#polyfacetious | ben

[kingofdirtandnothing]

polyfacetious asked: BenPoe — Stay

Five Minute Meme: (Accepting)

Poe is angry. 

It feels like he’s angry all the time these days. Or maybe he always was, and he’s finally ran out of targets. The First Order is gone. Snoke is gone. Palpatine is gone. 

Kylo Ren is gone. 

All that’s left is a fledgling jedi order, a fledgling government and a whole lot of hungry people across the galaxy tired of being caught in the tides of good and evil. 

Poe is tired too. He’s tired of running into stubborn walls every time he tries to walk Ben Solo back out of his shell and into the real world. 

“I don’t care, okay?” That’s Poe’s helmet, hurled across their shared sleeping space, clattering against the metal wall, the sound echoing between them like a dented gong. 

“I don’t care.” Poe spits the words out, venomous. “I don’t care it’s a double standard. I don’t care that it’s selfish. Ben, for star’s sake, I just want you. How hard is that to get through your thick skull?”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Twenty Four

The water is beautiful, pristine and blue, with frothy white peaks from the waves as they crest and fall over each other. It was somehow even bluer than the sky, that was wide open and only dotted with fat white clouds, the sun beating down on their shoulders with the full brunt of summer. 

Ben was going to be lobster red by the time they were done today. Poe could already see the pink starting to spread across the bridge of his nose and the broad set of his freckled shoulders. No matter how many times he re-applied his sunscreen, Ben managed to burn. 

And he was going to burn to a crisp if Poe couldn’t get him off of this cliff and down into the water below. 

“Come on.” Poe was trying for seductive, cool. He was pretty sure it was coming out wheedling, given the look that Ben was shooting him right about now. “It’s not even that high.” That was a bunch of bullshit, it was at least twenty feet between the edge of the cliff and the water. But that wasn’t how you sold yourself to people. You had to look on the bright side.

Ben’s eyebrow flicks upwards in answer, sarcastic and silent all at once. Poe wonders, distantly, if anyone else has to have conversations with their boyfriend’s eyebrows, or if he was just lucky. ‘Lucky’. Heavy on the sarcasm there. 

“It’s one jump. I won’t make you do it again.” Poe was true to his word about that. With every hike and every cliff dive, and every octopus tentacle on a plate or slimy oyster in a shell, Poe’s request had only ever been: once. Try it once.

It was the same way his mom used to do to him when he was a kid. ‘You try this once, and if you don’t like it, that’s just fine. But you have to try new things out in the world, mijo.’ When he was really little, Poe knows he gave his mom hell about it. Little kids are made for comfort and routine. They wanted things to be the same all the time. But his mom, she was a stubborn woman. A smart one too. Because over time, Poe came around to almost all of it. It made him adventurous, once he was old enough to get brave all on his own.

And Ben needed that too. He needed time to get brave all on his own. Because as much as Ben wanted to pretend like he was buttoned up and calm, there was an adrenaline junkie hiding beneath the skin. Poe had found him by accident, a few too many drunken kisses behind Peter and Eddie’s bar turning into hands inside of pants in a back alley while pedestrians walked down the street a few feet away. 

Now he wanted to nourish that adrenaline junkie, to show Ben all the fun you could have if you just swallowed down your fear and kept moving forward. And hell, the fear could be part of the fun if you looked at things the right way.

Because it was never about not being afraid. Everyone was scared sometimes, and Poe would like to punch the guy in the mouth who taught Ben Solo that men weren’t supposed to be afraid. That they weren’t supposed to cry. That he had to be stoic and quiet at all times. 

There was way too much inside of Ben to settle for being stoic. He deserved better than that, and Poe was going to be the one who gave the world to him on a damn silver platter. He just had to get him off of the ledge first. Baby steps.

