#fem!OC x Howzer

[starqueensthings]

PREV | NEXT | FOREWORD | MASTER | AO3

Summary: June joins Howzer on a mission for caffeine. She learns a little about his role, his men, his outlook— and he, unknowingly, helps her navigate her struggle as a teacher. For a fleeting moment, June forgets to uphold that self indoctrinated distaste… that long-upheld aversion. For a moment, his companionship feels like nothing she’s ever felt before… nothing that she’d ever permitted herself to entertain… enjoy. But a moment is just a moment. Enjoy the roller coaster of this chapter— please remember certain aspects of a character (snippets of dialogue, facial expressions, etc) are all specifically placed so the audience can witness growth. We all about growth up in this house!

Rating/WC: all chapters are rated 16+ unless stated otherwise | 4475 words.

PLEASE ENSURE YOU’VE READ THE FOREWORD LINKED BELOW FOR AN IN-DEPTH DESCRIPTION OF WHAT DEGREE OF CONTENT YOU CAN EXPECT THROUGHOUT THIS STORY BEFORE PROCEEDING.

The jubilant breeze tumbling throughout the confines of the courtyard perched just opposite those glass doors instantly brandished her hair from her shoulders, beaming rays pouring mercilessly from overhead instantly capitalizing on the opportunity to remind her enraged skin of its power, and she near-winced upon feeling her neck prickle neath its unwelcome intensity. 

“You okay?” Howzer asked as they trod down the half dozen stairs toward the locked gate, seemingly noting the sudden cringe atop her features. 

“Yeah, fine,” June answered casually. “Spent too much time by the pool with my friend the other day and I’m still paying for it.” 

“I saw that,” he chuckled, offering a sympathetic little grimace. “I’d offer some advice but I honestly can’t say I’ve ever had too bad of a sunburn.” 

“Yeah, well… Quit braggin’,” June demanded with a smile. “I say this to my best friend all the time: not all of us are gloriously melanous.” 

A tingle unrelated to that overhead radiance rolled down her back as his head tipped backward amidst a genuine laugh, and attempting to veil the flush rising rapidly back to her cheeks, she quickly reached to fiddle with the cuff of her sleeve… only to remember she was not wearing long sleeves, instead awkwardly shoving a dawdling finger neath the strap of her watch and giving it an pointless twist around her wrist.

As it turned out, the Combat Base’s close proximity to their chosen cafe perfectly elucidated why Hutchie’s was an establishment of which she’d never heard. Though for how distant it was from the central, senatorial sector of which June was largely familiar, only mere steps atop the pathway leading toward the jovial tinkle of its distant doorbell exposed how just how favoured of a spot it was for the denizens.  

Yet even more astonishing than the steady flow of travel cup-laden patrons, stolling past with their steaming flimsi containers of delightful aromatic caf, was truly how simple it was to converse with the man next to her. Despite the butterflies in her stomach continuing their silent attempts at internal homicide, chatting with Howzer felt as intuitive as simply placing one foot in front of the other atop that bustling pathway. 

Though their first encounter had far superseded the second in terms of duration, the plaguing ailment and the gentle coaxing he’d required before consenting to treatment had, unfortunately, dominated most of their conversation. Their only encounter since had been tragically too-short to engage in anything more than the hopelessly giddy “hi, I have to run but I really hope I’ll see you soon!” sentiments before the pair parted ways with dopey smiles atop their lips. 

And in the void of pain or urgency, it was difficult not to marvel at just how casually that Captain carried himself. Imbued an insouciant energy of which June was sure she’d never be able to embody as effortlessly as Howzer did, breezy probes at conversation spilled from his lips as if he were intrinsically aware of all the topics she could chitter about for hours (though the way that mildly crooked smile wrapped its way around each word had her increasingly confident she would have been perfectly content to just listen to the music of that accented tone). Meanwhile, those large, boot-clad feet moved unhurried toward their destination as if the pathway itself had wordlessly offered to glide below at whatever speed he’d prefer; thankfully he’d defaulted to a cadence more comfortable for her much shorter legs. 

As they wove through the ambling crowd, Howzer gushed about his Company; the 742nd was, admittedly, an anomaly of sorts. Not only did their authority ladder end with a Clone Commander and not the Jedi General that typically apexed large sectors of soldiers, but a period of extensive training in its earliest days of formation had seen those boys in teal thrust into an unusual hybrid role. Though classified as a “reconnaissance collection company subfractured from the 91st”, the 742nd was often deployed, instead, as an “assault and secure force”, meaning they were just as frequently tasked with infiltrating an enemy base and securing its perimeter until such a time that reinforcements could arrive and claim the location as their own. Yet, he spoke of his career with the same admirable informality as he would speak of the weather, reminiscing of battles as if recalling the events of a party he’d recently attended, and though she was sure it had rendered her expression to something near a slack-jawed grouper fish, that  unforeseen disposition had captured June’s attention and simply refused to free it.  

His perspective of war seemed …well, different to anything she’d overheard from soldiers amidst her duties at work. Often those armoured troopers spoke of their duty with an unignorable severity; of the responsibility they carried to both loyally serve and immutably protect the Republic to which they served; of their allegiance to their CO’s, their brethren, and the legion they’d been assigned; of the demand for stoic, unvarying courage in the face of enemies they’d never seen before. Howzer spoke of governing his men as if they were nothing but a bizarrely oversized and appropriately dysfunctional family— ‘vod, he kept calling them before quickly explaining this was a common Mando’a word for brother. He spoke of their battle experiences as if those teal painted men had collectively experienced several disjointed parts of a larger, harrowing adventure; those that were sadly killed on the way were celebrated to a higher degree than those that survived, as the lost had simply moved on to a more exhilarating life of which none of them knew just yet. He spoke of the unremitting desire and obligation to keep his men grounded— to ensure they felt nothing but relative ease and confidence as they marched into the relative unknown… 

“Just in here.” 

June wrenched her gaze from that enamoring square jaw as he slowed his pace and veered slightly toward a glass door on the right, instead redirecting her eyes upward toward the sign overhead. Hung from the soffit by two oversized copper chains, that deep emerald placard and the loopy gold cursive laying bare the name of that little cafe was immediately familiar, June’s mind quickly extracting the image of the tiny green card she'd opened and cherished some days previous. 

“Oh, thank you,” she muttered upon realizing Howzer had pulled the door ajar and was waiting for her to enter ahead of him. 

But hardly a step through the door and into that foreign space had thrust an inherently wholesome fragrance into her nose; unseen steaming loaves of delicious crusty sourdough bread, carafes of fresh caf gurgling just out of sight, crystallized and caramelized sugars mixed with an enticing blend of aromatic spices… vanilla, cardamom, cinnamon, clove… and something earthy and deeply familiar. 

Though her olfactory system seemed instantly content enough to simply stand atop that threshold and breathe in those potent whiffs of sheer delight, the opportunity was usurped by just how visually overwhelming the interior of that tiny shop was. 

“Wow,” June whispered, gaze dancing fervently from corner to corner, item to item, person to person, whilst her feet took her thoughtlessly in Howzer’s wake toward the treat laden display cases on the left. 

Like her companion, Hutchie’s was nothing short of …different. Utterly void of that sterile rigidity of which Coruscant remained notorious, three steps into that creaky, rustic cafe had June feeling as if she’d been unknowingly transported to a little bistro on a distant planet. High ceilings and limewashed walls worked in tandem to ensure that relatively cramped square footage was suffused with an indescribable, natural comfort. Taking up the majority of the cafe’s interior real estate was a sitting area along the right side; dozens of time-worn wooden chairs housing patrons of all shapes, colours, and sizes, an equi-diverse array of baked treats perched atop tables anchoring those esoteric conversations. 

“Ouuu, Alocasia Zebrina!” June suddenly uttered aloud, excitement surging through her veins as her eyes affixed themselves upon a very familiar-looking striped plant perched in the center of those scrubbed pine tops. 

“Say again?” Howzer asked, the din of chatter echoing around those four corners forcing him to lower his ear to only inches from her lips. 

“Um, Alocasia Zebrina,” she repeated somewhat meekly, the subtle addition of his aftershave in her nose quickly overpowering that fleeting glee. “The plant on all the tables. I have one at home too. They’re notoriously hard to keep alive.” 

Though not robbed of its clarity by the merciless cacophony still ringing around those walls, his chuckling response went wholly unheard, a sharp gasp escaping June’s lips as a searing pain erupted in her knee. 

“Ow!” she exclaimed, left hand absently reaching to steady herself with the nearest pillar of solidity, while the other darted downward to appease her now throbbing leg.

“Sorry,” a passerby grunted. “Busy place. Watch where you’re stepping.” 

“You okay?” 

Again, Howzer went ignored, June’s narrowed gaze affixed on the back of the retreating Zabraki man who had nearly knocked her off her feet as he pushed his way through the throng. 

“What happened?” Howzer tried again, this time successfully stealing her attention. 

“Nothing,” June dismissed, cheeks flushing upon the realization the support she’d mindlessly sought amidst that unexpected jostle was the crook of that Captain’s elbow. “Guy just knocked into me on his way by. I’m fine.” 

“Yeah, this place is always a madhouse,” Howzer answered, resuming normal posture and offering her an apologetic nod. “Stay close.” 

Whether the shift was intentional or not, June soon found the back of her hand near-clamped between Howzer’s torso and elbow, the gentle pinch he’d applied to seemingly keep her grasp exactly where it had landed instantly took her mind off the bruise forming earnestly just below her kneecap.

As they lumbered forward in that lagging queue, mahogany floorboards creaking with every step, June’s focus shifted from the drape of her cold fingers around that scuffed plastoid to the display cases passing on her left side— floor to ceiling shelves presented some of the most immaculately prepared pastries she’d ever laid her eyes on; glazed donuts gleaming like edible orbs neath those overhead lights, richly decadent brownies blanketed in a crust of finely chopped nuts, strudels happily leaking their jellied innards onto the emerald green doilies they laid upon whilst waiting to be ingested. On the other side of that scrumptious exhibit, and only visible through gaps between that prolific array of decadence, scurried a dozen green-aproned staff members. Multicoloured hands of all shapes and sizes appeared routinely behind those delicacies, a sheet of protective wax flimsi draped atop palms preparing to extract the confection that some lucky patron up ahead had just claimed as their own. And though her mouth watered uncontrollably at first sight of a delectable looking meiloorun muffin, June’s thoughts had wandered near urgently toward the egregiously overdue caf her very cells continued to demand with each passing, uncaffeinated moment. 

“Whatcha gettin’?” Howzer asked as they neared the front counter, her nose flooded with that intoxicating yet unfamiliar, delicate musk as he lowered his lips to a mere breath from her ear. 

“Ummmm,” June hesitated, brows furrowing as her eyes danced fervently around the exorbitant list of foreign-beaned caf’s scrawled upon a chalkboard on the wall opposite. “Whatever it was that you sent to my office last week?” 

“That was the Apple Java,” he advised her, pointing toward the center of the list. “Large?” 

“Extra-large…” 

The sudden exposure of that chronic caf addiction, and the way those dark brows raised at her seemingly mechanical, knee-jerk response, would have had her near-cringing neath the weight of self-consciousness had it not been for the smile quickly peeling across those dark lips, twinkly eyes softening as they danced warmly atop her features. 

“Extra-large it is,” he repeated with the subtlest of snorts. 

“I’ll buy though,” she hastily added, reaching to extract her wallet from the depths of her bag as he turned to greet the humanoid waiting behind the cash register. 

“What?” he demanded. “No way! I’m ordering for like sixteen people.”

“So?” 

“So! That’s going to cost you a fortune.” 

“You fed the entire surgical floor with all those treats last week,” June argued with a shrug, removing her hand from the security of his elbow to unzip her wallet. “I can repay the favour.” 

“That was differen—” 

“Trust me when I say: I’m more stubborn than you are, and you will not win this.” 

She watched his once-smiling lips purse ahead of unsaid protests, gaze  narrowing slightly as it bore into hers, seemingly resolute in witnessing the first twitch of muscle that might lay bare any hesitation on her part… but she met that surveying leer with a stern, unwavering one of her own, blue piercing brown as if daring him to object further. 

“Fine,” he consented atop the ghost of chuckle. “But put that hand back.” 

She repressed a smile as he turned and began to order (twelve regular caf, four decaf, and one extra-large Apple Java), every subsequent breath escaping past her lips struggling to ignore the flutter that had erupted in her gut as he'd assertively collected her cold fingers and directed them back to their previous wreath around his elbow.  

“Here’s the Apple Java, and the decaf,” the cashier announced hardly a minute later, passing a familiar looking flimsi cup across that mahogany counter to June’s outstretched palm, and a cardboard carrying tray of four others to Howzer. “We’re just brewing a fresh pot of regular caf. Give us a few minutes, and we’ll call you over when it’s ready.”

June followed in the Captain’s wake a half dozen paces toward one of the smaller tables anchored against the wall, the soul-warming aroma of apple and peekaboo vanilla wafting upward from the container in her hands near-banishing those irksome butterflies. With a small squeal of released anticipation and excitement she popped open the tab on that duraplas lid and took a sip of that scalding delight. 

Snickering at the undeniable joy atop her features, Howzer pulled the nearest chair out from its perch beneath that scrubbed pine tabletop and gestured for her to sit, before placing both that laden travel tray and his helmet atop the table between them and taking a seat of his own. 

“So you’re a full caffeine kinda guy,” June gleaned with a smirk, noting instantly that Howzer had failed to collect a cup from the collection on the table whilst she cradled hers with both hands.  

“Oh absolutely,” Howzer answered, casting the decaffeinated collection of cups in front of him a near-revolted look. “What’s the point of drinking a caf if it’s not to wake you up?”

“Warmth?” June suggested with a small shrug. “Flavour? Even with reduced caffeine levels, it’s a fantastic analeptic. Some like to keep their cortisol levels low. Not to mention it keeps the bowels moving…”  

June hurried to hide the flush rising earnestly to her cheeks behind that flimsi container as Howzer’s head tipped back amidst a full chested laugh that promised to dismantle her composure, nose scrunching neath his amusement and raising the little hairs on her arms. 

“I guess those are all pretty valid reasons,” he spoke, draping an arm casually atop the backrest of his seat and peering across the table at her with that characteristic twinkle behind his eyes. 

She shirked his gaze as discreetly as she could, pretending to pluck a nonexistent piece of fluff from the rim of her drink as she fought to restrain the newly invigorated flapabout in her gut. 

“Tell me about class,” he continued as she hurried to pacify the lingering capriciousness by bringing her caf to her lips again. “What happened that made your boss so happy?” 

June paused only long enough to force that still blistering liquid down her throat before offering him an evasive, one-shouldered shrug. “I don’t know,” she mused, licking the remnants of the last gulp from her top lip and sitting up straight in her chair. “The guys in class have always seemed so …uninterested? It's been really hard to get them to engage with any of the content we’ve been trying to teach them, despite doing everything we can to make the lectures interesting.” 

“They’re just not paying attention?” Howzer probed. 

“Right… or paying attention to the wrong thing, or being disruptive. Some of them would just spend all three lecture hours sleeping… Some of them would stare at me like it was some stupid game and it drove me up the kriffing wall… Others at least tried to make it look like they were paying attention, but it’s not hard to spot someone that’s napping with their eyes open… 

“Today they were actually responsive… even borderline excited about what they were learning. I know, for a soldier, it’s probably not super exhilarating stuff that we’re teaching but… I don’t know. I think it’s all pretty cool once you understand the importance of the material? Maybe I’m just a giant dork, but…”  

 “Well…” Howzer started as her thoughts trailed away. “You said it, not me...” 

“Oh ha ha ha,” June feigned with a roll of her eyes, though a smirk peeled across her lips. 

The feeling of his amber-eyed, surveying gaze back atop her features forced her eyes back to the lid on her cup, bringing a cold finger to trail thoughtlessly around the rim of that white duraplas.

“I know it’s easier said than done, but try not to take it too personally,” Howzer continued after a moment’s pause. “That’s a bit of a weird age for troopers, to be honest. This is their first time off Kamino. They’re used to being barked at round the clock by ARC Troopers who wouldn’t recognize ‘consideration’ if it bit them on the ass. All these guys know is having their critical thinking tested every minute of every day, learning respect, and camaraderie, and strategy… all that kind of stuff. Now they’re sitting in a quiet classroom on a foreign planet, separated from everyone they grew up with, being taught combat medicine by civilians. It’s no excuse for, well… staring, but it’ll all be pretty foreign to those guys for a while.” 

Gnawing mindlessly on her left thumbnail, June let his words wash over her, a peculiar sensation lurching deep in her gut that felt something-near …guilt. 

“Hmm,” she hummed, pulling her finger from its clamp between her lips atop the cold realization that maybe… after all these weeks… she hadn’t been the only person uncomfortable in that classroom. “So it probably feels as awkward for them as it does for me?”

Howzer nodded, that infamously warm gaze thankfully lacking any semblance of judgment or critique as it landed back upon her. “Probably more so, considering almost all of them have probably never talked to a girl before. I know the ‘hot teacher’ comment bothered you but… they’re still learning.”   

“Who said it bothered me?” June retorted, though the indignance of her demand diminished instantly upon seeing the deeply skeptical look he cast from across the table. Pursing her lips to repress a culpable grin, she hid behind her coffee cup and asked, “I was that obvious, eh?”

“June, your face speaks louder than your words ever could,” he snickered. “Those eyes could light someone on fire if they glared hard enough.”  

June offered only a repressed snort, unable to offer him the titter he deserved whilst her insides churned amidst a simmering remorse that she hadn’t expected to feel for that century of once-disrespectful soldiers. “Kriff, now I feel like an asshole,” she mumbled. 

“Nah, don’t sweat it,” Howzer replied with an appeasing smile. “They’re tough. And if they’re not yet, they will be soon. But—” Abruptly plagued by an unprecedented wash of what appeared to be diffidence, he paused to clear his throat and redirect his gaze to a blemish on the crown of his helmet. “—If you want them to stop staring, I’d maybe ditch the glasses.” 

“What?” June asked, upper lip cocking in confusion. “Why?” 

“Don’t get me wrong,” he started, eyes following his fingers as they began to absently drum atop that worn wooden table. “They’re nice. Um, really nice. Almost distracting… I guess?”  

The profound reddening of his ears nowhere matched that of her cheeks. Skin prickling as uncomfortably as if the beaming sun beyond that tinkling doorbell had managed to scorch both her shoulders and every inch of her face, she instantly lifted her hand again to subconsciously hide behind that emerald green cup. 

“Caf’s up!” 

That stentorian call thankfully spared June the need to respond, and they stood from those rickety wooden chairs as if the seats had suddenly burned white hot below their butts. As Howzer scooped his helmet from the table and tucked it neatly neath his arm, June collected the travel tray and followed him back toward the counter. 

The twelve regular cups of caf had been smartly divided into trays of four like their decaffeinated counterparts, but with one of June’s hands occupied by her own cup, and Howzer’s helmet plaguing the mobility of his right arm, it quickly became little more than a game of tetris attempting to figure out exactly how the only two remaining limbs were going to successfully cargo sixteen steaming cups of caf for the four-block journey back to Base. 

After several precarious and time-consuming attempts at stacking them on top of each other, and much to the mixed amused annoyance of the still bustling queue behind them, June heaved a sigh. “Can you just put that damn helmet on,” she bossed at Howzer atop an exasperated chuckle. “We need your second arm.” 

“No,” Howzer refuted instantly. “I won’t be able to see you properly. And I don’t like having it on if I don’t have to...” 

“You don’t need to see me, you just need to see where you’re walki—”

“But I want t—” 

“‘Kay fine,” she interjected, rolling her eyes and putting her cup of caf down on the counter. “If you balance them on my arm, I can take two trays in one hand and my cup in the other.” Though he cocked an eyebrow at her in a motion of unadulterated doubt, she dismissed his silent concern with an impatient shake of the head. “It’s okay, I used to be a server.” 

Atop the rapidly growing pressure of agitation behind them, June insisted. “I’ll be fine, just do it before someone tries to take out my other kneecap.”  

Looking as though he thoroughly disagreed with this seemingly impulsive plan, Howzer carefully lowered one tray on top of the other on June’s awaiting right wrist, hands lingering only inches from that teetering tower, poised to resume the weight should she let slip even a whimper of discomfort. 

Though it prickled against her sunburnt chest, letting those heavy trays tip backward against her skin diminished some of their burden, and she quickly offered him a nod of approval before collecting her own cup and stepping back from the counter. Once Howzer had balanced his own allotted pair of travel trays, they carefully made for the door. 

“You were going to send a cadet to do this?” June snorted as they traversed that sunlit path back to Base, heart seizing for the fourth time in as many minutes as her dribbling freight gave a perilous wobble in her arms and threatened to douse her lower half in scalding hot caf. 

“Absolutely,” he laughed. “It’s a great character building exercise.”

“Character building?!” she repeated, utterly aghast. “Pffffft! Seems kinda mean if you ask me, but if that’s what lets you sleep at night.” 

“Says the girl who slept in this morning,” he snarked back at her, turning to give her a smirk so dazzling, the discomfort of that hot and heavy cargo momentarily vanished.

