#sometimes i get sad about fandom but then i take a step back and remember how great people are

[ragnarlothcat]

So before this year ends i just wanted to say: thank you! thank you for being so big brained, thank you for your creativity and imagination, thank you for your generosity in sharing that talent with us, thank you for making me laugh (and sometimes cry), thank you for giving me something to look forward to, thank you for answering asks and being so kind and lovely, thank YOU for being you. I hope you enjoy your new years eve and the new year treats you kindly <3

Thank YOU!!! You're so sweet, and happy new year to you too 🥰 2022 was a weird year I think but the extremely fun people I've gotten to chat with were the highlight! And the Obi-Wan show, of course, because that was a whirlwind of a time that I'm still half convinced we imagined 🤔

I don't know if I'll have more or less free time in 2023, or motivation or delicious snacks to keep me on topic but I will certainly keep trying to make people laugh (this is what motivates like 90% of what I do) and I will bask in the kindness of any asks I might receive and in the general excellent vibes of this community. Happy new year!!!!!

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

for whom good omens is being written

Hey maggots and the rest of the fandom, it's the Good Omens Mascot here. Today I read a post about this tweet:

The accompanying video genuinely made me cry. And I've been thinking about this for a long while, as far back as February, when I saw a lot of conflicting opinions on what people wanted from the third season. It really is true that no matter what you do, some people will be dissatisfied. But what matters is that Neil is writing this for Terry.

And I was reminded of some paragraphs from the Good Omens TV Companion, which I'd read in Amazon's sample excerpt of the book. I know this is a long post, but I really truly do think you all need to read these, I've done my best to select only the most important parts. Here you go:

'His Alzheimer's started progressing harder and faster than either of us had expected,' says Neil, referring to a period in which Terry recognized that despite everything he could no longer write. 'We had been friends for over thirty years, and during that time he had never asked me for anything. Then, out of the blue, I received an email from him with a special request. It read: “Listen, I know how busy you are. I know you don't have time to do this, but I want you to write the script for Good Omens. You are the only human being on this planet who has the passion, love and understanding for the old girl that I do. You have to do this for me so that I can see it." And I thought, “OK, if you put it like that then I'll do it."

'I had adapted my own work in the past, writing scripts for Death: The High Cost of Living and Sandman, but not a lot else was seen. I'd also written two episodes of Doctor Who, and so I felt like I knew what I was doing. Usually, having written something once I'd rather start something new, but having a very sick co-author saying I had to do this?' Neil spreads his hands as if the answer is clear to see. 'I had to step up to the plate.' A pause, then: 'All this took place in autumn 2014, around the time that the BBC radio adaptation of Good Omens was happening,' he continues, referring to the production scripted and co-directed by Dirk Maggs and starring Peter Serafinowicz and Mark Heap. ‘Terry had talked me into writing the TV adaptation, and I thought OK, I have a few years. Only I didn't have a few years,' he says. 'Terry was unconscious by December and dead by March.'

He pauses again. 'His passing took all of us by surprise,' Neil remembers. 'About a week later, I started writing, and it was very sad. The moments Terry felt closest to me were the moments I would get stuck during the writing process. In the old days, when we wrote the novel, I would send him what I'd done or phone him up. And he would say, "Aahh, the problem, Grasshopper, is in the way you phrase the question," and I would reply, "Just tell me what to do!" which somehow always started a conversation. 'In writing the script, there were times I'd really want to talk to Terry, and also places where I'd figure something out and do something really clever, and I would want to share it with him. So, instead, I would text Terry's former personal assistant, Rob Wilkins, now his representative on Earth. It was the nearest thing I had.'

(...) As Neil himself recognizes, this is an adaptation built upon the confidence that comes from three decades of writing for page and screen. But for all the wisdom of experience, he found that above all one factor guided him throughout the process. 'Terry isn't here, which leaves me as the guardian of the soul of the story,' he explains. 'It's funny because sometimes I found myself defending Terry's bits harder or more passionately than I would defend my own bits. Take Agnes Nutter,' he says, referring to what has become a key scene in the adaptation in which the seventeenth-century author of the book of prophecies foretelling the coming of the Antichrist is burned at the stake. ‘It was a huge, complicated and incredibly expensive shoot, with bonfires built and primed to explode as well as huge crowds in costume. It had to feel just like an English village in the 1640s, and of course everyone asked if there was a cheap way of doing it. 'One suggestion was that we could tell the story using old-fashioned woodcuts and have the narrator take us through what happened, but I just thought, “No”. Because I had brought aspects of the story like Crowley and the baby swap along to the mix, and Terry created Agnes Nutter. So, if I had cut out Agnes then I wouldn't be doing right by the person who gave me this job. Terry would've rolled over in his grave.'

And, finally, this paragraph:

"Once again, Neil cites the absence of his co-writer as his drive to ensure that Good Omens translated to the screen and remained true to the original vision. 'Terry's last request to me was to make this something he would be proud of. And so that has been my job.'"

I think that's so heartwrenchingly beautiful, and so I wanted you all to read this, too, just in case you (like me) don't have the Good Omens TV Companion. It adds another layer of depth and emotion to this already complex and amazing story that we all know and love.

Share this post, if you can, please, so that more people can read these excerpts :")

Tagging @neil-gaiman, @fuckyeahgoodomens and @orpiknight, even if you've definitely read these before :)

[prettyoddfever]

I just wanted to say, I love your blog. You post so much information that’s not only interesting, but also validating, as someone who sees 24/7 misinterpretations of the band’s history on TikTok (I have an account where I post edits there). I first became active in the Panic fandom literally as the band was splitting up, which was just /amazing/ lol, but I took a huge step back from fandoms/online communities related to my interests when I started college. I recently came back around a year or so ago, because I enjoy making edits and wanted to indulge in my interests again, only to find out that 90% of Panic-related content online has just been overrun with misinformation/Brendon-haters etc. It was honestly jarring for me because so many of the things people claim as evidence of Brendon being horrible (That he assaulted and abused Ryan, that the band split up because Brendon forced Ryan out, that Ryan was basically forced out of the frontman role, etc…), are just so crazy to someone who knows that’s just not accurate! Your blog has reassured me that I am not crazy and the way I remember things is not a figment of my imagination lol. Even though I was very young when some of these things were happening, my older sister was OBSESSED with Panic and I was into whatever she was into, haha, we still reminisce to this day. I have been literally harassed on TikTok for commenting “in defense” of Brendon Urie underneath a post where someone insisted that every time he got near Ryan on stage, it was without Ryan’s consent. I knew that Brendon had “got cancelled” but I had no idea that people were that serious about it… When half of the things they claim aren’t even real. I know it’s not their fault that they’ve consumed misinformation, but there is no changing people’s minds, even with evidence, which is sad to me. It really sucks that newer fans of the band have such a bitter, twisted narrative around the band’s early eras and the split. But so many of the things they reference happened before they were probably born, yet they swear they’re more knowledgeable than someone who was kinda there…

Anyway, I’m sorry for the wall of text, I just needed to get that out and I really appreciate the time and effort you put into your blog! Not only is it just fun to read, but it really takes me back to my growing-up years, and it’s refreshing to see a take on PATD that’s more “normal” in my eyes.

You put this so well oh my goodness. 100% yes to everything you said. I've heard similar things from some other returning fans over the past couple years and I just relate to all of it so much. I mentioned at the bottom of this post how I drifted away from the Panic fandom for about a decade and coming back was so confusing at first. But trying to wrap my mind around everything also helped me understand modern politics in a way, though? Like now I can see how it's totally possible that a large crowd of people can literally invent their own reality, readily believe whatever they hear in their echo chamber, and then willfully ignore facts, evidence, and firsthand accounts if those contradict the narrative they'd prefer to believe.

Sometimes I'm sad for some newer P!ATD fans who could easily spare themselves a lot of stress & perceived injustice by simply learning about the real band & members. But they're free to focus on whatever they want, I suppose. I'd rather spend my time focusing on fun memories and organizing my little Special Interest mess lol. I’m also happy to clarify stuff or try to answer questions if people are genuinely curious... it’s fun to see others who are interested. Anyways, I'm so glad you're still a fan of the band! Sorry it took me months to reply. And I love your wall of text because it means you care. 🧡

[dem-obscure-imagines]

I Know the End | Vol. 3

Poe Dameron x Reader

Fandom: Star Wars

Summary: You were one of the Rebellion’s greatest weapons in the Galactic Civil War, a Princess from a distant planet, a Jedi with wings. Now, you’ve found yourself in a new world, a new war, your old friends long gone.

When Poe Dameron was sent on a wild goose chase of a reconnaissance mission four systems out, he never expected to find the key to his heart…

Note: At long last, here it is. Thank you for your patience. I love you all. I honestly wrote this as a long-winded attempt to make Poe Dameron’s dumbest line “Somehow, Palpatine returned” into a gut-wrenching and emotional moment and it got way out of hand. I am no Star Wars expert, but I did a lot of research for this and consider myself waaaaaaay more of a SW nerd now than I was a mere two months ago. Could probably write a dissertation on it at this point (I say as I literally churned out a novel). It is my first time writing for the fandom, though, so, here goes nothing. I did make up a fair bit of stuff and a good handful of OCs for this. Let me know what you think!

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, lightsaber and blaster wounds, alcohol consumption, war and the implications of it, gets a little steamy but no smut, reader has nightmares, misuse of the Force, Rewriting the Rise of Skywalker a lil bit…

Word Count: 82.7k total (Split into four approximately 20k chunks)Reader Is: 24, a Jedi, a Princess, has butterfly wings

Vol 1. | Vol 2. | Vol 3. | Vol 4.

Sentimental or Superstitious

You could tell when Poe walked into your meditation room that he didn’t exactly have good news. Your eyes were closed. You were floating in the back of the room, a few wooden balls floating in rings around you, like moons in orbit. You felt him in the doorway, watching, a certain warmth swirling in his chest.

“You can say hi, you know.” You told him, eyes still closed.

“Didn’t want to scare you.” He admitted, walking inside, steps slow.

“You couldn’t. I always feel when you’re here.” You finally opened them, letting in the light, dim though it was. “Your energy is pretty hard to ignore.”

“I’m flattered, your Highness.” He put a hand to his chest, his smile hiding something. You could tell. Maybe it was the Force, or maybe it was something else entirely, but you were always able to read him like a book.

You walked closer, using the Force to close the door behind him, then the curtains, granting you some privacy. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“Mission. Black Squadron. Outer Rim. We’re gonna be gone for three days.” He said, taking your hand. He fiddled with your fingers absently, waiting for your response.

“Oh. Yeah, alright.” You nodded, that bittersweet feeling sinking in. It was familiar, in a way. That was how the Rebellion had been, too. People left sometimes for days at a time. Sometimes, they wouldn’t come back. It was a war. That was the nature of those sorts of things. “Be safe.”

“That’s…it? You’re not gonna try to stop me?” He asked, almost sad about it.

“I know I couldn’t if I tried.” You said, slipping your hand further into his. “You’re nothing if not stubborn. I happen to love that about you. And this…isn’t my first war. I know how these things go.”

He nodded, eyes locked on the way your fingers looked together. Yours in his. His wrapped around yours. You’d held his hands so many times, and yet, he still got chills from the feeling. Everything about the two of you together felt so right. He couldn’t remember a part of his life without you in it anymore. It both thrilled and scared him.

“I just…I need you to know that every time you climb into that cockpit, you’re taking my heart with you.” You said, taking a step closer, raising your hand to rest against his cheek. “Be careful with it.”

He’d shaved a few days before, but now he had some decent stubble growing back already. It suited him.

Poe closed his eyes, let out a long breath, letting your touch soothe away the cresting doubts in his mind. He reached up and held your hand against his cheek, eyes big and sad and brown. “(Y/N), you can’t just say that and still expect me to leave.”

You chuckled. “I know. I mean it, though. You…” You’re the love of my life, Poe Dameron. “You mean a lot to me, you know. I need you and that droid of yours to get back to me in one piece.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He smiled, pressing a kiss to your thumb.

“What time are you wheels-up?”

“About an hour from now. Hour and a half maybe.”

“Great. Then meet me in my quarters in five.” You told him, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. With a flourish of your wrists, the curtains opened again. You used the Force to push the door back open, into its welcoming, propped position.

BB-8, who was sitting just outside it, whirred in greeting, promising to help the mission go smoothly.

“Oh I know you will, Bee.” You reassured him, glancing back at Poe as you left him standing there, your heart in his hand. “You’re one of our best.”

***

You sat on your bunk, fingers fiddling with the Mariposan Healer’s Pendant, which you had strung from a leather cord. It was the same cord your kyber crystal had been strung on, repurposed. When the door slid open, you set it on your nightstand, looking up to find Poe, still in his leather jacket and a soft shirt.

He shed the jacket almost immediately, depositing it on the chair at your desk. He walked over to the bed, hands finding your waist quickly as he kissed you. It was different this time, slower, more passionate, deliberate and careful. He brought one hand up to the back of your neck, guiding it into your hair.

Poe leaned forward, urging you onto your back, movements hardly domineering, but steadfast and sure. Guiding, not demanding. A request, not an order.

You laid back, a hand on his cheek, the other guiding him down on top of you.

He rested his head on your chest, letting out a long breath as you started playing with his hair, his arms looped around your waist. His breathing was slow, relaxed. He knew if he closed his eyes, he was at risk of falling asleep to the lulling forces of your warmth on his cheek and the smell of your sweet perfume wafting through his nostrils.

“Is this an okay position for you?” He asked. “I just…your wings. I don’t wanna crush you, baby.”

“They’re flexible like that. They’ll be fine.” You reassured him, fingers still buried in his soft curls. “It’s like falling asleep on your arm. Cuts off circulation for a little while, but no real harm done.”

“Mmm,” he hummed, the vibrations gentle against you.

“I’ve never seen you scared like this.” You told him. “Is it a bad one?”

“Pretty routine.” He shrugged. “Nothing particularly dangerous. It’s…well, it’s all dangerous on some level, but you know what I mean. I just…I’ve always flown with nothing to lose. That’s not really the case anymore.”

Your heart just about melted. You kissed the crown of his head.

“You know, Rose says that…this Resistance…it’s not about fighting what you hate, it’s about protecting what you love.” You said. “That’s how it was for us, too. You can’t think about the what ifs too hard. You have to think about the celebration after. You picture all your friends there. Alive. Happy. Safe. And you fight for those victories, the ones where everyone gets to celebrate.”

He smiled, tilting his face up to kiss your cheek, then your lips. He hovered above you for a moment, admiring you, that flyboy smile returning to that handsome face. “You’re wiser than your years, you know.”

“I’ve been told that, yeah.” You chuckled, leaning up to kiss him. “I, uh, have something for you.”

“Oh yeah?”

You sat up as he sat back and reached for the necklace on your nightstand, pressing it into his palm. He stared at it for a long moment, He thought about this rock a lot, the one he’d used to wake you up, the one he’d journeyed across several planets to find. He couldn’t fathom why you were giving it back to him now,

“Baby, this is yours.”

“You used it to save me once. It’ll bring you back to me in one piece.” You said, curling his fingers around it. “Call me sentimental or superstitious…”

“Thank you.” He said, grasping it tight. He slipped the cord over his neck, the metal clinking against the ring there. His mother’s ring. “I’ll get it back to you. I promise.”

You pressed one final kiss to his pillow-soft lips before murmuring, “You better, flyboy.”

History Echoes

You saw the Squadron off from your spot on the hill at the edge of camp, watching as their X-Wings took off into the air, getting into formation before blasting away at lightspeed. Your hair blew in the breeze. Artoo beeped beside you, comforting.

“Oh I know, Artoo. He’s the best there is. And BB-8 will take care of him.” You said.

He beeped out a message, basically calling you out for being too emotionally invested in a pilot.

You laughed. “I know that, too. But this flyboy is different.”

Artoo agreed and the two of you returned to camp.

In the afternoon, you stood in the patch of dirt outside the kitchens, fenced in loosely. You’d been saving food scraps, propagating the ends of heads of lettuce, producing sprouts from fruit pits, collecting seeds. With so many troops, fresh food was a luxury you could not take for granted. Being able to grow more food would be crucial.

“I knew it was a matter of time before I found you out here with your hands in the dirt.” Laesynda said, gliding through the gate. Posture straight, eyes warm.

“Took me a while to get things to sprout.” You confessed. “And I recently stumbled into some free time.”

“Mind if I help you?”

“If you don’t mind getting dirty, Admiral.” You said, a glint of mischief in your eye as she knelt in the dirt beside you, despite her long, flowing Mariposan garb. You used a trowel to create little holes in the dirt, carefully placing sprouts roots-down in the moist soil. You covered them carefully, sweeping the dirt into place with your hands, patting them down flat.

Laesynda helped, very obviously trained by the few Mariposans that remained. Gardening and plants had always been important to your people. You were glad that your sister had learned that, despite the circumstances.

“I heard Black Squadron shipped out.” She said, voice even. “You doing okay?”

“Oh yeah. I’m fine.”

“So this isn’t stress gardening?”

“No. Well, maybe a little.”

“How are things with you and him?” She asked. “I heard him lying to some of the rookies that Jedi aren’t allowed to fall in love.”

You burst into laughter, able to picture it so easily. “He would say that, wouldn’t he? Well, it’s good. We’re good.”

“I noticed you two touching less. In public, that is. I figured that either meant your little gala went very well, or very wrong.” She said with a laugh.

“I think you and Soren are the only two that have it figured out.”

“Not Rey?”

“She doesn’t pry, which is nice. And if we tell one person, we’ll have to tell everyone, and we’re definitely not ready for that.” You admitted. “I do plan on telling Leia, though. She’d want to know.”

“She’s been rooting for you two since the beginning.” Laesynda confessed. “She and I talked about it one night over a bottle of Mariposan wine.”

You missed those days, gossiping with Leia. It was…weird, being in different age groups. You hoped it was something you would grow back into, being friends with her again. Now, whether she meant to or not, she treated you as something of a niece. A child of hers, even, which only made sense, given the circumstances on her end. But still.

Chewie stood at the fence and let out a curious roar.

“We’re starting a garden. Growing some fresh fruits and veggies for the food supply.” You told him. “Do you want to help?”

He agreed, walking over and setting to work with you, helping move heavy piles of soil, and once things were planted, he helped move some stepping stones into place. You set out large barrels to collect rainwater. It rained a decent bit on Ajan Kloss, but it was also pretty warm. It would be nice to have some water saved in case you hit a dry patch.

The three of you worked out there for hours, a few other volunteers helping until you had several neat little rows of plants, as well as paths through and around them, the fence reinforced to keep out the native species of animals that lived on the planet. Most of them were friendly, at least as far as you knew, but you were sure they were more than likely to end up nibbling on your veggies.

Laesynda wrapped an arm around you, Chewie standing on your other side as you looked down at the literal fruits of your labor. If you all lived on this base long enough, you could only imagine the kinds of things that would start to take root.

***

In the canteen, after dinner, the room was filled with various recruits, passing their idle time before bed. Some played cards, some read quietly by themselves. Some were sharing drinks, telling stories from home.

You were sitting in there, getting some reading done yourself. Luke had left you some notes he’d taken during his studies. Experiments he had done, learning new tricks and abilities with the Force. He’d written about a Force-sensitive tree that he and Poe’s parents had planted on Yavin IV. He’d written about a young Yoda-like student he’d had, a baby who was fifty years old, raised by a Mandalorian. He’d written about Force healing, that is, how to use your life force to heal most injuries. Extreme ones were risky, supposedly, but minor injuries could be patched up mostly harmlessly.

It was good to know. You had never tried it. Though you hadn’t had all that much training before going to sleep for thirty years. But that was what the notes were for, you supposed. To fill in those blanks.

“This seat taken?” One of the new recruits asked. He was a pilot, that much you knew. Not Reggie. This guy was tall, covered in lean muscle. He had something of a mullet, hair a dark brown color.

“Not at all.”

“You’re the princess, right? The Jedi?”

“That would be me.”

“I’m Foxx. I’m with Blue Squadron.”

“Cool. Nice to meet you. Welcome to the Resistance.” You said, turning back to your studies. You could feel his eyes on you, though. 

“Commander Dameron was spreading a rumor, I thought I’d find out if it was true.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

“He said Jedi aren’t allowed to fall in love. Thought I’d ask you out. See if I could change your mind.” He asked.

You thought he was joking. Wanted him to be joking. But when you looked up, his eyes were dead serious. You laughed.

“Is this that? This is the…asking me out part?” You laughed again and the cocky look on his face flickered. “Listen, kid, I’m flattered. But…Commander Dameron never lies. I don’t date. Especially not flyboys like you.”

You packed up your book and gave him a friendly shoulder pat, chuckling at the irony of it all before moving towards your room to read there instead.

“You don’t date, huh?” Leia asked, walking somewhere. “You and Luke must have changed your minds on that, then.”

You laughed. “Yeah something like that. That or it keeps these ogling rookies off my back.”

“You can’t blame them, you know. I remember when we were the elusive young princesses on base.” She chuckled. “You alone get to share that burden now.”

“The weight of the galaxy on these shoulders.” You said, reminiscent. “How have you been, Leia?”

She offered her hand. “Why don’t we have a talk? It’s been a while.”

“I was going to say the same thing.” You agreed, taking it. The two of you walked back to her quarters and sat in the chairs she had by the window, overlooking, ironically enough, your garden. A flowering tree was growing just beyond the window’s edge, purple and pink hues framing the sight perfectly.

You looked around. There were a few projected holos of her and Han, their wedding, and a boy you could only assume was Ben, or more accurately, Kylo. You shivered.

“How has your training been going?” She asked first.

