knee up on his shoulder-
“Ah-ah, stick with two.” Hob taps at one of Dream’s thighs before getting to work unbuttoning his shirt enough to tug it up over his head. “We're in my world right now, so we’re doing things my way. With a human shape. And stop eyeballing my ribcage, thanks. I told you we're putting a pin in that.”
He can hear the displeased hissing sound, and decides to give Dream a pass on that. There are times where words seem to lack the correct expressions for the Prince of Stories, and he has an astounding repertoire of inhuman, and even inorganic, sounds to fall back on. Despite his orders to stop with the rib stuff, there are long hands on his sides as soon as his shirt is tossed away. When he looks down, Dream’s eyes are half lidded and dark, fully fixed with stark hunger on Hob’s exposed torso.
There's a scrape of claw, smoother than before, and the bright line over his side goes right to his prick. It is…so tempting…to change his mind and tell Dream to have at it. Just to see what would happen, to see how it would feel to get torn apart by something that loves him so much. Except there's a little tense pinching at Dreams mouth, even as his eyes darken further and his hands spread over Hob's ribs to feel them expand with each breath.
“Hands to yourself.” Hob decides for both their sakes. He taps a finger between Dream’s eyes in chastisement, and nearly loses that finger when teeth snap up towards it. Dream is fast, but he's used to getting away with things, so there's only a surprised hitch of sound when Hob grabs under his jaw and shoves his head back.
“My way.” Hob reminds him, surprised at how low and rough his own voice comes out.
FULL FIC ON AO3
#dreamling#my fic#dom gadling is here to be the gentlest mildest service top#dream is a weird eldritch cat
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Steddie Time Travel Fix-it Pt. 11
Ao3 Pt. 1 Pt. 2 Pt. 3 Pt. 4 Pt. 5 Pt. 6 Pt. 7 Pt. 8 Pt. 9 Pt. 10
Eddie wakes up the following morning to Steve Harrington sitting cross-legged beside him, loading the magazine of a handgun.
“Whu?” Eddie manages.
When they’d all gone to sleep––Eddie checks the clock, five hours ago, why are they even awake?––Robin, Chrissy, and Nancy had taken the guest bed while Steve and Eddie made due with sleeping bags and camping cots on the floor. The kids were split between Dustin’s room and the living room.
And now, instead of sleeping in like most sane people would do after the apocalypse was avoided, Steve is loading a gun. He’s also still wearing Eddie’s shirt and boxers. While loading a gun.
Eddie should not have to deal with this so early in the morning.
“Hey,” Steve says.“You can keep sleeping. A couple of us are going to do a quick check at the last open gate. Make sure it still looks like he’s really gone this time.”
The he is weighty.
Eddie shoves himself into a sit, scrubbing at the crust in his eyes.
“Okay. What time are we leaving?”
“We aren’t going anywhere,” Steve murmurs absently, sliding in the now-full magazine, checking the safety is on before standing. “You’re sleeping. I’m going.”
“Okay, but who’s going with you?”
Steve tucks the gun into the duffle bag that Eddie recognizes from the night before, then stoops to pick up the ammo box. His movements are awkward around his still-bandaged hand, around the clear pain from his ribs.
“Hopper, Nance, Jonathan, Robin, El, and I,” he says. “One of the scientists from the lab and two of the suits. Not that they’ve ever been useful. Kids are staying here with Joyce and Murray.”
“You’re injured,” Eddie points out, standing.
“I’m fine.”
“I’m uninjured,” he presses. “And I’m a pretty good shot, thanks to Wayne. Especially if you give me one of those shotguns.”
Steve’s movements become even more jerky as he shoves another box into the bag. “No, Eddie. Just hang out here. We’ll be back soon.”
“Okay, fuck no. You’re not leaving me behind with the literal children again.”
“It’s not a debate,” Steve says, every ounce the infuriating my-word-is-law asshole that stalks the halls of Hawkins high. “You’re not coming, deal with it.”
“I am coming, and you can deal with it. I don’t know why you seem to think I’m useless and I don’t care, but you’ve got plenty of guns to go around and I know how to shoot one. I’m coming.”
Steve stops packing shit into his bag. “No,” he says, low and dangerous. “You’re not.”
Eddie steps into his space, tips his head, and practically snarls into Steve’s mouth: “Oh, Harrington. I am begging you to try and stop me and see what happens.”
“Would you just fucking—no,” Steve shouts, voice breaking. “No, okay? I can’t. I can’t take you down there.”
“Why not?!” Eddie shouts back.
“Because even when we thought it was safe, even when we planned for you not to––we took so many fucking precautions, but it always happened. Every time. And even if it seems okay now, I can’t do that again, especially not when we’ve come so far this time. I can’t even see you down there, okay? I will lose whatever’s left of my goddamn mind. So no. Please, no. Eddie.”
And that. Well. Eddie was not expecting that.
He takes a step back. He considers Steve’s face—the tight, stricken, set of his mouth and the sheen to his eyes. And something occurs to him.
“You said that when you first went back in time it wasn’t enough,” Eddie murmurs. “That you made several attempts but you still lost.”
“Yeah.”
“Was I there? For all of them?”
“Yeah.”
“How many times did you watch me die?” Eddie asks quietly.
“Too many,” Steve says, and his voice cracks between the words. “Please don’t make me do it again.”
The way he says it, the way he looks when he says it, makes Eddie take another step back.
“Okay,” Eddie says. “Okay, I’ll stay here.”
They’re only gone for two hours but Eddie has worked himself up into something of a frenzy by then.
The kids keep trying to talk to him about the Eddie they knew before, about D&D and their former lives and hey if we’re going to be stuck in the past do you think we can skip a few grades?
Eddie does his best to follow along but he’s caught thinking about the panic in Steve’s eyes, the supplication, when he’d begged Eddie not to come. He can’t stop wondering how many times they went back. How many times they failed. How many times Steve probably blamed himself for the failure.
Eddie has been––not jealous, exactly, but a little frustrated by the fact that everyone except for him and Chrissy, and Barb before she left, had a strange and slightly overwhelming camaraderie. They had all these experiences in common––they’d shared life-changing moments, and Eddie constantly felt like the odd man out. Like he was trying to play catchup with only the barest of plot outlines. It didn’t seem fair, that he was expected to adapt so quickly to the knowledge that alternate dimensions and time travel and monsters existed while simultaneously trying to fill the shoes of his former––future?––self.
Now, though, he thinks about the shadows that seem to permanently live in Steve’s eyes and he wonders if maybe the opposite is worse. Steve had adapted to the horrors over time. Too much time. Time pressed between layers of time where the only memories created were negative. Were painful.
He thinks he should probably give Steve a hug when he gets back.
Wayne had called when he got off work––the suits had contacted him earlier that morning and put him up in the motel in town. They’ed told him there was seismic activity and the trailer had been damaged and the government would be taking care of a replacement, which Wayne had reported to Eddie with a bemused yet hopeful tone. “Guess I won’t have to save to fix the roof anymore, huh?”
Eddie probably hadn’t shown the proper enthusiasm for the unexpected windfall, because he was too busy twisting the phone cord around his fingers and staring out the kitchen window at the empty cul-de-sac, hoping that maybe, if he stared hard enough, Hopper’s truck might appear.
When it finally does appear, Dustin is trying to cajole him into eating a pancake while Chrissy is asking, for the third time, how, exactly, she died, which the kids are being very shady about––apparently she and Barb and Eddie had all been killed by this Vecna dude. Barb very explicitly did not want to know how she died. Crissy vehemently does. Eddie…isn’t certain. He’s afraid he was a coward, at the end. He doesn’t want that assumption confirmed.
When the truck pulls up in front of the house, the kids pile onto Steve and the others first, with hugs and questions and requests to go with them next time.
Eddie and Chrissy watch from the doorway.
“So,” Eddie says. “Is this super weird for you too, or––?”
“Yeah,” she says, not sounding very upset about it. “It’s nice, though, at the same time.”
Eddie raises an eyebrow at her. “Finding out the monster from the hell-version of Hawkins killed you in a different reality is ‘nice’?”
She leans into him so she can poke her elbow into his ribs. “Well not that part, obviously. But the part where––I’ve never had close friends before. I’ve had, like, cheerleading friends. Or friends I spend time with because their parents are friends with my parents. But never people of my own. Who like…genuinely care about me.” She nods to the group in the driveway, laughing as Robin pantomimes something. “They all love each other so much. And they thought I was worth saving. That’s pretty cool. To have a group like this care about you.”
Eddie can’t argue with that.
Hopper shepherds everyone back inside and they cheerfully lay into the food that Joyce and Claudia had made in their absence. The kids are talking about the upcoming science fair and maybe they can win it this time with a little extra knowledge on their side. Joyce is wondering if that’s cheating since technically they’re all freshmen in highschool now competing on a seventh-grade level. Dustin says it doesn’t matter because somebody needs to put Justin Malcovich in his place—it’d be an act of public service to knock him off his science fair throne––
Eddie agrees with Chrissy. He does feel honored and flattered and a little uncomfortable, honestly, with the affection the kids and Steve obviously have for him. But he doesn’t understand how he fits here. Or at least how this version of him fits. Maybe he’s not ready to be a part of whatever this is. Maybe there’s a reason they didn’t meet for several years.
“Well that’s not a good expression,” Steve murmurs, coming to stand beside him.
He’s still wearing Eddie’s shirt. And he smells. So fucking good.
“This is just a lot.” Eddie admits.
“Fair,” Steve agrees. “You want to go sit on the roof?”
“...is that an option?”
Steve snags two pancakes from the table, grabs Eddie’s hand—his hand, not his wrist. His hand. And pulls him up the stairs.
They sit on the roof.
It’s not terribly steep, but it’s steep enough that they crab-walk past the window so they can put their backs against the sun-warmed siding for a little extra confidence.
“You mind?” Eddie asks, pulling a joint from his pocket.
“Only if you’re not planning to share.”
Eddie is planning to share.
They sit in companionable silence for several minutes, fingertips brushing, probably more fraught than it needs to be, as they pass the joint back and forth.
“So,” he says, shoving hair out of his face as the wind tries to push it directly into his mouth. “I’m assuming everything looked ok?”
“Yeah,” Steve agrees, “totally fine. Hopper said the kids can come next time, so that should tell you how safe he thinks it is.”
“But still not me?” Eddie asks.
Maybe he shouldn’t. But he feels like their conversation from that morning didn’t ever get to the point he wanted it to.
“Still not you,” Steve agrees, abruptly somber. “Never you.”
Eddie waits for Steve to continue, to explain, but he doesn’t. And Eddie isn’t feeling so cruel to push. Instead, he tries to french braid his hair back out of his face and is only partially successful. If he and the wind are keeping score, the wind is definitely winning.
“Oh, here,” Steve rocks to one side so he can pull something out of his back pocket. It’s Eddie’s bandana. “This was in with my laundry from last night,” Steve explains. “Come here, I’ll tie your hair back for you.”
Eddie doesn’t move for several seconds because the words don’t really make sense. He’s perfectly capable of tying back his own hair, he certainly doesn’t need Steve's help. He’s also not going to turn it down, though.
He moves closer. He shifts so his back is partially to Steve.
Steve’s fingers sink into his hair with a degree of familiarity that is a little winding. He combs it back as best as he’s able and then uses the bandana to gather it at the nape of his neck.
“There,” he says, using one hand on Eddie’s shoulder to turn him back around “better?”
It is better.
“Yeah,” Steve agrees, despite the fact that Eddie hasn’t said anything. He tucks a few flyaway strands behind Eddie’s ear. “Looks good.”
Eddie exhales the smoke he’s been holding in his chest: long and slow and contemplative.
He passes the joint. He decides to be brave.
“Can I ask you something? And if you’re pissed after, can you just…let me leave. And not punch me in the face. Please.”
“Punch you—Eddie, what?”
“Are you flirting with me? Because it feels like you’ve been flirting with me. Pretty blatantly, man. And it’s seriously doing my head in because there’s no way, except––I just need to know. If you are.”
“Fuck,” Steve says. “I’m not trying to. I mean, I guess I am, sometimes, but it’s not––”
“Cool. Cool ok so, we’ll just forget I said anything and––” he pushes himself up, careful to keep his sneakers parallel to the roofline so he doesn’t fall to his death. Though, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad at this juncture.
“No. Shit, I knew I’d fuck this up. Eddie, please.”
Steve pulls him back down. Eddie lets him.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know how to act around you because I know you aren’t the Eddie I knew, but you’re so similar and I’m selfish and I just…
“What?”
“Typically I only had you for a few days. The same few days. Over and over. Danger and blood and death, so this is nice.”
“What, getting to leave the hellscape timeline? Getting to eat pancakes and smoke and not worry about the end of the world?”
“Getting to keep you.” Steve whispers.
He closes his eyes after he says it, too slow to be a blink. Eddie thinks he probably didn’t mean to say it, judging by the grimace on his face. “Before it was just the same thing. A week of terror. Over and over again. And I only got stolen moments with you in between all of it. So this, and the last couple weeks, it’s just nice. That's all.”
“Oh,” Eddie says.
The silence between them is heavy.
“Were we…” Eddie isn’t sure how to ask.
“No,” Steve says, meeting his careful gaze. “Not really. But there was something. Or I think there could have been something, but it was mostly just looks and touches and I probably misinterpreted them anyway.”
Eddie breathes. “You probably didn’t.”
“What?”
“Steve,” he says. “Come on.”
“Yeah?” Steve asks.
“Yeah.”
“Can I kiss you?”
You can do anything you want to me, Eddie thinks. Instead, he says, “Yes. Please.”
***
Tag list:
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Gonna try and sneakily post after dnd let’s see how fast I can yeet this up 👀 new chapter!!
(I was kinda considering pushing out the porn parody to push me over one million words on AO3, but I have to be in the mood to write good smut, whereas I’m damn near always in the mood for crack, so here we are
The porn parody has been started though, and the first chapter is edging its way to completion. I will be starting an entirely new taglist for the porn parody though, so do say in the comments here if you would like to be tagged in the first chapter of that!)
I got to use a little of my actual real life work knowledge for once in my life, instead of my unending stash of random knowledge 👀 it’s a bold new world and I bet you ANYTHING Bruce never documents his code
Eleven million backup plans for if marshmallows take over the world, but someone else sits to debug the batcomputer? Zip. Nothing. Fuck them if they can’t read Bruce they aren’t authorised to touch it
As may be rather obvious… We’re right up in the bats again this chapter, and Bruce is going to make some Inadvisable Decisions 😈
I’m sure this will have absolutely no consequences whatsoever! This chapter also came in a little short, since there’s not quiiiiite enough space left to squeeze in our next scene, Danny Attempts To Make Jason Kill Him In A Motorcycle Accident
This means we should not brick ANYONES’ tumblr! (Like that’ll happen, my poor mobile using fellows)
Note: there is a reason why I’m choosing when to use our various vigi’s human names while they’re masked, I didn’t miss one on the “edit” that is formatting this mess for Tumblr 😁
First Chapter and AO3 link:
Previous Chapter:
——————
One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night
About twenty minutes after dropping Danny off at his dorm, Jason was suited up and ready to go.
Well, he’d stayed outside until he’d seen Danny shut the door behind him first. Jason had some fucking manners, though if pressed he couldn’t name who’d taught him them.
It was a habit older than the streets, watching to be sure his friends got to safety.
Danny’s dorm was about fifteen minutes from one of Jason’s better safe houses, as it happened. Jason had never been to a dorm, but from Danny’s stories?
A step below Teen Titans’ bunks, and those had sucked. Less privacy, smaller rooms, and more people? Who weren’t even part of the same team?
Maybe next semester Jason could offer to let Danny move in. He didn’t need need the safe house.
Red Hood could always buy the building. There were other apartments and while they weren’t luxurious, they beat half his other spots. The neighbourhood wasn’t bad either.
It’d be nice to pay Danny back a bit. Not have him closer. Just. Repay some of the debt by giving him a place to stay, rent free.
And maybe, just a little bit, the part of Jason that enjoyed the romanticism of his period novels kinda liked the idea. An estate for the king on your lands was a big deal back then.
A slightly more modern part of him thought being a landlord for his ruler would also be pretty funny. He figured Danny would enjoy that side too.
And it wasn’t like the guy could complain, since he’d literally given Jason back himself. Yeah, Jason was gonna pull that one out if Danny tried any familiar “oh I can’t accept this” on him.
Fixing his core was pretty damn god level on the favours spectrum. Jason could do whatever the hell he liked and Danny would just have to deal with it.
It cheered him up a little more, kept him in a good mood on the ride back to his safe house. It was more time where he couldn’t help Cass, but seriously?
Danny could change in a matter of seconds and be at her side not much slower. Walls, cars, goons, Jason had this feeling that none of it would slow Danny down.
And yeah, knowing that helped, but there was still a piece of him that only unknotted as he slid his helmet on and headed to the window.
“Hey, Black Bat. Busy?” He asked as the comms switched from earpiece to helmet display.
Of course he wore both. People kept trying to steal his damn helmet. That was also what the internal explosives were for.
The others all piped up when they heard him, Harper and Steph calling cheerful greetings around an ongoing conversation.
“Shit, Hood’s in, this mean I can go back to bed?” Bluebird teased. Spoiler cut her off immediately.
“Hell no, it can’t be a school night, Robin’s here! Great timing though Hood, we’re planning Red Robin’s eulogy and you have some experience there,” Spoiler chirped brightly, and Jason hesitated.
Sucked in a breath. He wasn’t gonna judge anyone else’s coping mechanisms until they got past “heads in a bag” levels.
Best to ignore it, since she wasn’t actually trying to set him off.
What the hell had Tim done since they’d left the manor?
Shaking his head, Jason settled into Red Hood and hopped onto the fire escape, scaling easily to the roof.
“Black Bat?” He repeated instead of answering, and half smiled when Spoiler groaned dramatically.
Black Bat answered in the considerate group pause.
“Not busy. Why?” She sounded amused, not even particularly tired, and Jason relaxed enough to slip all the way in.
“Thinking of going a little out of my way tonight. Wondered if you’d mind a tagalong?” Red Hood asked, hoping he sounded casual.
It wasn’t like he’d been planning to patrol the Alley anyway; his guys had already been told to handle it. He’d have to run around tomorrow night to keep the creepers scared, but he could have a couple off.
The tiny pause before her answer didn’t quite feel like judgement, but Jason muted before blowing out the sigh as she did. It wasn’t like the others needed to know he’d been stressing.
“Sure. Meet at library?” She’d had his tracker up. Hood nodded, turning and running for the edge of the roof.
“Sounds good.” And they’d probably wound Spoiler up enough, she’d start plotting vengeance for being ignored soon. “So what the hell did Little Red do?”
“Brought Too Fine to the Bat Cave,” Spoiler told him with relish, not noticeably put out by the delay.
Not necessarily a good sign, since she was also this enthusiastic while actively plotting against him.
Wait.
Too Fine was Tucker’s hacker name.
“But he doesn’t know about us,” Red Hood said with a frown, catching an outcropping and swinging on.
“Oh, now you tell me,” Tim groused while the others snickered, “what a shame you didn’t think to when it’d have actually been helpful!”
News to Hood that he was on, probably still in the cave.
“He knows now,” Nightwing chimed in brightly, probably also travelling from the slight strain in his voice.
Hood paused for a moment, letting that sink in before attempting the next jump.
“Is he on comm?” He asked warily, because if Tim brought Tucker to the bat cave, it was entirely possible that they were all outed.
And that Tucker might tell Danny he was Red Hood.
Shit, he still had to text Harley. Resolving to do it once he hit the library, he set back to running, throwing himself across another street.
Black Bat would probably take a little longer to get there.
“He’ll be back, he’s in the bathroom,” Tim explained with a heavy sigh, shaking his head. “It’s not all bad, he’s given me the full story on what happened in Amity Park. Witness account and all.”
“From a witness you let down to the bat cave~” Spoiler sang sweetly across the air.
Red Hood could hear Oracle rolling her eyes as she cut in.
“Tone it down, Batgirl. Bluebird, if you’re still thinking of heading in, could you swing past one last site on your way?” She said firmly, then lightening her tone for their current guest.
“Batgirl who? I’m Spoiler,” Spoiler grumbled, but didn’t push beyond that. None of them did when Oracle invoked the name she’d had before any of them masked up.
Bluebird snickered at her before answering the question, a hint of exertion suggesting she was on the move too.
“I’m not actually in a rush to go home, O, I got all dressed up so I might as well enjoy one last hurrah.”
Right, because she’d be going back to school probably when Danny did.
Harper had always been a damn good hero in Jason’s books, but she valued her retirement and none of them really wanted to ruin it. Unless, apparently, seven bats just had to stalk Jason’s new friends.
Hood would have apologized, but frankly if she’d said no, some of the others couldn’t have come to the gala to be a pain in his ass.
And then he couldn’t have had so much fun fucking with them.
Fine. One cool fruit basket for the Row household, and some rainbow cupcakes for Cullen. He needed practice on frosting roses anyway.
Although that also reminded him.
“Hey Bluebird, have the others filled you in on Phantom?” He asked, cutting off some more background chatter from Spoiler and Tim.
Nightwing and the girls had had hours by now.
“What, your new boyfriend?” Bluebird asked sweetly, and Hood rolled his eyes.
Probably hit the important shit then.
“Sent you a picture?” He asked instead, decidedly not entertaining that question.
Nightwing and Spoiler snickered. Hood flipped off their general directions, settling himself comfortably on the roof of the library to wait for Black Bat.
There was a short pause, the others now wondering what he was getting at. Good.
“In and out of suit,” Bluebird agreed, curiosity tinging with mild suspicion. Being out of retirement clearly wasn’t good for her.
Hood nodded, pulling out his phone and shooting Harley a quick text. It might be moot now, asking her not to mention Red Hood shit in front of Danny, but he might as well.
He still had to ask if Waylon knew. Might as well ask. And see if Tucker knew when he got back.
“I know you’re outta the game, but keep the light show to a minimum if you see him around, okay?” He asked, scanning quickly over the list Danny’d cleared for public discussion.
He didn’t know if Tucker would have mentioned it, but he might as well. Cause of death was good, but Jason personally would veto “and the effects it may have now”.
Because fuck Bruce and his need for everyone to show him their weaknesses.
Bluebird definitely sounded curious now, and possibly like she was punching someone.
“Oh? He not big on the electricity?” She wondered aloud, and Hood grimaced.
Because if they were both at Gotham U in engineering… there was actually a chance Harper and Danny would run into each other.
Danny was older, but Harper skipped a couple years and he had no idea what year Danny was in. Fuck, they might be in the same classes. He couldn’t believe he’d never thought of that.
“Not exactly. You mighta seen him around actually, he’s an engineer too. But he’s not a fan of the electricity flying around,” he explained, Nightwing making background noises that told Hood he hadn’t put the pieces together either.
Good. At least he wasn’t alone.
Bluebird made an interested hum, and probably a finishing blow considering the satisfaction when she spoke next.
“I thought he looked familiar. But then, he’s total Wayne-bait. Yeah, I can keep the good stuff under wraps if I see him around. Gonna guess he’s had some bad shocks in the line of work?”
Hood hesitated and in exactly the same instant Black Bat landed on the roof. Sam had given them all the warning about talking about a ghost’s death, so he could leave it at that.
But…
The way Danny had looked when he explained about Vlad. Yeah, he’d rather they took this seriously. He didn’t want any of his family to hurt Danny, even by accident.
“It’s how he died. He won’t spontaneously combust or anything, but it’s a bad memory.”
Silence reigned while the others absorbed that particular detail, Black Bat crossing to crouch on the roof beside him. Hood leaned over enough to bump their shoulders together.
He could almost feel concern radiating off her, which was an extra weird experience after literally feeling all of Danny’s emotions half the day.
Guess that was where Cass’s liminality was going. It made sense, kind of; despite her occasional trouble speaking, she was pretty much the clearest communicator in the family.
Having another back up way to make herself heard would only fit.
On a whim, he tried projecting comfort back to her. Black Bat didn’t seem to notice, though whether that meant more on her part or his was the question.
She leaned in and bumped him back, her expression unreadable between the full face mask and the shadows.
“Heard and understood, Hood,” Bluebird agreed after a minute, her tone unusually solemn. Hopefully Dickie would take it to heart too.
The odds of Danny running into Nightwing weren’t great if he stuck to Blüdhaven, but Dick was a nosy bastard and there was always one “emergency” or another.
Better than the odds of running into Bluebird, although Harper would almost definitely look him up at school.
Maybe Jason should warn him.
“Maybe you could build him a faraday suit,” Spoiler mused, and Red Hood snickered.
“Handy, but then we couldn’t contact him,” he reminded her and she groaned loudly.
“Hey, if we’re both techies he’ll probably have his own idea. I’ll look him up out of costume, it’s my turn to say hi,” Bluebird decided, and Hood shot Danny a quick text.
Just a heads up.
A picture of Harper, captioned “beware of sibling. May be looking you up in class”. Black Bat giggled beside him, head cocked to watch the screen.
Harper wasn’t technically one of the Waynes, but if Waylon counted she definitely had to, and it wasn’t like Bruce picked his family. Asshole.
A few minutes later he got a message back from Danny.
‘DannyP: !!!!! I know her! 😳😳🤯 She does the cool nanobots! Half our year is betting if she’s a rogue or a vigi 👀 inside info??’
Which was fair, since just knowing Jason wouldn’t be much of a hint either way.
“He knows you,” Black Bat reported to the others, Bluebird immediately bitching that she’d been ratted out.
Red Hood mostly ignored her, texting Danny back.
‘JTodd: Neither anymore. She was a vigi, but she’s retired and getting her degree. No idea if she’ll come back after.’
“Odds you’ll change sides and go rogue, Bluebird?” He asked into a pause, and very much enjoyed the momentary stumped silence. “Apparently there’s a hefty bet.”
Momentary, because everyone had an opinion on that and had to share it. Everyone except Bluebird herself, who seemed to be thinking it over.
“What’re the odds for rogue?” She asked thoughtfully, immediately defending herself as the group booed. “What! I have student loans!”
“You are my villain arc, Red Hood,” Spoiler declared as solemnly as she could through laughter.
“I’m my own villain arc thank you so much, go find your own,” he refuted with a half grin.
“Ask Phantom,” Black Bat advised Bluebird in the meantime, which was probably fair. They weren’t good at staying on topic.
She then gave Hood another gentle nudge, probably for the same reason. Flicked off her comm for a moment.
“Wanted to talk?” She asked, and yeah, they probably should get back to it.
He gave a shrug, hauling himself up and holding a hand back down to her. Definitely not feeling guilty.
They’d tell her before anything became relevant. It just.
Well.
They were a family of fucking detectives, who could never leave well enough alone, and Jason really didn’t want them questioning his humanity.
Just once, he’d like to know something about himself before anyone else did. To have time to understand and come to terms with what he was before Twenty Questions.
Cass was very good at not asking questions though. And Black Bat turned off her comm first. Tim was distracted, probably with Tucker coming back because he’d been quiet.
No better opportunity was likely to come up.
And really, she deserved the same courtesy. Knowing about herself before the others did.
Maybe she’d have some ideas on how to tell them.
Making up his mind, Hood tapped his comms and hauled Black Bat up with his other hand.
“Hey O, gonna be offline for a minute. Text if you need me or BB, we gotta be radio silent.” There were enough possible reasons for that, he didn’t bother giving one.
Just so long as they knew.
Usually he’d just turn the comm off and swear at her if she turned him back on if he wanted peace and quiet, but… well, it was nice to hear the background chatter.
Nicer when the big Bat himself wasn’t in the field to tell them to focus.
“I always need you, baby!” Nightwing called just before he clicked off, and Red Hood rolled his eyes under the helmet.
Dramatic bitch.
He looked back to Black Bat, wondering where would be the best place for this talk. She was watching him patiently, not moving.
It had been her patrol.
“Is there anywhere on your route we can talk privately?” He asked softly, a little surprised at himself. He’d been the one who wanted to wait.
But that just made it his call who he decided to tell what, and when. And Cass… he trusted Cass.
Besides, it wasn’t like he was liminal. It’d give them something to think until he was ready.
Black Bat regarded him for a moment longer, then nodded and made her way to the edge of the roof.
“Follow.”
**
The night was wearing on, but Bruce was darkly satisfied that they were finally making progress.
Constantine’s pacing (replacing his smoking; Bruce may not have bothered arguing in the cave, but even Constantine knew better than to light a cigarette in space) had finally slowed.
Something terrible had happened in Amity Park, but even the magician was grudgingly admitting it was probably over. Left permanent scars, but getting no worse.
Unless it was on a cosmic level and would be a slow seeping problem for millennia, but Alfred had Opinions about Bruce concerning himself with issues on that time scale.
There was only so much they could do in the moment.
Another survey of the city was required, and in person since even the League’s best couldn’t take clear pictures of Amity Park.
A fact which didn’t seem to have stopped the Amity Parkers from photographing and sharing pictures of each other, according to his children. Constantine hadn’t actually argued when Bruce compared it to background radiation, so it must be close enough.
He also hadn’t done more than grimace when Bruce asked if he wanted to undertake the survey personally. That was as good as an enthusiastic agreement.
First, though? First they needed to call a meeting of the Justice League, primarily the heroes located in North America.
They had been horribly uninformed of what was going on right under their noses, and if Constantine was right… Amity Park’s problems had begun to spread.
To Gotham.
To his children.
Constantine’s grumbling that it was the miasma of death that hung over the city drawing them in had not inspired confidence, and Bruce resolved to have Zatanna over at her soonest convenience to explain.
Helping Constantine put together a report on Amity Park itself had more than convinced Bruce not to ask Constantine, even if he could have done it today. The man was…
Well. Bruce wasn’t looking forward to having to run him through the JL’s classification system again. Maybe one of his children would want to go and handle the technical side.
All he had to do was finish preparing the presentation, call the League, and he could rest. It would likely take a day or two to put a full meeting together, but he could at least fill Clark and Diana in tonight.
He could sleep in between. Just for a little while.
Right after he showed Constantine how to configure the alerts from Amity Park to direct to the Justice League Dark, not the spam folder. They hadn’t sent one in years, but he was determined not to miss any changes.
That should have been the easiest part of this whole mess. It was just a simple form, with a basic test button to ensure it worked.
Nothing too complicated even for a man who’d decided “no reply needed” meant the same thing as “too dangerous for anyone but JL Dark”.
Fine. It was fine.
Bruce loved making training videos to highlight the most basic functions of a system and ensure that people actually understood what the various controls meant. Wonderful.
It meant that they could work in parallel for a while, Bruce on the presentation for the League, Constantine to fix his mistake. In a blissful silence, even.
It couldn’t last.
“It’s not working, Bats,” the magician declared, pushing back and away from his computer. Probably to pace again.
Bruce closed his eyes, breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, and made his way across to frown at the monitor.
“Did you save your changes?” He growled, doing his best not to let the irritation show. It was getting harder every time.
Constantine rolled his eyes, definitely not helping, and pointed at the screen.
“See for yerself. Look, JLD Top Priority, like ya said. And then ya hit the top button to save, and the red button to test it, and nothing happens.”
He waited impatiently while Bruce clicked through the buttons, seeing it for himself.
Constantine wasn’t wrong. That was unexpected.
Brows furrowing under his cowl, Bruce checked the deleted requests. Three test messages from “Amity Park”.
“Hn.”
“Someone’s fucked ya system,” Constantine commented dryly, sounding unduly pleased that it wasn’t his fault.
Something other than his haphazard filing had apparently been causing some of their problems. Bruce… just didn’t have the time tonight.
He nodded over to his screen instead, pulling up his wrist computer to send a private message to Tim in the cave. How long could a tour take?
Tim could find what was going wrong long before he’d have the time.
“I’ve compiled most of the presentation on creatures of the Realms. Is there anything important I should add?” He asked gruffly and Constantine sighed dramatically and flounced over.
Bruce firmly ignored Steph’s voice in his ear.
Not because he didn’t agree, whatever a “woobie” was.
He just needed Constantine’s once over to confirm he had all the pertinent information, and then he could call Clark and Diana.
Head home.
Get to bed.
“Looks fine. I should check yer damn revenant some time soon too though.”
Bruce froze, finger just above the send button on that tech request to Tim.
His fucking what.
**
Black Bat led them easily across the city, along what was probably her normal patrol route. Taking her cue from Red Hood, she didn’t rush, but soon indicated that they turn off into a small alley between two warehouses.
Hell, not even a proper alley. A gap where the buildings hadn’t quite smushed together.
Red Hood recognized the area from Nightwing’s bitching; there’d been a bust here last week, and something had cloaked the whole block from surveillance.
These days, he was almost tempted to check what Danny knew about it. Ghosts fucked with technology in ways none of the bats would find.
Black Bat stopped them half way down the gap, feet braced against one wall and her back to the other, leaving her “sitting” about twenty feet off the ground.
Hood matched her a little further down, grumbling a little at the crush. Almost a foot taller, it wasn’t exactly a comfortable position for him, but he’d held worse.
They were stable, and damn near impossible to observe. This was as good as they’d get.
“So,” he began, and immediately realized he had no fucking clue what to say.
Black Bat’s flat, expressionless mask was not helpful.
Hood wished he could pull his helmet off, just to run his hands through his hair. But they were on patrol.
Black Bat just waited, silent and patient while he wrestled with himself. Finally he decided to just spit it out.
“Danny died, and came back,” he said in a rush, glancing over to her.
Black Bat nodded.
“Like you.”
“Like us,” Hood corrected, groaned, and switched off the voice modulator. Actually, fuck it, he had his domino on.
He pulled the helmet off, balancing it in his lap. He could shove it back on if it came time to go.
Black Bat was beside him now, almost close enough to touch. Close enough to lean in and bump their shoulders together.
“One main difference,” she noted thoughtfully, then tapped her chest, “no skin change.”
Which, yeah, Jason had been hoping to emphasize before any of the family got too far down the right track.
“Right,” he agreed, leaning back to stare blankly into the smog of Gotham above them.
Fuck. How do you even say it? How do you tell someone they’re not fully human anymore?
Someone like Cass, who’d been raised to believe she’d never been human, by force. Just a weapon.
Her hand was in his now, and he couldn’t be sure if he’d reached out or she had. He stared down at their laced fingers instead.
“You know how people get when they spend too long around the pit water,” he began slowly, trying a different path.
Cass had been raised around the League of Assassins. She knew.
And took the change of topic fully in stride, nodding and giving his hand a gentle squeeze.
“Erratic,” she mused softly, her face tilted to the wall across, “unpredictable, especially if they went in.”
No one was going to say Ra’s Al Ghul was an unstable mess of a man, but no one had to. Still, how controlled he was was impressive, especially after you saw what mere exposure to the fumes did to other people.
Red Hood nodded, sighing softly.
“Danny’s parents kept it in the fridge. He was… exposed long before he died,” he explained quietly.
If he was talking about himself, he’d say “contaminated”. Hell, it was the word Danny used when explaining it to the bats.
Jason just couldn’t use it about Danny. It just wasn’t right.
Black Bat stilled, almost enough to be mistaken for a statue instead of a living being. Was that her liminality too? Or just her training?
Red Hood couldn’t stand it either way, giving her hand a gentle tug.
“He told me… being around it too long can change a person, even if they never get dunked,” he said slowly, trailing off again.
“We got dunked,” Black Bat said quietly, her hand curling more tightly around his. There was no hint of emotion in her voice, and Jason hated it.
Pulled her closer, doing all he could to project comfort-sorry-concerned-love you. Wishing he’d asked Danny to teach him to do that first.
Neither of them had really considered he’d need it, since Danny was so good at reading him. But he needed her to know she wasn’t alone.
Her shoulders hunched suddenly, body tensed to spring until her head snapped round to focus on him.
He could… he could feel surprise from her. Maybe it was working.
He gave a graceless half shrug, grinding his shoulders against filthy bricks.
Tried to project yeah it’s weird for me too, but wasn’t sure how well it came across. Anything beyond pure feelings was a little tricky for him to push, though he could usually work out what Danny was saying.
“We got dunked,” he agreed quietly, resolving instead to wrap her in love-protect-safe-safe-safe, “and sometimes… that changes you even without a flashy transformation.”
It was an awful explanation and he knew it, could practically feel her eyes darting all over his face, his posture, reading things he probably wasn’t aware he was showing.
Then she relaxed all at once, settling in and leaning part of her weight on him as well as the wall. He braced automatically to take it. He wouldn’t let her fall.
“He called it being “liminal”,” he explained softly, working an arm around her shoulders above the wall to coax more of her weight onto him. “I don’t know what it means for you yet, BB. But nothing bad. He was sure it wouldn’t be bad.”
Black Bat made a soft humming sound, obediently shuffling so he could wrap his arm around her. Looking down at their still twined hands.
“Can feel you,” she said softly, hand rising to tap gently against the red bat on his chest. “Big brother.”
It startled a bark of laughter out of him, because… well, yeah. A good way to sum up everything he’d wanted to tell her without words.
Felt a quick rush of satisfaction from Black Bat, and tried to answer it with relief-agree-protect.
“Yeah, that’s the fuckin’ weirdest part,” he agreed dryly, almost felt the rush of her giggle more than he heard it. “Apparently some liminals get this… aura around them. Sharing what they feel. I didn’t know if you would…”
What? If she’d notice? If she’d be able to feel the same things?
Black Bat nodded, head tipping up to meet his gaze once again.
“Robin? Batman?” She asked, and Jason hesitated.
He couldn’t talk to either of them about it. Not yet. Bruce would fucking push, he always did, and wouldn’t stop until he tore the secrets out of him. Damian would just run to Bruce.
But it was a valid question. And they did sort of deserve to know just as much.
For now he took refuge in what he knew, shrugging it off.
“Danny thinks they’re liminal, but… not as far along as we are.”
Not as close to death. Not as close to not being human, although technically they were both legally non-sentient, so that was fun.
“D’you really think either of them have the emotional bandwidth to share?” He tried to joke, covering the moment.
Black Bat just stared at him until he fell silent. Then nodded.
“Should tell them. No rush,” she added almost before Jason could tense, leaning back in and resting her head on his shoulder, “have been for a while, yes?”
Jason paused a moment longer, shook his head, and snickered.
“Cannot believe I ever doubted you’d be able to do the whole “emotional telepathy” thing,” he grumbled good naturedly, and Black Bat glowed with gentle amused.
“Better than you,” she told him archly, sounding for a moment like Steph when she was teasing Tim. Jason gave her a squeeze.
“Don’t I know it. But yeah, it’s not a new thing, and won’t mean anything to anyone unless one of us dies again.” Which he wasn’t going to think about.
Shit, someone said Robin was out tonight.
Nope. Not thinking about it. Robin had been patrolling for years, and as much as he whined about his solo patrol route, he never deviated.
Not after Oracle had highlighted his route on his wrist computer for him and proved she could see every footstep. She wouldn’t necessarily tell Bruce, but she’d always know.
Black Bat nodded, resting against him for a moment longer before sitting up again.
“You want to wait.” It wasn’t a question, but he felt compelled to answer.
Picked up his helmet, turning it over slowly in his hands. But of course she’d understand. She always did.
“I want to know what this means to me before I have B poking and prying into every part of my life,” he said quietly, staring into the eye slits of the helmet.
Black Bat ruffled his hair.
“Can wait,” she agreed gently, switching her position to have a hand and foot on either wall. Ready to move on. “No rush.”
Red Hood pulled his helmet back on and matched her, the pair climbing quickly out of the crack between the warehouses. It almost wasn’t worth saying, but…
“You can tell the others if they ask. I just…”
“Don’t want questions,” Black Bat agreed lightly, flipping up onto the roof. “Can ask Danny when the time comes.”
“Yeah,” Red Hood agreed, crouching beside her. “Mind if I stick with you on patrol tonight?”
He sort of hoped she’d think it was unrelated, but another moment of stillness passed across her as she regarded him.
“Until we die again,” she repeated his own words, and Hood was pretty happy she couldn’t see his face anymore as he grimaced.
Not that it mattered, another shot of amused shooting between them, followed by a much softer appreciated.
At least she wasn’t judging him for being a mother hen.
“Understand.”
**
Tim and Tucker had made quick work of the interview, and Tim was pretty much running out of questions when the batcomputer pinged with an incoming message.
Tucker gave it a longing look and Tim chuckled softly, wheeling himself over.
“Hang on. Might be one of the others out on patrol,” he explained, right clicking to pull up the monitor that tracked the bats’ various dominos out and about.
Tucker stared up at it politely, diverting his attention from what Tim was doing on the other screen, no matter how curious he was. Showing trust and all that.
It was actually really cool too; he’d not really seen a map of Gotham, and having one superimposed with little glowing lights of the various heroes on patrol was really cool.
It wasn’t really zoomed in enough to tell if Bluebird was actually in a fight, but the little blue dot seemed to be the only one standing still, so Tucker assumed she was.
How cool would that be? Watching just normal human vigilantes fight and take down bad guys?
Although off the top of his head, he could already think of a couple of things to add to the monitoring program. They might already be there, he hadn’t clicked around, but like.
Vitals were all well and good, down in the corner next to each hero’s name and the colour of their dot, but just the heartbeats? That wouldn’t tell you enough.
Tucker preferred brainwaves, because then you could tell if they’d been hit with something or overshadowed.
Although maybe it was because he’d spent his time keeping track of a guy who pretty regularly did not have a heartbeat. And it also gave him more data points for some of his cooler side projects.
Understanding the different brainwave patterns an individual made in different situations was a key part of neural mapping, and adding it to the bat’s routine would get him a ton of data.
And then they could really play Mariokart.
He’d have to ask Tim if they tracked any of that later. Not all the bats wore helmets or cowls that would support the electrodes, apparently. Although if Danny could get his hands on a domino…
Tucker was snapped back to the here and now as Tim pushed back from the batcomputer, a wry grin on his lips.
“Actually, I think this might be something you could help with, Tucker. If you don’t mind a little work on your night off?” He teased, back to Tucker’s complaints about a night of fun and tech.
Like getting to play on the batcomputer did not absolutely count as fun and tech.
Tucker beamed, excitement welling up in him and cracking his knuckles. It’d be pretty cool to assist a human vigilante too. And on a tech problem!
