#they always regrow fine he just looks scruffy for a few days

[faiakishi]

Angel does this all the time, he's always been a clumsy bird and rn it's even worse because he's molted off a bunch of his tail feathers. Of course he yells at me when he trips while standing perfectly still.

The most vigorous preening session where I got covered in all manner of dander, and Smaug preens his tail so hard he nearly fell right over the edge

[gkingoffez]

Too Many Words Left Unspoken

Fandom: Star Wars Rebels

Words: 5,693

Summary: "He should have known about it before now. He should have been one of the first to know, not apparently the last person on the entire planet." Kanan finds out about Ezra's new haircut completely by accident.

                                                 ~ AO3 | FFN.Net ~

“Ezra cuts his hair one day and simply doesn’t tell Kanan.” - Their Colour and Light

                                                 Free and Trapped

Without really realising it, Kanan had spent the entire day out by the perimeter of Chopper Base. It had been happening more frequently since he’d been cleared by the medical droids; after all, if he was well out of the main hustle and bustle of the base, then he couldn’t get in any of the rebel’s way or distract them from their important tasks. It was bad enough that he was blind to begin with, but Kanan would rather walk out into the Atollon desert without a sensor on hand than let himself be any more of a dead weight to his friends than he already was.

He’d decided to call it a day when his stomach began grumbling it’s disapproval at not having anything in it since breakfast and when it felt like night-time was approaching by the way the warmth was slowly being sucked from the air. Kanan had been making his way towards the base’s semi-permanent Mess Hall, a path he’d recently worked out for himself through a combination of meticulously counting his footsteps, listening intently and having Chopper guide him back and forth along it until he had it memorised.

At least, he had been on his way there, before a new and unexpected pile of what felt like stacked supply crates were suddenly blocking his path.

It wasn’t a big deal by any means- it was a simple matter of Kanan feeling his way around the blockage and then reorienting himself once he was on the other side. A simple task, really, even a child would have been able to do it. He’d had much worse problems in his time.

It’s a good thing, really, that these crates are here, Kanan thought to himself as he felt around clumsily. The more supplies for Phoenix Squadron, the better.

Kanan had spent an awful lot of time since Malachor trying to find the positive in whatever situations he found himself in. It didn’t always work, not when he had oppressing darkness as a constant companion.

When his shin hit a crate for the second time, Kanan began grinding his teeth in an effort to stave off a yell of frustration. It should have been a simple walk across the edge of the landing platform. His route had been working so far, and one little variation to it shouldn’t have put him off so much, but to Kanan it almost seemed like the worst thing in the galaxy.

Because if he couldn’t even walk to dinner without needing someone to guide him, then what good was he at all?

Kanan ran a hand down his face and forced himself to take a deep, calming breath.

No use in getting worked up over something so small. Breathe, jedi, the solution will come to you.

Kanan stilled, one hand on a crate, and took stock of his surroundings with his remaining senses. To his left, he felt an open breeze coming in, tinged with the familiar odor of fighter fuel. That meant that the landing platform was in that direction, so he turned his head to the right, and sure enough heard the familiar hum of the artificial lights that were set up all around Chopper Base’s main buildings. He could even hear footsteps and unfamiliar voices from the same direction, but judging from the fact that whoever was there hadn’t tripped over themselves trying to ask him if he needed help (like a lot of people had been doing lately), Kanan guessed that no one had seen him in trouble. Yet.

He much preferred to keep it that way.

Now that he at least knew which direction he needed to head in, Kanan cautiously turned and stepped towards the landing platform, running his hand along the crates to find where they ended.

In the distance, one of the voices told a raucous joke, and another chortled in response. Kanan hit his shin again and muttered a curse under his breath.

“Hey Jenkins, Jenkins, did you see the Bridger kid’s new haircut today?” one of the voices said, youthful and unabashedly loud.

Kanan stopped in his tracks at that, a bolt of surprise lancing through him. Curiously, he turned his ear towards the conversation.

The woman’s companion, Jenkins, chuckled. “Sure did. Now the kid actually looks like a fighter and not some scruffy-haired tooka with a laser sword, huh?” The two laughed again companionably, and Kanan heard what he thought was the sound of a hand being slapped against a back.

