#i know he lost his hand and with that his ct but like canonically he is actually one of the smartest sorcerers

[satorugojoswiife]

Yeah (maybe this is major copium lol) I was thinking it was titled that because it has chapter 236 in it. So who knows. It’s still insane to me though that Gege just nerfed that fan fav like that tho (although he did it to nanami and nobara🤷‍♀️)

dw anon we can be delusional together <3

and yeah who knows where this is heading. feels like gege is on a speedrun to kill all the fan faves at this point 😭 tbh I'm getting pretty tired of sukuna

[mylifeisactuallyamess]

Sanctuary part 2

Chapter 6: Ghosts of Kamino

A/N: I posted this on AO3 and forgot to post it here 🤣 whoops!

Warnings: Description of panic attack, disassociating, canon violence, Hemlock being an intimidating bastard, Stitch is having a rough time, mentions of reconditioning.

Word Count: 3.6k+

Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7

Masterlist

A soft noise brought you to awareness, your entire body stiffening as you tried to figure out who was in the room.

The infinite smoothness of Nala Se flooded your mind and it forced your eyes open. The Kaminoan was sat down, her long limbed body almost folded in half to sit in a human chair. Large, dark eyes blinked at movement from the bed and she seemed to suck a quiet breath in. A touch of relief reached you as the first groan left your lips. Your entire body was on fire, muscles screaming from the rough workout they had been put through recently.

“Why are you so relived to see I’m alive, Nala Se?” Your throat was dry, sticking and causing you to cough. Slowly you sat up, gently taking the offered glass from the pale hand that held it out.

She didn’t answer right away, her eyes travelling over the floor and back up to you while she tried to form a reply. “All the specimens are important,” she finally said and you paused mid motion.

“All? You mean the clones?”

“No. There are others.” You wanted to say you were surprised, but the depths that Hemlock would go when it came to prisoners did not surprise you.

“I felt them,” you murmured. Remembering walking past the large double door and feeling the faint shimmer of another presence, one that resonated with yours. “They are kept here, others like me.”

Nala Se bent her long neck slightly, gesturing slowly with an open hand. “There are others. But not like you.” Her voice was light and firm, breezing through the small room. “You are different.”

Taking a long sip of water you quickly assessed the creature before you. She didn’t seem hurried or anxious today. In fact, she was down right chatty. “How am I different from any other human you have taken blood from?”

“I knew you were special, from the moment you were pulled out of the pod.” Everything you thought you knew zeroed down to this specific point as you repeated what she’d said, your lips moving around the words as if it helped you process them.

“A pod.”

“Yes. Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas came to us, talking about a brewing conflict within the galaxy. He wanted to help his fellow Jedi.” Your fingers gripped the cup, the only solid thing that was tying you to reality. “He offered his genes to create more Jedi. We tried, of course, but the failure was widespread. Most of the units did not survive infancy, much to our dismay. Their M-counts interfered with the healthy development, Master Sifo-Dyas declared the Force was not allowing them live. Apparently it tipped the balance,” she explained quietly.

“What does any of this have to do with me?” Your heart beat erratically, tension prickled down your scarred arms and you began to chew on your nails.

“You were the only one to survive.”

“That’s impossible,” you scoffed. “Tech found that Sifo-Dyas was—was my father, not my…donor.”

“CT-9902 would not have found anything linking you to Kamino, because I erased it,” she stated as calmly as someone commenting on the weather.

You winced, but still your teeth pulled anxiously at your skin. “This is insane,” you told her with a nervous half laugh. “Why are you telling me this? Does Hemlock know?”

“He does not.” Tugging on your lower lip you rocked slightly on the bed. “I fear what he will do to you if he does find out.” Your thoughts were swirling, each breath hitched a fraction in your throat as your eyes lost focus. The man you had been told was your biological father, wasn’t your father at all. He had shared his DNA with the Kaminoans to make Jedi clones. They didn’t survive, none except you.

“Why did I end up with Jango?”

“Master Sifo-Dyas was worried his actions would draw the attention of the Jedi Council or others who might use this information to their advantage. He looked at you like the daughter he could never have, and I let him take you. Hiding you within the Mandalorian community was both a good and bad idea.”

“Why did he leave me behind?” You whispered, not sure if Nala Se would have the answer.

“Jango Fett did what he thought was best for you. With whispers of the growing hostilities, he decided to hide you before he came to Kamino.”

“Ridiculous,” you mumbled, blinking back tears that burned your eyes.

Nala Se leaned forward, her large arms dipping between her folded legs. “You must be cautious. Dr Hemlock is showing more interest in you after the incident with IC-1309 and IC-1262.” Your mind scrambled around, linking the designations to the clones and the fight in the training room.

“What will he do to me?”

“What he does to everyone,” she responded with an air of regret.

“Which is?” You prompted, watching the way she gracefully rose in a single fluid motion.

“Take everything he can from you.”

“W-why did you tell me this? Won’t he know you’re in here talking to me?”

“Dr Hemlock has left the facility,” she explained. “I have told you so you know to hide this part of yourself from him.”

“It’s not something I can control, the visions…” you trailed off, wanting to tell her everything and yet, still not sure if you could trust her. For the millionth time you wished yourself parsecs away, with a bunch of defective clones that had looked after you since they found you.

“I have altered your blood results in an effort to keep what you are, hidden,” she added softly, as though she assumed it would reassure you.

“What is he looking for?”

The Kaminoan regarded you with unblinking, emotionless eyes. “He is working for the Emperor.” You knew this, you weren’t sure how but this information wasn’t new. “I will do whatever is within my power to keep you safe.” You waited a couple of beats before looking back up.

“Nala Se.” She paused facing the door. “Is there a way out of here?”

“No,” she whispered, confirming your worst fears. “Not for us.” You let her go. Frozen on the bed as you tried desperately to stave off the gathering emotion that clawed at your chest, threatening to spill out in waves that had no end. Staggering to the shower, you quickly shed your clothes, diving under the stream of warm water and letting your tears quietly mingle with the drops on your skin.

It was crushing. Realising that, once again, you had no idea about your own past or who you were. Your hands curled against your arms, squeezing you in a hug that you wished was coming from someone else. You tried not to think about them, the Batch. It was agonising not knowing if they were ok, where they were or what they were doing. More than once it had crossed your mind that the Empire might have them.

Your legs gave out, the close walls of your tiny shower barely managing to keep you upright as you slumped onto the floor. Your teeth were chattering, a reaction of shock and stress mixed together while your body tried to muddle its way through. A soft groan left your lips at the tightness in your chest, each breath felt like you were pulling glass into your lungs. This will pass…this will pass…

Logic never prevailed in these moments, sweeping you away on a flood of intrusive thoughts that had you sobbing. The heels of your hands dug into your eyes, trying to press the horrific images of dead clones and empty armour from your mind. You despised the fact you were here, surrounded by everything your friends were fighting to destroy and you couldn’t do anything. Nothing. You were useless. Trapped like a womp rat in a cage with nowhere to turn, the unknown pressing in from all sides.

Your breaths quickened, dark spots danced in your vision and the shower suddenly become suffocating. You didn’t even turn it off, spilling out from the cubicle to lay bare and wet on the floor as you shivered.

This hell was your life now. Who could say for how long.

You waited a few days. Staring at the greys walls in a blissful state of disassociation. You could barely bring yourself to eat, it all tasted like ash in your mouth anyway. Crying did nothing to alleviate the pressure in your mind, so you spent all the time trying to distance yourself from it.

Until the day Scorch came back.

His grey and sunshine yellow armour splashing across your eyes so harshly you had to squint for a moment. Something had changed. His presence felt darker, more threatening and you shrank away from him. “Up.” He demanded harshly through the vocoder. “Move.” The end of his blaster jabbed you in the shoulder and you felt that warm flare of anger spark in your gut. You held onto it, relishing in something that wasn’t lifeless and hollow within you. You quietly followed him down the corridor, eyes drawn to the double doors on your left. You could feel them, bright spots at the edge of your senses, as though they were just beyond your fingertips.

The red glow of the barriers made all the tiny hairs on your body stand on end, an uncomfortable feeling and one you wished would end as quickly as possible. Scorch led you out the other side, turning left this time and leading you to a turbo lift. The doors opened and the light sucking black armour of Niner was revealed, a shadow in the glaring whiteness of the lift. Scorch seemed to hesitate, a swift flare of frustration rose from him but he pushed you into the lift anyway.

Niner’s visor turned to look at you, the blue against the black was unsettling and you wrenched your gaze away to watch the lights on the lift display change. Scorch shifted beside you, seemingly adjusting his position as casually as possible, but then you sensed Niner tense up behind your shoulder. They were communicating within their helmets, much like the Batch could.

The lift glided to a stop and the door opened smoothly. “Move out,” Scorch practically snarled. You went first, stopping after a few paces when you realised you had no idea where to go.

A hand gripped your arm and you yanked yourself free. “Don’t touch me, di’kut.” Niner pulled back his hand, helmet tilting as he regarded you.

“Now where did you learn that word, verd’ika?” Your anger flared at the veiled insult in his tone but Scorch shoved you in the back.

“Enough. Don’t make me change my mind.” He wasn’t looking at you, his helmet facing Niner.

The shadow clad clone retreated a step, a sigh coming through his helmet. “Fine.”

You were still seething, making a note to take Scorch’s blaster and shove it where the sun didn’t shine, when a door a few meters away opened.

His blue eyes were like shards of ice. Now they narrowed, pining you to the spot and your steps ground to a halt. Doctor Hemlock’s presence rolled over your senses like oil slicks over water. Thick and cloying it muted everything, snuffing out your anger and replacing it with fear.

“So good of you to join us.” His voice was like a hydrosnake hissing in your ear. The unspoken threat of his menace, a shadow on every word and it had you wanting to flee in the other direction. “Escort her inside.” Hemlock turned and you had no choice but to follow, looking at the clasped hands behind his back. His black gloved hand flexed, clearly trying to ease some discomfort he suffered from.

The commandos flanked you, Niner on one side and Scorch on the other, giving you nowhere to run. As if you could anyway.

It took you a moment to realise where you were, but when you did, the dread raked forcefully down your spine. A chill permeated the air, filling you with something cold and lifeless that spread down your limbs. The room was larger than you thought, no mist shrouded your surroundings and the red glow was muted to the four large tanks on the edges of the platform. The machines you had seen in your nightmare were huge, not leaving much room to move around. Bulky and intimidating, the nearest one to you had dark stains near the straps and you swallowed down a nervous lump in your throat.

Hemlock looked around, like a man surveying a kingdom, his attention running over the tanks and for the first time you noticed the screens. Each one had a read out for the occupants vitals and your stomach flipped in disgust.

A presence loomed behind you as Niner almost pressed his armoured chest into your back. Clearly an effort to keep you in place. You’d rather take your chances with the commandos than you would the Doctor. His presence was twisted into something dark and ugly, something that screamed at you to run away.

“You have been holding out on me.” Hemlock turned slowly on his heel, his eyes running over the equipment until it finally settled on you. He cradled his gloved hand in the other, a weirdly vulnerable gesture coming from a man who held nothing humane within him.

The ability to speak had fled, Nala Se’s recent revelation about your origins, kept your lips tightly sealed. Trepidation made your insides quiver as he took a threatening step in your direction. He looked almost disappointed when you didn’t respond. “No curiosity?” He asked in that liquid velvet tone. “Where is the fire you brought with you?” He stepped closer, causing your heart to skip a beat and your breath to hitch in fear. He terrified you.

Hemlock hummed quietly in contemplation, so close now, you could taste the rank tang his presence gave you. The lines on his forehead were thrown into sharp relief, tracking like permanent scars across his skin.

“I have spoken to the Emperor, about you.” He spoke softly but you were not in danger of missing a single word. Still you kept your lips pressed together, watching him step even closer to you. You sunk into Niner, hating how the clone was stopping you from leaning away as Hemlock tipped his head towards you, bringing his face uncomfortably close. “He knows what you are.”

You trained your gaze over his shoulder, trying desperately not to react to the whispered words as they ghosted across your throat. “He has been watching you for a while now,” Hemlock continued, turning his face so he could gauge your reaction. “I have been granted permission to bring you to your full potential. I was told how invaluable you would be to our efforts here.”

“I will never help you!” The words were like acid, spilling from you in a rush. You were breathless, struggling to fill your lungs with air that didn’t make you choke.

“There she is,” he murmured, drawing close enough to brush his nose along your cheek for a brief second. When he stepped back you were helpless against the power of his clear blue eyes, reluctantly magnetising your own to them. He gave the smallest smile but it did nothing to soften the severe features of his face. “I apologise, for giving you the assumption, that you had a choice.” His gaze drifted and firm hands closed around your arms before you felt their intention to grab you.

Instantly you reacted, heaving your body in the hope one of the clones would lessen their grip, but it felt like you were fighting statues. They were rigid, their hold on you like beskar cuffs. Hemlock watched with a sick satisfaction in his expression, allowing you the illusion you could fight, when in fact you were as helpless as a babe. You tried to find something on the smooth floor to dig your heels into when the commandos moved you to stand beside one of the massive machines. Your heart was pounding in your ears as you eyed it, hoping your intuition was wrong.

“Do you know what these do?” Hemlock asked you, his tone mild and conversational. Again, you refused to answer. Blowing an exhale through your nose and glaring at him with as much hatred as you could muster. “This machine has the potential to reshape an individual, to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.”

A dull memory surfaced, one of a clone in a box. He had no name, no designation…he had been wiped clean. You tried again to shake off Scorch and Niner, even though your exhaustion was growing. You refused to be erased. To have your memory wiped until you couldn’t remember anything except what Hemlock told you. To lose what little shreds you had of yourself; the brief months of happiness with the Batch, with Tech, was soul wrenching. Tears teased the corners of your eyes and a small whimper broke free as you squirmed.

“You know what that means.” He looked pleased at your reaction.

“You can’t do this!” The smile that toyed with his lips became crueler.

“But I can. No one can stop me.” He backed away, curling his hands behind him as the triumph gleamed in his eyes. He gave a nod to the clones before turning away and some tether of anger forced you to speak.

“You are just another monster, in a long line of monsters,” you shouted. “Whatever you do to me, will not break me.” Hemlock’s shoulders flexed slightly, his hands gripped each other and you thought he was going to continue walking away.

He turned, a deep lined frown marked his brow, his eyes were so intense they almost glowed as they burned into you. He stepped forward and you automatically tried to shrink away, but Scorch and Niner still had a firm grip on your arms.

Hemlock sighed, heavily. The heat of his gaze tracked over your features, making you more nervous the longer he scrutinised you.

“I admire your sentiment,” he spoke softly, reaching out to run his fingers along the tense edge of your jaw. You jerked away, revolted by the feel of skin on yours, but he snatched at your chin with a bruising grip. “But you have never faced a monster, quite like me.” The volume of his voice did not changed but his words became harder, losing the pillowed edge he usually softened them with. “And, I can assure you…” he sucked in a breath, revelling in how helpless you were against him. “You will break.” His fingers pressed painfully into your cheeks, forcing your jaw to open. He watched you try to fight his grip, gaze trained on your mouth, a faint curl lifted his lip when he succeeded in causing enough pressure so you had to comply. “See?” Hemlock’s velvet tone teased your ears. “No one goes against me…” his eyes locked with yours. “And wins.”

The Doctor finally released your face, the sting in your cheeks a hateful reminder of how helpless he made you feel. “Put her in.”

Your body reacted. You had no idea what you were saying, words spilled forcefully from your mouth. Your feet left the floor, kicking and hitting whatever you could reach, but it did no good. You were pleased to hear Scorch grunt with exertion while he fought your legs into the bindings. Niner had a harder time with your arms as you arched your back and tried to find purchase on his armour with your fingers.

“Hu’tunn!” You screamed, spitting at Niner. You were too worked up to notice he froze beside you, or the way Scorch looked at him from the bottom of the machine. “Ni’duraa!” The bindings rattled with every jerk you gave, ignoring the pain as they lashed tightly against your skin. The tangy smell of blood reached your nostrils but you didn’t care. You just wanted out of this machine.

“A fascinating display,” Hemlock murmured. His soft voice cutting through the screaming chaos in your mind. Your entire body was pounding with each frightened pulse in your chest. Being restrained like this — trapped with no way of getting out — made your panic a living, breathing creature. One you thought you had left behind.

“Please,” you whispered through dry lips, eyes searching for Niner’s visor. Hemlock followed your gaze, his glacial eyes narrowing for a moment.

“You will remain here until you give me what I want.”

Your arms were still moving, shifting and slicing your skin on the restraints. Tears slid out of your eyes, wetting the inside of your ears.

“What do you want from me?” You cried out to Hemlock, desperate to be free while hating how pathetic you sounded.

He smirked, bending at the waist to lean over you slightly. “I want complete control over you.” Hemlock reached in, pressing his thumb in the middle of your forehead. “You have something hidden inside you that I want, a gift you will not acknowledge.” You tried not to sob, grinding your teeth against the urge to wail, ignoring the pain he was creating in your head. “You have secrets,” he breathed, clearly enjoying the reaction he was getting from you. “And they will belong to me, eventually.” You hiccuped quietly, eyes fluttering as the pressure between them vanished and he straightened. “Proceed.”

The machine hummed to life, causing your muscles to tense as you readied yourself for what was to come.

But no amount of bracing could stop the searing agony that ripped through your body, and stole who you were.

[she-karev]

A Day in Hell (Amber Karev Angst)

Age Rating: 12+

Chapters: One of Six

Fandom: Grey’s Anatomy

Canon Episode: Season 17 Episode 1

AN: I wanted to do a story to showcase the hardships health care workers faced when covid hit. The doctors and nurses put our health first during a worldwide crisis and we should be forever grateful for that even without a pandemic to prove what should always be known.

Summary: Amber works in the covid unit where she bonds with an actuary patient of hers.

Words: 1087

Chapter Links Here: 1,2,3,4,5,6

April 1st, 2020

Amber stands outside the elevator doors waiting for them to open so she can get to work. She normally goes to work in her casual clothes, but she found coming in already in baby blue scrubs proves to be less time consuming.

