#and i now realize i never say what kanan was wearing

[kanansdume]

A Rogue One Everybody Lives AU where Chirrut and Baze end up seeing Sabine on a rebel base one day where she's trying to train with Ezra's lightsaber and just... not doing well. She knew how to use the Darksaber and she'd used Ezra's lightsaber to beat Gar Saxon, but something was just... different this time. Not quite as easy, and she's not sure why. Chirrut can tell she's struggling and, being Chirrut, immediately decides to go over and help. I like to think that both Chirrut and Baze would've probably trained other Guardians in combat sometimes, so this isn't exactly new to them.

Chirrut tells her to stop using the lightsaber for a while and has her go back to using a staff. When she keeps struggling and starts complaining, he forces her to wear a blindfold or a mask or something and she complains that she can't see. Chirrut responds with a totally shocked "Really? I hadn't realized." Sabine is rightly mollified by the gentle reminder.

Chirrut isn't gentle with her, but he's not harsh, either. He doesn't let her get away with being a brat, nor does Baze. He pushes her, refuses to let her wallow in her own feelings for too long. He asks her how old she is once after she gets snippy and when she tells him that she's in her twenties, he tells her he thought she was a teenager and when she responds with an indignant "I'm not a child!" he tells her to stop acting like one.

But he doesn't dismiss her, either. He refuses to just walk away from her or let her walk away from herself. He wasn't a Jedi, he's not Force sensitive, but he's learned to trust in the Force and believe in it. He knew the Jedi, he understood them, and he held similar beliefs and practices from his life as a Guardian. He can tell that Sabine is struggling with some emotion that she's refusing to face and, like Kanan before him, he knows she won't get anywhere until she acknowledges it and overcomes it. He knows she's better than this, knows she can rise above this struggle.

Eventually he gets her to admit that she's still grieving Ezra, still feeling guilty that she was the one who saw him leave to sacrifice himself and chose to distract the others so he could go, still scared that she won't be able to live up to the example he set and the responsibilities he left her with. Only once she's let it all out does he finally let her use the lightsaber again, and this time it doesn't feel quite as heavy. This time it feels more like she remembers it felt when she used it to defeat Gar Saxon so long ago.

And then Baze finds Luke Skywalker and brings him along because he's the only person around who also owns a lightsaber and can spar with Sabine. Sabine beats his ass because poor Luke has gotten next to zero training in how to use it and Sabine now has the chance to pass along some of what she's learned, both from Chirrut and Kanan before him. She doesn't just pass on lightsaber tricks either, she tries to pass on things she heard Kanan teach Ezra, sayings he would repeat every so often to bolster Ezra's confidence, the things he taught HER about facing her fears.

She also conveniently remembers an exercise Kanan had them do with Ezra where they threw fruit at him that Ezra had to block while standing on top of a moving ship and Chirrut and Baze think this is an EXCELLENT idea and are very happy to help set this exercise up for Luke. Luke is perhaps less enthused about it.

Sabine manages to remember Kanan saying "do or do not, there is no try" to Ezra but not knowing what it means and how she and Zeb thought that this was HILARIOUS and it became something of an inside joke between them (they never heard Kanan explain it better once he figured it out), so she passes it on to Luke who also doesn't get it. But then Luke goes to Dagobah and meets Yoda who tells him exactly this and Luke exclaims "Did every Jedi just go around saying this without knowing what it meant?" Yoda probably thwaps him with his cane for that. A few years later, he sees Sabine again after the Empire falls and he tells her that he finally figured out what it means. Sabine asks him to explain it and he tells her it's something everybody has to figure out for themselves. She nearly throttles him. Chirrut and Baze reveal that they knew what it meant the whole time but thought it was funny to watch the two of them struggle over it. Luke and Sabine form a truce immediately in response.

[starwarsbean]

Love Against The Odds

Pairing: Tech x F! Reader.

Warnings: Fake Dating. Alternate Universe. Smut/ Fluff. Sexual tension.

A/N: Hi everyone! Hope you’re enjoying the series. This is a modern au so let’s just have fun with this. If I made any mistakes let me know. Please like and share. <3

Summary: You and Tech meet.

Chapter 3

You finally get home from work. Dealing with a long day of clients and paperwork. You take a deep breath when you walk into your place. Your cat running towards you to greet you. The cats purrs soothes you down from the thoughts of a long day at work. You bend down to pet your cat.

“Hi cutie I’m sure happy to see you.” You say softy to your cat. Petting under the cats chin with a small smile. Your cat meows at you for food. You walk over to get her a can of wet food. Smiling at your cat as you place the bowl down for her to eat. You watch your cat eat and take a quick photo. Posting a quick photo to your social media account. Realizing the time you have to hurry to get ready for Hera’s dinner event. You rush into the a quick warm shower.

After showering you realize you don’t know what you want to wear. You think for a moment looking at your closet. Searching through your dresses. You finally come across a nice black elegant dress. Placing the dress on your bed with some classic black heels. You rush over to the bathroom to finish getting ready. While you’re getting ready you get a phone call from Hera. Putting the phone on speaker.

“Hey Hera what’s up?” You say over the phone.

“I was calling to make sure you are still coming. I didn’t want you flaking on me now.” Hera says playfully.

“Hey I’m finishing getting ready. I’ll be there once I’m done.” You say with a smile while talking on the phone.

“Great! I’ll see you soon.” Hera says before hanging up.

You go back inside your room. Putting on your dress and heels. Your black dress emphasizes your curves which can draw eyes to your cleavage. Adding golden earrings to your ear lobes. You realize you have to leave or you’re going to be late. You quickly head out the door. Rushing to Heras place. You pull out your phone texting Hera you’re on your way. The cold breeze is a bit strong tonight. You walk a bit faster. Hera replies saying to just come inside the door is unlocked. You finally get to Heras place and enter the dinning event. Seeing unfamiliar people you’ve never met. You feel a bit lonely not knowing who is who. You look around for Hera and Kanan.

You see Hera and Kanan talking in the kitchen. You walk over to greet them with a hug.

“Ahhh you finally made it!” Hera says pulling you into a hug.

“About time you showed up. I have no idea who these people are.” Kanan says taking a sip of his drink.

“I have no idea either but I’m sure going to talk to new people today. I hope...” You say a bit enthusiastically but nervous at the same time.

“Don’t worry you’ll be fine. These people are genuinely kind. Only one you need to be imitated is my boss. Which he hasn’t arrived yet.” Hera says putting a cherry from her drink in her mouth.

“I finally hope to meet this boss of yours. The food seems pretty decent for dinner tonight.” Kanan says sacrasticslly.

Hera rolls her eyes and smiles at you. She pulls out her dinner sitting chart. Hera looks up at you and makes a tiny smile at you. You raise your eyebrow.

“What is it?” You ask.

“Nobody wanted to sit next to my boss. So, I just realized you’re the lucky one sitting next to him.” Hera says slowly.

You don’t really care it’s not like he was your boss or anything. You just shrug it off.

“I mean that’s fine. He’s not my boss so he doesn’t imitate me.” You say looking at Hera and Kanan. Kanan chuckles a bit behind Hera.

“I’m sorry I didn’t do this on purpose or anything.”

“Hera it’s fine. It’s really not a big deal for me.” You say.

Hera gives you a little smile. Her eyes showing she felt bad leaving you to sit with strangers. You smile at them to reassure it’s all okay. Kanan hands you a drink.

“Guys it’s alright. Now, we should get out of this kitchen and be socializing.” You say holding your drink.

Hera nods and smiles. Kanan chuckles and follows hera right behind her. You walk around the room. Introducing yourself to new people. You meet a women named Satine. She was very sweet and generous. You both chat on the latest news on politics. Both of you getting an understanding one each others viewpoints. Eventually you talk to another women. Not catching her name, but talking about each others work schedules. When you’re chatting with the women till you see a tall handsome guy. He had a sharp cut jawline wearing a turtle neck with some dress pants. His glasses hiding his gorgeous eyes. His brown eyes were locked to his phone as he continues walking towards the group of people. You quickly look away not wanting to seem weird. Walking a bit towards him to take another glance at him. Most majority of the group slowly drifted away from the man. His attention still on his phone. The man finally looks up and greets people. Putting away his phone trying to start a conversation with the group. It was obvious the group of people did not want to have a full conversations with him. You felt a little upset for him. You go stand at a high table taking a sip of you drink. Hera and Kanan in a group laughing and talking to Heras coworkers. You’re about to go over to them to find out what’s so funny. Till the handsome man comes up to you.

“Hello, I’m Tech. I never seen you around before. Do you work for the company ?” He ask you.

You’re a bit shocked as you were just thinking of how cute he is. Now he’s coming up to you. You give him a soft smile.

“Oh Im a friend of Hera and Kanan. Hera invited me to tonight’s event actually.” You say making eye contact with him.

You and Tech continue holding eye contact. Locking eyes with one another. You couldn’t help but your heart to flutter. Taking a sip of your drink as you wait for his response.

“That explains it. Are you enjoying your night so far?” Tech ask as he’s trying to figure out what you’re thinking.

“I am actually. I think the set up of the event is nice here in Heras place.” You say confidently.

“It is. Most of my—“ Tech was about to say something but he cuts off.

You look at him wondering if he’s going to continue talking.

“As I was about to say. Most of my friends took a bit of my advice on how to set it up.” Tech says nodding his head slowly. He breaks eye contact.

“Oh really? You must be close to everyone here?”

“Somewhat I suppose… Sorry for my lack of manners. I never got your name.” Tech looks back into your eyes.

You tell tech your name as he gives you a small smile while you introduce yourself to him.

“That’s quite a lovely name. May I offer you another drink?” Tech ask a little bit shy.

“I’d like that.” You say confidentially.

Tech smiles to himself and fixes his glasses. He grabs you both drinks. He comes back to the high top table. Not breaking eye contact with you.

“So, tech what do you do for fun?” You ask while smiling at him. You swear you could feel your heart beating faster.

“Most majority of the time I work. Don’t necessarily have time for fun. Besides if I do I’m mostly spending quality time with my family.” Tech says looking at you.

“Family? As in wife and kids?” You ask feeling a bit unsure.

Tech coughs a bit on his drink as you ask him that. “No, I’m not married or have any children. I just have lots of brothers and a sister.”

You chuckle a bit and nod. “That’s really cute. They must really mean a lot to you.”

Tech nods and thinks of yesterday. Feeling a bit bad how he got annoyed of his brothers. “Well of course they do.” Tech looks down at his feet.

You smile at the way he cares for his family. It was a cute knowing a man loved and valued his family life. It was one of your favorite features when looking for a partner. “That’s sweet of you.” You softly.

Tech looks back up he avoids eye contact and nods. “I suppose so. Tell me what sort of activities interest you?”

Before you get to answer Tech question. Hera makes an announcement hitting a knife on her glass to gather everyone’s attention.

“Hello everyone. Dinner is finally ready if everyone can sit in their assigned seating.” Hera announces smiling at everyone.

You look at Tech and frown.

“We should get to our assigned seating.” Tech says before you get a chance to answer his question. You nod.

You clearly thought he was into you. Feeling a bit disappointed. As you go find your seat. You see your name written in cursive. You take a look at the seat next to you. Noticing nobody has sat next to you yet. Looking at where Hera and Kanan are at. They’re both on the other side of the table. Feeling a bit left out on how everyone else are enjoying themselves. Taking a sip of your drink. Tech clears his throat as he sits next to you.

“Guess we are seated next to each other.” You say looking at tech.

Tech gives you a little smile. “I suppose we are. Now, you can answer my pervious question.”

You softly laugh. “I do lots of activities it’s changes from time to time.”

Tech looks at you. Trying to figure you out. “You seem like the type who enjoys a good book.”

“I do like reading. It’s one of my favorite things to do.” You say holding eye contact with him.

The cater waiters put down plates of food. You thank the waiter and look back at Tech. You see him still staring at you but once you look at him he’s already staring at his food.

“How about you? Do you like reading?” You ask Tech with a little smile.

Tech pushes his glasses up. “I do, but the novel has to be up to my standards. I do not enjoy reading terrible novels with no sense of direction of plot.”

You smile and nod your head. Both of you taking bites of your food on the plate. Every now and then you glance at Tech. He’s currently distracted on finishing his meal. You notice he isn’t chatting much with everyone else in the room. From saying he’s friends with most people in the room. He wasn’t acting like it. Everyone at the dinning table are in their own conversations. Leaving you and Tech the only ones out. Finally finishing up your food.

“Did you enjoy the meal?” Tech ask you.

“Yeah it was pretty delicious”

Tech nods his head. He looks at you. It looks like he wants to ask you something. You seem to notice hes nervous. You try to come up with a different topic to talk about with him.

“How long have you been working for this company?” You ask a bit nervous but unsure of what to say.

“7 years and 4 months.” Tech says with confidence.

You chuckle at him adding in the months. The cater waiters take away everyone’s plate. Everyone at the dinner event is getting ready to leave. You look at the time and see it’s late. Thinking of calling a ride back to your place. Opening the app on your phone. Tech glances at your phone and sees the app.

“Could I offer you a ride?”

You turn to look at him. Biting your lip thinking if you should accept. You just met the guy. He could be a weirdo or a murder. . Deep down you felt as if you could trust him. Going with your gut instinct. “Are you sure I won’t be be a bother?”

“No, unless you are uncomfortable in which I understand. Women should be careful accepting rides from men.” Tech says looking at you.

You smile softly. “I don’t mind walking. I live nearby. ”

“May I at least walk you home?” Tech ask shifting his fingers nervously.

“I would very much prefer that. Let me get my coat.” You say softly.

Tech nods and gather his belongings. You grab your coat and bag. Tech sees you’re ready to leave. You look to say bye to Hera and Kanan, but they are both distracted saying bye to others. Not wanting to leave Tech waiting long, you decide to just text them later. Walking back seeing Tech waiting for you by the door. He was tapping away on his phone waiting.

“I’m ready.” You say holding your hands together feeling a bit of butterflies fluttering.

Tech opens the front door for you. You put on your coat as the cold wind hits. Tech blows into his hands to keep them warm. You chuckle at his actions. “Are you cold?” Tech ask curiously.

“I am cold. My hands feel like ice cubes.” You say while laughing. blowing warm air into your hands. Tech chuckles to himself. He tries to hide it.

As you and tech walk back to your place. You’re thinking of all the possible outcomes that could happen. You couldn’t invite him in right away. Maybe a kiss on the cheek? Was it so fast? You feel a little excitement in your stomach. You play with a button on your coat.

“I insist you take my gloves. My hands are rather warm.” Tech hands you his black gloves. You smile and take his offer.

“Thank you tech. I appreciate it.” You say while putting on his gloves. The warmth of his gloves helps your freezing hands. As you walk closer you decide to bring Hera up.

“Are you close to Hera?”

Tech looks around trying to come up with something to say.

“No. I do not know her well enough. Only know about her work performance. Along with her role in the company.” Tech says sharply.

“She’s really sweet and is a hardworker. I know she’s trying hard to earn her promotion. Hopefully one day she’s able to make it.”

Tech nods listening to you. He clears his throat. “How long have you two known each other?”

“Me and Hera met in college. We both sat next to each other in our English course. After that Hera and I went to events and studied together in the library. We became best friends. Eventually she met her boyfriend Kanan. They been in love since.”

Tech listens to you talk. He looks up at you. “I see… That’s a very nice story.” He says slowly. His brown eyes looking at you.

You finally reach your front door. Tech looks around your apartment building. He takes in the architecture of the building. Positioning his goggles to get a better look around. You stand in front of him. Unsure of what to say or do next.

“I would like to see you again. If I may… I have a proposition for you.” Tech says looking around your area.

You’re curious about what Tech has in mind. Biting your lip on what his idea might be.

“What do you mean?” You ask looking curious at Tech.

Tech sighs and he thinks of what to say.

“Well… I would like to take you to dinner tomorrow night. However, not as in an actual date. Rather a fake date.” Tech looks up to see your reaction.

You’re a bit thrown off. Did he just say fake date? Questioning yourself what does that even mean.

“A fake date?” You ask looking up at him unsure of what he means.

“You see my brothers are persuading me to try out dating. I do not have the time nor the patience for romance. This idea can be beneficial for the both of us.” Tech says looking at you.

“How would this be beneficial for me?” You question. Your emotions are bit a thrown off and feeling bizarre in this situation.

“I came to a conclusion you’re single. I can be your fake significant other for the next few months.” Tech says bluntly.

You chuckle. “Okay, but how does this benefit ne Tech?”

Tech looks at his phone then back at you. “Obviously I will treat you to free dinners and gift offerings. Along with your presence of coming with me to social events in which will grow connections in your career. We can we will come with a contract for this fake romance.”

You think for a moment. Techs offering did not sound so bad. Free gifts and free dinners does sound nice. You tilt your head thinking.

“It doesn’t sound so bad. But, why me?”

Tech looks at you and avoids eye contact. “You seemed rather interesting. Your generous personality stood out to me while we were speaking.”

You nod your head. “Okay I’ll do it.”

Tech looks up at you with wide eyes from you agreeing. “I’ll send you a message tomorrow on what we need to do. We can discuss over dinner.”

You enter your phone number into Techs phone. “See you tomorrow tech. Get home safe.” You say softly. Tech watches you safely go inside your apartment building. He takes off walking back.

You get inside your apartment, hearing a little meow from your cat. You bend down to pet your cat. You start getting ready for bed thinking over what happened with Tech. Thinking if this was a good idea. You were starting to like him, but his feelings were clear he was interested. Feeling a bit dumb on thinking he was interested in the first place. You sigh pulling the blankets over you. The free dinners and gifts did not sound so bad. Maybe it will be a fun experience... you slowly feel your eyes drift to sleep. When you realize you were agreeing to go out with your best friends boss. Your eyes wide open and groan your head in the pillow. The softness of your blankets over take you making you fall to sleep.

[calebdumes]

for @pretchatta who wanted kanera in evening wear and romantic tension. i hope i lived up to your wishes!

fandom: star wars rebels

relationship: kanan jarrus/hera syndulla

rating: n/r

word count: 2.6k

~

When it came to opulence and beauty, the estate of Count Jafan Harik had it in droves. From the marbled walls etched with gold and lined with expensive art, to the exotic foods served on guilded trays, every inch of the mansion displayed the man’s abundant wealth and taste for the grandeur. But even surrounded by priceless artifacts and glittering gems, Kanan couldn’t take his eyes off of Hera. 

Her gown was simple, compared to some of the other dresses Kanan had seen that evening, just a form fitting bodice that left her shoulders and arms bare, showing off the graceful white markings that traveled down to her wrists. The skirt hung off her slender waist like water, long flowing layers of gauzy fabric that had been dyed varying shades of dark blue and purple. The tiny crystals that had been woven into the folds caught on the light when she moved, giving off the impression of a shimmering night sky. 

Kanan had nearly tripped over his own two feet when he first saw her emerge from her cabin, dressed and ready for the mission - his mind going completely and utterly blank. Hera was beautiful no matter what she wore, but dressed in that gown, the deep color of the dress against her green skin, the gems in her headdress glittering as brightly as her eyes, Kanan felt the breath punch from his lungs and heat pool in his belly. 

She was stunning, like a dignitary from Ryloth, all the sophistication and grace of royalty surrounding her as if it had been there her whole life. It left Kanan mesmerized. He wanted to reach out and touch, to trace the white markings on her shoulders, to feel her lips against his own. She was the most beautiful being in the galaxy.

And Kanan wanted her. 

“Have you seen him yet?” Hera asked out of the corner of her mouth before taking a sip of her bright red cocktail. 

Kanan mentally shook himself and forced his eyes to do a sweep of the ballroom. It wasn’t the first time he had been distracted by Hera tonight and he had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last.

“No sign of him yet.” His eyes caught on the two ISB officers standing stiffly by their stormtrooper escorts, somehow managing to look completely out of place even in their regal dress uniforms. Kanan’s lip curled at the sight of them but didn’t let his gaze linger. For once, the Imperials weren’t the target of tonight’s mission. 

Hera frowned, setting her glass down gently on the silk covered table they were standing at. “I don’t like this.” she said, scanning the small gathering of beings had gathered on the polished dance floor. “He should be here by now.”

“Relax.” Kanan said, reaching out to touch her bare shoulder, her skin warm under his fingertips. It sent a thrill of electricity racing up his arm, his heartbeat doubling in pace. “It’s still early. And from what I hear, he likes to make a grand entrance.”

Hera didn’t look convinced but a light blush had begun to form on the tops of her cheeks. Kanan looked down and his hand and quickly withdrew it from her shoulder. 

Things with Hera were...complicated to put it simply. He was in love with her, that he could at least say with one hundred percent certainty. Kanan had loved her from the moment they met in the mud covered streets of Shaketown and he hadn’t stopped falling for her since. Hera had more charm and charisma in her little finger than most sentient beings in the galaxy possessed. She was headstrong to a fault, impulsive (even if she said otherwise), and cared so much that she was willing to risk everything if it meant that people could live free. Hera was good and smart and funny and Kanan was helplessly gone for her.

But he never did anything about it. Because she was his partner and his friend and they had built a relationship based on trust and respect. If she wasn’t ready or didn’t want anything more than friendship from him, then Kanan wasn’t going to push it. He valued their friendship too much to ruin it over unrequited feelings. 

Except there was something, more than just friendship between them. He could feel it in the quiet spaces after a mission, in the lingering glances and easy touches that came on so naturally. There was something there, Kanan just didn’t know what to do about it. Not without Hera making the first move. 

“I guess it’s too much to ask that the Count would show up to his own party on time.” Hera said, taking another sip of her drink. 

“Eh, you know these rich types,” Kanan shrugged. “They think the galaxy revolves around them.” 

“Sounds like you know from experience.” Hera drummed her fingers on the table. Kanan’s eyes fell to the white markings on her wrist that snaked their way up her arms to her shoulders. They were the same markings that decorated her lekku, gentle sloping white arches that formed a graceful design that put most artwork housed in the Count’s estate to shame. 

But then again, Kanan was a little bit biased. When it came to Hera, she beat out just about everything. 

“You meet one, you meet them all.”

“Is that so?”

Kanan rested his elbows on the table. “That’s been my experience.”

Hera hummed thoughtfully at his response before saying, “You know, I’m surprised you decided to help out on this mission. I know you still aren’t fully on board with my...cause.”

“I make excellent arm candy.” Kanan winked, his heart flipping as her jade green eyes trailed up his body. “Besides, we can help a lot of people with the information that’s on that list.”

There was pride shining in her eyes as she looked up at him, the light catching on the many gems that made up the silver headdress that sat on her head and twisted down her lekku. Kanan tried to ignore how his stomach flipped at her expression. “We can’t help anyone if the Count doesn’t show.”

“Give it time, he’ll be here.” He could tell she was growing impatient, the tips of her lekku flicking sharply in odd intervals. Naboo wasn’t the safest place for rebels and he sensed that Hera would rather get off this rock sooner rather than later. Kanan glanced over to the bodies swaying on the dancefloor as an idea struck him. “Come dance with me.” he said. 

Hera blinked at him in surprise. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Sure it is.” he smiled. “It’ll give you a better view of the room.” he pointed out. And it would hopefully help her relax until the Count decided to grace the party goers with his presence and they could get this show on the road. 

Hera continued to look at him doubtfully but made no move to stop him from leading her onto the dance floor. “Fine.” she said as Kanan settled one hand over her hip, the fabric of her skirt soft against his palm. “But just for one song.”

Kanan smiled at her. “Sounds like a deal.”

They swayed in an unhurried motion on the outer fringes of the dancefloor, keeping the entrance to the ballroom within their sights at all times. The music was light and heavy on the stringed instruments, a gentle melody that reminded Kanan of the many waterfalls of Naboo’s capital city. As they danced, Kanan watched as the tight line of tension slowly dripped from Hera’s shoulders. 

“Have you ever gone to parties like this before?” Hera asked as they swayed together.

“You do remember where you met me right?” He arched a brow in response. 

Hera rolled her eyes but there was a smile growing on her lips. “Don’t pull that with me. I know Gorse was just another one of your many adventures traveling through the galaxy. You could have gone to something like this before.”

Kanan smirked at her. It was true, Gorse was just another stop along his way but even as a youngling at the Temple, he had never been to something as extravagant as this. “I’ve been around but all this,” he waved a hand at the ornate room, “is too rich for my blood. What about you?”

“Once.” She nodded. “When I was really little, before the Clone Wars. I don’t remember much about it but I remember how beautiful my mother looked in her dress. I remember thinking that I wanted to be just like her someday.”

“What was she like? Your mother?”

Hera smiled at him, her eyes going distant for a moment. “She was kind. Always willing to lend a hand to those in need. And brave.”

“Well,” Kanan said softly. “For what it’s worth, I think you’ve accomplished that.”

Color bloomed over Hera’s cheeks. “You’re just saying that to be nice.” she mumbled. 

“Hera.” he said ducking down to capture her gaze. “When have I ever said anything just to be nice?”

“Do you want that list alphabetically or by date?”

“I’m being serious.” He said, pulling her closer to him. “Look around this room. Not a single soul here gives a kriff about the state of the galaxy. They wouldn’t lift a finger to help. But you, you’re doing something about it. You don’t think your mother would have done the same?”

The blush on Hera’s cheeks grew deeper, her chest rising and falling in light breaths. Kanan could feel her pulse beneath his fingertips. There was a look gleaming deep in her green eyes, bright and burning. It pulled him in, setting his soul on fire while the world around them melted away until all that was left was just Hera.

He loved her. He loved her more than anything, more than the air in his lungs or heart in his chest. He loved her. And he knew, in that moment, surrounded by all the riches the galaxy could afford, he would never love anyone as much as he loved her.

“Kanan,” Hera said, her breath ghosting over his lips. She was so close now, her body a long line of heat against his. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” He swallowed thickly, his throat suddenly bone dry. He could barely hear the music over the rush of blood in his ears. She licked her lips, her fingers tightening against his hip. “Kanan I-”

But before Hera could finish speaking the music suddenly cut off as the doors to the ballroom were thrown open and the Count made his grand entrance. The people clapped as a tall man with raven hair and white silk robes strode into the room, his dark eyes drinking in the adoration from the crowd. Hera took a step back. Kanan tried not to frown. 

Count Jafan was oddly enough, not escorted by any type of private security. He didn’t seem to mind as people milled up to him, shaking his hand and tittering on about the party. Kanan watched as the thin man smiled and carried on as if the party goers were his adoring subjects. In many ways they were. Just about everyone here at the party wanted something from the Count, themselves included. But while most tried to wine and dine the man to get what they wanted, Kanan and Hera had a...different plan. 

“Just say when.” Kanan said as they walked back to their table, leaving the dance floor behind. “I’ll follow your lead.” 

Hera flagged down a protocol droid and took another bright red drink off of the serving tray. “Wait until he gets closer, then we’ll make our move. But we need to intercept him before our ISB friends over there come to collect.”

Kanan eyed the Imperial officers that were now watching the Count with sharp eyes as he fawned with his guests. They were after the same thing he and Hera had come for, only they had paid the good Count a reasonable fee. Kanan and Hera didn’t see the need for money to exchange hands for this type of transaction. A small distraction and deft fingers would do the trick just fine. 

 “You know,” Kanan said while they waited for their moment to arrive, “I have to give the Count some credit, making the Imperials come to him for the information. It’s a gutsy move. They must want that data chip pretty bad.”

“Yeah,” Hera laughed without humor. “Too bad the Count is on their side. We could use someone with his connections.”

Kanan gave the man a once over as he drew near. Other than the fine clothes he was dressed in, there wasn’t much to the man. His dark hair was slicked back and there was a perpetual smirk on his face that made Kanan want to punch it off. “His money, we could use. The Count himself? I think we’d get more help from a blurrg.”

That time, Hera’s laugh was genuine. “Alright.” she said with a mischievous grin. “Let’s go meet our host.”

Kanan wrapped his arm around Hera’s, mindful of the drink still in her hand as they moved towards the Count. The music had returned, the dance floor filling out now that the Count had finally made his appearance. Kanan and Hera walked arm in arm around the edge of the ball room, past the gilded tables laden down with rich foods and groups of beings reflecting on the numerous painting that lined the wall. They moved at a leisurely pace that put them on track to walk right past their host.

Just as they were about to pass the man, Hera tripped over the hem of her dress, her drink crashed to the floor as she landed in the unsuspecting Count’s arms. Kanan reached from her, pulling her back on to her feet and away from the startled Count.

“Count Herik!” Hera said in a thick Rylothian accent as she adjusted her headdress. “I-I am so sorry!” 

The Count’s deep brown eyes landed on Hera, a slimy grin spreading across his face. He took her now empty hand in his own and brought it to his lips.

“It was merely an accident, my lady.” he said. “Enjoying the party I hope?” 

“Oh yes!” Hera said breathlessly, still trying to regain her composure from the slip. “You have a lovely home Count.”

“I certainly hope so.” Count Herik chuckled. “I spent a fortune on it!” The crowd around them laughed at his joke and Kanan resisted the urge to roll his eyes. 

“Our apologies for the mess.” Kanan cut in. “But my wife, she isn’t feeling very well. We were about to leave.” 

Count Herik flicked a disinterest glance at Kanan before turning his attention back to Hera. “I hope you get a chance to view the gardens before you leave my dear, I had some Rylothian vine flowers imported in just a few rotations ago. They seem to be taking to Naboo quite well.”

Kanan bit down on the inside of this cheek. “Perhaps on our way out.” Hera smiled at him, leaning heavily into Kanan. “Thank you again for such a wonderful evening.”

