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ahsokathegray · 9 months ago

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Rain Over Me

Pairing: Rexsoka

Prompt: Rexsoka Monthly Dec. ‘23 - Unexpected Encounters

Summary: When it rains, it pours. At least, that’s how Rex had always heard it. But he soon finds even the most dreadful of rains give life back to that which lacks it.

Tags: angst, bittersweet, rainy confessions, lost without each other, established relationship, post bad batch

Word Count: 3,426

A/N: this was just an excuse to write sad, lonely Rex with a reunion in the rain and I’m only somewhat sorry (@rexsoka-monthly)

read on ao3! / masterlist

The wood on the dusty, old shack was darker now with the onslaught of rain. Its months dry boards drank in the water and was hydrated once more, appearing to be in its prime again if only until the rain cleared. In more ways than one, it had been a dreary summer and the rain was much needed.

Rex had grown fond of the little restaurant — if one could call it that.

It wasn’t kept up to standards, he was most certain. He’d only seen someone sweep the place once. It was a sad little place, but comforting in its own right. The only faces that were constant here were those of the owner or the employees. Rex never saw anyone else twice.

Maybe he saw a bit of himself in the old shack — weary, unkempt, a stranger to itself, lacking energy.

He wasn’t an old man, no, the cure had stopped all that. But he did feel like it, and he’d always look older than his true age. Seventeen years of life didn’t reflect what he felt in his joints, what he recalled in his mind, what was on his false chain code, and what he saw when he looked back at himself in the mirror.

Yeah. Like the shack in the rain, he felt he was falsely young in appearance. It felt wrong not to age so quickly anymore, even though it was the most normal part of human life.

Rex carded a few fingers through his short, blonde curls, wicked the rain off his coat, and ascended the creaky steps. He took a menu, even though he knew he’d order the same thing as always, and seated himself at his usual booth.

The owner, who was old, wordlessly brought him a steaming cup of caf.

“I see we are past the point of asking now,” Rex observed, a corner of his mouth turning up.

A raspy laugh filled the stale, humid air, “What can I say? You’re my favorite regular, Rex!”

The other corner of Rex’s mouth raised, “I’m your only regular, Mr. Kip.”

“And a damn good tipper too,” the Ithorian man smiled, winking before walking back into the kitchen.

Well, he had nothing else to spend his credits on.

Rex scanned the menu items as if he didn’t already have the selections memorized. Even the daily special was the same every single day. Nothing changed and he found he had no qualms about that. After years of unpredictability and pushing his body, mind, and heart to their limits of strain, he found peace in the monotony of routine.

After much deliberation, Rex settled on the Single Sun Breakfast to no surprise. He half expected his meal to be brought out without confirmation, but old Kip stopped back by to make sure anyway.

He could get used to it — the not talking. It was rare he did much of it anyway these days, what with living alone. And, truly, he did enjoy the company of the staff, but the more minimal the interactions the better. Getting attached to people was a flaw he would never risk again. Losing so many loved ones in such a small frame of time would prompt anyone to make such vows.

Rex very much hoped there was a version of himself out there that hadn’t sworn it off, that he was happy and surrounded by those he held dear.

His fork was turned around in his fingers as he tried to ignore the fact he’d finally acknowledged that he was unhappy. It had been that way for years now and it was difficult to revisit the last time the opposite had been true.

It had been warm on Mandalore, when rumors of the war ending sparked hope rather than memories of almost; when battle felt good and he felt invincible and life had been first punctuated by something like love and a woman like her.

Squeezing the cutlery, he set it back down and threaded his fingers together, glancing out the condensating window instead.

Rain came down violently onto the flora just outside the establishment, but pattered softly on the windowsill. Every now and then, a drop found its way inside, or perhaps it was the water droplets still clinging to his hair. Oh, if that illustrious Captain could see him now. That version of himself would disapprove immensely of so many things — but his hair would be at the top of the list.

He did not wish to remind himself of what came second and was thankful when he spotted his plate emerging from the kitchen. His breakfast was brought out with little fanfare and looked as if always did. This pleased him.