“Listen, I’m nervous too. It’s a long way down. My heart is going a mile a minute. Feel it.” Poe reaches out, taking one of Ben’s big hands and bringing it to his chest so that his boyfriend could feel the rapid fire beating of his heart beneath the cage of muscle and bone. Up close like this, Poe could count each and every one of Ben’s eyelashes. If he wasn’t in a hurry to get down in the water, he would stay here as long as it took to do so.

“But that’s okay. It’s okay to be nervous. It’s okay to be scared.” Ben still manages to look a little bit surprised every time that Poe says that. But he was going to beat it into that pretty head of his until it became the norm. There was nothing wrong with being afraid. “That’s your body going ‘hey pal, this seems kinda shady. Are we sure we want to do this?” Ben huffs a laugh under his breath, and makes no effort to pull away. 

“The thing is, the body doesn’t know what our head knows, now does it?” Poe inclines his head towards the water. “This is a safe spot. This is an allowed diving spot. There’s signs up by the legs and everything. Which means people have come through here and looked for sharp rocks and made sure that we weren’t going to hit anything on the way down. So in times like these, we respect our bodies for looking out for us, but we also respectfully disagree.”

Ben is watching him like there isn’t anything else in the world that matters, and Poe wants it to stay like that forever. It’s why he talks so damn much. Poe Dameron has always been a talker, he’s gotten himself out of more than a few tough scrapes with just his words, but when it gets him Ben’s undivided attention, he starts tacking on extra thoughts and extra words to fill in the blank and keep those pretty eyes on him. 

“We can jump together. We’ll hold hands and everything.” Ben scoffs, but instinctively his eyes trip down to the hand still splayed against the tan skin of Poe’s chest. He wants to, he’s just fighting against some old thought or hang up that was keeping his feet on the ground.

Fuck toxic masculinity. 

“I’m serious. I want to jump holding your hand. And it doesn’t make me less of a man for wanting to do it.” Poe’s chin juts out, defiance written across every line of his face. He doesn’t even know if this is what the hold up is in Ben’s head, but he’s already on the wind up, so the words were coming out. Sorry Ben.

“If anything, it makes me more of a man. Because I’m man enough to say when I need something and right now, I need my boyfriend to hold my hand and jump off a cliff with me.” And as his little spiel winds down, Poe’s disdain and his anger shift like the breeze changing direction and he grins. “We’re not going to Thelma and Louise it, Ben. We’re just jumping into the ocean so we can swim.”

And just to round out all his options, Poe steps in close against the hand on his chest until Ben’s arm bends at the elbow and he’s able to step in closer, to put them practically chest to chest. (Even Poe has to admit they haven’t been eye to eye or nose to nose since tenth grade. Stupid Solo growth spurt.)

“Just think of how much fun we can have in that water, babe. You and me and nobody else close enough to see what my hands are doing under the water.”

Would Poe actually try getting Ben off underneath the waves in the ocean? Absolutely, if Ben showed even the slightest inclination that he wanted it. And given the way Ben’s tongue had just darted out to wet his bottom lip, Poe was pretty sure that he had him on the hook. 

Now just to get him over the ledge.

There’s a dark glint in Ben’s eyes that Poe is crazy freaking in love with. His boy had a dark side, Poe just had to get it to come to the surface sometimes. “So? What do you say? It’s an adventure. All you have to do is take that leap.”

Ben shakes his head, a strand of dark hair spilling across his forehead. “Everything is an adventure to you.” See, Poe knows how to read Ben. And his mouth might be saying ‘Poe, you’re a dumbass’ but his eyes were saying ‘I want to do this too’. 

“So!” Poe finally steps back away from Ben, and with a half glance behind him, perilously close to the edge. He throws his arms out wide, and hears the sound of a pebble skitter off of the side of the cliff. Poe knows he really can’t hear it hit the water, but his brain decides he can hear the weighty thump of it hitting the waves.. “What good is living life if you don’t have any adventures. What are we going to tell our grandkids about, Ben?”