“Of course.” Count Herik nodded to her before stepping away. Kanan led Hera out of the ball room and into the hallway that would take them to the entrance. As soon as they were outside, Hera straightened and lifted a small data chip up between her fingers. 

“The Count should really learn to protect his valuables.” she said with a smirk. 

“Nice job Captain Hera.” Kanan said, taking the chip from her fingers and slipping it into the pocket of his pants. “Now let's get out of here before he realizes it’s gone.”

“He won’t know it’s gone until it’s too late.”

“You have a lot of practice in picking pockets?” He asked as he flagged down a hover taxi. 

“More than you I bet.”

Kanan laughed. “Honestly, you’re probably right.” He held open the door for her as she climbed into the taxi, gathering her skirts around her delicately. They didn’t speak on the trip back to the space port, the glowing lights of Theed passing by out the window. At some point, Hera’s head fell onto his shoulder, her eyes closed. The metal of her headdress pressed uncomfortably against the bone but he didn’t mind. He let her rest until the spaceport came into view and the taxi slowed. 

He helped her out of the cab and paid the driver before turning back to see Hera standing under the dim light of the street lamp looking tired but accomplished. A soft smile broke out on his face as he walked up to her. 

“What?” she asked, arching a brow.

“Nothin’.” He replied walking with her towards the Ghost.

“Hey Kanan.” She said, pausing. “What I was going to say earlier…”

“Don’t worry about it Hera.” Kanan cut her off, not willing to break the pleasant mood that had fallen between them. He didn’t know what she wanted to tell him before, back on the dancefloor but he had a sinking suspicion that he wouldn’t like it. He rather be left wondering than have to confront the truth. 

“No, I want to say it.” she grabbed on to his wrist, holding it tightly. “I’ve been wanting to say it for a while now.”

Kanan’s breath froze in his chest. “What is it?”

Hera bit her lip, her eyes searching his face as if it held the answer. Instead of saying anything, she stood on the tips of her toes and kissed him lightly on the lips. Kanan blinked at her in surprise as she pulled away, his mind going blank for the second time that day. 

“I like you.” she said, still holding on to his wrist. “I know I said that my mission comes first and I stand by that but I can’t help the way I feel about you and I think you might feel the same way too.”

She was looking at him with a worried look on her face but Kanan couldn’t quite get past her words. She liked him. She had feelings for him. She was ready for them to be something more. 

“Kanan could you please say something? You’re kind of freaking me out.”

Without thinking, Kanan pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She melted into him, her hands cupping the sides of his face as he spun them around in the air. They broke apart, breathless and smiling. 

“I like you too,” he said. “If that wasn’t clear.” 

Hera nipped at the side of his mouth. “I think you might need to explain it to me again.” 

“Hera.” he said in between kisses. “I’ll explain it to you as much as you like.”

She rested her forehead against his. “I love you.” She whispered. 

Kanan held her close, his whole world resting in his arms. “I love you too.”

[im-the-chesire-cat]

Sith Kanan au

—-

“Agent Kallus.” The Inquisitor greeted. The agent jumped, not expecting him to say anything. “It’s been a while.”

“It has.” Kallus agreed. “You haven’t changed.”

“You have.” The Inquisitor countered. He wasn’t even looking at Kallus; he was sitting on the far side of his cell, with his eyes closed, seemingly meditating.

“I suppose I have.” Kallus frowned, and looked him over. He was wearing dark clothes, presumably what he usually wore under his armor, but his helmet and lightsaber were missing. Kallus had never seen him without either, and it was striking to realize he was just a human man. The Empire didn’t disclose personal files on any of the Inquisitors, and he never took off his helmet around Kallus. He wasn’t one to put any faith in rumors, but he couldn’t help but think that there was something inhuman about him. As it turned out, the opposite was true. According to the medical report, the Inquisitor was entirely human, without so much as a cybernetic limb, and he was estimated to be even younger than Kallus himself. Not that Kallus was a young man anymore, but it was strange to think that the Inquisitor, who outranked the majority of the Empire and who answered to Lord Vader himself, was nearly ten years his junior.

“Kallus!” Zeb’s voice suddenly shouted from down the hall. Kallus turned, and nodded to Zeb, who was making his way towards him with a disgruntled look on his face. “Karabast, Kal. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“My apologies.”

“What are you doing here?” Zeb asked when he reached Kallus, eyeing the Inquisitor.

“I wanted to speak with him, about his actions before he was captured and before I defected.”

“Why?” Zeb snorted.

“Because he saved my life.” Kallus turned back to the Inquisitor. “And I think he did it on purpose.”

The Inquisitor opened his eyes, and turned his gaze to Kallus. His eyes were a shocking yellow, and he seemed to stare through Kallus’s soul to see every thought and emotion he had.

“Is that so?” He asked slowly. Kallus nodded.

“I was wondering why. Even now, you’re loyal to the Empire, but you gave me information that you knew would help the Rebellion.”

The Inquisitor stood, suddenly, and strode over to the ray shield that separated his cell from the hallway. He stopped, just in front of it, and stared at Kallus. His presence was just as intense as it had been before Kallus had defected, but it was also different. Maybe it was because he wasn’t wearing his helmet, or maybe it had something to do with the ray shield, but there was something different about him. Next to him, Zeb stiffened, and he grabbed his Bo-riffle, but he didn’t raise it. Yet.

“You were part of the Empire for a long time, Agent Kallus. You saw the horror it causes, but you also saw the power it wields.” The Inquisitor said. “I have been part of the Empire since its creation. I’ve lived through countless tragedies. I am loyal to the Empire because I know it will always win.”

“That’s not true!” Zeb snapped. The hair on his shoulders was standing up, and his grip on his bo-rifle was tight, like he was ready to swing it, but Kallus put a hand on his arm.

“Then why help me?” Kallus asked.

“I may be loyal to the Empire, but I have no love for it. Your rebellion will fall one day soon, but if I can cause harm to the Empire, then I will help you.”

[phoenixyfriend]

Thoughts on “Auntie Soka and Little Leia” now that I’ve actually got it posted:

Call it a director’s cut! The process of actually writing the thing, and also jokes made along the way. Link to the actual fic.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the energy for image descriptions, even the text screenshots. Might come back that later. Most of this was DMs with @atagotiak​.

This was an entire thing before I even started writing:

Before I decided on ages and stuff Ahsoka, to Jango, who has had zero contact with Kaminoans: Okay I know I'm a Jedi kid so you hate me but this toddler is your clone from the future. Jango, tired: What the FUCK are you talking about. Rex, barely able to talk: Don't you dare leave me with him, Commander! Ahsoka: I'm not going to leave you I just--I'm so tired I'm so fucking tired I haven't slept in five days and someone tried to kidnap Leia two days ago I am so fucking tired I need help

Ben: [twenty years of depression followed by a 'now I'm safe' breakdown over the course of weeks] Sokari: [whatever the FUCK this mess is]

When Ahsoka mentions there only being three other Jedi at the time of her death,  I was thinking Kanan, Yoda, and Obi-Wan (Leia told her about the latter two living past her). She's not counting anyone that received training after the Temple fell, and she didn’t know about Cal.

When Leia says  “I was adopted and raised by one of the founders of the rebellion, a movement built on the desire to instate freedom and democracy in a galaxy that had lost even the pretense.”

Depa: I'm no therapist but I diagnose you with "incredibly fucked up." Ahsoka: yeah, that’s fair

"Why did you pick Depa for--" She's pretty and I'm gay. Also because of the Kanan thing But mostly I'm gay "It's not a visual medi--" GAY

Empty of context beyond general post-fic AU: "Hey Sokari, we need to engage in psychological warfare against this individual and--" "I'm going to break into his office and leave a threatening note on his desk and leave no other sign that I was there. He'll see that his security is nothing and the only reason he isn't dead is because I'm too nice to kill him." "...okay, not what we were planning, but that works. Why is that your first choice?" "I really like breaking and entering, it's soothing." Ben just standing there with a bland smile like This Is Normal.

"We need someone to infiltrate a highly guarded facility in hostile territory." "So we're sending the Torrent kids?" [sigh] "We're sending the Torrent kids."

Rex and Sokari insist on both going by "Torrent" even though Rex could be a Fett. Jango really wants him to be a Fett. Rex has too many grudges to agree to being a Fett for... a while.

I really hope it's blatantly obvious that Ahsoka's not a reliable narrator for some things Ahsoka: Fett could care less if I died Jango: jfc even if you are older than me I can see you're fucked up. Drink your hot chocolate. Hells. She's got good reason to expect him to hate her as a Jedi! BUT. THAT IS NOT REFLECTIVE OF REALITY

We don’t get a lot of actual characterization for Jango, but the way I played him out here is he has never really parsed that Jedi are people before all this. It's a lot harder to treat them as a monolith when the traumatized former child soldier is having regular breakdowns in your shitty little kitchen

Fett: I respect you Ahsoka: No, don't do that

Ahsoka’s vigilantism is something that, in my mind, she's associating heavily with Zygerria and then the clones.

I figured that she never bothered to learn Quinlan’s teacher’s name but in the process of looking up some basic facts (whether he had a surname), I found that Wookiepedia was forced to give us a VERY wide range of possible death in Legends.

Please take a moment to imagine Quinlan's FACE when Ahsoka initially dismisses him. Quinlan has put a lot of effort into being rogueishly charming! It's very useful for his line of work! He knows to expect either irritation or a return flirtation when he acts like this with people his own age! Ahsoka is not flustered OR rolling her eyes and insulting him, she's just ignoring him and it's a bit of a blow to the ego

This just makes me really happy:

This was the initial comment I made, as a joke What if Maul is just. There. On one of the planets they make a pitstop at. What if Maul exists as the walking problem he is, but fifteen, and Ahsoka immediately tries to kick his ass and drag him back to Coruscant. I do not have room for this plot but What If

Despite not having room for this plot, I proceeded to write this plot.

Maul is kidnapped and it’s the best thing that ever happened to him HE'S FIFTEEN HE'S DUMB AS SHIT AND HAS A BAD ATTITUDE AND YEAH HE'S A DARKSIDER BUT HE'S FIFTEEN

Ahsoka: I sense... Maul [takes off sprinting] Rex: [immediately takes Jango's blaster and runs after her] Jango: Wait who Tholme: Who Quinlan: Who Jango: [looks at Leia] Leia: I don't know who that is either! Ahsoka, already wrestling a teenager to the ground: Oh no, you're a child, REX STUN HIM AND GRAB THE CUFFS, I'M SURE FETT OR THOLME HAS SOME

Fighting him isn't even legal, they have NO evidence of criminal wrongdoing, so first she needs to yell until he admits to something she can fight him about

Ahsoka: When I see Maul, it's on SIGHT Maul: WHO ARE YOU

Ahsoka: The Force didn't give me hands just to NOT throw them when I run into That Crafty Son Of A Bitch

Ben, when they arrive, after the tearful reunion: You... you brought Maul. Ahsoka: Well, yeah, he's fifteen and kinda dumb. I figured we could drag him here and force him into therapy, see what happens. Ben: I can't quite tell through the gag, but I think he's threatening to feed you your own spleen. Ahsoka: Lol, yeah.

Ben is absolutely on team "get Maul therapy" and will fight the Council on rehabilitating the baby Sith But also it's like. Here's your daughter! And your niece! And your daughter's QPP! Also your best friend, but baby, and his teacher, and the biological origin of a number of people you cared for deeply! AND ALSO THE GUY WHO SPENT LITERAL DECADES CRAVING YOUR DEATH, FOR SOME REASON

I just really want Ahsoka lovingly bullying Maul She gives him noogies and the horns don't protect him because girl has reinforced gloves

Maul's only allowed a low-power training saber and his fights with Sokari involve Much Taunting by her and Eventual Screaming by him, and everyone pops by to see: 1. Sokari doing the most absurd flips, for fun. 2. The bullshit that is ataru-shien reverse-grip jar'kai in the hands of someone who makes it work 3. What a Sith lightsaber form looks like 4. Just the general nonsense that is the way these two fight

Tia said “Wrt ridiculous flips. I'm remembering that time she beheaded four Kryst'ad at once.” and I just Rex brings up the quadruple beheading at one point to get someone to stop asking questions and the awkward, horrified silence almost makes him regret it. And then Sokari just snorts and makes a joke about how Rex once speared a slaver point-blank and everyone's just like hello??? "are you two okay" "no"

Maul absolutely starts crushing on Sokari after a 'sword under chin' moment and she's just very "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you're fifteen, bye" GO MAKE PUPPY EYES AT OBI-WAN OR SOMETHING

The crushes are the worst part of everything, really, she's an attractive young woman that can kick a lot of ass, and a lot of people are into that! Unfortunately, most of those people are a decade younger than she is, mentally, because all the people her actual age look at her and see a child on account of the 17yo body.

It’s almost a good thing she’s in no place mentally for a relationship.

I just want Ahsoka to wear beskar.... I think that would be Nice........

This AU is also what caused this post.

I'm deeply enamored by the idea that Ahsoka can win fights against "older" padawans pretty much unilaterally, even when they team up 2v1 And then she offers to fight 5v1 "But only if I have permission to fight dirty." Ben approves it, a horror show full of "I fought many wars and will scream in your face or kick you in the balls if that's what it takes" follows She wins. There are no permanent injuries, but her reputation certainly gets weirder. Nobody under the rank of Knight agrees to let her fight dirty again. She just lets that stand because, well, she's not actually a padawan, she's thirty-three.

I’m not going to write this but my brain was EVIL and suggested it:

IT WOULD BE REALLY SAD IDK maybe 9yo Anakin has nightmares about what's happening to baby Ahsoka because bullshit about time-traveling force bonds IDK ANYWAY he cries to Sokari about the nightmares and she's like "oh shit" and it's time to go rescue herself from motherfucker unlimited

It's either that or she's like, expecting to welcome mini-me aaaany day now, for like, several months, before she realizes Something Went Wrong. Anakin’s dreams could even start right as she’s starting to realize something’s off.

Obi-Wan has never had a padawan that doesn't at some point bite Even Luke will, when pushed

OH also once the twins get Baby's First Lightsaber (training sabers, not real kyber), Sokari begs to borrow them for a dumb joke and tells Rex to get on her shoulders for a "Grievous Greeting" and they do The Thing

Jango and Ahsoka wrt Quinlan is just “Do I need to beat him up for you” “You realize I’ve beaten up sith lords before?”

JANGO'S TRYING He's just. "Can we be friends? Can I--can I be the guy that just noticeably gets in the way of a creep on the subway so you can be more comfortable without someone making a scene? I'm fucking trying here, give me a hint."

We didn’t actually figure out Jango’s age until this point. The only reason Fett's age matters is for Quinlan making a Wild Oats quip after Jango says he didn't know about Rex until a few weeks ago, and Fett going "How old do you think I am? And how old do you think the kid is?" and Quinlan getting Very Awkward as he does the math. Rex overhears and lets Quinlan sweat for a bit before saying "I'm a genetically-modified clone someone grew in a tube, he didn't know or have reason to know until he saw me with Sokari." Which is like. Eight additional layers of WTF, obviously, but at least Jango gets to avoid awkward wild oats jokes

Like, you’d expect the rebuttal to be ‘he’s my brother just with a biiig age gap’ or ‘he’s my nephew’

I find it very unfortunate for Quinlan that I've decided his defining characteristic in this context is going to be repeatedly putting his foot in his mouth

He’s trying so hard but "That sounds like a cool thing, maybe I'll ask ab--and it's another fucking trauma."

I'm doing Ahsoka&Jango t w i c e (there’s another fic where I’m doing it)

It’s just a fun dynamic! So much resentful respect.

Like she's twenty seconds away from calling him a bitch at any given time and he's just there like "I don't like you but I do see you move like you're about to tell an entire building to get on their knees with their hands in the air and I can respect that" Also she's probably much less judgmental about using blasters than Obi-Wan is The Maul subplot actually started with me daydreaming about Ahsoka grabbing a blaster for Reasons

I like the idea of Jango just deciding the most Useful thing he can do is help teach the Smol how to fight. He's AWKWARD around Rex and Soka because he doesn't know if there's anything he CAN teach them.

I didn’t actually plan for Tholme to figure out the age thing, he just SAID it and I had to sit there like Wait.

Ahsoka, Rex & Leia: ahhh, children Tholme: you say that like you aren’t children

I liked getting to write Rex's little "I have worked with all of them, and they're all Terrible" He loves them But They once got stranded on a planet that didn’t exist and Ahsoka died and Anakin killed a god.

There was research and discussion as to whether Ahsoka could win against Tholme but seeing as she held her own against Vader, and fought Grievous at that physical age without dying, etc.... yeah, the only thing holding her back was her body not being what she was used to, and she’s had a few weeks go adjust.

“I miss being able to just jump off skyscrapers” is such a jedi thing

Jango: I'll take the gun back if he tries to leave, they can't get far before--WHAT THE FUCK He knows Jedi are scary but he’s still not really used to just how over the top ridiculous they are He knows how to deal with Jedi in battle, not Whatever The Fuck These People Are Doing

Rex isn't even a Jedi, he's just so used to working with them. “Oh yes time for free-falling without a parachute again, same shit as always.”

Tia: I’m imagining Jango freaking out and Quinlan and Tholme being like. Concerned but mostly exasperated Clearly if they’re jumping off buildings it must be serious? But jfc they could’ve maybe communicated a bit more?

Leia: I want to finish my juice Tholme: Quin, stay with her while we go figure out what those two are doing. Quinlan: Wait what

Jango: Oh now he’s jumping off a building too??? Tholme: Sokari, you are not registered! You can't legally jump out windows yet! Jango: What the hell is going on? Is this normal?

We don’t necessarily know how often Ahsoka and Maul ran into each other after Mandalore. There was the later thing on Malachor, but other than that I'm just going with the idea that they ran into each other every year or two and just went for the eyes like feral cats

Ahsoka: I need to kick ass and you're coming with me. Rex: Yeah, okay. [several minutes later] Rex: Whose ass are we kicking?

Ahsoka and Rex

Neloms aren’t a SW fruit to the best of my knowledge, I just wanted to mess around with lemons/melons

Jango: you didn’t think any of this through, did you? Rex: you were there, you know we didn’t "When the Jedi says to jump out a window, I jump out a window."

Tholme’s real composed about stalking the ancient nigh-mythical enemy of his people, very “Life is already so goddamn weird”

This fic has been so heavy on the trauma but then I introduce Maul and suddenly it's the worst kind of comedy Nobody is competent, everyone's a little dumb, the bad guy is just grocery shopping

My propensity for banter has turned this into a six-person buddy cop comedy about Maul buying grapes They spend a significant amount to time ineffectually stalking Maul before Quin suggests the sensible option Quinlan just "You remember this is my literal job and specialty right"

Ahsoka sees Maul and all her brain cells go out the window except "Fight good" Usually she doesn’t need to worry about doing things legally. Maybe she needs to worry about someone seeing her do illegal things but she spent the past 15 yrs in a place where her existing was illegal

I feel like he’s also maybe kinda wanting to reassert that yes he is competent. Bc like. Ahsoka’s been kinda condescending this whole time and also can beat everyone up so. It's not his fault that he's actually the youngest person there, but.

Jango is finding this whole being friendly to Jedi thing a lot more overwhelming than he thought it would be. And overwhelming in different ways.

Maul usually signifies things getting worse and more horrifyingly tragic but he's just a dumb teen that they needed to arrest for his own good.

Quinlan: Look, I'm useful! Ahsoka: I've been through hell, wanna hear? Quinlan: NO. I DON'T. WHY.

Quinlan: I understand the concept of joking about your traumas, I do it sometimes myself! But sith hells that’s a lot of trauma.

Quinlan just wanted her to treat him as a Competent Individual, and here she is whipping out stories about Dying and Gods and the Force insists it's the truth and he just???? And apparently emo darksider over there is a Sith. And just, sure. Why not

A lot of people’s interactions with the time travelling disaster lineage is just

Tholme and Fett arguing and  Ahsoka's just waiting for a moment to pop in with "Hey, when's the last time either of you worked with the other's culture before this mess? Yeah, that's what I thought."

Much like Leia and Ahsoka hurting each other earlier, and Tholme figuring out the de-aging, we ALSO have Fett’s confrontation with Ahsoka being something the characters just did, rather than something I planned.

FTR the only time I managed to trigger myself while writing this fic was the “your behavior isn’t actually acceptable and we’ve all been trying really hard to give you room to recover but you have to at least make an effort to not be a bitch”

Writing about people having PTSD and symptoms of such: Yay! Writing about people having PTSD and engaging in toxic behavior to cope: Shit Ahsoka had... basically my exact reaction. It's "remind yourself that you're in the wrong, that they have a point, and then be overly formal in the apology because fuck if you accidentally make them feel sorry for you when they're the injured party"

Quinlan: Can we be friends? I mean, you're an asshole, but you're really cool. Let's be friends. (He MIGHT be nursing a crush) (Neat mysterious girl who can beat him up.)

Also he realises she's probably nicer when not having a slow-motion breakdown He's like "Huh, you'll probably be less of an asshole once you've gotten therapy."

...also, she pretty and got Nice Biceps

I love writing a good mental breakdown

I was so close to including a "he tried to kill me" just early enough for Jango to wildly misinterpret as her thinking Quinlan tried to kill her. He'd have been very confused, considering Quinlan's the one that called them down in a panic and currently has Ahsoka having her massive breakdown in his lap But

Tia:  I could see Jango interpreting it as idk, Quin resembling someone or for a moment acting like someone who tried to kill her and she had a flashback or something like that

There's absolutely room for a couple reasonable interpretations there And "trapped in a flashback about someone who tried to kill her" is absolutely what's happening! Just. You know. For a different reason. Jango probably wouldn’t assume Quin would hurt her, for one thing he seems to like her, for another even if he did he’s smart enough to pick a way that wouldn’t be so likely to get him caught

I had to step back and actually say “Also I'm just. Wow. I'm really just shoveling QPP Rex&Ahsoka at full speed”

Me, a few weeks ago, joking: Two halves of the same idiot black ops specialist Me, now, entirely seriously: Two halves of the same idiot black ops specialist

Me, belatedly: Oh, Ahsoka being joyfully mean to people was a form of mania she was unconsciously using to build a barrier between herself and her impending meltdown

She went from "just died" to "in charge of Rex and Leia" in like. Two minutes.

Confession: I've been delighting in the mental image of this whole Mess leading Jango to try to retake Mandalore, and Ahsoka loans him a saber for a 1v1 to get the darksaber.

“Can’t I just fight him barehanded? That’s how I did it on Galidraan.” "But the drama, Fett!"

Probably Rex has learned how to use a saber as well, because you never know when you have to borrow a weapon

I later changed my mind to Jango asking her to help, rather than her just sneak-teaching him, but it was funny.

Background nonsense to all this is Ahsoka and Rex, despite Rex being as force-sensitive as a lump of coal, having developed a process where she can extend her sensitivity to him mind-to-mind for weird symbiotic battle trance that scares everyone around them. It’s very similar to Battle meditation.

CONTEXT FOR LEIA BEING WORRIED ABOUT THOLME HIDING THINGS: Tholme is hiding the fact that the Council reached out and told him that the people he picked up might be connected to Ben and Luke, who showed up after the Depa thing but a solid week and change before Jango's ship makes it to the Temple. They asked that he not share that information to avoid getting anyone's hopes up in case the two situations aren't related. Ben and Luke haven't shared enough information for anyone to really be sure if the other three are connected Because the info Tholme has isn't quite the info Jango has, etc. And they can't just say Ben is a future Obi-Wan over comms

I just have a lot of feelings about people trying to do something right and just. Nobody's at fault! Not really! It's just complicated!

Tia: I like how when Ahsoka isn’t doing maladaptive trauma response stuff she’s very mature. And of course she’s had to be but it’s a good like, contrast. Where when she slows down to think about things she’s very sensible

Jango just spends most of this story lowkey wanting Ahsoka to Be His Friend but there's too much baggage that he's only metaphysically responsible for

Local aroace(?) has a squish

Ahsoka: He just wants to get on my good side because of Rex. Jango: I'm pretty sure you could kill an entire army without trying but you wouldn't because you have actual morals and stuff... and when I met you it was because you were killing yourself trying to keep (what appeared to be) children safe... you seem cool please be my friend.......

Ahsoka’s #1 weakness: mountains of trauma Ahsoka’s #2 weakness: she just doesn’t get why so many people think she’s cool and want her to be their (girl)friend

Jango, a 27yo massacre survivor who's killed Jedi masters with his bare hands: [gets lectured on various government structures by a tiny girl that's missing several teeth and needs to sit on books to see the table properly]

Ahsoka was raised in a religious meritocracy but developed all her opinions during a galactic war and then became a vigilante spy, Rex comes from a military cult, Leia is from an inherited monarchy that participates in democracy, Quinlan was originally from what appears to be a dynastic dictatorship, and IDK about Tholme other than that he is also from the religious meritocracy. And in legends Quinlan came to the religious meritocracy after his aunt sacrificed his parents to a vampire cult and then forced him to experience the psychometric echoes of that. There's just. A lot going on.

Leia at least has knowledge about structure and admin in theory that isn't based in either the military or populations under 10k

Jango: I want to be your friend. Ahsoka: Sounds fake.

I am unfairly fond of "Rex destroys a conversation by bringing up his own horrifying childhood and calling it a cult"

"Why does Sokari call you 'Rex'ika'?" "Because she's older than me." "...can I--?" "No."

Nickname privileges are extended ONLY to Ahsoka and older clones. There are no more older clones, so it's just Ahsoka.

Me joking about Star Wars AUs: Would you like a crackship? Me writing actual Star Wars fic: My favorite character type is apparently “too traumatized to have a relationship” so this is at least 90% gen.

I had to pull a scene opening at one point because Ahsoka's skill with not getting shot is actually much less useful than Tholme's clearance levels.

Now I really want a team-up of Ahsoka, Rex, and Jango where they do have to get in a dogfight of the "she flies, we shoot" variety and Fett just has to scream because the speeder thing to catch Maul was one thing, but this....

Ahsoka, before TCW: I know all the traffic rules but I'm not that great at flying! Ahsoka, after TCW: I'm great at flying but if you let me behind the wheel we are absolutely getting arrested.

She went from "knows the rules but doesn't have the skills" to "has the skills but primarily in the form of not getting shot" which! Is delightful! "Bet I can get us through that alley--" "DO NOT"

Jango and Ahsoka are both just very "Is this friendship? Is this camaraderie? My heart's been fried on platonic love by so many murders that I'm not sure anymore." "I've lost a lot of friends. I kind of forgot how to make those."

I have no idea if "hasn't been closer than Alderaan except that one trip to Chandrila" is canon-compliant but ehhhhhhhh It feels plausible enough?

Belatedly realized that I could just explain my optimal Rex&Ahsoka dynamic as just... drift compatible. It's vague enough on the specifics while still digging into the meat of what they mean to each other and how they work together. The terminology is already in existence. I can just use it.

Romantic? Platonic? Familial? Doesn't matter! They're drift compatible.

They are important to each other and that is what matters

I really like the Leia&Quinlan thing. He's just like "This small child needs a friend that isn't super depressed," and decided he's going to be her friend. I keep trying to toss in "Quinlan volunteers to 'baby'sit." She's not much older and she has a Baby Brain, it works out

There's a running bet as to whether Leia will leave the Order the second she turns thirteen, or if she'll let Sokari "train" her for a few years first. And... that’s how I came up with Leia Antilles, Senator of Serenno.

They'll be bullshitting Ben as her new master to "finish out the padawanship" since they can't tell everyone she's really in her thirties and he's conveniently there and already knows everything and was half her master anyway. Like Ben was planning on taking on Luke, but Luke is "six" and even he can't swing that as old enough to be a Padawan, and it's not like Sokari will take more than a handful of years to justify knighthood, sooooooooo

[kanerallels]

"There is no unspoken thing between us."

"Well, that's a Catch-22. Because if you said there was, it would be spoken, and then you'd be a liar. So by saying there isn't, you're telling the truth, and admitting there is."

Marvel quote—and you know which couple this is for 😉

Oh, you KNOW I do!!!

Pairing: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla

Word Count: 3,559

Warnings/Tags: Rated G (for the fetching green vest Kanan's wearing)

Read on AO3!

Having deep cover operatives in the Empire was an important part of running a spy network. They gave Kanan some of his best information and helped him sneak the objects of the Empire’s rage right out from under the ISB’s nose more often than not.

But it could be a little inconvenient when he needed to pick up data from them. Because it almost inevitably involved him getting into some kind of ridiculous disguise and sneaking into some place the Empire didn’t want him in.

Case in point, he thought wryly, smoothing down the front of the fancy vest he was wearing over his dress shirt. “How do I look?” he asked, his voice quiet enough that none of the guests around him could hear.

“Ridiculous as always,” Kasmir’s voice came from the earpiece he wore, and Kanan rolled his eyes. The rest of the Yellow Submarine’s crew had demanded that he wear it, partially because they were bored and partially because Kasmir claimed Kanan had a habit of not giving them proper updates about what was going on. So they’d hacked the security cameras, and Kanan was set up with an earpiece. “Otherwise you’re fine. Remind me what your plan is again?”

Claiming a glass of champagne from a nearby waiter, Kanan muttered, “Blend in while I wait for our contact to drop off the intel at the dead drop, then go there as soon as I get the signal. After that I get the kriff out of here as soon as possible.”

As he took a drink of the bubbly drink, Ezra said, “Sounds boring. Actually, this whole party looks boring. Just a bunch of grown ups in fancy clothing drinking alcohol and sucking up to each other.”