“You know what,” June argued neath a chuckle, “I think I deserve a little credit for not sleeping in every kriffing morning. Not only do my shifts never end on time, but my bed is soft, and big, and warm, and a challenge to get out of on any given day…” 

“Sounds like a place I’d like to be,” Howzer chortled, turning to grant a fellow trooper in a suit of white and orange a casual nod as they passed each other along that path. 

Howzer clearly thought nothing of it, continuing toward their destination unaffected by that off-the-cuff remark, and wholly unaware of the way June’s shoulders had slumped near-theatrically in its wake. Yet, June’s stomach fell with speed thrice that of which they walked, disappointment wiping the lingering remnants of that diminishing amusement from her lips whilst the darkest corner of her mind eagerly raised a red flag and flapped it earnestly across her awareness. 

‘So that’s what he wants,’ she concluded, the hubris of her distaste for men instantly usurping the unfamiliar giddiness that had seen her near-intoxicated by his presence for days… weeks. ‘To visit to my bed.’ 

And the sudden and complete banishment of that teased sense of adventure— that fleeting feeling of ‘maybe I was wrong’ or ‘maybe there are men I can tolerate…’ — had that once gloriously enriching Apple Java cascading down the back of her tongue like spoiled vinegar. 

“Sorry—” she muttered after a contemptuous snort, dropping her gaze to her toes and watching that gum-embedded pathway lead them back to Base. “By formal invitation only.” 

An impossibly urgent sense of relief surged through her veins as the first signs of that construction-laden building came into view across the road, the gargantuan glass doors they’d left through some time earlier glimmering in the oppressive midday sun as they approached that barbed gate, stopping only so Howzer could scan his wrist comm below the sensor and permit them access. 

“June?” 

It was only then she realized he’d been talking. Too lost in her own welling disappointment and simmering sense of regret, she’d thoughtlessly tuned out everything around her. 

“Sorry, yeah?” she answered, squinting amidst the effort of finding that olive face. 

“You still okay there?” Howzer repeated, gesturing with a nod to the cargo she’d, once again, entirely forgotten she was carrying. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she lied, knowing if she divulged the small river of scalding hot caf trickling from her wrist to her elbow, it would only further delay the end of this interaction. 

“Okay. Gimme one quick sec,” Howzer requested of her, stopping as the gate closed behind them and shifting his own freight enough to bring his forearm to his mouth. “Spades… come in.” 

“‘Sup, cap?” chirped a nearly identical voice through the static of that hidden communication system. 

“Status on barracks?” Howzer asked. 

“Barracks?” that voice repeated neath an incredulous laugh. “Uhhh… well, nine battalions have landed since last night so it’s safe to say ‘crowded’ is an appropriate word.”

“Duty or dismissed?” 

“Unless uniform policy has changed and we’re allowed to loaft around in our underwear on duty, I’m going to guess dismissed. Why? Aren’t you supposed to be in the briefing anyway?” 

“Meeting doesn’t start for a few minutes,” Howzer clarified, and I’ve, er… got some company. Thanks for the intel.” 

June watched him glance somewhat apologetically in her direction before ending that somewhat cryptic conversation, eyes hardening slightly, as if her labeling her as such was mildly offensive. 

‘Company?’ she scowled. ‘Barracks?’

“You trying to show off your bed, now?” June queried with a cocked brow, watching that sharp jaw tense whilst he chewed his lip, brown eyes narrowed in concentration as he silently deciphered some mental puzzle she wasn’t yet privy to  

“No,” Howzer chuckled, a lop-sided smile returning quickly to those lips. “Trust me, it’s nothing to bat an eye at. Come on, we’ll go through the hangar.”

PREV | NEXT | FOREWORD | MASTER | AO3

Taglist: @sinfulsalutations @starrylothcat @nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius @secondaryrealm @dystopicjumpsuit @freesia-writes @sev-on-kamino @littlemissmanga @523rdrebel @wings-and-beskar @drafthorsemath @jediknightjana @starstofillmydream @mooncommlink @wizardofrozz @trixie2023 @clonethirstingisreal @lune-de-miel-au-paradis @mythical-illustrator @arctrooper69 @somewhere-on-kamino @sverdgeir @heidnspeak

[sailormoon167]

Howzer x autistic fem reader headcanons

1 is very sweet to you

2 never judges you for your autism

3 if you feel overwhelmed then howzer will take you to a quiet place

4 Howzer will never hurt you

5 Whenever Howzer talks about you to his friends he'll be blushing thinking about what your doing

6 will pick flowers for you

7 will take you out to drink with him

8 he'll tell you to close your eyes and kiss you

[starqueensthings]

YASSSS, I love a longfic appreciation post! I see such mixed reviews about the entire 3rd POV/narration style and, I won’t lie, the significantly lesser degree of engagement it gets compared to the wider-used x reader style can be disheartening for a writer has actively spent months (nice try, Holly, years) world/lore building.

My fic is very much unfinished and ongoing, and will be for a while because 1. I’m very slow, and 2. It’s long.

If anyone is interested in checking out The Only Exception, it’s a story about a surgeon on Coruscant named June Kiore. After living the majority of her teenage/young adult years with the “I don’t need a man” attitude, she inexplicably falls in love with a teal-painted Captain named Howzer.

The story is tumultuous… euphoric at times and depressing at others, takes us through her journey of love and learning to accept it in all its many forms, and touches on some heavier topics that many of us carry around in our trauma backpacks 🎒

You’ll find lots of our clone wars favourites with a heavy emphasis on Howzer (obv), Kix, Jesse, Echo, and Fives, with a smattering of Rex, Tup, Cody, Keeli, and others.

There is also an entire Battalion of clone OC’s: the 742nd is the brigade that Howzer leads all the way up until his deployment to Ryloth, and they’re an… interesting bunch 😆

If this sounds interesting to you, please ensure you read the Foreword as it goes through what degree and variation of content you can expect in more detail.

Cross posted on ao3 (link here) if that’s your preference, though you won’t get to see of the corresponding header images there (I don’t know how to embed the picture things because I’m 900 years old— v sorry)

It’s been a while since I’ve been as active as I’d like in engaging with much outside the reblogs of my Hunter fic, butttt here I am! 🤓 Since things seem a wee bit quieter nowadays, I’d like to promote the creative works we’ve still got going on! I’ll do future posts for one-shots, but for now…

If you have a longfic, ongoing or finished (please note that in your submission), featuring our beloved clones, please reblog this and link it with a brief description of it, its content rating, and featured characters (OC, Reader, etc)!

And reblog for wider reach! 😍

xoxo

[zoeykallus]

Giiiiiirl! We all need some Tech, but something soft and chaste, complicated, slow burning, very angsty! And with some heartache, don't forget the heartache!

😮... erm... Anoooon! Lucky for you, I have something in my wips I could work on that feels like it fits this profile... in a way... I guess. Heartache? Okay, but don't come crying to me later. It was originally a draft with my OC (Which I never would have finished or published anyway), but I think I can fix it up.

Tech/Howzer x 'Jedi'!Fem!Reader - Shortfic / Oneshot - The Misfits

Warnings: Angst/Hurt/Fluff/Heartache/!!!!MAJOR SPOILER FOR TBB S2!!!!!

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After you fell in love with Howzer, you left the Order. You haven't seen him for a long time and according to rumors he is most likely no longer alive.

In your search for answers to where all the clones are disappearing to, you stumble upon a squad of clones in desperate need of help.

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AC: I changed some timeline related things as well as canon itself and call it artistic freedom 🙂. Depending on your point of view, there is a happy ending, or there is none. Or a bit of both. I totally went over board with this, but I kinda love it. It's probably one of my favorite things I worked on.

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Above him, the life of his squad hangs by a thread; below him is a yawning void, a deep abyss. Within a few heartbeats, Tech has calculated all possible scenarios. There is only one way out, one way only. He can save his family if he sacrifices himself. Plan 99. Wrecker and Omega beg him not to cut the connection, Hunter even orders him to.

"When have we ever followed orders," Tech says, drawing his blaster.

Every move, that what he needs to do is logical, but it feels surreal, heavy-handed. His heart is pounding up to his throat, yet he feels strangely calm. He knows he's doing the right thing. Tech doesn't want to go, but it's a necessity to ensure the continued existence of Clone Force 99, to give his brothers and Omega a chance to survive.

The few seconds in which he aims and pulls the trigger are forever, seeming almost infinite to him. He hears his brothers calling for him and Omega's screams. In the next moment, the connection is cut, and he drops falls, his stomach tingling, everything tingling, but his muscles relaxed. His heart is racing, but his mind is calm and unusually empty for the first time in a long time.

But something is wrong, his fall slows down, even his direction of flight changes. His mind awakens again. Tech looks around, tries to orientate himself, and realizes that he is heading for one of the towers along which the cable car runs. He has no idea what is happening, there is no logical explanation, no updrafts strong enough, he has no wings and no way to control his fall, it makes no sense.

He gets close enough to grab one of the crossbars on the tower. His heart leaps as his fall stops, and he clings to the tower. Tech still can't quite grasp that he's alive, doesn't quite understand what just happened. A surge of euphoria floods his body; he doesn't have to die.

But his mind sobers up very quickly. His gaze shoots upward. The car with his brothers is moving again, but disproportionately fast, they would very likely crash into the stop.

Up above the tracks he sees a figure, a woman, she moves quickly, elegantly, dodging shots, but most interesting, she wields a green lightsaber with which she deflects the blaster shots of the Imperials.

"A Jedi," he says to himself.

Then comes the realization. He didn't fly, the Jedi must have saved him. Tech begins to hastily climb down, he must be on the ground on foot trying to reach his brothers in time. At the bottom, even as he runs, he hears the car crash into the platform. His guts want to tie themselves in knots, but he keeps running, can only hope that no one is too badly hurt.

You see dust and smoke swirl up as you jump down from the tracks into the crash site. Behind you, you hear hurried footsteps. The one you rescued earlier also reaches the crash site. He stops for a moment, stares at you, his eyes big. Finally, he rushes past you into the wreckage to check on his companions.

Some of them are injured, not fatally, but too badly to fight.

"I assume you have a shuttle," you say, more or less addressing everyone.

"Who's that?" the biggest of them asks with a groan, holding his aching ribs.

You wave it off and say, "We can work that out later. I'll back you up on the way to your shuttle if you'll take me. The imperials shot down my shuttle," you say, helping the girl to her feet, who looks at you wide-eyed, then at Tech.

"TECH!"

The girl hugs the man fiercely as tears stream down her face.

"You're alive!" she says as if she can't believe it.

He wipes away her tears and says gently but firmly, "You need to pull yourself together for a moment, Omega, first we need to get out of here"

"Go!" growls the one with the longer hair and bandana, "No time".

He grits his teeth, stumbles limping through the rubble and almost falls, but you grab his arm and help him. You can sense his pain.

"Thank you," he presses out in anguish, between clenched teeth.

Under fire, you rush back to the shuttle as fast as you can. Tech helps the sergeant, the big one named Wrecker holds up on his own. You fend off incoming shots, more than a few of which would hit one back or another without your help. The blade of the laser sword hums, buzzing through the air like an extension of your body, every movement, fluid and natural.

Tech keeps looking over his shoulder, fascinated. He's seen many a Jedi, but somehow, there is something different about you, something that already draws him in.

Pabu is beautiful, peaceful and the people refreshingly warm. A good place to come to rest, at least temporarily. However, you are a bit frustrated at the moment, your attempts to repair your holopad have failed. Annoyed, you place the device back down on the half-wall in front of you.

"Fuck it," you grumble to yourself as you hear a soft noise behind you.

You turn and see Tech, his helmet tucked under his arm, looking at you in surprise with raised brows. He's unobtrusive, yet somehow always near you.

"Excuse my choice of words," you say with a wry smile.

He shrugs carefully and says, "I may not be a fan of that language, but it doesn't bother me much either. However, I must say that this choice of words surprises me, hearing it from a Jedi. I don't think I've ever heard a Jedi swear before."

You laugh softly.

"What makes you think I'm a Jedi?"

Tech blinks thoughtfully, adjusts his goggles with his index finger, and says, "Well, I thought it was obvious. You carry a lightsaber, use the Force, and you are clearly not a Sith."

You nod slowly, "Yes, I can understand why you would come to that conclusion. But I'm not a Jedi, not anymore, not for a few years now."

He extends his hand to you invitingly and says, "May I help you with that?"

You pick up the holopad again and pass it to him. As he deftly takes the device apart, he cautiously asks, "May I ask why you left the Order?"

You sigh softly and sit down on the half-wall, looking down at the beach for a moment as if searching for an answer there, then look at Tech again.

"I never really fit in with the Jedi. You could say among the Jedi I was an outsider to some extent."

Tech looks up curiously from the holopad. He notes that this is something that connects you, he and his brothers never really fit in among the other clones either. He says, "That must have been difficult."

You nod with a sigh, "Sometimes more, sometimes less. I lacked that absolute calm, that restraint. Although I grew up in the Order from a very young age, I have never been able to put aside my emotional nature. The decision that I had to leave the Order was made when I fell in love."

Tech looks up again, blinking, you sense unease beneath his surface.

"In love?" he asks, swallowing, "Oh. Jedi aren't supposed to do that, are they?"

"No, they shouldn't. Well, it happens to many actually, but a real Jedi, cuts themselves loose from it, I didn't want that to happen."

The little, "Oh" that comes across his lips sounds oddly vulnerable.

Tech is still tinkering with your holopad when he asks, "And what happened to that love of yours?"

You swallow and feel an uncomfortable pressure on your chest as you answer quietly, "I don't know. I haven't seen him in a very long time. He was stationed on Ryloth. After Order 66, I couldn't possibly go there, too many clones in one place, and… I was terrified that he had succumbed to the chip as well. If he had tried to kill me, I don't think I could have stomached it. But from what I've heard, he's probably no longer alive anyway."

Tech looks at you in surprise.

"The man you loved was a reg?"

You frown and repeat, "Reg?"

He shakes his head apologetically.

"Sorry. Regular clone, meaning clones that haven't been modified like Clone Force 99"

"Oh, I see," you say understandingly, "Yes, by that standard I suppose he was a Reg. As far as I've heard, he ultimately acted contrary to programming. He was arrested for treason when he liberated the Syndulla family"

Tech looks up again.

"Howzer?" he asks, surprised.

"Yeah," you say, also surprised, "You know him?"

"[Knowing him] is probably too much of a word. We ran into him. At the Syndullas liberation operation. For that matter, I'm afraid I have to confirm the rumor you heard, Howzer really has been arrested by the Empire for treason."

Your heart grows heavy. You swallow. You feel a slight burning behind your eyes and the bridge of your nose.

"Then I guess he really is dead," you say with a heavy sigh, "Actually, I'm not surprised, I was already expecting it, and we haven't seen each other in over a year, but it still hurts."

Tech put the holopad back together. He gently presses the device into your hand, holding your hand almost tenderly for a brief moment as he does so.

"I'm sorry."

He's really sorry, but part of him feels relief that Howzer can't be a part of your life anymore, and he's ashamed of it. In fact, he's shocked at how he feels about you and how that realization affects him.

As Tech lets go of you, he says softly, "Your holopad is working again."

You blink and look at the device.

"Thank you so much. You're really handy with these things, aren't you?"

Tech smiles gently.

"At the risk of sounding smug, I have to say, 'handy' is probably an understatement, but yes".

Tech's heart beats faster when he sees you enter the room. He looks up, smiles at you briefly, and nervously turns his attention back to the cards lying on a box in front of him.

"You're playing… Against yourself?" you ask, surprised.

He nods and says as a matter of course, "Of course, that's the only way this game is still a challenge for me."

Your soft laugh, turns his cheeks a little pink.

"I actually believe you," you say, amused.

You glance over his shoulder.

"You're probably really good at this, you'll have to teach me when you have the time".

Tech's shoulders tighten proudly, he turns his head to the side to look at you shyly for a moment and shows you his cute little smile, just very briefly, but adorably cute.

You are so close, very close to him, for a moment he can smell your scent even more clearly than before and a shiver runs through his body. If he wasn't sitting right now, Tech is sure, his knees would buckle under him. What's happening to him here, what are you doing to him? Does this have something to do with the Force? Tech doesn't dare ask. But he feels something like a connection, and he feels all warm. Maybe he's just incubating a disease. Are there parasites on Pabu that he doesn't know about?

His thoughts are racing in all directions, but then you move again, sit down opposite him. His gaze follows you, spellbound. Tech blinks several times, trying to collect himself. Spending time with you is so wonderful in a way, so exciting, but it also completely messes with his head.

"Are we going to play a game? Will you teach me?"

His mouth opens, but it takes him a long moment to find his voice again.

"I… yes, I'd love to. But the circumstances aren't exactly fair. My mind is… special, it will be anything but easy to win against me"

With a soft laugh whose sound tickles all the way to his stomach, you say, "I don't have to win, first I just want to learn"

You learn quickly. Surprised, with a very slight tinge of frustration, and not a little appreciation, he notes that you soon beat him over and over again.

"No one has ever won against me until now," he says, impressed, but also thoughtful.

Part of him was hoping to impress you, but now he almost feels a little intimidated.

You smirk.

"Well, this is a game where a lot depends on how well you know your opponent and how to interpret their behavior. I have a simple advantage, I can sense your intentions in the Force, maybe the circumstances really aren't fair."

His pulse races. Instead of being angry that you more or less cheated through the Force, panic rises in him. If you can sense his intentions, can you sense what you are triggering in him?!

You tilt your head slightly to the side and look at him questioningly, which only emphasizes his fear. Tech jumps up, nearly knocking over the box still containing your playing cards.

"I have to take care of something," he stammers and runs out of the room a little too hastily.

Echo enters the cockpit of the Marauder in search of Tech. He finds him there, too, using a medical scanner on himself. Echo's brows go up questioningly.

"Tech, what's wrong?"

Startled, Tech looks up, collects himself, and finally answers, "I'm looking for traces of a disease or parasite."

Concerned, Echo moves closer.

"So you're not feeling well?"

Tech sighs and says, "It's hard to tell. I'm showing certain symptoms"

"Which are?"

"Increased heart rate, queasy feeling in stomach, sweaty palms, shaky knees".

Echo frowns and says, "That doesn't sound like a parasite."

Echo thinks for a moment and then something occurs to him. With a certain undertone, he asks, "Those symptoms wouldn't happen to show up in connection with our Jedi guest?"

Tech lowers the scanner and looks critically at Echo.

"Are you suggesting she might have infected me with something?"

Echo says, amused, "More or less. She's pretty, she's nice, well she's special."

Tech sighs softly and says, "I agree."

Echo sits down in the copilot seat, looks at Tech and says, "You'd rather be sick than in love?"

"In love?!" echoes Tech in near panic.

His brother raises his hands placatingly.

"Relax, it's a normal thing, not the end of the world. But it's also natural to have a certain respect for these feelings. They make us vulnerable and as soldiers we are trained to avoid such things, especially as clones. But there are no regulations anymore, you could take the leap and explore these feelings."

Techs heart beats faster, just the thought that there might be something between you sends what feels like millions of signals through his body.

"Are you scared?"

Tech gulps.

"I'm not sure about that, in a way I guess I am. She can use the Force, maybe she already knows, maybe she's already sensed what I'm feeling."

Echo shrugs.

"I suppose it's possible. But so far it doesn't seem to me like she's avoiding you, that's a good sign after all."

Tech nods slowly, agreeing with his brother.

The sun is slowly setting, but it is still wonderfully warm. Your hands rest on the waist-high stone wall in front of you and feel the warmth of the sun stored in it, which has been shining on it all day. A real, pleasant feeling. Then you feel something else, with your mind.

"Hey, Tech. Did you get done what you needed to get done?"

You turn to him with a smile. It's almost unusual to see him without his datapad in his hand. Tech stands next to you and looks out at the ocean and how the sun seems to be sinking into the water on the horizon.

"Yes, I have," he says softly.

You can sense that something is going on beneath his surface, he is excited and euphoric at the same time, but outwardly he seems quite calm. You look at each other, you feel it coming, but you don't move a muscle. Unsure if you want to let it happen or not. He leans towards you, his lips chastely touching your cheek, then he straightens up again with blushing cheeks and looks out at the water again, unable to face your gaze.

It's a strange feeling. You like Tech a lot, you can't quite place it yet, but something about it feels wrong, maybe because you can't quite release Howzer from your heart yet.

"Sorry," he says suddenly, "I didn't mean to cross any lines."

You sigh softly and carefully reach for his hand. Tech's heart overflows with joyful excitement, you can feel it, it practically spills over to you, but you pull yourself together.

"There's something you should know, Tech."

He does finally look at you again, questioningly.

"You can tell me anything," he says quietly.

With a cautious smile, you nod and say, "I can feel what you feel for me, at least I think I can. These feelings, I must admit, are not entirely one-sided."

There is great joy radiating from him, nervousness, euphoria, but also a bitter undertone of insecurity.

He says, "I have a feeling there's still a 'but' there."