Yeah, so he’s pushing it there. Maybe one day Ben would decide he wanted to settle down, to really settle down and do the whole boring office job and a wife with two point five kids and a dog. But Poe is banking (hoping) that it isn’t the case, and that he’ll have Ben with him until they’re old and grey. 

Who said you couldn’t have adventures with kids? His mom and dad used to take him hiking and swimming and kayaking all the time when he was a kid, and Poe loved every damn second of it. He loved waking up in a tent to the smell of coffee over the fire and the soft sound of his parents talking quietly. 

He wanted to give kids of his own that same kind of life, one of these days. A life where they knew they were loved, and that they were safe even when the world wasn’t always safe. That they could be brave and reach out and try things and still know that at the end of the day, their family had their back.

Not any time soon, but one of these days. 

“Poe…” There’s a warning in Ben’s voice, and he’s got a hand outstretched, like he could tug on some invisible cord and get Poe away from the ledge. Tough luck, pal. You were going to have to come and get him. 

“What? You too scared to come and get me?” Listen, Poe lives a spaghetti at the wall kind of life. And he was just going to keep throwing things at Ben until something stuck and they were in that crystal clear water beneath them. Seriously, the rocks were starting to burn the bottom of Poe’s feet. It was hot out here. 

“Are you…” He sees the second Ben catches on to what he’s about to do, and Poe even hears the mumbled ‘don’t you dare’ before he starts clucking like a chicken. And Poe goes all in on it too, tucking his hands up against his armpits and flapping his “wings”. “Bock bock!”

Who knew that in a stream of care, and constructive criticism and even a commentary on the state of masculinity in the world, that it would be good old fashioned childish insults that got Ben to move. 

Poe has just enough time to think ‘victory!’ before that big, broad shouldered body connects with him and they go hurtling off of the edge of the cliff, Poe whooping the entire way down. The water feels solid for a moment before they break through and cold rushes around him, bright and bracing. 

He finds his bearings, kicking his feet to make his way back to the surface, shaking the hair out of his eyes like a dog. Ben isn’t far behind, sputtering and laughing all at the same time. Ben’s smile had the same effect on Poe’s stomach as jumping off of a cliff. 

A real nice swooping. 

“See?” He’s going to be smug now, Ben. No two ways about it. “I told you it would be fun.”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@polyfacetious​ someone take the post button away from me

For a second, he thinks about saying is this about my murder? 

But that’s not exactly what you lead with, especially when someone walked into Hill House after the doors have been shuttered for years. (This had Shirley written all over it.)

Steven wonders how much the big guy paid to bring equipment in here, to get behind the doors that Dad worked so hard to keep shut. 

He also thinks about telling him that no amount of EVPs or thermal imaging were going to show him what he wanted. The only way he’d see the truth was when the sun went down, and Steven wasn’t going to let him stick around that long. 

“Hi.” There’s a miniscule chance that the guy doesn’t know who he is, and Steve can play this like he’s just hanging around. 

It was worth a shot, especially if it meant keeping the twins from coming anywhere near the house to try and save the poor soul standing in front of him. 

[kingofdirtandnothing]

polyfacetious asked: ‘ you are an ocean that will perhaps never stop crashing ’

Between You and These Bones: (Accepting)

“When we were fourteen years old, I told you that I kissed Marriss Strand behind a shipping crate in the cargo bay. But it wasn’t true.” 

None of this feels true. It feels like a bad kriffing dream that Poe can’t wake up from. Ben’s lit up from that flickering, sputtering lightsaber that’s crackling against the blue one he’d picked up when Finn fell. 

This wasn’t his weapon. But it was his fight. More than anyone out here, this was his fight. Poe stumbles backwards, lightsaber flailing and it cuts through the tree trunk next to him like a hot knife through butter. 

Careful. He’s got to be careful. 

