#like the campaign is over I would like to do the debriefs

[enigmatist17]

I've got you Anon <3

If anyone else would like to ask me anything, go for it!

------

Their latest campaign has been a disaster, and Plo Koon does his best to locate the bodies of his men among the debris.

He only manages to find about ten of them, and he hopes the Force takes the lost children he cannot find into its embrace.

The ride back to The Triumphant is a somber one, and after a general debriefing, Plo Koon just seems to vanish before anyone notices. It's not often he uses his Jetti powers on them, so the alarm bells are already ringing among the bridge crew. Plo Koon's quarters are not where a traditional Jetti's is located, the man having moved to the lower decks to be able to be a few floors above his men's barracks. He enjoyed meditating and feeling the ebb and flow of his children in the Force, and they enjoyed having their buir close by.

This made it quite easy for a few worried troopers to go check in on the Jetti, led by Comet who bypassed the lock with ease.

"I do not believe I've called anyone." Plo Koon is hovering in the air, meditating in front of his window bathed with the glow of hyperspace. He may be no Jetti, but Comet knows when someone is trying to put on the illusion of keeping busy, so he steps inside without hesitation.

"No offense general, but you did." The commander didn't flinch when the master craned his head towards him and knelt down beside the other. There's a moment before Plo sets himself on the floor, and the other troopers who had been standing at the door slowly file inside.

"Did you need backup?" He feels someone kneel behind him, and another trooper sits by his other side.

"Yes."

"I see."

Plo can feel the concern and worry from his children all but being shouted into the Force, and his already aching heart feels worse.

"You've said we can come to you for anything buir..." The trooper behind him starts, and after a moment, continues. "We want to return the favor, like you have so many times before. No one should mourn alone."

"...it gets harder every time you fall." The way Plo's shoulders slump made the troopers spike with worry, and Comet takes the action to hug the Jetti to his side.

"Go, get a space ready." The commander glances over his shoulder, and the troopers were up and gone before Plo could even blink. He really should say something, but leaning against Comet with his constant thrum of safety concern love is just so comforting, he can't possibly move, can he?

Eventually, his door opens, and so many of his children seem to flood his room. They've got a few mattresses, pillows, and blankets that Plo had brought on board, and as one they move his furniture to the hallway temporarily to have more floor space. Soon the nest is complete, and Plo gets to his feet to inspect the construct.

"You all amaze me every day."

"We can say that same." Wolffe said as he entered, still not pleased with Plo running from them instead of confiding, but not surprised. He's holding a mug of something, and watches as Plo sits in the middle of the cushion pile in his meditation pose.

No one was sure who would move first, but to no one's surprise, it was Wolffe. The officer is able to slip out of his boots easily enough, offering Plo the cup in his hand as he props himself up with a pillow. It's his favorite tea, and the Jedi sips slowly as slowly, more men join the commander. The Jedi watches those who can't wait just sit around, chatting softly about random things while pouring support and love into the Force, as if they'd been trained like any other Padawan. He's not sure when he leans back against Wolffe, nor when another one of his children hugs his other side, but the Jedi opens himself to the Force.

It does feel better to mourn with those who understand, and for once draw some strength so as not to lose himself in the pain.

Plo Koon doesn't have nightmares, the love from his children driving them far away.

[poisonheadcrabsalesman]

Request from @bloodgulchblog: first time palmer or lasky figures out roland is flirting with them dealer's choice. Thank you for the prompt!

Roland enters service December 5, 2557 and then sometime circa February 18th, 2558 during a live mission with Fireteam Crimson present and engaging with Promethean forces, Roland says to Miller after Miller attempts to shoo him away: "I can do a million things at once, like can talk to Captain Lasky, I can flirt with Captain-" from Spartan Miller E5.01 of SpOps. He is 2.5 months old and saying this. In front of at least 5 Spartans.

Halo doesn't give us any vetting process or inside look into how AI are chosen or when they come off the shelf vs go into active service.

-

Leading a campaign is stressful. Lasky had done it before, in all but name, as the XO behind Del Rio. He's the reason the UNSC Infinity was still afloat, not that he wants to take credit for helping the Master Chief stop the Didact. There's more important things he's dealing with, and getting more attention from the upper Brass doesn't seem like a good career move or life choice at the moment.

Returning to the Forerunner planet Requiem means balancing a million details all key to their victory. Olds hands returning do help, but there's a lot of new blood in the crew as well. Including the ship AI.

As captain, Lasky had been included in the vetting process. Roland was chosen because he was the best fit. Part of the newest generation of Smart AI, with a personality fit for managing not only the enormous and diverse needs of the crew, but also the retrofitted colony ship with Forerunner engines and more armament than the navy had ships welded to her.

Suffice it to say that Lasky had a lot on his plate, and maybe didn't pay the closest attention to Roland's tone. Or the little winks and knowing nods thrown at Lasky before he blipped away. Or how he motherhenned Lasky more than Aine ever did. It was just differences in personality between AI. Captain's duties took precedent over lilting tones and pointed questions and an avatar lingering in his presence at the end of the day.

Aine never said "sir" with so much weight. She wasn't so free with compliments towards him and didn't linger for him specifically. Aine enjoyed her time on the Infinity, the care in its construction, and her crew. Roland's focus was different, and something Tom might not want to label without a second opinion. Not that he was going to talk to Sarah about it… He could already see her face, eyebrow raised, as he'd try to connect two points in front of her.

The second Requiem campaign ends, badly, but with them alive and not in the heart of a star. Lasky exhales. Sarah's mad about his contingency with Majestic and Halsey getting away, but she's coming with him to face the admirals together. Not that they have much choice, but they've already gotten their story straight. Their friendship would heal. Tom fixes his uniform in the mirror and swallows. Going planet-side for an official debriefing felt more like marching to meet his executioner. At least Hood liked him.

"Captain, your chariot awaits in hangar 11." Roland announces with a flourish.

Tom nods and thanks him with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. He's not really in the mood for levity right now.

"If I may be so bold, sir." But when has that ever stopped Roland?

"When have you not?" Tom says, smoothing down his cuffs again.

"You're worrying too much. The reports are in, the commander is going with you, your pelican is fueled and waiting. It's all going to go smoothly. You'll be fine, you're very likable, sir. I like you!"

"I noticed." Tom says with a smile aimed at Roland's camera. "You were laying it on kind of thick there."

The look on his avatar's face is enough of a prize, but then Roland starts backpedaling. That's something Tom's never seen him do before.

"Well, of course, sir. I mean, you are my captain. The captain. Of the ship- that I run, mostly."

"Of course." Lasky says, turning for the door. "We can discuss it when I return. I leave the ship in your capable hands." He smiles, wry and teasing.

Roland snaps a salute with smothered smile. If Lasky's mouth does anything funny, no one sees as he's schooled his expression by the time he hits the hangar.

[hughiecampbelle]

Succession Preference: Dating A Political Figure

Requested: would you write preferences about the roy siblings with a significant other who is a successful political figure?? i feel like it would be an interesting concept especially with connor running for president & shiv being a political consultant - anon

A/N: I love this my love!!! Thank you for requesting!!! I hope you like it!!! Feedback is always appreciated 💜💜💜

Connor thinks your political hold is great for his presidency. Very nicely you sit him down and explain that being president isn't an easy thing, it's not something you can just decide to be one day. He's not really listening though, assuring you his campaign won't hurt yours. It might even make yours better! Who knows? You can't stop him, you would never want to, it makes him so happy. But you definitely put some distance between what you're doing and what he's doing. You're doing the real thing, with goals and issues and a real idea of how to do your job. Connor just decided one day that's what he was going to do after a lifetime of doing nothing. It can be frustrating, especially when you're known as President Roy's first partner. You're actually doing something that will have an impact. You know his siblings don't actually believe in him, nor does his father. You're the only cheering him on. It comes with a lot of conflicted feelings.

Kendall feels a lot of stress. He can't help but spiral anytime something doesn't 100% go your way. He's very reactive. You're the one who's able to take a step back, look at the whole picture, and find a way to fix the problem. Most of the time it's not even that big a deal. So some of your numbers are a little low, you can always make up for it later. You're the one calming him down, reminding him that this is a long game you intend to play well, with lots of strategy. He can't help it, you know this. When something goes wrong in his world everything, absolutely everything, falls apart. He's so proud of you, too. When he's not freaking out, he's bragging to anyone who will listen that he's dating the next President of the United States. You wouldn't go that far, you laugh, but you can dream. He doesn't get too involved, not wanting to mess things up, but he'll always ask you how it's going. At night, in bed, the two of you debrief your days. What did your campaign manager say about this or that? Was Logan any nicer today? How are Shiv and Rome? When is your next speech? Your days are stressful and all-encompassing, but your nights together are anything but.

Shiv loves helping you with your career. All her life, she's been ignored. By her father, by her mother, by her brothers, by everyone she's ever worked with because she is a woman. Because they have already decided she's hysterical and stupid and not as powerful as they are. She doesn't want to overstep at first, but your career is new, and you're still building your image. You know Shiv is smart. You know she knows what she's doing. When she's not competing with everyone around her, she can actually think through every decision and have the best outcome. You two often spend date nights going over speeches, campaign ads, slogans, meetings, etc. You try to change the subject, not wanting your whole life to become this, but Shiv doesn't mind at all. She loves it. Not only is she helping you, which she loves, but she's finally starting to feel heard for the first time in her life. She knows you're going to be one of the greats. She does. And she's gonna help you get there. You're a power couple. No one is going to get in your way.

Roman my baby my baby, you're my baby doesn't get involved at all. He says it's because politics aren't his thing, but really he's afraid he'll mess everything up. He got involved with Mencken and that went pretty well. After he starts dating you, he makes sure his public image remains neutral. He gives Mencken to someone else, wholeheartedly standing behind you. He knows the politics of his fathers business. The backstabbing, the lying, the cheating. He expects the same kind of cat fights from you and your opponents. You remind him that you don't run like that. That's not your style. You run a clean, fair campaign. Your opponents can do and say whatever they want, but you won't be dragged down to that level. You know what they say about politicians. . . He's got endless jokes lined up. You don't mind, you know the reputation you all have. But you're trying to do better, be better. You think people deserve honesty, they deserve the truth. Roman can't believe it, you've got no skeletons in your closet. He assumed everyone did. Everyone else in his life did, at least.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nick Anderson

* * * *

SOTU DEBRIEF - DARK BRANDON BRINGS IT!

TCINLA

MAR 8, 2024

The Party of Class and Integrity celebrates another ass whipping - look at all those around the Dumbest Congressional Bimbo Ever as they realize how bad they got their asses kicked

Last night’s State of the Union was a punch in the face not only of the heckling MAGAT Morons, but the Otherwise-Unemployables of the DC Press Corpse. As well, the Democrat’s Professional Pearl Clutcher’s Caucus can join the others in officially retiring “He’s too old” once and for damn all. The Press Corpse stands today beside their MAGAt buddies, trying not to admit to the exact nature of the material covering their faces.

Over.

Done.

Finished.

The official Democratic response to this collection of clucks from now to November is, “You saw that State of the Union speech. Joe Biden is sharper than Donald Trump will ever be and is ready for the fight.”

You can tell November’s Losers saw their coming loss clearly when their majority criticism of President Biden was “He was too mean and talked too fast!” You know he left a mark. That was the most perfectly tuned-in SOTU speech I have ever seen, delivered with fire and energy by a man as far from the Press Corpse’s concept of a doddering old man, diminished in drive and energy as possible. The New York Times Opinion Section got hit in the face by a freight train of ideas and energy.

Joe was Old Man Strong. Dark Brandon. Killer Joe.

Biden delivered.

It was the best center-left populist presidential speech ever. Less technocratic than Obama; less curated than Clinton - a solid knock-it-over-the-outfield-fence.

As many Republicans feared, Biden was more than able to “spar with the disruptors,” as one observer reported, using their jeers to make his own policy points. (“Sparring with MAGAts” is also known as “shooting fish in a barrel”). It’s hard to believe the GOP could be so stupid with their heckling that they walked straight in to a second SOTU trap, that went off when Biden maneuvered them perfectly into taking their proposed $2 trillion dollar tax cut off the table. But then again, they are Republicans, and it’s well-known you have to score an IQ lower than ambient room temperature to get your party card there nowadays.

Biden’s speech was combative and sharp, the solid punch in MAGA’s face they’ve been asking for every day for so long. The “senile” narrative went flying into the dumpster fire. Once again, Republicans set the bar too low, and got knocked on their collective fat ass.

Joe argued forcefully from the strong side about America’s destiny, security, and purpose, laying down a fierce bright line against Putin and the forces of autocracy.

He more than made it through the SOTU address. That moment his supporters always fear never came. Politico, demonstrating that most real political knowledge is 20/20 hindsight, called the speech the “turn-the-tables SOTU.” They go on to report that the Biden campaign had their best two hours of fundraising so far in this cycle from 9 to 11 p.m. last night. A CNN flash poll finds that 62 percent of viewers thought the policies Biden laid out would move the country in the right direction.

The New Republic’s Osita Nwanevu wrote: “That overall impression—of a vigorous president, strong enough to take the fight to his detractors —will linger more deeply in the minds of most who watched than the substance of anything he said.”

But what was really interesting to me was watching the political midget behind Biden’s left shoulder. Mike Johnson’s histrionic facial expressions demonstrated everything wrong, idiotic, dangerous and treasonous about MAGA Republicans.

Johnson was both ridiculous and politically smaller than he actually is. He did applaud Biden’s call for aid to Ukraine early in the speech, which he does seem to support personally, even though doing so demonstrated how he’s too afraid of his crazy caucus to allow a straight-up vote. He is likely to go down in history as the one person who more than any other handed Ukraine to Vladimir Putin.

His mugging for the camera was more obviously overdone than what passed for “emoting” in silent movies. He nodded that solemn “more in anger than in sorrow” nod. He rolled his eyes more than a teenage girl listening to her elders.

What was really sad was noting what he rolled his eyes at! The most important was January 6 (of which he is a noted participant in the attempted coup). When Biden said: “We must be honest. The threat to democracy must be defended. My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about Jan. 6. I will not do that.” MAGAMike gave his most sustained eye roll. Close runner-ups were his responses to abortion rights and freedom, and the border bill that he killed when told to by Dear Leader. And he did that last one while Senator James Lankford - the chief GOP negotiator on the bill - listened to Biden lay out its provisions and nodded on camera, clearly mouthing “That’s true.” Mikey even shook his head at “buy American”!

His eye roll over “The very idea of America is that we are all created equal, deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. We’ve never fully lived up to that idea, but we’ve never walked away from it either,” was the real demonstration of just how dangerous he really is.

The MAGA Republican Party doesn’t believe we’re all equal. MAGA, and MAGA Mike, knows that if you’re not a right-wing Christian, you are not a good American.

Of course, there was also Marjorie Traitor Goon, whose ridiculous getup and MAGA hat elicited a “WTF?” look from Biden when he first saw her - and which was in apparent violation of House rules (but then, she IS a violation of House rules). Lindsey Graham’s pasted-on embarrassed smile at least demonstrates he has more self-awareness than his fellow MAGA cockroaches, as he considers how far he has fallen. Watching the MAGA screamer in the gallery get arrested was nice. It came down to just how dumbstruck the Republicans were as this man who - according to the Volkischer Beobachter, er, I mean Faux Snooze - can’t remember his own middle name or string two sentences together, zingered them repeatedly as he publicly exposed their un-American extremism.

Overall, Biden’s speech showed how he can win, and how MAGA, being on the wrong side of history, will lose.

And then, savoing the speech, just when I had forgotten there was going to be an Official Response, there was “America’s Mom,” sitting on a stool in her kitchen, there in East Buttfuck, Alabam-bam. Katie Britt had the most scenery-chewing response to a SOTU speech I’ve ever seen, and given that her competition was the ever-thirsty Marco Rubio and the ever-hapless Bobby Jindal, that was quite a win. Just another example of The Rising Young GOP Star, Cursed Forever by the SOTU Response.

The kitchen setting was the perfect metaphor for what MAGA intends for women: put them back in their place - “Kinder Kirche Kuche,” as their wonderboy Adolf put it.

I’ve spent enough time in Hollywood to be completely conversant with serious failure in public, and Britt’s performance didn’t even rise to the local-dinner-theater overacting you see from those who never had talent to begin with. With a Republican candidate for governor in her state of Alabambam campaigning on revoking women’s right to vote, and all the other MAGA moves to make the Handmaid’s Tale a documentary, delivering her speech in a kitchen was…

A choice. One of those tiny moments that completely illuminate the larger reality.

And then…

Appropos of nothing other than I love it when a Real Asshole gets punched really hard in the face, the news this morning that Doctor Feelgood Ronny Jackson has “Gotten His” brings a smile to my face that might last the weekend:

After the Defense Department Inspector General report on the White House Medical Unit found “Doctor Feelgood” had engaged in “inappropriate conduct” when he was the top White House physician for Presidents Obama and Trump, the Navy removed him from the Rear Admiral list last June. Yes, Jackson, who was a rear admiral when he retired in 2019, is now listed as a captain.

A spokesperson for the Navy stated that the “substantiated allegations in the DoDIG investigation of Rear Adm Ronny Jackson are not in keeping with the standards the Navy requires of its leaders and, as such, the Secretary of the Navy took administrative action in July 2022.”

Hurrah!

The losers just keep on losing. It’s what losers do.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Rainesford Stauffer at Teen Vogue:

It seems like Hadley Duvall is everywhere. In the weeks leading up to the 2024 election, Duvall was on a Zoom call hosted by Survivors for Harris; she signed her name, alongside 200 survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, to a full-page ad in The New York Times reminding voters that former President Donald Trump was found liable for sexual abuse; and appeared in an online debrief with Representative Fentrice Driskell. She’s campaigned in battleground states like Michigan and Arizona, traveling across the country with the Harris-Walz campaign’s Reproductive Freedom bus tour. Now, she’s returned to where this whole thing began.

On October 24, Duvall headed to Henderson, Kentucky, a neighboring town to where she grew up, for a meet-and-greet for the Harris-Walz campaign. Duvall’s jam-packed past few months as a surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign wasn’t something she could’ve dreamed of a few years ago, and certainly not when she was growing up in Owensboro, where she spent her teen years longing for anonymity. Duvall’s stepfather began sexually abusing her at the age of five, and eventually impregnated her when she was 12 years old, a horrifying story that the now 22-year-old has only opened up about over the past few years. In her small community, everyone knew about the abuse she’d endured. So, telling her story on the national stage was certainly not in Duvall’s plans, particularly when she had been so eager to leave home, escaping the spotlight a small town can shine on you.

But in 2022, shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Duvall couldn’t stay silent. She shared a photo of her 7th grade self on social media, opening up about why losing the federal right to an abortion impacted her directly. While Duvall had a miscarriage after becoming pregnant from her abuser and didn’t require an abortion at that time, she couldn’t stop thinking about were all the people — people like her — whose choices had been stripped away from them. Duvall opened up about her story even more publicly in a 2023 ad for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear as he campaigned against an opponent who, at one time, supported the state’s abortion ban that doesn’t allow exceptions for victims of rape or incest. “This is to you, Daniel Cameron,” Duvall said, looking directly into the camera and addressing Beshear’s opponent in the ad that is credited by some with impacting the outcome of the governor’s race.

“I’m really passionate about helping other survivors and other victims and just doing what I can to help the people who go through what I went through,” Duvall told the Kentucky Lantern at the time. Suddenly, Duvall was a political figure. What started as a need to share her story to help other abuse victims grew quickly into something she never really intended. In fact, at one point, she was adamant about not being political. Where she grew up, she says, you don’t talk about politics, you don’t talk about religion, and everything is kept quiet. “I honestly have never thought I would be this political, but it's like — everything in life is political,” she says. Now, she’s been profiled in The Washington Post, has been the namesake of a proposed amendment to add rape and incest exceptions to Kentucky’s abortion ban (which died in committee), and spoke at the DNC alongside advocates Amanda Zurawski and Kaitlyn Joshua. At a town hall with Harris and Oprah Winfrey, Duvall received a standing ovation as she talked about the “other Hadleys” who might not have access to abortion or reproductive care.