Unsure of what else to do, Kanan ducked below the height of the crates, now really not wanting to be seen. He frowned to himself (at least, it would have been a frown if his eyebrows weren’t in the process of regrowing), confused, and the still-healing wound under the bandages around his eyes twinged with pain.

Assuming there was no one else on base known as ‘the Bridger kid’ who also happened to possess a laser sword, then apparently Ezra had… cut his hair?

Why don’t I know that? thought Kanan, as he crouched with a crate to his back. Why didn’t anyone tell me that?

He was blind, not dead for Force’s sake. A haircut wasn’t the most important thing in the galaxy, but it was a big change and Ezra was still one of the most important people in Kanan’s life. He should have known about it before now. He should have been one of the first to know, not apparently the last person on the entire planet.

The two voices’ conversation quickly turned to talk of food, and soon enough they were both agreeing to head for dinner. That managed to jostle Kanan out of his thoughts.

Dinner. The Mess Hall. That was where he was going too.

As if to emphasise the point, his stomach made a very audible gurgle.

Two sets of footsteps faded away, and Kanan finally pulled himself to his feet again. He felt his way to the end of the line of crates, skirted around them, and managed to reorient himself back onto his pathway

“Why didn’t Ezra tell me?” he said quietly to himself. Something sad seemed to seize at his heart.

“Kanan! You okay mate?” a familiar gruff voice called to him out of the black, and a heavy set of footsteps approached. Kanan turned in Zeb’s direction and forced on a smile.

“I’m fine buddy, but those crates got me a bit turned around for a moment. You headed to the Mess too?”

“You know it,” Zeb replied. “Come on, I’ll make sure you don’t get stuck behind anymore crates, eh?”

Zeb reached out and took Kanan’s shoulder, and they walked off together.

                                           Growth and Stagnation

After dinner, Kanan had found his way back to the Ghost and was sitting in the booth listening quietly to Hera type away on a holopad beside him, along with the other natural ambient sounds of the ship. Even while docked on solid ground, the Ghost was still humming with life, from the sound of Chopper’s wheels distantly rolling from room to room to the purr of the ship’s life support system cycling fresh air throughout.

Although Kanan had tried to focus his mind on other things, he’d spent a lot of the last few hours pondering Ezra’s apparent haircut. He didn’t have an issue with the cut itself; the kid was getting older, after all (had to happen sooner or later) and any growth brought change along with it. It was a fact of life.

Ezra had only last week complained about a twinging ache in his arms and legs that Hera attributed to growing pains. He was probably getting taller and more mature looking with every passing day, and though Kanan would never say it out loud, it was slowly breaking his heart that he couldn’t watch it happening.

No, the issue Kanan was having trouble with was that Ezra simply hadn’t told him about it.

The door to the common room hissed open, and Kanan turned his ear to the footsteps that entered. He was getting much better at distinguishing whose feet belonged to who (Zeb, being the heaviest and most leaden-foot, was the easiest; Sabine, light, stealthy and with warrior reflexes, was the hardest; meanwhile Chopper had turned out to be more difficult than expected, as while his wheels made a distinctive sound on the floor, the cunning little droid had taken to heavily oiling them and then attempting to sneak up on Kanan when it was least expected, just to be annoying).

These footsteps were on the lighter side and appeared to be dragging slightly on the metal floor, which meant-

But before he could finish that thought, Hera rustled beside him and said, “Hello Ezra, how are you tonight?”

Kanan sat up in his seat. Think of the Padawan and he shall appear.

“I’m alright, Hera,” Ezra’s voice replied. He went to walk past them, and Kanan could tell from the direction the footsteps were heading that he was on his way to the galley on the other side of the room.

Ezra had, according to Hera and Zeb, been spending a lot of time in his room by himself, that was when he wasn’t doing combat training with Rex or on a mission. They had agreed as a crew to give the kid his space, not only because he was he a growing teenager who needed independence on their relatively small ship, but in the wake of what had happened on Malachor he’d needed some time to process and heal. It was the best they could do for Ezra, no matter how much Kanan had desperately been missing his company.