As he ate, he thought of what he needed to get done in the upcoming week. He needed to give the old Y-wing a fresh coat of paint; the Republic and medic insignias were becoming visible again, as well as a damning shade of blue. The hole in the roof of his tiny home needed to be patched still. He kicked himself for not doing it sooner and added purchasing a bucket to his growing list.

Something like a laugh escaped him around a bite of rolled omelette, thinking about his helmet being used to collect water from a roof leak. It was when his head lifted up to do this that he saw a pair on montrals facing away from him, seated at a booth closer to the door.

There was a tightening in his lungs and the gaping hole in his heart was reopened; discarded of anything he’d ever used to cover it with. Rex swallowed hard and placed his head in his hands, counting as he regulated his breathing.

This happened every time he thought he saw her.

And, without fail, it was never her.

He ought to have internalized that by now. It had just been so long since the last time he mistook someone else for her. Lone Togrutas were not a sight seen often; they didn’t tend to stray very far from Kiros or Shili.

Rex wished that wasn't the case.

Seeing them more often might’ve kicked this fool’s hope earlier — the one that bubbled up violently inside him whenever he caught a glimpse of three lekku rather than the usual two or, like today, a set of montrals.

They were femininely shaped and blue, just like he knew hers to be, which didn’t help matters.

Getting up from the table to visit the refresher solely to see if it was her was something he was not going to let himself do. He had to get over this. He couldn’t let it control the trajectory of his day each time it happened.

Exhaling and centering himself, Rex finished his meal with a difficulty that hadn’t been present before and told himself his appetite was still there even though that was far from the case. Memories of similar breakfasts in similar restaurants with her bullied their way to the forefront of his mind. Small bouquets of freshly plucked flowers, dirt still clinging to them, being given to her and then placed in a cup of water from wherever they’d been eating.

Rex couldn’t help himself.

Once his plate was clear, he looked across the six booths that separated them. But the woman’s montrals were nowhere to be seen. Rex waited a little longer to see if she was just leaning down looking over a menu or taking a bite of food, but the montrals did not reappear.

Panic swept through him, his veins turning into hot plasma underneath his skin.

He rose promptly from his booth, eyes glued to the one she’d been at. Only a half finished mug of tea sat on the table. She never did like caf. His heart rate shifted into high gear and he made a beeline for the register, already fishing around in his pocket for credits, his fingers shaking.

“Oh, there’ll be no need today,” Kip said with a particularly pleased smile.

The hand in Rex’s pocket stilled and his heart leapt into his throat. “What do you mean?” His voice rattled as he spoke.

“Why, the young lady who just left covered your meal. Said to thank you for your service,” The Ithorian pointed to the entrance as the door slid closed.

For the first time in a long time, the world around Rex melted away and began to slow. Everything became muffled. The credit chits he had in his hand were placed onto the counter despite what the owner had just told him and before he could even tell them to do so, his feet were carrying him to the exit.

“Rex, what do you want me to do with this?”

“I don’t care,” he answered without looking back. “Pay it forward.”

Thick sheets of rain now came from the sky, pouring down so heavily that the world around him had turned white. The clouds flickered and thunder sounded, accompanied by angry strikes of lightning. Any footprints that might’ve been left behind in the mud had been washed away as quickly as they were made.

Whoever she was… she was gone.

A hand was clapped to his shoulder but Rex didn’t look down.

Kip sounded confused yet sympathetic. “She’s not gettin’ away in that, if that’s what you’re thinking.” The old man paused. “If you’re after her, I reckon’ she’ll be back again tomorrow.”

The hand was removed and Kip walked away, but Rex stayed frozen in the doorway. If it was her, he was doubtful she’d be back for breakfast the following morning. She could get away even in the most hopeless conditions.

Rex clenched his teeth, pulled his raincoat tighter and set out anyway.

It was like he hadn’t been living on Dantooine for the past year and a half. He was directionless, as if all the memorized paths, landmarks, and shops had been washed away with the rain. There was no departing vehicle, no lights, and no indicator of where the woman had gone.

