#also she spent a decade staring at Ahsoka's lekku

[meandmyechoes]

Author’s Notes on #crackship fireworks

(scroll down for ship-specfic notes.)

Their (placeholder?) ship name is Fireworks. Because it's a one time, brilliant passion, but it wouldn't last. Violence is a gentle expression. It's also where they meet.

i’m so embarrassed this is my first time creating romance.

idk i’ve shipped before, even harder but idk why this make me blush so much! oh the pressure from a viral meme! and it’s the first really crack ship that I devote an unholy amount of time on (i.e. since 8a.m. July 21st), not even YJ’s famous crack armada could prepare me for this.

usually i get so wrapped up with canon materials, or canon subtext i don’t really need to create all these scenarios in my head, even for lifelong OTPs like Bones or Ulumi because Canon was just enough but this time I feel like I flung myself into a tempest as much as we put these fictional people through and I’m completely ignoring all the rules. I’m stepping out of my comfort zone to really own these characters and create a whole different version for them, that’s just what I’d never do before. Even what I vowed to despise before.

I mean, am I taking this a little more seriously than it needed? Yeah, but i’m like that, obsessed, infatuated and can’t pull out until time drowns me. so with my current caffeine levels, it’s gonna stay for another 24 hours until the embarrassment wins over. 

I’m essentially writing OCs here under a prescribed name and it make all the butterflies rattle in my stomach. To exaggerate, I'm fainting like Zuko after he made a good decision.

the popsicle drabble has swum in my head several days before, when I was totally bored and shamelessly put a self-insert in the cat. idk just wanted to paint an idyllic scene because my whole weekend was ruined. it was okay sitting in my brain but the thought of over 100 people is willing to read it just swung a sledgehammer at my face and how i couldn’t possibly name the cat after myself. I gave him the boy version of my name to "symbolize" something but we have to work around that now. Yeah it kinda upset the following ripples but nothing i can’t handle. (wow i just checked the drafts it’s been swimming since july 16th 1:06am)

In regard to the ship(’s future), i did wrote a premise meta for how I’ll grow their relationship. I still have to fine-tune it so they mimic more of their canon personality, or not. There are some details need noted. 

i have to be honest. i planned seven chapter titles so far, up to the break-up and maybe reunion. it’s really the angsty reunion that i was interested about and half-dribbled last night in dialogues. but at that point it’s beyond salvage. the other dates are all tropey cliche that i’m contented just have it float in my head. even if i write them they’ll be extremely short lol. i think i’ll write one or two more chapters to kind of pushed them into ‘dating’ at least, but I have zero confidence i’ll actually commit lol. 

I have personal grievances with stupid people who [...] cannot accept reality that they can only find fulfillment in polarized AUs. (@meandmyechoes, ships. 2. (unpopular opinion), retrieved 21st July, 2020 16:02)

HA. haha. i'm literally so sorry for obsessing over feral/ahsoka the past 24 hours, and like my past fever dreams, it's likely to fade in the next 24. I just wrote a shameless self-insert the audacity is killing me. seriously this is the deepest craziness I've sunken into since TCW finale and I single-handedly destroyed any pretense of sanity I have on this site. I swear this is just a grief recovery phase and I in fact, is indeed an idiot grinning behind the plasma screen.

you see i would also like to return to regular programming of crying over skyguy and snips which is why my arsenal of sad gifsets are ready to strike back (with bonus sad Rex and Obi-Wan if i can manage)

*****

hey just wanna say i was completely drunk on caffeine last night/this morning and what a fever dream it had been. And now I've been in hangover for nearly 12 hours with a racing heart and paranoid compulsion like a headless fly. And, I want to conclude by, this is not what I want to go down with.

[glimmerglanger]

17. Anakin/Ben LRPD (Anaaaakinnnnnnnnnnnnnn)

AHA I also thought of Anakin for 17 ( “Ugh, why did I eat that?”) for the meme. You know, I really intended for this to be a light and fluffy piece about Anakin eating bugs (ANAKIN). But uh. That wasn’t... how the muse took me? A mediation on how maybe some things happen to Anakin in both canon and all my AUs. I also didn’t expect this to be this long, but here we are!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Ugh, why did I eat that?” Anakin’s mouth tasted like something had crawled inside it and died, and that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was that the nutribar had stuck to his teeth and he could still feel it. In a life spent eating foods that were strange and often of poor quality, he was no stranger to bad tastes, but this was a special type of disgusting, and he grimaced.

“I don’t know,” Ben said, casting him a look out of the corner of his eyes, before returning his attention to the crack in the hull of the older cargo ship where they’d taken cover. “I told you not to.”

“You did,” Anakin agreed, dropping the rest of the nutribar on the ground and wiping his hand on the floor. He should have known better than to eat something that had been covered in a foot of sand and that had - in all likelihood - been sitting in this ship since it went down. That could have been decades ago, based on the ship’s model. “How’s it looking?”

“Mm, I think they’re waiting for all their friends to show up.” Ben shifted back, handing their set of macrobinoculars over. Anakin leaned over very cautiously and peered out, scowling at the figures silhouetted against the sun on the far hill. 

