Dreaming through the noise.

Fandom: Star Wars: The Bad Batch

Summary: Some nights, they can't sleep.

Post series finale. An epitaph.

_______________

On nights like this, with dark clouds and soft rain and pale lightning in the distance, Crosshair can’t sleep. He slips out of bed and makes his way outside.

On nights like this, with the smell of the rain and ocean and the creak of fishing boats in the harbor coming in through the open window, Wrecker opens his eyes and watches the shadow of Crosshair pass by his open door. He leaves his warm bed and follows his brother.

On nights like this, with the potential, however rare, for the rain to turn from soft to hard, for the sea to swell, boats to capsize and homes to flood, Hunter is awake and listening and watching. An hour into the rainfall, he looks toward the hallway, watches Crosshair, then Wrecker pass by.

Hunter leaves his room, looks briefly into Omega’s room—she’s asleep on her belly, head buried under her pillow—and follows the others outside.

They wind down to the overlook and the sturdy wooden table where they’d had their first meal on the island, well over a year ago now.

Hunter can still feel the heat of that first sunset on his skin, the warmth of the breeze, the savory smell of the feast melding with the sweet scent of blooming flowers. He can hear the voices of his brothers, of Omega, joyous and awed and wondering, without saying, if this could be the place they call home.

On nights like this there is a cool breeze, shifting slats of moonlight, the salt scent of the ocean and quiet but for the soft rush of their breathing, the gentle patter of cold rain, the faint crash of the waves below.

Crosshair climbs, sits in the center of the table, ankles crossed, staring out over the ocean. Wrecker sits on his right, legs dangling over the table’s edge, thigh pressed to Crosshair’s knee. Hunter sits on his left, pressing the line of his body, from shoulder to hip, firmly into Crosshair’s side.

For a moment, quick as a lightning flash in the distance, Hunter can see them, years ago, on Kamino, small bodies pressed into a similar configuration. Hunter on the left. Wrecker on the right. Crosshair and Tech sandwiched between them, curled into and around each other like a puzzle of flesh and bone. All of them staring out the rain flecked window, watching the sea swell, wondering what the future would bring.

On nights like this, with that devastatingly empty space in the center of them, it feels like a thousand years have passed since they were all together.

On nights like this, with the great dark expanse of the sea and the pale coiling mist obscuring most of its surface, Hunter finds himself wondering if it’s possible for them all to be together again...

Some day. In some way.

It might be minutes or hours later he hears footsteps; the subtle twitch of Crosshair’s shoulder lets him know he hears them too.

Omega appears in front of them, wrapped in the blanket from her bed.

She clambers onto the table and into Crosshair’s lap. Her height and long limbs make the move almost comical.

Crosshair sighs gruffly, but his arms wrap tightly around her, left hand anchoring her to his chest. He rests his chin on her head.

“Did you know,” Omega says, sleepily staring out at the water, “that a lot of fish become more active after a storm? It’s why you see so many of the fishermen leave right after the rain is over.”

Crosshair huffs, breath stirring Omega’s hair. Wrecker tilts his head and smiles.

Maybe, Hunter thinks, in some small way, they already are all together.

From a prompt of the same name.

______________



Corvo opens his eyes in the dark. He stares toward the shapeless grey mass of the ceiling wondering what woke him. A storm is moving in. He can smell the rain through the open window. But it wasn’t the storm that woke him. Nor was it the dark dreams he’d been having moments before. The details have already started to fade—Jessamine’s bloodless mouth a pale shadow in his mind—though his pulse is still racing and his tongue is dry.

A soft rush of breath stirs the air at his bedside. A hand presses against his chest. Or tires to. He catches the wrist before the palm makes contact. It’s cool and too thin.

“Corvo. It’s me.” The words come out in a panicked rush, no louder than a whisper. Cecelia. He can just make her out, standing beside his bed. A thin slat of moonlight finds its way into the room. She’s illuminated, pale as a ghost, wearing a patchwork night dress.

“What?” he says, voice rough with sleep and disuse.

“Corvo—I--” Her voice shakes, her eyes are shiny. She’s been crying. Crying, alone in the dark. And now, she stands at his bedside, shivering and wide eyed, looking barely older than Emily, though she has at least seven years on her.

“The rats. They were all over me, crawling all over... They ate my eyes. I could feel them in my mouth, my throat—” She shivers so hard the floorboards creak and she doesn’t fall so much as collapse onto the bed, one knee jutting into his hip and her hand on his chest, short nails digging into his undershirt. “Can I stay here? Please. I don’t want to be alone.”