“Welcome to adult parties for the rich and tyrannical,” Kasmir told him, and Kanan had to stifle a grin. “They all suck.”

Unfortunately, Kanan couldn’t disagree. The Empire’s parties mainly consisted of flaunting their fabulousness to everyone else, but really just came off as self-absorbed. Luckily for him, this particular party had been incredibly easy to sneak into.

Taking another sip from the champagne glass, Kanan swept a glance around the room again-- and spotted his contact. The light-haired man, clad in a dark dress uniform, swept out of a door, his steps brisk and business-like as he passed by. He didn't give Kanan a backwards glance, but Kanan could tell he knew he was there.

“Alright, I'm on the move,” he said softly.

“About time,” Kasmir complained. “This is incredibly boring.”

Stepping through the doorway his contact had come out of, Kanan pointed out, “You're the ones who wanted to listen in.”

“Yeah, but I prefer blaming you,” the Kalleran said as Kanan moved into the room. It was some kind of sitting room, with a few armchairs here and there, and a small table in one corner.

Tuning out Kasmir, who was continuing to grumble, Kanan began searching the room. The table turned up nothing, so he moved to one of the armchairs. Dropping into it, he slid his hands down the side and into the cracks. A grin spread across his face as one hand encountered a slim rectangular shape. Bingo.

Pulling the datacard out, Kanan slipped it into the pocket of his vest. Cutting off Kasmir, he said, “I've got the intel. On my way out.”

He slipped out of the sitting room again, and a quick glance around the room made it clear that he’d been neither missed nor spotted. Time to get out of here, he thought.

Making a beeline for the door, Kanan paused to swipe a mini jogan cream cake from a waiter. He popped it in his mouth-- and nearly choked at the sound of a familiar laugh. A far too familiar laugh.

Spinning around, Kanan searched the crowd behind him. No way. No kriffing way. But even as he thought it, his gaze landed on where a handful of people were dancing to the elegant music in the background. And his eyes were drawn to a green-skinned Twi’lek woman, dancing with an Imperial officer and wearing a smile he knew had to be fake.

Some kind of makeup obscured the markings on Hera’s lekku, and she was a ways away from Kanan, but he’d recognize her anywhere. Especially that voice, which he could hear speaking in her native Ryl accent even from that distance. Who knew she had an accent? He mused.

“KANAN!!”

Kanan nearly jumped when he heard Kasmir shout his name in his earpiece. “Kriffing-- don’t do that,” he hissed, turning away from the crowd so no one would see him moving his lips.

“What are you hesitating for? It’s time to get out of there,” Kasmir urged. “We’re not even supposed to be here, ya know.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Kanan said. “I just, uh, might not be back right away.”

“What? Why not-- oooh. Mini kid, check the cams.”

“On it!” Ezra chirped in the background.

Ignoring them, Kanan turned back to the crowd, scanning until he spotted Hera again, still dancing with the same Imp, her movements graceful. What is she doing here? If someone spots her-- okay, calm down, Kanan. She can take care of herself, and you’re not technically responsible for watching her back.

No matter how much you wished you were, whispered some part of him, the part of him that occasionally told him to please forget all of the spy stuff and talk to Hera.

In his ear, there was a gasp. “I KNEW IT. Hera’s here, guys!!!” Ezra’s voice was unreasonably excited as he spoke. “What is she doing here? Kanan, does she know you’re here? Are you gonna talk to her? What do you think she’ll--”

“Kasmir,” Kanan said, cutting off his apprentice, “I’m going off coms. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“You’re doing WHAT? Wait, kid, don’t you dare--”

Kasmir's voice was abruptly cut off as Kanan plucked his earpiece out and stuck it in his pocket. He had no doubt he'd be getting a good chewing out over this later from Kasmir. But Kanan also had a feeling it would be worth it.

He headed toward the dancers, weaving through the crowd and keeping his gaze locked on Hera. As he drew closer, he felt his heartbeat pick up slightly.

Hera was always beautiful, there was no denying that. When Kanan had first met her, he'd been literally incapable of speech standing across from her. And he had a feeling he was going to have a very similar problem now.

She wore a dark red dress, the short sleeves made of a dark gauzy fabric. Silver lace patterns covered the whole thing, shimmering in the light with Hera's every movement. It was mesmerizing.

Kanan suddenly realized he was staring. Kriff. Alright, try and focus, Jarrus.

Slipping past a few more guests, he stepped out of the crowd and onto the dance floor just as Hera and her partner moved up near him. “May I cut in?” he asked.

The Imperial officer dancing with Hera looked like he wanted to argue, but one glance at Kanan changed his mind quickly. He stepped back, and Kanan moved forward smoothly, sweeping Hera back into the dance.

Hera’s gaze flicked up to him, a demure smile crossing her face-- and Kanan saw the moment when she realized it was him and not some Imperial. “Wha-- Kanan?”

~ ~ ~

As Hera gaped at him in shock, she saw a grin crossing Kanan’s face. “I’d bet this is the last place you expected to see me,” he said, his deep voice low and remarkably self satisfied.

“You could say that,” Hera agreed, recovering quickly.

It hadn’t been too difficult to slip into the party. All Hera had had to do was bat her eyelashes a few times and the Imps were basically falling over themselves to let her in. While it was useful, it did also get on her nerves a little, even if she was used to the way most people looked at her species these days.

Kanan, on the other hand, didn’t exactly have the same qualifications. Frowning, she asked, “How did you get in here?”

“Does it matter?” Kanan kept his voice low as they kept dancing, and Hera had to admit-- he was a good dancer, better than she would have expected.

He was also dressed better than she would have expected-- a crisp olive green dress shirt, the sleeves pushed up, under an emerald green vest with a high collar, trousers of the same olive green, and brown boots. His hair was back in it’s usual ponytail, and he wore a slight grin.

He looked good-- which Hera would never give him the satisfaction of admitting. She would only admit to herself how her heartbeat sped up slightly at his proximity, at the feeling of his hand resting on her waist.

Taking a quick breath, she said, “Probably not. Although I do wonder what you’re doing here, I have to admit.”

“Free hors d’oeuvres,” Kanan said breezily. “Nothing tastes better than expensive Imperial wine, especially when you’re not supposed to drink it. How about you? I have a feeling you’re not here for the canapes, or whatever they’re serving.”

“Not exactly,” Hera said. “But I’m not sure talking to you about it is the best idea. After all, you’ve made it very clear you’re not interested.”

“Really? That’s what you think? I thought you knew that wasn’t true at all.”

Giving him a look, Hera said, “In the cause.”

“Oh, that.” Kanan made a face. “I liked what I was talking about better.”

“I’m sure you did.”

A slight smile curved Kanan’s mouth, and he studied her for a few seconds as they danced. “When are we going to do something about this unspoken thing we have going on?”

“What?” Hera blinked, surprised that he’d actually said something. “No-- there’s no unspoken thing between us.”

Shrugging, Kanan deftly spun her out as he said, “Well, that’s a Catch-22, because if you said there was, it would be spoken and you’d be a liar. So by saying there isn’t--” he pulled her back in, this time closer than she had been. Hera felt her heartbeat pick up again at the sheer closeness of him.

“--you’re telling the truth and admitting there is,” Kanan finished. His gaze caught hers, and he studied her for a moment with those teal eyes of his. Hera saw his eyes drop to her lips, and caught her breath, wondering for a moment what he would do, and how she would react to it.

Focus, Hera, she told herself sternly. You need to finish up here and get back to the crew. Clearing her throat, she said, “I don’t really have time for your flirting, dear. I have a mission to finish, sooner rather than later.”

“What’s your rush?” Kanan asked lightly.

“Well, let’s just say I have a new crew member, and I’d prefer to get back before she destroys the ship,” Hera said wryly. “She’s a little… temperamental.”

“Sounds like fun,” Kanan said. “Alright, how can I help?”

Giving Kanan an unimpressed look, Hera said, “We just had this conversation. You don’t want anything to do with the cause.”

“You know me so well,” Kanan said, smirking. “But I’m not doing this for the cause. Trust me.”

The pointed intonation at the end of his sentence didn’t really surprise Hera. However, that wasn’t exactly about to change her answer. “That’s not terribly reassuring,” she said.

“Hey, you know I’m capable,” Kanan pointed out. “And you don’t have to trust me here. But I’m willing to help.

“Alright-- what are you asking in return?” Hera asked.

To her surprise, a stung look flashed across Kanan’s face. “Nothing. I’m not always looking for some kind of payout, you know.”

Kriff. Hera grimaced, well aware she’d put her foot in her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she said, coming to a stop on the dance floor and making sure she had Kanan’s attention. “That was stupid of me. You’re right, and I should have seen it. I know you better than that.”

And she did, strange though it seemed.

“Thanks,” Kanan said quietly, his voice serious for once. He paused, then said, “Now where are we going?”

Hera paused, darting a glance around the room. Luckily, the owner of the house was distracted at the bar. “This way,” she told him, grabbing him by the hand. She pulled him off the dance floor and through the crowd, heading for a door on the far side of the room. Kanan followed her willingly, and together they slipped through the door in question.

The door led them into a dark hallway, and Hera led the way forward, Kanan on her heels. “Let’s hope we don’t run into any other party-goers,” she muttered. “This could be a potential awkward situation.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I hear public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable,” Kanan suggested, and Hera let out a sigh.

“Do you ever stop?”

“Not unless I have to. What’s the plan here?”

“I’m trying to break into the main office,” Hera told him. “It should be a little ways away from here. All you need to do is watch my back. Oh, and come up with a good excuse if we’re caught.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Kanan said easily. “Just lead the way, Captain Hera.”

They didn’t have far to go before they reached the door Hera had been looking for, and stepped inside. The office was large and elaborate, with wood panelling and an extremely expensive vase on the desk.

Moving behind the desk, Hera booted up the console and pulled up her skirt to reveal the holster strapped to her leg, holding her blaster and a datacard to download the intel she needed. Pulling out the datacard, she glanced at Kanan, fully expecting him to be watching her.

To her surprise, he had his gaze fixed on the door, and was rather steadfastly not looking at her. Maybe he’s got a bit of chivalry left after all, Hera mused. Who would have thought?

She let her skirt drop and inserted the datacard into the console, tapping at the screen to find the information she needed. “This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes,” she told Kanan.

Glancing back at Hera, Kanan said, “Well, that’s good. This way, we might have time for something else. Maybe a little more dancing, that kind of thing.”

“What part of ‘I need to get back to my ship before a teenage Mandalorian tears it to pieces’ did you not understand?” Hera shot back.

“Oh, come on,” Kanan said with a sigh. “Seriously, though-- when was the last time you did anything for yourself instead of your cause? You deserve a night off.”

“And it just happens to be with you?” Hera said, feeling a smile twitch across her lips in spite of herself.

Kanan shrugged nonchalantly, a gleam in his eye. “It’s an added bonus.”

“Hmm.” For a moment, Hera let herself think about what it would be like to just spend the rest of the night out. Dancing, food, maybe a little flirting. It sounded fun. Like something she might have done in a different world, if she hadn’t been fighting the Empire, and she’d met Kanan under different circumstances. “That sounds… nice. Fun, even.”

“Can’t let the Empire stop you from having fun,” Kanan pointed out, leaning against the desk as he caught her gaze. “I’ll buy you a drink. Who knows, you might even enjoy yourself--”

Then Hera saw him freeze, his eyes going wide. “What is--” she started, and the door hissed open.

“Wha-- what are you doing in here?” demanded a brusque Imperial voice, and the owner of the house stalked into view. Hera saw a “well, kriff” expression flash across Kanan’s face.

“Wait-- are you--” the owner started. Moving fast, Kanan grabbed the vase on the desk, spun around and smashed it over the man’s head.

As the Imp crumpled to the ground, Kanan turned to Hera. “Time to go,” he said.

“Definitely,” Hera said as the console let out a beep. “I have what I need anyways.” Pulling out the datacard, she slipped it back into her holster, and she and Kanan made for the door.

They hadn’t gotten far before an alarm started going off. “Looks like we’ve been spotted,” Kanan muttered, his brows furrowing.

“Do you have a ride out of here?” Hera asked.

“Yeah-- follow me.”

Kanan headed back the way they’d come, pushing open the door that lead into the room where the party was being held. Hera hesitated for a second, then darted after him as he shouldered his way through the somewhat confused crowd.

They’d made it halfway through the crowd when the doors burst open, and an irate voice shouted, “STOP THAT TWI’LEK!!”

Hera heard Kanan breathe a curse quietly as she pulled her blaster out from under her dress. “Keep things stealthy until we don’t have to,” she muttered.

“Yeah, that’s going really well so far,” he hissed.

“You’re the one who smashed a vase over someone’s head!”

“Well, you shot down my other idea!”

Letting out an exasperated sigh, Hera said, “So help me, you’re going to drive me--”

She was cut off by a hand clamping down onto her shoulder. “Here she is!” someone shouted. “I’ve caught the intrud-- ugh!”

Hera spun smoothly, twisting away from the man who’d grabbed her, and slammed her fist into his throat. As the man dropped to the ground, clutching at his throat, Kanan grabbed her by the hand and pulled her forward. “Remind me never to make you that mad,” he said.

“You’ve come very close, dear,” Hera shot back.

“Have I mentioned you look amazing tonight?”

“You’re not helping your situation. Wait-- are we heading for the window?”

“You’re about to find out how I got into this place,” Kanan said, a grim smile crossing his face.

Releasing Hera’s hand, he didn’t stop in his tracks as he grabbed a bar stool and heaved it through the window, shattering the glass. Shards of it flew everywhere, and Hera heard screams as Kanan came to a stop next to the window.

“Come on!” he said, holding out his hand.

Hera darted forward, glancing down as Kanan’s hand wrapped around hers. A speeder was parked a few feet below them. “Creative,” she observed.

“I’m a creative guy,” Kanan quipped, then ducked as blaster fire zipped past them. Lifting her own blaster, Hera shot back at the stormtroopers who were flooding into the room. “Time to go!” Kanan said, and jumped, Hera leaping after him.

They landed in the speeder in an undignified pile, and Kanan immediately scrambled into the passenger’s seat. “Get us out of here!”

“On it,” Hera said, switching on the speeder and tossing Kanan her blaster. “Make yourself useful, please!”

“Yes, Captain Hera,” Kanan said, lifting his blaster and firing at the stormtroopers that were crowding into the window. Hera let out a triumphant sound as the engines roared to life.

“We’re out of here.” Slamming on the acceleration, they leaped forward. Kanan let out an undignified yelp, and Hera suppressed a smile as they zipped away from the building and into traffic.

It didn’t take them long to disappear, out of sight from the Imperials. Leaning back in his seat, Kanan remarked, “It’s been way too long since I’ve flown with you. You’re still as incredible as you used to be.”

Hera felt a small smile flash across her face. Kanan’s real compliments were somehow much nicer than his casual flirting. “Thanks. Now, where are we heading?”

“You can drop me off up here,” Kanan said, pointing. “It’s not technically my speeder, so you can take it wherever you need to go.” Pausing, he added, “Or we could find something to eat. Have a drink, maybe…”

Hera found herself hesitating, to her own surprise. Because part of her wanted to say yes, which she definitely didn’t expect. Maybe some of that flirting was actually starting to rub off on her.

But at the end of the day, she was working with the Rebellion, and Kanan refused to commit to something like that. And she really did have to get back. “Not this time,” she said, bringing them to a stop at the roadside. “I have work to do. Thank you, though, for your help with this.”

“Any time,” Kanan said, giving her a half-smile. “Until next time, Captain Hera.” Catching hold of her hand, he bent down and pressed a gentle kiss against the back of it.

Hera’s eyes widened, a slight flush spreading over her at the unexpected gesture, and Kanan shot her a wink. “Couldn’t let you leave without a souvenir, could I?” He vaulted over the side of the speeder and headed down the street, looking supremely satisfied.

Despite herself, Hera felt a smile crossing her face. Typical Kanan. Gunning the engines, she took off down the street, heading back to the Ghost and her next mission. Trying to pretend like a certain gunslinger wasn’t still in the back of her mind.

She had a feeling that wouldn’t work very well, though. Kanan never made things like that easy. But Hera was starting to wonder if she actually minded.

[anathtsurugi]

So, Star Wars buddies, y’all remember how I wrote that soulmate AU a couple years back...

Well, When You Pry it From My Cold, Dead Chest is finally getting a continuation. The new story will be posted in about a month as part of @kalluzebminibang‘s mini bang event, but the first chapter is available right now on my Patreon. So if you still remember my odd little story, if it touched your life in some way and you’ve maaaaaybe got a few spare dollars lying around for a rainy day, you can hop on over and be one of the first to see the start of the new fic.

But for now, if you haven’t got the spare change but are still excited for the new story, here’s a little sneak peek at the upcoming You Can Take My heart, You Can Take My Breath.

~*~

 Ever since returning from Mandalore, Kanan had been working with him to try and figure out a way to regain his soulmark. Nothing they'd tried had come anywhere close to succeeding. Zeb still possessed amber in his field of vision, and would occasionally report other flashes of color flickering in and out. So it seemed the problem lay not with him, but with Kallus himself.

 These last few days, he had gone out early in the morning to meet with the Jedi, before he had to be on shift and before Kanan would meet up with Ezra for their own regular training. But this was even earlier than he normally woke. He doubted Kanan would even be awake yet. Even so, he would head out, maybe take a little extra time to get into the necessary head space...

 "I know you're not goin' out at this un-Ashla hour," Zeb grumbled from the bunk just as he finished dressing. "Y'should come back to bed."

 Kallus gave a fond sigh as he crossed the few steps back to the bed, dropping to one knee beside it. "I will do no one any good lying here unable to sleep," he said, leaning down to press a kiss to his partner's lips. "Go back to sleep, my love. I'll return in an hour or so."

 "Mm, there's other things we can do if you can't sleep, y'know," Zeb mumbled, voice thick with sleep.

 "Be reasonable, Garazeb," he started with a small laugh. "We can't have sex every time I can't sleep."

 "We could. It's an option. You're just choosing not to."

 Again Alex laughed, placating his lover with one last kiss. "Maybe so, but you at least require sleep, and if you're a good boy and get enough rest, I promise you can kriff me up against the wall when I get back."

 "Promise?" the Lasat grumbled peevishly as he rolled away from him.

 "Promise."

 "Fine. But I'm holdin' you to that. I don't care how late we are for morning shift."

 "Fair enough," Kallus conceded as he got back to his feet.

 "L'ashkerrir an," Zeb mumbled, barely awake.

 Kallus stopped in the doorway at the sound of those words, feeling that same flutter of unbound joy in his heart as he had the very first time Zeb had spoken them. He hoped it never stopped.

 "And I you...my dearest Zeb," he said softly, adoringly, before allowing the door to slide closed behind him.

 Kallus took no weapons with him when he departed the Ghost, despite every instinct he had always begging him to. The very first time they'd gone out into the jungle, Kanan had insisted he wouldn't need any weapons.

 "Are you crazy?" he'd asked, certain the knight hadn't yet been informed about the local fauna. "Do you have any idea what's out there?"

 Kanan had simply given him a shit-eating grin and offered up cryptically, "Only what you take with you."

 Whatever that meant. Still, Kallus had obeyed, and he had not found cause to doubt Kanan yet. This particular morning was no different, if not a touch earlier than even he rose. The sky had barely begun to lighten as he moved through the dense jungle. He'd likely have had trouble finding his way if he didn't already know where he was going. However, much to his surprise, their usual clearing was not deserted when he arrived.

 "Couldn't sleep?" Kanan asked as Kallus stepped into the circle, clearly having been sitting in meditation for some time already. As had been the case on all the mornings prior, he was not wearing his typical mask.

 "I don't know that I've slept properly since Atollon," he admitted, tired of his own stoic front. He had learned quickly that the knight could read him like a holobook. "Though neither, it seems, could you."

 "Call it a hunch," the Jedi said, nodding to indicate he ought to sit down beside him. "Feel up to contemplating your innermost self this fine morning?"

 "As much as one ever is 'up' for such a task," he conceded as he came to sit beside the man he had previously hunted. "Though Zeb did try to argue that it isn't even properly morning yet."

 "And he was right. Unfortunately for those of us with normal biorhythms, the Force says 'jump' when and where it wants to, so we mortals must abide. Let me see your arm," he said, holding out his hand.

 "See, Kanan?" he joked half-heartedly as he rolled up the sleeve of his jacket, resting his forearm in the Jedi's outstretched hand.

 "I can see better than you can right now," Kanan returned in a similar tone, caught somewhere between joking and serious. Exhaling, he brought his other hand up to run his fingers over the skin where the soulmark had once been, and when he winced at whatever it was he was feeling, Kallus was once again grateful not to be able to feel it.

 "Close your eyes," the Jedi told him.

 Kallus did as he was bid, easily quieting the skeptical voice in his mind that had grown smaller and smaller since he'd watched the inquisitor burn away a piece of his soul.

 "Quiet your mind," Kanan coached him.

 Kallus knew the Jedi had not found it easy to convince him to let go of the tight patterns of control Imperial conditioning had worked him into. He still didn't find it easy to just...let go. To give up control of his mind and his thoughts and allow himself to just...be. The closest he came was his state of mind when engaged in a particularly fierce fight ― the sort where he had gone beyond gauging his opponent and plotting his own moves and had simply become lost in the rhythm of the moment...the dance of it. He couldn't say how much time had passed when he became aware of Kanan's voice again.

 "When you first realized Zeb was your soulmate...what did you feel?"

 "Relief," he answered without having to think about it. "Even though I had tried- to give it up...I had feared that my partner had died soon after Lasan. There was something...freeing...in finally hearing those words spoken aloud."

 "But...?"

 "That relief was immediately followed by anger."

 "Because he was your enemy?"

 "Because I was his."

 "What do you mean?"

 "I think I had always known...from the moment I was able to understand the words on my arm...that there would be enmity between my partner and I. The older I became, the more I was prepared to hate myself...for all of it. When the moment finally came...all I had left was anger...hatred...for him, myself...for the galaxy and everyone in it. I tried to tell myself I'd done the only thing I could do..."

 "But you knew different."

 "Deep down...I suppose...yes. I didn't begin to consider the implications of any of it until after Bahryn...and then everything was happening so quickly...and Zeb was forgiving me everything...even if he shouldn't have done. I loved him...so fiercely in those days. I clung to it when I was weak...in my darkest moments..."

 "And then you were captured."

 Kallus gasped, any response he might've had slipping away from him as the memories pierced his awareness, sharp and unforgiving.

 Thrawn's red eyes...his cruel sneer...

 The inquisitor's chilling voice...her molten, scorching touch as she-

 "NO!" he cries out in anguish, struggling to pull back, to turn away from the horror of it.

 "No. Don't run from this. Stand your ground, Fulcrum," the Jedi's voice comes to him again, firm but not unkind, guiding him in the darkness. "We're so close now."

 So Alex let the memory play out, trembling, but not looking away as he relived his worst moment.

 "It- broke me...when that bond was cut," he recounted, his voice unsteady. "I had bled for it...killed for it...in a way, I had died for it...and they took it from me. As easy as peeling off a glove...they stole a part of my heart from me...the part that was good...that was true and worth saving...the part that Zeb loved. They stole it from me," he hissed, feeling the sting of tears as they pushed their way through his closed eyelids.

 "Do you really believe that?" he heard Kanan asking him. "That the part of you that's worth saving is lost?"

 "Yes," he answered, voice still unsteady, but certain. "I don't- doubt his love...but why should someone as wonderful as Garazeb Orrelios...be bound to such a broken creature as this?" He had taken comfort in Zeb's promises...after Atollon...but did he believe himself worthy of them?

 No.

 "That's it, then."

 Inhaling sharply, Kallus suddenly found himself blinking his eyes open in the grey pre-dawn light to find Kanan now sitting in front of him, unseeing eyes gazing rather pointedly into his. Kallus had to resist the urge to pull back from him.

 "I...what?"

 "That's why you haven't been able to regain your soulmark. It's because you aren't certain you deserve to have it...that you don't want Zeb to be tied to you when, in your view, he has the chance to be free."

 "It- would seem so. Yes," he said quietly, achingly, as he let his gaze drop to the small patch of dirt that separated them.

 "Then there isn't anything I can do to help you," Kanan told him, reaching a hand up to grip his shoulder. "Until you know what it is that the two of you share, that bond won't return."

 Kallus inhaled slowly before giving a long sigh and looking up at the Jedi. "I understand. Thank you for everything you've done."

 "Don't give it up for lost yet, Kallus," Kanan scolded him mildly as he climbed to his feet. "Zeb's a stubborn one. He'll help you scrub out that Imperial mindset. You just need to give him a chance to prove himself. Go back to him. You two can probably get in a little extra time before the day gets going."

 "Right. I'll...catch up with you," he said, voice still little more than a whisper. Not watching Kanan go, the only indication he had that the younger man had done so was the quiet sound of his footfalls.

~*~

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[bedlamsbard]

Part 14 of the other side AU concept! I know roughly when I want to pause and go back to section one to do revisions for AO3, but until then, concept writing, as I’m enjoying how low pressure this is at the moment.  This section is for very important family feelings.

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About 6.5K below the break.

***

Ezra woke up sluggishly, aware immediately that he was on a starship and that he wasn’t in his usual bunk. He could hear someone else breathing in the same room, but that could have meant anything; since the Chimaera had crashed he had been sleeping in the same makeshift barracks as the remaining death troopers.  He kept his eyes closed, unwilling to reach out into the Force and disappoint himself after what had undoubtedly been another dream of rescue.  He had had a lot of those over the past six years.

Eventually he opened an eye, frowning up at the surface of the top bunk above him – not the ceiling of the Scylla wardroom the death troopers were all sleeping in.  He turned his head slowly, wincing as the movement jarred pain up and down his neck.

Kanan said quietly, “How are you feeling?”

Ezra sat up so quickly he practically concussed himself on the top bunk.  Groaning, he clapped a hand to his forehead, staring at Kanan as the other man unfolded himself from his meditation cushion and came over to him. “You’re real,” Ezra whispered.

He put his free hand out to grab Kanan’s arm.  Kanan was solidly real beneath his fingers, muscle and flesh there beneath the fabric of his shirtsleeve.  He didn’t look the way he usually did in Ezra’s dreams, either; most of the past six years didn’t show on his face, but his hair was cropped shorter than it had ever been except for that last day, his beard cut close against his jaw.  That familiar scar still cut across his white eyes, taking a nick out of the top of his nose.  The metal bracers on his forearms were unfamiliar, painted green with the claw symbol from his old pauldron in white on them.

Ezra hung onto him, trying and failing not to cry.  “You’re real,” he said again, then managed to wake up enough to remember the events of the previous day and a half.  “It was all real.”

He crumpled forward into Kanan’s arms with rather less dignity than he would have preferred, his tears quickly soaking through the shoulder of Kanan’s shirt.  Kanan held him closely, a solid, reassuring bulwark in the Force; all Ezra wanted to do was bask in the warmth of that strength. He was real.  He was real. And here – they were all here.  He was on the Ghost.

“You were – gone,” he said irrationally, the words muffled by the fact he still had his face buried in Kanan’s shoulder.  “You were dead.”

“I got better,” Kanan said gravely, with hint of his old humor. “It didn’t take.”

Ezra finally raised his head, wiping a hand over his tear-streaked face. “You were dead,” he said again.  “You’ve been dead.  I – I felt it.  And I felt – I felt you come back.  But how –” He thought about the World Between Worlds again, the way he had a thousand times over the years, trying to decide if it would have been as awful as Ahsoka had claimed it would be if he had just done it, grabbed Kanan the way he had her.  He touched Kanan gingerly with his mind, wondering if he could sense the strange energy of that place on him, but all he could feel was Kanan.

“It’s a long story,” Kanan said. “And Hera had probably better tell most of it, since she can decide what’s too classified to talk about and I probably shouldn’t.”

Ezra frowned. “But it’s – you, isn’t it?  From – from then.”  He couldn’t say the words out loud, not when he still had nightmares about it.  He thought he probably always would have those nightmares.

Kanan nodded. “Yes.”

“But – I felt – back on Lothal – the Loth-wolves –”

Kanan arched an eyebrow.

“It’s why we went to the temple, when the Empire was tearing it up – studying it,” Ezra tried to explain. “I saw – I felt – you, back then.  If you weren’t dead –”

Kanan sighed. “Ezra, I don’t have an explanation for everything,” he said gently. “The Force works in ways that we can’t always understand – that we aren’t capable of understanding.  And – I know this one pretty personally right now – the Force doesn’t understand space and time in the way that we do.  Space and time don’t exist in the Force in the same way that we live it.  More than one thing can be true at the same time.  And death doesn’t mean the same thing in the Force that it does to us – not when we’re in this form, at least.”

Ezra flinched. “I don’t understand,” he said, always a safe thing to say with Kanan.

“I don’t either,” Kanan said. “The Jedi teach that we are the Force made flesh.”  He lifted his hands, flexing long fingers bared by his fingerless gloves. “We occupy this flesh, but it isn’t what we are.  We’re the Force, and the Force is more than one thing at once.  It’s all things at all times.  It’s one reason we can see possible futures and the past as it could have been, and the present as it might still be somewhere else.”

Ezra scrubbed a hand beneath his eyes again. “I don’t understand,” he repeated. “But – I’m really glad you’re here.”

Kanan grinned. “So am I.”

Ezra hugged him again, hard enough that his abused muscles protested, then sat back heavily on the bunk. “And I feel like I got tossed around by a krykna,” he groaned. “And then stepped on by an AT-AT.”