You nod again and say, "My heart is not ready to let go of Howzer. I know he's most likely no longer among the living, but I'm not ready to let him go just yet."

"Oh," Tech says quietly, "That's not a problem. I, um, I can wait until you're ready."

"I can't ask you to do that, I don't know how long it will take" you say uncertainly, lowering your eyes.

You would love to let him hug and comfort you, just let go and snuggle up to Tech's side, but something, hidden deep inside you, prevents you from doing so.

Tech repeats determinedly, "I can wait," and very gently squeezes your fingers in his hand.

At that moment, your heart opens a little wider to him and his, adorably sweet, little, smile.

"Rex is coming to Pabu," Hunter says, "And he's bringing some more of our brothers with him that he was able to rescue from the clutches of the Empire."

You remember Rex, a little bit, anyway. A decent guy, good soldier, he was Skywalker's Clone Captain. Skywalker was the only Jedi at the time who seemed to understand you to some extent, at least you always had a good conversation with him. You wonder where he is now, if he is still alive. But a noise pulls you out of your thoughts.

A shuttle is approaching and lands next to the Marauder, which suddenly seems quite small in comparison. The ramp opens and Rex emerges from it, followed by several other clones.

Tech shows up next to you, giving you a gentle smile before focusing on the arrivals, his datapad in hand as usual.

You greet the new arrivals. Rex even recognizes you, you talk for a moment when you hear someone say, "Hey little Jedi."

There is only one man who has ever called you that.

"Howzer", the name comes across your lips like a whisper.

You turn around and see him standing in front of you. He looks tired, but the smile on his face is still irresistible. Neither of you think for long. You embrace each other stormily and Howzer engages you in a long, longing kiss.

As his lips part from yours, he leans his forehead against yours and says, "Honestly, I hardly dared to hope I'd ever see you again, beautiful."

The world around you has faded out, there is only Howzer and you, even though all eyes are on you. Some confused, others amused. But you also feel Tech's shock, poking through all the other sensations surrounding you, like an electric shock.

The datapad in his hands crackles and creaks protestingly under the pressure of Tech's fingers as he watches your kiss. He didn't expect this, didn't expect Howzer to ever appear on the scene again.

Tech could have imagined waiting until you were ready for him, but this changes everything. The realization is like a shock, and a wave of bitterness rolls over him against his will.

The datapad cracks in his hands. Echo next to him stares in disbelief at the kissing scene, then his gaze shifts to Tech with concern.

"Tech…" he says softly, but Tech drops the datapad to the floor, turns on his heel, and walks away in a hurry.

Hunter and Echo exchange a frown, a worried look.

"I'll go check on him," Echo says, and sets about following Tech.

That same evening, you're sitting on the beach with Howzer, holding hands, talking, telling each other all the things that happened during the time you were apart. Then you feel it again, the tentative, tender presence of Tech. You turn your head and look up at him.

You haven't seen him since this morning, since Rex and Howzer arrived. You don't know where he's been or what he's been doing during that time. But since Echo followed him and also stayed gone all day, you suspect he was talking to his brother.

"I'm sorry to bother you. I know you probably have a lot to talk about, but I'd like to ask for a private conversation," Tech says in a matter-of-fact tone.

Howzer frowns questioningly, but when you agree and leave with Tech, he has no objections, trusting you and waiting on the beach as Tech and you walk away, out of earshot and sight.

"I know," Tech begins, "Things have changed now, of course. Howzer's still alive, and I don't presume to make demands or get in the way. I'm very fond of you, and even though I'd like to be in Howzer's place, all I really want is for you to be happy."

His pain is deep and more intense than you expect, you can feel it almost as clearly as if it were your own.

"I'm so sorry, I-"

Tech raises his hand.

"No, don't be. Neither my feelings nor the current situation are your fault. You should be happy, you have the man you love back."

Everything inside you tightens. Yes he is right, you should be happy, but you are not, not completely. But maybe that's just what you feel going out from Tech.

"Something about this whole situation doesn't feel right," you say so softly that he almost doesn't hear it.

He smiles sadly and says, "That's just because you're a good person, you have a good heart. You know that I feel pain, and you would like to change that. But you can't, this is something that will heal with time."

You take a deep breath, stand on your tiptoes, and he leans towards you. You gently kiss Tech's cheek and say, "You know I still care about you immensely, right?"

He swallows, finally nods, and says, barely audibly, "I know that."

As you part ways, he stares after you for a long time as his hand automatically moves to his cheek and his fingers settle on the spot where you kissed him. He will never forget this moment.

Ko-Fi (If you feel like giving me some coffee)

@rintheemolion

@andyoufollowyourheart @clone-whore-99

@brynhildrmimi @kaliel2310

@misogirl828 @tech-deck

@meshla-madalene

@chxpsi

@thebahdbitch

@nahoney22 @ladykatakuri

@darkangel4121

@ttzamara

@arctrooper69

@padawancat97

@agenteliix

@allsystemsblue

@palliateclaw

@either-madness-or-brilliance

@ortizshinkaroff

@andy-solo1

@hunterssecretrecipe

@heyitsaloy

@greaser-wolf

@extrahotpixels

@hated-by-me

@hunterxcrosshair

@malicemercy

@bebopsworld

@echos-girlfriend

@cpnt616

@dangraccoon

@jediknightjana

@pb-jellybeans

@starwarsnerd111

[starrylothcat]

LOVE the idea for the follower celebration! And congrats!! 💕 I’m gonna shamelessly spam the crap out of it and you can pleeeease feel free to use your discretion to ruthlessly cut some or all from the lineup. 😂😘

I’m unabashedly in love with this Howzer x Fem!OC full length fic that I wrote… 🙈🤣 I think it’s got playfulness, character growth, action, romance, yearning, angst, adventure, passion, and is just a fun ride overall. It’s done for now, til TBB S3 shows me the rest of Howzer’s story, but I left it in a nice pause place, not a cliffhanger. It’s thoroughly researched to be canon-compliant and is SFW but rated PG-13 for the various content tagged at the top of the post. 💕 I’ll be posting chapters daily here and people can request to be on the tag list, but the entire work is on Ao3 for people who don’t want to wait. 😂

xoxo

https://www.tumblr.com/freesia-writes/721894443901403136/quantum-entanglement-howzer-aurelia-master

Ahhh thank you for the first submission! I’m all for self recommendation hell ya!

Howzer is up there in my favorite clones and I just read the first three chapters of this fic. I LOVE Aurelia already and Howzer being a confident, cocky shiny is everything. I’ll definitely be keeping up with this one! Awesome work @freesia-writes 😁

If you love Howzer check this out y’all!

Starry’s Spread the Love Event

[moonstrider9904]

2022 Kinktober by moonstrider9904

I've seen some mutuals of mine hopping on board and now I'm so hyped about this that I just have to hop in as well!

I will be following the list made by @the-purity-pen

Link to my Main Masterlist

As always, minors DNI.

Dirty Talk - Crosshair x Fem!Reader

A/B/O - Maul x Fem!Reader

Glove Kink - Boba Fett x Fem!Reader

Missionary - Crosshair x Fem!Reader

Breeding - Hunter x Fem!Reader

Cockwarming - Maul x Fem!Reader

Sex Toys - Tech x Fem!Reader

Double Penetration - Fives x Fem!Reader x Jesse

Drunk Sex - Howzer x Fem!Reader

Erotic Photos - Commander Cody x Fem!Reader

Exhibitionism/Voyeurism - Luke Skywalker x Fem!Reader

Face Sitting/Fucking - Hardcase x Fem!Reader

Love Bites/Marks - Crosshair x Fem!Reader

Overstimulation - Savage Opress x Fem!Reader

Bath/Shower Sex - Rex x Fem!Reader

Licking - Tech x Fem!Reader

Lingerie - Maul x Fem!Reader

Praise Kink - Maul x Fem!Reader

Phone Sex - Howzer x Fem!Reader

Orgasm Denial - Rex x Fem!Reader

Tender Sex - Crosshair x Fem!OC (Clair)

Sexting - Tech x Fem!Reader

Sensory Deprivation - Hunter x Fem!Reader

[boozeandbaddecisions]

Woo another month down. Just like before let's talk about the homies

@burningfieldof-clover - Welcome for round two homie. Placed here due to her blog being 18+. Go show her some love.

@ghostlythunderbird - Spice dealer just posted her first A/B/O fic and boy...it's gonna be fun. If you need some new COD content, go bug her. Send thots. You'll be surprised what she might send back.

@rain-on-kamino - Go bug her. She's great. Send her all the cute Howzer and Echo stuff you can find. Also her Shades of Dates Fic ain't too shabby ;)

@tech-deck - If you want some good soup on Tech, they are who you go find (psstt, I'm also waiting to meet your OC one day. No pressure, but I'm excited)

Writing

Barracks Bunny Request - König x F!Reader - @devilanon

141 + König x Fem! Reader Going Down on Them - @starstruckmiraclekitty

Enough - König x F!Reader - @saltofmercury

The Imperial Bad Batch x Fem!Reader - Dangerous Seduction HC's Part 4 Of 5 (Wrecker) - Imp!Wrecker x F!Reader - @zoeykallus

König Request - König x Reader - @ghosts-bandwagon

Kinktober Day 8 - Creampies - Paz Vizsla x AFAB!Reader - @bobafetts-princess

Love You Want - Wrecker x F!Reader - @eyecandyeoz

Mäuschen - König x F!Reader - @namedlunagoddess

Meet Me in the Afterglow - Imp!Wrecker x F!Medic!Reader - @starryevermore

Nachtisch - König x Reader - @daisies-daydreams

[starqueensthings]

Summary: an immediate continuation of the last chapter. Challa and June discuss the result of the lesson before parting ways. June runs into someone familiar, and a couple new faces.

Rating/WC: all chapters are rated 16+ for subject matter unless stated otherwise | 4570 words.

WARNINGS: None. This is pretty light-hearted.

A/N: y’all!!! We’re finally getting into it!!! Yaaaaay! The story is rolling on!! This chapter is no one where up to my usual standards but it;s gone on too long and my job is only getting busier, so please accept it in one of it’s rawest forms. Also, keep your eyes peeled for some more of our Clone Wars faves in this chapter. Next one should be posted soon and jammed packed of tooth-rotting fluff.

PLEASE ENSURE YOU’VE READ THE FOREWORD LINKED BELOW FOR AN IN-DEPTH DESCRIPTION OF WHAT DEGREE OF CONTENT YOU CAN EXPECT THROUGHOUT THIS STORY BEFORE PROCEEDING.

PREV | NEXT | MASTER | FOREWORD | AO3

“Excellent, excellent, excellent…” Challa chorussed to those now-barren seats as his feet bounced that lithe figure back across the room toward the desk housing their personal belongings.

But mind still laden with the implications of Kix’s last sentiments, June spurned her boss’s ebullience as he passed, thumbnail inserting itself thoughtlessly between those front teeth while gazing blankly at the spot where that century of pack-laden backs had just vanished.

“I thought this class was everyone’s favourite…”

“It is now.”

She’d uttered that supposition jestingly at most— there simply wasn’t a shred of her cognizance daring enough to expect any degree of favourtism from those hundred soldiers, particularly when participation had been downright minimal since its inception several weeks ago… So, had Kix responded equally as jocosely? Or had today’s lesson truly fractured the uninterested facade that had seen Challa anxiously twisting his Lekku near-off his head for countless weeks?

“Just outstanding.” The unremitting commentary from somewhere over her shoulder broke the surface of that listless stupor, and she turned to find a near-frightening smile atop his thin lips as Challa carefully zipped his bag closed. “Really marvelous. And to begin with a monologue of such warranted yet unexpected intensity? Captivating. I simply could not be more thrilled…”

“It wasn’t a monologue, it was the truth,” June snickered under her breath as she approached the desk, stooping to collect her long-discarded purse from the floor.

“Label immaterial,” Challa beamed, seemingly refusing to entertain the veiled attempt at modesty. “A truly remarkable foray. I do not believe there was a single clone to which it did not resonate, and that is saying something. I am most pleased, June. Most pleased.”

“I believe you,” June assured him, eyes widening as that exorbitant laudation spilled mercilessly from his lips.

Words entirely unnecessary, the glee of which he continued to verbalize lay apparent in every line atop that slender face; eyes crinkled neath that relentless sense of pride, soft jaw accentuated by a grin that simply would not release its grip around those lips, and too-used to that stoic Twi’lek’s typically unemotive state, the shift in disposition had June near-disconcerted. Though the rejection of her attempted humility had a small smile tugging at her own lips, that palpable joy seeping neath her skin until continuing to ignore the triumph of their tactic seemed a more arduous task than simply accepting that they had finally found some semblance of success.

Oddly, now that the hurdle had been not only jumped but cleared, it felt like years had passed since Challa had demanded a solution from her, narrow shoulders slumped beneath such atypical cynicism in the center of that dusty gravel parking lot whilst he pled for any glimmer of a reason as to why he could not command the attention of those soldiers— and despite having wantonly offered this very scheme as a remedy, June had since dreaded its debut with every fiber of her being.

“Take the rest of the afternoon off!”

That sudden proclamation was nearly overpowered by the ringing echo of just how enthusiastically he’d clapped his hands together whilst uttering the request. “You performed wonderfully today despite suffering neath a potent affliction of nerves. You deserve some time to recuperate.”

A spitting laugh burst through her lips before she could corral it back into her lungs, the ludicrous nature of that unheralded gift quickly rejected in the name of utter realism and the sheer amount of work waiting for her back at the hospital.

“Can you stop with these random gifts of free time?” June chuckled to her boss. “You know it’s not feasible, Challa. I’ve had back to back surgeries booked since the Code on Primeday, and taking yesterday morning off didn’t help the matter.”

“I’ll reallocate them all,” he offered simply, dismissing her apparently flaccid argument with a wave of his hand. “And I’ll scrub in to those that can’t be. You’ve exceeded both my expectations and the call of duty today. Please, I insist.”

“You know you don’t have to keep rewarding me, Challa,” June told him, sinking onto one hip and holding his gaze. “I like being busy. I like workin–”

“I know you do,” he interposed. “And you can resume that unabating need for distraction tomorrow. For now, please accept the chance for some well deserved rest and relaxation.”

Her blue eyes narrowed upon those violet orbs, gaze scrutinizing every inch of those sand coloured features lest even a slight twitch of muscle betray that this offering of freedom promised to result in nothing more than an astronomical inconvenience to his already laden schedule. “Challa, are you sure?” she asked him quietly as his smile refused to falter.

“Absolutely certain. You deserve it.”

That insistent gratitude, alarming as it was in such concentrated doses, could only be considered an improvement from the morosity Challa had upheld in recent weeks, the grip he maintained on that iron-clad optimism simply dragging his spirits to the depths as it continued to prove utterly fruitless.

Unwilling to further question the fortuitous events that had awarded her an unheralded two half-days off, June thanked him and readjusted the strap on her shoulder. After all, she was several hours overdue for her first caf, and the abhorrent constriction of those shameful red scrubs acted as a near-constant reminder of the mountain of laundry awaiting attention at home.

“No no no no,” Challa protested as she reached to retrieve that borrowed MedKit from the floor behind the desk, gently smacking her hand off that handle for the second time in only minutes. “I’ll take this, you’ve done enough. Just run the attendance down for me and then get going. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“You're very quickly approaching scary territory, boss,” June warned him atop a repressed chortle, reaching instead to collect that familiar folder from the desktop.

“I apologize for the alarm,” he offered, those slender cheeks finally gifted a moment's respite from the duress of that near-manic grin as it began to slip from his features. “I know you’ve previously acted a confidante of sorts for me when the yearn to return home became too powerful to bear, so please silence me if you currently lack the energy to listen to a middle aged man moan about his desires, but… this directive was so important to me. It is so imperative that I bring this task to successful completion. I need to feel as if I’m contributing more to this war effort than simply sewing already ravaged bodies back together. I long to take preventative action— I deeply wish to engage in a faction that deters further pain and suffering, not just repairs it.

“My cousin, Gobi, told me night-before-last that the invasion of Ryloth is imminent. My people are preparing for yet another insurrection, though this incursion is funded and enforced by more than just a smattering of greedy raiders. The separatist army is knocking on our door and… it pains me deeply that I can not aid in fortifying both my city and my people's resolve.

“But this? This class? Well it offers me some semblance of gratification. Many of these medics will graduate and accept deployment to planets like Ryloth, where defending citizens from unjust action and crucifixion is their highest priority. I want— no… need to assist them because their future actions will directly abet my people, and watching my every effort fail thus far has ravaged my conscience in a way I can not properly verbalize. Today—?” He paused only to offer her a disbelieving shake of the head. “—Today was groundbreaking. I now see a path forward for us. A path to success. Are you aware today was the first lecture in which a student actually posed a question?”

“Yeah, I guess?” June choked out as the lump forming in earnest behind her tongue largely constricted words now vying to escape her lips. “It was a stupid question but—”

“It matters not,” Challa interrupted firmly. “That student was looking to confirm the information that he retained was correct. Information he retained. That alone is paramount.”

Lips pursing into a smile that promised to convey more understanding and appreciation than her words ever could whilst strangled by the emotion still silently choking her, she offered her boss a gentle nod before turning toward the door, and that duo walked together back across the stage, over the threshold and into the bustling hallway opposite. Though shortly after emerging into the uncharacteristic bedlam beyond, they parted ways, and instead of falling into stride behind Challa down the hall on the left, those colourless walls offering a near-direct path to the gravel lot adjacent those gargantuan purple tarps, June veered right down the corridor housing the administration office.

Trodding quietly down those prosaic halls had never felt simpler… easier… less oppressive… The surging relief of having finally completed the task that had near-paralyzed her for days on end, accompanied by the insurmountable respect for her boss of which had been wholly reinvigorated by his unexpected and deeply heartfelt admission, acted a perfect talisman as she traversed past countless small groups of armour-clad soldiers. Apathetic to the smattering of helmets turning to follow her movements as she wove her way through that endless collection of white and painted plastoid, she tucked that folder neath her arm and powered forward as if the previously dismantling power of those unwanted, furtive glances utterly failed to penetrate the that sanguine shield. Even the gruff, “Hey good lookin’” that swam in the wake of a passing trooper could not crack that refortified optimism as she stepped past him, offering that salution nothing but a pursed-lip snort before disappearing round a corner and into the astonishingly bright sea of daylight pouring in through those gargantuan glass doors.

Squinting against that sudden illumination, she glanced only briefly around that dead end corridor, gaze darting across a trio of particularly grubby looking soldiers loitering directly across from her destination.

‘Maybe I’ll get my guitar off the wall,’ she thought to herself as she marched toward the cramped office on the left. ‘Maybe sit on the balcony in the sun and see if I can still remember how to play.’

Pushing that door open, she stepped into that cluttered space and pinned a smile to her lips. “Hi,” June offered to the protocol droid that had turned to address her entrance. Granting that regular, scruffy looking officer behind the desk only a nod, she dropped the attendance folder into its corresponding tray and quickly departed.

Though hardly a handful of steps passed underfoot after emerging back into the warmth of that radiant sunlit hallway before an unignorable “Ahem,” captured her attention from those wandering thoughts of iced caf and an afternoon of listless strumming.

The same breath that had her turning on the spot to thoughtlessly investigate that unexpectedly deliberate summons saw a double-take steal across her features, inquisitive gaze darting over her shoulder in the direction of that soft clear-of-the-throat before affixing itself upon the only person able to fully dissolve that otherwise impermeable resolve.

Howzer stood with his back to that colourless wall, flanked on either side by two troopers in armoured suits so ingrained with dust, it appeared as if neither had been granted respite from the elements in several rotations. Though those companions were offered none of the attention she’d instantly allocated to the handsome man in the middle, as the slow emergence of that familiar, lopsided smile had June utterly flummoxed and unable to wrench her eyes from the issuer of the discrete call.

As if that succeeding second had seen a pair of defib pods inexplicably burrow themselves into the wall of her chest and jolt her heart in action, a thunderous rhythm erupted against her rib cage, widened eyes devouring the familiar splash of teal they had so-desperately sought only days prior. And the longer she permitted her gaze to breathe in his sudden appearance, exactly how she hadn't initially noticed him as she trod past their position only moments previously was nothing short of mystifying, as that large teal-pauldron erected over his right shoulder seemed to issue the same degree of accomplishment she’d worn atop her own shoulders whilst striding through those bustling halls.

Her throat bobbed as she held that unwavering gaze, watching those dark brows soften and flick toward his hairline only long enough to perfectly communicate his desire that she linger for a moment while he fought to shirk the conversation still demanding his immediate attention, and only after she’d offered him a nod of acknowledgement did those bewitching eyes finally free her from their hold.

Desperately attempting to calm the rigorous hammering inside her chest, she rotated slowly on the spot, attention shifting thoughtlessly across the display case hanging on the wall immediately next to her elbow, though any hopes of focussing on the myriad of celebratory articles pinned to the cork inside was instantly surrendered as the distorted image of her reflection had her hands instantly reaching upward.