Gotham was fucking great. If Tim really meant it about getting him an internship, Tucker might have to see about switching schools.
MIT was great, but it wasn’t Wayne Enterprises, personal meetings, or personal tech demonstrations with Tim Drake Wayne!
“Sure! What’s going on?” He asked, shuffling over to look at the other screens now that he had permission. Making sure it was obvious he hadn’t been looking.
Resisting temptation had been hard. He deserved credit.
Tim nodded to the screen, and that? That was a message from Batman. Bruce Wayne. Batman.
Tucker scanned the message, eyes widening even as Tim spoke.
“Wanna help debug the Watchtower?” Tim asked, and Tucker clutched at the back of his chair as his heart leapt, swooning just a little.
The Watchtower. The actual Watchtower. In space. Oh he was shoving that in Danny’s face for not telling him he was friends with the Bats!
There was only one real question left.
“Will Oracle be here?” He asked eagerly, looking around the rest of the screen.
A soft chuckle played from a speaker in the bottom corner, and Tucker jumped half a mile as a masked voice spoke.
“You boys have fun with this one, I’ll keep an eye on the city. If you finish early you could walk me through that server of yours?”
Oracle.
The Oracle.
They were real, they talked to him, they wanted to talk about his locked down servers! Tim lunged to catch him as Tucker collapsed, knees giving out under the swell of emotion.
All of his dreams were coming true, all at once.
He’d never been happier.
**
Danny was having a pretty quiet night in. That didn’t used to be unusual while he was in Gotham; having time to himself was still pretty much a novelty, and he wasn’t exactly a party boy.
Of course, it was a night in with some of his parents’ inventions and recently one or two of his own, so the actual “quiet” part was negotiable.
Quiet enough not to piss off his dorm mates, but luckily most of them were engineers too. They may not always know what he was doing, but they were usually interested.
Tonight, he was alone, most of the floor still being home for the holiday. That had been one of the things he’d looked forward to most about staying behind, but…
Well, after his noisy and action packed few days… he was lonely.
He wished he’d asked Jason to stay. Just because he’d said he was going to bed didn’t mean he had to do anything of the sort.
It was just that Jason had been… tense. He’d not even gotten off the bike when they arrived, just pulling over and chatting for a minute before heading out.
Like he wasn’t fully comfortable going into Danny’s place, which was kinda fair. Unlike Jason’s apartments, Danny’s dorm was a communal space.
Even if most of his dorm mates weren’t home, there was still a chance one of them might turn up. And then Danny would have someone else bugging him about his “boyfriend”.
Nope.
Besides, he’d see Jason again at 11am (he had this horrible feeling Jason might be a morning person), so it wasn’t even all that long. He should probably just go to bed.
He should check his class schedule, actually. Work out what days he’d have free, work out when he and Jason could skip to the Zone for fight club.
Wait.
Would Jason be free.
What the hell did Jason do for a living? He’d have to ask at some point, Danny mused, logging in and taking a screenshot of his class schedule for the new year.
For now, it was probably best just to send Jason the picture so he’d know when Danny was free, and then Jason could work out a good time for them to go and it wouldn’t be Danny’s problem.
Excellent. Sheer genius.
Humming happily to himself, Danny pulled up Jason’s number and sent the picture of his schedule, with the caption:
‘Let me know when ur free for field trips 👊🏻💥👻’
Eyes closing for a moment, Danny let his awareness drift out across the city. It wasn’t something he’d done a lot; Gotham wasn’t his haunt and he didn’t want to step on any toes.
Usually he’d just expand his conscious aura if he was looking for someone, but knowing how much Jason didn’t like it… well, his passive aura covered most of the state, so reaching through the same city couldn’t be all that hard.
Right?
Frostbite could find anyone, anywhere in the Far Frozen with little more than a thought. And was convinced Danny would be able to do that with the entire Zone, some day.
Danny was a little less convinced. Past the background awareness that he was no longer in Amity Park that had taken months to fade, he’d never really paid attention to his passive aura.
It’d be too tempting to feel out the rogues, or at least react to the sudden surges of aggression and danger. But he hadn’t had anyone to protect before, and he knew Jason would feel better knowing Danny could.
That was kinda why Danny hadn’t mentioned how theoretical this particular ability was, although he had no doubt he’d recognize Cass’s energy if she came close to death.
Which meant he should totally recognize it while she was alive, well, and had more energy, right?
He had no idea where she was, which parts of Gotham fell on her patrol route, but that kinda helped. It meant he couldn’t trick himself by focusing on a particular area.
Surprising precisely no one though, he found Jason first. The other halfa almost glowed when Danny was focusing on his energy, a bubbling little ball of yellow and red.
He… was maybe with Cass? Danny’s brows furrowed, nose scrunching as he tried to focus without changing his aura.
He was definitely with one of the liminals. And that quiet little light, almost blue, felt sort of like Cass. When he forced himself not to be distracted by Jason’s brighter glow.
Eyes snapping open, Danny’s concentration broke and he frowned up at the ceiling.
Well, that explained why Jason was in a hurry to get going. He was no expert in Gotham herself yet and had no idea where the two of them were, but if he tried again he could probably work it out.
Did Jason still have a suit? Or did he call Cass in, find something he could do as a civilian to have her help?
Shrugging to himself, Danny dismissed the question and hauled himself up. Might as well get to bed; they’d be back together in the morning and he could always ask.
**
Tim was scrolling through the code for the alert messaging system itself while Tucker went through the sections that pertained to Amity Park specifically on his PDA when the other boy made a sudden, startled squeak.
Tim considered pretending he hadn’t heard, but there was a chance he’d found the answer. So he glanced over.
“Any luck?” He asked, noting Tucker’s sudden strained expression. Maybe the guy needed the bathroom actually. They’d been down here a while.
Tucker laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.
“So… uh… what exactly does the bug we’re looking for do?” He asked in a small voice, looking more embarrassed than Tim had ever seen.
Which… was not a proportionate response for that noise. And a question that they both probably should have thought of sooner.
He’d meant to mention it, since they’d have to explain it to the Amity Parkers at some point.
“So… remember how the Justice League never responded to an alert from Amity Park?” Tim asked not a little sheepishly himself.
Tucker nodded, not actually looking any less embarrassed himself either. That was definitely a great sign.
Tim sucked in a deep breath and forged ahead.
“So, it turns out there’s a bug in the Watchtower’s systems, where anything coming in from Amity Park gets marked as spam and funnelled straight into trash. We fixed the marking as spam thing, which I guess was user error, but it’s still-”
“All going to trash,” Tucker finished with a sigh, grimacing and shaking his head, “aaaaand I think I know why. But the timeline doesn’t make sense?”
That… that wasn’t even on the same continent as what Tim’d expected he’d say.
“The timeline?” He asked, brows furrowing, sliding over to peek at Tucker’s screen.
Tucker shook his head again, angling it so that Tim could see… a section of code that shuddered faintly in and out, almost disappearing entirely every few seconds.
That.
That was not a thing that should be happening.
Tim would have loved for it to be a simple screen glitch, but it was only that one small section of code. The lines above and below were fine, and Tucker could move the flickering chunk up and down.
“Yeah, this is your problem,” the Black man sighed, wiggling the section demonstratively, clearly aware of Tim’s shattered hopes.
Heartless man. Genius man.
“You’ve had ghosts in your back end. Probably wouldn’t even show up on an uncontaminated device. Which, by the way…” he trailed off, and Tim shook his head immediately.
“Not tonight. No changes to the batcomputer without Bruce’s say so,” Tim said firmly, since he’d already fucked up once. Might as well limit the damage.
Tucker shrugged and nodded back to the section of code.
“Okay. But this… this was definitely Technus. And that makes no sense? He’s a spirit of technology, we’ve fought him a bunch of times, but if he got into the Watchtower’s code he wouldn’t just… hide,” he tried to explain, adjusting his beret fussily.
It totally wasn’t adorable.
Tim did his best to keep up though, nodding along and thinking back over everything they’d been told about ghosts so far.
“You think we’d have noticed?” He asked, and Tucker snorted.
“He likes making giant robot bodies out of toasters, you’d definitely have noticed him on your space station,” he agreed dryly, then sighed.
Frowned down at the tablet again.
“I mean, Danny could make him do it and behave himself now, but if these changes were active during the whole Pariah Dark thing… I dunno, Technus should have been a way bigger problem. He’s not subtle.”
Tim frowned, thinking about what Tucker had said and then pausing.
“Danny could make him behave now?” He asked and Tucker pulled another face. Like he hadn’t meant to say that.
“Well, yeah, Danny’s miles out of Technus’ league now,” he tried to brush it off with a laugh, “the guy knows he’ll lose any fight so he’s really not a problem anymore. We have hackathons,” he added and Tim really wanted to know more about that.
There was just. Something off about Tucker’s answer. Not the content itself, just the way Tucker clearly wasn’t saying something.
That was a problem for future Tim though. Present Tim had a job to do.
“So can you fix what he did?” He asked the important question, and Tucker made another face.
“Dude… whoever or whatever made Technus do this, will probably notice if we fuck with it,” he said warily, and Tim shrugged.
“Whoever or whatever made Technus do it couldn’t do it themselves. How would they know?” He shot back, and Tucker chewed his lip.
Shook his head.
“Lemme text Danny. He’s the ghost expert, he’ll know how much we should worry about this,” he explained quickly, pulling out his phone and shooting off a short message.
Tim gave him his very best deadpan expression.
“How much we should worry about technology ghosts getting into space and fucking with Justice League HQ. I have the feeling the answer is “a lot”?” He offered sweetly, and Tucker snickered.
“Yeah, well, we’ll see. Might actually be alright, if this is all he touched. And, since you won’t let me juice the big computer, we’d have to scan the whole thing through my PDA. Every line of code,” he added, like Tim wasn’t already dreading it.
Tim sucked in a slow breath, weighing his options.
Touching the batcomputer? Ultimate no-no. But Tim’s personal laptop… it had access to the Watchtower’s systems, and was under Tim’s personal control.
And would let Tim go through the sensitive data himself, which the core code of the Watchtower was full of. The question was, did he trust Tucker not to install anything dangerous?
That question had been answered the second he asked Tucker to help him debug though. Clearly the guy could already put what he wanted, where he wanted, and with their current tech?
None of the bats would ever know. At least if Tim’s computer got the update, he’d have a chance at spotting ecto-infused code.
There were other computers they could use of course, old or unnetworked computers that Bruce would probably insist they start with.
Which wouldn’t be able to access the Watchtower’s servers, and couldn’t hold the whole thing to be able to run a useful check.
The answer really was kinda obvious.
Tim looked to Tucker, who’d been texting away while he thought things through.
“We can’t do the batcomputer, but is there anything you could do for my laptop tonight, or do we have to wait on Danny still?” He asked, deeply regretting that they’d gone to video games instead of the tech upgrade.
At the time he’d been planning on having a burner laptop done though, so it probably wouldn’t have been as useful.
Tucker shrugged cheerfully and slid his phone into his pocket, cracking his knuckles.
“Well, I can’t give you the full infusion to let you open Amity’s encrypted data, but I can write you a little something that should expose Technus’s code even without it,” he offered, and Tim brightened up.
“How long?” He asked eagerly, wondering if Tucker would let him watch. It’d be fair if he didn’t, Tuck had been cool about not looking when Tim played on the batcomputer, but…
Tucker smirked, flicking open a new screen on his PDA.
“How long will it take you to get the laptop down here?” He asked smugly.
Tim booked shit to the elevator.
**
Private Chat: DannyP & TooFine
2:15am
‘TooFine: Danny when tf did u have Technus hack the JL’
‘DannyP: ……. 👀 u cannot prove i did that 🚫🚫’
‘TooFine: I’m helping Tim debug the Watchtower’
‘TooFine: double fuck u for not telling me about Batman btw’
‘TooFine: someone sent all the Amity alerts to trash’
‘TooFine: if we keep talking about this I might accidentally send something to the group chat 🤨’
‘DannyP: FUCK FINE DONT TELL SAM 🏳️🏳️🏳️’
‘DannyP: after the pd thing’
‘DannyP: cw called’
‘DannyP: they hadnt been reading the messages anyway i just’
‘DannyP: shitty people track the jl y’know? and i didnt want em knowing about us’
‘DannyP: let em all think its a joke and then no one else comes an tries to use our portal to harness the realms and blow up superman or whatever’
‘TooFine: dude u fucking told me to tell them what actually happened??’
‘TooFine: pretty sure anyone tracking the jl will work that out now’
‘DannyP is typing’
‘DannyP is typing’
‘DannyP is typing’
‘DannyP: ok so maybe i didnt think that through 😔😔😔’
‘TooFine: no shit. I’m fixing the code in case any new alerts come through but it’s not like they’ll bother to call’
‘DannyP: not like they need to, frighty’s got em covered 🗡️🗡️🎃’
‘TooFine: yeah yeah. I’ll set it to ping u too’
‘DannyP: ur the best tuck 🙇🏻♂️🙇🏻♂️🙇🏻♂️’
‘TooFine: better than u deserve’
**
Across the city, Red Hood and Black Bat had stopped for smoothies. Patrol was quiet, and word on the street was that Bluebird was mostly to blame.
Nobody wanted to know why she was back and taking no prisoners, so even the docks were almost deserted.
Then again, with Riddler and Waylon snapped back off the streets, Penguin lying low in fear of Harley, and Batwoman making Two Face’s life a personal hell?
Yeah, no wonder the smaller players were lying low.
Hood had pulled his phone out to check in on the Alley in case they’d be more useful there when he noticed a message from Tucker’s private chat app.
It was from Danny.
Danny had sent him his class schedule. Told Jason to let Danny know when he was free. Like class was the only thing that’d stop Danny from wanting to see him.
Jason was so lost in staring at his phone, utterly swamped in the implications, that he didn’t even notice Black Bat finish her smoothie and swap out her empty cup for his.
Danny wanted to see him again.
He’d have to work out a proper schedule of his own.
**
Bruce was having a Bad Day. An extended bad day, one that was fast approaching 48 hours long.
As if everything with Amity Park wasn’t already bad enough, both in the past and the present, now Constantine believed there was something wrong with Jason.
That his son wasn’t fully human anymore.
Now, Bruce’s best friends weren’t even a quarter human between them, and no matter what everyone seemed to think he was perfectly happy with meta humans.
So long as they kept themselves safe.
Preferably where they wouldn’t be mind controlled, kidnapped, or held hostage every few days. Frankly being a meta was probably stressful enough even in a normal city.
But he’d keep Gotham’s metas as safe as he could, just like Duke.
But Jason… Jason had been born human. Had lived as a human, died as a human, and Constantine seemed so sure he’d come back as something else.
“Revenant” the man had called him. An animated corpse that haunted the living, powered by rage.
Bruce might even have believed it two years ago, when Jason first returned. Jason had been so angry, intent on destroying Tim when the other was just a child.
When Jason was little more than a child.
But… that wasn’t all he was. He was himself, truly Jason Todd in ways Bruce hadn’t wanted to believe. He’d fought his rage and won every day.
Most days.
And being around Amity Park, being around Daniel James Fenton, might be enough to push him back over. To drag Jason closer back to death.
Halfas could act as psychopomps, bringing lost souls safely to the other side.
Jason had only just become himself again. They had only just begun healing the rift between them.
Bruce couldn’t lose him again.
They had to keep him away from Amity Park. It was as simple as that really; something in Jason’s resurrection had gone wrong and they all knew it.
Even Jason himself wouldn’t argue with that. Something about his death clung to him, poisoned him with that violent green rage.
His children’s reports told him that Danny was claiming to help with the pit rage because he had also been exposed. But what if he was just helping the pit?
Even if he didn’t mean to, exposing Jason to that much power that closely tied to death couldn’t be good. Constantine hadn’t exactly said as much, but Bruce could read between the lines.
Death magic was contagious between those who’d been infected. Who’d died and come back.
That wasn’t fun to know. Not with how many of his children, his friends had all died before.
Even he himself had. He’d have to investigate Amity Park personally. Take the risk himself, to keep it from the others.
Tim and Duke could help, but they were both so busy with their own lives. He would have to wait and see.
His meeting with Clark and Diana hadn’t gone well either. They’d both been gratifyingly concerned with what he’d learned and had recognized the threat.
Clark had promised to keep an ear out for Jason, to listen in on his heartbeat and make sure he was okay. Bruce would have been grateful, if Clark hadn’t also told him that Jason’s heart was noticeably slow.
Easy to pick out, even if they hadn’t spent much time together.
Just how close was his boy to dying again?
Diana had advised caution. Wanted to speak to Danny herself, see the hero who had shouldered the burden of this small town. See if he had turned under the pressure.
Pressure that should never have been his. Pressure they should all have shared, protecting the child and the town together.
It would be his fault if Danny had broken. Had given in to whatever in the Infinite Realms had stolen a whole town away.
Bruce knew that with a leaden certainty, felt the weight of it settle in his chest. The same way he knew he was responsible for most of his rogues.
He could see the wisdom in letting Diana talk to the man first. She was wiser than most of the League, and a good judge of character. Even without her lasso, it was hard to lie to her.
But if what Constantine said was true, he didn’t want to tip their hand. Zatanna and Shazam had both agreed to attend tomorrow and give their own opinions.
They could afford to wait one night. Perhaps two, if Danny couldn’t be found tomorrow.
Just about the only thing Bruce wasn’t worried about was Danny running. If he had ill intentions, he wasn’t the sort to give in and disappear so easily.
He’d threatened Bruce to stay out of things between him and Jason. And certainly wasn’t afraid of a fight.
Bruce was also quite sure that he and Diana could take the boy if it came to it, even with the abilities Constantine ascribed to the realms. He would find a way.
But not tonight, he reminded himself firmly as he strode into the zeta tube. Tonight he would go home, update his children, and get some sleep.
Maybe waiting a day or two to speak to Danny directly would help. This concussion had passed frustrating and was beginning to affect his decision making.
Shaking his head to clear it, Bruce hit the button to send him home. Soon he could rest. At least for a little while.
**
A gentle buzzer went off in the cave and Tim yelped like he’d been stung, clutching at Tucker’s arm in an entirely unmanly way.
“SHIT he’s back hide the candy canes!”
Tucker stared at him wide eyed, but to his credit the other man didn’t hesitate to sweep the pile of different flavoured canes off the desk and into the front of his shirt.
“Where?!” He asked, and Tim hesitated for half an instant.
The zeta tube was down by the cars. Bruce would be up in less than a minute. Spinning Tucker by the shoulders, he shoved him towards the infirmary.
“Get in there! Don’t come out til I say!” He hissed, already hearing the zeta tube’s door whoosh open.
Tucker obediently scurried away, and thank fuck he was quick on the uptake enough to drop his voice below a whisper.
“What?! Tim, what?! Am I not supposed to fucking be here?!” He hissed, and Tim pulled the infirmary door almost shut before darting back to the table.
He’d cleared it with Bruce, had texted about giving their guests a tour, but since it turned out that Tucker hadn’t already been in the know… well, he wanted to prime Bruce with the good news first.
The tube only pinged once though, so Constantine hadn’t come back with him. That was probably good. Bruce would be less cranky.
Tim wasn’t exactly back in his seat by the time Bruce reached the batcomputer, but he was close enough to watch him note the second chair.
Tim didn’t let him ask.
“I have a first hand witness account of what happened in Amity Park.” That was the important thing, right? That they had answers.
Bruce stared at him for a long moment, eyes narrowed and the whiteouts narrowing with them. Tim stared him down, refusing to look away.
He’d fucked up just like, a tiny bit. But he’d gotten results. Better results than anyone else. So was it really a fuck up?
He watched Bruce’s eyes widen as he realized, and was a little surprised when the man’s shoulders slumped. He dropped gracelessly into the swivel chair, elbows propped on the table and his head cradled in his hands.
Tim was growing a little alarmed now, hurrying forward to Bruce’s side. Was he injured? Had something happened?
His hand was just reaching out to touch when Bruce sighed and sat back up.
“Tim. Who did you bring to tour the cave?” He asked in a tired, heavy voice, and Tim’s brows furrowed.
What? He’d said, hadn’t he?
“Tucker Foley?” He said cautiously, wondering if he should call Alfred. Maybe switch out Bruce and Tucker and get the big guy into the infirmary.
Bruce was very still. Tim forged ahead, hoping to get to the good news.
“He was a vigilante back in Amity Park, part of the support team. I have his statement going back to the beginning of the ghost attacks, and he’s already answered most of our questions.”
Leaning past Bruce, he hit a couple of keys and brought up the sound file of Tucker’s interview.
Bruce was still a little slow as he turned to look, but it seemed to hearten him. Which was when Tim realized.
“Wait. Who did you think I was bringing?” He asked, brows furrowing in confusion.
Bruce shot him a sidelong frown, pulling off his cowl.
“Not a stranger,” he growled, though his heart clearly wasn’t in it. He just sounded tired.
Tim carefully patted him on the shoulder, still thoroughly confused.
“What? But I said…” he paused, pulling out his phone and staring at the texts.
Nope. No he didn’t.
Oops.
Groaning, Tim let his head drop.
“Ah fuck, and I thought we were doing so well!” He sighed heavily and Bruce made a grunt that might have been a laugh. “Alfred’s going to be unbearable.”
That shut Bruce right up, as it should, and then Bruce sighed again. They were moving past it then. Probably for the best, since Alfred would lecture them both on the importance of communication later.
At least it wasn’t only Tim’s fault. The only person who wasn’t a stranger or a bat had been Harley, and he wasn’t actually sure if Harley had cave privileges.
Well. She did now. Since that was what Bruce must have thought he was asking.
Then Bruce straightened, eyes determined and steely.
“I have new information from Constantine. The risks of the Infinite Realms.” It definitely heartened him to talk about, skipping straight to the debrief part of the day.
Maybe they could just skip right over the Tim-fucked-up-and-brought-a-stranger-to-the-cave.
“I need you all to keep away from the Amity Parkers until I know more.”
Ah.
No then. Nope, not skipping over it, because Tucker was actively still fucking in the cave. It was for the best that they’d hidden him then.
Tim shook his head firmly, hoping that if he seemed certain that would help.
“That’s not gonna work, Bruce. I couldn’t have fixed our Watchtower problem without Tucker, and we can’t look at any of the Amity Park data without an Amity Park device.” It was the theory they’d been running with, but they’d had it confirmed now.
Never mind that Tucker had already downloaded most of what was publicly available for them. Bruce would always want a primary source anyway.
Tim pretended it didn’t affect him when Bruce’s head jerked, eyes narrowed as he scowled at Tim.
“You let him into the code for the Watchtower?!” He exclaimed in a hiss. Which was interesting, since Tim had kinda figured the bat cave thing would be more personal.
Then again, the Watchtower could compromise more than that.
“Bruce, read the report on Tucker. We literally couldn’t stop him if he wanted to hack in, because his tech runs on levels that slide right past ours. Tech he’s already sharing,” he added sharply, reaching behind him without looking to hook his laptop forwards.
Bruce, mouth already open to argue, quieted at once. Yeah, new toys always helped. Tim nodded to the batcomputer.
“The update’s ready to go live, but I waited because you need to see this. Open the third window,” he nodded over, pulling up the corresponding section of code on the laptop.
Bruce’s expression pinched but he did as requested, clearly not willing to put another step between himself and the answer. A quick glance up to confirm, and Tim nodded to himself.
Fuck, he needed a laser pointer.
“So it all looks good up there, right?” He pushed and Bruce frowned, but nodded, eyes scanning quickly across the screen.
“Is this your update?” He asked but Tim was already shaking his head, pushing his own laptop towards the man.
Bruce’s eyes widened at the glitching sections of code. Tim nodded, satisfied he’d gotten Tim’s point.
“Tucker Foley wrote me a program so that I could access this ghost code. In half an hour. From scratch,” he added for emphasis, and yeah, he could already hear the lecture about “compromised tech”.
He tried to shut that one off too, pointing up at the screens.
“That? That’s apparently the work of a ghost. One called Technus, who likes to possess technology, and now Tucker and I are going through every line of the Watchtower’s code looking for changes.”
Bruce’s lips thinned to a tense line and he gave a short, harsh nod. He very obviously didn’t like it, but the presence of a bigger threat did wonders for calming him down.
Tim patted his laptop.
“We’re waiting on you to upgrade the batcomputer, but we’re gonna need to check every program on that too. Everything, Bruce. These ghosts could have been rewriting everything. And we’d never know if I hadn’t asked Tuck to help me with the Watchtower.”
Honestly, Tim was just hoping none of their rogues had made any ghostly connections. The implications made his head spin, but he stubbornly kept himself on track.
They needed Tucker’s help. Never mind that the ghosts themselves were reportedly allergic to subtlety and would always go big over going home; that was a tendency, not a guarantee.
Hell, if Tim had a say, he’d get Tucker’s upgrades for the ghost code, improved firewalls, and Danny’s ectoplasm into all his own gear by tomorrow.
He wasn’t going to, Bruce’s paranoia being what it was, but he was already uploading Tucker’s program to his suit’s wrist computer. It wasn’t like there’d be any hidden malware.
Tim had watched over his shoulder as Tucker wrote it, direct on the PDA. And watching him work had been… it was just…
He so rarely got to talk to anyone that was actually on his level. Rarer still that they weren’t a direct member of the family.
And Tucker, for all he currently had a tech advantage? He’d invented that advantage himself. All on his own, he was incredible. Maybe even better with some aspects of software than Tim himself.
The things they could do together… even the internship was pretty much a formality at this point. Just get Tuck through college and see if he’d accept a job at WE.
Hell, if he wanted to found his own company Tim would invest. That kind of brilliance deserved everything it needed to grow.
He had to wrench himself back to the present moment, the “introduce new genius to Batman” step still looming large, but honestly? Tim wasn’t worried. Bruce would see the potential.
Here and now Bruce’s gaze had gone distant, and Tim could easily have kept going, but he stayed quiet. Let the man absorb new information, stop and think.
And if he still wanted to make dumbass decisions, well, Tim could argue with him literally all night. They’d all picked up Bruce’s stubbornness too.
**
It was hard to focus on the screen through the throbbing of his head, the lights too bright even at their lowest setting. He’d checked.
Luckily, it was an issue he’d been dealing with for years, and Bruce pushed it aside with the resigned acceptance of long practice.
He’d pay for it later. That night of sleep was probably going to be a day of sleep at this rate, but he’d get at least six hours. More if Alfred caught him.
For now… Tim felt very strongly about this. Had good reason to, if he was even half right about the scope of the problem, or Tucker’s uses as a solution.
After hearing from one member of the Justice League Dark, Bruce was desperately hoping Tim was right. They sorely needed an ally, one they could trust to guide them through these dangerous waters.
Of course, Fenton and Foley were close. That may skew his judgement, but it could be accounted for. Wasn’t worth more than an ally whose skillset Bruce understood, and could trust.
Tucker Foley was a tech expert, which put him above any occult master in Bruce’s book. Magic had no rules, not that could be relied on, and Bruce wouldn’t touch it if he didn’t have to.
And Tucker’s tech would work with his own.
There’d be a review period of course. He’d have to meet Tucker himself, speak to him a little, get a sense of the man. See how far his opinions would be based in fact, not feeling.
Tim’s vouch was a good first step. As little as Bruce liked that Tim had brought an outsider down to the lab. And then let him use Tim’s computer.
And honestly, it certainly wasn’t Tim’s fault that Bruce hadn’t asked. He’d been lax, not checked properly, and it was that damned concussion slowing him down.
He needed sleep. His thinking was dangerously clouded. But one thing was always true: he trusted Tim’s judgement. Probably more than he trusted his own at the moment.
They could review the situation in the morning, come up with some suitable punishment and protocol to introduce new vigilantes to the cave (which they’d never needed, because other heroes usually came through the League and were already vetted).
A thought struck and Bruce almost smiled. It would be a fitting solution on three separate sides. Maybe the punishment would be easy after all.
“Alright. I’ll need to speak to Foley first. And you will be writing out fresh protocols to address when a new hero but not a league member can be introduced to the cave,” he added, and Tim groaned loudly.
Bruce ignored him. That was just the start of his troubles.
“You will also be responsible for running John Constantine through the full reporting system, and updating the training materials so this doesn’t happen again.” It was a weight off his shoulders, really.
And a fitting punishment, because Tim would definitely think twice before pulling this stunt again. The man himself threw both his hands into the air.
“What?! Bruce! You said you fixed it!” He whined, and Bruce resisted the urge to smile.
“And I fixed Amity Park. But I highly doubt this was his only error, so the two of you will have to review every case he’s reported on before you go back on patrol.”
It was probably several hundred since they’d had the new system alone. Tim groaned like Bruce was sucking the soul from his body.
Bruce levelled him with a stern look.
“I take the secrecy of the cave seriously, Red Robin. This will not happen again.”
“Because I’m gonna die of old age sitting at a desk with Constantine,” Tim grumbled, folding his arms and scowling.
It wasn’t even something he could write a program to fudge for him; every case would need Constantine’s personal input to be sure it was filed correctly.
Bruce was quite pleased with this solution. But he made sure to hide the smile from Tim, who wouldn’t appreciate it right now.
“Tucker Foley may end up working out for us all, but that’s no guarantee a future mistake won’t be fatal. And Tim…” even if it was a formality at this point, he had to ask. “Do you trust him?”
The answer was obvious, this was Tim’s personal laptop, this was the Bat Cave, and as expected Tim nodded immediately, the sulk from his punishment vanishing.
“He’s a good guy. He’s even made a clean set of Amity Park data you can look through until Danny fixes the batcomputer.”
Ah. And there was the problem. With a solution wrapped around it though, so Bruce focused on the cleaned set of data.
If Tucker was anything like Tim, it’d be extensive enough to keep him busy until the Justice League came to a decision.
Until he could speak to Danny. Speak to Jason.
He was so tired.
Bruce nodded, leaning back in his seat.
“Alright. Tucker Foley is exempted, but I need you and the others to stay away from the rest, and particularly Danny Fenton until the League has made a decision.”
It was just a little heart breaking watching Tim’s face fall from hope and happiness straight back into worry.
“But Bruce… he’s helping Jason with the pit, he might need to see him,” he argued, arms folding again.
Bruce shook his head. That was exactly what he was afraid of.
“I know… and I know how Jason feels about following orders. I’ll tell him myself, tonight.” Luckily he was still in the batsuit, if not the cowl.
Raising his wrist to his face, Bruce activated his secondary comm on the group channel. He’d turned both off when his children headed out, fully aware Oracle would override it if they needed him.
He didn’t need to be distracted by the noises of a normal night.
“Everyone, return to the cave before heading in please. There have been developments I need to update you on.” Nothing to worry them, but hopefully interesting enough that Jason would still drop in.
No talk of protocols or anything. No, that was Tim’s future.
Tim, who was looking at him oddly.
“Who told you Jason went out tonight?” He asked, and Bruce frowned. Looked up at the batcomputer, and realized that the tracker screen wasn’t open.
That could be a problem.
“Didn’t he?” He asked, really not looking forward to asking Dick to ask Jason to drop by tonight. If Jason was actually home, actually sleeping…
But Tim shook his head, that odd expression still on his face.
“He never said he would, but he called in after taking Danny home. He’s out with Black Bat,” Tim added, and Bruce frowned.
Why even bring it up if Jason was out? What did it matter?
Tim, clearly seeing and understanding his confusion, groaned and tugged at his hair.
“Bruce. Please, just… listen to me. Danny isn’t the threat here. He’s been nothing but helpful. He’s the one who picked up the ball when the League dropped it, who dealt with all the ghosts we can’t. He saved that town-”
“We don’t know that, Tim,” Bruce cut him off, shaking his head sharply. “We can’t take that risk.”
He could see Tim getting frustrated, temper flaring, and in an odd way, it made him feel better. Calm. In control.
“Bruce, you stubborn… so what? We just tell Jason to keep away from the only person who makes him feel better?” Tim asked sarcastically, and Bruce could see exactly how he’d missed the point.
This was what he’d have to watch for with Tucker Foley. But the technical advantages would be worth it.
“We don’t know that he’s making the pits better,” Bruce said darkly, and fuck it felt good to even voice the thought aloud.
Made it feel real, less like paranoia.
Tim gaped at him, but didn’t argue.
Bruce raised a hand, counting the points off on his fingers.
One.
“None of us heard anything about him a week ago. Not even a few days. Fenton has been here over a year and only just ran into Jason?” It wasn’t possible.
It didn’t make sense. Gotham was a large city, sure, but for two people apparently so closely linked? No.
A second finger rose.
“Danny himself claims that he is helping with the pits.”
“Jason agrees,” Tim cut in, clearly looking to break his train of thought. Bruce silenced him with a stern glare.
“Danny claims he is helping with the pits. Jason claims to have noticed the same thing, but we already know the pits affect his mind. He may not understand what’s being done to him.”
That? That made perfect sense. The pits had driven Jason into those uncontrollable rages, made him do things he’d never have wanted to.
Who was to say they couldn’t have a more subtle influence? More dangerous? More like Ra’s himself.
Even Tim couldn’t argue with that, and Bruce nodded his satisfaction at the boy’s silence, raising a third finger. This… he wasn’t looking forward to this one.
But its weight had been sitting in his chest since the possibility came up, and he didn’t want to hide anything from his boys. They deserved to know the risks.
No matter how much he’d rather protect them from it.
“The little f… Constantine believes there is a chance that even being close to Danny may have dangerous side effects for Jason, purely accidentally.”
Tim’s eyebrow rose at the aborted description, and Bruce was glad he’d clamped down on it. Couldn’t quite meet the boy’s eye as he continued to explain.
“Danny’s connection to… his death,” the words were hard to even speak, another child lost, “is what gives him his power. It’s strong, and may have radiating effects Danny doesn’t even know about.”
Because that was kind of the worst part. There was a chance that Danny truly meant everything he’d said in earnest. That he was Jason’s friend, wanted to protect him.
Wanted to help Jason come back to himself and be free of the pit rage. That they did truly care for each other, and wanted to make each other better.
And none of those good intentions would matter if Danny’s mere presence risked Jason’s soul.
He could see Tim realizing it too, eyes widening and the aggression slumping from his shoulders. But he’d decided to be honest.
Clear, open communication. They could try.
“The way Jason came back… we still don’t know how it happened, or why. But anything half living and half dead can have side effects on the world around them, especially for those who have already died.”
Danny might be here to take Jason away. Back to the dead.
He’d meant to say the words, to lay it bare, but in the end he choked on them. Couldn’t even face the thought.
Tomorrow. After he slept. If they still needed convincing, he’d try again tomorrow. Which did neatly bring them to point number four.
Steeling himself, Bruce shifted his gaze back to Tim, raising his pinky finger.
“And if you are right, if Danny really is helping… it’ll only be for a few days. I meet with the League tomorrow. Zatanna and Shazam will both be there to give their opinions.”
Suddenly Bruce just felt tired. Tired of arguing, trying to make people see things his way. All he wanted was a couple of days. Just to be sure. Just to be safe.
Tim raised an eyebrow again, shifting slowly to lean against the other chair.
“Then why will it be a few days? Why not tomorrow?” He asked cautiously and Bruce chuckled.
Of course Tim knew him well enough to know there would be something else.
“I’d like to talk to him myself first. Perhaps have them meet him directly. Just to be sure what his intentions are in the city.”
“And with Jason,” Tim put in flatly. Bruce just nodded. The boy was right.
“With the city and with Jason,” he agreed, looking back up at the large screens of the batcomputer.
Pulled up the location tracker for his bats and birds, watching their little trails of light run across the city. He wouldn’t let any of those lights wink out.
Tim sighed and shook his head, coming to lean against the back of Bruce’s chair instead. Not quite tall enough to rest his chin on the top of Bruce’s head, and not likely to grow much more at nineteen.
“I still think it’s a bad idea,” he said bluntly, eyes tracking the Red Hood dot in particular. “You’ll only push Jason further away by trying to control who he sees.”
Bruce shook his head, leaning back just a little more into the presence of his son.
“I don’t care if Jason hates me for the rest of his life, so long as it’s a long and healthy one,” he said softly, and Tim snorted.
Pushed away from the chair, and for a moment the distance ached.
“Yeah, well. When it blows up in your face, I told you so. Did you wanna see Tucker tonight or tomorrow?” He asked, and Bruce’s head snapped suddenly around, scanning the cave.
“He’s still here?”
**
Shaking his head, Tim made his way across the cave to the infirmary, pulling out his phone where Bruce couldn’t see it. He shot off a quick text, not looking down.
‘J. Don’t come back to cave. B has mega bitch face just let him cool down’
**
Across the city, the message flashed in the corner of Red Hood’s helmet visor. Groaning to himself, Hood kicked a goon’s gun into Gotham bay and waved to Black Bat.
“You good? I gotta send a text.” He called, deeply offending the eight goons still standing, armed with knives and fucking pipes, and tussling with Black Bat.
Which only got worse when she shot him a quick thumbs up, sat on a particularly tall goon’s shoulders before throwing herself back so far the guy toppled, twisting them in the air so she still somehow wound up on top.
Hood nodded, pulling out his phone one handed.
“Hey! You can’t just text! We’re not done!” A goon protested, rushing in at Red Hood.
Who pulled his gun and shot him in both kneecaps, sending him sprawling to the slick planks of the dock.
This was why he always took out their shooters first. Batman could preach hand to hand all he liked, it was way safer when the bad guys had holes in their hands and no guns.
“Anyone else?” Hood asked rhetorically, pointing the last gun on the dock at the remaining goons in turn. In unison, all six focused their attention solely on Black Bat.
Not because they thought they’d win, but well. She didn’t have a fucking gun.
“Yeah, thought so,” Hood grumbled, sending a quick message back to Tim.
Paused to take a picture when Black Bat actually got three heads at once into a leg lock, because that had to be a record.
‘Is it to do with your big fuck up?’ Cuz honestly, what else could B be pissed about?
The answer came back though, fast and weird.
‘As hard as I also find it to believe this, no. Magician’s got him all twisted around about Phantom. Wants to forbid us all from seeing him.’
The phone creaked in Jason’s grip as he read the last words, a low rumbling growl spilling from low in his chest.
The remaining standing goons whipped around and exchanged startled looks.
That. That definitely wasn’t fucking good. No way.
Black Bat took another to floor as they paused, and the last three fled. Didn’t quite make it to the door.
Jason didn’t notice until her hand landed gently on his shoulder, concern radiating off her. His head whipped round, and he was suddenly glad the full helmet covered his face.
Couldn’t see the way he fucking snarled at her.
Black Bat didn’t move, her head cocked to one side as she regarded him.
“Eyes. Glowing,” she told him carefully, reaching up to touch the side of his helmet.
Jason jerked back in shock, but he could already feel the green rushing away. Receding until his vision purely his own again.
He hadn’t even noticed the green haze.
Black Bat inspected him again, then nodded, going on tiptoes to pat him on top of the head.
“What’s wrong?”
Red Hood sucked in a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment to recenter. He’d never felt the rage come on that fast, from nothing to all consuming before he even felt it.
Even thinking of the messages made angry green tides again.
We will not be kept from the King!
And it was talking to him again. Lovely. Why couldn’t that part have been his imagination?
Shaking his head, he focused on Black Bat’s question instead.
“Just B bein’ an asshole again. I’m gonna pass on the cave tonight, tell him I went to bed.” It was about as much as he thought he could talk about it without screaming.
Almost forgot that Black Bat could read him too, her aura still soothing and open to him as she nodded. Rested a hand gently on his shoulder.
“Go now. Rest,” she told him firmly, turning back to the downed and groaning goons.
Red Hood hesitated, looking around the dock. It was getting early, nearly time to turn in anyway, and they were done here. Just a routine drug shipment.
The last lot too dense to be cowed by the mood on the streets, or counting on the hour to mean the bats went to bed. Cuz that went so well for them.
He nodded and moved to help her, flipping the biggest goon over and zip tying his wrists to his elbows, and then his ankles.
“After I help you wrap your presents,” he agreed, heard Black Bat let out a soft huff of laughter.
One of the still conscious goons shot him a glare.
“Y’could at least pretend to take us seriously,” she grumbled, then yelped as one of her fellow goons kicked her in the shins.
Clear message: do not push the crazy bat.
Red Hood snorted.
“I’ll take you seriously when you’ve fuckin’ earned it,” he told her, going for the next biggest body.
Black Bat could take every one of them out of the fight, but bagging and tagging a dead weight was much less fun for her. He could handle that part before turning in.
He had a big day tomorrow.
**
Private Chat: DannyP & TooFine
4:30am
‘TooFine: dude Tim just shoved me in a closet I don’t think Batman knows I’m here?????’
‘TooFine: dude’
‘TooFine: dude wake tf up I might need emergency evac 🚨🚨’
4:35am
‘TooFine: that fucking Constantine guy’s put a bug in Batman’s ass’
‘TooFine: told u we shoulda hunted him down 😤’
‘TooFine: and after all I did to help!! Ungrateful bat!!’