He doesn’t ask after her fellow servants. Wallace does more for Pendleton than fetch the man wine and wash his bed linens; he has a hand in dirtying them on nights the petulant Lord can’t sleep. And Martin isn’t bothering playing at celibacy, despite the marks of his office. And since Callista had already rebuffed his advances once, Corvo knows Martin has found solace in Lydia’s arms.

Cecelia’s hand shakes on his chest. Her touch is as sexless as a child’s and without a word, he shifts over, twitches the blanket back and gives her room to crawl in next to him, which she does without a word, curling up so that her forehead presses against his collarbone and her knees push into his thighs. Her hands are folded beneath her chin, but as he pulls the blanket up over them she reaches for his and holds onto it like a lifeline.

“Thank you,” she whispers, peeking up at him once through the fringe of her hair.

Emily used to peek at him like that when she’d drag him to her room during thunderstorms. It was his job to keep the monsters away. And he did, first by checking all the shadowy corners, under the bed and in the armoire. And then by telling stories, watching the light of the storm play across her face, making her amber eyes glow.

Cecelia’s eyes are flat grey in the dimness. Corvo nods and she bows her head again.

She doesn’t let go of his hand, even when she falls asleep.

And when he follows her, sometime later, he sleeps through the rest of the night without dreaming.

From this prompt table.

This is actually going to be a cohesive series when I'm done. I'm bouncing around the prompt table like a mad woman, but I should be posting in order of scene occurrence.

____________________________

#037 Night of Fire

Deep in the heart of Zion, Joshua Graham dreamed.

He often dreamed of his second baptism, the fire that had seared his soul. He woke up burning, clawing at the bandages on his face, wrapped around his chest. Often, he’d flee to the upper camp through the back of the Angel Cave, take refuge near the edge of the cliff side, against the rocks where the pre-world cache rested, undisturbed by himself or the Dead Horses for the messages of doom the Sorrows left scattered on the rock wall behind it. Not that he believed the messages, but it did seem ill-omened to take from the dead, when one did not have need.

There he would sit or stand, the ever present wind directed through the canyon buffeting him, carrying with it the light spray of water, sleeping between the bandages, temporarily cooling his skin.

But tonight, he dreamed of another fire, his mind casting back years to New Canaan and a girl he’d known there. He’d had a young man’s crush, assumed they would marry when he came back from his two year mission. He would be nearly 18 then. And his father and hers were good friends and they often spoke and she and him being well matched.

She’d given him his first kiss, the evening before he’d left on the journey that would take him thousands of miles from his home, his faith. A sweet thing, that kiss, soft and hesitant. Her lips moved against his like the wings of a moth.

In years to come, he would be reminded of that kiss with each slave woman Caesar paraded through his tent.

It was one reason he’d earned a reputation for harsh lips and stern hands off the battlefield, though his brutality, as he led men into battle, was something he tried to leave behind, in the night, when soft bodies replaced foes in armor and bare hands touched his skin. He wasn’t always successful at tamping down those raging fires.

Even in the dream, he felt it. Remembered that something inside him had wanted to cup her face and hold her still as he took her mouth. To slide his hand inside the blouse of the simple, modest dress she wore and feel the weight of her breast, the heat of her skin.

He didn’t.

But in this dream, she slid her hand beneath his shirt. Only to touch the uneven terrain of fire ravaged skin across his chest. Then came pain, sunburst bright and hot and he opened his eyes—eyes that he had closed to savor that first kiss—to find Edward before him. The hilt of a knife was in his hand. The blade stuck between Joshua’s ribs.

Joshua opened his eyes in the dark of the Angel Cave, in the heart of Zion. He heard the wind and water winding through the cavern and breathed out a sigh. He could feel dawn approaching, his skin twinging as if the meager heat from the rising sun could set him aflame again. In reality, it was only time to change his bandages.

There were visitors to Zion. A scout had returned yesterday to inform Joshua of the caravan’s approach across the Southern Passage. His dreams always turned to his death when new visitors arrived. And there was a courier this time.

He rose from the cot that served as his bed, gathered scissors and fresh bandages, and made his way from the cave to a secluded spot of the river bend to bathe and prepare for what the day would bring.

“General?”

Obi-Wan looked away from the center of the small fusion lamp as Cody stirred, tentatively sat up, pressing his back to the wall of the rocky outcropping Obi-Wan had hidden them beneath.

“You’re awake. Good.”

“Sir—“

“Comms are down. I did manage to get a short encrypted message to the Resolute by using the battledroid’s power cell, before it burned out and...”

The commander was listening, Obi-Wan knew, but in that compartmentalized way of many military personnel Obi-Wan had met, taking the new information and sorting it into place to be fully examined later.