“For what it’s worth, you don’t look it,” Kanan said, and Ezra groaned again.

“I’ll wait on that until someone else can weigh in,” he said. “Are there clothes around here?” He looked around vaguely, trying to remember what had happened after they had arrived at the Ghost.  He was clean, so he must have showered; he was also wearing a shirt and underwear that weren’t Imperial-issue, and he was sincerely hoping he had put them on himself. He blinked again, finally realizing that he was in Kanan’s cabin.

Kanan leaned over, picked something up, and passed him a pile of fabric. “That should fit,” he said. “There was some guessing involved, but we were all feeling optimistic.”

“You have no idea how glad I’ll be not to wear something that doesn’t have the Imperial seal or the words ‘property of the Galactic Empire’ on it somewhere,” Ezra said.  He ran a hand over his hair, then pulled the strips of leather free and finger-combed it before he pulled it back again.

Kanan started to get up. Ezra grabbed at his arm and said, “Don’t –”

Don’t go, he almost said. Don’t leave me.

Kanan stopped. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said gently. “I thought you might want some privacy.”

Ezra shrugged vaguely. He had been living in a durasteel box for six years and then being watched every time he was outside that box, and he didn’t have a good grasp on the concept anymore.  Either way, the idea of letting Kanan out of his sight for more than a few moments felt like torture just now.

He got dressed while Kanan sat on the meditation cushion, pulling on the boots they had gotten him – more or less identical to his old pair, which had died an ignominious death a few years ago on one of the planets Thrawn had dragged him down to.  It felt unbelievably good not to have a single piece of Imperial-issue gear on him, not even the blaster he had brought with him from Chimaera Camp.  It was there; he just didn’t want to put it on, not yet.

When he finished and turned back, it was to find Kanan offering his outstretched hand.  Ezra froze, his eyes fixed on what lay across his master’s open palm.

“You don’t need a lightsaber to be a Jedi Knight,” Kanan said, “but it’s always nice to have one.”

Ezra reached for it, stopping with his fingers hovering just over the hilt. He could sense the kyber crystal there, attuned to him and eager to be back in his presence.  Then he looked up at Kanan, startled. “Jedi Knight?”

“You’ve had your trials,” Kanan said. “Even if I wasn’t here for them.”

Ezra bit his lip, fighting back the urge to start crying again.  He took the lightsaber from Kanan, weighing it in his palm before he turned it upright and ignited the blade.  It hummed between them, green plasma illuminating the shadows on Kanan’s face.  They lay calmly, with nothing odd or unnatural about them, except the reflection of the blade in his white eyes, like a ghost of his vanished vision.

Ezra deactivated the lightsaber. “I don’t know what to say,” he said, his voice a little shaky.

Kanan put a hand on his shoulder, smiling. “You don’t have to say anything,” he said.

Ezra put the lightsaber carefully onto his belt, then hugged Kanan again.  When he pulled back, he said, “Hey, does this make you a Master?”

Kanan blinked. “I guess,” he said; the thought had clearly never crossed his mind.  He slung an arm around Ezra’s shoulders and said warmly, “Come on, let’s get some food in you before we have to decide what to do about Thrawn and the Yuuzhan Vong.”

“Leave them to each other,” Ezra grumbled, but he didn’t mean it; he was more than half-afraid that Thrawn had somehow already talked himself into an alliance with the Vong. His impression was that the Vong didn’t believe in alliance, only domination, but it wasn’t as though he had all that much to base that on.  The only time he had ever actually interacted with the Vong they had been trying to kill each other; he had seen enough of what they left behind to dislike the wreckage, though.

He leaned against Kanan’s shoulder, drawing strength from him.  It almost felt as though no time had passed at all; they could have been back on Lothal or Garel or Atollon, the future still open and brimming with possibility.  As nice as the illusion was, though, Ezra knew it was just that.  For a Jedi, six years was nothing; a heartbeat; a breath; an eye blink.  He and Kanan had walked back into what they had been without much more than a moment’s thought; the distance wasn’t there, but it didn’t meant that the time hadn’t passed.

He started to pull away, then glanced down, distracted, and said, “That’s not your lightsaber.  I mean – that’s not your old lightsaber?”

Kanan released it to touch two fingers to the top of the hilt, then said, “That’s part of the long story that’s classified.”

Ezra felt his shoulders slump. “Because I’ve been with the Empire for six years.”

“No, because it’s top secret and involves another universe.”

Ezra blinked at him. “Um – wait, you mean Sabine was serious about that?”

Kanan arched an eyebrow, bemused. “Hera or I will give you the highlights later.  Come on.”

Ezra followed him out into the hallway. It looked unchanged from how he remembered it last, just slightly battered, with the scent of fresh paint and hot metal heavy in the air.  He said, “Is Sabine painting her armor again?”

“If you’d woken up a little earlier you’d have heard her banging away at the portable forge in the engine room,” Kanan said. “I think she’s personally offended about it.”

Ezra bit his lip. “Do you know anything else that can cut through beskar?  A lightsaber can’t.”

“Not off the top of my head,” Kanan said thoughtfully, rubbing a thumb over the edge of his left vambrace.

Ezra glanced at it, wondering if his vambraces were beskar and if so, how he had managed that; he had gotten the impression from Sabine that it was the worst kind of sacrilege for anyone other than a Mandalorian to wear beskar armor.

He still felt tired, sleep alone not being enough to erase the previous day’s exertions or do anything except make his aches and bruises settle more firmly into his abused muscles. Ezra rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and winced as the motion pulled at his bad shoulder.

As he had half been expecting, everyone else was in the common room; Hera and Zeb looking at a hologram of the Yuuzhan Vong encampment and Sabine sitting on the floor surrounded by paint jars and pieces of armor, Chopper peering over her shoulder.  They all looked up as the door slid open.

Ezra froze, self-conscious. Looking at them, he could tell time had passed in a way that was less obvious with Kanan; all three of them carried the passage of years that Kanan lacked.  In the previous night’s bad light, he hadn’t noticed it, but the harsh overhead lights picked out the scars dimpling the fur on Zeb’s left arm, the laugh-lines at the corners of Hera’s eyes, the sharpness of Sabine’s cheekbones. It dulled the fiery reds and oranges of her hair, pulled back for the moment as she worked; she already had flecks of paint on her chin and the front of her tank top.

“Hey,” he said awkwardly.

Hera got up as Zeb shut off the holotable and came over to hug him.  She was a tall woman, and Ezra was relieved to find that he wasn’t taller than her now.  She was also reassuringly sturdy as he returned the embrace, with a spray of small scars along the line of her left cheekbone and at the corner of her eye, as if the visor of her flight helmet had shattered and cut her.

“How are you feeling?” she asked him, stepping back but keeping one hand on his shoulder.

“Like I got stepped on by an AT-AT,” Ezra told her.  His stomach rumbled and he flushed, but all she did was smile. “How long was I asleep?”

“It’s about dinner time anyway,” Kanan said from behind him.

Ezra stepped out of the doorway so that Kanan could move past him into the common room, pausing to kiss Hera briefly before he crossed to the galley beyond.  He stepped around the tarp Sabine had spread out to protect the floor from her paints; Ezra resisted the urge to follow him just so that he wouldn’t be out of his sight for more than a few moments.

Hera released him and moved back so that Zeb could lift Ezra off his feet in an embrace that took the breath out of him. “Took you long enough,” he said after he had set Ezra back down and made an attempt to ruffle his hair, which didn’t work as well now as it had a decade earlier.

“It’s not my fault!” Ezra protested before he remembered that it absolutely was his fault. “Okay, I mean – what, did you want me to bring the Chimaera back?  Because Thrawn did, and he thought I could do it, too.”

Zeb scowled, presumably confronted with whatever the Seventh Fleet’s return would have done to the war at any point in the past six years, and clapped Ezra on the back again, making him stagger.

Sabine got up, wiping her hands down the sides of her pants; they didn’t leave a mark, so the paint on her palms must already be dry.  Ezra eyed her warily, then did a double-take and said, “Wait, did you already change your hair since last night?”

She shrugged, unrepentant. “I was doing my armor anyway, so I thought I might as well.”  She punched him lightly in the shoulder and said, “Besides, you’re one to talk.”

“My hair’s fine!” Ezra yelped indignantly.  Then he grabbed her and pulled her into a hug, bemused by the unexpected novelty of not having her armor dig into him. “And that’s my bad shoulder,” he added, releasing her.

Sabine looked startled. “Since when do you have a bad shoulder?”

“Since I got shot in it!”

“When did you get shot?” Kanan demanded from the door to the galley.

“Several times,” Ezra said; he vaguely remembered telling them about the time he’d been shot in the head – he’d managed to knock the blaster off-center, which was the reason he hadn’t had his brains blown out across the Chimaera’s starboard hangar deck.  Aside from that particular occasion, most of his blaster wounds came from a combination of being shot by enemies and being shot by stormtroopers who didn’t particularly care if they hit him or what they were supposedly aiming at. He had found out the hard way that some stormtroopers actually could aim.

He rubbed a hand over the old injury and admitted, “This time was on the Chimaera six years ago, over Lothal.  I wasn’t exactly at the top of the list to see a medical droid or a doctor afterwards.”

He looked away so that he didn’t have to see the distress or pity on their faces, though he could still feel it reverberate in the Force.  Kanan broke the sudden silence in the room by saying, “Dinner’s ready.”

Ezra excused himself to go to the refresher, which still bore the obvious detritus of Sabine’s hair-dyeing endeavors.  He stared down at the residue of dye swirling down the drain as he washed his hands, uncomfortably aware of how much it looked like blood.  He’d washed blood off his hands before, quite literally; he knew that the dye remnants were lighter and brighter, more orange.  It still made his spine crawl.

He forced himself to look up at the mirror instead, which didn’t make him feel any better.  Being back on the Ghost made him expect to see the boy who had last been here six years ago, not the man with the lines at the corners of his eyes or the scars where a razor bug had nearly cut his throat.  He had two days’ worth of stubble on his jaw, too, patchy on his scarred cheeks and chin.  Ezra met his own eyes, then looked down at the sink again.  Most of the dye had washed away by now, at least.

He dried his hands and went to join the others in the galley, struck suddenly by the savory scent of freshly cooked food.  “That’s definitely not grayweave,” he announced, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe.

Kanan turned a bemused eye on him, his eyebrows quirking. “As the person who made it, no, it’s definitely not grayweave.”

“You’ve been eating grayweave?” Sabine demanded, appalled.

Grayweave was a single-cell-organism-based food that could be manufactured cheaply off any kind of organic matter; the Chimaera had had a dozen grayweave reactors onboard in case of emergencies. As far as Ezra was concerned, “food” was pushing the description, but it was better than starving.  Marginally.

“Star destroyers only carry supplies for three years,” he explained, pushing off the door and coming over to sit down at the table.  “They did some hunting and trading whenever we were near a planet that could support life, but that’s not that easy when you’re talking about forty thousand people. Or even twenty thousand.”

“Mmm,” Kanan said neutrally, setting the last bowl on the table and sliding into a seat next to Hera. “I’ve eaten grayweave.  I think cannibalism’s preferable.”

Hera elbowed him and made a moue of disgust. “Let’s not talk about cannibalism at the table, shall we?” she said, half-standing to ladle fragrant red broth from the steaming pot at the center of the table into her bowl of noodles, then Kanan’s.  She handed the ladle off to Sabine, sitting on her other side, and started adding toppings from the array of small plates that filled the remainder of the table as Kanan did the same.

Ezra would happily have eaten the noodles with or without the broth and toppings, but he waited until the ladle came around to him anyway, then added some of every topping. There was thinly sliced meat that cooked in the hot broth, several kinds of sprouts, pickled vegetables, some spiced dried seaweed, and something that he vaguely recognized as a kind of dried sea urchin that started to disintegrate as soon as it touched the liquid. Other bits of reconstituted vegetables floated in the broth, whose spicy, savory steam filled the air.

He took the cup of tea that Zeb poured for him, took a few sips, and tried not to sigh in sheer relief before he found a place for it on the crowded table.  It had been a long time since he had tasted anything with actual flavor.

Even though he had eaten Kanan’s cooking before, he still wasn’t expecting how spicy the broth was. He managed to keep from coughing and had to drink the rest of his tea before going back to the broth and noodles, managing the eating sticks with more difficulty than the spoon with his deep bowl.  The noodles cut the heat of the broth, as did some of the toppings; after a few minutes Ezra got back most of his facility with the eating sticks and settled down to the food.  After the long day and night they had all had, all five of them ate in near silence except for occasional requests to pass the teapot or for some of the plates of toppings.  Kanan got up once to get more noodles for those who wanted them, which was nearly everyone; they’d all had a long day.

Afterwards, once the dishes were cleared away for someone to scrub out later, they returned to the common room with cups of tea or fruit juice.  Ezra took the juice because he found tea fine with meals like the one they had just had, but hadn’t had anything that even vaguely resembled a fruit or vegetable in years.

Hera leaned back into the curve of Kanan’s arm, holding her teacup between her hands, and said, “We need to decide what to do about the Imperials.”

“Leave them here and go home,” Sabine said promptly.  When they all looked at her, she shrugged and said, “What?  This is a little bigger than we’re really equipped to deal with – we’re out here to do reconnaissance, we’ve done it, let’s pass it back to New Republic Intelligence to figure out the rest of it.”

“We are New Republic Intelligence,” Hera reminded her. “And I can’t exactly tell General Cracken or the Provisional Council that we didn’t even bother to talk to Captain Pellaeon or ascertain that Yuuzhan Vong really do have hostile intent.”

“They felt pretty hostile to me,” Zeb grumbled, at the same time Ezra said, “Oh, trust me, they have hostile intent.”

Hera flicked a glance at Kanan, who said, “I don’t like what they do to the Force.  And I’m not happy with the idea of leaving the Imperials here to deal with them, or going without knowing more.”

“Ezra?” Hera said, turning towards him. “You know both better than any of us.”

Ezra scratched at his hairline, trying not to be bemused at the novelty of being asked for his opinion. “What do you want Thrawn for anyway?”

“To try him for crimes against civilization in front of a New Republic tribunal,” Hera said promptly.

“Has that ever actually worked?” Sabine asked.

“Do you pay any attention to the news back on Lothal?” Zeb demanded.

Sabine shrugged. “Why do you think I asked?  Can you name a single Imperial officer ranked higher than commander who’s actually gone to trial instead of being disappeared into one of the Republic’s black box prisons without a trial?  Or just getting a slap on the wrist and then released back into the wild?”

Zeb opened his mouth, hesitated, and then closed it again.

“Ezra?” Hera repeated.

He turned the cup of fruit juice in his hands, then admitted, “I’m a little worried that Thrawn will talk to the Vong into some kind of alliance.  I don’t know if the Vong would go for one, but –”  He shrugged helplessly.  “He can be pretty persuasive.  Not that persuasive,” he added in case anyone got the wrong idea about him, “but to people who don’t know him.”

He took a sip of the juice before he went on – he thought it was redberry, sweet but with a rich, almost bitter undertone to it.  Redberry was uncommon on Lothal, so he had only had it a few times before.  “For what it’s worth, I think he’d have another mutiny on his hands if he tried to sell it to the Imps, but if he’s just trying to get an advantage out of the Vong –”  He shrugged again.

“I agree with Ezra,” Kanan said. “I think we’ll have to go to the Imps.”  As Hera sighed, clearly resigned, he added, “Just think how much fun you’ll have telling Captain Pellaeon and all the rest of them about the Empire collapsing.”

Hera huffed out a laugh and sipped her tea.  “There is that.  We’ll comm them in the morning.”

Ezra nodded reluctantly. Part of him wanted to leave Pellaeon and the rest of them here – at least until someone else could sort it out, he supposed, since that was apparently an option – but that was the selfish part of him, not the Jedi part.  He sat and drank the rest of his fruit juice in silence as the conversation turned to other things, letting himself relax into his awareness of them all around him, of Kanan’s steady presence in the Force.  When there was a brief lull in the conversation, he said, “How is Kanan here?”

Hera flicked a glance at Kanan, who turned his head in response to her attention and said, “I thought I’d leave it to you, since I was more or less an accidental byproduct of your op.”

“What kind of op were you on?” Ezra demanded. “I know Kanan said it was classified, but –”

Sabine laughed. “Oh, it was weirder than that.”

Hera sighed and drained her cup before setting it down on the table.  She leaned her head briefly against Kanan’s shoulder for a moment, then straightened up and said, “All right.  I need to go back a little before the op and explain about Warlord Zsinj first –”

*

Afterwards, a little overwhelmed, Ezra went to go sit on the Ghost’s ramp and look at the jungle.  No one onboard being stupid, it hadn’t been left down the way it might have been on Lothal or some other safe harbor, but as long as he was actually there he didn’t think it would be a problem.  He wanted to enjoy the novelty of fresh air on his face and listen to the living sounds of the jungle – nowhere near quiet, just like the grasslands back home had never been truly quiet.  He pulled his knees up to his chest and looked out at the darkened woods, hearing some kind of avian crying in the distance and the scurry of night-dwelling creatures as they moved from tree to tree.  Somewhere about a kilometer off, a predator howled to the three moons above and was answered by a chorus of its kind, all of them singing for the sheer joy of it.

He sat there for more than an hour, drinking in the living Force of the planet around him and just thinking.  There was a lot to think about, and as tired as he was he let most of it wash over him, acknowledging each thought and concern briefly before letting it flow away. Some of them he would come back to eventually; others had just needed that one instant of acknowledgment.  It wasn’t meditation, but it wasn’t entirely not, either.

Zeb and Hera both came down to check on him, though neither spoke to him.  Kanan didn’t, but Ezra could feel him in the ship up above and knew that Kanan could sense his presence just as well – better, probably. He was listening to the predators howling to each other, letting his mind roll out to touch them lightly, when he heard Sabine’s step behind him.  She sat down beside him and didn’t say anything, her gaze fixed on the jungle.

Ezra listened to the predators a little longer, identifying each individual by sound and trying to match it to its presence in the Force.  They weren’t like Loth-wolves; the individuals didn’t read as strongly to him, especially not from this distance.  He thought that there were six of them, a family group.

Sabine waited for him to draw himself back into his own skin, flexing his fingers against his thighs – he had shifted into a more comfortable tailor’s seat at some point. Then she said, “You know, we weren’t a crew again until Kanan came back.”

Ezra glanced at her. She had her blasters holstered on her hips, but wasn’t wearing her armor, which was probably still drying after its recent paint job; its absence made her look uncomfortably vulnerable. “What do you mean?”

Sabine didn’t look at him, her attention still focused on the trees. “After Lothal – we were still friends, still family, but it was like we just…fell apart.  Hera and Chopper and Zeb went off to the Rebel Alliance, I stayed on Lothal – Hera was with Starfighter Command, mostly, though I know she had a naval command at one point.  Zeb’s got a commission in Special Forces.  Rex and Kallus are still with the Alliance too, but it’s all different divisions.  The Alliance – the New Republic now – isn’t anything like what it was six years ago.”

“Is it better?”

She snorted. “Now there’s a government, if you can call it that.”

Ezra didn’t know much about the government except that the Empire’s had been a disaster and Lothal’s was a joke, so he left that for someone else to explain to him in detail another time.  Probably Zeb, who was a politics junkie even if he pretended he couldn’t care less, or at least he had been six years ago.  That might have changed since. “Why did you stay on Lothal?” he asked instead. “Why didn’t you go to the Alliance with Hera and Zeb or back to Mandalore with your family?”

“Oh, I can’t go back to Mandalore.”  Sabine’s tone was light, but Ezra could sense a shadow to the words.

He turned to look at her. “Why not?”

She looked down, picking at a place on her knee where the fabric had pilled under the constant friction of her armor. “Didn’t I tell you when I went to Yavin with the rest of you back then?”

Ezra shook his head. “I don’t think so.  You just came with us.  It didn’t seem polite to ask why.”

Sabine grimaced. “It has to do with the Darksaber.”  She picked at her pants again, then sighed and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her calves. “If I stayed on Mandalore – or went back to Mandalorian space – I’d be a threat to Bo-Katan, because I carried the Darksaber and used it in combat.”

“But you gave it up.”

She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.  As long as I’m alive, I’m a potential rival to her.  There are a lot of people in Mandalorian space who’d prefer me to her – or, well, they’d prefer anyone to her, I’m just convenient because I actually have a claim to the Darksaber.  And that was before everything else happened.”

Ezra frowned. “Everything else like – what?”

“Mandalore isn’t really something the Empire can leave alone for long,” Sabine said after a pause. “That’s why they had to have a loyalist Mandalorian viceroy, not a moff, not some outsider.  The Saxons kept the clans at each other’s throats for years, not to mention all the weird little splinter cults that have been around for a thousand years – three thousand in some cases. ��Even when there was still a duke or duchess of Mandalore, back during the Republic, it was always very…tense.  And that’s putting aside the fact that the last duchess was a radical.  Mandalorian politics is – was – a lot of trying to keep quarrels from turning into blood feuds and blood feuds from turning into civil wars.  But if the clans ever have an external enemy, then all of that gets put aside.  It takes a lot to get the clans there; it doesn’t happen much more than once a millennium.  Bo-Katan was starting to do that.  So the Empire tried to wipe out the clans.  And Mandalore.”

“Your family?” Ezra said cautiously.

“They’re fine,” Sabine said. “Krownest got hit, but not as bad as Mandalore itself, and it’s not as though my family has never had to rebuild before.  All of Mandalorian space is a mess from what I’ve heard.  I’d go back, but – that would be seen as a challenge, no matter what I meant by it.  So I haven’t gone back.”  She shrugged. “Tristan came and visited me on Lothal once.”

“Why did you stay on Lothal?”

She shrugged again. “I didn’t want to join the Alliance and Ryder needed the help.  He’s governor again, by the way.”

Ezra nodded absently.

“I thought one of us should be on Lothal,” Sabine said eventually. “We expected some Imperial retaliation, but they were distracted by Mandalore, and then what happened on Scarif, then the Death Star and Yavin – they left Lothal alone, mostly.”

“That’s good,” Ezra said, feeling some of his unease unknot in his chest.

Sabine stretched her legs out again and leaned back, bracing her hands on the ramp.  Somewhere in the jungle, a night-avian hooted and some tree-dwellers set up a chorus of croaking sounds.

“What I was trying to say,” Sabine said eventually, “is that this isn’t easy for us either.  I know it probably feels like nothing changed or that we all went on without you exactly the same as we had been, but – everything changed. And we weren’t with each other anymore.  I mean, Hera’s a general, and all she does – all she used to do – was order people around.  Zeb was off with the Pathfinders and they’re the ones who do all the secret missions for the Alliance – the New Republic – you know, cutting throats and blowing stuff up and giving locals money so they can buy vibroknives and bombs to cut throats and blow stuff up.  And I was on my own, mostly.  And Kanan – Kanan just didn’t have any of the last six years, because he’s still – he’s exactly the same as he was back then, because he is the him he was back then. But none of us are.  Even Chopper’s not.”  She slanted a glance at him.  “No one expects you to be, either.”

Ezra looked down at his lap, running his fingers along the shaft of his lightsaber hilt.  He felt his kyber crystal warm to him, the faint hum in his mind turning into something close to a purr. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

“So you’ve got time to figure it out now,” Sabine offered.

“Yeah, except for the extra-galactic aliens who want to kill us all,” Ezra said harshly.

She arched an eyebrow. “Don’t let Hera or Zeb hear you say ‘aliens’.”

He’d forgotten that it was considered a slur amongst a large portion of the galaxy.  “Sorry.  I forgot.”

“Mmm.”

Ezra sighed. “What’s it been like?  Being back with them, I mean.”

“Hard. Sometimes.  Easy.  Sometimes.  Back at the beginning, none of us knew how to be around each other anymore, except Kanan, and we weren’t reacting the way he expected.   It was a mess the first month, after we left Ryloth – Hera and Kanan had to take Jacen to stay with Cham Syndulla, and then they had the wedding, and we had to leave early because General Cracken didn’t want the Provisional Council to find out until after we’d actually gone –”

“Wait, what wedding?” Ezra said, sitting bolt upright. “Who got married?”

Sabine grinned, bemused. “Kanan didn’t tell you?  He and Hera got married about three days after they got back.”

Ezra rubbed a hand over his face, not sure why he was surprised.  It wasn’t as though Kanan and Hera’s relationship hadn’t been an open secret, but he hadn’t thought – well, Kanan getting killed had obviously changed things.

“I’m glad you’re all here,” he said instead of commenting on that.  He glanced up as a shadow passed over the moons above, expecting a coralskipper or one of the Vong cruiser-analogs, and was relieved to find it was just a cloud.

He pushed himself to his feet, wincing as one of his knees popped and his bad shoulder twinged.  He offered a hand to Sabine, who looked at it in bemusement and then let him pull her upright.

“Come on,” Ezra said. “Time to let the Imperials know they’re going to have company.”

He closed up the ramp behind him as they went back into the Ghost, then climbed up the ladder to the cockpit.  Hera and Kanan were both there, along with Chopper and a hologram of the Vong encampment.  They both looked up as Ezra and Sabine emerged from the hatch.

“What is it?” Kanan asked as Chopper shut the hologram off.

Ezra had never been able to figure out if Kanan had somehow been able to sense what a hologram was showing in the Force – certainly he couldn’t do it himself, and he had tried. He shoved the thought aside to ask about later and said, “I thought now might be a good time to call Chimaera Camp.”

Hera glanced at the chrono and arched her eyebrows. “I thought we were going to wait until morning.”

Ezra shrugged. “I thought I’d ruin Captain Pellaeon’s night.”  As far as he was concerned, Pellaeon had it coming.

Kanan snorted softly. Hera flicked a glance at him, then sat back in her chair so that Ezra could approach the comm board.

He plugged in the bridge frequency for the Scylla and only had to wait a few moment before a comms officer answered.  The transmission was audio-only, no visual; the increased data transfer of a hologram made it more likely for the Vong to pick up on.

“This is Bridger,” Ezra said. “Put me through to Captain Pellaeon.”

The officer snorted. “Do you have any idea what the hour is?  The captain –”

“Will want to hear what I have to say,” Ezra said flatly. “Come on, it’s not that late.  You and I know he’s not asleep.”

There was a pause, then the officer grunted agreement.  There was a moment of static as he transferred the call, then Pellaeon’s crisp voice said, “Bridger, I assume this is important.”

Ezra felt a muscle in his jaw twitch.  He looked around at the cockpit, noting that Zeb had come into lean on the doorframe, his gaze fixed on Ezra.  They were all here, back in the same place, and when they were together they could do anything. “Yeah,” he said to the comm. “It’s important.”

[writer1]

A regretful Wolf and his Beauty.

Chapter Three

Beast!Rex x Fem!reader

Summary: As punishment for his actions, young prince Rex was cursed to become a monster by a witch. The only thing that saved him from his fate was an enchantress, who gave him a condition. He has to find true love in order to redeem himself and he only has until the last petal of the enchanted rose falls. Rex's family helps you by guiding your way into his heart. Rex's fate now lies in your hands.

A\N: This is a collaborative fic with @ahsokatano-thetogruta. Just a warning, the transformations get kind of gory and disturbing, if you want to skip that part you may, it starts right after Rex transforms. We have marked where the gore and disturbing parts are, so you can skip that part if you'd like because the last part of the chapter leads into the next one. As always, we hope you enjoy this fic. credit too @suddenly-clones for Cody’s nickname Bubby.

Warnings: mention of past abuse, horrific description (we have marked this for you so you don't have to read it)

Rex walks down the stairs behind Cody, feeling nervous. Once at the bottom, Cody places a hand on his shoulder, giving Rex a comforting smile. They both walk to the ballroom, opening the door and walking in to see 99 reading all the little kids a story.

“And little red riding hood asked ‘What big teeth you have grandma’ the wolf in disguise smiled at her. ‘All the better to EAT you with’ the wolf then lunges at little red riding hood, but just before he eats her, the friendly wood cutter bursts in. He scares the wolf, who runs away. And both him and red find her grandmother locked in the closet. And everyone lives happily ever after.” the kids cheer, with the bad batch closest to 99. 

There's fourteen year old Hunter sitting right beside him, with twelve year old Crosshair on the other side and eleven year old Wrecker in behind Hunter since he's the tallest. The youngest, Tech, who's only six years old is sitting on 99’s lap. Stutter is in the middle of the group of kids with Ahsoka and his friend Sabine who’s the same age. Rex thinks about the real ending of the story, where the grandma was eaten and the woodcutter kills the wolf. 

He’s glad that 99 waits until you turn twelve to tell you the real story, it's way too dark for little kids. Rex is glad the bad batch is happy here, they, like Stutter, were taken in because of abusive parents. His aunt hated the boys for being different. Hunter was born with enhanced senses, which gives him headaches and can make him pass out, Crosshair is the weakest of the kids, having deficiencies that make him skinny and sick, they also made his hair grey. Wrecker is the biggest and strongest of them. But his eyesight is amazing, you have to watch out for the grumpy kid, he has a habit of whipping things at people when angry, and he has Never missed. Tech is tiny too, but he’s also super smart, but his eyesight is horrible, so he wears glasses that Anakin had made for him. 99 adopted them as his son’s as soon as he found out about the abuse and trauma his sister had caused.

All of that is gone now and it is all in the past. The bad batch and Stutter are living such happier lives now with their new, loving family.

xxx

Fives is aimlessly wandering around the castle, trying to take his mind off of what had happened earlier. Echo is with Waxer and Boil, playing with Numa. Fives kindly declined when his twin asked if he wanted to play too, but he said that he just needs some alone time. 