Who wants to hang out with a blind guy, anyway?

Kanan smiled and turned his bandaged face to follow Ezra’s path. “Hey, kid,” he said, warmly. For a second he thought he heard a slight falter in the kid’s step.

“Hey Kanan,” Ezra replied, and he sounded cheerful enough that Kanan chalked what he thought he’d heard up to his imagination. Ezra was fine, of course he was. He might have had a little less hair, but he was always fine.

Kanan heard the door to the galley open and then the sounds of Ezra rustling about in the drawers, the clicking of plastic on plastic and freshness seals being opened.

“Ezra, don’t eat too much, you should have had enough at dinner,” called Hera in such a motherly tone that Kanan had to hold back a smirk, knowing that it wouldn’t be appreciated.

“Just getting a snack, don’t worry,” was Ezra’s casual reply. Hera hummed with a hint of disbelief mixed in.

After a few minutes, Kanan heard Ezra’s slightly dragging footsteps return, accompanied by the sound of something crispy being munched on. It was probably some kind of fruit, as that was one of Ezra’s favourite kinds of food, although Kanan couldn’t put a word to describing it.

The footsteps were on a beeline back to the door, and he frowned again.

Kanan tried to hold back a grunt at the twinge of pain from his damaged eye sockets that followed, but the moment didn’t go unnoticed by Hera sitting right beside him. Her hand was on his arm in an instant, rubbing at it comfortingly.

Force, he was lucky to have met her.

“Hey Ezra, wait a bit,” Kanan called. Ezra’s footsteps paused. Kanan took a steadying breath before continuing. “What’s the rush, kid, I feel like I haven’t seen-”

He grimaced at the word. Every time he or someone around him awkwardly stumbled over it felt like just another reminder that he was adjusting from scratch to a new reality. Everything, from the way he walked to his own vocabulary, had been forced to change.

“I mean, I feel like I haven’t talked with you in days. Anything new you wanna tell me about?”

It was as indirect as Kanan dared to be. A part of him just wanted to hear it straight from Ezra’s mouth and pretend he hadn’t overheard it from some random people on the landing platform, to have the kid confide in him like he had before Malachor, before Maul and Ahsoka, before Kanan had started walking to the edge of the base to be out of the way and Ezra had taken to staying in his room.

There was a long pause. Even Hera stopped tapping at her holopad. Kanan thought that the two of them must have been looking at each other, but he had no way to tell what passed between them.

“Um. No, not really anything,” Ezra said. He took another bite of whatever he was eating, and his next words came through muffled. “I gave Chopper an oil bath today and ran some diagnostics on the Phantom. Y’know, same old boring work.”

Kanan once again had to force on a smile, hoping that it looked natural.

“Oh, that’s good. It’s… good you’ve been keeping busy.”

Ezra rustled like he was fidgeting, and Kanan heard his feet scuffing at the metal floor. He waited with the feeling that Ezra wanted to say something more, but was holding back. Maybe it was about the haircut, maybe it was something else.

Kanan just wanted to keep hearing his voice, really.

“Well, if that’s everything, guys, I think I’m gonna go back to my room,” the kid finally said. “Goodnight, if you’re heading to bed soon.”

The confidence and finality in his tone had Kanan slightly taken aback. Had he been wrong in thinking the kid had wanted to say more? Had Ezra grown and changed that much since he’d lost his eyes that Kanan could no longer read him at all?

“Goodnight Ezra,” Hera called in reply, after a beat.

“Alright kid, goodnight,” Kanan said as well, trying to quell the bite of disappointment in his chest.

He heard the hiss of the door again, and then Ezra was gone. Kanan was left again with his thoughts.

Maybe the rebels he’d overheard had been mistaken. Maybe it had slipped Ezra’s mind that Kanan needed to be told about physical changes entirely. Maybe Ezra just hadn’t felt the need to tell Kanan at all.

He leaned forward on the dejarik table and began kneading at his temple with both hands.