“Maker,” she gasped under her breath, the sight of her current dishevelment acting an instant reminder of the repercussions of that chaotic morning and the detriment it had upon her appearance; the reality that she’d forgone brushing her hair in favour of her teeth, immediately thrust upon her by the exposure of the frowzy locks sticking up in all directions. Amid a hurried effort to diminish that unkempitude, she reached upward to run her fingers through the ends of her long ebony hair, though the attempted subtlety atop those movements near-instantly failed, as the action had only-managed to dislodge several clumps of keratin from her scalp, strands wrapping and knotting themselves tightly around her knuckles. Flicking it from her hands and onto the floor, she instead decided to funnel the burgeoning nerves into gnawing on what was left of her already shredded thumbnail, risking only a glance toward that triad of troopers as she attempted to feign any semblance of natural levity.

Howzer, of course, she recognized— both the teal stripe extending from the collar of his cuirass to the armoured belt round his waist, and that mouthwatering undercut, were instantly recognizable. But the two war-stained men adjacent were definitively unfamiliar to June as both were strikingly unique and memorable in their own right.

The soldier on the left wore a kit of white and maroon— a combination of which June had yet to stumble across amidst her work endeavors. Though the structure of his plastoid suit and how it hugged his form mirrored Howzer’s almost perfectly, the manner of which he’d individualized that regulation suit was downright remarkable. The helmet tucked neath his arm had been painted with a set of, what could only be described as, horns. Exactly what they were representative of, June couldn’t venture a guess, but the detail in which he’d adorned that bucket remained nearly-astonishing. Like the proud pauldron extending from his shoulder, various other sections of his armour had been painted maroon to compliment; the encasement around his thighs, both breasts on his cuirass, his boots and every inch of the protection reaching downward from his knees, the fabric piping encircling the odd, dark panels hanging from his hips, all identically coloured to ensure his loyalty to the regiment of which he lead could never be questioned.

Though, remarkable as that custom kit was to behold adjacent those dark, bland walls, it was atypical pattern embossed into his hair that had June most intrigued. Tightly cropped to his skull, and meticulously carved with an ornate tribal pattern of which looked even more unfamiliar than the horns embossed on his bucket, she’d yet to see such effort funnelled into a soldiers appearance, and to match the obvious aversion to a soldier’s standard regulation appearance, this man had forgone the mandatory clean shave. Instead, opting for a brush of stubble across his cheeks and around his lips that June was sure would have had him reprimanded in seconds should his Commanding Officer suddenly appear.

The second, unidentified gentleman was arguably the most austere of the trio, though the adhesion of that label was shoddy at best when compared his appearance to that of the hundred structured regulation cuts June had grown accustomed to interacting with twice a week. For one, he was …blond; biologically or not was impossible to discern as he’d maintained a shorter crop than either of the companions beside him, and it was thanks to the lack of pigment imbued in those locks that a faint, brown birthmark was only barely visible atop the back of his head. He too wore a pauldron atop his shoulder, though unlike his maroon clad brother, it’s deep cobalt was a hue of which June had seen countless times since the inception of the war; whatever sector of soldiers to which this man was assigned, it was both exceedingly large and had developed a proclivity for attaining injuries that had them frequently hospital-bound.

Yet, despite their inspiring individuality, both of those mysterious troopers lacked whatever quality it was that had her heart somersaulting unceremoniously into her gut upon first sight of that teal-painted captain. There was, infuriatingly, something about Howzer that had June’s long-fortified and cherished resolve melting to little more than a puddle at the mere mention of his name, and she couldn’t help but wonder as she stood there and watched his gaze dart repeatedly back toward her position, why this emotional anomaly had grown to excite her; precisely when had the tingle neath her skin, left in the wake of his shifting gaze, become something to be embraced and not reviled?

She bit the inside of her cheek to repress a smile as she watched his lips part and close for the fifth time in as many seconds, the hand he’d placed upon the shoulder of the blond man beside him in a motion intended to interrupt this so-imperative discussion went wholly ignored as that blue painted soldier continued to chunter as if Howzer’s attention had not long-departed that exchange.

“Moves like that are going to be up to Cody,” the maroon soldier protested with a grave shake of the head. “And by extension– his General, who has to get clearance for incursions like that from their fancy council. We have no way of knowing which way they’ll lean. General Di would ra—”

“I’ve worked with General Kenobi,” the blue soldier chimed in. “He aims for a peaceful, collaborative approach wherever he can, so… chances are he shuts down the idea of a direct assault. The risk of civilian casualty is too high. He’d sooner funnel efforts into evacuation, then hold the lines in preparation for an airstrike.”

“Don’t know if they’d even approve an airstrike, Rex. I could be wrong, but I think that land is sacred to the native population. Something about long-departed spirits that still govern the lord of the leaves, or something like that. Can’t remember now.”

“Well they’ll have to look at alternatives to a direct ground assault, or there's going to be a kriff-ton more spirits—”

“It’s all still rumours anyways,” Howzer interjected, redirecting that wandering gaze back to his comrades. “There’s no point scheming until we have all the information. We’ll get our orders down the chain, and we’ll see ‘em done as effectively as we can.”

“Spoken like someone that doesn’t have to answer to a Jedi…” the maroon trooper snorted.

“I’m just saying…” Howzer shrugged, “There’s no point worrying until there’s something to worry about. Sheath and the 41st are always thorough with their recon. They’ll have the intel Kenobi needs to take to the Jedi. You two should take a break from battle when you can get it— you’re both on leave for a few days. Act like it.”

“Yeah, well…” Rex sighed. “‘Leave’ with Skywalker means being ready for his antics at any moment. Oh, and that reminds me—”

June quickly pursed her lips, a chuckle threatening to spill past her thumb still clamped in place as the maroon soldier instantly moved to commiserate with his cobalt brethren, Howzer’s eyes rolling theatrically atop his desperation to abscond that seemingly endless tactical natter.

Feeling her cheeks begin to heat in earnest as his gaze returned to her, eyes flashing apologetically while he gently shook his head, June removed the thumbnail from her teeth and reached into the depths of her bag, hoping the needless motion of rifling around its depths for the jingle of her speeder keys could distract her enough to regain her composure.

“Nothing’s being decided today anyway. It’s too early— Cody knows better than to bring it up in a briefing without all the intel in his pocket.”

The sudden assertion neath his tone captured her attention instantly, glancing upward to watch Howzer give each of his companions an undeniably final handshake and casual clap on the elbow, the pair offering each other disgruntled looks before conceding that unspoken demand and turning on their heels.

“Aren’t you coming?” the blond asked Howzer, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder in the direction June had come from some minutes earlier. “You’re going to want to get some grub before the meeting starts. We’ll be in there all afternoon.”

“I’ll find you in a bit,” Howzer answered with the dismissive shrug of a shoulder. “Gonna find a cadet to grab us some caf from down the street first.”

“You and your kriffing fancy caf,” the trooper in Maroon grumbled atop the roll of his dark eyes. “I wonder what the Republic’s tax-payers would think of you spending all their money on premium, Devaronian, slow-roasted beans when there’s free caf in the Mess.”

“Maybe some of us want to feel alive while we’re still living,” Howzer defended. “That sludge does anything but. Now go away, you big grump.”

There was no corralling the snicker that burst past her lips as she watched Howzer gift that goading trooper an assertive shove in the opposite direction before planting his hands on his hips and scowling. Though, the manner in which his expression wholly softened whilst turning back to June’s waiting figure near froze the air in her lungs, those endearing creases round his eyes emerging as he neared, smile tugging toward his right ear.

“Hi,” she greeted somewhat breathlessly as approached, finally coming to a halt in front of her and shifting his helmet neath his arm.

“Hi,” he chimed back atop that dismantling smirk. “Sorry to make you wait— that took a lot longer than I wanted.”

“No worries,” June shrugged. “Seemed kinda serious.”

“They’re both too serious for their own good,” Howzer answered, absentmindedly glancing down the hall toward the space his companions had vanished before clearing his throat quietly and meeting her gaze again. “I'm, uh… ashamed to say I almost didn’t recognize you. The glasses are …new.”

“Wha–? Oh!” Having entirely forgotten she was wearing those forsaken dark rims, her cheeks flooded in earnest. If only that frenetic morning had allotted her five extra minutes to poke her contact lenses into her eyes, she wouldn’t be standing here like a four-eyed deer in the headlights with knotted hair and flushed skin. “Ugh, yeah,” she grumbled. “I slept in this morning and didn’t have time to get all dolled up.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Howzer answered with a charming shrug, that veiled compliment tugging at the spot just behind her navel as if the floor neath their feet had suddenly plummeted the pair of them some stories below.

‘Cool it,’ she begged to herself, desperate to maintain her equanimity whilst Howzer’s presence threatened to usurp every ounce of it, even the most subtle shifts of those amber eyes amidst that pleasant conversation easily siphoning more and more of her resolve.

“I missed you on Primeday,” he continued before she’d summoned the gumption to form a response. “I must have been checking for you in all the wrong hallways.”

“Oh kriff!” June exclaimed loudly, clapping a palm to her suddenly gaping lips. “I am so sorry— that’s completely my fault. The hospital called a Code Orange and I had to race back to work before class ended. I didn’t even think to try and find you…Hopefully you didn’t waste too much time?”

“Meh, couple hours…” he answered with another slight shift of the shoulder.

“Couple hours?!” she gasped again from behind those cold fingers.

“Yup. Have blisters on my heels now and everything.”

“Howzer! Are you nut–”

“I’m just kidding,” he laughed, that soft crinkle erupting round his eyes as they framed his amusement. “To be honest, I wasn’t even sure where to find you so I just stuck my head through a few doors until it started to feel creepy.”

“That would be my fault too,” June admitted atop the beginnings of a regretful sigh. “I don’t think I ever told you where the classroom is. Though, honestly, with how directionally challenged I am, my instructions probably would have had you wandering even longer.”

“Somewhere by the purple tarps,” he answered, entirely reminiscent of the last time she’d attempted to help him navigate their way back through that staggering maze of corridors and doorways. “Speaking of, are you dashing back to work now?”

“No, actually,” June answered, having momentarily forgotten Challa’s generous request that she forgo responsibility for the remainder of the day. “I was supposed to be, but my boss was so happy with the lesson today, he just randomly gave me the afternoon off.”

“Ouu,” Howzer cooed, brows lifting slightly as if she’d uttered something particularly impressive. “Maybe you can tell me all about it. I was going to send a cadet to grab caf for the CO’s debrief, but… I don’t know… maybe you and I can go instead? If you wanted?”

Grab caf? With— with Howzer? Together? Alone? Right now?

Her lips parted amidst that split second of hesitation, heart vying desperately to silence that innate caution in her mind long enough to utter a simple agreement. ‘Yes,’ she thought. ‘I’d love to. Just say yes. You like caf. You like him. It’s just caf… you’ll be fine.’

She watched his throat bob neath a deliberate swallow, jaw tensing whilst he awaited her response, amber eyes darting to and fro between her own, ears reddening with each elongated, silent second.

“Um, sure,” she somehow spluttered. “I’m— I’m overdue for caf anyways, and if the delivery you sent over is any indication, you know where to get the good stuff.”

“You’ve never had Hutchie’s?” he near-gasped, incredulity quickly replacing the apprehension that had briefly distorted his handsome features.

“No, never!” June answered. “And it was probably the best caf I’ve ever had. It took everything in me not to just bottoms-up the entire thing directly into my mouth.”

“No better way to drink caf if you ask me,” Howzer snorted, gesturing with a quick nod of the head toward the gargantuan glass doors only yards away. “Glad you enjoyed it.”

“The entire Surgical floor enjoyed it— you sent enough to feed the entire hospital. I appreciate it very much, but I hope you didn’t go to any trouble?”

“Wasn’t trouble at all,” he answered immediately. “And I wouldn’t care if it was. Just wanted to make you smile and figured snacks outta do the trick.”

“You figured perfectly,” she grinned as he pushed open the door and stood aside to let her pass ahead of him.

PREV | NEXT | MASTER | FOREWORD | AO3

Tag list: @anxiouspineapple99 @sinfulsalutations @starrylothcat @nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius @secondaryrealm @dystopicjumpsuit @freesia-writes @sev-on-kamino @littlemissmanga @523rdrebel @wings-and-beskar @wolffegirlsunite @drafthorsemath @jediknightjana @starstofillmydream @mooncommlink @wizardofrozz @trixie2023 @clonethirstingisreal @lune-de-miel-au-paradis @mythical-illustrator @arctrooper69 @somewhere-on-kamino @sverdgeir @heidnspeak

[ladykatakuri]

Stardust Reblog Challenge Master List

Participating in this challenge, I am making this master list and hope it may guide you to stories not yet read that you can now discover and enjoy or re discover. You can also find the stories of all others who make these lists etc under the tag #stardust reblog challenge.

September 2022:

September 1:

The Gym Membership Part 13 ( Echo ) by @imabeautifulbutterfly SFW

Clone Trooper Rambles: Routine by @wanderinginksplot SFW

All in Favor of You Poe Dameron x F! Reader by @princessxkenobi SFW

All Around Me Savage Opress x Reader by @eyecandyeoz NSFW

September 2:

The Bad Batch: Just Curious TBB x Reader and with Omega by @rainydaydream-gal18 SFW

Kindred: Prologue Hunter x F! OC by @clonecyaree eventual 18+

12th:

Sins of the Father ch. 34 by @imabeautifulbutterfly SFW

TBB + Rex x Tall Reader HCs by @zoeykallus SFW

Truth or Dare TBB x F! Reader by @zoeykallus NSFW

Celebrating Together Frankie Morales x F. Reader x Benny Miller by @wardenparker NSFW

Traveler of the Night Khonshu x Fem. Reader by @interstellarwraith NSFW

13th:

Dirty Little Thief ch. 12 Hunter x F!Reader by @zoeykallus NSFW

Boinsoir ch.5 Gregor x OC Cassia Nu by @kaminocasey SFW

Rex - In Love and War 8 Rex x F!Reader by @zoeykallus SFW ( slightly suggestive )

Bruises and Scrapes 2 GN!Reader x Silco by @a-gal-with-taste SFW

Wild Abandon part5 Ezra x F!Reader by@starlightmornings NSFW

TBB x S/O Born with 2 fingers on their right hand by @zoeykallus SFW

Echo and Fives ficlet from asks by @wild-karrde SFW

TBB x F!Reader - First date HC`s by @zoeykallus SFW

Howzer x Medic!Reader by @wild-karrde SFW

Hotel Sanguine Max Phillips x F!Reader by @absurdthirst NSFW

The Cottage part 2 Rebels!Rex x Wife!Reader by: @kaminocasey NSFW

Love me Gently Hunter x F!Reader by @zoeykallus NSFW

14th:

Veman`alor ch.24 Boba Fett x Reader - Din Djarin x Reader by: @galacticgraffiti NSFW

TBB x Fem!Reader - Hurt HC`s, She loves me not by @zoeykallus SFW

A Glimpse of Us part 3C Rex x Reader x Hunter by @kaminocasey NSFW

Gar Cyare Chapter 2, Alpha17 x F!Reader by @wanderinginksplot SFW

Late Night Feelings, Crosshair x F!Reader by : @kaminocasey NSFW

TBB x Reader Soft HC`s - Tall Guys by: @zoeykallus SFW

All in Favor of You, Poe Dameron x F!Reader by: @princessxkenobi SFW (ish)

The Cottage Part 3, Rebels!Rex x F!Reader by: @kaminocasey NSFW

Hunter: Enemy Mine 4 and 5, Hunter x F!Reader by @zoeykallus NSFW

Moving On part.10 Wolffe x F!OC Jirli by: @imabeautifulbutterfly SFW

The Hand that Feeds, Boba Fett x F!Reader Ch. 11 & 12 ( Finale and Epilogue ) by: @interstellarwraith SFW

TBB x F!Reader Spicey HC`s-Needing your attention by @zoeykallus NSFW

Tender Hearts 2/2 Dogma x F!Reader by: @nahoney22 NSFW

What Blooms in Thunder Final Chapter, Rex x F!Reader, Fives x Male OC, Lieutenant Rose x F! Reader by: @rowansparrow-writing NSFW

15th:

The Riders, Silco/Reader by: @a-gal-with-taste SFW

There for You 21, Echo x F!Reader by: @zoeykallus SFW

In Perfect Light Ch.30 Crosshair x F!Reader by: @interstellarwraith SFW

TBB x F!Reader HC`s - Holding a Baby by: @zoeykallus SFW

You`re Worlds Away, Din Djarin x F!Reader by: @interstellarwraith SFW

Do You Hear The People Sing, Fox x Reader, Thorn x Reader ( kinda ) by: @kaminocasey NSFW

Crosshair - My Beloved Enemy 39, Crosshair x F!Reader by: @zoeykallus NSFW

PAMARTHE ARC 3: HIREACH (HIGH-RAWK), Din Djarin x F!Reader by: @djarinsbeskar NSFW

TBB x F!Reader HCs - A Soldiers Love by @zoeykallus SFW

TBB x Reader HC`s - Get Rid of a Toxic Friend by: @zoeykallus SFW

Rex - In Love and War 9, Rex x F!Reader by @zoeykallus NSFW

TBB x Reader with coily hair by: @zoeykallus SFW

TBB, Maul, Kit Fisto, Fox x F!Reader HC`s - Adopting a Pet by: @zoeykallus SFW

TBB x F!Reader HC`s - To Be Heard by: @zoeykallus SFW

My Sweet Traitor, Imp!Crosshair x F!Reader 1/? by @zoeykallus SFW

TBB x Reader HC`s - Kitchen Dancing by: @zoeykallus Partly Suggestive

Always, Forever - Crosshair x F!Reader by: @interstellarwraith SFW

October 2022

November 2022

December 2022

Tagging: @imabeautifulbutterfly@chaoticvampirejedi@hellothere-generalangsty@cyroku@reluctant-mandalore@uponrightful@zinzinina@saradika@galacticgraffiti@ashotofspotchka@dindjarindiaries@dinbeskarbaby@djarrex@djarinsbeskar@rowansparrow@photogirl894@rigelmoonshine@rigel-the-moonstrider@nahoney22@loth-wolffe@neon-junkie@bobafetts-princess@cyarbika@charnelhouse@zoeykallus@kin-rokku@jgvfhl@honestly-shite@here-comes-the-moose@dindjarindiaries@firstofficerwiggles@fictional-men-ruin-lives @ladysongmaster @lozalot @moonstrider9904@lorjukka@m-o-o-n-s-g-o-o-n-s @rain-on-kamino @monako-jinn-stories

[not-really-a-writer]

Masterlist

All work is written for 18+ only, though many writings are not explicit, I do not want any minors interacting with any of my work or anything on this blog. Thanks in advance for respecting that.

I will keep this list updated, but I have no regular publishing schedule. I write when the creative juices flow, whenever that is. A lot of what I write is supremely self-indulgent ;) so I apologize in advance for that.

Headcannons/Fan theory

What may happen with Captain Howzer

Mixed race Bad Batch HC Part 1 | Part 2 (tba)

Fanfiction

Pairings/relationships are considered romantic unless platonic is specified. Detailed content warnings are in each post's description. General content warnings given on this list with the following markers: 🔥 anything suggestive/spicy/explicit (ranging from pg 13 + mature ), 💔 angst, 🍬 sweet fluff.

CLONE MEDIC KIX

🍬Museum date with Kix | Clone Medic Kix x reader

🔥You Can't Make Me | Clone Medic Kix x fem!reader

🔥Hitting on Kix | Clone Medic Kix x reader

🔥💔All Dressed up with Nowhere to go | Clone Medic Kix x fem!reader

Just Another Day | Clone Medic Kix x reader

ARC TROOPER FIVES

Moving Day | ARC Trooper Fives x reader

🍬Drunk Dial | ARC Trooper Fives x reader

Clonetober 2022: Day 22 Sick Fic/Allergies featuring ARC Trooper Fives x reader

🔥💔Lucky Girl | ARC Trooper Fives x OC "Aibree" feat. ARC Trooper Fives x reader

CAPTAIN REX

💔 The Ugly Friend | ARC Trooper Fives x reader, Captain Rex x reader

CAPTAIN GREGOR

🍬Something Sweet | Captain Gregor x reader

🔥Reprimand | Captain Gregor x fem!reader, implied Captain Gregor x fem!reader x Commander Cody

CAPTAIN HOWZER

🔥Countdown to a Kiss | Captain Howzer x reader

🔥The Jacket | Captain Howzer x fem!reader

Clonetober 2022: 🍬Day 20 Thunderstorms

COMMANDER CODY

🔥💔Notifications | Part 1 | Part 2| Part 3 |Part 4| Part 5 TBA!!! Commander Cody x fem!reader

🍬Brunch Spot | Commander Cody x reader

COMMANDER WOLFFE

🔥Untitled Commander Wolffe x reader

OTHERS/MULTIPLE

🔥Rough | Clone Trooper Sinker x reader

🔥Thirsty | ARC Trooper Echo x reader (could be interpreted as ARC Trooper Echo x reader x ARC Trooper Fives)

💔 🔥 Please Stay | Clone OC x fem!reader | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

🔥🍬Mother's Day Collection | Featuring Rex, Wolffe, Kix, Gregor and mom!reader. Also, Fives x pregnant!reader.