He still feels a little bit hurt inside, but the feeling is slowly passing and fading the more he keeps on wandering, turning from one corridor to the next. He stops when he hears a soft humming of a melody coming from a room that he passes by. Listening intently as he looks around the corner, he sees an eight year old girl cleaning around the room with her feather duster. Her hair is brown and short, her skin is a pale blue like a blue lagoon.

The young girl turns around to see Fives peeking around the doorway. Before she could say anything, he tried to hide as quickly as he could, but she already saw him. She giggles a little, walking towards the doorway and standing there, brushing off any dust from her uniform and smiles at Fives. "Hello Prince Fives." The girl has a small, cute smile gracing her face now.

"Hey." Fives says nervously, not really sure of what to do. He thinks that she is really cute, so he decides to push his nerves aside and talk to her some more. "What's your name?"

"My apologies Prince, my name is Kiara Zelenca." She does a little curtsy in front of him. "It's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too, though you don't have to call me Prince. You can just call me Fives." He smiles kindly as he admires the  white patterns on her face. Her turquoise eyes compliments her skin perfectly. "If you don't mind me asking, what species are you?" He tries to sound as politely as he possibly can.

"I don't mind at all! I'm both Human and Togruta. My Mother was a Togruta and my Father was Human. I have hair instead of montrals and my ears are a little bit longer because I don't have lekku like other Togruta." She explains a little nervously. He probably thinks that I'm weird now. She thinks to herself. "I use my hair to cover them as much as I can, because the others will say that my ears look weird and ugly. They call me a freak too..." She tries her best to keep her sadness back. She hates how she looks already, so it doesn't help that she gets bullied by others.

Fives frowns, hearing that this has happened to Kiara. The slight tremble in her voice is apparent to him, so he walks a little closer to her, looking Kiara directly into her ocean blue eyes and slowly raises his right hand towards the left side of her hair. He freezes just before he reaches her face. "Can I...can I see them?" 

Kiara is speechless, thinking that just explaining them to him would make him feel the same way that the others do. After a moment, she nods and Fives strokes back her hair. Kiara looks away embarrassed. He sees that they are longer, but he just smiles. "I think they are really pretty." He says stroking the side of her face lightly. She looks into his honey coloured eyes. "You are perfect just the way you are, so don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. If they do give you any more trouble ever again, you tell them that they will be speaking to Prince Fives personally." Fives smiles reassuringly.

This is the first time that someone has told her that she is perfect and that she doesn't look like a freak. Her heart flutters as she leans into Fives' touch. He feels his cheeks heat up a little bit, she looks so adorable like this. Kiara opens her eyes and looks up towards the ceiling, to see mistletoe hanging down from the doorframe. She giggles.

Fives raises an eyebrow sweetly. "What is it?" He asks her as she motions for him to look up. He does so and sees what she wanted him to see. His cheeks turn red when he turns his head to look back down at Kiara. Her cheeks have turned to a darker shade of blue. She's obviously blushing. 

Fives swallows harshly, trying to gather all of the confidence he can find within himself. "W-would you like to kiss me?"

Without a moment of hesitation, Kiara wraps her arms around Fives' neck as she softly presses her lips to his. Fives instantly starts kissing her back, wrapping his arms around her lovingly. They both pull away, and Fives sees the bottom of Kiara's ears move a little as the tops turn the same shade of blue that is on her cheeks. Kiara giggles at the goofy smile on Fives' face. “Wait till I tell Echo that I kissed a girl.” 

Kiara laughs at Fives’ remark, kissing his cheek softly. They are both blushing a lot, this having been the first time either had ever kissed someone. “I… I think that i might love you already?”

Kiara’s eyes go wide when she realizes what he just said, then she realizes that she feels the exact same way. “I think that i might love you too, Fives.”  

“Kiara!!” Kiara turns at the voice of her mom. She turns back to Fives, an apologetic look on her face. “I’m sorry. Thats my mom, I have to go” Fives nods, watching her leave. He sighs. I’m gonna marry her. He thinks to himself.

xxx 

A little while after 99 finishes the story, Fives and Echo walk into the room, Rex notices that Fives is blushing as he tells Echo something. He can’t hear what is said. Both boys freeze when they see Rex walking over to them. “Hey Echo. Fives.” he says nervously, the twins just frown at him, he sighs.

“Look, I'm sorry for what happened, I shouldn't have snapped at you. I know you were just having fun. I understand if you don’t want to talk to me for a while after how I reacted earlier.” Rex wrings his hand together, staring at the floor. He hopes that his brothers can forgive him, but he also understands if it takes a while.

Fives slams into him with a hug, and Echo follows after him. “We’re sorry too, we shouldn’t have pulled the prank in the first place.” Echo nods in agreement with Fives.

“Yeah, we shouldn’t have played a prank when we knew that you were stressed, we’re sorry.” Both boys nuzzle into their brother, as Rex wraps his arms tightly around them.

"It's okay. Now, shall we go and play a board game?" Rex offers and the twins nod their heads in sync, making Rex chuckle. "Alright, you two can pick what we play.

xxx

Further somewhere in the castle in one of the bedrooms, Kanan and Hera are getting ready for the evening activities that were planned to take place in the ballroom. They are both nineteen years old and Kanan is a knight, though he was not needed to go out on patrol today.

Kanan had rescued Hera five years ago when she was being chased by some smugglers who were after her. He fortunately got there in time to save Hera and she is still very grateful for it. Kanan asked if she had anywhere to go, but she just shook her head. He decided that he would take her to the castle with him. He asked his friend, Rex, if it was okay if she could stay for a while, so the eight year old Prince asked his parents if it was okay and they both were happy to let her stay for as long as she needed to.

They were quick friends in the beginning and soon enough, they became lovers after they confessed to one another a few years ago. After another year had passed, Kanan decided to finally propose to Hera, so when he was out on patrol in the village, he bought her a beautiful ring. He was delighted when she said yes and they got married soon after. It's been two years and they are so happy together.

Hera finishes putting on her long, dark green dress that she wears on special occasions. It compliments her lime green skin perfectly. Kanan exits the ensuite to see his wife standing in front of a standing mirror as she tugs the long sleeves of her dress down. Hera sees in the mirror that Kanan is admiring her from behind. 

"You look stunning in this dress, darling." He walks closer and wraps his arms around her waist, kissing her lek from behind.

Hera relaxes into his embrace. "Thank you, love. You look very smart in your suit too." 

Kanan hums in response, enjoying every passing moment they spend like this.

"Shall we go and join everyone downstairs in the ballroom?" Hera asks as she cups Kanan's face.

"Yeah, let's go."

xxx

A few hours later the sun has fully set, allowing the warm lights strung up against the walls to glow brightly, creating a warm, atmospheric feeling in the ballroom as everyone is gathered around, speaking to friends and family. The knights haven’t returned from patrol yet when there's a knock at the door, Rex being closest, answers it. Outside is a woman, she has a bald head, white skin and tattoos on her face. “Hello, can i please come in? Its bitterly cold out here and i have nowhere to go, all I have to offer is this rose as payment.” 

Rex feels pity for the woman. “Cody!!” He calls his older brother, he knows that he has to ask permission before he can allow a stranger in. The woman watches, Rex doesn’t see the malicious glint in her eyes.

“What is it Rex? Who is this?” Cody asks as soon as he sees the woman. “She has nowhere to go, can we allow her to stay with us? She says that she can only pay us with a rose, but i don’t think that’s a problem. Do you?"

Cody smiles at his brother’s kindness, turning to the woman. "I don’t think that will be a problem either, of course you may come in Miss…?”

“Ventress, just call me Ventress. Thank you for your hospitality.” Ventress walks in, handing Cody the rose.”There are drinks and food over there  if you’re hungry Miss Ventress.” Rex tells her as she walks in, he doesn’t see the evil smirk as she eyes the bowl of red punch. She walks over grabbing a drink.

xxx

An hour passes, everyone is having fun. Fives is with Kiara, introducing Echo to her. Jesse and his twin brother Kix are playing doctor with the young knights in training. Kix had just become a doctor a year ago, so he’s writing fake doctor notes of crazy, fake diseases for a few knights while Jesse is entertaining the kids with paper shapes and animals that he folds.

Boil is making his niece pancakes and Waxer is sitting nearby, playing with the little girl. All the cousins, knights and staff are talking, joking and having a great time like they do every year. Ventress walks near to Rex, who’s talking to Cody and Bly. Ventress has a wicked smile on her face as she pretends to trip, spilling red punch on Rex’s favorite white shirt. “I am so sorry young man.” Ventress says sarcastically, making Rex lose his cool for the second time that day.

“Can’t you be more careful! And watch where you’re going!” He tells her angrily, freezing when he realizes how rude he was.”I'm sorry, I should-!”

“ENOUGH!!! You have been rude to the wrong person, little prince!” She snarls. Her hands have a dark green aura, everyone now realizes that the woman they had kindly invited into their home, was actually an evil witch. Her eyes glow green, and a circle of magic surrounds young Rex, cutting him off from his family. All the child can feel is fear as tears stream down his face. "I’m so sorry.” He whimpers out, begging and pleading for forgiveness. 

The magic surrounding Rex and the witch is too strong, stopping anyone from getting close to them. Despite this, Obi-Wan tries to go and protect Rex, fighting his way through the sheer force of the wind being created. He only gets so far until he is blasted back into Cody's arms who catches him. Obi Wan gets to his feet and holds onto Cody.

Through all of the madness surrounding everyone, Obi Wan hears someone yelling behind him and then sees Anakin run past him with his wooden sword held high above his head, charging directly towards the witch. Obi Wan manages to grab Anakin and pull him in close to himself and Cody, all huddling together during the complete chaos. Both Obi Wan and Cody wrap their arms protectively around Anakin, using their own bodies to protect the child from the chaos and anything else that may happen. Cody prays for his brother, feeling like a failure for being unable to get to Rex. Not even all the Knights using the force would be able to get to him.

Suddenly there is a cry of pain. fearing the worst for his Rex'ika, Cody looks towards Rex who has his hands in his face and drops to the floor on his knees, writhing in pain. Cody looks around the room to see that everyone can see it too. Rex is...growing.

Plo, Wolffe, Sinker, Boosts and Comet all tried to get too Rex… that is until he started to change, they froze as soon as their older cousin started to grow. Plo has never heard of this happening before, he knows that witches are powerful, whatever she is doing to the young prince won’t be fixed so easily… If ever. Wolffe goes to run up to them, he doesn’t care about what’s happening to his older cousin. He leaves his brothers, running to Rex when a shard of glass hits him, cutting a slice through his right eye. Ventress laughs, knowing that her shard glass had hit her target.

Boil jumped in front of Waxer and little Numa as soon as the witch yelled, leaving the pancake he had cooked thrown on the floor. Numa screams and cries as the chaos ensues, both Boil and Waxer hear the cry of pain, they turn to see Rex fall to the ground in the middle of everything. They watch in horror as he starts to grow. Something that should not be happening to his body.

The Bad Batch all grab onto 99, standing in front of him. They close their eyes in fear, but 99 sees what happens to Rex, feeling fear for the young boy whose body is unnaturally growing bigger. And is also screaming in both pain and terror.

Fives jumps in front of Kiara, Echo following behind him. They watch their Ori’Vod fall to the ground, crying out in pain, they watch as his body starts to grow. They don’t know what’s going to happen to their brother, but they swear that they will love him no matter how much that monster changes him.

Stutter's eyes widen as he sees his Ori'Vod growing and writhing in pain on the floor, so he screams and tries to run over to help him. He feels someone grab his small hand and gets pulled towards them. He looks up to see Sabine using her whole body to protect him. Stutter sees a Lasat run up behind her and crouches down, wrapping his arms around the both of them to keep them safe from the chaos.

Fox and Thorne hear the cries from Rex, panic coursing through their bodies, flooding their minds with fear. Fox looks around quickly to see that Ahsoka isn't with them anymore. He scans the room to see that she is staring at her Ori'Vod through the green forcefield of magic. Fox grabs her arm to pull her back towards him and Thorn to protect her, though in the process, she loses her grip on her music box, dropping it to the floor. Everything seemed to play in slow motion as she watched it break to pieces that scatter across the floor. Fox realises what happens when Ahsoka starts to scream and cry as he sees the broken music box on the floor, so he comforts her the best that he can. Thorne joins Fox to help protect Ahsoka.

All Rex feels is pain, discomfort and fear. He regrets everything. He groans as his smart clothes begin to grow tighter on him, ripping open at the seams, revealing blonde fur. His arms start to grow longer and so does his legs, bending and rearranging themselves into haunches as a tail also starts to grow. He feels his face elongating into a snout, baring his sharp teeth to attempt to block out as much pain as he can. His cries of pain turn to whimpers as the transformation finishes. His clothes have ripped to shreds, blonde fur now completely covers the entirety of his body. The only article of clothing left are his shredded pants. Rex just lies on the floor, whining as he feels everyone staring at him.

Cody watches as his little brother turns into a creature of legends… A werewolf. Everyone in the room is shocked, the kids that had heard the story from 99 earlier cower in fear, afraid that Rex might eat them. Cody doesn’t care about that… This is still his Rex’ika, his baby brother. And nothing will ever change that. 

The witch looks around the room as Rex lays on the floor, breathing heavily. The force field goes away and she smiles wickedly. “Don’t worry, young prince. You won’t be alone with this curse.” Rex looks up at her, eyes wide. Tears are still falling down his face, wetting his fur. ”What!?”

“Yes! I have a perfect plan for everyone in this castle! I want to have some more fun” she lifts her hands up. "You all stand there like objects, so I’ll turn you into objects!” She sneers.The green aura engulfs the room, and everyone groans, Rex watches in horror as his friends and family start to morph and change in front of his very eyes. Rex feels absolute fear, he wants his bubby. 

(Warning! Slightly gory and disturbing description of the transformations from this point. Note where it ends.)

But Cody is groaning in pain as well, and morphing, getting wider and less human. Cody’s arms and legs burn as they grow slimmer, wood growing all over his body. He forces his eyes open to check on Obi Wan, staring in horror as his beloved scratches at his skin as it becomes metal. He sees young Anakin doing the same. They both form into a suit of armour that covers their whole body from head to toe. The same is happening to Kanan and Plo too. 

Fox and Thorn struggle to hold onto Ahsoka, not just because they are changing, but also because she is getting smaller. The once shattered music box starts piecing itself together, but leaves the ballerina there on the floor. Ahsoka cries and screams as she becomes unable to move her legs anymore and she starts to become older in appearance. Her clothes change too, into more of a ballerina's outfit like the one that the little figure was wearing before.

Echo and Fives scream in pain as they transform, Both of them shrink as Fives' hair starts to become waxy, turning white in color. It's not just his hair, his whole head from top to his top jaw turns into wax, so does his hands, and the rest of him, including his bottom jaw, turns to a gold metal. Echo starts to grow a mix of metal and wood all over his body, the twins cry in pain as they shrink. 

Kiara is the same, yelling out for her mother as the top half of her body becomes wood and the bottom half morphs painfully into feathers. All three of them have tears running down their faces, as they scream from the worst pain they’ve ever felt in their young lives.

Stutter screams loudly in pain, this is somehow worse than anything his brothers and father had ever done to him. “R-R-Rex!!!! C-C-C-Cody!!!” Young Stutter screams for his brothers, he's so scared. His body is becoming wood, his arms are sucked into him, morphing to his sides as his legs morph together and become the familiar bristles of a paint brush. He screams, looking over and seeing Sabine in the same predicament. He cries as he starts to shrink. “F-F-Fives!!! E-Echo!!!!! B-B-Bly!!!” He tries one last time to get one of his brothers, to no avail, he’s all alone once again.

Kix, Jesse and Hardcase all fall to the ground, screaming out in agony as they feel their bodies beginning to change. Kix wraps his arms around himself, squeezing his eyes shut to try and block out the pain coursing through his body. He becomes rigid, unable to bend any of his limbs as they straighten out. His legs morph together and his arms sink down into his body. His blood becomes colder as it starts to turn to ink. 

Jesse starts to get wider and thinner. He starts feeling lighter and when he looks at his hands, they flop backwards as they become paper thin. It doesn't take him long to figure out that he's actually becoming paper, because his skin turns dramatically pale. As his body becomes thinner, he starts getting smaller too. Hardcase's body from his neck to his feet starts to turn to wood as his body becomes narrow.  He screams at the searing pain rushing throughout his head as it becomes metal, his facing becoming longer and sharper with each passing second.

Hera feels her body start to morph into light, it burns as she is transported to the mirror she was looking into only hours before, she looks around at the room around her, she bangs on the glass, unable to get out. The room is only grey, the only thing in it being her. “Kanan!!!” She screams for her husband, the last she saw of him he had fallen to the ground in pain, she has no idea what he might have become.

Bly falls to the ground in pain, his whole body starts to burn as it turns to metal, he screams in agony  as his head splits into three. He shrinks, turning into a fork. Ten year old Wolffe doubles over in absolute agony, along with the 9 year old twins, Sinker and Boost. And the youngest, seven year old Comet. They all grow smaller as they turn to ceramic, Wolffe screams as his body widens, going hollow once it turns completely too glass, lessening the pain some thankfully. Plo tries to fight through the pain of his own transformation to get to his boys, he hates that they have to go through this pain.

(Gore ends here!)

Rex can't believe his eyes. Everyone has completely changed. They aren't even...alive anymore? Though he can still hear the groans from everyone as their transformations finish. He looks towards Ventress with piercing anger in his eyes, but she just laughs at everyone. She feels content now that she has had her fun. 

"I don't know what you are looking at me like that for. You are the one who has caused this! Now your friends and family will share your punishment." She cackles as she surrounds herself in a cloud of green smoke, creating a whirlwind. Once it clears, Ventress is nowhere to be seen.

No...what have I done? Rex thinks to himself as he sees everyone start to move again without being in complete pain and agony. He presses his ears back against his head, feeling consumed in guilt and regret. The room is almost silent, the only sounds being slight shuffles around the room as people adjust to their new forms. 

Cody had heard every word that Ventress had said to Rex, about her saying that this is his Rex'ika's fault. He tries to shuffle to Rex, calling out to him to comfort his little brother "Rex'ika." Rex hears the familiar nickname, looking towards the direction that his Ori'Vod's voice came from.

"Bubby…" a second later, Rex bolts out of the room and runs as fast as he can. Away from everyone. Cody calls out to him and tries to follow, but he can't move very well at all. Everyone else doesn't know what to say. Their expressions are a mix of fear and confusion, not understanding what has just happened to them. All anyone can really think about is Rex's safety. They need to know that he's alright...

taglist: @captainrexisboo @pro-fangirls-unsocial-life

[littleladymab]

The Phoenix Suite (SW Rebels Pod+Fic)

Do you know what a phoenix is? It is said that the bird would go out in a burst of flames, and then rise from its ashes, born again. Even if we lose here, the Rebellion will never go out. Someone will always be the spark.

((Kallus tries to get a message to the Rebellion, but he fails -- tries to get a message to the Rebellion but he fails -- but he fails -- he fails))

Series: Star Wars Rebels Characters: Kallus, Thrawn, and the Ghost Crew Rating: Teen Tags: S3 Finale, time-loop, warnings for implied torture/character death/suicide (but again, it's a time loop, so it doesn't stick)

Read by Litra (link to stream)

----

Kallus hits the ground, hard.

He wheezes, more in shock than in pain, and inhales a lungful of dust and air tinged with the ozone of blaster fire. His shoulder takes the brunt of the blow, hands cuffed uselessly behind him.

Still, he’s able to roll into the fall and scrambles to his feet as the call goes up behind him.

“Grand Admiral!” a trooper shouts. “The prisoner is trying to escape!”

Kallus can’t hear Thrawn’s response, but the screams of the dying Rebel forces and the heavy tread of the walkers is enough of an answer: He’ll die with Atollon, and with the Rebellion.

For a wild, frantic second, Kallus considers charging one of the rear guards and taking their blaster, dragging down whoever else he can with his inevitable demise.

But then the part of his brain that clings to survival, to the barest glimmer of hope that this can still be salvaged, urges him onward.

So he runs — away from the sounds of the massacre, away from the orderly advance of the troopers and their walkers. Far enough that the only thing he can hear is the distant roar of chaos and ships crashing to the planet’s surface in his ears.

Breaking the cuffs is easy when he has a moment. He knows where to apply the right amount of pressure, even with his hands locked behind him.

There’s a faint and ominous skittering sound to his left, so he banks right. He has no knowledge of Atollon, and he certainly doesn’t want to learn about the local fauna.

Not when his brain is reeling and clawing desperately for a solution. Not when he’s staunchly ignoring the voice in the back of his head, the cold, calculated tone of the ISB Agent, as it scoffs and says you know a hopeless case when you see one.

Because he does. He knew from the moment he woke up in the cell after being knocked out by Thrawn on the communications tower.

Shit, probably earlier than that, if he’s being completely honest.

Playing at being a Rebel, thinking he could handle the mantle of Fulcrum.

The moment Thrawn walked into the picture, he was fucked.

His feet carry him without thought, winding away deeper and deeper into the wilds of this uninhabited planet. Further, he thinks, from the remains of his failure.

Until he crests a ridge and he’s standing on a cliff and he can see it all spread out before him. The base flattened, like a bug squashed beneath a boot. The white shapes of troopers picking their way through the remains, and the occasional flash of blaster fire when they find a survivor.

His stomach turns at the sight, the now familiar sickening sensation that this is the mighty hand of the Empire. This is not a war, and it never will be.

And it’s not that he wanted to go down in a blaze of glory or anything. He just wanted to make a difference for once. The tug in his chest, the last desperate pull of hope that led him this way, finally dies, leaving him standing on uneasy legs at the edge of the precipice.

“This is all my fault,” he says to the valley below, and wishes that it could be more of an apology and less of a goodbye.

“Which side do you mourn for?” a voice like thunder asks, and Kallus whirls around — reaching for a weapon that isn’t there.

But instead of a man, instead of Grand Admiral Thrawn with his glowing red eyes or the emotionless mask of a trooper, Kallus finds himself facing a creature that towers like a mountain above him. Its head is framed in a halo of dust as constellations of atmo burners light up behind it, and eyes like twin suns stare down at the human.

Kallus is speechless. Nothing in all of his training has prepared him for this. “What are you?” he asks instead.

“I,” the creature intones, shifting its head so that its silhouette is visible in the fading light, “am the Bendu.” It creaks with every movement, the coral that forms its antlers and outer shell grinding together as the beast lowers itself to Kallus’ level. “And what are you? You found me, yet… you are not a Jedi.”

Kallus wonders what makes being a Jedi a prerequisite for this. “I am…” Kallus starts, but in the end, he can’t figure out what the answer should be.

“Alexsandr Kallus, Imperial Security Bureau Agent 021,” the creature supplies, and Kallus feels hot and cold inside all at once.

He grinds his teeth and clenches his hands into fists and refuses to give into a physical display of his anger. “Not any longer.”

The Bendu studies him, those burning yellow eyes peeling him away layer by layer. “You wear the uniform. You keep that name close to your heart. Who are you, Alexsandr Kallus, if not an agent of the Empire?”

Enough is enough.

Every bruise and broken rib and laceration stings, the pain pulsing in time to his ragged breathing and his labored heartbeat. They are what reminds him of who he is, because everything he can see and hear tells him that the Bendu is right, he still is ISB-021.

He draws himself up to his full height, and throws his shoulders back in a way that he has seen Rebellion fighters do — one that conveys defiance instead of the perfectly postured lines of the Empire. “I am Fulcrum,” he says. “I am a Rebel spy, an Imperial defector. I am—” Here he falters, voice finally cracking. “I am well and truly fucked.”

The Bendu gives a low growl of something that might be understanding deep in its chest. “So then, Alexsandr Kallus: Which side do you mourn for?”

A laugh, strained and hysterical, boils up the back of his throat, but he swallows it down before it can get loose. “Why would I mourn the Imperials? They are the clear victors here.”

“Ah,” the Bendu says, as if it had caught Kallus in a particularly clever trap. “But in their victory, have they not also lost? Things they don’t even realize are missing.”

“Whose side are you on, anyway?” Kallus counters. “If you were here, why didn’t you help the Rebellion? Why didn’t you help the Jedi?”

There is another rumble, this time like a storm, and the blazing suns of the Bendu’s eyes flash in warning. “I am the one in the middle. As I told the Jedi Knight who came and asked for my assistance, I take no side.”

Kallus just barely resists the urge to roll his eyes. More Force and Jedi nonsense taken to the extreme. “This is a war. You side with the oppressors when you refuse to take action against them.”

“You picked a side, Agent. You carry pride for what you have done. Who are you, with your accolades and titles bestowed upon you by your Empire, to tell me that I do more harm than good? I am the Bendu. I am the one in the middle.”

Standing there on the cliff’s edge, still in his ISB uniform, Kallus wonders if he himself isn’t currently dangling precariously in the middle. Stranded between two worlds, no longer one but not truly another. He rejected the Empire, but was never fully accepted by the Rebellion.

Except that’s not true, is it? Not really. It wasn’t all that long ago that he was in the detention cell, undoing Ezra Bridger’s handcuffs, and the boy turned to look up at him with an expression of distrust but determination. The crew of the Ghost put everything on the line to try and save him, but he had said no. I can do more good here.

“I didn’t think that I had a choice,” Kallus finally says. “I didn’t know anything else.”

“Then what changed?”

How to answer? A part of him had died after that night on Bahryn. The person who crawled his way out of the ice and into the trader’s ship was someone else entirely.

Kallus had been given a choice; several, in fact.

He had spared Garazeb Orrelios’ life, twice. He had declined the invitation to be rescued by the Ghost crew.

That’s when he began to acknowledge the cracks — the chipping veneer on the Empire’s elaborate portrait of the future. When given the chance to do something more, he knew that there was another answer than the easy one offered by the Empire.

Eventually, he gives a helpless shrug. “Everything.”

The Bendu considers this, considers him. It’s similar to the feeling of being studied by Kanan Jarrus, or by the Inquisitor. That depth in their gaze that sees beyond this moment, like they know something is about to happen.

Someone who can see the full picture, where Kallus cannot.

Kallus knows, without a doubt, that he’s about to be given another choice. He is a man who takes disjointed pieces and knows how to put them together into a narrative. He is a man who has thrived on logic and reason for so long that they are second nature to him.

There is nothing left for him except execution at the hands of the Empire, or a slow death in the wilds of Atollon. There is no other way for this story to end, except for the choice that he will be offered.

“Would you change this, if you could?” The Bendu waves one massive hand, encompassing Kallus beaten and bloody, the smoldering valley below, the remains of destroyed ships like falling stars in the hazy sky.

“Yes,” Kallus says without hesitating.

“What would you change?”

Another shrug, not knowing where to begin. “Everything.”

The Bendu leans in closer still, until its eyes are the only thing that Kallus can see, and its hot breath washes over him. “If you could do this over again, would you?”

Now is not the time for logic and reason. Now is the time for gut instinct, in trusting something bigger than himself, bigger than the Empire.

Alexsandr Kallus, no longer an ISB Agent, no longer Fulcrum, dead man walking, looks the Bendu straight in the eyes and says, “Yes.”

It happens all at once. (It happens over the course of an eternity.) [It happens in juddering starts and stops and flashes of moments strung together.]

Kallus feels like he’s being plunged into a pool (into the dead cold of space) [like he’s being torn apart and reconfigured]. There is a weight on his chest that saps the air from his lungs and before he can get a chance to wonder if he’s made a mistake, everything goes black.

(( read the rest on ao3 ))

[lonelypond]

Moonlight Becomes You: Apocalypse Midnight Dance Party, Ch. 10

Love Live/Love Live Sunshine, NozoEli, NicoMaki, KanaMari, 2.2K, 10/?

Summary: Eli finally gets a minute to talk to a cute girl. And Kanan finds her dinner interupted.

Nozomi In The House

The silence was too uncomfortable for Eli, the driver wasn’t going to talk, and Nozomi had almost started to say something several times, but instead pursed her lips and went back to staring out the window. IT WAS GOING TO DRIVE ELI MAD. But she didn’t want to talk about the crying or Nico or…

Ah, they did have two more people in common now. “How did you meet Kanan and Mari? Did one of them wander into your shop?”

Nozomi snorted and tapped the window of the luxury sedan, “I don’t think Mari’s ever set foot in that neighborhood. The property values are too low.”

Eli didn’t know how to process that response and just sighed, feeling her shoulders sag.

“I’m sorry, Eli. That was a serious question and I didn’t give you a serious answer.” Nozomi turned away from the window, her smile gentle, “That friend Kanan mentioned, Yoshiko…”

Eli nodded, now wary, but Nozomi continued brightly, “is married to my dear friend Hanamaru who owns a lovely little quirky bookstore on a very ritzy street it really has no business being on. But there it remains.” Nozomi chuckled, “Everything Yoshiko touches is a little like that. Very thoroughly unapologetic of itself and slightly out of place.”

Eli relaxed when she realized Nozomi wasn’t going to push Kanan’s ‘meet my friend’ suggestion on her. “That sounds refreshing. Almost everyone I meet is trying to fit in a particular slot somewhere for some role. I imagine there’s charm in a place unique like that.”

Nozomi’s eyebrows shot up in amusement, “I find it comforting myself. I’ve been having tea there a lot recently, while I was wondering if my phone still worked.”

“Huh?” Eli’s face wrinkled in confusion, “Is it a repair shop?”