Her red plaid fabric mask feels hot against her mouth and nose, but she bears with it since the alternative will get her exposed. Also, her PAPR helmets at work are a welcome relief to her claustrophobia.

It doesn’t make up for the soul crushing despair that comes with working at a hospital during a pandemic, but it makes her breathing easier which is something. The elevator opens to reveal one white woman in a tracksuit wearing her mask below her chin to Amber’s annoyance who ignores it and tries to step in when the woman gasps and holds up her hand signaling her to stop before entering.

“Do you work at a hospital?” The woman asks in fright.

Amber raises an eyebrow at the blonde woman she designates as Karen for obvious reasons with her mom tracksuit and disregard for covid protocols, “Yeah I’m a doctor.”

The Karen gives a grin, “Could you wait for the next elevator?”

Amber looks at the vile woman blankly. Normally she would tear the woman down with her words and maybe a punch if she provokes her. But with covid and her feelings drained before she even gets to work, Amber doesn’t have the energy to put up a fight. So, she steps out of the elevator and back into the hallway making the lady smile.

“I appreciate you!” Amber gives the condescending woman a fake grin behind her mask as the elevator doors close.

Later

Jackson sanitizes his double gloved hands next to Amber in the covid ward where she tells him how her morning went.

“I appreciate you?” Jackson’s asks both disgusted and amused.

Amber bitterly nods inside her helmet, “Yep she said that after she kicked me out when she saw me in my scrubs.”

Jackson scoffs, “Wow I guess a crisis really brings out the worst in people.”

“That lady was probably already the worst before covid. I bet she has a gun in her apartment in case there are kids playing outside her gold coated hallway outside her diamond encrusted apartment where she has a boy toy who’s 20 years younger than her.”

Jackson chuckles, “Maybe she collects nazi art in her free time or scares little black boys on the street with how white and oppressive she is.”

“You know I’ve never been discriminated against for being a doctor before. I gotta say it’s not as fun as I thought it would be.”

“You thought it would be fun?” Jackson grabs a tablet and goes over it, “All right Grey has a lot on her plate working this floor, so I offered to take half her patients, so they don’t get rushed through. First one is Ian Talbert, 64, came in positive with covid three days ago and running on 90 percent on O2. The prednisone and magnesium seem to be working, if his scans are clear we can discharge him to quarantine for two weeks at home.”

Amber sighs, “Finally some good news for once, I’ve been treating him these past two days he’s a good guy. Let’s get him into CT and get him home.”

The duo walk inside Ian’s room where they find him standing in front of a white board writing down equations to Jackson’s surprise.

“Um Mr. Talbert?” Ian coughs before turning to them, “I’m Dr. Avery I’ll be treating you today, you already know Dr. Karev.”

“Hey Ian, another breakthrough?”

Ian caps the black marker, “There’s no time like the present to get lost in numbers Amber.”

“No but maybe you can do it sitting down and conserving your energy so you can lower your risk of having a stroke.”

Ian groans but walks to the bed with Jackson helping him and Amber checking his vitals, “Don’t worry I did the math, the chances of me having a stroke while recovering from a virus is at 12.78 percent.”

Jacksons raises an eyebrow at the precise calculation causing Amber to explain, “Ian’s an actuary.”

“Oh like an insurance guy?”

Ian coughs, “I calculate odds for a living, mostly for insurance companies. It’s basically like being a cross between an undertaker and a bookie.”

“Ask him anything and he’ll tell you the odds of it happening in real life.”

Jackson chuckles and takes a chance, “Okay um odds of my kids contracting a deadly virus.”

Ian thinks, “As long as you quarantine and keep her way from strangers, I’d say more people are killed by lightning I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Jackson is relieved and turns to Amber, “I like this guy.”

“Oh yeah, he’s good. My turn, what are the chances of my friend here getting back together with his ex-wife?”

Jackson looks at her annoyed, “Why would you even ask that?”

Ian faces Jackson, “How would you describe your sexual chemistry?”

“Oh, it’s hot.” Amber answers, “I live with them and it’s like living with two rabid bunnies who took vows of celibacy.”

“Amber!” Jackson admonishes her but goes back to the task at hand, “Okay Ian we gotta check your lungs in CT and if their clear you can go home, and I won’t have my personal life calculated.”

Ian grins, “Let’s get right to it.” Amber nods and latches down the gurney rail, “But if you ever want your stock portfolio analyzed and given the best options to increase revenue my zoom door is always open. I don’t work for cheap though.”

Jackson chuckles, “Thanks but I already got a guy, and he helped me when my family’s foundation was in the shambles after my grandfather’s sex scandal.”

They then move Ian’s bed outside the door and head to radiology, “Hey Ian maybe you can tell me the chances of my resident roommate moving out of my apartment and into her own.”

Amber grins sarcastically, “Funny.”

Ian coughs, “With her salary combined with the predicament were in I’d suggest looking into a hotel for some alone time with the lady you got sexual chemistry with.”

Amber laughs, “See even the actuary you met five minutes ago knows what’s right in front of you. If only you could too.”

Jackson sighs, “This is gonna be a fun day.” They head inside the elevator and press the button for radiology and watch the doors close.

Next Part Here

[clonemando]

And Threes Makes Three

Rex and Wolffe finally get to bring home the Cadet they're adopting together.

or read it here, under the cut:

important tags:

CT-7567 | Rex/CC-3636 | Wolffe

implied Alpha-17/Obi-Wan Kenobi/ARC-77 | Fordo

Adoption

Domestic Fluff

Rex and Wolffe adopt a Cadet Together

Disabilities

Cloneshipping | Clone Trooper/Clone Trooper Relationships (Star Wars)

Canon Divergence - Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)

Order 66 Didn't Happen (Star Wars)

Anakin Skywalker Faces Consequences

Obi-Wan Kenobi Raises Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker

Wolffe squeezed Rex’s hand nervously as they walked into a busy office in the new Jedi temple. There were already clones and Jedi waiting in seats to be called and a few in line ahead of them to talk to the receptionists to check in. 

“Hello, I’m Ja’nari, how can I help you today?” A nice human looking Jedi asked, brown hair clipped back to stay out of her face. 

“I’m Commander Wolffe and this is my husband Rex. We, uh, have an appointment about adopting a cadet?” He said feeling his heart flip a few times in his chest and Rex squeezed his hand back. 

“Oh, yes! You’re here about Threes. He’s part of Sneko Clan right now, I remember Arlena mentioning he might be being adopted soon. Here, fill this out and bring it back when you’re finished and we’ll get you in soon.” She said handing them a datapad which Rex took and gestured to the seats nearby before calling up the next group in line.

Sitting down Wolffe peeked at the form as Rex started to fill everything out. “Didn’t we already fill this out last time we were here?” He asked, remembering they had been made to fill out enough paperwork to supply two full battalions and they would know. It had taken ages and been exhausting to try to figure some of the questions out since the forms had seemed to be meant for natborns. 

“These are different and there’s only two. I think it’s just finalizing stuff to make sure nothing has changed since the last time we were here.” Rex said finishing up easily enough and returning the pad to Ja’nari before returning to sit next to Wolffe. 

Wolffe fidgeted. “What if Fox was right? I might not be good at this Rex. I-” He whispered but Rex knocked their shoulders together. 

“Firstly, Fox apologized for that already and only said that because you provoked him. Secondly, Fox's opinion doesn’t actually matter in the end, only ours, even if he did actually think the things he said, which I know for a fact he does not. Wolffe, we went over this like a hundred times already. You like Threes. I like Threes. Threes likes both of us. We have the space and money and time to take care of him. We’ve both taken care of entire battalions before. We can take care of one single cadet.” He reminded him. Wolffe snorted. 

“You make everything sound so simple and logical… Did you steal those lines from Gen- Master Koon?” He teased and it was Rex’s turn to snort. 

“I have my own good ideas from time to time you know. I definitely didn’t get them from my own General after all.” He huffed but his expression twisted at the reminder of Skywalker and Wolffe wrapped an arm around his shoulder and squeezed letting Rex lean his head against him. 

After Palpatine had been dealt with, Skywalker had pretty much lost his mind. He wanted Fox and Cody tried for treason even with news that they had saved Obi-Wan’s life and that the Chancellor had been a Sith available. When the Council refused he had planned to go after them himself but he had gone to ask Fives for help and Fives had commed Rex who had in turn warned Fox and Cody and got help from the other Jedi. 

The confrontation had been nasty because somehow Senator Amidala had found out and showed up to confront her husband and a whole load of new information had been spilled about Anakin having killed an entire tribe back on Tatooine before the war and Padme helping him over it up. Skywalker had accused her of sleeping with Kenobi, force choked her, and then started fighting Mace and Kit who had shown up to stop him. 

Rex had managed to draw his attention when he realized that his General’s power was even too much for the pair of Jedi to handle on their own and Fives had shot him with three stun blasts before he went down. 

Wolffe had been helping with a relief mission and hadn’t heard anything until Rex commed him later and told him everything through his tears. They didn’t find out until later that Padme had gone into an early labor due to the stress and given birth to twins. Once she had recovered, Padme had apparently planned on giving the pair up for adoption since Anakin had been arrested and she had been forced to give up her seat in the Senate as her own crimes came to light while Anakin’s were investigated. 

Obi-Wan was a mess but as Anakin’s once legal guardian and a close friend of Padme’s he had offered to take the kids in once it was known that Padme’s family weren’t interested in claiming the children born of their child’s lies. Alpha-17 and Fordo had both stepped up and offered to help.

Wolffe hadn’t heard anything about it until he had returned from the scouting mission he was on with Plo looking at different planets that might work for the clones. Rex had nearly tackled him off the platform as he was leaving the ship and started crying until Wolffe had been able to get him somewhere private and coax the story from him. 

“Commanders Wolffe and Rex?” The receptionist calling them dragged Wolffe from his memories and he and Rex stood to walk back over to the counter where they were directed to walk through a door to the right and then down the hall to the last door. The office they arrived at belonged to the Besalisk Jedi who was dealing with their case, Master Arlena. “Wolffe, Rex! Good to see you! Come in and sit! I have good news!” She said using a pair of arms to guide them into the room while another closed the door behind them. 

“We were approved?” Rex asked and she nodded with a wide grin. 

“You were! Obviously things are different for the clone cadets and how adoption is working for them especially for other clones and Jedi who are interested but everything went through smoothly. I have some papers for you to add to your files but after you leave here tonight you can pick Threes up from Sneko Clan and take him home. I already called ahead and let the creche master know.” She assured them and started to spread out some papers across her desk explaining they had Threes get a full medical work up and had all his information available for them, and it was in the Temple’s system.

“Obviously Threes’ disabilities means he has regular check ups but I’m sure you’re used to dealing with Wolffe’s own appointments. He’s already enrolled in classes so you won’t have to worry about his schooling. The first home check will be next month but you both have all the numbers on this page here if you need any help at all before then. Remember there’s no shame in asking for help but letting issues fester will only lead to them getting worse with time. Do you have any questions for me?” She asked and Wolffe looked at Rex who was looking over the documents they’d be taking with them, eyes looking a little red. 

“No ma’am. We’re excited to show Threes his new home. Our batchmates are already planning a party if Threes agrees to it. Everyone is really excited to meet him.” Wolffe said and she stood. 

“In that case, congratulations and don’t let me keep you! Reach out for anything, I’m happy to help and it’s been a joy helping you both and Threes find each other.” She said shaking their hands as she ushered them out at a friendly pace but Wolffe knew that with the number of cadets they were still trying to get homed and how bust the office was she likely didn’t have time to dawdle. 

Leaving the office felt like a blur and soon he and Rex were just standing in the middle of a hallway in the temple staring at each other. 

“We… that… Did we really?” Rex asked as the tears finally spilled over even as his lips kept twitching up into a grin and Wolffe found his own smile catching before he dragged Rex in for a desperate kiss. 

“We’re parents now. We have our own kid. Threes gets to come home with us!” He cheered and Rex started laughing breathlessly along with him. 

“We should go get him then! Classes will be out in another hour. We can surprise him and stop by the shops to get ice cream on the way home.” Rex suggested and Wolffe nodded both of them holding hands as they hurried off toward where they knew Threes’ clan was so they could collect him after his class. 

(line break)

Threes bit his lip as he hugged his plush loth-wolf tightly. It had been a gift from Commander Wolffe after the second time they met and it was so soft and warm it helped when Threes got overwhelmed. He especially liked that Rex had helped him switch out one of the wolf’s eyes and sew the fabric so it looked like Commander Wolffe’s eye did. 

The day had been rough from the start. Firstly one of his clan mates had stolen his loth-wolf from his that morning and refused to give it back until Threes had gone to tell the creche master about it then they had spent the day calling him a tattle-tale and giving him a grumpy look since they had gotten a talking to. After mid-meal no one had wanted him on their team for their sword fighting games because of his messed up hands so he had ended up sitting alone in the garden until it was time to return to classes. Then he had to take the class with his least favorite teacher, Mr Frellin. He wasn’t mean but Threes felt like he had some sort of grudge against him because he always insisted on Threes having to write all his assignments by hand. Technically Threes could write on his own thanks to the surgeries that had been done and the fact he did have three usable fingers on each hand but it caused his hands to cramp up if he had to do it for long stretches of time and it hurt. 

His other teachers let him dictate his assignments to helper droids where it would get printed out instead. He didn’t understand why Mr Frellin insisted on making things harder for him when there was an easier way but the man insisted he was doing it for Threes’ own good and that he’d thank him for it in the future. 

Then as they were walking back to their rooms the same bully from earlier had finally poked the wrong nerve reminding Threes that Rex and Wolffe hadn’t been by to visit in over a month now and that they had probably gotten bored of him. Threes had tackled him and they had fought until the Creche master dragged them apart and sent both of them to their rooms where a nurse had eventually come to check on him and then check on the bully to make sure neither of them had been badly hurt. 

“Well we were going to get ice cream but that might be considered reinforcing bad behavior.” Rex’s voice broke through Threes’ moping and he immediately jumped up to throw his arms around Rex and hug him.

“You saw the kid’s form Rex, we should be encouraging a good tackle like that and it’s not like I haven’t done worse to Fox in our own scuffles. At least he didn’t bite the other kid.” Wolffe cut in and wrapped Threes in another hug from behind. 

“You came back!” He said squeezing as tightly as he could and Rex ran his fingers through Threes’ hair gently.

“Of course we did, did you think we wouldn’t? We told you we were going to adopt you. Sorry it took so long. The data-forms were all made for natborns and took twice as long to process as we expected.” Rex sighed. 

“I wasn’t sure if you really meant it. Lots of people say things and don’t mean them.” Threes murmured softly. Alpha-17 had promised that Threes wouldn’t get separated from his batch after all and yet Ka’ra Squad had been separated as soon as they were all brought to the temple. 

“We meant it, kid. We’re actually here because it’s all done. You’re coming home with us, if you haven’t changed your mind that is?” Wolffe asked and Threes looked up at him with wide hopeful eyes. 

“Really?! I… I get to go with you?” He asked and Rex nodded with a smile. 

“As of today we are officially your buir’e. You’re stuck with us. Unfortunately for you Wolffe snores so snuggling in our bed in the middle of the night won’t help you sleep. But he can make a mean hoth-chocolate so I forgive him.” Rex teased and Wolffe rolled his eyes. 

Threes moved to latch onto Wolffe in a hug next and Rex started moving around to gather up Threes things from the room packing them in a bag he had brought with him. 

“We’re going out for ice cream to celebrate and then we’ll get you settled in your new room. Since its Primeday you have a few days before you need to be in class again. Our vode want to meet you too if you’re okay with it. Cody and my twin Fox are here for the next few weeks visiting so they offered to stop by for a little party but we wanted to make sure you were okay with it first. 

“Cody? You mean like… the Commander Cody of the 7th sky? Of course I want to meet him! He’s the coolest clone in the whole GAR! He punched Grievous in the face and helped kill the Sith lord!Who wouldn’t want to meet Cody?!” He asked bouncing now and both Rex and Wolffe shared a look Threes didn’t understand over his head but he didn’t care. He got to meet Cody!

“Way to make the rest of us feel loved kiddo.” Wolffe huffed and Threes rolled his eyes at him. 

“I mean you and Rex are cool too but Commander Cody is a legend!” He continued to babble away scooping up his loth-wolf to hug as Rex finished packing and slung the bag over his shoulder. 

“I’m sure Cody will love you too twerp. He’s actually a nerd though so don’t set your hopes too high. His name isn’t Cody for no reason.” Rex huffed a laugh as they started leading Threes out. 

“Isn’t it like another version of Kote? Like Glory?” Threes asked and Wolffe started laughing while Rex’s lips twitched. 

“He might tell you that but it started off as Codes because he kept whispering the reg codes in his sleep.” Wolffe told him while Threes gaped at him. 

“What?! No way! That’s… so lame!” He squeaked, not sure if they were telling him the truth or not but just happy to get to spend time with them again… his parents. The thought made him beam and hug Wolffe again, stopping their movement for a moment before Wolffe just scooped him up under one arm and kept moving, making Threes giggle. 

“You won’t make me late for ice cream kid, not even with hugs.” Wolffe hummed and Rex shook his head fondly. 

“We have all the time in the galaxy now. You can’t be late when there’s no deadline.” Rex pointed out and Threes felt like his heart was going to explode from just how happy that thought made him. 

They had forever now. 

[thicctails]

Spectral Sister

Writing a lil practise blurb for my Speaking Shadows rewrite. It's not canon (at least, not yet) and is mostly just a fun exercise for me. Feel free to read but without prior knowledge of the AU it ain't gonna make much sense.

Crosshair stood ramrod straight as he stood near the entrance of the prison room, his eyes fixed on the girl that sat silent and unmoving behind the same quietly humming force field that had held him and his brothers not long ago. She stared right back, her brown eyes, usually soft and curious, were now cold and sharp as they stayed locked on his own.

He blinked.

She did not.

She hadn't since he'd put her in there.

