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honeylikewords · 3 years

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uneasy lies the head (poe dameron)

In the wake of her passing, the official, if somewhat symbolic, royal title of Alderaan has passed to from Leia Organa to her chosen heir, Poe Dameron. Along with his elected position as the Galactic Senate Represenative for his home planet, Yavin V, Poe is now burdened with the responsibility of a political office he never imagined holding, and is called to attend a summit of the galaxy’s leaders that will be held aboard the Starcruiser Halcyon.

This piece is based on a few things: one, me liking the idea of Prince of Alderaan Poe, two, my interest in Begrudging Politician Poe, and three, the new details that have come out about the real-life Halcyon experience that will be opening up at Disney World in Florida, which you can read more about here! I’ve been really excited about it for a long time, and just thought it’d be fun to tie one of my favorite characters in to this amazing new experience that will be coming soon!

(Content Warnings: mentions of Leia’s de@th, some slightly risque flirting between Poe and his wife, and a little bit of making out, but that’s about it! Word count is 5k.)

Poe stands in front of the mirror, anxiously adjusting the epaulets of his tunic. They don’t seem to sit right on his shoulders, he thinks, passing a hand through their silvery fringe and watching them brush the snow-white fabric of his sleeves. This isn’t his kind of uniform, and when he looks at himself, he sees more a child wearing the spoils of a raid on their parent’s closet than the Senate representative he was meant to be. He tries tightening the high, pale collar of his tunic against his throat, swallowing thickly and watching his Adam’s apple bob beneath the colorless fabric. That didn’t help much dignify the image, he thinks, eyeing himself morosely.

He looks older. His beard is fuller, having let it grow out to appear more… wise, he supposes, and the grey streaks running through it match the ones appearing more and more every day at his temples. His tan fingers tease lightly at the end of his beard, trying to stroke it like he’d seen other, more senior politicians do when lost in thought (or at least trying to come across like they were). It makes him look pretentious.

Sighing loudly, he slumps his taut shoulders and rolls them a few times to loosen the aching muscles. He turns away from the mirror and steps out of the dressing room, entering the stateroom and collapsing onto the edge of the bed, his face in his hands. He hears a door hiss open and looks between his fingers at the emerging figure.

She’s still fidgeting with her hair, which is now lifted from its former looseness into a series of intricate looping braids. Letting out a huff, she takes her hands away, seemingly having resigned herself to leaving the hair as it was. Poe lifts his head a little, resting his chin on his palm as he watches her pat her dress and check the mirror in the dressing room, just as he’d been doing mere moments before.

She looks much, much better than he does. It’s an objective fact. Her air is stately and refined, with her gown framing her regally. The fabric is a delicate, pale blue, trimmed with fine threads of gold that interweave and flow, like braided ivies, trailing up her waist in a way that guides Poe’s wandering eyes to the loveliness of her figure. She seems to belong better to this world, with its mannerisms and socialites, its political politenesses. He never had the patience to be so diplomatic, even though that is his job, now.

He watches her pull a face at herself in the mirror, frowning at some flaw he’s oblivious to, and he stands up, coming to her side and placing his hands on the small of her waist, leaning his head on her shoulder and kissing her cheek amiably.

“You look like a princess,” he purrs, hoping his flattery will encourage her confidence. He hates seeing her unhappy with herself.

“I wish,” she responds, voice tinged with something wan and far away. “I… I really do wish.”

He knows what she’s thinking about: he’d been thinking about it, too. Dropping the air of adulation, Poe reaches for her hand and gently knits their fingers together, pressing their locked hands softly against her belly for reassurance. He meets her eyes in the mirror, and the two share expressions of loss.

“I miss her, too,” he murmurs. “I don’t feel like… like I can do what she did. What she left for me to do.”

He feels his wife squeeze his hand intently, causing him to lift his head up and meet her gaze as she turns to look at him, unfiltered by the mirror. Her eyes, clear and sharp, stare at him as she nods, then kisses his forehead warmly, taking her free hand and brushing it softly across his cheek.

“She chose you for a reason,” she whispers, soft and sincere, just like she always does. “Leia left you her seat and title because you’re the only person fit for the job. She trusted you.”

Her hand dips to his jaw and she lifts his head up from its morose slump. He cannot look away from her, even if he wanted to.

“I trust you, too.”

Poe takes in all the angles of his wife’s face, knowing that no single word of what she said was untrue, but searching for the possibility of a lie anyway in some small giveaway of her expression; after all, how could he be the one fit to carry on in the shadow of his predecessor? How could his shoulders carry the burden of her greatness, much less improve upon it? But there, in her eyes, Poe sees the truth, reflected over and over again: he was chosen for this job, chosen to carry on a legacy he had no option but to strengthen. He is the only one who could, whether he believes it or not.

He straightens his back a little, standing up taller, and squeezes his wife’s hand in silent thanks, taking a moment to press their foreheads together and breathe in the scent of her. She is wearing perfume-- something they’d never had access to during the scarcity of the war-- and he marvels at how something so small changes the entire atmosphere of her presence. She truly embodies the grace and elegance of the woman who came before both of them, looking every inch the part of an Alderaanian royal.

Glancing back at himself in the mirror, Poe huffs; while she may look, indeed, just the way Leia would want the nation to be represented, Poe does not. He looks stuffy in his garb, at times like an old man in the too-tight clothes of his youth, and, at others, like a scrawny teenager in the baggy trappings of someone he was only pretending to be. She seems to sense his dismay, as she takes the initiative to comfort him, this time.

“You look dashing,” she smiles, adjusting his lapels and the ribbons of decoration on his chest. “Prince Poe Dameron, Senate Representative of Alderaan and Yavin IV. You’ll knock ‘em dead.”

At that, Poe lets out a playful, exasperated huff, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, I’ll be great,” he grimaces, eyeing his form in the mirror. He raises his voice into a mocking lilt, swaying his head from side to side in an intentionally cartoonish parody of a stuffy bureaucrat. “Oh, Senator Y’Barra, your engagement commission is most dreadful! Shall we discuss its heinousness over tea and crescent crumpets? Garcon, we need more gold-dusted butter for our scones if we are ever to pass this bill!”

She covers her mouth to hide the beginnings of a smile and tries to reprimand Poe, affectionately slapping his chest.

“It’s nice that we’ve been asked to attend the summit, Poe. At least try to make some--”

“Don’t say friends,” he groans. “I don’t want to make friends with these people. They’re politicians; they don’t want to do anything other than profit, and post-war reconstruction is a hell of a time to make money for slime bags like these people.”

That seems to take her back for a moment, and Poe watches her expression shift as she sorts through her thoughts, her lips pursed, eyebrows arched. She then shrugs and nods, acquiescing.

“Probably. But there are probably also people like you: people whose service in the war and dedication to their people, all across this galaxy, led them to this job. People who just want to rebuild. Do better. You’ll find them, dear: you’re an excellent judge of character.”

She taps her fingers against his nose playfully.

“After all, you picked me, didn’t you?”

“If I remember correctly,” Poe teases, lowering his eyes to her lips and smirking, “You were the one to get a crush on me first. All butterflies and nerves anytime I so much as passed you in the halls. More like you picked me, huh?”

Poe catches her face take on the familiar cues of embarrassment and flustering; he can just tell he’s got her all a-twitter, and she pouts her lips, looking down at her shoes shyly as he starts to chuckle. It’s adorable to remember how flighty and skittish she was in those early days, and how enamored of her he himself was, and remains. Getting her all shy like this is a sweet harkening back to that early, giddy tension, and he dips his face down, hovering his lips just above hers, feeling her draw in a breath of neediness and--

“Senator Dameron,” a robotic voice announces through the commlink in the stateroom, freezing Poe in place. “The ferry is beginning docking procedures with the Halcyon. Please proceed to the boarding area. A droid will be sent to collect your luggage as you leave.”

“Ah, shit,” he growls. He’d completely lost track of time.

Dodging back out into the stateroom, Poe glances out the window and sees the looming mass of a gigantic starcruiser, a sharp body of glimmering steel and inky black portholes contrasted against the star field behind it. It is massive-- far larger than any ship Poe had personally piloted in the past-- and spans more than the distance his window could afford a view of. They are extremely close, and within minutes will be aboard the behemoth, where Poe will have to eat, sleep, and breathe senatorial and princely dignity.

He turns away from the window to see his wife making sure everything was packed and prepared for departure, checking the bathroom and dressing room before giving him a confirming nod: everything is where it needs to be. They are ready to go.

They walk towards each other and Poe places his hands on his wife’s arms, stroking up and down the bareness of her shoulders to steady himself. As he feels the warmth of her skin beneath his rough palms, Poe blinks with awareness and gives her a quick squeeze, darting off to the dressing room. He opens a trunk and lifts up the topmost layer of fabric, running back into the stateroom with it carefully laid across both his forearms, then turns his wife to face him and gently lays the upper corners of the fabric on each of her shoulders.

“The cloak,” he mumbles as he fastens the pale silver silk around her neck, “Don’t wanna forget that. A princess is set apart by garments like that.”

“Right,” she hums, admiring his hands as he fusses with her collar. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember that since you’re the prince, now, and I married you, I’m the--”

“Princess, yep,” grins Poe. “Princess Dameron.”

“By marriage only,” she teases.

“And I’m only the prince because she left an essentially honorary title to me,” Poe wits back. “But it suits you, at least.”

“You think?”

“Mm. Now, I think the prince owes his princess one of the tenets of royal responsibility: unadulterated affection towards one’s spouse.”

“Is that a tenet of your responsibilities?,” she smiles, brow cocked.

“I just made it up, but I like to think so.”

Once again, Poe presses his palms against the soft curves of her upper arms, squeezing in the grounding manner he knows she likes, tracing his thumbs along the creamily-smooth fabric now covering her, and he leans in close, admiring how the light shifts against her skin as his shadow draws nearer. He parts his lips, ready to feel the gentle swell of her soft ones against his, when, as if by divine interruption, the hydraulic hiss of the stateroom’s door fills the room and a silver-plated protocol droid peers at him through the now-open door. He grits his teeth to resist letting out a completely undignified expletive aimed at the droid and stares at it pointedly, trying to silently communicate that it had interrupted a private moment.

“It is time to board the Halcyon, Senator,” it chimes in the lilting manner all protocol droids seem to have, seemingly blissfully unaware of his frustration. “Please, come with me to the boarding area.”

Behind the protocol droid, a cargo lifter droid rolls by, seemingly waiting until Poe and his wife leave the cabin to enter. Poe sighs, but can’t resist letting a small chuckle out: both droids, despite their different purposes, both seem polite, in their own sorts of ways, and he always finds that endearing.

Looking to his wife, Poe gives a little bemused half-smile and shrugs his shoulders, as if apologetic but resigned. She takes his hand and turns, nodding to both droids with an impassive but gracious expression, one that Poe notes is more than befitting of an official such as herself. Distanced, but not dour, regal, but not recalcitrant. He loves it.

“Thank you,” she says, coolly polite. “Please, lead the way.”

The protocol droid begins its stiff-jointed hobble towards the boarding area and Poe and his wife trail behind, arms linked at the elbow as Poe fidgets with her fingers. He twiddles her marriage band as they walk, always comforted by the feel of it on her hand. He admires it as they silently proceed; it’s somewhat rough-hewn, made from hammered durasteel, a little uneven and dented in some places from the haste in which it was made, and Poe loves it.

He loves how it contrasts the delicate, fragile jewelry common amongst royals, how it’s not meant to glitter and shine and grab attention, how it ties her to him and he to her, with no regard for image or pomp. It is heavy and solid and made purely for the sake of love and belonging, and she wears it everywhere she goes with pride, as if it was the finest-cut Oshiran sapphire, or the most carefully sculpted gold. It is one of the crown jewels of Alderaan, now, and the thought of it-- of his parent’s simple, quickly-made wedding ring, forged in a time of war, without promise of any moment past the one they were in, now being a royal regalia-- makes his heart ache to bursting with unadulterated love.

Poe tugs her hand up and kisses her knuckles as they finally round the corner into the boarding area; somewhere in the back of his mind, he registers the droid saying something about how their luggage will be sent directly to their stateroom aboard the Halcyon, but he’s hardly listening. He’s looking at his wife, his rock, his tether, as they begin their socialite dance, seeking steadfast comfort in her as he prepares to have to play his part in a world he was never born to be in.

The droid gestures to a corridor formed between the two ships: passengers traipse from the shuttle onto the boarding area of the Halcyon, representatives from a myriad of species in a breadth of costumes and liveries. Poe and his wife exchange glances, knowing that these people will have some hand in forming what comes next in the political landscape of the galaxy, and that they, too, will be instrumental in forging the new governments of the rising Republic.

“Come on,” she smiles, trying to coax him along, tugging his hand and taking a step forward, “It’s gonna be fine. It’s not like my flyboy to get cold feet, hm?”

Poe chuckles and shakes his head, trying to dislodge his clouding worries, and walks in time with his wife, joining the throngs of senators and royals and presidents and diplomats making their way aboard the Halcyon. Some of them exchange pleasantries, others are locked in conversations: some even look at Poe and his wife and nod in acknowledgement, or turn to their compatriots and whisper.

Poe feels an embarrassed heat creep up the base of his neck; he knows rumors have circulated about his particularly unusual position as a representative for a dead planet and a living one, and about how he’d been named the next in line for a royal title he was not born into. He tries not to let it get to him-- let people think that they think, and do your job, Leia had always told him-- but the feeling of alienation and disbelonging hangs over him, shaming him into silence. He tenses, and keeps his eyes fixed forward, which grants him an ever-nearing view of the grand foyer of the massive starcruiser.

The Halcyon is unlike any other ship Poe has ever been on. He’d heard about starcruisers like this, meant to be enormous cruise ships travelling in luxury and style from one planet to another, filled with sprawling cabins and indulgent amenities, and had never even pictured himself aboard one. The thought hardly appealed to him: days, weeks, even, of doing nothing? Just wandering aimlessly around, decadent and opulent in one’s revelry? The mere idea disgusts him. Still, as he steps into the expansive entry for the Halcyon, he finds himself feeling something other than disgust: he feels strangely at home.

The area is bustling as ship workers and bellhops collect luggage and transfer it to droids, as greeters guide guests to check in areas and hand them keycards, as officers check passports and documentation against databases, all lit under the glow of thousands of lights, which reflect off polished durasteel and marble surfaces. Holo projections provide information about travel destinations and the cruise itself in hundreds of different tongues, while a massive projection of the captain glows a familiar blue and greets the boarding politicians.

Poe turns in awe, gazing at the dozens of porthole windows affording views of distant and nearby star clusters, at the navigational crew high above, checking maps and charting courses, and takes a deep, steadying breath in through his nose, squeezing his wife’s hand tight. The hum and thrall of the ship, with its thousands of moving parts and requisite workers, feels exactly like all the ships he’d served on during the Rebellion. He half-believes that if he closes his eyes and turns around, he’ll open them and see Leia there, giving orders and directing the workflow.

The memory sits on his heart, but instead of a heavy, lingering pain, it kindles a warm, growing fire: she lives on in him. She would be proud to see him carrying on the mantle, working to do what no one else has the skill, speech, or stones to do. She is never really gone. Never can be.

Instilled with strength and purpose, Poe looks to his wife, who is staring at the gargantuan hub of activity before her, almost taken aback by how bustling it is. He leans down and gently pecks her cheek, tugging her along and breaking her out of her trance. They’ve got places to be, things to do, royal engagements to avoid, after all. As they begin to move closer to what Poe believes is the reception desk, a Twi’lek in a sleek, almost military-looking white uniform steps in front of Poe and his wife, grinning from green ear to ear.