[...] Duvall has grabbed the nation’s ear, but many young people across the country have also shared their stories, advocated for change, and organized support networks for their peers. In red states like Nebraska, young people have lobbied for abortion access and spoken to representatives. Others, particularly young people of color, are organizing for abortion on the ground, including hosting workshops on reproductive justice, working for reproductive health care on campuses, and working with abortion funds and youth-led organizations.

And abortion is an issue young people are voting on. Currently, 41 states have abortion bans at some point during a pregnancy and a potential national abortion ban has been promoted by some Republicans. In a survey from KFF, about two in five of surveyed young voters said abortion was their top concern, with a separate poll from Change Research showing three in four young voters surveyed believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and that views on abortion are a “vote motivator” for over half of young voters. As president, Harris says she will not allow a national abortion ban to become law, and if Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom (though it seems unlikely to do so), she’ll sign it. Harris has also supported ending the filibuster in the Senate in order to bring back protections for abortion.

In contrast, Trump celebrated overturning Roe v. Wade, believes that abortion should be left up to the states, and has flip-flopped repeatedly on whether he’d enact a national abortion ban. This year, up to 10 states will pose ballot measures to voters that could expand or protect abortion access, including Nebraska, Florida, and Arizona. “It's not just abortion,” says Julian Bernhardt, the 22-year-old communications director for Arizona Students’ Association (ASA). ASA has endorsed Proposition 139, which Arizona for Abortion Access says would establish a fundamental right to abortion. (The Harris campaign’s bus tour is focused on battleground states, including Arizona.) Arizona currently has a 15-week ban, which Bernhardt says stands to impact all of the state’s residents. “Reproductive justice is something that impacts young people significantly,” Bernhardt says. “It doesn't matter how you identify, it's going to impact you.”

Teen Vogue and The 19th News had an interview with Hadley Duvall, the woman who was forced to carry her baby after becoming pregnant from her abuser. Duvall had no intention of becoming a political figure, but the disastrous overturning of Roe changed that calculus.

[fightabear]

anyway, re: convention. here's my debrief and i have three weeks until the next one. the grand total earned was about $1,300. which isn't terrible for a two day event! but i won't lie, it is less than i was hoping for. i didn't get as many commissions this year and that's a bummer because doing those is my favorite part. i would legit do them for free if i could but THAT'S NOT GOOD BUSINESS SENSE

my setup still needs tweaking - i think i need to learn harder into the commission portion of it. someone was suggesting maybe i do need two tables and i'm going to look into that next year.

more details under the cut because this got long.

but man oh man has it ever improved. i made less money this year than i did last year, but that was my own fault. i didn't advertise myself as well. plus a snowstorm hit. and my table helper kept just getting up to leave or getting deep into conversation instead of helping me watch for folks and left me very ?_? please notify me so i know i need to watch for clients.

i'm also going to add some more discount options since word of mouth is how this works best. i had some plans to lean into that but they fell through because i went really hard on the charms this go around.

i still ended up being the one greeting people & engaging them and that might... just be how it is! i'm a huge extrovert offline (and a shy introvert online) so any time i saw a cosplayer i recognized the hype kicked in. and i think as soon as i added my dungeons & discounts option (if you get a tabletop commission and tell me the story from the campaign you get $5 - this helps prevent awkward silences! i don't mind drawing in front of people but i find it a lot easier if they're engaging with me, it's like - less pressure? because then i can talk to them while i draw and it ignores my adhd to hyperfocus and work harder at capturing the essence of their character) that helped a ton because people would see a whole party of people at the table recounting the tales of epic adventures end up wanting to get in on that.

i might just need the help friend to be there to process sales and maintain the waitlist.

some highlights: there was a group of cosplayers that kept walking by my table and i recognized 2/3 of them and was excited about it, and as they were walking away i realized the third was a bigtop burger cosplayer and i like had to call them back to ask if that's what they were cosplaying. i think i made that person's day because they were so so so excited someone recognized them. i handed them some of my prototype sailor moon design stickers bc i forgot i even had them with me and they were so excited. i ended up giving out a lot of those just for the hell of it because people got so excited and also commented that the design is incredibly cool which means i need to get off my ass and do more of them.

i kept trying to do a walk of the hall but i'd stop to just ooh and ahh over people's work. things got so busy during the day that i couldn't get up and go buy stuff so i'm hoping that they'll be at the next event too.

and man, i have like! regulars now! people who make a point to stop by my booth to get a comm. they were so excited when i remembered them and i was so giddy they remembered me. and man some folks just came by to chat! and i made friends? folks are local to me. being a WFH adult means that i don't get many opportunities to hang out with people and i feel like those skills atrophied over the last three years.

i got to catch up with my favorite professor from college who said she was genuinely impressed by the evolution of my art (its my 10 year graduation anniversary in may, christ) and was really really amazed by my setup. i told her i was promoting the hell out of the program all day. i got to see classmates i haven't seen in years and we're making plans to have a big week long anniversary party in the summer.

i also had another (former) professor (not mine - but he taught many many many of my friends who have all said he's notoriously difficult to please - great guy but holds things to a high standard) run behind my booth to check out how i had things set up. when he popped back out in front, he grinned and gave me a thumbs up and said it was "very impressive" and my friend turned to me like "are you on cloud nine or ten right now?" and i was like - wa - wait i know that who was that and he was like THAT WAS SANDY! HE NEVER COMPLIMENTS PEOPLE LIKE THAT.

i guess people were talking about my setup and how quickly i work. and the art guests for the convention - according to my friend at least - also think my work is impressive?

it's funny how much can change in the span of a year or two... i think i had quietly retired my dreams of ever doing something with my art because i knew what my strengths were but i had no idea how to correctly monetize them.

i do know this: i'm going to go ahead with the comic i've been planning. this is entirely original, not a fan comic. it's going to be a queer vampire x werewolf horror/slowburn romance set in atlantic canada. two main couples a wlw & a mlm ship with an extended cast of varying identities. there are themes i want to explore about the gentrification of the maritimes and greed leading to environmental destruction, with chapters from different character perspectives to show a different side of atlantic canadian life that are very much not mine to tell so i would want to get guest writers who have that lived experienced to tell it.

there's a few things that stuck with me, little lines i'm gonna remember forever. someone said they're surprised i don't have a comic - and then followed that up with saying my art is "a full meal" not just a "snack" even when it's just a sketch.

and my college friend's wife - who shares my first name - was like oh you're the one i've heard so many stories about! and i was like - stories??? what stories?? because in my head i'm the houseplant and the wallflower.

it is still very strange to feel seen and to realize you are perceived, especially when you tend to make yourself small because you feel awkward for how much space you tak eup. i think for years i've assumed i'm the person that's always just kind of... there in a situation, literally even if it's a party i'm throwing. or if i've found a cool thing to do and i'm inviting a friend, they're going along with it because they don't want to go alone and the experience of going there is the thing they want and not the experience of going together. the pandemic and the isolation definitely didn't do favors for me, and oh boy did it not when a lot of it was spent in a really toxic relationship.

this was a reminder that people are wonderful and want to be around me, and reaching out to engage with them is what i need to do. they want to hang out with me and get to know me, and if my 30s are going to be anything it's going to be letting them get the full me.

[essektheylyss]

It actually really frustrates me that on a certain level there are just things about Essek you cannot analyze publicly because you just end up getting droned out by the vague concept of the sound of Twitch chat spamming "HOT BOI."

And that's fine because I will simply have conversations privately, but it does make it very difficult to actually post speculation about stats and build and like, the reasoning behind how Matt created an extremely interesting character and how he evolved with the narrative, and that's a shame because it is a genuinely fascinating thing to discuss.

And it's also incredibly reductive and does not give Matt the credit he deserves in how much thought goes into his character creation just as much as any of the players, and also how much he allows his world to evolve organically in response to the PCs, which is very difficult to do on that scale and takes a lot of skill to maintain to the minute level that Essek as a character exemplifies.

[amywritesthings]

Meet Me On The Other Side

PART TWO: THE UPSIDE-DOWN

gif credit to @ mcbride

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader

Word Count: 5K

Summary: The Hawkins crew only has eight people in their three-tier plan to take down Vecna. Eddie makes a Hail Mary of a phone call to even the odds.

Warnings: SPOILERS AHEAD, VOL2 FIX-IT, Language, Angst (with a Happy Ending), Intense action, Peril, Graphic Violence, The Upside Down, Demobat attacks, Kisses, Confessions of Feelings, Eddie is still the Hero, But YOU save the day

A/N: This is my version of how the Battle of Vecna went down. Only canon I accept from here on out. Alexa, play Running Up That Hill (Totem Remix).

                       PART ONE / PART TWO / PART THREE

( Read on AO3 )

PREVIEW:

 Eddie’s face turns, planting a gentle kiss to the center of your palm. “Most metal concert ever.”

“Most metal concert ever,” you repeat, and he opens his eyes to stare at you. “Play like a bat out of hell, Eddie Munson.”

Slowly, but surely, a grin of determination plays against his mouth. He nods and you step off to the side, readying your spiked bat.

Eddie stares into the billowing horizon of blood red clouds and rips the chain holding the guitar pick clear from his throat. His nostrils flare, a multitude of emotions rising to his face — grief, fear, betrayal, anger.

Above all else, there is anger.

“Chrissy, this is for you.”

MEET ME ON THE OTHER SIDE

PART TWO: THE UPSIDE DOWN

.

So this was why they were using Max Mayfield’s trailer as their provisional headquarters.

The Munson household is a mess. Upon entering the once-common hang out spot for the two of you, Eddie warned what would greet you on the other side — keep an open mind, alright? Whatever timeframe this shithole was made happened to also be a week I forgot to clean — but a gaping hole of vines and dirt in the middle of his ceiling leading to a gloomy, radioactive mirror of his living room?

Yeah, that's worse than some dirty laundry.

The glittering, dark portal is not what you pictured, but it isn’t any less terrifying to look at in the flesh.

Something ruffles at your side — on your left stands Dustin Henderson, all Spanish moss and camouflage and donning a light gray, polyester head protector. He looks like a tiny knight ready for battle, straight from a homebrew Dungeons and Dragons campaign.

And he’s beaming up at you like he's bursting to say something.

The rest of the party remains outside, counting weapons and supplies before the final bell tolls. Dustin doesn’t seem too interested in the commotion, not when he’s teetering on his sneakers and waiting for you to speak first. 

So you do. “Hey.”

“Hi,” he replies, stuck on a giggle. “So you’re the…”

“I’m the… what?”

"You're the... girl." Dustin’s brows furrow. “The girl. The one Eddie always talks about.”

“Oh?” You shift to turn towards him, ignoring the massive portal in the ceiling for a moment. “Eddie talks about me a lot?”

“You have no idea.” 

Yeah. Dustin’s been clambering to talk about this ever since you left your car. That much is obvious by how his shoulders droop, mouth taking off at lightning speed:

“We had to implement, like, an entire ten minutes at the end of each Hellfire debrief so he could update the party about this mystery girl he's been driving to see on weekends because we got sick of hearing about it over and over again — no offense.” 

"None taken." A warm glow spreads through your veins like wildfire. “But you’re, uh, Dustin, right? When he comes up to visit me at school, he talks about a Dustin Henderson a lot.” 

Dustin perks, curls ricocheting from the force as he gawks up at you. “Really?”

“All the time.”

“What does he say?”

It seems like Dustin admires Eddie just as much as Eddie admires him.

“That you’re really good at foiling all of his planned dungeon crawls and it’s annoying as hell.” That earns a wild, elated laugh from the freshman. “But that just means you’re learning from the best, and you’ve come really far in the game. He’s proud.”

Dustin’s chin drops to his chest to mask the smile bursting at his mouth, all too bashful of the compliments you have to give. The moss at his shoulders bristles as he shrugs.

“So if you’re that girl, then you’re… also the honorary Hellfire member?”

Your brows knit with amusement. “He told you guys about the one shot—”

“—where you killed Eddie’s mimic in one fell swoop? Hell yeah! Holy shit, that was so epic. ” 

You laugh at the energetic reaction, shifting the strap of your backpack. 

“Guess he does talk about me a lot.” 

“Told you. Munson’s totally obsessed with you.” As if he’s spilled a dire secret, Dustin’s eyes widen. “Don’t tell him I said that.” 

You shake your head, finger pressing to your lips. “Secret’s safe with me.”

“What are you two conspirators chatting about over here?” 

Eddie calls from his bedroom as he walks down the hallway, bandana wrapped tightly around his forehead and covering his bangs. In his palm rests two silver lighters.

“Nothing.” 

You don’t anticipate Dustin to answer at the exact same time as you, but it happens. Eddie pauses in his step, apprehension crawling to his expression, but it flutters away as he sucks in a sharp breath and claps his hands together.

“O-kay, weirdos. Keep your secrets. We’ve got the fun part of this whole fuckaroo plan, so I suggest we figure out our own plan of action before we all go, y’know, up that way.”

The three of you simultaneously look up at the gate in question where a dirty mattress takes up most of the living room floor.

“We draw the bats away when Lucas gives the signal that Max is in a… trance, right?” you repeat Nancy’s words. 

“Yep,” Dustin confirms. “It should give Nancy, Robin, and Steve enough time to get to the Creel house so they can royally screw over Vecna at his weakest state.” From your peripheral, you see him drop his chin from the ceiling to look at Eddie. “You don’t happen to own any flamethrowers in that trailer on the other side that we might’ve missed, right?”

“Nope, just the flaming chords of rock ‘n roll, my friend,” Eddie replies, clapping his hand down on his shoulder. “And a few lighters for the lady.”

“Lighters?”

“Makeshift flamethrowers,” you supply for Eddie, and he winks in your direction.

“With what?” Dustin asks with emphasis.

“Hairspray,” Eddie adds. “My girl’s got those college smarts working for us.”

My girl.

You don’t have time to react. The trailer door opens swiftly, revealing a weapon-ready Nancy Wheeler.

“We’re ready to go. Lucas and Erica have Max set up in the attic.”

So this was it.

Robin is the next to enter, holding a rope bound in sheets with Steve in tow. The two of them set up the alley-oop on the mattress in this realm, tossing the rope high in the air. The sheets billow perfectly on the other side, dropping with the gate's gravity.

(Trippy.)

Steve, of course, takes the first leap of faith into the dark abyss. Everyone takes a step back as he uses his arms and core strength to hoist up, up… until he falls to the other end, Eddie’s mattress cushioning his fall. 

From the other side of the world, Steve Harrington looks at you and grins, thumb raised high in the air.

Nancy’s the next to go, with Robin dropping to one knee to help her ascent. Nancy struggles for a moment, gritting her teeth until she falls gracefully to the other side on her back.

Dustin follows suit, then Robin, leaving you and Eddie still safe in Hawkins.

“C’mon, angel, time to fly,” he murmurs against your ear as he nears you, all too happy with himself for such a corny, B-movie catchphrase. 

“Guess P.E. finally comes in handy, huh?” you ask as he slowly drops to one knee, holding his hands out to help hoist you onto the makeshift rope. 

“A-yep, that’s why it’s the only class I’m skating by,” Eddie jokes, spotting you as you use what strength you can muster to climb towards the ceiling, refusing to look back.

Suddenly the world is airborne when your arms pass through the threshold of the Upside Down. Your back slams into the sheet-covered mattress, knocking the air clear from your lungs for a beat. Eddie Munson stares up with worry lining his features, face glowing orange from the hue of his living room lamp.

You take Steve’s lead, holding up a quiet confirmation with your thumb extended: I’m good.

He sighs heavily, cursing under his breath before taking the ascent as the final party member to cross the point of no return.

This place is insane. Somehow right under your feet lives a gnarly, horrifying version of Hawkins ready to suck the joy and hope out of anyone who enters. Robin places a small hand on your shoulder after helping you up — you okay? — and all you can do is nod.

Truth is? No, none of this okay, but Eddie needs you.

(They need a fucking third.)

By the time Eddie lands on his back, hair splayed across the orange sheet, you’re there to hold out a hand and help him up. Each person of A- and B-Team files out of Eddie’s warped and vine-filled trailer and into what you can only describe as a waking nightmare.

Lightning billows over red and blue clouds, threatening to near and swallow you hole. Vines suffocate every trailer in the park.

“Hey.”

Before you can step out of the warped Munson household, however, a force tugs you backwards by the hand. The warmth of Eddie’s silver rings encompasses your skin, a stark contrast to the freeze of the Upside Down.

He squeezes and runs his thumb along the back of it, saying nothing with his voice but everything with his eyes.

Are you good?

(As good as you can be.)

You nod once, and he gestures for you to move: ladies’ first.

Eddie’s fingers linger when you pull away to drop down the steps and into the dead grass.

Steve and Robin situate their weapons from their backpacks as Nancy checks the ammo on her modified shotgun. Dustin waits at the bottom of the steps, trashcan shield at the ready.

“Guys? If anything goes wrong?” Steve starts, asserting a leader-esque tone to the crew. “Then we abort the mission.” He pointedly stares at Eddie. “Don’t be a hero.”

“You don’t have to worry about us being heroes,” Dustin answers gleefully for the whole of you, but something is off in the way Eddie stares at Steve. 

“Yeah, absolutely,” Eddie answers with the same peppy tone, but his eyes don’t hold the same excitement as Dustin’s. 

Steve seems to accept that answer and blinks to you, but there’s something underneath his gaze, something uncertain.

(What are the odds, Harrington?)

He tells you right then and there:

He doesn’t know.

There’s no time to talk when Steve turns on a heel, leading the way for Nancy and Robin to follow. What remains of the party — you, Dustin, and Eddie — stands in a triangle formation, watching the brave soldiers of Hawkins disappear in the smoke and clouds of the Upside Down towards the Creel house.

“Well!”

After a minute, Eddie breaks the silence as he slaps both Dustin and yourself on the shoulder, turning you towards the trailer.

“Time to get to work, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s not die in this shithole.”

“A-men,” Dustin sing-songs, following him back into the vine-possessed trailer once more.

Securing the house feels like it takes ages to accomplish. The only way to keep track of how long you've been down (or up) here comes from Robin and Lucas's small check-ins from the walkie at Dustin’s hip — still no Vecna, still no trance — and the three of you manage to make the Munson trailer a decent fortress for what’s to come next.

As you’re barring one of the living room windows, Eddie sneaks into his bedroom with Dustin trailing close behind.

From the hallway you see him admiring his guitar, still clinging desperately to the mirror vanity where vines don’t touch the instrument.

“What do you say, Henderson?” Eddie begins, plucking the guitar gingerly from its display. “Are you ready for the most metal concert in the history of the world?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Dustin responds, feigning a blasé attitude.

“What about you, angel? Got one hell of a setlist in mind.” You see Eddie turn on a heel, peering over Dustin’s head to grin at you. “You know, Henderson, I remember the first time I played this chick Metallica.”

“Shut up,” you groan, latching a defense blockade to the floor. “He doesn’t want to hear about that.”

“She lost her mind,” Eddie continues, ignoring you. “Never heard any sick solo like that in her life. Kinda like you freaks when we first played them at Hellfire. She was hooked, weren’t you?”

“I was hooked because you were playing,” you correct.

“Yeah, then she converted to the religious house of metal,” he adds, snorting.

You offer a pointed look, trying not to smile. “We need the amps, Ed.”

“Right! Right. Amps. For the roof.” Eddie snaps his fingers. “Do you remember where those are?”

“It’s been, what, six months since my last Corroded Coffin show?” You near the corner of the living room, tapping the amps unaffected by the vines in the walls. “If they’re in the same place as they’ve been since the fifth grade, then I think I can manage.”

"You know me so well, princess."

Dustin finally groans, waving off Eddie. “Oh, Jesus, stop flirting in front of me. Less talking, more music-ing.”

Eddie chuckles, slinging the guitar over his shoulder with a waggle in his brow.

“Let’s do it.”

. . . . . . . .

He’s nervous.

He won’t say it, but Eddie’s nervous.