“Really well. Soren is coming along nicely. He’s a little unsure at first, but once he’s done something a few times, he really gets the hang of it. And Rey, as I’m sure you know, is a natural. I haven’t seen the Force this strong in anyone since…well, since Luke.”

“I barely believed it myself when Han brought her along for the first time. He really warmed up to her. You know how hard that was to pull off.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” You replied, letting out a breath.

“And no one around here has been giving you trouble?”

“Oh, no. Everyone’s been nice.”

“Even Poe?”

“Especially Poe.” You said, lips curling around his name with warmth. 

You met her eyes and…you could tell she knew. She was your best friend, had been since you were girls. Your dads had been friends growing up. Well, her adoptive father, but Bail Organa had been nothing but good to her, whereas Vader had a muddier track record.

“He’s a little reckless,” she said, tone indicating this was the beginning of a list. “Headstrong. He’s got a bit of a rebellious streak. But…he’s incredibly loyal. Brave. I…well, I see a lot of Han in him.”

“I can see why.” You nodded. You saw it too. Hell, you’d thought he was Han, that first time you’d laid eyes on him, your vision blurred.

“Did he tell you about his attempted mutiny?”

“His what?” You asked, sitting more comfortably.

She explained to you what had really happened just before the battle of Crait. The dreadnought incident, Admiral Holdo, and Poe’s attempted mutiny against her before he got stunned. You couldn’t help but chuckle a little, imagining where you’d have fallen in all that. It would have been tricky. Especially if you’d have had higher clearance than Poe, which you would have with his demotion. 

But at the time, Luke was still alive. Part of you was pretty sure you would have been off with him, untangling whatever web was still hanging between you, training Rey together.

“He’s learned a lot since then, I think. It taught him to take a step back, to look at the bigger picture before getting too trigger-happy.” Leia said softly. “I think if we need him, he’d be a great leader. A great general.”

“You’re not going anywhere.” You said, layering your hand over hers. “And you make a great general too, if I do say so myself.”

Her eyes twinkled. “It means worlds to hear you say that.”

“Leia…Poe and I…we’re…”

“Oh, I know.” She laughed. “You’ve never been able to hide things like that from me. I could feel it coming since the two of you first stepped off the Falcon together. He couldn’t take his eyes off of you. I knew then that I’d sent him for a reason. And I think you’re good together, for the record.”

“Thanks.” You chuckled. “So you knew…when we went to that gala…”

“I was hoping you would. Figured it would help get both of your minds back to where they needed to be, instead of dancing around each other like Han and I.”

“We’re still keeping it kind of quiet, though.” You told her. “Just for now. We haven’t talked about…telling people.”

“I know.” She winked. “Take your time. We have a war to win, after all. There are stranger things we have to face than a princess and a pilot falling in love.”

It was like history was echoing, in a lot of ways. You could feel the way it bounced against the caverns, threads interlocking into something new, but familiar. This life, your new life, was made of the same cloth as the old one, after all. But this parallel meant something else to you. Leia and Han, though not forever, got their life together.

You could only hope to get to that point with Poe. A life after the war, a home to settle down in. A wedding. And you hoped Leia would be there, too. You hoped all of them would.

***

In the morning, the second day of Poe’s three-day mission, you laid in bed alone. You hadn’t really dreamt, aside from murmurs of him. His voice, his soft hair between your fingers, his lips. It felt different than your other dreams, the ones you’d had of him in your life before.

They weren’t prophecies anymore. They were real. He was yours.

But it still hurt when you opened your eyes and saw the empty pillow in front of you, didn’t even feel his presence down the hall in his shared room with Finn.

You hoped he was okay out there.

After a quick breakfast, you set out into the forest for more flight training with Soren. You’d set up a few variations on courses, training yourself as much as him, challenging the both of you to fly higher, further, faster. Covering distance would make you indispensable in a fight. Like an X-Wing on the ground, but with a lightsaber instead of a giant blaster. It would also make it easier to get away from a fight, if you needed a quick escape. There weren’t many enemies that could counter that kind of maneuver.

After that, you went into your meditation room to find Finn there, sitting on one of the cushions. Eyes closed, breaths slow and even. Ribbons of sunlight danced across his skin, through the billowing curtains that hung in the window. In front of him, one of your wooden balls wiggled once, twice, before lifting, very slowly, a few inches into the air.

Your eyes widened, staring. You weren’t doing it. Rey and Soren weren’t even there. No, it was Finn, moving it with his mind. With the Force.

“Finn.” You whispered.

His eyes opened and the ball fell. He met your eyes, confused almost, as to why you looked so shocked. “What?”

“You just…You’re Force Sensitive!” You pointed to the ball.

He stared up at you.

“What?”

“You were lifting the ball! I saw it!” You insisted, heart racing with excitement. You’d always known there was something about him. That spark of potential, waiting to be honed.

“I wasn’t trying to. I’ve…been stressed, so I thought I’d try meditation, like you and Rey do.”

You crossed the room, taking both of his hands in yours. “I always knew it. I could feel there was something there. This is…you’re one of us. I don’t want to spring all of this on you at once, but…if you want to, if you’re ready, you can start joining the rest of us for training. See if this is something you want to pursue.”

“You’re being serious.”

“Of course I am.” You nodded, wings fluttering a bit behind you. “We’d have to find you a saber, but…”

“What’s going on?” Rey asked, walking into the room with her staff slung over her shoulder.

You beamed at her. “Finn is Force Sensitive!”

“I knew it!” Her face lit up and she raced into the room, hugging him tightly. “This is incredible! I can’t wait to tell Poe!”

“Me either.” He grinned, opening up the hug to let you in. You hugged them gladly. This was the beginnings of it, you could feel it. These two and Soren. Your class of Jedi.

You were finally setting out to finish the work you had started some thirty years ago.

And you couldn’t wait to tell Poe either, when he finally got back.

***

After dinner, some of the mech crew had a bonfire outside. A small one. Roasted some ronto sausages that were in danger of going bad, cracked open a few saved bottles of liquor. You sat next to Finn, warming in the flickering light.

“He named me, you know. Poe.” He said, voice soft. You could barely hear him above the chirps of the crickets out in the grass.

“I didn’t know that.”

“He and I…when I escaped the First Order, we stole a TIE fighter and blasted our way out. Crashlanded on Jakku. That’s where I met Rey. But during that flight, he asked my name. I didn’t have one. They don’t give Stormtroopers those, just…numbers. An identification code.”

“Mmm…” You hummed, listening. In all your years, Finn was the first defected Stormtrooper you had met, had talked to. You were so glad he’d gotten out.

“And he wasn’t having it. Took the first two letters, F-N, and named me Finn.” He said, a smile pulling at his lips. “I…thought he was dead for a while. Didn’t see him after the crash. But, he’s nothing if not a fighter.”

“Definitely.” You agreed. Your eyebrows furrowed. “Do you…have a last name?”

“No. I don’t even know if I have a family out there, somewhere.” He admitted. “The First Order takes kids from all over. I doubt they keep track of which kids come from where.”

“I’m really sorry, Finn. That must be hard.”

“It was. Is sometimes, if I’m being honest. But Poe, Rey, you…you’ve all made it easier. You’re the closest thing to family I’ve ever had.”

“We are family.” You assured him, reaching over and putting a hand on his shoulder. “You’re more than a brother to me at this point. And someday, wherever we all end up after this war, you’ll always have a place in my home. I mean that.”

He let out a long breath, smiling warmly at you. “Thank you, (Y/N). Would, um…would you mind if I joined you tomorrow morning? For training?”

“I’d be honored if you would.”

Rugged Good Looks

Finn did indeed join the three of you for training, armed, as Soren had once been, with a large stick. You ran him through some basic techniques, since he already had experience with a saber, that seemed like a good place to start. The Force stuff would come in time, but it was clear he already had it, you’d just have to get him to build on it from there.

You sparred with Rey a bit after. She was really good. Her experience with a staff was evident with each flourish and move. You wondered absently if a double-bladed saber would suit her, or where you’d get the kyber crystals for that. Soren would soon be getting to the point where he should be building his own anyway, but you’d have to take a trip for that. A trip you weren’t sure the Resistance could afford, as things were currently.

But Finn would need a saber soon, too…

Soren and Finn ran some drills, Finn watching as your nephew did the first few, the sound of your legacy saber familiar. You were proud that he was wielding it. Proud of him, really. He’d come so far in such a short amount of time. You were sure he’d be ready for field work soon. Couldn’t imagine his mother would be thrilled about it, but you knew he was itching to get out there, to see the galaxy and make a difference in the fight against the First Order.

Just before you and Soren were set to switch to flight training, the sound of several X-Wings coming in for a landing breached the atmosphere. Black Squadron. They were home. A quick headcount of the incoming ships confirmed what you already knew to be true. Poe was fine. He was here. Your heart raced at the thought of it.

“Black Squadron is back!” Rey said, smiling.

“Let’s…call it a day today.” You said, reaching for your water canister and taking a long drink. “Good work today, everyone. We’ll pick up there tomorrow.”

Rey and Finn exchanged a knowing look, but didn’t call you out on it.

“What about flight training, Aunt (Y/N)?” Soren laughed with a chuckle.

“Uhhhhhh I mean, I think we’re both doing pretty good at that, actually. One day off isn’t gonna hurt.” You said, heat blossoming across your cheeks.

The four of you began the long walk back to camp. You were a lot deeper in the woods than when you’d started training with just Rey all those months ago. More Force users meant it was a little more dangerous, the kinds of things you were doing. You didn’t want any unsuspecting comms technicians to stumble on your exercises out there and get seriously hurt.

You were maybe a quarter of the way when you spotted him,  BB-8, barreling towards you at top speed. At first, you thought he was just excited to be back, to see all of you, but then you caught wind of his beeps telling you that Poe was injured. That they’d taken him to the infirmary.

It was like time stopped.

Before you could say anything to the others, make any kind of plan, your wings flexed to their full span and you took off, racing through trees, about seven feet higher than you’d ever flown, soaring right past the mechs and engineers running through camp to take stock of the X-Wings that had just landed. Your speed alone would give a pod-racer pause.

You hung a right, never touching the ground once until you were at the front entrance of the infirmary, dodging through nurses and droids to find where they had him. You were breathless, wings burning. A nurse spotted you and ushered you towards Poe’s room.

From the doorway, you could see his battered orange flight suit. You stepped closer, breaths still heavy, scanning him over for damages as best you could while the nurse took his vitals. It was mostly concentrated to his face, it seemed. Two swollen, purpled black eyes, a broken nose.

“(Y/N)? How did you get here so fast?” Snap asked, standing on the other side of the cot.

You shook your head. “Not important. What happened? Is he okay?”

“I’m fine, sweetheart. Does it look that bad?”

“Can you see?” You asked, taking a few steps closer. It didn’t look like it, the way his eyes were nearly covered by the bruised flesh.

“We’re gettin’ there. Doc said these meds should help with the swelling.” He said, reaching for you, following your voice.

“Does it hurt?”

“Again, lots of meds.”

You chuckled, tears welling in your eyes at the sight of him. Maker, you were glad he was okay. “That wasn’t a no.”

He heard the crack in your voice and the sarcasm immediately melted away. His hand finally met its target: your own, fastening quickly around yours. “I’m fine, baby. It’s okay. Hey, look at me.”

Finn, Rey, and Soren walked in, BB-8 rolling in just after. He beeped out a long string, incredulous.

“You flew here?!” Snap asked, clearly impressed.

“You WHAT?!” Poe asked, wincing after, the enthusiasm of it hurting. “I didn’t know you’d worked up to that already!”

“She didn’t.” Soren said with a laugh. “Just flew. Straight over camp. Didn’t touch down once.”

“Heard you were injured and took off.” Rey added, walking over to stand with you. “Didn’t stay long enough to hear BB-8 say you were okay.”

He let out a lovesick sigh, squeezing your hand as Finn joined the two of you beside his cot. You could tell he wanted to say something else, but held it in with your friends all congregated there. “You should see the other guy.”

“What happened?” You asked.

“Fight with some spice runners in the Outer Rim. They intercepted one of our shipments, so we went to get it back.”

“Poe fought a guy three times his size.” Snap recalled. “Knocked him out, but not before…that.”

“Wow. Sounds like you’re a hero, Commander Dameron.” Finn chuckled.

“Feelin’ real heroic.”

“Looking real heroic.” Rey said, earning laughs from the rest of you.

“Take a scan. Might last you longer. They’re gonna have me back to normal in no time.” He assured, thumb tracing circles in the back of your hand. “What else is goin’ on around here? I was gone three days, I can’t have missed that much.”

“Actually, I just started my Jedi training.” Finn said.

Poe laughed. “Good one.”

“Poe.” You said, trying to meet his eyes. It was hard, with the swelling.

“Wait, what?! Are you serious?” Poe looked from you to Finn, who smiled nervously. “You’re Force Sensitive too? Finn, that’s great! That’s…wow. Maybe I should go on missions more often if you guys are so productive while I’m gone.”

“We need you here, too.” Rey said, smiling softly. “Glad you’re back. Glad you’re okay.”

Finn, Rey, Soren and Snap finished saying their well-wishes to Poe and then got out of there just as the nurse finished up, giving you some time alone with him.

He scooted to the far end of the cot, patting the space he’d left there.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Poe.”

“Don’t care. Come here. I’ve been waiting three days to hold you, I’m not letting some flesh wound get in the way of that.”

You chuckled, sitting on the edge of the cot, facing him. He reached up and took your face in both hands, his touch careful, but definitely more or less affected by the heavy meds they had him on. He pulled your face closer until your nose was touching the end of his and winced when your skin made the lightest contact.

“Careful.” You warned.

“I am being careful.” He insisted.

“Uh-huh. Sure you are. You are known for that.”

He grinned, ignoring the comment. “So tell me again about this flying over the whole base to get here?” He looked down at BB-8, who was still in the room, watching the two of you. “Did you get it? Can you show me?”

BB-8 beeped in affirmation and projected into the air, his memory of you getting the news, eyes zoning out as your wings spread to their full span, and then you took off towards the infirmary at top speed, leaves blown apart by the gust of wind you stirred up behind you.

Poe gasped. “Play it again. Slow it down fifty percent.” He said and BB-8 did just that, playing the clip again, showing the two of you your first full flight ever. You were the first Mariposan in generations to do so. “Wow, baby, you were worried about me, huh?”

“Can you blame me?” You said, turning to look at him, his eyes locked on you, gaze as soft as it could be despite the circumstances.

“I don’t think I could, showing up looking like this.” He chuckled. “I’ve still got my rugged good looks, though, right?”

“Always, hotshot.” You smiled softly. “You’d look badass if you weren’t in so much pain.”

His hand slipped into yours, fingers intertwining. He reached up and tilted your face, doing everything in his power to keep his very broken nose from brushing against yours on the way to your lips, but jolted when it did anyway, letting out a frustrated sigh. “This is gonna be really hard…”

You frowned, looking at his pathetic, pained state. And then Luke’s notes came to mind. Maybe your ex-boyfriend was good for something after all.

“Let me try something.”

“Are you gonna Jedi Mind Trick me into forgetting it hurts every time I try to kiss you? Because that could work…”

Laughter bubbled from your lips. “It would not work, actually. Those wouldn’t work on you.”

“Why is that? I’ve been meaning to ask.”

“Because they only work on idiots.”

He smirked. “Well, like I said, I’m on a lot of meds, so now is the time to experiment with that.”

You scoffed, shaking your head. “I’d hit you if you weren’t already injured.”

“What were you thinking instead?”

“Permission to use the Force on you?”

“Uh, sure. I trust you.” He said, sitting up a little straighter, wincing at the effort it took.

Your hand tightened on his and you zoned in, taking a deep breath and focusing your energy. Your Force. You reached out with the other hand, holding it in front of his injured face. You closed your eyes, fingers splaying as you transferred energy from you to him.

He let out a little breath of astonishment, vision clearing as his swelling went down, bruises clearing to nothing. With a twitch, his nose set back into place. His mouth fell open, realizing what had happened. You’d healed him. You’d used the Force to heal him. Maker, the things that did to him…

You opened your eyes to find him staring back at you, eyes wide, mouth still hanging open. There he was, your Poe, his injuries from moments ago a mere memory. You lowered your hand, waiting for him to say something.

“What the actual fuck. How did you…do that?” He asked, reaching up to touch his face, experimental. When it didn’t hurt, he looked even more surprised.

“Luke left me some notes.” You admitted. “Finally read them. Apparently this is a thing you can do with the Force, transferring your energy to someone or something else. I didn’t know it would work until now.”

“Mmm…” He nodded, unable to fight the smile spreading across his newly healed face. “The nurses are about to be very confused.”

You laughed, leaning towards him, your nose brushing against his. His hands settled on your hips, pulling you a little closer as he finally kissed you, melting when his lips found yours. He reached up and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear, tilting your head as he deepened the kiss.

Part of you worried about someone walking in, seeing the two of you. Part of you didn’t care. You’d waited so long to kiss him again.

He let out a sigh, pressing his forehead to yours, eyes drifting shut for a moment. His lips grazed yours as he whispered, “Three days without you in that cockpit was driving me crazy, starlight. I missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too.”

“Let’s get outta here. Go back to yours. Make up for lost time.” He said, eyes half lidded as he pressed a gentle kiss to your lips, tugging your waist closer. “Before we get caught in here recreating all the fantasies that have been haunting me.”

You gasped, playfully scandalized. “In front of BB-8?”

He glanced over, as if reminded his droid was sitting there. “Oh. Right. Bee, you wanna go recharge? It’s been a long few days.”

He agreed with a series of beeps, rolling out through the curtained doorway towards his charger in Finn and Poe’s room.

You stood from the bed and helped Poe up after. Once you were both upright, he couldn’t fight the urge any longer, an arm hooking around your back, just beneath your wings, sweeping you into a dip and connecting his lips with yours.

A wistful hum pulled itself from your throat, eyes fluttering shut at the passion in his movements. He really had been thinking through this for three days.

Poe stood you on your feet again, punctuating it with a kiss to your nose, then a kiss to your cheek, and then finally to your lips again. Then, he straightened himself out, leading you out of the room and into the bustling heart of the infirmary.

“Hey, uh, Nurse, am I good to go?” Poe asked, grinning when she looked him up and down, eyes widened at his suddenly healed face.

“Y-you…your face.”

“Don’t compliment him, it’ll just go to his head. Trust me.” You advised.

“Those meds really must have been something. I feel great. I’ve got some work to get back to, though, if you could clear me.”

“Uh, s-sure. Yeah, you look…yeah, that’s fine. Let us know if anything changes.”

“Will do.” Poe saluted, a hand settling on the middle of your back, a painfully neutral position as he guided you through the camp that you’d flown over not twenty minutes earlier.

Some of the recruits watched you, whispering to each other. You weren’t sure if it was about you and Poe, being seen together once again nearly as soon as he’d touched down, Poe’s injuries miraculously vaporizing, or your little flight. Maker, you really had given them a lot to whisper about lately.

You walked back to your quarters, waving amicably at friends of yours. A few stopped for smalltalk, but Poe was on a new mission, continuously guiding you back to the bedrooms. You punched in your code, ushering him in first while no one was watching.

As soon as you were both through the door, he closed it with his palm on the control panel, grabbing you by the hips and pulling you into him, crushing his lips against yours. You let out a gentle moan, hand wandering up into his curls, the other settling against the fabric of his jumpsuit.

You reached for his zipper, fingers fastening around the metal and tugging it down, earning a groan from him, a rasped breath.

“You know, I love it when you do it with the Force, but the other way is great, too.” He said, backing up towards the bed before pulling you down with him, wriggling his shoulders out of the restrictive suit.

He pulled it off, leaving him in an undershirt and boxers, laying on your bed, an orange heap on the floor. You hovered over him, a leg on either side, straddling his hips. One large hand ghosted over your thigh tattoo before they both found new spots, one against your cheek, keeping your face close to his, the other massaging circles on your lower back, edging closer and closer to your wings, but not daring to brush against the spot between them. Not yet, anyways.

The two of you made out for a while, eventually settling into a comfortable cuddling position, you slotted to his side, a leg thrown over his. His arm was wrapped around your waist, your wing spread like a blanket across him while his other hand gently ran down its silken surface.

“I can’t believe you flew to me, baby.” He whispered, still in disbelief. “Flew right over camp. No Mariposan has flown in…what, four generations? Five?”

“You would have too, if you had wings.” You smiled warmly, fingers wandering across his broad chest, stopping to linger on the healing amulet. It had done its job. It had brought him back to you, although a little more injured than you would have liked. But that hardly mattered now. He didn’t even have a scar to show for it. “You’ve been doing your research.”

“‘Course I have. I’m dating the Mariposan princess, after all. I take the responsibility very seriously. Someday, when everyone knows, they’re gonna ask me all the questions, and I’m gonna need to have all the answers.”

“Leia knows. She…figured it out a while ago, I think.”

He chuckled. “That checks out. Snap’ll probably figure it out if he hasn’t already. He heard me call you ‘baby’ today, and he knows I don’t just throw that word around. We can blame it on the meds, though.”

“You think he’ll buy it?”

Poe grinned. “No.”

You laughed, tilting your head up to press a kiss to his cheek, then the corner of his lips.

“Will you grab my jumpsuit?”

You nodded, extending a hand and using the Force to raise the jumpsuit off the floor. He plucked it from the air, digging into the pocket to pull something out. A thin strap of braided leather, light and dark brown woven together. Carefully, he wrapped it around your wrist, clasping the ends so it fit comfortably against your skin.

“Got this for you. At a little market. I read something, maybe it’s not true, about…Mariposans and bracelets. That you’re supposed to give them one to tell them you’d like to…court. I know it’s old-fashioned, but…”

“It’s true.” You smiled, lacing your fingers through his. “So we’re super official, then.”

