#ruescott melshi x you

[littlemisspascal]

The When (Part 3)

Pairing: Ruescott Melshi x Female Reader

Word Count: 13k+

Summary: There is a story before, when, and after Keef Girgo enters your life. This is the When.

Rating: M (18+, minors please do not engage!)

Warnings: Prison/Narkina 5 storyline but an AU where woman inmates are assigned to each unit as ‘peacekeepers’, language, established relationship, non-descriptive smut + references of smut, possessiveness, violence + blood + injuries, non-important character deaths, talk of having children

- Reader has no official name and no physical traits described in detail. However, she is implied to be shorter than Melshi.

Author Note: Thank you everybody for the kind support of this story! So sorry it’s been such a long wait for this update, life’s been more hectic than I would like. This chapter's extra long though to make up for it 😄

Special thanks to @beecastle for beta reading and encouraging me 💜

The Before | The When Part 2 | The After

In the morning you only remember snippets of Keef and Melshi’s conversation. Neither of them act any different than usual, scarfing down their meals before the alarm sounds. Part of you wants to ask, to see their reactions play out across their faces and their bodies squirm like flies caught in a web. But the other part, louder and more insistent, demands you hold your tongue. Let Melshi come to you as he always has no matter the situation.

And if he doesn’t…well. What goes around comes around, right? You’re already familiar with the pain of lying to him. It can’t hurt much worse, you reckon, being on the other side.

You divert your gaze to your breakfast before Melshi can catch you staring, forcing yourself to swallow another bite. But it does nothing to fill the pit inside you. 

—

It’s not until hour nine of your shift that Keef interrupts the sound of metal meeting metal, drill tip piercing through the widget’s charcoal gray exterior, by announcing an idea. 

“Table Three’s starting to lag,” he points out, gesturing with a subtle nod of his head. Taga and Xaul’s eyes instantly follow the direction, listening as their hands continue the mindless task of twisting bolts into place. “We can take the shift if we push.”

“We’re already ahead of Four,” Jemboc says, looking at the stats screen on the console. 

Taga’s eyes spark with determination. “I could use a proper meal.”

You can count on both hands the amount of times Table Five has finished first. Last win had been before Keef’s arrival. You remember the sweetened flavor added to the dinner mush had tasted like honey on your tongue and like heaven on Melshi’s lips. 

“Two’s a threat,” Xaul declares, but that’s not what has your heartbeat stuttering.

Ulaf’s rubbing at his right hand, digits stiff and slightly swollen, a grimace of pain pulling at his mouth. The old man’s always been one of the hardest workers in the unit, but lately his strength has started to wane, especially in the aftermath of the resentencing and the worsening conditions.

“Ulaf?” Melshi asks, brow furrowed. His voice is quiet, carefully prodding. 

Everyone plays a significant part in the group. And if something is wrong with one person, be it an injury or an illness or lapse of concentration, the consequences affect everyone. No way around it. The loss of Tress had Table Five winding up in the box. Melshi admitted it had been a damn miracle there hadn’t been a return trip when you’d been taken away yesterday so early in the shift, the boys hustling their asses off to stay ahead of last place.

Pushing harder for a victory isn’t worth the sweet reward if it worsens the poor state of Ulaf’s hand.

“What do you say, old timer?” Jemboc looks up from the screen for the deciding vote.

Xaul wags a correcting finger. “That’s short timer.”

Jemboc ignores the redhead, still looking at Ulaf. “Well? Wanna make a run for the win?”

Ulaf bites his lip, glancing around at the group with uncharacteristic apprehension. You know he’s hurting, that much is obvious in the tight lines of his face, but you also know he doesn’t want to be the weak link in the chain. Stupid men and their stupid stubborn pride. 

His agreement with the plan is predictable.

What is not predictable is Keef offering to switch places with you so he’s next to Ulaf.

“What?” Your eyebrows climb up your forehead as he slides around you and nudges you into his former space with his elbow. You look to the others for an explanation when they don’t protest the change. “Why?”

“Keef is faster,” Melshi says without skipping a beat.

You give him a wide-eyed look, jaw dropping. “Excuse me.”

Melshi merely stares back, neither repeating nor refuting his claim, and you can’t help pouting. It’s only because you’re looking at him do you catch the subtle lifting of the corner of his mouth into a smirk, how his brown eyes light up with amusement.

“I’ll remember that,” you grumble even as a shiver runs along your spine, confirming once again how far gone you are for this man.  

“Someone’s sleeping in the doghouse tonight,” Ham mutters teasingly while reaching for the overhead drill.

“He’s not wrong though,” Xaul says, only to duck his head with a wince when you send him a heated glare.

The sharp retort forming on your tongue is replaced with a startled gasp when Kino announces his presence by asking, “What’s all this?”

You’ll never understand how a man with such a loud, powerful voice and intimidating appearance can sneak around on silent feet. It’s like he enjoys sucking all the air from your lungs in one nerve-wracking whoosh.

Jemboc, to his credit, manages to refrain from jumping, but his stammering response betrays his nerves. “Oh, uh, just a little rebalancing.”

Kino steps forward, forcing the other man away from the console and then proceeds to tap at the screen. 

“Ulaf.” The way the manager says his name is noticeably more bark than his usual bite, but nobody’s a big enough idiot to comment on it. “What do you owe?”

Rubbing at his aching hand, Ulaf answers, “It’ll be forty-one shifts tomorrow.” 

“You are the next man out of here.” Kino presses a few more buttons on the screen, and there’s a new note of genuine praise slipping into his tone. If Kino was the type of man to regularly smile, you think he’d definitely be doing so now. “The shortest of the short.”

Ulaf manages a small, brief grin at the news. 

Kino looks over at you, then Keef. “This swap your idea?”

You swallow, adjusting your grip on the tool in your now-sweaty hand. It’s impossible to tell whether he approves or not.

“Me? No.” Keef shakes his head before pointing a finger directly at you. “It was hers.”

Once your brain realizes how smoothly he’s shifted the blame, your whole body stiffens. Your eyes snap to Keef, delivering an incredulous look that roughly translate to are you fucking kidding me. He shrugs one shoulder, seemingly replying sorry not sorry. 

“Smart move,” is all Kino says at last.

It takes everything in you not to let your jaw drop. Praise from Kino is just as rare as a first place win. You somehow manage a jerky nod of your head before Melshi saves you from further embarrassment by passing over the drill. 

The way he’s looking at Kino though gives you pause. Not quite glaring, but the distrust is visible in his eyes, watching every movement critically.

The dynamic between the two men has shifted since yesterday. Melshi’s still angry about being seized against his will, how Kino prevented him from reaching you. Another prime example of stupid stubborn pride.

You hate that yesterday happened at all, but well, even you can acknowledge Kino’s unbreakable hold spared Melshi from ending up with a blaster bolt in the chest from the trigger-happy guards. 

If you’re being totally honest, in an odd and twisted way you actually find yourself grateful for the manager’s intervention.

You hope Melshi will come to his senses sooner rather than later and let go of his grudge. You don’t like these lines being drawn, dividing friend from foe amongst the ranks. The only ones who are supposed to be the enemy are the guards and the puppet masters they report to.

You’re pulled out of your head, nearly drilling a hole straight into the table, when Keef decides to open his mouth and ask:

“So, in forty-two days we’ll get a new man?” 

Out of the corner of your eye, you glimpse Keef looking at Kino and Kino resolutely staring down at his pad. It’s a dumb question. The kind of question meant to provoke a reaction—which kind Keef’s aiming for at this moment you have no idea, but you doubt it’s the long stretch of silence he receives.

“Always the next day, right?” Keef continues, eyes big and round, and he’s either as oblivious to the prison system as he sounds or he’s completely full to the brim of bantha-shit.

Kino slowly lifts his head, expression the flattest you’ve ever seen it be, as if it’s been carved in stone. It’s the kind of look a man gets when he’s reached his tolerance limit and is one irritation away from committing unforgivable acts of violence. 

“You know the drill,” he says. The words themselves are bone dry, but the warning laced within them—don’t fuck around with me, boy—is a bucket of ice water poured over the entire group.

Everyone seems to exhale a simultaneous shaky breath once Kino’s moved on to shout at another table. Everyone that is, except for Keef.

When he turns around, you watch as his mouth curls into a smirk. It’s a smug little thing, almost amused. He catches Melshi’s eyes, and there’s something that passes between the two men that has you instinctively bristling, the memory of last night’s conversation flickering in the back of your mind.

You hadn’t been awake to hear if Melshi agreed to join Keef’s escape attempt or not, but looking at them now, your stomach can’t help sinking to your bare feet. Maker, you pray you’re wrong.

—

Ulaf’s behavior takes a turn for the stranger during the final hour of the day’s shift. 

Blinking rapidly. Stalling in the middle of a task before seeming to jerk back to awareness. Sweating profusely. Little quirks which might not be noticeable on their own, but when combined in alarmingly increasing frequency it isn’t long before all the members of Table Five are shooting concerned glances his way. 

Then he starts asking questions.

“Where do we stand?”

“Are we in the game?”

“What’s our time?”

Again, they might not seem troubling on their own, but—

“Ulaf,” Ham says, watching him carefully, “we just talked about this. We told you just a minute ago.”

He’s old and his memory’s not as sharp as it was ten, twenty years ago, but Ulaf’s never once repeated the same question less than three minutes after first asking it. 

He also never loses his temper, even when the group’s dead last.

His wrinkled face scrunches up, eyes turning icy. “Do you think I don’t wanna win? Am I working or not?” he snaps. 

You sneak a glance at the rest of the group, finding their expressions of discomfort match your own. Xaul and Taga’s eyes are glued to the tabletop, looking like they’d love to be anywhere else in the galaxy but here. Poor Ham resembles a scolded child in the wake of Ulaf’s verbal lashing with his head ducked down, lower lip clenched between his teeth.

Only Melshi’s brave enough—foolish enough—to maintain steady eye contact. You can sense the tension radiating off of him despite his neutral, almost empty expression. Once Ulaf notices Melshi’s stare, the old man bares his teeth like a cornered dog.

“Stop wasting our time staring at me.” Grabbing hold of the widget’s arm, he forcefully turns it in a surprising display of strength. “Shift’s not over yet.”

It doesn’t take a genius to know something’s deeply wrong here. Regardless, you tell yourself everything will be okay. He’s just tired, is all. Everybody has their off days, and today just happens to be Ulaf’s.

But deep down, somewhere dark and cold you don’t want to acknowledge, there’s a heavy weight of certainty this is a problem no amount of sleep will fix.

—

The usual rush of excitement that accompanied past wins doesn’t come this time. No satisfaction or joy either. There’s just raw and untamed worry buzzing so frenziedly along every nerve you can’t help staring at your feet, convinced for a genuine second or two the floor of the skybridge is hot. Even as a winner the effects of the box continue haunting you.

Melshi says nothing when you lean back against him, only settles his chin atop your head and a hand on your hip, his warmth a tether for you to cling to. That tension you sensed before is still there, still hidden. You wonder how he manages it, keeping his emotions caged the way he does when he’s such a tempest beneath the surface. Maybe he can teach you one day, little by little, just like Taga taught you the basics of signing.

During your first lesson, Taga told you the gestures used to communicate in the skybridges are as unique to Narkina 5 as the Tunqstoid floors, their origins tied to the prison’s inception and its first generation of inmates. 

Only about three or four men in the unit, including Taga, are fluent enough to send and interpret messages back and forth with ease. A few, like you, can follow along with conversations by watching, but haven’t quite gotten down the hand motions enough to join in. The majority don’t have the patience to learn how to do either, and patience is perhaps the most important element of all.

Both arms are wholly used from shoulder to fingertip. Every flick of the wrists, flex of the fingers, and shrug combined together can share a whole story without one spoken word. However, like all languages, the Narkina 5 method of communication isn’t without its faults. It can take several days for news to spread from the highest level to the lowest since the groups only pass through the skybridges twice a day. Even worse, all it takes is one mistranslation of a gesture for the entire message to change.

Up ahead in the line, Taga’s arms are a flurry of motion, eyes locked with another prisoner’s across the distance. Your mind makes an attempt at translating, but there’s too much movement of men in-between obscuring your line of sight to piece the gestures together. 

The queue is taking longer than usual. Every minute crawling by only increases the restlessness in the small space. Bodies start to sway, voices start to rise in volume.

“Keep it down,” Kino warns, but the effect only lasts mere seconds before the cycle of grumbling starts back up again.

Xaul stands in front of you, rubbing at his shoulder that you know flares up from time to time. And in front of him, faintly trembling and blinking up at the lights with squinty eyes, is a grim-looking Ulaf. 

“I don’t like this,” you say, reaching up to squeeze Melshi’s forearm. Pressed this closely together, you feel the fluttering skip of his heartbeat. “How much longer do you think?”

“They could keep us here forever if they wanted,” he answers, a solemn edge to his voice that has you fighting back a shiver. Not the pleasurable kind this time.

Kino whirls around, threatening finger pointed at Melshi’s face. “That’s enough from you.”

You can’t see Melshi’s expression, but you don’t need to. The flexing of his fingers on your hip is telltale enough that the cage containing his anger has been rattled.

“Rue,” you breathe out, a quiet note swallowed by the echoing boom of Kino’s voice as he seeks to resume control of his rowdy unit again.

“Everybody settles down right now.”

It has the opposite effect this time though. The crowd grows incredibly antsy, complaints turning to nervous chatter and wide-eyed looks of apprehension.

“Something’s wrong.” Keef’s shaking his head, glancing around with a creased brow. He steps closer to Taga, who’s still furiously signing away, and asks, “What’s going on? What are they saying?”

Even though it forces Melshi to lift his head, you can’t help looking out the window at the inmate Taga’s communicating with. Strangely, the man’s repeating the same two gestures on loop. 

Thumb and index on left hand making the letter L. Right hand holding up middle and index.

Then, both hands make a rolling over motion.

Your breath catches in your throat, watching as he conveys the message over and over again.

Level two. Multiple dead.

“Dream?” Melshi asks, noticing how still you’ve become. 

You say nothing, unable to wrap your head around the message. It can’t be true. It just can’t be.

But Taga’s saying, “Something bad’s happened on level two,” confirming your fears, and the man’s still repeating himself, forcing the meaning to stick in your brain.

“Dreamer?” Melshi asks again, tugging at your sleeve to get you to look at him.

“Rue…” Your voice cracks around a ragged exhale, heart pumping like you’ve just run a marathon. There’s a burning behind your eyes, clothes suddenly too tight, suffocating, and that sickening feeling is back with a vengeance. It’s in the air, poisoning your bloodstream with every breath.

Dread. Nightmarish and unmistakable, you know it well.

“C’mere sweetheart,” Melshi’s low, soothing voice pierces through the tangled mess of panic blaring in your head. He pulls you closer, arms wrapped tightly around your back, and you don’t hesitate to bury your face in his chest. There’s nowhere else you feel better protected, but unfortunately even the blissful sound of Melshi’s heartbeat can’t entirely block out the unfolding crisis surrounding you.

“Taga, something’s broken?” Another voice asks from further down the line. Birnok, your agitated brain somehow manages to identify. “What’s happening over there?”

“It’s coming around on this side now,” someone else answers from the night shift line. An invisible force has you twisting out of Melshi’s hold to see for yourself, butterflies stirring within your stomach. Maybe this is all a giant misunderstanding. Maybe death hasn’t been a recent visitor of Narkina 5 once again.

You stand on your tiptoes for a glimpse out the far window, question tumbling off your lips before you can stop it. “What’s he saying—”

“Quiet!” Kino roars, effectively cutting off the exchange.

An ominous crackling noise follows a split second later. All eyes shoot towards the ceiling as the lights weakly flicker before submerging the skybridge into darkness. You flinch backwards, instinctively returning to the safety of Melshi’s arms and grabbing fistfuls of his scrubs. One of his hands immediately goes to the back of your neck, keeping you close.

The power outage is over in seconds, the returning light revealing a sea of faces wearing identical cautious expressions.

“What the fuck was that?” Xaul finally asks the question on everyone’s minds.

“Nothing,” Kino answers decisively before anybody else has a chance to chime in. “Someone didn’t load in and they’re counting heads.”

“So they cut the power?” Melshi asks doubtfully.

Kino’s jaw ticks, and you think if not for you clinging to the front of Melshi’s frame with trembling hands the older man wouldn’t have hesitated to answer with a punch.

Instead, he lets out a huff. “Well, what do you think’s happening?”

Both the alarm and Taga’s voice ring out simultaneously.

“Two’s in serious trouble!”

Those butterflies vanish in a puff of smoke, leaving no trace of their existence behind for you to mourn. Your shoulders sag, exhausted and defeated.

“They’re going too fast now,” Birnok says, sounding frustrated. “I can’t read it.”

Taga starts to shout again, unleashing his bubbling fears, only for Kino to grab hold of his shoulders and spin him around to face each other.

“Shut up,” Kino orders, words striking Taga harsher than a slap to the face. “You haven’t got a clue what they are saying. Level two, this. Level two, that.” He jabs a finger against his temple. “Are you all fucking scrambled or something?”

Kino sounds mad, which is one of his usual and expected moods, but there’s also a sort of wild gleam in his eyes that throws you for a loop. Desperation, perhaps, or—and it feels dangerous to even contemplate—could it be fear you’re seeing? 

No way. That’s impossible.

And yet…

“It takes a week for one damn word to get all the way here. At least a dozen hands involved,” he continues, spittle flying. “And now you’re panicking about something on the other side of the building that might not have even happened!”

A beat of silence follows, broken up only by the resounding alarm and Kino’s heavy breathing. Some of the inmates exchange glances around the room, but most are too afraid of setting off Kino’s temper again to lift their eyes from the floor. 

“It takes a long time, that’s true,” Jemboc says, stepping out from behind Melshi to better face Kino. You stare at him, unsure whether he’s an idiot or not for willingly painting a target on his chest. “But you’ve got to admit—”

The rest of his statement goes unheard, interrupted by the chilling, emotionless voice of the prison commander over the PA system.

“Stand in place. On program. Feet down. Face front. Hands on heads.”

Both units rush to follow the order without hesitation, lining up in two neat rows. For all that you complain about the guards being obedient puppets, it’s hard not to feel a tad hypocritical standing in line with your spine ramrod straight and eyes staring directly at the back of Xaul’s head. Moments like this force you to accept a dark truth about yourself. 

You’ve got invisible strings sewn into your flesh too.

—

Returning to the sleep block, you curl up on Melshi’s cot, head pillowed on his thigh while he eats dinner. He makes three attempts to offer you food, holding the utensil in front of your mouth, before giving up after having his hand pushed away each time. Your nose burns at the thick, cloying scent of the flavored mush, nausea sweeping over you.

Level two. Multiple dead. You can’t shake the words out of your head.

Maker. You want to believe Kino’s right. That somewhere along the way somebody made a mistake. But if he’s not and these fatalities are real, then why did they happen? What possible reason could explain the loss?

Some kind of freak accident? An illness? A pissed off guard letting off steam? The consequence of a foiled escape attempt?

You press a hand against the ache blossoming in the center of your chest, all too aware of Melshi’s eyes peering down at the side of your face as he chews. He wants to ask about what happened on the skybridge. You can practically feel the question hanging above you, but you’re not ready to answer it, too shattered to speak.

Keef’s voice drifts into your ears from across the floor, snagging your attention. “You never think about escaping?”

Melshi stops eating, looking to the side, and at first you think the question is directed towards him, but then another voice answers. Low and gruff and distinctly Kino.

“You know I won’t answer that.”

Your brow wrinkles. Isn’t that an answer itself though?

“I’ll take that as a no,” Keef says with a humorless chuckle, apparently reaching the same conclusion.

“You flap that mouth of yours any longer, you’ll regret it,” Kino says, and you can picture the scowl on his face.

The sounds of faint chatter from other inmates is all you hear for the next minute. Your thoughts start to drift, wondering about Kino as a younger inmate, if he’s always been this cold and blunt or if it’s a side effect of his promotion. Maybe it had been his own choice to sever ties with his emotions, doing anything he could to survive against the horrors Narkina 5 threw at him. Afterall, he can’t have his heart broken if he no longer feels it.

“Tell me this at least,” Keef prompts, a different approach you’re already predicting will yield the same glowering response. “How many guards on each level?”

Melshi sets his empty plate down, careful not to jostle your head. He’s still turned away, listening to the conversation; the way his hand comes to rest on your upper arm, thumb rubbing at the fabric of your scrub, seems like a subconscious gesture. Something prickly inside of you relaxes at the touch. 

“Turn that part of your brain off,” Kino answers, just as taciturn as you predicted. “Only way out is to follow the rules.”

Keef’s lack of counter argument surprises you. He sighs, a quiet, disappointed exhale you only hear because you’re listening for it. You can imagine him sitting on the cot of his cell with his knees drawn up, leaning his head back against the wall, and in that moment you’d do anything to understand his silences like you do Melshi’s. 

“How many shifts do you have left?” he asks finally.

It’s Kino’s turn to sigh, but his is a louder huff through the nose, exasperated with the long list of questions.  

“Two seventeen.”

Anxiety ripples through you, fingers twitching, a reflexive reaction whenever you hear someone’s tab. You hate how your brain automatically tallies the difference between your sentence and his, how it makes note of how much shorter your number is in comparison. You’ll be in the double digits again soon, reclaiming the milestone the resentencing briefly stole from you. 

You pretend the numbness spreading along your limbs is because you’ve been lying in the same position too long, not at all stemming from the thought of being forced to leave Melshi behind. 

“Tell me what you know before you go,” Keef says, and his voice is soft, coaxing. 

Kino doesn’t take the bait. “You’ve been warned,” he declares in that flat, steely tone resembling the edge of a blade ready to draw blood.

Anyone else would have been chilled to the bone, but Keef’s always been different from the rest. He snorts out a laugh instead.

“You think they give a damn what we say?”

“You’re on your own with this.”

“Why?” is the immediate response, all traces of humor gone. “You think they’re listening? You think they care enough to make any kind of effort?”

“Like you would know,” Kino says, dropping his already low voice another octave. There’s something fragile about the change that sparks the memory of his face in the skybridge. You hadn’t thought a man like Kino, someone so tough and imposing, could ever be scared of anything, but now it’s like a veil has been lifted and it terrifies you. 

“I know this,” Keef keeps pressing, firm in his conviction. “As long as they turn the floors on and keep their numbers rolling, they don’t need to care about anything. Why bother listening to us? We are nothing to them.”

Your mouth goes dry. It’s like their roles have abruptly switched and Keef’s become the intimidator, taking advantage of the hot floor separating them, speaking his mind without worrying about ending up in a bloody heap of broken limbs. 

You don’t realize you’ve started trembling until Melshi’s knuckles stroke over your cheek, soothing in their repetitiveness. The desire to close your eyes, to bury your face against his leg and shut out the world is near-irresistible, but Keef’s voice brings you back to focus.

“We’re cheaper than droids and easier to replace.”

Kino scoffs. “Please. Those aren’t even your words, they’re Melshi’s.” There’s a clatter of a plate being reattached to the wall. “You might have been able to convince that imbecile to join your plot, but you won’t convince me.” 

Your body stiffens, all of Melshi’s efforts to soften you undone in an instant. Slowly, you move to sit up on your knees, looking at the side of his face, searching for—an answer, an explanation, anything.

Melshi stares at his fisted hands in his lap, so still you’re not even sure he’s breathing. Then, he swallows hard, your eyes tracking the movement of his throat, and he’s nodding his head, confirming everything.

He agreed to help Keef and Birnok plan an escape. If the guards catch even the slightest whiff of his involvement, he’ll be killed on the spot. And where does that leave you? Lost and alone with a head full of dreams depicting an impossible future.

No more house full of sunlight. No more infant held to your chest. No more Melshi. 

Those wouldn’t be dreams anymore. They’d be nightmares.

“Oh fuck,” you breathe, pressing a hand to your stomach.

The air between you shifts, heavy with tension and a promise whatever happens next will have permanent consequences. 

“Nobody’s listening to us,” Keef’s saying across the room, pacing around his cell. If there’s a tempest within Melshi, then Keef’s got the fire of a sun, harsh and blazing. He’s come a long way from the wary turtle he was on his first day.

“Dreamer.” Melshi’s looking at you now with eyes burning bright in the dimness, a note of pleading in his voice. “I did it for us.” 

He reaches out a hand, but there’s too much hitting you all at once. An avalanche of upsetting events. Your negative pregnancy, Ulaf’s behavior, the deaths on level two, now this—something fractures inside of you, tender and throbbing, and you’re flinching backwards before you can think twice.

“Don’t.” The word tastes like blood in your mouth. “I-I can’t…Just not right now. Please, Melshi.” 

You never call him Melshi anymore, not even when you’re pissed at him. Maker, it hurts, seeing the pain written all over his face, how his hand retracts to his side into a curled fist of self-restraint. He recognizes the sound of his name for what it is: a request for distance in this cramped fishbowl of a space. 

“Nobody’s listening!” Keef shouts, an explosion of pent up rage let loose upon the white cell walls, lingering in the air like static for minutes afterwards.

But he’s wrong. 

Melshi’s listening. 

He listens to your words and he listens to your silence when you curl into a ball on the other end of the cot, as far away from him as you can manage. He doesn’t make an attempt to touch you. Not a single one.

Melshi listens and he obeys.

It’s your worst night at Narkina 5, shivering from the cold air and heartache ripping a hole in your chest. And you know the second you reach out a hand, he’ll be there, wrapping himself around you, pressing kisses over every inch of skin, returning warmth to your body. That’s the thought that hurts worse than anything.

I’ll take care of her. Whatever she needs.

He’s willing to do anything for you, even sign up for a plan he believes will get him killed. He’s a fool.

But then, so are you.

You think about how you’d stood on the floor of the sleeping block what feels like a lifetime ago, willing to fry to death to prove a point. A point you still believe in with every fiber of your being.

The only thing you and Melshi can depend on is each other. You’re each other’s greatest strengths and biggest weak spots. Two halves of the same whole. Neither of you will last long in this world without the other. 

His ending is your ending, no leftover ink in the pen for additional chapters. And if this is where it stops, right here in Narkina 5 where it all began, so be it. 

But fuck if you won’t go down fighting until your last breath for a softer conclusion.

—

“Together,” you tell him in the morning, holding his face between your hands. “We do this together or not at all.”

There are dark circles beneath his eyes, hair an unkempt mess, and yet he’s still the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen.

“I can’t promise we’ll make it.” 

There are two unspoken meanings—he can’t promise the escape will be successful or that you’ll both survive the attempt—and you acknowledge them both with a nod.

“Then don’t,” you say, resting your forehead against his as the rest of the inmates begin to stir awake, a new day beginning. “Lie to me instead.”

“Can I-” his tongue sweeps across his lower lip, breath hitching, “Please dream, can I touch you?”

“Yes, Rue,” you all but plead, and then he’s kissing you.

It’s passion and heat and raw neediness, lips moving, biting, devouring, and it’ll never be enough. You’ll always want more of him and his touch, his taste, his scent, frantically craving everything that makes him your Rue. 

Eventually pulling apart, your eyes lazily blink open, distracted for a second by the redness of his swollen lips before noticing his serious expression.

“Don’t be afraid of the future, dream.” His voice is just a faint murmur, fingertips brushing over your temple. “No matter what happens, I'll be with you. Everything will be alright.”

You know he’s lying, but you swallow the words, savoring their bittersweetness. Just in case. Just in case the very worst should come to pass and you find yourself on your own—you’ll have them to numb away the pain until you’re in his arms again. In this life or whatever follows next.

—

You swear to yourself, prior to stepping into the skybridge, that you’re not going to allow your emotions to overwhelm you again. 

If not for the news the night shift brings with them, you think your resolve would’ve lasted longer than twenty seconds. 

“It’s Unit Two-Five,” one of the men across the barrier says, wide-eyed and urgent. “They were fried out.”

You step closer to Melshi, catching his eye when he looks over his shoulder. Whatever he sees on your face has him reaching to intertwine your fingers. For perhaps the first time though, his closeness doesn’t immediately bring you comfort. 

Around you, your tablemates exchange looks of confusion and concern, hesitant to believe the gruesome details being hurled at them as fact. 

Xaul says something—a question, you think, his eyebrows so furrowed they nearly touch—but it’s muffled by the roar of your heartbeat in your ears, the ragged heaves of your breath.

Ulaf pulls on your sleeve, startling you. “What’s going on? What happened on two?”

His eyes are squinty again and slightly glossy, adding further fuel to the panic burning a hole in your gut.

“I’m not sure—”

“You think we’re a bunch of liars?” Another inmate from the night shift interrupts, an older fellow with white hair and unexpected venom in his tone. “They were murdered like rats. All of them—gone.”

Melshi leans closer, hackles rising protectively in reaction to the hostility. Your eyes flick between them nervously, then to Kino as he approaches. Any optimism he’ll put an end to the clash before it officially starts fades once you get a better glimpse of his face.

The manager looks like he’s aged thirty years since entering the skybridge, skin a shade paler than usual, making the gray of his beard twice as distinctive. No one else seems to notice the worried pinch of his brow, and a part of you envies their obliviousness. Seeing the cracks in Kino’s composure reminds you how painfully mortal he truly is.

“Who’s saying this?” 

“Maintenance tech.” It’s the peacekeeper who answers him, a woman a few years older than you with a curtain of dull green hair nearly reaching her waist. She sets a hand in-between the shoulder blades of the white-haired inmate, draining some of the heat from his fiery temper. 

It’s jarring, seeing this glimpse of the kind of peacekeeper you’d be if you’d been assigned elsewhere. There’s not a single emotion in her face, blank, soulless eyes staring out from hollow sockets. You’ve seen the same look on other women in the showers, so deeply withdrawn inside themselves it’s a wonder they’re conscious enough to put one foot in front of the other. 

“He said they fried the whole bridge,” she continues monotonously, oblivious or, more likely, indifferent to the further wrinkling of Kino’s forehead. Not her unit, not her responsibility. “Told Zinska everything.”

Everybody on your side of the skybridge within hearing distance straightens at the name. Zinska’s the floor manager of the night shift and as equally respected as Kino. Unlike Kino though who uses his voice as a tool to control the masses, Zinska can strike fear into hearts with merely a look.

“Why were they killed?” Keef asks, sounding torn between revolted by the guards’ actions and incensed on the victims’ behalves.

The peacekeeper nods with her head down the row. “Ask him yourself.”

You peer around Melshi’s body at the incoming tall, dark-skinned manager. His face is impossible to read except for the tightness in the corners of his eyes, the grinding of his jaw. 

Kino must notice these traits too, voice dropping into that low and fragile state again. “Zinska?”

The other man sucks in a breath, steeling himself. “The tech heard they were making trouble. It got too out of hand and,” he shrugs a limp shoulder, “a choice was made.”