4:46am
‘TooFine: okay Batman fucking hates u specifically ur screwed 😳’
‘TooFine: I’m good tho 😇’
‘TooFine: I think he likes me now 😏’
‘TooFine: he wants all my sweet tech upgrades’
‘TooFine: they’re gonna let me play on the batcomputer!!! 😳😳😳’
5am
‘TooFine: u are missing vital updates bitch’
‘TooFine: he’s gonna fucking ground Jason from hanging out with u’
‘TooFine: AH SHIT HE KNOWS IM HERE ABORT ABORT ABORT’
8am
‘TooFine: u may have been right going to bed early man this shit sucks’
‘TooFine: didn’t even get to see what happened’
‘TooFine: they sent me to bed like a naughty child! 😤’
‘TooFine: I’m changing all his ring tones to Funky Town’
10:59am
‘DannyP: okay miette’
11:02am
‘HalfBitch: OKAY IM SORRY TUCKER AT LEAST TAKE THE MAGIC MIKE THEME OFF’
——————————
Next Chapter:
Tag List: @welcometosasakiworld @kyrianclawraith @someonebored0100 @stealingyourbones @starkcravingmad @frostedthroughghost @akikkobara @rainbowbunny0159 @littlefeather345 @violet-catsarelife @serasvictoria02 @wolfjackle @blacksea21090 @secretdestinywerewolf @anime-hipster-the-amazing @undead-essence @skitscratched @blackroserelina @snoodly-boop @trickerdi @mayoota-blog @xysidhe @idkmrpianoman @little-apricot-the-writer @chaoticmistake @the-legal-shipper @bun-fish @aroranorth-west @demon-cat-goes-woof @perfectwastelandcreation @onyxlightdragon @larks-and-katydids @peachesandcreamfemboy @jesus-camp-the-sequel @may-rbi @mothman-the-mothman87 @viyatrix @stargirl1331 @idfk-man10 @thedepressedrobin @skulld3mort-1fan @rootsmudge @ravenshadow17 @cankoking @phantom-dc @mentalcarebear @magic-pincushion @redamancyardor @lyra689 @itsparadoxlacuna @alcorbearson @asphyxia778
#dp x dc#danny fenton dead and loving it#dead on main ship#jason x danny#danny x jason#one fine day in the middle of the night#still no smooches here tho#just bat angst and softness#chapter 13#unlucky 13 cuz i forget the number exists
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about me + master list
hi, I'm moony! I use she/they pronouns and I'm a 21 yr old college student who loves writing <3
my blog is pretty much all tlou2 writing rn, but I also love Stranger Things, Arcane, Overwatch, and The Legend of Korra <3
Proud co-mom (with @pinknightsinmymind) of the Farmhand to Farmer Abby and Sevika aus, as well as Rockstar Sevika
DISCLAIMER: any and all college! basketball! abby fics I do are credited to @elsweetheart who basically kicked off the basketball! abby and (in my opinion) writes the best basketball abby!! all of mine are specific to a chubby reader n au that I’m slowly building up (with y’all’s help <3), but if u want the OG, go to kittie <3 in general go to kittie she’s wonderful!! a delight!!
Be warned, my blog is NSFW, so Minors Do Not Interact. If I get the feeling you are a minor, and you don’t indicate otherwise in your bio, you will be blocked. Once again: MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS GET BLOCKED.
And since y’all can’t think critically. ED BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT. fuck off. my blog is heavily aimed at being a safe and loving space for fat girls. literally choke on my metaphysical dick if you think you can bring that shit onto my page.
if u wanna support my writing, I love getting asks n replies n reblogs!! u could also buy me a coffee <3 And I have a wishlist, on throne 💕
not all of my work is on here! my long poly! steddie fic, as well as my old AOT work, are only on AO3
mdni banners by @cafekitsune !! this will stay here for as long as i use them, so if I forget to put a disclaimer on any nsfw content from here on, this is here!
Random Stuff
Sapphic Book Recs
Hozier Song Recs
General Book Recs
reading update - august 4th 2023
Stranger Things
thoughts on nancy and robin’s friendship (and maybe more)
thoughts on the first time nancy came home from college
thoughts on being eddie’s chubby lil partner - suggestive
little reassurances - eddie munson x lexi (commissioned)
soft breath, beating heart - eddie munson x chubby! reader - suggestive
excerpt from “why can’t this be love” - poly! eddie munson x chubby! reader x steve harrington (the magnum opus)
fresh hot buns - eddie munson x reader - suggestive
you know it’s not the same as it was - eddie munson x reader
The Last of Us Part Two
book patrol - ellie williams x chubby! fem! reader
TLOU2 drabbles masterlist (in universe and various au’s)
college! basketball! abby masterlist (with chubby reader and bookworm reader and chubby bookworm reader :) )
farm au Abby Anderson masterlist
Bonus for TLOU and Arcane: the cutest exchange I’ve ever had about Farmer Abby and Farmer Sevika
Arcane
Vi
no breakdowns here - college! vi x reader
abby and vi tapping your pussy after making you squirt - nsfw
college! vi kissing her gf’s back
vi taking care of you when you’re on your period - suggestive (like one comment)
vi taking care of you when you have chronic pain - leg cramps
cuddling with a needy + clingy vi
taking care of vi on her period - suggestive (one comment)
giving vi a back massage - suggestive
vi being touchy with a chubby girl - suggestive
vi when her gf sleeps naked - suggestive bordering into smut at the end
cuddling naked with vi - suggestive
vi loves fat pussy! - nsfw
vi with nipple piercings - nsfw
sucking on vi’s nipples - nsfw
vi's endless stamina - nsfw
vi + ankle kisses - nsfw
sub! vi getting strapped - nsfw
vi + bear hugs
taking a bath with vi - nsfw/suggestive
heavy petting with vi - nsfw/suggestive
vi laying between her chubby gf’s thighs
Sevika
farm au! sevika masterlist
rockstar sevika masterlist
sevika bouncing a big girl on her strap - nsfw
sevika being needy and eating you out - nsfw
sevika with a chubby! short! gf sitting on her lap
face-sitting with sevika as a big girl - nsfw
sevika and chubby! gf at the beach - suggestive, like one comment
cuddling with sevika after work
ikea with sevika
cuddling with Sevika when your tummy hurts
short tiny sevika angst w/ hozier’s “unknown/nth”
sevika and using a smaller strap than you asked for as a joke - nsfw
sevika with pierced nips <3 - nsfw
sevika holding your pussy and cunt when she sleeps - suggestive
Ambessa Medarda
some thoughts about ambessa medarda - short nsfw
Overwatch
missed you - Brigitte Lindholm x reader - nsfw
The Legend Of Korra
lin beifong getting her frustrations out with her wife -nsfw
lin beifong in a suit - nsfw
Resident Evil
carlos oliveira’s shaggy hair - nsfw
college! jill valentine x bookworm reader
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yo i'm seeing a lot of dishing about the purity culture of fandom and i absolutely agree
but i'd like to ask
do 'incest fic' count, i mean specifically i'm in the batfam fandom and if you try and write pairing with batman's adopted kids /former robins together everyone and their mother starts screaming at you both online and on ao3, and if you point out the lack of blood relation all you get it 'it's still incest oh my god you're a horrible person who doesn't believe in adopted sibling relationships' and like... i just wanna smush the two pretty vigilante characters together, it's very exhausting, and it also applies to discord, the fandom is very hardcore about policing this and like I get it to an extent because I've seen a lot of posts about how 'seeing batcest on my dash turns my stomach' 'having to scroll past bastcest on ao3 to get anything good is disturbing and disgusting' and tagging, is not enough for these people, i've seen some poor fools pointing out instances of real life adopted siblings who've ended up together due to the adoption being their parents decision ect and the vitriol that's met with is very aggressive, they basically just don't want it to exist and don't want people who ship it to feel safe talking about it out in the open on tumblr because it's weird and something to feel ashamed of that you shouldn't force 'normal people' to see.
And it's like, why do I have to be treated like a fucking leper in online spaces over a ship? It's literally scarlet letter shit where if someone posts something with nightwing x red hood art even if it's cute and utterly harmless like one of them blushing over a hot chocolate people will literally go into their mutuals askbox and 'warn' them that that person you reblogged from likes batcest. Legitimately. It's so toxic.
See, if you're tagging your ship correctly, if you're rating it correctly, if you're posting it in the appropriate places, if you are making it clear what it is that you've created so that others who don't want to interact with it can keep scrolling without clicking or can use their blacklist functions, then you're not doing anything wrong and your responsibility is pretty much over.
And that goes for any ship, any trope, and any fic in any fandom.
It does not matter.
No singular person or group of people has the right to police an entire fandom just because there's content being created that they don't personally like or agree with.
As long as those creators are keeping their content to the appropriate places (i.e. not posting explicit material in a general audience server or purposefully putting ship content under the wrong tag to force others to see it) then it's everyone else's responsibility to curate their own fandom experiences by using blacklists, mute functions, exclude filters, the block button, or just not clicking on content they know they don't like or agree with.
There are ships and tropes that turn my stomach. I don't want to see them, consume them, or even think about them because they squick me out.
And that's on me.
So I block, I blacklist, I mute, and I don't click.
Because the burden of responsibility for what I consume in fandom is on me.
Fandoms are like villages. Yeah, we're all living in close proximity but that doesn't give anyone else the right to come into my house uninvited and tell me they don't like my decor or that I can't cook this particular meal in my kitchen because they are allergic to it even though I never invited them to dinner.
So ignore the people who try and do that.
Tend your roses, fill your shelves, make your meals, and enjoy yourself instead.
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@jilytoberfest 31 Prompts: Day 24 || 843 Words || Read on Ao3
—
“The eclipse is going to be over if you don’t bloody move, Moony.”
“I’ll move in a minute, Peter, I just put my eye to the thing.”
“There’s a line behind us and James still has to go, hurry.”
Lily’s watching the squabble between the four men at the front of the line with amusement. There’s an urgency that overtakes people when an astrological event happens, and this solar eclipse is no different. The line behind the men is filled with several people, bouncing eagerly for their turn to look through the telescope at the Sinistra Observatory before the eclipse is complete. Looking across the heads of the crowd, she catches the eye of her coworker Alice and the two share an exasperated smile—they had known the crowds would come en masse today, and that always made for great people-watching.
The man at the telescope moves out of the way to stand by his tall friend—long black hair tucked behind his ear and looking at the line behind them with a smirk on his face.
“I knew I threw a fit about it, but getting here early was a smart move.”
The shortest of the group is now looking through the telescope, letting out a breath of awe that fills Lily with a kind of pride—a bit silly, really, seeing as how she wasn’t in control of the cosmos, just a facilitator for viewing it safely. When he finally makes to step away, the last of their group—tall with (she can’t help but notice) muscular forearms and a wild mop of black curls atop his head—steps to the side with them.
“Oh, did you not want to look?”
She doesn’t know why she’s addressed him, holding a hand out to stop the next group of viewers from moving up in line. His eyes meet hers with a bit of surprise.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
She frowns. “The next solar eclipse through this spot isn’t for another forty-seven years. Are you positive?”
His friends are doing a poor job at hiding their amusement, and maybe Lily feels a little bad at the way the man’s cheeks tinge pink but it’s a solar eclipse for Christ’s sake.
“Positive. It’s cool and all but I’m just…not very into space.”
Her hand drops and the slightly-irritated next group runs up to the telescope, all of Lily’s attention on the man. His friends take a few steps away, whispering amongst themselves as Lily’s eyes widen. “What do you mean you’re not very into space?”
“I’m just not, alright?” He casts a glance over at his friends, who seem to be enjoying the fiasco. “Are we ready?”
“Nah, mate,” the tallest one says. “We’re enjoying this.”
“But—there’s so much we don’t know about the universe…you can’t just not like it. What about space travel, or the makeup of planets or stars or the vastness of our galaxy? The fact that there’s trillions of galaxies other than our own? All the new images showing them to us in resolutions we couldn’t even dream of a decade ago?” She lets out a little chuckle of disbelief. “It’s just all so…vast. How can you not care?”
The man shifts uncomfortably, eyes flickering from her face to the line behind her as he drops his voice. “Well if you must know, that’s exactly why.”
“What?”
“There’s just…so much. So much we don’t know, so much we can’t even fathom. The amount of time it takes for light to travel or a picture to develop…it’s freaky, alright? And it just goes on forever? A beginning out of nothingness and then just…continual growth forever? Forever?” His cheeks continue to flush with his every word, Lily struck silent by the urgency in which his tirade picks up speed. “And how did the universe form in the first place? What space existed for space to appear? Nothingness? I literally cannot wrap my head around it. And we’re the only planet that sustains life? That we’ve ever seen? What the fuck?”
The man takes a breath and Lily blinks. “Wow.”
“Sorry,” he apologizes, running a hand through his hair with a sigh. “I just—once I get thinking on it, it kind of just—”
“Tumbles out?” she asks with a raise of her brow, a smile tugging at her lips. “I’m the same. Well, the same in the opposite, you know, opinion of things.”
“Maybe he just needs someone to properly explain things to him,” someone calls from the side, and when Lily looks, the sandy-haired man has his hand clamped over the tall one’s mouth, the shortest of the three trying to bury his snickering into the collar of his jacket.
“Oi!” Scared-of-Space yells in their direction, and Lily can see a new wave of blush travel up his neck.
“Don’t worry,” she whispers conspiratorially, “you’re not the first person I’ve met who’s afraid of space.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she nods, a smile breaking out on her face. “You are the first one above the age of twelve, though.”
“Ouch.”
“I’m teasing.” Lily smiles, and he returns it with relief.
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i've been neglecting morty in my fics lately, so i tried my hand at writing him again.
just something short and sweet to play around with, plus some effort to explore a few other characters!
anyway, ao3 link here! full text below the cut. :)
'Choosing to Sabotage Your Social Life'
2400 words
---
Morty tightened his grip on the steering wheel, that familiar vortex pulling at the inside of his ribs and aching his stomach.
Anger.
It was budding from annoyance. He had to be honest, he’d been angry since his phone had rang an hour ago, and even angrier when he’d realized Rick had locked the portal gun in his safe.
There was a whoosh and a slight jolt as the ship entered the asteroid’s artificial atmosphere, marked by a distinctive layer of thick cobalt clouds.
“Arrived: Asteroid 3-D89,” the ship’s AI said flatly. “If anyone cares, that is.”
“Jeez, man,” Morty huffed, tapping his left foot with irritation. “I’m not Rick. You don’t have to be so harsh.”
“Try not to take it personally. I’m programmed with a predisposition to conversational flippancy.” She still sounded annoyed, but Morty was beginning to think it was her default.
“Whatever. Thanks for the directions.”
Morty squinted, trying to get a feel for the parking situation the best he could in the flashing neon haze.
These sorts of things always made him nervous. He’d only been to this bar one other time, and Rick had been driving. Morty still wasn’t sure why they’d gone there, but he’d chalked it up to some sort of sketchy space drug deal. Most of Rick’s shit was like that– or close enough that he could get an idea of what was going on by picturing that scenario in his head.
One visit– especially one where he hadn’t driven– wasn’t enough to be comfortable with the location, and his chest swelled with anxiety. There were a lot of variables he couldn’t account for.
He brought his right thumb to his mouth, gnawing on the edge of the nail.
Morty thought most people must feel bigger when this far above everyone else. He knew Rick did. He assumed that when everyone looked so tiny and you were already a raging narcissist, it was hard not to feel more important.
Morty felt smaller up there, though— especially when he was alone.
The asteroid wasn’t anything impressive, literally just a mid-sized building and a parking lot large enough for twenty-five to thirty crafts at most. The horizon was the edge of the bar’s flat roof. It was rosy pink in some parts, and dark violet in others. Probably just peeps of the light mostly obscured from the three-star center of this system this time of their solar cycle. It was nearing the season change for the outer belt. The gas giants were shifting to let those blushing swathes of light reach the outskirts.
Morty caught a glimpse of two aliens sharing what looked to be something like a cigarette at the far end of the lot.
Still no space.
His stomach hurt.
“Oh, thank fuck,” Morty breathed out, finally noticing an empty spot near the front right of the establishment. Relief let his shoulders fall as he pushed his hips forward.
He positioned the ship above the space, reaching out and pressing his index finger against the auto park button.
He had to admit, it did come in handy.
Morty sighed as the ship began to lower itself slowly, bringing his hands up to cover his face. Finally– a moment to collect himself in silence.
He sat there, a few long breaths hissing past his tense fingers and warming his cheeks, before shifting to pull out his phone. The lights outside gave a tacky overcast to the whole scene.
He scrolled, finding his chat thread with Squanchy and typing out a quick message:
‘send him out, thx :)’
Morty stared blankly at the screen. He felt sick.
He wasn’t ready for whatever drunk Rick was about to do or say.
“Ugh.” He pressed the home button and opened Instagram, scrolling through the explore page numbly. He thought about queuing up a playlist, but he’d probably be too overstimulated to drive and listen to music with Rick in the passenger seat.
There was a tap at the window. Morty started, turning his head quickly and throwing his phone across the ship as he met Squanchy’s apologetic gaze.
“Shit,” the teen muttered, plastering on an awkward smile and rolling the window down sheepishly.
“‘Sup, kiddo?” Squanchy said softly, rubbing his elbow and lowering his eyes.
“Nothin’ much, man!” Morty replied. “H–Hey, thanks for calling me. I wouldn’t have wanted you guys to be stuck with him.”
“Ah, no worries, buddy.” Squanchy laughed, but reached out and gently placed a warm paw on Morty’s shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze. “Look, I’m really sorry you had to come all the way out here. I know it’s a school night on Earth and all, and you shouldn’t have to be dealing with this sorta shit.”
Morty didn’t know why, but he felt a lump in his throat. He swallowed it down, leaning into the kind touch a bit.
“Don’t be silly. My parents hardly notice when I’m gone,” he said, bringing a hand up and resting it on the other’s paw. “Where is the old fart, anyway?”
“Uh…” Squanchy pulled his arm back, that apologetic look creeping onto his expression once again as he rubbed the back of his neck. “He said to tell ya he’d be a minute, and that you could come in and watch him if you wanted. I told him you’d probably say no, and that they don’t let kids in here.”
Morty quirked an eyebrow. “Watch him do what, exactly?”
“Karaoke… Sort of. It’s more squanchin’ at this point.” The words came out with an uncomfortable twinge.
“Oh,” Morty said, more flatly than he’d meant to. “Just… tell him I’ll be in the car, yeah?”
“I’ll let ‘em know,” Squanchy said, turning. Morty reached to roll the window back up before his grandfather’s friend turned back around. “Sorry, again. Let me know when you guys make it home, yeah?”
“It’s really no problem, but sure thing, dude.”
Morty rolled the window up the rest of the way.
It was a few more minutes before a large, burly-looking turquoise alien came out, grasping a flailing Rick at the shoulders with a sturdy set of tentacles. Morty took a breath to steady himself— trying to remind himself how to look normal— and hopped out of the car, his slippers making a gentle sort of ‘clack’ sound on the pavement.
He was suddenly very aware of his matching yellow pajama set. They probably thought he was ten years old!
“Over here!” The boy waved one arm over his head, motioning for the creature to deliver his grandfather to where he stood.
The alien acknowledged him with a kind nod, tucking the old man in on one side and adjusting his trajectory slightly to their left.
“Thanks for bringing him out, sir,” Morty said bashfully as the creature got close enough to hear. He gestured for him to follow, walking around the ship and opening the passenger side door. “You–You can put him in here if you want.”
“Don’t thank him, you little dick,” Rick slurred with a hiss, spittle flying out when his teeth touched. “Asshole pulled me o–off stage in the middle of an encore.”
“Morty, right?” The alien asked, ignoring Rick and placing him on the seat. He leaned in and secured the buckle, much to the elder’s physical protest.
His syntax was sort of clicky and had a rasp to it that Morty found quite pleasant.
“That’s my name!” Morty said, throwing out a little finger gun in a desperate attempt to seem casual, immediately regretting it.
“Mooooorty,” Rick whined. “I said do–”
A tentacle reached out and slammed the door, cutting the old man’s sentence short.
Okay, yeah. Morty really liked this guy.
“Your grandpa here talks a lot about you. I hear you’re a pretty smart kid,” he said, closing two of his four eyes in what Morty assumed was a rough approximation of a wink.
“Pffff, nah,” the kid said, waving one hand dismissively.
“Whatever you say, little guy. Well, have a safe trip home!” The kind stranger trilled, heading back towards the opening of the bar.
“Yeah, you too!” Morty chirped in response, making a mental note to punch himself for it later.
“That was real rude of you, Morty ,” Rick snapped when Morty climbed back into the driver’s seat, hissing his grandson’s name as if it were a curse word.
Morty sighed, clicking his belt buckle into place and twisting the key.
Angry drunk it was, then.
“What was?” Morty inquired, lifting the ship from the ground. “Car, could you pull up some directions to get us home, please?”
“Sure, yeah, of course,” the ship replied, displaying a little map with a yellow point to indicate their current position. She spoke slowly, almost as if she’d made a conscious effort to sound pleasant.
It didn’t work.
“Thank you.”
Morty made a point to thank her when he remembered to.
“Not comin’ in t–to watch me perform. You wonder why no one likes you, but… but maybe it’s because you don’t even try,” the elder grumbled, bringing his knees up to hug them and pressing one cheek against the glass.
The ship punched a second hole in that layer of plush clouds and the blur of stars started to lull past them.
“Oh, yeah. I’m so sorry for coming to pick you up at 3 a.m.” Morty gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. “I have a math test in the morning, you know.”
Breathe.
“I’m jus–just sayin’, buddy. If you wanna have a social life, you’ve gotta make an effort.”
“Yeah, and I’m sure hanging out in some sleazy bar with a bunch of senior citizens would’ve really opened some doors for me in that department. Thanks, Rick.” Morty rolled his eyes.
“Morty, I don’t know a single alien culture as uptight about aging as humans.”
“Good to know,” Morty said, trying his best to shake off the animosity he held and be amicable. He didn’t feel like spending the whole ride arguing, “Did you have a nice time? It must be nice to see old friends.”
He thought maybe he tended to expect the worst with these kinds of things, often getting angry before there was much to be angry about. After all, in terms of Rick doing fucked up shit, this was a notably tolerable level of fucked up.
“Yeah, it was nice. You tend to see friends when you’re actually able to make them,” Rick replied, scoffing. Morty flinched. “Can I ask ya something?”
“Shoot,” Morty said, checking his blind spot.
It was pointless. Space was painfully empty, but Jerry had argued with Rick about it during a lesson once and his brain had latched onto the idea of something being there— not that there was even a need to merge. He just made sure Rick never caught him glancing.
“Do I have a vibe about me?”
Morty raised a brow, not able to stop himself from smiling at the humor in the question. “Uh, I’d say yeah. Everyone does. That’s how vibes work.”
“But I… I—I mean, like, a safe vibe that makes people think I’m a good listener,” Rick clarified, looking comically earnest. “Like a, uh… therapist vibe, I guess?”
Morty let out a deep laugh at that one, much to his grandfather’s bewilderment. He abandoned the wheel to clutch his stomach. Wiping away a tear, he wheezed out, “No. I’d— ah… I’d say you’re good on that one. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten the vibe that you wanted to listen to me.”
“Well,” Rick said, pouting and crossing his arms with a huff. “I think all the lonely old drunks in there would’ve disagreed.”
“Oh, really ?” Morty teased, giggling again.
“Yes!” Rick said, seeming to miss the sarcasm in Morty’s playful retort. “Had some weird lady come up and tell me her brother died in some accident the other day. I don’t even have any siblings!” He threw his hands in the air for dramatic effect, looking more like a wrinkly child in a disheveled lab coat than a live-in grandpa of two. Morty stifled another laugh. “D—Do I look like a guy that could relate to that? What do you even say to something like that as an only child?!”
“Maybe you just look like a sad drunk,” Morty offered, shrugging. “Or maybe it was the charming karaoke that made you seem so open-minded and approachable.”
“Eh.” Rick tried to shrug, but slumped forward too quickly, bouncing his head off the dash. Morty winced on his behalf. “You ruined the whole night, though. Had to tell ‘em I had to go because you—you didn’t wanna come in and spend time with your grandpa. Fu—Fuckin’… family and your generation don’t mix.”
Morty felt that familiar itch beneath his skin— that incessant irritation begging to bubble out of him and grab Rick by the throat.
“I dunno why you say these things,” Morty grumbled through clenched teeth, his back straightening. “I just wanted to be helpful. That bar wouldn’t have let me in, anyway. I’m in my pajamas .”
“I mean, think about it,” Rick said mockingly. “At least her brother died in a way she couldn’t control. You left your sister to die. We’re one and the same, buddy— you and me.” The elder threw a hand out on his shoulder, shaking the teen so hard that the ship rocked with them. “Deadbeats.”
Morty didn’t know if the tears were from anger, grief, guilt, or that ever-constant pit in his chest he could never quite fill up, but he let them slip out silently, anyway.
——
“What did you say to her?” Morty asked, barely audible, after a bit.
“Hm?” Rick hummed, now reclined and nearly comatose on his back, wrapped in a tight swaddle he’d clumsily fashioned from his own lab coat. “Who?”
“The lady whose brother died. What’d you say to her?”
He didn’t really know why he cared what Rick had said. He thought, maybe, he just wanted to know if he’d have done something different.
“Oh. I told her to fuck off,” Rick slurred matter-of-factly. “Did her a favor. Ya can’t expect the universe to baby you. We all lose something to it.”
“Huh,” Morty breathed, feeling a bit lighter. “I would’ve offered her a hug,” He thought out loud. “I would’ve listened.”
Rick snored. Morty listened.
-----
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Pop Rocks
Word Count: 2,777 words
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Relationship: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski
Tags: Fluff and Crack, POV Stiles Stilinski, Hospitals, Confusion, Monster of the Week (kind of), Stiles Stilinski has Diabetes, Diabetes, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Stiles Stilinski Has ADHD, Disabled Character, Chronic Illness
Summary: Another week, another monster tango, and Stiles was seriously contemplating starting a Yelp account, solely to leave a scathing review of this godforsaken town.
Or: Stiles may be lacking in the insulin department, but he more than makes up for it with his penchant for getting himself into embarrassing situations.
Read on AO3
For the ‘Healing Machine Malfunction’ space on my @badthingshappenbingo. Card under the cut.
Another week, another monster tango, and Stiles was seriously contemplating starting a Yelp account, solely to leave a scathing review of this godforsaken town. He’d title it something like 'Not suitable for sane human beings' or 'Reserved for those who enjoy flirting with danger... and death'.
He was single-handedly going to destroy Beacon Hills' already minuscule tourism sector. Petty? Maybe. Hilarious? Absolutely. But, hey—survival first, Yelp reviews later.
This evening’s uninvited party-crasher was a feral Alpha with a mug almost as ugly as Peter’s, and that… Well, that was a feat in and of itself.
Seriously, what about Beacon Hills was so freaking interesting to everything that goes bump in the night? Why the hell did they all wind up here? Did the town possess a supernatural magnet or something? Because it sure fucking felt that way.
Anyway, Stiles didn't have the time to unravel the mysteries of the supernatural migration patterns right then. He had more immediate concerns, like staying alive and preferably keeping himself in one piece in the process.
The odds, as they stood, seemed somewhat in their favor. Derek and Erica were a force to be reckoned with, fighting like a well-oiled machine, using the rough forest terrain of the preserve to their advantage, and Scott… Scott was trying his best. So far he seemed the most injured, his shirt now more red than white, and more hole than fabric, displaying the unmarred skin underneath. Oh, the perks of lycanthropy.
As for Derek and Erica, they were a bit better off, though not entirely unscathed; He was able to make out a few flesh wounds on them from his less-than-comfortable perch against a tree. Stiles himself had been a bit roughed up when he involuntarily shoulder-slammed a boulder, and the spot already felt like it was going to turn into one hell of a bruise. But, at least no one had lost their head yet (literally or figuratively), and Stiles definitely counted that as a success.
Stiles kept observing the fight, feeling like his limbs had turned to jelly, adrenaline-fueled panic crawling up his spine. His trusty metal bat felt heavy in his hand, his grip on it wavering as his fingers tingled, betraying his exhaustion.
Not that he’d actually done much in the last half hour except for running for his life and being tossed around like a ragdoll. Super productive, Stiles. Hard work, indeed.
Of course, he had attempted to throw himself into the fray, get in a good-whacking and all that, but let's just say that tripping over a tree root had earned him a stern growl from Derek, demanding he evacuate the "claw zone" immediately. Yep, that’s right, Stiles was put into time-out because he couldn’t watch his step. Talk about embarrassing. Maybe he should consider switching out his bat for a gun. At least then he wouldn’t feel so utterly useless.
Now normally, he’d put up a fight, or any fight to be precise, especially if Derek was concerned. But right then, he felt more like a microwaved marshmallow than the obnoxious, bat-wielding boy who ran with wolves. So he’d rolled his eyes and caved, banishing himself to the safe zone.
Leaving the frenzy was at least good for one thing—checking if his medical equipment was still a go or if it had been roughened up along with Stiles. Not that a broken insulin pump would be an immediate threat to his life—just his to dad’s wallet since the stuff wasn’t cheap, even with their fancy medical plan. But, it would be a major pain in the ass.
Because if something got dislodged or broke, he'd have to manually manage his blood sugar until he could get it replaced. It had happened before, and it wasn't a pleasant experience, not only because he loathed needles but also because ADHD and type 1 diabetes were an unholy union that turned him into a forgetful, hyperglycemic mess. And keeping track of his blood sugar levels was somewhat crucial to his continued survival.
Plus, having to explain to his dad that he'd somehow destroyed his medical equipment (again) while fighting monsters that didn't exist would be a conversation he'd rather avoid. He could already imagine how that would go: 'Hey, Dad, you know that expensive insulin pump I need to stay alive? Yeah, I kinda broke it while whacking a werewolf with my baseball bat. No biggie.' Yep, he’d really rather not.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to since all of it was in order. His CGM was still sticking firmly to his arm, and the cannula to his stomach. The pump was up and running and the tube connecting it and the cannula was free of any kinks. Crisis averted, at least on the diabetes front.
Now, if only his knees had received the memo about avoiding catastrophic collapses.
Just as he contemplated inventing a crush-resistant, werewolf-proof case for the pump, they sent a distress signal, urging him to slide down the tree before he ended up flat on his face, again. His mouth was still tingling from that epic faceplant, reminding him of that one time he’d crammed it choke-full with three packs of pop rocks. Alas, it wasn't caused by popping candy but rather… Ant pee. On his mouth. Ew.
But now that he was thinking about it, his mouth and lips weren’t the only parts of his body prickling, no, his whole body tingled and shook, almost in sync with his erratic heartbeat. Stupid adrenaline, couldn’t it just stick to the good stuff? The stuff that actually helped him survive? Nope, it just had to throw in the “impending heart attack” feeling because who didn’t love a good panic session? Well, certainly not Stiles.
Speaking of panic sessions, Scott chose that very moment to fly past him, or at least that’s what it looked like when his best friend’s body crashed nearby with a resounding thud. Stiles couldn't help but freak out for a moment before Scott popped back up, perfectly fine, like he hadn’t just momentarily turned into a werewolf missile. Seriously, could he not do that?
“You okay, man?” Scott asked before Stiles could even open his mouth. Stiles gave him a weak grin and a shaky thumbs-up, and Scott was off to throw himself back into the frenzy before he could even think about returning the question. Not that he could ask, considering that adrenaline had turned his brain into mush.
Stiles decided to shift his focus on stifling the panic gripping his chest, trusting that the three werewolves had the situation handled and that he wouldn’t immediately die if he didn’t actively pay attention to the happenings around him.
So, for a while, he sat there, leaning against the tree, one hand on his carotid artery, feeling the thump-thump of his blood. But then, he sensed somewhat of a shift in the air, and his attention snapped back to the spectacle before him. His senses were right, the fight was reaching its peak, and he watched in awe as Erica, agile and fierce, leaped onto the back of the massive beast. Her claws dug into its skull, giving Derek the perfect opening for the final, decisive blow. The sight of Derek's muscles rippling as he extended his arm back, then finally swiping a clawed hand across the Alpha's throat was both terrifying and impressive. And kinda sexy. And that was totally beside the point.
The beast collapsed like a sack of potatoes, and Erica howled in triumph. Stiles had half a mind to join in as well. Victory at last!
But his happiness was short-lived. As the adrenaline began draining away, Stiles felt a strange sensation washing over him—weakness, dizziness, and disorientation—all rolled into one neat 'Oh God, please, no' package.
Scott's concerned voice penetrated the fog in Stiles' mind. “You don’t look so good,” he said, flaunting his keen observation skills.
Stiles grunted, trying to dismiss the notion, but truthfully? He felt like he’d been run over. Twice.
Forcing his eyes open (apparently, he had closed them at some point?), he squinted in confusion as he was confronted by not one but two Scotts. Wait, when did that happen? Had he inadvertently stumbled into some bizarre parallel universe? He blinked, trying to focus on the real Scott, but they both stubbornly remained in his line of sight.
His mind swam, struggling to process what was happening. “Why’s there two of you?” Stiles slurred, his words slow and muddled as if he were in a dream. Wait, maybe he was dreaming; he certainly felt like he was floating.
And just when he thought things couldn't get any weirder, two Dereks materialized in front of him. “Two what?” they grunted.
Stiles’ poor heart skipped a beat at the sight—two sourwolves, both brooding and mysterious. A dream come true, perhaps?
A thought wormed its way into Stiles' bewildered mind—maybe this second Derek was the nicer version, the one who'd spare him from wall collisions and excessive growling. Not that he minded the growling, really, it was sort of a turn-on (not that he'd ever admit that out loud), but growly Derek seemed to take pleasure in pretending Stiles didn't exist. Derek two, though? A glimmer of hope.
“Oh hey, Derek two,” he drawled, the corners of his mouth twitching, "D’you wanna go on a date? Derek number one doesn’t like me much." He chuckled, though it sounded more like a feeble wheeze.
“Did he hit his head?” Derek number something grunted.
Stiles couldn't help but pout. There went his hopes and dreams.
“He smells weird,” Erica chimed in with her usual bluntness.
Scott took a whiff and cursed under his breath. “He smells like insulin. Like way too much of it.”
"Uh-oh, Houston, we have a problem," Stiles joked weakly around his numb and tingly mouth, his vision now an abstract watercolor painting, shapes swimming together. One Derek, two Dereks, a blob of color. "Someone... someone pass me the pop rocks, please." He tried to laugh, but it came out more like a slurred mumble.
"I got him," the Dereks spoke in unison, their voices eerily synchronized. Two Dereks, one voice. How confusing.
The Dereks acted quickly, hoisting him up with strong arms (just two, Stiles verified), and placing him on his feet.
“Can you stand?”
“Uh-huh.”
Stiles’ eyes rolled back, his legs gave out, and the world fell away.
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Stiles groaned as he slowly came to, realizing with exasperation that he was in god-forsaken Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital. Again. Seriously, this was becoming too much of a normal Wednesday afternoon for his liking.
He glanced around the sterile room, trying to gather his wits as he attempted to recall the events that led him here. But nope, the memories eluded him. It was like trying to reassemble a jigsaw puzzle. With all the pieces upside down.
His head hurt like someone split it with an ax—wait, was that what had happened? Nope, definitely no ax-wielding murderer. That would be very unusual, even for his life, and he’d remember it for sure. Did a truck run him over? Possible, but way too simple. Maybe it was an amnesia-inducing, soul-sucking monster? A dementor? Did those exist?
Thankfully, someone entered his room then, however, not so thankfully, it was his dad. Not that Stiles didn't want him here; he just hated seeing his old man so worried.
"Hey, Daddy-o," Stiles said with a weary smile, "did I make it into the record books for most hospital visits in a year yet?"
The sheriff approached, his concern mingling with amusement. "Not yet, but you're gunning for it, son. Though I'd really prefer you to break some other kind of record. How are you feeling?”
Stiles shrugged nonchalantly, instantly regretting it as pain shot through his skull like a lightning bolt. "Oh, you know, just like I tried to headbutt a moving train."
His dad nodded in mock seriousness. "And how'd that go for you?"
"Let's just say the train won,” he said. "But seriously, what happened?"
His dad grimaced, clearly worried about Stiles' memory lapse. “Your insulin pump malfunctioned, somehow. It just… kept pumping insulin into you.”
“Oh, wow.” Stiles grimaced. “Hypoglycemia? That’s a new one.”
Giving him a tense smile, his dad leaned against the wall, gaze never leaving Stiles. "You scare the hell out of me sometimes, you know that?"
Stiles sighed, guilt washing over him. If his dad knew only half the things he got up to every week, he’d probably have a heart attack. “I know, Dad. Sorry," he finally said, though he knew those words wouldn't ease his dad's anxiety in the slightest.
The older man's expression softened, and he moved closer to the bed, reaching out to ruffle Stiles' unruly, growing-out hair. The gesture hurt his head, but Stiles leaned into it, craving that bit of comfort. Sadly, it was over too soon, and he almost pouted. Almost.
"Scott's waiting outside.” The sheriff patted his shoulder and made his exit, muttering something about coffee and visiting Melissa.
Not two seconds later, a full head of curls appeared in the doorway, and Scott, wide-eyed and grinning, came inside.
“Hey, dude!” His best friend beamed, coming to a halt next to the bed, probably trying to keep himself from jumping onto Stiles like the overly excitable puppy he was. “You’re awake!”
Stiles grinned, the sight of Scott's perpetual excitement immediately lifting his spirits. "Hey, buddy," he greeted warmly. "Yep, I'm back from my unplanned, insulin-powered nap."
“Sugar crash, huh? That’s a new one.”
“Tell me about it.”
Curiosity flickered in Scott's eyes as he leaned in. "So, what's the last thing you remember?"
Stiles furrowed his brows, ransacking his memory for clues. "Uhm, Erica jumping on the Alpha's back, I think?"
“Uh-huh.”
Suddenly, Stiles was hit with a bolt of suspicion, sensing there was more to the story than he remembered. "Wait a minute," he said, eyeing the werewolf suspiciously. "What happened after that?"
"Nothing," Scott replied innocently, but his eyes showed a mischievous glint.
"Oh, God. What did I do now?"
A devilish grin spread across Scott's face. "Well, you might have done something... bold."
"Define bold in the context of my actions."
“You may have asked Derek on a date," he said, trying to stifle his laughter.
Stiles felt his heart stop, then accelerate at an unhealthy pace. "I what?!" He choked. No way. There was no freaking way he’d done that. What in the ever-loving hell had possessed him to say something like that?
“Well, Derek two. You saw double.”
Stiles slumped back into the pillows, contemplating whether he could ever convince his dad to pack up and leave this cursed town. "Fuck my life," he mumbled under his breath.
And as if the universe delighted in tormenting him, Derek Hale, the perpetually annoyed, brooding, and sexy Derek Hale that he’d asked on a date before freaking collapsing, stepped into the room, looking like he'd rather be anywhere but there.
"Speak of the devil," Stiles muttered, smirking up at Derek, hoping his crimson blush wasn't glaringly evident. Not that it mattered, though, because there was no way to top the stunt his hypoglycemic self had pulled. He had officially reached the maximum level of embarrassment with Derek.
“So,” Scott said, cutting through the awkward silence that had settled in the small room. “My mom told me to check in with her—”
“Don’t you dare, Scott.”
"Just for a sec."
"Scott!" Stiles shouted after his friend, but it was too late. The traitor had vanished, leaving Stiles alone with his humiliation and an Alpha werewolf who looked like he wanted to claw his way out of the room.
"Let's just pretend it never happened," Stiles blurted out, attempting to salvage what was left of his dignity. "I mean, seriously, we don't have to talk about—"
Derek cleared his throat, putting an end to Stiles' desperate rambling. "Actually, I... I wanted to ask if the offer still stands," he said, his usual aloof demeanor wavering ever so slightly.
Stiles' brain experienced a sudden Arctic freeze, leaving him momentarily speechless. There was no way he heard that right. "What offer?" he finally managed to ask, his voice an octave higher than normal.
Derek looked a tad awkward, scratching the back of his neck. "Of a, uh, date," he replied, sounding surprisingly human and, dare he say, vulnerable.
And there they were again, the pop rocks, making him erupt in tingly sparks all over. But this time, it wasn’t because of the hypoglycemia.
Stiles couldn't help the massive grin that spread across his face. “Hell yeah.”
#teen wolf#teen wolf fanfiction#sterek#stiles stilinski#derek hale#scott mccall#ao3 fanfic#healing machine malfunction#bad things bingo#bad things happen bingo#monster of the week
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Hi Vox! Is me, werewolf anon. How you been? Hopefully feeling better from your sickness?
I took your advice and started reading "The way it follows you home" and so far it's been a fun ride! Past Gojo being jealous of Future Gojo over Future Yuji is adorable lol. Also your "Itadori sensei" seems so much more responsible than Gojo ever was! But I must admit my favorite part was Future Yuji giving the watch to Past Nanami. Even though for this Yuji, Nanami has been dead a thousand years, he still misses him so much. I thought you wrote that wistful nostalgia and pain really beautifully and I'm glad that Past Nanami understood how significant this gesture was. Good job! I'm looking forward to you finishing the rest!
And I usually don't wade into ship discourse because I find it exhausting but I read you've been getting some negativity and I'm so sorry to hear that. I truly don't understand why people want to invest that much time and energy into shitting on other people's likes when they can just focus on what they like. The tags are RIGHT THERE. The back button is RIGHT THERE. It's the reader's responsibility to set their own boundaries. The whole point of AO3 caters to that.
Also I really appreciate how THOROUGHLY you tag. You even expand on the author notes. So these haters literally have no excuse! For example, I tend to stay away Noncon and am selective about dubcon. I'm really grateful the care you put into first warning the readers because then I can make my own choice if I am in a headspace to read it.
And I want to emphasize that I think you should write whatever the hell you want because it's YOUR space. Just like it's MY job to create the online experience I want.
THAT BEING SAID...you are definitely the author I go: "Hmm...I usually don't read fics with this tag but I'll try it because it's Vox." 😂 Like the captured mermaid Bucky fic. Oooh yeah I definitely did a thousand yard stare after to process that one lol! But I love how your fics help me get out of my comfort zone and explore in the safety of fiction. And no surprise, I've loved every single one.
So what I'm trying to say is, you do you. I think there's many readers who are grateful for all your hard work.
Here's a token of my appreciation. It's not much but hopefully it puts a smile on your face. Once again cursing Tumblr for being unable to attach an image file on anon asks! Take care!
https://u.cubeupload.com/Anon9000/Xu1nOV.png
Hello there!
Ahh, I’m glad you’re liking that fic so far! It’s close to the end. Penultimate chapter will go up in a few hours, and the final chapter will be out in Feb, the cosmos willing. Gojou reacting to his own self entertains me endlessly, so I keep writing it. Two versions of that…very loud personality existing at the same time in each other’s vicinity would have one hell of a blast radius, and putting Yuuji squarely in it is one of my favorite things to do in JJK. And I do write Yuuji as a more responsible teacher than Gojou, true! But you can guess that his decency and restraint rarely last.
Not over Nanami’s death yet, huh? Mood though 🍻 It’s great to know that was your favorite scene! And I'm glad the emotional elements came through well.