“I was hoping so.” He murmured, pulling your arm up over his shoulder, drawing you closer and pressing his lips to yours, moving slow, savoring every taste of you. “I’m yours, (Y/N). Always have been. Since the moment you opened those beautiful eyes in that pod. Said you liked my hair and thought I was Han Solo.”

“Is that the way to your heart?” You asked, reaching up to play with the curls in question.

He smiled, taking your hand and kissing up your arm, past your shoulder, up to your lips. “One of ‘em.”

You murmured sweet nothings against his lips, finding them again and again, over and over, his hand gently sweeping down the length of your wing.

Eventually, the two of you would have to go back out there, figure out what came next. What the next move was, both for the war and your relationship. But for now, it was you and him.

Your pilot. Your Poe. And maybe someday, your prince.

Downpour and a Bottle of Wine

A few days later, Leia called another strategy meeting. This one was smaller, essential folks only. This, of course, meant your boyfriend and almost your entire friend group, thankfully, as well as your sister and the rest of the Admirals.

“Our recruitment numbers are at an all-time high, which is…really great. Our new recruits have been training and fitting into life on the base very well, and despite our new garden, courtesy of our Mariposan royals, our supplies are…dwindling. We’ll need to get our hands on more ships, more weapons, more raw materials, more food.”

One of the analysts spoke up about some allies at farms a few systems out that were willing to provide animals, food, crops. The gardens would have to be expanded for the longterm as well. Chewbacca offered to reach out to some of his friends to secure even more resources to keep everyone fed.

“The Hoth base. Is that still there?” You asked, fiddling with the braided leather bracelet on your wrist. “We didn’t clear the place before we left it. In theory, there’d still be stuff there. Weapons. Potentially ships.”

“Definitely ships. If they haven’t been stolen, scrapped for parts.” Wedge spoke up. “We had four X-Wings we had to abandon because they needed repairs. A few transports, too. Plus plenty of building materials we could mine from the structures, if we aren’t planning on going back there in a permanent capacity.”

“It’s cold.” Leia said, unable to hide her smirk. “The team we’ll send will have to bundle up.”

Chewbacca volunteered himself, being more than equipped for the cold. Artoo would go, Threepio.

“Black Squadron can go to recover those ships, General.” Poe volunteered. “We’ll need some mechs to help us fix them up.”

“And some Jedi to dig them out of the snow.” Leia looked to the three, now four, of you, seated all in a row.

“Absolutely, General. Whatever you need.” You agreed, Poe’s eyes flicking to you and then away, a small smile all but concealed on those plush pink lips.

Leia finalized the team. Soren smiled when his name was thrown into the ring and agreed gladly to go. His first mission. But you knew he was ready for it. He’d trained for so long. He was confident with a saber, he was good at using his wings, and the Force was strong with him. He’d be fine. More than fine, if everything went smoothly. It would just be on you to make sure he didn’t freeze to death.

The higher-ups would notify the rest of their teams of their upcoming mission so they could pack warm enough clothes. Undershirts on undershirts, all the jackets that could be spared. Thick socks and scarves and knitted masks.

You left the meeting and started packing immediately, grabbing some warmer clothes from storage.

“Will you help me pack?” Rey asked, walking in there right after you.

“Absolutely. You’re a desert girl. The key to not dying on Hoth is layers and layers and layers. Heavy layers. The opposite of what you’re used to, I’m sure.” You said, and she nodded. 

Out in the heat, light layers that covered your skin were necessary to keep the sun off your back. On Hoth, the air itself was trying to kill you.

You helped her pick a few undershirts, warm leggings and snow pants and snow jackets. Gloves and hats and goggles, and then the two of them hauled it all back to your room to lay it all out for the morning.

“Would you mind terribly if I spent the night in here? We’re leaving so early tomorrow, I thought…” Rey asked. She looked around. “I can sleep on the floor.”

“Oh no, here.” You reached up above your bed and pulled the second bunk out of the wall, the bunk you never used.

Her face lit up. “Oh! I didn’t know they did that!”

“They never gave me a roommate, I’m assuming because they wanted me to adjust to…being alive again. But the bed has always been here. Ideal for sleepovers, one might say.”

“Excellent.” Her arms were wrapped around herself. “There’s…there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about.”

“Yeah, sure, what’s on your mind?” You asked. You fully expected it to be about you and Poe. Compared to what it actually was, you kind of wished it was about Poe. It would have been easier.

Instead, she said, “I’ve…been connecting to Kylo Ren a lot. I keep having dreams about him and…sometimes when we’re awake, I can see him and he can see me. Never where we are, but…we’ve been connected for some time. I’m not sure why. I was wondering if it was normal, or…how to stop it if it’s not.”

“I’ve never heard of something like that before.” You admitted, very serious. “Luke and I were definitely connected, but not like that. Is he…mean to you? You get nightmares about him?”

“They’re not really nightmares, they’re just…we talk. He’s wanted me to join him. I obviously wouldn’t. He’s…”

“Right.”

She took a breath, thinking. “Do you ever…feel the pull to the dark side?”

There it was. Leia had told you, a long time ago, that this was something Rey struggled with. And obviously, Ben had as well, but he’d lost his fight.

“I think we all do, Rey. There’s nothing wrong with you. The Force isn’t just light or dark, it’s both. When we use the Force, we all open ourselves up to the temptation of the dark side, abilities locked to us, the secrets it promises to share. No person is completely good or completely evil. I think Luke was pretentious about that. But he had to be, his dad was Vader, you know? He and Palpatine were constantly trying to get in his head.” You said, letting her think for a moment before saying. “You’re my friend, Rey. I see the light in you, I always have. You’ve been through so much pain, but still cling to hope. That’s all we can do. One fight at a time, one morning at a time, letting the Force guide us.”

She smiled at that, reaching for your hand. You gave it to her. “Thank you.”

“Any time.” You nodded. “We have to get you a new saber soon. Finn, too. I was thinking about asking Leia after the Hoth trip. Seeing if there’s any way we could get our hands on one. Or some kyber crystals. Unfortunately, those things are not just lying around.”

“A new saber?”

“It’s a coming of age thing. Traditionally, you start training with an heirloom saber, but eventually, you should build your own, unique to you and your journey. There’s no rush to do so, but I feel like you’re ready. Soren, too.”

She nodded. “That would be nice.”

Your door slid open and Poe came in, staring at the two of you wide-eyed. You were just lucky he didn’t hit you with the standard greeting of, “hey, baby, I got a cut, can you kiss it better?” Would have been a little harder to explain away.

“Oh. Hi, ladies.” He said, looking back and forth between you.

“Poe, do you know my code?” You asked him, eyes narrowing.

“Might have picked it up at some point…” He admitted.

“You’re looking awful recovered for someone who had an estimated three weeks of recovery ahead of them.” Rey said, arms crossed. “How did that happen, anyway?”

“Don’t look at me, look at her.” Poe said, pointing at you.

“Turns out, I’ve got some stuff to teach you, actually.” You told her. “Luke left us some notes.”

She pointed to his face, looking at you, impressed. “You did that?”

“Can’t take credit for all of it, but yeah. The rest is just good genetics.”

“Heh, thanks, Princess. Anyways, the guys were thinking of having a little thing out at the cantina if our Jedi would like to make an appearance.” Poe said, which explained the patterned button-down he was wearing, top buttons unbuttoned just far enough to reveal the Mariposan healer’s amulet underneath. “Before we all go freeze our asses off on Hoth.”

“Don’t have to ask me twice.” You chuckled, looking to Rey. “You coming?”

“Yeah, absolutely.” She smiled. “We’ll see you down there.”

***

You and Poe made your appearance at the party, separated from each other, which was…odd to anyone who knew you. You made your rounds, having a drink or two, joking and laughing and catching up. You talked about the mission, figuring out who all was going. Aspen was, as it turned out. It would be one of her first field missions. Rose was going too, to help get the heating system working so you didn’t all freeze to death spending the night there. Chewbacca was going, too, which brought back memories to say the very least.

You played a few rounds of Space Pong, danced with Rey, and then caught Poe’s eyes. He was holding a bottle of wine, standing by the door, eyes saying everything his mouth could not from that distance.

You got the hint.

He slipped out the door first and you followed after a few minutes, claiming to want to get to sleep earlier for the busy day ahead. You gave Rey your room code and then left, walking out towards the clearing.

You looked around for any sign of him, out in the dark, but you didn’t see him. Just before you reached out to see if the Force could guide you to him instead, he jumped out from behind a tree, grabbing you around the waist and spinning you around.

A surprised squeal fell from your mouth and he kissed up your neck, shushing you.

“Gotta be quiet if you don’t wanna get caught, your Highness.” He murmured, kissing behind your ear, voice soft and sultry.

“Been a while since you’ve hit me with the your Highness, Commander.” You chuckled as he set you down. You turned to face him, one hand tugging him in for a kiss.

“I can use it more often, if you want.”

You shook your head. “No thank you. I much prefer the other names you call me.”

He grinned. “Like Princess?”

You laughed, giving his chest a playful push, nose scrunched. “I don’t like that one either.”

He perked up. “Wait, you seriously don’t like your titles?”

“Not particularly.” You admitted with a shrug.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” He asked, fingers sliding into their natural place, intertwined with your own.

“Well, it’s just…I mean, they’re practical when people are slinging titles around, I guess. General this and Admiral that. A ‘your Highness’ is fine there. But I like when people just call me (Y/N). And I like when you call me all sorts of things.” You said, wrapping an arm around his neck and pressing a kiss to his lips. “You can call me whatever you want, Poe. It always sounds right when you do it.”

His arm tentatively wrapped around your waist, still holding onto the wine bottle he’d snagged. “Well then, (Y/N), might I steal you away for the rest of the evening?”

“I’d be honored.”

The two of you walked up to the clearing together, hand in hand, swinging them between you as you stood beneath the stars. No wonder Poe loved flying so much. It looked like this all the time up there.

You sat on the grass, Poe beside you, leg against yours. He popped open the wine bottle and offered you the first sip. You almost giggled, tilting it back. You couldn’t count the times you’d been sitting just like that, sharing bottles with his mother. You had the same taste in wine, after all.

He took a drink from it next, setting it in the grass, twisting it a few times into the soft soil so it stood upright. He wrapped an arm around your waist, the other hand turning your face towards his, searching your eyes as though they held the keys to the universe.

He exhaled, staring at you like you were a painting in a museum and he was committing every detail to memory. “I’ve been fighting hard to keep the new recruits off of you.”

You giggled. “I heard about that. Apparently Jedi aren’t allowed to fall in love, huh?”

“Well, we’ll just have to hope that is a vicious rumor someone started.”

“Someone!” You laughed, pushing against his chest.

“Yeah, they must have gotten it wrong.” He said through a smile, arms grasping onto yours. “Because…this feels like that to me.”

He left the door open then, for you to say it in words. For him to say it back. And you did love him. Had for longer than you’d known. But saying it outright still felt wrong.

Instead, you replied, “I think we both know it is.”

He melted against you like a wave on the shore, sweet with the taste of the wine you were sharing, sip by sip. The two of you watched the sky for a while, sharing the wine until the bottle was nearly empty and the two of you were tipsy on the warm feelings swirling between you.

You barely noticed when the first raindrop fell. Nearly missed the second and third. But the downpour after was pretty hard to ignore.

“Maker, this came out of nowhere.” You said, wings flaring as you got to your feet. Poe stood beside you, eyes following a drop of water that trailed down your nose. “We should get back.”

“Wait,” Poe grabbed your arm, turning you towards him as he kissed you, his lips warm in the rain that was steadily soaking both of your clothes, your hair.

Your arms wandered up, hands linking around his neck as his wrapped around your waist, head tilting as a raindrop ran down the slope of his nose, onto your lips. You reached into his rain-soaked curls, grasping the collar of his jacket with the other hand. It was breathless, reckless, your heart racing in your chest flush with his as the lights of camp glowed in the distance.

Tomorrow, you’d be on a planet covered in feet of snow, but tonight, you stood in the warm rain, kissing Poe Dameron. There was no other place in the entire galaxy you’d rather be.

Eventually, you wandered back, held each other’s hands until you got close enough to get caught by whoever was on first watch. You nodded at acquaintances and coworkers, walking back to the housing quarters. Finn, Rey, and Rose were sitting in the front lounge when you came in, both absolutely soaked, head to toe.

“I thought you two came back here an hour ago.” Finn said, eyes narrowing.

“(Y/N) heard something outside. Concerning noises. I offered to go check it out with her, but we got caught in this kriffin’ downpour.” Poe said, taking off his jacket and shaking the water from it. He’d thought about letting you wear it for the walk back, but you were both already soaked. And you showing up in his jacket would only be more incriminating.

You shook our your wings in the same manner, water splattering across the floor. A cleaner droid powered up automatically, its brushes swirling to dry up the rain you’d tracked in. “Thanks for the help, Dameron.”

“No problem, yo–” he caught himself. “(Y/N). Glad to be of assistance. Have a good night.”

“You, too. See you tomorrow.” You said, walking back towards your quarters, Rey trailing after you, that knowing glimmer in her eye.

The two of you got dressed for bed, brushed your teeth, and got into your bunks, you on the bottom, Rey on the top. It was kind of comforting, the sound of her breathing. You’d missed having a roommate. Maybe after the trip, it wouldn’t hurt to open your door to a bunkmate again. But then that would severely limit your cuddling time with Poe, given that he also shared a room…

You took a deep breath, closing your eyes and willing yourself to sleep, lulled by the warmth in Poe’s chest across the hallway as he thought of you while he drifted off.

Hoth

The next morning, you and Rey got out of bed pretty early, throwing on the layers and layers of your cold weather uniforms. Jedi robes simply would not cut it on that planet. You’d learned that lesson once before.

You strapped your saber to your belt, a blaster to the other side, and set a pair of goggles on your head to protect your eyes once you got there. You met the others in the canteen to grab meals for the road, and then headed out to the transports, where the rest of the crew was slowly but surely assembling.

Soren was all smiles, helping Poe and Finn load up some boxes of supplies. Food, mostly. There was nearly nothing edible on that planet, aside from the wildlife, that was. But that would only be an option if the weather was nice enough to not immediately kill anyone brave enough to hunt out there. Nice being a relative term, of course.

“Ready for your first mission?”

“Yeah.” He replied, a boyish grin on his face. “Is it really that cold there?”

“Freezing cold. Constant blizzards. Trust me, you’d rather have too many layers than too few.” You advised. “Morning Finn! Poe.”

“You are looking rather…” Poe’s eyes scanned down your figure, obscured by the puffy jacket you were wearing. “Warm.”

“That’s one way to put it.” You chuckled. “You are not looking warm enough. Get those ears covered, Dameron.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gave a nod, winking when he thought no one was looking.

Rose was coming along, Aspen, Black Squadron along with some of the new pilots. It would be a good mission for them, a relatively straightforward one. Well, in theory. Nothing was ever as simple as it seemed.

Chewbacca roared in greeting, his hand patting your head before he pulled you into a bear hug. You laughed, nodding.

“No, you’re right, I never thought I’d ever go back there either.”

Leia stood at the edge of the depot, smiling softly. She waved and you saluted, promising silently to get them all back to her in one piece, hopefully with endless bounties that would serve the Resistance well.

You and Soren said a quick, heartfelt goodbye to Laesynda and then loaded up into the transport with the others, watching as the planet got smaller and smaller.

You sat beside Rey and Soren on one side of the transport, Finn and Poe across the aisle with Snap. Chewbacca was driving, Threepio in the passenger seat up in front with him. You bent over and laced up your boots extra well, making sure your gloves were on tight enough, even though it was quite a ways out. Your wings twitched every so often, nerves building.

Suddenly, you weren’t so sure why would had suggested this place to begin with. You didn’t have many great memories of Hoth. Specifically, the outside stuff. Inside the base was fine, when the heaters were working as intended, that was. But the creatures outside were terrifying, and the weather had almost killed you. Literally.

Maybe you hadn’t prepared them well enough.

You felt Poe poking around your energy across the aisle, or trying to. Thinking very loudly. Reaching, watching. You met his eyes, giving him a pointed look.

He chuckled out loud, caught in the act, cheeks flushing red. Finn and Rey both turned to find out what was so funny. You focused your attention elsewhere and he blamed his chuckles on just how kriffing ridiculous you all looked, bundled up like marshmallows. It got a good laugh out of everyone.

Dread settled into your stomach as Chewie brought the transport out of lightspeed and into the planet’s atmosphere, the white globe familiar in the sickest of ways. He landed as close to the abandoned base as possible, but it would still be a bit of a walk.

You stood, taking a small canister from your pack while everyone bundled the rest of the way up. It was a specialty gel coating for your wings. You took a glob, gently rubbing between your fingers before spreading it carefully from the base of your wings outward. Soren did the same, making quick work of it.

“Can I help?” Poe asked, voice gentle, quiet, in case the answer was no because there were people around.

You nodded, handing the canister to him, showing him how to portion it and he helped, fingers gentle and careful, but thorough, grazing over the pink and purple extensions of your soul.

“What does this stuff do?” He asked, curious. He was always so curious about your wings. It was sweet, really.

“Protects them from the cold. Otherwise, they’d freeze.” You explained. “They’re delicate things, after all.”

“Beautiful, though.” He said, eyes warm, voice warmer.

“I happen to think they’re my best feature.” You said with a smirk, lost in him for a moment. His fingers gently finished up, fully sealing them from the harsh winds. You were ready.

You assembled the essential team. You, Rey, and Soren to move big chunks out of the way, and a handful of mechs to get the heating started as soon as possible. Plus, Chewbacca and a few fighters in case some scavengers were in the wreckage and didn’t take kindly to strangers.

“We’ll hold down the fort here.” Finn said, sticking an earpiece in his ear, same as the others.

“Good. Stay together. No one wanders off alone. Keep bundled up. Cover your skin. Even a few minutes out there can give you frostbite.” You instructed everyone. They nodded, listening intently.

“Good luck out there.” Snap said. He smiled a little, watching as you took control of the situation. Despite your appearance, you were wise and experienced beyond your years. “And may the Force be with you.”

You met his eyes. “And with us all.”

You led the others through the snow and blistering winds, face shielded by your mask, hood, and goggles.

The doors were sealed shut, thankfully. You held up a hand, working in tandem with Rey and Soren to pop it open without too much trouble. Three Jedi were far better than one. You could only imagine the things you’d be able to accomplish when Finn was with you, too.

Inside, a ceiling panel had collapsed, a great rush of snow covering a stairwell and one of the hallways leading to the bedrooms. You led the mechs to the utility room, where the controls for the heaters were while Rey and Soren worked to seal off the hole, holding the metal in place so it could be sautered shut, at least temporarily.

Chewbacca did a sweep of the perimeter, as quickly as he could, blocking off a decent chunk so you could get settled at least for now. You didn’t want to leave the rest of the team in the transport for too long.

With a triumphant thrum, the power kicked on, lights in the hallways flickering before illuminating the place in the stark, fluorescent lights. The team cheered, signaling to the others that it was safe to come in. And they did, marching up the hill in their snow boots. They’d have to try to move the transport closer later, you figured. Otherwise, loading the place up was going to be nearly impossible.

You walked down the hallway with the bedroom quarters, taking note of their state. Most of them looked fine. Dusty, but fine otherwise. You kept walking until you found the one you were looking for. Seventh room on the left. You punched in your code, still committed to muscle memory after three months spent sleeping there.

You stepped inside, careful, and looked around the room. It wasn’t terribly small, one of the perks of having a base dug into the inside of a mountain. Two bunks rested against the right side of the room, a small desk on the left, a wardrobe standing beside it. A few pairs of boots were sitting beside the door, under the floor-length mirror that was slowly defrosting as the temperature raised.

A book of notes sat open on the desk, a frozen inkwell perched on the corner in front of a few dust-covered books.

“This is quite the place.” Poe noted, stepping into the tiny room after you. “Bigger than I thought it would be.”

“Took the crew three years to dig it out.” You remembered, fingers lingering on the cold desk. “I only lived here for three months.”

“Is this…?”

“Our room.” You said, turning to look at him. “Shara and I.”

He’d taken off his goggles, the headband around his head. You dared to take off a glove. It was definitely warming up, slowly but surely. You shed your goggles too, threading the band through your belt.

He stared at the bottom bunk, where his mother’s name was painted in blue, the Aurebesh crisp and neat. His fingers slid across the letters.

You turned back to the desk, flipping through the journal. They were notes, mostly. Your notes, from your Jedi training. “I forgot about this book. It would have helped after Luke left.”

“Luke left you? Another time?”

“He went off to Dagobah to train with Yoda. I stayed with the Resistance–sorry, Rebels. They needed me. Or one of us, at the very least. Han and Leia were off dealing with…all sorts of stuff. I didn’t catch up with them until it was too late.” You said, continuing to flip through it until you found what you were looking for. Tucked between the pages was a scrap of paper Shara had scribbled on.

(Y/N),

Thanks for letting me borrow your earrings. Please get some sleep after that crazy night. I’ll save you some bacon before the pathfinders get to it.

-Shara

In the note, there were two small holes, where she’d punctured the earrings to make sure they got back to you in one piece.

You handed it to Poe, letting him read it. He smiled, eyes swirled with nostalgia and sadness. He forgot sometimes, but this was all the confirmation he needed. You had been friends with her. Passed notes back and forth like schoolgirls.

“Can I keep this?” He asked.

You nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

He reached for you, pulling you to his chest and resting his head against yours. It healed something in him, he was sure. Part of him, growing up without her, always mourned the fact that he would never get to introduce his future partner to her, the woman who had inspired him to fly in the first place, the woman whose ring he wore around his neck. But you’d already met her. And it was clear she’d been fond of you. It felt like fate, to him.