You press a hand over your mouth, holding back the whimper climbing up your throat. A whole skybridge—a hundred lives—killed with the single press of a button, and everyone’s supposed to continue working like all is fine and fucking dandy. 

When the PA system clicks on, you flinch at the volume, body struggling against the chill in your veins to obey the commands. It feels like it takes hours to lift your arms up, teeth chattering so hard you worry they’ll shatter. 

“I don’t understand,” Ulaf says from behind, a slur to his voice that wasn’t there before. “What went wrong on two?”

“They set ‘em all free,” Melshi answers, solemn and biting.

Kino’s on him faster than you can blink, delivering a solid punch against his stomach that has Melshi crumpling with a breathless grunt. His arm pulls back to strike another blow, and your instincts finally come online again, shielding Melshi with your own body, eyes squeezing shut in expectation of pain.

The hit doesn’t land, thank the Maker.

Keef comes to your rescue, hauling Kino backwards by grabbing him around the middle. “Stop it,” he scolds, shoving at the older man again until blue eyes lock onto him. “We need to be careful. The less they think we know, the better.”

For a tense second you think Keef’s going to be the next punching bag, but then Kino’s silently nodding his head, submitting to the logic. You exhale a sigh of relief.

Melshi slowly straightens back to full height, breathing shallowly through his mouth. “I’m fine,” he tells you, a hushed mumble accompanied by a gentle pat against your elbow, urging you to get back in line behind him.

You reluctantly obey, raising your hands again along with the three men. If you squint hard enough, you think you can see their strings as well. Puppets, every last one of you.

“Tighten up and listen!” Kino calls out, slipping so seamlessly back into his alpha role it nearly gives you whiplash. “It’s a rumor. Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t. We have heard nothing. So we’re going to keep our mouths shut, our heads down, and carry on with our shift.”

The door to the work ring opens and the inmates shuffle out of the skybridge wordlessly despite the heavy weight of unspoken questions adding further strain to the tense atmosphere. Keef’s right, it’s better not to draw unnecessary attention and it’s a well-established fact there are no answers on Narkina 5. No use wasting oxygen.

Still, when you pass by Kino, you almost stumble at the sound of his shaky whisper what the fuck is going on. 

For both your sakes, you say nothing, pretending not to hear.

—

Keef switches places with you again, but even his quickness isn’t enough to cover for all of Ulaf’s mistakes. It’s as if there’s a delay in the old man’s comprehension. Tasks he’s done every day for years, easy to complete with a mere twist of the hand, are now performed at a sluggish pace, pulling the entire group down in rankings. 

Every time he drops a tool or forgets to lift the widget’s arm, a wave of déjà vu sweeps over you, rewinding your memories back to Tress’ last shift. It’s the bewildered expression on Ulaf’s face though, growing in intensity with every hour and every new widget, that concerns you the most. It’s the look of a man who hasn’t the faintest idea where he is or what’s going on.

He lasts longer on his feet than you expect, right up until the final alarm buzzes. He flinches. Hard. Agony visible in every scrunched line. On Ulaf’s right, Keef leans closer, concerned, while on the left Xaul lays a careful hand on his shoulder, quietly uttering his name. There’s no response. Not even the faintest twitch to indicate awareness.

Kino’s announcing the first and last place tables when Ulaf’s breathing abruptly hitches, eyes vacant and mouth slack-jawed. There’s barely half a second to process the change before he’s collapsing against the table.

Keef grabs Ulaf’s forearms, knuckles straining, while Xaul holds the rest of his weight up by his underarms, preventing the old man from falling onto the floor. Jemboc does his best to cover them with his broad frame, purposefully widening his stance. The rest of you can only watch with held breaths, listening to Ulaf’s shuddering and Keef’s quiet assurances—it’s okay, you’re okay, it’ll pass soon.

You almost start to believe them yourself. Almost. Then the box is turned on and those assurances crumble into dust, blown away by Table One’s tortured screams.

—

As the tables start lining up to leave the work room, Kino snags Keef and Melshi by the collars of their scrubs.

“Get him to his cell,” he orders, no room for argument. Of course he’d been paying attention to the ongoing drama, sharp eyes missing nothing.

“He needs a doctor,” you insist, watching the pair all but drag Ulaf towards the door.

“Not here,” is the snappish reply. Kino scrubs a hand over his face, tossing a quick look up at the window. It’s empty of guards at the moment, but the meaning isn’t lost on you.

If they realize just how bad Ulaf’s condition is, what’s to stop them from choosing to kill him too?

It’s a distressing question that follows you out of the work room and sinks its fangs into your heart when Ulaf crumples in the middle of the skybridge. Keef and Melshi gently lower him down, joining him on the floor, and there’s something so pathetically vulnerable about the way Ulaf’s head is cushioned against Keef’s chest it physically hurts you to look at them.

Kino’s shoving at everyone to keep moving, the palm of his hand harsh against your middle back. You know you can’t stay, but it’s only when he swaps places with Melshi and you hear Melshi’s soft c’mon, dream that your feet find motivation to unstick from the floor.

You steal one last glance over your shoulder as Melshi wraps an arm around your waist. You know this moment with Ulaf—white as a sheet, more corpse than man—will be tattooed on the backs of your eyelids for months.

What you don’t know is that it’ll also be the last time you see him alive.

And when that news breaks, the bomb in the heart of Narkina 5 explodes with it.

—

Your body’s amped up with tension and so much dread you can’t bring yourself to eat, skipping dinner for a second evening in a row. You pace instead, pausing at the edge of the cell every thirty seconds to peer out and look for any signs of the three missing inmates.  

Melshi makes himself a plate, but it sits beside him on the cot, untouched, one eye on you and one eye also watching the end of the hall. 

Neither of you are idiots. When one minute becomes five and five becomes ten and they’re still not back yet, it’s obvious something terrible has happened. In the past the issue of not knowing what that something was didn’t bother you so much. As long as you and Melshi were both safe and together, then you didn’t think the trouble was worth worrying about.

But now, after what’s happened on level two, how volatile and unpredictable the guards have become, not knowing has never felt more dangerous. You curse your past naivety. Whoever said ignorance is blissful was a fucking liar. Ignorance is a snake winding itself around its victim’s throat, innocent in its approach until it’s wound so tightly they suffocate from their own cluelessness.

Without any details to cling to, your mind floods with violent possibilities of Ulaf, Keef, and Kino’s fates, each one bloodier than the last. 

You press your forehead against Melshi’s leg, eyes falling shut. A second later you feel a hand settle on top of your head. I’m with you, the gesture says, and it’s all you need to switch off your brain’s gruesome imaginings. At least for now.

“I’m glad you’re here,” you say, quiet and sincere and so damn selfish. As soon as they’re out you want to take the words and shove them back down your throat again, but it’s too late now. They’re in the air, on the walls, impossible to ignore. 

You keep your eyes closed, head bowed, scared of what you might see if you meet his gaze. Of what he might see in yours.

“Yeah?” Melshi returns, something in his husky voice, a hint of fondness, of timidity, that has your heartbeat skipping. 

It should annoy you, the control he has over you, how the mere sound of your name on his lips can send you melting to the floor. It should annoy you, but then he tilts your whole world upside down, saying things like—

“I’m glad it’s you, too.”

You look up, no thoughts in your head, no more fear gnawing at your chest. His brown eyes are softer than you anticipate, looking down at you like you’re something precious, a smile tugging at his lips. The one nobody else ever gets to see. 

And you can’t think of anything more thrilling.

—

The floors turn cold with an echoing clap followed by the telltale creak of the door opening at the end of the hall. One by one heads poke outside the cells, leaning as far as they dare for a glimpse. Melshi practically glues himself to your backside, holding a fistful of your scrub to prevent you from losing your balance, toes straining in your efforts for an unobstructed view. 

Then you see them, two figures striding forward. Kino, eyes ahead, shoulders drawn back, ignoring the questions tossed at him from both sides. And Keef, one step behind, lips moving but speaking too low for you to hear yet. Behind them, the door shuts and the floor lights turn red again, preventing any pauses until they’re back in their cells where they belong.

Ulaf’s absence doesn’t go unmissed, your shoulders sinking even before you hear Keef confirm to Taga the old man is dead.

“What happened?” Jemboc questions.

Kino steps inside his cell in cold silence, but Keef isn’t so quick to let him off the hook.

“Tell them,” he urges. “They need to know!”

Xaul straightens from where he’d been leaning against his cot. “Tell us what?”

You and Keef both look at Kino, waiting for him to take charge of the situation, but he keeps his back turned, face hidden. Keef’s mouth twists into a frown, disappointed.

“A doctor came,” he explains, filling in the gaps himself. “He told us what happened on two.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Taga says, rubbing a hand over his mouth. “They fried the whole bridge.”

“It’s—” There’s a waver in Keef’s voice. He pauses, swallows, tries again, “It’s worse than that.”

“Holy shit,” someone mutters. Ham, you think.

“He said they made a mistake,” Keef’s shouting now, making sure every inmate hears, “and sent back a man who’d just been released! They fried two shifts to keep it quiet!”

Behind you, Melshi stiffens, every line of his body coiled tight with tension.

No, you want to say against the sensation the floor’s disappeared beneath your feet, leaving you in sickening limbo. No, that can’t be true because once your number’s up they can’t hold you anymore, they can’t hurt you or control you or do any-fucking-thing to you because your sentence is over. You’re free. 

Jemboc’s shaking his head out of the corner of your eye. “You really heard him say all that?”

“I don’t believe it,” an unseen inmate further down yells back with a condescending scoff.

“He’s only a doctor,” another pipes up, “how would he know—”

“No one is getting out!” Kino shouts, a thunderous explosion startling the whole unit into silence. 

You stand there, breath frozen in your lungs, exhausted and wide awake at the same time. 

Slowly, Kino turns around, sending a chill coursing through you at the sight of his tortured expression, as if his heart’s been carved out of his chest. But underneath the anguish, there’s rage wafting off of him, visible in the throbbing vein on his neck and the gritting of his teeth.

“The rumors are true. They’re not letting us go. Ever.” His voice has become a flat monotone that unnerves everyone even more than the shout did. He inhales a shallow breath, looking up and down the row, purposefully drifting his eyes over every face. “We’re gonna die here. Or wherever they place us next.”

A beat follows, words sinking in, and whispers are exchanged. You tune them out, aware of nothing else except Melshi’s arm pulling you even closer and Kino drawing back his shoulders, bracing himself for what comes next.

“So let’s put our heads together—” he says, calmly packing away his anger for a later date. Back to looking like the shift manager you know and respect in a matter of mere seconds. “—and start figuring out tomorrow’s escape.”

—

It has to be tomorrow, Keef argues, because tomorrow a new man will come to replace Ulaf. Tomorrow the lift will lower and that moment, that precise, singular moment will mark the first strike of rebellion. 

There won’t be a better shot than this. Waiting will only guarantee the guards will strengthen their numbers. It’s vital everyone must work together or everyone will fail. 

So a plan is formed. It’s rushed and full of holes and there’s no guarantee everyone will make it or that it’ll even make it past step one, but it’s a plan nevertheless. A plan with a chance of working. A plan to never see these white walls and widgets again.

And for that sole reason alone, everyone agrees it’s worth the risks.

—

While the rest of the sleep block spends their final night in prison asleep, your head is filled with racing thoughts of violence and dread and nasty what ifs. You try to find peace in the feeling of Melshi’s face burrowed against your neck, the warm puffs of air on your skin, but inevitably your mind drifts back to unpleasant ideas, to the hellfire of the box and Ulaf’s shuddering end.

A foot brushes against your shin, your only forewarning before Melshi’s stirring awake and rolling on top of you, bracing himself on his forearms. 

“You’re thinking too much, little dreamer,” he says, voice rough and thick with sleep but there’s concern flickering in his dark eyes, a candle flame sending orange heat all the way to your toes.

“Sorry,” you murmur, reaching a hand up to brush over his cheek, fingertips ghosting over the tight lines at the corners of his eyes.

He turns to press a kiss against your palm, the tender inside of your wrist. The scrape of his stubble threatens to drag out a moan from your throat but something else escapes instead.

“You ever think about having kids?”

Melshi’s brow lifts, surprised, then pensive. The moment feels delicate, balancing on a high-wire, too much pressure to either side and it’s a long way down. Nervousness skitters across your skin like ants the longer he stays silent, and the urge to squirm beneath him is near maddening, but his larger frame keeps you effectively pinned.

“I have,” he says, and if he hadn’t been this close, noses brushing, sharing the same air, you wouldn’t have heard the soft reply.

“You—” Your eyes widen, the tight ball of fear and insecurity you’ve been carrying since your examination daring to loosen just a little bit. “R-really?”

“Really.” Melshi confirms with a nod, but there’s something shy about the way he hides his face in the next breath, mouthing the words against the underside of your jaw. “It’s not a thought I indulge often,” he admits. “But the idea of a little you running around, it’s…a future I wouldn’t mind.” A pause follows, another tender kiss planted. “The galaxy needs more dreamers.”

There’s an urge to kiss him silly for the sappy statement. There’s also the urge to roll over with a groan so he doesn’t see the embarrassing watering of your eyes–it’s unfair really, how he can look so soft and gorgeous when he’s got sleep lines on his face and staring at you like that. The urge to kiss him wins out in the end.

He moans against your mouth, a sound that has sparks of arousal bursting in your blood, and your last night in prison is spent entangled together, two bodies blurring together in the dark, making love like you have all the time in the world.

—

“Listen up,” Kino announces first thing in the morning once the lights have flicked on.

Up and down the row prisoners stand on the edges of their cells, shoulders drawn back, alert, listening to their leader’s voice not unlike soldiers preparing to enter a warzone. 

“We are done counting shifts,” he says, voice so cold and firm you swear it drops the temperature of the whole room. “There is only then and now.”

You stand next to Melshi, meeting Keef’s gaze across the floor, his eyes full of flames. It’s funny, the contrast of fire and ice, and yet for perhaps the first time since Keef’s arrival the men are on the same page as each other, fighting for the same cause: to see Narkina 5 fall.

“No sense in warning the night shift. They’ll hear about it one way or another soon enough.” Kino pauses for only a second, nodding his head almost as if to assure himself this is actually happening. “There is only one way out. Let’s give it our best shot.”

The floor turns cold. 

You swallow hard, lining up behind Melshi and Keef.

One way out, you think, a mantra against the nervous trembling afflicting your body. One way out.

—

The tables work like it’s a usual day, putting together widgets, listening to Kino barking orders and competing for first place rank. Perfect little cogs powering the Empire’s machine. Any guard who happened to pass by and glance through the overhead window wouldn’t suspect a rebellion brewing, hiding in plain sight. 

And with every passing hour, step one of the plan moves closer and closer until it’s finally time.

“We’re really doing this?” Jemboc asks, a nervous crack to his voice. He looks to Xaul. “You’re still on board?”

“I want out,” the redhead responds, face determined. “Don’t care how.”

Taga, on the other hand, looks two seconds away from a severe panic attack. His hands shake so hard he can barely use them as he tries to line up his wrench to tighten one of the loose bolts. “I’m gonna die,” he says, no louder than a brittle whisper. “I won’t make it.”

“Stop,” Keef growls, grabbing hold of Taga’s wrist in a vice-like grip. “Don’t die until you put up a fucking fight.”

In another life, Keef would make a good shift manager, you think, admiring the effect his words had in instantly stilling Taga’s hands. Every challenge thrown at him he navigates without completely losing himself to fear or doubt. A rare blend of vigilant and clever and so damn stubborn. Everything Table Five needed to get to this point.

As you watch him walk towards the refresher, a tool hidden up his sleeve, a thought skips across your mind and then sinks in as such a bone-jarring fact it startles you.

No matter how this ends, you’ll miss him.

And you don’t even know his real name.

—

“Where is he?” Taga’s eyes are flicking between the refresher, the guard window, and Ham so quickly it’s a wonder they don’t fall out of their sockets. “He’s been in there forever.”

You take the overhead drill from Melshi, briefly locking gazes. 

A subtle lift of his eyebrow. You good?

Taking a deep breath, throat feeling tight, you nod your head. I’m good.

That eyebrow stays lifted, lines of skepticism and concern creasing his forehead, but he knows better than to keep pressing. Not now, of all times. Not when hell is this close to breaking loose.

“Just keep your calm,” Ham tells Taga, but you don’t miss the dart of his blue eyes towards the refresher. “Keef won’t let us down.”

Not intentionally, at least, your brain can’t help but tack on unhelpfully. You don’t know much about breaking water pipes, but even with tools you can’t imagine it’s an easy task. If he doesn’t finish the step in time, the rest of the plan might as well crumble into pieces.

You look up at the guard window, heart skipping a beat at the sight of a man peering inside. His eyes sweep the floor and then he steps away to tell the other guard at the control booth it’s good to open the door—exactly as Kino foretold last night while planning.

“It’s time,” Melshi says to the table.

Xaul whistles a short, piercing note, slicing through the noise of the work room like a knife.

There’s a change in the air, a prickle along your spine, and every inmate reacts to the cue like trained dogs. You let go of the drill and reach for your trusted wrench instead, grounding yourself in the familiar weight of it in your hand before hiding it up your sleeve. Within the span of mere seconds, the whole room has subtly armed themselves with makeshift weapons. 

There’s still no sign of Keef.

The alarm blares, signaling the imminent arrival of the new prisoner. Damn it, you sink your teeth into your lower lip. C’mon Keef. Now or never.

“On program,” the announcer instructs as the door opens. 

Standing at the back of the room, there’s something intensely satisfying about seeing the prisoners armed and dangerous, sights set on the same target. This fight has been a long time coming, and the enemy hasn’t the slightest idea Unit Five-Two-D is about to throw the first punch.

The two guards with blasters step out onto the upper deck, but it’s not them that has your eyes widening. Keef hastily emerges from the refresher, hands on his head. Strands of wet hair stick to his forehead, not because of sweat though. No, you realize, a weight lifting from your shoulders when he nods at Kino. It’s water.

He did it. He fucking did it.

And the guards above are entirely oblivious, not even noticing when Keef moves closer, preparing for when the lift lowers. 

“New man on the floor.” The door opens again. A prison steps out with his hands on his head, dark-headed and visibly frightened. A part of you almost feels bad there’s no way to warn him what’s about to happen. “Everyone hold positions.”

There’s a painfully tense, drawn-out moment before the lift descends where the only sounds you can hear are your erratic heartbeat in your eardrums and the rhythmic buzzing of the alarm. Everyone’s on edge, recognizing this moment for what it truly is: a dividing line. Everything familiar will be swept away, never to be known again.

A resounding click echoes off the walls, followed in the next second by the whirring of gears as the lift activates. 

It’s time.

Xaul, hands still in position, whips around, nearly nailing Ham in the face with an elbow. “What’d you say to me?”

Ham shakes his head, defensive. “I didn’t say anything.”

The redhead isn’t appeased, lowering his arms and squaring his shoulders. His lips twist into a cold scowl. “If you have a fucking problem with me, then you should spit it out.”

You take a breath, reminding yourself it’s just an act as the two men lunge at each other in a fit of slapping hands and curse words. It’s part of the plan, a distraction to keep the guards’ attention off of Keef and Birnok. Still, despite being in the know, your body still shudders with panic when the blasters immediately take aim at your table, booming voices shouting to get back on program.

Taga and Jemboc join the scuffle, attempting to pull apart the brawling inmates. The shouts from the upper deck intensify, increasing the volatility of the work room to a near fever pitch. And as far as distractions go, this one proves to be a perfect one. With all eyes on the fight, it’s almost comically easy for Keef to jam the lift with a hydrospanner, grinding it to an earsplitting halt.

“Now!” Kino orders.

You don’t need to be told twice. Together, you and Melshi yank on the overhead drill’s cables, fingers aching and jaws clenching until the piece of machinery comes crashing down. Other tables follow suit, drills falling with the same explosive heaviness as bombs, flashes of fiery sparks bursting out of the corner of your eye as the cables whip around in the air like angry snakes, deprived of their output sources.

Birnok makes an attempt at climbing the lift, but the sudden increase of weight proves too much for the wedged hydrospanner. With an ominous groan, the tool slips and the elevator loses its stability, tilting like a seesaw and sending Birnok falling on his back onto the ground.

It’s then the guards on the deck lose their last speck of patience, blasters firing at every moving target, including the new man who had just finished smashing in the face of a guard with his own zap rod. 

The fight will never be a fair one so long as they’re armed. You pull out the wrench you’d stored up your sleeve, throw it with a battle cry at one of the guard’s faces and immediately grin with a sick twist of satisfaction when it strikes his nose with an outburst of blood.

Everything within reach of the prisoners becomes a projectile, tools and loose pieces of metal striking the guards and pinging off the deck railing. Your head becomes filled to the brim with a cacophony of noises, impossible to focus on. Every second feels chilling, dangerous, like it could very well be your last. 

With each new body dropping dead on the floor, their scrubs singed from blaster wounds, pressure starts building in your chest, threatening to consume you whole. There’s Donovo from Table Two, pale green eyes staring up blankly at the ceiling. He’d been arrested for stealing medicine for his sick son. Alo, one of the youngest inmates in the unit who will now never see his next birthday, half of his face blown off. Kharzed, Cymin, Sosh…slaughtered, dead, gone.

You throw another tool, reacting without thinking, but your aim is off. It hits the wall several feet left of the guard, failing to stop him from firing another shot. You can only watch, dread bubbling in your throat, as Birnok’s struck in the middle of his chest. Dead before he hits the floor.

Your vision swims and narrows on the red puddle forming on the white floor, watching how it slowly widens and glistens in the light. 

You’re no stranger to bloodshed or violence. You’ve killed someone before, watched the life fade from their eyes and their lungs exhale one final heave. You should be better than this. You need to be better than this. But here you stand, frozen like a pathetic deer in the path of an incoming vehicle, unable to feel your legs, heart pounding in silent terror.

The blaster shot doesn’t register at first.

There’s just a flash of heat against your side, similar enough to the time you’d burned yourself with the welding laser that it startles you out of your trance. You stagger backwards a step, knocking against the side of a table, and that’s when you finally feel it—white-hot, excruciating agony, like your blood is gasoline and someone’s lit you on fire from the inside out.

Fuck, you think, blinking rapidly against the sudden wave of nausea and dizziness. Holy fucking shit.

Your breath comes out in a shallow, anguished hiss when you finally gather your wits enough to glance down at the wound. A blaster bolt had skimmed against the flesh above your hip, searing the skin and leaving behind a nasty looking gash. Blood soaks into the fabric of your scrubs, drips down onto your bare feet and onto the floor, but you’re still standing, still breathing, and that has to count for something. 

Before you can convince your throbbing body to move, you’re seized by frantic hands and dragged behind the table, hidden from the guards’ deadly aim. Even as every fiber of your being screams and burns, Melshi’s touch is instantly recognized. You meet his brown eyes, see the livid fury and raw fear battling for dominance in them, and past that, your own reflection. You look…well, there’s really no way to sugarcoat it. You look as weak as Ulaf had in his final moments.

“Stay with me, dreamer,” Melshi says, voice cracking over your nickname. He keeps leaning in close, hands hovering over your arms, your face, the wound, but doesn’t touch you again. Like you’d shatter into pieces if he did. He swallows hard, expression still torn between anger and concern. “Keep your eyes on me, alright?”

“Always, Rue,” you answer, sounding more breathless than you intend, and manage to snag his sleeve in a weak grip. He could easily pull away, but instead the gesture is his undoing, compelling him to grab the back of your neck and press his forehead against yours.

“You’ll be fine,” he all but growls the words against your lips, breath hot against your face. You don’t know which of you he’s trying to reassure more, but it doesn’t matter. Two halves of the same whole and all that.

You just wish your half wasn’t losing quite so much blood.

But feeling Melshi this close, real and living and all yours—it floods you with a feeling even more powerful than the torturous hurt. You want to live, damn it. Even if it’s just long enough to see the sun again, to feel it on your skin. 

Just a little longer, you plead to the Maker, to the forces of the universe. Just a little bit more time.

Your internal begging is interrupted by the distinctive thud of a body hitting the floor, close enough you can’t help reflexively jolting then immediately bite back a groan. Melshi turns to look, but you don’t, too overwhelmed by the list of victims already taking up space in your head. 

Taga’s distressed cry of “Xaul!” is like ice water poured over you. 

You freeze, breath caught in our lungs, thoughts stuck on a loop of no no no no no!

Because Xaul—he’s not just a cellmate, not just another name. He’s one of your boys. And he can’t…he can’t be…

“No. No, please,” you choke out, pulling feebly on Melshi’s sleeve, eyes stinging with unshed tears. 

Melshi’s hands cup your face, preventing you from seeing the rest of the room. He takes up your whole field of vision. Mouth set in a grim line, eyes looking down at your wound again with such tortured pain it’s as if he’s the one who’s bleeding out. Never have you seen your lover look so defeated.

Your mouth opens, a quiet attempt of reassurance poised on the tip of your tongue, only for another voice to rise above the chaos, harsh and strained with desperation.

“Spark the floor! Spark the fucking floor!”

What does that even-?

Another shout blasts out from a different part of the room, Kino this time, you’re certain of it. “Get on the tables!”

A brief flash of clarity hits you, remembering the broken pipe and Keef’s wet hair. There was a game you used to play as a child, where you’d clamber and leap across the furniture, evading all contact with the floor because in your imagination it was no longer carpet but boiling hot lava. Interesting, how life likes to repeat itself sometimes. Except instead of make believe fun, there’s the very real threat of fatal electrocution. 

Inmates echo Kino’s warning to each other, voices overlapping and bleeding together, coupled with the sounds of rushing footsteps rivaling a stampede. It’s too much all at once. Makes you want to grit your teeth and slap your hands over your ears. 

Melshi wraps his arms around your middle, yanking you upwards onto the table without hesitation. Your vision loses focus, another wave of pain exploding from your side, punching out a sharp keen from your mouth you’d thought only dying animals could make. 

But then again, that’s exactly what you are. A dying animal.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Melshi holds you against his chest, but his voice is almost lost to sizzling sparks and wailing. Lips brush against your jaw, a plea for forgiveness. “I know it hurts. Just keep breathing, dream. In and out.”

You force yourself to obey, taking a breath through your nose, then another one, and another, denying the scream pressing insistently against the backs of your teeth. 

A shadow passes over your eyes, swallowing everything in darkness. You blink hard several times, slow to understand it’s not just you that’s been affected. The work room has lost power.

The pulse of silence that follows is so still it’s as if time has frozen this moment solid. And you realize, right then, this is the changing of the tide. Defense becomes offense. No going back.

You lift your head despite the protesting aches, searching for Kino. He stands near the center of the room, chest heaving, miraculously unscathed, surrounded by the bodies of those less fortunate. It’s such a poignant scene, so tragic. It must mean something, you think. Must stand for something. Or maybe your blood loss is making you delirious, you can’t tell anymore.

Kino’s gaze slowly raises from his feet to the stunned guards. Then, with his lips twisted in a snarl far more wolfish than man, he shouts a one word rallying cry, “Attack!”

And just like that—all hell breaks loose.

The inmates split into two groups: one half surging forward to conquer the lift, the rest resume throwing whatever’s within reach. The guards take aim again, flashes of red bolts lighting up the room, but panic has gripped them in its claws, more shots missing than killing. 

Melshi is quick to get you shielded behind the table again, doing a terrible job of hiding his worry when you don’t even groan at the movement. The gash doesn’t hurt anymore, numb in an odd way that’s as pleasant as it is troubling. Your eyelids flutter, fighting against unconsciousness. Just a little longer…

With your back to the battle, you don’t see Keef climb up the underside of the deck with an impressive display of strength and take out the guards with vicious cunningness. All you know is the firing abruptly stops and there’s a genuine second you think you’ve lost your hearing. But then Melshi’s lifting his head, the hold on your arm tightening, and when he looks back at you, his defeated nature has been replaced with steely resolution.

“We’re getting out of here, you hear me?” he says, putting an arm around your back to heft you upright. “Everything will be alright, dreamer. I’ll fucking kill anyone who tries to stop us.”

“Together,” you murmur once you’re on your feet, squeezing his hand to keep your balance. There’s a metallic taste on your tongue, words sticking to the roof of your mouth. “We-we go together.”

“I’ll be with you the whole time, that’s right.” Melshi urges you towards the lift where inmates have begun climbing to freedom. “Just keep moving, dream. Don’t stop.”

—

There’s a cabinet full of weapons beside the control booth, enough blasters and zap rods to arm almost half of the prisoners. Melshi grabs a pistol, holding it confidently, familiar with its weight and design, then starts helping Keef and Kino pass out the rest to the others.

The thundering of footsteps on the stairs makes your heartbeat stumble. It was only a matter of time before the rest of Narkina 5 caught on there was rebellion, you had just hoped it wouldn’t be so soon. Guards will come barreling down, blasters ready, and they’ll fire on anyone in scrubs and—no. You’ve lost too many people already. 

When you see the first glimpse of a dark uniform you don’t think, you just react. 

You snatch a blaster from an inmate’s unsteady grip and click the safety off before firing twice. The first guard dies with a hole in his stomach, collapsing in a lifeless heap. The second takes the hit in the shoulder, stumbling back against the wall with a grunt. Heart in your throat, your trembling hand moves to aim for a third shot, but Keef is quicker, ending the other man’s life with a solid blast to the chest.

Your breath comes out in a shuddered exhale, lungs pinched with lingering terror. Fuck, that could have gone so much worse, you think, squeezing your eyes shut.

“Hey, none of that. Stay with me,” Melshi chides, patting at your cheek. You slowly blink your heavy eyes back open, letting out a low whine that cuts off when you register Keef’s carefully sliding the blaster out of your quivering hand. 

“Nice shot,” is all he says when he sees you staring, giving the weapon back to the inmate you’d taken it from.

You don’t respond, distracted by another wet trail of warmth leaking from your wound. Nausea flips your stomach upside down. Shit.

“Shit,” Melshi echoes your thoughts aloud, somehow sounding pissed and scared at the same time. He looks to Keef and there’s a silent exchange that follows between the two men, expressions pinched and eyes dark. You have the unpleasant suspicion you’re the subject.

Keef’s the one to break away first, turning back to the cabinet and searching for something on its lowest shelf. He pulls out a metal case with red markings—medical supplies, you recognize immediately—and throws something small from it at Melshi.

Melshi glares at the object like it’s personally insulted him. “She needs a bacta patch.”

“Stim-shot’s the best option she’s got.”

Melshi’s lips twist into a scowl, but there isn’t time to argue about the circumstances. He knows it and you know it. So when you nudge him with your arm, he only pauses the briefest of seconds to murmur another apology before sinking the dispenser’s needle into the flesh of your thigh. 