“Senator Dameron, Princess Dameron,” she greets, bowing at the waist respectfully, “I am Lyna’ame, and I’ll be directing you regarding your stay on the Halcyon. Thank you for honoring us with your patronage.”

“Uh, thank you for having us,” Poe stammers, unsure of how to conduct himself in such a position.

Lyna’ame looks up at him with a quizzical eye, but seems too well-trained to respond with anything more than a polite smile and a nod. She produces from the pocket of her grey-trimmed suit a pair of infochips, extending them towards Poe and his wife.

“You will be staying in the royal suite on Deck B, unit number eighteen,” Lyna’ame smiles. “These chips will act as your keys to the room and to any amenities you should wish to access, and will remind you of upcoming engagements or conferences you should be in attendance of.”

As if on cue, the small screens on the infochips light up and read “19:00: Senatorial Dinner In Ballroom One!” Poe blinks at it, then flashes Twi’lek a cordial but slightly cold smile, taking the chips from her hand and tucking them unceremoniously into his breast pocket.

“Alright, thanks. I think we can get it from here.”

She seems not to register his attempt to tie off the loop of the conversation, continuing anyway.

“You will also have access to all the facilities of the ship, including the swimming areas, dining areas, lounges, bars, activity centres, spas and--”

“I’ll check the brochure in the room,” Poe smiles, searching for an exit. “I appreciate it, but, uh, my wife is very tired--” --Poe nudges her with an elbow and she balks, then understands his intention and mimes a yawn, nodding sympathetically-- “--And I’d love to get her some rest before any hobnobbing, y’know?”

“Of course, your highness,” Lyna’ame says, again accompanied by a civil bow. “The elevators are to the left. Press your infochip to the pad and it will take you to your floor. Your luggage should already be in your room, and please,” she smiles. “Enjoy your cruise.”

Poe bows back, then leads his wife by the elbow to the elevators, where they tap their key card and the doors hiss open. As they board, just the two of them, Poe’s wife turns to face him and raises one eyebrow, haughty.

“Really threw me under the bus there, Poe,” she smirks. “‘Oh, my wife wants to leave this conversation because my wife is awkward and doesn’t know how to handle subordinate behavior from service workers’. Real nice.”

Rolling his eyes, Poe can’t help but smile, and instead of replying, drops his hand to the small of his wife’s back, grazing his fingers there for a moment before dipping slightly lower and--

She jumps, then giggles, hitting him with a shocked but not at all displeased expression.

“Did you just pinch my ass?”

“Maybe,” he smiles. “Why?”

“You just seemed so…” She touches his arm, searching for the right word, chewing her lip thoughtfully. “Severe, before. Lost.”

“Feeling better. Feeling… like I can do this, maybe. Or at least do what I need to do, even if it doesn’t look exactly like how everybody else might expect me to.”

At that she purses her lips and nods, and he can tell she’s happy for him: he’s not entirely out of the woods about this whole ‘galactic representative’ thing, and certainly not used to all the expectations that come with being the heavy head that wears the crown, but he’s going to be alright. At least, he feels like he is, at this moment, and that’s all that matters.

Poe finds himself allowing his smile to grow wider as he dips down and nuzzles her temple, teasing his lips over her ear, tempting and toying.

“I still hate the suit,” he whispers, sending her shivering, “And I don’t want to talk to these people like we’re all buddy-buddy--”

“--Acknowledged, Senator,” she teases, rubbing his arm in the way that lets him know she’s itching to get more handsy.

“But we’re gonna have a private room,” he continues, “And a lock on the door, and at least--” --He checks the infocard, which reads “17:05”-- “--About two hours before anybody’s gonna need us, so I say we shimmy out of these nice duds…”

Poe’s finger trails down the silky rivulets of her collarbones; he has to admit, he does find her massively attractive in this royal robing, but he figures it’ll be less hassle for both of them to assure he doesn’t get too rowdy while they’re wearing some of the best (and irreplaceably expensive) fineries in the galaxy, so he’ll have to bid her pretty little dress and luxurious cape adieu for their stateroom rendezvous. Not that he minds: the dress might be pretty, but the woman underneath is ten times more so. Besides, she can always put it back on again for the dinner, anyway.

“We go see what kind of minibar we’re looking at,” Poe teases, watching her roll her eyes, “Hop in the bath, and see where those two hours take us.”

“Mm, we’ll see,” she demures, patting his chest. He knows she likes to dance around it, never say anything too scandalous where someone else can hear, and he loves that; she extends the tension, making him wait for what he wants. He may not ever have been a patient man before, but she forces him to slow down, savor it, work for it. And that’s delicious.

The elevator doors slide open as Poe leads his wife out into the hall, kissing her jaw as he checks the suite numbers. They shuffle along, exchanging little pecks and touches in the graciously empty hallway (what would the other representatives think, she reminds him in a hushed tone as they pass rooms, if they saw the new prince of Alderaan and Senator for Yavin V hanging off his wife like a pubescent teen?) before arriving at suite eighteen. Poe fumbles in his breast pocket, keeping his lips planted on his wife’s neck, then slaps the infochip haphazardly against the door. It clicks open, and Poe doesn’t even bother to look inside: he just coaxes his wife in, and tumbles in after her.

The lights in the room slowly turn on automatically, rising from a low dim to a sunny brightness, illuminating white-panelled walls and a lush, wide bed, all the furniture sharply clean and sleekly modern, trimmed in shades of black and silver. A massive window shows the endless expanse of space beyond the double-layered transparisteel, and while Poe would normally be more inquisitive and peek around the room to admire it, he’s more than occupied as he pushes his face deeper in the warm, scented crook of his wife’s neck.

“Careful,” she warns as his hand starts to pet at the base of her head, eking dangerously close to the beginnings of her hair roots, “These braids took me hours. I don’t want to have to re-do them, Dameron”

“I get that,” he breathes heavily, “But you look really hot with messy hair and--”

“If we’re going to go to that dinner, I’m not going to go with my hair flying everywhere! I’ll look like a… well, you know!”

“Like a woman well-loved by her husband,” Poe teases, nipping at her jaw. “But, fine, we’ll skip the dinner, and I’ll just keep you all to myself. Nobody else has to see. In fact, I’d prefer they didn’t.”

His eyes glimmer with wolfish promise as he sets his wife down on the edge of the white-blanketed bed, staring at her as her skirts form pools of silver and blue. He’s serious: the summit dinner all but disappears from his mind as he looks at her; how beautiful she is. How elegant. So poised and pretty and his, all his, to love until all the suns swallow themselves and burn out. All these representatives won’t miss him at one measly, lousy dinner, right? Not when he has the love of his life to attend to, surely.

“What’s gotten into you?,” she giggles, kicking off one of her sophisticated shoes as she sits on the bed. “You’re acting like we’re on our honeymoon!”

Poe leans in and places his hands on either side of her hips, bumping his forehead to hers as he takes long, weighty breaths, feeling the heat radiate off of her.

“I just… This is a lot, right?”

“Mm,” she acquiesces.

“And you’re kind of… what I go back to when I’m in too deep. So, right now, all this summit stuff and the Senate and the council? I need that to take a backseat to me being with you. The person I love. And letting that be what guides me in what I need to do for… everybody else.”

She lets out a soft, appreciative “aw”, her eyes softening as she cups his cheek, and Poe leans into her hand, allowing a little lasciviousness to leak into his smile as he stares down at her.

“Plus, it’s kinda… you know, a little sexy, being somewhere so new and ritzy. I’m not used to this kind of stuff. That, and we barely got a honeymoon, if you remember--”

“Yeah,” she recalls, sighing and pinching the bridge of her nose, clearly vexed by the memory, “I remember. The day after we got married, that First Order outpost tried to open fire and you were up and out of bed and back in deployment after less than twenty four hours of being a married man.”

“Duty never sleeps,” he shrugs. “But… We can make up for lost time here, on this big, shiny, fancy-ass ship, huh?”

Poe wiggles his eyebrows with playfully rapacious intent, sending his wife into a fit of good-natured laughs. He adores when she laughs; it sends his heart racing, every inch of him alight with the joy of knowing that her smiles are because of him, the sound of her voice bouncing up and down with glee all caused by some silly little thing he’s said or done. Unable to contain himself, Poe leans down and kisses her, cutting off the sounds of her laughter, a deep, satisfied groan emanating from his chest.

“God,” he rumbles as they part for a quick breath, “I haven’t gotten to do that all damn day.”

“It did feel really good,” she sighs, clasping her arms around his neck. She seems to take pause, etching his face into her memory with her eyes, then comes to a decision: Poe would recognize that resolute gleam in her expression anywhere. “Alright, we’re staying.”

“...You mean it?,” he chirps.

“Yep. You tell them your poor, defenseless wife is laid up ill and needs your constant and most doting attention,” she smiles, kissing the tip of his nose. “Then when you’re done calling the front desk, you come over here and you help me get out of this dress and into that bath you promised.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he chuckles, then catches himself. “I mean, yes, Princess.”

“Mm,” she beams, teasing him with a pinch on the thigh. “Much better.”

They share another deep, drawn-out kiss before Poe manages to wrest himself away from her and off to the side of the room with the comm built into the wall, but glances over at her as he taps at the screen to connect with the front desk. She grins coyly from the bed, kicking one leg out in a pseudo-sultry, semi-silly way from beneath her sumptuous gown. Poe can’t help but feel a swell of endearment.

As the call connects, Poe sighs dreamily to himself; if all else failed, at least he had her, and with her by his side, he was definitely going to enjoy a very, very pleasurable cruise.

#poe dameron #poe dameron x reader #long post #original #OH MY GOD CAN YOU BELIEVEEEEE i actually sat down and wrote this? dkhfhdkf #im a little rusty but! felt good to finish a project! i hope you guys enjoy!!#star wars

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generalfoolish · 4 years

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We Go Together

General Dameron!AU

Chapter 1: A Welcome Party of One | Chapter 2

Rating: General for now! It gets more spicy later, and I’ll update accordingly.

Summary: OC character starts flying with the resistance, and happens to meet General Poe Dameron. Eventually, they'll do more than just talk and badly flirt.

A/N: Hey guys! This is my fic from AO3, and I wanted to add it to my master list. It’s a work in progress! Also, we deviate a bit from the actual story of the sequels, but I try to stay pretty close to the lore of the SW universe.

The explosion burned too bright against Darial’s eyes. The darkness of space enveloped the blinding whites, and glanced sharply against her radiation shield. A red laser shooting from the wreckage jerked her back to life; and in seconds she was maneuvering away from the burning ship behind her.

Dary heard the crackling in her ear piece, and she breathed deeply to steady herself. The casualties would be many. They were increasing ten-fold after each mission. This re-con had gone sideways, fast. She cursed under her breath and banked a hard left against a Tie Fighter shooting near her rear. Her eyes followed the green beams coming from her own X-wing, and smiled when they found their mark.

“Green Two!” The static garbled the words, but she made her call name out.

“Green Two responding,” She grimaced at her own croaky voice. She needed water, and badly.

“Green Two, disengage. Pulling back.” The words were more chewed up this time, her commander getting lost in the static.

“Pulling back, Green Leader.”

“Settle for Base.”

“Base bound, Green Two off.” She eased off the thrusters and checked the nav. Deftly, she punched in the coordinates for Ajan Kloss, and rolled her neck as hyperspace engaged.

She had enough time to glance around and see her team doing the same, before she was flung into the dazzling rush of white jets of light. She could never get over hyperspace. The urge to jerk out of the tunnel, she realized dimly, had never gone away either. Dary knew that the only reason she preferred hyper was that space was too inky black for her comfort. In her years as a pilot, she had never found comfort amongst the stars. She was always unsettled in the darkness, and felt uneasy in the absence of any celestial bodies.

“Something to keep my mind off the dead, at least.” She murmured to herself. In the brightly lit cockpit, there was nowhere to hide those dark thoughts. Her orange jumpsuit glowed, nearly reflective, as if to prove her point.

The nav system started beeping, and gave her the respite she needed to ignore the deep seated survivor’s guilt building in her stomach. She punched a few buttons, flicked a few switches, and dropped out of hyperspace. She found herself laughing, and wished flying was as easy as dropping out of hyper. She nosed her X towards the green moon.

Dary hadn’t had the opportunity to see Ajan Kloss yet, and she had heard it was a beautiful moon. The landscape rushing up to greet her after her descent into the atmosphere was a welcome sight. The rumors weren’t true, though. They left too much unsaid. The whispers of a jungle had missed the devastation of how mesmerizing the moon was. It was so alive, that Dary felt a sob stick in her chest. She shook her head slightly, and focused on the landing pattern.

“Green Two, requesting landing.” She breathed into her mic; still moved by the beauty of the greenery around her. A welcome sight after days of barren space.

“Green Two, welcome home. Head to bay 4.” The gruff voice told her. She was glad to hear Basic in a friendly tone, and never happier to get rid of the undertone of urgency or panic. She docked down in Bay 4, and noted that it looked like every other bay in the resistance, before switching her engines off.

The astromech popped the radiation shield for her, and she pulled her helmet off.

“Thanks R6.” Dary smiled warmly at her droid. He beeped in response. She left him for now, and knew he was in good hands. The Resistance loved their droids, and pilots doubly so. She had left her helmet in the cockpit, and climbed down the ladders a mechanic had pushed, over after she had touched down. The mech was nowhere to be found now, and she decided not to take it personally. She wasn’t anyone special, and the mission had been a failure to be sure. Plus, she didn’t know anyone on this moon. She rolled her eyes at herself.

“What? You expectin’ a welcome party, Dary? A full roll out?” A hardness settled in her chest, and she screwed her eyes up as she jerked the zipper of the flight suit down. She had just stepped out of the suit, focusing singularly on her muddy boots, when she heard the throat clearing cough come from behind her. She turned slowly, making a mental note to clean her shoes later. She was annoyed. She wanted to cry in the shower. She wanted to find her new quarters.

“Yes?” She was sharper than she meant to be, but she was tired.

“Yes, sir.” He said, a smirk dancing on his lips. She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t echo his request. “Because I’m Poe. General Poe Dameron.” He continued, and she realized he had expected her to know him.

“General Dameron!” She exclaimed with as much forced enthusiasm as she could muster. “What can I do for you, sir?” She asked, snapping to attention. Her flight suit still bundled around her boots. He dropped his smirk.

“You’re Green Two, right? Ardan?” His voice had lost nearly all traces of the humor from before.

“Yes, sir.” Dary answered quickly, not wanting to get into real trouble. She held his eyes for a moment, before stooping to grab her flight suit. “How can I help you, sir?” She asked genuinely, folding her suit as she talked. He smiled again, and she couldn’t help but notice he was that much more handsome for it. He was slim, but muscular beneath his loosely fitted button up. The light material really made his tanned skin glow in the bright sun.

“They tell me you saved a lot of lives doing something very dangerous and very reckless.” Her mouth fell open, and she snapped it shut with enough force to rattle her back teeth.

“Sir, I was taking calculated risks to ensure that my fellow pilots made it back in one piece.”

“You were outmanned and outgunned, why would you try to take down a Starfighter alone?”

“I reasoned that if I were successful, then it would be a great advantage for my team.”

“What if you weren’t?” She couldn’t read him, and so she tried pleading her case earnestly.

“Then I would have done everything in my power to make sure that I at least bought my team a few minutes for a retreat.” She swallowed painfully; her throat was tight and dry.

“Good work out there today, Ardan. That kind of honest fighting is how we’ll win.” He took her by the shoulder, and simply held it for a moment. It wasn’t lost on her that his palm devoured her shoulder, and engulfed her more than she thought possible. His words filled in her a sense of pride, and her heart hammered against her ribs.