🍬Mothers Day Collection Part 2 (2023) | Featuring Cody, Howzer, and Mayday

Relationship HCs: Fights and Makeup Sex featuring Wolffe and Fives

Original Work

💔 My King | You are a warrior Queen returning as a captive to your fallen kingdom. 18+

Future Letters to the Love of My Life | Number 1 | Number 2 | Number 3 |Just letters to the future love of my life

💔A Kiss Goodbye | Poem about one sided love

💔Lyric Analysis of "Ceilings"

[monako-jinn-stories]

Jinn’s Multipart Stories

Main Master List

** is an on going series

**A Returning Echo ~ Echo X Fem!Reader (3 Multi-chapter Parts Series)

Before the Citadel ~ First Part

After the Citadel ~ Second Part

**It Started With a Vacation ~ Crosshair X Fem!Reader

Boba Fett: Special Payment ~ Boba X Fem!Reader *includes OC created and shared with @maygalodon

Boba Fett: The Tribute ~ Boba X GN!Reader

Rebels on the Run ~ Howzer X Fem!Reader

[masterjedilenawrites]

🍾One Shots🍾 [Archived]

⚠️ This is an old masterlist and has not been updated as of 2025. Please reference my new Master List of Stories here. ⚠️

Looking for a quick SW fix? Not in the mood to commit to longer tales? This is a collection of all my one-shots, both romantic and not, of all sorts of characters.

Check out other master lists here.

Old Friends (Cody & Boss)

Marshall Commander, Sir (Cody x fem!reader)(*NSFW*)

Here's To Many More (Echo x reader)

Take Care (Fives x reader)

Figured You'd Like It (Fives x grumpy!reader)

All I Want for Christmas (Fives x reader)

"I don't smile much..." (Hardcase x reader)

Falling For You (Jesse x reader)

He Is Loved (Jesse x reader)

Rest (Kix x reader)

Decisions, Decisions (Rex x fem!reader)

Handcuffed (Wolffe x reader)

"You’re so full of light...” (Crosshair x reader)

Not Ticklish (Crosshair x reader)

Birthday Surprise (Crosshair x reader)

Birthday Cake (Crosshair x reader)

Take Me Out (Crosshair x reader)

Drunk Shenanigans (Crosshair & Tech & reader)

"Who made you cry?” (Hunter x fem!S/O)

“A little blood comes with the territory” (Hunter x fem!reader)(*NSFW*)

A Shot in the Arm (TBB & Reader)

Family Scars (Hunter & Omega & TBB)

First Period (TBB & Omega)

Important Achievements (Tech x reader)

Baby Tears (Tech x fem!S/O)

The Stupidest Plan (Tech x reader)

A Silly Thing Like Sleep (Tech & TBB)

Opposites Attract (Wrecker x fem!reader)

The Way to a Man's Heart (Wrecker x reader)

The 116th (OC!Clone Unit & OC!Joan Vo)

Strawberry Fields (Blackout x reader)

Ready Or Not (Howzer x OC!Hope)

Worthy (Thorn x reader)

Old Friends (Boss & Cody)

Being Loved By… Cal Kestis (Cal x reader)

Not Going Anywhere (Cal x reader)

Fun Day (Cal x reader)

The Seeing Stone (A mysterious Sith & Grogu)

May The Books Be With You (Din & Grogu)

Look at Me (Din x reader)

The Seeing Stone (Grogu & a mysterious Sith)

Stitches & Longing (Poe x fem!S/O)

Asking Your Best Friend to be Your First [intro post] (Din, Cobb, or Boba x reader)(*NSFW*)

Cyare (Din x reader)(*NSFW*)

Darling (Cobb x reader)(*NSFW*)

Generally Awkward (Hux x S/O)

Two Sides of the Same Coin (Hux x reader)

Asking Your Best Friend to be Your First [intro post] (Boba, Din, or Cobb x reader)(*NSFW*)

Mesh'la (Boba x reader)(*NSFW*)

[jt-artsandfics]

Fanfic/ oneshots, number fics open

character match Ups. Closed again. I have over 20+ atm.

I'm gonna try and get thought as many as I can. I might have to close it for longer. But while it's closed I'm still taking Fanfic request.

Please know it does take me some time to write match ups. do take me a little while to do with such a demand for them. And also at the same time I'm working on fanfics around them. But thanks you all for your patients and I hope you enjoy what do to come.

*OPEN FOR BUSINESS!*

Rules: please if asking for Nsfw or reading be over 18 I have to say it.

Aloud: NSFW, fluff, smut, angst, hurt, mention of past abuse. (Alien love!!!)

I will not do: rape, abuse, Furries (I'm sorry I just don't write it), necrophilia, anything along that line.

Info for Match ups: please the basics, age, gender sexuality(if your comfortable) a small discriptuion of yourself and things you like. these you don't have to be 18 for but please over 15 for these, they are only gonna be cute fluffy writing. I do not do NSFW for maths ups only fanfics and one shots.

One shot and fanfic info: in happy to do nsfw but I do need confirmation your 18 or over either in your bio or on the ask. Same rules apply from 'rules'. Please state what gender you want the fanfic for otherwise I default to They/them for the writing just to be inclusive.

(Guys please be patient, I'm a guy so doing Character X fem reader takes me a bit is all)

Numbers for number fics are here. ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

-----

The Bad batch

Clone Force 99- Hunter

Clone Force 99- Tech

Clone Force 99- Crosshair

Clone Force 99- Wrecker

Clone Force 99 - Echo

Episode 11- Captain Howzer

--------

Star wars the clone wars

501st

Captain Rex

Kix

Jesse

Fives

Dogma

Hardcase

Tup

212th

Commander Cody

Gregor

Waxer

Boil

Crys

104th 'Wolfpack'

Commander Wolffe

Sinker

Comet

Boost

Warthog

Wildfire

Domino squad :,)

Heavy

Droidbait

Cutup

Echo

fives

Other clones

Oddball

Matchstick

Commander Fox

Commander Thorn

------

Grim Squad (my clone squad)

Weazel

Shreder

Jericho

Tiim

Fable

Maze

Gold-1

Ripple

Glaus

Newbie- Casket (my shiny son)

--------

Info. So I decided to add my own clone squad becuase it's me hahaha. I don't expect much with them but they are there anyway.

Well everything is set so I hope you all enjoy.

NEW ADDITION CHARCATERS!!!

Clone wars

Darth Maul

Savage Opress

Anakin Skywalker

Obi wan Kenobi

Plo Koon

Star wars Rebels.

Older wolffe

Older Rex

Older gregor

Thrawn

Agent Kallus

Eli Vanto ( I don't care if he isn't in it. He is to me!)

The mandolorian

Boba Fett

Din Djarin

Sequels

Armitage Hux

Kylo Ren/Ben solo

Finn

The old republic

Arcann Tirall

Darth Marr

Torian Cadera

OC Characters plus Feature art when asked for match ups or Fics.

Kodja Bathrian (clone wars twi'lek) Male

Varr'ivaz'loawe 'Ivaz' ( Outlander Old republic Chiss) male

[starqueensthings]

Summary: chapter starts after a three-week time jump. June and Challa have just completed another lesson on the combat base and continue to struggle with the students. After forming a plan of attack, June reenters the base and quickly gets disoriented attempting to find her way out. Anxiety begins to boil as she finds herself somewhat cornered in a dead end hallway… until someone arrives to save the day

Rating/WC: all chapters are 16+ for subject matter unless otherwise noted | 6835 words (she’s a long one, folks!)

WARNINGS: mild graphic language, mild anxiety.

A/N: not particularly proud of this chapter, but I’ve worked and reworked it too many times now… my brain is turning into scrambled egg. As always, if you see typos, run on sentences, and/or passive verbs… no you don’t.

PLEASE ENSURE YOU’VE READ THE FOREWORD LINKED BELOW FOR AN IN-DEPTH DESCRIPTION OF WHAT DEGREE OF CONTENT YOU CAN EXPECT THROUGHOUT THIS STORY BEFORE PROCEEDING.

FOREWORD | MASTER | PREV | NEXT | ao3

“Maybe I'll just drag the whole desk to the back corner…” June groused, the acerbic nature of her current mood completely laid bare by both the bite neath her words, and the emphatic yank she offered that connection cord as she tugged it from the port in Challa’s tablet. “I know it’s not going to solve anything, but… I have to do something. I'm losing my mind, and I know you are too.”

Though he granted her an indulgent snort whilst hoisting his bag on to the podium and peeling the zipper apart to rehome his trusted device, his succeeding response failed to match the antipathy surging through his colleague’s boiling blood. “Yes,” he began with a sigh. “Securing their attention today did prove particularly challenging.”

While the true vitriol of which she yearned to voice vied desperately to escape the corral behind pursed lips, she permitted only a small huff to escape her nose, as the notion of inciting yet another potentially caustic discussion about how that century of troopers continuously failed to offer them the respect their title should merit, promised to only intensify the disgust she felt toward those students, and the dejection that had long-since robbed Challa’s eyes of that neon ambition.

Instead, only a frustrated sigh was granted its leave, obscenely rattling her lips as it fled the tense container of her chest, and though that laden breath did momentarily succeed in dissipating a portion of the ire she’d trapped in her jaw during that near-tortuous three-hour lecture, it was a mere second before her upper lip began to flatten in earnest atop the vivid recollection of a soldier in the first row assaulting her taciturn perch behind the desk by winking and licking his lips at near-regular intervals.

Correctly recognizing the disgruntlement neath that poignant exhale (having heard it depart her scowling lips on countless occasions), Challa cast her something near an apologetic glance, lips compressed into a thin line of sympathy whilst a ruminative silence saturated the air between them.

And though she avidly sought any sense of resolution to the behaviour that saw her deliberately hidden behind her datapad twice a week for a trio of hours, Challa’s countering silence was not fuelled by the dismissive finality it would have appeared to be, but by the considerate notion of repeating words already spoken only threatened to exacerbate her merciless chagrin; he’d been audience to her exasperated invective a handful of times now, including the off-site meeting last weekend where the pair discussed June’s frustration ad nauseum amidst hopes it may appease some portion of her distress.

“There isn’t a single cell in my body that doesn’t sympathize with you, June,” he’d assuaged upon the reemergence of her grievances, pausing only to hand her a fresh mug of homemade caf and take a seat atop the only sofa cushion they hadn’t blanketed in several weeks worth of upcoming lesson plans. “And while it won’t offer the consolation you seek, watching it unfold from behind the podium is quite disheartening; I can certainly understand why you must feel something of ‘a fish in a bowl’. You see, from what Eagle divulged during our tour, you are one of very few women granted access to the combat base; the remaining majority are Jedi, whose allotted military rank commands an inherent degree of respect from the clones, and a handful of nosey senators who turn their noses up and see themselves out within minutes of arriving. To compound the issue further, our audience presents as quite undersocialized due to the geographical seclusion of the planet they’ve only recently departed. But this true challenge is this—” He paused to shift his weight against the arm of the sofa, balancing his own hot mug on his knee with one hand, while the other draped atop the backrest of the seat beside him. “—If you remember, our contract explicates that we, under no circumstances, are to act as disciplinarians. The nature of their training requires that soldiers be reprimanded with consistent, particular practices to ensure any resulting resentment does not impact the resolve of their loyalty to their superiors or the objective. For us to enforce a punishment of any variation would act as both a disservice to their training and a breach of our contract. Eagle has advised me that we can report any… misbehaviour… to him, but— I’m sorry, June, it must remain at that.”

Today had seen their sixth lesson brought to completion amid an unchanged dynamic, though thanks to some tacit premise, the troopers had apparently earmarked lessons on Zhellday mornings as an opportunity for an uninhibited nap away from the castigation of their superior officers. Quickly identifying that unexpected, yet, welcome placidity as the perfect means to enact a tidbit of revenge for their abysmal behaviour, June proceeded to let her datapad fall with a thunderous bang atop that desk at first sign of those lids beginning to droop, stifling a series of dubious giggles with pursed lips as their eyes sprang open and their shoulders jerked in alarm.

But those micro moments of vengeance, while instantly effective at boosting her morale, were fleeting at most. Sadly, each of the four lessons they’d notched into their belt was accompanied by a dispirited, post-class conversation about how little those soldiers seemed to be engaging with that so-imperative content. Challa, who had spent sleepless days… weeks… meticulously crafting that course curriculum to ensure every lecture was laden with the knowledge that promised to extend the lives of his students, had taken their arrant disinterest very personally. That once-springing step had returned to something-near a flat footed slap as he moped around the hospital, those already narrow shoulders sagging even further beneath a rejection of which he could not understand, and did not know how to rectify.

Though June had seized every possible opportunity to grouse in Jacoba’s ear about the recurrent salacious etiquette of those students (including a detailed depiction of every licentious hand gesture made across the room in her direction), the magnitude of Challa’s perceived failure, and how wholly it had robbed him of that once-aflamed determination, managed to supercede her own discomfort. Following in his wake as he slumped down those dark, industrial halls toward the amphitheater of their apparent ineptitude saw her less wary about the repugnance that would, undoubtedly, surge beneath her skin in only minutes, and more concerned about how long Challa could willingly stand behind that podium and wordlessly beg that century of soldiers for the attention he knew would prognosticate their safety if they would only listen.

He thanked June in a little more than a mumble as she slid his datapad into his bag, thoughtlessly reconnecting its buckles and tossing it over his shoulder amidst a poignant sigh. After collecting her own, much smaller bag from the floor behind teacher’s desk, the duo crossed the room in silence. Desperate to create separation from the potent frustration still fuelling her heart's aggressive cadence, and because she’d long-since lost the invaluable map stashed away on their first day, June fell into a brooding gait behind her boss and pulled her holopad from her purse, all-too willing to let his presence half-a-step ahead guide her back through the maze of that still unknown compound.

“They’re just not connecting to the material like I thought they would,” Challa mused as they neared the heavy durasteel door that would permit their reentry to the civilian world. “I truly believed that the promise of a complete, theoretical knowledge of combat medicine would see them intrigued at least. Though, I’m now realizing that may have been a gross overestimation.”

“They’re intrigued all right,” June griped from behind him, blue eyes narrowed slightly as they scanned the surgical schedule she’d accessed via the device still cradled in her hands, “By my chest...”

He sighed again, palm thoughtlessly reaching to massage the tension that heavy brow seemed unable to release as the door to the speeder lot slid open, bathing them in effulgent midday sunlight. “Perhaps I need to revisit the lecture content,” he suggested, politely gesturing for her to cross the threshold ahead of him whilst shifting his hand to shield his eyes from the unexpected, yet, welcome onslaught of spring sun. “Perhaps I’ll need to further trim some objectively tedious areas, and propagate othe–”

“You know we can’t tweak any more of the content,” June rebutted quickly upon hearing the despondency behind those words, and it required only a fleeting glance upward to recognize the strain amid his lissome features as he gnawed the insides of his cheeks. “We entertained that option last week, and it’s not feasible. You were extremely intentional with the material you assigned to each lecture; it’s all information they need to learn before they get deployed or they’re not going to last any longer than the first generation medics. And, if that’s the case, we’re wasting our tim—”

“Then what do you suggest?” Challa hissed back, long fingers falling to his side in something near despair as he halted upon that threshold.

June froze half a breath later, that biting exasperation rendering her unsurprised as she turned to find those violet eyes narrowed amidst the same undeniable appeal for help that had soaked his plea… and she near-cowered under its intensity. Averting her own gaze to the loose gravel beneath her shoes, she upheld an apologetic silence, entirely unable to provide him the solution that he so desperately sought.

“I eagerly await any suggestion you may have, June,” he pressed, offering a one-shouldered shrug that instantly exposed his distress. “Anything. I need your infamous, out-of-the-box insight. I need you to attune that inherent clone-connection and help me establish a means of liaising with them, because most of them want nothing to do with me or this class, and it's going to undoubtedly cost them their lives.”

“I know, but— How am I— What do I—”

Hurrying to bridle that slew of indignant stammers, she pursed her lips, though despite each emotion-fuelled protest battling that restriction atop at her tongue, June was largely cognizant that voicing any or all of those weak arguments would only serve a disservice in their feat of finding a solution. And worse still, beneath that awareness was an uncomfortably effervescent layer of near-guilt; though she’d always rebuffed the continuously implied notion of ‘clone fluency’ to which she’d been, apparently, divinely imbued, there was no denying that the visceral distaste of the soldiers’ mild derogation had almost entirely eclipsed the commitment she’d once promised to this project and her friend.

“Anything,” he repeated, closing the space between them and putting a discerning hand on her shoulder.

“What if—” she started slowly, clamping her eyes closed atop a need to abscond from those anguished, violet eyes. “I don’t know… What if we just change our approach to the lecture content?”

His call for answers now saw Challa silent… frozen… seemingly unwilling to proffer even a breath lest it rob her of the incipient proposal he so ardently coveted.

It took a series of forceful blinks to fully eradicate the blur from June’s vision upon meeting his gaze again, as reopening her eyes had seen them instantly rebuke the power of that gleaming sun, and though that brief moment of pseudo-solitude via visual darkness helped appease the remaining dregs of her ire, the duress of his expectant gaze seemed only reinvigorated by that uncharacteristic patience.

“Well if they’re going to just sit there and be distracted,” June began, nodding over her shoulder toward where their respective speeders sat side by side before continuing on the journey across that crunchy, gravel lot. “Why can’t we use that to our advantage? Why can’t we find a way to distract them with the information? Why can’t we get their dicks out of their hands, and put MedScanners in them instead?”

She cast him a sidelong glance as she neared her speeder bike, wholly expecting that near-vulgar comment to have elicited some degree of silent condemnation from his prudish and scornful lips, but, to her surprise, there was nothing of the sort. Even the intensity of the plea behind those eyes had been replaced by a pensive cogitation.

“Hmm.” She watched his focus dart to and fro between proliferating ideas known only to his exceptional mind, that heavy brow furrowing with each passing breath, whilst little more than quiet murmurs escaped those thin lips. “Well, that’s… that could prove… hmm… attentive? Well, certainly. Yes… but perhaps both?… Both…”

June took the opportunity presented by that regenerated rumination to swap her holopad for her bike keys at the bottom of her bag, deftly unlocking the hidden compartment below her seat and tossing her purse carelessly into its depths.

“This holds potential,” Challa posed as she latched it closed again. “Holds promise even, if handled correctly. And dare I say— it may be your best idea yet.”

“I like the sounds of that,” she answered atop the ghost of a chuckle as she prepared to toss a leg over the seat of her bike. “But probably smart to chat about it later tonight. You’ve got a neuroendoscopy on the books in like ten minut—”

“And— well… I think our best chances of success lay in your very capable hands.”

His tone brightened almost as rapidly as that dejection seeped from his features, something resembling a prickling confidence erupting behind his eyes and stealing her attention so abruptly that her hands simply froze midway between their previous perch on her hip, and the handlebars to which she had begun to reach.

Eyes quickly narrowing under a burgeoning suspicion, she peered back at her boss, the harrowing implications of his vague proposal forcing her toe back toward that compacted dust below.

“What do you mean?” she asked him slowly, her own tone darkening amidst a question that hardly needed asking, the inference of that near-dubious smirk tugging upward on his lips instantly providing her the truth she needn’t have probed for. “Challa, you better not be on the brink of asking me t—”

”I’d like you to lead the next lecture. I think having, as you would say, ‘their dicks in their hands’ may actually prove beneficial if their MedTools are in the other.”

“Are you kidding me?” June near-gasped, followed by an incredulous laugh as she glared slack-jawed and completely perplexed toward her audacious boss. “Are you insane? Have we not been sitting in the same classroom for the last two weeks? Half of them aren’t listening to you because they’re staring at me. How is putting me behind the p—”

“Precisely,” he interrupted with an infuriating simplicity. “If my hypothesis bears any merit, and they typically do, these troopers may just be more willing to listen to the person they’re staring at. After all, June, you can not deny that you have their attention, whether it's the way you’d like or not.”

“It’s not—”

“And who knows,” he pressed on as if she hadn’t attempted to interject. “If the plan proves effective, you may be able to teach them a little respect while you’re at it.”

‘Not a chance,’ she thought instantly with an indignant shake of the head.

Every passing second saw Challa’s brows lift ever higher toward the top of his head whilst that duo remained near-locked in a battle of opposing insistence, the maddening smirk atop his lips rivaled by the equally potent scowl atop her own; each of them adamantly refusing to procure the white flag of concession and let it flutter in that beautiful spring zephyr.

“What’d’ya say we just try?” he urged upon watching her arms knot across her chest in a gesture of unrestrained obstinance. “It doesn’t have to be permanent, but it’s a viable option in the interim while we brainstorm other facets. Please?”

June sighed heavily. Filled with a mounting regret for even having uttered the wanton remark that triggered this unwelcome scheme, she peered sternly through the veil of her lashes whilst her lips compressed to withhold another incredulous scoff. There was precisely nothing appealing about this idea… nothing except it had returned that paralyzingly hopeful smile to Challa’s face.

“Fine,” she spat at him. “But there better be a bottle of Alderanian purple wine on my desk tomorrow morning. Black label with the wax top.”