He heard Hera sigh beside him. “So I’m guessing you heard about the haircut, but not from him, huh?”

Kanan nodded against his fingers, not surprised in the least that she had worked it out. “Heard some base personnel talking about it earlier. It… didn’t seem right to find out that way.”

Hera clicked her holopad down on the table before her and exhaled angrily. Kanan had could only imagine her pinching at the bridge of her nose and the slight expressive quiver of her lekku that usually accompanied that particular angry tone. “I told him to tell you about it.”

“Well, he didn’t. When did it happen?” Kanan asked, turning to her

“A couple of days ago. Sabine helped him out, but only because she walked in on him holding the shaver and couldn’t stand the thought of him with a terribly uneven haircut.”

“That’s good, Sabine’s always been good with hair,” Kanan said fondly. The smile faded from his lips and he directed his sightless gaze away across the room and shifted in his seat. “So… why didn’t he tell me about it? Why didn’t anyone tell me about it?”

He tried and failed to keep the plea from his voice.

Hera sighed again, this time sad and heavy.

“I won’t pretend to know what’s going through his head, but he’s been busy lately, love. We all have,” Hera said in a kind and patient voice. Her hand returned to his shoulder, rubbing comforting circles into it. “And it really doesn’t help that you’ve started isolating yourself from the crew. I’m sure if you two took a little time to actually talk to each other-”

“Yeah,” interjected Kanan, “I know. You’ve said before. But I keep telling you, Hera, I don’t want to get under anyone’s feet here. Ezra doesn’t need me distracting him if he’s got important work to do.”

“You’re not distracting us, love,” Hera breathed softly, but Kanan couldn’t believe it.

He stopped himself from frowning this time. Things hadn’t been easy since Malachor, and he hadn’t expected them to be. But he’d never wanted this, for Ezra to have been standing right in front of him and Kanan unable to ‘see’ him in more than one sense, for them to have been talking but not really ‘talking’ to each other. Kanan knew he was drifting away from them all, and it pained him deeply. But what use was he to them now? He was a blind jedi, a drain on vital resources and just one more thing for them to worry about.

Kanan squeezed briefly at Hera’s arm, then moved to shuffle himself out of the other side of the booth. He took a few seconds to reorient once he was back on his feet.

“I’m sure he just forgot to tell me or forgot I couldn’t see it. It’s just a haircut, it doesn’t matter that much after all,” he said to Hera. “I think I’m going to head to my bunk for some meditation before bed.”

“You’ve been meditating a lot lately,” Hera’s voice replied, pointedly. She was probably pursing her lips and folding her arms at him in irritation.

“Yeah, well, what else am I supposed do?” he muttered bitterly under his breath and made his way in the direction of the door. He was getting far too good at self-deprecation lately.

                                               There and Absent

Kanan had the Ghost worked out, for the most part. It certainly helped that he’d lived on the ship for years and had navigated it in the dark of the ship’s night cycle even before Malachor.

It was his home, after all, and the layout was ingrained into his feet as well as his brain. Six steps across his room to the door; turn left and six more steps would take him up to the cockpit; or turn right, and twelve steps down the hall, and from there it was two steps to the ladder up to the top turret or down to the loading bay, or five steps forward, skirting around the ladder to get to the common room.

It also helped greatly that there was little chance of unexpected obstacles like the stacked crates on the landing platform yesterday, as Hera had recently decreed to the whole crew that anyone who left things on the ground for him to trip on would be forced to deep clean the refresher.  The threat had worked so far, as Kanan had only once tripped over a carelessly left object, and Zeb had taken the punishment without too much grumbling. He’d felt bad about it at the time.

Still, Kanan had taken a liking to walking through the Ghost with his hand outstretched and running across the metal walls, if not to make absolutely certain that he didn’t miss a turn or fall down a ladder, then just for the sheer comfort of holding onto something. It was lonely in his new world of constant blackness, and sometimes Kanan needed a physical anchor to ground him to the bright world beyond it.

He’d barely let go of Ezra the entire drawn-out, painful trip back from Malachor; the principle there was the same.