It made his skin crawl, a sick feeling settling in the pit of his stomach the longer he looked at her, yet he was unable to tear his eyes away. This did not feel like the same little girl that had followed behind them like a lost massiff pup, more like some strange creature trying to pretend to be human.

Crosshair swallowed imperceptibly, mentally chastising himself. He was a fully grown man, and a highly trained soldier to boot. Omega was a child, injured, restrained and locked behind an electrified wall of energy. There was absolutely nothing here for him to be afraid of.

The feeling in his gut did not change.

He did not know how long he'd continued to stare at his prisoner before the door slid open, the slender forms of Nala Se and Lama Su stepped into the room, followed closely by Vice Admiral Rampart. Part of Crosshair, the part that hadn't quite been robbed of all its individuality, bristled at the man's presence, knowing full well what the other man thought of him.

Shoving the insubordinate thoughts away, Crosshair refocused his attention, tilting his head just the tiniest amount to better listen as Lama Su began to speak.

"CT-9904, is the prisoner in stable condition?" the Prime Minister asked.

"Yes, sir." Crosshair replied, biting back the venom that threatened to spill into his voice at the use of his number, "She has a few minor injuries, but nothing that requires any attention at the moment."

"I'm shocked. I figured that clones would be completely inept at keeping a child alive, especially defects like Clone Force 99." Rampart sneered, and Crosshair tightened his grip on his Firepuncher to keep himself from acting impulsively. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Omega twitch.

"Clone Force 99 are formidable soldiers, so while they were not bred for childcare, it should not being so surprising that they managed to keep Omega mostly unharmed." Nala Se rebutted.

"Mostly unharmed will be more than sufficient for our purposes." Lama Su said, stopping any potential argument in its tracks, "CT-9904, retrieve the prisoner and bring her to the main lab. We'll extract the genetic material we need, then terminate her. She'd be little more than a resource drain alive at this point."

Nala Se's face scrunched with barely hidden dismay, and Crosshair's feet felt like they were weighed down by concrete as he obeyed the order he'd been given. Part of him had been almost certain that if she was going to be handed back over to her warden, or perhaps given to Crosshair himself to train to serve the Empire. The kid could hardly be blamed for running in the beginning, and she certainly hadn't done anything worthy of execution in his mind. This seemed like a waste of a perfectly good soldier.

'What am I doing?' the little voice that he fought every second of every day to repress began to speak once more, 'This is wrong!'

He punched in the code to the door, watching as the buzzing light disappeared. He strode forward, leaning down to grab the kid's arm.

Omega turned towards him for the first time since he'd captured her on the backwater planet, and he froze in place.

Her eyes had gone from a mild brown to a stark, piercing white. The lights above flickered, the flashes of darkness revealing that they were glowing with an unnatural, eerie light. His breath caught in his throat as the temperature suddenly plummeted, the hairs on the back of his neck raising in instinctive alarm.

"Ba'slanar, verd'ika." a voice, entirely wrong for the mouth it was coming out of, sliced through the uneasy silence that had befallen the room. Blinding pain suddenly erupted in Crosshair's mind, the agony forcing him to one knee.

"What the hell?" Rampart hissed through his teeth, fear leaking into his tone.

Omega moved faster than Crosshair's mind could follow, her restraints snapping under some unseen force. Her hand raised, and as the lights above exploded into fragments of hot glass and all but the clones screamed in terror, something flew into it, the object appearing as if from thin air. For a moment, the cell was completely shrouded in darkness.

Then, with an unnatural crack of energy, the white outline of a blade appeared, flickering and snapping as if it were made of concentrated lightning. There was a slight breeze, as if something had just moved at a tremendous speed past the fallen clone trooper.

Through the ringing of his ears, Crosshair just barely heard the first agonised scream.

[neriyon]

Ship meme thing! Get the template here.

So turns out these were a lot bigger than I thought sooooo we posting them one at a time to save space. It also conveniently leaves me more room to ramble about specifics under this

So! Let's go down from the top, I have lot I want to mention lol.

As said, they met during CT quests but only ended up dating after ShB events. ARR G'raha was a brat who was too focused on future to even think about relationships and Hawu'li hadn't lost anyone yet so he took his time with showing his interest. They parted as friends, and G'raha's well being was one of the first things Hawu'li asked about after meeting Exarch.

Hawu'li is canonically couple centimeters shorter than the min height allowed in-game. Based on my own comparisons of them standing side by side I'm pretty sure G'raha is min height (Exarch is little taller, guessing that's because no catboy slouch).

G'raha being bi - this is more of a general note but since the game understandably does not define any of their sexualities I usually default to just calling all npcs who show any interest to WoL bi.

Affection - I originally thought about just painting the whole chart purple bc Hawu'li is so so so affectionate. If you let him he'll touch you almost constantly (holding hands, tail wrapped around your limbs, small kisses to cheek/forehead, constant words of affection etc) but he's also very considerate about some of his partners disliking pda (limits it to behind closed doors if asked). G'raha seems more verbal type, mostly bc he still feels shy touching someone he's been idolizing for so long.

First to confess - G'raha confesses right around the last quests of 5.0 MSQ. First "love" said goes to Hawu'li though - G'raha stumbles on his words long enough for Hawu'li to just interrupt with "I love you too, you know. No need to be so shy about it."

Propose - Hawu'li is actually not that interested on marriage (after growing up on family where that was not a big thing) but he is the first one to ask for a keepsake as a mark of their bond. G'raha got a ring to keep as a necklace (with the "new adventure, together" carved inside it) and Hawu'li got a red, crystal speckled piece of thread to add to his braclet (hand woven with one thread for each person he dates seriously, him asking you to pick a thread for it is a big thing)

What else uhhhhh...

Sunkitty gets up early, moonkitty likes sun but tends to sleep long.

Hawu'li will be whatever spoon you want as long as he gets to cuddle

Being almost same size they tend to steal each other's clothes regularily, sometimes accidentally (G'raha's shyer to do it tho)

Hawu'li needs attention or he will die, luckily G'raha also needs it after pining for so long

[ao3feed-techphee]

They Have Stolen the Heart from Inside You (But this Does Not Define You)

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/vLhkZTq by r_chess “I don’t think you’ll regret this,” Echo rested a hand on Hunter’s soldier. “I know it’s a lot of pressure, what we’re trying to accomplish. But I want you to remember that I’ve spent time with some of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy. And sometimes, even with them, it was like the Force was working on its own just because they were tuned into it. I know Omega’s not a Jedi, but she’s as open minded as any Jedi I’ve ever met. If any one of us can pull this off, it’s her.” Another sigh escaped Hunter, this one void of the optimism that he’d tried to display for Omega. “Let’s hope you’re right, Echo.” ― ― CX-2 has been rescued from the Empire and revealed to be none other than Tech. It seems that there’s no way for the Batch to get through the Imperial conditioning he endured; there’s nothing that hasn’t already been tried by Rex and his group. But, Omega may have something that no other clone has: the Force. Though she doesn’t really know anything about it, she hopes she can use it to somehow help her long lost brother. Or at least, she wonders if she can.   A fix it fic with lots of fluff and some Force fun mixed in! Words: 2399, Chapters: 1/10, Language: English Fandoms: Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Cartoon), Star Wars - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: F/M Characters: CT-9901 | Hunter, CT-9903 | Wrecker, CT-9902 | Tech, CT-21-0408 | CT-1409 | Echo, CT-9904 | Crosshair, Omega (Star Wars: The Bad Batch), CX-2 | Sniper CloneX2 (Star Wars), Phee Genoa, Shep Hazard, Lyana Hazard, Batcher the Lurca Hound (Star Wars) Relationships: Phee Genoa/CT-9902 | Tech, Clone Force 99 | Bad Batch & Omega (Star Wars: The Bad Batch), Omega (Star Wars: The Bad Batch) & CX-2 | Sniper CloneX2, Lyana Hazard & Omega (Star Wars: The Bad Batch) Additional Tags: Fix-It, CT-9902 | Tech is CX-2 | Sniper CloneX2, CT-9902 | Tech Lives, Not Canon Compliant, Force-Sensitive Omega (Star Wars: The Bad Batch), Force Shenanigans (Star Wars), Reunions, Clone Force 99 | Bad Batch as Family, Sweet Omega (Star Wars: The Bad Batch), Affectionate Clone Force 99 | Bad Batch, CT-9902 | Tech Needs a Hug, Light Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Good Sibling CT-9903 | Wrecker, Emotionally Intelligent CT-9903 | Wrecker, Crying, Hugs, Phee Genoa Needs a Hug, Meditation, Breakfast in Bed, CT-9903 | Wrecker Needs a Hug, Smart CT-9903 | Wrecker, Curious Omega (Star Wars: The Bad Batch), Other Additional Tags to Be Added read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/vLhkZTq

[ct-7045]

Screw's blog masterpost

Well, hello there. I'm Screw, designation CT-7045, of the 501st Legion. Torrent Company, specifically. My batchmates are troopers Tup and Dogma.

A few of my brothers have convinced me into creating this blog on the holonet. Fives said it would be good for me to interact with civvies? Don't know about that, but this seemed fun all the same.

Asks are open! I think! Whatever those are!

《Mun speaks: Hey hiya thanks for visiting! This is my clone oc screw and I decided to make a rp blog for him. But i'm inexperienced at this whole thing fyi (as evidenced by my lack of lots of content lol). main blog: @salubriousbean

If you don't want to scroll past long rp chains you can block the tag #tcw rp , I'm pretty sure I've tagged all of them and this masterpost lol with that tag

I'll add more to this masterpost as I think of things I promise. Q&A's and other info under the cut so y'all know what the kriff is going on:

/\ = signifies a POV change, like Screw's POV to a third person POV and vice versa (at least for this blog idk about other rp blogs)

《 》 = mun speaks (personal preference for these symbols I just like them, also just for this blog idk about other rp blogs)

questions n stuff (agh sorry about the capitalization, it's wack):

Are you open to rp with other blogs?

lol I don't even know why I included this question as I'm too chicken to tag anyone to rp with

but yes! I'd love to rp with you as long as it's appropriate. I will also only answer appropriate (ex. sfw) asks. disclaimer: responses may take a little longer as I've got a wack schedule but I'll do my best

Is this canon compliant?

if I'm being honest, not usually, but it depends on if I'm rp-ing with someone who is being canon compliant. This is kind of an au (considering that Tup and Dogma are the only ones left of their batch if my knowledge is correct, so Screw wouldn't exist. but he does here ahahahhaha). Also in this au I've decided that domino squad all survives and all become ARCs, huzzah! This is all sort of just bending canon lol

How did Screw get his name?

That's actually one of my wips, I'll link to it when it's finished (here's a snippet!) (btw it includes Fordo and Alpha-17, more not really canon compliant stuff (??) but who cares? not me!)

What does Screw look like?

I promise I'll add a photo of him to this post . . . as soon as I finish it that is . . . Anyways he uses a DC-17 like his two batchmates. He originally was going to cut his hair shorter like Dogma's, but Tup convinced Screw to grow his hair out like with him. It's not quite as long as Tup's yet, but it's getting there. It's longer than regulation, so Tup and Screw can tie most of it up if they want, but not all of it yet.

Screw and Tup also came up with the teardrop tattoo idea and they're proud of it. I'm currently brainstorming tattoo ideas for him.

He has a large scar across his face, from his forehead, across the bridge of his nose, and off his cheek. Another smaller scar cuts throigh his eyebrow. He got the scars in his squad's first posting, where they (Screw, Tup, and Dogma) lost the other members.

(The following is subject to change) Screw's helmet is painted to kind of match his scar, but symmetrical, it almost looks like a peace sign on the front. His armor is pretty random, he has two big four-pointed stars on his knee plates, an five-pointed star on one of his shoulders, and the other shoulder is solid blue. On the top of his chest plate is some clouds, with lightning and raindrops coming down from them. On the back of one of his hand plates is Tup's teardrop, and on the other is Dogma's chevron. On one of his forearms are patterns from his other two squadmates' armor (the ones who are no longer with them), and other patterns from other clones who have made a difference in Screw's life. On the other of his forearms is Ahsoka's markings, and some other TBD markings. The rest of his armor is TBD

What's Screw's personality like?

He, uh, let's just say he's got a loose screw or two. Also I have taken large chunks of my personality and made it his personality too. So there's that.

Screw likes cool stories (they live in his head rent-free) and he was able to bond with Hardcase over explosions. Once he met Fives, he was a teensy bit less lax with rules, but Dogma gently reminds him here and there when needed.

The 501st is all convinced that Screw also had a leak in his growth jar, like Hardcase, 'cause how else could you explain all his randomness and occasional chaos? However, this leak thing has never been officially confirmed by the Kaminoans. But Kix said "Most likely." so it's basically confirmed. At least for the 501st.

Screw also has trouble going to bed/sleeping at normal hours. A lot of the times he's up late, with only Rex up too, doing reports and captain stuff. Screw would love to go spend time with his Captain but he's a bit (socially) anxious, like Tup, so he's too scared to ask. luckily, those late nights are perfect for blogging. Though Screw does have trouble waking up in the morning. Also sometimes he gets matching headaches with Tup, and less frequently, Dogma.

Screw loves his brothers, especially his two other batchers (platonically, no cloneshipping here). He's also fascinated with mando'a, he thinks the language is really cool and already mostly knows it. He's a slight nerd and will sometimes hyperfixate on various topics. He likes learning new words. Once he painted a mouse droid and named it Slayer. And named a mop Enrad. Screw is also besties with 99 (and Omega a bit) :>

Thanks for reading all this guys, I'm excited to develop my boy's character some more and have some fun with him!》

[deanstead]

Pieces (17): Plans are things that change

Chapter 17: plans are things that change

Chapter Summary: Y/N and Jay’s evening plans get ruined after a commotion in the ED. Connor seeks Jay’s help in dealing with a perceived threat.

Word Count: 2,578

Warnings: canon-typical mentions of injuries

A/N: So this scenario had been planned out by me when someone requested this so I didn't take the request, so if the anon is reading this then here it is! And I hope you like it! Something's brewing again... oops. Drop by and let me know what you guys think!

SERIES MASTERLIST || JAY HALSTEAD MASTERLIST

Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

“Hey Will, you’re still on for tonight right?” You asked, glancing at your friend hopefully.

Will nodded, just as he heard Maggie call. “Yeah, I’ll leave with you later alright? Quit worrying.”

Ever since you’d started seeing Jay, he mostly tried to keep most of the dates kid-friendly so that Chloe wouldn’t feel left out, a fact that you were most thankful and honestly touched by. You’d only ever asked Will for his help on special dates, dates like today.

You could barely believe time was passing so quickly. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, you and Jay had already been together for a year. A whole year. Sometimes being with Jay didn’t even feel real, everything didn’t feel real, but it was.

So Will had agreed to watch Chloe tonight, who’d been happy to spend some time with Will and you reminded yourself that the four year old you’d left with was now six.

Over the past few months, Chloe had grudgingly agreed to spending more time with her father, but only her father. According to her, it was okay - Caleb took her out, went to places she wanted to, but you also knew that Caleb had lost his daughter the day he’d walked out on the both of you.

You didn’t push, you just let your six year old make the decision for herself. “You know no one can force you to do anything, right?” Chloe had smiled back up at you and nodded. “Yeah, I remember. Jay said that too.”

So you must be doing something right.

“Y/N, can you take a look at this?” Ethan’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts and you nodded as he handed you the iPad in his hand. “I can’t figure out why she keeps having these seizures. There’s nothing medically I can find, but you know, I want to be sure before I call in Dr Charles.”

You nodded without looking up, studying the scans.

“Ethan.” You pointed. It was barely visible, but there was just a small lesion. “Maybe we should take an MRI.”

Ethan frowned before he nodded. “I’ll order one now.”

“If it’s what I think it is, we should page neuro.” You added.

“Yeah, thanks Y/N.” Ethan nodded.

You were about to respond when you heard Maggie calling for you.

“Let me know if you need me.” You told Ethan, before you quickly headed to the front, straight for Sylvie who was pushing a stretcher in.

“Patrick Smith, got into a bar fight. Impact to the back of head, he’s been stable and alert the whole way here.” Sylvie told you, angling her eyebrow upwards as Maggie pointed to a treatment room.

“Hi Mr Smith, I’m Dr Y/L/N.” You said, moving around to check the wounds on his head. “Alright, we’re going to need some stitches and I’ll send you for a CT scan after that just to make sure.”

“I’m going to kill the bastard!” He yelled, and you just glanced at Doris, before you started working on him.

Mostly, you chose to ignore him as you worked quietly, only speaking to ask the patient to stop moving while he continued ranting about the guy who injured him, only pausing when his wife showed up to check on him.

“Mr Smith, I’ve closed the lacerations on your scalp. We’ll arrange for you to go up for a scan just to make sure there’s no internal injuries. I’ll check back later.”

He barely even heard you as he continued his rant to his wife, whose worried expression switched to one of exasperation after you explained to her that the external injuries had been taken care of and the scan was just a precaution.

You pumped the hand sanitizer as you left the room, going to look for Ethan to see if there’d been any update. You were kept a little busy, before Doris came to show you the scans your patient had gone for.

“Thanks, Doris.”

You studied the scan, satisfied that it seemed that there’d been no significant injury, so you headed back in to tell him the good news and just to tell him to have it monitored but just as you reached the room, you noticed your patient standing with another guy at the entrance, their voices getting louder and angrier.

“I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch!” Your patient roared, just as you stepped closer to them.

You saw it coming the same way you’d see a car accident - in slow motion.

Smith raised his arm to deliver a punch, his right arm hooking through the air. The guy standing across from him saw it too, and he ducked, but before you could react you felt the contact against your face.

You never really understood the term “seeing stars” when sustaining a hit to the head. At least, until now.

You didn’t hear Connor, Will and Ethan rush up to break up the fight, you didn’t even realize you were already on the ground until you saw Will in front of you.

“Y/N, you with me?”

“Yeah.” You answered, although your eyes could barely focus. Will’s face swam in front of you so you shook your head but Will held your head between his hands.

“Easy. Let me see.” Will whispered, keeping his voice low.

“I’m fine.” You mumbled, just as a searing headache pounded through your skull.