“I wanted you to be jealous.” The red blade slams down against the blue, again and again. Poe stumbles to a knee. He just has to hold on a little bit longer. “You make this face when you’re jealous, it’s...yeah. Yeah, that’s basically it.”

No, the snarl bathed in red above him is more vicious and angry than Poe had ever seen his friend. But even now, he couldn’t see some monster of the dark side. All he could see was a wounded animal baring their teeth. 

“Ben--” The blades press in closer and there’s a split second where Poe hears crackling flesh before he feels it, and he bites down on a scream, though it still echoes through the snow dusted trees around them. 

“Please.” Poe isn’t begging for his life. What good was his life if his family was torn apart? If the people he cared about couldn’t be free? If dying is what it took to wake Ben up, then so be it. 

The blue light cuts out, and Poe drops the hilt into the snow, looking up at his friend, at the lightsaber raised above his head. Their eyes lock, and for a second, one tiny second Poe sees Ben beneath the hurt and the pain. 

But then the lightsaber Poe dropped flies from its spot in the snow, and a hooded figure steps into the clearing.

[kingofdirtandnothing]

polyfacetious asked: “sometimes i wonder if it would be better to just sleep for a while. ”

Poetry Starters: (Accepting)

Distantly, beneath layers and layers of cotton batting hurt and ache radiating through the force, Magnus feels bad for those men he laid out on his way into here. They were people, real people beneath those masks with their own hopes and dreams and loves and life. 

But Magnus’ love was gone. And while those men behind their cold black masks would get up again, Magnus’ heart wouldn’t.

What am I supposed to do?

Well. Alec wouldn’t have that problem anymore. And neither would Magnus. 

“I’ve heard that a sith feels no pain.” Magnus wishes he could get the words out without his voice shaking. That he could be more than just a miserable maelstrom in the force, tainting everything around him with his pain. 

But the only answer he gets is silence, and another black mask staring back at him. 

“I want you to teach me how to not feel anything. I want to be one of your knights.”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

polyfacetious asked: the Force >_>

Five Sentence Sinday: (Accepting)

Foresight has always been his greatest weakness; too much time spent in the future and not enough spent in the present. Tony watches it all pass behind his eyelids where he kneels in the temple garden. 

Long limbs, short breaths, arching, writhing, needing. 

Loneliness becomes hurt, becomes anger, becomes cavernous distance, becomes the white hot heat of a lightsaber through his chest

In the present, in the future, the words are the same: 

I forgive you, Ben.

[kingofdirtandnothing]

polyfacetious asked: ‘  he is every amen i have ever laid down on lips  ’

Poetry Starters: (Accepting)

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

There’s no blood seeping between his fingers, because lightsabers cauterized wounds as they caused them. But Poe keeps looking down at his hand where it’s pressed to dark fabric. 

His fingers are clean, the crush of the waves around them hiding the frantic patter of Finn���s voice behind their crashing. But he knows he didn’t mean it. He knows that the dark side is a temptation, he’s watched Ben fighting it from the inside for so long now that he understands, he doesn’t blame Finn-

-but he wants to scream. Because this was his fault. He was the one who said the words, the ones that made Ben drop his lightsaber long enough for the hit to land. 

Poe said you were supposed to be my copilot and he ruined both their lives with it. 

Ben is cold, wet hair plastered to a pale face going even more bloodless, eyes already closed. 

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way.” Behind him, there are voices. More than just Finn. Poe can’t bring himself to care. He reaches out with a shaking hand to brush a dark strand away from Ben’s cold face. 

“I didn’t even tell you-”

His voice breaks on the word, throat so tight it feels like he’s suffocating.

“I love you.”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

polyfacetious said: ❛ Sleepless night? ❜

“Something like that.”

At this point, Din isn’t even sure the guy isn’t a hallucination. If he is, he’s got great hair for a hallucination. But not a great run of luck, if he’s getting thrown in here with him. 

“You know how it is. You get a little wild with the beatings and the hot irons and suddenly you’re too wired to sleep.”