“Was Dad here, too?”

“Down the hall.” You nodded. “Three doors down on the left.”

“You two taking this one?” Finn asked, poking into the room. “We’re all picking quarters for the night.”

“Yeah, we’ll take this one.” Poe said, pointing to your name painted across the top bunk. “I’d say she’s probably got dibs.”

Finn smiled. “Fair.” His eyes wandered to the bottom bunk. “Who’s that?”

“My mom was her roommate.” Poe explained, eyes twinkling.

“I didn’t know your parents were Resistance.”

“They were Rebels.” Poe corrected gently. He nudged you with his arm, pride absolutely radiating off of him. “So was she.”

***

After hours of harvesting materials and packing up supplies into crates, Chewie had taken some of the others to hunt, most of them crazy thrillseekers that were desperate to experience the cold out there and see if it was really that bad. Rookies, in other words.

They were successful. They’d found a mammal of some kind. Nothing you recognized. Definitely not a Wampa. And everyone seemed to be okay, more or less.

“It’s kriffing cold as shit out there!” One of the rookies exclaimed, taking off their gloves.

“Nooooo, I never would have guessed.” You said quietly, nursing a cup of tea near the firepit in one of the lounges. There was a furnace that ran up through the mountain to vent the smoke.

Chewie got the beast ready, showing the rookies how to prepare the meat, how to cook it properly. You watched fondly. It brought back memories, it all did.

You’d finally taken off your jacket, just wearing a pair of sweats with a layer of leggings underneath, a sweater with a hole stitched in the back for your wings. You were working on another top by the fire, pulling the needle through, hemming the hole so it wouldn’t fray.

“What are you doing?” Finn asked, watching as you worked.

“Most of my clothes have to be modified like this for these things.” You waved a wing around aimlessly. “If I don’t, the fabric will fray and it’ll ruin the garment. I usually hem it as best as I can to reinforce it.”

“They don’t really make clothes for us anymore.” Soren said, familiar with the process, you were sure, having a pair of wings of his own. “Mom said there were seamstresses on Mariposas who made the most beautiful things we could wear with our wings. She still has some of them.”

“They were the coolest ladies ever. They’re the ones who taught me to do this. Knew I was gonna run off with the Rebellion and that most of their uniforms wouldn’t work for me.” You said, tying off the stitches with a little knot. You showed your work to Poe, who was sitting just too far, a few scooches to your right. You’d sewn a little X-Wing near the base of the slot, orange stitches on black fabric.

He smiled into his mug of warm caf, eyebrow quirking up the tiniest bit. You were his girl, after all. His chest swelled with pride at any reminder.

You set the garment to the side, following the others once Chewie was dishing out servings of food. Everyone settled in with a hot meal, like old times.

“What was it like out here back then?” Snap asked, everyone watching you and Chewie for answers. “What did you guys do out here for those months?”

“Hiding, mostly. It was the perfect base for that. The Empire never thought they’d find us on an oversized ice cube. It’s mostly uninhabitable, as many of you just learned. Signal was iffy out here, but we worked with what we had. We used to make what we called Hoth Ice Cream. We’d mix the cream from our milk batches with sugar and crushed berries and stick it outside for a few minutes until it froze.”

Chewie roared, explaining just how little you had to work with. How far your scraps had to stretch.

“Oh we were always scrappy. Had to be, we had so little. These days, we’ve got some support. Back then…no one wanted to stand up to Vader. Rebels were few and far between and we had a pretty bad reputation. I believe the word ‘Scum’ got thrown around a lot.”

Chewie laughed, nodding. He told a few stories about the tauntauns, about Luke’s encounter with the Wompa, wondering if there were more of them.

“I nearly froze to death out there.” You confessed, feeling the way Poe’s eyes jumped to you. “One of our communication dishes got caked in ice, so I flew up there to try to dig it out. Wind blew me off the roof and Chewie found me out in the snow, half dead. Carried me back, cuddled me to warmth. Saved my life.”

He roared affectionately, tilting his head.

“Of course I would have done the same for you, but I’m not nearly as warm as you. I don’t think my body temperature alone would have done much.” You chuckled.

He joked about you using your wings as a fan the next time he was really hot, and you agreed to that.

You told them about the music. At some point, you’d let it slip to the Rebels that music was a very important part of Mariposan culture, so the team had improvised instruments out of scraps. Drums made from scrapped ship parts and pieces of leather Chewie tanned, flutes carved from thick pine tree branches. You got up and dug around a box in the corner of the room, pulling one out. Hand-carved.

“One of the pathfinders made this for me.” You said, walking back to your spot and sitting down, dusting it off, brushing the mouthpiece with your sleeve before giving it a cursory test. It worked, making a gentle note when you blew into it. You tested some of the finger holes, trying out different combinations and building a clumsy little melody from home.

The room was quiet, listening as you played. You smiled, bashful beneath their combined gazes, and tucked the flute away.

Artoo beeped and rolled into the middle of the room, BB-8 watching from his corner. Into the air, he projected a video, Rebels singing and dancing to folk songs from their various home planets. Drums banging, someone hitting spoons against pots and pans. Flutes and improvised fiddles. Light and laughter.

In the back corner of the room, you and Luke danced, lost in each other. He spun you around, pulling you back to him. He looked so young there.

Shara was sitting next to Kes, who was drumming on one of the drums. He got boisterous with it, making Shara laugh, a melody in itself. Glimmering around her finger was the ring Poe wore around his neck.

He reached for your hand and you gave it to him, watching this piece of your life Artoo had been holding onto for all this time. You wondered what else he had stored in that seemingly endless memory of his. 

Poe’s thumb brushed over yours, and he used his foot to tug your chair closer to his, unwilling to be apart from you any longer, despite what the others would think. It seemed none of them noticed, or maybe they thought it was par for the course at that point. Poe had never been shy about touching you, or anybody, really, even before you had been dating in secret.

He smiled at you, eyes soft. And for a moment, you were glad you’d come. You were glad he was there with you.

Eventually, the guys found the alcohol that hadn’t exploded after thirty years frozen and the room cheered up significantly.

Rose motioned you over and you sat on the floor in front of her while she braided your hair. Rey shared a cup of something strong with you and you took a few sips, leaning back against Rose’s legs.

“Hey, when did you get this?” Rey asked, touching the woven leather bracelet on your wrist. “Is it new? I’ve never seen it before.”

“Oh! Yeah, uh…Poe got it for me.” You smiled.

“Poe got it for you, huh?” Rose asked. “That was nice of him. I didn’t realize you two were so close.”

“Yeah, we’ve really bonded since I woke up.” You said with a smile and a shrug, glancing over at him. “We keep…finding each other.”

He was knelt on the floor in front of Artoo, talking to him about something. You assumed he was probably trying to get a copy of that footage. You didn’t blame him. Droids, though pretty common, were still not something everyone had, especially back then. Artoo was probably one of the only droids with footage of his parents.

The other pilots started up a game of Truth or Dare, and it worked around and around the circle. You giggled at the antics, at the spicy secrets people spilled with their resolve weakened by liquid courage. Yours was dwindling, too. You were one well-placed dare away from kissing Poe Dameron hot on the mouth, right in front of everyone.

You supposed it was good luck, then, that he was the one asking you that fateful question.

“Truth.” You replied, knees tucked into your chest, hair braided down your shoulders like you were a teen at a sleepover. In some ways, you guessed you were.

“Why don’t you like it when people use your royal titles?” He asked, eyebrow quirking up in that signature expression of his. That Dameron smolder. He had used it to get the upper hand on many unsuspecting maidens, you were sure. It always did something to you.

“Mmmm, alright.” You thought, chuckling. “Poe, you can ask me any question in the galaxy right now, are you sure you want to waste it on that?”

“Yep. I want to know.” He shrugged, leaning back in his chair, sitting across the circle from you, painfully far away. This drunk, you wanted him next to you. Another drink and you’d be sprawled all over him, didn’t matter who was watching. “Why do you squirm every time someone calls you Princess?”

“Princess isn’t the worst. I don’t mind that one so much.” You said. “I don’t like the ‘your Highnesses.’ They just…maybe it’s stupid, I don’t know, but…everyone on base earned their titles. Everyone. Every general and admiral and captain and commander, all of ‘em. They all earned those fancy words and I did not. I was born a special person and got my titles handed to me on a silver platter. It feels like stolen valor. Even Leia’s a general now, and…yeah, that’s kind of it. Just feels icky sometimes.”

“You’ve earned them.” Finn said, eyes serious. “You’ve more than earned them.”

“You’re too kind, Finnley.” You replied, a hand on your heart.

“Finnley…” Finn chuckled to himself at the elongated name.

“No, he’s right. That first day I saw you in action, I knew you were the real deal.” Snap said, sounding impressed. Really, genuinely impressed. “All the stories started to make sense, the way you flipped through the air.”

“A Jedi of old…” Jessika agreed, Rey nodding along.

“And you wear those little crowns sometimes. Princesses usually wear those.” Aspen added, sitting beneath one of Chewbacca’s fur-covered arms, cuddled against his side.

You laughed at that one. “Valid point. I don’t know, I’m warming up to them. But you all can call me (Y/N), also. We’re friends.”

“Mom wanted to work titles out with you after the war.” Soren said. “She’s…well, she’s acting queen now, but technically–”

“Oh no I do not want to be queen.” You shut that down, holding up your hand. “That’s where the line is drawn. I was second-born. I was never supposed to be queen in the first place and then I died. Your mother earned that title. She’s been here, boots on the ground, helping the remaining Mariposans. She’s the queen and I’ll tell her that myself, Prince Soren.”

He grinned. “Why did I have a feeling you’d say something like that?”

“Because you know me so well, dearest nephew. Now, where were we…ah, yes, Rey, truth or dare?”

She smiled. “It’s going to have to be dare.”

The game continued until the group began to dwindle, retiring for bed one by one. Chewbacca put out the fire and the heaters were turned down slightly to conserve power overnight. If you guys blew a fuse, you were fucked. Heat was a commodity that could not be wasted on a planet like Hoth.

You walked back to the room before Poe did, tossing an extra blanket up to your top bunk. The beds here were smaller than your bunk back home. If you and Poe had a tight fit in the other bed, this would be near impossible. For that reason, you’d probably sleep separate.

You climbed up top, as you had done so many times, and sat up there, scrolling through your holo, making plans for the next day. It was a big one. X-Wing repair was the big ticket thing, unburying them from the snow that had drifted into the hangar. Everyone else would be working on packing up everything that wasn’t nailed down, and, well, some of the stuff that was nailed down.

The door slid open and Poe walked in, kicking off his boots while BB-8 rolled onto his charging mat. Finn peeked in after them.

“Goodnight, (Y/N)!”

“Night, Finn! See you tomorrow.” You said with a smile.

“Bright and early.” Poe added with a grin.

The door slid shut and he walked right over to the bunk bed, standing in front of you, expectant. Poe was not an overly tall individual, so his head cleared the top, but nothing else.

You raised an eyebrow. “Can I help you with something?”

“You want me up top or are you coming down here?”

“I don’t know if you’ve seen these beds with your eyes, but…they are pretty small, flyboy.”

“We’ve managed worse.” He grinned, resting his arms on the railing, looking up at you with those pretty brown eyes, eyelashes oh so dark and beautiful. “Won’t you get cold up there all by yourself?”

You laughed. “I think I’ll be okay.”

“Well in that case, goodnight. I’ll see you in the morning.” He leaned forward.

You took his face in your hands, kissing him deeply. He crooned at your touch, standing on his toes to chase your lips before finally pulling away and tucking into his mother’s bunk on the bottom.

***

About an hour later, the lack of heat really started to make itself evident. You weren’t sure what Rose had set it to for the night, but whatever it was had your toes freezing and teeth chattering.

Wordlessly, Poe got out of his bed, the fabric rustling in the bunk beneath you, and stood, his head clearing the top so you were nearly face to face. He waited expectantly for you to break the silence, to admit he was right.

“Alright, get in here.” You relented, lifting the covers.

He tossed his blanket up first and then climbed in after you, the tight quarters causing every piece of his body to be touching every part of yours. Talk about cozy. It made the X-Wing cockpit look like a five-star hotel room.

He laughed softly. “You were right. It is gonna be a tight fit.”

“And you were right about it being too cold.” You said, voice rasped with sleep.

“Here, let me…” He wiggled the two of you into a better position, him almost entirely beneath you, broad shoulders still boxed into the narrow bunk. He wrapped a warm arm around your waist, legs intertwined.

You adjusted the third blanket atop the two of you, wings tucked under, and then settled back on top of him, letting out a long, contented sigh at the warmth. “You comfortable?”

“Mmhmm.” He hummed, unable to stop smiling at you, oh so close to him. “Can you imagine if we really weren’t seeing each other and the others found us like this?”

“We’d never hear the end of it.” You laughed at the thought. “You guys, seriously, we were both just cold.”

He chuckled, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “I really thought I could hold out. Not say anything until after the war was over. Find you in the crowd after whatever final battle, confess it all then and there. All romantic and heroic. And we’d kiss and the crowd would cheer and we’d fly in my X-Wing, off into the sunset with BB-8 in the back seat.”

You huffed a laugh. “Had it all planned out, huh?”

“This is better, though.” He admitted, thumb circling your hipbone.

“It’s a good thing I didn’t let you make the first move, like I was planning.” You said, tilting your head up to kiss the corner of his lips. “Saved us both a lot of pining and heartache.”

“To be fair, I was going to make a move during our little joyride that never happened.” Poe said. “I know it was kind of a joke, that it was a date, but it was real to me.”

“It was real to me, too.” You murmured, nose pressed against his cheek. “I could feel it coming. I knew you had feelings for me. But, of course, Kylo Ren has the worst timing in the galaxy.”

“Seriously. Fuck that guy.”

“Agreed.” Your fingers curled against his chest, his heartbeat steady and strong. You leaned up and pressed a soft, sleepy kiss to his lips, eyelids growing heavy, aided by the gentle lulling of his warmth. He was always warm. You had never been more grateful for it than now.

He smiled, skin moving beneath your lips. He rocked you gently, voice sleepy and playful. “You driftin’?”

“Mmm…” You nodded against him. “Getting there.”

“Good. Get some sleep, baby. Maker knows we’ll need it. Someone’s gotta use the Force to dig out those X-Wings tomorrow and it’s not gonna be me.”

Looking Forward, Looking Back

BB-8’s chirping alarm woke the two of you in the absence of sunlight. There were no windows in your room, being carved into a mountain and all. Your face was pressed into the crook of Poe’s neck, warmth encasing you, his dark curls tousled and fluffy.

He groaned softly, skin vibrating against yours. You kissed his cheek, long and gentle, a silent greeting. The groan melted into something else, then, as if he remembered you were perched there on top of him, like a wonky weighted blanket.

“Maker, what a way to wake up.” He murmured, nose brushing against yours on the way to your lips. “Can we do this every morning?”

“You’d have to break the news to Finn that you don’t want to be roommates anymore.” You reasoned, finding his hand and threading your fingers through his.

He hummed, thinking it over. “Well, you could come stay in our room.”

You laughed out loud. “Three is company. Might get a little too cozy in there.”

“Yeah…Well…we can negotiate.”

“Sure, I’ll let you pitch that one to him. And Bee can have my room all to himself.”

BB-8 chirped in approval, which made you laugh.

“How the hell are we going to get out of this bed?” Poe wondered, taking stock of the two of you, packed in like sardines.

“Carefully.” You giggled, trying to sit up. “Your specialty, flyboy.”

Poe used the railing to tug himself upright and you reached into his messy curls, gently combing them with your fingers into some sense of order. He grinned at you, eyes twinkling in the dim room, leaning forward and capturing your lips, like you were his first meal of the day.

Eventually, you pulled apart, peppering kisses across his cheeks. He couldn’t take his eyes off of you. Never could, but especially when you had moments alone like this.

“Poe.” You said, giggling as he reconnected his lips to yours, rhythm smooth and slow, but steady.

“What?”

“We’ve gotta go.” You murmured against him as the kisses continued.

“Mmhmm.” He nipped at your bottom lip, hand framing your cheek, keeping your face close to his. “Give me a minute. I’m busy.”

You laughed, hands resting on his chest as he deepened the kiss. Warmth tumbled from him onto you. Someday, you’d get a real vacation. A getaway. Once the galaxy was at peace again, and the First Order had been destroyed.

But now, you had work to do. A lot of it, before you could head back to base.

“Come on, hotshot. The sooner we get this done, the more time we can spend doing this in a bed that doesn’t completely box in those shoulders of yours.”

“Now that’s a good point.” He grinned, brushing the hair out of your eyes while pulling you in for one last kiss.

You flexed your wings as best you could in the limited space and flipped down over the railing, giving him room to get down.

You swapped out your layers, bundling up all over again. Undershirts, shirt, jacket, coat, plus your headwear, gloves tucked into your pockets. You laced up your boots and followed Poe out to the mess hall, where Chewbacca was serving leftovers from the day before for breakfast.

After, you, Soren, and Rey followed the pilots and mechs out to the hangar, assessing the damage. Wedge had been right. Four X-Wings. Unfortunately, the hangar doors had been left open, letting in thirty years of snow and ice.

First order of business, you did a sweep to make sure there weren’t any scavengers or creatures hiding out inside. Then you reached up, using the Force to pull the massive hangar door shut. The metal creaked and rumbled, dust falling from the mechanism as it lowered into place, enclosing the space in total darkness.

Rey reached for her saber, the blue lighting up the dark. Soren lit his after, and then you, Poe’s face awash in the pink hue, wonder in his eyes. Someone found the lightswitch and the overheads flickered a few times before kicking on. You powered down your saber and approached the nearest X-Wing, not nearly as buried as the ones closer to the opening.

“What’s your professional opinion, Commander?” You asked, arms crossed, looking it over. “Where do you want me to start?”

“Well, the wings would be a good spot, probably. The engines. We’re gonna have to pop her open to see if her parts still work.”

“Alright. Everybody stand back.” You advised, taking a few steps further from it yourself. You focused on the ice, using the Force to crack it into smaller pieces that could be pulled off of it. Then, you lifted the X-Wing into the air, straining to do so from the sheer weight of it alone. Rey joined, taking some of the pressure off, and you two set it atop the layer of snow on the ground, so they could get to it easier.

You all repeated this process for the following three X-Wings, getting them uncovered in record time. The pilots and mechs set to work, trying to see what all was in working order, what needed to be fixed or replaced. Wedge had given them the records he had from the olden days, but it was hard to tell what was still accurate.

In the meantime, you turned your attention to helping the demo crew scrap some of the internal walls and structures that were not lodebearing. Shelves, furniture, cabinets, that kind of thing.

Chewie led the crew, pointing things out, directing the rookies where they needed to be. Threepio translated for him as necessary and you used the Force to take some pieces down.

You fluttered higher, using your wings to help empty some of the higher shelves, taking them down one screw at a time.

Snap and Chewie went out into the snow to move the Transport closer. It would help, no doubt, as you all started to move things.

You and Rey went through the closets of each room to see if there were any stray blasters sitting around, uniforms that weren’t too outdated, even decent walking boots, taking anything that was useful and putting it in a wagon.

It was a productive day. At the end of it, you all had another dinner. It would be your last night there, if everything went to plan. The X-Wings seemed to be in working order. They’d run a brief test, and then take off first, escorting the transports to safety. There’d been one in the hangar as well, that some of the mechs had fixed up without too much trouble.

Weather seemed good for it, too. Any longer than that and you all risked getting stranded in a blizzard. Well, more of a blizzard than what was already raging outside those doors.

The evening was quiet. Everyone was tired from a long day of work. Carrying things, moving cargo, packing, and loading things until it was all ready to go. You sat on the floor in the mess hall, head leaned on Rey’s shoulder, Rose’s legs spread over yours.

You fiddled with the bracelet around your wrist, a small smile tugging at your lips when Poe made eye contact from across the room. His eyes wandered to the bracelet and he grinned, proud. He was sitting with Soren and Finn, talking about something with some of the other pilots.

Jessika came over and sat with you. In the corner of the room, Snap and Karé were talking, awfully close to each other. Touches lingering. Jess traced your gaze and said, “Oh, did you not know? Snap and Karé are married.”

“Huh? I did not know that. Wow.” You processed the information. It was like learning Wedge was Snap’s step-dad all over again. There was more to Snap then you thought, perhaps. Maybe a nice long conversation with him was in order. “They’re good together.”

Poe walked over, taking a seat beside you. He elbowed you lightly, smiling. You could tell he was starting to wind down, looking a little tired. “What are we talking about, ladies?”

“I just learned that Snap and Karé are married.”

“Oh! Yeah, yeah, they’re great together.” Poe grinned.

Jessika chuckled. “Yeah, they are. You ever…dated someone on base?”

“Yeah.” You admitted. “I’m no stranger to wartime romance.”

“She and Luke were…” Rey began to explain, letting Jessika fill in the blanks. “You know.”

“I did not know.” Jessika said, eyes wide. “Wow…that’s really…”

“Yeah, I know.” You shrugged. You felt Poe’s eyes on you, the way his chest began to burn. A twinge of jealousy hidden behind that famed Dameron smirk. “But, uh, I’m not completely closed off to dating this time around. I’m fifty-four, not eighty.”

“You look great for your age, Princess.” Poe complimented, eyes sparkling. He raised an eyebrow, voice dipping into mischief territory. “That mean I’ve got a shot?”

You laughed, heart racing at the look in his eye. “I dunno. Trigger-happy flyboys are not my usual type, but…never say never.”