Defeated, Rex looked up into the sky with his eyes closed, letting the rain fall over his face and streak through his hair. His chest had knotted itself and his knees threatened to buckle under the torrential downpour.

But Rex stood firmly, shoved his hands into his pockets, and let the rain soak him to the bone as he walked towards the small town.

He spent the remainder of his morning stopping by every establishment there was until the shopkeepers started closing up due to weather. The folks he did manage to speak with hadn’t seen her and each tried to hand him an umbrella or invite him inside until the storm passed.

He declined.

Straggling passersby still caught in the rain gave him funny looks as they ran to get to cover. Rex was in no such hurry.

The overgrown road that led to his tiny home was taken in the shortest possible strides. He did not wish to return there, especially not to a datapad he knew would have no messages on it. He had half a mind to turn back to the restaurant if he didn’t think they’d already closed up like everyone else.

Rex stepped into his home and was greeted by the sound of dripping water. He sighed deeply, unmoving in the doorway until he could suppress the viscous tears that taunted him behind closed lids. Once they were managed, his boots and raincoat were discarded, the mess from the leak was mopped, and his helmet was removed from its place under the bed to sit and collect the intruding water.

He watched the rain fill his bucket until it went past the visor before he fell into the awaiting embrace of sleep that was always there to help temporarily subside the pain.

More than anything, Rex wished he could say that he hadn’t woken up early, that he hadn’t gotten up before the neighbor’s nunas began to stir. He wished he could say it wasn’t in his plans to go sit up at the restaurant and wait all day to see if the woman turned up.

Really, he should be using his time to buy paint for his ship as well as a proper bucket for the leak, but neither of those things seemed to matter much at the prospect of running into her.

It was pathetic. He knew that.

He could’ve just saved himself all this trouble if he’d gotten up and used something as an excuse to see her face. But no, Rex chose to be strong when it mattered the absolute least.

His thin blanket felt as though it weighed ten tons when he rose out of bed, dreading vehemently the idea of waiting around all day for nothing — dreading the pit in his stomach he knew all too well when it wasn’t her after all and just some stranger. Rex’s feet hit the worn wooden floor and he rubbed his bleary eyes, aiming first for the refresher and then for his helmet.

A considerable amount of rainwater had been collected in the makeshift-not-makeshift bucket and more was being added still. The rain had yet to cease but it had slowed a great deal. He picked it up carefully and walked it to the door, yawning as he did so. Soft sheets of rain greeted his bare feet as the door slid aside, coming down now in a gentle shower-like way as opposed to yesterday’s storm.

Rex decided that when the rain stopped, he’d call it. He’d tie his mood to it, give himself an allotted period of time to feel this incessant pain before forcing it down again.

He swung his helmet to the left and watched as the water landed on his long-dead flowers, before looking out at the state of the rest of his yard.

The helmet nearly fell from his hands.

A hooded figure was inspecting his ship, an orange hand running across a partially revealed red sigil and skirting across blue paint. Any fleeting thoughts of making a grab for his blasters vanished. Rex knew that hand better than either of his own.

She turned and lifted slightly the hood of her cloak to get a better look at him.

There she was. Then she was as if no time at all had passed. As if she’d been down the road all along.

Ahsoka was dressed in that gray cloak he knew well, with lekku he used to know but that were now nearing her waist. Her montrals were taller than they were last time. He wondered if they’d be eye to eye this time, and if looking her in the eyes would still feel the same as it always did, as he wanted it to — needed it to.

Even from this distance, he could see her bottom lip quiver.

“I had to be sure,” she called out over the rain.

Rex struggled to speak, suffering from having too many words in his mouth and yet not at all.

She glanced back at the Y-wing behind her and ran a hand over the chipped paint job, revealing a bit more of that 501st blue.

“I knew your face as soon as I walked into the restaurant yesterday, but I wasn’t certain that it was the one… that it was the one I had loved,” she continued.

He joined her in the rain now. It was cold on his bare shoulders and worse as it streaked down his torso, but he didn’t shiver, nor did he care he’d be tracking yet more water inside. Rex’s chest tightened and his mouth dried. “Loved? As in the past tense?” he called, water beading on his hair and lashes. Not all of it was from the rain.