Cody’s face was pensive in the low light of the lamp and then he flinched. “My leg! It was broken,” he said quietly, reaching to touch his shin over the thin blacks.

“It was,” Obi-Wan said. “I healed it. Your armor is just there.” He pointed past the tabard he’d taken off and folded to pillow Cody’s head.

“You healed me?”

“I—yes. The wounds on your face, though… I’m afraid those will scar. My energy went to healing your leg.”

Cody chuckled, the sound warm and throaty. “Scars are just decoration. Saves me gettin’ the tattoos some of my brothers have elected to try.”

Obi-Wan smiled faintly. It felt strange, such a gesture, alien in this new world of Republic armies and Jedi taking up the mantles of Generals.

“Right, then.” Cody stood, testing his leg before pulling on his thigh gauntlet, knee pad and boot. “I’ll take watch. You get some rest, General.”

“Jedi need very little sleep.”

Cody turned to him. The lamp highlighted the sharp planes of his face, eyebrows arched in a way that Obi-Wan was beginning to become familiar with as the commander’s “I will not put up with nonsense, be it from Jedi or my brothers” face.

“General, before this mission, there was the relief effort on Biitu, and the skirmish in Oktaro. By my estimates, you’ve slept 12 hours in the last standard week. And that’s assuming you’ve actually slept when you’ve disappeared into your quarters. Jedi or not, you could do with the rest. So sleep. Sir.”

“You do pay attention,” Obi-Wan said, almost to himself.

“Comes with the territory, sir.”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan said, slowly. “I think I’ll meditate.”

“That as good as sleep, sir?”

Something in Cody’s tone made Obi-Wan tell the truth. “It’s a stop-gap measure. But it will serve until rescue comes.”

The commander looked like he wanted to say more, but pressed his lips into a thin line and gave a short, clipped nod. “Very well, General.”

( Read On )

From the moment Obi-Wan retrieved Anakin from Qui-Gon’s quarters to spend the day together (a monthly promised he kept when on Coruscant and off duty), he’d known Anakin had wanted to ask him something.

That was the last question Obi-Wan expected.

Obi-Wan set aside the gentle chastisement that Jedi did not “date” as the outside world did.

“Why do you ask that?”

Anakin’s eyes grew wide. “Ummmm.”

“Anakin?”

“It’s just…. Master Qui-Gon and Knight Rolene have been eating dinner together a lot. And Master Qui-Gon usually eats in a big group of Knights and Masters or alone with Master Windu when you’re not around and I just thought—I don’t know.”

“Master Qui-Gon is free to spend his time with whomever he wishes,” Obi-Wan said. He knew Knight Rolene. 15 years Obi-Wan’s senior, he was a friend of Qui-Gon’s and one of his former star pupils in a series of diplomacy and negotiation courses Qui-Gon taught.

Anakin frowned. “I guess so.”

They continued their walk toward the public gardens. Anakin soon caught onto another topic, but Obi-Wan kept returning to Anakin’s question. It caused something to clench and coil in his belly as he thought back over his last few layovers on Coruscant. They had been short and Qui-Gon had been brief with him. Obi-Wan chalked it up to his reticent master’s usual sick-but-healing moods; his recovery from the incident on Naboo was slow. Yet, something in the back of his head—a tiny, niggling thought that he’d been loathe to pay attention to—connected with another.
( Read On )

I'm participating in SubObi week over on Tumblr. The Day 1 prompt is Collar/Leash.

And here we go....


“Your pet Jedi is well behaved.”

Lord Vader chuckles. “He really isn’t. Or he wouldn’t need the leash.”

Obi-Wan Kenobi, from his kneeling position on the floor, lets the conversation flow over him, around him. This is the first time he's been to the large senatorial gathering and he resists the urge to raise his eyes and see what representative of this New Empire is speaking. He knows some of the voices that float over his head. He has no wish to look up into the faces of people who had once been friendly acquaintances, if not among the few in the Senate that he'd once counted as friends.

Keeping to himself also saves him the punishment set for him when he inevitably meets covetous stares with a challenging eye, political maneuvering with outright ridicule. Tonight, he has no wish to be the test subject of any new devices the Emperor has come up with. He's still having headaches from the last time.

The thought makes him wince. He tries to cover the reaction with a polite yawn, but a gloved hand rests on his shoulder and the other tugs the leash clipped to his collar, exerting just enough pressure so that Obi-Wan leans his face against a sleek, warm, leather clad thigh that smells of rainstorms and mech oil. The familiar scent in these surroundings makes him want to weep but he pushes that thought away as he feels the bond between them pulse.

We will be done here soon. Behave. I don’t enjoy punishing you.