Will glanced back into your eyes. “Alright, let’s get you up first. Can you stand?”

You nodded, climbing to your feet, but it didn’t last long before you crumpled back to the ground again.

“Welcome back.” Will said with a smile as you opened your eyes.

Your head was killing you but at least your vision wasn’t swimming anymore.

“How long was I out?” You asked, your hand moving to your head as another headache pounded against your skull.

“You remember what happened?” Will asked, heading towards you to examine you.

You nodded, then regretted it.

You tolerated the annoyance you felt while Will took you through a few cognitive tests before he glanced down at the scan that just came in. “Concussion, Y/N.”

“I hate being a patient.” You growled. “Please don’t tell Jay.”

You’d barely finished your sentence when he came bursting into the room. “Y/N!”

You groaned and put your face in your hands, looking up just long enough to shoot Will a glare.

Will shrugged. “Sorry, I’d rather you kick my ass. Jay would kill me if I kept this from him.”

“Let me see.” Jay whispered, gently pulling your hands away from your face.

A bruise was forming where your patient’s fist had made contact with your face and Jay turned to Will. “Where is he?” Jay growled.

“Jay.” You called back for his attention, shaking your head. “Don’t.”

“She’s okay. She has a concussion but she’ll be fine. She’ll have to stay tonight but if all’s well, she can go home tomorrow.”

You looked at Will. “Oh come on, Will.”

“I know. I’m sorry. You passed out, let’s play it safe, alright?” Will said before he disappeared back out of the room.

You hated this. You knew Jay made an extra concession to include Chloe so he was probably looking forward to tonight’s dinner more than you were. “Sorry.” You told him, turning to glance at him.

Jay was frowning, until he realized what you were going on about. “Y/N, forget about dinner alright? I was worried about you.”

Jay leaned forward, putting a gentle hand by the side of your face, a thumb gently sweeping across your cheek. “I’m glad you’re alright.” He whispered.

You smiled. “We really should stop landing ourselves in the hospital. I mean like this is literally my second concussion, it’s ridiculous.”

“You’re telling me.” Jay whispered, leaning in further to press a kiss on your forehead gently.

You were staring at the ceiling, lamenting to yourself about how you managed to land yourself in the hospital today. You wanted to roll your eyes but you knew the migraine was probably lurking just around the corner.

Jay had left to get Chloe and explain to her what was happening, while you lay here having déjà vu of the last time you’d been lying in one of Med’s hospital rooms. Maybe you should be thankful that other than a concussion there weren’t more serious injuries.

You looked up when you heard the door open. “Jay, what are you… where’s Chloe?”

“With Will, as was the plan.”

Your eyebrow angled upwards as you saw the tray he was holding, a small bouquet of flowers sitting on it, along with what looked like takeaway food.

“If anyone can bring date night to you, it’s me.” Jay said, with a small smile. “Happy 1st.”

You just blinked back at him.

Jay put the tray down, coming towards you. “Hey, you okay? Does something hurt? Should I call…”

You just put your arms around his middle, pressing yourself against him. Jay exhaled, before he smiled and brought himself down to your eye level, his eyes just meeting yours quietly for a second before he leaned in for a kiss, his hand going to the back of your head like a habit.

Jay was smiling as he pulled away, before he went to get the tray, setting it up on the hospital table between the both of you and you reached out for the flowers when something silver caught your eye and you looked up at Jay, who was almost grinning now.

“What, did you think I was only going to get you flowers?” Jay put on a mock offended look, which only made you laugh, but there was a small pound that accompanied the laugh and you closed your eyes.

“Y/N, hey. You okay?”

When you opened your eyes again, it was to look back in those caring and concerned eyes you’d grown accustomed to and incredibly fond of. You smiled and nodded. “The headaches are normal.”

Jay studied you for a while more and you gave a small nod. “I’m fine. You gonna get moving on that?”

He let out a smile, picking up the necklace and moving around to drape it around your neck, fumbling just a little with the clasp.

“Thank you, Jay. It’s beautiful.” You whispered.

“As are you.” He answered, pressing his lips against yours once more.

You smiled, reaching over for the drawer to your left, making Jay almost jump up from where he was seated. “I’ll get it. I’ll get it.”

“You’ll spoil the fun.” You complained, but Jay gave you a look and you conceded. “Fine.”

You let Jay reach for your bag and you took it, feeling for a box and pulling it out. “Happy 1st.” You announced triumphantly. “I think it goes without saying I wasn’t supposed to be giving this to you in a hospital room.”

Jay let out a small chuckle and opened the box and paused as he looked back at the watch sitting in it, the letters ‘J.H.’ engraved into the strap and he looked up.

“Y/N, this is…”

You were watching him warily, like you were expecting him to not like it, but the sparkle in his eyes told you differently.

So you spent the rest of the evening with Jay in a hospital room, with just a light residual headache that seemed to be already fading. It wasn’t the romantic dinner you’d planned on, but as you told Jay before he left to get back to Chloe at your place, “It was perfect.”

You’d been let out of the hospital the next day, and it took another week before you came back to work.

“Hey.” You greeted, as you opened your locker, pausing when there was no response. You shut your locker again to look at Connor. “Connor?”

As if he had just heard you, Connor glanced at you. “Hey, Y/N. You’re back.”

“You okay?” You asked. It wasn’t like Connor to be so distracted at the beginning of shift.

Connor glanced at you and nodded.

You watched him for a while more before you pulled on your coat, figuring it was better not to push.

“Y/N, can I ask for a favor?”

You turned back to glance at him. “Anything, Connor. You know that.”

“I think I need Jay’s help.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Have you spoken to Will?”

Connor shrugged. “Haven’t seen him.”

You smiled and nodded. “I’ll make the call.”

Connor paused. “You’re not going to ask me about it?”

You shrugged. “You’ll tell me about it when you’re ready. I’ll ask if he can come down later.”

Connor didn’t even look up when you’d come into the lounge for coffee.

By personal experience, you knew that sometimes people just wanted to be left alone, and you preferred to let him come to you so you poured the coffee quietly, only looking up when the door opened again.

“Hey, Jay’s here.” Will said pushing open the door and letting Jay and Kim in.

You glanced at Connor, while Will looked at you. “You guys talk.” You said, almost pushing Will out the door.

“Guys, wait.” Connor said and you glanced back at him. “Stay, it’s fine.”

You blinked, glancing at Jay. “No, seriously.”

Connor handed Jay a few pieces of paper just as you and Will stepped back in, and you watched as Jay’s eyes scanned the paper, glancing at Kim before he looked back up at Connor.

You just listened quietly, as Connor told Jay that this was the third note he’d gotten, notes that all had the same threatening tone - “Who allowed you to play God? I’ll make you regret it.”, “It will be your turn soon”. The first note had appeared on his car at the hospital a few days ago, and then the other two had appeared at his place.

“I thought it would die down in a couple of days, thought it was some prank, but…”

Jay nodded, slipping the papers into a small bag that Kim handed to him. “I’ll see if we can get anything from this, and we’ll look into this. Give us a list of anyone you think of that might have been aggressive over the past few months here, or let me know if you see anyone suspicious loitering around, alright?”

Connor nodded, and Jay took off his gloves now to shake his hand.

You walked Jay out and he paused at the front door. “You be careful too, alright?”

You almost made a joke but caught the look in Jay’s eyes and nodded. “Don’t worry.”

Jay smiled. “I’ll be late tonight but I’ll come over, quietly.”

You laughed and nodded, pushing yourself up on your toes to press a kiss to his cheek. “Thanks for coming down.”

Jay smiled and you waved to both him and Kim before you turned back into Med and headed back to where Will and Connor were, walking in on Will nagging Connor.

You punched Will lightly on the arm. “Okay, enough.” You turned to Connor. “But Will’s right, you should have done this last week.”

“And seriously, you need my brother’s help and you ask Y/N?”

You side-eyed Will. “Shut up.”

That made Connor laugh and you smiled. “We’ll get through this.”

Connor nodded. “Thanks guys. Come on, before Maggie hunts all three of us down for disappearing at the same time.”

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[masterwords]

as the crow flies (part three)

Summary: After a journalist does the BAU dirty, Derek is forced to take the job at the New York Field Office. Hotch is forced to deal. (AU where Hotch and Haley have a daughter instead of a son. Based on this story.)

Warnings: explosion injury aftermath, intermittent hearing loss, vomit, gunshot (no character injury), lots of pain, cigarettes, swearing

Words: 6.5k

Notes: Oh, well, you know. Here we are. Some "Angel Maker" canon being thrown in, but make it worse of course. Hotch is a mess. We'll make him feel better soon.

** CHAPTER LIST **

**

The office was cold. Hotch refused to complain about it, though. He didn't usually, he was well aware of that, but right now knowing that he had so little time left with Derek he wasn't going to chance it. Rubbing his hands together, he squeezed them between his knees to stave off the chill of the waiting room.

“Nervous?” Derek asked, giving Hotch the side eye. He shrugged.

“No. Why would I be?”

“Are they doing a scan today?”

Hotch went silent and shifted uncomfortably. His back was killing him after spending the night on the couch. “Maybe.” He hoped not.

It was the sort of visit where they put him in a gown and made him lay face down and poked and prodded all the tender spaces. The kind where they suggested scheduling a CT or taking him down for an x-ray that wouldn't say anything new. It wasn't like he expected anything from them anymore. He was more or less a lost cause from the get go. You were in an explosion, they all told him. An explosion that killed the person you were with. It's a miracle you're alive. It's going to take time to heal from that. Well, now more than ever, he didn't have the luxury of time. All of this ran through his mind while they followed the nurse back to the exam room, Derek with his hand hovering just over the small of Hotch's back. Not quite contact, not quite separate.

“Hospital gowns really work for you. Something about that little pink and turquoise zigzag pattern brings out the gold in your eyes.”

Hotch frowned as he leaned forward to let Derek tie the gown at his neck. The rest had to stay open, revealing his boxers beneath, but Derek's fingers brushed the back of his neck and it gave him goosebumps. He was glad he'd said yes to Derek coming even if he was a pain in the ass.

“A little advice, Aaron,” Derek said, helping him up onto the table. His back was still stiff and certain movements gave him hell. Maybe if he'd slept in the bed the night before, he'd be in better shape. “Don't lie to him, okay? Tell the truth and they might be able to help you.”

“I don't lie,” he started, but there was a knock at the door and the doctor entered a moment later with a polite greeting.

“How are we today, gentlemen?”

“Doing well, how about yourself?” was Hotch's reply and Derek couldn't help smirking. Hotch felt the flush in his neck and couldn't look in Derek's direction. This was going to be a long visit.

(x)

“Chief Strauss, with all due respect,” Hotch began, putting up as much of a fight as he was able over the phone. He was sitting on his couch with an ice pack on his lower back, shoved tight between him and the cushion. After the visit with the doctor, Derek wasn't willing to play games. He had to stay home and he had to rest. No more after hours visits to the office, no more up all night on the couch. The ice was melting and leaking on the fabric behind him and still he sat knowing it would drench his pants soon too.

His back had always been a problem, though, and one he knew plenty how to handle. Yeah it was a little worse right now but it would pass, the pain would fade into the background again and with enough self-medicating and exercise he could make it quiet. He could always ignore it when it mattered and he had no reason to believe this time would be any different. That wasn't what he feared. It was his ear still giving him pain, still flickering in and out like a radio losing its signal. One minute normal volume, then gone, and then startlingly loud. Like an ice pick symphony. That was new and it was scary. Right now, he could barely hear Strauss' replies. “Agent Morgan is a vital member of this team, especially in my absence.”

“Agent Hotchner, what's done is done. And...” her phone clicked and her voice was lower, harder to hear when she continued. He thought maybe she shut her office door. “If I may be candid, I would consider it a win. Fraternization rules no longer apply to the two of you. Consider it...a gift.”

He had nothing to say to that. Yeah, she was right, and no, she didn't have the wrong impression but it wasn't....he wasn't willing to change either of their jobs for it. Certainly not see Derek move hundreds of miles away, leaving the BAU. It wasn't that serious, at least...he didn't think it was...not yet. He had no argument.

And in the end, Derek decided it wasn't worth the fight no matter how hard Hotch tried to cling to it. No matter who Hotch called, what favors he tried to cash in, it was a done deal.

They stayed at Derek's that night so he could pack what he needed. He still had a few days but he liked to be prepared, and he wanted to spend as much time with Clooney as he could...so Hotch slept over. They usually stayed at Hotch's, it was closer to the BAU, an easier commute and less disruptive when it was his turn to have Lucy stay with them. That was it, the rest of their week. Hotch still not back at work, wandering around Derek's house packing up his things while Derek pretended not to have one foot out the door. Clearing out his desk, finishing reports, saying goodbye.

Each night over dinner, Hotch presented another argument against Derek taking the position. None of them held much water. He was settled already, had made up his mind. The fight was over. The battle was lost.

“Let me go,” Derek said, rubbing Hotch's temple with the smooth pad of his thumb after a particularly bad day. They lay on the couch in the silent house, Clooney at their feet, and Hotch could feel the tears barely kept at bay. “Maybe it'll be better this way. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all of that, right?”

“If you say so, but I have several doubts,” Hotch replied with his eyes closed, lost in the brief spell of relief Derek was casting.

(x)

The nightmares always woke him. They smelled like sulfur, like hell. It wasn't a street in New York, it was somewhere deep and hot, flames licking up the sides of his pant legs. He would call out for Kate and hear her voice but in his nightmares, he could never find her. She was always out of reach. By the time he got close to the sound of her voice, the flames were eating him alive and he woke up in a pool of sweat and blood and Derek trying to soothe him out of it.

Over and over since the explosion. Some nights it was ice, like her cold fingers, brittle and fragile. Other nights it was hungry flames. He didn't want to sleep most nights, knowing that the dreams would come back, maybe be worse. Sometimes he couldn't hear Derek's voice, he could see his mouth moving, telling him everything was alright, he was just dreaming, but he couldn't hear anything except the horrific ringing. His head was a bell tower and it was always midnight.

This was their last night together and Derek was pulling him toward the shower, the place that made it all better. For the first time since Strauss made the decision final, Hotch was acutely aware that this was the last.

Their last night in this bed, in this house. Derek was going to rent it out, no longer their little hideaway with the pleasant green backyard and Clooney's breath on the back slider. The last night Derek would be there when he woke terrified and burning alive, the last night he would pull him into the warm embrace of the shower and hold him there beneath the water until the burning feeling in his skin went away. Derek's arms would wrap around him and he would bury his face there in the warmth of Derek's neck and relax back into reality. No flames, no screaming, no sulfur.

He would have to drag himself to the shower from now on. Somehow it seemed like Derek knew he was thinking about it.

“You can call me,” he said, wet lips against wet ear. “When you wake up at night. You can call me.”

“I'm not going to wake you up.”

“You've never had a problem before...” A drenched smile, a little nip at his ear to lighten the mood. Hotch didn't budge though, he was still coming out of the dream. Adjusting to the pain of reality, the low throb in the base of his spine, the ringing in his ears, the parts he was familiar with. Soft pink blood swirled down the drain at their feet and he tilted his head to let it come for a moment, he wasn't going to bleed to death and he wasn't going to stop the shower to take care of another stupid fucking nose bleed.

“It's not the same.”

“It could be. You're acting like this is all over the minute I fly out in the morning. It's not over for me, and I hope it isn't for you. Come on man, we've been...it's been...Hotch, I'm not just gonna forget about all this. It's a new job, not a new life.”

The sound of the shower hissing, echoing around them, erased everything else. His nosebleed continued until he finally decided he needed to get out, the hot water wasn't helping. Derek got a bag of ice while he pressed a hand towel to his face, wondering how many of his items he was going to ruin before this stopped. They weren't as frequent but they were still a nuisance.

Neither of them went back to sleep, they just lay in bed after that. Derek with Hotch smashed up against him, holding tight, lying there watching the clock tick their last hours together away like it didn't matter. Like nothing was changing.

Dropping Derek off at the airport with his bags packed had seemed like a good idea until it was time to actually say goodbye. He really thought he could do it and be totally fine going back to work, but the drive back to Quantico was a blur of tears and an ache in his chest that felt like it might rip him apart. Call me when you land? That was always what he said, but this time he didn't. He didn't demand it, because that conversation was always predicated by I can't wait for you to get home and that wasn't happening this time. When Derek landed, he was home. He and Emily had taken a road trip up the weekend prior and checked out the penthouse suite the Bureau had secured for him, temporary lodging until he found a place. He wasn't going to sell his house in Virginia, he'd count it as rental income once his things were out or maybe just rent it fully furnished. Whatever the case, he wasn't going to need to come back.

This was it. So Hotch drove, and barely managed to remember to take the turn to his own apartment instead of Derek's house.

He had to get ready for work. JJ had already texted him...they had a case.

In Ohio.

And it sounded like a bad one. He wasn't exactly cleared to fly, but he didn't see where he had any choice. He'd figure it out on the way.

(x)

The gunshot shouldn't have come as a surprise. Dave had told him to move, had nudged him away from the Sheriff, but Hotch wasn't thinking clearly. They'd been there so long and he felt absolutely rotten, each day worse than the last. He chalked it up to Derek being gone, the team being down one and him not being at full speed but it was more than that. His joints ached like he was getting sick but he didn't feel ill. Just..wrong. And besides, his head already hurt, what difference would it make? He handed Emily the bullhorn and stood back, hoping for an outcome he knew wasn't even on the table. They could save the victim but this wasn't going to end well.

Chloe wasn't coming out of there without a fight.

He just didn't see the gunshot coming. Admittedly his mind was elsewhere but it just shouldn't have been such a damn surprise. Suicide by cop was always on the table, and he was surrounded by guns aimed at one door...if it hadn't been the Sheriff, it would have been Dave or Emily or another cop. Anyone on that scene with a firearm would have done it. Hell, his own gun was aimed and ready.

The gunshot leveled him as fast as any explosion. He crumbled, doubled over in agony, clutching his head to keep it from flying apart. Emily and the Sheriff moved toward Chloe without hesitation and Dave circled him, cradled him against the onslaught of pain, listened to the sound of his miserable moans that he really had no control over. Varying pitches each time the pain changed course, stabbing and then throbbing, an ice pick in his ear and then flame behind his eyes.