There’s a sharp prick of hurt that manages to beat out the numbness. You hiss, pressing your forehead against Melshi’s shoulder, panting heavy breaths in time with your racing pulse. It’s a jittery, itchy sensation, this flood of adrenaline surging through your body making your muscles spasm and tingle. Too many similarities to the box’s aftermath for your liking, but the stim-shot does fulfill its purpose of getting your body to briefly forget about the injury.

“How’s she looking?” Kino asks, voice faintly raspier than usual.

You lift your head enough to meet the manager’s frown, making a face at him. “I’m not dead yet.”

Melshi makes a noise deep in his chest at that, a rumbling sort of growl. Maker, you really are a pack of wolves, aren’t you? Wolves and puppets desperate to be human again. You aren’t sure if you want to laugh or cry at the thought. Feels like your head is swimming, thoughts drifting from static to the memory of Melshi’s promise and back again. 

I’ll never leave you, I’ll never leave you, I’ll never leave you.

“Good to hear it,” Kino replies with an approving nod. “It’s a long way up. Lots more inmates to free.”

“Enough talking then.” Keef lifts his blaster. “Let’s go.”

—

Everything after seems to happen in hazy flashes, faces and shapes coming in and out of focus. Like you’re watching the events unfold through someone else’s eyes.

Kino and Keef split off from everyone else, heading upstairs towards the eighth level command center, intent to take control of the entire facility. 

Ham, sweet and blue-eyed Ham, runs down the halls like a man possessed, a wildness to him never before seen. He shoots a guard five times in the torso, the force of the hits knocking the screaming man over the deck railing of Unit Five-Four-D’s work room to his death.

“We’re getting out of here!” Ham yells, transforming the alarmed murmurs of the inmates into cheers of triumph.

A guard almost gets lucky when Melshi peers around a corner. His sharp gasp at the uncomfortably close bolt makes something tighten behind your ribs. He takes another breath to steady himself, then steps out and shoots the foe in the neck, decorating the walls in a spray of scarlet. It’s violent and grotesque, and if you weren’t riding the rush of a stim-shot with a hole in your side you’d grab him by the collar and kiss him silly.

Hurrying as quickly as you can over to the control console of Unit Five-One-D’s work room, you pull down the lever to open the doors. Next is the red button to lower the lift for the inmates to access.

“Join us,” Melshi yells at them with a jerk of his head. “Climb! Use whatever you–”

He’s interrupted by a swarm of guards charging forwards from the other hallway like they just popped into existence out of thin air, summoned by the loud voices. You instinctively duck to a crouch behind the console, but your eyes are on Melshi. Melshi, who barely has any time to react. Melshi, who is too exposed, too outnumbered. Melshi, who you aren’t ready to say goodbye to. 

There’s a mangled cry tearing its way out of your throat when a crackling of rapid blaster fire tears through the air. The guards crumple to the floor, smoking holes in the backs of their uniforms. 

Another group emerges from the hallway, this one outfitted in familiar white and orange scrubs. Only once your brain manages to push through the storm of anxiety and recognize Taga and Jemboc with blasters in their hands do you finally feel safe enough to stand again, hands clenching and unclenching restlessly.

Melshi nods at the group, a wordless thanks for the assist. There isn’t time to stop and make conversation. Every second of this escape attempt is precious. Can make the difference between dying a bloody death in the facility or getting a sweet taste of fresh air for the first time in years. 

So when Melshi takes your hand, heading for the stairs, you don’t tell him about the black spots multiplying at the corners of your vision or how heavy your lungs feel, each breath a wheeze forced between gritted teeth. 

He squeezes your hand tight enough to bruise, hearing the unspoken words in your silence as he always has.

Stay with me, the gesture says. Stay with me.

—

Kino’s voice booms throughout Narkina 5, down every hallway and corridor, into the ears of every prisoner and guard. “One way out! One way out! One way out!”

Three words. Simple on their own, but when chanted by the mouths of hundreds of men, loud and undaunted and fed up with the power imbalance—those words grow fangs, sharp and hungry. 

“One way out! One way out! One way out!”

The guards are wise to hide, cowering in dark corners with held breaths. They’d be torn apart within seconds if seen, nothing left except for their blood staining the bottoms of prisoners’ feet, marking the path to freedom.

Red’s never been your favorite color, but it almost sounds pretty put like that. Prettier than the rust-colored splotch on your scrubs anyhow. 

Reaching the top level, another wave of dizziness hits, too strong to withstand this time and your legs collapse underneath you. The world darkens for a second and someone curses—Melshi, you think faintly—but when your head lolls to the side to look, Keef is there, too, holding up your other arm.

“Keef,” you murmur, lips curling in a shaky smile. “Perfect timing.”

Behind him, Kino is still leading the chanting prisoners, pumping his fist in the air. 

And behind the manager, down a hall connecting to a landing bay—there’s sunlight.

Keef adjusts your arm over the back of his shoulders, dark eyes casting a critical glance at your wound, but there’s softness in his tone when he replies, “Let’s get out of here, yeah?”

—

There’s a moment, standing on the edge of the landing bay, men and women taking the plunge into the water below, Melshi and Keef at your sides, where you feel an overwhelming sense of peace. The kind usually felt at the conclusion of a great book, when you’re certain the characters are going to be alright. 

The sun is brighter than it had been in your memories and the wind’s howling in your ears. You might be crying but it’s hard to tell—everything’s gone numb, systems shutting down, content to just be here. To be free. 

Darkness is creeping in again at the edges. Not even the sun, blazing and beautiful, can chase it away. 

You force yourself to turn, to look at Melshi. He leans closer, hands cupping your face, a desperation in his eyes that threatens to rip another hole inside of you. His lips are moving, but there’s too much noise, too many people pushing and shoving, and you shake your head, regretting it instantly when the world becomes a senseless smear of colors. 

I can’t, you think frantically, reaching to grab something, anything just to stay a little longer. I-

Something hard collides into you, a force of solid weight sending you careening sideways. You expect the ground to rise up to meet you, but you just keep falling, and falling, and falling. Nothing but air whizzing by.

And it’s…nice. This weightlessness. This nothingness.

Peace finds you again, eyes slipping shut. 

You don’t even feel it when you hit the water. 

[spectrestardust]

And They Were Roommates - Chapter 4: Home

Home. That's what she called her incredibly sunlit apartment, now. She never imagined she would be living in such a nice place like this, let alone share it with two people she hadn't thought would come back into her life again. But without Cassian, it somehow felt lifeless, empty. He told her "welcome home" and Jyn knew he meant it. Could that be why she was feeling his absence so strongly?

Chapter 4 is here!! And now complete with a beautiful moodboard, made by my talented and amazing friend @daffodelia. 💙

[elwenyere]

One of Us Has to Make It (Cassian x Melshi, 758w)

Tags: Canon-Compliant, Missing Scene, Mutual Pining, Unresolved Sexual Tension

Summary: “Melshi’s hand slipped.”

Author’s Note: Sometimes the fic writes you. Spoilers for action during and before episode 1.11 of Andor, so the opening snip and link are below the cut!

Melshi’s hand slipped.

He’d been almost to the top of the cliff face when it happened: one last attempt to bunch the muscles in his arms and haul himself back over the lip and onto level ground again. 

It wasn’t even the first time during the hours of climbing and holding and waiting for passing aircraft that he’d felt the slow, searing scream of his shoulders spasm, his joints lock, his fingers cramp and go cold. But this time Melshi knew he’d already burned too much to get his grip back before his balance was lost

His skin scraped loose of the rock, his heart clawed up at his throat, and his mind seized, for a moment, on the image of Ulaf’s hands clenching against his chest as he lay in the passageway - the last glimpse Melshi had gotten of him before he was taken away in a bag.

Then a thick band of pressure closed around his wrist, a hand pulling his weight back toward the cliff, and Melshi looked up to see Keef’s face, lined tight with the effort of holding him.

“Come on,” he urged. “Come on, Melshi. Climb.”

--------

Read the rest on AO3!

[the-marshals-wife]

Nothing Else Matters (Melshi x Reader)

─ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─ 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ─ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─

A/N: Sometimes you go looking for a fic and realize you have to write it yourself. Now I'm on program with a majorly fluffy, unexpectedly spicy fic for this absolute darling. Here's looking at you, Melshi girlies (I know you exist). 🤍

Description: Ruescott Melshi x Fem!Reader | Warnings: Star Wars swears, crying, sensuality, and just a mess of kisses (this straight up has some making out, I'm not sorry) | Word count: 1, 504 | Gif credit: user tommymilller

Imagine being reunited with your beloved Melshi after thinking you would never be together again

Finding out your blaster was jammed while trying to shoot a mynock off of your power generator was not on your list of plans for the evening. Neither was having to go back inside and spending the last ten minutes trying to get it unjammed.

"Dank ferrik," you grunt, straining to free the frozen safety switch. Stooped over your makeshift cargo crate table, back sore, you reach for the oil can a second time. "Come on..."

You'd tried to console yourself with the fact that you could have discovered the problem while fending off something with more teeth, or something that could shoot back, but your cramping, sore fingers taxed your optimism greatly.

"Don't do this to me." You put another drop of oil around the pin, but your focus drifts to the initials carved into the grip. 'R.M.' Your vision blurs as you push the memories away. "I'm not losing you too."

Despite your exhaustive attempts, the greased switch will not budge. Temper flaring at last, you repeatedly bang it against the side of the crate, "I won't. kriffing. lose. you!"

This last stitch effort does the trick. You exhale as switch moves freely under your thumb. "Finally!"

Your celebration is cut short, however, as you hear an alert chime from the main room. Someone is at the front door.

"What now?" you groan, gripping your blaster and successfully switching the safety off.

Peering from the doorway into the next room, you recognize the sound of the lock releasing.

You duck back out of sight against the wall. Who was slicing in? What did they want? Why would anyone even take interest in your ramshackle dwelling, especially after dark? You'd settled on Ardennia to avoid this kind of attention. Every potential scenario from thieves to Imperials races through your mind, but there is no time to plan and no where to run. This alcove had just your cot, the crate, and no backdoor. All you could do was stand your ground, and pray to the maker that your blaster would not jam again.

The door opens, and swiftly closes again. You still your breathing and listen, but there's nothing to discern. Only the low buzz of the overhead lights and the constant, distant hum of the generator outside. You're about to reveal your presence when the next sound reaches you.

"Y/N?" a voice calls out. One you know as well as your own.

"It can't be..." you say.

Your pulse pounds in your ears you step into view. The figure in the parlor before you removes the hood of their cloak.

Your heart stands still.

"Melshi?"

"Hello, sweetheart," he smiles, misty-eyed, "I'm home."

A sob escapes from your lips. You cast your weapon away and run into his open arms.

"It's you," you weep, burying your face into his shoulder, "I can't believe it's you!"

"It's me," he affirms, rocking you and kissing the top of your head.

You hold onto him as tight as you can, afraid that if you let go, he would be gone, "I thought I'd never see you again."

"Me too," he replies, the words catching in his throat.

At last you let go enough to gaze up into those familiar brown eyes, full of warmth and longing.

"You're more beautiful than in my dreams," he says, caressing your face, "They could never do you justice."

"Oh, my Melshi," you beam, tears rolling down your burning cheeks.

You throw your arms around his neck and pull him into a desperate kiss that he eagerly returns. Tender kisses become more fervent with each heartbeat. You sigh, remembering how much you missed the smell of him and the feeling of his stubble lightly scratching your skin.

The two of you reluctantly stop to breathe, pulling away mere inches.

"I missed you so much," he whispers, his nose grazing yours.

"I missed you. Every single second," you reply.

Your head was spinning not only from the previous moment, but also from the many unanswered questions you'd carried in your aching chest for countless months of surviving all alone.

"Are you alright?" you beg, holding his face in your trembling hands.

"I am now," he chuckled, leaning into your touch and kissing your palm.

You choke back a sob. "Where have you been? What did they do to you?"

His expression hardens, but he continues to rub gentle circles into your back as he speaks. "An Imperial prison on Narkina 5. It was more like a factory. They had us building machinery of some kind. Thousands of us, day and night. I would still be there now if we hadn't escaped."

Horror washes over you. "Escaped? You weren't released?"

"No, they were never going to release us. They gave us sentences to serve, but it was all a lie. They were going to keep us until we died. When someone serves all their days, The Empire just sends them off to another prison somewhere. We only found out by chance, and it all fell apart from there. We fought our way out, but I don't know how many of us made it offworld," he sighed, "We've always known The Empire was corrupt, but it's so much worse than we ever thought."

You stare up at him, panic seizing you, "What are we going to do? What if The Empire comes looking for you? Could they have tracked you here?"

"I was careful. Got my hands on a forged chain code through a friend. It should buy us some time," he assured, "Tonight, we're not going to worry about anything. It's just you and I. Nothing else matters."

"They're not taking you from me again, Ruescott Melshi," you state, anger strengthening your resolve, "I have nightmares almost every night. I see those troopers dragging you away that day. I hate them for making me wonder where they'd taken you or if you were even alive. I am never going through that again, and I am never letting you go."

"You'll never have to," he assures, leaning to rest his forehead upon yours, "I'm here."

You close your eyes, his calm presence comforting you as it always did.

Several moments pass like this before he breaks the silence, "Marry me, Y/N."

"Melshi," you begin, smiling despite yourself.

"I should have asked you before. I was a scared fool, but now I have a second chance, and I won't waste it this time," he confesses, taking your hands in his. "I love you, Y/N. No matter what happens to me or this blasted galaxy, I always will. Whatever fight comes our way, I want to face it with you."

You feel as if your heart will bust. Tears fall from your stinging eyes once more as he presses a kiss to your knuckles.

"Will you have me?"

"Yes, I will," you grin, nodding, "I have been yours from the very start, and every day since. I love you so much."

He beams at your answer, proceeding to pick you up and twirl you in a circle. Your mutual laughter fills the modest room, and when your feet touch back down to the ground, your lips find his again. Muscle memory begins to kick in as you excitedly rediscover each other, both more confident than before. He rests his hand in the small of your back, pulling you close as you run your fingers through his hair. Your eyes flutter as he slowly trails kisses along your jaw to the side of your neck. His longer-than-normal stubble tickles your soft skin there, however, and you can't hold back a giggle.

Red creeps into his cheeks. "Guess I could use a shave," he chuckles.

"Maybe a little," you reply, scrunching your nose, "I actually think you could pull off a moustache."

"Oh, is that so?" he smirks.

"Yeah. Maybe just a little beard." you tease, giving his chin a peck, "I can get used to it."

"We'll have to see about that," he says, giving you a playful look.

"First things first. Let's get some more meat back on your bones," you say, squeezing his arm, "You have to be starving. I bet they fed you bantha fodder in that awful place."

"My love, you have no idea," he smiles through a sigh.

Taking his hand, you lead him over to the narrow kitchen area to sort through what provisions you had.

You were dizzy with joy. Only an hour ago, you were cursing your jammed blaster. Now the love of your life had returned to you, and you were daring to hope for your future. The force worked in such mysterious ways, and you were so grateful it had finally bestowed some favor upon you. Someday, The Empire would pay for its treachery and lies, and you hoped you'd both be there to see it. Until then, you were going to treasure every stolen moment of freedom in your second chance.

[yuneyn]

Summary:

"Cassian doesn’t have to talk to Melshi to know what must be going through his mind - an echo of his own spiraling thoughts the night after their escape, the incessant flow of their fellow inmates’ faces flashing behind his eyelids as he wonders about their fates."

Some short scenes set in episode 11, comfort in small touches, goodbyes that were never said - and one that was.

——————————————

My brain made me do this again so I could process my feels.

[p-paradoxa]

Synchronicity (Cassian Andor/Ruescott Melshi) (18+) 🔒

• 4.1k words

• filling in the gaps on Niamos because of course

• fluff, comfort, dealing with pain and injuries, showering, feelings, and also smut. they do slonk

• keef girgo

please enjoy :)

[okdeedee]

you're so busy changing the world

cassian andor x gn! reader - 7th instalment of latch series.

masterlist

an: ayoo we're back. need everyone to know that the full lyric that the title is derived from is "you're so busy changing the world, just one smile can change all of mine." because. cassian andor smiling is incredibly important

warnings/content: angst again babey. teen? rating? because there's swearing. Ruescott Melshi being a little intense, as per usual. that's a cornerstone of his character. fluff fluff fluff fluff FLUFF. i couldnt resist sorry. une kiss. perhaps.

wc: 3.8k

You’ve made a valiant effort at keeping up a cheerful front, but it’s been a month and a half with no word from Cassian.

You’re only human – you adore him, but there’s a little pool of resentment growing day by day in your stomach.

You’re beginning to wish he never kissed you.

The mess hall is near-empty, it’s after the designated lunch slot, but you like the quiet. You sit at a table by yourself and pick at the lukewarm meal before you. Something with greying vegetables, some grains, and a little too much salt.

You’re lost in thought, staring at your meal tray, when the table wobbles with the impact of someone sitting down opposite you.

It won’t be Cassian, you know it won’t, but you can’t kill the hope that it is.

You brace yourself, look up, and barely hide your shock when you see the solemn face of Ruescott Melshi. He nods at you.

“Sergeant Melshi-”

“I’m not your CO anymore,” he says calmly.

“Right. Just Melshi, then?”

He smiles just a little. “Just Melshi.”

You’re not sure why he’s here. He’s just observing you and it’s making you want to look back down at your lunch, but you don’t really want to look away because you feel like you’ll lose whatever standoff this is. So, you hold his eye contact until he opens his mouth to speak.

“How’s mech crew?”

His succinctness still makes you smile.

“It’s good. I enjoy it. Plenty of variety, good teammates.”

“Good,” Melshi nods approvingly.

You force down a couple mouthfuls of food while he sits there in silence.

“You spoken to Cassian lately?”

Your heart jolts. What does he know? “Not for a month or so.”

“Hm.”

You fidget with your spoon, Melshi looks deep in thought, staring blankly at the door to the corridor.

Suddenly his discerning eyes focus back on you, and he folds his arms in front of him on the table.

“I know Cassian cares about you. He’s been acting strange recently, and I wanted to see if you had any idea what that’s about.”

You want to walk away. Or hide. Or start a completely new conversation.

But you can’t, so you take a deep breath. “We – I – uh, we… we had a conversation a while ago. And I think it freaked him out. He hasn’t spoken to me since then.”

He frowns. “What about?”

You know he’s just trying to be thorough; make sure no irreparable damage has been done, but this is the most awkward facet of your relationship with Cassian that Melshi could possibly be investigating.

You smile and try to brush him off. “It’s nothing. I think he’s just busy at the moment. Stressed.”

Melshi isn’t convinced. “But if it’s nothing, then why–“

“Really, it’s okay. It was just a personal thing. We’re sorting it out.”

Melshi sighs, his expression growing more determined. Panic starts to collect in your throat. “Cassian trusts you. I trust you. You know that. But there are things I know about Cass that you don’t, and I want to make sure you didn’t hurt each other –“

“I told him I loved him, okay, and he kissed me! Then he told me he loved me back!”

Your hands are in tight fists. Melshi is stone-still and silent.

“And then – he – he had regrets, I think. About us becoming… more. So, I said I’d give him time to think, and I haven’t heard from him since. That was a month and a half ago when we had that mission on Numidian Prime.”

You can tell by Melshi’s expression that whatever he was expecting you to say, it wasn’t that.

He pushes his lips between his teeth, and his eyebrows furrow deeply. “Right.”

You sigh and place your head in your hands. “Yep.”

He hums like he’s thinking it through. You want to turn into dust and fly away but that is not within the realm of your abilities, so you sit there staring down at your meal tray, appetite getting smaller by the second.

Finally, you rub your face with your hands and look back up at Melshi.

There’s something gentle in his eyes, like pity.

The resentment in you flashes hot like a sun flare, and for a second, you’re filled with rage. At Cassian, for stringing you along. At Melshi, for forcing your secret out of you.

At yourself, for being vulnerable enough to care at all.

.

When Cassian gets himself into trouble, the first thing he tries is running.

Usually, it works.

Debts, warrants, angry exes, the responsibilities of civilian life - the weight of them disappears if you disappear as well.

This time, running isn’t going to work.

He knows that.

He knows it like he knows how to fly a ship, like he knows how to take an accurate shot with a blaster one-handed, from a glance at the target.

A mix of years of experience, and the instinct he’s always had for self-preservation.

If Cassian keeps avoiding answering you, he’s going to lose you – if he hasn’t already.

You said you’d wait for as long as he needed, that you’d be there when he decided, so he still has hope.

You’re the best, purest thing that’s ever happened to him, but even you can’t be endlessly patient. You deserve a commitment, and he feels like he’s incapable of making one. He’s not sure why. It’s not like he doesn’t want you. Or that he wants anyone else instead.

He’s in love with you. He knows that, too.

Cassian is terrified he’ll ruin things; so, he wonders if it’s better to never start on this path than take a few blissful steps on it and have to watch it dissolve under his feet.  

Then he reminds himself that running won’t fix this, and he goes through the whole thought process over, and over, and over again.

At the heart of things, humans are creatures of habit.

So when he’s offered a solo mission where he’ll have to go dark that’s likely to take a few weeks, he takes it.

.

You go from barely seeing Cassian to not seeing him at all, and it doesn’t take long to make it through the jogan vine that he’s gone on a no-contact mission.

You don’t blame him for the mission, exactly, you just wish he had the tact to speak to you before he left.

You feel like you shouldn’t, but you miss Cassian a little more each day. You miss seeing glimpses of him, hearing his voice, being able to reach out and touch him.

Before long, it’s two months and two weeks since Numidian Prime.

At this point, you’d settle for just knowing Cassian’s alive.

.

During the third week of his mission, while Cassian is desperately trying to find his way out of an out-of-use sewer system, he realises there is something fundamentally different about the way he’s thinking right now, compared to a year ago.

His whole life has been about survival – the same could be said about most beings in the galaxy under Empire rule. In many ways, life has not been kind to him, and it often doesn’t help that he has a natural talent for getting himself into trouble.

Underneath the instinctual need to stay alive from moment to moment, Cassian has always fought for something he loved, despite the loss.

With Maarva and Clem on Kenari, he was fighting to get back to his sister.

On Ferrix, fighting for his friends, or to go home to his family at the end of the day.

Aldhani, to get credits to pay back the people he owed and take Maarva somewhere safe.

Narkina 5, for freedom.

But Maarva and Clem are gone, Aldhani feels like it took place in a different lifetime, and he’s been out of Narkina 5 for coming on three and a half years.

He hasn’t seen Bix, Brasso, Jezzi, Wilmon or Bee in over three years. He knows he’s not going to see them again.

Cassian joined the Rebellion because he knew there was no way to escape the Empire. The only way out is through. He figured may as well make the rest of his life mean something.

He’s been fighting less for the love of things, and more for his rage against injustice and his dangerously powerful hope that things can be better. The two concepts together are an effective motivator.

He’s not suicidal, he wants to live, but he’s been reckless and often cold to people because he has very little left that he will fight for out of love.

Until now.

As he’s stalking through the dark with a flickering torch, his mind isn’t following the path it usually does.

If he was in this position a couple years ago, he’d be thinking, just get above ground, check your blaster isn’t jammed, stay low, find your transport, go from there. Stay alive to fight again another day.

Pragmatic, unemotional.

He will always have the pragmatic plans because that’s who he is, but his current reason to stay alive is…unexpected. The realisation hits him and knocks his breath out of his lungs.

Cassian’s fighting to stay alive for love again. For the good that already fills his days, and the good that is good yet to come.

He hears your laugh in his head, sees your smile in his mind’s eye. He remembers touching you, kissing you, and he’s pushed forward by the need to see you, to hold you again.

To tell you he loves you again, and not let you down this time.

.

It’s too hot or too cold or too something in your room, and no matter how much you toss and turn, you can’t get to sleep.

You room with Greda, as of just after Life Day. Her previous roommate moved to be with her spouse, which gave you an opportunity to get out of the soldier’s barracks.

There is a very faint, digital trill going off somewhere near you. At first, you grumble, because you think it’s Greda’s datapad making noise.

She always forgets to mute it; she sleeps deeply, so it doesn’t bother her.

But the ringing is closer to you. You reach your hand out and fumble for your nightstand, and your fingers land on your buzzing commlink.

Who would be trying to contact you at this hour?

You grab it, prop yourself up on an elbow in your bed and click to receive the call.

“Hm?” you grunt, very eloquently.

You hear someone’s soft breathing on the other end, but no response.

If this is a wrong number, you’re going to be a little pissed off.

“Hello?”

There’s a long period of silence, and you’re about to hang up, when you hear someone whisper, “Hey.”

You yawn. “Who is this?”

“Are you alone?”

Then it hits you – the rasp, the musicality, the softness of this voice.

“Oh my gods, Cassian?’

“Are you alone?”

The reality of the situation suddenly hits you, and you scramble out of bed as quietly as you can. “I will be. One second,” as you shove your boots on and grab a jacket, “stars, Cass, why are you calling? Isn’t your mission no-comms? Where are you? Are you alright?”

You hear him chuckle whisper-soft, and it makes you smile entirely against your will. You’re supposed to be angry, or at least irritated with him right now – but to hear his voice, his laugh, to know he’s alive; it’s like breathing for the first time in weeks.

“I’m fine,” he says as you slip out of the room into the corridor.

You breathe a sigh of relief. “Thank the stars,” you sit on the floor, leaning against the wall, “Okay, I’m alone now.”

You’re expecting him to launch into a message you need to relay, or something mechanical you can help him with, but he’s silent.

“Cassian?”

He hums in assent.

“Are you really fine? You’re not injured, or anything?”

“I’m good. I promise.”

You fiddle with the zip on your jacket, yawning.

“What time is it on Yavin?”

You rub your eyes and check your chrono. “Oh, like 0300 hours-ish?”

“Shit, sorry, I didn’t realise.”

You lean your head back against the wall and hug an arm around the front of your torso. “No, it’s alright. I couldn’t sleep anyway. It’s good to hear your voice, Cass.”

.

Cassian’s chest feels tight and vulnerable from the soft, raspy tone of your voice.

He can’t help but imagine being there with you, hearing you in his ear, feeling the warmth of your body next to him.

“It’s good to hear your voice too,” he says, which is the understatement of his life, because it is the entire reason why he decided to break protocol and call your personal comms.

Just to hear your voice.

“Where are you?”

“I can’t say-”

“You’re already breaking the one rule of a no-comms mission. Just tell me.”

He softens at your persistence, at your warmth. “I started on Oba Diah. Now I’m on Kessel, in an abandoned hotel, waiting for a transport back to base.”

“So you’re about to come back?” A thrill runs down his spine. He can hear in your voice that you’re smiling.  

“Yeah. Should be back home in couple days.”

Home.

Neither of you speak for a little bit. He just listens to your gentle, even breaths, and tries to keep his emotions in check.

Then, in the silence, he hears you take a breath.

“I got to do some illegal mods yesterday,” you say a little shyly.

He can’t stop the tiny smile that appears on his face. “Oh yeah?”

You launch into your story, and he listens, heart bursting with the domesticity of it. He remembers how torn and empty you were in your early days with the Rebellion, and hearing your joy and passion now almost overwhelms him with pride for you.

“…swapped the engines of the fighter and the dropship, which technically isn’t legal because that class of dropship can’t have that powerful of an engine – but we need it to be that fast for a mission next week. Something about a window in the flight scanners that the dropship can only make at a certain speed.” You pause, and then mumble, “felt pretty cool, doing that.”

He doesn’t know what to say. A rush of affection floods him. You felt cool doing illegal mods on a ship for the Rebellion. You’re still sharing parts of your life with him even after he effectively gave you the silent treatment for over a month.

Suddenly it’s imperative that he doesn’t wait until he gets back to Yavin to talk to you. Before he can think it through, before he can doubt it, he blurts it out.

“I meant it when I said love you.”

His pulse is pounding so loudly in his ears that he barely hears you breathe in sharply.

“What did you say?”

He feels like he’s taken a dive off a cliff, and he can’t tell if it’s in a good way or a bad way. “I said, I meant it when I said I love you.”

He hears you take another harsh breath in.

Cassian can’t lose his momentum. “I still mean it. I love you. So much.”

You’re silent for a while, and Cassian tries not to panic.

“Cassian?”

His heart jolts. “Yeah?”

“I don’t want you to… feel obliged to say it. What happened on Numidian Prime was – it was a lot, and it was new, and I don’t blame you if you regret it.”

It feels like Cassian’s stomach has come untethered and dropped right to his feet.“I-”

“You haven’t spoken to me in weeks. I didn’t even see you. It was like you disappeared off the face of the planet,” you say, your voice soft but certain. “I know said you could have as much time as you need to think, but it was weeks and weeks and then you went on that mission and didn’t even say goodbye, and I just assumed-”

Cassian’s heart aches. “Wait-”

“-you didn’t want me in that way – and I’m okay with it, I really am. I just don’t want to lose your friendship, is all, because you’re-”

“Please-”

“-still the best thing that ever happened to me-“

“Stop, my love.”

.

You stop.

Your hands are shaking.

He called you ‘my love.’

You can’t get a solid, deep breath in – just shallow, shaky gasps.

“Breathe, baby.”

Fucking hell.

The man you’re in love with is calling you things like ‘baby’ and ‘my love’ and he’s halfway across the galaxy, and suddenly the comfort of his gentle, gravelly voice is not enough.

There’s a lump in your throat and your eyes are burning with unshed tears. You sniff, just once, but Cassian’s observant, so he notices.

“Are you crying?” he asks gently.

You think you might melt into the floor. “Not yet. Trying not to.”

The wall of the corridor is cold behind you. You recall the times you’ve sat with Cassian like this, your shoulders touching. The way he smelled – clean and inviting and human. When you held his hand. When he’s held you. When his lips met yours.

“Cass…”

“Yeah?”

His voice.

“I miss you,” you say, and your voice cracks. “I wish you were here.”

He sighs, and there’s something comforting in it, like he might feel the ache you feel.

“I will be. Soon.”

“Yeah.”

.

You sit there in comfortable silence.

Cassian looks out into the street from one of the hotel windows. The streets are busy, sentients of all kinds hurriedly making their way through the industry and grime.

“Cass, fair warning;” you start.

“Hm?”

“If we’re doing this – if you’re – you want to – be together, I’m not letting you go. I can’t.” You stutter for a second, “Sorry – wait – like obviously, if… you know… things didn’t work out, I wouldn’t try to… imprison you or anything. But… if things work out, you’re it for me.”

Hundreds and thousands of years and millions of different species of intelligent life in this galaxy, and not one has created a machine that can teleport Cassian back to Yavin, next to you, in this very moment. He’s never felt such a strong yearning in his life. He thinks he might cry for happiness, which has never happened to him before.

In the midst of what sometimes feels like a hopeless fight, in the face of countless devastating losses, in this empty, dilapidated hotel on Kessel, Cassian Andor feels lucky.

“You’re it for me, too,” he says in a rush, and it’s like his chest is expanding and imploding at the same time.