By some miracle of adrenaline strength, the amps are set up on the trailer roof. Dustin busies his hands with the wires to the right ports like he’s done this before, not bothering to ask you for help or Eddie for guidance. You hand him what’s left to plug in, distracted.

Eddie is on the other end of the trailer roof pacing, slow and deliberate. His head bobs with an invisible tune only he can hear while his fingers press into certain frets.

And he’s like that for most of the set-up: spaced out, keeping occupied.

“You good?” you ask Dustin, and the moss on his shoulders shuffle.

“Yep. Last plug and we’ll be good on Robin’s—”

As if it’s an omen in the flesh, her voice pings on Dustin’s hip.

.

Commence phase three! I repeat, commence phase three!

.

The three of you stop moving, stop speaking, and Eddie finally looks over.

Yeah. He’s petrified.

Standing at full height, you cross the roof with a forced smile. “Hey, rock star, how’s practice going?”

“Like shit,” he laughs softly, humorlessly. “Might fuck up on a solo or five.”

“You? Fuck up a solo?” You scoff. “Yeah, you’ll totally fuck it up.”

“Hey!” There it is. That smile of disbelief, wide and bright. “Damn, way to bring the criticism to my first Upside Down concert.”

“It got you out of your head, though, didn’t it?” You toy with a lock of hair. “First and only, by the way. I’m not making it a habit to come back here.”

“Yeah, neither am I.”

His chin drops, curls shaking as his chest moves with laughter.

“Kind of feels like this is the time where we have our conversa—”

You drop the hand in his hand to grab the fabric of his Hellfire club shirt, pulling him in for an interruption of a kiss. Eddie stumbles, stuck between holding you and holding the guitar in place. He settles with one hand on your cheek, the other holding up the guitar neck.

Eddie leans into the palm of your hand, chasing your touch when you pull away.

“Not until we’re out of this,” you murmur against his lips. “We made a deal, and I got your back.”

“You always do,” he replies just as soft. His face turns, planting a gentle kiss to the center of your palm.

“Most metal concert ever.”

“Most metal concert ever,” you repeat, and he opens his eyes to stare at you. “Play like a bat out of hell, Eddie Munson.”

Slowly, but surely, a grin of determination plays against his mouth. He nods and you step off to the side, readying your spiked bat.

Eddie stares into the billowing horizon of blood red clouds and rips the chain holding the guitar pick clear from his throat. His nostrils flare, a multitude of emotions rising to his face — grief, fear, betrayal, anger.

Above all else, there is anger.

“Chrissy, this is for you.”

The first chord is struck, sending wavelengths of an electric guitar into the abyss of the Upside Down. Soon the melody of Master of Puppets by Metallica deafens you, filling you with an impossible hope that yeah, this could work.

Dustin’s ecstatic by the amp, pushing the limits of the device with every dial to maximum levels. He headbangs as Eddie sends the guitar strings into a frenzy, shouting to the sky.

And Eddie Munson plays like your lives depend on it.

Because they do.

In the distance, shrieks meet the guitar solos as silhouettes of seduced — and massively-sized — demobats start to appear in the lightning storms overhead.

“It’s working!” you shout to Dustin, although the exclamation is not of excitement. You twirl the baseball bat in your hands, swallowing the terror threatening to freeze all your muscles in place. 

The bats cover an unbelievable wingspan in the clouds, making them larger than life and equally as scary as Eddie originally claimed.

No going back now.

Phase three had finally commenced.

“C’mon, we gotta take cover!” Dustin shouts over the music.

Eddie abruptly stops playing the thirty seconds of the song when the two of you shout his name to get his attention.

Taking off into a sprint, you slide off the edge of the trailer to the dead grass, temporarily dropping the bat to the ground. Your hands rise to grab Dustin, catching him in his descent, before Eddie follows swiftly with his guitar strap still hanging off his shoulders.

Forcing Eddie and Dustin into the trailer first, you hold the baseball bat in one hand and look just beyond the clouds — the demobats arrive in droves, seemingly agitated by the music by the way they screech in the forever night sky.

It’s Eddie who takes your hand and pulls, locking the bats out of the Munson trailer.

He did it.

(He actually did it.)

A moment of silence passes — then Dustin screams at the top of his lungs:

“Most! Metal! Ever!”

Eddie finally breathes — no, shouts to the ceiling like a madman as Dustin takes into an Energizer bunny hop, clapping his hands.

The two embrace, jumping up and down together with glee.

You haven’t quite caught up on the celebration, so Eddie brings it to you. There is a look in his eye when he turns on his sneaker heel, lost in the haze of mania and bravery, when he crosses the living room. His hand finds the back of your head, palming it with the intent to bring you against him.

Except he doesn’t kiss you, not at first.

Because he speaks when he’s pulling you in.

Eddie doesn’t even realize, but you catch what he says as soon as his lips are on yours.

“I love you.”

You enthusiastically meet him in the kiss, but when those three simple words process in the back of your mind, you stop. Freeze.

Eddie pauses, too, when time catches up to the now.

Eye to eye and out of breath, the sweat on his brow dampens the bandana circling his forehead. His gaze softens, Adam’s apple bobbing with a swallow.

“I love you,” he repeats, resigned and relieved. 

No fanfare. No fireworks. 

No rousing speeches or Dungeons and Dragons monologues, but the truth in its rawest form.

(He loves you.)

“Oh, shit!”

Dustin’s high-pitched shriek startles you both, causing Eddie to pull you into his side for protection. Dustin runs into the hallway, tossing a spear to Eddie. The metalhead lets go of you to catch it.

“I heard something. Outside, guys, I heard something mov—”

A thud lands above your heads.

Fear begins to creep its way back into your chest.

“They’re on the roof,” you whisper, corralling Dustin behind you as you pick up the baseball bat from the floor. 

The noise travels, tinkering on small paws, and the C-Team follows it into the hallway towards Eddie’s bedroom.

The sound makes it way to the side of the trailer as if scaling the perimeter.

Then, with no warning, a demobat screeches and shoves its way through the vent at the juncture of the bedroom wall.

Dustin and Eddie scream simultaneously, going into fight mode with their spears. They stab relentlessly as the creature howls and writhes, trying to wriggle its way in.

“Get it, get it, get it!”

“I’m trying!” Eddie shouts over Dustin.

You cross the triangle into the middle of them, slamming the bat down with all your might on top of the demobat’s head.

It has one final cry, wings outstretched, before falling limp to the floor.

Dustin holds onto your arm, peering around it. “Is it…”

“Dead?” You finish. You feel him nod against your sleeve. “I… think so?”

Eddie rushes to place his makeshift Iron Maiden-esque shield over the vent as a cover, leaving him with just his spear — just in time for several shrieks to sound off outside the trailer.

The demobats swarm the windows, battering the trailer to rock back and forth from their intense assault.

They know something’s in there.

They want in.

“Ho-kay, I think it’s time to go,” Dustin sing-songs as he rushes to the mattress leading to the sheet rope still hanging idle for an escape.

Eddie swiftly closes the bedroom door behind you as all three of you run to the rope, preparing for departure.

“Junior Metalheads first,” Eddie implores, and Dustin doesn’t need to be told twice.

With the assistance of Eddie, you help the smaller freshman up the ladder, relishing in his relief when Dustin’s back hits the Hawkins mattress.

But when you grab the rope, something feels off.

Eddie isn’t helping you. Instead, he’s standing there motionless, staring at a window currently getting slammed by demobats.

“Munson.” 

His last name wakes him to a point where looks at you — really, really looks at you — then drops to his knees to take the shield Dustin Henderson dropped while climbing.

“They’re gonna bust through the windows,” he tells you.

Anguished, distant cries of demobats fills the dead air of the room.

Your stomach drops through the floor.

“Eddie, we have to go.”

Dustin yells from the ceiling, waving his arms wildly. “What are you doing? Let’s go, climb!”

“I can buy time.”

Eddie’s expression twists with the words he can’t say:

I’m not going with you.

“Watch after Henderson for me, alright?”

You swipe to grab his arm. “Eddie—!”

Too late.

He turns before it’s too late, bolting with a spear and shield towards the now-opened front door of the trailer.

Dustin screams from overhead — Eddie! Eddie! — and you’re left with a decision you already made the second you drove to Hawkins.

“Dustin!” you shout over the sound of the bats. His eyes are glossy, expression pained and frightened. “Stay there. We need someone to watch the rope. I’ll grab Eddie!”

“Get him back!” he calls back, voice hoarse and crackled.

“I will,” you tell him, but you’re not sure if he hears you. Your voice doesn’t feel like your own, scratchy and sudden and scared.

Your feet run across the living room and into the night air of the Upside Down before you realize what’s happening.

From a short distance, you see him: shield strapped to his back, Eddie Munson takes off down the dirt road on a bicycle as the swarm of demobats follow.

Shit.

A bike.

Abikeabikeabike— There. 

By Max Mayfield’s house sits a rusted, but doable bike. You sprint across the street to grab it, careful not to lose your backpack as you mount and pedal.

He’s fast. Stupidly fast, and stupidly taunting the bats as they swoop to attack him. You can hear him shouting up ahead, but the words are lost on you as the adrenaline pumps through your body and pushes your legs to move faster.

A demobat dive bombs from the left, knocking Eddie clear off his bike.

He skitters across the dirt, kicking up dust as he rolls, only to howl in pain when a bat latches onto his side.

A second flies down, attacking his shoulder.

No.

“Eddie!”

Pedaling with every ounce of energy in your body, the bicycle skids to a halt and to the ground when you breach the hurricane of bats circling overhead. Eddie’s writhing and screaming, pushing at the bat to get it away.

“Get the hell away from him!”

You open the backpack to rip out a full can of hairspray, fumbling in your pocket for the first of two silver lighters, and flick.

The flame catches its attention, causing one of the demobats to unlatch itself from Eddie’s side to lunge for you. When you press down on the aerosol spray, a billowing flame shoots directly into it.

The bat lights up the forever night in a brilliant, screaming glow of orange.

The creature flails, trying to fight off the fire as it surges into the sky. You swing the makeshift flamethrower to your right, covering the second demobat completely in fire.

It curls into itself with a whimper, dying on impact to the ground only a mere few feet from where you stand, clearing a path directly to Eddie.

Wasting not a single second more, you crawl against the dirt and kneel protectively in front of him with the hairspray can and lighter at the ready. The rest of the swarm seems to understand, and they collectively scream in anguish and back off.

Eddie Munson shifts at your side, moaning in pain before realizing what’s warded off his attackers. He follows the glow of the lighter to settle his attention on you, his pale hand covering his wounded and bleeding side.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Making a saving throw,” you answer, briefly glancing over your shoulder.

“With a—”

“Told you hairspray was a good idea,” you interrupt breathlessly, trying to crack a joke at impending doom.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he croaks, grimacing on the ground. “You were supposed to climb the rope.”

“And you weren’t supposed to be a hero.”

The swarm moves faster in the sky, nearing closer to the ground as a few dip to test the waters.

“How much of that hairspray stuff do you have?”

“Four bottles. Two lighters.”

Eddie growls as he forces himself to a seat, legs tucking under him to stand. You quickly duck your arm under his armpit to keep him from falling. He attempts to stand, but ultimately crumbles back to the ground. You follow, dropping the hairspray.

With the amount of cuts on his face and next, there must have been other bats who had gotten hits on him while biking that you hadn’t witnessed. Except he’s not worried about himself. Not with the way he’s toying with the ends of your hair, swallowing to coat his dry throat.

“You gotta go back for Henderson.”

“No.”

“You promised me—”

“I didn’t say shit, Eddie Munson. You don’t get to say you love me then run out the goddamn door thinking I’m okay with you dying without me,” you bite, looking up at a bat deviating from the circle to dip its claws into the center of the circle.

(You don’t have much time before they all attack.)

“Because I love you, too.”

When you drop your chin, Eddie stares with wide, glossy eyes and parted lips.

Shocked. Somehow, after everything, he’s still shocked.

“Of course I love you,” you murmur, softer this time. “It’s always been you.”

You gently let go of his back to pick up the aerosol can, readying the lighter.

“And I’m not leaving you. Not this time.”

Eddie’s expression shifts and he nods adamantly, catching a second wind despite the odds. He picks up his spear from the ground, coating his palm with dirt, congealed blood, and tiny pebbles. The swarm overhead shrieks in triumph — biding time for an attack.

Back to back you both rise, using each other for support as you take a final stand.

This is it.

This is how you go out.

You draw in a slow, steady inhale, waiting.

Watching.

The first demobat leaves the circle and drops, claws out, to attack. You ignite the air with fire and catch its wing as it curls away. Eddie must have stabbed a bat for himself, because the squelch of metal hitting a body fills the air.

A dozen fall out of formation, flying at full force.

You can’t take so many at once.

But as they fly, they fall.

Dozens grow quiet, silent, and fall together in an unceremonious harmony of whimpers and gasps at your feet. Eddie presses up against your back and you follow, staying impossibly close, as the bats… grow still.

As if they’ve all died at once.

“...what just happened?” Eddie whispers, too afraid to speak.

You wet your chapped lips, shaking your head. “I don’t… I don’t know. Are they dead?”

Eddie takes the literal plunge, poking a nearby demobat with the tip of his spear. It doesn’t move. It doesn’t breathe.

They’re all virtually gone.

The pressure against your back disappears, and a thud drops behind you.

When you turn, Eddie crumbles to the ground, gritting his teeth.

“Eddie?” You drop to your knees, cradling him with terrified urgency. “Hey, Eds — hey. Stay with me.”

He’s breathing, but his eyes flutter closed, hand dropping from his bloody side to the dirt road.

Something bright flashes against your forehead, hitting your eye and forcing you to look up. There are three people running — people, real live people — and you recognize the flopping hair of the person in the middle of the formation immediately.

“Steve!” 

With all your might, you scream his name across the way without a care for what monster might hear.

Robin reflects her flashlight to you, stops, then takes it into a sprint. 

“Man down!” Robin shouts. “Guys, man down!”

“He got attacked!” you shout, only then realizing your face is wet from an overflow of tears. “We have to help him across the portal, he—”

Steve skids like a baseball player to Eddie’s opposite side, yanking his limp arm over his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he reassures, voice calm and collected. “It’s alright, we’ll get him back safe. It’s over.”

“Vecna?” you whimper as you help Steve push to his feet, bringing Eddie to a stand. The man’s head lulls, chin bent to his chest.

“Dead.” Nancy rushes to your side to spot Eddie from behind.

“In flames,” Robin describes with absolution laced in her voice.

It takes the effort of all four of you, but you manage to drag Eddie into the dilapidated Munson trailer. Robin flops to the other side, spotting Eddie’s unconscious descent to the other side with Dustin as you, Nancy, and Steve raise him across the finish line.

He’s safe.

Eddie’s injured, but he’s alive and safe.

Once he’s cleared from the mattress, you climb to the ceiling and return to the warmth of Hawkins.

And when Steve is the last to ascend, falling with a heavy breath of years’ awaited relief, the portal to the Upside Down in Eddie Munson’s trailer closes.

[the-kittylorian-writes]

"Battle Scar"

Type: One-Shot

Pairing: Din Djarin x Omera

Rating: Teen and Up

Summary:

In the aftermath of a battle on Mandalore, Din is confronted by a distraught Omera as she is further acquainted with a reality where her own authority is as revered as the Manda’lor’s, as his spouse and co-ruler. Amidst the chaos of miscommunication, Omera has been forced to issue a command out of duty which nearly cost Din’s life, and Omera was not happy at all. Arguments loom, and so do regrets. (TW: One-sided marital spat)

[Written for (extended!) Mandomera Week 2022, seventh prompt: “Forgiveness”]

Read here or on Archive of Our Own

"Battle Scar"

“Mand’alor, I was told that the Lady Omera was not at the debriefing,” Din Djarin’s aide-de-camp informed him as Din limped into the modest rooms he shared with his wife. 

The Sundari Royal Palace remained grey and bleak, unpolished from debris and dust in its slow recovery from the ruin brought about by the Great Purge. The Purge was but a dreadful scar in Mandalorian history, remedied by the grueling work of reunifying clans and creeds until all arrived at the same page, and unequivocally under Din’s rule.

The Palace had only partially been rebuilt, with its construction relentlessly interrupted by reports of impending enemy attacks. Din could count past his ten fingers the instances he needed to cut quality time with his family short. Omera would be the one left to govern the Palace while Din stormed into the battlefields with his fellow seasoned warriors.

Omera had continued to coordinate with Din and his officers while she remained at her post in the Palace’s headquarters. These incidents of prolonged joint command happened more often than they thought was ideal. There seemed no trouble at first when Omera willingly learned the various forms of leadership required of Din as well as her. She was taught the necessary protocols and directives in the event that her husband could not issue them himself, for any grave reason. 

For a long and arduous streak, Din was leading the charge most of the time; Omera assisted, sometimes becoming her husband’s aide as she fastened the armor on him. That ritual had transformed into stolen moments of spiritual intimacy between them. With every component of the beskar’gam she placed upon him, their gazes would lock, intense and sublime, and little words were exchanged. Tension would always follow—and suddenly Din was off with Bo-Katan Kryze or the Armorer or Paz Vizsla into war, his cape billowing behind him like a rallying banner, the Darksaber clipped to his side. 

Din couldn’t remember the last time he had properly shared the marriage bed with Omera since their wedding night. He was always away, awake, busy… and sometimes Omera would be awake with him, would join him in briefings if only to feel his warmth at her side. The only other way she found to compensate for these growing times apart was when she made dinner for him. Even then, it was hurried, and conversation was sparse.

This most recent battle could have been the last straw, and yet it was a victory which concluded a crucial campaign, thanks to Omera’s impartial and quick thinking. It was as if all her training culminated to this one victory, and she was ready to keep to the shadows, out of everyone’s way.

And as the aide reported—Omera had opted not to attend the debriefing. To date, this only happened once, and only because she needed to see Grogu and Winta off as they were transported to safety through their Jedi ally, Master Skywalker. Din, at the time, was in the middle of the most decisive battle yet—the one to capture Sundari, Mandalore’s new capital and epicenter of authority before the Purge struck.

A knot of worry formed within Din as pain bloomed like searing coals all over his body. This latest maddening fray to recapture Keldabe, Mandalore’s ancient and former capital, had sapped him of his strength. He sustained some debilitating injuries that were treated on the field and after, in the secure confines of the med-centre tent.

He had spent an entire week away from Omera, and months away from Grogu and Winta, capped by the wars that poured themselves unto his lap one after another… Yet, in spite of it, Din kept his resolve sharp and his spirit from falling into shreds. 

But tonight, he was more than bone-weary. He was utterly exhausted, and all he wanted to do was be in his wife’s arms, hear her soothing voice, feel her soft caresses as she inspected the medic’s work. The medics may have done their best… but Omera, she would always find ways to make it better, for the wounds to somehow close faster and his pains to fade away which bacta couldn’t mend. It was not sorcerer magic, but Omera was gifted in her on way. That was why Din had always been so drawn to her.

Tonight, he was met by an empty hallway as the aide left him to his privacy—no wife to greet him or to walk astride him from a debriefing as they entered the chambers together.

Din limped further in; he looked around—the lamps were lit, the heating was on (Mandalore had cold nights this time of year), and… to his relief, the dinner was set.

No wife, however, graced the table.

Din groaned in relief as he gingerly took a seat at one end of the table. His side burned; he kept his hand there, already shed of glove and vambrace, and waited for the brief rush of agony to subside. He grimaced, closing his eyes. He leaned upon the seat’s headrest awhile, letting the harrowing memories of Keldabe melt away. Paz had offered to clean up; Bo-Katan and Fenn Rau (whose revived Skull Squadron offered air support) remained at the debriefing. It was at Paz’s urging which led Din to return to Omera halfway through the meeting. If she hadn’t shown up from the beginning, she wouldn’t do so for the rest of it—and there was an acute reason for it.

Din’s eyes flew open when he heard footsteps approach. His half-drugged vision focused on the source, and Din sighed; a weight lifted off him when Omera appeared at the other end of the dinner table.