“They have to know it’s just the two of us in here,” he grumbled, sitting back with a frown. His stomach grumbled again, reminding him that he had tried the nutribar for a reason, after all. It had been too long since either of them bolted down a meal, or even a few bites of sustenance. “You’d think they’d feel confident enough with a dozen men.”

“A pity they’re not that stupid,” Ben said, a grin turning up the corners of his mouth.

“We should go out there.” Ducking into the ancient ship had seemed like a good idea at the time. But that had been hours ago, and it had started to get incredibly hot while they waited for their friends outside to gather enough courage to charge in.

Ben shook his head. “Not with your leg,” he said, barely sparring it a look. He’d dragged Anakin the last stretch across the hard rock, after the mine took him by surprise. He’d tied a tourniquet around Anakin’s thigh with calm, sure fingers, and not commented at all on the ruin below Anakin’s knee.

“My leg is going to be the least of our worries, soon,” Anakin said. The pain was starting to creep back up his body, but they were running almost as low on medical supplies as they were on food. He could wait for it to get worse before he asked for another shot to push the agony away.

Until then, he purposefully ignored it, thinking about the people outside and the horrific nutribar. Anything to stop from considering the damage done to his limb, the words neither one of them were saying about the odds that it could be saved.

Those odds got slimmer, each moment they were trapped in the old ship.

He didn’t mention, either, the dizziness in his head, or the fact that he was beginning to feel cold all over. It wouldn’t help matters. Ben needed to keep his focus on what was going on outside, on their friends there on the hill.

“You should rest,” Ben said, quietly, reaching out and resting a hand on Anakin’s shoulder. Anakin felt the push of the Force in the words, but couldn’t spare the energy to be irritated. He closed his eyes. He slept.

#

“Here.” Ben’s voice woke him, along with a soft touch against the side of his face. Anakin blinked his eyes open. His head felt full of clouds. He was incredibly cold, despite the sweat he could feel running down his back. “Drink this.”

He drank without thinking when Ben pressed something against his bottom lip. A bottle. It was full of water; warm, and tasting of some contaminant or the other. He swallowed it greedily anyway, until Ben said, “Sh, sh, that’s enough.”

Anakin coughed, when Ben took the container away. He blinked, working to focus on Ben, who swam in and out of his vision. There was a smear of something dark and wet across Ben’s forehead. Anakin asked, “Where’d…?”

“They’ve set up a camp,” Ben said, taking off his tunic and draping it over Anakin, tucking it in as best he could. “They had sentries out.”

Anakin was pretty sure that didn’t answer his question. He stared at Ben, mind belatedly identifying that smear across his skin as blood. “But the water…?”

“Came from the sentries, yes.” Ben shifted back, reaching for something on the floor. “They weren’t smart enough to consider that I might sneak up on them in the dark. They had some rations, too. I’ve brought you something to eat.”

Anakin shook his head, his stomach roiling at the thought. “Not hungry,” he rasped.

“Anakin,” Ben said, shifting closer, and then his voice was rising in urgency, his hands were on Anakin’s skin, the world was sideways. Anakin blinked up at him, tried to think of something to say, and passed back into blackness.

#

Anakin woke up next and coughed, his mouth full, unexpectedly, of something that tasted like broth. He was on his back, his head elevated, and hands turned him. Ben said, quietly, ragged, “Force, Force, you’re awake.”

“I’m awake,” Anakin confirmed, when he no longer felt like he was choking. He slumped back. Ben was holding him, he realized, an arm under his shoulders. They weren’t in the ship anymore. There was stone behind Ben’s head.

Anakin blinked, slowly adjusting to the idea that they were in a cave and he had no idea how they’d gotten there. Ben looked… like he wasn’t in any shape to discuss it. There were dark circles under his eyes and a cut across one brow. “You need to drink more,” he said, and Anakin nodded, and put in an effort.

It left him breathing hard, just the act of drinking the impossible broth. He asked, when the cup was empty, and Ben slouched back against the wall, holding Anakin against his chest, “Where are we?”

“In a cave system I found,” Ben said, bringing his other arm up, cupping the side of Anakin’s head.

Anakin nodded against his chest. His blacks were gone, Anakin realized, vaguely, listening to his heart beat. “But our friends outside the ship…?”

“Don’t worry about them,” Ben said, heart thundering under Anakin’s ear, beating too fast. He heard it when Ben swallowed. “I got you out. And I think I managed to get the emergency comm beacon working, too, so. So someone might come looking for us.”

Anakin processed that. It would be nice, he thought, if someone were to come looking for them. “I feel better,” he said, startled to find it was true. He still felt weak, terribly weak, but some of the fog in his mind had disappeared. He wasn’t as cold anymore, didn’t feel like shaking apart. And his leg didn’t…

“Good,” Ben said, voice choked, “good, Anakin, I’m glad.”

“Why do I feel better?” he shifted. Ben felt distraught, upset in a way that always reached right into Anakin’s chest. He shifted a bit, but felt too weak to go anywhere, really. Besides, the beating of Ben’s heart was lulling some part of his brain, dragging him back towards unconsciousness.