Kanan had been walking back to his room from breakfast in the Ghost’s galley, meaning to grab his lightsaber before heading out to the edge of the desert for the day. His anxieties over Ezra and the bothersome haircut had bled into Kanan’s dreams the night before, half-formed and causing a fitful sleep. It didn’t help that Kanan hardly remembered the dreams he’d had, even worse so because he had the feeling Maul had also been present in some of them, and the icing on the cake was that Kanan had woken at least once and panicked over not being able to see. That had been happened a lot less frequently lately, but it was still terrifying every time.

He fully intended to work some of those feelings out in the form of saber training. Even if Kanan never went on another mission for the rebellion in his life, it was almost a guarantee with his lifestyle of attracting trouble that he’d come across another combat situation sooner or later. Blind or not, he still needed to keep practising; as was always the case, someone’s life could depend on him at any moment.

Kanan paused when his fingers ran over what he knew to be Ezra and Zeb’s door. A tiny peek into the Force told him the kid was still in there, not still asleep but not quite moving to face the day yet. His fingers wavered over the control panel- Hera had said to talk, after all. Maybe it was time.

But Kanan also knew from the chatter he’d just heard in the galley that the crew was gearing up for an off-world mission in the next few days. Ezra would need to be focused for that, and not on whatever trivial worries Kanan had been having.

He took a deep breath, clenched and unclenched his fingers, and then continued forward to his own door. Just as it hissed open he heard a similar hiss from where he’d just been, and he turned to listen to the footsteps as they stepped out. Light, with a slight drag.

“Good morning, Ezra,” he said with a smile.

The footsteps clanged to a stop, and turned back towards him. “Morning Kanan, you already had breakfast?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Hera warmed up waffles, if you hurry you can still save some from Zeb.”

“Cool, thanks,” was Ezra’s response.

The footfalls jerked off again, and Kanan could have kicked himself. It had happened again- talking but not talking.

“Ezra, wait,” he called before he could stop himself.

The steps paused again.

“Yeah?”

Kanan wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to say, but he had to say something. There was a heavy, awkward silence where he opened and closed his mouth several times.

“I, uh- I heard that you got a new haircut?”

Ezra rustled, and Kanan heard what he thought might have been a small sigh of relief, although he had no clue why.

“Oh yeah, I was getting kinda sick of it being long. Seemed kinda childish, you know?” Ezra said with a laugh. His tone then turned almost panicked. “Oh, karabast, Hera told me to tell you about it and I completely forgot! Who’d you find out from, Zeb or Sabine? Please tell me it wasn’t Chopper, he hates it.”

“It was Hera, actually,” lied Kanan, with a nonchalant shrug and a chuckle. It was only most of a lie- the base personnel he’d overheard on the landing platform had told him indirectly, but Hera been the one to confirm it.

A bit of stored tension released in his mind at the admission that Ezra had just forgotten. Maybe things weren’t as bad as his anxious thoughts had made them seem.

“Oh, right. She’s not gonna be happy with me, is she?” Ezra said.

“No, I think not.”

There was another awkward silence. Kanan took a step forward.

“So… can I feel it then?”

“Feel it?” asked Ezra, with a note of confusion.

“Your hair, can I feel it? Work with me here, kid, it’s the only way I’ll be able to work out what it’s like now, unless you want to start explaining it to me in mind-numbing, excruciating detail,” said Kanan in reply, trying to inject some humour into the conversation.

It sort of worked, because Ezra gave an amused huff. Kanan could only see the accompanying smile in mind.

“Of course, you can feel it, Kanan, you don’t even need to ask,” said Ezra softly. He took several eager-sounding steps forward and Kanan stretched out his hand in front of him. The kid took it, and Kanan couldn’t help but wonder if this was the first time they’d touched since stepping off the Phantom all those weeks ago. He couldn’t quite remember.

“Be warned though, Kanan, it’s really, really short. It was annoying me, so I kinda just let Sabine keep going and going with the shaver until it was all gone,” Ezra said.

He guided Kanan’s hand upwards. The first thing he noted was that the kid’s head was a few centimetres higher than expected.

So he is having a growth spurt.