He cried against Dave's vest, big gasping sobs. It hurt so bad he would never have been able to put words to it, let alone pretend he was fine. That ship had sailed. The scene swirled around him, chaos ebbing and flowing in a disorienting silence and he could feel the vibrations of Dave talking to him but he couldn't hear anything. Not a single word, just vibrations and pain. He thought about the building Adrian Bale leveled, the Agents whose insides painted the walls and how lucky he'd been...that pain had been horrific, he thought at the time. He thought he was going to die. Gideon must have thought so too, the way he screamed Hotch's name and cried over him. Wailed for the medics to come while he held pressure on a wound that Hotch was only vaguely aware of. He just felt pain and cold.

It was nothing compared to this. This was a molten poker searing everything inside of his head. His chest was tight with panic.

Dave tried to peel his hand away from his ear and he cried out, curled further around himself and somewhere deep inside he knew he was making a scene, he was becoming a show and he had to pull himself together. He didn't have this kind of luxury, this sort of get out of jail free card. He had to stand up...

He just couldn't. Each time he tried to straighten his back, stand upright, the pressure change in his ears leveled him again. Dave ushered him away still hunched over, pushed him around the hedge and out of the line of sight before easing him to the ground. It was the best they could do.

This was no longer his crime scene. Dave said something, patted him on the shoulder, and walked away. He was alone with the pressure, the storm in his head, the unsettling quiet of the chaos. An ambulance with siren blaring came in a flood of flashing red and white and he stared at it with dead eyes like he was watching a silent movie from the audience. He wasn't even there anymore.

He walked to his hotel room alone once he pulled himself shaking to his feet. Just stumbled away after a quick text to Dave. There was nothing he could do, he was utterly useless and only in the way. He went from being in charge to being a distraction and there was no pulling himself together in time to be helpful. Spencer called out to him from where he stood with the intended victim, the woman they saved, and he waved him off like he heard anything the other man said. Just dismissed him and stalked away as quickly as his unsteady legs would carry him.

The hotel wasn't far, but on trembling jelly legs it took him longer than it should have. He held one hand over his right ear, tilting his head slightly to that side, muffling the sharp sounds that occasionally pierced through the blanket of silence. But his room was quiet, there wasn't anything to break through, nothing to upset the carefully guarded quiet.

Without even taking off the vest or his shoes, he lay on his bed. Really he just fell, face first, his legs more or less hanging over the edge. It was the only thing he could do. Pressing his cheek to the cool fabric of the pillow, his right ear smashed into the fabric, he closed his eyes and passed out. He might say he fell asleep to save face, but that wasn't even it. He didn't try, he didn't intend to sleep, he just put his face into the pillow and out went the lights.

He didn't wake up feeling any better. The pain had dulled some, but that was replaced with a rolling vertigo induced sickness. Sitting up, the nausea crawled slowly up into his throat and try as he might to gulp it back down, a sense of urgency shuddered through him. With trembling fingers he worked at his vest, freed himself hoping it might relieve some of the pressure and the sick swimming feeling but it only made it worse. That might have been the only thing holding it at bay.

He cried again. It was 3:14am according to the neon green numbers that blurred on the clock beside the television and he was crawling on his hands and knees praying he made it to the toilet before the creeping nausea made good on its threat.

As his throat opened and his body heaved, his head erupted in bright sparking shots of pure agony and his broken ribs creaked like old floor boards under duress. His jaw clicked, ears popping, and he bit into his tongue to try and stifle the sounds he knew would come next. The taste of blood made him retch with more violence, hands slick with sweat and gripping the seat of the toilet he really didn't want his face anywhere near. This close he could smell the sickening porcelain and rusty water, he could see the faint ring where the housekeepers scrubbing just didn't reach, and he gagged miserably until his entire body was racked with tremors.

He passed out on the floor in a pool of tears.

Waking for the second time, he was disoriented. No idea where he was or how he got there, his head felt stuffed with cotton and the taste in his mouth was just shy of bitter decay. He gagged on it, and the way the muscles in his throat shuddered lit him up, forced the memories through the blocked up sieve. Peeling his clothes off slowly, he crawled to the shower...it was all he could do. Shower it off. Get clean and pull himself together because he had to leave this dive of a town and he'd rather not do it in a body bag. If a bomb couldn't take him out, he wasn't about to let this either.

The shower helped.

Jet leaves in an hour. A text from JJ and he groaned, pressing his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. No way he was getting on that plane. He shouldn't have even come in the first place but now...he wouldn't survive it a second time. His head might actually explode. At this point, he simply wouldn't be shocked.

Would you arrange a car for me please? I'll be driving home. He trusted JJ with that information, he could tell everyone else when they met at the station to gather their things. She would do as he asked without any interference, without asking him why or trying to talk him out of it. He adored her discretion and her faith.

Only Emily seemed bothered by his decision in the end, but even that was short-lived. Dave offered to make the drive with him. He didn't even consider it, a fact he would come to regret after only a few miles. Too little too late.

“You might want to consider stretching it out a few days...” Dave offered after Hotch declined his company. “You could do with some time to sit with everything that's happened over the last couple of weeks. Any word on that Post story?”

“Nothing new. JJ is keeping her eye out.”

“Good, good. There's a beautiful little Bed and Breakfast on the highway, not far over the border of Pennsylvania. Best beds in the area. Might do you some good.” Hotch nodded.

“Send me the address.” He had no intention of staying there, but he'd been the center of too much attention lately so he thought being open to suggestion might be the only card left to play. “I'll be back in a couple of days.”

It was only sixty extra miles to New York instead of Quantico. Just one turn and sixty miles. There was nothing waiting for him at home, only an empty apartment. This was Haley's week to have Lucy. That extra sixty miles looked like the difference between wallowing in misery and some kind of peace.

JJ had put a small bag of snacks onto the passenger seat for him and a styrofoam cooler full of bottled water in crushed ice on the floor. There was a small box of ibuprofen in the cup holder with a post-it note that just said “take care” and a smiley face beneath it. Sometimes he didn't know what he would do without her.

Thank you JJ. He couldn't leave without sending her a text, and he glanced up in time to see her wave at him through the darkened window of the SUV's backseat. And then he was alone.

The idea that he would make it to New York in one piece became more and more hilarious to him as the miles ticked by. He sucked down a handful of ibuprofen and an entire bottle of water before he even got out of the parking lot, but the pills did nothing to touch the pain and the water sloshed around in his belly until he was sick enough to pull over and throw it all back up.

He'd only made it about ten miles by then.

He still had more than four hundred to go. The road stretched on pale and gray before his eyes, yellow lines dancing at the edges of his vision. No music, just the hum of the engine playing tricks on his sensitive ears. Nothing but crops and the heat dancing on the asphalt in all directions.

No city skylines to break the monotony, no shoulder to pull over safely on to take a break. The last blue sign for a rest stop said he had thirty miles left to go and his stomach wasn't going to make it that far. He dumped the bag of snacks out on the seat and held the plastic to his lips, careful to maintain as much focus on the road as he could while his body rejected every single thing he'd attempted to put into it. The road became waves rocking in front of him, crashing against his car and he was grateful that with the stretch of nothing also came no other motorists.

Twenty miles to the next rest stop and he was dry heaving again, nothing left to come up. Ten miles and it finally gave way, so while he used his knees to steer the vehicle through the lane he tied the top of the bag and set it neatly onto the floor behind his seat.

He was the only car at the rest stop. The key was barely out of the ignition before he was fumbling with the door handle and dumping himself out onto the solid ground. The parking lot was hot and gravel dug into his knees but it wasn't moving, he wasn't swimming.

“Sean?” he gasped, his phone held to his left ear in the hopes that he could hear someone's voice. He rested his back against the hot hubcap while his engine clicked and popped to sleep, his head tilted back so he could see the bright blue sky overhead. “Sean?”

“Yeah, yeah, you're cutting in and out...where the fuck are you?”

“Don't know,” he rasped in his acid burn voice. He was speaking around what felt like shards of glass. “Somehwere...rest stop...still Ohio?” He coughed and let out a soft miserable moan, a whimper and Sean felt his heart stop beating for a moment. The entire world went white around him.

“Who are you with? On a case? Aaron?”

Hotch cried. Too many questions, too fast. “Slow down...” he begged, beside himself. He was a real fucking mess. The idea that he could drive to New York on his own was absurd. He hadn't even crossed into Pennsylvania yet. Sean sucked in a deep breath and paced the kitchen, throwing his hand in the air when another cook tried to speak to him. He shot them an icy glare, mouthed that he was taking his smoke break and stepped out the service door onto the sidewalk, propping the thing open with a crumbling brick.

“Smoking again?” Hotch asked and Sean let out a barking laugh, the kind that said he wasn't actually amused. He was angry, and his anger sometimes included laughter. It was either that or fists.

He couldn't put his fists on his brother right now.

“Don't change the subject asshole. Are you with someone?”

“No,” he said, gulping down another wave of vertigo induced nausea. “Case is done, but I can't fly. Driving.” He was quickly realizing that he didn't have the capacity for conversation, full sentences, coherent thoughts.

“So you thought hey, I'm too wrecked to fly but I can sure as shit drive hundreds of miles? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one. The genius.”

Hotch groaned. Yeah, when it was put that way...well fuck. He was already 40 miles in to the trip, pulled over at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. Not much choice left.

“Why'd you call me, Aaron?”

“Don't know.” It was honest. Sean's number was the first one he thought of, the only one really. Maybe he should have called Derek, or let Dave come with him, maybe he should have done anything but this...didn't matter. He was here now.

Sean's voice softened. He eased up. “Aaron, you don't sound like you should be driving. You're at a rest stop. Sleep for a while.”

“Not tired,” he lied, just to have something to say. Some kind of argument. It was better than crying, which was what he felt like doing. Again. “Are you busy?”

“I, uh,” Sean groaned, pulling a milk crate over to him and knocking the debris out from beneath it. A rat scurried away toward the dumpster and he scrunched his nose in disgust before sitting down on the grimy little crate. He lit up his cigarette and inhaled deep, breathing out through his nose like a dragon. “No. I'm on my smoke break. I got a few.”

“You're at work?” What he meant was you have a job? The last he'd heard, Sean had lost his job after sleeping with a waitress. That hadn't been the problem, but the nasty break-up and her slashing the tires on his motorcycle hadn't been a good look, and when he shouted at her and handed her the bill for the new tires, that was the last straw. Both of them were canned. They went back to his place, got drunk, and had some make-up sex that night. Sean didn't tell his brother that part...

“Yeah. Got a job at this little dive bar. Mostly fryin' up mozz sticks and shit for drunks. It's easy work.” He paused, waiting for Hotch to say something about wasted potential but there was only silence on the other end. “You know what broasted chicken is? The fuck is that, amiright? Bar food is weird.”

“I've never,” Hotch started, attempting to pull himself to his feet. His back was seizing up now, sitting on the ground too long. It had been quiet since the gunshot, biding its time, but now the pain was intensifying. He was a damn mess. “Never heard of it. What is it?”

“I dunno man. It's fuckin' chicken you know? I'll make some for ya next time you're up this way.”

Hotch smiled, sliding into the seat and pushing it all the way back, reclining until he was nearly flat. Instant relief for his back. He might just try sleeping a while. “Have you heard from Derek?”

“We've been meetin' up every night looking at apartments. Hard to find a place in the city that allows dogs like his. Got a good lead on a few places we'll check out tonight.”

Hotch closed his eyes and the pounding in his forehead stopped. Clooney. He could keep Clooney. His apartment allowed dogs.

“You still there?”

“Yeah, sorry, thinking...” His voice was whisper thin and Sean could hear the sleep creeping in. If he kept talking, he might just bore his brother right into passing out. “Does he like his job?”

“I dunno man, we don't talk about that...he looks good, happy you know. Wearin' suits every day, dude's dressin' like you now. But better. He looks better in a suit.”

Hotch scowled, but he knew it was true. Derek looked incredible in a suit. Something about the way the silk hugged his shoulders, the collar against his jaw, buttons drawing Hotch's eyes down toward his waist...

“Is he still in the hotel?”

“Some penthouse thing the Bureau is paying for. It's weird but fuckin' classy. They just gave him two more weeks on it.”

Sean's voice lulled him to sleep. By the time he stubbed his cigarette out under the toe of his ragged old boot, Hotch was snoring into the phone. He would have been offended, too, except he wanted his brother to sleep. He only knew the bare minimum about what was going on, about the explosion. It had been on the jumbotrons in Manhattan, larger than life like a movie, and he'd seen The Post. They had eight copies in the bar because everyone he worked with brought him one asking if that Hotchner was related to him. He said no. Not because he didn't want to admit Hotch was his brother, but he thought his brother would prefer it that way. Certain Hotch was ashamed of him. Anyway, he didn't know much more, Derek didn't want to talk about it, but that was enough to know his brother shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car. He hung up the phone and kicked the milk crate out of the way, figuring he'd call back on his next smoke break to check on him. Give him a few hours to sleep.

Derek was pacing his suite when Sean told him that Hotch was driving. “He's sleeping at a rest stop now, somewhere in Ohio he said. I don't know what's going on but he sounds like shit. When the fuck did I become the responsible brother anyway?”

“You didn't. He's got a head injury, Sean. That's the only reason you clicked up a notch. He'll bounce back.”

“Yeah? Well he's a goddamn mess and he's by himself on the side of some highway in the middle of nowhere. Children of the Corn nowhere, man.”

Derek wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with that information. He couldn't drive or fly there, Hotch was capable of making those decisions on his own. He was injured and stubborn but he wasn't going to put himself in danger, that much was clear by the fact that he was currently pulled over and sleeping.

Call me when you see this. Right away. He sent Hotch a quick text while Sean rattled off some more words he didn't listen to, and then said he'd see him later. He had a good feeling about the apartment they were looking at. Sean had some decent hookups and yeah, probably more than one of them came from drug deals or one night stands, but he didn't care how Sean knew these people he only cared that he got a good place to live and fast. He was tired of living in a hotel, even if it was high end. He missed his dog, he missed his life, he missed Hotch...and hotel living wasn't helping any of that.

Hotch saw the text with blurry eyes, double vision replicating each word and making it dance on the screen. He thought about calling Derek, he did...but what would he say? Sean had called twice in the time he slept and he had no intention of calling him back either. For the first time that day he woke without blinding pain in his head, and his stomach felt...not great, but better. Less violent. He was going to drive, try to at least make it a solid chunk.

So he rolled down his window, sucked down a few desperate gulps of water, and hit the road.

He made it nearly two hundred miles without needing to take a break, and even then it was only to pee and try to eat something. The vertigo was leaving him alone, his ears weren't ringing terribly, the wind felt good and he knew he'd make it another couple hundred miles or so without needing to stop if he could just keep feeling this good.

The next stop was for a milkshake, a nice hit of sugar for his sluggish veins. His headache was returning, creeping slowly up his neck and around his temples. It stayed quiet long enough to get him through a whole state and soon he was at the fork in the road. One turn would take him home, he'd be there faster and could fall into bed...but the other way would stretch the road out farther, longer, and take him to Derek.

He made his choice.

Into the city, across that blasted bridge after dark. The lights played tricks on his eyes, seeming to stretch for eternity out into space while he and hundreds of other people were at a complete stand still. One eeking mile at a time, street lamp to street lamp, until he made it to the hotel and thanked every deity he could name that the Bureau had put Derek in a place with a valet. All he had to do was get himself and his go bag out of the car and the nice young man who suddenly found a large bill slipped into his hand would take care of the rest. Hotch, honestly, would have paid any amount of money if someone had driven his car all the way from Ohio.

703. Derek was up seven floors, he'd seen photos of the way his room overlooked the city. The elevator ride made him dizzy enough that he pressed the button shortly after it jerked into motion, opened the doors and limped his way up the stairs with whatever strength his aching back still possessed. Slow and steady, one step and then the other he pulled himself up using the railing. Five flights of stairs. Each landing brought brief relief, but he was exhausted and sweaty like he'd run a marathon. When he reached the fifth floor landing he stopped for a breather. He was nearly in tears and wondering if the elevator sickness would have been worth it.

By the time he decided that yes, it would have been worth it, he was there at the door and all he could think about was falling into Derek's bed.

Except Derek wasn't there. He rapped at the door and found only silence on the other side. Should have called first. Really should have called. Sean had told him they were going out, dammit...he knew. He just forgot. He was so hot, so sweaty, so foggy.

So he sat. Just hauled up in the corner and leaned against the wall wearily to wait. He could call but then Derek would just feel obligated to stop what he was doing and he didn't want that. He knew that Derek was out with Sean looking at apartments, maybe signing a lease. Maybe he'd get to see the new place.

It was an hour before Derek stepped out of the elevator with his shoulder bag and a grin. Hotch had let his head fall back against the wall and he closed his eyes against the throb, the heat beneath his collar, the lightheaded feeling of climbing seven floors. He'd passed out again, woken by the chime of the elevator and he did his best to pull himself together the moment his exhausted eyes focused enough to know it was Derek walking toward him.

“Surprise,” Hotch mumbled, sliding his back up the wall until he was standing. He offered a sheepish smile and a shrug, and Derek rolled his eyes.

“Had a feeling I'd eventually find you here. How long were you waiting?”

“Not long.” He really didn't know. He slept through it all. Dreamless sleep, foggy and sick but heavy.

“You could have called...”

“I know. Find a place?”

Derek grinned and flipped through some photos on his phone until he found one of the stoop. Just a stoop, an old brownstone with white washed steps and emerald green shrubbery. “I can move in next week. They're gonna fix a few things first.”

“And Clooney?” Hotch swayed where he stood and Derek reached out, placed one hand on his shoulder and regarded him a little suspiciously.

“Yeah...” he said, dragging it out while he took in Hotch's flushed cheeks and glistening forehead. “You okay?”

“I took the stairs up...” Like that explained it. That was an hour before. Derek nodded but kept an eye on him anyway. Something was wrong.