Din stopped short of his greeting. Omera’s eyes were bloodshot as if from a thorough cry. Her beautiful raven-dark hair and clothes were disheveled. She had already shed the armor she ceremoniously wore even as she remained in the Palace as the Mand’alor took to the battlefields.

It was Omera’s grating voice which hit Din like a shard of ice. “Please eat,” she prompted him tonelessly. “Don’t mind me—I have no appetite.”

“Omera—“ Din ventured. Omera sharply turned her head away, avoiding his pleading gaze.

“I’ll sit here,” she said at length, breathing out her statement in a shuddering sob, “I’ll sit here because you’re my husband, and I still respect you…”

“Omera…” Din called to her again. He winced at how his voice sounded so fragmented and weak. He realized how more acquainted he had become with Omera’s own suffering, even before she could completely relay her side of things. 

“… and because I love you, Din, after everything—everything we’ve gone through!” Omera unleashed the words. Her voice cracked. “Especially after this… this… call I had to make.” 

A call, in this context, was a tactical decision a commanding officer had to make amidst the odds, and in some cases—because of it. 

Din was silent as he let Omera pour her enraged heart out. She shook as she spoke, visibly fighting for vestiges of self-control. Din knew this, because she could be recovering from shock. Din felt guilt wash over him, because he also knew how proud he was of his wife’s mandokar, but sadly, at her expense. Omera had carried out a decision too difficult even for a battle-born Mandalorian to execute. The responsibility behind it was crushing should things fall awry. 

Weeks beforehand, the Keldabe campaign fell into a string of countless briefings, once they had gotten word that Imperial Remnant forces were amassing an offensive to retake the old capital. Omera was present in all those meetings when they reviewed the plans over and over again… she’d joked once, when spirits were relatively high: “I’ve heard these operatives so many times, I can recite them by rote in my sleep!” She had laughed then—uneasy laughter, but Maker, his wife still smiled, wide enough so her lovely dimples showed. The radiance still lingered in her eyes.

Now, those eyes were dull, avoidant, and awash with the shackling fear of a loss which could have been, had the call she made not ended up being the staggering success it had become, to their great unfathomable fortune.

“Danger close,” Omera spat, as if drilling into Din his own awareness of the weight Omera needed to bear, of the gamble she was doing before she even realized it. “In a fatal distance from your position! Had I caught the report earlier, I wouldn’t have made the call to set an entire fire mission meant for the Imps practically right above your heads!”

Din leaned further into the headrest, studying his distraught wife. He felt disembodied as he witnessed her grief, and yet with the bond they shared between them, they both knew that Omera was duty-bound to make the call herself. There was no way out of it save for dereliction, and with it the capacity to undermine her husband’s trust.

Omera had risked an entire company when an airstrike targeted coordinates dangerously proximate to friendly troops in order to eliminate enemy forces—hence the term, danger close. “The message got to me too late!” her tirade went on. “I’ve only been informed of your situation right after I green-lit the fire mission… all I heard before the comms went down was, ‘the enemy’s in position, we got them where we need them to be!’ Comms were completely dead for a full ten minutes, the longest ten minutes of my life, and I know—I know the engineers have worked hard to get the comms back up, but… you told me, the enemy was in position. It was now or never, or retaking Keldabe would drain more of our resources; it could be lost to us for a long time. What I’ve not known until the last minute, when I had to give the order because you can’t, and because the comms were down—was that your own position hadn’t changed! You were pinned in place, and hadn’t relocated to a safe distance where artillery wouldn’t blow you all to bits! Oh Maker—Maker, Din!” 

Omera growled and stuttered; she quivered as her voice grew louder with every portion of her tale, until she was as good as hysterical. 

That was enough for Din to ignore his wounded state as he got up from his end of the table to limp his way to her—but Omera flinched. Din’s heart fell. Omera had deliberately shifted her own seat away from his reach, and Din was only clutching air mere inches atop her trembling frame. He could almost feel the heat of her turmoil emanate from her body.

Din couldn’t speak. He couldn’t find the words, or express all of them at once—he was sorry, and yet pride overtook him, knowing his wife did what she had to do even as it went against the grain she had been raised in, among the peaceful krill ponds of Sorgan and only the annual harvest to preoccupy their minds until the Klatooinian raids happened. He knew that she knew that none of this was his fault, and he wasn’t faulting her either, but logic dissolved where emotions ran high and rampant. 

This could be a long night.

“What would happen if the fire mission failed despite danger close? You knew your position, you knew the enemy’s position, you knew mine—and that was to command Captain Fenn Rau and his squadron to fire on coordinates so close to you! And even Captain Rau had hesitated… but an order was an order. Tons of firepower a small distance from where you were crouched behind nonexistent cover, just so you could wipe the enemy out… I was going to kill my own husband—look at me, Din! (and yet her eyes remained averted)… Am I Omera, widowed again, but this time, by her own hand…?”

There, she said it; she told him what was tearing her asunder from the inside. 

Omera was a fragile leaf in a gale as she strung racing emotions into thoughts, and thoughts into words as best as she could. Fresh tears and mirthless laughter wove through Omera’s feat at coherence. Din sensed that she’d finally reach the peak of her dark despondency, and the white flames of her anger were whittling to embers. Soon, he could touch her again without resistance. 

Din understood, and it hurt him deeply, yet he found Omera blameless. It was he who had kept himself and his forces in harm’s way, but the willingness to sacrifice oneself for a greater good had always been the forefront of their arsenal. From the entirely challenging first year of his marriage to Omera, Din had learned how to decipher his wife—the outbursts, the occasional moments of silent treatment, the sobs of relief when he would return to her in one piece. She would then kiss and hold him as she had when he’d first offered his heart to her. 

He deciphered Omera’s grating, terrible confusion—how silly she must feel with these arguments, knowing well what she had gotten herself into when she married him, and when he made her his Queen and co-ruler over Mandalore and its neighboring worlds. She had made that pact with him, of bringing the Mando’ade together, of leading them together, and even leading them when they were physically apart. And the Mando’ade embraced the arrangement in turn, fully accepting her as their Queen, whom the Mand’alor had chosen to spend the rest of his life with whether on the throne or when that time had run its course.

Inching closer, he engulfed her in a tender, tenuous embrace. Omera was too vulnerable right now, after hitting a new level of reality. She knew as well as himself that Mandalore and its people came first, as long as Din remained their anointed leader, as long as he kept wielding the Darksaber and no one had challenged him—and his rule—for it.

If it meant losing the one she loved the most so that Mandalore continued to rise, so be it. It may sound cruel and counterproductive, as a leader usually fell with their kingdom, but not for Din Djarin. He had already planned two steps ahead for the loved ones he would leave behind, should his life end prematurely.

Omera was folded up on the chair, racked in quiet sobs. 

“Omera,” Din rasped out; it was taking his remaining strength to console her. He hadn’t slept and eaten well in days… but he needed to see to his wife’s welfare, after this awful trial by fire he had inadvertently put her through. “Y-you have to forgive me…”

His wife ceased her weeping; as if something snapped within her, she turned to him. Her eyes brimmed with fleeting concern. “Din, your voice—It’s scratched… Are you ill?”

Din smiled. With all his heart, he wanted to kiss Omera then and there. All her training, and yet the innocence borne out of her worry for him stood out to him like a flare in the dark. 

“I’ve been… screaming for all of ten minutes,” Din explained fondly, almost jokingly. “No comms, and I couldn’t get anything past a certain distance. I was yelling orders out manually. Thankfully, they all got passed down the ranks. We pulled through. Voice still got busted, though.” He had shed his helmet already beforehand; his gaze was full on her when Omera had tried to read his eyes, the shape of light in them, the shadows and this own unspoken words. 

“You’re hurt,” Omera remarked needlessly. Her expression had softened for a moment—then, to Din’s dismay, it grew distant once more.

There was a long silence again. This time, Din felt it sink well into his gut, into his system.

“Please eat,” Omera urged him one last time before she set herself to rights—dried her tears and smoothed her tunic down before she carefully rose from her seat. “See you in the morning, Din,” she whispered, resuming her cold treatment of him, but only after her beautiful almond eyes gently gave him a once-over—her lips parted. She thought twice and said nothing more.

She left him at the table alone; she had gone to their sleeping chambers as Din heard the door swish open and close in the wake of her fading footfalls.

***

Omera was startled awake by a chill in her bones.

She opened her eyes, and out of habit, she faced the side of the bed where Din should be—had he slept beside her that night.

Automatically, and in a sudden surge of loneliness, a palm reached out to smooth the empty space where her husband should be in his usual fitful, but much needed repose. 

The chill came from a half-empty bed. While there were times when Din would stay up so late in meetings or matters that needed his attention, long enough to leave his side of the bed bare before dawn, he would always return as often as he could. The bed would dent where Din’s weight pushed it down, and Omera would wake the exact moment her husband laid next to her. In a silent treaty, their foreheads met as they both returned to slumber. In a few hours, they would be up again, despite the limited hours Din had to recuperate to face another day as sole ruler.

In the past months since reclaiming Sundari, Din had been like water through a sieve—and she was the sieve. He was there yet not fully present. He was elusive even when he kissed her, but it had become dispassionate overtime. 

Omera sighed. The pillow was still wet whereupon she had cried herself to sleep that night. She didn’t need to check the chrono to reckon that it only past two in the morning. Mandalore had nineteen-hour days, lesser than most worlds and planets, but still falling in accordance to standard. Maybe, Omera thought, that was why she had felt that days flew by so quickly, and the nights were over in the blink of an eye.

She eyed the empty side of Din’s bed. Her lips quivered. 

She bit back the urge to loath herself. 

She had been horrible to Din at the dinner table. And Din, her sweet, noble, pure-hearted husband—he was simply there for her as he took all her scathing words in. She couldn’t even remember half of what she said, the burning statements she snarled out at him; she could only remember with embarrassment the blazing anger and confusion and helplessness she had meant to reel in, but ended in taking it all out on Din.

Now, in this moment of clarity hitting her like a slap, now that she knew that she may have hurt Din irrevocably and her heart had begun to hurt in turn—she recognized the rage which grew out of frustration over the situation rather than the people behind it. She had no way of channeling all the emotions that threatened to drown her in a misery she would have trouble delivering herself from. And there was Din: his kind eyes, his beautiful face, his serene disposition despite being almost taken from her by her need to momentarily command air support and artillery while comms were still running smoothly in the Palace. He was her shock absorber. And he was there for her every step of the way. And—gods, Omera felt nauseatingly dreadful. 

She was being petulant while her husband sat there, injured, patiently listening, waiting for a window to push forward and comfort her. 

Where did Din get all this self-mastery? How has being Mand’alor changed him in such an immense way, that Din the bounty hunter, Din the hunted—now held authority not only over the Mando’ade, but over his own once-turbulent soul?

Did he have any idea of the repercussions should the fire mission wipe them out with the targets? Omera knew Din had already been updating his will and testament. It was customary, Din had told her, of Mandalorian kings and queens. She shouldn’t worry about him departing this life too soon, and yet—he almost had. At least, she had thought bitterly, it would be a coveted warrior’s death.

Din’s hurt, was all her mind pondered afterwards as Omera rose from the bed, dressed herself in a robe and tied her hair up. Din was hurt, and he’s not in bed. She had to go to him, wherever he was. He should still be in the Palace. There was no way Din was still testing the limits of his mandokar after a week in a war zone.

Her steps moving out of their sleeping chambers felt like lead. Perhaps it was the guilt, the shame over last night’s hysterics which kept her from walking with her shoulders back and head up. 

The Palace seemed empty. Where were the other Mandalorians? After the Purge, there was so little of them left. Yet she had joined them, a new Mandalorian in their fold. She wasn’t Mandalorian-born, but wed to one, and through that custom, how quickly shall Mandalore rise again and be repopulated with new spouses and children?

Five steps, seven steps, nine…

She wove aimlessly down the empty halls where her footfalls echoed.

She didn’t know when her steps finally halted, but when she lifted her eyes to determine where her feet led her, she saw it was the door to one of the officers’ meeting rooms. She was surprised, however, when the door swished open—and out came Paz Vizsla, helmet perpetually on, but through his posture was visibly tired. She heard him sigh through the modulator, laced with heavy fatigue.

“Paz…” Omera called, and the heavy infantry warrior looked up to acknowledge her.

“Omera,” he answered back, his voice muted yet affable. He nodded his visored head. “It’s late. Should you not be in bed, my lady?”

Omera blushed. She could never get used to those titles, no matter how the likes of Bo-Katan herself, once so opposed to Din’s claim to the Darksaber, had convinced her that my lady was a noble title—and Omera was worthy of it. Bo-Katan had been very sincere, and very contrite.

Omera didn’t know what to reply. Her thoughts evaporated like steam.

Paz, to his credit, was no less understanding. He had been a stalwart friend to Din despite a history of scuffles and brief resentment over Din’s transgression of breaking the Creed. Paz had since forgiven him and took his place as a trusted comrade and brother-in-arms to Din in the battlefield. It was then no surprise to Omera when Paz offered, without her saying anything, “Din’s in there, my lady.” The large man motioned to the meeting room he’d just stepped out from. His deep baritone was gentle. “I bid you good night.”

“Good night, Paz,” Omera greeted back as Paz nodded and disappeared down the long hall to his own quarters.

The sight which met Omera had set her heart alight and broken at the same time.

Din was on a chair by the heating vent, shed of armor and only in his flight suit—he had not even changed to clothes fit for longer downtimes. He sat up but his eyes were closed, and that was when Omera realized that Paz had probably caught his brother sleeping, and had decided to drape a huge blanket over the man. It looked almost comical—an oversized blanket over her husband, but it also made Din look so small. So… mortal.

Omera bit back a sob as she made her way to the slumbering warrior.

She couldn’t help but admire his features: both soft and sharp and wonderfully handsome. Din’s self-consciousness over showing his face was long gone. He now treated the helmet as Bo-Katan or Fenn Rau did, like a piece of armor to be worn only when necessity arose, and not as part of a fundamentalist religious pact.

Din’s face in his sleep made him look so serene, but it was the serenity of one confident in their own strength, and reliant on the strength of those around them. 

The Mand’alor felt secure in this room where battle plans were hatched, and yet—not secure in his marriage bed, with his wife.

Worry tore through Omera when she noted Din’s slightly labored breathing. There were bruises and minor gashes on his face, but not to an extent where he could be unrecognizable. The cut over his nose had already been bandaged. Omera smelled the faint scent of bacta underneath the huge blanket.

Unable to help herself, she willed her husband to wake with a loving kiss on his cheek, so close to his mouth. How she missed this sort of warmth she could bestow on him, when her heart was full and free of darkness.

Din slowly stirred awake. A breath escaped him, and he blinked. Immediately alerted to a familiar presence, Din turned to face her. Puzzlement filled the sea of brown in his eyes, as though he hadn’t expected Omera to be at his side in this hour.

“Omera,” Din acknowledged his wife. The fatigue was palpable in his eyes and bled through the hoarseness of his voice. “I—I need to speak to you…”

“Right now, love?” Omera marveled at how Din could switch at once to a sort of business-like air, with both of them dressed down they were almost bare. Omera felt heat course through her body when Din had drawn his gaze over her entirety before meeting the warm depths of her eyes once more.

“Paz and I talked,” Din began, and he shifted his position so he sat up more fully. Din winced and Omera empathically winced with him as he registered the dull pain shooting through his body. “I… I know you’d want to find some peace again, after a long while.”

Omera’s brows knitted, not quite sure where Din was getting at. “Love—what are you saying?”

Din’s ever-so-gentle gaze kept her in place. His eyes were sad, so sad. Omera swallowed hard.

“He’s agreed to take you back all the way to Sorgan in two days’ time. I’ll have Skywalker and the kids know. I’ll accompany you as far as the blockade before the jump. I—I need to be on Mandalore, but you… Omera, you need to rest. I’m granting you this, and you should grant yourself that, too…”

“Din,” Omera shushed him, and she kissed him again, this time full on the lips but only for an instant. “Din—no, no. I’m staying with you. I’m not going anywhere…”

Omera felt her beloved’s gloveless fingers trace her cheek, then her jaw with a reverent affection she had missed so much that it ached. “You’re in need of a home now, Omera. Mandalore isn’t home. At least, not yet. Let yourself recover… I know I’ve put you through so much.”

She meant no disrespect at all, but she had chosen to deter her husband’s entreaty from sinking into her thoughts. Din loved her—oh, Omera knew that as much. But at this moment, he was being civil.

It shattered her heart even more, knowing Din was giving her a chance to reconsider their marriage, their eternal pact to each other, and he was bearing her no ill will over it. He would not judge her for it, and he would make sure that the rest of the Mando’ade would not begrudge their Queen her right to decide for herself, out of her own free will.

Omera felt those stubborn tears again. They hadn’t left her entirely since the night before. 

She felt great relief when Din accepted her embrace, and with it, a kov’nyn with foreheads pressed so close together, it could almost seem that they read each other’s thoughts. Omera wished that was so. She wanted Din to know.

“I’m staying, my love,” she whispered again, almost pleadingly. “Din—I’m so sorry about last night…”

Din was unrelenting, yet his scratched voice was compassionate. “You had every right to let me know how you felt.”

Omera nodded helplessly. She let her wet cheek grace over Din’s own, now covered in the stubble she had loved to brush her fingers over, when they still had their nights to themselves, when their marriage was raw and young. How everything leveled so quickly; how reality had set in so dizzyingly faster than a free-fall. “I could do better, my love,” she insisted. “I’m learning, still learning. You know that.”

Din had compelled her to meet his gaze without as much as a word. 

“Your welfare means so much to me,” Din added, superfluously. “Omera—you can never be happy on Mandalore, not while the war is still upon us.”

Omera had her mind set. She would hold herself accountable to it, once she’s relayed these words to Din. 

“I don’t want to be happy all the time,” she told him pointblank, her voice surprisingly calm and resolute. “Of course, happiness is a gift. I’d want to be happy—but not at the expense of us. I was scared out of my wits with that danger close call yesterday. Yes. I was so upset and hysterical. Yes. I wanted to escape that pain for a little while. Yes. But Din—I want to experience every growing pain with you. My love—Sorgan is an old life. I would love to return there, but only if you come with me. But that won’t be after a while but it doesn’t matter. Do what you need to do—and I will always be by your side.”

Din was looking at her incredulously, truly baffled that his queen would rebuff a chance at solace, when she could still afford to do so. With that bafflement came a genuine spark of joy when he smiled—small, but with a vibrancy Omera had not seen on her husband’s face for a long time.

“Now come to bed,” Omera concluded, suppressing a grin that a dimple cratered on her cheek. 

“Smooth,” Din joked with a furrowed brow, and Omera laughed—what a freeing thing to do. 

Their foreheads met once more, and before Omera knew it, Din was kissing her again with a rekindled passion that sent Omera immediately on fire. To her slight vexation, Din cut the kiss short, only for her to realize that the culprit was his pained grimace, as he pressed a hand to his side.

“Uh-oh,” Omera riposted with her own jesting air. “Looks like someone needs some TLC.”

It didn’t take much for Din’s own dimple to emerge from his stubbly cheek. “Then you forgive me?”

“Forgive you?” Omera feigned an aghast tone. “Do you forgive me?”

Din’s airy chuckle sent her heart dancing when he leaned forward to kiss her again. She ran her hands over his curls as he entangled his fingers over the lush length of her locks in familiar playfulness. 

“I forgive you,” he muttered in between impassioned kisses.

“Then,” Omera replied, sighing in this tender exchange, as if they were saying their wedding vows again, “I forgive you too, my love.”

Soon, the sun was high on Mandalore, and another day of unmistakable challenges was at hand.