She watched his nimble fingers ball inward into fists and shoot toward the sky amidst a motion of unadulterated glee, a cry of delight leaving his lips as he reached to readjust the bag now slipping earnestly off his shoulder amidst his mirthful motions.

“And if there’s even one comment about my anatomy…” she warned, pointing a menacing finger toward his chest. “I will break someone’s nose.”

“Understood,” Challa agreed, arms swinging awkwardly as if he’d briefly entertained the urge to throw them around her shoulders in an embrace of gratitude, but thought better of it lest he return to work in need of an urgent nasal realignment. ”Let’s meet in my office later to discuss details. I know we weren’t planning on opening the MedKits until much later in the course but I think it may be prudent to—”

”Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she grumbled. “We’ll talk later. Now get going! You have brain surgery in three minutes.”

Challa dashed across that speeder lot and clambered into his air speeder with the same urgency that had seen him trotting down the hall for their first ever lecture with June breathlessly attempting to keep up from half a pace behind him, and the sudden return to that beaming optimism was the only thing presently keeping her from groaning her potent displeasure aloud.

“And I want a Cleanser Tube for my apartment!” she shouted to his retreating figure, watching his speeder hover soundlessly atop the ground toward the exit, and he offered her only a small wave before departing that deserted lot and disappearing into the skyway.

Having heard her outcry through that permeable, barbed gate, the troopers flanking either side turned toward her, smiles hidden behind their buckets; the one on the left quietly muttering a disgruntled ‘civvies…’ before quickly returning to his straight-backed post.

It wasn’t until June had swung her leg over her seat and kicked that bike into life did her bespoiled mood reach a sinister and unprecedented apex, the momentary peace gained by the promise of a premium bottle of her favourite wine was instantly usurped by a sudden realization… the hoarse chuckle leaving the lips of the trooper loitering just outside that barbed barrier had sounded immediately familiar, and hardly a moment passed amidst a burgeoning puzzlement before she’d placed that sound. The unshaven trooper in the administration office had once granted her that same gruff chortle, hurrying to erect himself from an almost complete recline atop that worn desk chair; overgrown brows reaching toward his unkempt hairline and that gravelly snicker escaping his lips as she attempted to prevaricate his request for a formal introduction by offering her name in little more than a mumble before hastily dropping a folder into the intake tray on his desk… the attendance folder that they’d forgotten to return today amid their haste to leave.

”Noooooo,” she cried aloud, head tipping toward that glorious blue sky while her hands released their grip on the handlebars and slumped heavily into her lap.

Having failed to read her contract in its entirety (a truth she’d sooner pitch herself over the mouth of the underworld than admit to), June wasn’t entirely sure what repercussions would ensue if they failed to provide that completed document at the end of each lesson; she typically just simply followed in Challa’s wake as he tucked the folder neath his arm and marched them safely through those bustling corridors. And worse than having to endure the potential consequences of their negligence, she wasn’t even entirely sure she’d have the wherewithal to find her way to their classroom and back without him.

“Ugh,” she growled, killing the engine of her bike with an aggressive crank of the key and clambering off, feet thudding atop that gravel with renewed wrath. “Why? Why does the Maker hate me so? What could I have done in my past life…”

The hallway sitting opposite of that heavy durasteel barrier presented as utterly foreign in the complete void of her boss’s presence. Surely there hadn’t always been that many corridors adjacent to this one, branching out of sight through what seemed to be several dozen more doors than she remembered that wide hallway ever housing? And only increasing that rapidly emerging dread, it seemed whichever fool tasked with designing this contained community had opted to ensure that every threshold looked damn-near identical to the one next to it.

Swallowing what she could of that injustice still asimmer in her gut, she fit her thumbnail between her teeth, eyes darting fervently from one threshold to the next amid a desperate effort to orient herself while she stepped cautiously back into the dim of that esoteric corridor.

‘Damnit, what was it that he said?’ she asked herself, brow furrowing atop the effort to correctly recall Challa’s breathless rambling as he first led them to their classroom several weeks ago. ‘Eleventh door on the right, not including the elevator?’

Her feet took her apprehensively toward the first corridor on the left, eyes darting around for any sign or semblance of familiarity.

‘One… two… three,’ she counted as she trod down the hall, the lingering disdain for her boss entirely diminished by how desperately she wished his embossed lekku were swaying in tune with his step, half a pace in front of her and unknowingly shepherding her through that network of foreign pathways.

The eleventh door looked like nothing she’d ever attempted to enter before. An archaic chrome door handle sat off center in that steel barricade, and try as she might, she simply could not remember ever having needed to turn a handle on her regular journey through these halls, as modern overhead sensors typically activated touch-free upon approach. The tenth door however, immediately adjacent on her right, was an open threshold leading into a much narrower corridor.

“Okay… now last door on the left before the stairwell,” she recalled through the tight clamp of her teeth, immediately turning to pass through that promising entryway. “At least… I think?”

The sound of her sneakers atop that gleaming black floor reverberated near-thunderously around the otherwise deserted hallway, that rhythmic pat pat mixed with the assaulting pound of her heart in her ears worked in stereo to intensify the foreboding in her gut as she neared the last door on the left.

“Please be the right kriffing door,” she pleaded to that empty space, collecting the ID card from her pocket and scanning it across the control panel.

But that acknowledging beep was too familiar, and with a warm wash of relief that door slid aside to expose the now welcome comfort of her classroom. Immediately apparent, and seemingly deriding her negligence with its innocent perch atop that barren desk, was that vapid flimsi folder, and June withheld none of the curses spilling from her lips as she crossed the stage to collect it.

‘Okay, now where is that kriffing Admin office,’ she demanded silently, tucking her prize under her arm and closing the door behind her again. ‘I know it’s next to those big glass doors that lead outside…’

She walked cautiously back in the direction of that central hall, careful to count doorways as they passed through her periphery. She offered nothing but a small snort as a goateed trooper in armour of white and cobalt blue passed her in the hall, charismatically asking if she needed help finding her way back to heaven, though thankfully met no other presence as she rounded a series of subsequent corners.

A cresting wave of pride and serendipitous fortune had her near-leaping on the spot as she turned to find that familiar, broad corridor— the transparent walls of her destination immediately recognizable thanks to their uncanny ability of reflecting the dazzling light pouring in through those neighbouring glass doors, that gargantuan threshold leading to what looked like an oversized, albeit barren, courtyard beyond.

“Hi. Sorry this is late. I hope that’s okay …Bye.”

Her address to the protocol droid behind the counter was near pathetic, offering nothing more but a pitiful apology whilst extracting the folder from under her arm and tossing it haphazardly into the “incoming documents” tray as the sound of her voice near-instantly arose that very scruffy, very tired looking soldier from his perch behind that cluttered desk.

June darted from the room before he could open his mouth to instigate conversation, instead letting the door thud heavily behind her and taking a hurried right turn down the nearest hall… then an immediate left… another left… until…

“Oh no.”

A dead end. She groaned under her breath as her eyes darted toward the unexpected limitations of that tenebrous corridor, its unwelcome appearance quickly forcing a theatrical slump to her shoulders. “Where am I now? And where is that damn map I had?”

Right hand thoughtlessly tapping the cargo pocket in her pants, as if that flimsi key to a successful exodus would suddenly appear to aid in her exploits, she fit the thumbnail of her left between her teeth again and sighed. But she was granted barely a second to dwell in the regret of her own stupidity before her stomach sank ever further…

A collection of resounding, nonmetrical footsteps met her ears, escorted by the blare of a conversation so raucous it was entirely indiscernible from the echo that succeeded every booming word. A choir of hoarse, throaty laughter rang around the corners of her perch, and though that conversation remained mummed by the anxiety of their incipient arrival, ungluing her shoes from the durasteel floor to evade that unseen crowd, proved a task near impossible as each passing second drew them nearer. Any second now they’d pass across the mouth of her semi secluded position. Would they see her? And how many were they? The near-identical nature of their voices meant it was impossible to discern one from the other, but their footsteps? Four? Maybe five?

She swallowed and turned her back, bringing her fingers uselessly to her face so she could mindlessly stare at the abhorrent destruction of her thumbnail, and feign some degree of nonchalance lest one of the intruders notice her attempt to eschew their company.

“Jigs is kriffing di’kut.”

“Nah, he’s a beauty.”

“You know you give them way too long of a leash… all your men.”

“Why shouldn’t I? None of us signed up for this. Who's to say we can’t find a little fun here and there while we’re waiting to dance in the sky?”

“Uhhhh, maybe your CO?”

“Meh, Ponds loves me. I get things done. He doesn’t care how I do it as long as he can check my missions off his list and my casualty numbers stay low.”

“So he says to your face. Maker, I hope I’m around to see the day your ass is assigned a Jedi.”

“I don’t know, Keels. My General is pretty reckless too. Skywalker doesn’t seem to have any interest in playing by the rules…”

It wasn’t until her lungs began to protest the duress of that held breath did the chorus begin to taper, words obscuring as distance robbed them of their once undeniable clarity, further muffling that banter with every step past her unseen perch. She’d barely permitted a sigh of relief to escape her lips, turning back around to continue her now plightful crusade back to the speeder lot, when something caught her eye.

A meticulously cropped head of dark hair suddenly poked back around the corner at the mouth of that hallway, followed moments later by a set of twinkling amber eyes… an impossibly angular jaw… a teal pauldron…

“June?”

The recollection of her name was proven instantly redundant by the expression atop his features, as it near-perfectly enacted the same adorably pleasant confusion once adorned several weeks ago upon their first meeting in 18-S, and though the lambency neath that olive skin could only mean he’d found himself a few good meals and several nights of rest, there was no mistaking the lopsided smile peeling across those now-supple lips as he back peddled into her line of sight.

“Howzer,” she near-choked as the breath inhaled to replace its stale counterpart froze midway to her lungs at the familiar sight of that gallant, white-and-teal kit.

The intoxicating blend of surprise and relief sent her skin atingle as he stepped toward her, the metallic thud of impenetrable boots atop thick steel that, seconds prior, had seen her heart hammering heavily against the walls of her chest, seemed now entirely muffled by the stupefaction coursing through her veins, and though her feigned composure was betrayed by how earnestly her cheeks enflamed as he drew nearer, she could not bridle the smile peeling across her own face.

Howzer came to a halt half a step in front of her, beaming lips parting to seemingly offer some sort of salutation to accompany the reddening of his own ears, but—

“Ey! Howz! Where the kriff are you going? We’re going to be late!”

The captain failed to answer that stern and reproachful summon from round the corner, refusing to deviate his gaze from her as his head shifted a mere millimeter toward that reverberating nag; honeyed eyes narrowing slightly beneath a burgeoning confusion, as if concerned they may be playing tricks on him, as if her seemingly inexplicable appearance may be little more than a cruel mirage.

June stood rooted to the spot, chest heaving amidst the surging adrenaline of first being stranded in this foreign maze of corridors, suddenly cornered, then thrust unceremoniously in front of the very person that wielded an inexplicable power to freeze the air in her lungs.

“What— what are you doing here?” Howzer asked neath a suppressed chuckle, shifting his helmet in its confine below his arm.

“I— Well, I’m kinda lost to be honest.” Her admission came atop an embarrassed snicker of her own, and when attempting to flex the relentless tingle from her fingers proved fruitless, she wrenched her gaze from the teal stripe extending down his chestplate and scanned her surroundings instead.

“Lost?” he repeated, dark brows furrowing slightly. “You’re a long way from the hospital, Mesh—”

“Howz! Come on!”

Again he ignored the demanding call of his hidden comrade, and the continued refusal to wrench his gaze from her despite an apparently urgent appointment had her bottom lip disappearing behind her teeth to intercept the threat of another bashful smirk.

“You don’t say…” she chirruped, offering a goofy smile whilst absently reaching to tuck a lock of dark hair behind her ear. “No, I know. I’m… I’m actually helping my boss out. We have a teaching contract with the medic cadets here for the next few months.”

The superficial lines around his eyes, aiding in that adorable furrow and reinforcing the notion that those globes of amber brown had likely seen a lot more than most of his younger bretheren, disappeared entirely as they widened in surprise, lips shifting to compress into a grimace of something near reverence.

“Oh wow,” he answered, gaze dancing warmly across her features as if she’d divulged something truly impressive or prodigious. “That makes sense, actually. I should have known when they said ‘blue eyes’.”

“Who said what…?”

“The shinies. They’ve been whispering non-stop about this ‘hot new civvie’ for weeks.”

As if arriving on cue to reintensify her simmering resentment for that continued execrable behaviour, the memory of that salacious, lip-licking soldier erupted in her mind anew, bringing with it a surge of anger strong enough to rid her cheeks of that flush and send her gaze rolling toward the ceiling.

“Ugh… I hope you’re joking,” she guffawed, readjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder and knotting her arms over her chest.

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Howzer answered, the smile still hitched to those lips falling only slightly as his gaze narrowed to perceive her overt disdain. “You do have unbelievable blue eyes tho—”

“Howzer!”

“I’ll catch up!” He cocked that sharp jaw over his shoulder only far enough to shout the sentiment down the dark corridor, the rest of his features still surveying her with a curious intrigue until the echo of his vociferation dissipated. “Is class just starting? Or are you heading out?”

“Heading out,” she answered, unfolding her arms from their drape across her chest. “Primeday’s and Zhellday’s we teach until 11, and I just go to work from here.”

“Hmm,” he hummed, that alluring smile peeling back across those lips before tipping his wrist to check the time. “11, huh? Maybe I can take you on a little tour before you go? Show you around? Might save you from getting lost next tim—”

”Does that di’kut not know the Commanders are sitting in? Howzer! LET’S GO!”

”Just leave him, Keels. He said it himself, he’s Ponds’s favourite anyway. He’ll be fine.”

June pursed her lips to prevent the chortle erupting in her chest from spilling from her mouth, as Howzer’s heavy sigh of frustration laid bare that he didn’t find the merciless pestering from his companions nearly as amusing as she did. They locked eyes for a second as she choked back her laughter, a derisive snort leaving his nose as he shook his head.

“Kinda seems like you might have somewhere you need to be,” June snickered, gesturing with a nod in the direction of that unseen search party, their dulcet tones still ringing around the vacant corners of that corridor.

“Yeah, I guess I do,” he sighed sadly. “At least let me walk you out?”

”I would actually appreciate that,” June answered in earnest. “I feel like I could wander around here for a decade and still never make it out because all the damn doors look the same.”

Heat resurged to her cheeks as he tipped his head back and laughed, sightlessly shifting his helmet to nestle under his other arm as he met her gaze again. “You’re not wrong,” he snorted. “Where abouts are you parked?”

“Um…” she started, an apologetic grimace distorting her features upon the realization that her indolent habit of simply following Challa both through the skyway and down those halls had rendered her more naive and unprepared than she ever thought she would be. “I’m not sure what lot. The one beside the big purple tarps?”

“North,” he answered immediately. “Not actually that far from here so you didn’t wander for long.”

His posture shifted away from her only long enough to gesture that she proceed back the way she came before falling into stride on her right only a moment later, and it wasn’t until he’d peered down at her with a bashful smile that she remembered just how imposing he was in that dominating suit.

‘He was half naked last time you saw him,’ she quickly reminded herself in an effort to justify why she’d hadn’t previously made note of the significant difference in their stature, though the recollection of his bare form had her instantly wishing the subtle, earthy aroma of his aftershave wasn’t wafting down at her and intensifying that incessant tingle neath her skin.

“How’d the cut heal up?” she asked as they rounded another corner, vying that her tone remain casual.

“Oh, good as new,” Howzer replied, casting her an appreciative smile. “You did a great job. I don’t mind the scar either… It’s a good story.”

June bit back the grin attempting to make an appearance in light of his passive praise, instead turning to offer him a cocked-brow of skepticism. While the laceration itself had been a doozy, she couldn’t recall the tale behind it being overly thrilling or harrowing enough to boast about.

“Must be a different story than the one you told me,” she teased. “Unless you’re telling your friends it was that ‘knife wielding maniac’?”

“I might be,” Howzer replied with a guilty grin of his own. “Nah… there isn’t a better story than getting patched up by the prettiest doctor in the galaxy… and it’s not even a lie.”

“Maker have mercy,” she scoffed, attempting to prevent the butterflies in her stomach from escaping through her mouth with a pursed lip smile. “That was cripplingly cheesy.”

Those twinkling eyes vanished beneath crinkled lids as his head tipped backward again, and that same loud chortle escaped his lips and raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

“It was, wasn’t it?” he chuckled. “And it’s not really my style, but my brother said it was bound to work if I could ever get lucky enough to see you again. How’d I do?”

She offered him a one-shouldered, jesting shrug, feigning indifference with a passive grimace and watching the bashful smile peeling across his lips. “What is your style?”

“My style?” he repeated, motioning for her to turn and pass through an open threshold on the right. “I don’t really have one. Right now, it’d be doing everything I can to learn more about you…”

“Well, to start, I’d much prefer real cheese,” she told him, rounding yet another corner. “Nothing woo’s me quite like a snack and a hot caf.”

“Caf and a snack,” he repeated, seemingly committing that notion to memory. “I’ll remember that.”

A welcome sense of familiarity ensued as they veered slightly left and came upon that heavy sliding durasteel barrier that June knew to lead outside.

Howzer stepped half a stride in front of her and opened it as they approached, before gesturing for her to pass over the threshold and into the radiant sunlight ahead of him. The pair of security troopers still loitering just beyond that chain gate turned at the unexpected, jovial intrusion before simultaneously releasing the back ends of their rifles from their gloved grips, and snapping into identical salutes.

Howzer repeated the motion somewhat lazily, though it had apparently offered enough of an acknowledgement for that security duo to return to their post.

As she’d opted to leave her bag locked in its concealed compartment before trudging back into the base, June wasted no time swinging her leg over her dust-covered seat and reigniting the engine.

“Maybe—” Howzer started as she picked her feet off the ground and placed them in the stirrups in prep for her departure. “Maybe I’ll get to see you again on Primeday?”

She watched his masseters momentarily expand neath a jaw clenched tightly in trepidation, deep golden eyes now gleaming in that effulgent sun as they danced somewhat nervously across her features while he reached to absently trail a gloved finger to and fro across his lip. That reminiscent motion near-instantly took her back to watching him self soothe atop the hoverbed in 18-S, blood stained finger repeating that useless swing across a parched lip in an effort to rid himself of a portion of the discomfort he’d been sitting with for hours… and she smiled.

“I’ll be here,” she answered with a shrug.

“Okay cool,” he answered amidst a small snicker of relief. “Hopefully I am too, if the war doesn’t have other plans…”

June froze, brow furrowing and eyes widening at the implications of his inappropriately morbid statement, and she turned to face him with nothing short of a horrified look atop her previously smiling features.

“Deployed,” he clarified upon seeing her expression, smile slipping instantly from his lips. “Just shipped off-world. Sorry, I did not phrase that properly. Deployed… not dead.”

“Well… hopefully neither,” she replied with a snort, stooping forward to place her hands on the handle bars.

“Hopefully neither,” he repeated, lips tensing amid an embarrassed smirk, and offering her a respectful nod as she began to glide slowly toward the gate.

“Thanks for the tour,” she called over her shoulder as he stepped back to watch her depart, the glance she risked toward his still chagrined expression lingering only long enough to see those eyes begin to crinkle amid a genuine smile and she offered nothing more than a quick smirk of her own before waving her ID card in front of the control panel and sneaking her bike through that slowly rolling gate.

FOREWORD | MASTER | PREV | NEXT | ao3

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[starqueensthings]

Foreword | Prev | Next | ao3

WARNINGS: brief allusions to a traumatic past (June), but no detail provided. Moderate medical anxiety (Howzer). Moderately graphic descriptions of medical injuries. Repeated mentions of blood and discomfort/pain. RATING: 16+ for mature themes and mild to moderate whump. WC: 4500ish. (This chapter and the next were never intended to be separated, but it accumulated to nearly 8k words, and pruning certain aspects of this encounter in the name of brevity would only do a disservice to this story, so I apologize for the somewhat abrupt way this chapter ends). PLEASE ENSURE YOU’VE READ THE FOREWORD BEFORE PROCEEDING FOR AN IN-DEPTH DESCRIPTION OF WHAT DEGREE OF CONTENT YOU CAN EXPECT THROUGHOUT THIS STORY.

“Uh… yeah?”

The responding voice was barely discernible over the cacophony radiating down that bustling hall, though was both unmistakably bathed in the accented intonation of a clone soldier, and seemingly quite confused by the civility of her gesture.

With a preparatory sigh, June prodded the control panel on the wall adjacent to the door and stepped back for it to permit her entry. Immediately apparent directly opposite that threshold, and sitting somewhat stooped atop that pathetic excuse of a paper bed sheet, was CT-5863.

If the Gods of technology were to ever bless it with the power of human deduction, the chrono on the wall behind him would have asserted that those blue eyes locked on his for the span of only a second; barely half of an inhale, a torpid blink at most. But, surely, too much had happened in that moment of unprecedented placidity for a mere “second” to have been all that passed.