“Wanna see it? The realtor gave me the keys...it's not far.”

Hotch wanted to, he did, and he almost said yes. Derek looked so hopeful. But he knew he couldn't ride in that elevator right now, and he definitely wouldn't make it down all those stairs again. He really wasn't feeling well, and unless Derek was planning to carry him or had some other way down he wasn't aware of he was passing big time.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, tomorrow sounds great. You hungry?”

God, no, he thought. But he couldn't say no twice so he nodded and said yeah, he could eat a little. He'd just figure it out.

[punksarahreese]

Breakdown

Rhekker; No one has ever seen Connor like this; for good reason

Canon connection: 3x19

Word count: 2879

CW: Canon typical medical stuff, Connor is Struggling

***

Losing a patient was never easy but Connor thought he had long since accepted the fact. It was bound to happen, especially as a trauma surgeon, and he’d seen just about everything. Making the hard decisions and advocating for patients was difficult, especially when it was not only his patient’s life at risk but also her unborn child.

The worst part was always telling the family, having to admit that he hadn’t been able to fix things like he claimed. Ava always said he had trouble with making promises before they were certain it would work but Connor just wanted to ease their worries. With Taylor’s mother it was different, she watched as her daughter hemorrhaged on that bed, all because of the damn blood thinners. She had been right there when they had to stop in the hallway, when her heart stopped because of a clot he could have prevented if he had just listened to Ava’s concerns. She bore witness to the way Connor lost control and how his colleague had to be the one to remind him it was too late; she was gone.

She didn’t have the good fortune to be sat down in a conference room with a warm drink to hear the apologies and be able to learn of her daughter’s death in a gentle way. Instead she was right there the whole time, the only thing she could do was cast the blame to Connor. He stood still while she yelled at him, taking the hits because in a way she was right. It was his fault; he did this.

After Ms. Barker had been coaxed away by some nurses, who promised to help her with the paperwork once she calmed down, Connor was frozen in his spot. He made eye contact with Natalie but the look of pity she had for him only made it feel worse. He didn’t deserve anyone’s pity, he had ruined not one but two lives and prevented that woman from ever becoming a grandmother. He let his ego impede on his proper judgment, wanting to save two lives before one had even started even though it was not viable.

His hands shook as he left the CICU, feeling overwhelmed with nervous energy. It was times like this where Connor felt helpless, like he had let everyone down. He hated that his brain immediately jumped to the thought that Doctor Downey would be disappointed with him, feeling lost without his first CT mentor.

He had just made up his mind once he stepped in front of the window that looked into the operating room setup for the twin separation simulator. Ava was there, her distinctive purple scrub cap tied neatly and her back to the window. She was surveying the simulation’s hearts, just like she would in the real surgery, and Connor knew she was probably running through it all in her mind. She could do this surgery well, she could separate the twins’ hearts better than anyone.

Doctor Latham was the first to notice Connor when he finally gathered his composure enough to walk into the doorway, “Doctor Rhodes, good. We’re just about to get started.”

Connor didn’t move, staying almost frozen in the doorway. Ava had turned when Latham addressed him, her face a mixture of concern and a pitying smile. Of course she probably guessed how his talk with Taylor’s mother went; she knew all about grieving parents. Still, she didn’t ask about it, knowing Connor wouldn’t want to discuss why he looked on the verge of tears.

“Are you coming?”

Connor evaded her questioning gaze, she knew him too well and he was not about to cry in front of their mentor. Instead, he turned to the man in question, who was looking between them quizzically. He took a breath, preparing himself for a whirlwind of questions because he knew neither of them would understand.

“Doctor Latham, with your permission, I would like to remove myself from the team”

Both doctors immediately moved closer, Latham finally seeming to pick up that something was not right. Doctor Rhodes, usually so certain of himself, would never pass up such a groundbreaking operation. Connor knew his attending would be perplexed, but it was the disappointed look from Ava that hurt ten times more.

Latham paused for a breath before asking, “Why?”

No one acknowledged the way his voice shook just a little, though they all heard it loud and clear, “I think it would be best for the patients and everyone involved.”

It was clear that neither of them understood what he could mean by that, so Connor continued, “A surgery with this level of difficulty and in that environment… I don't know that I can trust my judgment.”

“Are you… sure about this?”

“Yes.”

Latham, not quite sure about the situation, decided to give Connor the benefit of the doubt, “Mm, very well.”

Ava wanted to protest, he could see it in her face, but she didn’t. Instead she looked at her colleague with the saddest eyes he had ever seen from her. A billion silent questions were thrown at him when they made eye contact, none of which Connor had the composure to answer.

Are you okay? What happened? What the fuck are you thinking?

He didn’t say anything else, just turned on his heels and left the OR. Maybe if he had stayed a little longer he would have seen the pain that crossed Ava’s face, worry for him overwhelming her. Sure they argued and competed like it was the only thing they lived for, but she genuinely cared about Connor and this was not like him at all. When Doctor Latham asked if she was ready to practice again, Ava’s head was clouded and she knew she would only fail the simulation.

“Actually, Doctor Latham… Could I go check on Connor? I will come back to practice but I just think something might be wrong and I would like to confirm he’s okay.”

“Doctor Rhodes just told us he is lacking confidence,” Latham replied, “Which is good, since he should not operate if he is unsure. Why do you think something is wrong?”

“He was not acting like himself… I am just worried, since he lost a patient this afternoon.”

“I see… Very well, go make sure all is okay. Do return soon, though, Doctor Bekker. Practice makes for no mistakes come surgery day.”

“Of course,” Ava mumbled back, already halfway to the door and pulling her gloves off hastily. She had a feeling where she would find Connor, remembering a similar situation from not long ago. The surgeon just barely had to forethought to toss her PPE into the garbage can before she left the room, preoccupied. She knew Connor was kicking himself for his treatment plan for Taylor, since the clotting valve could have been avoided. Still, removing himself from a surgery that could solidify one’s career in cardiothoracics was daft, even for him.

The locker room where they kept their things on the CT floor seemed empty, the door swinging open to reveal the benches and lockers immersed in shadows. Ava knew better, though, and she walked in as quietly as possible. She peeked around the corner, seeing just who she expected to find.

Connor was on one of the benches, elbows resting on his legs to support his hanging head. She couldn’t see his face, hidden in his hands like he was trying to block out the rest of the world. Ava worried that interrupting such a vulnerable moment might only anger him, especially since Connor deflected his ‘weaker’ emotions through outbursts, but she hated to leave him there in silence.

“Connor, why the fuck did you give up the surgery? You know I hate winning by default.”

“Ava, I’m really not in the mood,” the defensive hostility was there but his heart clearly wasn’t in it. He made no move to get away from her when she approached, though he avoided eye contact completely.

“You can’t pull something like that and expect me to leave you alone,” Ava reminded him as she dropped the initial playful annoyance, “What the hell are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that I just… I killed that woman,” he removed his hands from his face, “She could have lived.”

Ava sighed, knowing where this was going, “Connor, death is a risk for any patient. We did everything we could given the circumstances.”

“It’s not that, Ava. If I… If I hadn’t been so hell bent on saving an unviable pregnancy…”

“She could have still died,” she stepped closer, silently gauging the mood before she invaded his personal space. Connor’s hostility had dropped completely, though he stayed hunched over as if trying to make himself look smaller. Ava sat down on the bench next to him, “We didn’t have the porcine valve and even if we terminated the pregnancy, the placenta tamponading due to the heparin was incredibly likely.”

“It was the valve that killed her,” he finally looked at her, “I did that.”

Ava had never seen him like this, not to this degree. Connor’s normally steady hands shook as if he couldn’t control his energy, fumbling with the tube of his stethoscope as a distraction. He wasn’t crying, not yet, but somehow that made it even worse. The tears that threatened to spill over made his piercing eyes look so much softer, forlorn, and Ava felt her heart twinge. It almost felt far more intimate than they had ever been physically, to see him break down like this.

“Hey, don’t do that,” she nudged his shoulder gently, “These things happen. I’m sorry we lost her but you did not do this on purpose.”

“I know…”

They dissolved into silence again, Ava watching him cautiously. It was strange, seeing him so upset and not reacting by yelling. It almost hurt more than it ever did when he got mad at her. Anger she could handle, but seeing the man, who she only ever saw confident and strong, this broken was a whole new level of pain. It started with one tear, trailing down his cheek and landing on the dark fabric of his scrub top. That was when Ava really got it, when she realized this probably wasn’t just about his patient.

“Connor…” She didn't want to push it but she couldn’t bear to see him cry, “Please don’t. Just talk to me.”

He only shook his head, prompting more tears to spring to his eyes. Eye contact burned in that moment so all he could do was look down, afraid to let his guard down. In a way he knew he could trust Ava, yet part of him still screamed at him to push her away. He couldn’t be this vulnerable, it wasn’t safe, not with anyone. Her gaze held only concern but Connor was too afraid to keep talking, worried it would only make him break more.

“Christ,” Ava sighed at his stubbornness, “At least come here. Please?”

Ava had to admit that she felt an immense relief wash over her when he complied, turning slightly to let her hug him. She could feel the way he shook a little against her, not quite relaxed as if he was ready to flee at a moment’s notice. To see a man so prone to fighting look like a deer caught in traffic was somehow heartbreaking. All she could do was tighten her arms around Connor, not wanting to speak as if the silence was the only thing keeping him there.

So they sat. Neither mentioned the tears that began to fall steadily, even though Ava felt them on her shoulder. Connor let himself relax a little, arms coming up to cling to Ava because she was the sense of security he lacked. He was trying so hard to keep his breathing even, too ashamed to sob audibly even though it was all Connor wanted to do.

“I know, it’s okay,” Ava never sounded more gentle with him and it was both mortifying and comforting. On one hand it was nice to have a vulnerable moment with her when all they did lately was clash. Yet it also made Connor feel too exposed, hearing her comfort him like one would an injured animal. He didn’t answer, knowing his voice would crack and make it feel so much worse.

The clock on the wall she could see behind him told her that time was passing quickly. Doctor Latham would get impatient and page her soon, she knew that. Still, Ava didn’t have the heart to be the first to let go. Even if he would never admit it, Connor needed this comfort more than anything and despite everything they had been through she knew he needed her. Surgery practice could wait, hopefully for a time when they were both in the mindset to return. They both deserved a fighting chance at being the assist, so she was determined to make Connor come back.

“The twins need you,” her voice was barely a murmur in his ear, “You deserve a shot at this as much as I do.”

“I can’t…” he sighed shakily before continuing, “I- After today I just can’t… I can’t trust myself.”

“You won’t be lead surgeon,” the reminder stung more than she intended, “But this family trusts you, so does Doctor Latham; they need you.”

“They shouldn’t…”

“Connor, for the love of-” she huffed and pulled back a bit to look at him, “I need you. You keep me sharp and I wouldn’t be half as good of a surgeon without you and our competition.”

The stunned silence was deafening, Ava partially regretting her words the second they came out. The vulnerability of the moment had her a bit too comfortable and she was afraid admitting something like that would make things weird. It was true, in a sense, that she needed him. He was her only friend in Chicago, her one connection that kept her from becoming a hermit in her apartment. She hadn’t had a meaningful relationship, platonic or otherwise, in a very long time. She hated him sometimes, mostly because no room was big enough for both of their egos, but he was familiar. Connor was her safety, in some twisted way, and part of Ava hoped she gave him the same security.

“Ava…”

“I’m serious, you need to smarten up because… I can’t do this without you. I know you have trauma to fall back on but… you and this job are the only thing keeping me here, Connor. If we don’t do this surgery perfectly the media will destroy us, our program; everything. We need your brain and your skills, dumbass.”

It was the final word that made him laugh a little, swiping away residual tears, “You’re kind of pushy, dumbass.”

“Only because you need a good shove,” she retorted, “You can do this, you know.”

Connor was happy to see their playful banter coming back, it eased any awkwardness from the emotional moment and made him feel a bit more at ease. Her pager was beeping, the shrill sound in her pocket breaking the moment as she expected. Connor didn’t seem to mind, but he did eventually let go of Ava, who looked at him curiously before speaking again.

“You okay?”

“I will be,” he answered slowly, “I just… need some time.”

“Then take it,” she was the first to stand and dust off the back of her scrubs, “I can cover your post-ops if you promise you’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Tempting,” he smiled weakly at her, “Thank you.”

“Well someone has to keep your dumb ass in check, huh?” She finally fished the device out of her pocket when the beeping became unbearable. It was Latham, asking where she was like she knew would happen.

“Duty call, do you need anything? Seriously.”

“I’m good,” Connor shooed her off, “Go before he starts paging me too.”

He wasn’t expecting her to stoop down and lean in so close, pressing a kiss to his cheek, “You did what you could today. Learn from it, don’t let it hurt you.”

When the blonde turned on her heel to leave the room, Connor sat there, frozen. A kiss on the cheek was tame, especially given their history, but it wasn’t why he was left stunned. Ava was always competitive, she rarely gave up opportunities that would benefit her. He thought she would have been happy to have the surgery fall to her, even if it was a bittersweet thing. The fact that she not only sought him out but admitted that she needed him hit much harder than he ever expected. Ava Bekker was an interesting person and Connor realized he may not have her completely figured out.

With her words still running through his mind, Connor stood. He would go home and think, try to learn from his mistakes so that something like Taylor’s situation never happened again on his watch. First, however, he had a mother to apologize to; Ms. Barker deserved closure more than anyone.

[iwroteinapastlife]

Do you mind doing a Chlonath fic from a prompt I once read? "She's fine, by the way" "Yeah, I have no doubt. She's always been able to take care of herself. Even if she wasn't so sure of it"

I have lost track of how many years it's been since I got this request, but I really really liked it and I was finally able to use it!

This piece is canon-compliant only through season 2. So like, Chloe is known to be Queen Bee, but continues to be granted the miraculous every now and then.

cw: Depictions of anxiety and blood

--

“You should be nice to me. I’m a superhero, you know.”

“You’re half a superhero at best, Chloé.”

“That’s still a whole half more than you, Red. Or should I say ‘Super Nathan’?”

The air is salient with the scent of stale tile and antiseptic wipes, but a breeze from an open window carries the essence of fresh flowers from someone’s room. Somewhere down the hall, a monitor beeps a steady rhythm, almost soothing in the relative quiet. The idle chatter of nurses is ever present but ill defined, coming with the occasional laugh of coworkers at ease. Carts wheel by to deliver supplies, food, equipment, and they are not rushed, not hurrying to where their assistance is urgently required. No, everything is slow. Easy.

Is it the calm after the storm, or just the eye?

Nathaniel sits with his head in his hands, wishing he could be calmed by the atmosphere around him, but he still hasn’t willed himself out of this chair and through the door to his left. A whole 48 hours has gone by since he’d first brought her in here–since he’d found himself holding her pale form in his arms, breathing but practically lifeless, begging her to wake up while he waited for someone to come that would actually be able to help. He must have heard a million times that head wounds bleed a lot, but he really hadn’t anticipated–

A breath in. A breath out. Nathaniel forces himself to stop that line of thinking before it tumbles out of control again. He reminds himself that he doesn’t need to focus on that anymore. It’s over. She’s safe. They said she was stable and awake and ready for visitors–she’s fine.

How did he end up here? How did Nathaniel of all people wind up sitting outside Chloé Bourgeois’s hospital room, distraught over her well being?

“Is there any particular reason you choose to torment me so much?”

“You just make it so rewarding.”

By all accounts–including his own–he shouldn’t be here. For 12 years he’s been in the same class as her, and after all that time never has he learned not to let her get under his skin. She’s too good at it. Chloé is a master at the art of picking him apart, finding just the right spots where she knows she can do the most damage with the least amount of effort.

That hasn’t changed. Even with a timeshare miraculous, she still chooses to torture him–maybe even more so than before.

“What the hell are you doing on my roof!?”

“I should be asking you that! I’m the one with wings! If I’m not here, who’s going to catch you when your clumsy ass inevitably falls!?”

And yet, here he is–48 hours after taking her to the hospital, 47 hours after his first conversation with her father was the delivery of bad news, 46 hours after being told he should go home, 40 hours after reliving the trauma on the local news broadcast, 10 hours after giving up on sleep for the second night in a row, 2 hours after receiving word that she was okay, 1 hour after rushing through his shower so he could finally come see her, and 20 minutes after arriving and sitting down in this very chair–still unable to make himself walk through that door.

“It feels like I see you almost every day now, even outside of school.”

“You’re welcome.”

48 hours since the nurses had convinced him to let go of her so they could wheel her off to CT. The last time he saw her.

Nathaniel hardly remembers that first hour, but he also remembers it all too well. The memories are a jumbled mess of bright red blood and flashing blue lights, the screaming of sirens and the shouting of orders, bumps in the road and bustling of staff. All a blur, a mixed up collage in his mind, but every individual piece clear as day. The image of her hurt–already pale yet still bleeding, and only barely responsive–encoded in his mind’s eye in high definition, every little detail recorded down to the specks of dirt on her cheek. The exact series of questions asked of him in that specific gentle tone that made him fear more than anything else had yet because why would they speak so gently unless something was terribly wrong? The soft hand placed on his shoulder that did nothing to reassure him while he watched them rush around her unmoving form, dictating words that he didn’t understand, reciting numbers that could be good or bad–

A breath in. A breath out.

“Seriously, why are you always at my window?”

“Because you always open it.”

He knows the reason he’s here. It’s the same reason he continues to open his window for her, the same reason he looks forward to hearing that tap on the glass. He knows the reason he rushed to get back to her side at the first possible moment—and that’s the problem.

She’s so much more than just his tormentor–not just to him, but in general. She’s a person, with likes and dislikes, dreams and insecurities, and the problem is that he knows that now. Whether he wanted to or not, she made sure he knew.

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because I want you to know.”

The problem–the real problem–isn’t what he’s going to find behind that door. He knows she’s okay. He knows she’s going to be the same old Chloé and she’ll greet him in a manner that’s either insulting or entitled or both, and she’ll demand his attention as if she isn’t already the sole reason he’s there, and he’ll let her, because–

“I don’t know how to do any of this. From the start I’ve just been fucking it up. It’s like you said; I’m half a hero at best–,”

“I shouldn’t have said that. And you shouldn’t have listened.”