Ahsoka shook her head, droplets running off her lekku.

The pause between them was occupied by the steady fall of rain.

“You know the worst thing about love?” he asked.

She nodded, looking briefly at her feet, “That you remember it.”

Rex’s tongue pressed into his cheek and he nodded with her, “I knew from the moment we parted the first time that I’d spend a lifetime missing you.” He waited a bit. “It’s proved true so far. Each time it gets worse.”

He couldn’t tell her tears from the rain, but knew that she was crying. Rex was always aware that it hadn’t ever hurt any less for her. “I never intended it to be that way,” she called.

“I know.”

She stepped closer, weighing her words. “Rex, the hardest thing I’ve ever done is walk away still madly in love with you. There’s not a minute that goes by that I don’t regret it — that I don’t sit and wonder about what you do each day.”

“Well currently, it’s wishing I’d gotten up as soon as I saw you sitting at that booth. I’d know your montrals anywhere. Convinced myself it wasn’t you.”

“And before that?”

“Wishing I never let you say goodbye.”

She swallowed hard. “I have a lot to make up for. I know that. And I know this doesn’t begin to cover it, but do you think I could start with breakfast?” she asked, holding up the takeaway box that was under her cloak. “Mr. Kip told me where I could find you, said you ran out after me.”

Rex couldn’t suppress his smile. “No. Breakfast was covered yesterday. I think you’ll have to get more creative than that today.”

Ahsoka laughed and bit her lip, her eyes overcome with emotion. Shaking his head, Rex dropped his helmet into the flowerbed and all but ran to her, holding her trembling frame to him with possibly too much strength. The box fell. Her arms wrapped under his and he found that she fit better than she ever used to. He removed her hood with desperation and his chin fell into place between her montrals, still having at least one head in height over her. Rex kissed repeatedly the space between her uppermost chevrons as the sobs took control of her body.

The rain slowed to a drizzle and, as he’d vowed earlier, his mood lifted with it. Morning rays peeked out at them from behind the trees, warming their skin.

Being with Ahsoka was like walking into the sun, like walking directly into sunlight after the longest winter.

She pulled away first, though by the look on her face, it seemed to be the last thing she wanted to do. Her eyes were glued to the mangled scar on his chest, momentarily ashamed of looking him in the face.

But Rex’s hand slid under her jaw and moved her to look up at him. “I can’t think of anything better than breakfast with you. We’ve suffered enough, Ahsoka. Come inside. Stay with me until we have no choice but to leave; and even then, stay with me until there are no more planets left to run to. Let’s have breakfast together for as long as this life allows us because life without you is no way to live.”

“I haven’t had breakfast in a year and a half,” she said, tears streaking her cheeks.

Rex wiped them away. “You’re not missing out. It doesn’t taste the same when we aren’t together.”

Ahsoka eyed the slightly crumpled box of food on the ground and Rex picked it up, popping it back into its correct shape and wicking the water from it.

Apologies tumbled from her lips, but Rex wouldn’t hear any of it. She’d fought and offered her aid to the Rebellion until she couldn’t any more; until she was sure they could manage without her and that Rex wouldn’t die if she came home. It was the type of thing he had long since accepted — back when it had been cold on that moon, when rumors of another war began, and battle no longer felt good and he no longer felt invincible unless he was with her. Only one thing stayed the same. Life had still been punctuated with something far greater than love and a woman named Ahsoka.

His eyes did all the asking as he leaned in close. Ahsoka gave the faintest of nods, allowing him to kiss away her apologies; first slowly and then with an energized passion only she could provoke.

And just as he hoped they would, Ahsoka’s fingers found his curls, and he carried her and their very cold breakfast inside, leaving his helmet to become the home for several long years of blossoming flowers.

#rexsoka #rexsoka fic #rexsoka monthly #december 2023: unexpected encounters #my fic #ahsokathegray #rain over me

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foldingfittedsheets · 8 months ago

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My mom has this awful friend, Cynthia. My loathing goes deep enough that I’m not even going to change her name. If she ever finds this she knows what she did.