Stay safely out of ship discourse, my friend. It ain’t worth it. It tends to come find me, but ah well. In JJK, it’s not even ship discourse that keeps haunting me; it’s fucking top–bottom discourse. I haven’t run into anyone pissy about my choice of Le Problematique ships yet (and I sure hope it stays that way). And top/bottom is one of the few things I don’t tag, solely because several instances of hypocrisy in general fandom pissed me off and I’m spiteful on a good day, but it’s also not something that’s hard to figure out. Those familiar with me know I stick to a single dynamic, and others will learn. Otherwise, there’s trusty CTRL+F. That all aside, I’m glad you like my tagging practices! I try to make it so that those who want spoilers/warnings will be able to access them, while those who don’t can hide the additional tags and ignore my drop-down warnings.
I did do a double-take when you said you tend to avoid noncon and then name-dropped the captive mer!Bucky fic—but in a good way! I can’t tell you how wonderful—that’s not a strong enough word, really—it is to know my fics can be that kind of a safe exploration for you. That’s hands-down one of the greatest compliments I’ll ever hear about my stories 💗
And don’t worry, I’ve mostly found very lovely people in fandom. JJK is a little more obnoxious about certain things than I’m used to, but the vast majority of my readers and fellow fans are kind, supportive, and delightful. I’m prone to getting pretty pissed off when assholes pop up in my inbox, but it usually leaves me ten times as determined to keep doing my thing.
I LOVE THAT YUUJI! Holy shit, he’s adorable. I want to pinch his cheeks and also eat him 🥺
I've saved that to my fanart folder for future pick-me-ups. Thank you so much! You’re a sweetheart 💗
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Heavy to Hold - Chapter 14
Safe Space
Pairing: Astarion x enby!tav
Status: in progress
Rating: Explicit (18+ only)
Genre: angst/comfort | slow burn
Alternating second-person POV
Contains spoilers for the whole game basically
TW: it's an astarion fic: descriptions of trauma, abuse, sexual violence, etc. | smut | full tag list on AO3
Read from the beginning: AO3 | Tumblr
Listen to the Playlist
“I have to admit that I’m generally not on the receiving end. I’ll defer to your expert judgement.” You felt the anticipation building in your body. It had been a long time since you truly relaxed and enjoyed yourself. The stress of your current situation and your nights with Astarion had you feeling pent up. The idea of turning over control to someone else sounded positively refreshing.
Read on AO3
Read on Tumblr ↓
Tav's POV
Things weren’t going particularly well for Team Tadpole.
Your merry band of misfits all had a lot of personal issues going on. Wyll’s patron was mad at him for not killing Karlach. Karlach was on the verge of exploding. No one could tell when Shadowheart was being purposefully edgy or just an amnesiac. Lae’zal couldn’t understand why walking directly into a Githyanki creche was perhaps a bad idea for a group of people who were predominantly not Githyanki. Gale was cursed to eat magic shoes on a regular basis because he fucked up a gift for his ex, the literal goddess of magic.
Despite all those issues, at the moment they were mostly concerned with whether Astarion, your resident vampire spawn, was going to drain them in their sleep. He wasn’t.
He was too busy drinking from you.
While his impromptu murder of a monster hunter hadn’t inspired a lot of trust, everyone agreed that the most important task of the moment was finding a way to rid yourselves of your Illithid stowaways before anyone sprouted tentacles. Unfortunately, you weren’t having much success there either. Every healer you had come across was unable to do anything about the parasites slowly burying themselves in your brains. Your best lead so far was an archdruid, but he was of course being held captive in a stronghold of goblin cultists.
Or at least, you hoped he was still being held captive and hadn’t been served up as dinner.
Entering the stronghold had proven an easier task than you had anticipated. The guards outside saw that you were a Drow and started bowing and scraping like you were an authority figure. They also seemed afraid that you were going to flay them. The assumption that your first instinct as a Drow was to enact cruelty on them made you uncomfortable, but it did seem easier to go along with it than try to fight your way to the druid.
So, your group found themselves in a former temple of Selune that had been converted to a goblin fortress. You assumed your druid was being held in the dungeon, but to get there you would have to make your way past a horde of goblins.
As luck would have it, the goblins were mostly wasted and what few braincells they still had up and running were enough to tell them they should be afraid of you, so you were able to enter the main hall with no danger to yourselves other than stepping in goblin puke.
“Ahhh, the smell of debauchery in the air.” Astarion smirked as he threw his arms wide dramatically.
“It’s not quite a hells party but it is certainly something.” Karlach mused.
“Don’t tell me this is your kind of party, Astarion?” Shadowheart questioned. Ever since she found out what was going on between you and Astarion, she had taken to picking on him at every opportunity.
“Well….it does lack a certain glamour.” He frowned as he examined the goblin’s taste in decor. “But a handful of drunken Baldurian Patriars wouldn’t be too out of place here.”
Shadowheart was about to respond, but a blood-curdling scream rose over the din of noise to echo through the chamber.
“Is someone being tortured?” Karlach looked around, trying to find where the noise had come from. She changed off, leaving the other three of you to scurry after her.
When you caught up with her, she was peeking into an open doorway.
“Shhhh….there’s some kind of torture chamber in here.” She whispered as the group huddled in the shadows. “We have to rescue whoever they have in here, they may have seen our druid.”
Just then, a young human stumbled out of the room with a dazed look on his face. You recognized the expression—it was the same one many of your “guests” would have as they left Sharess’ Caress after a long evening.
“Karlach, I don’t think it’s—” You tried to interject, but she had already grabbed the bewildered man and pinned him to the wall.
“What? Is this part of it? I thought it was over once I said pumpernickle?” The man protested.
“Now now, if you want a turn, all you have to do is ask.” A slender man wearing a dramatic collared outfit was standing in the doorway. The dim candlelight cast flickering shadows over his scarred skin.
Karlach released her hold on the man, dropping him to the floor. She leered at the man in the doorway as she stood head and shoulders above him.
“Are you more faithful who have come to beg penance from the Maiden of Pain?”
“Maiden of Pain….” Shadowheart folded her arms as she examined the man, trying to identify his order. “Are you a Loviatan?”
“Ahh, you know her? Splendid! That does save me my usual explanation.” He sighed and shook his head. “I was asked here to help assist these goblins with their techniques, but they do not seem to grasp the complexity of Loviatar’s rituals.”
“With what techniques?” Astarion asked, his eyebrow raised inquisitively.
“Torture.” Shadowheart said flatly. “Loviatar only answers prayers offered to her in blood.”
“Torture is such an ugly word for it.” The man waved his hand dismissively. “Loviatar is the goddess of pain, in all of its exquisite forms. She may not particularly care if her penance is doled out to…reluctant…worshipers, but in my experience as a priest, I’ve found that the most beautiful prayers come from the lips of those who truly enjoy their penance.” His eyes met yours; you could tell he was trying to gauge your interest.
The clergy of Loviatar were somewhat infamous in your line of work. The kinds of elaborate rituals that they would perform would make anything you ever did with a client look positively mundane. You had to admit, it was an intriguing idea. You generally only had the opportunity to give out punishment, not take it, and who better to entrust your penance to than a master of the form?
There was, however, the matter of your companions. You weren’t sure how they would feel about you participating in such an activity voluntarily while you were technically supposed to be on a rescue mission. There was also the matter of Astarion. The two of you had been fairly intimate to facilitate his hunger for blood, though it had never progressed past that. You also weren’t sure if his history with Cazador would make this an uncomfortable situation for him. Perhaps this particular bucket list item would be best skipped for now.
“Forgive my manners.” The priest smirked at you knowingly as he held your gaze. “My name is Abdirak. I haven’t seen many non-goblins during my time here. You are a welcome respite from their primitive approach to pain.”
“I’m sorry, are we ranking types of pain now?” Karlach frowned. This was clearly not her cup of tea.
“Oh, now that sounds like fun.” Astarion cooed. Perhaps he was more interested in this than you had anticipated.
“How refreshing it is to be in the company of those who understand the value of Loviatar’s Love.” Abdirak sighed. “I must admit, it has been too long since I offered a proper penance of my own.” He turned towards you as he spoke. “There’s a shortage qualified individuals around here, and I’ve always found that penance is more effective under proper supervision.”
Gods damn it. Even a priest of the goddess of torture wants to bottom.
“Tell me, if one of us helped you with this…penance.” Shadowheart still looked skeptical as she spoke. “Would you be willing to tell us more about the cultists here?”
“Oh, I do love a good torture for information.” Astarion looked…excited? You couldn’t tell whether it was genuine or he was just trying to maintain his reputation in front of Shadowheart and Karlach.
“An intriguing offer.” Abdirak placed his hand on his chin thoughtfully. “I think if I were able to give and receive penance, I would have some time left over to discuss the cult.”
Such a greedy switch.
“And just who do you think needs to receive penance?” Astarion placed his hands on his hips. There was a tension in his voice. You needed to make sure he wasn’t picked to receive.
“I believe I could handle both roles.” You volunteered. Abdirak’s face lit up—clearly you had been his first choice. He extended a hand towards you to lead you into his chamber.
“Now wait just a moment.” Astarion protested. “What exactly are you going to be doing with them?”
“That will be up to the Maiden of Pain to decide.”
You had to hand it to Abdirak—he had a very solid set-up. All his equipment was meticulously maintained and organized with care. He asked you to start his penance with the whip—a nine-tailed scourge with barbed tips that felt heavy in your hands. It was a bit more extreme that what your clients generally had a taste for, but you were a quick learner.
You soon had him moaning his prayers with delight as the deep red welts developed on his exposed back. He tried to say he was done after eight lashes—but he had agreed to nine and had yet to utter your agreed upon words. Perhaps he wanted to test your commitment, or perhaps he was the type who liked to be pushed ever so slightly past his limits. Either way, you delivered your final strike harder than the last. He screamed his thanks, both to you and to Loviatar.
“Something tells me you’ve done that before.” He chuckled breathlessly. You handed him a cup of water before turning to prepare ointment for his wounds. He raised his eyebrow at you. “Okay, now I know you have.”
“What comes after is just as important as what happens during.” You said with a practiced patience as you tended to his back.
“A beautiful phrase. Loviatar reminds us that we must tend to each other so that we can endure more pain for her in the future.” He smiled at you. “Tell me, who do you serve? Your technique was…different, from what I’m used to.”
You paused for a moment to consider your answer.
“Sharess.”
“Ahh,” he nodded knowingly. “The Maiden of Pain and the Dancing Lady are so rarely worshiped in tandem.” He stood, carefully tensing his back to test the extent of his injuries. “Well, I hope that the experience you’ve granted me was up to your Lady’s standards of pleasure. I certainly enjoyed it.”
You had to admit that Abdirak was a much more pleasing companion than most of the others you had given similar treatment to. So many of the people who came to you for punishment reveled in the shame of it—theirs was a psychological pleasure of being dominated, corrupted by Lolth. Yours was the role of the cruel mistress, the defiler come from the monstrous Underdark to corrupt the surface. It was hard to enjoy such a dynamic when the suspicion that image brought to your kind always crept at the edges of your interactions with people.
In contrast, Abdirak’s pleasure was physical. He ached for the sensations you brought to his body and he reveled in the pain you inflicted as a representation of his faith and devotion. He wore his injuries with pride and seemed to respect you as a skilled practitioner.
And, he hadn’t called you mistress once, which was always a refreshing change.
Now, it was your turn to be penitent.
“Tell me, what sort of pain would bring you the pleasure of Sharess?” He asked, his heavy breathing revealing his excitement.
“I have to admit that I’m generally not on the receiving end. I’ll defer to your expert judgement.” You felt the anticipation building in your body. It had been a long time since you truly relaxed and enjoyed yourself. The stress of your current situation and your nights with Astarion had you feeling pent up. The idea of turning over control to someone else sounded positively refreshing.
“I shall endeavor to do my best.” He pointed you towards a set of leather shackles mounted to the wall.
“Try not to draw any blood.” You remarked as you walked towards the wall. Your blood was spoken for, after all.
In true Sharessan fashion, you undressed, leaving only the intricate straps of your undergarments. Abdirak raised an eyebrow.
“Ah, is this the how Sharess prefers her worship?” He smirked at you as he started to remove his elaborate collar. “Far be it from me to disrespect a goddess.”
“My friends just call me Tav.”
“Ha!” The religious pretense fell away as you faced each other, bare skin lit by candlelight as you stood on the cool stone tiles.
You watched as he surveyed your body. Other than a few bruises, your unblemished skin stood in stark contrast to the scars that covered practically every inch of his. He hadn’t looked close enough to find the bite marks that Astarion left on you each night.
“Such an exquisite canvas” He placed a hand under your chin and gently lifted your head towards his. “It will be hard to control the urge to leave my mark on it. I’ll have to be content with bruises.” There was an intensity to his eyes as he spoke—not of bloodlust, but of passion. He reveled not in inflicting pain, but in feeling. Whatever he had in store for you, it would not be soon forgotten.
He twirled a finger slowly, signaling you to turn and face the wall. A shiver ran down your spine as you pressed your skin against the cold stones. Abdirak bent down and spread your legs apart, locking each of your ankles into a shackle. He repeated the motion for your wrists, leaving you exposed and standing on tip-toe. His hand rested gently on your hip as he leaned close and whispered in your ear.
“Looks like there is someone leaving marks on you after all. I hope they don’t mind sharing.” He gave you a swift slap on your bare ass. You yelped at the unexpected sting. “Are you going to scream beautifully for me, dear one?”
You thought about the marks on your thighs and how wet you had been as Astarion placed each one. More often than not, you had returned to your bedroll and imagined what it would have felt like for him to indulge in more than just your blood. You wanted him, but you hadn’t been willing to risk him turning you down and ending what pleasure you did get from him.
You bit your lip as you let your mind wander, imagining the hands on you were his. Every stroke and caress, every strike, serving only to intensify your fantasy. Soon, you found yourself moaning aloud, begging for release.
“That’s my pet.” Astarion’s voice echoed in your mind.
“Aahhh~” You moaned aloud as Abdirak delivered another blow.
“You’re doing so well for me.” You swore you could feel his lips against your neck.
“AAAAhhhh!” You squirmed, trying to find any kind of friction you could from your bound position.
“Come for me.”
“Astarion!” You screamed his name as you fell over the edge. Your legs buckled underneath you as the waves of pleasure overtook your body, leaving you briefly suspended by your wrists.
Abdirak threw the small crop he had been using to the side as he moved to remove you from your shackles. You collapsed into his arms on the floor as you tried to catch your breath.
“You make your Goddess proud.” He chuckled. You could feel his hard cock pressing against you. “If I weren’t devoted to Loviatar, I would be tempted to convert.”
“Do you...want help with that?” You blushed, your breathing still heavy. You suddenly felt guilty for using him to get off.
“While that is a very enticing offer, I think we both know that your attentions lie elsewhere.” He smiled at you. “Thank you for an absolutely exquisite experience. I hope that whoever has your heart appreciates your talents as much as you deserve.”
“I hope so too.”
#baldurs gate 3#bg3#astarion#astarion x tav#astarion ancunin#bg3 astarion#bg3 spoilers#astarion x oc#astarion x mc#astarion fanfic#bg3 tav#bg3 fanfiction#astarion baldurs gate#astarion angst#astarion romance#bg3 fic#bg3 fanfic#astarion fanfiction#fic: heavy to hold
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Dubcon is there for the cases where it's like, the scenario doesn't leave space for 100% explicit consent (like fuck or die but also the kind of fic where all the characters want it but aren't sure of the other's motivations or that they're all on the same page relationship-wise etc etc), it doesn't line up 1-to-1 with real life consent bc it's fiction and you can push it further without making the reader feel they're in noncon territory, since you're in the characters' heads. For some people it should line up or it's fucked up, for others it's more about if it hits the spot kink-wise or falls flat, or they've got different expectations based on story genre or canon context. What constitutes dubcon or noncon or "fully consensual doesn't need a tag" and where the lines are is A Fandom Debate that has been going on for decades and changes with cultural/fandom context and time too. I've heard this is why ao3 doesn't have dubcon as a warning, there was no consensus there, but the rape warning is generally more clear when it applies (bc 99% of the time it's written like that on purpose) and if the author isn't sure they can use the "chose not to use archive warnings" tag.
Im also getting annoyed at the amount of Izzy fic that doesn't tag dubcon or noncon but like. Clearly this is the entire point of the fic once you read it. Like the consent issues and Izzy being deeply uncomfortable or distressed or feeling like he can't say no safely are important factors in here and this is treated as aah but it's fine bc he's Izzy like (????) That's A Kink, author. That's a ducon kink you've got there. Sometimes straight up a rape kink. Please for the love of fuck own it, so I can filter it in or out depending on my mood. It's not even a content warning tag of the "may contain traces of peanuts" variety at that point! It's peanut butter! It's what this fic Is About!
It's also getting increasingly harder for me to trust trans Izzy fic by authors I don't know, bc so many of them feel less like this guy is trans and more like "Nagging ex-wife needs to be Taught a Lesson is my shit, but I can't be like that to a female character, that's illegal. So Im going to use this guy instead and change the pronouns" or like, I also don't want to read about sexual violence against a trans guy! I get that this is a kink trans men may have, just like how women have rape fantasies, but I don't have it and I would like to be able to filter it out. Sometimes it's a matter of writing skill, sometimes it's a matter of this getting mixed in with the general trouble people seem to have giving poor kinky sub Izzy the right to consent to things, like being a sub makes him less a person (which happens in other fandoms but I haven't seen it get this prevalent before)
(in reference to this post)
Thank you! I wasn't aware that this has been the subject of fandom debate, but that makes sense. It would be nice if more people at least just went with "chose not to use archive warnings," but I guess that would require them to think about whether there's consent in their fic to begin with.
And yes, it's baffling to me how people don't get that their works contain rape when that's the entire point of them. There was some art going around recently about an AU where Izzy was a pirate hunter and he was blindfolded, expecting to be having sex with Stede (and IIRC it was implied that that wouldn't have been fully consensual either), but then it was revealed to be Ed who removed the blindfold and used it to gag Izzy. Literally the entire point of it was that Izzy was uncomfortable, and obviously there was no way it could have been consensual, but the artist didn't tag it for rape and neither did anyone I follow who reblogged it; I actually convinced myself that I was being overly sensitive and misinterpreting it but now I'm not so sure.
I've been lucky enough to avoid anything too awful in trans Izzy fics, but I have seen a decent number of posts that seem to be taking the "Izzy is wife-coded/woman-coded" idea (which I don't have anything against, to be clear) and taking it all the way to "Izzy is literally a woman, except I don't want to genderswap him so I'll just make him trans" as if that isn't super transphobic, so I'm not surprised that awful stuff like that ends up in fics.
The stuff with people headcanoning him as a sub (because it is just a headcanon, despite any textual evidence for it) and using that to justify awful things happening to him is so infuriating for me! I've seen a lot of fics tagged for "dom/sub undertones," whatever that means, with no other warnings, and it's just Izzy being raped except it's okay because he's a sub and therefore he must be okay with anything anyone does to him. It reminds me of people using the masochist Izzy headcanon in similar ways (see this post).
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Tasseomancy - chapter 7
💋a shopping trip, a borrowed shirt, a revelation??????????💋
chapter 1: tumblr / ao3
chapter 2: tumblr / ao3
chapter 3: tumblr / ao3
chapter 4: tumblr / ao3
chapter 5: tumblr / ao3
chapter 6: tumblr / ao3
read chapter 7 below or on ao3!
Edward was going absolutely batshit bonkers insane. He’d had what was easily one of the top three best orgasms of his entire life during phone sex with Stede, they’d sweetly told each other how much they both liked it, and now here they were on another terribly intimate shopping date, not talking about it, not kissing about it, not doing anything other than carrying on with their chaste little friendship as if they both weren’t constantly thinking about you feel so good and it’s me, I’m there.
Every time Ed thought about it he got this feeling, low down in his gut. It would ripple outwards into his chest and limbs, like hot water being poured over his skin, and he would have to close his eyes and take a very conscious breath and drag his hand across the back of his neck. It was a feeling he used to get a lot, back when he was young and sex was still new and fun and exciting, before it became just another bodily function to take care of. But something reawakened when Stede had moaned in Ed’s ear in a way that just couldn’t be faked if you weren’t super horny for the person you were moaning for, and now Ed was at the point where he’d jerked off so many times in the past few days that he was pretty sure his dick was about to fall off.
Naturally, Stede had not outright said that he was thinking about it. But the way his eyes kept on going glassy and his words trailed off every time Ed happened to stretch and reveal ever more inches of his midriff certainly seemed to indicate that Stede was thinking about something.
But if Stede was thinking about it, why wasn’t he acting on those thoughts? Maybe Ed wasn’t being obvious enough, and Stede thought that Ed wasn’t into him. Which, okay, completely unbelievable, how could he possibly think that after Ed literally sent him a dildo and then fucked him over the phone with it? That was pretty fucking obvious in Ed’s opinion.
To be fair, Stede did seem to be a champion represser. He was getting better at catching himself when he knew he was repressing his feelings, but Ed was pretty sure that at least half of the time Stede was completely unaware of just how much he was burying, minimising, explaining away. It seemed to be second-nature to deny himself, even when there was nothing to be gained by doing so, and judging from what Stede had revealed about his life up until this point, there had never been anyone around him to demonstrate that there was any other way of living.
Ed could tell Stede to be brave, to take life by the horns, to go after what he wanted until he was blue in the face, but he knew all too well that words with no action were utterly worthless. Ed couldn’t just talk about this other way to live, he had to show him.
The dildo was a very good first step (even if it had escalated wildly beyond what he originally intended, but Ed absolutely could not find it in himself to regret that for even one tiny moment); Ed had told Stede he would help him, backed it up with his actions, and then in that resulting safe and supportive space Stede had abandoned himself to joy and pleasure without a second thought. True, he had tried to quash it a bit at the end, reining himself back in, talking like he was wasting Ed’s time, but they could work on that.
So: no more empty words that Stede could rationalise away. Less talk, more action. If he wanted Stede to be brave, Ed himself would have to be brave first.
That sounded good. Ed could do that. Easy peasy.
With that decided, Ed put his arm around Stede’s waist as they walked across the main plaza of the Old Quarter. It was the beginning of October and the weather was chilly, but only a little, and certainly not cold enough to warrant huddling for warmth. Whatever Stede had been saying was abruptly cut off, and Ed just looked at him and smiled. “You were saying?” he asked, giving Stede’s hip a gentle squeeze.
Stede smiled weakly back at him. He was wearing Ed’s old aviator sunglasses, even though the autumn sunlight wasn’t very strong. But that was okay, because Ed was wearing Stede’s heart-shaped glasses as well, and it certainly wasn’t because he wanted the UV protection. He'd barely taken them off since Stede first put them on him.
“Um, yes, what was I saying? Right, ah, the street just up ahead is where most of the boutiques are, we should start there and work our way round…”
Ed really did try to listen to what Stede was saying, but all he could think about was the press of Stede’s body against his, the warm inviting softness of his waist, and the frankly intoxicating smell of his hair. What was that, lavender? He leant in for another deep sniff.
“Your hair smells really fucking nice, man. You got some flowery new shampoo?”
“Oh, yes, it’s a hand-made shampoo bar that I got from a shop not too far from here. It’s lavender and bergamot. I bought it some months ago and it was quite the indulgence, so I’ve been trying to use it very sparingly, to make it last as long as possible. Special occasions only and all that.” Stede petted self-consciously at his hair, and Ed just wanted to gobble him up right there.
“Today is definitely a special occasion. Where’s the shop? I’m going to buy you some more.”
Stede put up only the most token of protests and barely suppressed the pleased look on his face while he did it, which made Ed very happy indeed, and then directed them down a little cobblestone side lane. Ed could smell the shop before he saw it, a heady mix of essential oils and drying herbs. Inside, it was decked out like some kind of old-timey apothecary — exactly the kind of charming, ridiculous place that Stede would love.
They didn’t just sell fancy shampoo bars, as it turned out, but all kinds of bath, body, and beauty products. Ed immediately started opening every jar and picking up every bar of soap, luxuriating in all the different smells and calling Stede over to have a sniff of the best ones. They spent far longer in the shop than Ed thought they would, but he didn’t mind; there were so many little tester pots of stuff to look at and sniff and rub on his hands, he could probably spend a whole day in here and then come out at the end of it smelling like he’d lost a fight with an incense stick.
Ed eventually located the lavender shampoo bars, and was stacking up a huge pile of them (mostly for Stede, but some for himself as well because it really did smell absolutely delicious) ready to carry precariously over to the shopkeeper, when he heard Stede make a sound that was awfully similar to the sounds he’d been making on the phone the other day. He looked over, and saw Stede wafting a squat little bottle of perfume oil under his nose.
“Smells that good, huh?” Ed said with a little laugh.
“It’s like… vanilla, leather, something a little bit orangey. Tobacco, but not in a nasty way. Amber.” He wafted the bottle under his nose again, and then upended it quickly onto his fingers. He dabbed them on the silk scarf he had tied about his neck, saturing the fibres with the scent, and then brought the fabric up for another waft. “Oh yes. Wow. It… it smells like you.”
“Shall I buy it for you?” Ed asked, eyes dark, as he walked over and wrapped his fingers around the bottle in Stede’s grasp. Slowly, not breaking eye contact, he drew Stede’s hand towards himself and inhaled the scent.
“Yes,” said Stede, a little breathless. No please or thank you, just yes, and then Ed was slipping the bottle from Stede’s trembling fingers and having to stop himself from making his own suspiciously orgasmic-sounding noises.
He took the perfume and all the shampoo bars over to the counter, along with a spray bottle of something that would apparently enhance his curls, and a tub of some creamy goop for his face, and a few other random little pampery things that Stede suggested he might like, and the shopkeeper gave him a very knowing look while she rang up his purchases. He arranged for the shampoo and other beauty products to be delivered, since there was admittedly rather a lot there and he didn’t want to be weighed down carrying it around all day, but he got the perfume packed up in a cute little gift bag with ribbon handles and a froth of crinkly tissue paper.
Outside the shop, Ed handed the bag over to Stede and their fingers slid together briefly, there and gone again. As they set off towards the clothing boutiques, Ed pulled Stede in again with an arm around his waist, and Stede leaned in to his warmth with a happy sigh.
At the first boutique they went into, Ed found some very sexy leather trousers with shiny brass buttons, which hugged his arse and thighs in all the right places and honestly made him want to fuck himself a little bit, especially since he was also wearing the (recently dry-cleaned) silky cashmere cropped t-shirt. The trousers certainly weren’t fundraiser appropriate, but they were absolutely Stede-seducing appropriate, so of course he had to buy them.
In the second boutique, Stede started fussing over a beautifully tailored overcoat, made of a thick, dusky blue cashmere and studded with moulded gold buttons. Ed encouraged him to try it on, and when they were both admiring how Stede looked in the mirror, Ed settled his hands around Stede’s waist, leaned into his ear, and whispered, “It’s yours.”
Stede wasn’t quite so ready to accept this as he had been with the perfume and the shampoo bars, probably because the coat cost at least twenty times more. “Edward, you can’t,” he said in useless protest.
“I can,” Ed said, “and I want to, so I will.” Stede looked fucking beautiful in the coat, like mind-numbingly hot. He stood straighter, looked more confident, and the colour made his skin look so creamy and gorgeous. He’d even smiled at himself in the mirror. There was no way in hell that Ed was letting Stede walk out of the shop without it.
They ended up adding a silky, ivory-coloured shirt with delicate drapey sleeves to the shopping list of Things You Really Cannot Buy Me, Edward, as well as a pair of cufflinks that were shaped like little moths. When Ed handed his payment card over to the shop assistant, Stede’s cheeks turned the most appealing shade of pink.
They exited the shop, and Stede made several attempts to start a sentence but couldn’t really get past, “Ed, I—”
“It’s my money, Stede,” was all Ed said in response. “Let me spend it how I want.”
They went in and out of a few more little boutiques with limited success, until eventually Stede directed them into one where they found the most gorgeous purple suit. It was a deep, rich, plummy purple, and made of a drapey wool crepe fabric which wrapped around Ed’s body in soft folds. The trousers tapered gently to his ankles, and the jacket crossed over his body and fastened with a neat little tab and buckle. He didn’t pick a shirt to wear underneath, much preferring the deep vee of bare chest that was left on show. It was another one of those androgynous looks that Ed had been so terrified of trying just a few short weeks ago, but when he looked in the changing room mirror there was none of that hollow, draining fear, just the satisfying click of something fundamental slotting into place.
“This is it, Ed, this is the one,” Stede said reverently from over his shoulder. There wasn’t quite enough room for him to be in the changing room as well, but Stede didn’t seem to care and Ed certainly didn’t.
“I reckon it is, yeah. I look incredible. I think…” He pulled the waist in with his hands, and turned this way and that, pondering. “I think my Medusa belt would look really fuckin’ cool with this, snatch it in at the waist.”
“I was just about to say the same thing. And, oh, here’s an idea. Do you mind if I just…?” Stede hovered his hands around Ed’s hair, waiting for permission. Ed nodded, and Stede carefully pulled his hair loose from the half-bun it’d been tied up in. He combed his fingers through it a few times, which had absolutely no right to feel as good as it did, and then scooped it around and arranged it so it all cascaded over one shoulder. “There we go, look at that.”
“Wow. I look like a mermaid.”
“You look beautiful, Edward,” Stede said, giving Ed’s hand a tender squeeze. “Breathtaking.”
Ed looked at their clasped hands in the mirror. His chest felt very tight. “Yeah?”
Stede moved his other hand up to curl around Ed’s arm, and Ed turned to look him in the eyes. His lovely, kind eyes, lost somewhere between hazel and brown. Ed could probably stare into them forever and never be able to settle on what colour they were. Stede swayed a little, and this was now the second time that they’d stood in a changing room and been moments away from kissing. What was it about changing rooms? Delicate, vulnerable places where layers got stripped away and truths came bubbling up to the surface.
Was Stede going to lean in? Had all Ed’s handsiness given him courage? Ed took a little half-step towards him, and Stede’s mouth fell open in an utterly panic-stricken look, and nope, nope, abort, step back, it’s the wrong moment, changing rooms aren’t sexy, what the fuck was he thinking.
Ed straightened himself up in front of the mirror again, and said, all matter-of-fact, “Yep, cool, this is definitely the one. Sorted. I’ll, er, see you out there.”
When Ed emerged from the changing room some minutes later, resolve a little shaken but by no means diminished or lost, he saw Stede across the other side of the shop, fiddling with the cuff of a jacket. It was ivory, like the shirt Ed had bought for him from the other shop, but the fabric was stiffer and had some kind of elegant leafy pattern picked out in blues and greys. The lapels and buttons were a lush teal velvet.
“That’s a great jacket,” Ed said, coming up behind Stede and startling him slightly.
“Isn’t it? Look at this fabric. Embroidered silk. Just stunning.”
“It’d look great on you.”
“Edward, no, don’t even think about it. The price on this is insane! Even before I gave all my money away, I would’ve thought twice about buying it.”
“Just try it on for me,” Ed said, and then pulled out the dirtiest trick in the book: his big, glistening puppy dog eyes. He could see Stede’s defences start to crumble almost immediately. “Please?”
“You’re awful. Absolutely wicked.”
Ed grinned triumphantly. “I know. I think you like it though,” he said with a wink. “Go on, off to the changing room. Oh, and don’t forget the trousers too!”
While he waited for Stede to get changed, he paced the shop floor as though he were waiting for news of his firstborn child. As soon as he’d seen Stede touching the jacket, Ed had known two things: that it would look absolutely amazing on Stede, and that Ed was one hundred percent going to buy it for him. Along with the trousers, which were made of the same teal velvet that was on the jacket lapels, and the silky shirt from the other shop, it would make the perfect fundraiser outfit for Stede. Sure, they might both end up being wildly overdressed for the occasion, but who gave a tiny flying fuck? They weren’t dressing up for anyone else. They were dressing up for themselves, and for each other. Let everyone else be boring and judgemental and jealous if they wanted, Ed didn’t fucking care at all.
He did care about seeing Stede’s outfit, though. Was he done yet? What was taking him so long? Had he got stuck in something?
“You getting on alright in there, mate? Can I come in?” Ed asked, anxious to see the final look.
“Yes, I’m fine thank you, but, um, you can’t see. Not allowed.”
“What the fuck, why not? Are you shy? I bet you look amazing.”
“Yes, well, that’s just the problem, isn’t it? I really… god, I just love it. It’s so beautiful. But if I let you see it then you’re going to love it too and then you’re going to buy it for me and I—”
Oh god, Stede really did sound stressed out. Had Ed been taking this all a bit too far? Fuck. He never knew when to stop. “Stede, mate, no. I, shit, I’m sorry. If you really don’t want me to buy it for you, then I won’t. I didn’t realise I was making you uncomfortable with this.”
Stede popped his head out from behind the changing room curtain, keeping his outfit carefully covered. “Oh Edward, you’re not making me uncomfortable. It’s me. I just feel…” Stede frowned slightly and drew his lower lip between his teeth. He didn’t meet Ed’s eyes as he said, “guilty. Being greedy and making you pay for all this. Giving nothing in return.”
Ed came forward before he could stop himself, and grabbed Stede’s hand where it was holding the curtain closed. “Uh-uh, no, absolutely not. No guilt, Stede. No shame. You give me your time and your attention, and that’s all I need. It’s all I want. You’re not making me do anything that I don’t already want to do.” Big breath now, he could do this. “I would— do more, if you’d let me. You make me happy. Really happy. You’ve spent so long being unhappy but you’ve still managed to give me so much joy and I just want to give some of it back to you. Please believe me when I say that. There’s nothing, nothing to feel guilty about.”
Stede’s eyes were very shiny, about to spill over with tears, and Ed couldn’t have that at all, so now was the time to be really really brave: he closed the final small space between them and pressed a kiss to Stede’s lips. He kept it chaste, just the warm, soft press of his mouth that he hoped contained some small part of all the feelings that had building inside of him since their chance encounter in Jackie’s Café; and as he felt Stede pull back slightly he thought that that was fine, it didn’t need to be anything more than that, but then Stede was pressing back in, opening his mouth slightly, just enough to catch Ed’s bottom lip.
It wasn’t at all how Ed had imagined their first kiss would go, but the tender, earnest awkwardness of it made it so much better than anything else he’d pictured in his head. His heart was hammering and his hands were shaky and he wouldn’t trade this kiss for anything in the world.
This time, Ed was the one to pull back. He let his gaze roam over Stede’s face, how sweetly pliant and open it was, and the little fan of his lashes where his eyes were still closed. Ed smiled, perfectly content, and then Stede opened his eyes and smiled as well.
“I believe you,” Stede whispered.
He agreed to show Ed the complete outfit after that, and as expected it looked fucking incredible and Ed couldn’t buy it quickly enough. If the shop assistant had witnessed any of their emotional little display by the changing rooms, they gave no sign of it and simply complimented Ed and Stede on their exquisite taste.
The day was wearing on and Ed could tell that Stede was feeling a little frazzled. He was too, to be honest. Was clothes shopping always this psychologically taxing? But Ed wasn’t ready for the day to be over yet, not now that he’d finally kissed Stede and Stede had kissed him back and sweet fucking fuck Stede had kissed him back.
As they came back out onto the main plaza, walking through crowds of pigeons casting long shadows in the late autumn afternoon, Ed began to wonder what he could do, what he could say to keep them together a little longer. Just another hour or two, that’s all he wanted, just to tide him over until they saw each other again. He’d already bombarded Stede with a lot today and really wanted to try and avoid stressing him out any more if at all possible, so he ruled out the idea of doing any more shopping. But maybe…
“So I was thinking, um, about my outfit for the fundraiser. I know it looks great as is, just the jacket with nothing underneath, but I reckon I’d like to just try it with a shirt, you know, just to see what it’s like. Different vibe and all that. And I thought maybe I could try that shirt of yours, you know the one you wore on our other shopping trip, the pink birdy one? Could look cool with the purple. And like, I’ll be going back past your place on my way home anyway, so I could just pop in really quick and try it on and just see how it looks…?” It all came out sounding not quite as smooth as Ed had hoped it would, but he was beyond caring at this point.
Stede looked a bit dazed. Had been since they kissed, really. He just nodded absently and said, “Yes, of course, no problem.”
Back at Stede’s building, they went through the main entry and into the little lobby area. The residents’ mailboxes were off to one side, and Ed could see that the big bag full of lavender shampoo bars had already been delivered. Even if he couldn’t see them, he would’ve been able to smell them, holy shit, Stede better really fucking like lavender because his whole flat was gonna be stinking of it.
There was a very intriguing-looking metal grille elevator in the lobby, which was apparently another original feature of the building according to Stede, but it had also been out of order since before he moved in, so they had to struggle up four flights of weathered stone stairs, laden down with all their shopping.
Ed’s knee was going to be killing him tomorrow. But maybe if he played his cards right once he got up to Stede’s flat, he could get a little massage or something to stave off the worst of it. The thought of that alone was enough to put a little spring in his step, and he bounded up the last flight of stairs without a care.
Stede was being very flighty and nervous once they got into his flat. It was a small space, but as cramped studio flats went it really was quite sweet with its diddy little kitchenette and bay window bed frame. Ed had lived in far worse places than this, plenty of them without so much as a hot plate and a leaky sink. There was nothing here for Stede to be ashamed of, but he was still anxiously straightening up his single dining chair, realigning the small collection of teacups sitting on the counter, fiddling with the leaves of a little fern that sat on the windowsill.
“I like your place, really nice and cosy. Love those curtains,” Ed said, in an attempt to calm things down a bit. The room was starting to get a bit too full of nervous energy, and that was absolutely not what he had wanted to happen.
He seemed to have found the magic button there, because Stede’s face lit up and he immediately went and pulled the curtains along the rail so Ed could appreciate the full width of them. “Thanks, they’re fab aren’t they? Nothing like a classic red velvet. They were such a bargain, too! Well, I still hit my overdraft limit when I bought them, but they were seventy percent off! I couldn’t turn that down. And of course there were the matching throw cushions, too…”
Ed just went and sat on the bed, and smiled fondly as Stede launched into a long-winded lecture about energy and flow and how the wrong furnishings or improper décor made him come out in hives. He wished he could give Stede the space to fully realise all his interior design dreams, but that really was pushing things too far. Wasn’t it?
“…and anyway, this place really didn’t start feeling like home until I put those curtains up, they were the last piece I needed to tie this whole room together.” Stede finally paused for breath, and then gave Ed a slightly shy look. “I have a lot to thank these curtains for, actually. When we first met at the café, it was buying those curtains which meant I couldn’t afford my drink. If I hadn’t bought them, you wouldn’t have had to swoop in to save me from embarrassment.”
Was it possible to suddenly fall in love with a pair of curtains? Ed thought it might be. “Home décor really is powerful, huh? Life-changing, I reckon.”
“You think I’m talking nonsense.”
“Aw, no I don’t. And even if you were talking shit, I don’t know enough about decorating stuff to know the difference. Anyway, come on, where’s this shirt I’m trying on?”
“Oh, right, of course. Let me just find it…” Stede opened up a big wardrobe, which took up at least half of the entire floorspace, and began to rummage around inside. It was absolutely packed full to bursting.
While Stede was busy searching, Ed tried to put together some kind of plan. What did he want to happen? Another kiss, that was a given, and perhaps a cheeky bit of hand stuff as well? Or maybe it was too soon for that. But then again, Stede had been very quick to get naked and fuck himself silly as soon as Ed suggested it, so who knew what could happen. It really was both infuriating and adorable that they’d done that, and yet Stede was still behaving like a terrified virgin.
A little reluctantly, Ed admitted to himself that they should probably have a talk, too. A proper, frank, unsexy talk about what they were both feeling. But the soft press of Stede’s lips and the sound of his voice saying “you feel so good” kept whirring around in his brain like a fucking carousel and he couldn’t stop the flashing fairground lights of his thoughts long enough to formulate any coherent plan beyond kiss kiss kiss kiss—
There would always be time for talking later, Ed reasoned to himself.
When Stede finally found the shirt, he handed it over to Ed and then politely turned away, which was very funny, and Ed giggled quietly to himself as he pulled his t-shirt off and dropped it onto the bed. He slid the shirt on over his shoulders and god, that silk felt fucking exquisite. He barely even had to touch it, it was so slippery that it just flowed wherever he nudged it. He fastened one button, low down so his tits were hanging out and his nipple piercings glinted in the lamplight. He turned to Stede and said, “What do you think?”
Stede’s face was… well, Ed didn’t want to be mean and say it was bug-eyed, but Stede was definitely… looking. Widely. And then looking away and breathing quickly and nervously starting to tidy up some random clutter off to the side, all the while chattering away frantically.
“Yes that looks, yes, very nice on you, Edward, very becoming. Um, I didn’t know you had your, um, your— wow, they must’ve hurt, but they look very— yes, looks like the shirt fits nicely anyway, very nicely, so that’s all good, and you can borrow it for the fundraiser if you still want to, and you can wear it there, yep, and then, um, you can just let me have it back afterwards, or, or you can borrow it for a while longer if you really like it, I don’t mind, just let me know and—”
Okay. Maybe now was the time for talking after all. So much for trying to be a bit seductive and sexy, but Ed was more than ready to land this plane so he was going to have to just put on his big girl pants and come out and say it.
“Stede. Stop— stop. I don’t want to borrow your fucking shirt— well, no, I do actually, it’s sexy and I love it, but the only reason I invited myself up here to try it on is because I’ve been fucking obsessed with you for weeks now, and I’ve been trying very hard to be smooth about flirting with you and I’m honestly a tiny bit offended that you apparently just haven’t noticed, like, at all? But I feel like we’ve finally had some kind of breakthrough given the fact that we fuckin’ kissed earlier, so I would really really like to see where we can go with this. Please.”
Stede froze up for a good five or ten seconds, before suddenly crumpling in on himself and cringing into his hands. “Oh, god. I’m sorry, Ed, I’m so sorry. I’ve been a complete idiot. You must think I’m so stupid. I— I’ve never had a friend like you. Never had much in the way of friends at all really, and our friendship has been so wonderful and enriching and I’ve loved every moment of it so much and I thought that that was just— what friendship was. I thought it was normal for it to feel… like that.”