He’s grateful he can’t see his back. Because every time Din looks down at the blistered skin on his arms, it makes his teeth hurt. 

But that might be the lack of food and water talking.

There’s not enough energy left in him to do more than scoot the few inches back against the wall. Which is stupid because his back hits concrete and Din’s vision whites out with pain for a couple of seconds there.

Did that count as sleep?

“You here to play good cop? Because I’ll take a glass of water and a sandwich, but I’m still not telling you where the kid is.”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

polyfacetious asked: Amortentia — Max

Amortentia Meme: (Accepting)

“Queen of the Night Jasmine.”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Fourteen

Luke doesn’t know how he gets so lucky in life. 

His Aunt Beru always told him that he had the kind of luck that meant he should play the lottery, as soon as he was old enough to do so. It was always the little things, like he could find Uncle Owen’s keys when he lost them in the house (usually stuffed under the couch cushions, near the corner) or that if something fell off of the counter, he could catch it before it broke. Or his phone, which managed to land face down every single time and not crack. 

But there was luck, and there was luck and Han Solo felt like Luke was cashing in all that lottery luck in one fell swoop. Not that Luke minded. Having Han around was worth having bad luck for the rest of his life, if that’s what it took to have Han around.

Because Han was the best. He was smart, and he was funny, and he had a big fluffy dog that growled at everyone, but let Luke pet him any time he reached out for him, his fluffy brown tail thumping against the ground. Luke was lucky that Han started talking to him outside of their flight school classes, because he’s pretty sure he would have flunked out of everything but simulation time if he didn’t. 

And Luke was so, so close to being able to take a plane up in the air. He couldn’t lose that, even to someone as amazing as Han Solo.

Not by himself, of course. That would be years before he’d be able to do that. But he’d be able to go up with the instructor, and finally be able to fly. It was all he had dreamed about since he was five years old. Finally being free. Finally flying. Seeing the clouds from the inside, knowing the feeling of the yoke in his hands and the wings responding to the gentlest of touches. Flying was going to be absolutely amazing, and he knew.

Luke was also pretty sure that flying would feel like holding Han’s hand. 

Like they were doing now, fingers laced together as Luke tugged Han down the beach with him, bare feet in the sand. They’d both left their shoes and socks behind a rock that was far enough in that they didn’t have to worry about the tide coming, and rolled up their pant legs to just below their knees. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

The sound of the waves washing up over the sand was like a whisper, a comforting familiarity. “I came out here a lot, when I first moved here. When my parents died.” Han squeezes his hand, but doesn’t say anything. Han understood that sometimes, there were no words to fix a bad situation. He knew that being there was all that Luke needed. Han was like the waves. Sometimes he was right there next to Luke and sometimes he was farther than a phone call away, but he was always within reach. A constant.

“When I sat out here, it’s like I couldn’t hear all the thoughts in my head. The ocean drowned them out.” Because they had been a nightmare carousel of horrible images, always circling around and around in his head. What was he going to do with his life now? Was Leia going to be okay? How was he supposed to wake up every day and know that he couldn’t hug his mom?

Luke could feel those dark, suffocating thoughts building up in the back of his mind. He closes his eyes, just like his therapist Ben taught him, taking slow, mindful breaths. Ben had told him that it wasn’t about outrunning your feelings, or escaping them. It was about naming them, and letting them be. Then letting them go.

Luke doesn’t even realize they’ve stopped walking until he feels Han’s hand on his shoulder, a slow and steady pressure that he can match up with his breathing. In, and out. In and out. Like the waves on the shore.

Sure enough, after a few more deep breaths, the feeling passes. Luke looks over his shoulder at Han, that same giddy flying popping to life in his chest when Han grins back at him. “Sorry.” 

Han shrugs. “No skin off my back, I’m not in a hurry.” But Chewie is, romping in circles around them and barking, his leash getting caught around Han’s ankles. “Alright, alright you big furball. Sit still for a second, will you?”