******

Author's Notes:

Mando'a:

*Mand’alor - the sole ruler of the Mandalorian people *beskar’gam - Mandalorian suit of armor (lit. “iron skin”) *mandokar - the *right stuff*, the epitome of Mando virtue - a blend of aggression, tenacity, loyalty and a lust for life. *Mando’ade - the people of Mandalore (lit. “children of Mandalore”) *kov’nyn - a head-butt; a Keldabe kiss

Wikipedia as a reference is usually frowned upon in the academe, but for fic purposes, here’s the military definition of danger close - “If the forward observer or any friendly troops are within 600 meters of the impact point, to keep themselves safe, the forward observer would declare "danger close" in this last element.” I was quite intrigued with how something like that could work in a scenario like the one in this fic. I’m not an expert but sometimes writing about Mandalorians, a people well-versed in war, has you doing a bunch of research you don’t normally do. I’m not even entirely sure if I got this right, but I was curious so I went for it. ^^ Thank you for reading!

[kckenobi]

idk why but recently i cannot stop thinking about exhausted/sleep deprived/stressed out obi-wan kenobi literally in the process of actively giving himself grey hair i just crave it

It started slowly–so slowly that Obi-Wan wasn’t even the one to notice first. He was bent over a book in the Archives, Ahsoka seated beside him as they pored over an astrophysics text. Her exam was tomorrow and Obi-Wan was ready to quiz her on the Doppler equation, when he realized she wasn’t looking down anymore.

“You’re going gray,” Ahsoka said.

He sat back in the chair. “What?”

“Your hair,” she said, nodding toward his temple. “I never noticed it before. But you have a few grays, just above your ears.” She smiled. “Anakin’s going to have a field day with that.”

He chuckled, but it turned into a yawn. “Well, Anakin’s also the one who can answer for them.”

It had been a joke, when they were young–it started with Anakin calling him “old man,” and Obi-Wan claiming his Padawan’s antics would be the thing to turn him gray. Now, sometimes, it just felt like a fact.

Ahsoka had asked for another minute to go over her notes before Obi-Wan quizzed her, and Obi-Wan nodded in agreement. He leaned back in the chair and let his mind wander to all the other things he still needed to do today–the briefing, the mission log, the report to the Chancellor. There was a strategy that needed his review and approval for the next campaign, and then Anakin had asked him to cover a meeting he couldn’t attend, and then he’d promised to spar with Ahsoka, and–

“Master Kenobi?”

A voice. A hand on his shoulder. Obi-Wan jolted forward as his eyes flew open, choking down a surge of panic.

“Woah. Sorry,” Ahsoka said. She’d moved–was leaning over him now, brows furrowed. “I think you dozed off.”

“I did?” Obi-Wan said. He rubbed his eyes, feeling the budding headache beneath them. “Oh. I–I suppose I might have, Padawan. My apologies. Where did we leave off–”

She was eying him closely–too perceptive, that one. She could probably sense his headache, sense the fact that he hadn’t slept in…actually, when had he last slept? But he forced a smile, and she forced one back. And just when he was about to return to the textbook…

His comm buzzed.

He shrugged, apologetic. “And I suppose I’ll have to apologize again,” he said. “My commander. Apparently there’s a new development, and–”

“Go,” Ahsoka said, overly positive. “I’ll be fine. I can quiz myself. Tell Cody I say hi.”

Bless her. The girl had barely been on Coruscant recently to attend her classes at all–and he couldn’t even help her long enough to make a difference.

He stifled a yawn again. Shot her a grateful, regretful smile.

And then it was off to the next obligation. And the next one. And the next.

The rest of the day was much of the same–here, there, pulled in a thousand directions at once. Cody needed his opinion on a battle strategy for their next campaign–to Geonosis, of all places. And the Council called halfway through that meeting, to ask if he could please file his mission report from the last campaign, which he said he would do. But then there was a Council meeting in half an hour, and Anakin’s meeting later, so it would have to wait until after then. And he got a comm from Bant in the Halls of Healing, asking if he could please report for his yearly physical since he was so rarely on Coruscant, and it was necessary for him to be cleared for duty. He replied and told her he’d be there when he could–whether that was today or tomorrow or sometime next year, he didn’t know.

And so he found himself now, headed to the Council debrief. He hadn’t completed the report yet–didn’t even know if he could stare at a screen for long enough to do it. His headache was constant–and he felt a bit of the aura that signaled a migraine, just his luck.

In the Council Chamber, he took his seat. Scanned the other Councilors, until he got to a hologram image and the brightness and blueness made his headache spike so badly, he needed to close his eyes.

“Master Kenobi,” Mace said, once the meeting had begun. “Would you like to start with your report from the last campaign?”

He nodded. But when he stood, the room tilted sideways. He grabbed his chair to steady himself, eyes closed again.

“Obi-Wan.” Depa’s voice, somewhere. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” he responded. Instinct.

And forced his way to the center of the room.

He did make it through, somehow. And he was about to congratulate himself for it, privately, as he made his way back to his chair. Around him, the meeting moved on, Mace’s voice growing more muffled and distant by the second.

He didn’t even process that the room was starting to dim too.

Not until he was already crumpling to the ground.

Distant voices. A bit of laughter, wheels across a marble ground, a door opening and closing. These were the things Obi-Wan noticed first, when he started to come around. His eyes flickered open, then closed again. His head felt heavy, too heavy to lift. But then there was a familiar voice breaking through the fog–

“Hey. He’s stirring.”

Obi-Wan forced his eyes open and inhaled. “Anakin?”

They were both there–Anakin and Ahsoka, sitting in the rigid chairs of the Halls of Healing, leaning over his bedside. He was covered in white sheets, and when he raised a hand to push them back from his chin, he found his hands shaky.

“I missed your meeting,” Obi-Wan said quietly. “I’m sorry–I was supposed to stand in for you…”

“Master Yoda called us,” Anakin said. “Told us you fainted in the Council meeting.”

Obi-Wan tried to scoff. “I’m sorry to have made such a scene. It was likely my own fault–I didn’t have time for lunch, I’m afraid–”

“Well yeah it’s your fault,” Anakin said. “You haven’t slowed down since–I don’t even know when. Bant said your blood sugar was low, and she could sense your migraine, and you were dehydrated–”

“Well, the migraine at least was beyond my control.”

“It was brought on by exhaustion, Master. You’re exhausted.” He exhaled, running a hand through his hair. “Your body just decided to force you to get some rest, I think.”

Obi-Wan’s eyelids still felt heavy, and he allowed himself to close them now. This was embarrassing. Inconvenient. Pride was unbecoming on a Jedi, on anyone. But it certainly wasn’t desirable for the entire Council to see him pass out on the floor.

Anakin was watching him closely–he could tell, even without opening his eyes. “What is it?” Obi-Wan said.

Anakin didn’t answer right away. “Nothing.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing, seriously. Just…” Anakin said, and then Obi-Wan was opening his eyes just a tad. “Just that you have a few gray hairs.”

Obi-Wan exhaled, trying to smile. “I was wondering when you’d notice. It’s prime material for you, isn’t it?”

But Anakin didn’t answer. Not for a long time, so long that Obi-Wan didn’t think he’d answer at all. And at some point, against his own free will, his eyes closed again.

And then came the squeaking of the bed–a sinking to his right, then his left.

When he forced his eyes open again, his Padawans were there.

“Goodnight, old man,” Anakin said quietly.

Obi-Wan was asleep before he could answer.

[katelynnwrites]

Hi!! I hope you're still writing for the clones? Because I'm crushing on Wolffe!! So, reader tells Wolffe they are pregnant? With twins?! Reader is all nervous and not feeling too well and even more nervous when telling Wolffe (but happy end?!) :)

pairing: Wolffe x f!Reader

warnings: pregnancy and brief references to trauma and war

word count: 1309

summary: where you tell wolffe you’re pregnant when he comes back from a campaign

A/N: hi @ortizshinkaroff i hope this meets your expectations and im sorry it took so long for me to get to your request 🥺

Adike

You’re always on his mind but this time it’s different. This time he was secure in the knowledge that he would be with you by the end of the rotation. With each passing minute, Wolffe can feel his excitement growing.

******

When the ship finally lands and General Koon has finished debriefing him, he eagerly makes his way into the hangar where the rest of his brothers are. Not all the clones had someone waiting for them but those that did reunited with them there. Although civilians weren’t technically allowed on base, exceptions were made for occasions such as this. How could anyone deny the clone troopers the very ones who missed them the most when they were off on missions? Especially with all they go through and what they risked, serving the Republic.

Seeing the familiar faces of Rex and some of the 501st, he approaches and asks if they had seen you.

‘Sorry vod. Haven’t heard from your girl in a while.’ Rex shrugs apologetically and pats him on the back before moving on to greet the other clones.

Wolffe can’t help but be worried now. The 501st had been back on Coruscant for a week now and you usually made it a point to say hello at least once.

Distractedly, he leaves the hangar muttering brief goodbyes and see you laters to those who approach him.

*******

The trip to your Coruscant apartment is short. Wolffe doesn’t even remember most of it, too preoccupied by his worries for you. They buzzed around inside his head, nearly driving him mad.

It’s a relief when he finally ends up in front of your familiar door. He rings the bell once, twice and then a third time, bouncing up and down on his toes nervously.

You don’t answer and any relief he felt when he arrived disappears. This wasn’t like you at all.

Hurriedly punching in the code into the keypad, the door slides open and he rushes in.

The living room and small kitchen is empty and he heads into your bedroom.

A faint noise sounds from the joined bathroom and his eyes strain to make out your form in the dim light.

You don’t appear to have noticed his approaching footsteps, remaining slumped against the vac tube.

‘Y/n?’

You jump and manage a weak smile in his direction before a look of discomfort crosses your face.

Wolffe barely has any time to react before you lean over the vac tube and throw up. You brace your hands against the edge, heaving the contents of your stomach into the tube.

******

Familiar warm hands are on your back and instinctively, you relax into his welcome touch. It couldn’t be put into words, the extent to which you’ve missed it. Missed him.

‘Oh cyare.’ Your boyfriend rubs soothing circles into your back as you cough, grimacing at the bitter taste of bile in your mouth.

‘I’m sorry.’ You whisper into his shoulder before your stomach twinges in discomfort, causing you to throw up the rest of what little remained in your stomach.

Wolffe continues rubbing the soothing circles with his thumb, patiently waiting until you stop coughing before he speaks.

‘What have you got to be sorry for cyar’ika? You’re perfect.’

‘I wasn’t there. I promised you I would always be there and I wasn’t. I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.’ Your hormones are getting the best of you and before you know it, you’re practically sobbing in his arms.

Wolffe brings his arms up, wrapping them around your body, holding you close to his chest, murmuring, ‘Y/n… I meant what I said. You have nothing to be sorry for. You’re sick and that’s okay.’

Letting out a soft hiccup, you relax further into his embrace, reveling in the fact that he is here. That he is with you. Everything else could wait. Just for a while longer.

Exhaustion is weighing heavily on you now and the last thing you register is the light kiss Wolffe presses onto your hair before sleep blissfully envelops you.

******

Your eyes fly open, hand immediately coming up to rest on your small bump. He didn’t know yet right? In your earlier slightly delirious from exhaustion state, you prayed that you hadn’t let anything slip.

Anxiously getting out of bed, you padded softly out into the living room of your apartment. It’s dark outside, the streets of Coruscant thriving with its nightlife.

‘Wolffe?’ Your voice shakes slightly with nervousness as you sent up another prayer to the stars.

‘In here.’ He calls back, his voice echoing from the attached kitchenette.

He’s standing there in his blacks, two plates of hot food on the counter in front of him.

‘Hi.’ You give him a small smile, fiddling with your fingers when his eyes meet yours.

‘Hi.’ Wolffe responds in like as he comes to stand in front of you. He’s so close now that you can see the flecks of gold in his irises. You always did think he had lovely eyes and wondered how could anyone do clones the injustice of simply saying their eyes were brown.

Gently his hands come up to rest on your waist before he lifts you up onto the countertop causing you to let out a small squeal of surprise.

‘Sorry cyare.’ He chuckles lightly, breath fanning out across your face.

‘Are you feeling better now?’ His voice is filled with concern as he waits expectantly for your answer.

There’s a moment of silence where you simply look at him. The crinkles by his eyes, the slight stubble on his cheeks, the pure love and adoration in his eyes. The last of which seals it for you, causing you to swiftly decide that it’s now or never.

‘I’m pregnant.’

‘What?’ Shock is written all over his features, his eyes locked on yours.

Taking in a deep breath, you continue, ‘I was never sick. Not really. Just nauseous which has been normal for a while now.’

Wolffe is still staring at you blankly and you bite your lip, willing him to say something. To say anything.

Desperately needing anything at all to fill the overwhelming silence you hesitantly add, ‘It’s twins.’

Wolffe’s eyes widen and you begin preparing yourself for the worst, not that you could blame him. One baby was already going to be a handful but two? Two was asking for trouble.

‘I’m going to be a father?’ His voice is raw, trembling with emotion. There’s a slightly fearful look in his eyes like he’s terrified that someone was going to come and take all this away from him. That between one blink and the next everything he’s ever dreamed of would vanish.

Your heart aches for the pain he’s been through but you push it away for now, focusing on what’s happening right now.

‘Yeah.’ You softly confirm, a warm feeling rising in your chest at the sight of the pure joy that lights up in Wolffe’s eyes.

‘Kriff I love you. I love you so much.’ He breathes.

His hands move to your waist, touching your little bump gently. The premature lines of worry on his forehead seem to melt away as he looks back up at you in awe.

‘Our little adike.’

‘Our little adike.’ You whisper back, tears falling from your own eyes.

Mandoa Translation:

adike - plural form of ad’ika meaning little one, son or daughter of any age

cyar’ika - darling, sweetheart

cyare - beloved

vod - brother

[crispyjenkins]

I might spam your box with ideas haha. S U F F E R. I’ve never liked the idea that after the Hardeen mission even Cody and Obi-wans men were all mad at him. There’s no one that would understand more than the troopers and Cody in my opinion. They understand having a duty and Following orders, even if you don’t agree with them. So I need me some Codywan + Obi getting so much more closer with his men and them being his support system now + ahsoka not being mad at her grandmaster. Please & thanks

(i have that one fill about the space fam™ figuring out obi-wan isn’t doing too hot after the deception arc, which is all well and good, but yeah the clones would absolutely understand and support obi faking his death for a mission and the fandom needs more of that. so here is fiori enabling me. and rex loving and supporting his general but also being super unimpressed with his tantrum

thank you for all the prompts, ad'ika ( ˘ ³˘) altho now I've had to shuffle my entire prompt list so that it's not you every other fill for the next month lmao)

“And he just goes right back to work?” Anakin snarls with a vague gesture across the bridge, to where General Kenobi is speaking with Cody and Wooley, and Maker, does the General look young. He had been reluctant to waste time on cosmetic corrections, and had only allowed the Jedi healers to give him some of his hair back; for better or for worse, he's letting the beard grow back naturally. 

  If the absurd amount of cooing that had happened at the Temple is anything to go by, many of the Jedi miss Kenobi’s baby-face, that he had supposedly covered with a beard as soon as he'd taken Anakin on as his apprentice. When Kenobi had given his first debrief after the Jedi had fixed his features back into his own, Echo had panicked and called him “cadet” in front of three different battalions, and the 501st is never going to let him forget it.

  Anakin had not laughed.

  “I’m not sure what you mean, sir,” Rex says carefully, turning back to the datapad in his hand to look over the command roster for their coming deployment. “General Kenobi’s injuries from the mission were superficial, he’ll be fully healed before we even make it to the Mid-Rim.”

  Scoffing, Anakin continues to glare at his former master. “You can’t tell me you’re not angry, Rex,” he says, and leans against the console behind him.

  Ahsoka had warned him that his general clearly wasn't over Kenobi’s supposed betrayal, and Rex is Mando enough to admit he’s been avoiding this conversation; he won’t lie to Anakin, no, they’ve been through far too much together for that, but no matter how close they are, their friendship would not save him from Anakin’s wrath.

  So he pretends to be reading the roster for another long moment, wishing he had Kote’s diplomacy. “I am not, sir, just as I was not angry when Kix feigned desertion for the mission on Odos II.” Glancing up, he’s relieved to see Anakin isn’t glaring at him yet, but if Ahsoka hadn’t been able to talk him down, Rex doesn’t stand a chance. “The Supreme Chancellor's life being at stake is no small matter, the High Generals had many factors to consider, including that Count Dooku would be watching you closely in the wake of General Kenobi’s death.”

  “Are you saying I can’t act?”

  “I’m saying that if Count Dooku thought for even a moment you were faking it, the whole mission would have been in jeopardy. Sir.”

  He doesn’t need to know banthashit about the Force to feel it when Anakin goes from simmering to incensed, not with the way Anakin warps the air between them, saturating it with his rage until General Kenobi sends them a concerned frown across the bridge. Anakin doesn’t seem to notice, glare fixed on Rex, and this really isn’t how he would have expected them to fall out. 

  Or that they'd have to fall out at all.

  The tragedy of the thought makes Rex bold, meeting Anakin’s rage with a calm and confidence stolen from far stronger men. “You were not the only one made to believe in the General’s death, you forget there are others who care for him as deeply as you do.” Kote, he doesn’t say, Vos and Ahsoka and the Duchess, Wupi and Choke and Boil. “I perhaps would not include myself in that count, but should you not put aside your anger and be relieved that the General was not actually murdered?” Kote catches his eye and taps at his wrist guard, his concern obvious as he asks Rex in didi if he’s alright, and Rex will gladly take the unintentional out his brother has given him. “Just something to think about, sir. Here is the adjusted command roster, Captain Sage was transferred to the Coruscant Guard following his injury during the campaign on Aslo. Excuse me, sir, Commander Cody seems to have a question for me.” He hands the datapad to Anakin, who is miraculously too stunned not to take it, before Rex moves quickly across the bridge. 

-

  Ahsoka sits gingerly across from Rex in the almost-empty mess, murmuring,  “I take it the talk didn’t go well.”

  He snorts into his cup of caf. “From a certain point of view, it went better than expected.”

  Wincing, Ahsoka rubs her own arms and casts her eyes down to the table. “I tried asking him about it before we left Coruscant, I’ve never seen him so angry, not even at the funeral.”

  Rex is used to being the little brother, of both his batchmates and the CC track, and this is one of the times where he laments that: when he doesn’t quite know how to comfort the way his brothers comforted him. “If I may, sir,” he says, quiet enough that the few vode at the table across the room won’t hear, “are you not angry with General Kenobi?”

  “No?” She chews her bottom lip. “I mean, yes, I mean– I’m happy he’s alive. It hurt, being kept out of the loop, but it’s not as if I was singled out for that, right? And I... I understand why he did it, why it had to be done and why it played out like it did, but it still hurt. But I’m also so relieved that Master Obi-Wan is alive, that I don’t think my hurt matters.”

  “And General Skywalker hasn’t come to that conclusion yet.”

  She shakes her head. “How... How has Cody taken it?”

  “I think he’s more angry that he was forced to miss the funeral than Kenobi faking his death." Rex isn't sure where Kote and Kenobi stand now, they had been heading towards a collision before this Hardeen fiasco, and he doesn't know where they've landed. Brothers? Lovers? Whatever the hell Echo and Fives are? He hadn't been able to ask before the 212th and the 501st split ways. "It was for a mission, wasn't it? We're soldiers, Commander Tano, we're born with 'Mission First' imprinted on our brains."

  Ahsoka giggles at the mental image, and Rex is relieved to see her shoulders relax. "All the padawans expected Knight Vos to react the worst," she says, crossing her arms on the table. "He grew up with Master Obi-Wan, you know? But he just... accepted it, he simply understood and... Letting go is part of being a Jedi. Knowing when you can't change things, and accepting failures, and understanding no matter the circumstances."

  It would certainly not be the first time Anakin has stumbled on the Jedi path. 

  "General Vos was a Shadow, no?" Rex asks, considering his watery caf and wishing he knew how to approach his general about any of this. "He would empathise most, wouldn't he?"

  "I suppose you're right," she says, bouncing her legs. "How have the others been? Echo and Jesse and them?"

  "They're most disturbed by Kenobi’s face, to be honest."

  Choking on a laugh, Ahsoka reaches across the table to steal an unused sucrose packet from Rex's tray. "I did hear something about Echo and cadets," she admits. "Oh no, how did Kix react?"

  Rex smirks at the memory. "He really does like Kenobi’s hair, doesn't he?"