“Keeping your options open?” Rose asked. “I know about twelve rookies who would die for the chance.”

“Oh I know. Been fighting them off with this saber of mine.” You chuckled. “They’re determined, I’ll give ‘em, that, but…”

“She’s already got a crush on someone.” Poe said, forcing his tone to be casual. “Doesn’t want to hurt their feelings.”

“We’ll go with that, yeah.” You agreed, letting out a yawn that Poe mirrored not long after.

The two of you decided to head to bed, exhausted. You bid the others goodbye and led him down the winding hallways, back to your shared room. The door opened with a whir and you stepped inside, BB-8 rolling into his corner.

Poe turned you to face him, hand tilting your face up towards his and kissing you, slowly. Sensually. Every movement was deliberate and careful. His tongue swiped at the edge of your lip, the other hand tugging your waist impossibly close, chest flush to his.

“Trigger-happy flyboy, eh?” He asked between kisses, teeth nipping at your lip as your arms latched around him, fingers toying with the curls at the base of his neck.

“Yeah. Might even have a crush on him.” You murmured, echoing his words.

“You drive me crazy.” Poe rasped, movements picking up speed, momentum, like an X-Wing headed towards a crash. Inevitable.

You smiled against him, meeting his gaze with starlit eyes. “I know.”

“Go to sleep, Bee. I don’t want you to see this.” He said, a rasp at the edge of his voice, sending a shot of electricity straight through you.

You heard BB-8 power down for the night. Poe wasted no time hooking your knees with his strong hands, tugging your legs up onto his hips and carrying you to the top bunk. You tore your boots off, chucking them across the room with a noisy thud as he climbed up the ladder, throwing his shoes off after. He pulled you on top of him, as you had been the night before, but this time, his hands were everywhere, lips exploring yours. He tugged your knee higher, moaning into your mouth as you played with his hair, giving his thick curls a gentle tug.

He kissed you eagerly, like he’d been waiting for it all day. You knew that was the case. You slotted a leg between his, leaning on his chest. Your other hand stayed anchored to his jaw, thumb brushing through the scruff on his cheek, a little longer than he usually let it get. It suited him, though. All of it did.

You let yourself imagine him a little older. Some gray in his hair, in his beard. Curls a little longer. Maybe he’d need reading glasses. You smiled at the thought, kissing him again, deeper, cherishing the little chuckle he let out when you did.

It sank in then that you wanted to grow old with him, and you were struck by the thought, movements slowing.

Life after the war was already a fantasy to you, but you never let yourself see the life you wanted. Those years of peace after. You’d had two of them, only to have it all ripped away from you, to be frozen at twenty-four for thirty years. But this time, you knew it was different. This time, you would get to stay.

So you let your mind wander. Guided by the Force or your own desires, you weren’t sure. But you saw him there, in casual wear, a few more years on that handsome face. A wedding ring on his finger. Lines that crinkled around those warm eyes. He laughed at something, the sound like music to you. You loved it. Loved him.

Poe could feel it when you slipped. Always could. That lull that hit you when you were zoned in, or zoned out rather. He held you, kisses slowing to a stop, watching, waiting for you to come back to him, for the Force to set you back in his arms.

It was strange, loving a Jedi. But he loved every second. Loved you.

“You’re having some big thoughts tonight.” He finally murmured, voice impossibly soft, like said thoughts were made of glass. You were back now, thumb stroking his cheek again. Breaths back to their regular cadence.

“Yeah.” Your voice broke, tears welling in your eyes.

His eyebrows furrowed. “Oh, hey, it’s okay. What’s goin’ on in that pretty head?”

“Nothing.” You chuckled, shaking your head. “I just…I…”

“You don’t have to tell me.” He handed you a boundary if you so wanted it.

“I just saw…you. After the war. Older and happy. And it just…got to me, I guess.” You admitted, a tear slipping down your cheek.

“A vision?”

“I hope so.” You shrugged, hand resting on his chest, smoothing out the fabric of his undershirt. Back home, he didn’t wear one to sleep, usually. On Hoth, the extra layer was necessary.

He wiped at your tears with his gentle thumbs, pulling you in for a long kiss. “I want that, too. But only if you’re there with me. A little gray in this pretty hair of yours. Not as much as me, of course. I am eight whole years older than you.”

You laughed through tears, surging forward to kiss him again.

“You want kids? We’ve never talked about it.” He asked, playing with your hair with one hand, the other brushing down the length of your wing. You rested your head on his chest, ear pressed to his heart.

“I do. Some little Jedi. One little pilot.”

He kissed your forehead, lips curled into a smile. “They’ll get my curls and your eyes. Big, beautiful wings like their mother.”

“I hope so.” You smiled, staring at him, eyes memorizing his face, just like this. You nuzzled your nose against his, melting against his lips. “I want it, Poe. So bad. I want to…get to live my life this time.”

“You will.” He promised, eyes serious, twinkling like stars. He took your hand and kissed each of your knuckles, lingering just a little longer on the ring finger, where someday, he’d slide his mother’s ring.

***

The next morning, last checks were performed. Threepio went over inventory, and Chewbacca did a final sweep, making sure everything and everyone was accounted for before you all started loading up into the transports and the four repaired X-Wings.

Poe walked over to you, both of you bundled up, though him less than you. You were headed to the same place, would be in ships side by side, but it was still a loaded goodbye building between the two of you, especially after the conversation you’d had the night before.

“You good to go, Commander?”

“All set, your Highness.” He replied, voice cradling the word so carefully. You didn’t mind it so much when he said it. “See you on the other side.”

You took a step closer. “See you at home.”

His face broke out into that flyboy grin, like he’d just won the lottery.

You walked through the base with the others who would be taking the transport out front, the one you’d arrived in. But before you got onto the ramp, you saw them. First Order soldiers on the ground, a shrouded figure leading them.

Your instinct said Kylo, but your heart knew it wasn’t.

TIE fighters flew overhead.

“Poe, we’ve got First Order fighters in the air. Troops on the ground.” Finn said into his earpiece.

You stared ahead as they approached, reaching for your saber, Soren beside you. Neither of you had coated your wings. Hadn’t expected to be outside for longer than a minute. There was no time to do it now.

You launched yourself forward, igniting your saber mid-air as giant snowflakes fell. Stormtrooper fire resounded, beams of red bouncing towards the handful of Resistance members there. You used your saber to take out as many as you could before confronting the man in the hood.

It wasn’t Kylo Ren. He was wearing a mask, but it was different. He raised a hand, trying to disarm your saber and failing.

“After all these years, I was hoping you’d died in that pod, dear princess.” The voice that came out of him said. Muffled, distorted like Kylo’s, but not Kylo.

“You’re gonna wish I did.” You breathed, giving your saber a twirl.

He unveiled his own, a dual bladed red saber, the blade unstable like Kylo’s, but familiar to you. You knew this saber. This saber knew you.

A chill ran up your spine and you launched into attack, deflecting hits from both ends of the staff-like weapon. Soren joined you, his movements careful. Scared. This was his first fight with anyone who intended to harm him.

The X-Wings cruised around the mountain, taking out a handful of TIEs in their sweep through the air. The second transport came around as well, Rey emerging from within, saber at the ready.

The hooded man took note of Soren’s posture, his nervous energy, and targeted him instead, leaving you the task of not only fighting whoever this was, but protecting your nephew. You used the Force to push Soren back, just out of the range of the glowing red saber, a swipe that would have taken his life.

The edge of the blade sliced your upper arm. You tried to flex your wings, to use them as landing gear as you had so many times, but the cold had rendered them nearly useless, hanging down prone, getting number by the second. But the numbness was giving way to prickling pain. You weren’t sure which was worse.

You yelled out, grasping at the smoking wound, the saber’s heat cauterizing the blood.

“(Y/N)!” Rey yelled out.

You stood, bracing yourself on a snowbank, fire in your eyes despite the raging blizzard.

The man went for Soren again, but this time you put yourself between the two, your saber sparking against the aggressive red of his.

“Lord Mothim, we’re taking heavy losses!” One of the Stormtroopers relayed, giving him pause, but not halting his attack.

Lord Mothim. The one Kylo had mentioned on the one occasion you’d met him.

“We will fight until they are dead. No surrender.” He said, countering a move, twirling the saber with grace.

He lunged at your nephew, but you reached forward, using the Force to pull back his cape, throwing him off balance and revealing what you already knew. This Mothim was Maddox. You would recognize your brother’s wings anywhere. Orange with a tinge of red at the ends. Fitting colors for a Sith.

You threw your saber, calling it back to you, straight through the exposed wings, slicing them off and watching as they fluttered to the ground. The cruelest thing you could do to a Mariposan. The thing that the very saber in his hand had done to your own, you realized, finally putting the pieces together. The saber was made of Insidia’s blades, merged together.

He let out a cry, collapsing to his knees, the shockwave of Force energy knocking everyone, including yourself, back in a wave. You soared through the air, unable to control your momentum.

The back of your head hit against a snow-covered pine and everything went blurry.

You watched, nearly out of body, as the First Order retreated, a pair of Stormtroopers grabbing Mothim and leaving. Soren ran over to where you were laying, fear flashing over his features.

“Aunt (Y/N)? Are you okay?”

“Mmhmm.” You gave a thumbs-up, pushing yourself upright. The last First Order transport pulled out of orbit. The X-Wings shot, but it was already gone.

Rey ran over, giving you her arm and pulling you to your feet. “Who was that?”

“My brother.” You exhaled, breaths ragged. “Maddox. Lando was right.”

You stared at the pieces of his wings you’d severed off, being steadily buried by the snow. Your stomach sank with the weight of what you’d done. Exploited his greatest weakness, hurt him in the way that had ended your life all those years ago. Yet, you couldn’t quite bring yourself to feel bad about it.

The X-Wings swooped in for a landing and Poe sprinted across the field, nearly tripping over his own feet on his way to get to you. His gloved hand reached out, stopping short of the blackened, burned slash through your jacket, across your arm.

“You okay? We alright? What’s the move?” He asked, counting heads while reaching out for your hand.

You gave it to him, squeezing his.

“We need to get back before the weather gets worse.” You said, laser-focused on getting off the planet. “Get everyone back in the transports and get the hell out of here.”

Finn nodded, turning to start corralling people back into the transports. You started walking towards one with the others, but Poe didn’t let go of your hand, eyes meeting yours, his energy…fraught.

“I’m going with Poe.” You told Rey, not even stopping to think about the logistics of it, how it would look to the others. You didn’t care. That look on his face…whatever was going on in his head, he needed you.

She nodded, not fighting you on the matter. Poe climbed up into his X-Wing, helping you in behind him. It was a smaller cockpit than the newer models, but the controls looked nearly the same. To you, anyway, from what you could remember about your one other time inside one.

He pulled a lever and the hatch closed, sealing with a hiss and a click.

“Bee, blast the heat.” He instructed, pulling the goggles off of your head, smoothing your hair back, his touch quick and clinical. He stared at the scorched mark on your jacket. “Can you…?”

“Yeah.” You unzipped it, tugging it down your shoulders, exposing the wound. You hissed as the fabric rubbed against it, still red and agitated and hot hot hot.

“Hey, hey, you okay?” He asked, tucking your jacket into a small cargo cabinet near his feet.

“Think so.” You nodded, shedding another layer, and then rolling up the sleeve, exposing the burn. “Yeah, he definitely got me.”

“Here.” Poe pulled a bacta patch out of a small first aid kit, carefully laying it over the wound.

A cooling sensation spread from the spot, the relief instant. You leaned back against him, head resting on his shoulder as you let out a long breath. “Thanks.”

“Mmhmm.” He hummed, flipping a few switches. His arms wrapped around your waist and he pressed his face into your neck, letting out a long, warm breath against your skin. “You had me so worried, baby.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“I know.” He nodded, curls tickling you with the movement. He pressed a long kiss there, then another, arms tightening as he inhaled your scent like it was oxygen. Eventually, he lifted his head, nose rubbing against yours as your face turned towards him.

You kissed him, lips soft, tender. You could tell his mind was elsewhere.

“Your wings…are they okay? You were out there for so long…”

“They’re okay.” You raised one to demonstrate. Its movements were still a little stilted, but they would be okay. You held his face in your hand, firm, forcing him to look at you. “I’m okay, Poe. Promise. I’m not made of glass. We have to get off this planet before we get stuck here, alright? The snow’s gonna get worse.”

“Okay.” He nodded, closing his eyes and inhaling a long breath. “Okay, yeah, alright.” He pressed a quick kiss to your lips and then pulled his helmet on, putting a wall between the two of you. “Yep, just adjusting the co-pilot in here. Wheels up, fellas. Let’s get outta here.”

The X-Wings lifted off, escorting the transports out of the atmosphere and into hyperdrive.

BB-8 took the wheel for the most part. Poe was quiet, an arm around your waist, the other on the control rod. Your back was completely flush against his chest, wings tucked under, still prickling as the feeling came back, little by little.

And it was so…quiet. He was so quiet.

“You alright, Commander?”

“Gettin’ there.” He replied, arm tightening around you. He pressed an awkward kiss to your neck, as best as he could under the helmet.

You laughed softly at the awkward position.

“I’m sorry.” He apologized suddenly, voice sounding heavy.

“Sorry? Why are you sorry?” You asked, turning to look at him, attempting to meet his eyes through the glass of his helmet visor.

He pressed a button on the dash, muting himself so the other pilots couldn’t hear. “I just…sometimes it’s so easy to forget that you’re…I mean…you’ve done this before. You’ve been through so much. But I see you out there in the field, face to face with a kriffing Sith, and it all just melts away. (Y/N)...I know you can handle yourself, but I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”

The words sat there in the open for a few moments that felt like minutes. You let out a breath, turning to look at him for a long moment, his eyes locked out the windshield.

“You’re a Jedi. You’re…you’re a legend, Princess. I know that, but…”

“Everyone treats me like I’m invincible.” You confessed. “Everyone. Even after my accident. It’s…nice to have someone worry about me. I just don’t want to be a liability to you. I need you to be safe too, Poe.”

He nodded, determination brewing behind those warm eyes of his. “We’ll just have to look out for each other, then.”

“Til the end of this war, and every day after.” You promised, turning your head at an odd angle to kiss the stubble on his cheek.

He chuckled a little. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get you up here sooner, baby.”

“Hey, at least we finally got our joyride.” You chuckled. “Our date.”

Poe pressed another kiss to your neck, the plasteel of his helmet brushing against the side of your face, drawing another laugh out of you. “I’ll pick a more romantic spot for the next one.”

The Illusion of Safety

After the Hoth debrief, the cantina was packed. Everyone wanted to hear about it. About the new Sith lord and how you’d sliced his wings clean off, the sheer cold of the planet. The rookies talked about nearly freezing their toes off.

You nursed a cup of Jet Juice, feeling tired, but relieved it was over. Relieved everyone was home safe with new X-Wings, new building materials, blasters, boots and uniforms. In the meantime, there had been some food deliveries as well, and Laesynda told you your garden was beginning to sprout.

Things were looking up, in other words.

The crew was caught in another game of Never Have I Ever, with updated experiences and ideas to throw at each other. Snap met your eyes, Poe seated beside you, his hand on your thigh under the table, impossibly warm, even through the fabric of your trousers.

“Never have I ever kissed a pilot.” Rose said.

You cursed under your breath, along with a handful of other people. Snap and Karé namely. You took a sip of Jet Juice, watching the wicked gleam in Poe’s eyes, the smirk that pulled at his lips.

Snap was next. He knew as well as you did that Luke Skywalker was known for his flying abilities, among many other things, of course. But just to be extra sure, he locked eyes with Poe, raising an eyebrow as he said, “Never have I ever kissed a Jedi.”

You took your sip, for Luke.

Poe’s tongue curled briefly over his lip, meeting your eyes for a moment, asking permission.

You flicked your eyes from his down to his cup and back. “What are you waiting for, Dameron? Take your sip.”

“I mean, it’s more like a hundred sips at this point, but…” Poe grinned into his cup.

Rey’s mouth fell open, everyone watching with bated breath as he chugged the rest of it. The table erupted in cheers.

“I knew it!” Finn exclaimed, pointing. “I knew it!”

Poe shook his head, all smiles. “No you did not!”

“How long?” Snap asked. “I’ve got a couple bets I need to cash in on.”

“The gala.” Poe admitted, the arm that had been resting on your thigh coming up around your waist instead.

“Really? Only since then?” Snap asked. “Maker, I thought it was longer than that, even. Saw you in the hangar one afternoon, kissing her hand.”

“Oh, that was step one of my grand plan.” Poe grinned, flyboy confidence plastered on his handsome face. “We then completely rerouted from said plan, but it worked out.”

You laughed, leaning against his shoulder. “He’s good at improvising.”

Finn deadpanned. “The morning after the gala. When you…?”

“Did the walk of shame? Yeah, sure did.” Poe admitted, earning laughs from the rest of the group. He leaned closer, breath sharp with the smell of alcohol, laced with whatever juice had been laying around the kitchens when the mechs whipped it all together. His nose brushed against your skin, lips aimed for your cheek, but you turned your head, kissing him full on the lips, heart racing at the way his mouth curled into a smile, proud.

The group cheered, offering their congratulations, saying how happy they were for you. You were happy, too. It was serious. Had been since your conversation on Hoth, but long before that, too. Poe was holding your heart in both of his warm, calloused hands. He knew that. And now they all did, too.

Tomorrow, you two would be the talk of the Resistance, the gossip of the day. But tonight, you were surrounded by your friends, laughter and warmth. Your family.

Poe pinched your side, arms curling around your waist. He pressed a long kiss to your cheek and then remembered the game. “Right, my turn. Uhhh, never have I ever been in a pod race.”

***

That night, you dreamt of a void. Empty and dark. Endless. A red saber ignited and then he was standing there. Mothim. Your brother.

He took off the mask, a wrinkled face beneath, eyes golden and gleaming in the shadows. A pair of jagged wings trailed behind him, their edges singed, glowing like embers. “You thought you could hide from me, you insolent girl.”

“Wasn’t hiding, actually. I was sleeping. Sorry if that’s confusing.” You retorted, voice echoing into the distance. “Maybe you’re losing it in your old age, Mads.”

“QUIET!!!” His voice echoed, pounding in your ears. You recoiled. “I’m in your head now, you insolent girl. You cannot escape me. You and that pilot of yours are done for. It’s only a matter of time before I find you and snuff out your precious little Resistance, like I should have so long ago.”

“You can’t. The fire’s been lit. You’re on borrowed time.”

He laughed, the sound spine-chilling.

He was suddenly right in front of you, long, clawed fingers grasping your chin and squeezing. Hard. You tried to run away, but you were frozen. You couldn’t move.

“It’s ironic, really. That you would say that.” He hissed, words sharp as blades. “You gave your life to kill Insidia, to stop her, but your sacrifice was in vain. You’ll see that soon.”

He lit the other end of the saber, its light piercing right through your chest, the pain real and burning.

You jolted awake, eyes shooting open. Your heart raced as you stared at the empty room, curtains blowing slightly in the breeze. You could hear the leaves rustling gently outside. You took some deep breaths.

Poe’s arm was curled tight around your waist, knees tucked up into yours, his nose pressed to the back of your neck. He felt you wake, humming softly and kissing behind your ear. “You alright?”

“Nightmare.” You said, voice shaking. 

You couldn’t get Maddox’s words out of your ears. He had threatened Poe. Maybe he knew somehow. Maybe he really was in your head. He had to be mad after you’d sliced his wings off. Seething. It was the worst pain a Mariposan could experience. Thousands of nerve endings severed all at once, white-hot. You knew that firsthand.

Maybe you should have saved a blow like that for a better moment.

“Mmm.” His voice rumbled against you, the vibrations comforting. His lips pressed against your neck, soft and gentle in the dark. “Mothim?”

“He…He said some stuff. About Insidia…” You confessed, swallowing the lump in your throat. “I…It’s…He threatened you.”

“We can tell Leia in the morning, starlight.” He said, brushing your hair back out of your face. “It’s alright.”

You nodded, but Poe could tell you weren’t convinced. He turned you over, pressing his nose to yours, eyes searching your tearstained face.

“Come here.” He pulled you into his arms, a hand skimming over your wing, the other cradling your head. “We’re fine, baby. We both are, alright? He’s not gonna touch me and if he sets foot near you again, I’ll kill him myself. All I need is a clean shot.”

You smiled softly, heart warming at the fire in his chest, in his eyes. Your Poe was a fighter. You didn’t know how likely that scenario was, but you knew he meant every word. He’d do anything to protect you, fight anyone, no matter the odds.

“You mean that, don’t you?”

“‘Course I do. I’d fight the fucking stars for you.” He pressed his lips to yours, soft and slow. “Let’s go back to sleep, alright? We both need it.”

You nodded, curling into him, leg hooking over his. You tucked your face into his shoulder, inhaling his scent, that warm mix of sandalwood and leather and his rain-scented soap. You felt so safe in his arms, like nothing and no one could touch you. You knew that wasn’t true, but it felt like it was. Like as long as the two of you were together, you’d be fine, that he could stop anyone from the cockpit of that X-Wing, neutralize any threat with only his blaster, before you could even so much as power up your saber.

You held onto that thought as you drifted off again, the illusion of safety. You and Poe, riding in his X-Wing off into the sunset, BB-8 buckled into the back seat.

The Weight of the Galaxy

You found Leia after breakfast, walked straight into her office and sat with her, told her about your nightmare.

“It might have…just been a dream.” You concluded, after giving her the details. What Maddox had said. His threat that Insidia’s plan had succeeded. That your sacrifice meant nothing.

“Did it feel like just a dream?”