“You had an infection,” Ben said, breath hitching, full of anguish and something like horror.

Anakin stared at his skin, at the way his shoulders were shaking, just a little. “In my leg,” he said, carefully, thinking things through slowly, as though if he tried to move too quickly, it would send him back to dreams. “The wounds were infected.” Ben jerked out a nod. “And you found medicine?”

Ben said nothing, not for a long moment, before he rasped, “No, Anakin, I’m sorry. I didn’t.”

Anakin found the strength to lift his head away from Ben’s skin, to straighten his back, the lack of pain from his leg finally fully registering as he looked down his body. He’d lost a limb before. He remembered losing his hand, remembered it in horrifying detail.

He stared, breath frozen in the middle of his chest, and said, numbly, “Oh.”

“I’m so sorry,” Ben repeated, agony in his feelings, “I should have found a way to get you out of there sooner. I should have--”

Anakin groped a hand out without looking, touching Ben’s shoulder, orientating himself. He turned, slumping down against Ben, an arm around his neck. He didn’t want or need Ben’s apologies. It wasn’t Ben’s fault they were here. None of this was Ben’s idea. He’d just… followed Anakin, into this entire mad campaign.

All Anakin wanted to do was press his face against Ben’s skin and breathe there, pretend the last few days - he had no idea how long he’d been out - had ever happened. Ben wrapped both arms around Anakin’s back, fingers clenched in his robes, and, at least Anakin knew now where the smell of lightsaber char had come from.

“It’s alright, Ben,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut, hating the horror he felt from Ben, the pain, the agony. He meant to say more, but his reserves were so limited. He fell back into glorious blackness with a feeling of relief.

#

The next time Anakin woke, he rasped, “I’m thirsty.” He was hungry, too, for the first time in a long time. The air felt cool on his skin and he cracked his eyes open, expecting the cave and getting, instead, the clean likes of a ship.

“Here you go,” a familiar voice said, and it wasn’t Ben. He jerked all the way to wakefulness, sitting up as Ahsoka sat on the side of his bed, holding out a glass of water. He stared at her for a moment, until she nudged the glass against his shoulder.

He took it, carefully, and raised it to his lips, drank it down, before he finally said, “Snips.”

She smiled at him, softly. She looked different, almost grown these days. Her cheeks had gotten sharper, her montrals taller. Her lekku fell almost to her elbows. She said, her voice changed, too, as she grew out of childhood, “Skyguy.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked, because that seemed to be the biggest question. “Where is here? And where’s Ben?”

“He’s right there,” she said, gesturing to the side. Ben he found on the next bed over, hooked up to nearly as many machines as Anakin appeared to be. “Neither one of you were in great shape when we found you. And this is… my ship. I guess. And we’re here to rescue you, of course.” Her expression shifted to the side, darkening. “I’m sorry we didn’t make it sooner. Before…”

Her hesitation brought back memories Anakin’s mind had temporarily shut away. He shifted, pulling at the blankets they’d put over him, gazing down with a cool feeling of shock spreading through his chest. “I’m so sorry,” she said again.

Anakin reached out, ran his hand down what was left of his thigh, shuddering a bit. He said, feeling far away and distant, “Looks like he did a pretty good job keeping it even.”

“Master,” she said, quietly, reaching out and touching his arm, “if he hadn’t--”

“I know.” Anakin looked up at her, tried to smile and didn’t quite manage it. “The infection. I know.”

She stared at him, head cocked to the side a bit, as though expecting him to rage. He’d taught her to expect that, he figured. It was his own fault that she was holding herself cautiously. He looked away again, cleared his throat. “Guess I’ll be heading back to the Core for a while. Maybe you could give us a lift?”

“Sure thing,” she said, standing and hesitating, for a moment, before she bent to press a brief kiss to the top of his head. “I’ll lay in a course.”

Anakin waited until she left, until the doors closed, and then pulled the blankets the rest of the way off. He poured himself another glass of water and drank. There were tubes in his arms, hooked up to a nutrient solution. He carefully pulled the solution off of it’s hook, and then stood, balancing with the help of the Force.

It wasn’t far, thankfully, to Ben’s bed. Less than a step, really. Anakin re-hung the nutrient solution and sat, dizzy a bit from the effort. Ben made a little sound, questioning, in his sleep, and Anakin could see the bandages across his body, evidence of a fight he’d missed.

He stretched out carefully, Ben curving around to make space, like his body knew the position they took when asleep. Anakin exhaled shakily against the back of his neck, curling an arm around him, so careful with all the tubes attached to them both.

“Anakin?” Ben murmured, thoughts fuzzy, not all the way awake, but getting there and quickly. He stiffened, muscles tightening against Anakin’s chest. “I’m so--”

“Sh,” Anakin said, pulling him closer, wanting -- wanting things he couldn’t have and one thing he could, the comfort of Ben’s body close to his, the comfort of knowing that Ben had saved his life, the comfort of the smell of his hair and the softness of his skin.

He closed his eyes. He slept.