And then you let out a breathless laugh, and it’s the best sound Cassian has ever heard.

.

You tell Greda about your comm with Cassian as soon as she wakes up. You can’t not.

She gives you a wry smile, as usual, but she’s happy for you. Thrilled, even – you can tell by her eyes, even as she jokes that you could find someone that smiles more.

On another day, you’d buy into the game, tease her back, but today, you’re bursting with these bright, endlessly expansive feelings. You want him, grumpy, gruff, short-tempered, deeply compassionate and loving him. And you have him.

You’re vibrating with joy and excitement for the rest of that day, and through the night. Cassian doesn’t comm again, but the pilot that was shuttling him back to Yavin 4 confirmed their pick-up.

Now, you just wait.

It’s dawn, the day after Cassian’s call. You’re doing a pretty good job of distracting yourself – you took the overnight shift just for something to do. You’re helping Riekk move a bunch of shield generator components when Greda calls, “Wompy!”

You roll your eyes, and Riekk’s waterspray-gun sounding laugh echoes in the hangar.

“Please call me anything but that.”

She’s suddenly close enough to tap your shoulder, and she does, twice.

“Your man just landed,” she whispers in your ear.

Your stomach tumbles. “Where? Here?”

She snickers. “Where else? Of course, here.”

In an uncharacteristic show of terrible manners, you practically drop the part you’re holding and run as fast as you can up the stairs. You weave through ships and astromechs and pilots until you’re in the open runway, and you scan the space, maybe a little frantically.

The Yavin system’s sun is rising now, and the sky is painted with achingly delicate shades of pink and orange. What you can see of the horizon that isn’t covered by thick forest is gentle lilac.

You’re a little embarrassed at how your breath catches when you see him step out of the U-wing.

It’s still somewhat dark outside, and everything is washed in muted orange. His skin is sort of gold in the growing light, and his hair is messy. His beard has grown out again. He’s talking to the pilot; someone you don’t know. He’s got that stern, focussed look on his face and it makes you feel warm all over.

He bids farewell to the pilot, and suddenly you feel shy, like maybe you should give him a minute to get his bearings or wait for him to visit you – but you stay where you are.

It’s like a holovideo or a scene from a Coruscant opera when Cassian’s eyes meet yours.

You can see the smile in his eyes even if the set of his mouth is still serious, and it makes you so giddy that you laugh, unable to hold in a smile of your own.

He’s right there. And he’s alive.

That thought alone pushes you forward several steps. Cassian opens his arms, you do too, and then like gravity, you’re in the tightest embrace you’ve ever been in.

You place one of your hands on the back of his head as he buries his face in your neck. You can’t help but stroke his hair a little.

After a blessed, loving eternity, Cassian draws back a little and presses your foreheads together. His hands cup your face with a tenderness that makes your throat close up.

Then, he kisses you. Simple, chaste, but so fervent your knees feel weak.

You both pull away, but you open your eyes first and see his face – a faint smile with his eyes closed, his brows furrowed just a touch.

He opens his eyes. You stroke his face with the hand that isn’t wrapped around his waist.

Cassian smiles wider than you’ve ever seen him smile and you are so incandescently happy about it, you might just float away.

“Welcome home,” you say, beaming.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

You don’t know what to say. You just stand there smiling at each other like idiots, and if Greda was here, she’d be laughing at you.

You take in Cassian’s windswept hair, his dimple, the glint of his teeth in his smile, the warmth of his hands and the feel of his beard on your palm.

He’s alive. And he’s yours.

[saradika]

[masterlist]

This is the list of the incredible fics I’ve read and shared this month for the stardust reblog challenge! Includes ones read here and on my side blog, @eupheme (in case there’s any confusion!) 💖

STAR WARS

'tis the damn season by @maybege

Years after you last saw Boba Fett, Natalie invites you to spend Christmas with her family. | hot dad!boba x f!reader

ownership of mine. (part 2) & (part 3) by @amywritesthings

You have been in Narkina 5 for four months. The unit believes you are in a secret relationship with Kino Loy. (Are you?) | kino loy x f!reader

Before. When. After. by @littlemisspascal

There is a story before, when, and after Keef Girgo enters your life | ruescott melshi x f!eader

Zena Thamne (Cuyan Series) by @againstacecilia

Your fiance disappears two months before your wedding on a dangerous hunt. Fearing the worst and desperate to find him, you accept help from a reluctant Mandalorian and set off in search of your groom. | din djarin x f!reader

Take My Hand by @princessxkenobi

after a fresh snow has fallen over all the forest, you & your darling obi wan sneak away from the cottage for some ice skating; your hearts, all the while held within each other’s palms | obi-wan kenobi x f!reader

Patience by @oscarseyebrow

 “Show me how you caught him,” you request, eyes daring the bounty hunter as his chest heaves in the fluorescent lights of the Crest’s hull. “Show me how you took control.” | din djarin x female reader 

By Your Side by @princessxkenobi

In the softened afterglow of the fireplace, things take a heated turn between you and anakin, where all that you begin to sense there, is your shared waves of longing and intimacy, wanting just to be together | anakin x f!reader

Unwavering by @uwingdispatch

You are so precious to me,” he said. “Do you know that? I never…” he trailed off for a moment, closing his big hazel eyes, taking a deep breath. “I never had the courage to tell you how much I love you, but if something happens today and I never get to see you again—” | brasso x f!reader

A Touch of Peppermint by @princessxkenobi

hot chocolate doesn’t exist where Din Djarin is from, & thankfully you had been there just to show him what it’s all about; that is…if either one of you doesn’t get distracted for too long to enjoy it first ...❄️ | din djarin x f!reader

Flowers that Bloom in Winter by @psychedelic-ink

A spiteful coworker ruins the flower arrangements you had hoped to compete with. Not knowing what can be done, you entertain a young boy named Grogu who comes in at the same time wanting to buy a bouquet for his father. The next day, Din returns and offers to help you out with your work until a competition. | din djarin x f!reader

MARVEL / DC

A Cause For Celebration by @andrewrussgarfield

In which Peter Parker shows up at your front door with a slightly smashed cupcake and a whispered "Happy Birthday". | tasm!peter x afab!reader

Bitten by Fate by @stargirlfics

After a Halloween party at an abandoned mansion, you wake up to discover strange bites on your body and a note inviting you back | vampire!stucky x black f!reader

STARDEW VALLEY

Nothing Comes from Nothing by @hometownbard

All it took was a production of The Sound of Music for you to finally confront your feelings for Harvey, the show's leading man. | harvey x farmer

PEDRO PASCAL & OSCAR ISAAC

Live Fires & Low Lights by @wyn-n-tonic

“You're teasing me, sweetheart.” | javier peña x f!reader

frankie request by @softanon

A scoop of fluff with Dad!Frankie, with a bonus appearance of young Júlia Morales. | frankie morales x gn!reader

expectations by @pedrito-friskito

It was only supposed to be a job. | joel miller x f!reader

Did You Think I Had Forgotten? by @wyn-n-tonic

She’d fucking hate him if she could. | santiago x f!reader

VIOLENT NIGHT

All is Calm by @clydesducktape

Nicholas returns home looking battered and bruised. A reminder of a past life you’ve shared that leads to him needing your comfort and joy. | santa!harbour x f!reader

These fics are all so lovely - please check them out and please support these creators! 💖✨

[ladyxskywalker]

NOV 2022

fandoms featured on this list: star wars, rogue one, andor, moon knight, pedro pascal, triple frontier, multi. fandom

* coffee fund *

thank you to the amazing fic writers for sharing some wonderful stories with all of us ! & to the kind readers for their support. 💙

please assume that all works & the blogs they belong to are 18+ only

mature adult content will be marked with a double asterisk **

be sure to check all warnings & tags before reading, feel free to skip if something isn't for you

& of course, enjoy responsibly

all the love xo A ☕

** I have been taking a little break from the blog, so the Nov & Dec reading list will be a little shorter than usual. There are some really great finds here that I think you will love ! Hope you will stick around xo **

hope you enjoy ! & happy reading ! 🤗

please send me things to read ! favorite fics or something you've written that you're proud of ! 💌

find more monthly fic recs over on my masterlist, Dec 2022 coming soon ! ✨

please let me know if you would like to be removed

✨ new authors & characters added for the first time !

✨ some authors are mentioned more than once throughout the list, check to see if your works are there !

STAR WARS

✨ Anakin Skywalker

Making Out with Ani by @laserbrains (gn!reader) **

✨ Din Djarin

Din Djarin helping with your fear of animals by @archieimagines (cw: fear, anxiety, banthas)

Feel It by @ezrasbirdie (din x cobb) **

Grogu’s Teacher (series) by @firstofficerwiggles (f!reader)

Oceans in the Desert by @wyn-n-tonic (cw: grief, loss)

Ranting to Din while he repairs the Razor Crest by @archieimagines

Shatter Me (series) by @writeforfandoms (f!reader) (a season two divergent series)

Touching Din by @archieimagines (sfw touching, angst)

✨ Fennec Shand

Indigo by @artemiseamoon (modern, cinderella, fairytale au) (prince!fennec x ofc)

✨ Luke Skywalker

Shower/Bath Sex with Luke by @laserbrains (afab!reader) **

✨ Obi Wan Kenobi

Crystal Clear by @hellotherekenobi (gn!reader) (cw: battle, injuries, anxiety)

First Lady by @tropodyn (sith!obi wan) (f!reader) (link no longer available 😭)

Stardust (And Other Varieties) by @wickedscribbles (cis afab reader) (cw: implied age gap, force bone, library, mature adult content) **

Temptation’s Kiss by @hellotherekenobi

✨ Poe Dameron

Alright, That Happened by @dreamlandcreations (cw: hair pulling, kinktober) **

Survive Now, Then Flirt by @flightlessangelwings (cw: mild violence, angst) (gn!reader)

You Are In Love (series) by @alwritey-aphrodite (modern au) (f!reader)

ANDOR

✨ Cassian Andor

Hold Me Through the Storm by @archieimagines

✨ Kino Loy

Hoping Against Hope by @saradika (kino loy x wife!oc) **

✨ Ruescott Melshi

Before. When. After. by @littlemisspascal (a three part prison /narkina 5 au) (f!reader) **

MOON KNIGHT

✨ Marc Spector

Helping Marc Through a Panic Attack by @archieimagines (cw: grief, panic, anxiety, nightmares, DID, ptsd, angst)

Marc Winking At You In Public by @archieimagines

✨ Steven Grant

Asking Steven Out to Dinner by @archieimagines

Complaining to Steven About Work by @archieimagines

Dream A Little Dream of Me by @redahlia-writes (f!reader) (fake dating, christmas time)

I’m Right Next Door by @flightlessangelwings (gn!reader)

I’m Yours by @in-between-the-cafes (f!reader)

PEDRO PASCAL

✨ Ezra (Prospect)

Love you, endlessly by @artemiseamoon (ofc) (read in full on ao3)

✨ Frankie Morales

Seen by @clydesducktape (werewolf au) (f!reader)

✨ Misc. Pedro Characters

How Did You Love (series) by @writeforfandoms

TRIPLE FRONTIER

✨ Benny Miller

A Fall Getaway by @artemiseamoon (f!reader) (read in full on ao3)

MISC./MULTI FANDOM

✨ The Amazing Spider Man

Keeping Secrets by @luveline (cw: blood, injuries)

✨ Black Pather: Wakanda Forever

(** may contain spoilers **)

Namor the Sub-Mariner

My Queen, My Sun and My Sea by @mooncleaver (f!talokan!reader) (cw: death, colonizers)

✨️ The Originals / The Vampire Diaries

An Act That Brought You Joy (series) by Merontheshore on ao3 (elena gilbert x the originals) **

✨ Werewolf by Night

Jack Russell

Night Crawling (series) by @moonlight-prose (f!reader)

[rogue-durin-16]

CHARACTERS YOU CAN REQUEST FICS FOR

Band Of Brothers:

Don Malarkey

George Luz

Joe Liebgott

Joe Toye

Lewis Nixon

Donald Hoobler

Stranger Things:

Eddie Munson

Chrissy Cunningham

Steve Harrington

Robin Buckley

Nancy Wheeler

Eddie Munson x Chrissy Cunningham

Harry Potter:

Fred Weasley

George Weasley

Luna Lovegood

Nymphadora Tonks

Rogue One/Andor:

Cassian Andor

Jyn Erso

Bodhi Rook

The Hobbit:

Cassian Andor x Jyn Erso

Ruescott Melshi

Bix Caleen

Kíli

Fíli

Thorin

Tauriel

Dune (2020):

Duncan Idaho

ROGUE-DURIN-16 PROMPT LIST FOR REQUESTS

Disclaimer: you don't have to use these ones specifically, you can send your own prompts and scenarios too. Also, feel free to reblog if you're a writer.

GUIDELINES:

Write down the prompt number(s)

Write down the character(s) you want in the fic

Choose between platonic and romantic fic

Choose the fic genre

Specify the reader's pronouns

Optional:

Add a more information on the plot if you want

Specify who's saying which quote

DIALOGUE PROMPTS:

"Hey, you're bleeding!" "Oh my god— really? I didn't fucking notice!"

"Please get up."

"I like you." "Don't do that to yourself."

"Quick— kiss me!"

"Your lips are getting really close to mine."

"My family thinks we're dating."

"We have a problem." "No— you have a problem. I have an idiot who keeps getting in trouble."

"Please, don't let go of my hand. I'm scared."

"Dance with me?" "There's no music." "We'll hum."

"You look like you could use a hug." "Now, that's embarrassing."

"If I don't get coffee soon, someone's gonna die." "I'm 'someone', am I not?"

"How's the day going?" "Well, no one died." "Those are your standards?"

"Don't you dare walk away."

"I'm trying to have a serious conversation!" "And I'm trying to avoid it!"

"Now that I made it weird, I'm gonna leave."

"I don't like saying 'I told you so' but—" "the hell you don't, it's your favorite phrase."

"Are you sure I can't break his nose?" "Depends. Do you wanna get court-martialed?"

"Ten bucks says you don't make it to the door before passing out."

"I've lost the will to fight."

"I'm sorry I didn't say anything that night."

"Come here." "Why?" "Just come here." "No, you're gonna hit me."

"Shut up." "Make me."

"You know we're meant to be." "Yeah, six feet apart at all times."

"I'm gonna marry you someday."

Are you seriously giving me the silent treatment?"

"It was just a joke." "It wasn't funny!"

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"Yes, I have feelings for you. Moving on..."

"Were you dropped on your head as a kid?" "As a matter of fact, yes."

"Rumor has it, I make you nervous."

"I can't get up." "I'll carry you."

"we should cuddle— platonically, of course."

"are you crying?" "... No." "Wow, that sounded so convincing."

"Look at me— you're gonna be okay."

"You have a heart of gold." "But that's not enough for you, is it?"

"Are you asleep yet?" "..." "I love you."

"I've actually practiced this." "Asking me out?" "Yes."

"I'm not easy to love." "Who told you that?"

"You're so adorable." "And you're ruining my reputation. Stop."

"We're just friends." "Oh, c'mon! the only ones who buy that are you, Y/n, and that poor idiot they're dating."

"I have a solution." "Thank goodness." "It involves fire." "Absolutely not."

"Don't you trust me?" "Uh, yeah, with my life, not with my hair!"

"If you ask me, I'd say we deserve a happy ending."

"Can you please keep stroking my hair?"

"We'll get through this. Together."

"You're like a sister/brother to me." "What a sweet way of breaking my heart."

"We could've died!" "Yeah but we didn't." "No thanks to you."

"I don't think I'll ever be ready to lose you."

"What if we kissed?"

"Maybe making out for a few minutes would help us figure things up."

"Oh, you're still alive." "Don't sound so disappointed, I might think you don't like me."

"How long have you been standing there?" "Longer than you'd like."

"I remember kissing you. Why do I remember kissing you?"

"Go to hell." "And leave you here all alone?"

"You feelin' alright?" "Peachy!" *passes out*

"I'm happy with them." "That's not fair!" "Why?" "'Cause I loved you first!"

"You're very pretty." "And you're very drunk."

OTHER PROMPTS:

One falls asleep on the other's shoulder.

First kiss.

Last kiss.

Cooking together.

The reader gets hurt.

The character gets hurt.

They're stranded (alone or with more people).

A breaks down, B comforts them.

A fixes up B after B gets into a fight.

Drunkenly confessing their feelings.

Heated argument leads to a kiss/confession.

First date.

Fake date.

Trying to keep each other warm.

A is drunk and B takes care of them.

Dealing with a friend's death.

A asks B for a dance.

Bumping into each other after a long time.

The character realizes they're falling in love with the reader (or viceversa)

Starcrossed lovers.

FIC GENRES:

Fluff

Angst

Angst-fluff

Hurt/comfort

Friends to lovers

Rivals to lovers

Lovers to friends

Unrequited love

Mutual pinning

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Band Of Brothers: @sparkycorleone @chubbypotatoepie @tvserie-s-world @clumsy-wonderland @lordndsaviorwinters

Permanent taglist: @elia-the-bibliophile @randomparanoid @karlthecat15722 @thebutchersdaughtersblog @amourtentiaa @just-here-to-escape-from-reality @comfort-reads

[joeybelle]

Starlight - Chapter 12

Relationship: Cassian Andor x Original Female Character

Rating: Mature

Tags: Pre-Rogue One, Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Foul Language

For the next few days she avoided Cassian like the plague, which wasn’t so hard to do since he was nowhere to be seen. Once or twice, she even feared he might have died from his concussion, but then she remembered that he had a thick skull, both literally and figuratively, so he was probably fine.

Both Doctor Crane and Lewella had relentlessly made fun of her for being locked in a maintenance closet, but luckily they didn’t know the whole story. She had no idea what they would say if they knew about the kiss, but she imagined Lewella would laugh her ass off before teasing her for the rest of her life, so she kept her mouth shut, smiling and accepting the current jokes, knowing it could be much, much worse. Even after almost a week had passed since ‘the incident’, Cora still had no idea how to feel about it.

She was lucky that the med bay had been busier than usual so she didn’t have much time to socialize. She didn’t know yet how awkward her meetings with Aidan would be now that he had voiced his intentions, so she was grateful for at least a few days in which they didn’t have to interact outside the workplace. She had a lot of things to deal with, and in her usual fashion, ignored them all.

Leaving work at 2 am when she had another shift starting early in the morning wasn’t something that unusual, but lately it had become the norm and she was starting to feel exhausted.

The underground level was a lot quieter than the rest of the base, the thick stone walls muffling almost all sound. The air was stagnant in the corridors, the new ventilation system not functional everywhere, most of the underground still relying on the original vents. The corridors were only lit from the elevators to her quarters and to the few storage areas located in the catacombs. The rest was pitch black and empty. Without her there, even the prison was deserted. It was a stark contrast to the crowded base above and Cora was thankful for the peace and quiet.

When her ears got used to the silence, she started noticing an unusual humming sound in the distance. It seemed to be coming from deeper in the catacombs, which wasn’t right, there wasn’t supposed to be anything there to make noise. She wondered if maybe there was someone working late in storage, but the sound didn’t come from the right direction.

Intrigued, she headed deeper in the catacombs for as long as she had light. Listening closely, it almost sounded like… music? There was no way someone was playing music in the temple’s underground levels. There was no one living down there and it was way too late for anyone to be working.

Curiosity got the best of her, so she turned on the small pocket light she always carried around and cautiously advanced into the unknown. She tried making as little sound as possible, letting the distant music guide her steps. It was possible that the fatigue was making the pursuit a lot more thrilling than it was, but Cora’s heart had started to beat rapidly. It was fun. She felt like a kid again, exploring the narrow vents on a star destroyer. Not even for a moment did she think that she may get lost without a way to contact anyone who could get her out. Right now, all that mattered was solving the mystery.

From time to time she had to stop and listen carefully, trying to head in the right direction. Sometimes, the corridors seemed to turn away from the sound, but it was getting louder, so she knew she was getting closer. She went down a set of stairs and couldn’t help but wonder just how deep the whole construction went. She made a mental note to ask someone about the history of the place one day.

It was definitely music. When she was close enough that she could make out the lyrics she stopped. She could hear people talking and laughing. It seemed like there was some gathering taking place deep in the catacombs. Music, laughter and probably drinks. She didn’t have to go any further and accidentally crash their party to prove her theory right. So she turned around, wanting to return to her quarters as quickly as possible because she had already wasted enough time, and crashed into someone.

“Whoa, there!” he said, catching her by the shoulders, steadying her before she face-planted. “Who are you?” He turned on a flashlight and shone it into her eyes for a few seconds before turning it off again. “Oh! You’re the new doctor!” he exclaimed, seeming a little amused.

Cora blinked a few times, her eyes hurting from the sudden exposure to light. “I’ve been here for a while now, why am I still ‘the new doctor’?” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes vigorously. She couldn't see who she was talking to, but his voice was unfamiliar.

“Cause I haven’t met you yet,” he laughed. “Sergeant Ruescott Melshi, but call me Melshi.”

Nope, she didn’t know him. “Cora Enoch.”

“Now let’s hurry and get a drink before the bastards finish everything.” He placed a hand on her back trying to gently push her towards where the music was coming from. Cora was taken by surprise, so she took a few steps before stopping again.

“Umm…” She tried brushing off his hand. “I’m not coming, I’m sorry. I just heard the music and I was curious what it was, but I found out, so I’m turning back now…”

“Well, you’re already here, so why not come inside? This is the best makeshift bar in the whole base, after all,” he bragged.

“Ah, no thanks. I have an early shift tomorrow and I should be sleeping. Thank you for the invitation though,” she said, taking a step back, but he cut her off.

“Just one drink, Doctor. It will help you sleep better,” he didn’t give up and his insistence was starting to get a little irritating.

“I really shouldn’t…” she tried excusing herself, as politely as she could.

“You’re not getting away until you have at least one drink with us.”

“Why do you keep insisting?” she finally snapped.

“In case you get the idea of reporting us for drinking on base, I have to make sure you’ll go down with us.” His voice sounded a little ominous, but then he started laughing once again. “Don’t worry Doc, we don’t bite. Plus you already know some of us.”

Ok, that made sense. Sort of. She knew that drinking was restricted on the base, but she also knew that no one respected that rule, on the contrary, seeing how many hangovers she had to treat weekly. She had no intention to report anyone, they were free to do whatever they wanted in the end, but she understood his concerns so she stopped resisting and followed him down the dark corridor.

Light was pouring out of an open door, her flashlight suddenly useless. Her eyes had time to adjust to the brightness, so when she stepped into the well lit room she wasn’t blinded. It was a medium sized room, carved in stone like the rest of the ones Cora had seen in the catacombs. To the side there was a raised stone structure that, from the stools around it, she assumed they were using as a bar. There was an old jukebox in a corner, blaring some crappy galactic pop. There were a few tables and chairs scattered around the room, with most people crowded around one in the back. Every piece of furniture seemed to have been taken from the things no one needed in storage, pretty much like the ones in her room. There were no two tables looking the same, and everything looked improvised, from the bar stools to the lighting fixtures on the walls.

Melshi greeted a couple of people sitting at a table by the door then guided her towards the bar. Cora awkwardly climbed onto a stool, and propped her elbows on the stone table.

“So, what can I get you, miss?” he winked and went around the bar.

“What are my options?” she asked smiling. She had no plans to drink tonight, but she guessed she had to oblige just this once. If she was already here she could at least enjoy it.

“Well,” he said, looking under the bar, “we have jet juice…” He took out a bottle of liqueur of dubious origin and put it in front of her. “And slightly shittier jet juice.” The second bottle looked a little murkier than the first, and Cora looked at it suspiciously.

“I think I’ll take the jet juice,” she said, suddenly not so convinced that this was a good idea.

“Excellent choice, Doctor. You seem to have good taste in drinks.”

He started pouring a copious amount of liquor from the first bottle into two standard metal cups and offered one to Cora. She tentatively took it and even though she knew it was not the most polite thing to do, she took a whiff. It smelled horrible. She had only heard about jet juice since she came to Yavin IV, but she never imagined it would actually smell like it had been brewed inside an engine.

“Is it your first time?” he asked, amused, pointing at her drink.

“Yeah…” she grimaced.

The crowd in the back of the room erupted in a fit of laughter and Cora turned her head to look. They were playing some sort of game and someone seemed to be on a winning streak. Her heart jumped out of her chest when she noticed Cassian at the edge of the crowd, arms crossed over his chest, laughing wholeheartedly. Shit. The one person she didn’t expect to see in the middle of a dive bar and really really wanted to avoid was just standing there, looking better than ever.

She took the metal cup to her lips and took a big gulp, ignoring the pungent taste, trying to drink it as fast as possible and be gone before he noticed her.

“Whoa, slow down Doc, you need to take your time and enjoy the wretched aroma…” Melshi laughed at her efforts, but Cora didn’t listen.

“No, sorry, early shift tomorrow, gotta go,” she babbled, downing the rest of the drink in one big gulp feeling it burn her throat. She would have to explain to Doctor Crane tomorrow why she needed an esophagus transplant.

“Cora!” she heard Lewella’s voice booming over the cacophony of sounds in the room. Cora groaned audibly, as almost everyone turned around to look at her. So much for leaving unnoticed.

Lewella emerged from the crowd and joined her at the bar, a similar metal cup in her hand. “I’ve been trying to convince you to come with me for weeks and you kept declining and now I see you with Melshi?” she whined, resting a hand on Cora’s shoulder. “I’m hurt you know…”

“She came on her own,” Melshi clarified. “I found her lurking in the shadows.”

“Yeah he kidnapped me. I would have never came here on my own accord,” she assured her, smiling. “I see you’re free tomorrow?” Cora asked eyeing Lewella’s already empty cup, thinking of the horrible shift she had the next day. She was already starting to feel the alcohol going to her head.

“No, I’m leaving in a few hours, whenever your favorite general decides to ship us.”

Cora raised an eyebrow. She tried not to judge people and their choices, but she couldn’t help but feel a little worried. She knew that you needed to be alert and well rested during missions and alcohol combined with little to no sleep was a recipe for disaster.

“Oh stop being the mom friend,” Lewella said, noticing her expression. “I’m going to bed in five minutes.”

“Yeah, me too. I have a shift tomorrow morning.” Cora tried getting up the stool, but Lewella’s hand pushed her back.

“You know what? You just got here, so why not stay a little while longer? Another drink won’t kill you,” Lewella said, but Cora was convinced of the opposite. “You should meet everyone, make some friends. Sorry that I can’t stay longer to introduce you, but this is your fault for not coming when I invited you. Anyway, I’m leaving you in good hands…” She looked at Melshi, who was grinning and shook her head. “Actually, I’ve changed my mind. Andor!” she yelled over the music. “Come here a sec.”

Cora wanted to be able to completely disappear or spontaneously combust or something. Anything, really, just to not have to interact with Cassian. But he had already turned around and was coming towards them. Melshi probably noticed her discomfort because he refilled her cup and pushed it towards her. Cora sent him a thank you smile.

“See my girl here, Andor? You owe her an apology.” Lewella’s hand was around Cora’s shoulders, pulling her into an embrace. “For locking her in a maintenance closet.” Cora felt how her face was reddening. The alcohol was doing a great job on its own and with the added embarrassment Cora feared she’ll be tomato red in no time.

She only had the courage to look at Cassian out of the corner of her eye, but he wasn’t directly looking at her either. He had his arms crossed over his chest and a cheeky grin on his face. The blush and the slightly unfocused gaze could have been an indication that he too had been drinking. Cora took another sip of the foul tasting liquid, trying to swallow the knot that had formed in her throat.

“I have to go now, so I’m leaving her in your care, Andor,” she said, pointing a finger at him. “Make sure she gets back safely and she doesn’t drink too much. If she does, tell Doctor Crane that she’s having a sudden and inexplicable case of veisalgia that has her incapacitated.”

“Oh, no! No no no!” Cora tried protesting, but a dirty look from Lewella silenced her.

“Does she really need a babysitter, though?” he asked, his accent a little more pronounced than usually.

“Of course she doesn’t, but you’ve been an ass so it’s your chance to make it up to her. Plus, I’m not leaving her here completely alone…”

“Wait, am I no one?” Melshi intervened, a little outraged by the assumption.

“You’re shady,” Lewella said, eyeing him sideways and Cora couldn’t help but laugh. He was indeed a little shady.

“And you’re trying to tell me he’s not?” Melshi said, pointing at the captain over the stone table. “He’s the fucking definition of shady!” Cassian was laughing, and Cora wondered if she had ever seen him so at ease around people.

“Yeah, but I know him and he’s harmless. On the other hand, you’re a lot more untrustworthy than you look.”

“You’ve hurt me. Right in the feelings, Lewella,” he said, pouring some liquor into another cup and offering it to Cassian. “And he’s a lot less harmless than you think. Trust me,” he added, before leaving the bar to pass the bottle to someone who was accusing them of hogging the alcohol.

“Alright, I’m going,” Lewella finally said the dreaded words and Cora wanted to latch onto her arm and cry so she wouldn’t leave her alone with Cassian, but that would raise a lot of suspicion and she wasn’t ready to explain. She smiled, stoically, and decided to finish her drink and excuse herself after that. She would survive five minutes in Cassian’s proximity. Probably. Hopefully.

“Stay safe tomorrow,” she told her friend, earning a smile from the Twi’lek.

“I will, don’t worry,” she assured her. “Andor, be nice. See you guys soon!”

As soon as Lewella left the room, Cora once again felt incredibly awkward. She didn’t remember being so antisocial, she used to be quite ok with social gatherings. It looked like the time spent in jail had made her a little more guarded. Or maybe she just felt out of place, surrounded by people that all seemed to know each other pretty well, feeling like she was intruding. The only one she knew, besides Lewella who was gone now, was Cassian and she had no idea how to deal with him right now, so she kept drinking, hoping she wouldn’t become a mopey drunk.

He had climbed on the stool next to her and was resting his elbows on the bar, seeming just as interested in his drink as she was. And probably, feeling just as awkward as she felt. Nonetheless, he was cute. It was unusual seeing him in civilian clothes without all the military insignia. Even though the jacket he was wearing now had the similar Corellian cut as his military one, it make him look more relaxed somehow. Or maybe, it was just the informal setting. She was convinced he never drank unless the job required it and certainly not on base breaking the rules, but it seemed she had been wrong in most of her assumptions. She had judged him by how he behaved at work, but she never thought he may have a private life beyond that, one that she had never been part of.

“I see you haven’t died from your concussion yet, Captain,” Cora finally broke the silence.

His lips curled into a faint smile before he took a sip from his cup. “Disappointed?”

“A little.” She laughed. “I’ll have to admit I would have really loved to be able to say ‘I told you so’.”

“I won’t give you that satisfaction, don’t worry.”

The group in the back erupted in laughter again and Cora remembered the game that Cassian had been watching before he was appointed to be her babysitter.