Luke tries not to laugh. Han talked to his dog the way most people talked to their siblings. It was kind of adorable. But Luke knew if he said anything about it that Han would just roll his eyes and brush him off. So he kept all thought of adorableness to himself. 

Once Chewie was free from his leash and able to bound down the beach in front of them, Luke takes up his spot again at Han’s side, lacing their fingers stubbornly. He got here himself. He was the one brave enough to make the move, he was the one who shoved Han up against his hunk of junk car and kissed him, even when he was scared out of his head. 

So yeah, he was going to take all the hand holding he could get, even if Leia rolled her eyes at him and Aunt Beru whispered behind her hand to Uncle Owen about how cute he was. Look at him Owen, he’s in love. Isn’t he darling?

Luke would be darling, so long as he could be it with Han. “Where are you taking me, anyway?” Han’s curiosity had a way of coming out sounding like a gripe. The best thing Luke ever did was learn the difference between Han griping for the fun of it, and Han actually being upset with him. One of them happened a heck of a lot less than the other, and it took the anxiety right out of being around him. 

And if there was one thing that Luke Skywalker had enough of, it was anxiety. 

“It’s a surprise, okay? You have to be patient.” Patient was’t a word that anyone used willingly for Han Solo. Especially walking down a deserted stretch of beach without a cloud in the sky or a person in sight. Luke could see how you could wonder just what in the world was going on. But that was part of the fun. 

Because he knew what was hiding down behind that next outcropping. He knew every inch of this beach. “You know, I could be working on my car right now.” See, that? That was Han griping just to hear himself talk. Maybe that’s what happened when you spent most of your time with a dog. You forgot other people could take part in conversations. 

“You could, but then you wouldn’t see this.”

Luke ducks around the rocks, tugging Han into the small cave they made on the edge of the beach. It was barely tall enough to stand in, and only a few feet deep. But it was a cove of quiet, no sounds of the highway nearby, just the crash of the waves and the gulls overhead. 

And the crackle of the candles Luke has slowly been hiding here for the last few weeks. There were tea candles from a pack that Leia bought, spread out on the higher edges of some of the rocks. There was even a caramel apple candle that Aunt Beru had in the top of the linen closet. 

They didn’t really light the place up, but Luke liked the look of them, tossing golden light and dancing shadows across the moss and the sand and the curves of the rocks where they jutted against each other. 

“Ta da!” Luke lets go of his hold on Han’s hand to stand in front of him, arms thrown out wide at his surprise. Behind him, there was a blanket (that’s why he found the caramel apple candle) held in place by two heavier rocks that Luke found out on the beach. “It’s a picnic. Just for us.” 

Chewie was sniffing around the blanket, wet nose snuffling and crusted with sand. And Han was fighting a smile, Luke could see it in the way he kept turning to take in the sights, even though the cave itself was only a little bit wider than Luke’s outstretched hands. “You did good, kid.” Those words made Luke’s chest feel tight with joy. “But I have just one question.” 

Han held a single finger up. There was a punchline coming, Luke could feel it. “Where’s the food?”

Luke sputters, looking around him in frantic circles. “Oh crap! I knew I forgot something!” The picnic basket, with its pilfered snacks, was sitting on the edge of Luke’s bed right now. “Aw man.” Luke runs a hand through his hair, stomach like a stone where it sits near his bare feet. He screwed it up. “I’m sorry, Han. I wanted this to be something special, to show you how much you mean to me. And I really screwed this one up.”

“Hey.” Han’s voice was honey smooth when he stepped in, a hand against Luke’s cheek. Luke leans into the touch, greedy as ever for Han’s attention. There was something about it that made him feel like the center of the universe. “I don’t need a picnic to know I mean something to you. You show me every day.”