“No.” You admitted, arms wrapped around yourself. “It felt…real. Or, like there was some truth to it, at the very least. I’ve dreamt about Insidia loads of times, but…never Maddox.”

Leia nodded and you could feel her, reaching with the Force. She had that look in her eye, like she was a million planets away, but right next to you. The frown that tugged at her lips gave you all the answer you needed. You’d been right. Something big was coming. Something bad.

“We need to…up the Jedi training regimen. A lot. I need all three of you ready.”

“Four.” You said. “But we’ll need a saber for Finn. I think he’s ready for it.”

“I can get one.” Leia nodded. “It’ll take some time.”

“I’ll get them as ready as I can in the meantime.” You promised.

You walked out of her office and out into the camp, feeling sick. Something in you fluttered, and not in a good way. Rey walked up to you, touching your arm, shaking you from the funk. Soren was with her, both of them waiting for the news.

“What did she say?”

“We’re on for training. As much as possible.” You said, letting out a shaking breath. “Leia’s intuition has always been…better than mine. If she thinks there was some truth to…what I saw…”

“Then we’ll just have to get ready for it. Whatever it is.”

Your stomach sank, thinking about it. “More like who.”

***

So you trained. All three of you and Finn. Soren and Rey sparred together nonstop, running agility courses, using a training remote, learning to deflect blasts faster. Faster. Faster yet.

You worked with Finn, handing him your saber, a trusting look in your eye.

“Oh, I couldn’t.” He shook his head.

“It’s just a loan, Finn. We’re still figuring out where to find you one. In the meantime, I need you to get comfortable with the weight of it, the movement. They’re a little different than the training rods you’ve been working with.”

He nodded, testing the weight of it in his hand. You set him on the training course, flitting from tree to tree, watching his progress from a safe distance, trying to stay out of his line of sight as much as possible. You spotted Poe, down at base, eyes tracking you while he stood with Leia and Chewbacca, flicking back down to the conversation every few moments. You ran through the branches, wings carrying you.

The blade of the saber caught on a thin tree and you used the Force to lower it to the ground, gently, out of Finn’s way. He was…hesitant, like Soren had been, but he had the raw talent. He moved like Luke, you reminisced, every move thought through, intentional.

You landed at the end of the course as he powered down the saber. He waited for your evaluation, shoulders stiff. It was moments like this when you were reminded of his upbringing. Didn’t come out often anymore, but when faced with people he saw as authority, it did tend to peek out from those kind eyes. The fear of correction. Of the punishment that followed.

You put a hand on his arm, dispelling the tension that bloomed in his chest. “That was great, Finn. You’re doing great.”

“I missed a few.”

“You’re using a borrowed saber. They’re not always easy to use when they’re not bonded to you. We’ll get you one of your own soon. Besides. I lied. That wasn’t the novice course, it was apprentice level. The work you’ve been doing, even with a stick, it all counts. You’re one of us, Finn.” You told him, hand curling around your saber as he handed it back to you. “I’m not your Jedi Master, I’m your friend. I’m here to offer advice and guidance. What you do with it is up to you. We’re all in this together.”

He smiled at that, nodding. “I like that.”

“I thought you would.”

“How’d it go?” Rey asked, walking over with Soren.

Finn let out a breath, tension rolling out of his shoulders, replaced instead with confidence, with strength from the Force. “We’re getting there.”

***

A week passed. Then two. Nonstop training. Meditating in the morning, breakfast, a trip through the training course, lunch, more meditation and some lightsaber sparring, dinner. After, you’d hit the books, curling up with Luke’s notes, with your own, studying every word like there was something you were missing. There had to be something you were missing.

Poe watched, your spark kindling a fire in his chest, but an ache in his heart. He’d never seen you so stressed. So driven. Like you were carrying the weight of the galaxy with those wings of yours. In some ways, you were.

“Baby…” He murmured, pressing a kiss to your neck, hands following the curve of your waist.

You were hunched over a book, sitting in the lounge. You curled into his touch, his warmth, crooning. “Mmm?”

“It’s late. Come to bed.”

“I’m fine.” You insisted. “I got thirty years of sleep, remember? I think it evens out if I cash in on some of that now.”

He exhaled, shaking his head. “You sound like me.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?” You chuckled, flipping the page.

“Alright, well, you give me no choice.” He said, closing the book with a firm hand, your eyes widening up at him. “Come on. Sleep time.”

“Poe.”

“I will carry you.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?” You asked, a bit of a bite to your words.

“Both. Come on.” He pulled you by your hands, up from the table, and hoisted you right over his shoulder.

“Hey! I feel like there are more graceful ways to be handling a princess, you know.” You protested, kicking your legs.

“Yeah, but none of them give me the chance to do this.” He gave your ass a not-so-gentle pat.

You gasped, thanking the Maker that the hallway was completely empty, otherwise, the whole crew would be talking about you and him for new reasons, since the initial buzz of your relationship coming to light had finally dwindled. “Poe Dameron!”

“Scold me later, Princess, you know you need it.” He said, setting you upright in front of the door to your quarters. He rested his hands on his hips, looking you over.

His tired, overworked little Jedi Princess. Your wings were drooping more than usual. You kept them folded away typically, for practical reasons, but they looked more like fabric than tissue at this point. He frowned.

“Why the long face, flyboy?”

“I just don’t like seeing you like this.” He admitted, reaching out for your hand. He fiddled with your fingers. “You need sleep. You need to be drinking more water. Mariposans need it to perk up their wings. Look at ‘em, starlight, I’ve never seen them so droopy.”

“Yeah, I’ve been…distracted, I guess.” You relented, nodding. “I’ll drink some before bed.”

“Oh I know you will. I’m staying.” He said, pushing past you into the room. He pulled you inside, closing the door with a press of the panel. He plucked your drinking glass from your desk, rinsing it out in your bathroom sink before bringing it back with clean water and pressing it into your hand. “Drink.”

“Yes, Commander.” You replied, tipping it back and taking several long sips. He was right. You’d needed it.

He took your face in his hand, fingers gentle, but firm. He wiped a droplet of water from the corner of your lip with his thumb. “Good girl.”

You’d be lying if you said that didn’t do something to you. And you would have done something to him, if it wasn’t so late, if the initial point of his little wellness check hadn’t been sleep, or, more accurately, your lack thereof.

You brushed your teeth, put some lotion on your wings, aided by his careful touch, and then you both climbed into bed. You rested your head on his chest, listening to his heart beat, steady and strong. He played with your hair, pressing kisses to your forehead.

“Thank you.” You finally said, voice quiet.

His lips curled into a smile against your hairline. “What kind of a boyfriend would I be if I didn’t gently bully you into taking care of yourself?”

You chuckled. “Probably not a very good one.”

“Mmhmm.” He hummed. “Now, do me a favor and close those pretty eyes of yours. I’m thinking at least seven hours. Maybe eight if we’re lucky.”

You leaned up and pressed your lips to his, movements slow, loving. “Won’t Leia…”

“She and I both know we need you at your best. All of us, really, but…especially you.” Poe kissed you, gazing at you through those thick dark, thick eyelashes. He pulled you back down, kissing your temple, a hand grazing your wing, which was starting to flex to its former shape again.

You let out a long breath, his touches lulling you with expert precision. You mumbled into the crook of his neck, eyelids growing heavy at his warmth. “This is not fair.”

“There it is. Sleep, baby. I’ll see you in the morning.” Poe reassured, voice soft.

He listened as your breaths slowed, felt as you slipped off to sleep, the tension leaving your face, your body, your wings.

And then, once he was absolutely sure you were asleep, he pressed a final kiss to your forehead and whispered, “I love you.”

***

Sometimes, when Poe woke up before you, if whatever position the two of you awoke in allowed, he’d slip his mother’s ring onto your finger, just to see. Even with it still on the chain, it did something to him, the way it looked on your hand, that braided leather bracelet on your wrist, the one that meant that you were his.

It looked right. Felt right.

He felt you stir, so he pulled it off, gently, kissing each of your eyelids as you blinked awake. Refreshed and well-rested for the first time in weeks.

Poe wasn’t Force Sensitive, but he could tell there was something big coming. You all could. It made him cherish these little moments between you even more.

Leia got word from a scout named Boolio. There was some info he had on a hard drive, a potential spy in the First Order. Someone would have to rendezvous, download the files in person. Poe put himself forward. Finn, too. Chewbacca.

Poe tried to get at least one of the other Jedi to come along, but the three of you were staying behind to train.

“More training. Figures. I should have known you’d say that.” Poe said, deflated.

Your resolve softened. “Poe.”

“No, it’s fine, I get it, it’s just…”

You took a step closer, taking his hand, the other smoothing out the fabric of his button-up shirt, the one he claimed made him look like a sexy space pirate. He wasn’t wrong about that. “If you need me, I’m there.”

He thought about it, meeting your eyes. He knew you meant it. You always did. He shook his head, relenting, and pressed a long kiss to the back of your hand, stubble tickling against your skin. “They need you here. Finn and I will be alright. I just feel…better with you on board. Call me superstitious, or…”

“Sentimental?” You smiled softly, tucking a stray curl behind his ear. “May the Force be with you, Commander.”

He touched the Mariposan healer’s pendant, still hanging around his neck from its leather cord, right beside his mother’s ring. “It always is.”

You watched the Falcon take off, unrest taking root in your heart. You didn’t know exactly why, but you knew this was the mission that would change everything. That once the boys got back, everything would be different.

You let out a long breath, watching the ship until it shrank away into the sky, zapped away at lightspeed. There was no going back now.

Tags: @cap-lu20

[spock-smokes-weed]

I wanna talk about about the big issue that's going on in the dan and phil fandom rn because I've been sitting on my thoughts for a few days, and because I think it's important for us as a community to keep talking about it.

Dan and Phil mean a lot to me, they've been a real bright spot for me in a very dark time in my life, so it did give me a major spike of anxiety when I started seeing discussions of racist behavior coming from Dan and the Phandom. My first instinct was to just brush it off because what people were upset about didn't seem that "serious", and it's a bad habit of my mine to try to bury things that give me anxiety. But like a pulsing sore, my mind couldn't let me ignore it and I kept going back into the tags to read what people were saying. And I realized I was doing the exact thing that a lot of POC and Latin American fans were criticizing.

I'm not POC or Latin American, and comments like the ones Dan made (idk if there are anymore but to my understanding he called mexico and brazil third world countries in WAD, and titled a really old video "I'm Mexican Now" back when he used to tan himself) don't hit a sore spot for me like it would other people. It's a lot easier for me to say "oh that's tasteless" and let it roll off my back. But this is personal for a lot of other fans, and I never want to be that kind of person that goes "well it didn't hurt ME, why can't YOU let it go." no matter how much I like Dan and Phil.

And I think that's gets a the core for what a lot of fans are upset over (at least from what I've observed, feel free to tell me if I'm off the mark.) Dan's comments made them feel like a person they really admired doesn't hold the same kind of respect for them. It made me really sad reading about how isolated POC feel in fandom because when microaggressions come up, they're expected to suck it up. And that's so unbelievably shitty that we are making fellow fans feel this way. I've seen time and again POC people have to leave fandoms, or never join them to begin with, because the environment is so hostile towards them. And that's really a shame, because fandom has been such a positive aspect of my life, and it want it to be that way for everyone.

And what Dan did is just one part of it, the other part is us, the phandom. People who speak up about this, or the fact that DnP's tour has zero shows in Latin America, Asia, or Africa ("world tour" lmao) have been getting racist harassment from other fans. They're framed as "trying to cancel" DnP, or "making a fuss over nothing". That is completely unacceptable, and if we really want to be this positive community, we have to push back on this behavior when we see it. That includes when it's coming from Dan and Phil.

I honestly don't think Dan was being malicious in what he said, nor do I think DnP were intending to exclude people by not taking the tour to the global south, but that it's really not the point. It's about the fans that feel excluded and hurt. Dan and Phil are both human beings, they are not "unproblematic kings", and they will always fail to meet your standards when you paint them that way. It's causing real people harm when you deny that they can do no wrong. Dan and Phil are very meaningful to me as artists, and I know it can feel personal when you find out someone you admire did something wrong, but sometimes you have to step back and remember that this isn't about you. And it's not a healthy approach to take any criticism of something you like as a personal attack.

Contrapoints once said something that really stuck with me, and it's how I'd like to be living my life, which is that often, admitting when you were wrong can seen as a weakness, when in reality it's an incredible strength. I was wrong with my initial gut reaction over this, and Dan was wrong for what he said, and I think all people want is to hear him say that.

I felt a little nervous writing this post because I don't want to be speaking over anyone, or speaking for anyone, (and if you're a POC and want to elaborate please go ahead), but it felt wrong not saying anything because of how much Dan and Phil mean to me. I don't exactly see myself a part of the "phandom", and I only post about them when they upload, but they are very meaningful artists to me. I want other people to keep discovering Dan and Phil and enjoying their art, but for that to happen we need to be candid about where they've fallen short.

[bloodpen-to-paper]

Alright folks, final Qsmp post of the day (--will have mentions of the Forever situation fyi--)

The prison event was very fun and I got some good laughs (especially from the therapy session). I'm glad to be back and have broken the ice after being radio silent for like 3 weeks.

Going forward, I don't think I'll be as emotionally invested with the lore as I was before with Forever's content, and him not being here is still weird for me. There's moments that feel so much like he should be there, and references that I know would've been made if the server wasn't collectively ignoring his existence. I understand why they're doing that, and I'm not saying they shouldn't. I remember seeing some posts after the initial blow up saying it would probably feel off for a while before the server found a way to fully move past it. Its completely understandable, just like I hope its understandable that people like me still feel sad and hurt over the loss. That'll take a while, and I'm sharing this cause I hope this can resonate with anyone who feels the same.

Oddly enough, this whole situation gave me the opportunity to step back and learn a lot about myself. Hyperfixations are a big deal for ND people, it can be life consuming, and as much as I stand by the fact that everything would've been astronomically better if this never happened... I do think it helped me analyze my own brain in a way I didn't before, issues I had been ignoring or hadn't realized. There's a lot to life, and sometimes you lose sight of that when you're zeroed in on one thing 24/7. I'll still think about the cubito and consume content of him until I naturally lose interest (shout out to the other former Forever fans who are doing the same, separating character from CC of course), but from here on the Qsmp is something I'd like to just have fun with. Something for creativity and culture, but as a fun hobby rather than a serotonin lifeline. This may sound dramatic, but you never know what's happening in someone's life, and what they use to keep themselves going when nothing else is going right for them. Its why this kind of content exists, and I'm thankful for what this server provided when I was still figuring myself out. Even with the situation, I don't want to forget about any of it. But I think I'm ready to take a new and healthier approach this time.

Having said that, I'm glad I could be here for today, and I want to continue being in this fandom until the server itself is ready to end. The Prison Event, whether planned in advance or last minute, was honestly a really great way to give a bit of a blank slate for people still feeling weird about Forever's absence. It brought a new premise disconnected from him and gave people like me a reason to come back to livestreams. I'm glad to have broken the ice and to know that I can come back to the Qsmp fanbase and content, even if its different this time, I'm glad its there for me to return to when I feel like it.

There's a billion drafts for other fandoms and topics that I want to get through, and I'd like to be more consistent with them since my Qsmp hyperfixation has calmed down a bit. But I'll be here, sometimes blogging, sometimes just vibing. Its good to be back, I missed all of you a ton. See you at the Inmate Crucifixion <3

[gamequeenanya]

Tickletober Day 20: Tease

Fandom: Dsaf/Dialtown

A/N: The new Roger DLC got me thinking about him...

Summary: You knew Roger was ticklish, but you never knew teasing got to him so much! Ler!Gingi, Lee!Roger.

...

"So you see, I would always like, tell her the balloons were too big, but she kept blowing them up and I'd brace myself for a pop. You know, and then she'd laugh..."

Roger goes off about his ex-girlfriend. It's kinda sad he's still thinking about her. You know it sometimes takes a long time to get over people, but it feels like Roger isn't really thinking about you right now.

So you decide to poke him.

He jumps.

"Oh! Heh!." He flinches and turns to you. Even though he has an orange phone for a head, you imagine he's blushing. He giggles. "Uh, d-did you need anything?"

"Yeah," you reply. "Uh, not to be rude but... ... well I had two things."

He nods. "What are they?"

"Well, first of all, what did you see in that girl? She seemed unpleasant all around. I think I would have left her by the dumpster on our first date." You chuckle to yourself at the thought. Roger's girlfriend would be fuming mad!

He chuckles.

"W-well, back then I didn't have a very high self esteem. And she was nice at first... just enough to keep you on the hook. You know?"

You nod. Roger continues.

"And one of the first things I remember is that she said she liked my laugh. She called it adorable." His voice takes on a warm tone. You tip your head, curious now. "First she told me jokes, then she started to tickle me, and it was fun. But of course, in the end she just saw me as a pathetic loser..." He sighed, looking down.

"She's the pathetic loser. Throwing away someone like you. Come here." You open your arms, offering a hug.

He looks up and hesitates.

You look back at him, wondering what's up.

Roger giggles nervously.

"I uuh, I just told you my weakness..." He realizes. "Y-you're gonna tickle me!"

You roll your eye.

"Well, I wasn't before. Now, I am!" Grinning, you wiggle your fingers at him. They're green and clawed. That must be extra bad for him, you realize as he flinches away.

"Hahahaha, c-come on!" He whines, with a playful giggle. You can't help laugh with him.

"Heheh! Come here." You say, stepping towards him, continuing to tease him by wiggling your fingers at his sides. He keeps stepping away. You'll get him eventually, you think, not giving up.

Finally, Roger accepts his fate, and you wrap your arms around him. It feels nice, you realize, hugging someone after all these years spent alone. His head seems to relax on your chest. He finds comfort in you probably. Aw, how cute!

You then tickle him. Your claws skittering along his sides and ribs. He laughs and guffaws, pushing at you as he begs for it to stop.

Yet, even though Roger pushes himself away from you, you notice that if you stop, he comes right back. Adorable! You skitter along his tummy and his back, and he laughs again. It's even cuter this time!

So you decide that you'll tickle Roger for quite a bit longer. After all, his laughter sounds happy and joyful. You don't want that to stop.

[mithrilhearts]

Hey, I just saw your most recent post earlier, and I thought to send you an ask instead of rambling in the comments or reblogs.

First of, you're completely right about there being fewer interactions in fandoms, and it makes me really sad and devastated too. If this makes you want to take a step back, then that's completely fine, I'm not trying to convince you to stay in this ask, I just wanted to share something. Even though I kinda grew out of the Hobbit fandom, I still remember how much I love your stories (and still do). They made me stay up late, to then follow me through my whole day, reading in between lessons, to then climbing in bed early again so I could continue reading. Even now, seeing you feel so left out, it made me devastated and wanting you to know how much you and your stories mean to me.

I'm so sorry for how the fandom is treating you and everyone else, you deserve so much more than what you're getting. I hope you make the choice that's best for you, whether that's staying or leaving, we all just want you to take care of yourself ❤️

I've held onto this for far too long...and not just because I neglect my inbox, but because I'm constantly looking back on the words, and finding them continuing to cheer me up <3

It's been a lot of back and forth with my feelings regarding the fandom and feeling included/wanted, and sometimes I know it's the bad brain talking, whereas others, I'm not really sure what to think. The highs are high, the lows are low, and at this exact moment, I feel somewhere blissfully in between (which is an alright spot to be, for me, I think).

There are so many excellent people in the fandom, whether they're still here or moving onto other fandoms. I appreciate every single one - every single kind comment, kudos, reblog, whatever it is, it warms my little heart.

Interactions are at an all-time low in my opinion, and I think this is a great opportunity to remind people to tell your favorite creators what you enjoy about their works! Though, my personal experience regarding the episode I was going through is more with not feeling wanted among the other creators (left out, like you said), I have been working hard to make changes to fix those feelings if I can (i.e. removing myself from environments/conversations/subjects that are bothersome, and trying to reach out more).

I just want to say again how much I appreciated this ask back when you sent it, just as I appreciate it today. Your kindness truly helped me when I was in a dark spot and wanting to disappear. Every day is a fight, and your kindness has helped me fight that much harder to not let the bad brain win.