Kanan grinned widely at that thought. Ezra would be growing facial hair and listening to the latest galactic angsty teenage music trend any day now, that was, if he wasn’t already doing all that. Who knew what he did all day in his room, or maybe it was just that Kanan hadn’t stuck around lately to notice.

His hand landed on Ezra’s scalp, and he almost pulled back in surprise, half-grown eyebrows arching- the hair between his fingers was rough and bristly, barely long enough for him to pinch between his fingertips.

“Wow, you really meant it when you said short, didn’t you?” Kanan huffed.

He brought his other hand up and began running both of them across Ezra’s head, feeling out the whole surface from his temples right down the back to the base of his skull. Kanan smoothed his fingers across the natural divots in the bone and then along the neat lines between hair and skin that Sabine must have skilfully shaved. He pulled Ezra’s ears forward to scope out behind them as well (they seemed larger and floppier than he remembered), and all the while Ezra complied by ducking his head and letting Kanan’s fingerss roam where they pleased.

“It’s stupid, but I keep forgetting I cut it and going to run a hand through it and then being surprised. And the first time I got in the shower I used way too much shampoo, and it was kinda awkward,” gushed Ezra. He chuckled. “I suppose I’ll get used to it eventually, just not quite yet.”

“You can get used to anything, with time,” Kanan mused absently, as he ran his fingers back and forth over a bump he presumed to be a scar.

He was trying very hard to create a picture of the haircut in his head, but nothing seemed to shake the image of the short, floppy-haired Ezra Bridger he’d known before he’d lost his eyes.

That kid was gone now. Malachor had taken a lot of things from them both.

Finally, he lowered his hands and settled them on Ezra’s shoulders. He noted that the scruffy brown vest Ezra usually wore was not there, instead replaced with what could have been the fabric of a jacket with firm shoulder pads. Kanan wasn’t sure when Ezra had gotten the jacket, it must have been a recent addition.

He decided against asking about it- growth equalled change, after all, and that ratty old jumpsuit had to be left behind eventually. Children grew up, and a lot of things became obsolete and left behind in their wake.

“Do you like it?” Ezra asked, tentatively.

“Of course I do,” Kanan nodded, and he felt relief ooze out of the kid’s shoulders. “It seems very… practical and mature, which can only be a reflection of the great man you’re becoming.”

Kanan had said those words in a quietly proud voice. It was the truth- he’d always seen something more in Ezra, beyond the power of the Force that flowed through him or whatever usefulness he had to the rebellion’s cause. There was an inherent goodness and strength to Ezra that the hardships of his life hadn’t been able to strip from him. Kanan looked on his own past with a kind of shame, but he often thought that if he’d had even half of Ezra’s kindness and resolve after Order 66, he would have been a better person today for it.

He’d said those words intending to make Ezra beam with pride or even blush with modesty, already imagining the expression in his mind. What he wasn’t expecting was the kid suddenly taking a step back, almost wrenching himself from Kanan’s grip.

“So anyway, I better get to the galley before Zeb eats all the waffles. Force knows he doesn’t need it, uh…” Ezra said quickly, and Kanan heard a scratching sound, as though he was rubbing awkwardly at his nearly bare head. “Sorry for not telling you about the haircut, I know Hera told me to. But hey, you know now so I’ll see- er, talk to you later. I guess. Bye Kanan.”

“Wait, I-” began Kanan, reaching out his hand again.

There were still too many words left unspoken between them, but Ezra’s footsteps had already echoed up the corridor, and with a hiss of a door sliding aside, disappeared entirely from earshot.

Kanan was left reaching for air with a heaviness in his heart. The main thought that swirled around in the tempest of his mindwas that this was, in the end, all his fault.

You’re the one pulling away from him, from all of them.

Why are you so surprised?

He doesn’t need you anymore.

Kanan shook his head, trying to clear it. A tightness was welling behind his eye sockets, but he would never cry again. Maul had made sure of that.