Ed wanted to laugh. He wanted to double over and howl with hysterical laughter until his face split open and his head exploded. Not at Stede (maybe a little bit at Stede), but at the sheer preposterousness of the whole situation. Only Stede could come to that conclusion. Only Stede. He is so dumb, I lov—
What the fuck. That was definitely a thought to examine later. Alone.
Violently course-correcting the runaway train of his thoughts, Ed carefully pressed his fingers to his mouth while he squashed down the last vestiges of his urge to laugh, and then said, “Stede. You’re not stupid. But fucking hell man, friends don’t make emotional declarations and kiss each other like that. Not if they want to just stay as friends.”
“Well, I know that! But that only just happened today! Everything else up until now has just been so… fun, and friendly, and nice. What I’d always hoped having a best friend would be like.” Stede sighed and perched against the tiny little dining table, pushing an embarrassed hand through his hair and messing up all his neat curls. “I… did wonder, once or twice, if maybe you were, you know, interested in me like that, but… Do you remember, in the department store, when you got scared about the t-shirt because you liked it so much? The idea that you could— that we could— it was terrifying. And I didn’t want to presume anything in case I messed it all up and it just seemed so unlikely anyway and, god, would it sound horribly pathetic if I told you that I have nothing to compare it to, no frame of reference? I’ve not been flirted with before. No-one’s ever really been… into me.”
Ed was loathe to bring her up at a time like this, but he had to ask. “Not even Mary?”
Stede had been staring intently at his shoes, but at Ed’s question he looked up and gave the most heart-breakingly sad little smile. “Our marriage was transactional at best. What need did either of us have for things like flirting?”
Oh no, this wouldn’t do. This would not do at all. Fuck it, they’d had a bit of a chat and were basically on the same page, talking time was over and now it was time to act. Stede deserved some fucking sweetness after enduring such a wet paper towel of a love life.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” Ed said, moving in very slow and very close, giving Stede ample time to move away if he really wanted to, “because if I don’t then I think I’m going to actually go insane, but then after that I’m going to hold off, and I’m going to spend days flirting with you, and seducing you, and just fuckin’ wooing you like you should’ve been wooed for the last twenty-five years. And then once you finally understand that I am not doing any of this as a fucking friend, Stede Bonnet, we can kiss again. And maybe do some other stuff. How does that sound?”
Stede swallowed, and licked his lips. “That sounds… very nice,” he said, already looking at Ed’s mouth.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be really fucking nice,” Ed whispered, sliding his hand around the nape of Stede’s neck. He hovered, lips parted a bare inch away from Stede’s. “I’m gonna make sure you know that you deserve everything I give you, and fuck, there is so much I want to give you, Stede.” He felt Stede’s hands come up to clutch at his waist, sliding beneath the silky fabric of his shirt, searing against his skin. “I wanna take care of you. Spend stupid amounts of money on you. Bend to every whim that flutters through that lovely bonkers head of yours. I want—”
“Edward, please, shut up and kiss me.”
Stede tugged at Ed’s waist, pulling their bodies flush and slotting their legs together, and then they were kissing and it was nothing like their kiss in the changing room. It was soft and wet and hot, tongues pressing and sliding, and Ed was making little noises in the back of his throat, breathy moany whiney things that rippled down his spine and straight to his dick. He could tell the second that Stede felt Ed’s other piercing, the gold stud in his tongue; the way it made Stede jolt, and then melt deeper into the kiss. Stede’s hands were sliding up his back, fingers digging into his shoulder blades, and fuck were those his nails? Was he leaving marks on Ed’s back? Was he trying to make Ed immediately come in his pants?
It was too much, and he had to grab at Stede’s arms and gently pull them down and away from his over-sensitive skin.
“Was that not good?” Stede asked, looking a little worried.
Oh god, no, the last thing Ed wanted was to make Stede feel like he was doing any of this wrong. “Stede, babe, darling, lover, it was good, it was fucking good,” Ed reassured him, already repositioning Stede’s hands into a firm hold on his arse and peppering kisses on his neck. “I’m just— very sensitive. I was basically ready to bust a nut right there.”
“Oh? Where else are you sensitive?” Stede asked with a coquettish little smile, and that was cool, that was absolutely fine, Ed’s head was just spinning a tiny bit because apparently the trembling virgin had very swiftly left the building and been replaced with Stede Who Fucks.
“I’m not telling you that, you’ll only use it against m— ohhhhhh, yeah, there as well, fuck.” Stede had threaded a hand into Ed’s hair, combed it back from his face and then pulled, just enough so that Ed could tell in no uncertain terms that it was not an accident. Stede’s movement had also pushed the shirt off Ed’s shoulder, and the slide of silk over his skin made him shiver in delight. “Shit, I know I said I was gonna hold off and seduce you properly, but do you wanna just—”
Stede pulled him in for another kiss, and oh god, he was grinding, pushing his hard dick up against Ed’s, grabbing his arse and encouraging the roll of his hips. “I want everything you have to give me, Ed, I want it so much, I’ve been wanting it,” he said, breathless, between kisses.
Ed knew exactly what he wanted to give Stede. He slid his hands around Stede’s neck, pulling at the knot of his silk scarf, not breaking their kiss until he got the knot undone and drew the fabric away from Stede’s skin. A breath of the perfume that Stede had dabbed onto the scarf earlier that day was released as the fabric fluttered beneath his fingers, and he looked at Stede with hazy eyes, and kept on looking as he used the scarf to tie up his hair, and kept on looking as he sank to his knees and put his fingers to the button on Stede’s trousers.
The sound Stede made at that moment was going to be playing on repeat in Ed’s head for a long, long time to come. It was part gasp, part moan, part whimper, part fuck. Ed drew down Stede’s zipper and opened his trousers and fuck, there it was, outline stark beneath his boxer shorts, already so fucking hard. He placed a hot, open-mouthed kiss over the shape of Stede’s cock, hooked his fingers into the waistband of his underwear, and began to pull.
He pressed his face in and inhaled deeply, craving that rich, intimate, musky smell. He could feel the press of Stede’s cock against his cheek where it was aching to spring free of the fabric, and god he wanted to just fucking lick it and suck it and choke it all down, he wanted to drench Stede’s cock with his spit and suck him so hard he blacked out and he wanted Stede to grab his hair and fuck his mouth and come on his tongue and his lips and his cheeks and—
Ed had to forcefully put the brakes on his racing thoughts otherwise he was just going to cream his pants right there. It was ridiculous; he hadn’t even got his hands on Stede’s actual cock yet and he was already feeling drunk on it. He pulled the waistband down a little further and just revealed the first teasing inch of the base of his cock when he felt Stede’s hand in his hair again.
“I want it all, Ed,” Stede whispered, and Ed could tell that he was fighting very hard with himself, trying to hold himself still and being betrayed by the abortive little thrusts of his hips. “But I want your seduction as well, now that I— now that I understand what’s happening. I want everything you said you would do. I want to enjoy it.”
Calling on every single ounce of self-control that he possessed, as well as a few more ounces that he didn’t realise he had until he dragged them up from the very depths of his soul, Ed pulled back. “Okay,” he said, smiling, heart full. “Okay.”
When he pulled his jacket on and gathered up his bags ready to leave, he thought he’d be crawling out of his skin, mad with lust, but all he felt was hot, fizzy excitement and anticipation. He’d never looked forward to anything in his life as much as he was looking forward to thoroughly seducing Stede.
“Can I just ask…” Stede said as they walked towards the door, hesitant again now that they weren’t mashing their faces and crotches together. “Um, the… dildo. Was that—”
“A normal friend activity? No, Stede. No it was not. It was because I desperately wanted to fuck you.”
“Right, good, okay. Just checking.”
They lingered at the door, both a little reluctant to say goodbye and then deciding to do so all at once and speaking over each other. It was sickeningly cute and Ed thought his heart was about to explode. His face hurt from how much he was smiling.
“Kiss me before you go?” Stede asked, and Ed was helpless to resist. He dropped his bags and walked Stede backwards against the door and kissed him slowly and luxuriously. This time it was Stede making desperate little whimpers, louder and more wanton every time he felt Ed’s tongue stud, and fucking hell, those were definitely going to be featuring alongside the almost-blowjob noises in Ed’s fantasies tonight when he got home and started immediately and furiously masturbating.
“That piercing,” Stede murmured, holding Ed’s face and stroking his thumb against Ed’s lip, “I always thought it was a gold tooth, like a sexy pirate or something.”
Ed laughed, and then dragged his tongue over Stede’s thumb. “Not a pirate. I used to hand out flyers for a dodgy piercing shop on the beachfront when I was a teen. Sometimes they paid me in piercings instead of cash.”
“I like it a lot.”
“I can tell,” Ed said, moving back in for another slow, deep kiss.
They spent long minutes there, pressed up against Stede’s front door, indulging in the feel and the taste of each other. The scent of Stede’s lavender shampoo was still strong in his nose, and Ed knew that from now on, every time he smelled lavender he was going to think of this moment, of Stede’s soft lips and eager hands and getting exactly what he’d always wanted for the first time in his entire life.
“I’ll see you soon,” Ed whispered as he pulled back, then went in again just for one more chaste little press of lips, just because he could. Stede opened the door for him, and he left, and Stede stood in the doorway and watched as he walked down the stairs.
Out on the street, taking a moment to catch his breath, Ed heard the familiar sound of Stede’s window creaking open. He better not throw another fuckin’ umbrella at me, he thought, and then Stede called out his name.
“Ed! I forgot to give you something!”
“Stede, don’t throw—! Fuck—” Whatever it was, it was a lot lighter and less pointy than an umbrella, and came floating down with a gentle thump into Ed’s arms.
It was the purple tote bag, finally finished, embroidered with gold thread and sequins and Ed’s initials. Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry—
“I hope you like it!”
Ed looked up through a film of tears. Warm light spilled out from the window, silhouetting Stede against the encroaching evening. “I love it,” he said, wobbly.
The sun had just set, and the cool evening breeze brought the faintest salt scent of the sea and sent goosebumps over his heated skin. Seagulls called and wheeled high above, and Ed was blissfully happy.
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Hiiiii making a new pinned post because I almost exclusively use tumblr on mobile
So first of all pro lifers go away I hate you I hate you I hate you
Ppl that love to police how queer people should express and label themselves you too shoo
You're probably here from my Ao3!! If not, oh boy, you're in for a treat! Oh god why did you read that dogshit??
My personal blog is lazydestinypaper not anymore! Now its simofabitch if you, for some reason, can't get enough of me here 💙
Okay now that's out of the way
I'm an adult! Minors pls dont interact with my nsfw stuff if ur parents get mad at me I can't afford a lawyer
Most artists r uncomfortable when ppl vent or say weird shit in their tags or inbox -- I dont care!!! Go for it!!! You wanna tag a chapter or drawing I made as #me when my father was absent from my life??? Sure go ahead I literally dont mind. I would be a hypocrite if I cared anyway because I'm literally coping by dumping everything on my comfort character <3 so dont be ashamed if it helps you. This is a safe space. Just keep in mind ppl can in fact see it so dont be, yanno. Saying stuff you dont want others to know about you or that would put u in danger. And this only applies to stuff I personally make don't do that on a random stranger i happen to reblog
I read everything you say to me even if I don't respond I love every thing and I mean it
If you hate my stuff leave your thoughts I would love to hear them this is not a joke I an 100% serious and I will not be angry about it
Magolor is my favorite character ever he is my comfort boy pathetic cringefail big wet eyed kitten catboy so dont be surprised when I never shut up about him
If you want me to hurry up on a work -- leave a comment!!! Getting comments like "please update" actually motivates me!!!! Kind of... Just keep in mind I am the EXCEPTION not the rule most writers hate when u ask them to update so. Dont. Also I have no update schedule it's literally based on mood and chance and motivation level
If you think something i wrote is weird /cringe/has a plot hole chances are I already know about it and hate it ten times more than you. Suck my cock about it
Don't be surprised when my posts are weird it says "cringe compilation" for a reason
If you really miss a work I've deleted I might consider giving you a copy if you message me
I might edit this later with my tags because I want to improve my tagging system but I think this is good for now
Edit 12/25/22: my tags are still a fuck!!! Fuck!!!
Edited 3/6/23 with new main blog url and other minor changes
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virtue and vice
Summary: What they don’t tell you in bootcamp is that trying to fall asleep next to your co-worker, the one that you’re insanely attracted to and might have the tiniest crush on, who also hates your guts and kind of would rather turn himself over to HYDRA than hold a real conversation with you, while sharing the same bed, is impossible. There is no way in hell you’re going to be able to fall asleep next to Bucky.
Characters: Bucky Barnes/Plus-size (f)Reader
Warnings: 18+ smut (vaginal fingering, rough sex, dirty talk, bit of a Dom Bucky Barnes), language, insecurity (weight issues, a little perceived fatphobia which is wiped out really soon after)
Word Count: 6120
A/N: This is a tumblr request for @buckybarnes101 who requested a Bucky/Plus-sized reader enemies to lovers who have to share one bed with smut. I loved this request and really hot to make something hot and rough and fast! Thank you so much for the request - enjoy!!
main masterlist | AO3
It finally happened, the one thing you prayed would never ever happen, the thing you’ve been dreading since you started joining James Buchanan Barnes on his stealth missions, the event that will inevitably spark your downward spiral into doom, destroying the crumbs of the relationship you’ve managed to build with him.
“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” he says, barreling through the motel room like a ping pong ball with a little too much pent up energy.
You shrug your bag off your tired shoulder, letting it fall to the ground, not caring about how dirty the carpeting must be.
“At least it’s a queen,” you say, toeing off your boots. “I’ve had worse with Steve.”
Bucky turns to glare at you over his shoulder. “You’ve shared a bed with Steve?” he says, accusation rising in his tone. You stare at him like he’s crazy.
“I’m sorry—are you saying you haven’t? ‘Cause I call bullshit on that.”
He doesn’t answer, choosing to sift through his duffel bag instead. You shrug despite the fact that he can’t see you.
“I mean, it’s pretty routine, isn’t it? I’ve shared with Natasha, too. Sometimes you just have to make do.”
“Yeah but it’s Natasha,” he says like it matters. “I can’t believe you’ve slept with Steve.”
“God, Bucky, it’s only weird if you make it weird, and you’re making it weird.”
He straightens now, body stiff, one of his hidden holsters hanging from his vibranium hand. He doesn’t look at you and you’re too tired to start a fight—much less finish it—so you hope he just goes ahead and fucks off to the shower which you know he’s getting ready to do. He’s always been selfish like that. But it’s also not so selfish, you think, for someone like Bucky to want to wash the missions away as soon as possible.
But the bastard could ask sometimes, couldn’t he?
“I’m going first,” he says, just like always, and you bite your tongue.
“‘Kay.”
You turn and sigh, focusing your glare on the one bed filling the motel room. If there was one thing you always hoped for after a mission, it was not to end up in the same bed as James Barnes. The two of you notoriously don’t get along, for whatever reason that may be (although you’re pretty sure it has to do with the fact that he thinks you’re a useless addition to the team), but there is literally no denying the attraction you felt for him.
The man is hot, and he’s had a couple, or maybe most, of the screws in his head knocked loose.
You have it bad for him.
Oh, but James Barnes is not fond of you. Not that he would ever admit it, but the dude has some serious fatphobia going on. You’re ninety-nine-percent sure of that.
Alone in the bedroom, you start to strip out of your tac-suit, letting your gun belt and the rest of your holsters fall in a ring around your feet. As soon as the heaviness is off you, relieving some of the ache in your body, you think about just falling straight into the bed blood and dirt and grime and all. But you’re also sure Bucky would lose his mind if you did that.
Instead, you look to the floor length mirror just in front of the motel door, frowning.
Your skin-tight suit doesn’t do much to hide all the lumps and bumps and dips and hips all squished into it, and when you’re covered in tiny cuts and burns on every visible patch of skin, you can’t help but think about how Bucky sees you.
The useless fat Avenger! How fun.
You turn to the side a little, glancing at the fullness of your ass. Nice. A redeeming quality of the extra weight you carry atop the strong muscle you’ve built in your short time as part of the Superhero Menagerie. Not having a gimmick of any kind really forced you into working for the position—and now you’re not just the useless fat chick, you’re the super hacking, super gun toting, mega-badass fat Avenger instead.
The shower squeaks and the water stops, signaling the end of Bucky’s shower.
You look up to the ceiling, praying to some god to hear you that everything will work out just fine.
And then Bucky exits the bathroom, steam flooding from the room, wrapped only in a thinning motel towel secured by his metal hand at his waist. It isn’t the first time you’ve seen his chiseled figure, but there’s something that jumps up your throat at the thought that you have to shower in that same shower and then sleep in the same bed as the bed that body is sleeping in.
Oh, fuck.
“All yours,” he murmurs, not even looking at you.
“Great.” You grab your change of clothes and head for the bathroom, trying to think about anything except him.
When you smell less like blood and asbestos and more like strawberries and peaches, hair damp and a clean t-shirt and sleep shorts sticking to your heat-splotched body, you enter the bedroom once again. Bucky is sitting against the headboard, going through his phone now that you’re both safe and secure in France, dressed only in a pair of sweatpants.
Okay, act cool. Just get into bed and pretend like it’s not weird.
You pad over to the bed, grimacing at the feel of the gross carpet beneath your clean feet, hopping beneath the sheets as quick as possible. If Bucky looks at you, then you don’t see it, because you are focused solely on not looking at him. Petty? Perhaps. Keeping your sanity intact? Absolutely.
“You tired?” he asks and you snort.
“Extremely. You don’t have to turn off the light if you aren’t ready to sleep, though.” You situate yourself as far on the edge of the bed as possible—something you’ve never done with any of the other people you’ve been forced to share a bed with. You and Natasha aren’t new to sleeping together, especially after some of the nights out you’ve shared, but you and Steve definitely cuddled, though you wouldn’t admit it to anyone. Steve’s just kinda lonely, you think. And to be honest, you’re a little touch-starved yourself.
But you know you take up a lot of space and you’re sure Bucky hates that, so you bury yourself under the motel sheets and snuggle up to your pillow, trying to make yourself as small as humanly possible.
After a moment, Bucky asks, “Are you comfortable like that?”
You crack an eye open and twist to look at him. “What?”
He shrugs. “Didn’t you tell me not to make it weird? You’re making it weird now.”
“You already made it weird.”
“I’m trying not to make it weird anymore.”
“A little late for that—”
“God, just, c’mere.”
Bucky grabs you around your waist, your shirt riding up, and pulls you closer. You shriek in surprise, eyes wide, as he manhandles you until you’re away from the edge and your back is pressed against his bare chest.
“There—that’s better,” he says, nearly whispering in your ear he’s so close to you now. He unwinds his arm from your middle and reaches up to hit the light, the room going completely dark save for the little sliver of artificially light pouring in from underneath the shitty curtains.
You don’t even know what to say. Bucky’s rendered you completely speechless.
First of all, the man has never touched you for no reason like that before. Second of all, how the hell did he just move you like you weighed the same as the pillow beneath his head? Third of all, he hates you, so why is he so bothered about you and your comfort? Fourth, he just moved you around like you weighed literally nothing.
And boy, did it send a flood of pleasure straight to your core, almost as if your body just gave the green light to your libido. The perfect time too, y’know, when you’re sharing a bed with your co-worker who hates your guts.
Play it cool. Just play it fucking cool.
“Uh, are you okay?” you ask him in return, and Bucky shifts so his back is pressed up to yours.
“Yeah,” he says. “Go to sleep.”
“‘Kay. Good night.”
“Night.”
What they don’t tell you in bootcamp is that trying to fall asleep next to your co-worker, the one that you’re insanely attracted to and might have the tiniest crush on, who also hates your guts and kind of would rather turn himself over to HYDRA than hold a real conversation with you, while sharing the same bed, is impossible. There is no way in hell you’re going to be able to fall asleep next to Bucky.
Your brain turns and turns and turns, body straining to stay as still as possible to not upset the super soldier sleeping right beside you. What does he have against you? Why does he hate you so much? You really thought once you started going on more missions—proving you were worthy to be a part of the team—that he’d start coming around and seeing your value. But you feel like all it’s served is to make him hate you more, especially now that you tag along on his stealth operations as his techie.
Maybe he knows you’re into him, and maybe that’s why he never wants to be around you. But, god, it’s not like you think you have a chance with him in any capacity, and you’d pass up tens of thousands of chances to be with him if he’d just be your friend!
Because Bucky deserves another friend, doesn’t he?
As if he can read your mind—or maybe it’s just god playing tricks on you—Bucky shifts around in the bed again, turning toward you. You don’t know if he’s sleeping yet or not, but you curl in on yourself a little to give him more space to stretch out.
Bucky’s vibranium arm slides over your waist, cool metal grazing by the sliver of skin peeking out from underneath your shirt, and when you flinch from it, he pulls you flush against him. Behind you, the bare skin of his chest is warm, almost too hot. Super soldiers run warmer than normal humans, and you think he’d be nice to have in bed more often.
In your ear, Bucky groans in his sleep and it makes you shiver despite the heat radiating through your back. He must be like Steve, wanting to cuddle in his sleep. No one ever wants to admit it out loud, but you’re the best thing to cuddle in the Tower. Being squishy and soft atop hard, strong muscle means you’re more comfortable than all the rigid bodies of the Avengers. Maybe Bucky needs this.
But you wish you could fall asleep so you’ll stop thinking about how much you’ve wanted this since the day you saw him, the new Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes, hair tied up in a messy bun and stubble thick and dark, vibranium arm hidden within the sleeve of his leather jacket.
Suddenly, everything is too hot. The room, the motel sheets, the pillow beneath your head. Bucky Barnes behind you, arm slung over your body, holding you to him. He’s sleeping, you know, the quiet rumble of his breathing a song in your ear, chest rising and falling against your back. You shift a little, trying to get more comfortable as the warmth starts to become unbearable. When that doesn’t help, you shift again, trying to pull your back away from Bucky, but it sends your bottom half straight into his.
A growl brushes by your ear all breathy and low and Bucky’s arm tightens around you, bringing you back to him.
Damn, who knew Bucky was such a cuddler when he’s sleeping?
You wait a few minutes, keeping still, until you’re sure he’s slipped back into unconsciousness. His nose is nearly pressed into your hair, his breaths upsetting the small wisps of hairs that curl at your ear. Sweat is starting to collect underneath your shirt where your bodies are connected and you know you’ll never be able to fall asleep like this.
Again, you shift toward the edge of the bed, trying to pull yourself out of Bucky’s grasp, but he drags you back into his embrace. The swell of your ass meets his thigh and in a panic, you move around to try and put space between the two of you again, but Bucky lets out a strangled-sounding groan, hissing through his teeth.
“You gotta stop moving, doll, or you’re not gonna like what happens next.”
He is not asleep.
“Bucky?” you squeak, eyes wide, frozen in place.
“Hm?” His metal hand sneaks underneath the hem of your shirt, fingers finding your soft skin and thumb starting to rub little circles just above your hip, a point of pleasure on your body. No one ever touches you here, and it takes everything you have not to press back into him, asking for more. Your breathing is heavier now as you try to control yourself.
“You aren’t—Why aren’t you sleeping?” you ask, sounding winded from the simplest act of him touching you.
“Hard to sleep when you’re next to me,” he murmurs in your ear, nose brushing up against the patch of skin behind it. Your eyes flutter closed. Every small touch feels like heaven. You never allow others to touch you more than necessary, but now Bucky is handling you so gently.
“I can’t sleep either,” you whisper. “Do you want me to go? I can take a walk.”
He makes a noise of disapproval. “Just stay still,” he says, almost begging. “Go to sleep.”
“It’s hot,” you whine. “You’re too hot.”
You can feel him smirk into the back of your neck. “You don’t gotta tell me, doll.”
“Shut up,” you say with a huff of frustration, wiggling in the bed to get your point across. Immediately, Bucky’s vibranium hand falls to your hip, fingers digging into your flesh hard enough for the flash of pain to turn to pleasure, holding you still.
“I said stop moving,” he says, and it's so close to a command that your teeth tear into your bottom lip as his voice sends shocks through your core. Now, hyperaware of how close your bodies are underneath the sheets, you realize your ass is pressed against his pelvis, not his thigh, and you’ve definitely been—
Bucky grinds into you, seething, breath ghosting over your ear, his cock hard and heavy in his sweatpants.
Wetness pools between your thighs, dampening the thin cotton panties you wear beneath your sleep shorts.
“Bucky,” you breathe his name. “What are you doing?”
“So tired of you teasin’ me,” he grits through clenched teeth. “I’ve put up with it for so long—too long—and I just knew you were gonna do it tonight, too. Only one fucking bed. You’re gonna kill me, baby.”
Your voice sounds so small when you whisper, “What are you talking about?”
Then Bucky lays a kiss to the back of your neck, trailing upward until he reaches the lobe of your ear, and pulls it into his mouth and between his teeth. You shiver, violently, unable to stop the reaction. It must please him because he yanks your hips back into him again, forcing you to grind on his bulge.
Your hand comes up to cover your mouth, muffling whatever sounds threaten to fall from your lips.
“Doll, you’ve been teasin’ me from the beginning. From the moment I saw you in your gear on the Berlin mission, all your curves on display in that tight little cat-suit you’re always wearing, armed to the teeth, handling all those guns looking so fuckin’ gorgeous.”
You swallow hard. The Berlin mission, your first stealth mission with Bucky, had gone sour and the two of you found yourselves in a gun fight that was never meant to happen. You’re pretty sure you walked back onto the quinjet covered in blood, bruised, and a gash in your thigh that made you wobble when you stood up, and Bucky didn’t even look at you as per usual. Bucky never looks at you on missions unless he absolutely has to.
Wait.
“Is that why you never look at me?” you ask him, and you wish you could see his face right now, but all you can feel is his lips as they pepper kisses along the column of your throat, coaxing shudders and little squeaks out of you.
“You expect me to look at you without wanting to jump your bones, doll?” His nose caresses the spot at the top of your spine, his fingers melting at your hip and soothing the bruises you’re sure he’s already left. “That’s just askin’ too much, baby. How am I supposed to look at you and stop myself from kissin’ you silly?”
Pleasure flutters through your stomach, surging through the apex of your thighs.
“Then do it,” you tell him. Bucky goes still, unmoving, and you wonder if you’ve pushed too hard.
But then his voice is low, dark, in your ear. “You don’t know what you’re saying, doll.”
The honey dripping from your center, pooling in your underwear, says very differently. Instead of answering, you press your ass back into him, gyrating your hips straight upon his pelvis, rubbing against his clothed cock. Bucky chokes.
And then he’s up and above you, rolling your body beneath him, caging you between his arms. You nearly gasp when you look up at him, his blue eyes intense in a way you’ve never seen them before, his lips pink and swollen from biting—you’re sure yours look the same and he hasn’t even kissed you yet.
Bucky leans closer, his mouth only inches from yours, his breath mingling with yours. Your eyes threaten to flutter shut in anticipation but you force yourself to look at him, to take all of him in.
“If you want this, I won’t be able to hold myself back, doll. Wanted you too long. Need you.”
Then, he pulls back, eyes searching yours.
“But if you don’t,” he swallows, “then we’ll forget this ever happened, and everything will go back to normal.”
Fuck that.
“Kiss me, sergeant,” you command, hand shooting up to tangle in his thick hair.
Bucky curses and then he’s on you before you have a chance to reach up and meet him halfway. His lips are rough, chapped, but plush and perfect against yours. He wastes no time, tongue licking into your mouth and meeting yours, tasting you for the first time. You respond eagerly, hand fisting in his hair, pulling him into you until you can’t tell where his body ends and yours begins.
When he’s satisfied with how kiss-drunk you look, lips swollen and eyes hazy, he moves to the juncture of your neck and shoulder and sinks his teeth into your skin, causing you to cry out. The pain and the pleasure mingle, like lovers, like you and Bucky, as his fingers take hold of your shirt and in one tug, the fabric pulls apart at the seams.
You don’t care—you can buy a new shirt. You need him to touch you.
Until you realize you aren’t wearing a bra and that your top half is completely bare to Bucky, the man who, before a minute ago, you thought hated you because you were fat. Because it was the only explanation you had. Because you’re insecure.
Your hands fall upon his chest, bracing against him, stopping him in his tracks. He pulls away from your neck to look at you, brows drawn together in confusion, and all you can do is try and cover yourself with your arms before he gets a peek. It’s dark, but super soldiers can see in the dark. A blessing and a curse.
“I don’t want you to look at me,” you whisper so quietly you realize no normal person would have been able to hear it. “I’m—I shouldn’t have let you—I’m so fat, Bucky.”
Bucky’s eyes widen.
“Baby, baby,” he soothes you, his flesh hand coming up to cradle your cheek, fingers brushing delicately over your skin. “You don’t believe me when I say I want to see you? Doll, your body drives me insane, and god, every time you get an attitude with me and you put your hands on your hips and you look at me all mad…”
Bucky groans and he rocks his pelvis into yours, hard cock hitting your center and making your breath hitch.
“You’re beautiful, baby. Gorgeous. Do you know how hard it is for me to be around you sometimes ‘cause you’re just so pretty? More than pretty, I don’t even know the words to tell you, baby. Please, please don’t hide yourself from me, let me look at you, let me touch you, baby. S’all I want to do is look at you for the rest of my life.”
You don’t realize you’re crying until Bucky’s thumb swipes a tear away and you blink, and he’s smiling at you so warmly, really looking at you, maybe for the first time ever since you’ve known him.
“You think so?” you ask, breathless. “Even though you’re so—so good, Bucky, so beautiful and so good.”
He rests his forehead against yours, inhaling your scent, your essence, your soul. You nuzzle into his palm, kissing the center of his skin where his lifeline sits among other small scars. Then, you pull your arms away from your body, moving to wrap them around his neck, fingers digging into his scalp as you tip your chin up to slant your mouth over his. Bucky returns your enthusiasm, tongue meeting yours sweetly, and then metal fingers are trailing up your side.
Bucky pulls away, searching your eyes for consent.
“Say you’re mine,” he begs. “Say you’re mine, baby, but if you do, I won’t be gentle.”
You look up at him from underneath your lashes, already heady with the feeling of Bucky wanting you, desiring every part of you.
“I’m yours,” you whisper, and the mood in the room shifts violently.
In an instant, Bucky pulls your arms away from where they’re wound around his neck and pins them over your head, metal fingers locked around both your wrists. It makes you arch into him and then his nose is tracing your sternum, a line down your center, cutting you in half until his flesh hand attaches to your breast and his lips find your nipple.
Just like he said, he’s not gentle, and it has your eyes rolling into the back of your head, lids fluttering, as his teeth nip and tug at the delicate bud. His tongue follows the performance, sucking and soothing the pain away with sweet licks until he’s bored and moves onto the other one.
He lifts his head up to say, “Don’t move your hands,” and then his vibranium fingers find the hardened, sensitive nub and begin to twist and pull at it as his lips play with the other. The pleasure is overwhelming, the pain is a shocking reminder of who is playing your body like a symphony. You arch your breasts toward him, you roll your hips up to meet his bulge, you do anything you can to relieve the pressure that’s building in your core, screaming at you that you need his touch.
“Bucky,” you call out, moaning, struggling to keep your hands near the headboard.
“Do you need more, sweet girl?”
“Please,” you beg and press your center up to rub his cock. “It aches,” you whine.
“You gonna be a good girl for me? Let me touch you? Let me make the pain go away, baby?”
His words send new waves of pleasure through you, every part of you flushing with heat, your thighs squeezing together as if you can hide your leaking core from him.
“Yes, yes, yes, Bucky.”
He lays kisses on the underside of your breasts, just below them, like he’s following the lines of your ribs as he moves down toward your stomach—the part of you that you hate the most. You struggle underneath him.
“Not there,” you say as he places open-mouthed kisses on your soft belly. It tickles and makes you tremble and writhe.
He chuckles darkly. “I thought you said you were gonna be a good girl?” Both hands fall upon your hips, trapping you, fingers digging into your soft, pliant flesh as he nuzzles and licks and nips and kisses your stomach. You throw your head back, dizzy at the thought of what your body will look like tomorrow, purpled bruises made of passion.
“I’m a good girl,” you pant, mouth falling open as you struggle to catch your breath.
“Then let me touch you, doll. All of you—I want all of you.”
You hear the sound of fabric ripping before you feel the cool air rush over where your sleep shorts are no longer, Bucky tosses the tatters of fabric over the edge of the bed. He inhales sharply at the sight of you, hands roaming over the wide breadth of your hips as if he can’t even draw himself away, smoothing over your stretch marks with loving strokes until he finds the thick expanse of your bare thighs.
Bucky’s thumb brushes over your clothed cunt, panties drenched, and a strangled moan flies from your mouth as you press toward him, begging for more.
“This all for me?” he asks, voice gravelly. “My pretty baby is all wet like this for me? Christ, doll, you’re dripping.”
“Yes!” you shout as metal fingers hook around your underwear to rip them off, parting your lips to watch your slick seep from your aching core. “It’s all for you, Bucky, all of it.”
He groans at this. “Good girl,” he praises you. “That’s my good girl.”
And then he sinks two fingers into you, your juices soaking his hand almost immediately, and pumps into you like his life depends on it. The pleasure is too much, and when his thumb finds your clit and begins to slide over it, your knees try to close out of instinct, hips canting away from the pleasure. Bucky growls and wraps an arm around your hips, keeping you close, baring your naked body to him and him alone.
“You like that?” His voice is low, teasing, so fucking hot you can’t do anything but gasp for breath. “You’re sucking my fingers in, baby. So tight. Gotta work you open or you’re never gonna be able to take my cock, honey.”
You whimper his name, hips twitching under his grasp, crying out as every stroke of his fingers brings you closer and closer to the edge. When he adds a third, you think you might die from the mix of pleasure and pain as he stretches your walls.
“You’re such a good girl,” he coos. “You’re gonna take it all, aren’t you? Been teasin’ me too long, and now you’ve gotta take it all, baby.”
He drives his fingers inside and hits the soft, spongy spot inside of you and it breaks you apart, tears you asunder, you’re arching off the bed and Bucky holds his thumb on your clit as you undulate upon his fingers. You can feel the gush of come that trickles down his thick fingers, and then he pulls out and places them in his mouth, licking your honey from the digits as the aftershocks of your orgasm wrack through you.
And when you can finally open your eyes, vision hazy, Bucky is looking at you with a mix of adoration and lust, licking your juice from his lips, grinning.
“That’s my good girl,” he praises again and the fire of pleasure and want and need ignites.
“Need you,” you whine, “right now, please, please sergeant.”
“Fuck,” he curses. “You don’t know what you do to me when you say that, doll.”
You definitely know what you do to him, and you’re gonna keep saying it and saying it until he’s yours, forever, until the end, until he’s buried so deep inside of you that you could die happy.
Staring up at him, your face flushed, hair sticking to your sweaty forehead and spread among the motel pillows, you think you might be in love with Bucky Barnes.
“Need me to fuck you, baby? Fuck, you drive me so fuckin’ crazy. I’m crazy about you, baby. You’re so goddamn perfect, so soft, so beautiful.” Bucky’s hands touch every part of you, even the places you hate. He finds the soft rolls of fat you try to work off at the gym, finds the squishy parts of your upper arms you think look unsightly when you’re hacking into HYDRA’s systems, fingers flying over the keyboard. He passes over your stubbly legs, a little sharp from three days of not shaving while on the mission, he caresses the dimples of cellulite in the backs of your thighs you hate so much.
And then he pushes the waistband of his sweats down and kicks his pants off, his cock exposed and standing attention all red at the tip and thick and hard and hot, and his hands slide underneath your thighs and press you up until you’re angled to take him.
He hesitates though, you feel it. And god, you’d do anything for him.
“Fuck me, sergeant,” you beg so prettily, and Bucky growls.
His hips snap into yours, cock sliding through your walls, parting you for him, splaying you open, stretching you, burning you, he’s everything. Bucky gives you one second to adjust and then he’s moving within you, the pain blurring into pleasure, your head thrown back, keening, moaning, crying out, nails sinking into his shoulders.
“Yes,” he hisses, sweat dripping down his temple as he rams into you over and over and over. “Give it to me, baby. You feel so good.”
“Harder,” you manage in between your shrieks and moans and Bucky answers your call with a response. He drags you toward him until your hips are attached to his, connected, his cock reaching the deepest parts of you, the darkest parts of you, and you sob as the new angle makes you feel every single drag of his length. The head of his cock pierces you, smashing against the spot that makes you keen, and the pressure is building up within you again.
Bucky’s fingers find purchase in the plush flesh that sits on your hips, dragging down until he’s digging into your thick thighs, the sharp pain a beacon cutting through the haze of pleasure you’re locked in as he fucks you. It’s building, building, building, pressure, building.
“Come for me,” he snarls, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, like he can feel how close you are. And for the second time, your body is shattered and your orgasm breaks like a wave crashing against the shore, swallowing you whole until you’re lost in everything that is Bucky.
You scream his name, legs tightening around him like you’re trying to hold onto something, anything, and his words are lost on you.
“That’s it, good girl, that’s my good girl, coming so sweet around my cock, god you feel so good baby, so tight, such a good little girl.”
Bucky pulls out of you and you whine as your slick slips out of you, his cock coated in your essence, smearing it against your inner thighs. But it doesn’t last that long. With an immediacy that turns you on—he wants you, he wants you so bad—Bucky grabs you and flips you over, putting you on your hands and knees. His palm forces your head down, back bowing until you’re arched with your ass upturned, face smashed into the pillows.
“God,” he groans, “this fuckin’ ass of yours, baby. It gets me in so much trouble, d’ya know that? You don’t even know how many times I’ve caught myself watching the way your ass swings when you walk, like y’gotta purpose, like you don’t even know how fuckin’ sexy you are.”
Bucky’s hands round over your ass, caressing them gently, then grabbing fistfuls of your flesh until you’re crying out once again. It makes you lean back into him, trying to seek out the pleasure of him, wiggling as if you can entice him to stuff you with his cock again.
“So fuckin’ pretty,” he breathes, and then he gives your right cheek a slap that makes you shriek, laying a kiss on it just after to soothe the pain.
“Please sergeant,” you gasp. “Please, please, I need you to fuck me again.”
“You want me to fuck you again?” he asks, smug. “I just fucked you ‘till you came around me, baby. You need me to do it again?”
It’s humiliating, but your words are jumbled as you cry and beg and cry and beg for him to take you again. You need him. You need him to fuck you. You need Bucky Barnes to do anything and everything to you.
He leans over you, breath hot on the back of your neck. “I’m gonna fuck you now, baby, again and again and again.”
And then he slams back into you, the angle so much deeper this time, cock hitting the back of your cunt like he was made for you—like you were made for him.
You can’t speak, can’t think, can’t do anything but drool into the pillow as he takes you from behind like a wild animal. The sounds that pour from your open lips are heady and strung together, making no sense, but Bucky knows what you need. He fucks you raw, fucks you hard, fucks you until you know you’ll be covered in bruises in the morning. His metal arm is wrapped around your waist, holding you to him because you don’t have the strength to hold yourself up.
When his thrusts become sloppy, Bucky takes his vibranium hand and searches for your clit, making you cry out. It’s too much—the overstimulation. You’re too sensitive, too exhausted, too fucked out to take the pleasure anymore. But you clench around him, the sloppy sounds of your wet heat taking Bucky as he pounds into you making you flush, and the coil in your stomach is tightening.
“Give it to me,” Bucky commands, ramming into you impossibly harder, fingers sliding over your slick clit. “Give it to me, baby.”
You whine his name and Bucky’s free hand smacks your ass again, the sound of flesh on flesh mingling with the sound of him fucking you.
“You said you’d be good,” he grits through his teeth. “Are you a good girl?”
“Yes,” you pant.
“You’re a good girl?”
“Yes.”
“You’re my good girl?”
“Yes, sergeant, yes!”
“Then give it to me. Come, baby, come for me, one more time.”
And like that, you come apart, knees collapsing beneath you. Bucky catches you in his arms, thrusting once, twice more, and then buries himself so far inside of you that you barely feel his hot seed spurt inside of you, coating your insides.
You fall to the bed and Bucky follows, pulling out of you and wrapping his arms around you, pressing your back to his chest in the very position that started this all. He peppers kisses over the expanse of your shoulders, behind your ear, and then turns you until he can connect his lips to yours. Bucky kisses you like he means it, like he wants it to last forever.
“I’ll be right back,” he whispers against your mouth, then he’s off the bed and headed for the bathroom. You lay there in bliss, staring up at the ceiling with lidded eyes, unable to think of anything but the pleasure and exhaustion that make up your body right now. When Bucky returns, he has a ratty washcloth in hand and he uses it to clean between your legs. It’s warm and he’s gentle, leaving you shivering when he’s finished.
When he climbs back in bed, he tucks a piece of your matted hair behind your ear, smiling at you.
“Such a good girl,” he says, one last time, and it makes you smile. “My good girl,” he murmurs as he kisses you again.
“Yours?” You look up at him, blinking innocently.
“Mine.” Bucky lays your head upon his bare chest. “All mine.”
You fall asleep before him to the sound of his breathing, sharing the same bed with your co-worker Bucky Barnes, who you really think you might be in love with, especially as he strokes your hair so softly until your eyes fall, heavy.
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Auntie ‘Soka and Little Leia (and Rex)
The counterpart to Uncle Ben and Little Luke (Original Post, Chrono)
Listen. You all knew this was coming.
This got... very long and detailed and I’m going to have to clean it up and post to AO3. As in, this was supposed to be 2-3k and is literally ten times that long. It crossed 25k. And the initial section actually glosses over a bunch, actual fic-style writing starts at “That, of course, is when things get interesting.”
Warnings: discussion of various canon traumas (most relating to being child soldiers), general PTSD, several scenes featuring dissociation or panic attacks upon being triggered, and canon-typical violence.
Rated T, gen.
I still want there to be de-aging nonsense involved so Ahsoka is physically a late teenager despite having a solid two decades of field experience behind her (we’re pulling her from Malachor).
Leia, much like Luke, is now six. She just came from being a rebellion general. She is not happy about being a child. She was already short, this is just mean. She’s a human espresso.