“What are they playing?” she asked, shifting a little so she could see their table over Cassian’s frame.

“Sabacc,” he said, his face opening into a smile. “Do you know the game?”

“Oh. I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never seen anyone play it.” She tried getting a better look at the table, but the people crowding around it were blocking her view. “Gambling is forbidden in the Imperial army, but I assume a lot of people played anyway.”

“Well, if you decide to come here more often, I can teach you if you want.”

Her heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but he had never offered to meet her in their free time before. He never had lunch with her in the mess hall, never stopped to chat by the coffee machine, hell, he never stopped her in the hallway to ask her how she’d been doing. It may have not been a date, but something as simple as offering to teach her how to play a game felt like something special coming from Cassian. “Unfortunately, I don’t have much time off,” she admitted, and her voice sounded a little sadder than intended.

“That’s because you’re a workaholic. Lewella told me that she’s already invited you a few times and you kept saying no.” Could it be that he sounded a little disappointed, or was her mind playing tricks on her? “I’m surprised Melshi got you to come.”

“Don’t you dare call me a workaholic,” she said, pretending to be offended. “And he didn’t. I heard music so I was curious,” she explained. “He found me and dragged me here. Against my will. We’ve never met before.” She was pretty vehement in making sure that he knew Melshi didn’t just convince her to come. Her alcohol infused brain was starting to slip. “I wouldn’t have come if I knew what it was,” she said, without thinking.

“Why not?” he asked, looking at her curiously.

Cora looked down at her hands. “Because…” She didn’t really know what to say. “I guess I don’t really know anyone here…”

“But you do,” he said, turning around to face her. “You know Lew and you know me. You’ll get to know Melshi whether you like it or not.” Cora laughed. “You know Rodma Maddel, she’s in the intelligence division, she’s been through your questionnaire,” he said pointing at a blonde girl, and Cora cringed remembering the whole ordeal. “Speaking of which, I haven’t heard anything about that seminar yet,” he said, a grin spreading over his face.

Cora groaned. She hoped he had forgotten about that, but she wasn’t that lucky. She took another sip, before straightening her back and trying to look as professional as she could given that she was already tipsy. “Well, Captain, it seems you’re the only one on base who doesn’t know how to put on a condom.” She could hardly contain her laugh. “It wouldn’t be much of a seminar with just the two of us, don’t you think so?” She winked and Cassian shook his head, laughing, the blush on his face accentuating slightly.

“That,” he said, going back to pointing people in the room, “is Corporal Casrich. He’s a bit of a daredevil so you might have treated his injuries a few times.” The corporal was loudly talking to Sergeant Melshi, a little wobbly on his feet. Cora remembered him. She had admitted him a couple of times, but unlike Cassian, he waited patiently in the infirmary to get better.

Cora scanned the room for other familiar faces and stopped when she saw an older bearded man. “I know him. Mefran? I think…”

“Jav Mefran, yes. He helped clear out the jungle when we moved to Yavin.”

“He helped me too, with Ben when I took him out of the dungeons. He knows a lot about jungle habitats.”

“Why did you name a lichen?” he suddenly asked, taking her by surprise.

Cora shrugged. “I’m lonely, I guess.”

The same sad expression she had seen on his face before resurfaced once again. This time, however, it didn’t disappear in a fraction of a second, but persisted for a while, long enough for Cora to convince herself it wasn’t just a figment of her imagination. “You don’t have to be,” he finally said.

She shrugged again, but didn’t know what to say. She knew it was her fault she was being lonely, she should have made an effort to make more friends and interact with them more, but she had been alone for most of her life so she just got used to it. Being lonely seemed to be her default state, and it rarely bothered her.

Melshi had returned behind the bar with a now empty bottle. Unfortunately, he opened a new one and started refilling their cups.

“No no no! It’s enough, I really really have to go now,” she declined the drink, jumping off of the stool.

“But you just came here,” he argued. “And I really didn’t get to know you.”

“I’ll come another time,” she assured him, but Melshi didn’t seem to buy it. “You really think Lew won’t drag me here the next time she’s on base?”

“Ok, then,” he finally gave up. “You’re lucky that you’re a doctor and I don’t want to feel responsible for the people you’ll kill tomorrow. Finish your drink and you’re free to go.”

“I’m not drinking that. You said one drink and that’s the third.” She frowned, crossing her arms over her chest, trying to seem tough, even though it was pretty obvious that she was already tipsy.

“Alcohol is in short supply so we don’t waste it. You can’t leave until your cup is empty.” He was grinning and Cora wanted to strangle him. She looked over to Cassian for help but he was grinning too.

“Those are the rules,” the captain said, bringing his cup to his lips and downing it. He finished the drink without flinching, and Cora looked at him wide eyed, wondering what kind of monster he was to be able to drink that horrible liqueur with a smile on his face.

“It was empty before you refilled it,” she grumbled, pointing an accusing finger at Melshi, who had skipped the cup and was now drinking straight from the bottle.

She didn’t manage to finish her drink as elegantly as Cassian did, but she did her best only to grimace slightly. Finally, she put the empty cup upside down on the stone bar. “I want you to know that I’m blaming you tomorrow for my hangover,” she told Melshi. “Does no one ever want to kill you, because I really want to kill you right now.”

“Some have tried, Doctor, but none has succeeded yet. I’m resilient like that,” he laughed.

“Like a cockroach,” Cassian added, getting off of his stool. “I’m gonna walk you back,” he offered Cora.

“It’s ok, I can go back on my own,” she declined. “You stay here with everyone.” She really didn’t want to be a burden to him, after all he was there to spend time with his friends, not to take care of her. And she certainly didn’t want to be alone with him. She was scared of the awkward silence that would follow.

“Are you sure?” he asked, taking a step towards her, getting dangerously close. “I know you’re good with dark and narrow spaces, but the catacombs are a lot more complex than your vents. How many times have you explored them?”

Through the fog of alcohol that was clouding her mind she realized he was right. She had only found her way here because she was guided by the music, but she had absolutely no idea how to get back. That would have been difficult even if she had been sober, but drunk it was nearly impossible.

“You have a point,” she admitted, a little embarrassed. “I need your help getting back.”

“That’s more like it,” he said, putting a hand on the small of her back. “I’ll be back shortly,” he told Melshi who waved at them.

“Don’t forget me, Cora Enoch,” he yelled when they were almost out the door.

“How could I?” she yelled back. “I’ll have the mother of hangovers to remind me of you.”

She welcomed the darkness. The alcohol had gone to her head faster than she had anticipated, mainly due to her own stupidity, and right now she was sure her face was red and her eyes glassy. Fortunately, she wasn’t drunk enough to lose all self-control or black out in a corner. At least until she was safely in her own bed. She really didn’t want to make a fool of herself in front of Cassian.

She turned on her flashlight seeing as Cassian didn’t seem to have any light. Melshi didn’t use the one he had either when she first saw him, so she had to assume that they could either see in the dark, or they knew the place so well they could easily navigate it. She wondered how many times they met there like that. Daily after work? Weekly? They seemed to know each other pretty well.

“How long have you known these people?” Cora asked, breaking the silence.

“Most of them I’ve known for a while. A few years even,” he said, his voice a little nostalgic. “Some I’ve only met after we moved on Yavin IV. I’ve recruited a few of them over the years.”

“How long have you known Lewella?”

“I’ve probably known her the longest. Both of us have been in the Rebellion for quite some time.”

“She never mentioned you,” she said, without thinking.

“Do you talk about me a lot?” he asked, and Cora didn’t have to see his face to know that he was grinning.

“Actually we don’t,” she admitted, realizing that if she had asked Lewella about him she would have told her. She just lived under the impression that Lew knew him like she seemed to know everyone on base, not that they were actually friends. But how could she have brought him up without raising suspicion?

“But you do think about me,” he said, and Cora was sure she turned a few shades brighter.

“Occasionally,” she admitted, the alcohol making her a little more honest than she would have liked. “When you annoy me,” she added.

“Only when I annoy you?” he asked, and Cora was sure he was referring to the kiss.

“You do annoy me a lot.” She didn’t have the courage to bring it up.

He laughed and it echoed in the dark corridor. She was feeling warm and safe walking alongside him in the narrow space. He was close enough that if she reached out she could grab his hand and pull him even closer. Was she brave enough to make the first move? The alcohol was giving her the perfect excuse, but could she do it?

Before she could make up her mind she started seeing light at the end of the corridor and she knew they were close. She had missed her chance, because she knew she would never be that brave out in the light.

“If you go straight ahead,” he said while they were still surrounded by shadows, “and then left, you’ll reach the elevators. I’ll turn around now.”

Cora nodded and turned off the flashlight, shoving it in her pocket. There was enough light that she could distinguish shapes. She turned around to look at Cassian. He was just standing there looking at her, waiting, as if giving her the chance to stop him from leaving. And she took it, thinking that life’s short and that she’ll hate herself the next day no matter what decision she made.

She grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and pulled him closer. That was all he needed. They easily found each other's lips in the dark, crashing into a hurried, yet passionate kiss. Cora snaked her arms around his neck, tangling her fingers in his hair, messing it up like she wanted to do so many times before. His hands had found their way underneath her uniform and his fingers were stroking the bare skin on the small of her back, sending shivers down her spine.

He pushed her onto the wall, deepening the kiss. The taste of jet juice didn’t seem so nauseating when it was on his lips, she thought as she let her hands slide down on his chest, unbuttoning his shirt. His lips left hers only to move to kissing down her neck, gently nibbling at the skin from time to time, his stubble pleasantly tickling. His hands had gone up, caressing the skin over her ribs, but never quite touching her breasts, teasing her.

She took his face in her hands, bringing him back up to meet her lips, needing to feel him and taste him. He took his hands from under her tunic and pulled her into an embrace, pressing her to his chest as closely as he could without suffocating her. She grabbed onto his shoulders for support, her knees weak.

She had no idea how much time they spent like that, but time was a distant notion to her. When he finally broke off the kiss, she was feeling lightheaded and flustered.

“I have to go now,” he said, his voice raspy, just as out of breath as she was. “Before they start asking questions.”

“You could stay,” she suggested, her voice low and shaky, but without any doubt in her mind.

He smiled and looked away, then released her from his embrace. Without his arms holding her, Cora struggled to maintain her balance so she took a step back and leaned on the stone wall.

“You have work early in the morning,” he said, not looking at her, more concentrated on buttoning his shirt right. “You need sleep.”

“I don’t care,” she said, not giving up just yet. He laughed, but Cora could see him backing away, and not only physically.

“You’ll regret it tomorrow,” he said, but it was too dark for Cora to make out the look he threw her. She wondered what he referred to when he said she’d regret it: losing a night’s sleep or sleeping with him? “Go get some rest,” he said, before shoving his hands in his pockets and disappearing in the dark.

After a few minutes of silent pondering, Cora realized how much she hated him for leaving her alone in the corridor, horny and drunk, but also how much she wanted him. She slid down the wall and pressed her hands to her face.

“Fuck you, Cassian,” she whispered.

*

One thing she had been right about: she hated herself in the morning. She also hated Cassian and Melshi, but above it all, she hated herself.

When she got to her room she was sure she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep thanks to the adrenaline running through her veins, but after taking a quick shower, she fell asleep the moment her head touched the pillow. She woke up with a splitting headache and a very disgruntled stomach. Luckily, she arrived to her shift in time, cursing the gods who had bestowed humanity with the gift of alcohol.

She had spent the whole morning nursing her hangover and yelling at the droids that were making too much noise for her liking. Fortunately for everyone, the med bay hadn’t been very busy that day. She hated herself for not being able to refuse drinking on a work night. The wretched taste of jet juice lingered on her tongue and she was sure she wouldn’t be able to get rid of it unless she gargled disinfectant. Maybe not even so.

But besides the taste of jet juice, the feeling of Cassian’s lips on hers lingered too. When she woke up in the morning she wasn’t sure if it was a dream fueled by alcohol or if it was real. It took her a while to convince herself that it had been in fact real. She should have never kissed anyone while drunk, she told herself. But she knew she wouldn’t have had the courage to do it if she were completely sober. And she wondered if it wasn’t the same for him. She didn’t regret it, though.

Most of the day she just sat at her desk, her hands tightly pressed onto her eyes, hoping that she’d survive her hangover for a few more hours.

“Hello Doc,” she heard a familiar voice greet her and she groaned internally. “Remember me?”

“How could I have forgotten you, Sergeant?” she said, turning around to look at a smiling Melshi. “What can I help you with?”

He lifted his left hand and Cora could see a small drill poking out of it. She sighed. “Prep OR01,” she told a med droid. “Follow me, Sergeant.”

The med droid sat him on the table while Cora put on a surgical gown and a pair of gloves. Taking the drill out of his hand wasn’t a complicated thing, it could have been done in the ER downstairs, but she assumed his main objective was to see her and laugh at her hangover.

“How’s your first real hangover, Doctor?” he asked, proving her right.

“What makes you think that this is ‘my first real hangover’?”

“Because you don’t really experience hangovers to their fullest until you try jet juice.”

“I see,” she smiled. “Well, as you can see, I’ve survived.”

The scanner showed that he had narrowly missed hitting a bone with the drill and there was no nerve damage either. He has been lucky.

“You, on the other hand, or on this hand, nearly drilled into a bone.”

“It can happen to the best of us, isn’t that right, Doc?”

“Especially to those who drink on weeknights,” she scolded him.

“Every night is a weeknight for some of us. You just have to make some time for yourself too. We can’t be working all the time or we’d go mad.” He grinned and Cora feared the worst. “Speaking of which, you and Cassian, eh?”

Cora’s eyes widened. How could he know? There was no way Cassian would have told him, right? She assumed he wasn’t one to kiss and tell, but she may have been wrong. Or maybe he didn’t know, and was making assumptions himself. She was going to deny everything anyway.

“There has to be a verb in there somewhere for it to be a sentence, Sergeant,” she said, while slowly extracting the metal object from his flesh.

“You know what I mean,” he grinned.

“No, I don’t,” she played stupid.

“Do you really want me to say it out loud?” he asked, pointing towards the med droid, who was waiting by the door in case he was needed. Cora wondered if med droids gossiped. She sighed and dismissed it.

“There’s nothing between me and Cassian,” she said, when they were completely alone.

“That’s bullshit.”

“It’s not!”

“Are you trying to tell me that he just walked you to your room, told you good night and left?”

“Pretty much. Minus the good night part, he’s not that polite,” she said, smiling, hoping he’d drop the subject.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t really care if you believe me or not. It’s the truth.”

“He’s not that stupid, you know,” he said, looking at her like he knew something she didn’t. “He’s noticed the way you look at him.”

“What do you mean?” Her heart sank.

He grinned. “You know, out of the corner of your eye, like you’re not really looking, but you are. And he’s noticed.” Cora threw him a disbelieving look. “He has, and he’s doing the same thing. So don’t try to convince me there’s nothing between the two of you.”

“There’s nothing between me and Cassian,” she said in her best poker face.

With the drill extracted, wound cleaned and patched up, he was free to go, and Cora wished to get rid of him as fast as she could. Her heart was beating too fast and she felt she was going to be nauseous again. She promised herself she'd never drink again.

“Thanks for the hand,” he said, before leaving the med bay. “And maybe next time he walks you back to your room you won’t let him leave until he says goodnight. Or good morning, depending…”

“Oh, fuck off before I change my mind and put that drill back!”

Previous Chapter

Masterlist

[littlemisspascal]

The After

Pairing: Ruescott Melshi x Female Reader

Word Count: 7k+

Summary: There is a story before, when, and after Keef Girgo enters your life. This is the After.

Rating: M (18+, minors please do not engage!)

Warnings: Prison/Narkina 5 storyline but an AU where woman inmates are assigned to each unit as ‘peacekeepers’, language, established relationship, references of dead bodies, violence + blood + injuries, talk of having children but no pregnancy, angst, near-death experiences

- Reader has no official name and no physical traits described in detail. However, she is implied to be shorter than Melshi.

Author Note: Thank you everybody for the kind support of this story from beginning to now! Unbelievable this is the end! What was supposed to be such a little thing has turned into this epic journey with characters I've come to love so much. Hope y'all enjoy 💜

Special thanks to @beecastle for beta reading and encouraging me 💜

Series Masterlist

You find yourself floating in a realm of total darkness. No colors, no sounds, no warmth. And it should scare you, being trapped here in this unnatural stillness, unable to move or scream, but numbness prevails over the alarm pinching faintly at your nerves. It swaddles your limp body, from your head to your toes, like you’re something fragile. Something in need of care.

You could get used to this. 

~~

A strike of pain hits the center of your chest, disturbing the numbness with the same force as an unexpected slap across the face. It startles you, whole body convulsing, and your lips part to release a wordless gasp but—

—you can’t—

There’s nothing in your lungs to exhale. 

Odd, considering you taste smoke on your tongue. Bitter. Ashy. Almost like…almost like you’re burning alive.

“Come on…”

Fire, hungry and vicious, laps at your tender insides like they’re made of paper. It bites most cruelly above your hip, almost feeling deliberate in nature. As if an invisible enemy is pressing a lit candle there against the flesh.

And yet all you can think about, the only thing rattling around inside your panic-stricken mind that you can focus on, is water. Gushing. Rippling. A beast gobbling up whatever it yanks beneath its surface.

“…breath, damn it…”

There’s a voice somewhere, far away yet impossibly close. They sound upset. Panting harshly like they can’t find their breath either. 

And beyond the voice, faintly roaring over the rush of blood in your ears, the sound of waves crashing upon a shore. 

Then another sharp pang connects with your chest, putting an abrupt end to your musings as your peaceful realm of darkness explodes into light and an abundance of colors.

Your vision swims, and there’s a split second of wild incomprehension, skin tingling and lungs full of flames, heart thumping hard in your chest. And then you feel it, something wet and salty rising in your esophagus. Up, up, up until there’s nowhere left to go but out.

There’s no strength left in your body, and yet the second your lips part you’re retching up a disgusting blend of saltwater and stomach acid onto the sandy floor. There’s a shout of your name from nearby, familiar in its cadence, but it’s impossible to focus when you’re choking on brine, every muscle constricting with agony.

“Thank the Maker,” the voice says next, a quiet heave of relief.

You manage a shuddering breath, tongue heavy in your mouth and the taste of salt and iron fighting for dominance. There’s still a fiery burn throbbing from your hip. The kind no amount of water will douse. Your head’s too heavy to look, eyes wanting nothing more than to roll back into darkness.

“No, no,” a hand pulls at your shoulder, rolling you over just enough for Jemboc’s face to slide into view. Water droplets slide down his skin, along the anxious lines marring his expression. “Now’s not the time for sleeping.”

A shiver wracks your frame. You’re soaked to the bone, clothes sticking uncomfortably, and slowly, oh so unbearably slowly the pieces start coming together. A timeline of memories settling into place. It’s hard to tell if the nausea cramping your stomach is from your harried prison escape or nearly drowning to death.

I was shot, you think to yourself. There’s a sharp twinge from your wound, as if it’s pleased to finally be remembered.

“What happened?” Your voice comes out barely louder than a weak hiss between clenched teeth, whole body strenuously protesting the effort. 

Jemboc’s grip on your shoulder tightens. The intensity of his stare drills into your bones, adding to the desperation thrumming beneath your skin. “Pure pandemonium once everyone hit the water. Felt like it was every man for himself; fighting the current, scrambling for land. But I saw you sinking and I-I didn’t think, just grabbed you and pulled you with me to shore.”

You blink at him for a long moment, fatigue pulling at your eyelids, then gingerly tilt your head to take in your surroundings for the first time. The sky’s a canvas of orange, purple, and dark blue overlapping one another, the last beams of sunlight fading fast. You’re on a beachy shore, sand so white it could pass for snow, dotted with sharp rocks and leafless trees. And it figures, of course it does, that the outside of the prison is as dreary and spiritless as the inside.

“Hey.” There’s a new softness to Jemboc’s voice, drawing your hazy attention back. His gaze isn’t on your face anymore, staring someplace lower on your body with grimly pursed lips. “Your wound…It’s–it’s not looking too good.”

Doesn’t feel too good either, is the automatic snappish retort that comes to mind first, but then the true meaning of his words sinks in like the jagged edges of a trap springing shut. 

You’re not making it off this beach. 

You can’t move, and even if Jemboc carried you along with him you can’t fight. Can’t help him find a way to get off this damn moon. All you’ll be is a useless burden weighing him down.

“Should’ve let me drown,” you rasp.

Jemboc bites harshly into his bottom lip instead of responding, hand still grasping your shoulder, as if letting go meant watching you dissolve into sea foam. 

You think you’d actually prefer that over the alternatives. If the dropping temperature doesn’t kill you first, you’re going to bleed out here, a stain of scarlet on the snow sand swept away by the midnight tide. You’d fought for a softer conclusion, asked the universe for a little more time, and this…this is what you received.

What a load of bantha shit, you think, snorting a quiet huff of air that has your sore lungs smarting. It isn’t funny, not even a little bit. It’s fucking tragic. But you bet Melshi would laugh too, that low, husky chuckle of his if he were here—

Your heart stops.

“I–where–” Panic wraps around your vocal chords like a noose, tightening by the second. Your fingers curl into loose fists at your sides, sand gathering beneath your nails. “Rue,” you spit out with strangled urgency. “Where’s Rue?”

You can remember your last moment with him so clearly up there on the landing bay. The feeling of his calloused hands on your face, holding you like his most precious treasure. How his brown eyes blazed with such fervent emotion, voice drowned out by the encompassing maelstrom. If those had been his last words—fuck. Fuck, don’t think like that. 

Jemboc won’t meet your gaze, glancing towards the waves. “I’m not sure.”

Something sharp punctures a hole behind your sternum.

No. That won’t do. That won’t do at all.

“Jemboc, what do you mean you’re not sure? Where the hell is he?”

“It means I don’t know,” he chokes. He gestures vaguely at the beach, the water, frowning deeply. “I told you: it was pandemonium. I just saw flashes of faces, there and gone. Running as fast as they could. Taga, Ham, Kino, Keef, Melshi—I lost sight of all of them. I…I don’t even know if they made the swim.”

You’d always known escaping prison would be hard. That there’d be losses. Sacrifices. But this—this specific kind of pain of unknowing is excruciating. Gaping black holes of uncertainty eating away at your hopes, leaving behind nothing but fear and increasingly catastrophic thoughts. You almost think it’d hurt less, being able to actually see the corpses of your tablemates right in front of you, lifeless and briny. At least then you’d know their fates, be able to firmly close their stories and make peace with their endings.

Jemboc rubs a hand over face, then sniffs quietly, and it only hits you then he’s probably feeling just as lost as you are. With no routine, no instructions to follow, the sudden abundance of options and lack of fellow support is overwhelming. Even worse, every second he spends at your side, his odds of successfully avoiding being caught again continue to dwindle. Like hell are the guards going to let everyone go without a single attempt of recapture.

Maker help any unfortunate souls they find. Those inmates will be dragged back kicking and screaming, if they’re even conscious after a severe beating with a zap rod.

“You’ve got to go,” you say, even though the thought of being totally alone makes you sick. But he deserves better, deserves to have made it further than this point. “You have to leave me behind.”

“I know,” Jemboc says. And it’s the closest to an apology that you’ll ever receive. 

Everything will be alright, Melshi had told you. A lie you’d asked for. A lie you’d swallowed as a future painkiller in case what you feared most came to pass. 

Melshi’s always been your safe haven. Your shield of protection. But he’s gone now. And it’s such a selfish desire—selfish and unfair and so damn greedy—to want him here. To hold your hand and hear his voice one last time before you fatally drift off into the unknown. 

Worse than that, deep down in a place of sharp teeth and possessiveness, half-feral from years spent trapped in a toxic cage, you want him to drift away with you. For your last breaths to be taken together…so in sync your dying souls leave the world behind as one, entangled force. Indivisible.

Jemboc murmurs a quiet goodbye, short and sweet, but you’re lost in your head, somewhere far, far away beyond the stinging pain. Even as your former tablemate leaves you, his figure growing smaller and smaller until there’s nothing left of him to see, you feel so distant from it all, watching from another place. Another realm. Familiar, yet different. More…permanent, somehow. A door which once shut can never be opened again.

Your body’s cold, no feeling in your legs. The hole in your side continues oozing, edges caked with sand, furiously irritated by the saltwater and trauma. It just—it seems so easy, reaching out your hands, to finally let it all go.

~~

And yet.

And yet…

Something—some nameless, shapeless thing—tells you to wait. 

So you do. Your only company a vicious hybrid of heartache and caustic pain who thrives on catching you off guard with its teeth and talons. It can’t be much fun, playing with somebody who’s barely breathing by the narrowest of margins, but that doesn’t seem to lessen the ferocity of its attacks. 

If time passes, you’re blind to it. There’s no change here. No growth. Just you and the monster in the shadows, waiting for you to give up.

But still you wait. For what? No clue. It must be important though, that much you know. That much you cling to. There’s a part of you, a tiny segment tucked away in the same chamber as your sluggishly beating heart, that even thinks the ache emanating from every piece of your body is good. Pain is proof of life. And living, staying alive…that’s good too, isn’t it?

Your answer comes in the most unexpected form.

“Mysie my. A prisoner escaper. Bleeding like a stuck pig, haye. Killing’s all they know, Freedi. Spoiling our water.”

An answering grunt.

A short pause. A decision reached.

“Naye this one. Naye today.”

~~

When your eyes next open, it’s a very slow process reconnecting with your senses. Brain function coming back online like a dusty old datapad finally recharging after years of neglect.

You’re in a ship cabin, that much is obvious from the metal ceiling and how the bunk you’re lying on has been built into the wall. You blink up at the orange bulb overhead for a moment, unable to summon any thread of familiarity.

Did the guards find you? Are you on your way back to your cell, or, worse, the box?

The flutter of fear in your stomach is doused as quickly as it arouses when you shift yourself upwards, noticing for the first time a red blanket with fraying edges covering your body. The prison guards wouldn’t be so kind, offering such a comforting item, you’re certain of that much. 

 So, if you’re not with them, then where…?

The cabin smells like the sea, salty and crisp, with a hint of distinctive fishiness making your nose scrunch up. There’s a line of cargo boxes pushed against the wall across from you. An opened one reveals a bundle of nets intertwined. Above it, small box-shaped wire traps hang from a shelf. Doesn’t take a genius to recognize the equipment of a fisherman.

It’s such a quaint space. So quiet. A complete contrast to the chatter and noises of prison and yet equally unnerving in its own eerie way.

You look down at your lower body still concealed and slowly peel away the blanket, taking in the dried blood stains on your scrubs with a grimace. Those won’t be easy to wash out–hell, you’d burn them in a millisecond if you had any extra clothes available. Lifting up the hem of your shirt, your eyes widen, taken aback by the sight of a large bacta patch neatly covering the blaster gash. Exactly what Melshi had said you needed…

The screeching of the rear hatch door opening startles you out of your musings, heart falling somewhere deep inside your stomach. You sit up straighter, acting on instinct, only for fatigue and soreness to cripple your movements, limbs feeling like they’re weighted down with sand.

It’s two aliens, hulking and dark-headed. One has a cybernetic eye peering straight into your soul, while the other’s even more menacing with an extendable blade serving as a replacement for his right hand. You stare at them, at a loss for words, and there’s a lengthy moment where the pair simply stare right back.

Who the hell are these guys?

“Awake finally, haye?” the one with the cybernetic eye finally says, bobbing his head as if he’s amused. His gray hat impressively remains fixed in place. “Ye be a lucky one. Lost half your blood ye did.”

“I, um. Thank you.” Your voice comes out sounding like you’ve swallowed rocks. Maybe you did, not like you can remember anything in-between Jemboc leaving you behind and waking up here. Hopefully you haven’t lost much time. “I-I don’t know how to repay you for the kindness.”

The other alien says something in another language, deep and throaty. Not a single word of it makes any sense to your ears, but it elicits a chuckle from Gray Hat that’s a little too mocking for your liking.

“What?” you ask, gaze flicking back and forth cautiously. “What did he say?”

Gray Hat takes a closer step, just a small one but in this little of a space he might as well be looming over you. “Freedi saying there be an offer on escapers. Alive or dead. A thousand credits each, haye.”

The response hits you like a physical blow, every piece of you that isn’t struck speechless is bristling with frantic alarm. Fuck. Fuck. You aren’t safe. You were never safe. What are you supposed to do? You can’t fight them, especially not the one wielding a knife. Maybe, and that’s a big fucking maybe, you could outrun them if you made it outside. Think. Use your damn brain and—

“No need to look worried. They not be getting ye.”

“Th-they’re not?” you stutter, panic still raging in your veins. It feels like a trick, a mean scheme to make you lower your guard, but the corner of Gray Hat’s mouth is curling up in what you think is a semblance of a smirk.

“Prison spoiled our water,” Grey Hat says emphatically. “Not much squiggly left. Not anymore. Care not a snod about who they kill. We say scob the Empire and scob their credits, haye, Freedi?”

Freedi agrees with a grunt.

Is this some kind of weird, convoluted hallucination? What are the chances, that of all the strangers in all the galaxy you just happened to be rescued by two who would reject a massive sum out of mutual hatred for the Empire? Infinitesimal, surely. And yet…

Seriously, who the hell are these guys? 

“Oh, yeah,” he continues, as if he’s heard your thoughts. “Dewi be my name. Dewi and Freedi.”

~~

Your new companions are fishermen, just like you’d assumed. Though with the worsening water conditions on account of the toxic waste produced by the prison, they’ll soon have to find new fishing grounds if they want to catch healthy squigglies. The way Dewi explains it, the moon was a beautiful place once upon a time. You believe him, despite the lack of evidence when you look out the ship’s window at the bleak landscape, because if anyone has the power to turn paradise into a nightmare it’s the Empire. 

Dewi’s the chattier of the pair, switching between Basic for you and Narkinian for Freedi. You learn it’s a language uniquely native to the moon, developed by the once-large fishing community of dozens of species, and you can’t help but compare it to the prison’s sign language. Makes you realize just how important communication is for survival.

They feed you—not a squiggly or anything else caught in their nets, but some pieces of meiloorun fruit cut into little cubes. The sharp burst of citrus on your tastebuds has your lips immediately puckering, hitting you like lightning. Maker, it’s good. Better than that, it’s real food. Real flavor. Real smell. No tubes in sight. 

Juice dribbles out the corners of your mouth, swiped away by your tongue, and you probably look a bit like a starved animal with how quickly you sink your teeth into another bite. But neither Dewi or Freedi so much as bat an eye.

Swallowing the last piece, there’s a moment you almost forget about the ache in your chest screaming for Melshi’s presence. 

Dewi told you you’re the only escaped prisoner they’ve seen so far. There haven’t been any reports over the coms from other fishermen saying they found anyone either. No news is good news, so the old saying goes, but in this particular case you think it might actually kill you to never see Melshi again. To never have the chance to tell him you love him one last time. To never know what he’d been trying to say right before the fall.