Instead, he turned for his room, magnetically drawn to where he kept his lightsaber. There was no point sulking around or trying to talk to Ezra again

He would make for the sensor border of Chopper Base. It was a lot easier to think out there. His fingers itched with anxious energy and emotions coiled up so tight they were fit to burst. He would train and meditate and find a way to make sure he was never caught off guard by unexpected obstacles around the base ever again.

After all, Kanan wasn’t completely useless, but he would be damned is he let himself be more of a burden to his family than was necessary.

                                             Epilogue: Resolution

The journey out of the Krykna caves was uneventful, marked only by the shuffling of footsteps, the gentle touch of the Force telling Kanan which turns to take and Ezra’s guiding hand on the small of his back. Neither of them spoke, but Kanan found that it was not the same awful, pregnant silence he’d gotten used over the last few months.

Something had shifted between them, deep in the tunnels after Ezra had hugged him; things that had been broken- those deep, unseen wounds they’d both received on Malachor had all finally been given space to start mending and healing. Even Ezra’s presence in the Force appeared more open than it had been even hours before.

Hera had been right the whole time; all they’d needed to do was talk.

Kanan wasn’t fool enough to think that everything was suddenly fine again, with Ezra or himself. There were still too many words that needed to be said, too many complicated feelings to be aired out on both sides.

Just because Kanan could ‘see’ again in a sense, enough to shoot his blaster, wield his lightsaber and be of proper use to the rebellion with the Force’s guidance, didn’t mean that he was magically okay; he was still blind, and he would almost certainly be blind for the rest of his life. Likewise, it would take more than a single hug for Ezra to overcome his guilt and the dark influence of the Sith holocron. They had many long, deep and difficult conversations ahead of them, and Kanan found himself looking forward to them.

But that would all come later on, after the rest of their crew was safe from Maul and the business with the holocrons was sorted out. That was, of course, depending on if they were lucky enough to come out it alive. Kanan didn’t trust Maul as far as he could throw him- and he’d thrown him pretty kriffing far off that pyramid.

The air was becoming less musty and fresher-smelling by the second, and the waves of the Force were advising Kanan that the mouth of the cave was near. He wondered briefly if the Bendu had bothered sticking around for them.

“You know that I’m proud of you right, Ezra?” Kanan said softly, listening to the familiar sound of the kid’s footsteps shuffle across the hard and rock-strewn tunnel floor beside him. “Not just for staying calm back there with the spiders, but in general. I’ve always been proud of you, and I always will be. That’s one thing you never have to doubt.”

Ezra didn’t reply, but his hand pressed tighter into Kanan’s back, and he knew his words had affected the kid deeply. Not a lot of things could make Ezra Bridger speechless.

With an echoing, freeing laugh, Kanan reached out and trussed playfully at Ezra’s head, something he hadn’t done in quite a while. The hair between his fingers felt a bit longer than the last time he’d touched it all those months ago, but not by much.

“Oh, you’ve kept your hair short?” he asked in surprise.

Ezra chuckled and made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sniff.

“Yeah, this style’s way easier to manage,” he said, clearing his throat in what he probably thought was a discrete manner, but it didn’t fool Kanan at all. “Just gotta get Sabine to shave it again every once in a while, but, yeah, it’s just pretty cool and I really like how it looks.”

Kanan felt a pang in his chest at the mention of Sabine, but otherwise smiled tenderly and squeezed at the kid’s shoulder before letting go completely. “Well, I really like it too. And I don’t have to see it to know that it suits you, Ezra.”

The kid sighed and was silent again, just as Kanan felt a fresh wind lick at his bare face.

“We’re… gonna save them, Kanan,” Ezra said, quietly and resolutely. “We’ll do it together.”

Kanan nodded.

They walked out of the cave, side-by-side.

This fic was inspired by a line from my other fic Their Colour and Light, which I wanted to expand upon.

It’s really a bit strange to write blind!Kanan before he meets the Bendu. It’s all about sounds, touch and smell completely instead of sight, which is kinda different to write, but interesting.

The song I associate with Kanan during this between s2 and s3 time period is ‘Obsolete’ by Regina Spektor, because it’s beautiful and Kanan absolutely felt useless and obsolete then. Ahhhhh go listen to Regina Spektor in general, I love her so much.