Those armoured legs, wholly encrusted with the evidence of several rotations in grueling action, instantly ceased their absentminded swing over the long edge of that uncomfortably rigid gurney. The way his brows softened only enough for those gleaming brown eyes to widen in unrestrained surprise had her famined stomach plummeting near-painfully toward her toes in a sensation she was both unfamiliar with and unprepared for, and had the highly polished durasteel floor beneath her sneakers not continued to reflect the abhorrent fluorescent light overhead, that feeling only would have her entirely convinced she was now freefalling toward the cobblestone courtyard some eight stories below.

“Hi,” she squeaked as his expression continued to soften, that unprofessionally casual address escaping her tongue completely void of intention and thought, and had she not felt her jaw shift to let it pass through her lips, it could have been entirely feasible to believe that the salutation came from a third party.

If there was any semblance of a response waiting atop his tongue, it remained inhibited by the stupefaction still working its way across that tanned face. Lips initially contracted against the relentless gnaw of pain, now parting enough to expose their ragged and wind burnt nature and convey his unbridled bewilderment; those brows once furrowed beneath the act of being left to wallow for hours in the virile discomfort of a neglected wound, shifting to diminish that charming crease between them.

“Hi,” he echoed, reddened lips drawn slowly toward his ear ahead the beginnings of a one-sided smile that promised to only intensify her already befuddling paralysis.

June swallowed, that brief constriction of the throat reorienting the contents of her stomach momentarily granting her the abeyance to wrench her gaze from his, a gesture worthy of recognition based solely on how absurdly arduous of a task it seemed. ‘What am I doing here again?’ she asked herself, right hand thoughtlessly moving to retrieve the datapad from its clamp beneath her arm and bringing that lifeless screen toward her nose.

“Right,” she whispered to the sight of her distorted reflection, before clearing her throat and unsticking her sneakers from the floor.

The holocomputer, set atop a rolling desk at the foot of the bed, rose to life upon the frenetic poke of her finger. Though June had always been what her brother had previously deemed “embarrassingly deficient in stature”, that monitor sat just shy of successfully hiding him from view, and her composure was once again diminished by the heat surging to her cheeks upon the quick affirmation that his gaze had followed her every step across the room.

“You’re not a droid,” the soldier offered slowly, eyes narrowing under a perplexed sense of intrigue as a blood stained finger trailed to and fro across his chapped lip. “I mean— I don’t think so. Not like any I’ve ever seen…”

The acceptable reply would have been to offer him a laugh, a small scoff. Kriff, even an unsupported snort would have been sufficient to humour such an unintentionally comical assertion, but the continued prickle atop her skin and the nascent disquiet in her mind quickly devoured all potential for a moment of light-hearted banter.

“Nope,” she agreed, immediately thankful that her tone had forgone the shrill squawk of her first greeting and returned to her normal tambre. “They called the big guns in for you.”

“Uh oh. Why do I feel like that might not be a good thing?”

She risked another peek over the shield of her holoscreen, instantly and regretfully noting the delightfully sharp angle of where his jaw met his ear, that contour accentuated by the expanse of a bashful smile now doming both cheeks.

‘What the hell,’ she demanded silently as she failed, again, to offer him the titter he deserved. Aghast that the professionalism and charismatic bedside manner she’d spent long years and countless tears mastering had been ripped from her by something as immaterial as basic eye contact, she flicked her ponytail petulantly off her shoulder and refocussed her attention to the task at hand: logging into the Hospital’s charting software.

‘He’s just a soldier,’ she reminded herself with a snort of self-directed derision, desperately trying to extract her password from the depths of her distracted brain.

And he was. There was nothing overtly different or unusual about CT–5863 in relation to the hundred-or-so other clones that had passed in and out of her care since the war began. Quite frankly, there couldn’t be anything different about him, it was genetically impossible. So why had one look from this set of honeyed eyes seen her stomach careening into the next dimension and her nerves prickling as if every shift of his gaze left a trail atop her skin?

Thrice she tried and failed to enter her secure information into that software, yet its repeated beeps toward the inevitable system lock-out fell on entirely deaf ears, and it wasn’t until the screen strobed that she’d near-reached the maximum login attempts did some glimmer of awareness surge back to her.

“I’m Dr. Kiore,” June told him, attempting to banish that myriad of improper thoughts by corralling every cooperating neuron into entering her password, and the breath she’d unintentionally held in her lungs was granted their escape atop a sigh of relief as that familiar landing screen emerged in front of her. “What’s your name?”

“CT–58—”

“No, Captain, your name.”

“My name?” A puzzled pause preceded her answer, that brief second of hesitation having failed to lessen any of the obvious confusion behind those two words, and the notion that she may have to formally explain such a simple concept was the first to pull a smile to June’s lips.

But, “Howzer.” He recovered quickly, offering his name in the same tone he’d used upon hearing her tap on the door, and the small creases now wreathing those twinkling eyes as they narrowed in something close to suspicion entirely laid bare his continued bewilderment at her behaviour.

“Howzer,” she repeated, offering him a casual smile as she swiped her finger across the monitor and entered the information next to his designation number. “It’s nice to meet you.”

A moment’s innocent silence fell between them as she typed, masterfully toggling between different pages of his medical chart and familiarizing herself with the details of his treatment history. For an active soldier, particularly one that appeared as if he’d spent several respite-free rotations laying in the foreign dirt of a distant planet, his chart was remarkably vacant, the only few noted injuries being quickly treated in the field and recorded somewhat haphazardly by the trio of different medics who had seen him.

“I– I think that might be the first time a civilian’s asked me that,” he contemplated under his breath, eyes unfocussing as he rubbed that dirty palm across the stubble on his chin

“Yeah, well… they were supposed to ask downstairs,” June scoffed, the grumble swaddling her tone readily exposing the disdain for the repeated shortcomings of her colleagues. “I’ve asked them four billion times to try and remember, but of course no one listens to the youngest.”

While his lungs expanded to utter what was undoubtedly going to be another humorous quip, the sentiment was stolen off his tongue by a sudden and salient cringe of discomfort. In that otherwise banal motion of sitting up straight, hand reaching upward to thoughtlessly push those dark waves further back from his forehead, a spasm of pain quickly froze his actions, that sharp jaw quickly clenching behind olive cheeks as a muted grunt rumbled in his chest.

Harrowingly familiar with the discomfited sounds of a trooper in agony, June darted from behind the computer without a second glance, feet taking her earnestly to his bedside where Howzer continued to grit his teeth against the pain of attempting to lower his elbow back down.

She stopped when she reached his beside, and too determined to somehow minimize his discomfort, her focussed eyes entirely missed the way shame had forced his gaze away from her. In a gesture that inexplicably attuned her concentration nearly as thoroughly as it further chilled her skin, she tugged the sleeves of her labcoat toward her elbows.

It took barely a breath of being within arms-length of the stranger for the pathetic remnants of his shirt, and the implications of its destruction, to resonate; that typically tight compression top now sliced into misshapen shards thanks to the expanse of an immense gash in the material. Yet more gruesome than the soaked integrity of that metallic cloth— its creation having once promised to prevent such wounds from occurring —was a piteous patch of gauze so saturated with blood that it had begun to leak a small cataract down his side, that seemingly limitless river of blood having already stained the exposed skin of which it bordered.

“Sheesh,” June mumbled under her breath, reaching slowly toward him until her fingers wrapped carefully around the elbow he was subconsciously attempting to use as a protective barrier.

Howzer’s breath hitched sharply in his throat as her fingers found their mark, though despite that unintentional huff of trepidation, he offered no resistance as she began to cautiously lift that arm back upward mere millimeters at a time until the sight of that grisly gash reappeared. The sheer size of that weeping laceration, stretching across the anatomically labelled “quadrant 6”, and reaching all the way from central rib cage to interior scapula, made ascertaining the true degree of the injury quite a challenge from her standing position in front of him. As June battled the need for a better vantage against attempting to prevent causing Howzer can any extraneous pain, it became apparent nothing short of clambering onto the bed beside him and simply straddling his left hip could allot her the unobstructed view she needed to formulate an appropriate treatment plan.

“I can’t get a great look from here,” she admitted with an apologetic grimace, now cautiously redirecting his arm forward in an effort to ascertain precisely how far back this horrid laceration reached from its inception below his left armpit. “Bear with me just for a sec… it’s gonna hurt a smidge.”

“It’s fine,” he answered, though wrapped in little more than a tight-lipped mumble, his reassurances fell flat in their task of convincing her. “It doesn’t hurt. I jus– ugh…”

A series of murmured apologies left her lips as something near a jolt of pain robbed his tongue of that white lie, and she tactfully refrained from commenting as she watched that silly cotton square fail to contain another surging red waterfall.

“You know,” she started as his jaw rutted forward to repress another hum of discomfort. “If you had just let them give you an NBA injection downstairs, this wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Don’t need one,” he grunted back as she flicked away those soaked and frayed fabric shards and began to pluck that impetuously placed patch of medical gauze from his side. “I told you, it doesn’t hurt.”

“It doesn’t hurt, but you couldn’t get your shirt off?”

That delicate accusation left her lips before the gates of professional restraint could corral it. The implications of second-guessing both a patient’s feedback and their subjective symptoms was highly unprincipled, yet despite his continued refusals, there was no ignoring the fact that, while half of his battered and abused armament sat stacked in one of the chairs by the door, he’d been unable to pull that snug garment from his torso.

To her relief, that same lop-sided smirk inched back across those dehydrated lips, eyes softening as they danced lightly across her features, and June was immediately grateful for the trivial need to extract an unopened sterile gauze pack from her pocket as her cheeks tingled anew.

“Alright, smartypants, you got me,” he admitted, the tips of his ears reddening under the unfamiliar vulnerability of his confession. “Maybe I just don’t like injections. Maybe they freak me out… a little.”

An ephemeral glance was all it took to identify the nature of his budding embarrassment; the reaffixture of his gaze upon his lap, the tiny flitter of his cheek as he chewed on whether he ought to defend his admission or not, the horrid clicking of his molars as discomfort had them relentlessly grinding against each other. Yet it was not the professional obligation to advocate for a medicinal intervention that saw June’s hands hesitate on their way to fully rid him of that incapacitated bandage, but an inexplicable and damn-near irrepressible urge to console him.

“Hold this here for me,” she instructed delicately as if she hadn’t heard him, indicating her need with a small tap of the finger whilst pressing that new fresh fabric to his wound in the void of its sodden counterpart. “Just for a minute while I grab some goodies, but firm pressure— hold it like you mean it.”

He shifted instantly on his seat to assent to her request, right hand forgoing its docile perch atop his thigh to cross his torso and clamp that material into place; those grimy fingers momentarily weaving their way into hers in his haste to comply.

That inadvertent touch set her very nerves alight, the ceaseless prickle lurking behind every inch of her skin intensifying to a degree that promised to expropriate the floor from beneath her feet again, and having been largely unable to resurrect her stomach from the depths of her toes where it had buried itself at first sight of him, June hurried to snatch her fingers from his and depart his bedside. The unprecedented euphoria of his skin brushing atop her own amidst that otherwise innocuous motion had virtually supplanted all evidence of the preceding sympathy, and replaced it with a moment of attraction so potent, she’d failed to digest any of the apology he’d quickly stammered during her retreat.

‘Maker have mercy, would you get a grip…’ she silently scolded, eyes scanning the assortment of supplies on the shelves in front of her as she forced a slow breath through pursed lips. ‘You’re being ridiculous. So he’s a little pretty… You just feel bad for him. It’s just pity. He’s been sitting here a long time, and he’s obviously uncomfortable… that’s all.’

But that weak justification had barely gained any potential momentum before it was squashed by the reality she could not deny. Attributing the peculiar undulation of this interaction to pity alone was both ignorant and ludicrous, as Howzer was not the first soldier to admit having a distaste for injections; the majority of her combat patients shirked from even the mention of that so-dreaded injector. In fact, most were deeply suspicious of anything even distantly related to the field of medicine, many turning pugnacious in their discomfort, and eyeing Lumi with a powerful mistrust as if that hovering medical assistant was concealing a murderous motive behind those yellow oculars. Others flinched at the mere thought of sedation, often demanding to hear any and all available treatment alternatives before consenting to whatever procedural route they deemed most tolerable regardless of its diminished efficacy, and it was this perpetual argument, this consistent mentality, that had June entirely convinced the clones in her care harboured significant trauma from their Kaminoan upbringing.

So if pity was to blame for the tingle atop her skin as the music of his familiar accent danced in her ears, why today? Why this ailing soldier, and not one of the hundred or so others she’d previously treated and discharged without pause. Why not Bolts, whose cheeks became stained with uncontrollable tears during those brief moments of lucidity when he awoke to be scanned at tragically frequent intervals? Why not the Commander from three rotations ago who’d begged her to falsify a clean bill of health so he could return to the front lines where his brothers were undoubtedly being slaughtered in his absence? What was it about this man… this objectively meaningless encounter… that had the hairs on the back of her neck standing upright as if there was something lingering in the next second? Why was this set of brown eyes imbued with the power to lasso her lungs into her stomach? Steal the floor from beneath her feet? Freeze time as if the universe itself had held its breath at first sight of him?

‘You’re better than this,’ she told herself as she rustled noisily around those laden shelves, heaping an array of various supplies into her arms. ‘Swallow whatever this weird attraction is and get on with it so you can go home. You’re tired and starving.’

Sighing heavily through her nose, she pulled the cauterizing pen from the top shelf and added it to the pile of tools clamped against her chest atop an small tub of her preferred burn salve, a USI injection tool, a single-use bottle of saline for wound disinfection purposes, and a handful of the standard 4 x 8 inch dermabacta patches.

Keeping her eyes deliberately downward, she nudged that locker door closed with her hip and started back toward the bed. After pausing briefly to power on and deposit the cauterizing pen beside the computer, June tipped forward and dumped the remaining products onto the paper sheet beside his waiting figure, attempting to ignore the return of his warm gaze by reaffixing her eyes to the tattered vestiges of his top.

“Shirt’s gotta come off,” she advised him, placing her hands on her hips and gesturing with a small nod to the garment he’d deferred removing as long as possible. “Contamination risk is too high if it stays flapping around the wound after I disinfect the area. Think you can pull it off without too much… ouchie?”

Those ensanguined fingers drummed nervously against the gauze he continued to press in place, a contemplative hum issuing from his nose as his lips shifted to a grimace. “I can give it a shot,” he finally assented amid a doubtful chuckle. “Unless maybe cutting it off is an option, and I can try to preserve what’s left of my dignity?”

“I mean– I could,” she agreed half-heartedly, though the image of her hands drifting carefully atop his skin whilst snipping that cloth from his bare chest nearly overpowered the awareness of that option being the least practical. “But we’d be sending you out of here shirtless afterward and it’s not exactly the warmest time of year.”

“Fair point,” he apprehensively agreed. “Maybe there’s a hospital gown or something that could pass as blacks until I can sneak my way into barracks?”

“Not unless blacks are covered in purple cogs and tied together behind your neck,” June scoffed. “And, honestly, if that doesn't send your dignity to the grave, I don’t know what would.”

Had such a disappointed huff not left his nose in that subsequent moment, the mental image of him trying to awkwardly stuff the excess material of that scratchy, violet gown behind his chest plate likely would have had a small snicker escape her lips, yet the unease dominating his expression instead resurrected that mystifying need to commiserate with this alluring stranger.

“We can handle this,” she asserted, watching him thoughtfully chew the inside of his cheek while picking uselessly at a blemish in the teal paint on his thigh plate. “If I help, you won’t even need to lift your arms. Plus– once it’s off, I can throw it in the Cleanser Tube and get it washed while I’m patching you up. That way the purple robe can stay in the cupboard, and you’ll have your shirt back to walk outta here dignity intact. Deal?”

His gaze shifted upward, darting back and forth between her eyes as if searching their depths for any semblance of the ulterior motive he’d seemingly grown to expect.

“Okay,” he agreed a sigh later, evidently failing to find anything other than quiet confidence behind that sapphire blue. “But if I start weeping, do your best not to laugh.”

“I’ll try,” she answered in mock intensity, waiting for his timorous gaze to meet hers again before offering a jesting smile. “Though in all honesty, Captain, just wait until you feel my hands. I’ll be more surprised if you don’t start weeping.”

Stepping intentionally around his armoured knees toward the head of the bed, she watched him steel himself by straightening his posture and taking a deep breath. “I’ll pull on your sleeve,” she told him, permitting herself only a moment to appreciate the endearing quartet of freckles on the right side of his neck. “You pull your arm.”

She guided her thumbs under the elastic cuff of his top, that deceivingly thin fabric instantly reminding her of the wetsuit she’d once donned during a diving trip on Naboo, though there was something significantly more tutelary about this injected material, as if the microthreads used to create it had been fibers of some pliable steel.

“I appreciate you being so… helpful,” he spoke, wincing slightly as his hand disappeared into the darkness of his sleeve and redirected itself downward through the trunk of the garment. “I guess I did need the big guns.”

June hesitated, barely able to repress the small smile promising to peel across her lips as she rolled and bunched the hem of his shirt in her fists, waiting until his palm had firmly planted itself beside his hip before proceeding.

“Can I tell you something?” she asked him in what she hoped was a casual tone despite her heart pounding loudly in her ears at his indirect laudation.

“‘Course,” he answered, squeezing his eyes closed as she began to stretch and guide that narrow collar past his ear and over his meticulously cropped hair.

“You’re not the only soldier who hates injections. You’re one of very many, actually… and one of even more that tries to hide it under this very unnecessary ‘tough guy’ attitude. While I don’t personally understand the fear behind a microdose of medication, that doesn’t mean I don’t understand being very wary of something, and that by no means makes you a wuss.”

He emerged from the depths of his shirt with a smoldering look that she’d never seen adorn the eyes of a soldier before, and the intensity of how he gazed sternly yet somewhat reverently into hers near-forced a paralytic shiver down her spine.

She near-cowered under its magnitude, and growing increasingly aware of how her body continued to betray her demand for professionalism by relentlessly inflaming her cheeks, she stepped carefully back around his knees and stuffed her fingers under the cuff of the other sleeve.

“Ready?” she asked as he upheld a pensive silence, waiting for him to consent before hooking one hand under the hem of that top now draped over his shoulder, and directing it carefully down the muscular arm he shifted to grant the garments removal.

She didn’t wait to see if he’d further acknowledge her expostulation before wadding up that soaked and soiled fabric and departing the bedside, crossing the room to where the Cleanser Tube sat recessed into the wall. After opening the door and shoving the clothing inside, she activated a sonic cycle with a quick poke of a button and turned to the adjacent Hand Sanitary Station.

Both pieces of machinery were considered to be state of the art medical technology, and were proprietary pieces licensed to only this medical facility while the patent approval process remained clogged behind far more consequential senatorial matters. The Cleanser Tube, designed to wash, sanitize and dry textiles in a fraction of the time that a traditional washing machine took, was installed on every floor, ensuring the sanitation droids could efficiently reuse the ludicrous amount of bedding the hospital exploited daily. Its pseudo-partner in technological advancement, the Sanitary Station, had demanded significantly more adaptability from the medical staff upon its installation, most of whom had spent several expensive years learning to meticulously disinfect their hands prior to any patient contact. While not all that different in concept to the Cleanser beside it, the absence of friction in hand washing was a foreign concept for a surgeon used to scrubbing their skin to within an inch of its already shoddy integrity before initiating a procedure. Nevertheless, the benefit of its efficiency had proved largely pivotal for those increasingly numerous days where surgeries were booked back to back.

Its familiar ion aroma wafted upward into June’s nose the second she approached and forced her fists through each of the two side-by-side valves. Sensing the new additions in its chamber, the machine activated automatically, tightening the silicone grip around each wrist to near-discomfort while cool, damp air began to circulate between her fingers. An inappropriately loud chime moments later alerted what felt like the entire hospital that the disinfection cycle had completed, and the machine ceased its vibration for only a moment before those sophisticated motors kicked back into life, preparing to swaddle her hands in a thin layer of purple nitrile. When all ten of her fingers had been appropriately coated, the valves released their complete encirclement of her wrists, and she pulled her hands from the tubes, fingers flexing habitually against the irksome constriction.

Foreword | Prev | Next

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[starqueensthings]

WARNINGS: descriptions of a mild-moderate anxiety attack (June), elusions to a traumatic past (no detail- June), elusions to a distaste for men (June), mild angst (Challa)

RATING/WC: 16+ (at the most) | 4500ish

PLEASE ENSURE YOU’VE READ THE FOREWORD BEFORE PROCEEDING FOR AN IN-DEPTH DESCRIPTION OF WHAT DEGREE OF CONTENT YOU CAN EXPECT THROUGHOUT THIS STORY.

Chapter Four: A Double Barrelled Blaster

FOREWORD | MASTER | PREV | NEXT | ao3

Barely a dozen steps passed underfoot before her breast began to heave beneath an exigent need for more oxygen than that stale hallway could provide. Gaze blind to her surroundings amid the desperation to abscond from that alluring stranger, June’s elbow knocked heavily against the unthinkably solid and cylindrical body of an FX-7 droid picking up speed toward the South Hall in her wake, and though her eyes instantly welled against each wave of that radiating ache, even the sharp edge of unexpected pain was not enough to penetrate that near-disorienting numb encompassing her entire awareness.