UNLIKE BEN, Ahsoka is not happy about this turn of events. Being seventeen-ish is not helpful in the outer rim. She’s a female togruta, young and healthy, and in the Outer Rim, caring for a small human child. Sure, she has her lightsabers and plenty of combat experience, and she can keep them safe, but she’s just one person, and a major target for those looking to make some quick cash. It doesn’t matter how good she is; she needs sleep at some point.
It makes my heart happy to treat Ahsoka and Rex as two halves of the same black ops specialist so you know what, he’s there too! He’s physically like... 10-12 in natborn, maybe. They’re not sure, because clones age weird. He’s moderately more useful than Leia (who is very competent but also physically six, and short for that age), but he’s still... very small.
Reminder that none of them have been born yet.
Ahsoka has a harder time explaining WHY she has children with her, since she's barely more than a kid herself, and clearly unrelated by species. She sometimes just says “Oh, my adoptive brother’s kids” since it’s kind of the truth for Leia and she’s not touching the actual truth about Rex with a ten foot pole.
Ahsoka definitely knows about Leia being a Skywalker, or at least has suspicions that Bail never outright confirmed but was conspicuously quiet about. She does tell Leia about it, but it’s not like that means anything, right? Just, you know, your dad was my teacher! I don’t have to tell you he became Va--oh shit, you already knew that part. Well, fuck. What do you mean he had a son? OH SHIT, PADME HAD TWINS.
Alt take for explaining why she’s got kids: She’s my foundling, I know her name as my child (Leia shut up!!!)
(Ahsoka can fake Mandalore. Sometimes.)
That said, there is... significantly less gambling and significantly more theft to get to Coruscant.
As previously stated, Ahsoka is a black ops kinda gal, and more importantly, she looks like a fairly attractive young woman in the Outer Rim, with two children in good health. She’s a target, and also not the kind of person one generally gambles with. If she does gamble, people get upset when she doesn’t lose, in ways they don’t get upset about Ben doing the same, because she’s, again, a cute teenage girl. It’s exhausting.
As things go, she largely ends up stealing from people who deserve it and/or smuggling herself and her charges into someone else’s ship. They’re small, they can hide. Sometimes she can get them all passage by working as a mechanic, she’s good at that.
Once they’ve got a handle on when they are, they have to decide on Names. None of them have been born yet, so technically they could use their own names without anyone Knowing. Rex and Leia might not even be born, depending on how successful they are at, you know, stopping the war and everything. Ahsoka, though, she’s going be born in two years, and there’s no reason to prevent it, so... she doesn’t want to steal baby-her’s name. That would be mean.
Leia is already calling her “Auntie ‘Soka” when she can for reasons like “selling the bit” and “manipulating adults” and “making us both feel better after we had a mutual breakdown about Anakin being Vader.” Ergo, she decides that whatever new name she picks better include that in some way, and decides on “Sokari” because it sounds pretty.
Overall, they don’t... they don’t actually make it very far before there’s an Incident. Again, teenager with small children. They spend a lot of time hiding out in space ports looking for an opportunity.
That, of course, is when things get interesting.
Specifically, Ahsoka spots a Mandalorian.
She doesn’t recognize the armor. She does recognize the sigil, and thinks ‘well, they’re more likely to help than some,’ because from what she’s heard, the Haat Mando’ade are Decent People Overall. Her view is a little biased, mostly on account of the sheer level of grudge she has against Kyr’tsad. It’s fine! The True Mandalorians have the same grudge, right? And Mandalorians like kids and Ahsoka hasn’t slept in five days and it’s fine. It’s fine! IT’S FINE.
“Oh shit,” Rex whispers, before she can suggest anything. “Oh fuck.”
“Stop cursing,” Leia hisses, elbowing him. “People are going to notice.”
“That’s the Prime,” Rex panics, mostly quiet. Ahsoka’s heart drops, because fuck is right. “That’s Fett.”
Leia isn’t impressed. Ahsoka just angles herself between Fett and Rex and hopes that he doesn’t see them. That’s just asking for trouble.
Unfortunately, Ahsoka is in fact running on none sleep with left trauma, and doesn’t notice Fett walking up and dropping into a seat across from them until he’s actually done so, removing his helmet to glare a little more efficiently.
“Wanna explain why your kid has my face?”
Ahsoka later tells herself that he’s killed Jedi and that’s why he can sneak up on her, and that she can be forgiven some slip-ups with the exhaustion being what it is, and that she’s obviously going to be dealing with some emotional instability in light of the sudden return of teenage hormones and new forms of anxiety that are markedly different from those she was dealing with a few weeks ago.
What Ahsoka wants to say is “that’s kind of a long story,” or “maybe he’s a cousin,” or “kriff off, I don’t know you,” or maybe even “he’s a clone.”
What Ahsoka actually does is burst into tears, which is embarrassing for her, for Fett, for the kids, and for the entire rest of the bar.
It really is the straw that broke the eopie’s back. Even when she was actually this age, she didn’t exactly cry much. Objectively, Fett quasi-aggressively asking a valid question shouldn’t send her into a panic. She’s been through torture and worse. She shouldn’t be crying.
But she is, sobbing her eyes out with no control, and he’s just sitting across from her and looking uncomfortable while Rex wraps his little arms--oh Force he’s so small--around her, and both ‘children’ glare at Fett.
“So, I’m going to take it she didn’t kidnap you from a loving family or do something illicit with a blood sample,” Fett says, after it becomes obvious that Ahsoka’s not going to be ready to talk any time soon.
“She didn’t,” Rex says stiffly, with just the right emphasis for Fett to catch what’s implied. Ahsoka just keeps her head down, eyes pressed against the heels of her palms, trying to get her body to stop rebelling against her.
Fett’s eyes dart to Leia, who folds her arms and draws herself up, every bit the unimpressed princess. “My father claimed her as a sister, so she’s my Auntie ‘Soka.”
The man dithers a bit, the conversation clearly not going where he’d expected. “Right,” he says. “You--you’re all kids. I thought she was a little older, at least, but I didn’t have a good look at her face before.”
She is older, but actually admitting that is only going to make this worse, both for her pride and for her chances of making it out alive.
“Where are you staying?”
“What?” Leia bites out.
“You’re kids, you’re alone, and you’re clearly not okay if you were trying to hide the one with my face as blatantly as you did, and then... whatever this is, when I confronted you,” Fett explains. Ahsoka lifts her head to glare at him, but it’s probably not doing much with the way her eyes are rimmed with red and still wet. “Don’t give me that look, ad’ika, your kids looked as confused and horrified by that as the bartender did. They obviously didn’t think it was normal either.”
Well, kriff you too, Ahsoka thinks.
“And what do you mean by ‘blatantly,’ here?” Leia challenges. It’s adorable, but Ahsoka watched this tiny girl shoot a man last week, and wonders when people are going to start taking that seriously.
“There’s a lot of people in this galaxy, and I don’t exactly have the clearest memory of what I looked like at that age,” Fett says, slow and careful like he thinks they’re dumb. Ahsoka decides to chalk it up as being because Leia’s visibly six. “I would have thought it was just a coincidence if you hadn’t put in effort to hide him.”
Leia huffs, and Rex glares harder. Fett just sighs, like they’re all going to give him grey hairs.
“You can explain whatever the hell’s going on,” Fett says. “I’ll let you stay on my ship, there’s a spare bunk and you’re small.”
“For free?” Rex demands.
“A night on a bunk in exchange for information,” Fett clarifies. “We can negotiate from there.”
Ahsoka takes a few moments, notes that both of the others are waiting on her for the decision, and cringes. She doesn’t feel steady enough to carry that. She has to anyway.
“Rex?” she asks, voice rasping after the breakdown of the past few minutes.
“Yeah?”
“How much?”
He looks up at her, eyes calculating, and grimaces. “We don’t want Order 66. A warning is better, even if we... share information.”
She nods, and turns to Leia. “Any premonitions, princess?”
Leia glowers, cute and furious. “No.”
“No, don’t tell, or no, you aren’t getting any vibes about sharing info one way or the other?”
“The latter,” Leia clarifies, huffy to the last.
“Right,” Ahsoka says, and then just... hesitates. “Fett...”
“You’ve got conditions,” he guesses.
She bares her teeth in what could have, through a squint and perhaps a few drinks, been called an apologetic smile. “Just one, really.”
“Yeah?”
“No hurting, killing, or turning us in for bounties,” she says. “Any of us.”
“You’re children, I wouldn’t.”
She blinks at him, slow and careful. She hesitates. She reaches down, out of sight, sees him stiffen.
She unclips her sabers from her belt and puts them on the table.
His eyes are fixed on the weapons the second they enter his line of sight, and don’t move as he clearly realizes why she made the condition she did.
“I left years ago, because I couldn’t stay without it ruining me,” she says. Still slow. Still careful. She’s so tired. “But if I want to keep Leia safe, I have to get back to Coruscant.”
His eyes finally lift from the sabers, expression blank. “Just her?”
“Rex doesn’t have the same monsters coming after him,” she says. “If it were just me and him, I’d worry less. Leia’s a different kind of target.”
“You’re putting a lot of faith on the table by telling me that,” Fett says, voice flat and toneless. “Considering my occupation.”
“She’s a child,” Ahsoka says, feeling heavy and boneless. “Even with what I was and will be, even with what money you would get from the right buyer, you wouldn’t.”
“There are other risks.”
“There are.”
They stare at each other for too long, probably, and then Fett jerks as Rex kicks him under the table. The boys glare for a moment, and then Rex says, “If she weren’t good, I’d still be a slave to those who grew me.”
Fett blinks, and then nearly growls the word, “What?”
“She freed me,” Rex reiterates. “While I was trying to shoot her.”
Ahsoka lifts a hand and puts it on his far shoulder, pulling him into her side. She doesn’t meet Fett’s eyes again, because part of her is back on Mandalore, dodging her own soldiers and crying out as her family dies across the galaxy.
Fett breathes in. Breathes out. He puts a hand to his head, visibly frustrated. “Fine. A good Jedi kid, and two smaller kids, one of which is apparently in some way mine.”
Rex makes a face, which is fair, but also not helping.
“To the ship,” Ahsoka says, putting her sabers back on her belt and sliding out of the seat. “I’m... I’m Sokari.”
“You already know my name.”
“I do.”
---------------------------
Fett watches her like she’s a predator, which has the benefit of being accurate and slightly flattering. She lets other two take care of most of talking, and then Fett tells her to sleep first, and talk in the morning.
“You’re dead on your feet, jetii,” he snorts. “And that crying jag didn’t do you any favors. Sleep.”
So she does, and Fett doesn’t even wake her. He just lets her sleep. He watches her in the way of a guard. She sees him when she gets up to use the ‘fresher in the middle of the night, but he doesn’t even comment when she collapses right back into the mediocre cot she’s borrowed for the cycle.
Rex and Leia are safe, her hindbrain tells her, even in the depths of sleep. Her mind curls around theirs in the Force, and she trusts that they are here. They are not happy, but they are alive and unharmed, and that has to be enough.
When she stumbles her way to true wakefulness, groggy and loose-limbed, Fett greets her with caf.
“The kids wouldn’t let me near you,” he tells her.
“They’re good,” she says, cupping her hands around the mug. She feels wobbly, in every sense. Her body, her mind, her emotions, her connection to the Force. Nothing is on-kilter right now. “Did they tell you anything?”
“They waited for you,” he says. “But the little miss needed a nap of her own. They’re down in the other bunk.”
“I didn’t notice,” she admits. She should have. She’s Fulcrum. She’s a veteran of the Clone Wars. She’s... she’s supposed to be better than this.
“How long?” he asks, and then when she squints up at him, he clarifies. “How long did you fight?”
“My last fight--”
“No, whatever war you came out of,” he says. Her chest twists cold. “I don’t know if the Jedi sent you into it or if you waded in yourself once you left, but you move like a soldier.”
“I was,” she confirms. “But... but I don’t want to talk about the details. Not until the other two are here.”
He frowns at her. “Is there anything you can talk about?”
She shrugs and looks away, trying to take solace in the warmth of the caff she holds above the table, as if it can hide her, guard her, from the disgraced Mand’alor across the table.
“Jedi?”
“I’m not officially a Jedi,” she says, voice quiet. “Not anymore.”
“Then what do I call you?” he asks. “We’re not exactly close enough for names.”
“Torrent,” she says. “It’s not--I can’t claim my family name anymore. But I can claim Torrent, so I will. And if you want a title, I was a commander.”
“Bit young for that.”
“I got the rank when I was fourteen,” she says, and watches his face do something complicated and unpleasant. “Don’t. I know your own culture puts children on the field that young.”
“Not in command.”
She shrugs. “Yeah, well... the soldiers were technically younger. Adults, but...”
Ahsoka can see the way he casts about to figure out what species grows at that rate. He guesses a few, and she shoots all of it down.
She won’t tell him. Not until Rex is awake.
This part of the story is his.
--------------------------
When Leia tries to sit alone, a foot away on the bench like a proper adult, Ahsoka refuses to let it happen. She pulls the younger girl to her side and quells protests with a glance. It’s a decent skill, but she’s not sure how long it’s going to work on her niece-in-spirit.
“Your body needs the chemical release of skinship,” she says, and Leia glares at her. “I spent way too much time with the boys to not know about this. Deal.”
Rex sits close enough to knock their knees together under the table, and his warmth is the old comfort she needs.
“Do you want the story you’ll believe, or the truth?” Ahsoka asks.
“What’s the difference?”
“One of them involves something so impossible that even most Jedi wouldn’t believe it,” she tells him.
Fett folds his arms and leans forward to rest them on the table, challenging but oddly open. “Try me.”
“Time travel.”
He blinks, just once, fully controlled. “That’s a tough one.”
“There were only three Jedi left alive when I died,” she says. “Or... whatever it is that happened to me. I think I died. All I know is that one moment, I was thirty-two and dying, and the next, I was... seventeen again, and had these two with me. All of us younger than we were. None of us have even been born yet.”
She refuses to look him in the eye. “They both outlived me by... six years, maybe. Got caught up while traveling instead of dying. Leia was twenty-two. Rex was thirty-five. I’m not technically the oldest anymore. I mean, physically I am, but that doesn’t mean anything, and it’s not exactly doing us any good, and--”
Rex bumps his shoulder to her arm. “I dunno, Commander. I’ve spent a long time looking older than I should. Nice to look younger for once.”
She shoots him a small, pained grin. “Could be worse, yeah.”
“Let’s say I believe you.”
Her attention snaps back to Fett, who’s looking damnably blank, and is showing even less in the Force.
He waits a second for her to relax back into her seat.
“Let’s say I believe you,” he repeats. “How’s ‘Rex’ connected to me? What’s so special about Leia there? And what war did you fight in that has you acting like a veteran?”
“Three years in the clone wars,” she whispers, glancing to Rex and forcing herself to not go for her sabers to defend against an attack that her paranoia says is coming and the Force says is not. “Then almost all the Jedi were wiped out at once, and I spent a year... drifting. Then black ops for the next fifteen.”
“Black ops,” he repeats, still damnably flat.
“There was a Sith Empire,” she says, and she can hear her own tone growing somehow emptier. “Glassing planets. Enslaving entire species. Committing genocides all over. Of course, there was a rebellion, and of course I joined it. I was one of the only people left with Jedi training. For all that I’d left the Order, I still had a duty to the universe.”
His eyes flit to Leia, who shrugs and tries to look prim. “I was adopted and raised by one of the founders of the rebellion, a movement built on the desire to instate freedom and democracy in a galaxy that had lost even the pretense.”
“That why you’re special?”
Leia smiles, thin and patronizing. It doesn’t fit on her little face. “I’m special because my biological father was one of the most powerful Force users in history, and his Fall to the dark side and choice to become a Sith is why the Emperor’s rise was nearly uncontested. I do not like power, but it’s in my veins and I can’t change that. Force users are... a lucrative trade, and I’m still the size of a child, so I can’t fight back. I’ll be safer in the Jedi Temple, even if I don’t want to be a Jedi.”
Fett looks to Ahsoka, makes to ask a question, and then shakes his head. Not the time, maybe.
“So, that’s all... very complicated and I don’t know how much of it I believe, but it doesn’t explain...” he trails off, and sighs. “My kid, or whatever you are. I heard you mention clones.”
Rex grins. It is not a kind expression.
“Let me tell you about Kamino.”
---------------------------
Ahsoka has no idea if Fett believes them. Either he thinks they’re telling the truth, or he thinks their delusional kids. Whatever the case, he offers to take them closer to the Core. Ahsoka quietly offers to take a look at his engine in return, and then pretends not to notice when Fett awkwardly drifts to and away from Rex.
“They put chips in our brains to make us kill the Jedi we respected, cared for, even loved. I tried to shoot ‘Soka, Fett. She was seventeen and risked her life to get that chip out of my head while I was trying to kill her. I have never hated myself more than when I woke up and realized what I’d almost done, and I was one of the few that were able to fight it. I heard the stories of dozens of brothers who woke with their chips having degraded and chose to eat their blaster rather than live with the guilt of the orders they’d followed without question because of a thrice-damned Sith slave chip in their head.”
“So no, I won’t call you father or acknowledge you as clan until you do something to prove you’re worth it, shared blood or not.”
What Ahsoka does get out of the arrangement, for all that Fett’s route mostly takes them on a meandering path that isn’t faster than their previous system, is sleep. She gets to rest. She gets to trust that Fett won’t kill Rex, out of guilt for something he hasn’t done, that he won’t kill Leia out of a worry that she’s just a delusional child, a real child, that he won’t kill ‘Sokari’ because it would ruin any chance of gaining Rex’s favor, ever.
She’s not safe, won’t believe she can be until she’s in the Temple and Sidious is dead dead dead, but she’s safer than she’s been in a long time.
Every night, Ahsoka wakes up and stumbles to the little galley, deaths and torture sparkling behind her eyes with the energy of a thousand lost Jedi, ten thousand mourned brothers and sisters.
She is not the only one of their little group to be a survivor of a near-total genocide, but Rex could not feel his brothers die in the Force, even if his nightmares featured what they heard of suicide missions by the emperor’s favored shock troopers, and Leia had... Alderaan had more off-world survivors than there had been Jedi at all.
It’s not worth comparing their pain. It’s stupid to even think it. Part of her can’t help but do it anyway.
“Caf?”
She feels a lek twitch in response to the voice of the only other person on board who can reach the top shelf. “I probably shouldn’t.”
“Whiskey?”
“That’s a definitely shouldn’t.”
“Hoth chocolate?”
“...please.”
She doesn’t lift her head from her arms until the mug clicks down in front of her, ceramic on plastisteel.
“Do I ask what it was this time?”
She shrugs. “It’s hard to explain to non-sensitives.”
“Try me anyway.”
Ahsoka twists the Hoth chocolate in her hands, takes a sip as she thinks. “The Force isn’t just one thing. It’s... energy and philosophy and spirit, a sense of being that ties the entire universe together. Sentient and inanimate and living and dead, empty space and lush forests and stifled cities. For those of us who are sensitive to it, it’s possible to feel the life of everyone around you, theoretically possible to feel entire systems. If you have a Force bond, like a master and padawan, that can stretch across planets, even systems if one or both are particularly powerful.
“So just... just imagine, for a moment, what it’s like to feel the screaming of all those Jedi in the Force as their trusted men shot them down.
“Some of them were close enough that I could feel them die,” she manages. “I... it’s horrible. It’s horrific. It’s not something I can ever forget, and I want to. I want to forget what that moment was like. Not that it happened, but...”
She can feel the tears. Fuck..
“You want to dull the edges.”
“Don’t we all?” she asks, scrubbing the back of her hand across her eyes. “Leia lost her entire planet, billions of people, and she was forced to watch. Rex... Force, I can barely imagine, and I was there for most of it.”
Fett watches her, measuring. “From what he said, they were as much your brothers as his, by the end.”
“No,” she immediately denies. “They could have been, maybe, but the ones I was closest to died earlier, and then I left, and by the time the Empire rose, all but a handful were... no. Rex, I will claim as a brother in all the ways that matter, but I don’t get to do that with the rest. I don’t have the right.”
“You’re hard on yourself.”
“Fate of the galaxy, my good bitch. Guess who’s got it on her shoulders.”
He snorts at her, and nods at the mug. “Drink your Hoth chocolate. We’re landing in eight hours, and you’ve got kids to look out for.”
---------------------------
There’s a twitch in the Force when they land, something pulling at her in a way she barely feels. She’s had her shields up so fully for so long that it’s natural to hide away what she is to the point where she can hardly tell what anyone else is, either. It takes more than a moment to remember how to let herself spread out across the world.
“Auntie ‘Soka? Why’d you stop?”
She doesn’t have an answer to Leia’s prodding question. “I don’t know.”
It’s almost familiar. Old and half-forgotten, not the same as what she remembers, but--
“This way,” she says, and wanders off into the crowd. Leia and Rex follow without question. Fett curses and rushes through the rest of his transaction with the docking attendant. The sound of him jogging after them is almost funny, with the armor, but she can’t focus on that.
Ahsoka slips between people with the ease of a career built on such a habit, children trailing like ducklings. She knows this feeling, she knows this person, what is she missi--
“Oh,” she breathes, going stock still. She knows that face. She knows those braids. She even knows the presence.
Younger than Ahsoka had ever seen her, but unmistakably Master Billaba.
“Torrent, what the hell?” Fett demands, finally catching up. “You can’t just run off like that!”
“It’s Depa,” she says, eyes still fixed on the woman parsing through a datapad with an irritated vendor. She has a padawan braid. It doesn’t feel like Master Windu is on-planet, so this might be a solo mission, a... oh. Senior Padawan, Knight Elect. This is the kind of mission taken to test if she’s ready to be promoted.
Ahsoka feels light-headed.
Fett waits for her to elaborate, but she can’t. This was Kanan’s master. This was a member of the High Council. This was a woman who died and--
“You need to sit down,” Fett says, not a touch gruff. He puts a hand on her shoulder and guides her off the main walkway. “I’m... going to talk to the woman in the Jedi robes. You three just stay there and don’t get kidnapped.”
Ahsoka nods, feeling like she’s not quite inhabiting her own body.
It’s Depa.
Her eyes track Fett without conscious control, and her montrals pick up the sound.
Depa looks up when the armor comes close enough, free hand tensed in a way that says she’s preventing herself from reaching for a saber in reaction to the heavily-armored individual standing several feet away.
“Mando,” the woman says. “May I help you?”
“Are you Depa?”
Depa doesn’t do anything so dramatic as gape or step back, but she does blink rapidly for a moment. She then folds her hands down in front of her, drawing her spine up ramrod straight. “I am Jedi Padawan Depa Billaba, yes. May I ask why it is that you need to know?”
Ahsoka imagines Fett grimacing, or rolling his eyes, or maybe dithering. She can’t tell from this angle, and he has a helmet on besides. It turns his awkward silences into judgmental ones.
“I’ve had some Jedi kids on my ship, hitching a ride,” he says at length. “One of them recognized you and then just... froze.”
“You have our younglings in your care,” Depa says, carefully not accusatory, but close enough to be a warning.
“Not quite,” he says. “The one that actually came from the temple is seventeen. One of ‘em isn’t Force Sensitive, and the last one is but hasn’t been to Coruscant before. They’re trying to get the little one to the Temple for her own safety.”
Depa considers that, and then passes the datapad to the vendor. “Lead on.”
It’s surprisingly simple, really. Fett did all the talking.
And then Depa is standing right in front of her.
“Like I said,” Fett sighs. “She froze up.”
“Hello,” Depa says, hands laced together inside her sleeves. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
Ahsoka shakes her head. “I know of you. I’ve seen you spar. You’ve never spoken to me.”
All true. A little misleading, but it’s fine, it’s all fine.
Depa waits a moment, and then says, “You seem to have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“Sokari T-Torrent,” she manages. The words feel clunky in her mouth, the sound abrasive for all that it’s just her own voice, no different from usual. A little shaky, maybe. She can feel a cool breeze on her upper arms. Shouldn’t she have armor? She should have armor. “It... it’s been a long time since I’ve seen another Jedi. I’m having a hard time believing you’re real.”
“I see,” Depa says. “Perhaps we should take this somewhere more private? You seem a little unsteady.”
Ahsoka lets herself be led back to the ship, in the company of Mand’alor Jango Fett, Jedi Padawan Depa Billaba, Princess-General Leia Organa, and good old Captain Rex.
It’s like the start of a sick joke.
---------------------------
Fett and Depa talk where she can hear, but they rarely address her directly. Both seem to realize that she’s not particularly useful right now. Leia and Rex are pressing up against her at the little table in the galley, and Ahsoka lets them.
This is real. She can feel Depa in the Force, recognizes her energy even if it’s not quite what it will-was-could-have-been. This is happening.
It’s a textbook Traumatic Stress Response case, one of them says.
Fett has his helmet off. Ahsoka’s sure that’s wrong for some reason. She thinks he might already be on wanted lists. Should she worry about Depa trying to arrest him?
Depa asks about Rex at one point. Fett tells her that someone cloned him without his knowing, but the kid is more comfortable with Ahsoka so they’re still working on what that means for him.
It’s more or less true. Rex squeezes her hand the one time someone suggests separating them. She’s not letting that happen unless Rex wants to leave for whatever reason. They’ve worked apart before. They can do it again.
“Auntie Soka? You’re shivering.”
Is she?
Leia cuddles in closer, and Ahsoka runs a hand over her hair. It’s an absentminded motion, and for all that she knows Leia’s hair is fine as silk, it feels like plastic in the moment.
“I don’t think I’m okay,” Ahsoka announces. The words hang in the air like lead balloons, and she can feel Depa staring at her. “I haven’t been for a very long time.”
“Yeah, we noticed,” Fett says. “Do you need to lay down, Torrent?”
Does she?
“No,” she says. “I... I don’t know what I need.”
“The spicy drink,” Rex tells them. “It’s grounding.”
Right. That.
Fett goes to grab it, and Depa continues to watch.
“How long ago did you leave your master?” Depa asks. “Or... did he die?”
Ahsoka closes her eyes and shakes her head. She can feel the shivers now, tremors in her biceps and a shudder she can’t control in the height of her ribcage. Her teeth grind together, jaw like stone.
“You don’t have to answer that,” Depa assures her. “I’m... going to recommend you see a mind healer on Coruscant.”
That was a forgone conclusion.
A cup clinks onto the table. Fett’s back. “Drink.”
She does.
Depa and Fett continue discussing it as “the adults” at the table. She’s older than both of them. Rex is older than all of them. Ahsoka follows about half of what they say. She agrees with most of it. Rex bullies his way into speaking when she doesn’t, without her even asking, because he knows her mind as well as she does. Fett rolls with it. Depa lets him.
She’s going to reach out to the Temple and see about getting them a ride back to Imperial Center Coruscant.
Fett makes Soka go to bed, taking Leia with her.
---------------------------
She feels more like a person come morning.
Depa’s sitting at the table, datapad in her hands and caff on the table in front of her.
“Good morning,” Ahsoka says, rough and croaking, and Depa’s eyes flick up to meet hers. She nods a shallow hello.
“Feeling better?”
“Much,” Ahsoka says, and goes about gathering a breakfast. There’s definitely some dried meat in here. She can get something fresh when they stop by the market later.
“I was hoping to speak with you about your options,” Depa tells her, once she’s sat at the table. “Fett and your friend Rex took care of most of the negotiation, and I feel like I have an idea of what would work best for you.”
Ahsoka nods slowly. “Okay.”
“There is a Master-Padawan pair a few planets away,” Depa says. “The Council informed me when I spoke with them about you and your wards. They’d be headed back to the Temple in a few days anyway, and the Council has agreed to extend an offer to Fett to handle the transportation. The presence of a Jedi Master on board will allow for him to get in and out of the Core unmolested, and we’d like for you and yours to have a Jedi escort, given what happened yesterday afternoon.”
Her complete spiral into nonbeing?
“I understand,” she says instead. “I suppose Fett agreed because he’s still trying to get Rex to like him?”
Depa shrugs. “That part isn’t my business.”
Of course it isn’t.
“Rex can stay with me for a while, right?” Ahsoka finally asks. “I know it’s not exactly protocol, but I’m...”
“In need of a support system until you’ve seen a mind healer, and against all odds, the child is part of it,” Depa summarizes. “Yes, I recognized as much. I think the Council will be able to allow some leeway there. I don’t know if he’ll enjoy it, given that all the others his age are Initiates, but we can adjust as necessary. On that note... Do you know Leia’s midichlorian count?”
“No,” Ahsoka says, and hesitantly adds, “But her biological father was my Jedi Master, and I’m told his count broke records even as a child. Given what Leia’s shown so far... it’s why I’ve been in a hurry to get her to the Temple.”
Depa frowns at her, clearly working through the implications of a Jedi having a daughter and still teaching... and then visibly dismisses the situation, eyes closing to breathe in the steam of her caff.
Biological father certainly implies a child that was raised by her mother or adopted out so the Jedi father could remain in their chosen career without a conflict of interest or duty.
She’ll tell the council the truth, or... at least Master Koon. Master Kenobi is still a padawan, but she can tell Master Koon.
She already told Jango Fett, of all people.
“Padawan Torrent?”
Her head snaps up. She hasn’t been a padawan in over fifteen years. It’s weird to hear. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I asked if you wanted some time to think it over before I presented the offer to Fett,” Depa says.
Ahsoka gets the distinct feeling that Depa is planning a report to the Council that has ‘needs a mind healer’ underlined at least three times.
“No, I’m--I’m fine. That sounds like a good plan.”
“I’ll speak with him, then. Would you like to come with?”
"No, thank you.”
---------------------------
Fett agrees. Ahsoka’s pretty sure it’s all to do with Rex and maybe Leia. It’s probably nothing to do with ‘Sokari.’ She’s a Jedi, an adult in mind and in body, or at least close enough to count. She’s a damn sight more ‘enemy’ to Fett than the other two are. Not as much as Depa, maybe, but Fett’s been playing nice with her for Leia’s sake.
He plays nice with Ahsoka for Rex’s. That’s all.
They’re only a few planets over from the meeting point, and they have a few days to hang around before the escort meets them. Depa hadn’t given them a name--apparently it could have compromised the opsec for the Jedi team--but Ahsoka’s pretty sure she’ll be able to identify almost anyone. She gets the feeling that the Force is going to send her a familiar face, just as it did Master Padawan Billaba.
Ahsoka lets herself feel the world around her. It’s dark and dreary, in the sense that the beaten-down port is full of petty crimes and less petty horrors, but it’s still lighter than most of the Empire had been. She sneaks away from the ship at night, ignoring Fett at her back, and performs a bit of vigilante justice while she can. She’ll be banned from doing so as soon as she’s reinstated as a Jedi, probably, but for now... for now, she can look at the drug cartels and ‘they’re not slaves, really’ workers and do something to help.
She doesn’t use her sabers. She doesn’t need to. It’s been a long time since she has, for small fry like these.
“What are you doing?” Fett asks her, landing heavily behind her back.
“Chip removal,” she says, hand pressed to the slave’s leg. Her eyes are closed, but she can hear him shifting. “Let me concentrate, I don’t have a meddroid for this.”
He’s silent until she finishes, and waits until the people she’s helped are on their way to the planet’s freedom routes. He doesn’t ask what she did with the owners.
“You’ve done this before.”
“Regularly,” she confirms. “You?”
He doesn’t answer that, just ambles over to the the chains and stares down at them.
“Fett?”
“You go through this like it’s as easy as breathing,” he says. “It’s... impressive.”
“I guess?” she hesitates to continue. “I’m... I don’t think of it that way. This is the easy stuff. A time-waster that helps people. If I wanted to help for real, I’d been going after Jabba or Sidious or--”
“How old were you?” he asks, turning on his heel to face her dead-on. The vocoder of his helmet pulls the emotion from his voice. “When did this... these missions, the slavery battles, when did that start for you?”
“Fourteen,” she says. She’s not entirely sure, really, what counted as a mission for ending slavery and what counted as just a part of war, but she can round down. “Maybe fifteen. It’s a bit of a blur.”
“And you just kept doing it.”
“Of course,” she says. “If I have the time and the energy, if I need to do something and there’s nothing official on my hands, why not?”
He doesn’t answer her.
---------------------------
Rex greets them before she does.
Ahsoka, in her defense, is asleep at the time. It’s a restless sleep, but it’s enough that she doesn’t sense the nearing Force signatures until they’re almost at the ship.
She recognizes one of them.
“Auntie ‘Soka?” Leia questions, when she lurches to her feet and starts pulling on her boots with all the energy of a zombie. “Where are you going?”
“Jedi,” Ahsoka grunts. “Here.”
“I see.”
Leia dresses to follow her, in a little coat that’ll withstand the chill of the outside air, and Ahsoka makes it to the cargo hold just in time to hear Rex saying, “I’m not shaking your hand until you put your gloves on, Vos.”
She laughs to herself, breathless with the knowledge of what she’s about to find. She jumps the railing of the upper walkway, drops down just in front of the Master-Padawan team, and keeps her back to Fett and Rex. “Hello, there.”
One human, one Kiffar. She knows the latter.
“Would you be Sokari Torrent?” the Master asks.
“I am,” she says, with a slight bow. She can tell there’s a bit of judgement for how she’s dressed, but they’re covering it well. A Shadow and his trainee know the value of armor better than most Jedi bother with. “I’m afraid Padawan Billaba didn’t inform me of your names before we met.”
“And yet your friend knew my padawan,” the Master says.
“By reputation,” she says, as smoothly as she can. “I’ve encountered Quinlan Vos before, though I doubt he remembers--”
“I’d remember someone like you,” Quinlan interrupts, with a grin she’s sure is meant to be charming and rogueish.
He’s... very young for her, and not her type. Mostly, she wants to pat him on the head, but that probably wouldn’t go over very well. She still looks like she’s younger than him.
“Anyway,” she says, turning back to the master, “I’m afraid I still don’t know who you are, Master.”
“I am Tholme,” he says, with the bow that a Master gives a Padawan. She feels a little slighted, but it’s fine. She looks the right age, it’s fine.
It’s not like they know.
“It’s nice to meet you, Master Tholme,” she says. “My charges are Rex Torrent, the young man behind me, and currently coming down the ladder is Leia Antilles. I’m sure you’re aware of Jango Fett.”
“The Mand’alor,” Quinlan volunteers, and Ahsoka can almost hear Fett’s teeth grinding.
“Don’t call me that,” he says. She’s sure he’s got a hand drifting for his blaster.
“There isn’t a whole lot of room on the ship,” she says before the men can get into whatever weird contest she’s sure someone might start. Her bet’s on Fett. “But Leia and Rex are small enough to share with me, so I’m sure we can make it work.”
“There’s spare rolls for anyone comfortable with sleeping in the hold,” Fett grunts. “Or on the floor in the passenger room.”
“Well, I guess I could ask for a little help fi--”
“Vos,” Ahsoka snaps, letting her voice take on the kind of ‘obey me or get fresher duty’ irritation that she’d perfected back when the rebellion still had her managing people, before they’d realized she was more use in the field. “Do not.”
There’s a moment’s pause, and Tholme looks unimpressed with that raised eyebrow, but the kind of unimpressed that’s split between his own padawan and the stranger before him.
“Um,” Quinlan says. “I just--”
“No,” she cuts him off. “No flirting.”
It’s weird and uncomfortable and she’d have maybe been okay with it if she was actually the seventeen-or-eighteen-ish(?) that she looked, but she’s not. She’s in her thirties and Vos is... what, twenty? Twenty-one? No.
He stares at her, and she wonders momentarily if she’d gone too far in the direction of judging his intentions in the Force and preempted actual flirtations.
“I’m sorry?” He offers, looking confused, but ashamed. “I, uh, I’ll keep that in mind.”
She definitely preempted the actual flirtation.
Fuck.
Ahsoka closes her eyes and breathes in. Breathes out. Opens her eyes. “Right. That was... I’m not sure how much Padawan Billaba told you about me.”
“Enough,” Tholme says. He moves forward and puts a hand on Quinlan’s shoulder. Ahsoka has no idea if it’s to comfort him or hold him back. “I didn’t share most of it with my padawan, but I have a general understanding of what’s going on.”
Quinlan darts a look at his teacher, but Ahsoka doesn’t acknowledge it. It’s fine. Everything is fine.
“Thank you for your understanding,” she says, and bows, and stiffly turns away to walk to the galley.
---------------------------
Leia squirms into the bench seat, shoving her way under Ahsoka’s arm like a particularly wriggly tooka.
“What was that?” Leia demands, the authority of a rebellion general rather useless in the squeaky voice of a child.
“What was what?”
“The whole thing with Padawan Vos,” Leia says. “You blew up at him before he even did anything.”
That’s pretty true.
“I felt the flirtation coming before it happened and reacted inappropriately because I panicked. I’m significantly older than him, but I can’t tell him that, so it’s just awkward and uncomfortable and... I’m not okay, Princess. I haven’t been for a long time.”
“Yeah, we can tell.”
“Leia.”
“What? I need therapy too! Captain Rex needs therapy! I’m pretty sure Fett needs therapy! You, Fulcrum, you really need therapy. None of us are okay.” She huffs, wiggling impossibly closer. “I don’t like it, but it’s true.”
“I know,” Ahsoka groans. “I just... I just need to hold out until the Temple.”
“Will you be able to hold it together if you see someone you actually care about?” Leia demands. “What are you going to do when you see Kenobi?”
“Stop.”
“I’m serious, you--”
“Leia, that’s enough,” she snaps. “I was fighting that war before you were even born, and I’ve dealt with the consequences since. I know the risks and I’ll thank you to remember who taught you to control your own mind.”
Leia stiffens, sucking in a sharp breath. “That was uncalled for.”
“You’re not the child you appear to be,” Ahsoka reminds her, not a little sharply. “You want to dish it out, be ready to take it. What will you do when we see Bail Organa? When we see the toddler that is Anakin Skywalker?”
“I get it.”
“I’m not sure you do,” Ahsoka mutters. She isn’t surprised when Leia ducks out of the embrace and leaves the galley. She lets the girl go, guilt warring with the memory of how Master Kenobi had more than once spoken that way to Anakin at the height of the war. The fact that she’s an adult in the body of a child isn’t an excuse for poking at Ahsoka’s open wounds. It was cruel and unnecessary, and unbecoming of a... not a Jedi. A princess. A politician.
She rests her head on her arms and zones out. She should meditate, but that seems like... too much effort.
She can feel Vos and Tholme setting up in the room they’ve been assigned. Neither seems particularly angry. Most likely, Tholme’s given the absolute shortest explanation of ‘child soldier, dead master, highly traumatized and emotionally unstable’ to Vos to smooth over the incident in the cargo hold. Rex is with Leia; he’s agitated, but less so than Leia herself. Fett’s annoyed, in the cockpit, but he seems annoyed as often as not. There’s a shudder at lift-off, and a few minutes later, they’re in hyperspace, headed for the Core.
Fett finds her, falls into the other bench in full armor, and drops his elbows onto the table. The helmet clunks down a moment later.
She doesn’t lift her head. “What do you want?”
“Do I need to keep Vos away from you?”
“What?”
“Vos. He made you uncomfortable. Was that him being someone that hurt you in the future, or just the interaction being awkward?”
She lifts her head. She stares at him. “What?”
He leans back and crosses his arms. “Do you need me to tell Vos to stay the hell away from you?”
She’s gaping. “You realize I’m thirty-two, right? I can handle my own battles.”
“You’re also traumatized as hell and everyone can see it,” Fett argues back. “If Vos himself is a trigger, I can handle it.”
“He’s not,” she tells him. This is strange. Fett’s being strange. “He was actually a friend of my grandmaster’s. I’m just uncomfortable with the flirting because I’m a lot older than he realizes, and I can’t tell him that.”
He nods sharply, and then looks away. The silence sits.
“Thanks for asking?” Ahsoka says, well aware of how her confusion over the offer turns it into a question. “I mean, thank you for... caring.”
I guess, she finishes in the privacy of her own head. Or at least pretending to.
Fett makes a face, still not facing her. He eyes the galley instead. She can guess where his thoughts are going. The galley is... not very big, especially with six people on board instead of one, but she’s sure they’ve stocked up enough. On the off chance they do go through more than expected, because of how many growing bodies are in residence, they can stop off and buy more. They have those resources now.
Jango never does ask what she did with the slavers.
“Who’s going to cry if I spice things properly?” he asks.
“Probably Leia,” she says immediately. “Vos will try to power through it even though he’s going to be overwhelmed. No idea about Tholme, but I think he’ll keep a straight face whether he likes it or not. Rex and I are fine, ‘hot’ was pretty much the only flavor of seasoning the GAR had.”
“GAR?”
“Grand Army of the Republic.”
He finally looks at her.
“You already knew I was a child soldier, Fett; don’t act surprised.”
“That doesn’t mean I like hearing about it.”
“I was fourteen. That’s old enough by Mando standards, Fett. Just think back, when did you get on the battlefield?”
“I take your point,” he says, lip curling unpleasantly. “It just hits different now that I’m old enough to look back and think of how damned young fourteen really is.”
Ahsoka shrugs. “Yeah, well--”
“You said the clones were ten.”
There’s the rub, isn’t it?
Of course it was about the clones.
“...closer to seven, by the end. Kamino was just making speedies at that point. Triple growth on the average instead of double, but averages in that case meant they’d been growing at double rates for six years and then got forced through four growth cycles in a single year to beef up the army when we kept losing men.” She looks down at the table, picking at a scratch in the plastipaint with her nail. “Rex and the rest of the ones from the beginning were basically twenty in mind and body, even if they’d only been decanted ten years earlier. The speedies... I always wondered. They’d gone from functionally twelve to functionally twenty in a year. That’s not... even in Kamino, that can’t have been normal. They didn’t act like adults, not the way the originals did.”
Fett rubs at his face, groaning. He swears under his breath in three different languages.
She pities him, if only because he hasn’t actually done any of this yet. He’s paying for the crimes of a man he likely won’t ever become.
She kicks him under the table. “Wanna make tiingilar and see how long it takes Vos to start crying while he insists it’s fine?”
---------------------------
Dinner is when the questions start. Some are relatively easy. Others, not so much.