It eased some of the knot of worry in Luke’s chest, and the next breath out comes a little easier. “It still would have been nice. I had crackers and grapes and everything.” No wine, because sixteen year olds couldn’t buy wine. But there was a bottle of sparkling water in the basket, to give them that bubbly feeling.

“Who are you telling? I skipped lunch today.” Chewie snorts, and Han shoots a glare down at the dog. “Yeah yeah, so I had a bag of chips. A filling lunch that does not make.” Han shakes his head, and turns his eyes back to Luke. “But I’d much rather find a use for our privacy here than worry about food.”

Luke swallows, and all thoughts of feeling bad about ruining the moment are gone with the way Han was looking at him. “I bet you can think of a whole bunch of ways we could use this place, huh Han?” Because Luke’s mind was running ninety to nothing right now with thoughts of all the things they weren’t able to do in Han’s car, or in Luke’s bedroom, where Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen wouldn’t let him shut the door all the way. 

“See? Now we’re on the same page, kid.” Han’s hand was warm where it was pressed against Luke’s hip, and he folds like a house of cards to sink down and sit on the blanket, a pile of knobby knees and pointed elbows that makes room for Han immediately. It was like Luke’s body had already learned muscle memory about Han, where to turn and twist and unfold to make room for him. 

And right on cue, Han kneels down in front of him and guides Luke back to a prone position, a hand against the back of his head to keep him from smacking it against the ground. (That was one of those things he loved about Han. He could grumble and complain, but he would always do what was best for people in the end. He had a good heart, no matter how much he wanted the world to believe he was a scoundrel.)

“Hi.” It’s a silly thing to say, with Han’s nose brushing against his. But Han smiles at him and the sun rises in Luke’s chest, and he doesn’t have a single brain cell left in his head to feel insecure or silly.

“Hey kid.”

And then Han kisses him, and the universe at large falls away.

[kingofdirtandnothing]

polyfacetious asked: Liberosis Obscure Feelings Meme: (Accepting)

Liberosis: The desire to care less about things.

“We’re going back soon.”

Vanya is saying goodbye to her girlfriend and her girlfriend’s kid. And honestly, with the Handler and all her minions, her shithead daughter included being mopped up by Herb and the Commission, there’s no reason to be in a hurry. 

The fight is over. The Apocalypse is gone. Here, and in 2019, if Herb is to be trusted. (If they jump back into smoke and rubble and blood, Five is going to shove the briefcase so far up Herb’s ass that the zipper gets caught on his teeth.)

They had nothing but time. A problem Five has had all his life, aside from these last fourteen days. 

Ekon is a goddamned oak tree next to him, even with the bloody lip and the bite marks. (Those weren’t from the fight. Those were from Five. Ekon finally stopped laughing at him, for the time being.) Five doesn’t know how to reconcile these two parts of his life occupying the same space. 

And Ekon, the bastard, is still too good at his job, even retired. Five doesn’t have to point out and name his siblings. Ekon has heard enough stories, and he watches them move around each other, dark eyes hyper focused. He names them with a pointed finger, one by one.

Vanya. Luther. Allison. Diego. Klaus. Ben?

Five shakes his head. He jabs at the split skin on the corner of his lip for something to focus on. “Ben died after I left.” And Five had been so damned focused on doomsday that he didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to him. 

Left is a hell of a word for it. Like it was a choice. Like he was anything other than a goddamn acorn in a hurricane. 

“Apparently he hung around as a ghost for seventeen years, but he finally got the hell out of this godforsaken family.”

Sometimes, he wonders if he’ll ever be able to look at his family and see anything other than their bodies. Outside of the Academy. Being sucked dry by Vanya. Being swallowed up by nuclear blasts. 

Five glances down at the briefcase at Ekon’s feet. “Back into retirement, huh? Must be nice.”

There’s a pressure building in his chest that Five won’t put words to. Because he knows what happens when they leave here. Everyone goes back into the wind. Back to their own lives. 

And he’s back to being alone. 