“I was waiting for someone to text me.” Nozomi nudged Eli’s knee, noticing how Eli scooted away.

“Who?” It was a mumble, a completely lacking in confidence mumble, completely incapable of selling the suggestion that Eli didn’t know EXACTLY what Nozomi was talking about.

Nozomi just stared until Eli finished glancing everywhere but at her. Nozomi could see guilt wash through blue eyes as Eli acknowledged her lack of outreach, “Oh. Me.” Eli bopped her head, “Sorry. It’s been so many long days. And I just…” Eli had no words for what was happening. Or what she was feeling. Or how desperately she wanted to just be home on her couch, safe, not haunted with worries of the nights she couldn’t remember.

As Eli held her gaze, Nozomi decided it didn’t matter that Eli hadn’t texted her. What did matter was that some of the sadness that weighted Eli’s expression was lifted and that Nozomi found out if there was anything she could do.

“Eli?”

“Yes?” Eli was blinking, trying not to cry, with nowhere to go until the car stopped.

Nozomi just rushed right in, her hand nearly touching Eli’s. “Are you sick? Can I help? Did you get hurt at rehearsal?”

Eli stiffened, her shoulders raising, her chest closing, suddenly crunching in on herself, “No. Rehearsals are fine...dancing is…” A turn to the window, pulling her hand back, leaning into her elbow, eyes on the passing view, “dancing is the only thing that’s really working about me now.”

Eli was talking, reluctantly, but talking. Nozomi decided to press, “What isn’t working? Nico? I know you said you had roommate trouble.”

Eli’s voice sounded thick, “I’m the roommate trouble.”

Nozomi sat still as the car headed toward Silver Lakes and Eli continud, “Nico’s pretty amazing. I wouldn’t be in LA without her, she just...gets me.” Eli smiled wistfully, and Nozomi was suddenly caught by this breathing, touchable portrait of noble sadness, “People don’t do friends enough anymore. There’s something solid about Nico. We were never going to date, but...:” Eli looked straight at Nozomi, “we just get along, you know, really well. It’s fun.”

Nozomi nodded, glad that Eli trusted her enough to talk about some of the details of her life with Nico.

“And now there’s this DJ,” Eli frowned, “And I think Nico really likes her but I don’t and I don’t because I don’t know how it’ll change everything. And right now…” Nozomi could see tears as Eli tilted her head back to rest on the seat, “everything’s just too extra crazy…” Eli’s voice was the thinnest of whispers, ‘because I’m changing. Maybe I should leave...maybe that’d be better.”

“Where would you go?” Nozomi wondered. She knew so little about Eli.

“Home?”

Nozomi wasn’t sure if the question in Eli’s voice meant the home she’d grown up in or one she hadn’t found yet. Or maybe that was Nozomi’s own struggle shadowing the conversation. LA had been a good pause for a traveller, but Nozomi wasn’t certain that there was anywhere she could put roots down.

Nozomi could only offer a cryptic response. She had spent too much time changing places to really believe she might be happy in a more settled existence. “Home is such an individual craving.”

“Craving…” Eli chuckled, “Maybe it’s worse because I’ve been reminded of my grandmother recently. Russian spices in the house again. Nico hates it.” Eli hesitated, then continued, her voice gaining strength, her eyes clearing, “Grandmother would be proud I’m working on a solo show; she was the prima ballerina in her company. So much grace, you even can see it in the lines when she posed for still shots. Every gesture is another key to understanding emotion.” Eli fluttered her hand, sweeping it through the space in front of them, “I aspire to that level of mastery.”

“I’d love to see the photos sometime.” Nozomi wondered if child Eli was in some of them and if her eyes would be as shadowed.

“Sure. When we get to the apartment. Nico’s probably in the middle of cooking six things although she’ll claim she just wants salad. When she stress cooks and makes a curry casserole it’s a bit of fusion heaven.”

“I will take you up on that.”

Eli turned to Nozomi, mischief bright, “It’s a date then. Nico will be so annoyed when I have one and she doesn’t.”

“Are you going for friend or prankster?” Nozomi couldn’t help laughing as Eli bounced slightly in her seat.

“Both.” Eli leaned forward, amusement now the mood in the car, “Retaliating brings Nico unhealthy amounts of joy.”

This was obviously a friendship with its own rules. Good for Eli. Nozomi looked forward to the sparring match she was being invited to.

###

“So Yoshiko just dropped this poor girl from the sky? On her parents?” Mari left out the names. As much as she enjoyed harassing Maki Nishikino, Mari also understood fame and fortune attracted too many random ears.

Kanan tapped her water glass with her knife, “Well, in the pool. They were alone in a cabana, You and I were having a quick meeting at the front of the pool. And then everybody jumped in, one after the other…”

Mari giggled, playing with her champagne flute, “Nico looked like an undersized chihuahua rescued from a flood when she came back to our place.”

“It was worse for You. She was wearing that raggedy old pair of shorts she keeps for laundry and PMS days and drip dried in the ambulance.”

Mari froze, “You sent You to save the timeline in those awful shorts.”

Kanan shrugged, “She’ll be fine.”

“How hot is the time traveller?” Mari had switched to hotel magnate meeting planning mode, her voice crisp and resonant.

Kanan glanced around the room, as Mari’s voice was now carrying, a concern considering the publicness of their location and the topic, but everyone else was focused on their own meals and conversations. Eavesdroppers would probably just guess that they were talking about a movie, anyway. This was LA, after all.

“Kanan? Answer my question.” Mari prompted.

Kanan shrugged, “She was reasonably pretty, I guess. Very sharp clothes, looked like stuff you might wear so probably designer.”

“OH MY GOD!” Mari got to her feet, shoving the table at Kanan, who caught it before it bounced off her abs while glaring at her drama queen of a wife.

“Sit down, Mari.”

“No, we are going to bring that poor girl some decent clothes. Are they still at the hospital?”

“Maki took them home.” Kanan sat down, continuing to cut her farmed artic char into chunks

Mari clucked her tongue and shook her head at her wife, “Cazzatta! Such a bad friend. We are going to go get You some very expensive designer cute things to make up for it.”

“Mari, we can’t just invade Maki’s home and can’t we just pick up something from You’s apartment.”

Mari, having finished flailing her hands around like weapons, tapped Kanan on her shoulder, “1. Watch me and 2. No. Banzai!”

“Maaaaaari.” But by the time Kanan had finished her desperate plea, Mari had blown a kiss at the maitre d’ in lieu of paying the check and made it nearly to the parking lot.

###

Nico always missed her siblings, but on days when she got into stress cooking mode, it had always been nice to have growing teenagers to feed. Now, there was just Nico, two casseroles, one pan of brownies, one loaf of apricot quick bread, biscuit mix rising for breakfast, and a three layer chocolate cake waiting to be iced with the orange buttercream Nico was whipping into celestial smoothness with pure muscle. Maybe she should call Maki and take over some food. Nico glanced outside, nearly dark already, surely Eli was still okay, but it would be reassuring to actually see her here, blonde hair intact in a ponytail not breaking out into full body fluffiness.

A key at the door. “This is such a nice little place, Eli. In a quiet neighborhood it looks like.”

Nico froze at the not Eli voice.

Eli sounded in a good mood. “And you can sit outside at the back. We’ve got some plants out there. It’s a great place to stretch. Or read. Nico always takes her scripts out there, with a hat and sunscreen, of course,”

Eli and Nozomi stepped inside, Eli closing the door behind her. She looked quickly to Nico to read her best friend’s reaction to inviting someone else into their space. Nico put on her best smile, “Nico’s complexion secrets are so good they make K-pop stars jealous. You’re just in time, Nico was about to call a delivery driver to overnight some food to her teenage brother.”

Nozomi approached the bar where the food overflow had reached, taking in the details of the kitchen and front room, “This smells delicious, Nico. Eli was telling me how good your cooking was on the way here so thank you for inviting me to share. I’m glad we decided not to stop and pick up takeout.”

“Nico is too; food shouldn't be wasted...your choices are Eli’s favorite Nico’s secret recipe sausage and 3 bean curry casserole or a more traditional baked pasta, but with Nico’s mama’s special flair.”

“Ingredients also secret?” Nozomi inquired.

“Of course, Nico never breaks a confidence.” Nico’s eyes went to Eli, whose blue eyes dimmed with recent memories. “Hey, Eli, how’s your headache? Feel like eating?” Nico pulled plates out of the cabinet, handing one to Nozomi, while they both watched Eli warily.

Eli rubbed the back of her neck, “I think it’s going to be okay, Nico. I just need a good night’s sleep.”

“We all do.” Nico sighed.

Nozomi was piling pasta and creamy, stringy cheese on her plate, green eyes gleaming, “So want to watch a movie and do your podcast? Isn’t this when you usually record? I’m fascinated by how unrehearsed your conversations seem.” Nozomi then curled up in the comfy chair, her half smile promising mischief and her eyes catching every twitch of her audience.

Nico and Eli both gaped at their guest. With Eli’s wolf side making its surprise appearance last night, they’d completely forgotten their Sunday routine.

“Hell.” Nico muttered.

Eli started spooning casserole onto her plate. “Can’t disappoint our fans, Nico.”

“Nico never disappoints anyone.” Nico huffed, starting to ice the cake to cover her disgruntlement, “Guess it’s your week to pick the movie.”

“Ooohh,” Nozomi bounced, quickly swallowing her mouthful of pasta, “Let me, let me.”

Eli watched Nico’s eyebrow twitch like a sound level meter at a rock concert and bit back a laugh. Yesterday was getting further away with every minute of silliness.

“Romance or Comedy?” Nozomi trilled.

“Murder.” Nico hissed.

“What did you say, Nico, I didn’t quite catch that.” Nozomi asked innocently, Eli doubled over with laughter,

“Crime thriller.” Nico’s teeth were clenched.

Eli took her plate the couch. This was going to be even more entertaining than a normal Nico evening.

A/N: Happy Mischief Night. Or Halloween. No tricks, just another chapter.

[prepare4trouble]

Star Wars Rebels fanfic - Together (an AU of an AU) Part 4/9

(part 1 | part 2 | part 3)

“This isn’t working,” Ezra said.  They had been repeating variations on the same exercise for what felt like hours and he just couldn’t make the Force do what he wanted it to.

“It will,” Kanan insisted.

But he was wrong. Ezra wasn’t any closer now to being able to see with the Force than he had been at the beginning of the lesson, and now all he wanted to do was scream. Or cry. Or possibly both at the same time.  He opened his eyes and shook his head. “It won’t, Kanan. It’s not even starting to work.”

Kanan frowned.  “Maybe you should wear a blindfold,” he said. “It’d make it more difficult for you to open your eyes every time you got frustrated.”

“That’s not the problem!” Ezra told him.

“I know, but it’s a problem. You’re never going to get it if you stop and open your eyes every time you don’t get instant results.”

Kanan didn’t get it. Kanan couldn’t get it.

“Remember the first time you tried to make a connection through the Force to another creature?” Kanan said. “You didn’t get that the first time either. Or the second. But then you did, and now you’re probably better at it than I am.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

Because he’d always been good at making connections. It was one of the things that had kept him alive for so long on the streets of Lothal. Using the Force had been an extension of that. It had taken him a little while to realize that, but as soon as he had, it had come naturally to him.  “It just is,” he said.

Kanan looked unconvinced.  “Just, let’s try it with a blindfold. Okay?”

He didn’t want to. Even the thought of it provoked an irrational claustrophobic feeling of being trapped.  He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. It wouldn’t be the first time he had covered his eyes, and he could take it off if he needed to. And Kanan was right, he did open his eyes a lot, even when he didn’t mean to. It would stop that.  He nodded his reluctant agreement.  “But can we take a break first?” he asked. “We’ve been doing this for ages.”

“We’ve been doing it for about a half hour,” Kanan corrected.  “But yeah, I think a break’s a good idea.”

Relieved, Ezra leaned hard against the wall and let his back slide down until he was sitting on the floor.  He pulled his knees up to his chest and let his head fall back until it hit the wall gently.

“You’ll get it,” Kanan told him.

Kanan genuinely appeared to believe that.  Ezra looked at him.  “Can you do it?” he asked.

Kanan looked thoughtful before he answered.  “No,” he said. “Not completely. But I’ve been trying it. I wouldn't ask you to do it if I hadn’t. I can get a rudimentary understanding of what’s around me, it’s not much, but right now that’s all we’re aiming for. We can work on the rest later.”

Ezra sighed. He knew Kanan was right, but it didn’t help. He wanted it all, and he wanted it right now, so that he didn’t have to worry about it anymore.

“You’ve done it before,” Kanan added. “It isn’t completely new to either of us. Remember the dust storm, on the planet where we found Rex and the other clones?”

Ezra nodded. Of course he remembered it.

“I directed us where we needed to go, you manned the gun. You took out an Imperial Walker, if I remember right. You and I were the only ones that could see out there, and we did it using the Force.”

“That wasn’t seeing.”

Kanan nodded. “Not technically. And this won’t be either. But imagine what might be possible if you could develop that sense. I think that’s the key. It won’t be seeing, not in the traditional way. It’s going to be about finding a new way to experience the world.”

A new way. Ezra closed his eyes and tried to imagine what Kanan was describing to him. Kanan was right, he had done it before, and not only that one time. But every time it had been in a life-or-death situation, and it had come in short bursts; seconds where the Force stepped in to tell him something that he needed to know. He didn’t control it, and he didn’t know if he could.


He also couldn’t control the stab of disappointment. Until recently, he had come close to accepting that he was going to lose his sight. There was nothing that he could do about it, and so he had resigned himself to it. But then Kanan had spoken of blind Jedi, and it had awoken a hope in him that there might be some forgotten Force technique that they could rediscover. Something that would truly replace his sight.

The idea that it was something he had done before, and something that had been nothing at all like sight, was both encouraging and frustrating. Encouraging because the idea of having to develop a technique that even Kanan didn’t know had been daunting to say the least, and frustrating because what he was being offered was so much less than he had hoped for.

“We just need to learn how to hone that sense,” Kanan said. “Make it work for smaller, everyday things, not just life or death situations, and make it work all the time. We need to know how to keep it switched on, keep concentrating, keep open to the Force.”

We. Kanan kept saying ‘we’, like he needed to know it too. He might be trying to teach it, but he didn’t need it. Not like Ezra did. He would never understand what it was like to need it.

What he was suggesting sounded exhausting. Not only that, but it sounded impossible. Ezra reached out into the Force, eyes still closed, trying to use it to sense anything at all. He was greeted by a void, empty and meaningless. He could sense the Force, but nothing beyond that. No understanding of the world around him.

“I know how it sounds,” Kanan told him.

“Impossible, you mean?”

“No, difficult. But like I said, you’ve…”

“Done it before. Yeah, I know.” Ezra shook his head. Still nothing. He was getting nothing at all. He clenched his hands into fists and tried to make the Force do as he wanted. It refused. “That was different.”

“I know,” Kanan told him. “But not completely different. You’ve trained blindfolded or with your eyes closed before now too. That got easier, didn’t it?”

The first time, he had fallen off the ship.  It couldn’t have gotten much worse than that. Kanan was right, the more he had done it, the easier it had become. But they hadn’t done it regularly, and it had only been for lightsaber practice, not for walking around. And it had ceased to feel easy the moment Ezra had begun to realize there was something wrong with his eyes.

Taking his silence for agreement, Kanan continued.  “This might not be the full answer, but for now it’s what we’ve got. If nothing else, it’s a place where we can start.”

‘We’ again.

Ezra glared at Kanan as the frustration built up inside him until he felt ready to scream.  “Stop saying that!” he snapped. “It’s not ‘we’. The last time I checked, you could see just fine. It’s not ‘we’. It’s… just me.”

His anger and frustration dissipated as he finished speaking, replaced by a sense of loneliness; isolation. It was just him. He was alone in this. Kanan could try to help, but he couldn’t understand. Not really. Maybe if his eyes stopped working, he’d be motivated to come up with something that would work.

No. Ezra shook his head as though he could undo the thought. He shouldn’t even think that. It wasn’t fair. Kanan was trying to help him, and probably doing a better job of it than anyone else could.

“Okay,” Kanan agreed. “You. But we‘re going to figure this out, okay? We’re going to do it together.”

Ezra forced out a puff of breath and leaned his head back against the wall. “Yeah, okay. Sorry,” he said, apologizing more for the thing he had thought, than for what he had said.

“Don’t be,” Kanan told him. “You’re right.”

(next)

[ashlan-zeal]

It's hard to wake up from a nightmare if you aren't even asleep.

One moment Ezra was dreaming of running through Lothal's fields at night, and the next one he felt himself being yanked back. He was endlessly falling backwards through the darkness of space, seeing the stars pulling away from him. The very core of his been was filled with a sense of dread. He felt he was going to... cease to be. His mind was racing in panic... his friends... Kanan! They wouldn't know what happened to him. He instinctively reached out with the Force using all his strength, straining his very soul.

KANAN!

"AAH!" Ezra's body jolted to the floor, entangled in bed-sheets and surrounded in darkness. He was panting and trembling with a lingering sense of apprehension. His heart was still beating desperately. Breathe, he thought, calm yourself, it was just a dream. He was disoriented as he pulled the sheet over his head. "I'm-... I'm sorry Zeb, I didn't mean to wake you..." but there was no complaining, no groans or questions, only silence in the room. “Zeb?” Ezra called again. Something was wrong. Besides the chilling silence, something else was wrong. It was like he... he couldn't feel the Force fully.

Confused, Ezra looked around as his eyes focused and adapted to the lack of light around him. A realization hit him. He was not in the Ghost. He scrambled up in a hurry, hitting a table and making a stormtrooper helmet fall at his feet. He held his breath and his heart skipped a beat... He recognized this place. It was his old room in the Tower. The tower in Lothal.

"No, it can't be," he whispered in disbelief. He had been in the Ghost. He was sure of it. He tried to retrace his steps from the last day. They had saved the scientists after Saw had left them to deal with the Kyber crystal going off. They had dropped the scientist on a secure location and had just gone into hyperspace. Hera had told them it would be hours before arriving back to Yavin so everyone should just try to catch up some sleep while they could. They had all agreed. And then...

... he woke up here. Had something happened on the way back? Nothing made sense. He massaged his forehead trying to calm himself and just think, but he was startled when his fingers touched his hair... his hair was longer.

“What?”

His hair was longer. That didn't just happened. He rushed to the small refresher and turned on the lights while looking at the mirror. Yes, his hair was longer... not as long as he used to have it but-...

His eyes widened. The scars on his cheek were gone. His trembling fingers traced the area where they should've been. His scars were gone. The scars he had gotten when...

-Where is Kanan? Where is everyone!?-

“Kanan? Hera? Sabine! ZEB!? CHOPPER?” Ezra almost fumbled out of the refresher trying to reach for the light switch because the place was cluttered. He didn't remember leaving so much stuff behind. He turned the lights on of the rest of the room, revealing a very lived in room. His first collection of helmets were still here but they should have been in the Ghost... there were also several other helmets he never remembered getting. His old trunk was open and full of clothes, a couple of boots his current size were close to the bed, the table had a few unopened rations and a couple of credits in it. The place was clearly being occupied. He ran outside and gripped the railing. A strong wind with hit his face.

Even if it was night, Ezra could see the dark clouds of smog from the factories illuminated by the lights of the city. He glanced around the tower in shock. Beyond the highways, the fields burned. There was nothing else. No Phantom, no Ghost. Nothing.

"No. No...this is all wrong," Ezra whispered trembling. "I need to... I need to find them. They... they must be on the city..." he tried to convince himself. He didn’t sense them through the Force but he wasn’t able to use the Force fully like that either. Maybe it was a drug? Maybe he was sick?

He went back in to his room, grabbing the boots and a shirt. He hurried down, almost tripping on the stairs. Once he reached the bottom of the tower he found a modded speeder bike parked just outside. Ezra stopped cold. He recognized this model. Before he had joined the Rebels he had wanted to get one like that, either stolen or bought, to get around more easily... but then he didn't, settling for a far more common model when doing their missions. He pushed the thought aside and took it anyway. He had no time to waste. The sooner he found out what happened, the better.

Ezra headed into the city, taking great lengths to stay out of sight of patrols. He hadn't heard of Azadi in a while so he didn’t know the current location of the Lothal cell, but he might find one of his contacts, learn of what was going on and get a message across back to Yavin.

Ezra left the bike hidden in an alley and walked tense through the streets, checking over his shoulder every now and then. He tried to relax and look casual but as soon as he turned around the corner he bumped into a whole squad of troopers. He froze on his spot. It was in that moment he realized he didn't have neither a blaster nor his lightsaber with him.

The troopers were discussing their shifts and one of them turned to Ezra.

"Move along. This street is blocked until morning," the trooper motioned to Ezra to turn back somewhat annoyed. Ezra slowly nodded hoping he wouldn’t recognize him and stepped away. Once he was at some distance he sighed in relief. Even if they had gotten a good look at him, they hadn't even cared.

-Good, that means I can look around without worry. Maybe these are new troops… and I don’t see any posters with my face on it-

He kept walking on the opposite direction hoping to see a familiar face or a sign from Azadi's group. He arrived to the main avenue that lead directly to the Imperial Base. A rising anxiety surged on his chest. Before he knew it, he was walking towards the base until he almost reached the restricted landing areas. He looked over, taking the sight of the TIE fighters lined up and ground units moving around. Then he saw him.

"Kallus," Ezra’s eyes widened with a sense of hope. But... why was Kallus here? He was going to get discovered in the middle of the base! Everyone knew him! Ezra carefully crossed into the facility and stopped a few steps behind Alexandr making sure no one else was watching them.

"Hey, Kallus," Ezra whispered tensing. The man turned around, raising an eyebrow curiously at him. He looked extremely tired and worn out. He was wearing his old ISB uniform and haircut.

"This is restricted area, citizen. Leave-..."

"Kallus, what's going on?" Ezra asked him completely confused.

"*Agent* Kallus" Kallus said stressing the word. He did a double take, clearly wondering if he was supposed to know him.

"C’mon, stop the act. I’m… I was worried, ok? What are you doing here? Why are we here?" Ezra was almost begging him for an answer.

"You are clearly confused. Are you drunk, young man?" Kallus frowned.

"I...what? No. Wh-"

"Your name?"

"It's... It's me. Ezra. Ezra Bridger," he said with a hint of desperation. If this was some kind of joke he had enough. Why didn’t he recognize him? Even with the longer hair...

Kallus looked on his datapad. "Uhm, a few misdemeanors, vagrancy... Listen, I don't have time for this,” Kallus sighed, his expression became darker. “If you don’t leave I'll have you arrested immediately. If you want to turn your life around and become a productive member of the Empire…” he made a small pause as if he was trying to convince he was saying the truth “...we are still looking for able bodies for our ground troops. Now if you excuse me, I have more pressing matter to attend-"

"But-"

"Ah... here he comes," Kallus said looking up at the incoming ship. Ezra followed his gaze and saw… and Inquisitor ship.

"No," Ezra whispered in terror. Kallus didn’t hear him, but noticed he was still behind him.

"Do I need to call in the troopers then?"

But Ezra wasn’t hearing him. He was panicking. The Inquisitors were supposed to be gone, RIGHT? He-... he couldn’t fight an Inquisitor alone not without weapons, not without his lightsaber, not without the Force. He ran.

Kallus looked at him go and gave a small chuckle. Yeah, the Inquisitors had that effect on people. He braced himself to welcome this one in Lothal.

At first Ezra didn’t know where he was running to. He needed to put as much space between him and the Inquisitor as possible, but then, he started to slow down, realizing he had ran towards his old house had stood once. Only that… the house was there. Unburnt.

“It can’t be,” he said, trying to breathe but after a few second of his mind going blank and just being overwhelmed by everything, the tears started to fall down. “Kanan... I don’t get it. I don’t…” he sobbed quietly, covering his mouth attempting to not raise anymore attention to himself. He couldn’t handle this anymore. He made his way back to his bike and returned to the tower.

Maybe this was a bad dream. Maybe he just needed to go back and sleep it off. Maybe Kallus was right and he was drugged or something. He somehow managed to sleep… but when dawn came Ezra soon realized he was trapped in a life that was a complete nightmare.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15618783

[oumiyuki]

Teachers don’t date teachers (but You-sensei and Riko-sensei definitely are) Ch5

Summary: The whole student body and teachers teases the gym teacher, Watanabe You, with the new art teacher, Sakurauchi Riko, that they make a cute couple. How long can You deny this when Riko isn’t helping to reduce the rumours?

Pairing: YouRiko

Genre: Romance, Fluff, Slice of Teacher Life ;D

Words: 2219

Author Notes

Okay...Not so much tumbling...more like bearing the cuts and bruises and all forces of nature... but hey, I'm still here...

And here's another YouRiko-sensei update. 

May you enjoy~ XD 

 Tease05 – You-sensei and Riko-sensei’s first kiss!? (it sure looks like it)

 You haven’t noticed this, but the students buzzing with endless energy and on the edge of their seats with cameras and love-filled shipping minds have. What they have noticed? They noticed that the newest addition to the art facility, a beautiful, gentle but kind of damsel in distress art teacher, namely Sakurauchi Riko, complete the perfect picture of romance when she rests in the gym teacher’s arms. That’s right, once again, Riko was being held by You’s strong arms.

Bundles of rolled up canvases tightly hugged in her left and right arms, a few wooden frames, art box and jotter book pressed to her chest in a risky way as she tried to make her way to the carpark, but alas, turns around the bend was never in favour to her, or never in favour to pretty girls who can’t see to their front that well. The auburn-haired art teacher lets out a shriek of surprise as she steps onto a can and loses her balance; right leg stretches in front of her more than she has ever stretched in months, the pull on her muscles getting to her already. She expected to meet the floor this time but instead warm, very warm hands held her up from the waist.

“Riko-sensei. Are you alright?” Her hero unintentionally breathes in her ears those words of concern and even let out a sigh of relief through the nose as the ash-brunette leaned in front to examine her face. Riko scrambles for her facial muscles to bring up a smile and hope to all the gods that her face wasn’t painted in any shades of the cherry blossom pink or the red camellia flowers she illustrated in class today. 

"Ah...You-sensei...Yes, I believe I'm in good hands right now." Riko leans her head back onto the gym teacher's reliable chest to make her point. 

You feels her cheek turn warm. "Um... I'm glad..?" 

Is it just me or Riko-sensei looks really pretty right now?

Riko's smile pulls a tad higher and looks back to the front, seemingly giving off a somewhat embarrassed aura. 

Riko-sensei..? 

"Um... Could you help me back up...all the way? And er..." The auburn hair teacher sports a dash of pink on her cheeks which makes You's cheeks redder by a chain reaction. The way Riko's almond eyes pointed out the fact that You's arms were still wrapped around Riko didn't help You's case of staring at the art teacher rumoured to be her girlfriend. 

You moves her tongue in her mouth nervously, swallowing nothing at all just to distract herself, a silent call out from her brain to the body to stop gaping at the pretty art teacher and start doing as requested. 

"Ah. Right. Yes. Um. Yes. Sure!" You blurts a string of agreement. Riko chuckles; worsening You's red cheek reaction. 

Iiiiiiiii am such an embarrassment! What was that, Watanabe You?? 

You stands back awkwardly, not noticing two pairs of eyes watching her and Riko's little save and rescued moment with growing excitement and glee. Riko, on the other hand, was back on her feet and gives You a slight bow of thanks, grin gentle and cool, pink cheeks no more. 

"Say, You-sensei, could you help me with something?" 

You nods. "Sure. Whatever you need, Riko-sensei." 

As long as it's within my capabilities! And if I can clear up all the uncool side of me Riko-sensei has witnessed...that would be a plus. 

Riko's ears flared a hot red when You suggests that she can offer pretty much any service but luckily for the art teacher, the gym teacher did not notice her mini rise of excited-panic, her cool exterior hiding a blush-inducing fantasy that flashed through Riko's imaginative mind. Riko clears her throat for good measure. "Could you help bring my materials to my car?" 

You looks Riko up and down once. "Ah, of course. You wouldn't be able to unlock your car with that many things on hand!" You slaps her hand over her mouth without warning earning raised eyebrows from Riko. 

And chest..! I almost said and on Riko-sensei's chest! If I did that I'd not only be uncool, I'd be seen as a perv! Ahh, that was a close call! 

You composes herself and gives Riko a reassuring smile as she eased Riko's arms of more than half the load. "S-shall we?" 

Riko smiles, letting the matter slide though she glanced at the gym teacher curiously on the way to the car, to see if she could perhaps spot anything to clue her in on what made You react that way. 

Now by the car and items loaded, "Do you have to bring all these up to your house?" 

I doubt Riko-sensei can enter her house like that...

Riko nods. "I do. I've got to grade the assignments." 

You chuckles softly. "And how do you see yourself opening your house door?" 

Riko's eyes widen as realization settled upon her with the help of the ash-brunette's wagging eyebrows. 

"Perhaps you actually can go through doors without unlocking them and you've been hiding it from us?" You teases with a broad smile. 

Riko gives the playful gym teacher a mock glare as she opens the passenger door. "Then will you help a maiden out?" 

Anytime. 

You grins and nonchalantly rests her arm over the top of the opened car's door. "If I get a please and dinner." 

I don't really want those from helping but well, let's see how Riko-sensei handles being teased~

Riko simply smiles; completely okay with You's request. "Please help me out, You-sensei? We can grab dinner before my house too. My treat." 

Uwa. Not even a slight fluster or hesitance. 

You straightens her back. "Sounds good." 