On multiple occasions my mom asked this horrible irresponsible chicken brained woman to watch after our animals while we were away. I don’t know why once wasn’t enough, because the first failure was so spectacular that anyone in their right mind would know she couldn’t be trusted with any level of responsibility or direction following.

You might be thinking to yourself, FFS, this level of antipathy is surely unwarranted! But you’d be wrong.

To set the scene, we were living in downstairs of our house when I was about fifteen. My mom has always wanted more animals than can reasonably be kept indoors which is how we ended up with three cats. When she wanted to kick them all outside I protested, and so all three cats lived in my bedroom with no access to the rest of the house.

That really wasn’t great, so in an attempt to give them options we made a window cutout with a cat door in it to give them access to the outdoors. Looking back on this as an environmentally conscious adult it’s wretched, cats should be indoor only, but at the time I was desperate to give them some freedom because one bedroom is too small for three cats.

So my parents and I went on a week long trip to visit family out of state. We told Cynthia to come feed and water the cats, and to scoop the litter box. Most importantly, don’t lock the handle of the door, because we only have the key to the deadbolt.

I’m sure you can see where this is going.

Cynthia locked us out. We arrived home after 12 hours on the road, desperate for the comfort of our own beds. We were met with an unyielding door. With a sigh I volunteered, “I can punch in the cat door and climb in the window.”

I slipped behind the bamboo outside my window and pushed in the cutout. A horrible insidious reek wafted out at me. I paused, prickling with foreboding. But I had a job to do, and by god I’d see it through. I hefted myself up into the window and my hand immediately landed in something wet.

Skin crawling, I pulled myself up and surveyed the darkened room as a miserable odor of decay and suffering poured out of the room around me. I could see dark shapes littering the carpet and it didn’t take a genius to guess that the cats had taken up hunting in a big way during my absence.

I pulled my hand out of the pile of vomit it had landed in and dropped into my onetime bedroom turned now into a hellpit of decomposing wretchedness. I turned on the light. I wished I had not turned on the light.

My eyes scanned across the floor, tallying as they went. Two dead birds, a dead baby rabbit, five dead mice, and one dead snake. I paused on my alarm clock, perplexed to see a stain of white on it. I stepped closer and saw a furtive movement.

The tally suddenly contained also: one live bird that had shit in several places, probably in pure terror to find itself trapped in a room littered with decomposing woodland creatures, which honestly, fair. I coaxed it out the window and finished the survey with five discrete piles of vomit.

I unlocked the door and let my parents in. They exclaimed in disgust at the horrible smell. We stood together in my doorway floored by the magnitude of neglect. The unscooped litter box was a subtle footnote in the tangible reek my living space. I disposed of the parade of ecological disaster, cleaned vomit, and scooped the box after a brutally long day on the road. The cats were fine, and happy to see me. They had a huge dish or food and water so Cynthia’s neglect at least hadn’t harmed them.

Then I slept on the couch while my bedroom aired out, the windows flung wide to dispel the uneasy ghosts of the hunted. I spent the whole night cursing Cynthia’s name for this evil she’d visited upon me. When my mom asked her, "Cynthia, didn't you see the dead animals?"

Cynthia responded, "Yes, they smelled so bad, I just ran in and out as fast as I could." I fully don't believe she did any caretaking, and I'm personally of the opinion that she locked herself out on the first day and never came back.

The next day my room had returned to a habitable level of smellscape and I gratefully crawled into my bed that night. I stretched out and froze as my foot brushed something cold and wet?

The final indignity: one last dead snake, inside my very sheets.

Fucking Cynthia.

#ramblies #story #ffs foibles #keep your cats inside #but also looking back like why didn't I change my sheets #I did not have good bed hygiene instilled in me from my parents #later that lady would go on to leave a huge metal dish of dog food in the middle of the yard #despite the fact that we told her over and over not to feed the dog because he was on a diet #and I knew not to trust her so my friend was coming twice a day to feed him his portioned out meals #he gained like ten pounds in the week we were gone eating rained on mushy dog food #that fucking woman was a menace #Cynthia

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