  "He must have been devastated!"

  "I think he tried to get the General to let him shave designs in the undercut."

  "I suddenly know what I'm doing for the next Disaster Lineage prank war."

 Rex winces, remembering the last prank war and how long it had taken Anakin to stop smelling like hot sauce. "Jesse's the best with the razors," he says blandly, mourning his now-empty cup and the broken caf machine in the kitchen, "and will work for extra shower tokens."

-

is this what you wanted, fiori?? 1,400 words about obi-wan without obi-wan in it for more than two seconds???

Mando’a: didi — a Clone-dialect specific form of dadita, a Mandalorian nonverbal communication similar to morse code. i think the clones would have a modified version of dadita that utilised placement of fingers on their arm as well as the actual taps, for quicker communication in close quarters, so in this case, didi is short for gadi dadita, “wrist dadita”. They would use this alongside standard military hand signals!

vode — “brothers, comrades, siblings”, sing. vod, technically gender neutral but used most often in fandom as “brothers”

[jessbakescakes]

J/D: things you said with too many miles between us

15) Things you said with too many miles between us from this post!

A present-day Josh/Donna fic for you!

July 2021

Josh stirs when his phone vibrates, and he orients himself to his surroundings. He’d fallen asleep on the couch at some point during the post-debate coverage after ensuring that the girls went to bed, and he was waiting on Donna’s phone call to debrief. Josh attempts to reach into his pack pocket to retrieve the vibrating phone. He manages to do so without stirring the dog, whose head is resting on Josh’s chest as she sleeps, letting out barely audible barks and huffs as an ndication that she’s dreaming.

“Hi,” Josh answers, his free hand moving to gently stroke the fur on top of Sadie’s head.

“Hi,” Donna parrots back.

The sound of her voice still makes him feel butterflies, even after twenty-three years of knowing her and almost fourteen years of marriage. He smiles to himself at the thought, taking another moment to realize exactly how lucky he is. “It’s quiet,” Josh notes. “Thought you’d all be celebrating.”

“We are. I just wanted to call you first so you could get to bed.”

“All the post-debate coverage is calling it a standout performance from Senator Sam Seaborn,” Josh notes. “I’m not surprised, but they sounded a little stunned, although I’m not sure why.”

Donna lets out a quiet laugh, and he has a clear vision in his mind of her leaning against a wall, smiling and looking down at the floor as she grins. “Sam did an incredible job. He was probably the most prepared out of all of them when it came to healthcare and social security. Foreign policy needed a little bit of work, but…”

“But he ran away with it,” Josh finishes. “Donna, you don’t have to be modest. I know what a big part you played in this.”

“Sam worked hard,” Donna insists.

“Of course he did,” Josh agrees, “but you worked just as hard, if not harder.”

“You’re right. I did. I think this is a turning point. It's still early, and we're narrowing down the Democratic playing field but... you know.”

Josh does know. He doesn't say anything further, so as not to tempt fate, as Toby would put it, but he absolutely understands what Donna's hinting at. Josh stretches and yawns, trying not to let on that he’s as tired as he is. “I let the girls stay up for the debate, but they’ve been in bed for the last hour or so.”

“I was going to ask you how they were, considering the only updates I’ve received in the last twenty-four hours were dog photos. I was beginning to wonder if you remembered we had daughters,” Donna teases.

“Well, our eldest is going through a Taylor Swift phase,” Josh starts.

“She knew the words to what was likely Taylor Swift’s entire discography before kindergarten, and you’re just now realizing this?”

“Songwriting,” Josh clarifies.

Donna lets out a half-laugh, half-groan. “Is it the kid from marching band again? Or… still? I don’t know which is the most accurate way to finish that sentence.”

“I think it would be 'again', but nope. Apparently, this is just your run-of-the-mill preteen self-expression stuff.” Josh shifts slightly as Sadie lets out a low growl in her sleep, kicking her front and back paws as though she’s dreaming of chasing something. “I think I heard the same chord progression on the guitar for about six hours straight today.”

“Excellent, looking forward to it,” Donna says.

“Nora spent her morning drafting a plan to convince me to get another dog,” Josh starts.

“Absolutely not,” Donna interjects before Josh can finish the sentence.

“I told her no!” Josh laughs in disbelief. “I do have some willpower, you know. Then she decided she wanted to start a dog walking business, because if she earned the money for the dog maybe it would sway me.”

“I’ve only been gone twenty-four hours, please tell me Leah hasn’t asked for a piercing or declared a college major,” Donna jokes.

Josh scratches Sadie behind the ear. “She asked me to take her to that little used bookstore so she could spend her birthday money.”

“How’d she fare?”

“She currently has two stacks of books in the corner of her room as she debates whether she wants to spend the rest of her money on another shelf or trade in some other books to make room,” Josh explains. “She also considered using the money for a custom Mets jersey with her name on it, but decided against it.”

“Too expensive?”

“No special characters,” Josh says. “She didn’t like the way Moss-Lyman looked without the hyphen.”

“I’d ask how Sadie is, but I think I know exactly how her day went thanks to your efforts,” Donna says.

“I’m but a humble servant of man’s best friend,” Josh jokes. He’s noticed something in Donna’s tone as the conversation has unfolded, the hesitant ‘we need to talk’ undercurrent of everything she says, so he decides to be the first to dive in. “What’s on your mind, Donna?”

Donna sighs. “So I was approached by Bryce Palmer from the DNC today. Apparently, there’s something brewing with Congressman Hanover and some allegations of impropriety.”

“Hanover? Like the Wisconsin fifth, Hanover?”

“The very same,” Donna confirms. “Problem is, they don’t have a viable Democrat for a special election should he resign. So they came to me to take my temperature on the whole thing.”

Josh can’t help but let the wheels in his brain start turning. The idea of Donna flipping a typically Republican district in Wisconsin sounds incredible. If anyone’s capable of it, it’s Donna. But he’s learned over the years to let Donna process before giving an opinion, so instead of rattling off all the possibilities, he simply listens.

“I told them I’m running Sam’s campaign right now,” Donna explains. “But they really want me to consider a run in the fifth next go-around. Or… you know, should there be a special election sometime between the general and the midterms.”

“You thinking about it?” Josh asks.

He hears Donna take a deep breath, then let out a long exhale. “A little? I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet. Don’t start your ‘Donna, I’ve been setting this up for you for years’ speech,” she warns.

“Wasn’t gonna. Just listening.”

“I know you’d be at your laptop searching for properties in the Wisconsin fifth right now if Sadie weren’t asleep on you,” Donna says. “I can tell if you put me on speakerphone, you know.”

Josh sheepishly taps the speakerphone button, putting a temporary pause on his search that he had already started, just as Donna had predicted. “You’re not on speakerphone.”

There’s a pause for a moment, and Josh can sense her hesitation. “Flipping a district is a lot of work.”

“It is,” Josh agrees.

“I also don’t know if I’m ready to jump right into another campaign after this,” Donna continues. “It’s been a lot of time away from all of you. If I stay away too much longer, Caroline’s going to become a YouTube sensation whose material is almost entirely inspired by the absence of her mother. Nora’s going to be running an animal shelter out of the garage, and Leah will have either a Beauty and the Beast sized library or a podcast with her Grandpa Jed, it’s a toss-up.”

“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” Josh asks, holding back laughter.

“I’ve been away a lot,” Donna insists. “Things change while I'm away. I miss all of you.”

Josh smiles. “We miss you, too.” He has the instinct to tell her not to dismiss the idea out of hand, to give it some thought before she gives her answer. But despite her hesitation, Josh knows there’s a small part of Donna that’s considering it, and that’s enough for him. “Get back to the party. We’ll talk about it when you get home.”

They say their goodbyes and I love yous after confirming Donna’s flight details. Josh wakes the dog and heads up the stairs toward the bedroom, already plotting out the strategy for winning in the Wisconsin fifth.

Hypothetically, of course.

[naerwenia]

No Kisses on the Mouth (Part 1 of 2)

Pairing: Grand Moff Tarkin/Reader

Summary: Tarkin gives you a second chance after it is found out you have been seen with known rebels. Few years later, you a working under Director Krennic at Imperial Advance Weapon Development, and one night Grand Moff Tarkin wants a personal debrief on your progress.

Tags/warnings: NSFW 18+, smut, bdsm, dom!Tarkin, sub!reader, afab!reader, spanking with a belt and hand, part 1, self-insert

A/N: Oh god, what have I done... This was inspired by a session in our SW RPG campaign, where my character had to think if she would take the opportunity to go back to be just a medic, to be forgiven for her anarchistic deeds. Also inspired by my own adventures as a pet, and the music of Spiritual Front and Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio. I was supposed to write smut, but it took over 2000 words to get to even a hint of eroticism. I split this into two, so I can post this now and get back to figuring out how to write smut. Also on Ao3

“Look around you, there is no one here, just you and me. Don’t you want to just move on, and fulfil your promise?” he said, looking down on you, making sure you knew you were beneath him, yet comfortable in the chair he had shown to you. Talent was hard to come by, and keeping passion alive in the military environment was hard, yet Tarkin and you shared something, a drive maybe, in your respective fields. And now you were there, in front of him, afraid to ask forgiveness or leniency, as he had summoned you there before any of the information the Imperial Security Bureau had gathered found their way to other ears in the Empire, or even the Imperial Star Destroyer you were stationed at. In ordinary situations, Tarkin would not have hesitated to act, but there was something, maybe an aspect of your character that suggested he might be able to wrap you in strings with ease and play politics through you at some point in the future. So he offered his hand, an open offer that may include as much or as little as he said, because the other option was being at the mercy of ISB.

“Yes, Grand Admiral,” you replied and, with some fear in your movement, you took his hand. It was a firm and surprisingly warm handshake, which reminded you to move your gaze to meet his, blushing for forgetting that again. It was embarrassing, but he seemed to not be offended by your mistake, or maybe it was refreshing to not have to reprimand a young officer with a cocky gaze and ego larger than Coruscant. You, on the other hand, just wanted to do your job, create something with your hands, something to make the world better, or even just make someone’s life better. Design jewelry, facilities, architecture, maybe get to make more accessible designs for the Empire. The only way to that was through a handshake with Tarkin and submitting to be his pawn. 

-----

There weren’t many secluded spaces in Coruscant, but you had one in mind. It was not really one where you could be alone for sure, but it was a bit out of the way and up a stairway that was rarely the best way to offices on the ship, so you pushed past a few office workers to get there. It was not as quiet as your apartment, but at least no one could find you there, at least not as quickly as if you were just crying in your room. Yet, you wanted to be found, to be comforted, not right now but exactly at this moment. You were strong enough to take care of yourself, and crying over some words from the Director was just embarrassing. He was someone you looked up to, someone whose works inspired you, and his critique of your work was harsh, not like it wasn’t unearned, but it hurt, it made you feel useless, and running away was the only thing you knew at that moment. 

Stopping around a corner, just a few steps away from a walkway used by the patrolling officers, you slumped to the street, but to the ground, not caring if the skirt was ruined. This was just another day at the Director’s design department for his vanity project, and this was not the first piece of clothing it had claimed, but definitely the first that was messed by you. 

The air of Coruscant was brisk for once, the evening was young and getting colder, and the lights danced in your vision, bleeding into each other in the skyline. Different shades of yellow, red, and orange, and other colours of the rainbow accenting them, the skyline was different once again. Maybe it wasn’t, maybe you just felt like it, but the feeling wasn’t anything new. No matter how long you spent at a place, you failed to find your place. Like there was a barrier that prevented you from crossing over to other people’s lives, failing to live like others. So here you were, looking at a city that held as many secrets as you, viewing it like a theatre stage, something you wanted to believe to be real, yet not, so you have to remind yourself to believe the façade, that it is not just a painting, a stage, and that you are a person sitting in the shadows of Coruscant’s administrative district. Some days it felt like you were more part of the shadows than flesh, and today was one of those days.

The com beeped, someone was trying to reach you. As much as you’d like to just leave it, it might be work-related, and you didn’t want any more tears from there. 

“Imperial Military Department of Advanced Weapons Research’s director’s assistant’s...'' you answered the call, but were cut off, thankfully, not having to recite your full title and workplace. There was only a minor hesitation, yet enough for Tarkin to notice, but he kept his words under too much control for someone like you to notice, but you knew. It was obvious and very much like him to notice and note small things like that so he could use them to his advantage in the future.

“We should meet,” Tarkin’s voice was matter of fact, cool but not cold, and almost demanding but not unreasonable. He knew what he wanted, you had it, and you had to meet him to answer those demands. This sudden call made you smile, a sweet, pleased smile that someone like Grand Moff would want to meet you, and you had no reason to refuse.

“Certainly, sir. Should we…” you started, yet were cut off by him. Not rudely, not even suddenly, just noting he would rather have things his way than waste his precious time with meaningless chit-chat, and that made you happy, having someone to tell you what they needed from you, so you didn’t have to disappoint them by trying to guess what they actually meant with their words.

“Your apartment, tonight. I will meet you there in an hour,” Tarkin stated clearly, and with another “Yes sir” from you, the conversation was over.

The mix of emotions was both delightfully ironic as tears dropped down your cheeks, but there was a warm feeling in the chest under a heavy weight and the warmth, with Grand Moff’s words ringing in your head, made you smile through the hurt. With a sweep of your hand, you dried your tears with your sleeve, smudging the mascara on your face and the sleeve of your jacket.

Since he had said it would take him an hour to meet you at your place, you decided to walk the way there, spending around 30 minutes navigating the streets of Coruscant. The streets offered a variety of sounds, loud and intimidating, but this was one of those days you needed sounds to remind you of where you were, and the slight exercise helped to ground you to the moment, to your body. All that was thrown away as you opened the door to find Tarkin sitting in your living room. A small squeak left your lips, but her own hand on her lips silenced any other noise she might have made, and with a long breath and sigh she tried to calm her pulse. 

“I’m sorry, sir, your presence surprised me,” you said, turning away for a moment to close the door, “Would you like some Corellian whiskey, maybe tea from Felucia?”.

“Whiskey is fine. You might want one for yourself too,” he said, “There are things I want to discuss first hand with you rather than trust these… rumors”.

A surprised look over your shoulder met the Moff’s blue eyes. Certainly there wasn’t anything you had done that would merit rumours, but what others found interesting to talk about wasn’t something that ever made sense. It already felt like the Director had pitted others against you, yet found time to give you kind gestures when no one was looking. He was more than harsh with his words when others were looking, but in the end it seemed like some of your more out there ideas were incorporated to the designs. The whiskey’s smell and drip on your finger made you quickly realize you had poured more than enough in one glass and had to pour from that glass to the other. You could drink the whole glass, might even that night, but Grand Moff would frown upon it, and his disapproval would not be something you could handle at the moment. So you took the glasses, one in each hand, and gave one to Tarkin with a kind smile, only to be met with his unreadable expression. No matter how you smiled to him, he never returned even a twitch of a lip, but it didn’t matter, the fact he had found his way here to share a drink with you was more than enough to send your heart fluttering.

As you sat down, Grand Moff began his questioning that felt like an interrogation if you didn’t know him better. “What have you told Krennic? Or your coworkers?” Grand Moff asked, narrowing his eyes as he studied your expressions. A sigh left your lips.

“Nothing. Just what you told me: I’m a design engineer, was recruited by the COMPNOR and transferred to ISB so I could be more useful to Empire with my technical knowledge, but I’m more interested in the designing process. So now I’m designing Krennic’s pet project, a death laser in the sky,” you answered. You wanted to ask about the rumours, but you knew better than to ask, he would tell you when or if you needed to know. 

“Nothing else? To anyone, not even a friend?” he inquired.

“No, I… Don’t really spend time with any of them, I’ve only exchanged a few words with Director Krennic after hours. Nothing other than work related, except with Krennic the other day,” you said, and the small space where you drew a breath was more than enough to make Tarkin think you had something to hide, but you knew better than to try hiding anything from him.

“A conversation with Krennic? And you are certain you didn’t say anything that might catch his interest?” Tarkin asked, with a raise of his eyebrow.

“No, he just wanted to ask how I was managing my new position, and why I was staying for so long after hours. All I said I was fine, I had nothing better to do so I finished the design, he seemed to like it. He said he appreciated my enthusiasm and how clean my designs were,” you said, and a warm, happy smile grew on your face, heating your cheeks. Tarkin put his glass on a table and stood up, taking very deliberate steps toward you, so you put your glass away and stood up, just in case he needed something from you. Your heart stopped, skipped a few beats, as Tarkin pushed you to the wall, gripping your shoulders and keeping you an arms length away. The suddenness of the motion and pain of hitting the wall while strong fingers dug into your flesh finally made you look into his eyes, looking for an answer for the change in him. His eyes now a few shades darker in the shadows, his lips dry and breath hot, and with an expression of furious disappointment, he puts two fingers, long and warm, of his right hand under your chin to keep your eyes on him. 

“You do as I tell you, always?” he asked.

“Always, sir,” you answered.

“Then take off your shirt,” he whispered before taking a step back so he could see you fully. A shiver of cold went through your body, but you complied. As your hands began opening the buttons, quietly trembling in fear, Tarkin licked his dry lips and let his eyes wander over your body, letting his mind memorise the patterns of your curves. Though his hand was no longer under your chin, you tried to keep your eyes up, trying to meet his gaze and follow his silent command. Shirt open, you throw it on the floor, and Tarkin immediately commands you to take off your skirt. With a small flick from your wrist, you open the zipper and let your skirt fall to the floor. The mock garter wasn’t something Grand Moff had expected, but the red suited you well and it left your bottom nicely exposed, only panties left to guard your cunt.

“To the bed, now, on your hands and knees,” Grand Moff ordered, and you obeyed. As you walked to the bedroom, he followed in your footsteps. You could hear him open his belt buckle. It let out an audible cling as he pulled it through the loops and folded it, a sharp snap as he felt it in his hands. As you assume your position, he slapped your bottom with his bare hand once, then twice, and grabbed the bottom. He wanted to go on, wanted to feel your body, taste and devour you, but he had to control the situation, he wanted to control every aspect of this encounter. With a word he could make you cum, make you please him in a way he had not felt before, he would make you scream in pain and pleasure, he would torture you in all the ways that made you wet, and he would make you like every second of it. The rules were simple and lax: No kisses on the mouth, and no lasting scars. There was no love in his desires, but the jealousy that he felt when he had found out Krennic had asked about you from ISB, seeming like you had caught his eye and he wanted to get close to you. The smile you gave when talking about Krennic made Tarkin feel something different, something he needed to let out, and now he could, with the leather belt on your bottom. Slap, flick, smack, slap, few seconds of silence, slap, smack. He let out a heavy sigh, letting you rest for a moment there, in front of him holding back tears and trying to adjust to the sudden pain. It wasn’t unexpected, just harder than before, and your hands gripped the bed sheets, knuckles almost as white as the sheet itself. 

“You may moan for me,” Tarkin instructed before letting his hand grab the cheeks of your bottoms, gently giving it a spank with the palm of his hand. A moan, needy and pained, left your lips, and was answered with a twitch in his lips, like a smile, but there was no one to see it, at least at that moment.

[hellowkatey]

Ghosts of the Past: the continuation

A continuation of what happens after Obi-Wan sees Nield twenty years after Melida/Daan. Anakin finds out his former master's rough apprenticeship beginnings, Obi-Wan faces some unexpected consequences of his past when Ahsoks gets hurt, and Nield addresses some regrets.

Read ch. 1 here | Read it all on AO3

Anakin is in the middle of combing droid parts and blaster dust out of his hair when there's a knock at his door. Considering Ahsoka is having a sleepover with Barriss, he just spoke to Padmé and she is at her apartment waiting for him, and Obi-Wan is supposed to be on a campaign, he has no idea who could be showing up at his door this late at night.

Watch it be a council member giving me some random task that'll ruin my night with Padmé.

The door buzzes open, and he's surprised to find it is indeed a council member ready to interrupt the night with his wife. The council member being Obi-Wan.

"Obi-Wan?"

"Hello to you, too, Anakin."

"Aren't you supposed to be in the middle of a battle?"