Riko giggles and closes the door after making sure You was nicely settled in her humble, brownish-red Mazda. Both teachers do not notice squeals and camera flashes after Riko was in the car and buckled up. 

"Ah." 

"What's wrong?" You looks over with concern. 

"Just a... dirt I guess..." The art teacher carefully touched her eye that may have caught some dirt on the way into the car. 

You leans across the distance between them and silently obtains permission to assist Riko in clearing the dirt and easing the art teacher's eyes since Riko seemed to be having slight troubles doing so herself. Riko lowers her own hands and after a short few seconds of You's feather-like touches and a soft blow of air to her eyes, Riko's eyes were back to good condition.

"T-Thank you..." 

You leans back in her seat with a satisfied smile. "No problem."

Riko takes a moment to herself, while You sat beside her oblivious to how she has caused the art teacher to be on the receiving end of needing a timeout. A good minute or so and Riko starts the drive back to her place. 

A week later, You receives a text message from Riko which made You confused. 

Riko (10:37): Have you seen it yet? 

You (10:41): Seen what? 

Riko (10:56): It's okay.

You was perplexed. If it was something that the art teacher would message her about, wouldn't it be important? Or pressing? You tapped her pen impatiently on her desk where she sat; having some paperwork to do. 

What did I miss? 

You glances to the photo collage of her students and her; at a barbeque and on the school open field. You was a teacher that was really close with the students after all; chatting, playing, teaching, advising as a full package. 

Was the students doing something again? Their murmuring has been more hushed lately though... 

The gym teacher kicked back and spun in her computer chair a few rounds before the science teacher places something on her face. "Hey." 

The teacher with long blue hair grins. "Thought this might interest you." 

"What is it?" You takes the papers folded in half, wearing a thinking face which was rather adorable for the gym teacher who usually wore a carefree, smiley expression. 

"You're the topic." 

"... Don't tell me." 

The science teacher chuckles. "Okay, I won't." 

It's that matter again, isn't it? Ah, please don't be it. Don't be it... What could it be? 

You stresses the ear of the folded documents which was actually really high-quality paper for a good minute before she finally turns the paper over to see the content. 

WHA-

You immediately slaps the paper close after her eyes widened at the image of Riko and herself. You looks up and gestures at the paper now lying on her table. "Where did you get that, Kanan?" 

Kanan shrugs. "Noticeboard, You. When did it happen? You could have been more a friend and tell me ‘bout it." 

You squints at Kanan's teasing tone. "Because we're not. Ugh, the students just keep teasing me and Riko-sensei and I don't even know why. Do we look like that to you?" 

You asks genuinely and Kanan hums for a moment. "Kinda." 

You groans. "No. We're not." 

The ash-brunette picks up her phone, opening the messaging application, taps Riko's name swiftly like she’s used to it; the fact that Riko was on the top made Kanan hold back a chuckle. 

You (11.33): I just saw it

You (11.33): why ;_;

You (11.33): I'm sorry

You (11.33): I'll talk to the kids

You (11.33): tell them to stop these

The gym teacher sighs as she rests her back against the chair, head facing the ceiling with a tired expression. She sees Kanan smiling down at her and she pouts at the science teacher. “What.”

“Oh, nothing.” Kanan grabs a chair and sits on it, hands propped on the headrest and her chin on her arms, grinning cheekily. “Texting your girlfriend?”

You groans yet again and spins in an attempt to kick Kanan’s chair. The bluenette easily dodges it with a front push with her long legs, laughing. “Better luck next time.” You stops her chair’s spin to face Kanan while the playful science teacher rolls the chair she’s on forwards.

Them and all their teasing… Kanan too! Sheesh!

You whines in her mind before grabbing the papers once more. Looking at the image reluctantly. The scene of Riko resting on her shoulder, her arms wrapped around Riko’s waist, and with how her face was leaning close to the art teacher, features not entirely visible from the side-back view the picture is taken in, it’s not a surprise that the header is “You-sensei kisses Riko-sensei!?” You’s shoulders slumps.

How did this happen?

You glances to her phone; the pretty but clumsy art teacher coming to mind.

Riko-sensei slipped and I caught her. That’s all.

You’s phone vibrates and the purple light indicates a message.

Riko (11:55): It’s my fault. So I’m sorry, You-sensei. Don’t scold your students please. They are just having harmless fun and…their photography and editing skills are commendable.

You chuckles as she reads the message. Even now – with such a scandalous news spreading about Riko-sensei and her, and the art teacher is actually defending them. Praising them too!

You (11:56): Aye, I don’t really scold. They don’t find me scary enough.

You (11:57): Still gotta tell them off tho

You (11:57): And how are you to blame? >8/

Riko-sensei is too kind… This probably needs disciplinary action… I think… Not that I want the students getting in trouble…

You looks back at her phone when a vibration comes in.

Riko (11:57): I fell.

You arches an eyebrow at the message.

That I know.

Riko (11:58): Want to have lunch together?

You blinks twice at the question. Usually, she’d respond with a quick “Sure” if her schedule was free, and a “Sorry, can’t”, if her schedule was not. But for some reason, she’s definitely free for lunch at the moment, but she’s hesitating. You doesn’t know why; her palms got a little sweaty and she wasn’t being straight forth… why?

Kanan notices the gym teacher in a rare state of pouts and thoughts so the bluenette gives a helping nudge. “Yo, what’s up?”

That’s what I want to know…

You sighs. “Riko-sensei asks if I wanna go grab lunch. Wondering if I want to.”

“Why not?”

You looks to the phone; Riko smiling gently appears in her mind and You for a reason she can’t come up with feels like blushing. You looks to Kanan with an unsure face. “I don’t know.”

Kanan stares at You for a time before a grin grew on her face. “Just go.” The bluenette turns back to her desk. “Not like you to overthink things, You.”

True… I’m not thinking of anything that leads anywhere anyway.

You picks up her phone and taps away.

You (12:09): Sure

You (12:09): Sorry for the late reply

You (12:09): I’ll treat

“Thanks.” You brofists with Kanan.

Riko (12:10): See you soon :)

Riko (12:10): And I’m treating ;)

You smiles at Riko’s responses as she grabs her gym jacket and heads for the school cafeteria. The new picture and news from the newspaper club, or what You thinks to call them now – the teacher teasing club – parked at the back of her mind as the ash-brunette was more interested in having a good meal with her colleague cum friend, not girlfriend.

Of course, the student body thinks otherwise, and more pictures were snapped that day.

Author Notes

When this is done, I wish to have all those pictures. So precious. Mari-sensei, please give me a nice HD copy of them all~ XD

Anyways! Here’s another teacher we all know and love~ ;D

I got so much more I wanna write for this AU, ahh. XD

Do tell me which parts you like of this chapter! *O* And see you next tease! ^w^

P.S. I keep trying to come up with witty titles fitting of the content and it’s fun but sure takes lots of time XD –chuckles- I came up with like 5 for this chapter and kept changing it :3

[lunawings]

Love Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie Over the Rainbow initial first draft (?) summary

So I wanted to wait until I saw it for the third time to write this, but then I realized I may not have time to see it this weekend and I’m not sure when I will. So I’m just going to get this out there for people who wanted to read it and maybe I’ll revisit it later. 

Because I am kinda fuzzy on some details, and because I do have a strong tenancy to want to go overboard, I tried to purposely leave some stuff out and just hit the main plot beats. Somehow it still ended up pretty long though. Sorry!

Update: I originally tried to describe the crazy opening scene, but they just released a video of it so you can just watch it: https://youtu.be/gbFobF58W7g It’s basically a travel advertisement for Numazu and has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Beautiful. 

Moving on, after that whole business the movie actually begins and we get a scene with the 2nd years and 1st years in front of Numazu station discussing how they have decided (with the 3rd years’ blessing) to continue Aqours as the six of them.  This begins our first plot: How to redefine Aqours as only six members. (This is plot one of four.)

But before they can get very far their first problem is that they have nowhere to practice anymore. They discuss asking Mari for help, but Chika quickly shoots it down saying they can’t depend on the 3rd years anymore. Instead they decide to go and have a look at their new school.

After a long bus ride they arrive at their “new school” to find a broken down building and a sign that says “**** school annex.” Thus begins plot number two: The school annex problem.

Cut to the girls at a cafe in downtown Numazu as they discuss how it turns out some of the students and faculty of their new school don’t want the Uranohoshi girls mixing in with the current students for some reason, therefore they are throwing them in a broken down annex building for the time being. Suddenly the girls notice You has gone missing.... and shortly after that Yoshiko, Hanamaru, and Ruby also suddenly start acting very strange as they begin frantically blocking the window from Chika and Riko. Their efforts are futile however as Chika and Riko realize something is up and run outside the cafe to see...

You and.... a boy....?

The girls all try to spy on You and her counterpart. Although they try their best to be slick, You quickly catches them. It’s then she introduces them to her.... (female).... cousin Tsuki.

(Of course. There are no boys in Love Live. Pfft.) 

So Tsuki it turns out goes to the girls’ new school, so she kinda acts as their go-between for the length of the movie. (How convenient.)  It’s here that Tsuki explains why the Uranohoshi girls aren’t wanted in the new school: Their new school has very prestigious school clubs, to the point where some of them compete on a national level, and they are worried students from a laid back country school like Uranohoshi would hurt morale. 

The girls discuss about how, if only they had a school club that won a national tournament to show that they can be serious about club activities.... oh wait. 

So Tsuki helps Aqours to get a chance to perform at an event for their new school where all of the clubs do demonstrations. Aqours performs a show as six members and....

We never see the show. But from the next scene it’s implied that it did not go well and they did not succeed in getting the Uranohoshi students integrated into the new school.

Later the six girls are practicing on the beach (like the old days) when who should show up but Leah and Sara on a detour from a trip to Tokyo. The girls perform for Leah and Sara (once again their performance is not shown) only to be told by Sara that they are only 20-30% the at level they were at during Love Live and the gap left by the 3rd years is obvious. While questioning what to do, Leah suddenly blurts out that they have to figure it out on their own and as she sprints away, clearly upset. 

Here begins the third plot: Leah still isn’t over her sister graduating. She has been trying to start a new idol group at her school but it is not going well. Everyone she invites ends up rejecting her because practice is too difficult or she expects too much of them, etc.

Ruby runs after Leah trying to talk to her but they are interrupted by our fourth plot (and the one plot that has nothing to do with any of the others): Mari’s mother. She comes down in a helicopter, scoops up the girls, informs them the 3rd years are missing, and offers a hefty reward if they can be found. Where was the last place they were seen? Italy, of course. 

So the girls are off to Italy. With Tsuki. Because Tsuki lived in Italy as a child and can be their guide. (How convenient.) Finding the 3rd years is.... surprisingly easy though. Too easy. Because as soon as they do, they learn that the 3rd years were never actually missing. But once learning Mari’s mother sent the others to find them, Mari, Dia, and Kanan quickly disappear again offering no explanation. 

So the 1st and 2nd years are just kind of left on their own in Italy. 

But after a few scenes, the girls visit a famous cathedral where Ruby notices a red light shining in the distance and somehow she just knows it’s Dia. 

So they all follow the light to find the 3rd years hiding out in an old mansion where Kanan (in place of Mari who doesn’t speak) finally explains what’s been going on.

Mari is..... engaged. 

Her mother arranged a marriage for her in order to keep her under control. She is not fond of Mari’s choices, such as when she suddenly decided to return to Uchiura to try and save the school. Plus she is especially not fond of Kanan and Dia, since Mari first started wanting to do things her own way when she met them. So the three of them are basically hiding in Italy from her until the marriage is called off. So the reason Mari’s mother sent the 1st and 2nd years to Italy was because she knew the 3rd years wouldn’t be able to resist contacting them and thus the 1st and 2nd years would lead her right to them. 

So even though the 1st and 2nd years tried the best to cover their tracks, it was no good as the whole group is found by Mari’s mother. But it is then decided that they will all perform a show in Italy to prove to Mari’s mother that being a school idol was worth Mari’s time.

This performance is “Hop? Stop? Nonstop!” in their casual Italy outfits and the entire thing is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MtVoB9qhIs

Note: Tsuki is the one filming them.

After the performance Mari’s mother walks away without saying anything. (Although it’s implied Mari got her way.) 

Thus is the end of the Italy plot. 

(I’m not even sure if Aqours ever got their cash reward.) 

The 1st years and 2nd years return to Numazu (the 3rd years return at some point too but it’s not shown), where the other Uranohoshi students have been helping to build them a stage for an upcoming performance at a festival in Numazu. However, they are having a bit of a problem since they don’t have enough help to support their grandiose ideas for the performance. But not to worry, as Tsuki chooses that moment to show up with a few other students from the new school who have decided they want to help. (How conv... nevermind.)

Things progress for a while with that until it’s time for the Leah plot to come back. Sara has contacted the girls to ask how they would feel if... Leah joined Aqours. Leah is just miserable and it’s to the point where Sara has began to think that transferring to their school and joining Aqours may be the best thing for her. All the girls are relatively fine with it except for Ruby, who will not hear it. Her reasoning is that she knows Leah still feels that she has to make up for her sister leaving, when actually she doesn’t need to at all because she just hasn’t realized her sister will always be there (in spirit). They hatch a plan. 

Leah goes out running in the very early morning and is plagued with the memory of how she caused Saint Snow to lose the tournament. She starts crying as she runs before stopping when she’s in front of the Old Public Hall (where her and Ruby once pitched their idea for Saint Aqours Snow). Sara is there. Her phone plays Tsuki on facetime announcing that special Love Live finals will take place between Aqours and Saint Snow. Sara hands Leah a costume. It was the costume they had agreed to wear if they ever made it to Love Live. Sara tells her that it’s time to perform their Love Live show, here and now. 

And Saint Snow performs.

And it is...

It’s.........................

..................perhaps the most sexually charged scene in the history of the anime. Like, they just had on these police outfits and fishnet stockings and just oh lord I was practically watching it through my fingers the first time. But it was also GOOD. They sounded AMAZING. It basically left me thinking like... oh my... if Saint Snow hadn’t lost early.... I’m not so sure if Aqours would have won Love Live..... 

So, after the performance Leah finally realizes that what she had with her sister  will never disappear, ending the Leah plot. Aqours (all 9) also performs from Numazu on the roof of a building as Saint Snow watches on Sara’s phone. (They are in the blue and outfits which have been seen a few places such as the theater merch rubber straps.) Chika seems to have learned something as well. Tsuki, feeling that this amazing performance can’t go to waste, uploads it online.

The six member Aqours goes back to preparing for their Numazu festival performance, joined by more and more students from their new school who have seen Tsuki’s video. The 3rd years peek in on them, but never help directly. They let it be known that they plan to leave on their separate paths as soon as they have seen the performance.  

The festival is here and it’s time for the first six member Aqours performance that we actually are allowed to see. Partway through the performance the girls notice the 3rd years have disappeared from the audience. But they smile, thus ending the Aqours plot. 

But then all 9 are joined together on a fantasy stage in the sky to finish the song. Something to note about their outfits (which are secret ones as I’m posting this), the 1st and 2nd years have one wing on one side. And the 3rd years have two wings. Interpret that as you will.

Partway through the performance, before the song even ends...... the credits begin to roll. 

During the credits we see Leah has started recruiting new members into her school idol group again. We also find out the girls were successful in combining the schools, and that wraps up everything. 

After the credits we hear a bunch of girls running up to the beach in Uchiura and talking about how it’s a sacred spot for school idols. They talk about how they all want to be school idols when they get to high school too. One of them asks what they would call their group, and another one writes in the sand.....

Aqours 

I interpreted this as meaning that there will always be a school idol group in Uchiura/Numazu, and they will always be called Aqours. And it was the best ending I could have asked for. 

So this movie had a lot of different plots as I mentioned, but I thought it handled them pretty well? The thing is, I think it may have been better if I had never watched the previews. If anything, that kinda ruined it. Because they really throw you off since they mostly focus on the Italy stuff, but when you actually see the movie you find out the Italy plot is just a wild tangent which ends as quickly as it begins. 

The Italy plot actually ended up making more sense than I thought it would though. At first I was like yes, your daughter is missing but don’t bother to call the police just send her underage friends to a foreign country to look for her A++++ PARENTING!!! But when I found out the girls weren’t missing and the actual reason I was like yeah, it’s still kinda dumb I guess that does make a little bit more sense....?

But I honestly thought the biggest climax was the one about Leah. That was when I heard the most people crying in the theater. I also thought it was a little bit odd that THAT was the BIG emotional moment, whereas the Aqours plot climax (when they are finally able to perform as a 6-person group) is rather quiet in comparison....  

And yet, oddly, I didn’t cry at the Leah plot climax. Instead I started tearing up when the credits came up because I was just like... but the song isn’t even over but... BUT... HERE... NOW.. NO... NO DON’T END....... 

Tsuki was a character created entirely for plot convenience if you didn’t pick up on that. (Plus that annoying teaser in the trailer.) But oh well. She has a couple funny scenes with You. 

And like I said, there are a lot of cute scenes with certain girls that I left out. It definitely has a lot of great moments, and every performance is phenomenal. I can’t wait until you see it. 

[diverdaddy]

Set It Up: The Christmas Rush

Pairing(s): KanaDiaMari, NozoNicoEli Word Count:  8844 Chapter : 1/? Summary: Two very different stores at the mall prepares for christmas thats just around the corner, and for one Dia Kurosawa this years holiday season makes for quite the rush. Her manager, Eli Ayase is weridly facinated with chocolate, and their new employee, Kanan Matsuura is a walking distraction on legs. What more could Santa possibly throw her way? 

Another collab with @nozoroomie !! Merry Christmas y’all!!

The sound of the radio is ambient background noise as Dia folds the jeans in front of her. Across the way her manager Eli is at the counter, sorting out some documents and preparing for the arrival of their new coworker. Dia has to admit- she’s been a bit nervous for this shift. She really shouldn’t be, considering she’s very good friends with the new trainee, but there’s always that tiny bit of anxiety that forms when she doesn’t know exactly what to expect.

And Kanan Matsuura is sure to deliver something unexpected on her very first shift at Chacci.

The store is just a fancy, budget friendly store for women who like brand names but aren’t willing to pay the expensive prices it costs for brand names. Chacci’s is every girls dream, if Dia’s really honest. Forget brand names- their store has shirts, pants, accessories and handbags that are stylish, affordable and Dia gets 50% off everything. What could be better?

Thinking about that Dia realizes their store doesn’t carry shoes, but that’s not that big a deal.

She folds the last of the jeans and places it atop the pile. She glances at the clock. Twenty minutes until Kanan is due to arrive and her anxiety has barely settled. She mentally runs through the training plan; show Kanan around the store and how places work, have her watch a few transactions on the till, and go over how each and every piece of clothing that gets folded and clothing that gets placed on hangers along the walls. That’s easy enough for a first shift. Probably. It’s how Eli taught her during her first shift after all.

Before Dia knows it she sees someone walk through the entrance from the corner of her eye- the familiar form of her good friend. She looks up to get a better view and she immediately wishes she hadn’t. Good God. What the fuck.

Dia finds herself gazing upon Kanan in the most atrocious looking set of overalls she has ever seen in her life. Her face? Perfect. She’s even wearing a bit of eyeliner in the way she had shown her not too long ago. But her shirt sleeves are rolled up and showing off her arms (or what her girlfriend Mari affectionately refers to as ‘the guns’) and her overalls- god, there’s nothing wrong with a good pair of overalls, but these ones? They weren’t even overalls. More like a horrible cross between overalls and high waist pants from the 70s’. What shade of green was this? Algae? And pinstripes?! This is 2018, pinstripes haven’t been in style in god knows how long.

Kanan looks like a walking horror show and Dia doesn’t approve. This is her first day of work in a respectable retail store. She’s making a pretty bad impression already and she hopes it doesn’t affect Eli’s attitude towards her much. Kanan waves, as if nothing were wrong and Dia waves back slightly.

At this point, Eli has looked up from her paperwork and she beams.

“Matsuura-san! Welcome!” She says, unaffected by the pants, “Your outfit looks pretty great!”

Dia wonders if it’s too late to eject herself into the sun. Eli is an older college student, someone Dia highly respects and enjoys working with. They have some similar interests and always enjoy talking to one another about various things, but Dia never would have guessed that this was the kind of fashion Eli finds endearing. She always looks so sharp, so sophisticated and perfect and yet. And Yet.

“Thanks!” Kanan responds with a grin, “Thought I’d make a good first impression with one of my best outfits.”

Eli laughs lightly. “Kinda like those patterned pants you wore to your interview?”

Kanan can only beam and she turns to Dia with that charming smile.

“Hey Dia! What do you think? Do I look like a perfect Chacchi employee or what!?”

Dia thinks if her ear could bleed from these words alone, they would.

“I wouldn’t say that.” Dia replies without missing a beat. “Kanan. You have so many wonderful outfits. And you came in these?” Dia gestures to- well. All of her. (Except for maybe.. Her arms and face.)

‘’Really? I don’t know Dia-- I think Matsuura-san’s outfit is very Chacci.” Eli intervenes, boosting Kanan’s confidence in her choice of workplace attire, “Though I would say roll down your sleeves if you could, this way customers don’t get too distracted.”

Dia doesn’t know if she’s referring to Kanan’s muscles or the fact that she has a long sleeved shirt bundled up to her shoulders. She hopes it’s the latter. She really does.

“Oh! Sounds good, I can do that.” Kanan says, reaching up and beginning to roll down the her right sleeve.

But as she does, it’s very. Slow. Dia finds herself internally screaming as Kanan purposefully takes her time bringing the fabric down her arms and only just past her elbow, making sure her forearms are still on good display. The brunette looks over to the clock and see’s she still has plenty of time before Kanan can officially clock in for her first official shift. Dia decides she’s in definite need of a breather.

“Ayase-san?” Dia calls, walking over to the counter, “You wouldn’t mind if I took a quick break before Kanan starts, would you?”

Eli glances at the clock herself and ponders it for a moment before nodding.

“Yes, that would be alright.” Eli confirms, giving Dia a small smile.

Dia doesn’t hesitate to go to the backroom, grab her wallet and immediately head out of Chacchi’s. She pushes herself forward towards the shop across the hall from theirs in the mall- a small italian sweets and cafe shop owned by a certain family she knows all too well. Owned by her friends family, it makes it easy to find their daughter here working a few shifts throughout the week. Dia hopes this is one of the days Mari has to work so she can have a few words with her about her girlfriends choice of work attire.

She steps inside the wonderful and familiar smelling shop, approaching the counter with her usual order on her mind. She glances around the shop to look for Mari but sees no signs of her. Instead she’s greeted by lovely green eyes and a warm dimpled smile.

“Afternoon Kurosawa-san!” the girl greets, tilting her head a bit, “Are you here for tea? Or perhaps are you here for Ohara-san?”

“Good afternoon, Toujou-san.” Dia returns the greeting and sighs, “Both, if possible. Could you possibly make the tea a little stronger today? I might need it.”

Nozomi doesn’t question why but plugs the order in with a small laugh. The girl next to her, finishing rinsing out a coffee pot in the sink comments. Her hair is tied back in a low black ponytail and red eyes look at her with a raised eyebrow.

“It wouldn’t have anything to do with her girlfriend being hired in your store would it? She wouldn’t stop talking about it all yesterday morning.” She comments, putting the rinsed pot on the top burner of the coffee machine.

She sighs and Nozomi can’t hide her tiny grin. It’s no secret that ever since Mari’s girlfriend had been showing up at the mall more in her free time, the Chacchi’s employee would come by their shop for a green tea and a quick conversation with said girl. That’s how Kanan got the idea to apply to Chacchi’s- Dia had commented they would be hiring for the holiday season and Kanan didn’t hesitate to throw a resume and application in. Now Dia feels like Nozomi can feel the regret radiating off of her for this decision.

“There’s only so much I can take,” Dia starts to explain as Nico gets to making her tea, “High school was good because we were required to wear uniforms and I wasn’t forced to see such fashion atrocities. I know myself, I’m not always the most coordinated but even my little sister would think that abomination she’s wearing right now belongs in the circus, and my little sister doesn’t have a single harsh bone in her body!”

Nozomi laughs and accepts Dia’s change (Exact change, as always) and drops it into the till before looking out the shop and across the way. As she does, her eyes scan the shop to see just how bad Kanan’s outfit could be, but instead of finding Kanan she finds the other girl at the front of the shop near a display, looking over towards her at the shop. Nozomi blinks once and the blonde realizes they’ve made eye contact and immediately looks away, pretending to fix the display up and acting as if the locked gaze never happened. A subtle grin grows on Nozomi’s features.

“Add a tally to the chalkboard Nicocchi, just caught you know who for the fifth time today~.” she voices in a sing song tone.

Dia quirks her eyebrow and accepts her tea from Nico as both she and the shorter girl look out towards Chacchi’s to find Eli hurriedly folding the last of the shirts before walking back into the shop and is joined by Kanan.

“Are you talking about Ayase-san?” Dia asks, bringing her tea up to her lips and taking a small sip. She hums in approval- perfect, as it always is.

“You got it. Tall, hot and blondie over there looks longingly over here almost every chance she gets.” Nico smirks, leaning on the counter and looking up to Dia. “You wouldn’t happen to know why, would you?”

Dia feels both green and red iris’ on her and she pursues her lips in thought. She lifts her cup to her lips again, tasting the matcha flavour on her tongue and swallowing the small mouthful as she ponders it. She herself hasn’t really noticed Eli staring out at the sweets shop often and she can’t really fathom why Eli would. Or maybe she could? She can at least think of one reason.

“I would imagine it’s because she has an unhealthy addiction to chocolate. She carries a bag of little wrapped chocolates on her at almost all times and rewards herself with one at the end of every shift.” the corners of her mouth turn upwards, “I’ve told her she won’t find out how the chocolate here tastes until she tries it.”

Nozomi giggles and her eyes linger on Chacchi’s.

“Well, if it’s just for chocolates, I’d be happy to give you some samples to give to her. All on the house~”

Dia’s eyes light up a bit.

“Really? But I thought only Mari could-”

As if on cue, the sounds of footsteps approaching her all too quickly hits her ears. She’s enveloped into a hug from behind and she takes a step forward to stabilize herself, gasping and holding her tea out to safety as the familiar form of the girl she’d been searching for drapes herself around Dia. She’s hit with the familiar smell of Chacci’s N°5 perfume and nothing could prepare her for Mari’s excited greeting.

“DIA!~” Mari’s chin rests on Dia’s shoulder as she hugs her tightly. “Did you come here just to see little old me~?”

Dia squirms, trying to pull herself from Mari so she can turn and face her with a glare.

“As you can see, no, I did not. I took my break early because your girlfriend arrived at work and insisted on wearing that atROCITY SHE CALLS PANTS.” Her voice raises in the way it does when she communicates her frustrations with Mari. It’s a charming detail only Mari seems to be able to bring out of her.

Nozomi snorts while Nico snickers as they watch the scene. Dia could care less thought-- she’s pissed. Meanwhile Mari just laughs, pulling her arms off of Dia.

“Oh come on Dia~ she looks very cute! And Sexy. And silly, all at the same time! It’s endearing~” Mari replies with enthusiasm, “Did you like the gun show? She sent me a snapchat and we knew you were gunna react to it.”

Those bitches. Plotting this against her and purposefully enraging Dia with this terrible outfit and pretending that it’d be fine with Kanan showing off her muscles. It’s rude, and it didn’t work. Much. Dia noticed them but made No Comment.

“Only you would think that, Mari.” Dia replies with as little emotion as possible.

Mari looks over to Nico and Nozomi expectantly.

“Oh, I’m with this bitch.” Nico says instantly, jabbing her thumb in Dia’s direction, “Those pants need to be burned in the fires of hell because those are the only flames hot enough to take them out.”

Finally, someone with common sense, Dia thinks.

Mari stares at Nozomi. Nozomi stares back. They share silent words with their gazes. Dia squints a bit, trying to decipher exactly what Nozomi’s feelings on the outfit might be, but finds it hard to understand when she doesn’t quite get her stare.

“Would you say that’s pro Kanan’s outfit, or nay Kanan’s outfit?” Dia asks Nico, not looking away from the two.

“Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. I’ve been dating her since high school but there are still some things about her that are a mystery.” She leans over the counter more to whisper to Dia “But if I ever caught her wearing something as embarrassing as those overalls you’d bet I wouldn’t be out in public with her.”

Dia feels kinship with Nico. They are united in this. Together they’ll form the anti terrible fake overalls brigade. Well, maybe not that far. Dia takes a fucking sip babe.

“Anyway,” Mari says, finally breaking her gaze from Nozomi “What’s up Dia~? If you’re not here for me and you have your tea, you’re usually headed back to your store now.”

“Well, Toujou-san offered to give me free chocolates because my coworker has been glancing over quite often. We assume it’s because of the chocolate.” Dia explains, looking to the display case full of chocolate.

Mari stares for a moment and beams. A light tint of pink dusts Dia’s cheeks. Curse this girl and her smile that could light up the world.

“Sure! If it means gaining another cute customer, I’m all for it!” Mari looks through the display case at each selection of chocolates, “Nozomi! Wrap up some of the fresh chocolates you and Nico made today~ She’ll be sure to enjoy them!”

It doesn’t take long for Nozomi to pick a variety of the sweets they made- a couple of solid milk chocolate squares, a white chocolate cream filled chocolate, and some of their premium dark chocolate and the signature chocolate of the store-- the Oharrero Rocher (the chocolate where the shop got its namesake, which is a creamy hazelnut flavoured center inside a wafer ball and dipped in milk chocolate). She wraps them all up carefully into a small purple package and hands it over the counter to Dia.