“Thanks, sir.” She squeaked out, and immediately regretted how she sounded. He only smiled, and opened his other hand in a gesture. He swept his arm back, indicating she was to move that way, and somehow her brain registered the signal and started walking. Her steps felt as clumsy as a newborn banthas.

“Have you been to the base before?” He asked, his hands swinging lazily by his side. She struggled to match his long stride, although he seemed to be moving at a leisurely pace.

“No, but the view flying in was something else.” She told him, shyly moving her hair behind her ears.

“It always reminds me of Yavin.” He told her, a small smile lifting to his eyes.

“I’ve never been,” She admitted freely, “It must be lovely to be comparable to here. Is Yavin another base?” He chuckled a little, and studied her face.

“I was born on Yavin, but it does have a...rich history involving resistances. Look, not to be forward, but I was on my way to dinner. The brass has me doing some drills at an unbelievably early kriffing hour, and so I plan to turn in early. You can say no, but you’d be doing me a pretty big favor. We don’t get a lot of new faces, especially pretty faces. Whaddya say, take another risk?” He laughed, and any doubts she had were gone. If it was inappropriate, surely he wouldn’t ask.

“That sounds lovely.” She told him before she could reconsider. Her eyes trained on her boots as they walked forward. She didn’t know how her boots had gotten so dirty. There isn’t mud in space, she breathed out her nose in a sort of snort laugh, and caught Poe’s eyes. He raised an eyebrow at her.

“Something funny?” He asked, amused

“Just...well it’s dumb, but my boots are filthy. No idea how, I’ve been in space for days. No mud in the cockpit.” She told him aimlessly, the words falling out easily. She couldn’t help it; he was impossibly easy to talk to. He grinned at her, nodding along.

“Forget being clean. The first rule of the Resistance is to be as dirty as possible, but also you must always be absolutely presentable.” He laughed, pointing a finger at her in a menacing way. She liked this. She hadn’t really fit in on her last post.

“Let me stash my suit,” She managed between laughing fits. His stories were coming more freely, and the long walk to the end of the terminal was almost over. She jogged to a locker and found her code name. Green Two. Impersonal, but perfect. Especially, she grimaced, in the heat of battle. It was a precaution, just in case the First Order happened to tap the comms. She stashed her suit quickly, and turned on her heel to find Poe just waiting for her. Patiently, he was watching her. Her breath caught, and before she could let that color her face she forced her legs to close the distance between them.

“Hungry?” She groaned.

“So, what happened after you got caught?” She asked, picking up the last thread of conversation easily, as they started the last leg of the walk to the commissary.

“Well, what you need to know is how to confuse a bageraset--I escaped, of course.” He shrugged, throwing her a smirk. She could smell the stew now, and knew that it would be just edible. Her stomach growled in anticipation, though. Which earned her a shoulder nudge from her companion.

“Starving, actually. I wasn’t joking about being in space for days. All I’ve had are those dreadful ration bars.” He laughed in response.

“That won’t do. The food here isn’t as bad as some of the posts. The cook is trained, so he does alright.” He opened the right side of the double swinging doors with one arm, and gestured her in with the other. The bustle of the canteen hit her right away.

Laughing, yelling, eating, drinking, and just a general buzz of life. She normally prefered the quiet, but the energy was contagious. She turned a quick grin to Poe before ducking past him.

#poe dameron #original character #poe dameron x oc #idiots in love #Star Wars oc #star wars #sequels #eventual smut

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politicalmamaduck · 5 years

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Reylo Fic Recs: Canonverse

Across the Stars by @rapturousaurora

Hugging Rey close, desperate to feel something of her, her skin against his, a lingering tendril of their once vibrant Force bond—anything—Ben only felt cold silence. Her vacant gaze stared up at the ceiling of the Sith’s Exegol stronghold.And still he felt no anger. No hate. His emotions were dominated by the almost childlike desire to fix what his lifetime of mistakes had broken—Ben wanted to fix her.

With You by @politicalpadme

Ben Solo finds the will to rise.

the shadows are whispering (again) by @thewayofthetrashcompactor

The Force has always had it out for the Skywalkers. Ben feels like he knows that better than most. Why else would it have saddled him with another curse to add to his legacy? (From birth to death and back again.)

Phantasm by @forcebondedreylo

Rey thought that she was finished with Ben Solo after Crait. She was proven otherwise when she crash-landed on a strange and dangerous planet with no way to contact the Resistance. Now Ben Solo might be her only hope of survival, if the deadly inhabitants don't get her first.

The Weight of a Soul by @ceallaigheirinn

“If he is condemned, then his soul shall be cast into oblivion,” the Mother answered. “It will cease to be. Oblivion is beyond the veil that the Force encompasses. His soul would be consumed by nothingness, and Ben Solo would exist on neither the mortal plane or the World Beyond.”

linger in the doorway (of my field of paper flowers) by @mnemehoshiko

She can't tell if she got the better deal or not. Foolish. Did you truly want to waste away in this sand-ridden hell? a voice whispers, low and soft. No, she thinks, but it would be a familiar hell, at least.

destruction makes the world burn brighter by @cosmicforces

When he was nearly within reach, he extended the blade—or was it his hand?—but everything faded to black before she was certain. Panting, she bolted upright in her bed and wiped away the sweat clinging to her forehead. She’d dreamt of Jakku again.

A New Generation by @aionimica

Ben glances at Rey and quietly asks, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life with a twice-fallen former warlord who doesn’t know what place he has in this galaxy except as a porg-mother?”

In Our Silence, Volumes by @roamingbadger

When Rey senses through their Force Bond that Ben is in trouble, she'll stop at nothing to get to him. But what if he's not ready to be rescued - from himself?

I Choose You by @shelikespretties

In the throne room, Rey proposes a counter offer.

Breakout by @leofgyth

In which Rey, Finn, and Ben break Ransolm Casterfo out of prison... for reasons.

Oh the Glory of Tenderness by @ann3onymous

Leia Organa taught her little boy how to weave stories with hair. Years later, Ben Solo weaves Rey's hair with promises.

Slipping Off Course by @fingertipstrembling

Between the birth and death of every star stretches a wide expanse of space, a thirsty maw that drinks up all the light it sees and spits back darkness. In the bowels of a star destroyer deep in that darkness, they find each other—the Supreme Leader’s apprentice and a fledgling pilot recruit who outflies and outwits him at every opportunity. Though he fights the pull of the Force, Kylo Ren finds himself reaching for Rey with nothing to stop his fall.

Like This by @kylo-wouldnt-like-those-chips

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... Peace reigns in the galaxy. Seriously. The Imperial Remnant fizzled out. There is no First Order. There is no Snoke. The worst thing Ben Solo's ever done was some light brawling. The kids are, as they say, more or less alright.Still, the Force has plans for Ben and Rey, which is how they find themselves working for the same civil rights firm, thrown together in a stakeout van.

temptations of grey by @lasthopesolo

Nightmares filled with the ghostly voice of a woman haunt Supreme Leader Kylo Ren; a constant reminder of the discord within. Terrifying dreams plague Rey, casting doubt on choices she’s made. Both find themselves stranded on a humid jungle planet in unknown territory, captured and forced to participate in a strange mystical ceremony. Rey and Kylo must work together in their journey through the jungle, facing themselves and each other in the pursuit of balance.

Wish Upon a Star by @shelikespretties

When Ben Solo exiles himself on a random planet in order to atone, he finds his mother packed him a calligraphy set. He keeps a diary of his existence, while Rey, cut off from him in the Force, tracks him down the only way she can.

Only If for a Night by @reylotrashcompactor and @southsidestory

The night the war ends is a time for victories and change. Maybe, if Rey is lucky, she can win where Ben Solo is concerned. There’s something between them, more than friendship or battle-forged camaraderie, a need that she’s felt threaded along their bond, and she’s tired of ignoring it.

Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations. by @shmisolo

Ben woke, but Luke’s saber wasn’t ignited. Instead, he saw a master who had shattered his trust, who thought he was a monster, and—worse—he was probably right.So he fled Yavin IV, to Skywalker’s dismay, and no one heard from him since.Years later, on a wasteland planet, a girl and a fugitive stormtrooper board a Corellian YT-1300 light freighter in desperation to find they are not the only ones trying to steal it.

In the Footsteps of Giants by @aionimica

Post-Sequel Trilogy; Ben Solo is off in exile, accompanied by Rey. In desperate need of fuel, they stop on Naboo, but their pit stop doesn’t quite go as planned.

build a ladder to the stars by @redbelles

Kylo Ren's heart is a desert.

these violent delights (have violent ends) by @luminoustico

The news runs like a wildfire through the galaxy.Kylo Ren found something, someone, else to believe in. He gutted his master for her life. In return, vestiges of Snoke's power delivered a punishment greater than anything either the fallen Knight or the last Jedi could imagine. Together forever, eternally apart.

Luminous Beings by @hauscrashburn

In order to become a Jedi, Rey must do one thing: Kill Kylo Ren. But how can she when her heart belongs--and has belonged to him--for years now?

Midsummer Night's Shared Dream by @shelikespretties

“We’re not on an approved airfield, but look,” she held out her datapad with the map of the crash location. “Xa-Tla City is on the other side of this forest. We can make it there on foot, and, if we start now, we’ll get there before the solstice celebration begins.” Kylo lifted a mocking eyebrow. “You’d risk the spirits of the forest?”Rey scoffed. “I don’t believe in ghosts. Let’s start walking.”

Spillikin by @ceallaigheirinn

“Forgiving yourself doesn’t mean you have to forget what happened, Ben,” his mother said. “It just means you can finally let go and move forward.”

The Way to Tomorrow by @the-reylo-void

Kylo Ren faces his sentence at the hands of the Resistance: a year of off-world solitary confinement, no communication with the outside world. But it's never that easy to leave old wounds behind. Or such deeply-forged bonds.

Porgs by @tehanufromearthsea

Porgs think of Luke Skywalker as the eccentric but harmless giant who lives on their island. Life on Ahch-To can be pretty dull, so at least Luke gives the Porgs something to watch. Then another of his kind arrives, with her friends, and life on Ahch-To gets a lot more entertaining for the porgs.Then comes the invader...

The Jedi Path by @southsidestory

She’s Ben's world: the only thing he cares about, the only thing he needs, the only one who matters. That interest used to be focused on Rey's power, her talent, her fierce, uncompromising will. Platonic, if not innocent, but now—now he still loves her like a protege, but he wants her too. He wants her, and he can’t keep lying to himself about it.

Yub Nub, and a Celebration Song by @luminoustico

It starts with a forest moon, a destined clash between a scavenger and a knight, and some Very Determined Ewoks.

The Visions That Connect Us by @lariren-shadow

They've seen each other for years before they even meet. Kylo Ren and Rey have visions of the other through out their lives.

Reflektor by @reylotrashcompactor

Kylo Ren isn’t fool enough to believe that her capture was a happy accident. He didn’t believe it was good fortune, and he believed least of all that it had anything to do with the reconnaissance skills of Hux’s half-wit stormtroopers. If they have The Girl Called Rey in custody, it is because she meant for it to happen. It was because she had a plan and this was a step in executing it.

Paper Minds by @kuresoto

At the age of five, Ben Solo built his first droid. At the age of ten, he manifested and started to see her everywhere. At the age of eleven, he was sent to train with Luke. He still saw her. When he was fifteen, she disappeared. He was twenty-three when he left Ben Solo behind and became someone who wouldn’t trust blindly ever again. He became Kylo Ren. He meets her for the first time when he’s on the cusp of turning thirty. These were the events that shaped Ben Solo and in turn, Kylo Ren.

Just A Little Crush by @lariren-shadow

Ben Solo has been away from the Jedi Academy for a few years. Now that he's back he's developed a little problem his brother is keen on goading him about.

Retrouvailles by @luminoustico

Six months ago, Ben Solo was removed from Rey's side and his uncle's Jedi Academy to take up his mother's mantle as Senator, and to act representative of the Resistance. He has already claimed the reputation of a troublemaker. After Han Solo requests Luke and Rey act as Ben's security intel at a ball in Coruscant, it is underneath the pressure of galactic politics that her world and his new world collide.

Convergence by @the-reylo-void

Whatever the next steps are, I want to take them with you.

let the silver arrow fly by @solikerez

Leia plays cupid, and fires a few misshots before getting it right.

What We Do in the Snow by @reylotrashcompactor

The first time she dreamed of Starkiller, not much was different.

The Gamble by @nightsofreylo

Whenever you gamble, eventually you lose...

Matchmaker by @lariren-shadow

Bored with being a Force Ghost Anakin decides that his grandson needs some help in the relationship department. Kylo Ren isn't too thrilled at the prospect but, then again, neither is Rey.

here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true by @the-reylo-void

Here is the place where I love you.

People Will Say by @reylotrashcompactor

In a ditch effort to coax the wary members of the Resistance into accepting the prodigal son Ben Solo back into their fold, General Leia Organa requests a hefty favor from Rey. "Behind every good man is a great woman" is how the saying goes, but the man formerly known as Kylo Ren isn't good, and Rey isn't sure that any manner of hand-holding is going to change people's minds about that.

crave my heart (it's bleeding in your hand) by @mnemehoshiko

She wakes with the taste of salt on her lips and screams in her head.

Dark Matter by @arcticelves

Rey is never really alone. Even on Ahch-To, beginning her training with Luke Skywalker, she is frequently interrupted by an uninvited visitor. But is he truly unwelcome?

kept in the dark (but you were there in front of me) by @mnemehoshiko

Ben Solo is nine when he dreams of sand and darkness.

Peace and Purpose by @the-reylo-void

Across the stars, Rey and Ben yearn for each other, neither able to move on, both facing the unending nights alone. But the Force longs for balance as surely as they long for each other.

Laid To Rest by @khaleesa

Ben wants to show Rey the galaxy, to see it with her. First, they have business on Naboo.

Endings and Beginnings by @shelikespretties

Rey’s hand cradles Ben’s head before it can hit the stone floor. He’s ridiculously heavy, all dead weight, and Rey’s entire body cramps in horror before she sees the faint rise and fall of his chest. He’s not dead. He hasn’t left her. Yet. She cradles his face with both hands and sobs in relief.

What Was Lost Is Now Found by @ceallaigheirinn

With no memories of the past, his mind was nothing more than a void of vast emptiness. He couldn’t remember how he got there. It sounded insane, but he even wondered if he was actually there the moment before. When he closed his eyes, fleeting images of a metallic mask, a world collapsing on itself, the touch of a weathered hand across his cheek and a beautiful woman dressed in white flickered from the dark recesses of his mind. But none of it made sense. He had no idea what those images represented or who that woman was. Did she mean something to him? Was she an enemy, friend or lover?

a million miles (cross the ocean) by @mnemehoshiko

in which the Force tries to pay back some of the debt it owes the Skywalkers.

gift to me forever by LonelyLavenderBones, @luminoustico, TazWren, @thewayofthetrashcompactor

Palpatine has remained dead. Ben Solo followed in his mother’s footsteps and became the Senator of Chandrila, his mother training him in the Force instead of sending him to Luke. And, instead of being left on Jakku, Rey has been trained in the Force from childhood to help redeem the Palpatine name in the eyes of the galaxy's highest social circles.Now the princess of the ultimate Sith is due to make her debut, on the arm of her betrothed, Armitage Hux. But, the Force still has plans for Rey Palpatine and Ben Solo.

My own canonverse Reylo fics:

Rise

Ben Solo and Rey fake their deaths after Exegol and live their lives.

It was not Death, for I stood up

Emperor Palpatine lied on Exegol; Rey is not his granddaughter. Rey sets off on a journey, led by Obi-Wan Kenobi, to bring Ben Solo back from the World Between Worlds.

luminous beings are we

Rey and Ben survive Exegol.

the healing balance

The battle was over; the war was won. The Finalizer was a smoking ruin; General Hux’s attempted mutiny had backfired as the Resistance attacked and finally incapacitated the First Order leadership. Kylo Ren was missing, presumed dead at the hands of the last Jedi, who must have succumbed to her own injuries. Neither body was found. So said the initial official report of the aftermath.