A bacta patch might be able to heal a blaster shot, but it can’t do anything to fix your suffering heart.

It only really occurs to you that you may have to leave Melshi behind, that you can’t stay here indefinitely, when Dewi asks, a curious lilt to his voice: “Where ye be looking to run now, eh?”

Your mouth opens, but nothing comes out. What do you do, when the only person who you dreamed of a life together with is gone? Where do you go when nowhere will ever feel like home without them? 

“I don’t know,” you eventually say. “I didn’t plan this far.”

I didn’t plan to be alone.

Freedi mumbles something, low and surprisingly soft for such a large fellow, dark eyes sympathetic. You smile at him, a weak, trembly thing but a grin nevertheless. Turns out some things don’t need to be translated to be understood.

“One last squiggly pool there be to check tomorrow,” Dewi replies, cybernetic eye whirring quietly as he glances towards the sky outside. “Ye welcome to ride with us to Lothal, haye.”

You don’t know anything about Lothal. You don’t know what you’ll do for money, how you’ll create a new identity for yourself, not a single clue. You nod your head, accepting the offer anyway, even as your fragile heart collapses in on itself. 

~~

As morning transitions into afternoon, glimpses of a blue sky peek through the cloud layers, so pale it hurts to look at directly.

With squinted eyes, you turn your attention across the quarry where Dewi and Freedi are hauling their nets out of a polluted lake, water black and foul-smelling. You can’t see the contents from where you sit in the shade of the quadjumper, but judging from their grumblings it doesn’t sound like a big success. Something tugs sharply behind your ribs, knowing as soon as your companions have finished you’ll be leaving Narkina 5 behind and everything connected to it. Taking with you only your memories, some bloodstained scrubs and a new scar as mementos of your stay.

You know you’re luckier than most, know that there are inmates who bled to death in the prison halls and drowned in the sea and never tasted one breath of freedom, but the thing is—you had hope. More than that, you had dreams.

Maker, you had so many dreams.

Keef had once said escaping Narkina 5 was your and Melshi’s best chance at staying together. How strange it is, how funny, how tragic that escaping is exactly what split you apart. 

You look down at your hands, the water-worn pebbles smooth against your palms. You’re luckier than most, it’s true. But it’s also true you’ve lost far more than you’ve gained.

Exhaling through your nose, you lean back against the quadjumper, stones slipping free from your grasp as your eyes fall shut. You listen to the slicing of Freedi’s arm-blade cutting through rope, the wind stirring up the grit and sand, the beeping of your pulse.

Wait.

Beeping?

You turn your head just in time to see two figures knocked to the ground by the sheer force of a trap ensnaring them in thick, white netting. 

What the hell? 

Crouching behind the protection of the ship, you watch Freedi and Dewi approach the strangers flopping about, not unlike a couple of beached squigglies struggling to escape. Thoroughly wrapped in the sticky net though, it’s impossible to identify the intruders—if they’re friend or foe.

The unexpected surprise has blood whooshing in your eardrums, muffling Dewi’s voice as he ambles along, not in any hurry to let them loose. It reminds you of your own first encounter with him, initially believing him to be a threat before he dropped the facade and revealed his true character. The unknown figures can’t be too dangerous then, you reckon, for Dewi to be so calm. Still, your feet remain firmly planted, hesitant to expose yourself just yet.

A second wave of surprise catches you off guard though when Freedi abruptly presses a button on the sensor trap, reeling the netting back in as quickly as it was launched. You have to blink a few times to make sure you’re seeing things right because that’s Keef pushing himself up on his elbows. That’s Keef, right there, caked in dirt and grime and the slimy residual substance of the net. 

And next to Keef, there’s—

All air leaves your lungs at once in a gasp, or a sob maybe, you don’t know because it doesn’t fucking matter, you just move closer on instict. Melshi turns at once, registering your emergence into the light, and your eyes lock with his, brown and beautiful and so unbearably haunted. 

Melshi slowly shakes his head, the look on his face rapidly shifting from bewilderment to such blatant relief it nearly sends you to your knees, choking out a quiet, “Dream?”

The moment is frozen, disconnected from the flow of time, and then he’s moving, scrabbling onto his feet to reach you, but you’re faster. You collide with his chest, sending you both tumbling onto the ground, though you’re too consumed with reuniting your lips with his to feel the impact. 

It’s a desperate kiss, open-mouthed and hungry, with clashing teeth and panting breaths. And fuck, you can feel him, all of him—his chapped lips, his heaving chest, the frantic throbbing of his heartbeat matching yours—and still he isn’t close enough. You don’t think he’ll ever be close enough, not even if he crawled beneath your skin, nestled between the gaps in your ribs.  You’re terrified that he’ll vanish the moment you pull back, taking the heat buzzing in your veins with him, but your shaking hands can’t hold onto him tight enough. 

Can’t stop Melshi from physically forcing you away with hands on your shoulders, looking utterly wrecked with shiny eyes and spit-slick lips, words spilling out of his mouth so fast they bleed together, “Wait, wait, wait, lemme lookit you. Dream, lemme see.”

The sound of your nickname breaks something inside of you, and suddenly you’re crying, tears streaming down your cheeks, lungs shuddering with unrestrained sobs. “Rue.” It’s more of a whimper than name, scraping against your throat, pulled from the depths of your core.

“You’re alive,” he murmurs, a low rasp, his gaze flickering over every detail of your face. “When I saw you fall—fuck, dreamer, I’ve never been so scared. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, so fucking sorry—”

“No,” you gasp out, shaking your head madly because he needs to know, “not your fault.”

“Thought I lost you. That I’d never get to tell you—”

“Tell me what?” you ask hoarsely, gripping onto his wrist like a lifeline. 

Melshi’s thumb ghosts over your jaw, catching stray teardrops before they fall. “What I should’ve told you every day we were together,” he says, soft yet firm. He kisses you again, like he can’t help himself. A quick peck on the mouth, then another, then one more. And then—

“I love you.”

“Rue,” you whisper, eyes widening and heart fluttering like a damn butterfly. You shove your face into that warm, safe nook between his neck and collarbone, uncaring of the streak of slime smeared on his skin. “I love you too. Always, always, always.”

Your voice is muffled, thick with snot and tears and the wellspring of emotions overflowing inside of you. 

Melshi understands you all the same. He always has.

~~

Even within the safety of the quadjumper, you and Melshi refuse to separate from each other. Sitting on the bunk, you can imagine it must look a little funny how closely you’ve managed to intertwine your bodies in such a small space. Keef sits on a cargo box, carefully watching Dewi and Freedi up in the pilot seats. Despite the dark bruises of exhaustion beneath his eyes, his gaze is razor sharp, observing every movement for the slightest sign of deception.

Reminds you of the first day you met Keef, what feels like years ago but in reality is closer to a handful of weeks. Quiet and watchful. Mind like a sponge soaking up Table Five’s movements. 

You try not to think too hard about your missing tablemates or how much you wish they were here too. The universe's cruelest of lessons is that life isn’t fair. Not to anybody. But coming in second, so dangerously close the lines blur during moments of distress, is the self-awareness you can’t save everyone. 

You’ll never forget your boys. Ham, Taga, Jemboc, Ulaf and Xaul. You’ll never forget Kino either, alpha wolf of Unit Five-Two-D right up until the end of everything.

They’ll stay safe in your memories. The Empire can’t touch them there.

“What’s in Niamos?” you ask, causing Keef’s head to swivel your direction.

Unlike you who didn’t have any idea where to flee, Keef knew exactly where to go when asked. Dewi and Freedi had simply looked at each other, nodded in recognition, and agreed to make the flight without any fuss. 

“Palm trees and beautiful beaches,” Keef replies. “More importantly, it’s where I left my stuff before they arrested me.”

Your eyebrows lift, thinking it must be a helluva hiding place for him to believe his belongings are still there. “What kind of stuff?”

He looks towards the front again, but not before you catch a brief shadow of his crooked smile. “The kind of stuff that’ll get us anywhere we want.”

Us, he’d said. We. 

Not me. Not I.

Keef’s loyalty to both you and Melshi continues to surprise you, even though by now it shouldn’t. Not after all he’s done. He fulfilled his vow. He got as many people out of Narkina 5 as he could. He kept Melshi alive for you, dragging him away from the waves they’d been certain you drowned in.

Your heart has yet to stop fluttering helplessly whenever you look at Melshi—from love, from disbelief. He’s tired and bruised and emotionally strung out beyond his limit. But he’s also tangible and warm and here. 

You take one last glance out the window at the water covered moon, finding it amusing how Narkina 5, a place that had felt so huge and imposing while trapped inside, is such an imperceptible speck when viewed from amongst the stars. The Empire’s still an ever-present threat on the horizon, but you don’t feel their phantom strings anymore. 

No, you just feel Melshi’s fingers gently tracing the edges of the bacta patch beneath your shirt. It’s stopped bleeding. It’s stopped hurting too, just a little itchy as the bacta helps your body regrow the missing skin. And even if there was any pain, the heat radiating off Melshi is pleasantly soothing enough to forget about it. Like your own patch of sunlight, melting away the last lingering traces of soul-chilling loneliness.

For all your precious dreams of a life together outside Narkina 5, for all the years you’ve shared a bed—nothing can change the fact that real life is a whole other beast compared to prison. There will be new sides of Melshi you’ve never seen before, yet another alternate persona buried deep beneath the familiar layers. 

And maybe that would have worried you before—before you were shot, before you nearly bled out on the beach, before you faced the most terrifying form of reality where Melshi wasn’t by your side—but now? Now there’s just a sense of giddy anticipation. It means you can fall in love with him all over again. 

Again and again and again…

Outside, the stars stretch and morph as the ship enters hyperspace, silver streaks slicing through the heavy blackness.

Inside the ship though, Melshi’s arms are your safe haven, and his lips are whispering those three special words against the shell of your ear. 

…again and again and again…

~~

Niamos is exactly how Keef described it. Beautiful beaches and palm trees galore. As close to the definition of paradise as a place can be if one ignores the Empire’s occupation and their security droids.

Stepping off the quadjumper, a tropical breeze sweeps over you, lifting up your clothes to tickle at the skin beneath. It’s close to evening time, hardly a soul in sight along the walkways. Which is good, Keef says. Less witnesses means less trouble. 

While he heads off to recollect his things, you say your goodbyes to Dewi and Freedi. They’ve only been figures in your life for such a short fraction of time, yet their impact has been monumental. There aren’t enough words in the galaxy to thank them, nor enough credits to repay them.

“All we ask is a favor,” Dewi says, offering another one of his sly smirks.

You nod your head, eager to express your gratitude however you can. “Name it.”

“Ye were lucky once, don’t be testing it,” he tells you firmly. “Keep your blood in your body, haye.”

“If I have any say in the matter,” Melshi chimes in, squeezing your waist, “she’ll never lose another drop again. Not even over a damn papercut.”

You tuck the crown of your head beneath the underside of his jaw, hiding your smile.

~~

When Keef returns, he’s changed into a striped shirt and dark pants, a canvas bag hanging on his shoulder. He pulls out extra clothes, shoving them into your and Melshi’s arms with instructions to get dressed in the nearby public restroom. You don’t pause to ask him where they came from, if they’re stolen or not. Clean clothes are clean clothes, that’s all that matters.

Stripping out of your dirty, paper-thin scrubs feels good, but putting on something else besides orange and white is another heavenly pleasure entirely. Your new outfit’s a little big on your frame, a dark blue floral patterned shirt tucked into matching colored pants, but you’re too happy about the newness of it all to complain. It’s the slip-on shoes that are the hardest to adapt to, so used to being barefooted you feel like a toddler learning to walk again the way your toes are all scrunched together.

You wash your hands, indulging in the cool water running over your wrists, then wipe your face with a wet towel. Maker knows you’d trade one of your limbs for a hot bath to soak in, but Niamos is merely a stepping stone, not a place to settle down and produce roots. Maybe the next destination will be better, safer, wherever that happens to be.

Wadding up your scrubs into a ball, you toss them into the trash and leave the restroom to find Keef and Melshi. The fading sun rests on the horizon line, sky the color of honey, beautiful and sweet, bathing the world in golden light. Melshi, too, standing at the pier’s edge with his hands clasped behind his back, seems to glow against the backdrop of the ocean.

He turns as you go to him, brown eyes shining like solar flares and dark hair tousled by the wind. He’s the most beautiful thing in the galaxy you’ve ever seen. You’re so in love with him it’s—it’s exhilarating. An adrenaline rush. A force of nature, immense and infinite.

“All this space. Fresh air,” Melshi murmurs, looking out across the water. You press yourself against his side, arms crossed over your stomach. “Like a dream, right?”

“The best dream I’ve ever had.” You cast a glance at Melshi out of the corner of your eye, at the blue-and-gray pattern on his shirt. Circles connected by lines sprouting from their centers. There’s something about it oddly mesmerizing. Almost familiar somehow. “View’s gorgeous, too.”

The tips of his ears burn red once he realizes you’re not talking about the sunset. It’s so cute you think you might melt. There’s a bit of smugness, too, knowing you’re the only one who has that adorable effect on him. 

“Where’s Keef?” you ask, suddenly noticing the other man’s absence. 

“Over there on the transmitter.” Melshi nods to a structure behind you next to the restroom. “Said he had to make a call. Family, I think.”

Looking over your shoulder, you can see Keef, leaning in so the transmitter picks up his voice over the sounds of the splashing waves. I have someone waiting for me, you remember him confessing late one night in the sleep block. Remember him saying she’s the greatest.

“Do you have someone to call?” you ask, curiously blinking up at Melshi.

“No.” Melshi doesn’t sound upset by the fact. He flexes his hand, the scar there flashing gold this time instead of silver. “You’re everything I’ve got in this life, dreamer.”

“Yeah?” you breathe shakily, watching as he takes your hand in his with such delicate gentleness. The laser burn along your knuckles has long since healed, but that doesn’t stop Melshi from pressing his lips to the spot, as if he can still see the mark there. You wonder if it would turn golden in the fading light too.

You feel more than see the upward curl of his mouth. “Yeah.”

~~

Keef’s quiet as a mouse when he finally rejoins you. You don’t like it—how utterly blank his expression is, the way he tries to bury his shaking hands in his pockets, the emptiness in his eyes. You don’t like any of it.

And you’re not the only one who notices the shift in attitude. You can tell Melshi’s concerned as he licks his lips and tentatively breaks the silence, aware of the fragility of the moment. “You got through? It’s okay?”

Keef doesn’t look either of you in the eye when he nods, too jerky, too reflexive. “Yeah.” The next words are choked out, a hushed hitch to his breath. “Everything okay.”

Two things quickly become apparent to you. 

First: he’s lying. 

And second: you’re not looking at Keef Girgo anymore. You’re looking at the man beneath the illusion. He’s right there, the real him, within arm’s reach, and there’s so much you want to say to him but your mouth refuses to speak any of the words aloud.

“How many do you think made it?” Melshi asks, out of nowhere. There���s something sharp about the question. An undercurrent of desperation that unsettles you. “How many of us made it out alive?”

At that, Keef finally meets your gazes. There’s a distantness in his brown eyes, like his body’s here physically but his mind is miles and miles away. You want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. Want to ask what’s wrong with him. But your hands stay at your sides and your voice stays mute.

After a long beat, Keef blinks and comes back to himself just enough to manage a limp shrug of his shoulders, faintly replying, “Not enough.”

“What if it’s just us?” Melshi presses, unsatisfied with the answer. “What if we’re the only ones?”

“Rue,” you say, faltering at the heaviness in his stare, weighing down on your lungs. You swallow, unable to understand why it’s there, what’s rattling around inside his head. “What are you saying?”

He doesn’t answer immediately, pursing his lips before his narrowed gaze shifts away, half of his face edged in dim shadow. You can sense he wants to tell you, he’s just debating whether he should. Meaning whatever it is, it’s something big. Something that will have consequences.

“Somebody’s got to tell people what’s happening back there,” Melshi says at last, but he isn’t looking at you anymore. He’s looking straight at Keef.

Glancing at the other man reveals he’s still quiet, withdrawn, but there’s wrinkles creasing his forehead that weren't there seconds ago. And the steady way he’s staring back at Melshi—it’s like he’s already started putting the puzzle pieces together and he’s waiting for Melshi to confirm it’s the right picture. 

“Guys,” you huff, fully aware there’s a silent conversation going on right in front of you and hating every second of it. “What’s going—”

“We need to split up,” Melshi interrupts, voice strained. “Increase our chances.”

“What? No.” You shake your head, mind whirling. The beginnings of dread start stirring at the bottom of your stomach. “No way. You-you don’t mean that.”

“One of us has to make it,” he continues, as if you hadn’t spoken at all, ignoring your subsequent tugging on his shirt. “People have to know what’s going on.” 

You keep shaking your head, unable to stop yourself, because it’s everything you don’t want to hear but at the same time, in the deepest part of yourself, you know he’s right. 

Staying silent about the horrors you witnessed means being complicit in the Empire’s crimes against the prisoners. Against Ulaf and Xaul, every lost soul and every one still locked away. You owe it to them to speak up and get the word out. To be brave when all you want to do is run to the farthest, most remote corner of the galaxy.

You owe it to them to try.

“I know,” Keef agrees. Another nod of his head, less jarring, more certain. “I hear you.”

On impulse you wrap your arms around Keef, pulling him in for a tight hug, hooking your chin over his shoulder. There’s a beat of hesitation, his arms awkwardly hovering in the air, and then he hugs you back.

“This isn’t a goodbye. It's a see you later,” you tell him, squeezing for emphasis. His chest rumbles with an inaudible laugh. “Repeat after me.” You look him square in the eye, leveling him with a challenging look. “Say it.”

“This isn’t a goodbye. It’s a see you later,” Keef echoes dutifully, but there’s warmth there that settles your rousing dread and replaces it with something softer. Something lighter.

Something a lot like hope.

“Here. Take this.” Keef digs around in his bag, retrieving a blaster that he gives to Melshi. Caught up in watching Melshi’s hand grip the weapon, secure and steady, no trace of nervousness as he tucks it behind his back, you miss noticing Keef’s second rummaging until he startles you with your name. “Take these too.”

He deposits a stack of credits into your hand. Surprised, you nearly spill them onto the ground, eyes widening as you take in the large amount. Understanding kicks in, that this must’ve been why he was so determined to come back here. This really is the kind of stuff that can get all three of you anywhere you want.

“Dank farrik,” you breathe. “Where the hell—actually, nope. You know what? I think I’m better off not knowing.”

“What dream means to say,” Melshi cuts in smoothly, shooting you a fond look as you stuff the credits into your trouser pockets before his expression changes into one of pure seriousness, “is thank you.”

The two men clasp hands amicably, leaning in closer to pat each other on the back. It’s a brief and wordless gesture, but the meaning’s still understood by both. Take care of yourself out there.

Melshi then inclines his head at you. “You ready, dream?”

You nod, giving him a small smile.

The pier is long, the path beyond even longer. But walking with Melshi, shoulder to shoulder, hands locked together, you find it easier to look forward to the future’s possibilities rather than fear its uncertainties. A future full of golden sunsets, fresh air smelling of fragrant blooms, an abundance of blankets on a plush bed, bites of meiloorun fruit exchanged between kisses, laughter, hot baths, even more kisses, perhaps a little dreamer or two to keep you and Melshi on your toes. 

It won’t be easy. It won’t be soon. But it’ll be a good one.

Because it will be yours and Melshi’s.

You stop walking, ignoring the concerned furrowing of Melshi’s brow as you abruptly spin around. Before taking another step into the unknown, there’s one final thing you’ve got to know for certain.

“Hey!” you call out, catching the attention of the man at the end of the pier. “What do we call you when later comes?”

A second of silence follows, your ears straining for his answer.

“Cassian.” The response is carried on the wind, a smile stretching across your face. And if you look hard enough, there in the last fading beams of sunlight, you swear he’s smiling, too. “My name is Cassian.”

[littlemisspascal]

The When (Part 2)

Pairing: Ruescott Melshi x Female Reader

Word Count: 5000+

Summary: There is a story before, when, and after Keef Girgo enters your life. This is the When.

Rating: M (18+, minors please do not engage!)

Warnings: Prison/Narkina 5 storyline but an AU where woman inmates are assigned to each unit as ‘peacekeepers’, language, established relationship, non-descriptive smut + references of smut, possessiveness, references of violence + blood, drugging, talk of pregnancy, reader has anxiety

- Reader has no official name and no physical traits described in detail. However, she is implied to be shorter than Melshi.

Author Note: Thank you everybody for the kind support of this story! From now on I'm not doing tag lists anymore so if you wanna keep up to date with my writing please follow @littlemisspascalwrites

Special thanks to @beecastle for beta reading and encouraging me 💜

The Before | The When Part 1 | The When Part 3

Most newcomers assume Day One at Narkina 5 is the worst, but they quickly find out they’re wrong. Day One is the easiest because nobody expects anything from them except to watch and learn. Day One is orientation.

Day Two is when the gloves come off. It’s sink or swim, do or fry.

Keef obediently follows the group into the work room, taking Tress’ former place at the table on your left. He spares a moment before the shift begins to touch each of the tools within his reach, studying them, familiarizing himself with their details. It’s surprisingly thoughtful. Something you didn’t do your second day, and judging by the looks on the rest of Table Five’s faces, something they didn’t either.

Newcomers never make it through their first hour without a mistake or ten. Keef is no exception. Wrong bolt in the wrong hole, a finger nearly cut off, a too-loose pin falling on the floor. But by hour three there’s a noticeable change in his technique. His motions are smoother, more sure of himself. He even catches a mistake in Taga’s handiwork unnoticed by everyone else. 

Maybe Keef has a history of building things. Or he’s just a naturally quick learner under pressure. Either way, he’s good. Better than good, he’s great. Exactly what Table Five needs to get back on top of the game after yesterday’s disastrous results. 

When hour six comes around you know he’s earned the respect of the whole table when Xaul addresses him by his name. Not new guy or tadpole or any other of the condescending epithets he keeps listed in his head. It’d taken you almost a whole month of shifts before the redhead stopped calling you girly. 

You’d be mad, except it’s kind of hard to commit to the feeling when Table Five finishes second in the end. An achievement no other table has previously claimed with a brand-spanking new member in their ranks. 

Later in the sleeping block, Taga drapes a hand over Keef’s shoulders and squeezes his stubbled cheeks between his fingers while looking at you and Melshi, jokingly asking, “Well, mom and dad, can we keep him? Can we?”

You take one look at Keef’s squished face, his unimpressed eyebrows promising an elbow to the kidney in three seconds if he isn’t released, before turning to Melshi with a shrug. When they’re being idiots they’re yours to deal with.

“Why not,” Melshi says, and the wry smirk on his lips is such a far contrast from the blank mask he’d worn yesterday it’s almost hard to believe he’s the same person. “The more the merrier.”

—

You stretch your arms over your head, letting loose a jaw-popping yawn. Up in the cot, Melshi finishes the last bites of his breakfast mush, utensil scraping against the plastic plate. Across the hot floor, Keef flicks subtle glances your way when he thinks you don’t notice . 

Grabbing the back of your foot, you stand on one leg, pinning him with a look the next time his brown eyes wander over. “Can I help you with something?”

He has the decency to seem abashed, ducking his head and poking at his food. For as quick as he caught onto the repetition of work, his taste buds have been slower to adapt. That’ll change soon. It has to if he doesn’t want to starve. Beggars can’t be choosers. 

There’s a question on the tip of his tongue, you can sense it pressing against the backs of his teeth. Your stare doesn’t lift, even as you switch legs, content to wait it out.

“You’re the only woman in the unit,” Keef says finally, and it’s not really a question, except that it is.

You laugh, a monosyllabic sound. “Really? Gee, I hadn’t noticed.”

“Why?” Keef looks at you with furrowed brows. You blink, slowly lowering your foot back onto the floor. “There are dozens of womens’ prisons across the galaxy, some even twice as big as this place without any men at all. What reason was there to send you here? Why you? Why Narkina 5?”

Something cold and slimy settles into the pit of your stomach. You had thought he’d ask…You don’t know what you thought he’d ask, but this is not a conversation you want to have anymore. Pasting on a teasing grin, you attempt to sidestep answering with a joke. “Sounds like someone’s pretty familiar with the insides of womens’ prisons.”

Keef frowns a little, not that you blame him. Your voice sounds brittle even to your own ears. He searches your expression, whatever he finds leading him to point an accusing finger. “You don’t know.”

You stay quiet, averting your gaze to his tab when the weight of his eyes feels like it’s going to tear you apart. 2,184 days to go. Not even here a week and he’s already digging for answers, unsatisfied with being kept in the dark. 

Except there are no answers on Narkina 5. Just lies and dead ends and more questions. 

“Doesn’t it—” Keef cuts himself off, dragging a hand through his hair. Then, softer, “You really don’t have any idea at all?”

Before you can decide whether to snap at him or simply shake your head, Keef’s eyes look to the side of you, lithe frame tensing. Melshi’s hand slides around your waist, gently tugging you closer. You hadn’t even heard him climb down.

“The reason why she’s here is the same reason why we build droids, why our numbers were raised,” Melshi counters, and you sneak a glimpse of his face, noting the tightness in his jaw. “Because we’re cheap parts in the Empire’s machine to do with as they please.”

You hide your grimace by nuzzling Melshi’s collarbone, an ache in your ribs like a knife has been plunged there. 

“Droids?” Keef repeats, confused. 

You start to turn your head, a witty retort on your tongue (yeah, those giant metal things we spend twelve hours on everyday), only to be silenced by the morning alarm and Kino’s subsequent shout to line up. Your eyes find Melshi’s, who lifts a shoulder before nudging you forward out of the cell.

It isn’t until you’re in the work room, hands on your head as you await the first widget of the day, that Keef leans closer, lowering his voice for your ears only.

“These aren’t droids.”

You side-eye him. “What?”

“You heard me,” he mutters, watching Kino tap away on his pad. “Droids are circuits and wires—have you ever seen a single droid in all the time you’ve been here?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. Already knows it. “Whoever told you that’s what these are is lying.”

Melshi told you. And Melshi doesn’t lie to you, never has, not even in the early days before you kissed him, which means he thinks it’s true. 

The table beeps, but this time the emergence of the hunk of metal brings a frown to your face, something previously familiar now so ominous and strange. If it’s not a piece of a droid…

“What is it then?” you ask, reaching for a wrench, pretending your limbs don’t feel like jelly.

Keef hums. “That’s the million-credit question now, isn’t it?” 

—

You don’t sleep. 

Staring up at the ceiling, Melshi’s face buried in the side of your neck, you lie still and listen to him breathe. You think about Keef’s questions. You think about the hundreds of other women who could’ve easily been the peacekeepers of Unit Five-Two-D, and you think about luck, fate, unseen forces of the universe.

Melshi’s probably right that your only purpose here is to serve the Empire. But he was wrong about the machinery parts, a voice in the back of your mind whispers, what if he’s wrong about this too? 

You turn your head, lips grazing his brow, an invisible fist squeezing around your heart. Only a fool falls in love in prison. You should have known better, kept to yourself more, trusted nobody. But when you try to imagine sleeping alone in your own cot, no hand holding yours in line or anchor keeping your head out of the clouds, it hurts more than a thousand volts of a zap rod.

What if the reason you’re here is for him?

Melshi curls closer, exhaling a sleepy sigh that has you wanting to smile and cry at the same time. 

What if he’s here for you?

—

Two weeks since his arrival and Keef still reminds you of a chameleon, but now his turtle qualities are gone, replaced with a spider’s. Quiet, secretive, calculating. Every day his web of lies gets a little bigger, a little more intricate.

He grew up in the underworld of Coruscant. Worked in a mechanic’s shop up until one day he got the urge to take a customer’s ship on a joyride and never looked back. Roamed from one corner of the galaxy to the other, different bedmates keeping him warm every night, and got really, really good at hustling sabacc in back alleyway bars sticky with substances that’ll make even the foulest Trandoshan blush. 

Lie after lie after lie.

You think he knows you know. There are moments when Keef enthralls the unit with a story, usually involving some sort of peril like being held at knifepoint by a gang of thugs or escaping through a window when a husband comes home early, and he’ll shoot you a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

There are other moments though, usually in the beats of silence after lights out and everyone’s settled down for the night in their cells, when you find yourself forgetting ‘Keef Girgo’ is just an elaborate illusion. The edges of his mask peeling at the corners, exposing hints of the nameless man you watched cry that first night.

“I have someone waiting for me,” he confesses, words somber and coated with regret.

You look across the gap at him, find he’s staring at his tab, fingertips grazing the outer edges of the screen. “Really?” you reply, all too aware of Melshi pretending to sleep up above, giving you some semblance of privacy. “They must be someone pretty great. Most people don’t have the patience to wait for our release.”

“Yeah, she is,” he clears his throat, offers you a crooked smile. “The greatest.”

She. That’s the only specific detail he’ll ever let slip.

“I’m going to find a way out of here,” Keef says next, bold and indisputable, like that’s not exactly the kind of thing that would get him fried to a crisp if the guards overheard him. “And when I do, you’re coming with me. You and Melshi and the rest of Table Five. Everyone. We’re all getting out.”

Those are the moments when you almost consider him a friend.

—

Keef’s stubborn determination to escape Narkina 5 is a rarity in the unit these days. Others who once had the same desire were either fried into submission or became too terrified of Kino’s wrath to risk rioting.

There’s only one other man whose rebellious spirit hasn’t been broken yet: Birnok from Table Two.

He plays the part of docile inmate, fooling the guards with his compliance. They don’t see the fire in his eyes. The clenching of his fists. But Keef—ever alert, ever watchful Keef—he noticed immediately.

The pair has developed a new routine of their own. They line up behind each other in the mornings, then again after work’s over, exchanging sarcastic quips and playful punches. It’s not an unusual thing to see men from different tables becoming friends since everyone shares the same sleeping quarters. You suspect to most people that’s probably what it appears like. 

But when you catch glimpses of them exchanging looks across the work room, communicating in a silent code of subtle hand gestures and flitting eyes, you start to also suspect that’s exactly what Keef and Birnok want it to appear like.

You’re filling your plate with dinner mush in your cell—your actual one designated to you on your first day, where your tab taunts you with its dwindling number. Anyone else would be thrilled to have such a short sentence, but not you. Not anymore. The less you have to look at it and the less you have to think about leaving Melshi, the better.

You turn to leave, meal and utensil in hand, when you hear Birnok’s voice.

“The elevator’s not wired.”

…What?

You shake your head, deciding to ignore him. Dinner time only lasts so long and you don’t want to wind up stuck in here for the night.

“Are you sure?”

Keef.

Well, that changes things.