“My Master was Leia’s biological father,” is an easy truth to share. “She inherited his power, so I need to get her to the temple for her own safety, because home no longer is.”
“Yes, her adoptive parents were unfortunately killed rather recently. We’d prefer not to talk about it.”
“Rex is with me. Where he goes, I go, and vice versa.”
That one gets her an odd look.
“I thought...” Quinlan trails off, gesturing between Rex and Fett.
Fett keeps his face impassive, but his discomfort and guilt leak into the Force. “I didn’t know Rex existed until I ran into these three in a spaceport cantina a few weeks ago.”
Quinlan blinks at him, looks at Rex again, and then turns back to Fett with a grin that might have been described as ‘saucy’ if he were less smug about it. “Wild oats, huh?”
“Are you shitting me right now,” Leia whispers, and Ahsoka elbows her.
“That was inappropriate, padawan.”
Quinlan’s grin fades as Fett just continues to eye him.
“Um, so--”
“How old is the kid?” Fett interrupts.
Darting eyes answer him, as Quinlan tries to gauge Rex. “Ten? Maybe twelve?”
“And how old am I?”
“...early thirties?”
“I’m twenty-seven.”
Quinlan’s grin fades further as he does the math.
“I’d have been between fifteen and seventeen when he was born,” Fett says, tone flat. “Between fourteen and sixteen at conception. I know damn well I wasn’t doing anything that could have resulted in a kid at that age.”
Quinlan rallies. “So, brothers?”
Tholme sighs loudly, hand over his eyes.
“I’m a clone,” Rex says, and Ahsoka can feel the amusement he gets out of Quinlan’s confused shock. They’d both had plenty of respect for Master Vos, but Padawan Vos was nothing but trouble. “Harvested genetic material, grown in a tube, inconsistent aging meaning I don’t even know how old I am for sure.”
“I broke him out,” Ahsoka adds, which is half true.
“There was a chip in my head,” Rex adds, with a bright smile. Quinlan’s discomfort grows. “She got it out. Also, lots of brothers. None of them are... around anymore. The creators were trying to make an army.”
Vos and Tholme have no response. Fett looks like he’s been carved out of stone. Leia’s just ignoring them and picking at her food.
Ahsoka lifts a hand and, without looking, Rex high-fives her.
---------------------------
“Drop your elbow.”
Ahsoka tries to cover her smile at the dirty look that Leia shoots Fett. Fett remains unimpressed by the glare of royalty, just gestures for the girl to do as he said.
“I know how to fight,” Leia grumbles. “I took lessons. I was good at them.”
“And I’m better,” Fett says, leaving no room for argument. “You want the Torrents to take over?”
The Torrents. Rex and Soka. She likes being referred to that way. Like they’re a team that never got split up.
Force, she wished they’d never gotten split up.
“Again,” Fett orders, and Leia moves through the Mandalorian kata with ill grace in her emotions and all grace in her sweeping limbs.
Well, as much grace as an undersized six-year-old can, at any rate.
“Think he’ll ask me to spar her again?” Rex asks, dropping down into the seat next to Ahsoka and passing her a drink.
“Maybe,” she acknowledges. “I think he’s wondering if it’s worth asking Vos to spar with her, so she gets more experience with size differences.”
“Hm?”
“She flinched at his face again,” she tells him. “The whole... thing with Boba, I guess. She still won’t tell me why Fett triggers her sometimes, but he’s not pressing her to spar with him, and there’s only so much she can get out of fighting me. Asking Tholme would be presumptuous, but Vos is just a padawan. I think it’d work out.”
“And you?”
She looks at him, already feeling a cresting wave of bullshit she doesn’t want to deal with. “What about me?”
“Are you going to spar with the Jedi?”
She should. She hasn’t sparred with a saber since she got tossed back into a body only half-familiar to her. She’s let Leia borrow the shorter one to learn some basic blocking moves, Shii-Cho and then, with hesitance, the first Soresu form. Another time, she loaned it to Rex to practice some attacks; they both know that the next time he picks up her saber in battle, having lost his weapons or she her grip, it will be neither the first or last time he wields a sword of light. None of that, however, is... sparring.
None of that is against someone who knows what they’re doing.
How long has it been since she sparred with anyone other than Kanan and Ezra?
How long has it been since she sparred without the looming specter of Darth Vader in the back of her mind, without fear of the Inquisitors, without the knowledge that any saber held by someone other than her two friends would be red as blood and twice as drenched.
Would she be able to hold back as she fought?
“I should,” she acknowledges, eyes on where Fett is nudging Leia’s feet into position for some kind of leveraging flip. She’s so small. “It would probably be a good idea to spar against a master at some point.”
“Do you think you can?” Rex asks.
“I never knew him,” she says. “And he isn’t Dark. It should be fine.”
Rex nods, taking her word for it. They watch as Leia stumbles on a final move, and Fett gestures for her to sit down and get a drink.
“That man is a terror,” she informs them.
(She’d once described him as a slave-driver. She had not made that mistake twice.)
“Least it’s not Kamino!” Rex tells her cheerfully. When Leia refuses to look impressed, he laughs at her.
Ahsoka has a half-second’s warning before heavy boots thud to the ground next to her. “What’s Kamino?”
“Hello, Vos, it’s nice to see you too,” she drawls. “I’m good, thanks for asking, and yourself?”
The boy-not-quite-man rolls his eyes. “Hi, Torrents; hi, tiny one.”
Leia glares at him next.
“So, Kamino?”
“Planet by Rishi,” Rex says.
“Why were you there?”
“They specialize in cloning.”
Ahsoka covers her mouth as the conversation drops into the same awkward gap that always happens when Quinlan stumbles into a subject he didn’t know to avoid.
“Like... you were made there, or you were researching how it works for your own--”
Ahsoka slaps a hand over his mouth. “Now’s a great time to stop talking.”
He licks her palm.
She bares her teeth and arches her fingers just enough to press nails into his cheek.
He bites at her palm, and she yanks her hand away.
“You’re all children,” Leia accuses, conveniently forgetting that Ahsoka and Rex are both over a decade older than her.
“I can throw you the length of a swimming pool,” Ahsoka tells her. “One of the fancy competition-ready ones that would make a Tatooinian cry. You are absolutely the child here.”
“Using the Force is cheating, sir,” Rex informs her.
“Only if there’s a competition,” Ahsoka shoots back. “And proving that a certain princess is a small child is not a competition. It’s a declarative fact.”
“I’m going to rip open the seams on all your tops except the ugliest one,” Leia decides.
“Try me,” Ahsoka challenges. “Adi’ka.”
A low, rough cough interrupts them. “Are you done?”
Fett has his arms crossed, and an eyebrow raised. He knows they’re all adults here, and is entirely unamused. As the silence drags, the eyebrow climbs a little higher.
“Done with what?” Quinlan finally asks, thereby volunteering himself to spar in hand-to-hand with Jango Fett, as one does.
“Poor, poor Vos,” Rex laughs, watching as Fett barks out orders at Quinlan every five seconds to fix his footwork, to stop dropping his guard, to stop wasting energy on flips instead of just dodging the easy way.
“Throw him!” Ahsoka calls. To her delight, Fett obliges.
The thing is, Quinlan isn’t bad at brawling. He’s got training, endurance, skill. The man knows what he’s doing, objectively. He’s just not a match for Fett, and is used enough to relying on his saber that his hand-to-hand skills are rusty. They are perhaps less rusty than those Jedi who don’t take questionable jobs in the Mid-Outer Rim, and Ahsoka’s got a suspicion that Vos regularly gets into bar fights in his downtime, but none of that is enough for him to actually do more than survive against Fett without his saber.
Even the saber wouldn’t help, if Fett had his armor.
“Whose idea was this?”
Ahsoka cranes her head back and smiles. “Hello, Master Tholme. Vos... volunteered.”
“Did he know he was volunteering?”
“No comment.”
Tholme snorts, crossing his arms and eyeing the spar in front of him. “I thought Fett hated Jedi. Giving us a ride for the sake of you three is one thing, but why is he teaching my padawan?”
Ahsoka shrugs. “Constructive bullying?”
There’s a small twitch of a smile, quickly gone. “He said something wrong, I’m guessing?”
“There was no way he could have known,” she dismisses. “We’re just, like, ninety-percent tragic backstories.”
“You’d think the Force would warn him,” Rex notes.
“That’s not how the Force works,” Leia chides.
“No, no, he’s right,” Ahsoka corrects. “The Force does sometimes step in to stop a person from saying something stupid. However, Padawan Vos is at an age where people think they are very rational while being more irrational than they likely ever will be again.”
“Do I want to ask what you were doing at that age?” Tholme asks.
“Running bla...” she trails off, then whips around to gape at him.
He smiles, bland and unassuming. “Does Fett know?”
“Know... what?” Ahsoka asks.
“That you’re significantly older than you look,” he says, voice just low enough that the sparring duo can’t hear him. “All three of you.”
Ahsoka turns back to the spar, only catching Tholme out of the corner of her eye. “He knows.”
“Mm. Were you planning on telling the Council?”
“Yes.” That part was never in question. “How did you figure it out?”
“I am a good investigator,” he says. “And you rely a little too heavily on your physical forms to obfuscate. Were it just one of you, that wouldn’t be a problem, but the pattern repeated across three is a little easier to discern.”
“I hoped the whole ‘child soldiers’ thing would be a bigger distraction,” Ahsoka mutters. She glances at Leia and Rex. Both of them are used to being in charge to some degree, giving orders and making contingency plans, but in this... in this, Ahsoka is in charge. They’d decided that at the very start. It didn’t matter that Rex had lived longer and had more experience, or that Leia had held the highest Rebellion rank of the three of them. Ahsoka had been agreed as leader, and they were relying on her.
They’re waiting on her orders. Stiff and unhappy, in Leia’s case, but they trust her.
“Will you be telling Vos?” She asks.
“No,” Tholme says. “Your secrets remain your own unless they endanger us, and I’ve a feeling they won’t be.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Rex jokes, smile not reaching his eyes. “I’ve been working with this family for too long to trust that trouble won’t find them around the next corner.”
“This family?” Tholme repeats.
“Sokari was telling the truth about her master being Leia’s biological father,” Rex says. He shrugs. “I worked with him, with his wife, with both of his kids, with his master and his padawan. All of them, to a one, are trouble magnets.”
“Ah, but that’s not the secret that’s putting us in danger,” Tholme points out. “Simply existence as a Jedi.”
Rex shrugs. “Fair enough. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.”
Ahsoka lurches to her feet, turning with a smile and dancing backward into the the stretch of empty cargo hold they used for such things. “A spar, Master Tholme?”
He looks past her, to Quinlan, and raises a brow. “Would you not prefer to spar with someone a little closer to your level first?”
She barks out a laugh. “Master Tholme, I’m afraid I’ve spent more of my life fighting to survive than having normal friendly spars. My style is more lethal than the average, and you’ve already seen what war’s done to my mind. I ask to spar with you because, if I lose control, if I slip in time or react on an instinct that isn’t appropriate, I trust that you’ll be more able to stop me than a senior padawan.”
He smiles. “Yes, I gathered as much. Still, better to ask. Shall we wait for them to finish up?”
Ahsoka shrugs, turns, and yells. “Clear the deck!”
Rex snorts behind her, and lowly mutters, “Sir, yes, sir.”
She smirks at him over her shoulder. “At ease, Captain.”
“That’s ‘Commander’ to you, I got promoted,” he sniffs, chin held high.
Heavy steps herald Fett’s arrival at their little group. “The hells are you doing?”
“I’m going to have a spar with a Jedi Master, and I want you and Vos to not get stabbed.”
“I’m not that easy to injure in an actual fight, let alone by accident,” Fett grouses. He looks up and over at Vos, who is already significantly taller, if a fair shot less built. “This one, on the other hand...”
“Hey!”
Ahsoka laughs and backs into the center of the cargo hold, drawing her sabers. “Don’t worry, Vos, I won’t play dirty. You’ll probably get your master back in one piece.”
He wrinkles his nose at her. “Getting a bit ahead of yourself there, aren’t you? He’s a Jedi Master and former Watchman. You’re... what, eighteen?”
Ahsoka raises a brow and activates her sabers, tapping the blades together and watching as more than one person winces. “Wanna bet on how long I last?”
“No,” he says immediately, stepping back to join Rex on the bench. “You’ve already blindsided me enough. I’m not dumb enough to fall for whatever you’ve got up your sleeve.”
“I don’t have sleeves.”
“Armwarmers-slash-greaves, then.”
“Greaves go on the legs, these are vambraces.”
He throws his hands up in the air. “I’m just going to stop talking now!”
“Good plan,” Leia snarks, and then literally hisses when Rex ruffles her hair.
Tholme lights his saber and sinks into an opening stance.
Ahsoka mirrors him.
---------------------------
She wins, but barely. She's had a few weeks to practice her forms, has sparred hands-only with Rex and Fett, but this is her first real try at using her sabers against a person, instead of a blaster or thin air, since she arrived in the past. She’s only mostly adjusted to her body.
But Tholme is a healer and a watchman, not a duelist. Ahsoka held her own against Ventress, against Grievous, against Maul when she was this age. Still adjusting to her body or not, her lineage is one of battle, and it bled true.
“You’re terrifying,” Quinlan tells her after they’re done, smiling like the sun as he hands her a towel. “Please never turn that on me.”
She laughs at him. “Would you believe that I’m out of practice?”
“Out of practice with what?” he asks, horrified and fascinated. “Fighting Sith Lords?”
“Among other things,” she says, and smirks when he chokes on his drink. “Multiple darkside users who claimed to be Sith, at least. One being a full Lord, one that was disowned by his master, and one that was apprenticed to a Banite apprentice, so she wasn’t technically allowed to be a Darth because of the rule of two.”
Tholme meets her eyes past Quinlan’s shoulder, head tilted and eyes half-shut in consideration. He’s taking her seriously. He knows what she’s not saying.
“How...” Quinlan trails off and shakes his head. “You know what, no. Asking you people questions never ends well.”
“Good plan,” Ahsoka says, clapping a hand down on his shoulder. “Also, you need to spar with Fett more. Your footwork is shit.”
“It is not,” Quinlan gripes. “You’re all just scary good at this stuff.”
“You mean surviving?” Leia pipes up, and smiles innocently when Quinlan turns to pout at her.
“You’re getting bullied by a six-year-old,” Rex informs him.
“Yeah,” Quinlan sighs. “I know.”
Ahsoka laughs, and it’s fine. It’s all fine. For a week, everything is honestly great. She trains, she laughs, she works through the nightmares.
Then fucking Denon happens.
---------------------------
Denon is a city-planet on the intersection of two major hyperlanes. It’s the kind of place where they stop for two things:
Fuel.
Paperwork.
Technically, there’s a whole mess of paperwork they have to fill out to continue along this specific hyperlane, since they aren’t official Republic ships, and don’t have the licenses to just pass along like ships that are pre-registered to the Trade Federation or the like. They could sneak past--literally all of them know smuggler’s routes--but it’s honestly less of a pain to do things legally. They have a Jedi Master. They have cash. Some of that cash wasn’t quite legally acquired, but nobody needs to know that.
It’s supposed to be a pit stop. That’s all.
It’s just a pit stop.
But no, the galaxy isn’t that kind and Ahsoka’s luck is currently being compounded with a Skywalker, two Fetts, and Vos, which means that of course they run into trouble. Of course they do. There was never any other option, was there?
“Motherfucker,” Ahsoka snaps, lifting her head up and slamming her drink on the table.
The glass is empty. That’s good. They’re in a restaurant right now, a little splurging after weeks with only each others’ company, and spilling the sugary child-friendly juice with that move would have drawn way too much attention from the servers.
“Language,” Tholme says, voice idly unconcerned.
“Sir?” Rex asks, kicking Ahsoka under the table. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wr--that jackass,” she hisses, getting to her feet. “Rex, grab a blaster, I’ve got shebs to kick.”
“Okay,” Rex says, grabbing one out of Fett’s holster and scooting out of the booth before anyone can tell him not to. “Whose?”
“I didn’t even know that he was... osik, I don’t have jurisdiction,” she realizes. “I don’t have any record of wrongdoing. I can’t arrest him since we don’t have evidence of criminal wrongdoing...”
“Are you two going to explain what’s going on?” Vos asks. “Or sit down, maybe?”
Ahsoka makes her decision. She eyes the window--the restaurant in question is a little dingy, but it’s also several dozen stories in the air. “Rex, remember the thing we did on Geonosis that you hated?”
He pauses, and then sighs heavily. “Yes, sir. I remember the... yeeting.”
Hah. That slang doesn’t even exist yet.
“Great. With me!”
It’s a good thing the windows are forcefields instead of transparisteel. A bit of a twist to the energy and they’re gone.
She only hears a little screaming before the wind tears all noises away while they plummet.
They land lightly--of course--and Ahsoka wraps them both in a don’t notice me aura. Nobody even notices that they’ve just come from above. It’s great that she can just Do These Things again, and get brushed off as Weird Jedi Shit, instead of worrying about the Empire. She’s missed being able to jump out of windows without fear.
Rex follows her as she starts running through the city. They don’t have comms, and he’s still so small, which means he can’t keep up with her even if she runs at normal speeds without Force enhancement.
“Should you carry me?” he asks, before she can figure out if it’s worth suggesting. She did it a few times before they joined up with Jango.
“It’s not... urgent, I think,” she says. She hesitates to speak, even as she keeps jogging with Rex at her heels. “Honestly, I’m trying to figure out if there’s anything I can ding him for so we can attack him. It’s all well and good that I can beat him right now, but all the crimes I know about haven’t happened yet, so it wouldn’t be legal...”
“Commander?”
“Hm?”
“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
She scrolls the conversation back mentally, considers, and says, “Oh.”
“Who’s getting steamrolled?”
“Uh, Maul’s here,” Ahsoka admits.
“Ah,” Rex says. He makes a face. “I understand the desire to jump out a window, now. I don’t agree with it, but I understand.”
Ahsoka laughs. “I mean, I just... every time I’ve seen him for almost twenty years, it’s been like... on sight, you know? We’ve never not attacked each other, except when I needed him to cause problems on Mandalore. But I always knew I was in the right, then.”
“So... what do we arrest him for?” Rex prompts.
“Um... carrying a lightsaber without a license?” she hazards. “We’ll need Tholme there. Hopefully I can just shout at him and he’ll attack me, but I think he only went full nutjob after Master Kenobi cut his legs off. He might be too controlled to try to kill me just for yelling at him.”
“...do we have to stalk him?” Rex asks, sounding like he’d most likely sigh if he weren’t mid-run.
She scoops him up and swings him around onto her back before she answers. “I think we have to stalk him, Rex’ika.”
“Don’t call me that.”
---------------------------
Maul is... exceptionally sneaky, actually. Either that, or he hasn’t done anything wrong yet. Ahsoka’s betting on the former, because she’s seen this particular skocha kung take over a planet before anyone realized he was the most dangerous person around.
Or maybe he’s just not committing crimes, and is in fact just here to buy groceries.
He’s examining a papaya.
She fantasizes about jumping across the market and greeting him with a heel to the cheekbone.
“Are you imagining a flying kick, Sir?”
“Yeah...”
“He’s examining a papaya, Sir.”
“I know...”
“Does he know we’re here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? Do you think I should go hit him?”
“No.”
“Should I hit on him?”
“No, Sir. I would not advise that.”
“He’s looking at the neloms.”
“I can see that.”
“Why does he have to be so bo--did he just fucking bite a nelom?”
“It appears so, Sir.”
“Like... like rind and all. Just bit the little fucker.”
“Seems it.”
A scuff of metal. “What the fuck are you two doing?”
Ahsoka tips her head around to peer through the grate. “We’re spying, Fett, what does it look like we’re doing?”
Rex cranes his head. “We’re hanging upside-down from a fire escape to get a look at a suspected Sith Apprentice that is currently shopping for various fruits, Mand’alor.”
Ahsoka waves. “Hi, Master Tholme.”
“Sokari,” the master greets. “This seems a very conspicuous way to spy.”
She shrugs as well as she can from this angle. “Yes, but you see, this way’s more fun.”
“Is it now.”
Rex shifted. “He’s on the move!”
“To kill someone?!”
“No, to the deli meats.”
“Kriff.”
---------------------------
Apparently, Tholme and Fett had told Quinlan to take care of Leia, as Leia had wanted to finish her juice and refused to get involved in the Torrents’ nonsense. According to her, if they couldn’t be bothered to explain the nonsense, they didn’t need her.
This was true and accurate.
Quinlan shows up while they’re still stalking Maul, having moved to a low rooftop for a decent vantage point with less likelihood of being spotted. He’s giving Leia an eopie-back ride, and the pout on her face at needing it is adorable. She pouts harder when she sees them.
“Are you even trying to hide?” Leia scoffs.
“Not really,” Ahsoka admits. She’s got Fett’s binoculars out. “I’m not sure he’s caught wind of the fact that we’re here yet.”
“Or he has and he’s just biding his time to escape while we’re distracted,” Tholme points out.
“Meh,” Ahsoka says, avidly devouring the visual that is a teenage Maul glaring at leafy vegetables. “I just want him to do something so I have an excuse to beat his ass.”
“Do I get to know who?” Quinlan asks, setting Leia down on the roof. “Or are we going to keep being completely unwilling to share information?”
“Baby Sith Lord,” Ahsoka says. “He’s fifteen. A child.”
“A baby,” Rex agrees.
“You’re... that’s... ugh,” Quinlan groans as loudly and as dramatically as he dares, flopping down to the rooftop. “Master Tholme, please tell me this isn’t a real Sith.”
“He’s Dark,” Tholme confirms. “Sith is... up for debate until we have evidence.”
“He’s a bitch is what he is,” Ahsoka mutters. She observes the teenager in question stop to poke at some pink tomatoes. “E chu ta, break the law, already!”
“Does he have a lightsaber?” Quinlan asks. “If he has a lightsaber and no Jedi ID or specialty license, we can probably arrest him.”
“Auntie Soka doesn’t have a license or ID,” Leia points out.
“She’s got a Jedi escort,” Tholme says. “And if our supposed Sith is polite and plays nice, we can probably escort him to the Temple as well.”
Rex snorts derisively.
“Do you know why he’s on Denon?” Fett asks.
“No clue,” Ahsoka admits. “Evil reasons, probably.”
“You’re useless,” Leia tells her.
“Thanks, princess, how’s that attempt to open the jam jar by yourself coming?”
Leia says something very inappropriate for a princess, for a child, and for a lady. It’s fairly appropriate for a soldier, which is admittedly what she’s been for a few years now. Ahsoka sticks her tongue out at the girl like the mature operative she is.
“I wish we could still get him to lose his osik by just showing up and insulting him,” Rex mutters, low enough that Quinlan probably can’t hear.
“I wanna punch him in the face,” Ahsoka confesses. “I want him to try to punch me in the face, and fail.”
“Don’t bully the baby Sith,” Rex admonishes.
“He’s a Sith.”
“He’s fifteen, it’s tacky.”
“But it’s Maul.”
“I know, but you’re tw--significantly older than him.”
“But... but it’s the motherfucker himself.”
“...you can bully him a little, but only because he’s a Sith.”
Fett steals the binoculars. “You can borrow them again when you stop acting like children.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Rex says, dry as Ryloth. “I’m ten.”
“Pretty tall for your age,” Ahsoka mutters, and then giggles.
“Don’t steal my jokes,” Rex says. He elbows her, hard.
“You know,” Quinlan says, slow and tired. “Master Tholme and I are trained investigators.”
Ahsoka and Rex look at each other, and then up at him.
“Okay?”
“...do you want me to find actual evidence of this guy doing something criminal?”
“Oh, yes please.”
---------------------------
Quinlan, as it turns out, is not overselling his skills. He does catch Maul doing something illegal later that day. It’s a little more ‘stealing corporate secrets in the dead of night’ and less ‘torturing people for kicks,’ but it’s still enough to legally arrest him. Quinlan attempts to do so.
Quinlan does not succeed, and is forced to jump out a window to avoid getting cut in half. Maul follows, steals a passing speeder by throwing out the driver, and takes off. Someone--looks like Tholme--drops back to save the driver, but the rest of them give chase. Ahsoka gleefully takes point on that, of course. She’s the best pilot.
(Rex looks bored, but someone is likely to puke by the end of the night. She hopes it’s not Leia, who insisted on coming for some fucking reason.)
“How the kriff is a teenager that good?!” Quinlan yells, clinging to the edge of the speeder to avoid getting tipped out as Ahsoka swerves around a corner with a wild laugh.
“He’s a Sith!” Leia shouts over the wind. “What do you think?”
Quinlan is not impressed by the claim of Sith.
Ahsoka screeches as she drifts across four lanes of traffic and into an alleyway to pursue Maul. He’s pretty good at dodging cross-building walkways, but she’s better. She bares her teeth, hissing, and tries to pick a plan.
“Vos, how’s your aim with Force throws?” She calls to the backseat.
“Uh, decent?”
“Great! Fett’s the projectile!”
Vos takes a second longer to process that than Jango does.
“I’m wh--”
He cuts off, screaming, and is flung forward by Quinlan to crash headfirst into a teenage Sith.
“Take the wheel!” Ahsoka commands, not waiting to see who follows the order, because Fett and Maul are both getting to their feet, the other speeder is about to crash, and she’s not sure who’s going to win that fight.
She jumps from the speeder they’ve been violently dragging around Denon, and lands feet-first on Maul’s... shoulder.
Hm.
That definitely dislocated something.
“You should wear armor!” she chirps at him, drawing both sabers and grinning as he whirls to face her, eyes wide with hate.
He’s utterly silent.
That’s disturbing. Expected, but disturbing.
“Did you just throw me?” Fett demands, higher pitched than she’d normally expect.
“No, Vos threw you.”
“Because you told him to!”
“Yeah, it’s a good strategy!”
“It is not!”
“Why not? Throwing people was standard practice in the GAR.”
She can’t see his face, but she’s pretty sure he’s about ready to strangle her.
Ahsoka cannot, at that point, continue snarking with the father of her best friend, because there’s a red lightsaber coming for her throat, and she should probably worry about that. Maul’s very good at killing people and she’d like to avoid becoming part of that statistic.
As she is quickly reminded, he is... fifteen. And shorter than she’s used to. And already injured.
It’s really, really easy to take him out, actually.
At some point, the other speeder was safely recovered before it caused property damage, and their own is landing a few meters away with Vos and the kids.
“You have Force-negating cuffs, right?” Ahsoka asks.
“No, Master Tholme has them.”
“Oh,” she says, and grimaces. “I guess I’ll just... keep sitting on him then.”
Maul snarls, and she raps him on the skull. “Stop that, it’s uncivilized.”
Rex snorts.
Jango makes a noise that is incredibly frustrated with the lot of them, and turns on Rex. “Was she telling the truth?”
“About?”
“Throwing people being standard practice for the GAR.”
Rex’s face goes pained. “It was in the five-oh-first. And a few others.”
“What’s the GAR?” Quinlan asks.
“None of your damn business,” Fett snaps.
Quinlan throws his hands up in the air again. “Come on! I just proved I know what I’m doing!”
“And their tragic backstory is none of your business, prudii!”
Quinlan blinks at him, and then glances at Ahsoka. “Um.”
“He called you a shadow since your training, um, seems to be pointing in that direction,” she says as carefully as she can. “We were theorizing.”
“Wh... you actually paid attention?” Quinlan asks, looking horribly confused. “I thought I was just annoying you.”
Ahsoka laughs at him. “Oh, Vos... I’ve been running black ops for... much longer than most would guess. Trust me, I know another spy when I see them.”
She smiles as kindly as she can, because she hadn’t actually meant to make him feel left out or unwanted or... well, she’d been pretty patronizing, especially for someone seemingly younger than him. The smile does not work. Quinlan just looks kind of horrified about how young she just implied she started spy work.
Granted, she’d been sixteen for Zygerria...
Deciding to ignore him for a bit, she shifts on Maul’s back and pats him on the cheek. “Don’t worry, Baby Sith. We’re going to get you lots of nice therapy. Mind healers, no Sith tortures, all that fun stuff. Maybe some plushies.”
“You’re also getting therapy, right?” Quinlan asks. “Please say you are. I’m required for the specifics of my training and if anything you’ve said is true, I feel like you really need it and I’m scared of what’ll happen if you don’t.”
Ahsoka laughs, knowing exactly how empty it sounds. “Oh hell, if I didn’t get therapy, I imagine Kix would rise from the grave to force me into it.”
The name means nothing to anyone except Rex, and... ah, yeah, she told Fett about Kix a few weeks ago.
“No more throwing me without warning,” Fett grumbles, dropping to sit on the ground next to her. “Especially not at baby Sith Lords.”
“I am not a child!” Maul spits.
“He speaks!” Ahsoka cheers. “Aw, I knew you could do it.”
“’Soka, I told you not to bully him,” Rex complains. “It’s tacky. You’re being tacky.”
“I’m allowed to be tacky,” Ahsoka declares. “I’ve died twice, that’s, like, permission from the universe.”
“You’ve died twice?” Quinlan asks, back in ‘fascinated horror’ territory. “Wait, no, I shouldn’t ask--”
“Too late! The first time was on a planet that doesn’t exist and my Master lost his mind, killed a god, and used the good favor of another god to have me brought back to life at her expense. Not in that order.”
“I--what? No, that’s--what?”
Ahsoka smiles brightly. “You asked.”
Tholme finally shows up with the cuffs.
---------------------------
“You should eat something.”
He glares at her.
“Baby Sith Lords need to eat.”
He keeps glaring at her.
“Maul, you’ll never get big and strong and ready to kill if you don’t eat your vegetables.”
He bares his teeth.
“No, I don’t eat my veggies, but I’m a Togruta, so if I eat too many vegetables I throw up.”
Rex kicks her thigh, right on the faulds. “What did I say about bullying the Sith Lord?”
“Not to.”
“And what are you doing?”
“Making him eat his vegetables.”
“Soka.”
“Rex’ika.”
He kicks at her again. “Get up, we’re swapping out the watch.”
“But I wanted to hang out with my favorite little criminal mastermind.”
Rex drops to the floor and presses his forehead to her shoulder. “How the hell is being around this guy the first thing to make you cheer up in weeks?”
“I’m allowed to be mean to him.”
“He’s going to bite you.”
“I’ll bite back.”
Rex jabs a finger into her ribs, and she squeaks. “Go get something to eat, Commander.”
“Fine,” she huffs, rolling to her feet and moseying along to the galley. She walks in on Tholme and Fett having an argument about the ways in which Jedi and Mandalorians differ. Quinlan’s on the side, watching with wide eyes, and little Leia’s drinking a juice box at his side, tucked up under his arm and occasionally saying things to fan the flames. Ahsoka assumes she’s enjoying herself.
She opens the cooling unit, looks over the contents, and pulls out a raw leg of eopie mutton. She leans against the counter, bites into the chilled-but-not-frozen meat, and uses the back of one hand to wipe the blood off her chin. The ‘real adults’ don’t notice.
“I’m like ninety percent sure you’re doing this to mess with me but also...” Quinlan trails off, staring at her with horror. “Why?”
“A girl’s gotta eat.”
“Yeah, but all the obligate carnivores I know are like... generally holding to basic rules of courtesy when it comes to not grossing people out,” Quinlan says. “Like, I don’t chew with my mouth open. You don’t... eat in the most intimidating--did you just crack the bone with your teeth?!”
Ahsoka smirks at him, using her free hand to take away the shard of bone so she can suck out the marrow without eating the bones themselves. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this isn’t polite society. We’re in a galley on a bounty hunter’s ship, and I’ve been living on the run or in an army for most of my life. Table manners are optional.”
“No, they’re not,” Leia orders. “Fett, it’s your ship, tell her to--”
“--and another thing!” Fett snaps at Tholme, clearly paying less than no attention to the food argument.
Ahsoka keeps on eating, trying to catch wind of where the discussion’s at. Mostly, it seems to be at ‘talking past each other.’ Neither of them seems to have fully grasped more than the absolute most basic parts of the other culture, and that’s only enough to insult each other, not actually have a constructive conversation. She’d have expected more out of Tholme, at least. He’s not exactly young.
“Hey, quick question,” she says, in a moment where both of them have paused for breath and the opportunity to seethe. “Fett, when’s the last time you worked with a Jedi, or any member of a Force-based religion, before I popped into your life?”
His nose scrunches up as he makes a face.
“And Tholme, when’s the last time you worked with anyone from the Mandalorian system?”
Tholme’s reaction isn’t any more gracious than Fett’s.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she says. “Vos, were either of them actually interested in that conversation, or just looking for an excuse to yell?”
“Now listen here, jetiika--”
“Fett,” she snaps. “I am not a child.”
“And neither am I,” he growls right back. “This is my ship, and I damn well don’t need you treating me like a misbehaving youngling. You’ve got a problem, you bring it to my face, not get all smug about people’s tempers blowing over.”
Well, then.
She smiles thinly. “Of course.”
He stands with his arms crossed, in full armor save for the helmet. She puts aside the eopie meat and wipes her hands, smiling until she can put her hands on her hips and let it drop to a challenge.
“You know, I’m just--I’m just gonna go,” Quinlan mutters, pulling Leia out with him, the girl hanging from under one of his arms. “This, uh, this looks like a problem for... you folks. Um. Yeah.”
He sidles out.
Tholme doesn’t.
Fett rubs at the bridge of his nose, and then gestures at the table. “Sit.”
“I’d prefer not to.”
He drops his hand and glares at her. “We have another week on this ship together. We are going to have this conversation. Sit.”
She sits, right on the warm spot left behind by Quinlan and Leia. She crosses her arms, lifts a brow, and waits.
Fett takes the seat across from her. Tholme leans against the counter.
“We all know you’re older than you look,” Fett says. “I heard Tholme mention it, I know that much has been shared. You’re acting like an actual teenager, and I’ve... I’ve put up with a lot. I am trying to keep things civil, particularly with you. I’ve tried to be friendly. You’ve been fucked up since we met, fine, everyone’s got trauma. The thing where you’ve started talking shit to our faces for what seems like your own amusement? That has to stop. You’re older than me, Torrent. Fucking act like it.”
She blinks at him, slow and not exactly happy, and turns to Tholme.
The man shrugs. “I was planning to put up with it until we arrived to the temple and handed you over to some mind healers. Fett doesn’t have that kind of time.”
There’s a curdle in her stomach, defensive and angry and guilty.
“You’ve been... a bitch,” Fett finally says. “You know that. I’m not going to mince words. You’ve been holier-than-thou and rude and condescending, and aiming that at Antilles is one thing, when you’ve apparently known her since she was a toddler and taught her things. Aiming at the rest of us isn’t going to fly. We’re all adults trying to share a space. Stop acting like... just like you have been.”
There is no defense to be made that they aren’t both already aware of.
She closes her eyes and tries to strangle the burst of irrational rage.
Their accusations aren’t unfounded.
They deserve an apology.
She is in the wrong.
She’s felt freer than she had in years, and in that freedom allowed herself too much rein, let herself lace her words with barbed wires and poison instead of sparks and spices, comments that were cruel instead of just joking. Too familiar. Too comfortable.
“My behavior’s been inappropriate,” she finally says, the words clumsy and too big in her mouth. “You’re right about that. I’m sorry, and I’ll endeavor to keep a tighter rein on my less pleasant behaviors in the future.”
At least she only lashes out with words. It could be worse.
She opens her eyes, fixes her gaze on the wall behind Fett, wrestles her expression into stiff neutrality. “Am I dismissed?”
“...uh, no, not after that,” Fett says, sounding just a little horrified. “What the hell was that?”
Tholme hisses out a breath. “Let her go.”
“No, this needs to be discussed, that’s not a healthy rea--”
“Fett, let her go,” Tholme insists, low and heavy.
Fett looks between the two for a moment, seems to come to a realization he doesn’t like, and then gestures almost violently towards the door. “Fine. Go.”
She walks out, doesn’t sprint. She’s stiff. She’s controlled. She’s the one that fucked up, so it’s fine if she doesn’t feel great right now. Getting called out on one’s own failings as a person isn’t something to get upset about if the failings are real. The feelings are real and normal, but this was her fault, and so it’s up to her to fix it, and she can’t let them know it hurt her, because this was her mistake.
She goes to the cargo hold.
---------------------------
Ahsoka works out her frustrations on Fett’s punching bag. She does not augment herself with the Force, just uses raw strength and technique, ignoring the tears that press at her eyes.
She’s fine.
It’s not weird. It’s not odd. It’s not strange to not notice she’s been kind of a bitch since her mood came up with the whole Depa thing, and then Maul. She’s been mean, mostly to Vos and Fett, and nobody’s confronted her about it until now. They let her have room for her trauma, and she hadn’t reined it in. She’s just gotten worse.
‘Snippy’ she’d always been, but age apparently hadn’t fucking tempered it.
“Um.”
She catches the punching bag, breathing heavily and covered in sweat. She hasn’t worked out all the twitchy, nervous energy yet.
“Vos,” she greets, once she’s caught herself enough that her voice won’t waver. He’s on the other side of the bag, but she knows his voice. “Do you need something?”
“You’re kind of... projecting,” he tells her, drifting to where she can actually see him. “Not self-loathing, but, um, recrimination? You just don’t feel very good and I was hoping to help”
Why in all the Sith hells does he have to be nice.
“I got called out on my behavior and wasn’t ready to face the fact that I’d kriffed up,” she tells him. “I’ll be fine. And I’m... sorry. I haven’t been fair to you and was using you as an easy target for some of my ruder comments.”
“I mean, I kind of figured,” he admits, coming closer. “I’ve been tutored by Shadows before, and a lot of them act like you. I just assumed it was more of that.”
“I still shouldn’t have let myself run loose like that,” she says. “I’m... it wasn’t appropriate. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”
He shrugs, not meeting her eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” she says. “Not with... not with you. Or anyone other than Rex and a mind healer, really. Most of it is...”
She trails off, distantly noticing that her eyes are tearing up enough to blur her vision, and her nails are digging into the bag in a way Fett won’t appreciate.
There’s so much that beat her down, never quite breaking her, that she doesn’t even know what made her act the way she does.
“Want to spar?”
She looks over at him, wonders what he sees that makes him want to fight her when she’s visibly unstable.
He smiles, kind and easy, and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It’s genuine in intent, if not in energy. He wants to help. “You all keep saying I could work on my hand-to-hand. Just take off the armor so I don’t break a finger, maybe.”
“You’re serious.”
“No, I’m Quinlan.”
She’s going to wipe the floor with this boy. “You sure you wanna fight me?”
“You won’t be able to meditate until you do,” he says. He’s right, damn him. “The other option is that I go get your... vod, I think? I go get Rex and you two can talk it out since you trust him with more. I don’t want to do that, though, he’s still a kid.”
She eyes him, lips pressed together and mind awhirl with emotions and thoughts she’d tried to beat out of her head and into the bag. “Ever fought someone without the Force?”
“...yes?”
“Was it cuffs?”
“Oh, you meant me not having the Force,” he realizes. “Er, no. Is... is that something you’ve done a lot?”
She smiles at him. “You’re planning on Shadow work. That means getting captured and stripped of everything you are at some point, Force included. Unfortunately, the cuffs are in use on a very annoying Dathomirian right now, so we’ll have to make do with you shielding like your mind’s a Kessel Spice Mine.”
“...do I want to know how often you’ve been captured?”
“No, you don’t.”
When he comes at her, it’s easy to dodge. It’s easy to tap him on target points, little pokes that show she could take him out, but isn’t going to until he’s learned something. He stays grinning throughout, letting her take the lead, and he treats her like... like a knight. Like a teacher. He’s stepped back and gone from trying to impress her as a fellow padawan, to proving himself to a full knight.
She’s not sure when that change happened, or why or how, but it makes things much smoother. She wants to think that it would have even if she hadn’t gotten a wakeup call from Fett.
So she treats him the way she treated Ezra, for the year she’d spent traveling with Kanan. She treats him as a student that’s willing to learn, good but not yet great, competent but not yet ready to survive. She draws him into the kind of chest-heaving exhaustion that tells a fighter just how much energy they waste.
(Ahsoka may have had her own style, but her grandmaster had been the pinnacle of a Soresu user. She’d spent years on the frontlines of a war. She knew the worth of conserving energy, and she’d teach it to any who stepped in to challenge her.)
“Who taught you to fight like this?” He asks, when they’ve taken a handful of moments to circle each other. His steps are heavy, sure, planted. Her own are light and ready.
“Soldiers,” she says. It’s true enough.
“Not your Master?” he asks, just as he tries to kick for her upper arm. It’s a safe question. For anyone else, it would be a safe question.
But for Ahsoka, it’s another chink in the armor, after a maelstrom of emotion, a storm of self-loathing, a dervish of instability.
She doesn’t break right away.
She spirals. She fights Quinlan, but doesn’t quite see him. Her strikes get sloppy, her feet stumble. She can’t make herself meet Quinlan’s eyes, not when the scrape of his heel against the metal sounds like the rasp of a breathing machine. Her shields get fuzzy, she knows, and she leaks what she feels into the air, making it sour and thick. She doesn’t notice, because all she can see, all she can--all she can hear and feel and--
She drops to her knees and grabs at her head, trying to stop it.
“Sokari?”
She breathes. In and out, harsh and jagged but natural in a way that the damned respirator wasn’t.
Her master her teacher her brother the traitor the hound the executioner
Her face is hot. Something prickles. It might be tears.
She tries to say something, tries to say a name or a request, tries to make anything come out of her mouth that isn’t the broken wail of a woman who hasn’t let herself think about how she died.
She feels herself pulled into someone’s arms, and she can’t quite tell who, but they’re bigger than she is, and feel warm and worried. They care. They don’t understand, they’re scared, but they care.
Her hands shake, clutched to her chest and she can’t breathe she can’t make herself take in enough air to do a Force-damned thing the empire is going to feel her her shields are down and broken and her emotions are spilling and the empire is going to find HER ANAKIN IS GOING TO FIND HER AND--
“COMMANDER!”
Rex.
Rex is here.
Her breath is coming so fast that she’s hiccupping more than she’s actually inhaling. She feels small hands in gloves on either side of her face, and then her forehead presses to something warm.