It looks like he's just walked off the battlefield. His robes are dirty and singed in places where blasters blew right through the material. He at least took off his armor, but from the dirt still smeared across his cheek, that's pretty much all he's done. Anakin's confusion quickly turns into concern. It's unlike Obi-Wan to show up anywhere looking rough for wear, even if it's just to see him. The knight's worry raises as he realizes his master grips a handle of Corellian whiskey in his right hand.

"Ended the battle early," he says distantly. His eyes are a little glassy and cheeks tinged pink. "Are you going to invite me in or do you want your dinner in the hallway?"

"Dinner?" Anakin looks to his former master's other hand and realizes he's also holding two bags of Dex's take-out. "Oh. Right, sorry," he steps back, and Obi-Wan strides into his apartment.

He's acting weird. That as much is obvious. Anakin tries to brush up against his master's shields to get a feel for his mood, but they're tighter than usual. Another red flag.

"The 212th was granted a week of leave before our next campaign," Obi-Wan explains, setting down the bottle and bags on Anakin's table. Anakin slips into his usual chair as Obi-Wan sets a bag of food in front of him. "Their's starts tomorrow, but Cody took over the debriefing so I could make it back early." Obi-Wan sits now, unwrapping his own burger. He stops when he realizes Anakin is still staring at him, food untouched. "What, do you not order a double burger and curly fries anymore?"

"What's going on?"

The Jedi Master raises an eyebrow. "What do you mean? Can I not come visit my former padawan?"

"Are you seriously going to act like you aren't being weird right now?"

"I'm acting as I normally do, Anakin."

"You left the front early and you started drinking without me. What's wrong, Obi-Wan?"

Anakin expects him to get defensive. Expects him to turn on Master Mode and lecture him about respect or whatever. But instead, Obi-Wan sighs and sets down his burger.

"I want to tell you a story, Anakin. A story that..." his eyes flicker to the bottle of whiskey, "requires a little bit of loosening up on my end."

Somehow him being honest is more worrisome than if he did get defensive and lie about it. So Anakin stops arguing with him, nods, and goes to the kitchen. He takes the moment to send his wife a quick message that he would probably not make it over for the night since Obi-Wan needs some company. Padmé will understand. Anakin returns with two cups, one with ice and the other with ice and some cola. He hands the one with only ice to Obi-Wan.

"You're freaking me out," Anakin says as he adds a small amount of the whiskey to his soda. How the hell can he drink this stuff straight?

His former master smiles. "No need to freak out."

"What is it about?"

"Well if you allow me to speak—"

"Okay, okay. Let's hope this story lives up to the suspense you've created."

Obi-Wan grimaces, taking a long swig of his drink before clearing his throat. "When you were a padawan, you used to always ask me about what missions I was going on when I was your age. Do you remember?"

Anakin leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. "Yeah, but you never actually told me."

Obi-Wan shakes his head. "No, I didn't, I know. I always felt bad about not telling you. You were quite the pouter. But I convinced myself that telling you about my early missions would do more harm than good."

"You're freaking me out again, Obi-Wan."

"Just listen. Before the war started, there was a rule that younglings had to be chosen by a Master by the age of thirteen. If not, the youngling was reassigned to one of the other Jedi corps."

"Okay..."

"In my case, I was assigned to the AgriCorps."

Anakin leans forward as disbelief courses through him. "Wait, wh—"

"I aged out," Obi-Wan interrupts, not meeting his eyes anymore. Instead, he stares out the window beyond Anakin. "Qui-Gon considered taking me as his padawan but decided against it. In his words, I had too much anger within me. So the Jedi reassigned me to the AgriCorps on Bandomeer."

Anger? Obi-Wan? "That doesn't make sense."

"It's what happened," Obi-Wan whispers. "I began as a Jedi farmer, and Qui-Gon coincidentally came to Bandomeer for unrelated Jedi business. That in itself is a long story, but I was captured and Qui-Gon came to save me. He then decided to train me."

"Obi-Wan why didn't you tell—"

"This is the preface of my story. So you understand the context of what happens later." Anakin leans back again, biting on the inside of his lip with nervous anticipation. If this is just the background, how bad can the actual story be? "So Qui-Gon and I did not start on a good note. He had no interest in training another student. His last padawan fell to the Dark Side... and was actually the one who captured me on Bandomeer. Needless to say, he was wary of me in the beginning."

"But he warmed up to you, right? You and Master Jinn were close when I met you guys."

Obi-Wan presses his lips into a thin line, finally looking Anakin in the eye again. "Eventually, yes. We found common ground and he grew to be like a father to me. But due to my actions, that did not happen for a few years."

He pauses, taking another sip of his drink, and then gesturing to the untouched Dex's bag. "Your food is going to get cold, you know."

"I know." Anakin ignores the food.

"We were sent on a mission to Melida/Daan," Obi-Wan continues. "It was a planet in the midst of a civil war. The Melida vs. the Daan. Or, so we believed. We were there to retrieve a Jedi that had failed to check-in. She was trying to negotiate peace between these groups, but we discovered it was not just the Melida and the Daan fighting one another. There was a third group. All the children from both sides had left their families and formed their own side. The Young, they called themselves, and their mission was to bring and end to this multi-generational war."

Anakin vaguely recognizes the name Melida/Daan from his history classes but remembers nothing else about it.

"We found the missing Jedi. She was hurt, so Qui-Gon was eager to return to the Temple. But the Young were pleading for our assistance. He told me we couldn't help them. I disagreed, and we had an argument. So he gave me an ultimatum. Either I come with him, or I stay to fight with the Young."

Anakin's eyes grow wide. "Master, you didn't—"

"I stayed."

"But he came back right? He dropped off his friend and came back to help you!"

The silence that falls over the room says what Obi-Wan doesn't. The Jedi Master resumes staring out of the window.

"I fought with the Young for nearly a year."

"How old were you?"

Anakin doesn't like the pause that comes before his master's answer. "Thirteen. Fourteen by the end."

"You were a kid," Anakin mutters in disbelief.

"I was, but... I was one of the eldest. There were seven-year-olds who were wielding blasters. Eleven-year-olds were dying in bombings. Friends that I loved dearly died in my arms, and other friends found ways to blame me for deaths I could not control." Anakin can see the tears brimming in his Master's eyes. His own hands are shaking.

"Qui-Gon did come, though, didn't he?"

"We were so close to peace, but we were only kids. Warfare and diplomacy require different types of decorum. I called the Jedi to help us finally end things. The council sent Qui-Gon."

Anakin deflates.

"We negotiated peace. This time I returned to the Temple with him, but he was not pleased with me. I had made almost all of his worst fears about taking another padawan come true."

"You didn't turn to the Dark Side or anything, though!"

"I left the Order, Anakin," Obi-Wan lets out a shaky breath. "The council was reluctant to accept me back, but thank the Force they did. Qui-Gon on the other hand... He took me on a whim, and when I defied him it was like a slap in the face. I was placed on probation while he decided if he was going to continue as my master. Evidently, he eventually did forgive me, but it was a long, painful road."

Feeling constricted in his seat, Anakin stands, pacing into the living room. He's learned so much information so quickly. That his master almost wasn't a Jedi? Obi-Wan Kenobi, council member and Jedi Master was almost a farmer? Qui-Gon Jinn left his thirteen-year-old padawan in the middle of a war for a year?

It doesn't make sense yet he can feel his former master's anxious energy clouding the Force. He isn't lying. Anakin turns to the man waiting quietly for him to say something. Though he has so many questions, the first that pops out of his mouth is: "Why are you telling me this now?"

"We had a diplomat make an emergency repair stop on my flagship just before this last battle. A representative from what is now Melidaan."

"The... unified planet, then?"

He nods. "His name is Nield, and I fought alongside him in the war. It was the first time I'd seen him since. It was also the first time in years I'd really talked about the war out loud, and... I realized I've been ignoring this for almost twenty years now. I avoiding telling you because I didn't want you to be disappointed in me like Qui-Gon was—"

"Master! Disappointed in you? I would never—"

"You are so much like him, you know," Obi-Wan says with a wistful smile. The glossiness in his eyes is even more prominent as the alcohol starts to settle in.

"You think I'd leave you in a war zone?"

A soft smile appears on his master's face, "Technically you have. On a number of occasions, actually."

"Those were sanctioned abandonments."

Obi-Wan chuckles, wiping his eyes on the back of his sleeve. "You have all his best qualities, Anakin. And some of his more annoying ones, but I've chosen to forgive those."

The knight walks over to the window with his back to Obi-Wan, arms folded across his chest. He's still overwhelmed by this new information. Unsure of how to feel. Sympathetic? No, Obi-Wan hates it when people pity him. Angry? He has the right to be frustrated that Obi-Wan has been lying to him for years. Letting him believe that he was this perfect padawan with a perfect apprenticeship...

But the overwhelming emotion that is hitting Anakin is not pity or anger, but guilt. Because a part of Anakin has always held onto the secret belief that things would be different if Qui-Gon Jinn had lived. That Master Jinn would have understood him in a way that Obi-Wan just can't because he was model Jedi.

He's been wrong all this time.

Anakin is suddenly thrust back to a time when he himself was a padawan feeling the galaxy pull him in a different direction. He told Obi-Wan he was going to leave the Order after their mission. And Obi-Wan still stayed by his side. Still treated him the same and protected him. It was ultimately Obi-Wan's unconditional support that persuaded Anakin to stay with the Jedi. Would Qui-Gon have done the same for me?

For the last ten years, Anakin has told himself that Qui-Gon would have stayed by his side. Now, he isn't so sure.

"I'm sorry," Anakin finally says, slowly turning around. Obi-Wan is quick to rise from his seat and approach him.

"I did not tell you this so you pity me—"

"I'm sorry I doubted you," Obi-Wan falls silent. "And for all the times I pushed you away because I didn't think you understood what it was like to feel like a screw-up... Force, I was horrible sometimes! Why didn't you ever tell me?"

The Master steps closer, placing his hands on Anakin's shoulders. "I truly did not think it would help. Or that you would think I was discounting your feelings, and I would never want to do that."

"What about your feelings?" Obi-Wan swallows hard, obviously not expecting this sort of question. He squeezes Anakin's shoulders, smiling softly.

"I am still learning how to confront them. And this— confiding in you— is part of that process."

Anakin can't hold himself back anymore. He closes the gap between them, throwing his arms around Obi-Wan and hugging him tightly. And Obi-Wan does not hesitate to hug him back.

There was a time when Anakin was a young padawan when he believed his Master was the greatest Jedi who ever lived. Sith Killer with a silver tongue, Obi-Wan Kenobi. A valiant knight and an even better teacher. He's always looked up to Obi-Wan. Saw him as a father figure. Though that giddy feeling of pride for his Master faded as he grew, Anakin feels it now just as he did when he was ten. Obi-Wan is by no means the perfect Jedi he's always believed him to be, but Anakin prefers it that way. Somehow it makes him even better.

______

Waging battles in desolate landscapes was one thing, but when the fighting spreads to urban areas, Obi-Wan is always on edge. There is something fundamentally wrong with tearing through the middle of a city with tanks and cannons. It's so easy to distance oneself from the reality of war. Easy to see the tall buildings and duracrete streets as either cover or a tactical liability. Obi-Wan just sees family homes left vacant. Stores and restaurants ransacked and abandoned. The amount of desolation depends on the length and amount of resistance the locals put up against their Separatist occupation.

And this city has been under the thumb of the droid army since the beginning.

Tesha Prime was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nestled in the middle of Separatist-controlled planets, it stood no chance of maintaining its independence. It's estimated they were under secret occupation as early as the Trade Federation blockade of Naboo, but their pleas for assistance were stifled until recently.

Obi-Wan one came to Tesha Prime as a padawan. One of Qui-Gon's side missions-- he enjoyed their specialty textiles and made a detour to purchase a friend a throw blanket. Its capital of Taloona was a beautiful city, advanced in technology but maintained the vintage glamor and elegance of their Old Republic architecture. Walking the streets now, it pains his heart to see crumbled buildings and durasteel military structures taking over the once picturesque skyline. War has tainted the rich history of this planet. Basically erased it. As the Jedi General moves swiftly through the waves of droids, diverting blaster shots from his valiant soldiers trying to free this city, he cannot help but be reminded of Melida/Daan.

Melida/Daan was an urban planet much like Tesha Prime. Completely different in their architectural inspirations and cultures, but violence does not discriminate. Rubble looks the same no matter what it used to be. He remembers Melida/Daan in the hastily painted graffiti urging for resistance against their aggressors. In the sound of bombs causing duracrete walls to collapse. In the yells of pain and the shouts of orders as medic clones traverse the battlefield to pull their fallen brothers out.

Obi-Wan grimaces, biting on his bottom lip so hard he tastes blood.

Seeing Nield and telling Cody and Anakin about his early exposure to war has brought about an unexpected consequence. Remembering. The nightmares of seeing Cerasi's murder and holding children as their life Forces faded away plagues his nights. Sometimes he will awake with a start, his first instinct to reach beside him where Nield used to sleep an arm's length away. When he doesn't feel a warm presence nearby, Obi-Wan begins to panic until he turns on the light and realizes he is not in the barracks of the Young, but in his quarters aboard his star destroyer. He's not thirteen, he's thirty-six.

Try as he might, though, the memories of his youth are not leaving him alone. He's been distracted by the flashes of Melida/Daan in battle before, but Taloona is messing with his mind more than usual. The city air smells the same. The wrecked streets feel the same beneath his boots. Obi-Wan is just thankful that his training allows him to shove his anxiety aside. He releases it into every moment of calm he can find. He must stay on his game for his men. For the people of Taloona and Tesha Prime.

But it's a shrill gasp of pain exploding through the Force that makes Obi-Wan tunnel. He whirls around from his place atop a fire escape and can see Ahsoka on street level with the 501st's battle route. Her eyes wide and arms wrapped around her chest as her knees buckle and she falls to the ground. The air leaves his lungs as though he's been punched.

"Ahsoka!" he yells as he leaps from the fourth story of the fire escape. The 501st has begun to regroup to compensate, Rex barreling through the crowd to reach her. Obi-Wan gets to her first, pulling himself between her and the front line and tucking her into his lap.

She's so small, he realizes. So young. Barely older than I was.

"You'll be okay," Obi-Wan says, cradling her head in the crook of his arm. He blinks and there's blood everywhere, dear Force, where did this blood come from?  He presses his hands to the center of her chest where the blood seems to be pouring out.

"Obi-Wan?" the voice calling his name is distant, but he ignores it. I need to stop the bleeding. He squeezes his eyes shut to keep himself from vomiting.

"Do you hear me? You'll be okay, Cerasi," he whispers.

"Master Obi-Wan?" Louder this time. Closer. A warm palm rests against his cheek and when he opens his eyes Ahsoka is staring up at him with deep concern laced in her features.

She's awake? That can't be! The blaster shot... the blood... No, there is no blood. There never was. Ahsoka is lying in his arms, a scorch mark on the breastplate of her armor, but it didn't go all the way through. He blinks through the tears in his eyes. This is not Melida/Daan. I'm not there anymore. I'm thirty-six, and the war is over. This is the Clone Wars. Ahsoka is Anakin's padawan. I'm not thirteen. Melida/Daan is at peace. Nield is alive and well.

"General?" Another voice. He looks up and realizes he isn't alone. Captain Rex is giving Ahsoka a stim, glancing up at the High General every so often. Cody kneels next to his brother, more focused on Obi-Wan as reality slowly creeps back. Though he cannot see his face beneath his helmet, he can feel Cody's patient understanding. These men unfortunately know the look of someone lost in a time other than the present. And Cody is one of the few that knows exactly where his mind has gone.

"General Kenobi, are you alright?" Cody attempts to get his attention again. This time Obi-Wan nods, trying to relax the tension in his muscles.

"Yes... of course," he looks down at Ahsoka who's hand slips from his cheek. It reminds him too much of the way Cerasi's hand dropped like dead weight as her heart stopped. He shakes away the memory. The stim is setting in, clearing the cloudiness of shock from her eyes. "Are you alright young one?"

"Yes, Master Kenobi, it just surprised me. It's a good thing I had on armor for this battle."

Obi-Wan swallows thickly. The Young never had real armor. On such small bodies and without adequate medical attention, nearly every hit was a lethal one. He smiles, slowly sitting her up. "A very good thing indeed."

The battle felt like it droned on for days. Perhaps because a rotation on Tesha Prime is thirty-four hours. Or because Obi-Wan completely immersed himself in the Force, letting his instincts take charge over his mind. Obviously, his mind was not to be trusted. He's just thankful his brief blur into the past didn't cause more of a scene.

Obi-Wan walks through the aftermath now. The shooting and the bombings have ceased, but sometimes silence isn't any better than the sounds of war. At least focusing on the battle kept his mind occupied. Now he buries himself in his cloak, tucking his hands away so nobody can see they're still shaking.

"Master Kenobi?" the voice is soft, unimposing. Obi-Wan turns to find Ahsoka standing a few paces away. She's out of the armor now and in her usual clothing. Like Obi-Wan, her cloak is draped around her as the night finally settles in to cool the heat of the day. Despite the scare from earlier, she looks unharmed.

But she looks younger than Obi-Wan usually notices her to be. Maybe it's the too-big cloak that swallows her lanky adolescent figure. Or the timidness on her face that is not characteristic of his grand padawan.

"Yes, Padawan? How are you feeling?"

She catches up to him and matches his pace. The Togruta shrugs.

"Tired. A little sore, but Kix says none of my ribs are broken. Just a little bruised."

"And Anakin, have you seen him yet?" Anakin took charge of the air raid, leaving Ahsoka to command the troops from the ground. Obi-Wan hasn't run into him yet, but he expects his former padawan to come looking for him once word gets around about Ahsoka's close call and Obi-Wan's... strong reaction.

Ahsoka shakes her head. "No, but he commed me. The fighters are just going to go back to the hangers. The battle went on for so long they need to refuel."

Obi-Wan pinches the hairs on his chin. "Of course, smart of him. No need to waste fuel to land and take off again," he glances over at the padawan with a playful smirk. "Though don't tell him I said he was smart. After the stunts he pulled in the air, the last thing he needs is an ego boost." The padawan chuckles softly, but her smile fades quickly. They walk in silence for a few moments before Obi-Wan rocks into her to nudge her to the side. "I can tell something is troubling you, young one."

"Master Kenobi... who is Cerasi?"

Obi-Wan's own smile disappears. "Where did you... hear that name?"

"You called me Cerasi... when I was shot. I didn't even realize it at first, but I remembered and... I don't mean to pry, and you don't have to tell me, I was just curious--"

"It's alright Ahsoka," he stops her rambling, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. They stop walking in the middle of a market square and he leads her to sit on the edge of a large fountain. It has long run dry and is half-decimated, but it is a place to stop. "Cerasi was a good friend of mine. And she... was hurt in a very similar way to you, but unfortunately, she did not have armor to protect her."

"So she's..."

Obi-Wan nods.

The padawan exhales shakily, her fingers brushing against the place the blaster would have hit her. "Were you... there when it happened?"

He nods. "I was."

Her hand rests over his and she squeezes his fingers. "I'm sorry about your friend, Master Kenobi."

"It was a long time ago. I'm not sure why I said her name."

"It happens. Sometimes I almost accidentally call you Master Skywalker. Or I call Anakin Master Kenobi."

Obi-Wan smiles. "Oh, I bet he hates it when you do that."

"I keep telling him it's a compliment but he doesn't want to hear it."

They both laugh. Obi-Wan lets the peace and lightness of the moment settle around his body like a warm blanket. While he hates the fact that padawans are fighting in this war, he also loves their resilient presence. Ahsoka never fails to make him feel better, even when she isn't actively trying to.

"I'm glad you're okay, Ahsoka. Though I will be more insistent you wear that armor from now on. We can send your measurements to have you properly outfitted in gear that won't hinder your saber technique."

"But Master, then I won't have a good reason to not wear it."

"But it'll make your Grandmaster worry about you less."

Ahsoka sighs dramatically. "In that case, I guess I could learn to work around it."