You edge closer to the wall of your cell, staying out of sight, for once grateful it’s purposely distanced a little down the block away from the others.

“Positive,” Birnok answers. “Watch next time they use it. You’ll see. We can climb it if we’re quick enough.”

A pause of contemplation. You bite your lip, heart fluttering like a trapped bird.

“If we can jam the lift somehow, it’ll make reaching the upper deck easier,” Keef says. There’s another pause, shorter this time, punctuated by a derisive snort. “Assuming the guards don’t shoot us in the head first thing.”

“They can’t aim for shit,” Birnok retorts. “Taking them out and stealing their weapons will be a breeze. We’ll be out before they know what hit ‘em.”

“We’ll be fried beyond recognition as long as the floors are active,” Keef counters, voice a low growl. “That should be our priority: turning off the power.”

He makes a good point. Escaping the work room is only a third of the battle. Escaping the prison comes next, then finally getting off Narkina 5 undetected. Increasingly harder challenges verging on impossible. 

“And I’m telling you,” Birnok says, sharper than before, “that water pipe in the refresher is the key.”

Water pipe? Surely they couldn’t be talking about the refresher in the work room, right? Just under the guards’ noses?

“Maybe,” Keef’s skepticism is audible even from your hiding spot.

“Just keep sawing at it,” Birnok urges. “It’ll be worth the effort when the time comes.”

The familiar way they’re talking with each other, it’s clear this isn’t the first discussion of escape they’ve had. It’s funny, the bonds which can be suddenly struck up in prison.

What’s even funnier is the loose wall panel you discover during the next shift over the sink in the refresher. You stare at it while washing your hands, a stirring in your chest of an emotion you haven’t felt in years.

Hope.

—

It happens during hour two.

The beginning of your morning is uneventful, and so is the walk to the work ring and the first sixty minutes of your shift, going through your routine motions with the same careful efficiency as you always do. 

Your first hint something’s amiss is Kino being messaged on the comm panel. The guards only bother interrupting the flow of things to complain, usually about the speed of production. Kino’s deepening scowl has all of you slowing to a standstill, waiting for the bad news with dread pooling in your stomachs.

Except…there is no bad news. 

Kino turns around and orders the room to resume working again—without insulting the pace or current stats. It’s suspicious as hell, inmates exchanging skeptical looks with each other, but one by one they resume their previous tasks, silence shattered by the grating clangs of metal on metal.

You’re the last to pick your tool back up, hesitating when Kino’s gaze seems to linger on you a beat longer than anyone else. Why would he…? Keef nudges you once, twice, finally having to say your name to yank you out of your worried thoughts. You start again, but there’s a tremor in your fingers, the burning sensation of eyes on your back making your shoulders twitch and roll restlessly. 

“Dream,” Melshi’s voice is a balm to your agitated soul, gentle and even. “Why don’t you take a quick breather?”

You reflexively clutch your wrench tighter in your hand. “I’m fine.”

His jaw twitches in thinly-veiled restraint. “C’mon. Just five minutes.”

Irritation burns through you even though you know he’s just concerned. Gritting your teeth, you repeat, “I’m fine.”

Melshi’s mouth opens, no doubt to rebuttal, only to be blocked from view by Keef tilting his head in front of your face, quietly saying, “We’re up by six. Now would be a good time for a break, if, uh,” he falters at whatever expression you’re making, looking like he expects you to sucker punch him, then bravely soldiers on. “If you needed one.”

You take a deep breath, slowly unclenching your fingers until the wrench slips free of your grip. “Alright,” you say primly, taking petty satisfaction at his slight wince. “I’ll be right back.”

There’s no mirror in the refresher (a shard of broken glass in the right hands can be a fatal weapon), but for once you’re glad about the absence. You don’t want to see the look on your face, the way you’re pacing back and forth.  

That feeling of wrongness is back, the same dread you’d felt the night Tress killed himself. You stick your hands under the running faucet, then slap at your cheeks with the cold water. Snap out of it, you think, as much a mantra as it is a life preserver to keep you from drowning.

Maker, what you wouldn’t do for a drink right now.

The intercom calls you back out on the floor before you can shake off the last of the anxiety buzzing in your blood. You’re forced to stand in the corner of the work room until the alarm stops its incessant blaring, and the gap of distance between you and Table Five has never felt bigger.

Hands on your head, your eyes are drawn immediately to Melshi’s across the room, all previous frustration draining when you register his frown and furrowed brow. Melshi’s always careful during moments like this when he knows the guards are watching, hating the idea of them seeing him provoked. You want nothing more than to run to him and erase his worries, but the punishment of a zap rod, or worse, the box, has your feet frozen in place, mouth going dry.

Two guards stand on the upper deck, both armed with blasters, fingers ready on the triggers. Another pair waits on the lift for the unseen man in the control room to press the button to lower it. They usually only come down when there’s a new man to drop off, but that clearly isn’t the case this time. The ranks are full and there’s nobody in orange and white scrubs up there.

Whatever reason they’re here now, it can’t be good. And if it’s at all related to Kino’s scowl from before…

You watch them step onto the floor, scanning the room casually, like they’ve got all the time in the world. Their smirks betray their enjoyment, knowing they’ve got everyone on edge.

When their gazes fall on you, your heart lodges in your throat.

The taller of the pair says your name in a way you think is supposed to be soothing, but instead it sounds like a hunter cornering prey, the hiss of a lying serpent. 

You shoot a glance towards Melshi. He’s clenching his jaw so tight it’s a wonder he hasn’t shattered a tooth or three.

It’s a mistake taking your eyes off the guards, immediately realized when you look back to discover they’ve advanced forward several steps, looming and intimidating as fuck.

“You’re coming with us, honey,” the serpent says, latching onto your forearm in a vice grip. A warning squeeze confirms your fears he could shatter the bone if he wanted to, eliciting a choked gasp from your lips.

Everything happens quickly after that.

“Let go of her!”

Melshi’s shout tears through the air like an arrow, striking you square in the chest. He’s lunging forward, murder flashing in his eyes, but Kino’s reflexes are lightning-quick, hooking an arm around his middle and hauling him back. Kino knew, he must have, positioning himself in preparation of an outburst.

You’re yanked towards the lift, elbow nearly dislocated. You attempt to pull free, scratching at the bastard with your other hand, only to receive a backhanded slap across the face.

Stars spin across your vision, pain blooming hotly along your cheek and burning down your neck. You blink rapidly, lights and colors blurring together into obscure blobs, tasting blood in your mouth from biting your tongue. You spit it out, a streak of scarlet on the pristine white floor.

Everyone’s shouting at each other. The guards up above aim at Table Five where Melshi’s still fighting Kino’s hold. Keef and Xaul press on his shoulders and chest, telling him to calm the hell down before bodies start dropping. 

“You hurt her, I’ll fucking kill you!” Melshi snarls, ignoring them entirely.

“Melshi,” Kino warns, his voice sharp as a dagger, the muscles in his arms constricting as he squeezes Melshi tighter. “Shut up before I break your jaw.”

Your mouth opens, lips searching for words that won’t come—can’t come when there’s the sharp prick of a needle digging into your arm. That’s new, you think, blinking dumbly at it, and yet you’re somehow not surprised by the sneaky tactic. Lying serpents and cunning foxes, the lot of them.

Arms catch you as your knees buckle. Everything’s blurry again, black specks in the corners growing larger and larger, consuming your world. Cotton’s been stuffed in your ears, cries of your name dissolving into undecipherable static, and as your consciousness fades, you know things are only going to get worse.

—

You awaken with a groan.

Your head is pounding, body feeling like it’s been hit by a mudhorn, and when you try to move your arms you can’t. Squinting up at the lights overhead, you try to make sense of your situation because it seems like you’re in the med station but that doesn’t make any sense. You haven’t been feeling sick, you’re not due for another contraception shot yet so why—

Memories ram into your brain like a sledgehammer. They drugged you. How long have you been out? Coldness washes over you. Oh, Maker. Melshi must be going out of his fucking mind right now.

“Struggling will only make the restraints tighter,” Dr. Rhasiv tells you when you try to pull your arms free, wrists aching. He comes closer, a scanner in his hands. The light blue marks on his scrubs seem to almost glow beneath the harsh, glaring lights. “This shouldn’t take very long, just keep still.”

“What—why am I—” Your tongue doesn’t want to cooperate, slurring the words together clumsily. You sound like a youngling learning to speak for the first time.

Dr. Rhasiv seems to understand regardless. “All peacemakers are being evaluated via ultrasound for the detection of potential fetuses,” he says, either oblivious to the stunned wheeze you emit or purposefully ignoring it, taking your temperature by scanning your forehead. “A pregnancy was discovered on level four, see. Found out too late that the recent batch of contraceptives was defective. A surprise nobody wants a repeat of since transferring prisoners is an irritating hassle, not to mention the adoption paperwork. So I’m told at least.”

Your breath comes out in short pants. You don’t—What is—This is so fucking—You could be carrying a baby right now. An actual human being who’s half you and half—your eyes water, realization a sickening punch to the lungs—Melshi.

It’s the first time you’ve ever thought of having children with Melshi. Even in your dreams, it’s always just been you and him. Settling down alone together. You don’t know if he wants kids. Hell, you don’t even—you don’t even know if you want a baby. Imagining any sort of life outside of Narkina 5, it’s just that—a figment of your imagination. An impossible reality.

But then you think of Keef, of his solemn swear we’re all getting out, and you think of that loose panel in the refresher, your tiny bud of hope, and maybe, just maybe, the things you’ve been imagining aren’t so impossible after all.

Prison is no place for a baby though—not Narkina 5 or wherever that poor woman from four is being moved to. A baby needs a home. Someplace peaceful. Someplace where being barefoot isn’t a punishment and meals aren’t flavorless slop. Where laughter rings out instead of screams and sunlight fills every room and everything’s warm, warm, warm…

You stiffen, panic turning your blood to ice, remembering what else Dr. Rhasiv had said. Adoption paperwork. If you are pregnant—Maker, just the word alone makes your trembling worse—they’ll take you away from Melshi and then nine months from now they’ll take your baby away from you. A cycle of heartbreak for the Empire to feast upon. Splitting families apart for the sheer entertainment and brainwashing the youth so the sick game never ends.

“It’ll be a quick process,” Dr. Rhasiv says, lifting the hem of your shirt. “Shouldn’t hurt at all. Just breathe regularly.”

Not now, you find yourself thinking, praying, wishing, desperate and emphatic. Not here. 

Dr. Rhasiv applies the cold gel to your exposed stomach. Not now. Not here. The sensor roams over your skin, its quiet beeps resemble explosions in the otherwise quiet space. Not now. Not here. You stare at the doctor’s face the whole time, watching for the slightest of creases in his brow or flickers in his gaze. Not now. Not here.

Finally, he puts the device back in his medical case and grabs a towel to wipe away the gel.

Only when he’s finished does he gesture to a guard you hadn’t noticed standing in the doorway. Your fingers curl into fists, cursing the restraints once more for leaving you vulnerable and exposed.

“Not pregnant,” Dr. Rhasiv announces, blunt in that professional way only doctors can be, like the ripping off of a bandage. 

And it’s…the results are what you wanted. It is the best outcome for everyone. Life will go on as usual. Still…

You flinch as Dr. Rhasiv sticks another needle into your arm. A different contraceptive, he says. This one guaranteed to work.

And while it’ll keep your womb empty, it does nothing to stop your mind from imagining an infant with tufts of Melshi’s dark hair nestled in your arms.   

Not now. Not here.

But maybe one day. Maybe somewhere safe.

—

It’s another hour before a guard escorts you back to the sleep block. Dr. Rhasiv insisted it was necessary to observe you for any side effects, but you think that was only a partial truth. Somewhere underneath all the pain and hardships he has suffered, there’s a decent man who tries to pull strings where he can, granting his patients small moments of respite from the daily grind. 

The guard this time is as thick and burly as a bear, could snap your spine in two with ease, but fortunately he keeps his hands to himself, sneering at you like you’re as dirty as mud on his shoe. You prefer his company infinitely more than the serpent man’s.

After unlocking the door, he doesn’t hesitate to shove you inside before slamming it on your heels. The floor is cold and the cells are empty. You’re alone.

The acrid smell of cleaning products burns your nose as you step inside Melshi’s cell. Everything looks just the way it did this morning, but nothing feels the same. There’s a lump in your throat—from sadness, from anger. You have no idea where to ever start sorting your emotions out. So you just…don’t.

You climb up onto the cot, back against the wall, arms wrapped around your knees. Half of you wants to sleep, the other half is wide awake and paranoid, convinced you’ll be dragged away again the second your eyes close. You sit there, numbness creeping through your body, and wait for Melshi to return.

It isn’t long before the main door opens again, the sounds of voices and footsteps flooding the silent space like bathwater. Some of the tension in your muscles loosens, and you scoot forward, letting your legs dangle over the edge of the cot. 

You hear Melshi before he comes into view, his accent thicker than normal, the way it only ever gets when he’s barely holding onto his emotions by a thread.

“Just when I think they can’t reach a new low they pull a fucking stunt like that,” he snarls, voice full of such raw, seething rage he’s practically spitting. “When she comes back, if she’s hurt, if they even looked at her the wrong way, I’m going to rip their eyes straight out—”

He freezes when he sees you, threat hanging unfinished in the air. Keef bumps into him, doing a double-take when he also registers your appearance.

“You’re back,” Keef says needlessly, offering a small grin, but it’s the relief in his voice that you find most comforting. 

“Dream,” Melshi’s low murmur wraps around you like a blanket, brown eyes blinking at you like he can’t believe you’re here. There’s so much love and worry and lingering anger spasming across his face it threatens to break your heart.

You feel your own face start to crumple, everything bubbling to the surface, making a sound that might be a sob and Melshi’s closing the gap, reaching for you just as you’re reaching for him.

“Dream, my little dreamer,” he murmurs, holding you tightly, one hand around your back and the other on your neck, lips brushing against your temple, your cheek, wherever he can reach. “I’m here. I’m here. You’re safe.”

One of you is trembling, you can’t tell which. It makes you cling to him tighter, letting him crowd you against the wall of the cot, strong and solid and achingly familiar when the rest of your world feels like it’s falling to pieces.

“Tell me?” he asks, carefully neutral, leaving the decision entirely up to you. His hands are roaming over your body now, as soothing as they are subtly checking for injuries, up your backside and across your shoulders. 

You take a deep breath, but fear paralyzes your tongue.

Melshi leans back, carefully taking your face in his hands. You hate the worry in his eyes, the frown lines at the corners of his mouth. And it scares you to wonder what will happen if you tell him about the ultrasound and the negative result. Will it punch the same gaping hole in his chest as it has in yours? Or will he be pleased to find out you’re not pregnant? That the status quo will remain unchanged for the foreseeable future?

You don’t know which reaction would be worse.

“Just a routine check up,” you whisper finally. The words hurt, scraping against the tender walls of your throat. “Everything’s fine.”

He rests his forehead against yours. “You’d tell me if everything wasn’t, right?”

Guilt tears into your heart, threatening to bleed it dry. 

And yet a second lie slides off your lips just as poisonous as the first.

“Of course,” you say, swallowing thickly against the bitter taste in your mouth. And then, quieter, something sweet to counter the ache, “I love you, Rue.”

A low, anguished groan escapes his chest, and then he’s cradling you tight against him once more, nuzzling his face against the side of your head. “When I saw them take you, I was afraid that…”

“I know,” is your quiet reply, feeling a shudder rack his body.

“I hate when I’m not with you,” he says softly, almost like he’s ashamed by how much he craves your nearness. “I need you by my side, dream. Always.”

You press a kiss to the underside of his jaw, breathing in his scent until you can’t think of anything else. “Good,” you say, a quiet confession belonging to him alone, “because that’s the only place I ever want to be.”

—

Melshi’s gone when you reach for him in the middle of the night, fingers grasping at empty air. You crack open a bleary eye. Everything’s soft around the edges, fuzzy-like, and it feels—slow. Calm. Your eye flutters shut again a moment later, too much effort required to focus. The needle marks on your arm have finally stopped pinching uncomfortably. There’s a chill sweeping over your body without Melshi to snuggle against, but your limbs are too heavy with sleep to move, mind sluggishly drifting along at a snail’s pace.

“Is she okay?” Keef asks, his low voice seeming to float from a long distance away.

“Whatever they did definitely rattled her,” Melshi answers from somewhere to your side. In your mind’s eye, he’s standing in the narrow space of the cell, staring across at Keef with his arms crossed over his chest. “But she told me once though, as long as she can still dream, she’ll be alright.”

You’re too comfortable to tell them to stop talking about you. A small corner of your brain which hasn’t totally succumbed to slumber yet wonders how many of these conversations they’ve had with each other, if this is some sort of regular man-to-man-midnight-chat thing you’re just now discovering.

“And if her dreams become nightmares?”

Melshi exhales a slow, ragged breath. “Then I’ll take care of her. Whatever she needs.”

Keef doesn’t respond for a moment, maybe answering nonverbally with a shrug or turning the words over in his head, you don’t know for sure.

“Her sentence is shorter than yours—”

“I know,” Melshi says, cutting him off.

“Then you also know you can’t protect her forever,” Keef says coolly. “They’ll take her away and she won’t come back. I don’t…have to tell you the odds of you two reconnecting are slim, do I, Melshi?”

Another ragged breath. Then, tightly, each word forced through clenched teeth: “Get to the point.”

“Escaping is your best chance at staying together,” the other man says, ignoring the thorny tension. “Birnok and I are putting a plan together, but we need as much help as we can get to succeed.”

“It’s suicide,” Melshi says, accent harsh. “They’ll kill us all.”

“Maybe so.” A pause. “But personally? I’d rather face a certain death with the one I love beside me than spend decades trapped in here not knowing what happened to them.”

Sleep sinks its teeth in deeper, tugging you into unconsciousness before you can hear Melshi’s response, before the uneasy knot in your stomach can grow any larger.

[littlemisspascal]

The When (Part 1)

Pairing: Ruescott Melshi x Female Reader

Word Count: 4000+

Summary: There is a story before, when, and after Keef Girgo enters your life. This is the When.

Rating: M (18+, minors please do not engage!)

Warnings: Prison/Narkina 5 storyline but an AU where woman inmates are assigned to each unit as ‘peacekeepers’, language, established relationship, non-descriptive smut + references of smut, possessiveness, references of violence + blood, non-descriptive suicide (not major character death)

- Reader has no official name and no physical traits described in detail. However, she is implied to be shorter than Melshi.

Author Note: Thank you everybody for the kind support of this story! For the sake of length, this section--The When--will be broken up into multiple segments! Hope someone enjoys it 😊

Special thanks to @beecastle for beta reading and encouraging me 💜

The Before / The When Part 2

The daily routine continues. Doesn’t matter Table 5 is down a man. Doesn’t matter that man is—was—Tress and he’s gone forever. Wrapped up in a body bag and taken away like he was nothing more than garbage. He’s not the first to have railed himself during your time here, and you’d be a damn fool to think he’ll be the last. Doesn’t make the hole in your chest any smaller though.

As a peacekeeper—and you hate that title, you really do. You already stand out as separate from the men sheerly by being the only woman in the unit, the extra label just seems excessive—you’re meant to float around the room, encouraging a different table every hour. But on day one of your sentence Kino assigned you to Table Five and you’ve been with your boys ever since.

At first you thought Kino only did it because he saw you as too weak to be helpful, that you’d only get in the way and ruin his streak of being one of the top three rooms on the level. It was only when you saw how he interacted with Ulaf, the longest-serving inmate on level five —a pat on the shoulder every hour, tone just a smidge lighter, friendlier, keeping a particularly close track of Ulaf’s approaching release date—did you understand why he organized the arrangement. 

And it was only when you saw Kino successfully argue against the guards to give Table Four a pass for their slowness after the loss of a member (slit his throat with his shaver, you’d learn the gruesome details later from Xaul), that you understood why the prisoners listened to him, respected him, why they obeyed every booming word out of his mouth. Because as far as managers go, how lucky Unit Five-Two-D is to have gotten the very best.

—

The loss of Tress is harder than you expect it to be. His absence means two less hands to twist a hydrospanner, which means you have to step up and fill the void while also catching the drill when it swings around to puncture holes in your piece of metal and double-checking Ulaf’s work isn’t faulty. Table Five is in last place, a ranking that has your eyes drifting towards the deceivingly harmless box in the center of the room, stomach churning.

There’s still time left on the clock. No need to panic just yet. Panic leads to mistakes and mistakes lead to injuries. Melshi will get mad if you’re injured again. There are already too many reasons to be mad around here, you really don’t want to give him another one.

Besides, sooner or later, another prisoner will be joining your table today. That’s always how it goes. Someone dies, the next day they’re replaced. Simple as that.

“Like cheap parts in a machine,” Melshi had said once. Not angry. Not disgusted. Just a plain and cold fact of life. 

The boys don’t talk much today while working, too focused on trying to catch up to the other tables to say anything besides the usual Fly! and Hands away repeated on loop like clockwork. Occasionally there will be encouragement like C’mon we got this from Ham, ever the optimist even in the direst of times. Nobody has the heart to tell him and his baby blues to shut up.

You’ll catch Melshi’s gaze right before each fresh droid widget rises up from the depths of the table to be worked on. He’s tired, you can see it in the lines around his mouth, how he clenches his jaw. And you know he sees the same exhaustion mirrored in the slouch of your posture and heavy eyelids. Neither of you offer words of comfort to the other. 

It’s enough to be seen.

—

The new inmate shows up during the final hour of the shift, right as you were beginning to fear nobody was coming to replace Tress at all. He’s young, early half of his twenties you estimate, with floppy brown hair and the same thinly veiled look of nervousness everyone wears on their faces when they first arrive.

You remember what it’s like to be in his shoes—well, not shoes technically, but his position. To be stared at by a room full of strangers all with their hands on their heads. It’s like attending a new school, except worse because school ends once the day’s over and everybody gets to go home. There are men here with sentences lasting double their lifetimes. They’ll never see their homes again.

You can barely recall what your home even looks like anymore, too many memories of white walls and a shared cot filling your head. It hadn’t really been a home though, you know that much. Just a building with a roof and four walls. And there had been no one to share it with either. No one to worry why you never came back after that fateful night.

Kino welcomes the newcomer with his typical informative, if not intimidatingly blunt explanation of how to fit in. My name is Kino Loy. I own you now. This is how the game is played. Don’t fuck it up.

You feel the stranger’s eyes on you even before he approaches. You’d bristle if you weren’t used to it after all these years. But there’s something…different about his stare. It isn’t hostile or hungry, doesn’t make the hair on the back of your neck prickle. It’s the look of a man who’s attempting to solve a puzzle in his mind and is startled by an unexpected piece changing the entire image. 

He’s curious about you.

“We’ve been waiting for you.” Jemboc is the first to greet him, somehow managing to sound pleasant despite the increasing sense of impending doom you’re all going to be fried. “I’m Jemboc. What’s your name?”

“Keef Girgo.”

There’s something about the way he says it—dull, almost woodenly—that has your fingers instinctively tightening around your tool. It’s too plain. Too irreverent. The kind of name forgotten the second you hear it.

Jemboc carries on introductions, pointing to each of you. “Xaul, Taga, Ulaf and Ham. Then that’s Melshi and his girl.”

You roll your eyes at the ensuing chuckles from the boys, telling Keef your real name despite your misgivings. First impressions can’t be trusted on Narkina 5, forged too rashly in the glance of an eye. It’s the second and third and fourth ones you’ll need to depend on to form a fair judgment. 

Keef says nothing, but his gaze is alert, soaking everything in. 

“We’re down ten,” Taga announces after glancing at the screen depicting the stats of the room. 

The group’s efforts pick up speed.

“Kino got Four a pass before when they were down a man,” Jemboc points out, grabbing the overhead drill. “He should give us one too.”

“He should,” Xaul agrees, lips pursed, “but—”

“He won’t,” Taga finishes shortly, temper flaring. “Not when we have her.”

You know he doesn’t mean it as sharply as it sounds, but the words still sting, still draw blood, and you can’t stop yourself from reflexively wincing. 

It’s true though. Even with the difficulties of Ulaf’s old age taken into account, your help is an advantage over the other groups. And in order to make up for that advantage (as well as keep his respect intact), there are times Kino will fight harder for the benefits of the other tables over yours. Case in point.

“We’re down ten. Focus.” If Taga’s voice was a papercut, then Melshi’s is the dangerous click of a blaster promising death.

Silence falls like a blanket over the table, movements frozen as if everyone’s been turned to stone. Even Keef seems to be holding his breath. 

You bite your lip, a burst of heat spreading out from the center of your stomach. Maker, this man…

And then Ulaf coughs and the spell is broken and work resumes once more.

You move around the table where you’re needed, tightening bolts, drilling holes, fusing metal—lather, rinse, and repeat. Every day it’s the same spider-like beams and the same precise installation method. Human error is what keeps you on your toes, the only unpredictable element of each shift. 

Through it all, Keef stands there soundlessly. Watching, watching, watching…

Ulaf heaves a sigh. “Giving us a new man with only an hour left? It’s hopeless.”

“There’s still forty-two minutes on the clock,” Ham says, but you can hear a thread of trepidation in his voice now. “We can rally.”

You snort, glancing up at the window right as a guard passes by. “Un-fucking-likely. They’re up there laughing at us.”

Keef steps closer in your peripheral, probably to get a better look at the tools, but realizing that doesn’t stop your hackles from raising defensively. 

“Hey, new guy,” Xaul seizes Keef’s attention, eyes hollow and mouth pinched, “prepare to fry.”

On that grim note, you think there won’t be anymore talking for awhile, but then—

“Keef,” Melshi corrects.

Your head snaps up, frowning, thinking you must have misheard him.

“What?” Xaul looks just as taken aback as you feel.

“That’s his name.” Melshi’s eyes skim right over your face, locking with the man in question behind you. “Right?”

“Keef,” is the echoed confirmation. There’s an edge to it that wasn’t there when he said it before, and when you look over your shoulder, you see there’s a new rigidity to his expression, too. A refusal to yield. Understanding dawns then, stealing the air from your lungs.

Oh.

You immediately look to Melshi again, finding him already looking back. 

It’d been a test. 

One glance, that’s all it takes to know you both share the same certainty.

Keef’s lying.

—

Table Five finishes last to the surprise of nobody in the group. You stand in the box, a darker colored square tile in the center meant to be seen by every prisoner in the room. Your breathing is loud even to your own ears, rapid panting as you stare at your feet, toes curling against the cold floor. This isn’t a new experience—Table Five’s been in the box dozens of times over the years of your sentence—but you’ll never be immune to the pain. No, it will always find new ways to break you over and over again.

Melshi stands behind you. He does this on purpose to keep you from seeing him writhing in pain. But his screams…oh his screams your ears will never forget. 

Also standing somewhere behind you is Keef. The dark-haired man had withdrawn inside himself when the alarm sounded at the end of the shift, reminding you of a turtle hiding inside its shell. Some vague and distant part of your mind not currently drowning in panic wonders how long he’ll last here. If Narkina 5 will add yet another tally to its ever rising death toll. 

And then the box ignites and there’s no more wondering anything anymore. 

Your world is consumed in hellfire.

—

The box leaves the bottoms of your bare feet tender and aching, white-hot needles prodding at the flesh, sinking deeper with every step. You’d cry if you could summon the tears, but your body’s a scorched husk, mouth tasting like desert sand. 

The walk to the skybridge is a blur. It’s only while you stand in line, waiting for the guards to open the doors, your haziness begins wearing off. You blink a few times, fuzzy outlines sharpening into distinctive shapes, and the residual ringing in your ears starts to fade as you become aware of a hand holding yours, squeezing it rhythmically. You find yourself smiling, just a slight upturn of your chapped lips, because you’ll always recognize Melshi’s touch.

You shuffle around, slowly lifting your tired gaze over his chest and face until you meet his eyes. Empty, is your first thought, stomach plummeting. Empty and colorless, matching the ashen hue of his skin. He looks sick. Worse, he looks…

Biting back a whimper, you lean in even closer, pressing your forehead against the center of his chest where the welcoming sound of his heartbeat washes over you like rain. Melshi stays quiet. Just breathing. He drifts sometimes, too, going somewhere you can’t follow. He’s never gone long, but you still wrestle with helplessness in the interim, wishing you could do more than hold onto him until he returns. 

A minute ticks by, then another. The other inmates pay no attention to either of you, chattering amongst themselves or griping about the long wait. It’s sort of funny how after twelve hour shifts of heavy labor with no breaks the sleeping block quickly starts looking like a five-star hotel.

It’s sort of funny, except no, it really isn’t funny at all.

Melshi exhales a shaky breath through his nose and then his lips are suddenly pressing a kiss to the top of your head, a shiver running through you that’s not an aftereffect of the shock.

You tilt your head up to look at him again, tips of your noses almost touching. His eyes flash with a flicker of warmth, sending your heart somersaulting, and you feel relief swell inside of you like a balloon. 

“Hi,” you say, and the word comes out like a frog’s croak. 

“Hi,” he echoes, a low and gravelly note only you can hear.  

This close, where all you see is Melshi, Melshi, Melshi, it’s as crazy as it is upsetting to think just a few years ago you had no idea he even existed. You don’t know how you ever survived a day without his touch. And now that you have him, now that you know the depths of his devotion and care, how it feels to be worshipped as he slides home between your legs…

The tortures of Narkina 5 won’t be what kills you.

Losing Melshi will.

—

Even though Kino swears all the cells are identical, some prisoners get it in their heads that their buddy’s room is somehow better than theirs. They take advantage of the aftermath of an inmate dying, when there’s a vacant spot and a newbie too outnumbered to argue, and swap spaces with whoever’s willing. Usually it doesn’t bother you much—boys will be boys, after all—but this time their shuffling ends with Keef residing in the cell across from you and Melshi.

You lie on your stomach on Melshi’s cot, sipping water from the tube while listening as Jemboc explains the layout to your new neighbor. Melshi stays on the floor below. You don’t have to have a clear view of his face to know he’s studying Keef. All the boys are doing it, lingering on the ledges of their own cells, murmuring to each other.

Their behavior would be weird if it wasn’t commonplace around here. It’s hard to have an interrogation in the work room, let alone a conversation. The sleep block is the only place inmates can talk to each other without interruptions (at least until the floors turn hot).

Keef’s tab reads 2,189. Six years. Not the biggest sentence in the unit, but quadruple amounts always draw curiosity.

You offer the water tube to Melshi, fingers brushing as he takes it from your grasp. He swallows a few gulps, throat bobbing in a way that shouldn’t be as oddly mesmerizing as it is, and then drops it, letting the tube wind itself up back into the wall with a quiet reverberation.

“So, what did you do?” Jemboc asks, leaning against the outer wall of Keef’s cell with his arms crossed casually. 