Rex. A Keldabe kiss. Her brother, her partner, her other half. He’s here. He’s calm. If he’s calm, then things are fine.
“What happened?” Light voice, high voice, small and distant. Leia. Little Leia little princess Leia she’s in danger she’s in trouble Anakin will--
“Commander.”
No. Here and now. She needs to focus on here and now. Her throat feels cold. She breathes too fast, still. She can’t stop it.
“I don’t know.” That’s Vos. He was... they were doing something. He was here. Talking to her. “We were sparring, and she just--”
Right, sparring.
“I don’t know if I said something?” He offers, voice pitching up, unsure and worried. Is he the one holding her? He’s the one holding her. That’s embarrassing.
“Commander?” Rex prompts. “Commander, can you open your eyes?”
She tries. She can’t. She shakes her head.
“Soka?” he asks, voice quiet. “Where are you?”
“F-F-Fett,” she manages. It’s enough.
“And where were you?”
His voice is so soft. So worried. She held him the same way after Mandalore, after Order 66, after all his brothers, all her friends...
“Soka.”
Her mind is spinning, and suddenly all she can hear is Anakin Skywalker is dead. I destroyed him.
Her breath hitches, and she wails.
“Commander,” Rex tries again, but her head is a vortex of Then you will die and Perhaps this child and not the Jedi way.
Our long awaited meeting.
I destroyed him.
Then you will die.
She can’t breathe she can’t breathe she can only see that yellow eye that’s too familiar but belongs to a stranger can only hear a voice that shouldn’t exist can only mourn and break and--
“Soka?”
“Malachor,” she manages. “I--h-he--I died.”
“What did you say?” someone asks. A vod. It’s the right voice, almost, rough and business-like, not accusing anyone yet, and... and... no. No. Not one of her boys. It’s Fett.
“Um, right at the end? I asked her who taught her to fight like this,” Quinlan says, nervous. “And she said it was soldiers. And I joked, I asked that it wasn’t her Master, and she didn’t answer that. A couple minutes later, she just started...”
“Oh, Soka,” Rex whispers, pulling her closer. “Commander, just breathe with me.”
“H-h-he, he just--R-Rex, he j-just--and I c-c-couldn’t--”
“I know,” her captain whispers. “I know, just breathe with me.”
“He k-k-k-killed me,” she sobs, falling out of the Keldabe and into too-small arms. “I l-loved--he was my broth-ther and--and he just--he killed me, he didn’t even stop.”
“I know,” Rex whispers. “Soka, I know.”
Of course he does.
---------------------------
“It was just bad timing,” Rex says, once they’re in the room she’s been sharing with her little family, curled up under a blanket and watching the floor like it has all the secrets to how she lost her world three times over.
“Is there anything we need to keep in mind?” Fett asks, gruff and uncomfortable. She wonders if he’s angry that she took his necessary confrontation and turned it into this mess.
“Don’t bring up her Jedi Master,” Rex says, and pulls her in when she shivers. Her eyes squeeze shut before she can stop them, tears beading up again. “Just... don’t. It’s too soon.”
“He’s--”
“He Fell,” Ahsoka interrupts. “I thought he died, but he became a Sith. And fifteen years later, we ran into each other, and I refused to join him in the Dark, so he tried to kill me.”
Fett swears, low and muffled. She thinks he has a hand over his mouth.
Quin and Leia aren’t there. She thinks they’re keeping an eye on their Baby Sith prisoner. That’s good.
“Soka,” Rex whispers, and she buries her face in his shoulder. She’s too old to be this kind of mess. She’s thirty-two. She’s Fulcrum. She’s...
She’s in need of a lot of therapy.
“We can avoid the subject unless you bring it up,” Tholme promises. “Definitely until the Temple. Is there anything else we shouldn’t talk about?”
Ahsoka can practically feel Rex’s deadpan look. “Sir, we’re a trio of child soldiers ripped from everything we know. Every other sentence is a risk. We’re just... working our way through.”
There’s a knock at the door. Oh. Quin and Leia.
“Just figured we’d drop this off before we went down to visit Mr. Grumpy-Face,” Quinlan whispers. He still thinks Leia’s a child. He’s trying to make things less terrible for her. That’s nice. “We decided he’ll be less angry if he tries Hoth chocolate, and made some for everyone.”
They definitely made it for Ahsoka herself, and Maul was an afterthought. Still. It’s sweet.
“Commander?” Rex prompts, jostling her a little to try and get her to sit up.
“Gimme a sec,” she manages. It takes longer than it should to push herself away from him, to accept the mug that Leia gives her, too-serious worry in the furrow of her brow and the twist of her soul.
She doesn’t look six. She doesn’t even look twenty-two. This girl was always too old for her skin, forced to grow up in the hostile fear of the Empire.
“Thank you, Princess.”
She sips.
She can barely taste it beyond the ashes she imagines coating her tongue.
I destroyed him, her memory echoes. His slightest hesitation before he made the final move, it haunts her. She almost reached him. If only she’d tried harder, yelled louder, been better...
She shivers.
“Do you need help falling asleep?” Tholme asks. “I’m a regular healer, not a mind healer, but...”
She probably should.
She takes another sip of her drink, willing herself to taste it. It’s good. She likes it. She knows she does.
“Can you make it dreamless?” she whispers.
“It doesn’t always work, but I can try,” he tells her.
She nods. “When I finish the chocolate.”
“Of course.”
---------------------------
Everyone’s careful around her for days. The whole decision to be nicer doesn’t mean anything when she’s walking about in a daze of too few emotions, drained of everything she could feel in favor of a grey cloud of fluff in everything she does.
She does forms. Single saber and Jar’kai. Ataru and Djem so and Soresu. Reverse grip, regular grip, partial reverse on either side.
Again. Again. Again.
She loses herself in the motions, not meditating so much as just empty.
Rex worries. Fett worries. Vos worries.
Leia and Tholme keep their shields locked up tight, and she doesn’t know how they feel. She thinks Leia might be judging her. She think Tholme might be pitying.
Maul simply hates. It’s an old and familiar sensation to walk into, and she takes unthinking comfort in his rage. She’s silent instead of snippy, when she plays the role of guard, and they stare at each other in silence. His eyes burn, and she wonders how much he’s heard of her nightmares.
“You need to talk,” Rex tells her, when he finds her with a cold cup of caff, eyes fixed somewhere beyond it all. She lifts her head. “Soka.”
She just stares at him.
He sighs and pulls her into a hug. “Commander, please.”
She can’t.
Ahsoka stares at the wall behind him, resting her chin on his head. Her neck itches under the lek at the back of her head, a little tingle of a feeling that she can’t bring herself to do anything about. The pale light of the galley is sharp against the chipped paint of the metal that surrounds them. It hurts her eyes to look, but it’s not the deep and dark lit only by red--
Then you will die, her memory growls.
She flinches.
“Breathe,” Rex tells her, too-small hands clinging at her back. “Just breathe, ‘Soka.”
She curls in tighter and tries to just breathe.
---------------------------
“Tell me something good.”
Ahsoka blinks. She looks at Leia. She doesn’t have the energy to parse that.
Leia chances a look at Rex, who isn’t leaving Ahsoka’s side any more than he has to, and Fett on the other side. Tholme’s asleep and Quin’s on Baby Sith duty. It’s just people who know, right now.
The little girl across the table, the child senator, the spy, purses her lips and huffs in irritation. “You knew my biological father before he became one of the worst people in the galaxy. Both of you did. Tell me something good about him.”
Good things.
About Anakin.
“You fought a war as a Jedi,” Leia prompts. “Surely you must have done some good things with him, or at least thought you were.”
Did they?
Every mission ended in tragedy or was just a ploy of Palpatine’s. Every saved life was just...
Wait.
“He built Threepio,” she finally says. “Your father wi--I mean, Bail wiped Threepio’s memory after the Empire rose, for your safety, but Anakin was the one who built him.”
Leia sits up, eyes brighter. “I didn’t know that. I... was Artoo involved? Did he build R2D2, or...”
“No,” Rex says, “But Artoo was his favorite astromech, and they always pushed each other into stupid stunts. We risked a hell of a lot to save that droid, more than once, and I didn’t find out until you started working with the Rebellion full-time, but Artoo and Threepio were the witnesses for your bio-parents’ wedding.”
Leia gapes at him. So does Ahsoka. (Fett doesn’t know enough to care.)
Rex grins, and if it looks a little forced, that’s fine. “He had a holo recording. I was one of the few people left that knew about the marriage that might have wanted to see, so Artoo offered. It was... sweet.”
He waits, probably for Ahsoka to add something herself, but she has nothing.
“I think that’s when they swapped droids, since Threepio was more useful to a politician and Artoo did his best work when we set him loose on the enemy.”
“He never changed,” Leia muses. “Did he always swear that much?”
“Yes,” Ahsoka answers, as Rex laughs. “Always. All the binary I learned started with the best swears.”
She tries to think of another good memory, something else that Leia might appreciate. Her mind ticks back to saving Stinky, which is just a terrible option, because that mission started with Hutts and ended with the Battle of Teth. That massive loss of life, all for the son of the creature that had put Leia in chains.
She wonders if she has anything in her memory that doesn’t end in blood and graves.
“Soka.” Rex.
“Hm?”
“Remember that time Fives and Echo got lost in the undercity their first time on leave, and we had to get the General to help us find them?”
She does.
He’s right, that’s a good story.
“Okay, so what you have to understand,” Ahsoka says, already digging the faint details out and dusting them off, “is that these boys were ARC troopers, top-notch, terrifyingly competent once they got through specialty training, and loyal as hell. Echo had memorized the reg manuals front to back, and Fives was... well, Fives ended up being the only person to figure out the chips before they went into action. Point is, the Domino twins were good... eventually. Just like everyone else, though, they started out shiny.”
---------------------------
“Tholme’s hiding something.”
Ahsoka wonders if Leia will just leave if she ignores her enough. Probably not. This was the girl that got kicked out of boarding school for leading a sit-in at age seven. She’s got patience.
“His job requires him to hide a lot of things,” Ahsoka says instead. “Not as many as Vos will have to, eventually, but a lot.”
“He’s hiding something from us,” Leia insists, visibly frustrated that Ahsoka isn’t as upset about this as she is. “Something important.”
The way she says ‘important’ is clumsy and impacted by the missing baby tooth. She can’t say the r. It comes out as ‘im-poh-ten,’ which is adorable, and if Ahsoka comments on it, she’s probably going to get punched by a six-year-old.
“The Force doesn’t care,” Ahsoka says. “I trust his intentions, if not him as a person.”
“If you don’t trust him, then why trust his intentions?”
“Leia, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I trust one and a half people in the galaxy,” Ahsoka points out. “Me not trusting a person isn’t a sign of anything except my paranoia. The only person I trust fully and without reservation is Rex. Even you, I only mostly trust, because my brain starts screaming if I think too hard. That’s why you’re the half.”
“Okay, whatever, paranoia aside,” Leia barrels on, “He should tell us. Whatever it is that he’s hiding, we deserve to know. We’re not children that he can just hide things from for our own good.”
Ahsoka presses her lips together. “Leia. Princess. I know you’re used to holding all the cards--”
“This isn’t about me being a control freak!”
“It is, though,” Ahsoka soothes, and smiles. “Your mother--the bio one--was the same way. You spent years as one of the leaders of the Rebellion, so obviously you’re used to having all the information, and people reporting to you... but Tholme is a Jedi Master. He reports to the Council and the Republic. Do you know how many people I kept secrets from while I was a padawan? We’re an unknown, Leia. They have no proof that we’re on their side, especially since we’re traveling with Fett.”
Leia crosses her arms and glares as hard as she can.
“I’m not going to bother him,” Ahsoka says. “I’ve already had, like, five unrelated mental breakdowns. I’m putting this on hold until we get to the Temple and I can trust that there’s a healer on hand to sedate me or something.”
“You... want to be sedated?”
“Leia, this... really should be obvious, but a Force-Sensitive losing their osik the way I have been isn’t actually safe. I know I broke a weapons rack last week.” Ahsoka gestures vaguely. “If the Jedi Master isn’t telling me something for reasons that might relate to my clear and obvious mental instability, I’m going to assume he’s got a point.”
“So he should tell me or Rex.”
“We’ll be on Coruscant in four days,” Ahsoka soothes. “Just... let it be. They won’t hurt us.”
“You don’t know that.”
Ahsoka shrugs. “I don’t have to. The Force leads me in all things, including this.”
Leia isn’t impressed by that, but Leia isn’t impressed by much in the first place.
She strides off in a fit that is, perhaps, more influenced by her six-year-old emotional control than she’d like to admit. Ahsoka lets her. It’s not worth the argument.
It’s only a few minutes later that Fett strides in, takes the seat Leia was just in, and asks, “What would it take for you to teach me how to use a jetii’kad?”
She blinks at him. “You want to learn how to use a lightsaber?”
“Yes.”
“...why?”
“Viszla.”
“I see.”
She does.
Ahsoka taps her fingers against the table, eyeing him with the kind of interest she copied from Master Kenobi, years ago. Fett doesn’t fidget, but she thinks he might want to. He just looks back, waiting for her judgement.
“You’ll need to justify it,” she finally says. “It’s a significant difference from what you actually did, so I need to know your reasoning for doing it, and your plans for once it’s done.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s step one,” she corrects. She tilts her head, considering. “My standards for you aren’t built in a vacuum, and you know that. Explain to me what you plan to do and how you plan to do it, and if I approve...”
“You’ll help me achieve it.”
“Maybe,” she allows. “A lot of that depends on Rex.”
“I expected as much,” Fett says. “He is... an admittedly large part of the reason.”
“He would be,” she says. She gives the silence a few more seconds to sit awkwardly between them, and then stands up. “I’d guess you’ve been brainstorming already. Do you have it written down or is it mostly just in your head so far?”
“I’m still... debating options, so to speak.”
She grins, and the shape of the predator’s smile, the baring of teeth... that almost makes him step back. She can see it in the twitch of his muscles. Smart man.
“Follow me,” she says, and doesn’t wait for him to stand. She strides out with tooka-light steps, hears the heavy beskar tread behind her, and goes to the cargo hold. Fett’s confusion grows tangibly behind her, especially when she tosses him a wooden quarterstaff. She picks up the other and spins it in one hand.
“You’re going to fight me,” she tells him, stretching and letting the staff help with the process. “And while we fight, you’re going to tell me what your plans for Mandalore are.”
He mimics her, but there’s a frown on his face. “And why staffs?”
“You and I, we’ve only sparred bare-handed,” she says. “I need a feel for how you fight with a weapon anyway. These are a good start.”
“Not the beskad?”
She grins, and the twitch is back. “No. That can wait. We start with the staffs.”
He takes a stance, and she mirrors him. She lets him strike first with a weapon, but she’s the one that asks all the questions.
(He is the only one on the ship that can fight her one-on-one right now, and he can win. Still, she makes him work for every inch, and what she doesn’t win in bruises, she wins in words.)
(Fett might yet be a proper Mand’alor, but Ahsoka learned war from her brothers, negotiation at the knee of a general and in the shadow of a prince, and government at the side of duchesses and queens.)
(If he wants her help uniting his people, he needs to prove that he can hold them together once she’s gone.)
---------------------------
Ahsoka’s interrogation of Jango’s plans is thorough, and she’s not the only one involved. She brings Leia in, and has her join in on the grilling. She maybe laughs as the twenty-seven-year-old survivor of Galidraan, the Mand’alor, a man who has killed Master Jedi with his bare hands, gets lectured on various government structures by a tiny girl that's missing several teeth and needs to sit on books to see the table properly.
Still, Leia knows this better than any of the rest of them do. The girl might have grown up heir to a monarchy, but she got a classical education and was drilled on democracy and all associated forms of government. Where Ahsoka knows military protocol and law enforcement, intersystem relations and defensive measures, Leia knows agricultural subsidies and welfare programs, infrastructure and education.
Ahsoka may know how to find out if someone’s breaking a zoning law, but Leia knows why it exists in the first place.
“And I grew up in a cult,” Rex says, when an argument on that topic breaks out. Everyone that hasn’t heard the joke-that-isn’t-a-joke stares at him. “The Jedi grew up in a religious meritocracy; Leia grew up in a monarchy; and I grew up in a cult.”
Ahsoka elbows him. He’s not wrong, but still.
Unfortunately, Ahsoka is about forty-seven percent sure that Leia will put her foot in her mouth when it comes to Mandalorian culture, blunt as the girl is. That prefrontal cortex isn’t anywhere near as developed as it should be, either, so impulse control for the princess isn’t great. Ahsoka refuses to let Leia and Fett talk about ways to mend the breaks between tradition and the pacifism of the New Mandalorians without either Rex or Ahsoka herself as a mediating presence. Tholme sits in a few times, but while he knows that Leia isn’t really six--though not about the time-travel, yet--Quinlan doesn’t.
They admittedly end up doing this while he’s on Maul-sitting duty.
“It’s like he doesn’t even care about making nice with the people that, at this point, make up the majority of his people!” Leia grumbles one night, as Ahsoka kicks over a step stool so the girl can brush her teeth. “He may not like the New Mandalorians, but from what I understand, it’s still early enough to prevent the majority of the cultural bleaching you brought up. If he stays this stubborn--”
“Leia,” Ahsoka says, and the girl’s mouth snaps shut. “I’m aware of your reasons for not trusting his intentions. But if I may say? Chill.”
“He’s not even trying!”
“He’s trying a hell of a lot harder than he did in the original timeline,” Ahsoka reminds her. “Brush your teeth.”
“I’m not a--”
“Teeth.”
It’s a little worrying, how the child’s brain affects Leia, but... well. That’ll pass in time, hopefully. Until then, Ahsoka gets to be the aunt she should have been. This includes tucking Leia in, which the girl grumbles about despite the fond waves of comfort that enter the Force around her. Ahsoka doesn’t call her out on it, just brushes back wisps of hair to plant a kiss on Leia’s forehead, and then does the same once Rex stumbles in, grumbling about the limitations of a cadet’s body, but far more ready to follow the protocol that is bedtime.
Rex doesn’t pretend to not like getting tucked in, for all that he’s sharing with a grumbly, already-asleep princess. He smiles up at Ahsoka, lets her hug him, and pretends they can be a normal family for five seconds.
Quinlan’s making a late night snack for himself in the galley. Tholme is guarding the Baby Sith. Fett...
Ahsoka goes to the cockpit, takes the copilot’s seat, and watches hyperspace pass them by.
It takes long minutes before either of them say anything.
“Do Jedi believe in souls?”
His shields are up, locked up tighter than the innermost chambers of the Imperial Palace. She has no idea where he’s taking this question. She has to cast about for an answer.
“That depends on how you define a soul,” she finally says. “Leia told me about Force Ghosts. A Jedi Master who underwent the right meditations and training could pass into the Force upon their death without losing their sense of self. They could remain themselves, to an extent, and interact with force-sensitive individuals. I don’t know if they could last that way indefinitely, but depending on your definition, I could argue those ghosts were evidence of a form of soul.”
“So you believe that the dead pass into the Force, but that what passes could be a soul. Something must exist for a sense of self to disappear at death in a way that impacts the Force as you understand it, and many would use the word ‘soul’ for that something.”
“Mm,” Ahsoka considers it. “I’d say that’s pretty accurate. You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”
“What about those not yet born?”
Her fingers feel cold, and she finds herself no longer able to watch the passage of hyperspace as passively as she had, and her eyes catch on streaks and motes of what is not dust, her vision unable to keep any more still than her heart.
“Oh,” she hears herself say. “The clones.”
It’s a long time before he answers, but the walls come down. He carries a confused sort of grief with him, guilty and a mite resentful. His questions have been building for longer than she’d thought. His voice is rough. “I’ve taken plenty of lives, but I’ve never known the name of someone I erased from existence before they were even born.”
“The stories we told Leia about the brothers.”
There’s a grunt of agreement from Fett, so those dots at least connect.
“I take it my answer wasn’t helpful,” she manages to say.
“Will they still exist?” Fett asks. “Will they be born elsewhere? Or is... is a soul something that only comes into existence after the body does?”
“I have no idea,” Ahsoka admits. “I want... I want to think that I’d be able to find them eventually, to recognize them, if their souls are still born into this world elsewhere.”
“And if your Sith finds someone else to build his army out of?”
Ahsoka looks at him, sharp and pointed. “You wouldn’t.”
“They’ll be doing it anyway, if their plans are as ironclad as you say.”
“You’re already associating with Jedi,” Ahsoka says, fighting the urge to break his nose. “They wouldn’t approach you, not now. They can’t leverage your anger against you. They won’t know everything, but they’ll know that you have friends among the Jedi.”
“You think they can’t come up with better lies?”
He has a point. He has more than one point and she hate hate hates it.
A Jedi does not hate.
I am no Jedi.
“You’re going to have to convince me,” she says. “Especially if you want to somehow balance this with the darksaber thing. I won’t teach you how to fight with it if you’re not planning to retake Mandalore.”
“That’s how they’d sell it,” he says. “Retaking Mandalore. An army ostensibly for the Jedi, and ultimately...”
“You’d build an army of slaves.”
“No, I’d be the inside man for when they build that army anyway.”
She holds his gaze. She looks away first.
“Torrent?”
“I’m thinking.”
He lets her.
“I’ll need to talk to Rex. Probably Leia.”
“Understandable.”
“I don’t like this.”
“I’m only just considering it. It’s an idea, not a plan.”
“That’s the only reason I haven’t ripped your throat out with my teeth.”
“Hyperbole doesn’t suit you.”
She glares at him, and leaves, her mind chopping up and laying out every possible angle on Fett volunteering to do the exact same thing as last time, but somehow worse.
Great. Just what she needed.
---------------------------
Ahsoka isn’t there for the shouting match between Rex and Fett, but she doesn’t have to be. She can hear it form clear across the ship, and Rex comes to her afterwars. He’s been crying, which isn’t as surprising as it could be. These bodies are still prone to such things, and will be for years. She doesn’t comment.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.
“We need to take out Sidious before he starts anything on Kamino.”
“Agreed,” she says. “It’ll be hard, though.”
“I don’t care.”
“What did Fett say?”
“That if it wasn’t going to be my brothers, it would be someone else’s. Either we stopped the cloning from happening at all, or we mitigated damage by being there.”
“I don’t think Sidious is going to tap him for it,” Ahsoka admits. “Not unless you’re willing to stage that kind of fight publicly enough for Fett to claim the Jedi poisoned you, family, against him. It could work, but it’s a gamble.”
He knows all of this.
“I miss them,” he says, and she cards her fingers though the curls he’s managed to grow in the past weeks. “I just... even at the end, I had Wolffe. I knew Boba was out there; I wouldn’t be surprised if the beskar let him survive a Sarlacc. I had brothers. Not as many as I used to, but there was always someone. I miss them all, so much it hurts.”
“It wouldn’t be them,” she reminds him. She pulls him closer, puts her cheek to his head. “It would be the same process, the same faces, the same training, even, but the boys themselves...”
He clings to her and shudders.
“Rex?”
“I can’t force them to grow up the way I did. I want them back. Sidious is going to make the army no matter what. Someone’s going to suffer, and I don’t want it to be my brothers, but they won’t exist otherwise, and...”
“And it’s an impossible choice,” she summarizes. “And it sucks.”
“It’s sucks Gungan balls, ‘Soka.”
She laughs, and feels him smile against her shoulder. Good. He needs to smile more.
“He’s still trying to get me to like him,” Rex says. "He’s still making an effort, and he never did that for anyone except Boba, and it’s weird. I don’t know what to do with any of that.”
“Gain a brother,” Ahsoka whispers, and she feels him jerk against her. “If that’s what you want.”
“He’s not vod.”
“Same blood as all the rest, and you’re older than him, so he’s not really in a position to be a parent to you like he was to Boba,” she says carefully. “You don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to, but... I think he’s trying. I think this means a lot to him, and that he isn’t any more sure of what to do than you are. You don’t have to forgive him for what he did in the future, you don’t have to accept when he reaches out, you don’t have to ever talk to him again after we reach Coruscant if you don’t want, but I think... I think it’s worth at least considering what you have to gain. I think it’s worth looking at what he’s trying to give you.”
Rex huffs. “Why couldn’t he just be the shabuir I knew in training?”
“Something happened between now and then?” she offers. “I don’t know. I never met him in the original timeline. I just know the guy that keeps trying to get on my good side so you’ll like him.”
He outright scoffs. “Soka, that’s not the only reason he’s trying to get on your good side.”
“...I’m a former Jedi who talks trash to his face,” she says slowly. “And I cried on him. There is no reason for him to be nice to me, other than you.”
“He thinks you’re cool and a good person and wants you to be his friend.”
“Bantha poodoo.”
Rex grins in a way that goes straight to smirking. “Soka, I’m not joking. Jango Fett wants you to be his friend.”
“Kriffing why?” she asks, more than a little horrified. “I’m a mess, look like I’m ten years younger than him, have gleefully kicked his ass in front of an audience; I even told Vos to throw him at a baby Sith Lord. Putting up with me is one thing, but I’m... I’m only barely not a Jedi. I’m a historical enemy of Mandalore, and part of the community he hates more than anything, and--”
“And his reaction to you kicking his ass was pure Mando,” Rex says. “In that he now thinks you’re a badass, and thus worth being friends with.”
“I can’t believe that. I physically cannot.”
“Soka, just accept it. The Mand’alor wants to be friends with you.” He scratches at his scalp. “I mean, he met you while you were protecting what appeared to be children, and it’s apparently still early enough for him to care about that.”
She leans back in her seat, eyes on the wall ahead of her and back against the cool metal of the other side. Rex falls back with her. She wonders if Rex changed the subject so they didn’t have to talk about deciding how many of his brothers get to exist, and whether or not he can swallow the bitterness of his history to have a connection with at least one member of his blood. She doesn’t ask. If he wants to change the subject, that’s his right.
“I don’t... no.” She denies it as well as she can, and then the implications dig a little deeper. “Is this me accidentally signing up to be the Jedi Order’s official liaison to the Mand’alor?”
“I mean, this point in time... they’ve got Kenobi for the Duchess, yeah?” Rex shrugs. “Good relations with the system are probably a good thing, and you’ve got a stronger connection than Tholme and Vos.”
“Ugh,” she says. She rubs a hand against her head, and then lurches to her feet. “Fine! Fine. If it’ll get him to retake Mandalore before the Sith decide to bribe him with an army he doesn’t get to keep, I’ll teach him how to fight for the kriffin’ Darksaber.”
“That’s what makes the decision for you?”
“Well something had to!”
They only get one lesson in before Coruscant, but the lesson lasts a full day, and Ahsoka’s got his comm number. Fett’s a quick learner anyway, and Tholme was there to give pointers where Ahsoka couldn’t.
He won’t measure up to a Jedi in saber-to-saber combat, but he doesn’t need to. He just needs to learn enough to turn all those skills with a beskad to something that works with a jetii’kad.
(The balance of a saber is wrong to those used to a physical weapon. The inertia doesn’t work the way anyone expects. There’s no need to worry about damaging the blade.)
(Fett is good. Ahsoka is better. And, bless his heart, he knows it.)
(She will mold him into the shape of someone who not only can, but should rule a system with a history like that, and he damn well knows that too.)
---------------------------
“Dropping out of hyperspace in T-minus twenty seconds.”
The Slave I is not, in fact, a Venator-class starship, or anything else near the size and smoothness of the ships that Ahsoka grew up on. This is a bounty hunter’s vessel, and the drop to real space jolts like nothing else. Ahsoka’s in the copilot seat for the return, but Tholme’s going to swap with her as soon as they’ve got confirmation that there were no problems with exiting hyperspace, and nobody’s shooting at them.
“We’re not going to get shot at,” Tholme had assured her.
“I always get shot at,” she’d told him.
“I have our clearance,” he reminded her, seeming more amused than frustrated. “There’s no need to worry about getting shot at.”
“I also always get shot at,” Jango had thrown in.
“Okay,” Tholme had allowed, after several minutes of his trust in the Temple warring against Ahsoka and Jango’s learned paranoia. The looks Quinlan had darted around the room when Leia and Rex also claimed ‘chronic getting-shot-at disease’ had been a treat. The paranoia of a Watchman and a future Shadow was great, but the paranoia of three revolutionaries and a galaxy-wide criminal was greater. “You can take us in close enough to get in radio contact, but the second we have to ask for clearance and a vector, I’m in the seat.”
She’d agreed, of course. She was paranoid, not inexperienced.
“We’re much less likely to get shot down by ground control if you tell them we’re with you,” she’d said, to his hilariously apparent metaphysical exhaustion. “Obviously.”
“Good enough,” he’d sighed.
What that means is mostly just that Ahsoka gets to watch the distant star at the center of Coruscant’s system grow rapidly brighter. She can pick out the constellations she’d grown up with, the stars the creche had projected on the ceiling every night, the ones that she may not have seen from the surface, but had greeted her and then sent her on her way every time she left on yet another campaign that lost her men their lives for a Sith Lord's wretched plans. These were the shapes and stories she’d never seen again as Fulcrum, a woman so hunted that to come within a dozen subsectors of the planet was to court her death.
For sixteen years, she hadn’t ventured closer than Alderaan, save for a single trip to Chandrila.
And now, maybe twenty minutes away at this speed, was the Temple. It was home.
A home that didn’t know her, that had sentenced her to death, that had hosted the rampage of her former master... but home nonetheless.
“Stable?” Fett grunts.
“Thrusters are good,” she confirms.
“I meant you.”
Ah. “I’m... fine. As good as I could be, anyway.”
She hesitates, but manages to speak before he does. “You?”
“I’m not the one walking into an entire building of triggers.”
“Only because you’re not entering it,” she says. “It’s the home of your ancestral enemies who, bad info or no, killed off a whole lot of your friends.”
“I get to leave,” he says. “You don’t.”
She plans to needle him a bit more, maybe on something a little less based in both their traumas. She needs to talk, if only to fill up the silence and keep herself from reaching out to all the lights in the Force. It’ll be too much, she knows.
Tholme enters the cockpit. “Change of plans.”
“Better be a good reason,” Jango says, voice flat.
“Leia’s crying.”
Ahsoka’s unbuckling herself before she can process the words fully. “What?”
Leia doesn’t cry for no reason. Her emotional control is as difficult as the body makes it, but she doesn’t just cry. There’s always a cause.
“I don’t know. Rex said to get you,” Tholme explains. “She was saying a name. He seemed to recognize it.”
Not good not good not good. If Leia was feeling the Emper--No. She cuts the thought off there. No catastrophizing. Information first.
“What name.”
“Luke. Mean anything to--and she’s gone.”
Ahsoka ignores him, just sprints to where she knows the ‘young ones’ are. They’re all in Maul’s room, because nobody wants to be alone with him now, but it’s the worst time to leave him without supervision. It’s not the worst option; he mostly refuses to talk, still.
This holds true, because he definitely isn’t talking when she bursts in. He’s sitting on the bench, in a corner, hugging his knees and watching Quinlan try to calm Leia down.
“Captain, sitrep.”
“Vos and Tholme attempted to show Leia how to reach out to feel the Temple from a distance. They felt that it would be a good use of the time, and an interesting exercise at this distance. She attempted to do so, struggled for several minutes, and then reacted with shock. She has repeated the name ‘Luke’ several times since then, and we’ve been unable to fully calm her down. I asked Tholme to get you, as you are the only Force-Sensitive on board that understands the situation in full.”
“Understood.” She nods to him, and then goes to nudge at Quinlan. “Vos, move.”
“Torre--”
“You can sit behind her, hold her in your lap like you did when we had lunch the other day, but I need to get in her face.” She waits for him to comply, and then drops to her knees and takes Leia’s hands in her own. She radiates calm and assurance, even though she knows Quinlan’s probably been doing the same since this started. She dips her head enough to get in the girl’s line of sight, waits for her to meet eyes.
“Princess,” she says, and meets Leia’s eyes. “What did you feel?”
“Luke.”
From this distance... they’ve got half the system to go, at least, and Leia’s training shouldn’t reach that far for anything more than the fact that the Temple is there. Ahsoka could feel unshielded individuals from here, if she focused, but she’s also been doing this much, much longer. The twins theory holds more water than ever.
“Can you show me?” Ahsoka asks, instead of asking for more clarification. She squeezes Leia’s hands and smiles. “In the Force?”
Leia nods, and closes her eyes. It’s not the first time they’ve done this, but it’s the first time in a while that Leia’s needed Ahsoka to guide her through.
Luke’s light, for all that it’s unfamiliar to Ahsoka, is brilliant among the rest of the signatures in Coruscant. Like Anakin and Leia, he’s a star in his own right, but he’s brighter. He doesn’t have Anakin’s bitterness or Leia’s righteous anger, just... light. Ahsoka had asked Leia to show her instead of looking for herself because she’d expected to not recognize the boy, but she needn’t have. He’s unmistakable.
He’s so bright that she almost misses the other signature that she does recognize. She shies away, knowing that it would be there, but... but it’s almost twinned with another nearby. Not identical, but different in a way that comes with age, with trauma, with... death.
Leia hadn’t arrived alone, after all.
Why would Luke?
Her eyes snap open, her hand coming up not-quite-fast enough to clap over her mouth as she gasps. She feels a shudder, one that starts in her shoulders and reaches deep into her ribcage, finds a home in her chest and doesn’t stop.
“Oh fuck,” Quinlan whispers. “Torrent? Um, Sokari?”
Rex steps closer. “Commander?”
“That shabuir faked his death again,” she manages. “Three times, Rex!”
He blinks at her. “...I know way too many people who fit that description, Soka.”
“Master Ke--” she cuts herself off. He might have changed his name, just like she had. There’s already an Obi-Wan here. Rex seems to be figuring it out, but she needs to give him another hint.
“He pulled a Hardeen,” she stresses, and Rex’s eyes snap shut with a tired groan.
“Who?” Leia asks, her own tumult of emotion paused in the wake of Ahsoka’s shock. There’s a hope and relief to her, and Ahsoka belatedly realizes that her main worry had been that she’d misidentified what was going on, that she’d given herself a false hope. Ahsoka’s internal reaction, her approval and awe at Luke’s presence, had trickled over enough to give Leia the reassurance she’d needed.
Unintentional as it was, Ahsoka was glad that she’d succeeded in helping her charge.
“Er...” she trails off. “I don’t know what name he’s going by, right now. We’ve spent so long in hiding...”
“The man Luke knew as Crazy Old Ben,” Rex says, and Leia’s eyes light up.
“Oh,” she breathes. “General O--no, names. The High General, then.”
“Yeah,” Ahsoka says, not a little soft. “Yeah, I guess death didn’t stop him any more than it stopped me.”
“I could have told you that,” Leia says, smiling far too widely. She squirms where she still sits on Quinlan’s lap. “He was... he taught you, right?”
“As much my master as the official one,” Ahsoka says. She glances as Quinlan, feels Maul’s gaze on the back of her head. “Your f... my official master was very young when I was assigned to him. He wasn’t ready to teach, wasn’t even ready to be a knight, entirely, so my training was split between him and his master.”
Quinlan pops in at that moment, “Your grandmaster was military, too?”
We all were, she thinks. Even you, in your own way.
“I landed in their care mid-battle,” she says carefully. “It was a complicated situation.”
He nods, and she vaguely notes that he’s got his arms wrapped around Leia, and his chin tucked on top of her head. She isn’t sure if Leia’s noticed, but Quinlan’s picked up ‘baby’-sitting duty so often recently that she’s fairly certain he’s all but declared her ‘little-sister shaped.’ It doesn’t matter that Leia’s older--she’s still taking the juice boxes and gummy snacks that Quinlan shoves at her every single snacktime.
“Do you think...” Rex trails off, something uncomfortable twisting in the Force, even though his face keeps it mostly hidden. “My brothers. If the General survived and... and made it back...”
“I didn’t feel any,” Ahsoka says, because she knows she’d have noticed if it was anyone she’d met, and likely any clone at all. They all felt different in the Force, but they all held a spark that made her know it was one of them. “I’m sorry, Rex’ika.”
“A long shot,” he says, that dash of hope shriveling up. He must see something in her face, because there’s a curl of warmth in him, even if his smile is brittle. “It’s fine, really. I have you, ‘Soka.”
Rex and Ahsoka. Two halves of one whole.
She can’t wait to hear the lectures on attachment, the way people who haven’t seen her wars try to criticize her for clinging to any chance at still having a will to live. She can’t wait to see them justify telling her that it’s selfish to hold her sanity in her hands and refuse to let the grief take it away. She can’t wait to stare someone down for asking her to ‘learn to let go’ after she’s lost her family, her life, her universe three times over.
Most of the Jedi are more sensible than that, are reasonable enough to see those shades of grey and how to approach rules in the spirit they are meant instead of the rigid letter, but there will be some.
There will be more than enough telling her she is wrong to hold her oldest, closest, best friend as dear as she can.
Attachment, they’ll say.
What they’ll mean is ‘codepedence.’
They won’t be entirely wrong.
She reaches out for him, lets him fall into her side and stay there, closes her eyes and reaches out for the man she’d long called father, when they’d still been in each other’s lives.
This time, past the deafening flare of surprise-love-hope of the little star next to him, she can feel him reach back.
---------------------------
The second the ship has landed, even before Tholme and Fett are done with the checks, Ahsoka’s waiting at the exit. She strains her hearing so she’ll know the second the system will let her open the massive door of the cargo hold.
Leia clings to her side, and the boys stand to her back.
Quinlan’s stressed enough that she can feel it like a cloud. She is very much not trying to feel that stress. Quinlan’s stress levels, back where he’s got Maul so he can keep an eye on Ahsoka and the Baby Sith at the same time, are so low on her priorities list that it’s a a little sad.
It doesn’t take long for her to be able to punch the button and open the damn door.
It opens slowly. She bounces on her toes, because there’s a beacon of light and a steady, familiar glow on the other side, and she’s so, so close. She can’t see through the crack yet, because it’s day in this part of Coruscant, and the sunlight is blinding against the dark of the hold. So close. She’s so close.
“The hell’s wrong with you?”
Fett? Fett. He’s already here to get off? This door’s slow.
She doesn’t answer him, because the door is finally open enough to let her out, and she leaps through the gap.
She lands on a pourstone floor, feels pebbles and grit compress under her boots, frantically looks around as her eyes adjust to light and--
The High General, the Negotiator, Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, looking just as he did when she first met him, if a little less armored and a little more fed. The hair, the beard, the crinkle in the corner of his eyes. His spirit is a little older, his smile a little more strained, his posture a little more tired, but it’s him.
He spreads his arms, low enough that she could have dismissed it if she’d cared less for hugs, except she’s almost as small as she was when they met.
And every other hug she’d given back then had been, functionally, her being a living missile aiming her montrals for someone’s organs.
She’s a little more aware of how to avoid stabbing her friends in the intestine now.
“Master!”
She sprints for him, collides and sobs, feels him stumble back and then sink to his knees on the too-hard floor, and can feel the tears pouring out of her already. Her breath hitches, and she wails like a child, and that last part of her that couldn’t even grasp at safety shreds itself. His arms are tight around her, warm and strong and Master Kenobi don’t you dare leave again.
It doesn’t matter that Sidious is out there, that the Republic’s been building towards war for a century, that even now someone’s kicking up the Trade Federation. Her dad is here.
“I’ve missed you too, my dear,” he says, pressing a kiss to the side of her head, the bristles of his beard scratching along the skin of her forehead. Off to the side, the binary suns that are Luke and Leia grow brighter in proximity, so bright she can barely bear it.
(“Fett, why the kriff are you reaching for your blaster?!”)
(“Torrent said her master tried to kill her.”)
(“Different guy, that was a different guy, put the blaster away.”)
(“You could have just warned me.”)
(“I didn’t expect you to go for a shot on sight!”)
(”Calm down, Jetiika, if I was going to shoot on sight, we’d already be in a firefight.”)
She ignores everything.
“If you fake your death one more time, I swear I’m going to kill you myself.”
He tries to pull away to talk to her more directly. She does not let him. He apparently resigns himself to this, because he just adjusts how he’s sitting and pulls her in closer.
“In my defense, I was far from the only one presumed dead that took advantage of that status, by the end,” he says, letting her slump into his lap and cry herself dry. “I’m proud of you. You know that, I hope.”
She nods against his chest, smearing tears and snot across the linen and wool. She doesn’t care that they’ll need a thorough washing. She can have her public breakdown and it’s fine because Master Kenobi is here.
He doesn’t even know what she’s spent the past fifteen years doing. Luke wouldn’t have known. He doesn’t know she’s thirty-two and broken, beyond a shadow and cut down by her own master. There’s so much he doesn’t know but the Force rings with the truth of it: he’s proud of her anyway.
“I’m going by Ben, now,” he mutters against her montral. “There’s already an Obi-Wan here, after all. Still, I remain a Kenobi.”
She can’t make the words come out of her mouth. She’s overwhelmed, so much so that speech is a mite bit beyond her.
Sokari Torrent, she presses along the frayed bond that’s knitting itself back to life with every breath they take. Leia was already calling me Auntie Soka, and Rex and I both took Torrent, for...
“For the men you lost,” he mutters. “Yes, that’s fitting.”
He smells like sapir tea and a spiced beard oil.
There’s a whirl of activity about her, greetings and ‘a Sith apprentice?’ and introductions. She distantly notes when Fett almost shoots Dooku before Rex shuts that down and advises the Master to leave the area before things spiral out of control. She feels Ben stand, and she stands with him, clings to his side like a child and trusts that whatever happens, whatever needs to happen, he’ll take care of it until she can stand on her own two feet without swaying.
Rex grabs her free hand, and she feels herself settle back into her skin, bit by bit.
She’s back at the Temple. The twins are safe. Her grandmaster is here. She has her other half.
They can save the galaxy this time.
She’s alive she’s home she’s okay.
She’s okay.
Everything’s going to be okay.
#Ahsoka Tano#Captain Rex#Leia Organa#Jango Fett#rex and ahsoka#Quinlan Vos#Tholme#Depa Billaba#Obi Wan Kenobi#Ben Kenobi#Maul#Darth Maul#time travel#de aging#ptsd#trauma#child soldiers#Phoenix Files#Uncle Ben and Little Luke#Auntie Soka and Little Leia#disaster lineage
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