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes and tucks his hands back into the sleeves of his cloak. "I swear, you and Anakin are going to be the death of me one day."

"Not if you wear your armor, Master," she says with a wry smile. Ahsoka glances at her comm and stands.

"Is Anakin asking where you are?"

"Rex. I told him I'd help with the med evacs," her blue eyes flicker up. The universal silent plead for dismissal.

"Go on," the general nods.

"Are you sure you're okay, Master Kenobi? I can tell Rex I'm sitting with you."

He stands and places a hand on her shoulder. "I am. We can talk more after dinner."

Ahsoka smiles and takes off running back toward the evac zone. Her cloak billows behind her as she disappears around the corner. The Jedi Master exhales a deep breath he wasn't aware he was holding.

_______

Nield, two drinks already warm in his belly, walks into the quiet cantina with the perfect amount of confidence to get through what he's about to do. It doesn't take long for his gaze to rest on the two cloaked figures seated at the bar. Before he can convince himself otherwise, the diplomat crosses where the two men are seated.

When he ran into Obi-Wan Kenobi two standard months ago, Nield was shocked at how the scrawny Jedi had changed after so many years. While it should not have been a surprise— he himself had changed quite a bit as well— in his head, Obi-Wan was still a thirteen-year-old with a horrible haircut and a pretentious amount of self-importance. (Nield has been to enough therapy since his warring days to realize his hatred of the young Jedi was a lot of his own projection. It did not change the way his mind remembered the boy that was once his companion.)

But alas, Kenobi grew up into a Jedi Master and a High General. When they spoke those months ago, Nield congratulated him on achieving his Jedi rank. They spent many nights during the war talking about the people they wanted to become once the fighting was resolved. Nield remembered Obi-Wan's anxieties over whether or not he would try to return to the Order that left him behind.

He questioned the second rank he had achieved, though. High General of the Grand Army of the Republic. Nield wasn't questioning his qualifications— Kenobi was a natural-born leader, even as a kid. There was no doubt he excelled at his position. What he questioned was why. Why would he want to take on that role again?

That led to a much longer explanation. One that Nield walked away deciding the answer his old friend was avoiding was simply: I did not want to go to war again, I had to.

Obi-Wan, of course, had the same question for him. Travel the galaxy was his previous answer to the question: who do I want to be when I'm not fighting a damned civil war? It wasn't what he told the others of The Young, but a secret desire he confided in Obi-Wan while they chatted to keep one another awake on watches. Nield wanted to be a nomad. He wanted his home to be among the stars rather than a planet or civilization.

"And you became a representative for the very planet you wanted to put behind you forever," Obi-Wan had said with the same smugness Nield gave him.

"I do get to travel."

"I suppose. But it isn't living among the stars."

They ended the night with the conclusion that they both failed their childhood dreams in some ways. But what is adulthood, if not living to find things to regret?

For Nield, he ironically walked away from his reunion with Obi-Wan with new regrets. Which is what brings him to this random cantina on Keitrum.

He doesn't need to try and get the attention of the Jedi General— as he approaches, Obi-Wan Kenobi's stool swivels around. There's confusion in his tired eyes and furrowed brow, and then he relaxes, a small smile on his lips.

"What a surprise," he muses, causing his companion to also turn around. Nield recognizes the shaggy dark hair and piercing gaze of General Anakin Skywalker almost immediately. "What brings you to Keitrum, old friend?"

"Definitely not the same reasons as you," Nield says tightly, eyeing the armor they were keeping hidden beneath their billowing robes. Well-used armor, tainted with dried blood and oil stains. Obi-Wan is clad in a more complete ensemble of shoulder, chest, arm, and leg pieces, while the younger General appears to only sport the shoulder and chest armor. Oh, the false security of youth. They look as though they came straight from the battlefield to grab a celebratory drink. Nield suspects that is exactly the case.

"Friend of yours, Master?" Skywalker says, curious eyes flickering between the two of them.

"Something of the sort," Obi-Wan replies, leaning back so they can see one another. "Anakin, this is Nield, a Representative of Melidaan. I met him—"

"When you were part of The Young?" The wide-eyed General finishes, suddenly looking his age. Nield raises an eyebrow at Kenobi. So you told him after all.

"Yes, we... fought together."

"And against one another," Nield adds.

"Yes, that too, I suppose."

Nield settles down on the opposite side of Kenobi and listens as he explains to the young man the nature of their... history. Though Obi-Wan gives him a charitable amount of leeway and understanding for his actions, Nield can't help the guilt that builds as the story goes on.

Especially as Skywalker keeps looking his way with increasing outrage and obvious protectiveness over his former Master.

"...after Cerasi... died," Obi-Wan says in a softer voice. "we had very different approaches on how to proceed."

"You wanted revenge?" Anakin asks Nield with off-putting intensity. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

"I was angry," he glances at Obi-Wan. "I thought about it a lot, though. How the people who killed her needed to pay. Obi-Wan had to help me get out of that mindset. It wasn't what she would have wanted."

Now it's Obi-Wan's turn to look surprised. They'd avoided recounting the specifics of the war when they last talked, and that's exactly what Nield regretted. He never got to tell Obi-Wan he's sorry for the way their friendship splintered back then. The war, the death— it changed him for the worse. It aged his soul, made his heart turn to stone. It took many, many years to come back from the shell of a person he became.

"We were kids," Obi-Wan whispers, a creak in his tone.

"I'm still sorry. You did nothing but help us when nobody else would. You were always one of us, no matter what I said as a punk kid. You were one of us, and honestly, the best of us. Your name still comes up among those of us that remain."

The Jedi Master stares at him for a long moment before staring down at his drink as he swirls it. Skywalker assumes being a wallflower, switching between fiddling with the commlink on his wrist and monitoring his Master's facial expressions.

"How many?"

"About half from when we last saw you." A moment of silence. Nield lets out a breath and then continues. "Not all gone, just not living on Melidaan anymore. They attended university. Traveled. Got married and moved away."

Neither say it, but he knows they both are thinking it. We fought so hard for a peaceful home. Leaving seemed like a dishonor to those who died with the dream of growing old on the land they left their family for.

But Obi-Wan left too. And Nield does not actually blame him nor anyone else for leaving.

"I hope they're well."

Skywalker's hand suddenly clasps Kenobi's shoulder. "Ahoska and the men are here. I'm gonna go tell them to put their drinks on your tab."

"Anakin, don't you dare, the accounting department was so angry with me last time!" he calls after him, but the young General has already disappeared into the thickening crowd. Obi-Wan sighs and looks back at Nield who can't help the amusement on his face.

"So that's Anakin Skywalker."

"In all his glory, yes."

"He reminds me of you as a kid."

"Oh Force, don't tell him that. I'll never hear the end of it."

Nield laughs. "I'm glad I got to meet him. Put a face to your stories."

"I take it meeting my former padawan is not the reason you have come out of your way to find me. Nor is this the coincidence you make it out to be."

"Perceptive as always. I just realized we skirted around the obvious when we last spoke. Pretended that I didn't alienate you from the Young after you devoted everything to help us."

"Like I said earlier, we were kids, Nield."

"And like I also said earlier, I'm sorry. That's why I wanted to see you again."

Obi-Wan smiles, holding out his hand. Nield shakes it. "I'm sorry too, old friend. I'm glad we got to see one another again because I needed to thank you. You and one of my officers convinced me to finally tell Anakin about the war."

"How'd he react?"

"Better than I anticipated. But now every free moment has turned into storytime."

Nield recalls the few fond moments of the war when Obi-Wan would sit in the center of the room and tell all the younger kids a bedtime story. An attempt to thwart the nightmares away. "You were always good at telling stories."

"Apparently so. I usually draw quite an audience."

"It helps though. Talking about it. Doesn't it?"

The Jedi General nods. "For the most part. Though I see our war everywhere, now."

"The dreams?" Nield asks. Obi-Wan frowns. That's a yes. "The war can't be helping. Every time a speeder backfired I thought I was..."

"Back there again," The Jedi finishes for him. "Yes... Our recent terrestrial battles have not been helping."

Nield cannot imagine what it must be like to be back in the middle of a warzone. The fact the galaxy is at war at all was enough of a trigger for the flashbacks to his youth. It's why he takes his duty as a representative so seriously. He will do anything and everything to keep his home away from this conflict.

But his friend does not have that luxury. Nield waits for Kenobi to meet his eyes again.

"It still affects me, too. Bad days come out of nowhere. No matter how many times people tell me 'recovery isn't linear' it still surprises me. But before I knew it, I had more good days than bad and even the bad days didn't compare to what they used to be. It'll get better, Obi-Wan. I promise you it will."

Obi-Wan holds his stare. He's harder to read now than when he was thirteen, but Nield can still recognize the look in the Jedi's eye when he trusts someone. Though Nield doesn't feel he deserves this trust, for Obi-Wan's sake he's glad he's willing to listen.

"I will remember that," the Jedi says softly. "Thank you."

Nield raises the drink that was placed before him at some point. Obi-Wan does the same. The words come tumbling out before he can think of anything else to say. "To our brothers and sisters in the trenches... and the pursuit of peace."

The chant feels acidic on his tongue.

"We fight for our future, and the lives those who have died deserved," Obi-Wan continues. He hasn't forgotten it either.

"To unity."

"To freedom."

"To the Young," they say together, voices barely carrying beyond the space between them. Their cups clink together, and for a moment they're back in the lookout station. Kenobi, Nield, Cerasi, and half a bottle of red wine they found when pillaging an abandoned home for supplies. They didn't actually drink the wine-- it was obviously rancid. But that cheer they made up between giggles and dares to taste the sour beverage became their battle cry.

He tries to sip his brew but it tastes like that damn expired wine. For some reason, that makes him smile. Somehow the moments Nield cherishes the most lie among the worst points of his life. Perhaps because Cerasi never made it past the war to record over the old memories with new ones. Perhaps because Obi-Wan disappeared before Nield could come to his senses.

But for some reason, he's been granted another chance. Nield isn't sure what he did to deserve such a gift, but he'll accept it. Kenobi sits next to him, washing away the bittersweet chant of their youth with a brew.

Another survivor, and now, a friend once again.

[extasiswings]

"sigurista" for Eddie

Edit: On ao3 here.

sigurista: Someone who makes sure that everything goes as planned; the kind of person who will not act unless he totally feels sure that the desired result would be obtained. [Okay, this is probably cheating because it only very technically fits if you squint, but this is all the result of your enabling so.  If anyone wanted more White House AU Buddie, this is a follow up to this prompt fill.]  

It’s a quiet day.

Now, Buck’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but he can count on one hand the number of times his schedule has been so light throughout the first year of his presidency, so he can’t help checking it again and then a third time just to make sure. But it doesn’t change the longer he looks at it.

Okay. So, it’s a quiet, light day. That’s a good thing—it’s not like he can’t use the rest.

He’s just not sure why he can’t quite work the tension out of his shoulders, why he feels poised on the edge of a tightrope made of razor wire about to either fall or get sliced.

By noon, all of his scheduled meetings are finished and he’s even managed to catch up on some of the reports he’d been meaning to dig deeper into. He’s antsy and full of untethered energy and, finally, he closes the file he’s looking through and crosses the room to knock on the door connecting the Oval with the Chief of Staff’s office.

(After the last time he walked in without thinking and got an eyeful of his sister and Chim that made him want to bleach his brain, he always knocks.)

“Hey, Chim—I’m going to head back to the residence for the rest of the day—”

The main office door opens.

“I’m afraid I can’t allow that, Mr. President,” Athena says, and it’s been enough time that Buck knows when the head of the secret service shows up personally and without warning it means nothing good. Right behind her, the aide to his National Security Advisor comes skidding to a halt, out of breath.

“You’re needed in the situation room, sir.”

Buck looks back at Athena.

“Michael—?”

(It may well be a conflict of interest that the Vice President’s ex-wife is responsible for making sure Buck stays alive, but then, Buck’s pretty sure there’s no less of one than the fact that his sister is dating his Chief of Staff so...)

“He’s being moved to a secure location,” she replies. “But yes, Bobby’s waiting in the sit room. I can fill you in on the way.”

Buck swears internally and runs a hand through his hair.

“Okay. What do we have?”

“Bomb threat and possible shooter at the Pentagon,” Athena says, and Buck’s heart stops, ice freezing his insides. Because that’s—

“You know, some of us have actual work to do,” Eddie said the night before, the look in his eyes exasperated but fond in the dim light from the lamp on his desk.

“You mean entertaining the leader of the free world isn’t in your job description, Lieutenant Diaz?” Buck had teased right back, reveling in the quirk of Eddie’s lips.

“Yeah, well, you’re going to have to find someone else to entertain you tomorrow—I’ll be in meetings with the joint chiefs at the Pentagon all day. Should be thrilling stuff.”

“Maybe I’ll invent a national security emergency—get you out of it.”

Eddie laughed. “Please don’t, they’ll just reschedule. And then there will be paperwork.”

—that’s where Eddie is.

“How the fuck does that happen?” Buck croaks out, feeling like he’s swallowed glass.

“We’re working out the exact details,” Athena replies. “But it’s fairly clear it was an inside job. Whoever it is killed one of the marines on duty and called in the bomb himself, we’re looking at the security feeds and card access records to narrow down a name.”

She finishes just as they step through the door of the situation room and Bobby looks up.

“Dennis Pierce,” he fills in. “He’s been there eight years, looks like he was identified as part of the investigation to see which employees might have ties to white supremacist groups. He hasn’t been fired yet because the investigation isn’t  finished, but I guess he saw the writing on the wall.”

“And thought he would tender his resignation by, what? Blowing up the joint chiefs?” Buck can hear the edge in his voice, which means Bobby definitely can as well.

(They met on the campaign trail, when Buck started getting intelligence briefings that made him feel like he was drowning, in over his head. But Bobby never treated him like an idiot who didn’t know the first thing about national security, was always patient, willing to sit with him and explain. And by now, Buck’s pretty sure he would be lost without him. Without him and—)

“We’re not going to let that happen,” Bobby replies, his own voice carefully even. Steady. “We have a bomb squad on site and every armed guard in the building looking for this guy, not to mention that most of the people he’s likely to run into are combat-trained military.”

The phone on the desk rings and Bobby picks it up as the door opens and the heads of the FBI and CIA file in.

“Copy that,” Bobby says and hangs up, tapping a few keys on his keyboard to bring up blueprints on the main screen and highlighting a room on the fifth floor.

“Someone pressed one of the hidden panic buttons in conference room J,” he explains. “Bomb squad is on its way and we should be getting camera feeds—now.”

The feed flickers into the screen and steals Buck’s breath all over again, because there, on the screen, with his hands raised and facing down an older, grizzled white man with a gun in one hand and a trigger to the bomb vest strapped to his chest in the other—is Eddie.

“There’s no audio,” Buck points out as Eddie’s lips move too quickly for him to read anything clearly.

“There aren’t any speakers or mics in the room.”

Maybe not, but—over Pierce’s shoulder, Buck notices a phone on the wall.

“I want to talk to him,” he says. “Call the room.”

Bobby’s look is sharp when he turns to look at him.

“Sir, I really wouldn’t advise—”

“Call,” Buck repeats, his tone booking no argument.

Bobby’s lips press thin, but he picks up the phone, speaking quietly into the receiver while Buck doesn’t look away from the camera feed, his stomach twisting itself into knots as Pierce shakes his head violently in response to whatever Eddie is saying. Time seems to slow the longer he watches, even as Bobby passes him the phone.

“Extension 3596,” Bobby says quietly. And Buck dials.

He can’t see the phone ring on the feed, but he sees the effect—Pierce twitches, his head whipping around in surprise, and Eddie takes advantage of the distraction to move—

The feed cuts out.

The phone keeps ringing.

“What happened?” Buck demands. “What—we have to get it back, we have to—”

The line picks up.

“This is General O’Halloran, who am I speaking with?”

Buck swallows hard.

“General, this is the President. What’s your status?”

“Lieutenant Diaz neutralized the threat, sir. Passed him off to the bomb squad waiting outside. We’re all safe and sound.”

There’s something rising up in his throat, and Buck isn’t sure if it’s just a wave of overwhelming emotion or if it’s actually bile.

“Glad to hear it, General,” he chokes out.

He passes the phone back to Bobby and shoves back his chair then, not caring whether they need him for anything, just needing—needing—

Buck rips at the knot of his tie as he steps into the hallway, and only barely makes it through the door of the bathroom at the end of it before he throws up in the sink.

The door opens again a moment later, as he’s gripping the edge of the sink trying to get his adrenaline under control.

“It’s okay, Buck,” Athena says quietly. “Everyone’s fine. Especially him.”

Buck could almost laugh at that if he was in any sort of mood. Because he hasn’t even told Eddie—not technically—hasn’t ever done anything to truly cross a line, but apparently everyone knows anyway.

“I could have lost him...and I would have had to watch,” he says.

“But you didn’t.”

Buck rinses his mouth out and spits.

“Is Bobby pissed at me for walking out?”

Athena shrugs. “I doubt it. I can take you back to the residence now if you want—tell Bobby to finish up and debrief you later.”

Buck swallows again. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

He pauses as half an idea comes into his head, then adds—

“Hey, Athena?  Do you think—”

Which is how he finds himself waiting in a car outside a condo in Virginia with an extra protective detail at nine that night as his regular agents knock on the door. A woman with dark hair opens the door, and Buck can see the way her eyebrows shoot up as she exchanges quick words with the agents before they step inside to conduct their sweep. A minute passes, then the agent at his side taps her earpiece.

“Clear. Got it,” she says, and that’s all Buck needs to get out of the car.

The same dark-haired woman is standing in the entryway, arms crossed, when he walks through the door. He stops in his tracks, suddenly nervous as her calculating gaze trails over him.

“Adriana?” He guesses, and she hums.

“A little warning would have been nice,” she says, but Buck thinks he catches a hint of a smile as she turns on her heel to go down the hallway off the kitchen to what he assumes is a bedroom. “Good night, Mr. President.”

Buck opens his mouth to say something, when Eddie himself appears at the top of the stairs, hair wet and clothes sticking to his skin like he’s just jumped out of the shower.

“Adriana, what the hell—” Eddie cuts off the moment his eyes land on Buck and she just laughs before she disappears down the hall.

“Hi,” Buck says quietly.

“Hey,” Eddie replies. There’s a bruise blossoming over his cheek and Buck’s fingers itch to touch it, or really, to touch Eddie everywhere he can to remind him that he’s here, he’s alive, Buck didn’t lose—

Eddie clears his throat and makes his way the rest of the way down the stairs.

“You’re...in my house.”

Buck shifts his weight. “You almost died today.”

Eddie blows out a breath and rakes a hand through his wet hair.

“Guess you didn’t have to fake that national security emergency after all.”

“Guess not.”

Eddie’s gaze turns considering, his brow furrowing as an odd look crosses his face.

“So...I almost die...and that warrants you showing up in the middle of the night?  Why?”

Buck wets his lips, feeling like he can barely hold Eddie’s eyes. His pulse is racing, blood rushing in his ears, and his voice is a mere rasp when he says—

“You know why.”

You have to know.

Eddie glances down at the floor, then over to the windows where the curtains are closed. Then he nods once.

“Maybe. But...I think I need you to say it.”

Buck nearly throws his hands up. “Fuck, Eddie, because I love—”

He doesn’t finish the sentence because Eddie closes the distance and kisses the rest away, backing Buck against the closed front door. Buck nearly chokes on relief as his hand scramble to twist into Eddie’s damp t-shirt and pull him even closer.

“I thought—” he gasps out when Eddie breaks the kiss in favor of pressing a trail of them down his neck— “I thought you were going to die and I wasn’t going to get to tell you.”

Eddie pauses his exploration, hands spasming on Buck’s hips.

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes against his skin. “Yeah, me too.”  

Buck threads his fingers through Eddie’s hair and tugs him back up to kiss him again.

“Athena says she’ll kill me if I’m not back by midnight,” he admits.

Eddie’s lips quirk as he curls a finger through one of Buck’s belt loops and tugs him towards the stairs.

“Then we’re swimming in time.”