[kingofdirtandnothing]

polyfacetious asked: “ yesterday i almost told you everything. ”

Poetry Starters: (Accepting)

“Master Yoda told me once that failure is the greatest teacher.”

The hush of the ship sailing through space is the only sound in the room. The machines attached to Han’s temples and his chest don’t beep, their screens a silent watchtower of his healing. 

The doctors say his body is healed. Luke knows that it’s his heart that needs more time. 

“I didn’t listen.” Luke’s laugh is a faint sound, and he curls metal fingers against flesh just to feel the bite of it, to keep himself here. He’d spent too many years looking to the horizon, and the future. 

(Absently, he knows it’s a Skywalker curse. That Leia is just as prone to looking ahead instead of to now. They’ve never been good at being in the present, and their lives have suffered for it.)

He spent the rebellion telling himself just one more mission. He’d tell Han the next time he flew back to base. Or the next time they were alone on the Falcon together. Over and over again, Luke gave up the present in exchange for a glimpse at the future. 

And it cost him. It cost all of them. Ben. Leia. Han. Luke’s hubris and his far flung vision cost them all, and there was nothing in the galaxy he could do to fix that. Nothing he could say, no cure all for these wounds. 

“I told him that I wasn’t afraid.” Everything made sense back then. There was evil to fight, he had his friends beside him. Life was black and white and Luke had both feet planted firmly in the light. “And he told me that I would be.”

But Yoda didn’t tell him how much he’d grapple with his anger. With the rage that filled him when he held Mara’s broken body in the rubble of their broken base. When he felt that darkness inside of Ben. 

When he walked away. 

“And he was right.”

Luke keeps his eyes low. If he looks up at Han’s pale, unchanging face he knows he’ll feel that treacherous anger threaten to take him over again. (The anger that started this all. That drove Ben Solo over the edge and into the shadows.)

“That’s why I need you to come back, Han.”

The words catch in his throat, and Luke has to swallow, his voice young. 

“Come back to me. Please.”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@polyfacetious​ didn’t ask for this and yet

They’re holed up in Cuilapa, waiting for orders. Redfly has been pacing the damn floor for an hour now, Ironhead and Ben playing cards out on the porch to try and get something like fresh air. 

(And they’re watching the perimeter, in that lazy bullshit way of theirs. They make it look easy.)

And Santiago, he is resolutely not watching Frankie take apart and meticulously clean his rifle, because if he starts thinking about those hands or the way Frankie bites down on the inside of his cheek when he’s focusing, then things are going to get real fucking awkward.

It happened to everyone, they said. You caught feelings for your CO because he was your lifeline in the field. It’ll pass, they said. (Ironhead said.)

It wasn’t passing. Not when it came to Fish.

[kingofdirtandnothing]

polyfacetious asked: 💀

Sad Fucking Death Meme: (Accepting)

The world ends not with a bang, or a whimper. It ends with his sister’s scream, a lifetime of abuse breaking around them, tearing their broken family into little pieces. 

Diego thinks once, briefly, that at least he gets to see Ben again. 

Klaus’ voice is there, a whimper building on a soft crescendo of no no Diego no and Diego has to pull himself out of the fog of pain to focus on his brother’s face. 

There’s blood seeping between Klaus’ splayed fingers, and he’s not going to last much longer either, skin the color of bone. But he’s dragged himself, a bloody red streak, to where Diego’s trapped, rebar jutting up in between his ribs. 

“Hey.” His hands are numb, pins and needles, but he gets one up to brush against Klaus’ cheek, leaving behind another smear of red there. His red on Klaus’ skin, Klaus’ red on his jaw. 

It’s always been right, even when it was wrong. 

Klaus puts his head on Diego’s chest. Listening to his heartbeat like he used to do when they were kids, to drown out the ghosts. 

“L-l-love y-y-”

He doesn’t get the words out before the last piece of the ceiling comes crashing down on them.