Aggressive Negotiations

It was a shame, really, that Rey did not want her new assignment, did not want to be tempted by Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala’s grandson.

Calligraphy and Atonement

Ben Solo spends his time in exile trying not to think of Rey and keeps failing.

beam that lights the way home

The star lit their path to each other, and lit their way home together.

food for the soul

Rey struggles with new food and the knowledge that Kylo Ren is her soulmate.

you burn with me

Rey's soulmark burns when she meets Kylo Ren for the first time.

light brings forth hidden truths

Light brings forth hidden truths, and demonstrates the Force's balance.

Falling Embers

Rey takes Kylo Ren's hand after they have killed Snoke and his Praetorian Guards.

Force of Light

After celebrating the end of the war and Wookiee Life Day on the Resistance base, Rey heads out into the snow to meditate. Kylo Ren goes out after her...and learns the true reason for the season.

Wanting

Kylo Ren has wanted things his whole life.

My other fic rec lists:

#reylo #rffa writers #canonverse #fan fiction #fic recs #my writing

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reynesofcastamere · 4 years

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Surface Breach(2/3)[β]

(A/N: Good grief but it has been a while since my last contribution to the ship. Sad to say I’ve been caught up with several irl things, including moving and settling in to the new place. Rest assured, I do have several drafts in the works for other projects and I am hoping to set up a regular writing/submission schedule. Now that that’s out of the way...Warnings for: possessive behaviour, emotional manipulation, (negotiated) bondage, blindfolding, edging, cockwarming, blood, masochism and mentions of polyamory, coitus interruptus, and non-consensual play. Unbeta’d and NSFW.)

Ahsoka knows the second she sets foot on her ship that time is up. She could still flee, drag this game out a bit longer and drive up the level of his frustration...But what would be the point, really? It’s been months since they parted ways, and while she hasn’t avoided his calls, she’s also made a point of not meeting with him in person. A reprimand for his behaviour, and a reminder of the challenge she’d issued. She recalls the first, trembling breath of relief she’d taken after the medical scans were complete. He has no further hold over her than this. Nothing burrowed and secreted away beneath her skin to...Do any number of things, really. Most of which she’d rather not consider right now.

Maul is of course perfectly at ease in the pilot’s seat, already turned to face her. “Lady Tano. I trust that your last assignment was successful.” He’s being neutral, bordering on pleasant, even. But the tension is there, kept in check by the slimmest thread of restraint. “And I trust that you’re not here for small talk.” Ahsoka makes certain to keep a few feet of distance between them, arms crossed. The corner of his mouth twitches, the speed of it leaving her unsure of whether he meant to smirk or grimace. “You have business on Nar Shadaa, and I have certain...interests that need tending there.” “So you decided to catch a ride. Without asking.” “You would have refused even if I had offered compensation. This is the most expedient method of travel.” Maul’s eyes narrow, attempting to pierce through and determine her intent. “Unless you plan to run in order to spite me.” “I’m not running anywhere.” Ahsoka retorts. “But I’m also not going to spend three whole days in hyperspace...entertaining you.” “Naturally. However, when we are not occupied with tasks and other essentials, you will make good on your promise, my Lady. Now please, sit.” She takes up residence in the navigator’s seat, given that he’s obviously not willing to move. “I told you to stop calling me that.”

“What does it matter, if you are not truly mine? Just a monster’s delusion. Unless...”

“Don’t. Start. You can use either of my names. Just not...that.” “As you wish.”

Nothing else is said for some time. Even after the ship takes off, the course is set in, and space has blurred into blue lines, there are other responsibilities that need to be taken care of. Ahsoka has to stop herself from dragging out the time. She’s not looking forward to this. The discussion she needs to have with him, not what might happen afterward.

“Look, if this is going to continue, there need to be some ground rules.”

“Explain.”

“First off: Unless I’m badly injured or in immediate danger, you’re not allowed to just...carry me back to your lair, no matter what your reasons are.” He’s more than capable of coming up with a multitude of excuses to do so. Which is why she’s cutting him off at the knees, figuratively speaking. “Second: This arrangement doesn’t interfere with work. Ever. Third: I decide when anything starts. You’re not allowed to grab or molest me in any way before that.”

Maul appears mildly amused, but the small tics that betray his impatience are growing. “This seems rather excessive for a casual arrangement.”

Ahsoka pins him in place with a look and a hint of a Force hold. “I’m not finished. Fourth: Any marks left behind have to be concealable.” She’d walk away from this ‘business trip’ with more visible punctures in her than being dropped into a giant cacti forest on Yavin 13 otherwise. “Fifth: No matter how far along we are, if I say ‘kyber’, we stop what we’re doing. No questions, no persuasion, nothing. If you don’t have a safeword, then pick one and tell me.”

“Is ‘stop’ somehow inadequate?” The question is soft as she releases her unseen grasp on him. Even seated, something in him reminds her of a hunter in the moment before a kill; tense with anticipation and bloodthirst. “No.” She wets her lower lip. There’s no going back from this confession, hard as it had been for her to admit it to herself. Much less him. “When I use ‘stop’, it usually means ‘go harder’.”

Maul’s grip is practically throttling the armrest at this point. He is trying, from the shudder in his breath, to follow the rules she’s set out so far. That’s a good sign. His eyes, though? There’s a flicker in them that she used to see from the people she’d helped or rescued during the war. The ones who fully believed that the Jedi were capable of miracles and could do no wrong. A kind of...awe. Achingly soft, and in his case, almost buried beneath avarice and raw desire. She fights the urge to squirm, and it’s not entirely from discomfort. “Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“Good, ‘scimitar’ should suffice. I have some conditions of my own.” Every word is a caress, heavy and deliberate. “You are, of course, free to object.” He produces the blindfold she’d given him from within his shirt. She remembers exactly how he’d taken her apart; bound by choice and utterly enthralled. “So long as you wear this, you will obey.” Maul purrs, heat suffusing her body as he winds and pulls the fabric taut between his fingers. “I’m not going to call you ‘Master’.” Ahsoka is certain he’d like almost nothing more. She gets far too much pleasure out of denying him, however. So he’ll have to earn it first.

“Yet.” Maul responds, overconfident ass that he is. “I have no desire for you to dull your tongue. But you will submit to my commands.” He leans in, nearly closing the gap between them, but not quite. “Such as if I tell you to get down on your knees and show me how you pleasure yourself.” He’s only saying it to provide an example, yet her thighs rub together all the same at the thought. Sightless, her cunt exposed and dripping while he watches, giving obscene praise and instructions on how to bring herself to orgasm.

“Should you want to take control, all you need do is remove it. Or ask that it be taken off.” Of course he’s not done yet. Has to finish having his say first, and bring her arousal to a fever-pitch with the only options currently allowed. “Any amount of marks you receive from other paramours, I will match in number, and I will take first priority.” There is a jealous glint, a madness in his eyes that should terrify her. “Regardless of your position and how close your mutual release is.” Ahsoka sucks in a sharp breath. “You really expect me to just...make someone leave while they’re-” “Yes.” Maul snarls, hushed and vicious in a way that brooks no refusal. Much as she might like to, if she does not compromise, give some inch of ground...He will lash out. Ultimately, he’s not asking for much. So far. “And should you draw a weapon on me again-” His left hand circles her jaw without actually making contact, though the intent is clear. “-be prepared to use it.” Her gaze falls to his throat, his markings almost concealing the burn scar she’d given him. But not quite. That he’d chosen to keep it at all is- “Do we have an agreement, Ahsoka Tano?”

A small eternity seems to pass between her indrawn breath and the resulting answer. “Yes.” Ahsoka looks at him again without fear. Straight into the eyes of the monster, the murderer, the tyrant she has and will be taking into her bed for the forseeable future. “Go ahead.” The first kiss is nothing short of a conquest, taken with broken vocalizations and sharp bites. She lets him pull her in, straddling his lap in the pilot’s seat while they break for air, and offering no resistance when he ties the blindfold securely in place. “Undress. Completely.” Softer now, his lips ghosting along her jawline. It takes a bit of effort, but before long she is bared to him, nipples pebbled from arousal, the air, and the cold presence of the Dark Side. The body beneath her, the bare hands that trace and mould her form are nearly white-hot by comparison. “Perfect...Turn around, and place your hands behind my neck.” Ahsoka obeys, shuddering in pleasure as he purrs. The cuffs he attaches to her wrists are made of some kind of leather, and she instinctively tests the give of the metal chain between them. Sturdy, but nothing she can’t break out of.

The position leaves her undeniably exposed and at his mercy. She expects none, yet he grants it anyway. With each stroke, squeeze, and tug of his fingers down her body, he steadily tunes her nerves to exquisite sensitivity. He never quite touches her core, preferring to caress and grip her inner thighs and the curve of her breasts even as she pants and shifts restlessly. She can feel him against her, hard and unyielding, the cloth barrier separating them gradually being saturated with her essence. And still he makes no effort to hurry things along. “I thought you wanted to -haaaaahhhh- punish me for making you wait this long.” “You made a game of testing my patience. It is only fitting that I return the favour. I will keep you here, on the precipice between agony and bliss...Until, in your desperation, you beg me to ‘stop’.” Maul pinches her throbbing bud and she whines an incoherent stream of vowels. “Although...Hm. Your impulsive side is endearing.”

“What are you rambling on ab-AnnnnnH!” He bites down on her shoulder while slightly twisting the bundle of nerves held captive between his digits. She’s bleeding and the pain between her legs is pure torture, but she still wants-

‘I will grant your release early. If you ask to be fucked.” “You can’t be serious.” “Three simple words are all that stand in your way.”

“Why not just order me to say it?”

“Why should I, when you so clearly want to? Despite your self-denial.” There’s no longer anything gentle about his touch, how his nails dig in and rake across her inner thighs while her shoulders and upper back gain a rapidly-growing collection of teeth-marks. His shaft is still there, still covered and rigid, rubbing against her hot and sodden core. Ahsoka is on the verge of sobbing. Or breaking her restraints to just seize what he’s dangling in front of her. But if all it takes is a couple of words...”Please, fuck me.” She whispers, rough from repressing her whimpers.

“Again.” His lips on her throat, feeling the command rumbling against her vocal cords.

She grits her teeth and snarls. “Fuck. Me. Please. You smug, overbearing bastard.” Maul’s fingers curve over and tug her recently-abused pearl, and she is lost, sent tumbling and screaming into the abyss.

Her body is still quivering in the aftermath when he presses in. A slow invasion, one that encounters no resistance until he is fully secured within her walls. At first, she thinks he just wants her to ride him. Yet before she can start... “I will give you a choice.” Maul’s voice is low enough to feel in her bones. “If you can keep relatively still for fifteen minutes, you will be taken against the control panel. And if you are very good, Ahsoka-” Her name on his lips is electric and scandalous, her body arching as if pulled by unseen strings. “-I will get down on my knees and devour you first.” She should never have given him permission to use it in the first place. His other...’endearments’ are easy to brush off. Somehow, hearing those three syllables in this moment is more intimate than having him inside her, feeling the incremental shifts between their bodies with each breath.

Ahsoka raises herself up, almost to the point of letting his shaft slip out, then drops back down. She can feel him hiss, how his hips jolt up on instinct once before he stops himself. “Mmmm. Think your other option is bad enough to stop me from putting this to better use?” She’s teasing now, circling and rolling her hips in a way that takes him deep, but not all the way in again. Having Maul relatively immobile is a new experience. Even when he’s not being rough, he’s hardly still. It probably won’t last, but so long as his patience holds out...Using him like a sex toy is doing a lot to rev her up right now. He seizes her head-tail and pulls, bending Ahsoka’s neck back at an uncomfortable angle, free hand grasping one of her thighs to force a stop to her movements. “Keep this up and I assure you, ja’ti mirtis{my death}, you will not enjoy sitting when I am done with you.” Maul rasps, his mouth so close to her left montral that she can feel his lips brushing against it with every word. Her core trembles, breath coming in short, sharp pants. “I wonder which would bring you more pleasure? Being bent over the edge of your cot to be mounted and used...Or disciplined until that option becomes a mercy?” Something like insanity seizes her. It’s the only explanation for what she says next. “Both.” Ahsoka breathes. “I want-Take these off, please.” The light is harsh for the few seconds it takes her eyes to adjust, wrists slightly chafed from the cuffs as she carefully turns to face him. “I need both.” Her hands gently circle his face. “Can you do that? Get me ready with your mouth, and take me nice and slow right here?” He seems transfixed, almost unable to believe the words falling from her lips. “Think of how wet I’ll be, when you’ve finished your ‘discipline’ and I’m just aching to be ruined.” Ahsoka can taste the hunger when he captures her mouth, how similar it is to her own. Her nails claw at his shoulderblades, seeking purchase, to bury herself in him, anything. “Yes, Ahsoka.” Maul whispers, between their lips meeting in repeated, feverish collisions. “You have only to ask.” (A/N: Some of you may have noticed a slight change in the numbers up top. So yes, there will be one more chapter to this particular story. 8D Cheers, everyone!)

#maulsoka #ns.fw #this might just be the kinkiest thing i've written so far #time will tell though lol

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leupagus · 4 years

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Prompt!

OK so somehow I fucked up the reply (I have no idea how, but the readmore somehow went into the ask itself? I don’t know? Tumblr sucks?) but @melayneseahawk asked for:

Hope you don’t mind — I wrote this as an excerpt from the Trash Fire Jesus ‘verse, set a few weeks before [spoilers]Poe’s daring rescue of Luke from the hands of the evil Wookie.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Luke mutters.

“That’s because you’re a crotchety old man with no sense of adventure,” Poe chirps at him over the intercom; when Luke looks over at the next A-Wing, he can faintly see the flash of a grin and a hand, waving.

YOU TWO ARE A MENACE, Artoo chimes in over the text-interface. Luke is inclined to agree, but it’s just past dawn and he’s not inclined to blame anyone but Leia for his conduct right now. The third-years are in the middle of their final flight tests; Luke has once again been dragged into “volunteering” to be target practice. He’s stumbled into the hanger this morning only to be confronted by the most evil trio known to the galaxy: his droid, his sister, and Poe, all far too cheerful for this hour.

“Let’s get this over with,” Luke says, even as he can sense Leia’s amusement as a soft scrub against his mind, irritating the way it always is when she’s laughing at him. “Is the course ready?”

“Yes, Commander,” Leia says over the intercom, bland and deferential. “You’ll be the enemy ship, Dameron’s job is to get an incapacitating hit within two laps.”

“Isn’t Nien usually overseeing these tests?” Luke asks. “Why are you in charge of this one?”

“Rank favoritism,” Leia says. Poe laughs, bright and carefree.

There’s part of Luke that wants to shake him; make him understand that this isn’t a time for laughter, for being carefree. But Poe understands, better than most; understands in the death of his mother and the drumbeat of his training that one day all of this will be real, that the stakes won’t be a passing grade but another day alive, another enemy dead. Luke grew up with the certainty of the Empire even while the Rebellion grew in whispers on the perimeter, but Poe has lived his whole live with the understanding of the war that gave birth to him and the wars that were coming, implacable and merciless. Luke has nothing to teach, here.

But he has something to teach up there.

“Last one around the Polar Moon is a womprat,” he says, and takes off, Artoo grumbling at the g-force slamming them back; Poe swears and on the screen, Luke can see the green dot of a friendly just behind him. “Did you say something, Poe?”