“There you go Kurosawa-san! Let’s hope this satiates Ayase-sans curiosity.” Nozomi smiles as Dia takes the chocolates from her.

“Thank you, Toujou-san and Yazawa-san. I’m sure she’ll love them.” Dia smiles a genuine smile and Mari pouts.

“Hey! Don’t I get a thank you for giving them to you?” She leans forward to get into Dia’s field of vision. “Maybe you could thank me with a little kiss~?”

“Not this time.” Dia replies smoothly. She doesn’t mean to imply that at some point she could thank Mari with a little kiss, but the idea itself causes her golden eyes to grow and a wide smile to break out on her lips.

“I’m holding you to that, Dia~”

With that, Dia says her goodbyes and sashays away back to Chacchi’s, chocolates and tea in hand. She places her tea behind the counter along with the bag of chocolates when she gets back to the store. Eli seems to be busy at the counter and looks up when Dia places her refreshments down.

‘’Ah, Dia you’re back. I was showing Matsuura-san how we fold the different clothes here, can you go help her out with the current pile?’’ Eli asks before continuing her work on the computer.

Dia agrees with a sigh before she walks over to where Kanan is working. With her break over its time for her to get back to doing what she's here for-- work. She starts folding along with Kanan, and while Kanan might look like a disaster in her work attire, her work ethics were as strong as ever. It's a plus side to everything.

‘’You’re doing good so far, with the folding that is.’’ Dia remarks.

‘’Thanks, It’s pretty similar to when I work at the diving shop during the summer season so far.’’ Kanan replies with that perfect white teeth hollywood smile of hers. Maybe if Kanan did stay for more than just the christmas season they could use her to advertise the store more at the mall. Like sending her out with fliers in a bikini during the summer, that was bound to attract customers!

As much as Dia still fights back a grimace every time her eyes land on the suspenders of Kanan’s pants while they fold clothes together her eyes also scans over Kanan’s arms every now and then. Sometimes her arms flexes while she folds clothes and Dia can’t help but look. So maybe Mari was more right about that, but Dia wasn’t about to admit anything all of a sudden. Kanan was still committing a criminal offense, fashion crimes of the highest caliber.

Speaking of looking, while Dia averts her eyes from looking too much at Kanan she catches Eli in the corner of her eye instead. Was she looking over to the Oharrero Rocher’s again?

‘’Just keep working, I’ll be right back.’’ And with that Dia walks over to Eli at the counter.

‘’You know they catch you staring when you look over, right?” Dia doesn’t sugar coat it, catching Eli by surprise.

If Eli was a cat, Dia thinks her reaction would best be described as one of these cat videos where you scare them with a cucumber.

“I-What-- uhm- I mean,... excuse me?” Eli stammers a bit, before collecting herself.

Dia picks up her tea again and takes a sip before she gestures to the little bag of chocolates.

“Those are from the girls at the counter. They catch you staring a lot and asked me why, I assumed it was because you’re so fond of chocolate so they gave me some for you to try.’’ Dia eyes Eli carefully, “They’re for you, by the way.”

Eli’s face makes her look more and more like the holiday season that’s just around the corner. It’s so red it could easily be mistaken for a Santa Claus outfit by now. Dia has to admit she’s slightly amused by this.

‘’Thank you.’’ Is all Eli manages to say as the embarrassment is evident all over.

“Is this why you stare over there?” Dia asks, one of her eyebrows lifting is suspicion, “They do sell a lot of great treats, you should check it out sometime.”

Her manager says nothing and Dia wonders if she perhaps has said something wrong. Did she make assumptions? Eli didn’t exactly confirm if she was staring there solely for the sweets and treats. The brunette’s mind races through anxious thoughts as she waits for some sort of reaction from Eli. All the blonde ends up doing in the end is clearing her throat.

“I’m sure they do sell some great sweets. I admit, I’ve never tried them.” She speaks in such a professional yet calm tone, the only reason Dia really realizes it’s not the usual friendly conversation they have is because Eli seems so stiff as she speaks.

“You know, I think breaks are spent there a little too often, yeah? But if we’re attracting a lot of attention from it’s employees, maybe we should hold back or pause going there for awhile.”

Even Kanan is shooting them thinking looks now as she keeps folding the last of the pile. And Dia knows something is up when even Kanan doesn’t buy it. What’s even weirder is why now? Dia’s been visiting the place on and off on her shifts for quite some time. It’s clearly more than just the chocolates that Eli seems to be intrigued by from Oharrero Rocher’s. Dia really can’t help it anymore. Her curiosity is Piqued™ now.

“I mean, I don’t think I go there too often. Usually it’s just to talk to a friend real quick but-” Dia starts, before Kanan interrupts her.

“When was the last time you did that when

was there?” She says it so soft, like a hurt puppy. Dia knows its fake but before she gets a say Eli is talking again.

“That’s right! I know you use your break for that but it would be rude going and not getting anything right? So maybe every time you go over you should buy a little something so that they get business.’’

Dia doesn’t say anything as her lips form a small line instead. What a 180. First Eli’s saying they should pause giving the shop business, now she’s saying it’s rude to go without buying a thing? The fact Eli can’t make up her mind just makes this even more embarrassing for her. Dia feels a bit of pity.  

“Even if I just wanna drop something off for my girlfriend or say hi during my break?” Kanan questions, which makes Eli’s points seem even more ridiculous.

Eli thinks for a moment and Dia is sure a small light bulb actually manifests above her head when Eli speaks again.

“Here, for every moment you have to go over there during your break, I’ll give you $5 to get me chocolates. But you can only be there for about five minutes as well. Hows that sound?”

Dia holds Eli in high regards, and she truly idolizes and admires Eli a lot. Probably more than anyone in the world, but this is the second most ridiculous thing that’s come out of Eli’s mouth today. (The single most stupid thing being complimenting Kanan for her outfit.) Now what was she hiding? But if Eli would prefer they do it like that, well Dia wouldn’t object to it. (Besides, there were benefits to this too.. She gets to order her green tea for free from now on.)  

So Dia nods slowly in a silent agreement.

“If that’s what you’d like, I’m sure Kanan and I can do that.” Dia looks to Kanan for a confirmation and the dark haired girl nods with a crooked smile.

“It’s settled then! We’ll start it on our next shifts, alright girls?” Eli says it with such enthusiasm that Dia wonders about, but she decides not to second guess it.

If this is what Eli wants to do, she won’t question it.

Christmas time has arrived at the mall, and as per christmas tradition at Chacchi’s, employee’s are given permission to dawn their nicest christmas wears. Nicest is the key word here. Dia’s ready to die.

Kanan’s first couple weeks of training have been going great and as the days went by, Dia was sure she was going to get the hang of wearing clothes with some fashion dos instead of fashion don’ts. But then december happened, and with december comes christmas. Which brings Kanan’s famous and most atrocious of clothing: the christmas themed sweaters.

Of all the years Dia has known Kanan, she’s expected the best of the worst christmas sweaters. She remembers the one with the giant comical reindeer antlers, the ones with the actual light up christmas tree lights. She remembers fondly when Kanan won an ugly christmas sweater contest with adding ornaments and tinsel to a hand knitted christmas tree coloured sweater. All of these had been so ugly they were endearing.

She wishes those had prepared her for the american football team christmas sweater. Dia literally had to google what a Miami dolphin was. She has no idea how Kanan ended up with the ugliest teal and orange sweater but she can assume it has something to do with her girlfriend. There dolphin on it is really what brings this awful sweater together though. Kanan wears it with pride and likes to gloat about it but Dia really wishes she wouldn’t. There’s nothing to be proud of- she could get an official jersey and it would look so much nicer than this thing, but she knows that part of it’s charm for Kanan is the fact that this one is specifically for christmas.

“Ayase-san,” Dia practically weeps, draping herself on the counter,“I realize we both have very different tastes in fashion, but we have to talk about that- that thing Kanan is wearing. You can’t possibly be okay with that. You can’t.”

Eli looks at Dia sympathetically, but there’s a playful look in her eye that tells Dia that yes, yes she can be okay with this. Maybe even more than okay. Eli encourages it.

“Sorry Dia, I think it’s kinda cute. Fetching, really.”

Of course Eli would say it’s fetch. Dia puts her face into the counter and groans. Kanan, oblivious to the conversation, peers over Dia and laughs.

“Kinda sounds like you need a tea, Dia.”

It’s said as a joke but Dia pulls her head off of the counter and stares at Eli. She knows Eli can put two and two together, see that unasked question within her pleading gaze. The blonde chuckles and shakes her head.

“Sure, alright Dia.” she sticks her hand into her pocket and pulls out a small bill and holds it out to Dia, “Bring me back something good, alright?”

Dia takes it greedily and promises only the best as she says goodbye to looking at that thing and hello to looking at better things- namely, Mari Ohara who waits for her at the front of the counter of Oharrero Rocher. Alongside her is Nozomi, filling up some of the sweets in the display case and humming along to the christmas song that plays on the radio. Upon seeing Dia she places the tray down on the counter behind her and approaches the till. She flashes Dia a warm smile.

“Welcome back Kurosawa-san! Here for your usual?” She asks in a chipper tone. Dia returns her smile with one of her own and nods, already handing her the cash.

“Yes please Toujou-san. Ah- and chocolates for Ayase-san again. The same as last time.”

As the customer Mari helps exits the store, she weasels her way into the conversation by planting her elbows down on the workcounter and glancing up to Dia with a cheeky grin.

“Does her

et consist of only chocolate or something? Why not try the macarons or a danish? Or one of our christmas cookies! Tis the season after all~!’’

The brunette opens her mouth to object to Mari’s suggestion but she pauses before declining. Maybe Eli would appreciate a change up- she has been getting the same variety of chocolates ever since they started this. The pastries are always a delight to have, especially if you’re looking for something a little different than pure chocolate. Glancing at the christmas cookies makes Dia tempted to buy some for herself- there’s various little tree shaped cookies, santa hats, a few reindeer and some gingerbread people dressed in christmas themed sweaters. There’s even some present and stocking shaped cookies! They went all out with the shapes by the looks of it.

“That’s actually a very good idea Mari. Maybe Eli would like something other than the chocolates.” She nods a bit as she says this, liking the idea more as she speaks each word.

Without any prompting Mari grabs a medium sized box, reaches into the display case for the tray of christmas cookies and uses her arm to swipe from halfway down the tray directly into the box. Dia watches and her brows furrow as the blonde decides to reach even further onto the tray to swipe even more into the box. Dia looks to Nozomi but finds her attention is on fixing up her tea and she’s oblivious to what Mari’s done.

“There! Now you’ve got enough to share with the whole store!” Mari says, holding the box out to show her all the cookies.

Dia has to admit- the trees look the best but the broken santa hats have their own charm. She reaches in and grabs one, taking a bite as Mari laughs and closes the box up for her. Dia’s eyes light up- the cookie is seriously delicious. The cookie itself is subtly sweet- perfect for accompanying tea and coffee- but the icing adds not only beautiful decoration, but wraps the cookies light sweetness with its sugary sweet coating to make it perfection.

Basically, Dia’s got a thing for these cookies. She hopes Eli doesn’t mind sharing. At this thought Nozomi finishes up with her tea and places it on the counter for her.

“Here’s your tea, Kurosawa-san!”

Noticing a small line has begun to form, Dia quickly closes the cookie box up and thanks both Nozomi and Mari before headed out of the store. She walks with confidence across the way back to Chacci’s and can’t help but smirk when she sees Kanan and Eli looking her way. Kanan with a mildly surprised but pleased expression on her features, and Eli with utter confusion. She knows it’s because of the box. It has to be.

She steps over to Eli and gestures to the box.

“Mari decided you’ve had enough chocolate and gave the three of us a ton of cookies. They’re not bad- I think you’ll enjoy them.” She gives Eli a warm smile as she places the box behind the counter. Eli returns it, but there’s something to it that causes Dia to feel mild concern.

“Thank you, Dia.” She says in her same chipper tone.

Dia decides not to question it, but as she moves back towards the station she worked at before complaining at the counter, she hears it. A soft, forlorn sounding sigh, escaping her managers lips. Her eyebrows furrow and she almost turns to look, but she catches Kanan’s gaze. That vivid, dark amethyst gaze, so strong and piercing yet soft and gentle (in a way only Kanan’s eyes could express, really.) Looks like Kanan’s heard it too and could be thinking the same things she is. The blue haired girl decides to venture over to Dia’s station and help her out.

“Listen,” she speaks in a low tone, its soft yet deep, a voice meant only for her to hear, “That rule she made is a little weird, don’t you think? Don’t you think she’d want to leave the store and get chocolates for herself instead of getting us to do it?”

Dia hopes her blush isn’t showing much from how Kanan speaks. She knows Kanan has a girlfriend. She knows that Kanan’s girlfriend is one of her best friends. She’s very clear that both of them would love her to acknowledge they’ve been flirting with her, and maybe they have been, but Dia’s not so sure it’s serious. She’s not sure if they’re even aware that Dia has thoughts like these with them, but she’s sure they aren’t. She’s positive their flirtatious comments are only a joke anyway.

So she pushes all these thoughts away and focuses on the task at hand- figuring out what Eli’s deal is. She focuses on Kanan’s comment and nods slowly, putting the pieces together just as Kanan had. It is pretty weird that the manager doesn’t get the two of them to cover the store for five minutes while she goes to choose her own confections- at first Dia assumed it was so the manager would continue to be in the store at all time, but even with Christmas approaching there was still a lot of down time for them between customers in the beginning and ends of their shifts, and Eli did get her own breaks as well. So why hadn’t she used those times to go into Oharerro Rocher’s herself? Her brows furrow.

“You make a great point Kanan,” She replies in a soft hushed tone, “I hadn’t actually questioned that until now-”

“-And, and!” Kanan interrupts her a little to excitedly to bring up another point she desperately needs to convey, “She never eats more than one chocolate per shift! I’ve seen it. She’ll delve into the bags, pull out one and then she kinda savours it? Like, she’ll take a small bite and put the rest down and come back to it later. It’s like she’s full but forcing herself to eat some!”

Now Dia frowns and looks at Kanan with a confused expression.

“I’ve seen her inhale a chocolate bar brought from her little sister during one of our long shifts. That doesn’t sound like Ayase-san at all. Not to compare, but that woman is attracted to chocolate almost as much as you’re attracted to the ocean.”

Kanan laughs lightly at that and hums, understanding what Dia means.

“So you have to agree, all of this is pretty suspicious, right?”

Dia glances over to Eli, who is helping out a middle age woman and her daughter by the handbags. She has that mask of a customer service smile as she talks with them. Dia squints as she considers all of Kanan’s points. She turns back to her task, folding up a pair of jeans and focusing on her thoughts. She can see Kanan idly helping her but still waiting for a response, and its after they’ve finished fixing the jean piles that Dia speaks again.

“I think you’re onto something here Kanan. I’m not sure what- but I think we can figure it out.”

Kanan’s eyes light up and she grins that adorable half grin she wears when Dia surprises her with an idea. Dia averts her gaze before she gets too lost in it. It’s too charming and blinding, if she stares too long she’s definitely not going to be able to focus on their job.

With that a customer walks over to the two of them, inquiring about prices of some accessories. Kanan, albeit a bit too eagerly, happily walks with the customer to the display, leaving  Dia alone to her thoughts and with other clothes piles to fold. She turns back to her work, thinking about their conversation and wondering, just what exactly it is that makes Eli so keen on getting sweets from the shop if she barely eats them to begin with.

It’s a mystery she’s determined to find the answer to.

“One green tea and a bag of chocolates, coming up. Unless you wanna add anything else today?” Nico lifts her eyebrow as Dia stands in a spot she’s become all too familiar with.

“Yes. Tell the customer wearing that obnoxious blue and pink thing that I can no longer enter this store if she’s in it. I’m banning myself from your goods.” Dia says it so monotone, so wooden. She’s dead on the inside and Nico can see every last bit of life dying inside her gaze alone. How many years of suffering and eternal torment has she been through?

“You hear that Mari? Tell your girlfriend she needs to get out or we’re going to lose business.” Nico peers over Dia to glare at the blonde and her girlfriend, who are sitting together at a table not too far from the counter.

Mari gasps in mock offense, holding a hand to her chest and looking a bit too similar to a certain blonde Disney Channel star when she didn’t get the part for the spring musical.

“But I just got that for her last week! It’s charming like mine, no?” She says, pushing herself out of her chair. Even her hair does a flip to add flare, like slow motion, a L'Oréal commercial was happening before Dia’s very own eyes. And Dia absolutely hated it. But then the sweater comes into view. And Dia wishes for the commercial to come back on again instead.

At a first glance it looks tasteful. It’s red and white, with a lot of snowflakes and little x designs and patterns. Very christmas-y. On the back in english is the name of the iconic american pop star sensation, Britney. The girl Dia remembers Mari having a kind of mini phase for (A phase she realizes that Mari never quite grew out of. Not that she blames her, really. Britney Spears has good music.) However on the front, in english again, it says the words “it’s Xmas b*tch.” Which, as Dia thinks it’s witty and a good reference for her song, it’s not appropriate for the public.

And then there was Kanan’s atrocious sweater. Not only does it have the most unrealistic looking cartoon Santa Dia has ever seen, it reads “Fa la la la Flamingo.” Santa’s sitting in an innertube wearing shorts and a blue tank top which- come on, anyone who even knows even a little bit about Santa knows his signature colour is RED. Not only that, but the blue and the pink are so bright and jarring, it’s hard to believe this sweater is christmas related. She hates it. She absolutely hates it. She especially hates that somehow, some fucking how, Mari and Kanan made the sweater work. She looks so good. The sweater is so ugly but it looks so god damn good on her. Dia wants to

Dia hates her life and her friends she may be pinning after. She really does. They’re the worst- hotties with ugly sweaters that make her want to gouge her eyes out while never blinking at the exact same time. They were like candy, (or rather eye candy). Wrapped in these awful colours and patterns, yet they made her mouth water because they were delicious.

“Absolutely not. Literally, please, go change. For the sake of my eyes.” Nico isn’t shy with her comment and Dia, honestly, has never felt closer to anyone she sort of considers an acquaintance. Every interaction with the short girl just adds to Dia’s list of how much she can relate to her.

Kanan wears a smug expression on her face. Much like the cat that has gotten the cream- her expression says it all. She’s a paying customer! If she wants to stay there and finish her beverage with the daughter of the owner, she is more than welcome to. Kanan has immunity.

At this point Nozomi comes over, chocolates in hand and ready for Dia to bring to Eli, but Dia lifts her hand to deny the gift. Nozomi and Nico look puzzled and the former girl keeps ahold of the bag of chocolates. The confusion rubs off on Kanan and Mari, who watch with equally confused expressions.

“Toujou-san,” Dia states her name in a surprisingly stern tone, causing her to perk up a little, “Could you do me a favour?”

Nozomi looks a little shocked and even more confused.

“I guess?” she tests, looking to Nico who shrugs. She shakes her head and changes her answer a little, “I mean, sure? What do ya need?”

“When you get your break, could you bring these chocolates over to me at the store? I’m having some suspicions about Ayase-san and if my hunches are correct, I’d need your help to test it.”

Dia immediately notices the way Nico’s eyes look past her and towards Mari. She can feel Mari staring at her in the exact same way; confusion and curiosity. She can hear Kanan’s soft gasp and Dia knows that Kanan is catching onto her idea and putting the puzzle pieces together. She might not know Dia’s plan exactly, but she’s got a hunch.

Nozomi’s got a curious and playful look in her eyes. She doesn’t know why, but she’s excited to find out. She agrees and tells Dia she’ll see her the moment she starts her break, and with that Dia says goodbye to her friends and heads back to the store to Eli, who seems to have gotten a few customers in the time she was gone. Dia puts her tea down and immediately gets to work.

The moment she get a chance, Eli realizes that Dia hadn’t brought sweets with her. Dia doesn’t say anything, pretending to help out an older woman shopping for her teenage granddaughter, but she does notice the little bit of a downcast look Eli has before she shrugs and continues with her shift. It confirms one suspicion she and Kanan had- Eli is certainly not into the sweets.

Some time passes and Dia’s been so busy, she’s completely forgotten about the favour she asked of Nozomi. Eli too has been busy and hasn’t thought to ask about the chocolate she forgot to bring. Dia’s tea sits with only a couple sips taken out of it, now cold and forgotten behind the counter. She’s glad it’s been so busy and the time has flown by, but she notices a little too late that Nozomi is on her way into the store.

She walks in, passing by a couple customers as they browse and makes her way over to Dia. Dia notices that she’s had time to change out of her work clothes- her hair is no longer up in a messy bun and is instead down in two twin tails. She wears a christmas themed sweater and Dia feels blessed seeing its

. A polar bear wearing a santa hat- you can’t go wrong with that even a little bit.

Before Dia can think about it Nozomi approaches her with the bag of chocolates in hand.

“Kurosawa-san! Here you are- the sweets you left at the shop.” Nozomi holds them out with a grin, happy she could have helped her out.

It’s then Dia see’s it. She see’s Eli’s eyes glued to them- practically dying to see what happens with their interaction. Her customers at her till have left the store and Eli has nothing to keep her busy since the other browsing customers have left too. Eli has nothing to distract her but these two and Dia swears she can feel Eli’s blue gaze boring itself into her, not daring to look away.

That’s when Dia pushes through with her plan. The plan she realises she didn’t think through as much as she probably should’ve.

“Oh! Thank you, Toujou-san.” Dia stiffly says. “I will just grab those sweets from you no-”

Without warning, Dia knocks over the whole display of folded sweatshirts onto the ground, like some offended cat you just can’t take your eyes off. Next up she hurriedly shoves herself into the table and practically hurls herself and all of the folded clothes onto the floor. The clothes flies everywhere and she makes sure she lands face first into the biggest pile she can find in the span of 0.5 seconds. And then she waits, counting down the three seconds slowly in her head. In those three seconds, Nozomi steps back with a gasp. Eli makes some kind of awkward noise, a customer is about to enter the shop only to immediately turn around and walk the complete opposite direction. Kanan and Mari had somehow made it behind the corner of a huge christmas decoration, watching all of this just past the doorway and at the end of those three seconds, Dia pushes herself up off of the floor.

“Oh no! It seems I have tripped and knocked over this display. How clumsy of me.” It sounds so fake. So absolutely terribly staged- Dia’s voice sounds like google translate as it reads the wikipedia article of arctic seals translated from french to italian to german back to french again out loud. “I’m so sorry, Toujou-san, I have to clean this up right away.”

Nozomi looks a lot more than amused.

“Would you like any he-”

“Oh no! No no, it’s okay. I can take care of this no problem.” Dia’s reply has little to no emotion, Dia finally sounds as dead as she feels inside when she’s around Kanan’s christmas sweaters. She gestures to the counter not far away, “Please don’t waste your time waiting for me to fold these- could you give my coworker Ayase-san the chocolates? She’ll be happy to hold onto them as I clean up this big mess I have made.”

Nozomi, not wanting to disturb Dia, decides to do just that. Mari and Kanan are practically inside the store now, hiding behind a window display, peeking out from behind it as they watch Nozomi move to the counter to Eli. Eli looks confused, flustered, surprised and scared all at the same time. She opens her mouth to greet Nozomi but nothing comes out. She closes it, then stares for a moment. If Nozomi has noticed, she says nothing. (Oh, she has, Nozomi’s gaydar has never beeped this loudly in her life.)

“Hey, I, uh. Well, I have these for Kurosawa-san. She left them at the shop earlier so I decided to bring them to her but she seems a little busy? Could I leave them with you?” She asks with a small, uncertain smile.

And there it is. They both look over to her and Dia quickly pretends to fix her folding, a little too robotically for any real person, but it deters them enough to look away. Dia, goes back to watching their interaction. Eli’s mouth opens and closes like a gaping fish. She can’t form a coherent reply. She watches Eli nod first, before saying a small ‘of course!’ and taking the bag from Nozomi. Her eyes are practically bulging and to Dia, it looks as if Eli is speaking with a local celebrity of some sort. She’s starstruck.

Dia has to hide a tiny smirk forming on her lips as the lightbulb above her head finally lights and she understands. The puzzle is complete and on top of the puzzle is an image with Eli’s face in her hands because she’s been caught red handed fawning over the cute girl who works at the chocolate shop across the hall.

“T-thank you very much Miss..?” Eli, finally able to form real words, speaks in a slightly shaky voice as she asks for her name.

“Nozomi! Toujou Nozomi!” the other girl replies, introducing herself happily.

Eli’s eyes light up like a christmas tree and there’s a small hint of pink on her cheeks as she smiles. Dia pats herself on the back and mentally congratulates herself on her suspicions being correct. She’s throwing a party right now, there’s an imaginary banner that reads “You did it! You were right!” and it gets even wilder as Kanan lifts Dia up in her big strong arms, and Mari comes up and embraces her too, and then they both kiss her on the cheeks to congratulate her on her correct assumption and the plan to prove it. She feels extremely proud of herself.

So proud, she realizes, that she forgot to pay attention to their conversation as her daydream carried on in her head. Nozomi’s pushed herself away from the counter and Eli holds onto the bag of chocolates. The violet haired girl gives a small wave and beams.

“You should stop by the shop sometime! Nicocchi, Maricchi and I don’t bite~ Kurosawa-san can confirm that~”

With that said, Nozomi exits the shop and heads back to work. Eli watches her leave for a minute before she practically falls back behind the counter, putting the chocolates down and staring at the counter in disbelief. A gay breakdown, it seems. Dia looks away from her to Mari and Kanan with a knowing smirk, and she looks on surprised as she watches Mari handing Kanan a few bills. Kanan pockets them with a grin and gives a big thumbs up to Dia before they both sneak out of Chacci’s display window and head back to the

‘This played out better than I could imagine.’ She thinks to herself as she finishes folding the last of the clothes she hurled onto the floor.

In a couple hours following, Dia’s shift ends and she heads back over to the chocolate shop. Nozomi has gone home, her shift being over, and it’s only Nico working for the final hour. Eli’s let Dia go early and has decided to finish the closing shift herself and Dia felt like another tea would be nice for the journey home.

As she waits for Nico to fix up her tea she notices Eli pausing at the door way. She glances over subtly and notices Eli’s staring at Nico with a soft gaze before continuing to the opposite side of the store. Dia quirks her eyebrow upward but turns her attention to Nico as she places her tea down. Dia thanks her and picks it up, taking a small sip from the lid and turning to watch Eli again.

“How many times does Ayase-san glance here during your shifts?” Dia asks Nico, bringing her tea down and not taking her gaze off Chacchi’s.

Nico shrugs and leans on the counter.

“Honestly, I’ve lost count. I don’t catch her staring as often as Nozomi does, but when I do she looks so dumbfounded. Kinda like she thinks she was staring too long and that I could tell, you know?” Nico props her head up in the palm of her hand with her elbow on the counter and looks at Kanan and Mari, “What about you Mari? She look over here much when you’re working?”

“Barely!” Mari sighs and leans back in her chair, “I’m looking there allll the time and she barely glances over when it’s just me in the store.”

“You’re looking for Dia, aren’t you?” Kanan pokes fun at Mari and Mari huffs before smiling.

“Who wouldn’t?! But I’m also looking at you~”

Dia blushes and shakes her head, trying to ignore their comments and go back to the main topic of conversation.

“Yazawa-san, would you say it’s fair to assume she looks over here for you and Toujou-san?” Dia lifts her tea and takes another small sip of it, looking to Nico for her answer.

Nico blinks once, pondering it. Then twice, lifting herself off the counter and raising her eyebrows. She nods a bit as the idea itself seems plausible.

“Well I can understand why she’d look over here for me of course. I’m a hot commodity that only so many people get to have.”

“You mean only Nozomi?” Mari jokes and Nico glares daggers at her boss.

“I have and have had other girlfriends!” She objects with a frown.

“Wait, have?” Kanan says while Mari whistles innocently, “I thought you were only dating Toujou-san?”

“I mean, yeah, we’re dating. Sort of. We’re in an open relationship.” Nico says it like it’s something simple. Dia raises her eyebrows at Nico and stares expectantly. The Black haired girl notices and elaborates.

“Nozomi and I have been in a relationship since high school. We love each other loads and probably always will, but as our relationship went on we kinda mellowed out and wanted a bit more than the other could offer. So we decided to do this together and it’s been pretty great. So far I’m the only one between us to go on other dates and stuff but it’s been nothing serious. Not yet anyway.”

With that said Nico glances over at Chacchi’s with a small grin, watching Eli for a change. Dia watches her and can see it- that same little glint in her eye that Kanan has for Mari (A gaze that, she has to admit, she may have seen directed at her once or twice too.)

She has to admit, she’s a bit envious. Nico and Nozomi knew what they wanted from their relationship and were comfortable making the choice to date other people while still having what they do. It’s probably taken a lot of communicating for them to get to that step. She’s very envious, but she admires it a lot too. She wonders if she’ll be able to find that some day in a relationship.

“Sounds kinda similar to me and Kanan, doesn’t it~?” Mari quips, standing up from her chair and walking over to the counter, “Except we don’t really have too many other people we want to date. Just one.”

She throws a wink Dia’s way and Dia does her best to make sure Mari knows it’s ignored. The brunette literally closes her eyes, but she knows Mari can see her ears burning. She almost wants to curse out loud. Instead, she grabs Nico’s attention.

“Well, if today’s experiment proved anything it’s that I’ve got good news for you and Toujou-san. A positive suspicion I’ve had about Ayase-san for a few weeks now…”