[chvoswxtch]

👋 hi, i'm back again already :)

i'm so glad i'm not alone in being completely feral for those set pictures. like it's insane what just seeing them has done to my brain chemistry. i saw them like an hour or so before i had therapy on wednesday and i felt like i was going insane for the rest of the day. the frank brainrot is real and i will be binge-reading ur fics again (bc i love ur portrayal of frank and i need that man in my life) and just UGH, i can't even explain how this man makes me feel without sounding fucking nuts.

and okay after finishing season two, i just, i have no words. i know that the fandom doesn't always love amy but genuinely, she has such a special place in my heart. and the lengths that frank went to protect her actually just made me want to sob. he absolutely melts my heart and i remember when i watched the start of season 2 all the way back in like september last year, i literally sobbed at the end of the first episode after he had that conversation about maria with the woman he met at the bar. like i am such a simp for this man, it's insane how emotional i get over it sometimes.

also i know you've watched criminal minds (the two fics u wrote were absolutely delicious btw) so i feel like you will understand this but pilgrim's actor being the same as will's just made it slightly hard for me to take him seriously. like the actor did a phenomenal job but i just couldn't help but see him as will. it was so jarring and also just a little bit funny. either way, i didn't hate the storyline as much as i thought but the connection between him and the schultz family did seem a little jarring? or like out of the blue? but i'm not sure if that's because of the writing or because of how long it took me to actually finish the show. but i think it was such an interesting way to connect the two plots even if it confused me?

then okay, like billy this season, he was a complete fucking psycho and usually ben barnes can make psychos be so hot but after he and dumont tried to like break frank by making him think he killed innocents, bro i was not on this man's side anymore. like i honestly was so mad at him. i haven't like been that mad at a character in so long, i was concerned for myself. honestly, i could have strangled billy in that moment. also dumont was just such a kind of dull character? i think the scene in like episode 12 when dumont and madani are having that conversation about like the trauma she (and billy and frank) went through was so good but that was like the most interesting i found her. i'd love to know your thoughts on her!

and like madani? i can't talk about madani without going too feral. like her and frank are my definition of bisexual panic. any time they are on the screen together, i go insane. the thought of the two of them actually is just- it's too much. i feel like madani doesn't get a lot of love in the fandom which always makes me sad because she is (to me) a literal goddess. but anyway.

i have so many more thoughts (mainly about how much i love frank and how fucking good a job jon does at portraying him) but this is already such a long message. i am SO sorry, i can do nothing but apologise

(the only reason it's so long is because none of my friends have actually watched the punisher so i have no one to talk to. sorry court <3)

i'm gonna ramble below the cut with you, please step into my office <3

those set pictures are ruining my life. like it still feels surreal that it's happening?? but i'm so happy they listened to the fans and seem to be taking the reboot seriously. also I know how protective charlie and jon are over matt and frank, so I trust they're making sure it's done right. akjdfhdfh you're too nice to me pls

I loved season 2, personally. it felt a little rushed, but I think that has to due with the fact that they planned more storylines and got cancelled because of the disney plus thing. I liked that we got to see a more fatherly side of frank with amy because it added so many more layers to his personality. we got to see it with the micro's kids, but we got to see it so much more with amy and I loved that

OMG WHEN WILL SHOWED UP I WAS LIKE SIR WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?? WHERE IS JJ??? it's so funny you say that bc the first thing I saw that actor in was a horror movie and then criminal minds but I always think of those two when I see him lmao. the pilgrim/schultz storyline was a little strange but again I think it's one of those things where they planned for more and weren't able to do it with the cancellation

I did not care for dumont's character at all to be candid. I don't really feel like she added much to the storyline. my main complaint about billy in season 2 is he still looked too pretty LMAO. like I get it, it's ben barnes, they can only do so much, but frank rocked his shit too hard for him to have a few scratches. I would've preferred to see him be more evil and psycho and bloodthisty for revenge but that's just me

DINAH MADANI THE WOMAN THAT YOU ARE. she and frank are the definition of bisexual panic. she's just...like that scene of her and karen in the conference room when she's asking her if she knows anything about frank being alive?? karen is a stronger woman than me bc I would've let her bend me over that table. dinah doesn't get enough love in this fandom and that doesn't sit right with me and I feel it is my civic duty to keep the thirst for her alive

pls don't apologize! I am happy to chat about frankie anytime :)

[gffa]

What do you do when you start hating/gets annoyed with a character that you previously liked/was cool about bc of bad or "i personally don't like it" writing? I loved the mandalorian, but since the slight at the jedi in that random episode in the middle of tbobf i'm so bitter about him, i can logically reason with myself that he's being kinda prejudiced since he doesn't know shit about jedi but i just can't get over it and i feel stupid tbh. That's also happening with ahsoka and i'm sad about it

It can be hard to get over a character bashing other faves or when they’re used as a weapon against your other faves and I don’t have a perfect answer, I still have to work at it and I can’t always get over it. But a few things help me: - I have friends who like those characters, like Din or Ahsoka or Qui-Gon, and they also like the Jedi at the same time.  I think of their affection for those characters and I want to be on their side, I want to share in that joy, so I determinedly look at the bad writing as “how dare you do this to my friend’s Blorbo!” and focus back on the things that they love about those characters. - I stop and think about:  What do I really want out of my experience in Star Wars fandom?  Sure, I get mad about Felony’s writing sometimes or I get mad at how people try to use Qui-Gon as a weapon against the other Jedi, but then I try to take a step back and ask myself if I really need the whole of fandom to be my playground.  Hell, do I even need the newer content to be my playground all of the time? And the answer is that I don’t.  I have the movies and TCW.  I have my group of people who like the same things I like and enjoy the characters in a fun way.  In five or ten years, when I look back on my time in this fandom, I want that to be what I experienced.  Because when I look back at my fandoms from 10 years ago--that’s what I remember.  Hanging out with funny people in our little corner of the fandom.  I don’t remember the vast majority of dumb things people said or the things that annoyed me about the writing, I remember chatting with people about character interpretation or what if ideas. The entirety of Star Wars doesn’t have to be for me.  I can just mentally snip out the parts I don’t feel like dealing with, nobody can stop me from going, “Felony has to prove himself to me with each episode and he failed on that one, so NOPE bye bye to that dumbass interpretation.” - Fake it until you make it.  We’re all human, we all have our salt days, we all get annoyed by stuff, but the more we focus on those parts, the bigger they loom in our minds.  I find that it actually genuinely does help to just say nice things about the character!  I find myself annoyed by how fandom uses Ahsoka as a weapon against the Jedi sometimes, I find myself salty every time I try to talk about Filoni’s writing of her, so when I got a lovely ask about her relationship with Obi-Wan in season 7, I decided I was determinedly going to talk about her with as much sympathy as I could.  And you know what?  By the time I was halfway through that, ruthlessly snipping out any parts where I started to get salty about her or complain about her writing, I was back on the Ahsoka Affection Train! Writing something that is purely affectionate about those characters can genuinely help.  All you need from fandom is the corner of people you surround yourself with, and if you’re surrounding yourself with people who love Din or Ahsoka or Qui-Gon and who love the Jedi--that’s what the Star Wars fandom experience is.  You don’t have to “win” at the source material or anything, all you gotta do is “win” at fandom, and you can do that by building the space you want around you and just going, “Nah.” to the rest of it!

[mayasaurusss]

hi hi, its the anon from earlier <3

I wanted to clarify that I don't want to pressure you to keep writing for YJ when you don't want to, I just meant in terms of deleting your account!

I often re-read blurbs and fics for characters I like because they help me calm down during my paranoia and anxiety episodes (which suck)

That said, I think your writing is amazing!! Its also important to remember that if you think a certain piece of writing is bad, your mind is probably over exaggerating because we're often more critical of our own work than others <3 (just a healthy reminder to help you stay confident and not be too harsh on yourself :))

Sorry if I sounded kind of demanding before, I had just seen that one of my (more recently created) favorite tumblr accounts, stagnat, had deactivated their/his account which caused me to panic a little bit (a lot)

I don't know why the YJ fandom has gotten so toxic recently, it feels like in the past month or so everything has just been going wrong 😭

Again, I really really enjoy your writing, but I am 100% fine if you feel like you need to step back or take a break from tumblr for your health :)

You are so kind and nice that it's actually making my heart hurt😭❤️I'll definelty read this whenever I'll feel down about my writing😊😊.

So if that's the concer, know that every account I've ever had is or has been up to read for others. I had a wattpad account which I abbandoned but I've never deleted it because I know that people might want to reread my fics or oneshots, so don't worry about that!

You might be right. I recently was writing a tmasc Shaun headcanons about dating him during another historic period, but even if it's cute and a pretty long set of headcanons, they came out flat. Like it wasn't Shauna's original character anymore so I kinda scrapped it. It's still in my drafts but until I can actually make something out of it, it'll stay there. Also, every friking time I publish any long oneshot I always fear "Have I wrote well?/Could I offend someone?/Have I made enough research?/Is it ready to be published yet?" and so on. Curse my overstressed mind. But thanks, this helped, I'll try to go easy on myself in the future!!!

Oh don't worry about that, and yeah I saw they deactivated as well and I had just followed them mere days ago. Kinda sad many people are you know, but we don't know why they did it. Dont be sad, they probably are making a new account or are already here!

And yeah, I did saw the toxicity as well. I am not sure why, but sometimes I think that might be 'cause the in real world is crumbling apart and so people are constantly on the edge. You have no idea how many times the past year I've encountered people who were angry and stressed that used others as means to get stress out of their system. I could go on and on about this, but I can only store so much words in one post.

Awwww, damn this is too much for my cold heart. I really thank you for your kind words, truly. And don't worry, I have just been back from a really long pause because of exam season, so I am actually quite happy to be back as well! Who knows, maybe in the month of October (Halloween! Yay!!) you will get a itty bitty more oneshots as usual! Who knows, only time will tell...😊

[serenescribe]

for the fic writer ask: 🍚🍜🍡🍘

Fic Writer Asks

🍚 What genre do you have the toughest time writing?

answered here!

🍜 Do you ever feel pressured to write?

sort of! not by other people, but mainly by myself. i often have limited time to write, and can only really sit down and focus during breaks between semesters and school years. i oftentimes cannot write at all during the ends of my semesters! so i end up pressuring myself somewhat to write while i can, because i don't know when i'll be able to do it next.

that aside... i can also feel pressured if i'm racing against canon (see: writing 15k words in two days just so i could get glaciers chapter 2 out before episode 19 of fhjy dropped). i also sometimes pressure myself to write because i love it when people enjoy my work! which is a much lighter pressure, but pressure nonetheless — it isn't imposed on me by readers at all, but merely my own desire to return the amount of enjoyment everyone's comments have brought me :)

🍡 Which of your fics was the most emotionally difficult to write?

i want to say "pénthos" because it was a grief fic, and i wrote it while coping with emotions surrounding the impending loss of a beloved pet. but it wasn't so much emotionally difficult to write as it is impossible to revisit without shedding a tear.

on the other hand, i remember feeling so many powerful, visceral emotions while writing "we've got history." i cannot encapsulate how much i felt writing these chapters. i channeled the pure fucking rage of espresso in chapter 1. i was dying writing madeleine in chapter 2. what the hell. i felt like i came out of a boss battle and lost despite finishing the fic. finishing it gave me relief like nothing i had ever known.

🍘 Is there a fic or idea for a fic that you've abandoned?

OH BOY. DO I HAVE AN ABSOLUTE TREASURE TROVE. i'm answering this under the cut. this is going to get long.

i wrote an espresseleine fic in 2022, clocked in at just over 40k words, and never posted it. it's more or less abandoned despite being finished because i pushed myself too hard writing it and burnt out so badly i couldn't stand to look at that writing ever again. maybe someday it'll see the light of day, but it's already been two years, and i don't know if i'll ever write for crk again.

on another note, i had a mcyt fire emblem au back in 2022. i was making it with the help of a beloved friend. unfortunately i never felt confident enough in writing the characters so it never came to be — but i think this short, simple sentence is still the best start to a fic i've ever written, and i'm sad that it will never see the light of day.

this isn't so much abandoned as it is half-shelved, half-reworked (i like the au too much and have repurposed it for a different fandom, BUT i also love the original so i want to return to it someday. two cakes), but i had a fire emblem awakening fic. can't say too much about it but here's morgan and lucina siblings from 2022.

pretty sure i had a p5 au idea where third semester played out differently with akira taking maruki's deal, and goro being forced to step into the role of wild card instead. never got too far into writing that though but i found this.

i found a silver and lilia roleswap while i was digging for stuff????? i BARELY started it i straight up forgot this existed

anyways the very nature of being multifandom with constant, shifting interests means that i definitely have a lot of abandoned works. these ones are all from recent years, but i know, deep in the depths of my soul, that there's more.

let's not even get started on ideas. if you get me started on ideas, we'll be here all day.

[leothil]

Anon who asked Evcndiaz about disconnect between old and new fandoms. I partially meant following, since bigger and older blogs rarely follow newer ones. But I also meant things like reading fics by new authors that aren’t established 911 writers, or even reblogging newer users’ meta posts and gifs. It feels like the big blogs in this fandom really only engage with each other’s work and that can be disheartening to new fans who want to share their work with a community that doesn’t actually seem interested in what they’re putting out. (I don’t mean this in a guilt tripping way, of course no one is entitled to attention and you don’t need to engage with content you don’t like. It just feels like sometimes our work isn’t even given a chance since we haven’t been here for that long.)

Hi, thanks for clarifying! I do have a few thoughts about this!

Obviously I can only speak for myself, but I do think many others have at least similar experiences. When you first enter a new fandom you usually find lots of new blogs to follow, and there's a lot of new content to engage with. But at some point you start feeling like you get everything you need from your dash and you stop actively following new people whose content get reblogged onto your dash. It still happens, of course, but at least I'm much less likely to start following someone at this point than I was in fall 2021 when I joined the fandom. And it's not because newer and/or unfamiliar blogs are doing anything wrong, your dash is just saturated and the threshold for starting to follow someone becomes higher.

I think finding new fic authors suffer from the same saturation. After being in fandom for a while, you've usually found a good batch of authors that write in a style you like, and if they're still putting out new fics to read, trying out an unfamiliar author is an extra step to take in the process. But that's not to say it doesn't happen! I keep finding new authors I like, just at a much slower speed than in my early days in this fandom. I'm also reading less fanfiction overall right now, and I think that also applies to a lot of people who've been in the fandom longer. And that also makes the process of trying out a new fic author more tedious, as you tend to prioritize new fics from authors you already know you enjoy.

When it comes to meta posts I've also noticed that many of those I've seen lately tend to discuss things that have already been talked about a lot in the fandom. Newer people in the fandom have no way of knowing that, of course, but many times when I've skimmed a post my reaction has been "well, yeah, we talked about this at length back in the break between 5A and 5B" or whatever. So there's no net new information, you know?

It is sad if newer members of the fandom feel like they're being kept out of the community, because I definitely don't want anyone to feel like that, but I do get why the situation is what it is right now. I don't really have any good solution to offer up either, other than to try not feel discouraged if your posts don't seem to get noticed by older fans, which is a pretty meh advice. I'm not sure exactly when you entered the fandom, but if it was during this hiatus, I remember the fandom always coming together and mixing much more while the show is airing and we get new material to obsess over. I found several new favourite fic authors last spring while 6B was airing!

And even if you follow me and I don't follow you back, that doesn't mean I'm not open to talking to you! I love talking weewoo with friends, mutuals, followers, and anons, and my inbox is always open for chatting, requesting or giving fic recs, or exchanging thoughts about our blorbos.

[sissytobitch10seconds]

Abhorrent

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy Summary: Marcus may not have been the best leader, but he's still better than whatever the fuck is happening with the Umbrella Academy. Ben could be better than their leader and he sure as Hell is a better second in command even if he and Marcus argue sometimes. Warnings: PTSD, panic attacks, canonical child abuse and torture, not Allison Hargreeves friendly Word Count: 5,991 Ship(s): Marcus Hargreeves/Ben Hargreeves/Viktor Hargreeves

Archive link!

A/N: So I've edited this quite heavily but I'm still not sure how I feel about this. The quality is lower than some of my other fics have been but I still want to get it out there. I feel like if I don't post this then I'll just sit and fiddle with it until I can't even look at it. So here it is! Thank you all so much for reading, I hope you like it! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone &lt;3

They were all sitting in the main living room at the Academy, staring at each other like it would make the other team explode. They had managed to soothe their differences and quell the rivalry that had been brewing between the two families for the time being. The Umbrellas were sitting on one side of the living room while the Sparrows took up the other side, though Sloane and Luther were sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace while looking between both sets of superheroes.

Ben was pacing back and forth between the couch with the rest of his family on it. Fei was reclining back with her arms folded so that she could pet the feathers of the bird on her lap while still looking as intimidating as possible. Alphonso was leaning back against Jayme’s legs where the other girl was positioned next to her sister. Christopher was rolling anxiously over the lamp next to the couch. Marcus was sitting on the chair next to the end table, a physical and metaphorical distance between him and the rest of the team. Ben hated how poetic all of their positions felt.

It seemed like the other team couldn’t go five minutes without arguing about something, including where they were going to sit. The angry one with mind-control powers flopped down into the chair closest to the door after they had guided her in. The one with knives was spread out over the couch with the girl that hadn’t been with them when they arrived perched on his lap. The one that looked as though he was a child was brooding on the couch beside them, muttering something under his breath. The one that had been running around with their father was splayed over the armchair opposite to Marcus and possibly sleeping or dead.

“Where is he?” a new voice demanded.

It had been hard to remember which of the Umbrellas was missing since the battle that they had was so chaotic, but Ben was sure that one was. Their numbers were finally complete as the missing member was walking into their space with Grace following behind him, likely having just brought him into the house.

Ben’s mind stopped the angry whirring long enough to take in what he actually looked like. The pronouns had naturally switched themselves in Ben’s mind when he took in the more masculine energy that the newcomer was projecting. He had cut his hair so that it framed his face and hung over his forehead. The brown color of his hair brought out the starkness of his eyes, which held a deep rooted sadness just barely behind the fire burning there. His clothes were rumpled and dirty, similar to what people looked like when they had just come from a fight of some kind. He had an inch long wound on his cheek that had very recently scabbed over. His chest was heaving for air and his skin was slightly luminescent, just enough that Ben noticed the swell of power in the air.

“Who, Harlan?” the mind control Umbrella asked as she rose from where she had been sitting. She crossed her arms menacingly over her chest as she stepped towards her brother.

“Yes, Allison!” the smaller hero snapped as he advanced on her. “What did you do to him?”

“Why didn’t you tell me what he did to us?” she retorted. 

“What?” Viktor asked, looking genuinely confused and upset.

“Why didn’t you tell me, or anyone for that matter, that he was the one that killed our mothers and got us into this whole mess?” Allison demanded.

Ben stopped his pacing and walked over to the couch. He folded his arms and then leaned on it so that he could be closer to his siblings. “Ten bucks on the little one,” he muttered as he grabbed a chip from the bag that Jayme had open on her lap.

“I’ll take that. He beat the shit out of both of us when we were fighting him and she has trigger words she has to use,” the other Sparrow snorted as she mimed biting at his hand to get him to stop stealing her food.

The smaller Umbrella grit his teeth together hard enough that it looked like his jaw hurt. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think that it was fucking relevant, Allison! I also didn’t have a lot of time before you were pushing me out of the door,” he was talking with his hands as he got more upset. Something underneath his skin was beginning to glow pale white in a way that made him look ethereally beautiful.

“You don’t get to make that call for the family, Viktor,” the one that looked like a child objected, his brows furrowing together in anger.

He rounded on another brother, “And you do? You’ve all been hiding information from me and cutting me out of family decisions since Dad died so you don’t get to be upset that I’m doing it now! I was just trying to protect an innocent man that I hurt,” he turned back to Allison then. “You had no right to trick me into letting you kill him after you promised that you would help me.”

“I did help you. Until you started letting him kill you,” she growled. He rolled his eyes at that and took a step away from her. “I don’t know why I should help you anymore anyways. Everything that you do ends up hurting me in some way because that’s all you do!”

“How am I the one that ruined your life when I’ve barely seen either of them? Every time that you come back into my life you also end up fucking it up, Allison, so I don’t think that you get to accuse me of being that evil,” Viktor snarled at her.

“You killed Claire!” she shouted, her voice holding a kind of feral darkness to it that the Sparrows had only seen in their most dangerous foes.

Viktor took a sharp step back like he was expecting to be hit. “I didn’t kill Claire! I’m sorry that I don’t know how to get her back, none of us do. I don’t know how to bring her back or send you back to Ray, but that’s not my fault. I tried to help you-”

She cut him off before he got to finish. “Help me what? Help me mourn? Every single one of you has been trying to push me to just get over it since we got here. Do any of you even grasp what I’ve lost every time we’ve jumped through time?” Allison demanded, turning towards the rest of the Umbrellas while still keeping her eye on the rest of them.

The one with the ineffective powers shifted on his chair so that he was upright while still slumped back, his eyes narrowing slightly. He was toying with a pair of dog tags resting halfway down his chest with his fore and middle finger. He didn’t even open his mouth to try and fight her though, which let her keep going.

“You haven’t lost anything and you have cost me two families, Viktor. You’re conceited and dangerous and you don’t even fucking realize it. I can’t believe I ever thought that we could actually be siblings after all the shit that you’ve pulled on me that ended up making my life absolutely miserable,” she seethed.

“Allison, you don’t get to take the high ground here. You were one of the worst people in the house when it came to tormenting me and you’re the one that-” Viktor desperately tried to get a word in edgewise.

“Shut up!” she screamed. The air rippled with her power in a way that was honestly kind of impressive, especially since her power hadn’t been that strong when she had used it during their fight. Viktor’s eyes glazed over with foggy white for a moment and when they cleared he began to claw at his mouth.

Ben could hear him taking in ragged breaths through his nose as he tried in vain to get his mouth to open. The other Umbrellas immediately realized that she wasn’t going to hold back despite the good relationship the two had seemingly had prior. “Woah, Allison, that’s enough,” Luther protested from where he was sitting next to Sloane. When he made a movement to get up, the Sparrow pulled him back down and gave her head a little shake. It made Ben wonder what had happened that made Sloane so cautious about her new boyfriend being around his own siblings.

“I think we all need to calm down,” the one that looked like a child said as he glanced warily towards his brother. Viktor’s skin was still glowing a luminescent blue color and the foundation of the house was beginning to shake the stronger that it grew. 

Allison completely ignored the kid, which he looked very frustrated about, though he still didn’t try to interfere at all. “I haven’t done anything to you! We should have left you in the fucking basement to rot,” she almost screamed.

“That’s enough!” Diego shouted before the last word had even finished passing through her lips.

It seemed to finally break her out of whatever angry trance that she had been stuck in. She blinked a few times and then took a half step back, which was apparently able to break whatever spell she had over Viktor. He gasped in a breath and then turned on his heel to rush out of the room as quickly as he could.

“Fei, you can handle this, right?” Marcus asked as he and his second in command shared a look. There was an expected animosity between him and Ben despite the fact that they had grown up around each other and the Sparrows were overall fairly close with each other. They had personas that they instinctively covered themselves in when they were around outsiders and strangers to protect their public image, but that wasn’t who they really were nor what they really felt about their teammates. 