“Is your hearing getting worse?” Poe asks, his voice a little tense. They’ve already cleared atmo and dodge past the satellites (and various debris that encircles any planet inhabited by people for more than a few decades), heading into the first obstacle. Luke slams to a stop and pivots to the right, Poe’s A-wing screaming past him with another curse in his ear and the artificial doppler whine of the ship’s sensors.

“Well, you know how us crotchety old men can be,” Luke says, making a beeline for the obstacle — a slowly-spinning asteroid, a hole in its center that can be easily threaded, provided you’re not under pressure from being chased (or chasing) an enemy ship. They’ve lost more than one training A-wing to this thing, but fortunately no one’s crashed badly enough to get more than a broken leg. Luke tosses Artoo the calculations and he chimes back with a timing sequence, and they make it through unscathed.

His victory is short-lived; the green dot on his radar indicates that Poe got through it too, and is coming at him. “I swear to God, Luke, if you pull that hitch-and-ditch again—”

“What, you mean this?” Luke asks, this time flipping up so that Poe careens past over Luke’s head. It’s much too fast, but Luke suspects Poe’s making a rude gesture even while he swears again. “Do you get points off for vulgar language?” he asks mildly.

“No, otherwise you’d have failed every course you ever took,” Leia chimes in. “Are you two done?”

“Just give me a minute to blow up your brother,” Poe grumbles.

“I’m not even responding to that,” Leia says, sighing.

Luke’s been dragooned into these races more times than he can count since landing on Yavin, but this is the first time he’s lost himself in the give and take of the ship, actually enjoyed it, riling Poe up and dodging his attacks. They fly around the Destroyer (actually a derelict frigate that’s been in a deteriorating orbit around Yavin for the better part of a decade), and in through a holographic asteroid field that would ping any collisions — vastly preferable to blowing up a ship — before heading down to the Polar Moon’s surface, where Luke’s expected to lead Poe on a merry chase through the ice canyons. It’s his least favorite part; to this day he has a dread of ice planets, or anywhere with bitter cold and snow; he still remembers that awful summer on Hoth, half-dead in the blizzard before Han had rescued him.

But before he can get too worried, there’s a slam against the bottom of the ship, jolting him up and over the lip of the canyons. He looks at the radar, but the only green dot is his; Poe is nowhere near him. “Poe? Poe, are you all right?”

“Oh, just fine,” says Poe, cheerful over the intercom. “This weather sucks, though, how about we get out of here?”

And Luke’s A-wing starts to rise up out of the atmosphere, engines sputtering ineffectually against — “Are you absolutely out of your mind?” Luke demands, because Poe is absolutely out of his mind.

“Congratulations, Dameron,” says Leia, dry as a desert. “You’ve managed to be the first pilot to make themselves the means of blowing up the enemy. Usually people try to get themselves not destroyed in the process, but genius clearly can’t be contained.”

“Hey, the test is just that I have to blow you up,” says Poe, and there’s a beeping noise coming from somewhere — from Poe’s intercom, Luke realizes, because Poe’s released the fake “missile” that’s supposed to destroy Luke’s ship. “Didn’t say anything about how.” The beeping crescendos rapidly and ends in a blast, which — thank you, Artoo — his radar belated registers as a hit.

“I cannot believe you,” Luke mutters.

“That hurts, Commander,” says Poe cheerfully. “Would you like me to release the docking clamps?”

In response, Luke concentrates; he could have felt it if he’d been paying attention, but now he can sense Poe’s good-natured calm nearby, the static energy from Artoo, the buzz of both ships flying together. He pinpoints the clench of tension and lets it release; the two ships part, Luke pushing Poe off with a little more Force than strictly necessary.

“That’s cheating!” Poe protests, and continues complaining the entire way home.

#melayneseahawk #promptfest #star wars motherfuckers #ficcage of interest #and the fic that dare not speak its name #I forgot how much I loved writing in this universe #man sexy space adventures that's all I want out of life!

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rebelsofshield · 4 years

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Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall- Review

Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall makes the best of a bad storytelling decision and turns in a refreshingly entertaining, if not entirely successful, young adult novel.

(Review contains minor spoilers)

It’s been several years since Poe’s mother, Shara Bey, passed. Now a young man, the son of two rebellion heroes finds himself yearning for his place in the world and seeking out adventure and high adrenaline experiences. Much to the chagrin of his father, Kes Dameron, Poe has become a bit of a trouble maker on the forest moon of Yavin IV often coming into conflict with local law enforcement. When Poe is presented with a new life in the form of the Spice Runners of Kijimi, he jumps at the chance for an escape from the doldrums of his current life. Along with his new friend Zorii, Poe launches himself full on into a life of crime and in the process sets off the unraveling of a galactic conspiracy.

I think it’s fair to say that the revelations of Poe Dameron’s past in The Rise of Skywalker were an almost universally disliked storytelling decision. Lore hounds were frustrated by the washing away of years’ worth of shows, comics, and novels for a new, confusing backstory. Fans of the character were upset by both the seeming erasure of Poe’s hinted at queerness and also the deeply problematic decision to make the series’ first major Latino hero have a history in drug smuggling. There’s also just the added annoyance that the sequel trilogy’s smart mouthed and cocksure pilot was connected all the more to the specter of Han Solo. No matter how cute Babu Frik proved or how badass Kerri Russell’s Zorii Bliss appeared, almost no one walked out of Kijimi happy.

Alex Segura is saddled with unenviable task of cleaning up the mess. Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall has to find a way to not only fit in this period of the titular character’s life with the existing timeline, but somehow navigate the storytelling minefield the plot twist gave. For what it’s worth, Segura does an admirable enough job with what is given and Free Fall ends up being an enjoyably twisty crime saga that finds joy and pathos despite the fraught nature of its source material.

Segura writes Poe as the sum of all of his parts. He’s a caring and empathetic individual who has little patience for injustice on any level. He also has a wild and restless side to him. Dealing with the grief of losing his mother and wanting to live up to the heroic adventures of both his parents, Poe has a proclivity to launching himself into situations that are over his head but also thinking on his feet for explosive results. It’s a faithful interpretation of the character even if the general feeling of wanderlust that Poe starts the novel with can’t help but feel like well-worn territory for Star Wars protagonists.

As for how Segura manages to tie this all together with the existing material? He more or less tries his best to connect Poe’s childhood to his spice running adventures and eventually setting himself up to join the New Republic at the end. If anything, it’s this final transitionary period that feels the most shortchanged. This is very much the story of Poe’s time with the criminals of Kijimi and isn’t very much interested in whatever connective tissue may come afterwards. It’s a tad frustrating as the novel feels like it ends rather quickly with many potential plot threads and character arcs left dangling.

The Spice Runners themselves are a complicated subject matter. As a veteran writer of crime fiction, Segura’s narrative of different jockeying factions, daring heists and escapes, and the cat and mouse game of galactic cops and robbers is a blast. There are twists a plenty and Segura’s action scenes aren’t afraid of diving into the dirty details of these unsavory individuals.

There’s a bit of confusion however about the Spice Runners themselves. While it’s been firmly established throughout Star Wars canon that spice is a type of drug, Free Fall more or less ignores this idea. The fact that Poe’s allies are part of a major drug smuggling ring is never once brought up. In a way, this avoids the problematic aspects raised by The Rise of Skywalker, but it also leaves a general amount of confusion on the part of the reader. For those unfamiliar with Star Wars canon, it’s not exactly clear what the Spice Runners do besides all manner of various galactic thievery and skullduggery. For the initiated, it just seems odd that Poe would be unaware of this aspect of the organization or that it would never come in conversation. Segura essentially was handed a lose-lose story concept and he opted for the least problematic route even if it would be damaging for the story in the process.

It’s lucky then that the Spice Runner narrative proves so entertaining. This is in no small part due to the presence of Zorrii. Segura makes Zorrii an intriguingly enigmatic young woman that has a past wrapped in secrets and a flexible morality. Her story, primarily told second hand through Poe, carries much of the conflict of the narrative and it is thoroughly compelling. In fact, one can’t help but wonder if Free Fall may have been better served by a story that centered on Zorrii in full and featured Poe as a prominent supporting character.

Above all, Free Fall is simply a fun read. It’s filled with small but compelling characters, a crime mystery that proves exciting and surprising, and snappy, witty prose that crackles along with energy. It’s one of the rare Star Wars books that succeeds despite of its source material and not because of it. It will never not be a shame that this was a novel that had to be saddled with the storytelling sins of The Rise of Skywalker, but Segura has made an enjoyable enough adventure out of the mess.

Score: B-

#Star Wars #Star Wars novels #Poe Dameron #Zorii Bliss #Alex Segura #Star Wars Po Dameron: Free Fall #Free Fall #review #reviews #The Rise of Skywalker

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rebelworn · 3 years

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evaan had grown up on holos of the clone wars ; bedtime stories of the heroes who had saved the republic ( only to not live beyond it's fall ) , classroom teachings on tactics & generals , those who had shaped the course of the fight , done what had been right & noble.

even so , she did not recognize anakin skywalker , even when he stood before her.

“ need a hand ? ” fixing ships had always come second to being among the stars , but in peace - time - or the semblance of it - it had come to serve as a point of comfort for the alderaanian. chandrila saw thousands of travelers visiting the world each rotation , which meant plenty of ships for her to fix when she wasn't swooping through the skies or attending yet - another political meeting at leia or breha's insistence.

“ no offense , but your ship looks like shit. ” sharp eyes peer at the damage , paying more mind to the vessel than the figure. “ what happened ? ”

STARTER for @fearlessskywalker with the jedi knight anakin skywalker.

#YAVIN PILOTED ; threads #NOW THIS IS PODRACING ; anakin skywalker dynamic

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treenahasthaal · 5 years

Note

Do you have any headcanons about Luke skywalker? (Just him in general, how he was affected by the OT events, and whatever else you want to share?) I love your take on Luke in all your writings!

Hi, and thanks for the ask and my apologies for not answering earlier.

Firstly, thank you very much for your kind words and I’m thrilled that you like my take on Luke. It means a lot when people like my scribbles.

Do I have any headcanons on Luke?

I’ve been pondering this since this ask appeared and I did actually have to look up what exactly headcanon was - yes, I know it, and yes I understood it, but I never really considered that I had headcanon. That seems a little daft, doesn’t it? Of course I have headcanon.

In no particular order - (and I do believe that some of these are also canon-Luke)

Luke is loyal to a fault. He absolutely will not betray his friends or family or want to let them down. He would prefer to die himself than see them hurt. It’s why he went back to the farm on Tatooine when he and Kenobi found the burned out Sand Crawler despite the danger, it’s also why he left Dagobah and one of the reasons he left the strike squad on Endor (to distract Vader and Palpatine - or so he thought, bless him).

(Therefore, I cannot, ever, accept Rian Johnson’s bitter-Luke, although there are similarities his Luke and my Luke share. However…)

Luke is not a coward. Ever.

Luke would NOT confront (that was the word used by Luke in The Last Jedi) a young Ben Solo in the middle of the night while the boy slept (which to me is cowardly). Luke would go to Ben in daylight and TALK with him. If Ben turned on him, Luke would defend himself, but he would NOT try to kill the boy. That is Han and Leia’s child! (I have a half written scene of this…)

Luke would not run away from issues – no, Luke always runs TO issues. “I can fix this! I can save him!”

I have no issue with Luke being on the Island – not just to hide and die. Luke would have a PURPOSE for being there. A reason, and when his sister called Luke absolutely would respond.

Anyway…

Luke’s good with his hands - like his father. He has an affinity with machines and can fix the unfixable.

He is generally a humble person - although he knows he’s a good pilot. He knows he’s a bloody good pilot and will brag of his exploits when he gets the chance. (I used to bullseye womprats in my T-16 back home…).

He doubts his own skills and abilities – apart from the above. Again a product of a childhood on Tatooine and with an uncle who dampened any aspirations he may have and who gave little praise. (Owen did not mean to be mean – he wanted to protect Luke). Owen loved Luke.

Luke and Beru were close. She let him away with things his Uncle would not have been pleased about.

He didn’t excel at school, although he is very intelligent. He’s a dreamer – remember.

He’s a killer. He knows he’s a killer. He was raised on a ruthless desert planet that takes no prisoners and Luke will not hesitate to kill to defend. He will also kill to eat. (Take note of the shooting of the detention centre guards - Luke seems to be the one to kill first.) I’m not saying he’s blood thirsty – but he can be ruthless.

He vomited after the Battle of Yavin. The enormity of what he did on the Death Star, and too the Death Star, hit and he was as sick as pig. He partied hard and pretended he was fine, but the enormity of what he did and the number he killed hit him hard. It stayed with him his entire life.

Luke is not a virgin by ANH. There was a brief dalliance with a friend of friend in his landspeeder not long after his 18th birthday.

Luke is straight - (although I agree with Mark Hamill that Luke can be whatever fans want him to be. This fan sees him as straight). Luke is a young, hot blooded, male who knows nothing of the Jedi’s tenants of “no attachments.” He attaches a lot after Yavin. (Often to forget what he did and how many died). My head canon also has him having child(ren) from his sowing of wild oats when he was younger. Although it’s not something I’ve ever really written about in my fanfic.

There is a darkness in Luke. A deep darkness. He knows it himself. It’s always been there; when he killed womprats, when he beat Fixer to thread the stone needle in beggars canyon, when he callously grabbed the body of the dead Imperial off the console (ANH) to allow Han in. It was there in ESB (the cave – he being his own worst enemy), it was definitely there in Return of the Jedi and look how glad he was, how satisfied he was, that Jabba didn’t bargain. The Dark side of the Force really, really wants Luke.

If he was to turn, he would be insatiable in ways that Vader is not.

He’s quick to anger, has little patience, and wants everything done yesterday.

Luke mopes. Is prone to thinking too much in quiet moments. He will take responsibility for things that were not his fault. He is prone to depressive feelings – although not enough that it would overcome his sense of loyalty and duty.

Luke doesn’t like to be idle – although his uncle would disagree! Luke needs to be doing something.

He takes on too much. Says “yes,” too often and this is a throwback to having too few friends on Tatooine, to being bullied. He wants to be liked.

Luke likes a good drink – hence the “partied hard,” after Yavin. But he is not predisposed to a dependency.

He grieves hard for his family, for his friends who were killed.

He has his mother’s heart and her sense of justice.

Luke is contradiction – after all he is a Skywalker!

He has an absolutely filthy sense of humour.

He blushes easily.

He loves food…. I mean, OMG LOOK AT THAT STEAK! He eats quickly, stuffs his mouth, and his aunt used to despair at his manners.

He almost died when he was younger after being bitten by a viper.

Joining the Rebellion, climbing the ranks, did give him disciple and helped temper many of his impulses – especially when he had to command men under him and make decisions that would result in deaths – that’s why, like Anakin, he lead from the front. He gained the loyalty of many.

Luke would like (would have liked) a family of his own.

Luke did not stick to the beliefs of the Jedi (or their dress sense – another thing I didn’t like about the ST. Coming from a place where clothing had to be practical I could not understand why Luke would chose to dress in the long robes of the Jedi, and was happy he ditched them when going about his day).

I have probably not covered everything and may come back and add to this list. It’s really funny that in all my years of writing that I have never considered what my own headcanon for Luke is. I just write him. If I can see him, I mean if I can literally see him and hear him in my head, then I can write him. If I don’t see it or hear it then it’s not Luke and I have to re-think things. Does that make sense? I am a visual writer. I describe what I see and sometimes I get a surprise when Luke flips things on me.

I hope I have answered the question.