“You’re just saying that because a girl is crying in front of you.”

“No, I’m saying it because a superhero isn’t giving herself the credit she deserves.”

…Because the problem isn’t what he’ll find behind that door; it’s what he’ll feel.

He startles as the door opens beside him, sitting upright and watching as Adrien walks out and immediately stops in his tracks. “Oh hey, I didn’t realize you were here.” He starts to reach for the doorknob again. “Did you want to–?”

“No!” Nathaniel snatches his wrist before he reaches the handle. The only thing he can think of that could possibly be worse than going in there right now would be Chloé finding out he’d waited so long.

Concern and confusion stare back at him in the form of green eyes. “Then why are you here?”

“I-I’ll go in eventually.” He releases the hand and sits back, hoping his outward appearance doesn’t betray the heart attack that he’s having. “I just…need a minute.”

The air between them settles, and Nathaniel knows that the moment would feel awkward if that was ever possible in Adrien’s presence. “Thank you,” he eventually says. Nathaniel looks up in silent question. “For bringing her in. I…” Never has he seen a look of such guilt and torment. “I should have been there, but…”

Shaking his head, he tries to reassure, “You can’t blame yourself for not getting caught up in an akuma attack,” but the look Adrien gives him says he has his own reasons for hating himself.

“...Right. Anyway, I’m just…glad you were there.”

Watching her take what looked like a fatal blow, getting knocked down from the battle and not getting back up, rushing to go after her while Ladybug and Chat Noir were tied up with the akuma.

“...Chloé?”

Finding her.

He swallows down a thick lump in his throat. A breath in. A breath out. “Yeah,” he finally says. “Me too.”

Adrien’s eyes sweep over him in quick assessment. “She’s fine, by the way.”

“Yeah, I heard the scans were all negative.”

“No, I mean… She’s fine. Not just physically. Y’know,” a gentle smile and a shrug, “she’s Chloé.”

“I don’t understand why you still open your window, after everything I’ve done. If you had any sense, you’d kick me out like everyone else does…”

“It’s true; no one gets under my skin or drives me absolutely insane like you do.”

“...So why do you let me?”

“You just…make it so rewarding.”

“Yeah, I have no doubt,” he says, voice soft. “She’s always been able to take care of herself. Even if she wasn’t so sure of it.”

Adrien voices a quiet but surprised, “Oh,” and Nathaniel looks up again to see green eyes blinking at him, taking in the details of his face.

“What?”

“Nothing, I just…” he trails off, still looking at him as if slowly coming to a revelation. “I didn’t realize.”

Nathaniel doesn’t need to ask what he didn’t realize. He looks away, feeling his cheeks heat up as he’s sure he just gave away the exact thing that he isn’t even ready to admit to himself.

“I’m gonna head home now,” Adrien eventually says, prodding with a gentle tone. “You should go talk to her.”

He nods and waits until the footsteps fade away before finally standing up. Anxiety wells up again as he faces the door. He knows as soon as he opens it, as soon as he walks in there, everything is going to change. Because he knows that after everything that happened–seeing her so near death, holding her in his arms, her blood soaking his shirt–

“Nath…Run.”

“No.”

…He knows that he can’t let that be the last time he holds her.

A breath in. A breath out.

Her head is wrapped in bandages, but her color is back and those blue eyes are as demanding as ever as her gaze falls on him. Chloé drops her phone and overdramatically raises her arms up in the air–clearly outraged that he kept her waiting, even if she doesn’t know the half of it–and just as he expected, the feelings slam into him before she even speaks.

“Finally some good fucking food!”

Fuck.

He’s in love with her.

[eyayah-oya]

I never knew what I was missing

Cloneship Week Day 2 - Soulmates - @cloneshipweek

Jesse/Kix

Rating: T

Canon typical violence, major character injury (I don’t go into graphic detail of the injury, though)

Ao3 link

           Since the moment Jesse was decanted, there was an ache in the back of his mind, as though he was missing something important, but could function without it.  He’d heard whispers from other cadets that they felt the same.  They all had to be careful to not let the Kaminoans or the Cuy’val Dar know about this strange emptiness in the back of their minds for fear of what would happen to them.  Surely, this deep-seated need for something was some kind of defect the longnecks hadn’t expected.

           As Jesse got older, he began to hear even quieter rumors, basically legends, that said some of the clones found something to fill that aching emptiness.  According to those rumors, it wasn’t something that helped, but someone. But it wasn’t until Jesse was eight that he learned about soulmates.

           The Alpha class somehow managed to get access to the holonet, and they found the information on soulmates and what it means to have one.  The Alphas then passed that information down to the CCs, who passed it down to the CTs, always careful to not let any of the trainers or Kaminoans come across the information.

           A soulmate is the term used for someone that they couldn’t live without, who, once they met, would complete each other in a way that no one else was able to.  Soulmates could be platonic, familial, or romantic, but they were supposed to be the one a being could always rely on.  There weren’t any particular abilities or tactical advantages that came from finding and connecting to your soulmate, but Jesse found he rather liked the idea of having someone that was meant for him specifically.  Clones weren’t allowed much in the universe.  They weren’t even allowed to have names, though most clones gave themselves one just to prove that they were people, too.  But Jesse’s soulmate was his, whoever they were.  And that meant everything.

           Jesse first watched a brother find a soulmate just before all the battle-ready clones were sent out to Geonosis with General Yoda, Grandmaster of the Jedi Order.  He’d stepped foot inside a gunship along with his squad and a squad of brothers he didn’t know.  His batchmate was pulled across the gunship until they were standing face to face with another clone, helmets off so they could see each other.  The pure joy radiating from them bolstered everyone’s spirits even higher than they already were.  After all, the Jedi had finally come, and they would be able to finally fulfill their purpose.

           Two hours later, he watched his batchmate get shot in the face by a Geonosian and the newly found soulmate nearly break down from grief and pain.  Less than a minute later, and the other clone met his own end.

           So many clones died on Geonosis.  So many who had never found their soulmates.  So many that had, and were now separated by death itself. And there were many who followed their soulmates quickly into death, rather than survive and live a life without the other.

           Following that battle, Jesse found himself fearing that void in the back of his mind where his soulmate was supposed to be.  Had they died before they’d even met?  How did he know that his soulmate was gone if they’d never found each other?  Was it an awful pain like he’d seen with his new squad in the 501st?  Would he ever be able to find out, or would Jesse be stuck in an endless ignorance?

           There were no answers.  Fellow clones, vod’e, couldn’t answer him, and nat-borns had rarely had to worry about that kind of thing until the war broke out.  Sure, there was probably someone, somewhere who might know the answer, but there was no way to scientifically prove anything as no one knew their soulmate until they met.

           As the war progressed, Jesse did his best to ignore everything about soulmates.  As soldiers, they were supposed to be the best fighters, defending the Republic against the Separatist droid armies.  Worrying about his soulmate would only distract him and put everyone else in danger. He’d seen vod’e self-destruct after their batchmate or cyare were killed, and Jesse could admit that he never wanted to deal with anything like that.

           It wasn’t until a difficult battle on some Outer Rim planet that was mostly marshes that he was abruptly confronted with the idea of soulmates again.

           “Get down!  Get down!” Jesse shouted at the group of shinies he had been put in charge of. The blast of a cannon from one of those octo-droids nearly blew the head off of a kid who was cackling madly as he shot the incoming droids with his Z6.  Jesse managed to pull him behind shelter just in time, practically flattening the kid to keep him safe.

           “What the kark do you think you were doing?” Jesse ground out. He pulled the shiny up enough for them to crawl away from their current position to try to find someplace a bit more defensible.  He’d already lost two members of his squad in this skirmish and he didn’t want to lose any more.  The shiny just scrambled after his squadmates, pausing every few feet to take out the droids that were getting too close to their position.

           Christophsis was a nightmare.  They’d taken the city easily enough the first time, but with the spy that had taken out their weapons depot, the Separatists were winning against both General Skywalker and General Kenobi.  Too many men in both companies were dying, and from what Jesse understood, no one was answering their plea for reinforcements.

           New orders came through over Jesse’s HUD, and he quickly turned to gather the eight shinies he had left.  “Retreat and regroup with the main army.  Keep your heads down and blasters up.”

           “Yes, sir!” they chorused.

           The extra shooty shiny cackled wildly.  “Let’s get these clankers!” he shouted and popped up to mow down a row of clankers with his Z6, completely disregarding the blaster bolts headed his way.

           Jesse tugged the shiny back down and glared extra hard at him, hoping that he would be able to feel the glare despite the bucket.  “Keep your damn head down or you’re going to get it blown off.  Stick with your squad and head back to the base,” Jesse ordered angrily.

           With a sheepish salute, the shiny turned and followed his squadmates as they ran back to the base.  Jesse covered their flanks as they ran, taking out as many B-1s and SBDs as he could as he followed a minute later.  The whine of a cannon sent Jesse diving into cover.  He gulped in lungfuls of air as desperately as he could while he had a second of respite until the droids would reach his position and he’d be forced to move again.  At least his shinies made it back to base safely.

           The giant crystal Jesse hid behind glowed a brilliant blue-green and he had only a second to think “Oh shit,” before the world around him exploded.

           He lost time, though he wasn’t sure how much.  There was a sharp pain in his chest that hurt with every breath he took, but especially when he coughed.  Something metallic lingered in his mouth, making him gag from the awful flavor, but there was nowhere to spit it out.  Protocol had been drilled into his head from the time he was decanted:  Never remove your helmet in an active battle.  The last thing he wanted was to have nasty tasting spit inside his bucket.

           Blaster bolts flashed overhead, blue and red striking against the green crystal the city was built of.  It was strangely beautiful, the danger adding to the beauty in a way that Jesse couldn’t describe.  Soothing. Reality warped a little, and Jesse began to drift.  Drift far away, following his brothers who had marched on.

           Something deep in the back of his mind snapped into place, filling the empty space that had always existed.  Jesse jolted as if he had been shocked, and let out an awful sob at the pain coursing through his chest.  His immediate instinct was to curl in away from the pain, but something was holding him down, keeping him from moving.  Somehow, that was more terrifying than anything else he had experienced since he’d first been deployed to Geonosis.

           “Stop moving!  I need a stretcher, stat!  Massive bleeding from the chest cavity, but I have a pulse and I plan to make sure he has a pulse by the end of the day.”

           Jesse relaxed as he recognized a brother’s voice.  A helmet appeared in his visual range as something pressed against his chest.  A scream wrenched from the depths of his chest in response, heaving sobs making the pain worse with every breath and every slight shift in movement.  It was worse than anything else he had ever experienced in his life.

           And yet . . .

           The hole in his mind had been filled.  Jesse, sometime between long moments lost to agony, realized that meant he had met his soulmate.  It took long minutes later, when the medic managed to get him onto a makeshift stretcher for transport back to the base, that he realized the medic was his soulmate.  His other half.  The one that was supposed to complete him in every way.

           A feeling pulsed from the area that Jesse knew his soulmate now occupied, though it was barely noticeable with all the pain signals firing in his brain.  It was a warm, soothing feeling, almost like a hug, or praise from the Captain or the Commander.  Warm like the rare sunny day on Kamino and warm like the jungle sims they trained on. Warm like batchmates piling together in the same tube for comfort.  It was as comforting as a hug from his batchmates, though all of them had been killed on Geonosis. In the middle of treating his life-threatening wounds, his soulmate was making sure Jesse felt safe and cared for. Whoever this medic was, Jesse thought that maybe, just maybe, he could fall in love with them.

           Well, at least I know I’m in good hands, Jesse thought deliriously.  The medic would do everything he could to make sure Jesse lived to see the end of the day.

           Every step of the way back to base jolted his injury further, and distantly, Jesse wondered what, exactly, had put him in this condition. Blaster wounds didn’t usually bleed since they instantly cauterized the wound.  Maybe shrapnel?  Definitely something sharp and definitely something poking his lungs.  Jesse did not recommend lungs being poked.  Universe, kindly kark off and never let something like that happen to him again, please and thank you.

           “Move!  Out of the way, soldier!” the medic snapped and Jesse could hear a mad scramble as whichever brothers were in his way scampered off to the side.

           “Is he gonna be okay?”  Jesse recognized the voice of his shooty shiny, though how he managed to do that while delirious with pain escaped him.  Maybe it was the number of times the shiny seemed to put himself in danger during the last few days.

           “I will do everything I can to make sure he is,” the medic responded, very carefully not promising anything.  Good vod.  It’s a bad idea to give false hope, just as it’s a bad idea to promise something he wouldn’t have much control over.  Jesse would die when his time was up, and until then, he would fight to stay alive every second.

 -------

           “You’re lucky you survived,” the medic said later, after the battle was saved and both the Resolute and the Negotiator were headed to their next mission.  Jesse didn’t know the details, and he didn’t care to, either.  What he did care about was the fact that his soulmate was sitting beside his bed and had saved his life and Jesse still didn’t know his name.

           “I had a good medic,” Jesse quipped.  He groaned as he began to test the mobility of his extremities. Chest wounds were awful, and he desperately hoped he would never have to live through one again.

           “It was a close thing.  You had to be put in a bacta tank for two days before you were healed enough to be put in a bed.  A few more minutes out there and you would have bled out.”

           From what Jesse remembered, that made sense.  “What impaled me?” he decided to ask.

           The medic grabbed something from the tray beside his bed. A green crystal shard from Christophsis the size of his thumb lay innocently on the medic’s palm.  It glinted innocently in the harsh lights of the medbay, ethereal and stunning.  And yet, that thing had nearly killed him on the battlefield of Christophsis.

           “Guess the most beautiful things really are the most dangerous,” Jesse said.

           The medic snorted and turned to fill out some forms on his datapad.  Jesse shamelessly used this opportunity to study his soulmate. The vod had intricate designs cut into his hair, which was cut down to a buzz.  He had sharper cheekbones and a thinner face than most other clones, though for any nat-born the difference wouldn’t be noticeable.  There was also a tattoo on the side of his head that read “The only good droid is a dead one.”  Jesse agreed completely.  Mostly. The mousedroids and the General’s R2 unit weren’t bad.  Any Seppie droid though?  Yeah, they were only good when they were reduced to scrap.  The medic’s hands were slimmer than Jesse’s, the way most medics’ hands were. It was easier to treat delicate injuries if you didn’t have to worry about thick fingers getting in the way. Some brothers called medics delicate, but Jesse had never thought that way.  Medics were stronger than the average clone, simply because they had to pick up and haul brothers far from the battle while they were in their armor. Plus, they had to deal with the deaths of thousands of brothers without breaking themselves.  Medics were the strongest vod’e.

           “Have you finished your staring?”

           Jesse smirked.  “Nope. But I would like your name.”

           The medic answered with a sharp grin.  He leaned forward, his elbow on Jesse’s bed and his chin propped up on his fist.  “What makes you think you should have it?”

           “I’d like to know who my savior is,” Jesse answered. He felt a flicker of amusement coming from the space in his mind where the medic had taken root.  “You and I are gonna be close, I can tell.”

           “Those lines don’t work on me,” the medic said, his smile still razor-sharp.  “I only give my name to a di’kutla runi that doesn’t end up in my medbay bleeding from their chest.”

           Jesse’s heart fluttered in his chest, broadcasted to the whole medbay by the karking machine monitoring his vitals.  The medic had called him “runi”.  Soul.  The Alphas had overheard that word from some of the trainers on Kamino when they talked about families left behind or marching ahead.  The medic really was his soulmate.

           Said medic was a karking bastard though and should definitely stop smirking like that every time Jesse’s heart literally skipped a beat. That smirk was doing dangerous things to his mind, and he hated that he was stuck in a bed in the medbay for the foreseeable future.  At least he’d be able to talk to his soulmate and get to know him.  If said soulmate would karking cooperate.

           “Kix,” the medic said after a few minutes of Jesse trying to tamp down his blush and get his wayward heart to stop betraying him.

           “Huh?” Jesse said intelligently.

           “My name.  Kix. With an x.”

           Kix.  Jesse rolled the name around in his head for a few seconds before he decided that the name suited his soulmate.  “I’m Jesse. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

           “You too.”  The smirk shifted into a softer smile.  One that reminded Jesse of the warmth he had felt when their connection had snapped into place and Kix tried to comfort him while treating his shrapnel wound.  The warmth that delirious Jesse had decided he could easily fall in love with.

           With a clap of his hands, Kix turned away from Jesse’s bed, who immediately ached to reach out and keep.  He didn’t want to be alone and he certainly didn’t want his soulmate to leave.

           “Now that you’re awake, I have a pack of shinies that I am officially making your problem.”  Kix opened the medbay doors and waved to someone down the hall.  He turned and flashed that same dangerous smile.  “Good luck.  You’re gonna need it.”

           Jesse decided that he would deal with a hundred shooty shinies if it meant he could hear Kix’s laugh again when the reckless one (who promptly declared that his name was Hardcase, given to him by Captain Rex himself) started talking a minute at Jesse without getting a single breath between sentences.

           It would definitely be worth it.  After all, the Mandalorian wedding vows (stolen off the holonet in a Mando’a learning module) mention raising warriors together.  Who better than the shinies of the 501st?

[aahsokaatano]

i've been crazy busy this month for various reasons, so instead of doing a regular "once per day" bingo thing, I decided to do a bunch of five-sentence dumps. Enjoy!

@cloneshipweek

1. Keeli/Doom

The helmet recovered from Ryloth sat heavily in Doom's hands. It felt like it weighed more than the rocky planet itself.

He ached to speak. To say I'm sorry, I failed you, I wasn't there when you needed me.

But the words didn't come, and Keeli would never tease him about being lost for words again.

2. Fox/Fox

"The more you speak," Fox said in a low, threatening tone, "the closer I get to punting you off the nearest platform and letting you free-fall to the surface."

"Aw, Commander, you say the sweetest things," the Torrent that Fox refused to name simpered.

One of these days, he was actually going to kill the CT. The name they had picked was bad enough - did they also have to be so karking annoying?