“Of course,” the blind woman nodded. The bird on her lap had turned towards the door that Viktor had left through, hopping a couple of times like she was tempted to go after the small hero to see for her master what had happened. She straightened out the raven as Marcus and Ben headed for the door. They closed it behind them so that the meeting could be held in relative privacy and people were less inclined to follow him.

Marcus glanced down each of the halls for any sign of the man that they were chasing after. “Any ideas about where he might have gone?” he asked.

The layout of the house had been changed quite a lot after they had started to drug their father. They had created a more cohesive space out of the amalgamation of buildings so that it felt more like one singular home instead of storefronts stitched together as Reginald pressured them out of their deeds. Some of the base hallways and rooms were the same since the Sparrows weren’t immune to the comfort and nostalgia that the space brought them. If the house had been changed in a different way than it had looked in the Umbrella’s timeline then it was very likely that Viktor was going to get lost quickly.

“We should get the bedrooms we had as kids first. If I had my sister bring up something super shitty and obviously triggering the first place I would go is my room,” Ben said as he began down the hallway towards where his and Marcus’ bedrooms still were. Some of the other siblings, like Sloane and Fei, had moved elsewhere in the house so that they weren’t always on top of each other once they became adults.

Marcus reached out and threaded his fingers together with Ben’s to try and remind the other man that he was there. The last time that they had worked with someone having a panic attack outside of their own family had been the Jennifer Incident. That had given Marcus his own helping of PTSD and issues, of course, but it had been far worse for Ben. He just wanted to make sure that his boyfriend was okay while they dealt with what was a serious situation for them both.

They checked through the empty guest rooms surrounding their own bedrooms before they heard a shuffling sound behind Ben’s door. They shared another look with each other before they both pushed forward. Ben’s room had been the first to get renovated after they had drugged Reginald enough to have full control of his bank account and property. It was curious that he had gone through the door that had been used as a storage closet between some of the bedrooms before Ben had absorbed it into his own.

“Viktor?” Marcus asked carefully as he stepped through the door. He had maneuvered his boyfriend so that Ben was behind him if the man ended up being anywhere as dangerous as it had turned out that Jennifer was.

The aforementioned man was sitting on the rug in the center of Ben’s room. He had a pair of headphones over his ears and was pressing the ‘play’ button so hard that Marcus was surprised that the walkman hadn’t broken. His skin was less blue than it had been while he was arguing with Allison, likely because he didn’t feel like he was being attacked when he was hidden away in Ben’s room. His hair was disheveled and this close they could both see that his clothes were marked with dirt and bits of leaves. He was shaking as he clamped his other hand over his mouth to try and stifle the sounds of his cries. The wound on his cheek was weeping again, though it was hard to tell because of the way that he had spread the tears around his skin.

Marcus took a careful step into the room and then knelt down next to the tiny hero. He reached out and pressed a hand to Viktor’s shoulder which got him out of his head, but also caused him to fling himself away from the touch.

“It’s okay, we’re not here to hurt you,” Marcus soothed, putting his hands up in a defensive posture.

Viktor removed the headphones from his ears so that they were hanging down around his neck and then pushed himself up into a standing position. He plucked the front of his shirt twice and then began to pull at the tips of his fingers. “I-I’m sorry, I know that this is someone’s room but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go,” he stuttered around the sobs that he wasn’t able to keep back. His eyes flitted from Marcus to Ben and then to the partially open window, though the outside was obscured by the bug screen that they had put in.

“It’s my room,” Ben replied plainly as he moved past Marcus so that they were standing shoulder-to-shoulder half a yard in front of the doorway. “You came in here to cry?”

“In the other world it was my room,” Viktor replied awkwardly. “Part of it was, at least. You guys did the same thing that Klaus did. I slept in this part and he slept in that one, but when I went to college he knocked a huge hole in it so Dad had to combine them. Made it awkward when I tried to come home for Christmas my freshman year.” He gestured towards the blue-painted feature wall that had been nothing but cinder blocks when they had been using it as a storage room.

“I’m sorry, are you saying that you slept in a closet when you lived with the Academy? I don’t think that would make you very mission ready,” Ben snorted. He had judged the Umbrellas pretty heavily when they arrived since they seemed to be nothing more than disjointed rabble that had basically been pulled off the streets. Marcus and Sloane had told him a couple of things about them that only cemented that idea, like Viktor’s claim that he had ended the world and Luther’s surprise at the closeness of the Sparrows.

“I didn’t go on missions,” Viktor cleared his throat. He tapped at the floor with the point of his shoe.

Ben looked even more bewildered than before. The Umbrellas were an enigma that he was wishing he understood the more that he learned about them. “Why not? You’re obviously the most powerful out of your siblings. You were able to take all of us down with one burst and we’re actually good.”

He sighed. “It’s complicated. You guys don’t want to hear it. I shouldn’t have done what I did anyway. I’m being selfish again,” he brought one of his hands up to his hair, a fist clenching around the strands on his forehead for just a moment before he fixed it naturally.

Marcus recognized it as a very subtle self harming gesture, something that they had to train Jayme out of when she was little and felt guilty about using her powers on people while they were on missions. It was one of the reasons that she was so closed off and jaded to everyone other than Alphonso now. “I don’t think that not wanting someone to die is selfish. I… If I’m being honest, the only reason that we wanted Harlan was so that we could have some kind of power over you all. It’s scary suddenly finding a team of people just as powerful, and in some cases more powerful, as you after all of our time being the top dogs. We haven’t had someone challenge us the way that you all did since we got Dr. Terminal in prison.”

“We have bigger problems to worry about. Allison-” Viktor tried again.

“Screw that bitch. What she said obviously bothered you and it’s not going to get off your mind until you talk about it. So talk,” Ben said. It was his way of safely telling the other man that he cared enough to listen to what he needed to say without letting him feel too guilty about it. He had never been very good about being heartfelt or showing any kind of vulnerability since their father had raised him to be Number One their entire lives, until that fatal mistake. Marcus recognized it and gave his hand a quick squeeze.

Viktor had long since stopped crying but the tears and snot were still wet on his face, so Marcus handed him a tissue and then motioned for him to sit down. The Sparrows sat on Ben’s bed, facing towards him while he sat down on the chair that had been tucked into the desk. “So?” Marcus prompted.

He fidgeted for a moment longer before he finally answered, “I wasn’t sent on missions because I was raised to believe that I didn’t have any powers. I don’t have great memories of it because of something that Allison did when we were four and that’s pretty fucking young for even non-mind controlled people. But essentially, Dad decided that my powers were too volatile and dangerous. He put me on this medication that he told me were for my nerves and he made sure that I took them my entire life. I only got off of them about six weeks ago.”

The Sparrows shared a look with each other. They knew about the medication that Reginald had made that would both sedate them and take away whatever was making their powers inside of them. It was the only thing that had kept Ben from dying during the Jennifer Incident and often helped Alphonso when his own powers began to get out of control. They had only ever had it used on them when they needed it, usually that was determined by Grace or Pogo when they were too young to consent, or when they were in a life-or-death situation. It had never been used for longer than a couple of days and never without them knowing what it was doing.

“Does that have something to do with you ending the world twice?” Marcus asked, a small smirk slipping over his face despite himself. He had never seen a display of power more errotic and terrifying at the same time than when Viktor had said that to him while, in a controlled manner, made the entire diner they were in rattle.

The aforementioned hero flushed and then ducked his head down towards the ground. He was still toying with his fingers to try and soothe his nerves but he no longer looked like he was going to burst into tears at any given moment. “It does. I had a… boyfriend? I don’t know if you could even call him that since we knew each other for all of seven days but anyway. I had a boyfriend that found one of Reginald’s old journals somehow and he used it to figure out about my medication. Long story short, he took me off of the meds and then it turned out that I had a lot of repressed power that I couldn’t control. I ended up blowing up the moon because I used my powers through my violin and it got out of hand really fast.”

“What about the second time?” Ben asked, genuinely curious. He was learning a lot of information that was really helpful to know about their enemy as well as just getting overall closer to a man that he found very attractive outside of his overall annoyance for new people.

“I got kidnapped by the FBI who thought that I was a spy for the USSR when we were in the sixties before we came here. They gave me a hallucinogen and then electrocuted me to try and get me to talk but the only thing that it did was jump start my powers. Five never fully explained how that was supposed to start the apocalypse but Diego mentioned something about the FBI building exploding, which had to be my fault since shit tends to blow up when I let my powers go too far. The apocalypse ended up not happening, obviously, but it was because of the ghost of you in another timeline,” his eyes flickered nervously towards Ben.

The Sparrow understood the trepidation that he had in bringing up Ben’s other universe self since he hadn’t exactly reacted well to it the last couple of times it had happened. This time it didn’t feel like an insult, like he was upset that Ben wasn’t that other version instead of just being himself. It carried too much guilt and anxiety with it to be mean. Ben wondered what kind of relationship that version of himself had with Viktor, especially if they had the same taste in partners if the fluttering in Ben’s stomach at being able to make Viktor blush were anything to go by.

“Wait, did you say that you were electrocuted? Like tortured?” Marcus asked, snapping the other man out of his introspection.

“Yeah, it’s not that big of a deal. Diego had to go through way worse when he was locked away in the mental institution and they all had to endure worse in their training,” he brushed them off. 

The ease of his dismissal was what really worried both of the other men. They had encountered people even within their own circles that were very willing to blow off their own problems so that they could focus on others but Viktor’s excuse seemed almost practiced. “It’s still a big deal even if other people have gone through what you might think is worse. Trauma isn’t a fucking sport,” Ben growled. “Who made you feel like it was?”

“No one,” Viktor shook his head, which they could both tell was a lie. “I just… My siblings have gone through way more than I have. They had to go on missions and put up with all of that training. I never had to go through anything like that because Dad took away my powers. I lived a relatively quiet life and was ignored a lot so I didn’t even have to deal with harassment the same way that Allison did. I pitched a lot of fits and got disproportionately upset about a lot of things when they’ve all had to endure way more than I have. It’s not something I get to be upset about after all I put them through.”

“All you put them through? I think you meant to say the consequences of what our shitty father did to you,” Marcus corrected. “The second apocalypse was definitely not your fault, you can’t help the reaction that your powers have to that kind of trauma.”

“What happened during the first?” Ben asked before the man even had a chance to process what the other hero had said. He was curious and beginning to get angrier that the other team could treat one of their own the way that they had been. The Sparrows weren’t exactly kind to each other but they definitely had more compassion and understanding for their teammates that the Umbrellas seemed to.

“It’s kind of complicated. We should probably get back to the planning so that we can stop the end of the world,” Viktor mumbled as he slowly began to raise from the chair.

It was Marcus that stopped him that time, gesturing with his head for Viktor to sit down again. He did so cautiously, eyeing them like he was unsure that he wasn’t walking directly into a trap. “I… We all kind of went our separate ways as adults and it made me get bitter. I was left alone a lot when I was growing up but now I was literally alone and I didn’t quite know how to handle that. So I wrote a book about the kinds of things that Dad had done to me and I spilled a lot of family secrets. Allison in particular was riding off of the fame that the Academy gave her with her Hollywood career and she accused me of trying to ruin her image. I think I just hurt Diego’s feelings by talking about the way that Dad had hurt specifically him. I don’t know, I thought that it was a good idea at the time, but it turned out to be awful. My ex-boyfriend got ahold of the book and then used that with the journal that he found behind the house to abuse me.”

Viktor was staring down at his hands the entire time that he spoke. Both of the other men could see that he was shivering slightly with the emotions that were overcoming him. Regardless of what he was feeling, he pressed on, “He turned me against my family. Told me that none of them could ever truly love me even if some of them were trying to have a good relationship with me after our dad’s death. Then he tricked me to go cold turkey off my meds and convinced me that it was a good idea. It wasn’t and my powers were totally out of control. They still get a little messy if I’m really out of it now but it’s nothing like it was back then.”

Guilt crept over his face and he scrunched up his nose like he was trying to resist the urge to cry. “Then, um, Allison showed up at the house that he and I were staying at and we got in a fight. We were arguing because she remembered that Dad made her rumor me into believing that I was ordinary in all things for the duration of my life. At the time it felt like she was the reason that my entire life had been utterly miserable but I know that’s not true now. But I got scared because she tried to rumor me again and I cut her throat with my powers, channeling it through the bow of my violin. I… I felt awful, of course. She was my sister and not even Leonard-Harold,” he screwed up his face and shook his head.

He placed his head in his hands and tried to muffle the sound of the sobs that were pushing their way past his mouth. “Sorry,” he whispered after a moment.

Marcus slipped off of the bed so that he was kneeling in front of Viktor. He had always been at least a smidge more compassionate than Ben and was definitely better at showing it post-Jennifer Incident. “You don’t have to keep explaining if it’s putting you in actual distress. The more that you tell us the easier that it’s going to be for us to protect you, though.”

“Why would you want to protect me?” Viktor asked, sounding genuinely confused.

The two Sparrows showed a look at each other. Ben folded his arms defensively over his chest as he said, “Because you’re going to be a good fucking asset to our team. They treat you like shit, you’re very obviously powerful and talented. It just makes sense that you would want to come and work with us instead of staying with them.”

“They’re my family…” the Umbrella hero whispered with a minute shake of his head.

“Blood is thicker than water, Viktor. We were all ripped away from our biological families and lumped together like that was somehow going to bind us together. We won’t pressure you into it, but we would like to at least have some connection to you after this is all over,” Marcus whispered. He was trying to ignore the shy smile that was forcing its way onto his lips. Despite the content of the meeting, back when they were in the diner he was unable to completely ignore the fact that it felt a little bit like a date. He and Ben had already talked about it and if Viktor was at all willing, Ben had given Marcus permission to pursue a possible romantic relationship with him.

“I’d… have to talk to them about it. I couldn’t just leave them after everything that I put them through,” he sniffled. “But, um, the first apocalypse. I came back to the house and they locked me in the basement. Apparently there was a room that Dad had made especially for me, I think he put me in it when I was four and he was making the medication. But it was sound proof so that I couldn’t hear anything inside of it from the outside and it even muffled the sound of my own breathing.”

“That is quite literally torture. That kind of thing is illegal for the government to do to their prisoners and scientists aren’t allowed to study it besides small trials,” Marcus said, brows furrowed in worry.

Viktor shrugged. “My powers are to turn sounds into energy so that meant that I wasn’t allowed to have any sounds so that I couldn’t use them to break out of my prison.”

Ben scowled. He didn’t like what he was hearing and it was upsetting him more the longer that he listened to it. “So when that bitch said that she should have left you in the basement she meant that they should have kept you in a tiny, soundproof room until you either starved to death or found a way to kill yourself?”

The smallest of the heroes nodded awkwardly. “You know, the ironic thing is that they already did that. When Luther locked me in that room- and don’t go after him for that he was brainwashed by our father and thought that it was for the best until they could get me back on my medication- I begged for them to let me go. I was literally screaming so bad that my voice hurt for days afterwards. Granted I didn’t know what had happened in the days following that incident because I got hit by a car and developed amnesia, but it was really distressing. They were all just standing there and not even Allison or Five let me out. I thought that they were the two people that would see the most humanity in me, especially since Allison knew that I hadn’t meant to hurt her and it was an accident. I guess what she just said proves that she didn’t care or see the good in me.”

Marcus and Ben glanced towards each other for the millionth time that night. When someone spent their entire childhoods growing up alongside another person they developed a way of silently communicating, which is what they were doing currently. They both came to the same conclusion, Marcus rising so that he was standing beside Viktor. He cleared his throat and tried to look as much a leader as he could despite having very little practice in it. “We’re annexing you into the Sparrow Academy. Your own team treats you poorly and doesn’t seem to understand you. I can guarantee you that with a little time we can help you more than they can. I know that they’re your family and you love them very much, we’re not trying to replace them. We just want you to have the chance to flourish in a team that could really use your talents.”

In response, Viktor tilted his head down towards his hands and then took a deep breath. They could see him struggling not to cry, so gave him the space that he needed to cope. “I think I want that. I think that I want that so much.”

Surprisingly, it was Ben that took the step forward and wrapped him up in a much needed hug. Viktor grasped the back of his shirt so tightly that he wasn’t sure that he could escape even if he wanted to. The small hero hid his face in the crook of the other man’s neck and then began to sob so hard that his body shook with the force of it. 

Once he had finished, the two heroes separated. Viktor turned to grab some of the tissues from the desk so that he could clean his face. It was terrifying how quickly he was able to make the distress disappear from his features. For a moment, Marcus wondered how often he had been forced to do that when he was young for him to be so practiced at it now.

Ben stripped his shirt off and deposited it into the laundry shoot next to the desk in his wall. When Viktor spotted him, rippling muscles shining under the natural light streaming through the window, his cheeks turned bright red and he angled his body away from the other man slightly. Marcus cataloged it as a good sign for the romantic relationship that they might be able to pursue with him once they learned a little bit more about his trauma and how they could help him through it.

After they were all presentable again, they walked back to the living room where the rest of their family was. Ben placed a careful hand on Viktor’s shoulder to steer him towards their side of the space despite Klaus’ attempts to drag him back over. The shock and confusion that covered their faces was satisfying in a twisted kind of way, like they were realizing that they had the potential to lose their brother to people that would love him more. Even Allison, despite all of her harsh words and bravado earlier looked offended to the bone that Viktor’s doe eyes had been turned towards Marcus and Ben and away from her. They were going to treat him better, they were going to worship him and appreciate him as the walking god that he was.

That much they were sure of.

[sweetsickheart]

blocked, blocked, blocked and BLOCKED!! all you ranboo rebrand antis are KILLING me lmao. its so funny to see ya'll argue like fucking children. i want to compile this into something that makes sense but im mostly just gonna be shooting off thoughts ive had.

number one: the ranboo rebrand is not FOR you. its just...not. you're allowed to not like it, and you're allowed to just take a step away if you have to. its for them. he is doing what he feels comfortable with. "but if he wants to stop being an mcyt he should quit mcc!!" they still like minecraft??? and are allowed to??? he just doesnt wanna be associated with weirdos.

number two: you guys crit him and then talk about fucking the dteam until they pass out and call them ur uwu kittens or some shit. you can NOT be talking. yeah, i see you with "PROBLEMATIC" in your desc. yes, i can and will critique ranboo if they say something fucking dumb. but, i dont go "hell yeah sapnap!! go and support the corporation that promotes trans genocide!!"

three: please, for the love of god, check your parasocial relationships with internet creaters. they dont owe you their old selves. they are allowed to move on in ways that feel comfortable for them. ranboo just keeps getting dragged back into the tranches of who they used to be. you're still allowed to like old ranboo, but please, let them move on. its a normal thing normal people do. people enjoy different things, people switch fandoms, people get new favorite colors, people fucking, idk, move houses or some shit. your allowed to be sad about the rebrand, your feelings are not invalid, but just remember that ranboo is a human that changes, and sometimes they can and will be sudden.

stay as safe as you can, the internet can be a horrible place sometimes, and i hate contributing to it. please, just dont be a fucking jerk.

[marshmallowprotection]

Hi Kait! Do you remember me? I'm the anon who told you about the hard time had several months ago with their mixed feelings with Saeran (caused by replaying Ray's Route when Suit made his appearance) I think at that time I was going through a bad time at my job that stressed me out and I was very sensitive about bad things that had happened there and maybe it wasn't a good idea to play the route, you know? (Although I had played it several times I had never felt as sad, scared and angry with Saeran as I did that time) I could imagine it all but not GE Saeran really loving me and I couldn't find a way to love him again like I used to. It wasn't until I decided to give myself some time away from him and focus on me and other things so I wouldn't get overwhelmed thinking "Saeran is my favorite and I love him, that's how it should be, he's not hurting me" as a way to get the negative thoughts out of my head (And it wasn't working, I felt worse).

I think it worked a lot all that time I gave myself, I feel calmer and happier with myself and the environment since I left my job, I feel more confident and eager to continue with my studies to work in something I really like. Regarding Saeran, now I feel like I did the first time I met him, without realizing it, I get a smile on my face every time I think of him. Really, how I love that man! He gives me strength to study and believes in me to do everything if I try hard. I know he wants my happiness as much as I want him to be happy.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to tell you Kait that thank you so much for being part of this fandom! I love your blog and it always makes me happy to see what you post and read your wonderful writing of Mysmes characters, you make me fall in love with Saeran with each passing day. I also thank you for all the support you give to all of us who follow you.

You are amazing and I wish you all the best. Thank you Kait, take care and drink water ✨

Oh, of course. I remember you! I'm glad to hear you were able to take a healthy break from everything and step back so you could figure out the best way to feel comfortable. Everybody deserves the chance to feel happy and comfortable with their favorite character, and sometimes it takes as much practice as it would in a relationship with another person in this world. Taking a break did you some good.

That allowed you the opportunity to work on a healthy amount of self-actualization. You have a better idea of what makes you happy and what makes you comfortable. I'm proud of you. I hope you know that he's proud of you, too. No matter where you go or how far you travel, you will always be a part of his life and soul. For all four seasons of your life, he will love you anew. He wants to make everything right and you should know that he will continue to be a better man for you because you deserve to be treated with love and compassion. Just as much as you're proud of him for doing the right thing, he's proud of you for doing what you needed to do.

Thank you very much for dropping by again to let me know how you were feeling. I always think about people who come to me with conversations like this and whether they talk to me after the first time or not, I wish for the best because people deserve to be able to enjoy their favorite character without fear they're doing it wrong or something of that nature. Make sure that you take care of yourself first and foremost.

Your favorite character will be there for you waiting when you're ready to see them again.