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andorwhore · 4 years

Text

Saudade - II of VII

Chapter II of VII: Agreement

summary: A year in the life of a rebel with a cause and a rebel in search of one… chapter two: How does a slicer gain the trust of a rebel? They don’t.

author’s note: Wow, long time no post. I’ve been trying to finish the last two chapters of this fic, which have been giving me a lot of trouble, so I haven’t wanted to post anything in the meantime. But I realized how damn long its been since I’ve updated, so time for another chapter!

pairing: Cassian Andor x OC word count: 10,434 (its another doozy lads) rating: T, eventual R warnings: none (yet)

chapter one || chapter two || chapter three || chapter four

[ff.net] [ao3]

Jai Tillian maneuvered around pilots, spies, and fellow technicians as she made her way across the hangar at Yavin 4 headquarters. Over one shoulder was a purse of technical equipment, and in the opposite hand she cradled a datapad close to her chest. Her strides were long and quick as she aimed to get to the east end of the haggar, scheduled to run a diagnostics test on one of the gunships that had recently returned from a mission; apparently the computer wasn’t processing as it should, resulting in multiple issues during its last voyage.

Jai’s whole morning was booked with busy work, jumping from ship to ship, running tests or upgrading software on each one she entered. She fell a little behind schedule during her last test on a corvette, as the pilot was being far too distracting the entire time, and Jai hoped that this next one she had to deal with on the gunship wouldn’t interrupt her focus.

Jai had been with the Alliance for a little over a month, and yet it still seemed odd to say so. She had been accepted in by the council and the other technicians that she had met thus far, had spent nearly every meal sat with Miona, and had been between the control room and the hangar nearly every day learning. Yet it didn’t feel completely real, it felt as if any day now she’d be told play time was over and she’d be sent back to the Ring of Kafrene.

Jai didn’t know entirely what her thoughts were on the matter of the Rebellion versus the Empire, though she wouldn’t dare say so out loud to anyone here. Perhaps she should feel wrong for being with the rebels while trying to confront her own political doubts, should feel as if she were simply faking it to finally experience some new excitement in her life, but she didn’t feel wrong for it. Jai knew she agreed with what the Rebel Alliance was fighting for, she simply didn’t have the same passion and intensity that everyone else seemed to. And there was nothing wrong with lacking fervor in her personality, was there?

Jai had never been a particularly zealous or excitable person. Those that knew her often noted that she had an incredibly relaxed and flat way about her, verging on coming off indifferent and disinterested. It’s how she had always been, not by choice or by force, but simply by nature. She rarely became too passionate, too angry, or too sad. Her anger was perhaps the most easily triggered of the three, after all it was always the easiest emotion for anyone to fall into so long as their buttons were pushed just right, but even then her anger never seemed to come off as aggressive as others’ and it never lasted very long at all.

Maybe from a young age Jai had learned not to invest herself in emotions. Back on the Ring of Kafrene, her life was relatively uneventful, save for the occasions in her youth when she and her siblings got caught causing trouble. Despite the vast array of people that traveled to and lived in the colony, Kafrene was actually quite mundane, being particularly monotonous to a child who’s intellect led her to quickly becoming bored of the people and things around her.

As an adult, that quality in Jai hadn’t changed. It wasn’t that she thought herself too smart or too ambitious for Kafrene, in fact Jai often found herself to be of plain intelligence and of lackluster drive. Kafrene was simply too repetitive and predictable after seventeen years of growing up there. That’s why she could come off nearly cocky about her slicer skills -- codebreaking had become one of the only things that could hold Jai’s interest, and so she came as close as she could to perfecting those skills given her limited resources.

The one thing Jai could say genuinely excited her was building new equipment or upgrading her scramble key in some way. The stimulation and excitement of finally getting a successful result after trial and error of testing out a new piece of tech was virtually unrivaled by anything else. Sure, there was a distinct joy she use to feel with her family in her youth, there was a certain thrill whenever she was working on challenging slicing project, and an undeniable sensation when she, on rare occasions, engaging with someone else sexually, but for Jai nothing really compared to spending hours alone at her messy workbench, fussing with her scramble key until she perfected whatever she was trying to achieve.

Some of that excitement she still felt here on Yavin 4, but the work she was given had yet to be particularly stimulating. As a newbie, Jai was often shadowing other rebels to better understand what the technicians did at base in every relevant department. A number of the techs were trained for field work, but the majority that Jai had been working with so far stayed behind at headquarters, putting their skills towards encryption and decryption, repairs and upgrades. Jai had made it known that she’d be interested in training as a field tech, but it seemed that she may not get the opportunity yet, as no one she spoke to showed much enthusiasm for the idea. Jai hoped that she didn’t grow bored too quickly -- she was far too tired of constantly becoming bored by things, and she hoped being with the Rebellion would supply her with the stimulation she needed to stay invested.

Jai finished her job on the X4 gunship with relative ease, finding the glitch in the software and quickly remedying the problem. As she exited the ship, she looked down at the datapad to see if she’d gotten any messages about the next ship that needed her attention, but she didn’t receive any. So, she started back toward the main workstation, knowing that surely enough she would be called to something else soon.

As Jai rounded a large freighter a voice called to her to step out of the way, to which she did promptly while looking up. Two other technicians were passing by with a large equipment cart between them, and Jai did a double-take at the content inside.

Was that Cassian Andor’s droid?

As the technicians passed her, Jai asked them to stop, looking at the KX that was currently shut down.

“Shit, he’s seen better days.” She remarked while leaning over the equipment cart -- the droid’s right leg looked as if it were hanging onto his torso by a thread, it's usually pristine metal armor dented, scuffed, and stained, and there was definitely some kind of heavy damage to the back of it’s head, though Jai didn’t reach out to get a better look at it, “What happen here?”

One of the techs shrug, “Hell if we know, Gar’s over there right now trying to figure it out.”

He motioned behind himself with his head, Jai’s eyes following the indicated direction until she finally spotted Cassian and the head tech, Gar, standing just outside of the U-Wing. Jai stepped out of the way, and the two technicians continued to the workroom without saying another word.

Since their meeting and quarrel last month, Jai and Cassian had hardly seen one another, and neither had any intentions to approach first. The day he’d found her on his ship was still rather clear in Jai’s head; when she recalled the way he was very nearly kind to her, she was puzzled, especially given that after that he’d only been dismissive and even rude. Jai had heard a lot of good things about Cassian, heard other rebels sing his praise with admiration. Jai could tell he was a good man with good intentions; but, she pieced together quickly, he was incredibly passionate, and in that way, the two were a stark contrast. Perhaps even that first day they met Cassian could sense her general indifference towards everything, even as she sat on the floor of his ship with a gunshot wound in her stomach.

Maybe that was why he’d been so adamant that there was no place for her in the Rebellion. He was aggressively passionate, and she was aggressively impassive.

There was no reason for either to consider resolving their dispute from those first couple of days -- they worked different departments, Cassian was often away on jobs, and Jai was still too new to the Rebellion to be given any work of value. Their paths weren’t meant to cross again any time soon, and yet, something told Jai she was supposed to see K-2SO and, as a result, go looking for the droid’s partner.

Jai stayed planted where she stood, observant eyes watching the conversation going on between Cassian and Gar as a pair of agents stepped off of Cassian’s ship behind them. Jai could tell even from here that Cassian was exasperated, the look on his face and the upset way he moved his arms being a dead giveaway. Jai tilted her head slightly as she studied him -- did Cassian make a habit of going off on people like this?

No, Jai recognized quickly that he wasn’t yelling at Gar, nor did it seem that his anger was even directed to the other man. He was upset about whatever the hell happened to K-2SO.

For a couple of seconds, Jai didn’t even realize she was walking toward the pair, seemingly pulled by some curious invisible thread. And once she became aware of what she was doing she didn’t hesitate or pause to consider what exactly she intended to do once she got there. She was curious about what happened to the droid, and she was still holding onto some of that curiosity about the captain as well.

Jai was finally within earshot of the pair, though still far enough away that Cassian had yet to take notice of her.

“I’m supposed to be in Dennaskar by tomorrow, I need Kay with me.” Cassian insisted, and now that she was closer Jai could recognize that it wasn’t just upset in his expression, but also worry and concern for the droid, “Gar, is there any way you can speed up the repairs?”

Gar shook his head, “Cassian, this is at least a two day repair job, and that’s not even considering any work we may need to do if there’s been any serious damage to his software.”

Jai stole a glance back toward the techs’ workbench, spotting K-2SO being brought back into the workshop where more serious repairs were handled. She turned forward again and walked the short distance to the men, Gar spotting her first as she began to speak.

“So, what the hell happened to him?” She asked casually while jerking her thumb in the direction the droid disappeared in, looking between the men briefly before her eyes settled on Cassian. His expression seemed to harden just a little, which didn’t go unnoticed by Jai; so, he was still holding onto some kind of grudge against her.

“Ran into some hostiles on a job.” Cassian answered simply, knowing there wasn’t need to elaborate. Despite the fact that there were four other rebels with him and Kay on that mission, somehow they were still unprepared. At least no one was seriously injured aside from the droid. Cassian looked back to Gar, “You’re certain it’ll take two days?”

“Or more.”

“Could be three if that damage to his head is as bad as it looks.” Jai added, and, though it was subtle, both men looked at her as if her contribution was unwanted.

“Great…” Cassian muttered while crossing his arms. He looked away from the technicians, taking a deep breath as his eyes searched the hangar as if somewhere there was an answer to a question that he hadn’t even asked. Jai watched with a slight tilt to her head before turning her focus back over to Gar.

“I can help with K-2, if you need it.” She offered, interested to see what made the reprogrammed Imperial droid tick, “I haven’t done a lot of droid work, but if you need an extra hand I’d love to see what you’re doing.”

Gar was considered the resident droid expert, among other things, who trained all of the newbies that showed any interest in droid mechanics. He could handle both the external repairs as well as internal repairs in droids’ chips, dataframes, and keys, and he did so better than anyone else in the Alliance.

To Jai’s suggestion, he shook his head, answering dismissively, “My team’s good right now, Tillian.” She gave an accepting nod, though she was mildly disappointed by the answer. As Jai started to look down, she noticed that Cassian had returned his eyes to her watchfully, “I need to get started on Kay; I’ll ask around, see who can go with you to Dennaskar.”

“No one is as good as Kay.” Cassian replied matter-of-factly, and Gar’s expression suggested he thought the same, though he made no sound of agreement.

“You know you can’t do the job alone.”

Cassian knew that to be true, but there was no need to verbalize that. With one last look between the captain and Jai, Gar turned and began in the direction of his workshop.

Jai felt a sinking feeling in her stomach almost immediately, realizing she was standing here with Cassian on her own. Despite all the activity going on around them in the hangar, it felt as if there was some kind of bubble muting out all of the outside noise; Jai’s back became a little stiff as she immediately felt a tension grow between them.

“Where’s Dennaskar?” She asked simply as she looked past Cassian and toward his ship, assessing its appearance -- whatever troubles they had encountered on their last mission luckily hadn’t reached his ship, or the damage was so minor that Jai didn’t notice it.

“Mid Rim, Manda Sector.” Cassian answered, his tone flat and indifferent towards her, knowing there was no need for aggression; something about Jai may still have rubbed him the wrong way, but he’d gotten past any of the upset he had towards her, at least for the moment.

“And what’s there?” Jai’s tone, too, sounded somewhat detached; despite being able to get under her skin, Cassian also seemed to have this ability to make her nervous without doing a damned thing. For a few long, stiff moments he didn’t reply -- the tension was slowly growing thicker.

Cassian spun on his heel to face his ship, looking up at it with his arms crossed for a few seconds longer, “There’s a lab that supplies the Empire with vehicles and weapons. Kay was supposed to go in and steal data about their recent supply; now I have to figure out another way to get the information without him.”

Cassian started walking back toward his ship, and with a furrow of her brow, Jai followed just a couple steps behind.

Stealing data? Jai could do that in her sleep; she knew a number of other technicians here could do the exact same thing. She could see the advantage of sending K-2SO in to take care of it, given that he was a droid and could probably blend in with the rest of the Imperial security team at this laboratory, but Cassian could still get the job done if he brought in a well-rounded technician. Or…

“Sounds like you could use a slicer.” Jai’s tone finally sounded eager with suggestion, and Cassian faltered only a half-step before continuing, his head tilting slightly in her direction curiously. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what she was suggesting, and Cassian scoffed at the idea of it.

“If you’re suggesting I take you, the answer is no.” Cassian spoke firmly and nearly mocking while stepping into his U-Wing, looking at the supplies that were left behind by the rest of his team. Jai paused to lean in the doorframe, crossing her arms as her brow furrowed slightly. When Cassian looked back toward her, his eyes were authoritative and dismissive. Without saying a word, he made it quite clear he didn’t trust Jai.

She shrugged her shoulders while rolling her eyes, “And why not? You need a good tech person, and I need field training.”

“I’m not here to train some careless slicer.” Cassian’s condescending tone caused Jai’s eyes to harden as she sucked in her cheeks in annoyance. What was it about this captain that managed to upset her far too easily?

Cassian turned his back to her again, picking up the supply bag left on the floor before brushing past Jai and walking across the hangar. Once again, Jai was right on his heels.

Jai continued in an accusatory tone, “What’s your problem with me?” Cassian barely spared a glance back at her, “Is it the fact that I’m a slicer? Or because I talk back to you? Or are you just bitter that I’m here?”

Cassian’s eyes hardened as he scoffed at her again, “You tried to steal from me, you broke into private files about me, you joined this Rebellion because you were bored, and you continue to show very little interest in the cause you’re here for.”

Jai huffed as they reached a supply table, her lips pulling back in an unamused sneer. Cassian dropped his bag a little too roughly atop the table as he looked to see what he needed to stock up on, “I think you’re just intent on not liking me.”

“And if I am?” He questioned, looking at her briefly with judgmental eyes, “Why does it matter to you?”

The faintest of smirks seemed to ghost over Cassian’s lips, as if pleased that he turned this back around on Jai, who was currently staring at him with an expression that suggested she herself was mulling over that exact question. Cassian silently returned to filling the bag before slinging it over his shoulder and beginning to retreat back to his U-Wing, thinking he’d put a pause to Jai’s pursuit.

“Andor!” He heard from behind him less than a minute later. His steps nearly stuttered, sighing while his eyes rolled back into his head in annoyance -- it looked like Jai was a little more stubborn than he’d given her credit for. Cassian heard her footsteps jogging up behind him, and he refused to look down at her once she’d reached his side, “Look, just set aside whatever this issue is and take me to Dennaskar.”

Cassian was tempted to question her, but kept his mouth shut while continuing to his ship. He could feel Jai looking up at him expectantly, but he kept his eyes forward.

“How many other techs do you know that could do the job properly? You were gonna have K-2 hack into their computers and download information, right? I can do that, my tools work nearly as quick as a droid can, sometimes even quicker.”

Cassian continued to bite his tongue. But apparently Jai didn’t take well to that, because after a few moments she quickly stepped up in front of him, eyes hardening with resolve.

“Don’t ignore me.” Cassian’s brows rose in surprise at her tone, but the rest of his expression made no show of the reaction.

“Would you rather we go on arguing?” He countered.

“Please let me do the job -- no one here is willing to give me decent jobs because they still see me as a newbie.”

“Because you are.” Cassian replied firmly, “Being good with computers does not automatically mean they’ll throw you into complex jobs -- you have to work your way up. You’d know how that works if you’d ever had a real job.”

Jai was ready to argue back, but managed to stop herself and take a deep breath, trying to calm down the upset that had begun to rise in her. Her tone was calm again as she spoke, “I’ll have you know, I did have a real job.”

Cassian’s face unexpectedly pulled into a look of amusement, though there was mockery to it and doubt in his tone, “Really?”