Keef seems to notice then for the first time the abundance of eyes on him, expression spasming with startlement. He shrugs a shoulder, shaking his head. “Nothing.”

Interesting.

Every word out of his mouth so far has been a lie. 

Jemboc smirks. “Lot of that around here.” A glance at the number again. “At least you know where you stand from the start, no surprises.”

Melshi makes an irritated sound. “Ask him already.”

Both your and Keef’s eyes shoot towards him, one full of knowing and the other cautious. 

“Everyone’s numbers went up last month,” Jemboc explains. “A direct result of the P-O-R-D.”

Taga moves closer, a hint of desperation rounding his eyes, giving him a slightly feral appearance. “People must be talking about it.”

Keef’s cautiousness is erased by confusion, brow creasing. “About what?”

Your nails dig into your palms, the beginnings of dread tearing at your insides. He isn’t lying now. He really doesn’t understand.

“The Public Order Resentencing Directive,” Taga says, spitting each word out like they are individual curses. 

A small crowd begins to form on the floor, listening to the exchange with rapt interest. The distinct, sinking feeling in your gut insisting you’ll be grateful for the distance in a few seconds keeps you up high and out of arms’ reach.

“You’re the first guy in since they imposed the new law,” Jemboc tells Keef. “It’s been tough waiting for news of how people are reacting.”

Keef just stares at him for a moment, and it feels like he’s holding the entire room in a chokehold, atmosphere so thick with tension you can scarcely breathe. Your nails sink in deeper, guaranteeing crescent-shaped scars.

When he shakes his head, a quick, timid jerk with his mouth drawn into a tight, uneasy line, you can’t help but flinch.

“He’s never heard of it,” Taga says quietly, voicing your exact thoughts. He then immediately repeats it again more emphatically, anger coating his tongue. “He’s never heard of it.”

The reaction from the group varies from face to face when you force yourself to look. There’s Taga’s outrage mirrored in Xaul’s dark scowl, but there’s also Ulaf shaking his head with grim acceptance of his fate and Ham looking three shades paler like he’s just seen the face of death. Fury, disappointment, terror, the list goes on but nothing rattles your heart more than Melshi’s blank exterior. 

Numbness washes over you the longer you stare at him, the longer you fail to discern any sort of meaning. There’s nothing there. He may as well be a total stranger.

For the first time since you’ve gotten together, you can’t read him. 

“The Public Order Decree.” Jemboc’s still trying with Keef, like if he says it enough times it’ll jar something loose in the other man’s memories. “The re-evaluation of criminal sentences.”

“No,” Keef denies vehemently. “I’m sorry.”

“But all the rebel activity! They took down a whole garrison!”

“Rebel nonsense,” Xaul scoffs. “Bunch of bantha shit.”

Keef’s voice tightens, defensive. “I don’t know anything.”

“Of course not,” Ulaf says, rubbing at his knuckles rigorously. “We’re just a bunch of riffraff. Who’d want to worry about us?”

“But he’s just one guy,” Ham stammers, gesturing weakly at Keef. “M-maybe word just hasn’t spread yet.”

Any response is silenced by the slap of Melshi’s feet hitting the floor as he steps out of his cell. You sit up on your knees, unsure whether to stay silent or intervene. If Melshi would just look at you... 

This isn’t like when he drifts away, when his mind is occupied elsewhere but his body stays in the safety of your hold. No, this is a wall built on purpose warning you to back off. You can’t climb over it or knock it down. The only thing you can do is trust Melshi’s reasons for it. Trust he’ll let you inside when the timing’s right.

You trust Melshi with your life. Always will. But that doesn’t make the ache of being shut out hurt any less though.

“Don’t ever look at the number,” Melshi says, coming face to face with Keef. You shiver at the display of dominance, firm tone leaving no room for arguing. “Double, triple, it doesn’t fucking matter—”

“Hey!” Kino’s shout nearly has you jumping out of your skin, an embarrassing yelp escaping your lips.

Melshi doesn’t even bat an eye. “You’re here ‘til they don’t want you anymore. Get straight with that.”

The other inmates scatter like mice towards their own cells, practically leaping to get out of the way of a severely ticked-off Kino thundering down the hall. Your heartbeat quickens, threatening to burst.

“Melshi,” the manager barks, spittle flying. “That’s enough!”

“Rue,” you call out, rapidly looking back and forth between the men, worry spiking when you’re ignored. “Ruescott, leave it alone.”

“Anyone who thinks they’re getting out of here is dreaming,” Melshi finishes bluntly.  

The words come out jagged and sharp like shattered pieces of glass. Keef’s just staring at Melshi, brown eyes wide and dumbstruck and full of something you can’t quite label. And it’s strange, almost scary, how smoothly he transitions from an open book to a complex enigma in-between the blink of an eye. Maybe a chameleon is a better comparison than a turtle.

There isn’t any more time to dwell on your suspicions, not when Kino’s fists are seizing hold of Melshi by the shirt and throwing him against the wall, his face a snarling mask of rage.

“I said,” Kino hisses, “that’s enough.”

You’re on the floor in the next breath, ignoring the jarring of your ankles at the harsh landing as you press yourself against Melshi’s side. You reach for his hand and something softens inside of you when you find he’s reaching for you too, fingers intertwining. Indivisible. 

Kino looks down at your hands and then back up at your face, glare losing none of its heat. He says your name, and it takes all the willpower you possess not to duck your head like a disciplined child. “He makes one more scene, just one,” he warns, holding up a finger. “There won’t be any more sleepovers because he’ll be sleeping on the fucking floor. Are we clear?”

Melshi squeezes your hand.

You swallow, squeezing back. “Crystal.”

The alarm rings out—saved by the bell, you think, knees nearly go weak with relief—warning prisoners to return to their cells for lights out. Kino grunts, finally releasing his hold, and turns to address Keef. You ignore them in favor of Melshi, pulling insistently at your joined hands.

“Come on, Rue,” you murmur, bottom lip wobbling despite yourself. “Let’s get inside.”

Melshi’s gaze lingers on Kino for a moment, then Keef, and then, finally, he looks down at you and he’s back. Your Rue is back, fingers trailing over your jaw so delicately you can’t even think straight, can’t stop yourself from blurting out:

“Don’t shut me out again. Not you.”

“Dream—”

“I love you,” you say, tilting your head into his touch. The alarm’s blaring and your feet are on fire and he’s never once said those three precious words back, but none of that matters. He still needs to know. He still needs to understand. 

He’s it for you. The one and only keeper of your heart.

“Remember my promise, little dreamer,” he says softly, gently guiding you into the cell, pressing you down onto the cot as darkness falls. Forehead to forehead, words falling into your open mouth. “I’ll never leave you.”

And it sounds like I love you, too. Like You are mine. Like I’ll set this whole place on fire for you, just say the word.

You pull him in for a kiss, then another and another, sinking into each other, becoming one.

There are no doors in the sleep block. No corners or nooks of privacy. But when Melshi holds you in his arms, bodies pressed together in a tangled embrace of warmth, it feels as though the two of you might as well be the only souls left in the galaxy. 

—

You wake up to find yourself sprawled across Melshi’s back, face resting between his shoulders. It takes a couple of sluggish seconds to make sense of the unusual position, briefly wondering how you went from being curled into his side hours ago to this, before your semiconscious mind decides it’s not a mystery worth the effort of solving. 

Melshi’s still out, breathing slow and deep, on his stomach with his arms tucked under his head. He’s so pleasantly warm, you’re tempted to snuggle even closer and doze off again, but instinct tugs at you, an invisible thread demanding attention. You lift your head, squinting against the faintly glowing lights outlining the walls of the cells.

And then you see it. A dark shape curled up on the floor in the cell directly across. 

Keef.

You blink, taken aback, and there’s a dizzying second where you wonder if you’re still dreaming after all, but then Keef’s rubbing at his face with his sleeves and you realize he’s crying. Except he’s not making any sound. No muffled sobs racking his body or the sniffles of a snot-filled nose. Just tears trailing silent lines down his cheeks.

He’s completely stripped bare of all his facades, raw and exposed, and you should turn away, you know you should, but there’s something so utterly captivating about your first real glimpse of the man. Those tears, they must mean something. Heartache or hopelessness or some third profound emotion there isn’t a name for yet. 

You don’t know why Keef—or whatever his true name is—is lying, how he ended up here, or what he’s running from. But looking at him now, one damaged soul witnessing another, you realize how little those blank spots matter. He’s one of you now. No going back.

Welcome to the pack, Keef Girgo, you think, closing your eyes once more.

You dream of rushing water and blaster fire, a voice screaming over and over the same three words:

No way out. 

No way out.

No way out.

[littlemisspascal]

Before. When. After.

There is a story before, when, and after Keef Girgo enters your life

A 3-Part Prison/Narkina 5 AU.

Pairing: Ruescott Melshi x Female Reader

Rating: M. 18+. See specific warnings listed within each chapter. Reader does not have name or physical description, but is implied to be shorter than Melshi.

The Before

The When - Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

The After

Art Commission

Moodboard

[littlemisspascal]

The Before

Pairing: Ruescott Melshi x Female Reader

Word Count: 4000+

Summary: There is a story before, when, and after Keef Girgo enters your life. This is the Before.

Rating: M (18+, minors please do not engage!)

Warnings: Prison/Narkina 5 storyline but an AU where woman inmates are assigned to each unit as 'peacekeepers', language, established relationship, non-descriptive smut + references of smut, possessiveness, rough handling, biting, references of violence + blood, non-descriptive suicide (not major character death)

- Reader has no official name and no physical traits described in detail. However, she is picked up twice + is implied to be shorter than Melshi (because I'm a sucker for height differences)

Author Note: So...Idk what happened, I just watched Andor and something about the prison arc really resonated with me. And I really loved Melshi’s scenes and his connection with Cassian (or, Keef, I guess technically lol) so I decided to give writing for him a shot. I am not a smut writer, it’s just not for me, but I wanted to also try to step outside my usual comfort zone a little bit too when writing and thus---this fic was born. Hope someone enjoys it 😊

Special thanks to @beecastle for beta reading and encouraging me 💜

The When

There is a scar across the top of Melshi’s hand that flashes silvery-white whenever the light catches it just right. You’ve been mesmerized by it for almost a dozen shifts now. His hands, in general, have starred in many of your dreams: the sandpaper quality of his skin, thick fingers covered in calluses, how they flex and fidget when he works. 

Once upon a time your mind used to torture you by fantasizing what those hands would feel like touching you. If he’d be rough or gentle. How lucky you are now to know reality is better than even your wildest fantasies.

From the other side of the table, where he’s twisting a bolt into place with a hydrospanner, Melshi’s eyes lift to meet yours. The sleeves of his uniform are rolled up, exposing pale skin rippling as his muscles tighten and slacken with every movement. You track the faint blue lines of veins along the tender flesh of his wrists, up his forearms, imagining you can follow them all the way to his heart. The whooshing of blood pumping in your ears is nearly loud enough to block out the ruckus of machinery sounds. 

Nearly.

Melshi’s brow twitches, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it show of concern. An unspoken question only you hear. What’s wrong? 

Other prisoners have described this place as hell, but you're not so sure. Hell is pain and anguish on an infinite loop—a fitting description to a T, except for one glaring exception. Narkina 5 has Melshi. So it can’t be hell, you reckon, because Melshi is the best thing that’s ever happened to you. He’s your everything.

Nothing, absolutely nothing can compete with what you have within these walls. Fresh air, sunshine, the smell of the dirt after it rains. You’d trade them all if it meant staying by his side.

You give the smallest shake of your head. Nothing. An even subtler quirk of an eyebrow. Thinking.

There’s more you could say. A whole book of dialogue exchanged in shrugs, facial tics, and flaring nostrils. Melshi would follow along with every nonexistent word. 

But you don’t need to say anything else. Melshi understands your silences too.

He winks, sly as a fox. 

Back to work, little dreamer.

—

The view outside the window is the same above as it is below, dozens of skybridges full of men standing in lines with a single woman spotted here and there amongst them. You press your forehead against the glass, reminiscent of your childhood days on commercial flights. Behind you, Melshi stands alert, keeping an eye on Kino shouting orders further up ahead, ready to pull you back in line at a second’s notice. He holds your hand, thumb absently rubbing circles.

For a moment, you contemplate stealing his attention. Look, Rue, you’d say, tapping at the window, gesturing to the gaps between the ugly facility where water pours down in torrents, breathtaking in its intensity. And Melshi would turn his head, dark eyes burning like a wildfire, and you’d forget the view immediately, discovering a far more beautiful sight.

But Kino opens his mouth again and you’re tugged back in line and the moment’s gone. 

—

One morning, Ulaf gives you a scrutinizing look, his aged eyes dark and full of knowing, and says, “He’s it for you, isn’t he?”

The two of you walk side by side to the work ring, your turn to make sure he doesn’t get pushed around by the other prisoners. Up ahead, Melshi looks back every other step, glaring at anyone who gets too close to you, softening when he catches you smiling. 

“Yes,” you say simply, feeling warm all over. “He is.”

—

You’ve hit another milestone. Your sentence is now in the double digits. It’s not the lowest on the level, that honor goes to Ulaf, but still, not everyone lasts this long. All the Table Five guys come up and pat you on the back when they hear. All of them, except for Melshi.

You get it—or you think you do, at least. Because your time together has felt like a bubble, a separate realm from the rest of the universe. This milestone is a ticking bomb threatening to destroy that.

This milestone is one step closer to a goodbye.

“It’s inevitable, dream. Our ending was written from the start,” Melshi says, and goes into his cell. Lights out is near. You’re standing on the floor, arms crossed over your chest, loathing the tense points of his shoulder blades beneath the white and orange scrubs.

“Don’t say that.” 

“Why not? We both know it’s the truth.”

You stomp your foot and Melshi shoots you a look, squinting like he doesn’t recognize you anymore. You meet his stare unflinchingly.

He turns away a beat later, sighing through his nose. “C’mon, get inside.”

And that should be the end of it. You should let go of your churning frustration and join him in bed. Both of you should just keep on pretending everything’s fine, fall back smoothly into the same routines, and when your final shift comes you’ll leave without hesitation, never looking back. Just like the woman who left before you and the woman who left before her. 

You’re not like those other women, though. Everyone’s said so—you still smile, still laugh. Still dream. So you remain motionless, even as the buzzer rings out and the floor lights blink. 

“Quit fooling around, dream,” Melshi snaps, eyes darting between the floor and your face. His nostrils flare, mouth hard, but you know him better than anyone, see the cracks of worry behind his steely anger. “Either come here or get in your cell.”

Your eyes narrow. 

“Dream.”

The overhead bulbs switch off.

“Dreamer.” His fear is blatant now, the whites of his eyes shining. 

He’s not the only anxious one. Inmates are leaning out of their cells all along the block, some shouting at you to move, others watching with bated breath for a possible show of sparks and your bloodcurdling wails. You can feel Kino’s gaze drilling holes into you, and you know he knows nothing he says or does will influence you to move.

The only person who has that power is right in front of you.

Melshi.

The floor lights flicker their final warning.

Melshi, who’s snatching you around the waist and hauling you off the floor, all but throwing you into the safety of his cell. Melshi, who’s crowding you against the wall, grip harsh enough there’s sure to be bruises in the morning. Melshi who doesn’t want to say goodbye either.

“There are no inevitabilities with us. All we can depend on is each other, Rue,” you say, tilting your head back to lock gazes. He’s breathing harshly, chest heaving, but his eyes, oh his eyes are shining stars.

Defenses torn apart, emotions ripple across his face, one after the other like skipping stones. Anger, misery, panic, but underneath it all, what has your heart threatening to burst, is understanding. His right hand leaves your waist, seizing hold of your chin, forcing you to stay still. As if you’d rather be anywhere else. 

“Don’t you ever do something so reckless like that again,” he says through gritted teeth, accent bolstered by his turmoil. His thumb ghosts over your bottom lip then, belying his temper. “I won’t always be there to save you.”

You lean forward in his hold, and the mere fact that he lets you sink into his personal space, hands winding around his neck, is proof enough of his devotion.

Your lips hover centimeters away from his, noses brushing, and a teasing smirk curls at the corner of your mouth as you peer up at half-lidded eyes dark with desire. 

“Liar.”

—

The scarlet beam of a welding laser scorches the tender skin of your knuckles. It isn’t a severe burn—merely a painful inconvenience—but Melshi frets over it the rest of the shift and even afterwards in the sanctity of your shared cell, cradling your hand in his with all the gentleness of handling a baby bird. 

“You need to stay focused, dreamer,” Melshi chastens, making a tsking sound with his tongue.

But you’ve been christened your moniker for a reason. Mind frequently drifting into the clouds far, far above, envisioning alternate lives beyond your underwater cage, making a home somewhere even the Empire and all its corruption cannot touch. 

You grin back at him. “I kind of like it actually. We match now.”

Melshi glances down at his scarred hand, almost like he’d forgotten the mark was there. Something dark passes over his face, a shadow of a triggered memory. A chapter of his life he’ll never tell you about.

“Just don’t make it a habit,” is all he says.

—

It’s funny, in a way, how certain little elements of prison life start to feel comforting in their familiarness. A fresh set of scrubs every third day. Morning stretches with an ample variety of bedheads. Taga’s signing lessons. The boom of Kino’s voice. Flavorless mush in a tube. Feet padding along on chilled Tunqstoid tiles. The shrill whirs and whines of machinery. Melshi’s fingers trailing heat along your body, breaths and moans blurring together in the dark. 

You wish you could reach out and bottle these moments, use them as painkillers on days when Table Five finishes last and the floor threatens to burn holes in the soles of your feet.

Jemboc nudges your arm with his, wondering where you drifted off to this time. You nudge him back, then shrug your shoulders. “Nowhere far.”

—

The guards don’t give two shits about what you and Melshi do after lights out. As long as you hold out your arm for a contraception injection at the start of each month and your “womanly influence” continues keeping the men of Unit Five-Two-D coolheaded, they won’t even care if you fucked a different cock every night. 

They don’t need to care what happens to anybody dressed in white and orange—they’re not paid to care, only to press a couple of buttons and announce ominous messages over the intercom throughout the day. And you hate it. Hate them and the entire Empire manipulating the galaxy like a giant puppet on a string. 

But you’re also a selfish creature. 

What you have with Melshi, your messy and beautiful bond, has not only been allowed to grow in this gaping blind spot, but flourish. It’s like fate intertwined your paths. Like Narkina 5 was always in the cards from the get-go. And in the rare moments where Melshi looks at you with unbridled affection, that selfish part of you will sing joyously because this belongs to you, this is all you need to be happy. Nothing else.

The rest of the galaxy could burn to ashes.

—

You watch Melshi sleep, sometimes. Quiet, lower lip clenched between your teeth, not wanting to wake him up and lose the moment of indulgence.

You know what will happen if he catches you. It’s happened twice before and panned out the exact same way. He’ll give you a bleary-eyed look once he sees you staring. Followed immediately by unintelligible grumbling and a hand pulling you forward, burying your face into the nook between his neck and collarbone. A wordless command to go to sleep.

Holding his hand in the waiting lines and blowing him in the dark for three years, Melshi doesn’t mind at all. But watching him sleep, curled on his side with an arm slung over your waist, marveling at how much younger he looks while he dreams as the midnight hours tick by—that triggers the transformation of your strong and hardened lover into someone shy and wrongfooted. It does something funny to your heart, even funnier to your mind.

Makes you wonder how different he’d be if you’d met Melshi outside of prison, what would stay the same. Would he bring you flowers on your first date? Would he whisper mine in your ear and hold you flush against his chest while thrusting deep inside you?

Perhaps that’s the truth of why you keep watching Melshi sleep, to see glimpses of this alternate persona buried beneath the familiar layers. 

You look up when fingers close around your wrist. And for a third time, you find yourself looking into the eyes of a stranger.

—

You first kissed Melshi on your 1,352th shift in the semi-privacy of the refresher, taking his face between your hands and smashing your mouths together.

It was all clashing teeth and needy tongues, and you tried to sink into the experience for all its worth, to let yourself be consumed entirely. But your heart pounded like a wrecking ball against your chest, and a voice in the back of your head screamed stop it! He’ll take advantage of you, for fuck’s sake! 

The voice was momentarily drowned out by the wet heat of Melshi’s mouth, a teasing nip against your bottom lip, and a wave of pleasure rolled over you from head to toe, a dizzying and dearly missed sensation.

And then you forced yourself to pull away.

Melshi merely blinked at you, a little dazed looking, lips red and slightly swollen. Oh, Maker…

“Sorry,” you murmured, dragging your eyes away to look at a very interesting spot on the wall over his shoulder. “I-I wasn’t thinking. I just—”

“Liar,” Melshi cut you off, not unkindly. He smirked at your affronted look. “You’re always thinking, little dreamer.”

He wasn’t wrong. Your mind was always thinking, planning, imagining, drifting, analyzing. Still, you huffed and crossed your arms over your stomach. You’d rather he just reject you outright than continue exacerbating your discomfort.

“How often?”

You arched an eyebrow. “How often what?”

Melshi pinned you with a sharp look, like you were being purposefully difficult. He leaned closer then, and your breath caught as he brushed his fingertips over your temple, palm cradling your cheek. “How often do I cross your mind?”

You let out a shuddered exhale. You’d never been touched like that before. Touched like you were worth more than a quick fuck and a fake promise of calling again soon. 

“Melshi,” you began only to be silenced by a thumb against your lips.

“Ruescott.”

Something inside of you cracked wide open.

“Ruescott,” you amended, voice barely above a murmur. His breath was hot against your cheeks, sending your thoughts into a whirlwind. “You…”

Maker, why was it so hard to focus? 

You felt feverish all over. Every nerve ending ablaze. Melshi’s eyes never left yours. And he must have known. He must have.

“Ruescott,” you raised a hand, tentatively resting it over his, grounding yourself in the physical contact, “you never leave my mind.”

Something shifted in his gaze, a flicker of an emotion you couldn’t identify, and then Melshi lunged, swallowing your startled yelp with his mouth, lips colliding.

The sudden fierce moment had you stumbling backwards against the wall, but Melshi’s hand was quicker, protecting your skull from the hit. And you, you didn’t know if it were possible to pull him in any closer, hands fisted in the itchy fabric of his scrubs, his arousal grinding against your inner thigh, but fuck if you didn’t make an attempt. 

Seconds, minutes, hours later—time had no meaning anymore, you were drunk on the taste of him—Melshi was the one dragging himself away with a low groan. You made an attempt to chase after his lips, but his hold on your upper arms was impossible to squirm out of, fingers flexing warningly.

“Not here, dream,” he said before throwing a glance over his shoulder. 

Awareness of your surroundings abruptly came screaming back to you. 

Oh, shit, you thought, the heat in your core extinguished immediately. Kissing was one thing to be caught doing, but two inmates letting loose their combined pent up sexual frustration in a fit of raw, unbridled fucking was quite another.

“Tonight,” he muttered, an oath sworn with another searing kiss. “Tonight I’m going to take care of you. I’ll fuck you so good every man on every level will know.”

You barely stifled the whimper in your throat. Insecurity bit at you, a parasite you couldn’t squash on your own. “Promise, Rue? You won’t leave me high and dry?”

Or worse, wet and wanting. 

“Promise,” was the instant response; no hesitation, no thinking. And then, quieter, infused with such bleeding sincerity you felt the words like individual blows: “I’ll make you a second one, too. You’ll never have to worry about me leaving you.”

At the time you thought him romantic. Now you understand his real meaning: you’ll never know a day apart from him because your sentence is shorter than his. 

—

“I love you,” you whisper in the midnight hours. Melshi pulls you closer, lips pressing against the crown of your head. One of his hands rests on the back of your neck, fingertips gently rubbing at your pulsepoint. 

“When I…” he cuts himself off, and you can hear the quiver in his voice, the words catching in his throat. “When I dream about a life outside of here, you’re always there. Just you and me, somewhere warm…and...”

There’s a pause, a silence broken only by Melshi’s quiet exhale and faint snores from cells further down. 

Your eyes sting, tears spilling down your cheeks. “And?”

“And we’re happy,” he says softly. “We’re so fucking happy.”

—

Group showers provoke warring emotions twice a week without fail. 

On one hand, it’s nice to feel clean after sweating through your shifts. (Do you wish it didn’t require being tightly packed like sardines into a room with a bunch of unknown women and sprayed with frigid cold mist? Of course. But who’s gonna listen to your complaints? Nobody, that’s who.)  

On the other hand, you’re separated from your group, from Melshi. And it’s like there are thorns digging into your backside the entire time, from the second you’re hustled away by a guard all too happy to leer at you while his hand rests pointedly on his zaprod to the moment you’re reunited with Unit Five-Two-D in the work room. Only when you’re back in their sight again—each of your Table Five boys sweeping their eyes over you, looking for signs of harm, a single hair out of place—you feel like you can breathe easily again. 

You were brought here to be a peacekeeper amongst the men—negotiate with them, befriend them, be their punching bag or fucktoy, the method doesn’t matter so long as the conflict is settled—and on other levels you’d be expected to fulfill your duty to the utmost degree, but not here. Not here where Kino’s word is law and the men will suffer worse than a broken hand if they’re inappropriate with you. 

Inmates aren’t supposed to think of themselves as lucky, not on Narkina 5 of all places, but you do.

To the guards, you’re a sacrificial lamb in a den of lions. Rumors say more women leave in body bags than by walking. But they have it all wrong in your case. You aren’t a lamb and the men aren’t lions. 

You are a wolf, and they are your pack.

—

The odds are in Table Five’s favor today, resulting in a first place victory and flavored food waiting for you all in your cells. Between swallows the men banter and roughhouse like rowdy schoolboys, Xaul telling a crude joke about shaved banthas that makes you laugh so hard your ribs ache. Even Kino cracks a smile.

You lean back against Melshi’s chest, head tucked beneath his chin. Lucky, you think again, committing every detail to memory.

And you don’t know it yet—nobody does, not even the guards—but this is the last good day you’ll have at Narkina 5. 

Tomorrow, everything will change.

—

You wake up to shouts ricocheting off the walls, nearly falling off the cot out of alarm if not for Melshi’s fast reflexes. The morning buzzer hasn’t rung yet, floor still electric, but the whole block is an enraged swarm, an overwhelming cacophony of cursing and bellowing. Even more worrying, Kino won’t make eye contact when you look to him for answers.

And then you see it.

Melshi’s number has increased.

There’s a loaded moment where you can’t believe what you’re seeing. You tap at the screen with trembling fingers, thinking it’s a glitch, it has to be, because if it’s not then that means—Oh, Maker, you can’t even finish the thought—but the number doesn’t change, doesn’t flicker. Your insistent taps become slaps, palms aching, and you don’t realize you’ve joined in the shouting until Melshi’s pulling you backwards with an arm around your stomach.

“It’s not just me. Everybody’s tabs have gone up. Even yours, dreamer,” Melshi says hoarsely, holding you up when your knees go numb, sobs wracking your body.

“Why?” you whimper, shaking your head. “I didn’t do anything wrong, Rue. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

Through your tears, Melshi’s eyes hold more worry than you’ve ever seen, and you can’t stand it. You want him to reassure you, to tell you there’s been a mistake and everything will be okay.

He doesn’t. Instead, even worse, his arms tighten around you and he says nothing. 

Not one word.

—

Later, you’ll learn there was an attack on one of the Empire’s garrisons (a suspected rebellion strike, but you, along with at least half of Five-Two-D’s men, are still on the fence whether these so-called rebels even exist or not). 

Later, you’ll learn the Empire invoked the Public Order Resentencing Directive as a result. The reason why everyone’s numbers spiked overnight without warning. The reason why slight mishaps previously disciplined with a verbal dressing down are now punished with a zaprod to the gut, spine, head—wherever the guards think will hurt the longest. 

Later, Melshi will rub your back while you empty your stomach contents into the refresher, the sight of blood gushing from Ham’s busted and charred nose seared into your brain.

There’s tension in the air, every day intensifying a little more, squeezing your neck just a little bit tighter. There are nights where Melshi paces the length of the cell, fists clenched at his sides, and mornings where Ulaf can barely stand from his cot, gritting his teeth against the aches and pains of a weathered body pushed to its limits. 

You were brought here to be a peacekeeper. But there’s nothing you can do to quell this amount of rage. A rage you feel simmering beneath your own skin. 

There is a bomb in the heart of Narkina 5, ignored by the guards who shield themselves behind their electric floors and weapons. But what the fools fail to realize is it’s not a question of if this bomb will go off.

It’s a matter of when.

—

“We’re never getting out of here,” you whisper, pressed against the cot.

“Don’t talk like that. Not you, little dreamer,” Melshi scolds, breathing against your neck, and you fall silent, shuddering with every touch, teeth sinking into the meat of his shoulder to muffle your moans.

In the morning you’ll trace the bite mark with your fingertips, thinking that the thin line between animal and human has never looked blurrier.

—

You first notice Tress’ twitchiness during the third hour of your shift. Eyes just a bit too wide, gnawing at his lip like he’ll receive a reward if it bleeds. Panic attacks happen from time to time, but usually to newbies who haven’t adapted to the routine yet. Not to longtimers like Tress.

He gets worse with each passing hour, dropping his tools, practically vibrating with an abundance of nervous energy. You’re not the only one who’s alarmed by his strange behavior now. Melshi casts subtle glances in Tress’ direction after every finished droid piece, while Kino stares him down like he’s ready to tackle him in the next breath if Tress does something remotely dangerous.

You lose track of him when everyone lines up to return to the sleep block. No matter how much you twist and crane your neck in either direction, you can’t spot a single glimpse of his blonde curls. Melshi squeezes your hand, and to everyone else he appears indifferent, staring straight ahead while waiting for Kino to give the order to keep walking, but you see the pinch between his eyebrows immediately. He’s just as concerned as you are.

Passing him safely in his cell has you breathing a quiet sigh of relief. Still, you can’t quite bring yourself to fully relax, a sense of impending dread lingering in your bones. You don’t say much during dinner, just sit on the floor of your cell next to Melshi, half-listening to his conversation with Taga—something about a new guard on the third level nearly frying a man to death accidentally—and half-keeping an eye on Tress who looks only marginally less weasley-looking than he did earlier. Marginally.

“Sleep, little dreamer,” Melshi tells you later on in the night, pausing your tossing and turning. His eyes are closed when you look at him, but you can tell by his wrinkled brow he’s hanging onto consciousness by a mere thread. You don’t understand how he’s able to sleep. Doesn’t he feel the wrongness? Like the walls are closing in, stealing the room’s oxygen?

Your mouth opens to ask him just that, but the agonized wail that pierces the silence doesn’t belong to you.

And you know, even before you’ve slid off the cot, before you see the body lying motionless on the floor at the end of the hall, that Tress is gone. 

—

The next day, a new inmate named Keef Girgo arrives.

And little do any of you know, he’s going to bring Narkina 5 to its knees.