Ducking urgently into the unassuming Sanitation Hall on the left, she wedged herself into the enshadowed corner between the door that led beyond and a slumbering floor cleaning droid. Atop an effort to reduce as much of her existence as possible, she clamped those still leaking eyes closed and sank into a squat, jamming her shoulder blades into the wall behind her. But even the stability of that reinforced durasteel couldn’t act the buoy she craved to keep her head above water, instead its cool rigidity sending a series of cresting shivers down her spine that flawlessly contradicted the sweat earnestly beading across her hairline.

Throat bobbing amid the near-constant motions of preventing her stomach contents from surging upward, trembling hands reached upward to dome around her nose and mouth; that regretfully unknown medical trick of rebreathing one's own carbon dioxide during episodes of hyperventilation proving near-instantly effective, as only a controlled triad of paced breaths saw her mind begin to shed that horrific swim, and her stomach accede her silent pleas to settle.

The protrusion of her ponytail failed to soften the blow of her head thunking against that steel as she managed to dispel enough of the tension in her shoulders for it to tip backward, and once confident she’d maintained some degree of control over her undulating gut, she guided those quivering hands to rest atop her thighs.

‘Cold steel,’ she recited to herself, that practiced strategy of listing whatever fractions of reality she could locate whilst suffocating beneath that agonizing numbness never failing its task of returning her to some degree of control during those infrequent moments when anxiety threatened to keep her autonomy in its iron clutches. ‘Hard floor… Toes crammed against the front of your shoes… Legs trembling because you haven't worked out in kriffing years…’

Though her lids fluttered open to hungrily devour the familiarity of the ceiling above her, the plaguing noise aversion that stood arm-in-arm with those horrid attacks could not match their gallantry whilst the din of the maelstrom licking at the mouth of this secluded corner remained near-oppressive, and her brow quickly furrowed against that relentless onslaught.

“Ugh, what is wrong with you?” she whimpered, eyes unfocussing upon the nondescript pipes strapped to the ceiling above. “Why would you let him under your skin like that?”

As if a blow from anxiety’s tight fist landed upon her chest, a huff of something-near defeat escaped her lips; resentment and regret surging through her veins like poison as the implications of that fresh encounter continued to silently berate her from every corner of her mind, and she hurried to force another slow exhale through pursed lips.

‘You know better than that,’ she silently scolded to herself, reaching upward to dab her clammy forehead with the back of her hand. ‘You don’t ever let yourself go there. You don't tell anyone. You don't get involved. Nothing good can come from it, and you should be ashamed at how close you nearly got to spilling the beans.’

“Get it together,” she voiced to that empty alcove, the faint echo of that urgent demand reinforcing its dire necessity as it returned to her ears. “You’ll never see him again anyw–”

“What the kark are you doing?”

Her head knocked audibly against the durasteel behind her as that sudden intrusion sent her shoulders jerking backward in fright, eyes frantically darting to the source of her alarm while her heart leapt back into a panicked cadance.

“Nothing,” June answered automatically, and the way that lie near-choked her on its way past her lips acted a callous reminder of her complete failure to assimilate Jacoba's impeccable proclivity for fibbing on the spot.

“Just meditating next to the mop droid?” Challa chirruped, folding his arms atop his chest and peering down his nose at her with the same unrestrained impatience that had drenched his expression during their last encounter.

“Just… just taking a little breather.”

“Well take your breather in my office,” he hissed back with indignant shake of the head, that reproachful roll of his violet eyes clearly condemning the notion of the Sanitation Hall being her first choice for a moment of solitude. “I’ve been waiting for you, remember? That laceration took ages– it’s not like you to dawdle.”

“Sorry,” June grunted, planting her hands on the cold floor to assist her wobbly knees in their feat of pressing her back to standing. “It– it took me a while to convince him to take the pain injection. You know soldiers, they’re so suspicious of us.”

“That they are,” Challa lamented while turning on his heel and hastening to depart the bedlam of the open ward, veering around the Welcome Desk where Theresa, the exhausted-looking charge nurse, looked one misguided question away from full-scale hysteria. “I can’t even get them to listen to me most of the time. I end up reciting treatment options to the top of their head because they so quickly disengage.”

June offered little more than a hummed response from one pace behind him, mind still bogged and languid with the unwanted imagery of that teal-painted Captain; the way his eyes had narrowed amidst such a skepticism of medicine, the sheer dejection that had robbed his broad shoulders of their proud posture upon the assertion that a pain injection was non-negotiable, the beguiling nature of that docile smile as he granted her the momentary trust he’d somehow deemed her worthy of.

Searching for any semblance of a distraction, June redirected her gaze through the transparent walls passing on her left as she followed in Challa’s wake down the private corridor housing the handful of surgical offices. Jacoba’s obscenely oversized Dianoga-skin purse now sat precisely where it always did when its intricate handles were not draped atop its owner’s shoulder, and it took only a quick glance to affirm she was entirely absent from the confines of those shared walls. Also missing-in-action were the trio of radiographic films she’d spent the majority of her spare time that day pacing in front of while scrutinizing every inch of their luminous findings, and it was the bite of their absence acting as an unwelcome reminder of the injustice that had sent her best friend down to the operating room, while June knocked unknowingly on the door of emotional turmoil.

To add to that reinvigorated frustration, the sky outside had darkened to an inky blue that swiftly validated Challa’s grievance of such a menial procedure taking such an exorbitant amount of time, and beholding the radiant patchwork quilt of a billion lamps behind a million windows, all stretching toward that unreachable horizon, quickly brought new life to her now-irrepressible exhaustion.

“Please tell me I’m not going to have another cold hand complaint to appease tomorrow morning,” Challa groused as they reached the door of his private quarters, unlocking that sliding durasteel with a brief tap of his ID card. “And, speaking of, why are you still gloved? You know it’s not appropriate sanitary practice to depart a procedure without first shedding al–”

“Eugh!” June exclaimed as she lifted her palms, revulsion instantly contorting her features upon seeing the multicoloured remnants of both blood and burn cream caked atop the fingertips that had so recently cradled her clammy face. “Please tell me you have wipes in your office!”

“Of course I–”

June hurtled past him, eyes frantically scanning that meticulously organized desk top for the familiar purple labeled tub of disinfectant wipes. Tugging the first one aggressively from its presaturated slumber, she clamped her eyes closed and began to abrase that moistened cloth against her cheeks, breath held against the oppressive fumes of the germicidal agent currently stripping her skin of every microbe it had ever welcomed.

“June, those are for hard surfaces only!” Challa gasped from somewhere behind her, the appalling ferality of her actions apparent beneath his ignored refutation.

June used the last of the moisture to rid what she could of that lingering fowl from her purple fingertips, lungs beginning to mutiny against the breath she ardently held until that chemical-soaked fabric found its way into the trash, and she offered nothing more than a “don’t ask” to the horrified bewilderment atop her boss's slender face as he continued to gape at her from the threshold.

Taking a seat in the chair opposite his desk, June quickly turned her attention to the task of yanking that thick layer of purple nitrile from her hands. Still aghast that unbridled panic had sent her near sprinting from the procedure room without first stripping her hands of their soiled encasement, and unwilling to pass up any opportunity for expelling some barely-bridled frustration, she tugged that stretchy film from her skin with renewed vigor.

Challa, always the champion for following procedure and using tools as intended, thankfully forwent the urge to rebuke her unorthodox and unhygienic methods as he took his seat opposite her, though the burning need to remind her of proper nitrile removal was apparent by the way he glared through his eyelashes at her seemingly abhorrent behaviour.

“So… what’s up?” June probed as he continued to wordlessly upbraid her negligence. “Wasn’t this supposed to be a party in my honour? Where’s the wine? Where’s the balloons?”

Granting her a conciliatory snort, he simply shook his head and directed his attention toward an impossibly thick wad of flimsi perched just adjacent to his holocomputer.

Though the motion of retrieving that printed bundle stole her focus from the somewhat arduous task of freeing her palms, June paid it only enough attention to recognize the Republic cog embossed onto the title page before repressing an eye roll, that logo (and the dreaded formality of its implications) instantly confirming this requested meeting was likely going to include a shower of vituperations, all of which she was confident she’d already suffered through. Yet he upheld an apprehensive silence, and it was his hesitancy to initiate conversation that pried her concentration from her fingers. She shifted her eyes quickly upward to find his already lithe cheeks pinched tightly between his molars. With knitted brows, she followed his unfocussed gaze, eyes softening as they eventually fell upon an objectively odd statue propped only inches from his left hand.

“It’s a Kalikori totem,” he’d explained some years ago when she had first queried what that lopsided figurine represented. “A relic passed down through generations from parent to first-born child in the Twi’lek custom. It’s blessed before its gifted, with all the wisdom of the prior owner. This was bequeathed to me by my mother the day I left home for medical school. And if I’m lucky enough to have my own children, it will go to them imbued with all the wisdom I’ve accumulated throughout my life.”

The gleam in Challa’s eyes as he peered near-longingly at that wooden talisman brought forth the sudden and harrowing notion that June was not the only one in that windowless room currently struggling to navigate some degree of inner conflict, and it instantly appeased that ire still simmering in her gut.

“You okay, Challa?” she asked quietly, despite the answer being evident from his glazed expression, those long, sand-coloured fingers loosening their hold on that wad of flimsi only enough for it to fold in the center and drape toward that polished desk top.

“Yes,” he answered quickly, blinking that glimmer from his eyes and clearing his throat. “Yes, thank you. My apologies. I, er… I have something both significant in nature and time sensitive that I need to discuss with you, but before I proceed, I need your word that you’ll keep this confidential while a few of the details remain unconfirmed?”

“Uhm… okay?” June agreed, eyes narrowing at the abrupt and disproportionate severity of his tone. “Though I’m starting to think this might not be about my ice fingers?”

“Not this time,” he answered darkly, tossing that mysterious novel to the side of his desk before clasping his hands together in front of him and resting on his forearms. “It’s not news to you that the war is creating… challenges… galaxy-wide. Casualties are increasing. Injuries are reaching an insurmountable degree. Hospitals in every star system are perpetually overwhelmed to the point of near-paralysis. You’ve shouldered the inflated workload both willingly and more competently than I could have ever expected, June, and explaining how much hardship we’ve had to navigate as a medical team over the last few weeks would just be breath wasted, so I’ll cut to the chase…

“The senate has finally authorized the development of three new medical stations– one in the Felucia system, one in Kaliida Shoals, and one in Ord Cestus. But being both designed and operated by Kaminoan representatives was a non-negotiable clause in getting the construction permits approved, and it’s no galactic secret that they’re extremely particular with their operations. Thus, I remain pessimistic that a timely solution is on the horizon.

“The coming days will only see an increase in the need for advanced medical intervention, and it becomes more and more apparent with every patient admitted that the first generation of combat medics are in over their head. The extent of their training is largely insufficient for the monumental task they’re assigned, and it thrusts upon them a role of which I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy; their entire existence is that of a double-barrelled blaster. That is to say— they are responsible for saving life… and taking it. They must both protect the utility of their comrades and deprive the enemy of the same. Their primary mission objective, above all else, is to preserve the numbers of their assigned brigades at whatever cost, yet their continued inclusion in front line assaults is wiping them out almost as quickly as regular infantrymen—”

“I know all of this, Challa,” June interrupted, brows furrowing against the harrowing nature of his monologue while the faceless figure of an exhausted medic in decrepit, teal painted armour swam in her vision. “And it’s absolutely catastrophic, but what does this have anything to do with you? With me?”

“This.” He tapped a long and pointed fingernail against the cog embossment perched, entirely unaffected by this sobering exchange, at his left elbow. “It’s a contract, and an important one. I’ve been assigned a task by the GAR, and—”

“The army?” Unable to fully bridle her bemusement at the absurdity of his claim, she quickly interrupted again. “What the kriff does the army want with you? I mean— no offense, Challa, but you couldn’t kill anything. You’d cut your own feet off if it promised to get you to a Code Blue any faster.”

“Precisely,” he answered with a solemn nod. “I’ve been recruited by the President of the Hospital to become the ‘Chief Educator of Medicine.’ I’ve been entrusted with formulating and delivering a more advanced medical curriculum to the next several generations of Clone Medics. One that would promise to better prepare them for their intensity of their role and allot them sufficient medical knowledge to achieve it.”

“They want you to teach?” she gasped, mouth falling open. “Challa! That’s incredible. You’re perfect for that. Preaching procedure is your favourite thing! You live to share your knowledge, and you’re an expert at medicine. This is amazing…”

Yet Challa’s response to her continued approbation far-exceeded the modesty of which he’d long-since mastered, and the last of her praise rolled from her tongue too-near a question as he continued to dismiss every word with a somber shake of the head. “What’s— what’s the problem?” she asked him. “You’re not thinking about turning it down, are you?”

“It’s a substantial task, June,” Challa lamented, bringing his hands to his face and pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I already have such little time as it is. Our department shows little promise of slowing in action until those medical facilities are open for treatment, and that could be months at best, years at worst. While I’m motivated to aid in the war effort in every way that I’m able, it seems the most detrimental option to diminish the cruciality of my role here during a time that should otherwise demand my highest commitment. And, forgive my inappropriate candor, but if there was a time where I’d be willing to recuse myself as head of this department in favour of another endeavour, it would be to return home…”

He reemerged from behind his hands furiously blinking the phosphenes from his vision, mouth exposing his concealed misery by compressing itself into little more than a thin line. June watched his eyes dart towards that proud totem as if hopeful that highly polished mahogany might sprout two lips and utter the wisdom of which it was imbibed, and watching his hand reach forward to collect the little statue, cradling and caressing it with the gentlest shifts of his slender fingers, brought forth a painful lump in the back of her throat.

He needn’t speak the words lurking behind those pursed lips; the reality of the war, and the nature of their role in it, surrounded them with every minute that passed… every irritatingly detailed Kaminoan chart… every ailing patient that refused their help despite the chimes from their scanners frantically alerting an urgent need for assistance… every procedure finally completed and sent upstairs to Recovery, the surgeons rarely granted the time to de-gown and re-gown before the next soldier in a seemingly limitless line was wheeled in to replace their counterpart.

The GAR’s unheralded request for further assistance only reinforced the true calamitous nature of the Republic’s standing in this galaxy, but this was merely a fraction of what weighed on Challa’s slender shoulders. He’d voiced his concerns to June only once previously, as he both apologized for the injustice of his recent mental shift and divulged the rationale behind this budding curmudgeon personality.

Ryloth.

The Twi’lekki homeworld had suffered a long and violent history of foreign insurrection and occupation; the citizens and their land eternally at odds with a myriad of parties attempting to occupy their home and usurp the bountiful resources that the rich planet provided. Recent weeks had seen rumours of a pending separatist blockade whispered throughout the halls, and Challa, whose entire family still resided in Ryloth’s capital city, swallowed the news as if it were an acerbic pill.

While often shouldering the brunt of his misguided wrath, June did her best to take his frequent sinuous mood in stride, reminding herself that her boss was likely the only person in the entire building tallying more hours-worked than she, and the rationale behind his self-inflicted torture was not unlike her own: to laden their overactive minds with a distractions in lieu of dealing with the pain they’d sooner exhaust themselves than address.

“Well… what’s your hesitation?” she probed, flinging the last of the purple second skin atop the discarded wipe in the bin by the door and fitting her thumbnail between her front teeth.

Challa returned the totem to its perch with a poignant sigh. “Like I said,” he started, “It's a substantial request in both time and responsibility. I don’t think this task has the potential for success in my hands alone. I’ll need assistance to ensure things move smoothly both here at the hospital and on the combat base.”

“Well I’ll help you,” June replied, the simplicity of her response matching the casual shrug of her shoulders. “I can tell this means a lot to you, Challa. You’ve been breaking your back lately and I know why. Whatever you need to make this happen, we can figure it out. I’ll cover your time in the Operating Room. I make my own surgical schedule anyway– I can take on the task of maneuvering everyone else’s easily enough. Malya’s our best charge nurse; I’ll get her to redirect all discharge reports my way so they don’t even cross your desk. And I can run the weekly staff meetings too, if you want? Though no one kriffing listens to m—”

“You misunderstand me, June,” Challa interjected, the beginnings of a soft smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “While I have little doubt you could run this department with your eyes closed, it is not here that I require your assistance. I’d like to tackle this new education aspect as a team. And I’ve already requested the contract be restructured to include an ‘Executive Educator’ so that you may legally have a near-equal hand in helping me see this task to fruition. If you’re willing, that is…”

June watched that repressed smile finally expand upon his lips, and her gaze darted instantly upward in preparation for that jesting twinkle to erupt behind his eyes. Challa’s attempts at practical jokes, while nearly non-existent amid the gloom of the last several weeks, had always preceded themselves with both an impish grin that no amount of concentration could suppress and a mischievous gleam behind those violet eyes. Surely, the impending bellow of laughter concealed beneath his tongue would erupt any second now and successfully rid the air of that suffocating angst. Surely, this was some exceedingly well thought-out circumstance he’d formulated to test if she would accede to his previous plea that she reduce her workload. Yet, as seconds ticked that placid present into the past, he failed to offer the laughter she was sure should have followed by now, and the notion of this proposition being some weak attempt at humour disintegrated.

“Challa,” June sputtered, unwilling to wrench her eyes from his. “You’re kidding, right? We both know I’m not the teaching type. We went over this last year when you tried to assign me a resident; I don’t have the patience or the personality for education. The only reason I can be so productive for this department is because I’ve been allotted the freedom to do things my way, and it’s usually the way that most others disagree with. Plus— think about it, there’s nothing I can pass along to those medics that you couldn’t except my caf addiction and my piss-poor attitude, and neither of those are going to help anyone survive. Why don’t you ask Rondi? Or Pherto, even? Ho’lee…? Santuro…? Kriff, any of them.”

Those long, decorated lekku swayed with every suggestion that he continued to dismiss, head shaking as the smile atop those lips reached ever closer toward his eyes until he simply raised a hand to silence her.

“Nonsense, June,” he rejected. “You have good days and bad days like any of us, but you're truly a staggering intellect despite your tendency to conceal it behind a hard exterior. You lead by example. You motivate others with your own strong convictions and ideals. Despite preferring to shirk from the engagement entirely, you’ve always been remarkable with patients, especially clones—”

“Only because I ask what their kriffing names are!” June projected atop an incredulous laugh. “That doesn’t make me fluent in clone-compassion, it makes me a human being with the basic consideration for the people that we’re treatin—”

“Precisely,” he affirmed before she could express how truly ludicrous she found this entire concept. “You see your patients as people that need help, not problems that need fixing. You care, June, where most other doctors of your pedigree would opt to superficialize the connection to their patients.

If you’re uncomfortable with the notion of public speaking, I am happy to take on the task of delivering the information, but your input on the curriculum and suggestions on how to ensure the content actually gets through to them prior to their deployment will be invaluable to me. I feel strongly about this.”

He leaned back in his chair and pressed the tips of his fingers together, peering at her with one side of that heavy brow cocked while she sat near-flabbergasted in the chair opposite, mouth agape ahead a series of only-barely repressed protests. But every rebuttal was deliberately restrained atop her tongue. She could not refuse him; she simply could not utter the declination that would see her boss’s face stripped of that hope; she could not be the reason those slender shoulders, already laden under the burden of saving lives at the cost of his own, sagged ever further under the burden of a war he did not choose to partake in; she could not, in any conscience, deny her friend the opportunity to indirectly contribute to a war effort that may keep his family safe.

Instead, she bunched her lips to one side and dropped her gaze to the demolished thumbnail sporadically dropping torn and discarded shards into her lap, intentionally biting back the sigh she knew would expose her skepticism.. her truth. The truth that this task measured well past daunting, and crept toward the territory of terrifying; that this task would likely have her surrounded on all sides by the very demographic of which she coexisted with only begrudgingly; that a combat base filled to the brim with men promised the potential to demolish the mental fortifications erected long ago to ensure her protection, and allot her some semblance of an unplagued life. And, sure, Challa would be at her side… but he knew nothing of her past, nothing of the inner conflict that fuelled her relentless need for distraction; he knew nothing of how her stomach turned anew with every harmless remark of her unexpected youth, every brazen query of what lay beneath that oversized lab coat, every off-the-cuff probe toward the nature of her relationship status from a soldier who thought themselves coy despite the flimsy purple robe tied behind their back diminishing nearly all of their inherent charm.

“Okay,” she finally agreed, assent muffled by the tight clamp of her nail between her teeth. “What do I need to know?”

“Take this.” Challa retrieved the contract and passed it across the desk, arm sagging slightly under its egregious weight. “It’s over 200 pages of semantics and jargon, but giving it at least a quick glance over the next few days wouldn’t do either of us a disservice. Once I receive the official restructure inclusive of your participation, I’ll forward it your way for authorization.

”Now— go home and get some sleep. You’re assisting me with a hepatectomy first thing tomorrow morning.”

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