“Yes.” Jai replied simply, putting no effort into trying to convince the captain, knowing it to be a pointless endeavor. Cassian gave a slight hum before stepping around her and continuing the short trek to his U-Wing. As he expected, he could hear Jai behind him, “You said you need to be in Dennaskar by tomorrow -- if you take me, you don’t have to worry about being behind schedule because you had to find someone. Just take me on this one job, and you’ll never have to deal with me again.”

Cassian replaced his supply bag to where it belonged, turning around to look at Jai as he crossed his arms. One of his brows was raised as he stared into her face -- this was fascinating. He didn’t expect Jai to show such an interest in anything given her track record. Despite the fact that Cassian had avoided interacting with Jai since her arrival here, he nonetheless had asked about her on occasion, curious to hear about this slicer that was so obviously misplaced in the Rebellion. He asked that tech friend of hers, Abe, about how she acted and he asked Gar how she performed -- Cassian interpreted from both responses that she was indifferent to this job. She never seemed to discuss the cause with anyone, even if someone asked her about it, and she seemed to approach her assignments with boredom. Maybe Abe and Gar misinterpreted her, or maybe it was Cassian that misinterpreted their descriptions. Either way, the insistence Jai showed to be a part of this mission opposed the profile Cassian had been building on her in his head.

Maybe she was more invested in the cause than she let on. Maybe she was just bored out of her mind here on base.

“Why do you want to go?” Cassian finally asked, though he no longer spoke with venom or mockery. His question came across curious and, dare Jai say, actually interested to hear what kind of answer she’d give him. Even his expression lost some of it’s harshness as he awaited her reply. And it was as if that change in his tone allowed some of Jai’s tension to dispel, because she was suddenly able to think a little more calmly and slowly, to actually consider for herself why she wanted to go on this mission.

She was quiet for a little while, arms hanging at her sides as she tried to find the right words, “I need to prove myself.” Cassian’s brows briefly rose as a silent instruction to continue, his interest still held, “The only way these people will take me seriously is if I do a field mission. No one wants to give me anything more than busy work because they doubt what I can do.”

“And do you?” Jai gave him a confused look at the question that sprung from his lips, “Doubt yourself?”

Jai laughed through her nose as she smirked, answering surely, “No.”

Cassian gave a single nod, uncrossing his arms as he turned toward the steps into the cockpit, though he didn’t make a move to ascend them just yet. He stood paused in consideration, looking down at the floor while mulling over Jai’s explanation. The young technician stared at him patiently, though she was certain he’d tell her any second now to go back up to the control room to fuss with her computers.

“Get whatever you need.” Cassian finally spoke, looking back to Jai, “Tell Gar where you’re going, and be back here in half an hour.”

Jai’s eyes grew large and alight with excitement, her mouth pulling into a small, surprised smile -- Cassian nearly made a face at the expression, not expecting such an obvious reaction from this woman who was either irritatingly neutral or simply angry. Jai gave a nod and spun on her heel quickly, barely refraining from running across the hangar toward the turbolift.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Jai sat in the U-Wing’s copilot seat, her legs pulled up for her heels to rest on the edge of the chair, using her knees as a place to hold her datapad. She was reading up on Dennaskar and the Santhe Corporations laboratory, digging through all the data the Alliance had collected on them. In the seat beside her, Cassian’s eyes seemed entirely focused on the vast space around them, his expression giving away nothing to his thoughts on their mission or on the woman that tagged along with him. The only tell that he was not entirely invested in his new mission partner was the way his lips looked to be tight with tension.

Not far from the Santhe lab was the city of Juspus, which housed the planet’s largest starport. Cassian informed Jai that he had a contact in Juspus that would meet him at the port to supply them with Santhe uniforms and a secure way to get into the lab; Jai, having grown up learning to be wary of others, found herself wondering if the contact was someone they could trust, but she refrained from vocalizing her doubts.

“What data am I looking for when we get there?” Jai asked as she continued to slide through the information on her screen.

“Santhe rolled out a new series of gunships for the Empire recently, but we think that may have been a cover for something.”

“And what makes us think that?” Jai rolled her head lazily on the head rest to glance at Cassian.

Upon feeling her eyes watching him, Cassian briefly looked back at Jai, “Santhe is the Empire’s largest supplier of ships and weapons. On a recent mission another captain got word that the Empire may be working on something new unlike any of their usual weapons -- if that’s the case, Santhe is almost surely involved.”

Jai pushed out her chin slightly as she mulled over his reply before looking back down to her datapad, “So, you want to get your hands on all the files relating to their newest series to see if there’s information hidden in them.” Her brows knit together as she considered that, “What if we just… took all of Santhe’s data?”

Confusion pulled at Cassian’s brow as he turned his eyes to the woman again, looking for clarification, “All of it?”

She gave a brief nod while meeting Cassian’s eyes again, “If they have something to do with a new secret weapon, what makes you think that information is solely disguised or hidden in their recent gunship files? It could be somewhere else in their database. And I doubt we’ll have the time to sift through all of the information while we’re there, it’s too risky to waste that kind of time, so what if we just download all of it to my drive?”

Cassian stared at her quietly for a few moments -- he was nearly begrudging to admit it was a good idea. If he had Kay with him, Cassian knew the droid would have been able to latch onto the appropriate information in Santhe’s system and get out of there quickly. Cassian hadn’t yet considered that even a talented slicer couldn’t perform that task the way a droid could.

“You think you can do that? And quickly?” He questioned, sounding hopeful, maybe even eager about her plan.

“I can do it, I just need you to make sure I have the time.” There was a seriousness in Jai’s eyes that Cassian hadn’t seen before, though really his two previous encounters with her weren’t much of a basis for comparison. He was sure Jai wanted to look knowing in her seriousness, but Cassian could tell it was worry that he saw hidden in her gaze, “They have to have an archive computer of some kind, and where there’s an archive there’s someone managing it. I need you to keep them occupied long enough for me to get into their system and copy everything out of the archive and to my drive.”

“You sound like you’ve done this before.” Cassian’s eyes narrowed, wondering what kind of jobs Jai had done back on Kafrene to give her this kind of thoughtfulness.

Jai shook her head quickly, “Nothing even remotely close to this, I just know a guy who knows a guy.”

Cassian doubted it was worth asking her to elaborate, not that he cared much for the details to begin with. He turned his eyes forward again as Jai continued to plan out the specifics of the next few hours. Occasionally she chimed up to ask Cassian a question about the lab or this contact he had on Dennaskar, but otherwise the two remained in a tense silence.

As they were finally nearing Dennaskar’s starport, Cassian reached out to his contact so they could meet and collect the disguises and building access. He instructed Jai to stay back on the ship, not wanting his contact to be exposed to any more rebels than necessary just in case the man ever felt enticed to turn against them. Once Cassian had left, Jai continued to occupy herself with more planning and speculation for the mission.

She wouldn’t dare admit she was nervous -- the last thing she needed was for Cassian to know. There were a million ways this job could go south, and if she vocalized any of those doubts, Jai was sure she’d trip herself up somewhere along the way and their efforts would be wasted. She knew she could do what the job required of her -- she had the equipment and the confidence in her expertise as a slicer, and navigating foreign computers was certainly not any reason to doubt her skills. But going into a massive Empire affiliated lab where they were severely outnumbered was a terrifying thought, to put it mildly.

“Maybe we need a speeder… should we have put someone at base on standby…” Jai mumbled to herself to try to keep her anxiety at bay. She continued to mutter both useful and not-so-useful thoughts to keep herself distracted as she fiddled with her scramble key.

From her seat in the cockpit, Jai’s eyes slowly slid across the expanse of the port, studying the hundreds of ships and people thoughtfully, counting each time she spotted a stormtrooper. There weren’t many to be found, though that didn’t mean they weren’t lurking around somewhere; Jai wondered just how many there were at the Santhe lab, and if they were smart enough to sniff out rebels in disguise.

Behind her, the hatch door opened again, Jai turning to sit at an angle so she could lean forward and look at Cassian. The bag that he had thrown over his shoulder prior to leaving the ship was now fuller than it had been before, obviously stuffed with the uniforms he borrowed. As he closed the door behind him, Cassian looked up at Jai briefly while setting the bag down on one of the collapsable seats, beginning to pull out the articles of clothing with that same unreadable expression etched across his face that he’d had the entire flight.

“Come on, we have to be quick.” Cassian started as he held up one of the shirts to see if it was his size or Jai’s. The slicer hopped to her feet and joined him, taking the shirt that he absently held out to her with one hand as his other continued to sort out the clothes, “Most of the staff is only on base for another couple of hours -- it’s better to go in while the place is packed with employees than to wait till later when security is more alert.”

Jai nodded, though she knew Cassian didn’t see it as he shrugged out of his vest, dropping it onto one of the seats. She followed suit, pulling off her jacket and setting it aside, glancing back at Cassian as he started to undo his shirt as well. Jai’s eyes widened some with a tinge of interest -- sure, she had seen a few people strip in front of her in the past, but it was not something treated so casually nor was it something she was all that accustomed to. Cassian didn’t even seem to give it a second thought, and before he could show too much skin Jai turned so her shoulder was toward him, dropping her head down as she too tugged at her own shirt.

As she reached to scoop up the white Santhe shirt off the chair, Jai’s eyes pulled back to Cassian, looking him up and down with a look somewhere between curiosity and sheepishness, her stare lingering on his shoulders and then his lat muscles before they were covered by his new shirt. Feeling her cheeks redden, Jai turned away again before Cassian could notice her stare, picking up her pace.

Cassian, accustomed to being in close quarters with other soldiers, didn’t even consider whether or not Jai herself would be so comfortable with them changing in front of one another, and the thought continued to evade him when he turned back toward her as she was buckling her trousers. He paid almost no mind to the flash of her stomach that he got, only staring at her a moment before grabbing up his blaster and a couple of small tools from his discarded clothes.

Once she was situated in the uniform, Jai climbed back up into the cockpit to grab her tool bag, digging out her datapad and scramble key, knowing that she couldn’t bring the entire bag with her. As she tucked the datapad into the back of her pants, Jai considered what else she might need, stealing another look towards Cassian as if he could read her mind and tell her; the man simply stared back with slight impatience. She decided that she had all she needed, so she dropped her bag with the rest of their belongings and put the scramble key in one of her pockets.

Just before they stepped off of the ship, Cassian grabbed a second blaster and held it out to Jai, whose stare lingered on the weapon for a couple of moments before she slowly took it from his grasp.

“What, no weapons training yet?” He condescended, to which Jai shook her head with a glare, “Can’t shoot and can’t fly…”

‘Maybe I shouldn’t have brought you on this mission, after all.’ Jai was sure Cassian wanted to say.

“And you can’t slice.” She bit back dismissively, breezing past Cassian and out of the ship. He scowled at the back of Jai’s head for a moment before following her out and leading the way through the port.

Cassian’s contact left an indiscript speeder for them to get up to the lab, but nothing else beyond that -- once they got to that front gate, the rest was up to them.

It was simple enough for Jai to bypass the security gate without an access card, and once through the gate they could walk into Santhe Labs without any trouble. Once inside, however, they had to figure out where they were going, seeing as there wasn’t exactly a map of the place just sitting around for them -- Cassian hadn’t prepared for someone to take K-2SO’s place, as the droid was supposed to lead the way through the lab.

“What, you didn’t think to try to get floor plans before coming here?” Jai reprimanded through her teeth, hoping to avoid drawing any attention as they passed Santhe employees; so far, no one seemed to bat an eye at them.

“You didn’t think to either.” Cassian retorted.

“You’d lead a woman to think this was your first mission…” The pair turned their dark eyes on one another at the exact same moment, glowering.

“Up until a few hours ago I thought I’d have Kay with me to navigate the building.”

Jai hummed in annoyance while looking away from him, quickly stepping into a hall just as they nearly passed it. Cassian had to turn on his heel to follow her, the two ducking into an empty part of the hallway so Jai could snatch her datapad from where it was tucked in her waistband. She started tapping on it a little too roughly, an obvious passive aggressive gesture as she glanced up at Cassian while she did so. He quirked a challenging brow at Jai before she turned back to her screen, Cassian looking up and down the hall to ensure they continued to remain inconspicuous.

Eventually, Jai began leading the way through the halls again, her expression resolute as she avoided sparing Cassian a glance. The two went and boarded a turbolift that they fortunately had all to themselves. Cassian had expected another long stretch of rigid silence, but as soon as the doors were closed Jai began speaking, continuing to avoid looking toward him.

“Once we’re in the archives, I need you to do exactly what I ask, or else this won’t work.” Her tone was hawkish, unexpectedly stern and authoritative, “I’ll make sure we get the data, you make sure we get out of here in one piece.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

They weren’t going to get out of here in one piece.

Jai got all of the information they needed, and Cassian had been the perfect distraction just like she asked him to be. They strolled on out of the building without any issues and climbed back into their borrowed speeder, ready to head back to Yavin 4 with their new data and their confidence well intact.

But then they passed through the gates to exit Santhe Labs, and trouble was there waiting for them.

They found themselves confronted by a wall of stormtroopers, all ready to start shooting if the pair didn’t surrender whatever it was that they stole. One of the troopers in the center of the group began to lower his weapon while stepping forward, instructing the rebels to give up their stolen information and surrender. Jai’s eyes widened with worry as she looked back towards Cassian, but the captain looked calm and resolute as he took a few deep breaths through his nose, staring unblinkingly at the Empire troop as the leader began to repeat himself.

Jai wasn’t prepared for just how quickly Cassian sprung into action. He threw his hand on the back of her head and shoved it down to rest atop her knees, slouching down in his own seat as he suddenly sped through the blockade in front of them, roughly knocking down a number of stormtroopers as the rest jumped away from the speeding vehicle.

Almost instantly, blasters started shooting off from what sounded like every direction, ricocheting off of the metal and shattering the thin glass panel that lined the front of the speeder’s cockpit. Jai threw her hands out to either side of her in search of a secure grip, her right latching onto the inner wall of the speeder and the other clamping down on Cassian’s knee. If it weren’t for his state of complete focus, Cassian would have shouted at Jai for digging her nails so deep that she managed to break skin even through the layer of fabric.

After they were out of range of the shots, at least for the time being, Cassian pulled his hand out of Jai’s hair and retrieved his blaster from where it was tucked under his shirt, dropping it into his lap so he could use both hands to maneuver their speeder through the narrow streets of of Juspus. Jai’s head shot back up, eyes wide and jaw slightly agape as she whipped around to look back at the Empire forces they just evaded. She relinquished her grip on both the wall and on Cassian’s thigh as she propped herself on her knees and fumbled to grab her own blaster.

“Did you set off some kind of security in there!?” Cassian accused as he sped past buildings, knowing that any moment now stormtroopers, likely with their own varieties of speeders, would catch up to them.

Jai’s glare jumped toward him, “It was probably your fucking contact that sold us out!”

A barrage of shots sounded behind from down the street, but Cassian managed to whip around a corner and avoid most of them. He steadied out the speeder again as his eyes darted around, trying to spot everywhere the stormtroopers might be waiting for them.

He didn’t have the patience to argue, not right now -- he had to get them back to their ship and off of this planet before it was too late, “Here’s your crash course in using that damned thing!” He spared a glance at Jai so he could point toward her blaster with his chin, “Put that thing on kill setting and don’t hesitate!”

Jai looked warily at the gun in her hands, staring almost dumbly at it for a moment. Another laser flew between them, causing Jai to jump before securing her grip and lifting the blaster up to eye level. She turned in her seat to face behind them, eyes widening as she saw the squad of stormtroopers on their tail and closing in.

“Keep low so you’re a smaller target!” Cassian instructed, “And hold on!”