"You know, I hear kissing is a good way to keep people quiet," they grinned, and Fox didn't give them a chance to say anything else, much to their delight.

3. Keller/Neyo

They didn't ever speak about anything important, really. Neyo could chatter about anything and nothing for as long as Keller would let him, filling up the quiet of the med tent as he stitched the Commander back together after yet another harebrained mission that Neyo and Bacara had taken on.

Proof of life, in the little things. Keller could see he was alive, sure, but the more Neyo talked, the more he could see the tension drain out of the medic's shoulders.

If the stitches got a little more painful towards the end, well, that was just Keller's way of saying he was glad that Neyo was still there to feel the sting of it.

4. Hound/Tup

Grizzer always beat Hound to the lamding platform when the 501st came to Coruscant, not that Tup minded too much. The massif was a package deal with his handler, after all.

Hound laughed and wiped the slobber off of Tup's cheek to press a kiss there. "Welcome back, cyare."

"Good to be back, cyare."

5. Vaughn/Wooley

Someone once described them as distilled sunshine twice over. Vaughn had laughed, all but sparkling in his delight, and Wooley had grinned and blushed, running a hand through his hair and making it fluffier.

The darkness that was spread throughout the galaxy seemed to have a harder time casting a shadow over them. They were just... happy. They had each other, after all.

6. Oddball (Davijaan)/Crys

"You were reckless again," Crys fretted, watching with a scowl as Davijaan climbed out of his scorched fighter.

"And I won, again," he added, getting both feet back on the deck. "Isn't that what's important?"

"No, coming back to me is what's important."

Davijaan rested his forehead against Crys', hoping the contact would say what he couldn't find words for - that he won for Crys, every time.

7. Blackout/Grey

Grey was dozing, just enjoying the warmth of the bunk and the man next to him. Blackout was still deeply asleep, half on top of Grey with his head on Grey's shoulder and his arm over his waist. Warm, and comfortable, and safe.

It was a feeling they didn't get to indulge in often. He was going to relish it for as long as they were able to stay here.

8. Longshot/Hardcase

Hardcase had once claimed he wasn't a very good sniper, which was why he carried pretty much everything except a rifle.

Longshot was now ready to call banthashit on that.

"A millimeter," he said for the tenth time, "a single millimeter of difference between our shots and you say you aren't a good sniper!"

Hardcase shrugged. "You're the best and I'm not as good as you, so -" He gave a muffled laugh as Longshot cut him off with an aggrieved kiss.

9. Bacara/Colt

Kamino was as deary and depressing as ever, but the welcoming party was a sight for sore eyes.

"Colt," Bacara greeted softly, nodding at the other Commander.

"Bacara," he nodded back.

Later, they would have a proper reunion, would catalogue the new scars on each other and kiss away the ache of loneliness that had built up since they had last seen each other. For now, a short nod would have to do.

10. Dogma/Wrecker

Wrecker had called him 'regs' the first time they met, and Dogma had taken it as a compliment.

Dogma had quietly told Hunter about killing Krell, which got him assigned to CF99, and Wrecker overheard and immediately developed a crush.

They really shouldn't click as well as they did - uptight Dogma, loyal to the point of rabidness, and loose canon Wrecker, who loved nothing more than making things explode in glorious fashion?

But they did work, somehow, and soon it was Dogma-and-Wrecker, a single unit rather than two. And they excelled for it.

11. Thire/Cut

"I'm leaving, going AWOL."

"I know." The signs had been there for a while, he just hadn't wanted to think he was interpreting them correctly.

"You should come with me."

"I... I want to, but I can't." I'm sorry.

12. Bly/Spar

Bly had once thought that Spar was everything he wasn't - big and strong and fast and the best of the best.

But now he realized, Spar was an attainable goal, in more ways than one.

He was still a bit taller than Bly, but the muscled arms that wrapped around Bly in the night were hardly bigger than his own.

As Bly snuggled in closer, though, he still thought Spar was the best of the best. Even if they were closer in size, now.

13. Free/Free (my OCs, Crasher/Steel)

"Don't ever do that again," Crasher whispered against Steel's lips.

"I'm sorry."

"I - I thought -" a lot of terrible things had crossed Crasher's mind when Steel had been publicly declared a traitor.

"I know," Steel said, holding Crasher tightly. "No more covert ops for me."

[star-wars-scribbles-ff]

Click for better quality 👀 (ref photo)

IN SERVICE OF THE REPUBLIC

Art depiction from Where I Belong of my OC CT-1917/Lucky

Sneak peak scene snippet from chapter 13 of Where I Belong below!!

The sound of the nearest set of blast doors opening does little to pull a reaction from Arwen as she feels a presence emerge from the interior of the base and out onto the walkway where she was. She didn’t need much time at all to guess who it was. After that speeder-wreck of a conversation, General Kenobi was the only one who’d likely try to speak with her.

Despite having had almost half an hour to think about the conversation she’d just had with the Jedi Council members, Arwen could feel the anger bubbling back up to the surface. She was angry with them, but even more so with herself for thinking such an arrangement could actually be authentic.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” General Kenobi announced himself, despite knowing she was aware of his presence already. 

Arwen let her eyes shoot to the left as the Jedi came to stand a few feet away from her before he turned to face the view of the Cruiser Staging Area. His aura was relaxed but his tone and posture gave away the most subtle hesitation he was bringing with him. He definitely wanted to say something; he wasn’t just coming for small talk. It’d be awkward if he did.

“I feel that our conversation took something of a wrong turn.”

“Wayii (good grief)- Just spit it out, General.” Corcer turned abruptly, pushing off of the railing her forearms had been rested upon to face the Jedi. His expression was calm, only a slight furrow of his brow indicated his reaction and potential concern or perhaps consideration to her anger bubbling over. “You used me to get what you needed for your investigation. That blasted contract was just a load of fodder-”

“The Council is still deliberating on your greater role, Corcer.” The General responded. “The contract is genuine, I assure you.” He sounded just as genuine however that did little to convince Arwen as she shook her head and looked out over the railing once more, hands grasping the railing tightly. 

“You must understand that the Council simply needs time to evaluate and consider the situation.” 

“All due respect, what else is there to consider?” She shot daggers over her shoulder before throwing the look ahead of her. “My service record? Jobs I’ve taken as a merc just to get by and survive in the mere months since my team was-” The abruptness of Arwen cutting off her own words had to have caught the Jedi’s attention as he physically shifted where he stood.

“Your team,” He stated the phrase with a casual quietness that made Corcer tense.

“Wer'cuy… Jetiise ke nu suvarir (forget it/it doesn’t matter… Jedi don’t understand).” She muttered under her breath with a shake of her head. 

“I beg your pardon?” The question seemed to be one of surprise more than anything.

“A Jedi wouldn’t understand!” Arwen finally barked, not bothering to look towards him. She only kept her gaze ahead, forearms coming to lean back on the railing as she looked down over ledge towards the lower deck where a small airfield was.

After everything; all that had happened. She didn’t know if she had the right to feel insulted or even upset about the position she was in. Granted she did everything in her power on that mission- gave everything she had and intended to give her life if not for the fact that she was somehow still here despite the odds. She gave everything. Herself. Her team- the only family she’d ever known - for the Republic… Was that not enough?

Arwen wished the sound of the ion engines of one of the Republic’s Venator-class cruisers powering up was loud enough to drown out any further conversation that could take place. She felt oddly trapped with this Jedi, despite having plenty of space to move away from him as he stood idly by a few feet away. He was being more civil than she’d like. Mentally trying to stomp out the crumbs of guilt sitting heavy in her stomach at her behavior around this General - a superior - didn’t seem to be working. 

He’s done nothing but be genuine so far. She had no reason to be angry with him specifically. But then again he was a Jedi. Jedi didn’t deal with emotions like other people did. They were cold, calculated individuals; weighing life rarely by worth but by majority… unless you were weighing the worth of a Jedi against Clones of course. Then the worth of one outweighed that of the majority. Jedi were just like everyone else… viewing this army like nothing but canon fodder; easily disposable and replaceable. Her team was nothing but numbers on a spreadsheet to them. She could count the number of Jedi she trusted on one hand. That number was even smaller when considering how many she trusted that weren’t already dead.

The Jedi General was quiet in his movements as he came to stand by her side, posture straight as he rested his hands upon the railing and eyed the view before them. Moving his gaze subtly he eyed the mercenary, noting her eyes had fallen and her expression, for a brief moment, appeared more exhausted and broken than any he’d seen in some time. 

“The Republic owes you and your team a great debt.” He’d considered the proclamation before coming to find Corcer. It was true after all. He’d read the details on the file; what she, as well as her team, had been a part of; how their actions may have very well saved the Republic just months prior due to the information they’d obtained and kept out of Separatist hands. However, that victory came at a cost.

Arwen shook her head at his words. Whether it was out of denial of his words or something else, Kenobi wasn’t completely sure. He was reluctant to dig deeper into her aura, but wanted to at least attempt, if not to get a better understanding of her. 

“Nice payback.” Arwen muttered before crossing her arms over the railing, risking the action of resting her chin down on her forearms. Her back was still tense, and she was ready to act at any time, however this Jedi posed no threat to her. Not at the moment at least.

General Kenobi considered her response before he nodded to himself.

“I understand you feel betrayed, and I apologize for what took place and- has… since taken place.”

Arwen could tell by the split second hesitation at the end of his sentence that he was treading carefully, however she didn’t plan on holding him to his words. She wanted to just knock his statement up to him sweet talking to get her cooperation however she could feel his sincerity. It was clear as day in the air and she couldn’t deny or ignore it.

“I’m sorry about General- Kazar and- Padawan Vorruk… sir,” Her voice lost its confidence rather quickly as soon as she uttered the names. She hadn’t said the names of the Jedi General and Padawan she’d worked with on that last mission since… the mission itself. “I-...” She couldn’t bring herself to continue as her throat tightened and suffocated the words before she could utter them.

I did what I could.

She hadn’t said it out loud, but she knew she didn’t have to.

“I know,” The response didn’t surprise her as much as his tone did. His voice held emotion, despite his professional output. He projected a sense of understanding and mentorship. There was also certainty to his tone.

He must’ve watched the holorecording. 

Arwen closed her eyes, brow knitting tightly as she tried to push the images from her mind. She could almost feel the weight of the Jedi padawan in her arms sometimes; when she’d held his half conscious body, clinging to life, while she tried to relay coordinates and need for extraction to the nearest Republic fleet and simultaneously fend off incoming hostiles. 

And now the Jedi had the footage of her message. 

It angered her that it was memorialized as a recording, but it enraged her that they’d seen it and still saw her as a threat. Like nothing that happened that day held any weight. 

A slight shift in the Jedi’s aura caused her to look subtly out of the corner of her eye and she evaluated his posture as it straightened and he cleared his throat quietly.

“I am currently negotiating with the Council to have you ship out with General Skywalker and I.” 

Arwen’s brow scrunched together at the Jedi’s words and she pushed off of the railing to stand straight and face the Jedi.

“Sir- the Council said-”

“I am proceeding to try and convince them otherwise.” Kenobi responded, hands coming behind his back as his gaze arched over the view in front of them once more before it returned to her. “I read your file and reviewed your training as well as completed missions. Your skillset will be of the most use in the field. Now, it will take some time before we can have you operating openly if this pans out. But for the time being, I am going to do my best to get the Council’s permission to have you work in the background of any ongoing operations within my battle group.”

Alright… This Jedi isn’t half bad.

Corcer eyed him for a moment, overall uncertainty written in her expression before she swallowed and let out a quiet breath through her nose.

“Thank you, sir.” 

I feel like a di'kut now.

The General eyed her quietly for a time before glancing away towards the blast doors down the walkway. 

“0700 tomorrow there will be a meeting on standard operating procedures in the east wing for new clones joining the ranks of the 212th. You’re welcome to attend.”

The offer surprised her, however that surprise was quickly overshadowed by solace. Corcer’s hands swung around behind her back subconsciously, posture straight and attentive as she gave the Jedi General a nod.

“I’ll be there, sir.” Arwen’s tone voiced assurance and even confidence.

Giving her a curt nod and a hint of a professional smile, General Kenobi excused himself and turned to head back inside. 

Corcer watched him leave and once the blast doors closed behind the Jedi, she found herself mulling over the breath sitting in her chest before she slowly let it out and returned to her spot leaning on the railing.

The sense of reassurance was starting to leave a subtle bitter taste in her mouth. On the surface she felt relief, knowing this Jedi appeared to be coming at her from the right direction; easing her into situations where she’d be surrounded by the troops. However the deeper she sifted through her mind… she was terrified. 

How the kark am I gonna fit in with these troopers? I don’t know the first thing about Infantry SOPs.

Then there was the matter of how she would be received. The last thing she wanted was to be on the bad side of these troopers. Then again her very presence was already proving a negative to the 501st troopers as they’ve had to cart her around twice today. If things kept going down the same road, she’d have a difficult time fitting in.

Until she knew exactly what her job would be, if the General could square something away for her, she couldn’t get too comfortable with anything on the base, and especially not with any of the men. That was the only thing she’d need to be sure to do. Don’t let yourself care; don’t get attached. If it’s one thing her past had taught her; it only ends in heartbreak and it leaves you more alone than ever.

Not one of my best arts, but I’ve had it sitting on the shelf for a long time so I figured it was better to share it sooner rather than later. Check the story out if you’re curious for more! Feedback is always appreciated 💕

[aces-to-apples]

Written for Day 2: Fix-It of Codywan Week 2020 @codywanweek

Here on AO3

Rating: Teen Audiences and Up Category: M/M Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi Notable Tags: Fix-It of Sorts, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dehumanization, Order 6, no betas we die like man

“poor reception”

“Commander Cody, the time has come.”

Good soldiers follow orders.

The words trigger something in Cody’s mind and in an instant, CC-2224 is all that’s left.

“Execute Order Six.”

CC-2224 nods its head and says, “It will be done, my lord.”

It pauses, knowing that this will be the last time it will be capable of receiving orders from Lord Sidious. When no further commands follow, CC-2224 ends the transmission, re-transmits the Order to the next commanders on the list, and disposes of the communicator over the side of the cliff. The unit had been damaged in the fighting and would have needed replacing after the battle regardless.

Order Six fulfilled, it completes the rout with renewed vigor.

Lord Sidious has seen fit to issue an Order after three years of war and the knowledge that an Order has finally come fills CC-2224 with optimism. The war must be coming to, if not already at, an end.

The remaining troops on the ground dispose of their own communicators as Order Six is passed along. By the time the battle has reached its end, hours later, CC-2224 has noted the reduced efficiency of its troops due to the Order. Its mission report, should the Grand Army of the Republic remain in use after the issuing of an Order, will be as scathing as it can manage.

“Commander Cody!” the voice of the General rings out across the former field of battle. “I’m glad to see you’re alright! When the Separatists knocked out our comms, I’ll admit I was worried!”

He approaches CC-2224 on foot, having lost or relinquished his mount sometime after their parting. It offers a crisp salute. “Functioning at full capacity, General,” it reports. “Separatist forces have been defeated. Our forces are in pursuit of any stragglers.”

The General quirks an eyebrow but also smiles.

Relief, CC-2224 thinks it reads on its General’s face. Relief, and amusement, and lo—

Good soldiers follow orders.

“Do you have any idea how the Separatists managed to jam our signals?” the General asks, bafflingly. “And do we have an ETA for when they’ll be back up?”

“The Separatist forces have been defeated, General,” it repeats, unsure where the miscommunication occurred. “Lord Sidious activated Order Six, sir.”

The General becomes very pale and very still. He looks at CC-2224 with an expression that it believes might be horror. “Lord… Sidious gave an order, Cody?” he says, slowly, eyes darting around the troops who have all slowly gravitated over to their General. “And you… followed it?”

There is something in his voice that CC-2224 cannot identify, but it and their troops all square their shoulders and nod. “Good soldiers follow orders,” it intones, the words repeating among the gathered troops. “Order Six was activated.” Something it tentatively labels as fear crosses the General’s face next, and CC-2224 feels its skin crawl with a need to wipe it away. “Do you… require a report on Order Six, General?”

He startles at the request, a hand darting to hover over his lightsaber, and CC-2224 prepares to receive punishment for its presumption.

“If you would, Commander, that would be appreciated.”

“Sir,” it nods, “Order Six states that in order to subvert enemy attempts at misinformation, all Command units must retransmit the Order down a predetermined chain of communication and then dispose of all communication units as quickly as possible.”

The General pulls out his comlink and stares at it in bemusement. “I beg your pardon?”

CT-5306 reaches over and plucks it out of the General’s hand. “You’ve got to yeet your communicator, sir,” it explains, turning to face the cliff and throwing the comlink as hard as it can to demonstrate.

“Y—yeet?!” the General… shrieks, for lack of a better word. Loud and strangled and slightly outraged. "Wha—?"

"Sir."

He takes a deep breath and settles, darting a glance at CC-2224. "All right, Cody, I'm going to need your report on," the General's lip curls, "Lord Sidious and any other such orders he may have."

CC-2224 sends the other troops away to continue clean-up and does as it's told.

The look on the General's face as it efficiently describes the Orders causes an error in CC-2224's programming. It should not want to pet its General's hair or kiss his forehead or pull him into its arms—

Good soldiers follow orders.

"Oh, Cody," the General sighs, looking into its eyes as if searching for something. "Are you in there?"

It nods, pleased, as much as it can be, to have a definitive answer to give its strange General. "Present and functioning at optimal levels, General."

"And do you… know who I am, Commander Cody?"

It blinks.

"High Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi leading the Third Systems Army, overseeing the Seventh Sky Corps, sir."

The General's face doesn't know whether it wants to be painted or relieved.

"And do you know who you are, Commander?"

Good soldiers follow orders.

CC-2224 opens its mouth but finds it cannot speak. It frowns, closes its mouth, and feels its brow furrow. A cool hand unexpectedly smooths across its forehead and CC-2224 is shocked to realize it had closed its eyes in concentration.

"It's all right, Commander," the General murmurs, stepping very close. "We'll find out what's happening. I promise you."