Jai barely had time to steady herself before Cassian sharply rounded another corner. She sank as low in the seat as she could, her arms resting along the back of the speeder and her eyes level with the weapon. As the stormtroopers rounded the corner behind them, Jai’s finger pressed down on the trigger and she let out a short string of blasts, only managing to land a couple with how unsteady and untrained her aim was. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cassian also take up his blaster, holding it ready to assist her. Every few seconds, Cassian would whip his head back long enough to vaguely line up his shot and pull the trigger a couple of times before returning his attention to the road ahead of them.

Eventually, they made another dramatic sharp turn, but before they could even make sense of the company of stormtroopers waiting there for them, the speeder was hit with a blast, perhaps from a grenade, and the vehicle went flying back as the engine exploded, dumping both passengers out onto the street. The speeder crashed roughly into a nearby wall as thick smoke, dust, and debris filled the air and blinded everyone.

Jai could hear a ringing in her ears as she immediately made to scramble out of the line of fire -- she may not have been a rebel for long, but back on the Ring of Kafrene, she’d been accidentally caught up in her fair share of street fights through the years. Growing up, one learned early on that you had to be quick to run whenever you started hearing shots and blasts echoing through the narrow Kafrene streets.

As Jai flung herself into an alleyway, fumbling with both her blaster and her datapad to ensure she didn’t drop either, the dust from their crash began to settle; she could see that Cassian had the same idea as her, as he had rushed to duck into the alley on the opposite side of the street from her.

For a long moment, none of the stormtroopers moved, and Cassian’s distressed eyes finally spotted Jai across the way from him. The relief that washed over him was immediately obvious -- for a minute there, he was almost sure that something terrible had happened to the rookie. The two stared wide eyed at one another, each breathing rapidly and listening carefully for when the stormtroopers would surely start moving and shooting again any moment now.

Cassian motioned up the street with his head, trying to keep their communication silent. ‘Go,’ he mouthed, Jai’s brows turning down slightly at it. A moment later, Cassian turned on his heels and began running through the alley; Jai immediately jumped to her feet and mirrored him, turning away from the Empire forces and pushing as hard as her legs would allow through the roads and pathways of Juspus.

She had to get back to Cassian. She had to get back to their ship.

Jai could hear the stormtroopers on the move not far behind her, and frantically Jai pumped her legs even harder. Jai dove through a number of short, twisting streets and alleys until she burst out onto a crowded road, whipping her head left and right in panic. She couldn’t spot Cassian or stormtroopers, nor could she hear those Empire soldiers that were pursuing her over the noise of the crowd. Jai realized that the building across from her was a large market, and without a second of hesitation, she darted towards it, hoping the cramped crowd would hide her. As she maneuvered through the Juspus locals and eyed the stalls filled with goods and food, Jai reminisced for a split second that the place reminded her of home.

Jai kept her head ducked down as she slowed her pace and mingled in with the crowd, her eyes searching the various shops for any that looked to have clothes as part of the merchandise -- she knew that she needed to get out of this Santhe uniform if she wanted to blend in and evade the stormtroopers hot on her trail.

‘Don’t fuck up now.’ Jai tried to pep herself up -- she needed to rely on her not-so-impressive thieving skills for this one. She finally spotted a tent stall with various fabrics and articles of clothing and began pushing through the crowd towards it, slinking up alongside the thin fabric wall to avoid the attention of the shopkeep.

Once the owner became distracted with a young couple at the entrance of the stall, Jai reached between the sheets that closed it off on the sides and grabbed at whatever fabric she could get her hands on, not paying much mind to what articles of clothing they even were. She grabbed far more than she needed and quickly dove back into the crowd, eyes searching up and down, left and right for any sign of stormtroopers. Despite the harsh noise of the crowd, Jai was almost sure that she could hear them somewhere around her, but she couldn’t see over the heads of everyone around her. She continued to shove her way forward, spotting another gap between two stalls and making her way towards it, ducking between them and beginning to sift through the variety of fabrics in her arms.

Luckily, there were a couple of shirts amidst the mass of clothing, both of which would surely look more like short kaftans on Jai based on their size. But that issue wasn’t even remotely on her mind as she dragged a dark colored one over her head. There were mostly scarves in the collection that she stole, and speedily she wrapped one around herself and tied it off to create a makeshift pouch for her gun and datapad, and then grabbed another scarf and started wrapping it’s layers around her head, making sure to tuck all of her ashy hair up inside it.

Jai began to relax, if only just a little. She took a few long moments to try to slow down her breathing and her heart rate, but she knew she had to get back out there quickly -- she was terrified to think of what trouble Cassian might be in right now, she had to get back to the ship and hope he managed to get back as well.

Slowly, but no less cautiously, Jai stepped back into the main stretch of the marketplace, looking around herself again for the stormtroopers. A large group of them was in the crowd behind her, and another few were up ahead near another exit, obviously scanning their eyes over the crowd carefully. Jai’s eyes widened slightly as she looked around herself, but couldn’t spot any other exit; had the stormtroopers gotten a good enough look at her face to recognize her if she walked past? She had to get out of this market, meaning she had to risk it and hope for the best.

Jai waited until a sizable mass of people were making for the exit, and she jumped into the middle of them, keeping her head turned down and praying she didn’t draw any kind of attention to herself.

Once she was outside, she breathed a heavy sigh of relief -- they hadn’t noticed her. Jai continued down the street as if she had somewhere important to be and knew exactly where she was going, her eyes remaining ever watchful as she went. Stormtroopers were still going up and down the roads in search of both she and Cassian, and Jai took every step she could to avoid getting too close to any of them.

Where the hell was she? Jai got turned around far too easily in the mass that was Juspus. She looked over the nearby faces on the street around her, carefully studying them to determine who might be safe to ask for directions, if anyone. She continued to hope that any moment now she’d see Cassian’s face appear amongst the crowds.

Eventually, an older gentleman had her turned in the right direction. Jai used as many alleys and side streets as she could so that she wouldn't draw attention to herself when she ran, and whenever she set foot onto a larger road, she abruptly slowed and walked at pace with the pedestrians around her.

Still no sign of Cassian. Despite feeling as if she had safely evaded the stormtroopers, anxiety still pounded in Jai’s chest, worry for her partner increasing with each passing minute.

‘He’s fine, he’s been doing this for two decades.’

‘But he’s all on his own and at an obvious disadvantage.’

‘But you’re alone and you managed just fine.’

‘What if there were more troops that went after him?’

‘He’s probably already back at the ship and waiting for you.’

‘Or he’s already off planet and left you for dead.’

The debate in Jai’s head seemed to grow louder and louder as she got closer to the starport, which she could now see in the distance out ahead of her. She paused and took another long, cautious look around, scanning the streets in every direction to collect a count on the stormtroopers. As she continued to approach the port, she realized a large blockage was waiting near the wide entryway -- had Cassian’s ship been identified? Were more stormtroopers up in the U-Wing and digging through all of their belongings?

Jai took a deep breath and ducked into another alleyway, pulling her datapad out of the makeshift purse and then her scramble key from her pocket, connecting the two so her datapad would work faster. She had to see if there was a second entrance or some other way of getting in.

She still had to find Cassian.

There was a north side entry into the starport. She just had to find her way to it. Did she retreat back into the hub of the city in search of her partner, or did she get herself to the U-Wing and wait for him if he wasn’t already there?

Jai peered back out into the street again as she tried to come to a decision, first looking toward the port, and then in the opposite direction. But she froze as her gaze fell on a familiar face, a sinking feeling dropping in her stomach as her eyes widened.

Cassian.

But he wasn’t alone. A stormtrooper walked on either side of him, escorting the frustrated looking captain in the direction of the starport. Were they going to search the ship? Maybe they were going to escort him off the planet and to somewhere else far worse?

It didn’t matter what they were going to do -- what mattered was that her partner was grabbed, and Jai had to do something about it.

She traded her datapad for her blaster -- there was still a significant distance between them and the port entrances. If Jai could shoot them both down, she and Cassian would have more than enough time to run and make their way to the north entrance while the stormtroopers far down the road chased after them again.

She paused, taking a few steady breaths. Now or never. If they got any closer, the two stormtroopers would spot Jai’s attack and she’d lose the element of surprise.

Jai moved to press her back against the opposite wall, just shy of peeking around the corner. She turned her head slowly and watched the trio for a long moment before raising her blaster, trying to line up her shot.

When she pulled the trigger, the laser missed its target, zooming between Cassian and one of the stormtroopers, barely missing her partner’s head by a few inches. As both troopers immediately looked in Jai’s direction and aimed their own blasters, Cassian took advantage of their distraction, immediately fighting one for his weapon. As the two struggled with the blaster, Cassian secured his hand on the trigger and shot at the second stormtroopers, who collapsed just as he had turned to help fight Cassian. As the first trooper fell, Jai darted out toward her partner, but she kept her weapon lowered, realizing it was far too risky to try to shoot the second stormtrooper with Cassian so close.

The rebel captain managed to finally steal away the blaster and jump back, and practically in sync he and Jai took aim and both shot the trooper. They stood frozen for a moment as they met each other’s gaze, each with a look of relief shining in their eyes as they caught their breath. But they knew they couldn’t linger, and Jai moved towards Cassian with an insistent look.

“Come on.” She latched onto Cassian’s sleeve and started tugging him away into a sidestreet, knowing that the stormtroopers down at the starport entrance had surely seen their fight and would have already begun pursuing them.

Cassian allowed himself to be dragged along for a few moments almost as if he were in a daze before he stole back his arm, both surprised and gratified at how well Jai had done. As Cassian followed behind her through the streets, he stared at the back of her head with pride.

“There’s a second entrance,” Jai began to explain as she paused in a narrow alleyway, Cassian nearly bumping into her with how close he was following. She spun around to meet his eyes, a surprising calm surrounding the two of them, “I think we’ll have a better chance slipping in that way.”

Cassian looked Jai up and down, tilting his head as he finally had the opportunity to take in her change of attire and recognize how smart it was. His eyes shined with a quiet acclaim at her efforts that Jai didn’t quite recognize -- her childhood on Kafrene had taught her something valuable, it would seem.

“Lead the way.” Cassian said with a nod as he, too, decided to shrug off what he could of the Santhe uniform, discarding the formal shirt and being left with just his dark tank top as coverage; for a moment, as Jai eyed his exposed collarbone, she wished she had saved that other tunic for him. But this was better than the obvious, stark white uniform, and after meeting his eyes one more time, Jai motioned with her head for Cassian to follow, and she started leading them through Juspus once more.

Maybe they would be getting out of here in one piece after all.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“Captain Andor, Tillian was not cleared to go on this mission, nor has she been cleared access to leave base for field training yet.” General Draven chastised with severe crossness. Across from him, Cassian and Jai stood side by side, disheveled and covered in dirt, clothing worn and ripped. They’d been back to Yavin 4 for less than ten minutes when the General marched up to them as they were on their way to the turbolift; it appeared that Draven was waiting for them, well prepared to chew them out and make Jai wish she could just shrink away from him and completely disappear.

Despite the nervous drumming in her chest, Jai’s eyes were fixed into the slightest of glares as she watched the General unblinkingly, but the man refused to look at her, his own harsh eyes trained solely on Cassian. Jai kept her lips tightly shut, fearing to even try to speak up to the man; beside her, Cassian stood tall and sure. If he was upset, he kept it well in control, though the fire in his stare gave away the intensity that was just waiting to burst at the seams as he stared back at his commander.

“I asked her to go, and she agreed.” Cassian replied simply, his tone solid and without apology; he knew the fault for the decision fell on him, and he was ready to stand by it.

“You can’t bring a rookie out without consulting me first.” Draven argued just as firmly, taking a step closer to the pair.

Challenge seemed to cross Cassian’s eyes, but he continued to keep himself unapologetically composed, “But I brought a rookie, and she performed beyond my expectations.”

Jai turned her head to look up at her partner, curiosity daring to pull at her expression -- unless she didn’t know any better, that very nearly sounded like a compliment.

“Tillian is a talented slicer,” Cassian continued just as Draven looked like he was ready to argue again, “This job wouldn’t have happened without her… She’s a valuable asset in the field.”

Jai nearly couldn’t believe Cassian was defending her, especially to General Draven. After all, the mission almost ended terribly, and Jai would have expected Cassian to attribute that near failure to her inexperience. But no, instead he stood here unwavering in front of Draven who was less than happy about Cassian’s last minute and risky decision to bring her along. Despite all of the flukes they encountered, Cassian still recognized just how hard Jai had worked on the mission, how hard she pushed to get them off of Dennaskar safely.

General Draven stared harshly at Cassian a few moments longer before his eyes finally flicked down to Jai, who took a sharp breath through her nose as her eyes met his. He only looked at her for a brief yet jarring moment before returning his glare to Cassian one last time. The General stepped back from them, starting to turn away.

“We’ll finish this later; go get yourselves cleaned up.” Without another word, he retreated back toward the turbolifts. As Cassian and Jai stood for a few long moments, she finally noticed that a few other rebels nearby in the hangar had been watching the confrontation curiously, some of whom immediately went back to work as Draven left, others continuing to eye the duo.

At nearly the same moment, Jai and Cassian turned their heads to meet one another’s eyes, silently staring for a few drawn out beats. They could see how exhausted the other was, but they could also see each other’s relief and the pride they felt for getting out of Denneskar alive and with their job complete.

Jai pressed her lips together firmly for a moment before her shoulders relaxed, “… Thanks.”

Cassian’s brows moved up slightly in question, “For what, getting you on Draven’s bad side?”

Jai nearly smiled at that, “For bringing me along even if you didn’t want to.” She pointed to where Draven had stood in front of them just a minute prior, “And for that.”

Cassian shook his head, “Thank you for not making me regret the decision.”

He began toward the turbolift, the look on his face like a silent request for Jai to come with him. Cassian chewed the inside of his cheek as he thought.

“… You did a good job,” He said, though he still wanted to avoid sounding too complimentary, “You’re still a shit shot, but you showed real smarts dealing with those troopers.”

Jai rolled her eyes, but this time she did so with a slight smirk pulling at her lips, the gesture one of amusement rather than her usual annoyance at him. The pair stepped into the turbolift to begin the ascend to the barracks; as the doors closed, Jai allowed herself to slump tiredly against the wall, slowly starting to unravel the scarf that was still loosely hanging around her head and neck. Once it was removed, Jai stared down at the scarf in her hands thoughtfully for a few moments, and for the first time it seemed as if the silence between them was actually comfortable.

Jai sighed deeply, “I think they’re gonna stick me on desk duty again.”

“Probably.”

“Maybe I can convince Gar to let me work the repair shop until Draven let’s me go out into the field.” She looked back up at Cassian, who, too, was leaning against the wall, his eyes staring ahead of him thoughtfully, “I could keep an eye on Kay, make sure no one fucks up his programming.”

At that, Cassian smiled lazily, looking back up to meet Jai’s eyes with a nearly teasing look, “Who’s to say you won’t be the one to fuck it up?”

Jai’s jaw dropped in a look of mock offense, her eyes shiny with surprised amusement -- Cassian just cracked a joke with her. The man continued to smirk smally at her, waiting for the inevitable comeback.

“If you keep giving me attitude I will.” She countered, shaking her head with mirth as the doors opened again, and the two stepped out, walking to the barracks entrance in companionable silence.

It didn’t matter that they’d surely get their asses handed to them by their superiors once Draven called them back for a debriefing -- they’d collected the information, they got off of Dannaskar unharmed, and they seemed to have finally moved on from their petty disdain for one another. At least for a little while longer, they could feel calm and content.

Cassian wouldn’t admit it out loud, but in that moment, the two of them walking together, covered in the grime from a mission that nearly went to hell, he saw a future rebel beside him, someone that he could, perhaps one day, come to trust.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Agreement [uh-gree-muhnt]

noun

the act of agreeing or of coming to a mutual arrangement/understanding

the state of being in accord

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