Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1. The Index — the thing you're reading right now ;)

2. Fragile and Composed — Allana/Festus in every reality (or at least seven of them)
various AUs, various years

3. Course Correction — What if Festus and Ferrus were never captured by the Sith?
pen pals AU, 43 ABY

4. Captive — Sometimes the breaking is soft
captive AU, year unknown

5. The Darker View — One of the twins is rescued, and the other is left behind
Jedi Veeran AU, 44 ABY

6. What Could Have Been — He pretends he doesn’t already know how badly this will end…
In Dreams We Dwell AU, 59 ABY

7. Life Raft — Festus and Allana navigate their strange new living arrangement
on-the-run AU, 52 ABY

8. Symbiotic — Festus and Allana's relationship progresses as they remain on the run
on-the-run AU, 52-53 ABY

9. Break the Silence — The Starskip brothers reunite on Vjun after seven years spent apart
Jedi Dorian AU, 51 ABY

10. “you love in whispers” — Darth Ferrus returns to Narath
undetermined AU, 61 ABY

11. Shelter — One of the Starskip boys is afraid of thunderstorms. One of them isn’t.
Jedi Veeran AU, year unknown

12. Vena Sera — Long live the queen
Sith Queen AU, 52 ABY

13. Safer Waters — Space is not unlike the sea
Jedi Veeran AU, year unknown

14. Ruminations of an Alchemist — What is the way of the Sith, after all?
Jedi Dorian AU, 48 ABY

15. A Gentle Rage Becoming Wild — Allana becomes a queen, falls in love, and turns into both her parents
Sith Queen AU, 52 ABY & beyond

16. Crash — Festus’s latest pursuit of Allana ends in disaster
shipwreck AU, sometime between 55 & 58 ABY

17. The Universe Is Ours Tonight — With her, there’s every reason to pretend
Ferrus/Iselle AU, 59 ABY

18. “Pain” — The boy was good, once
Main Enter!verse

Chapter Text

He knows he’s staring. He knows he should stop.

It’s the same as it was outside the temple; he finds himself drawn to her, as helpless as a tide beneath a moon. He can’t look away.

(he doesn’t want to look away)

To be fair, her friends are making a lot of noise, talking way louder than necessary for how close they are to each other. If he was actually trying to read, it might be sort of obnoxious.

It’s a damn dining hall, Dorian, he imagines his brother saying. Get over yourself.

She’s nowhere near as loud as the others, and she watches her friends with a smile, content and amused and maybe a little curious. He listens to their conversation, datapad forgotten as he hangs on every softly spoken word.

Just stop it already, he tells himself, as if it’ll actually make a difference. Don’t be a creep.

She does have a pretty smile. It’s kind of hard not to stare.

Frag, she’s looking at him now. His eyes snap down to the datapad almost instantly, and he tries to remember what line he was on, realizing after several fruitless seconds that he’s completely lost his place. Not like it really matters, she’s probably used to being stared at. She probably hasn’t given him a second thought.

An excited murmur ripples through the students near him, and he senses someone – no, not just someone, her – approaching his table. He keeps his eyes on the datapad, pretending not to notice she’s there.

(pretending not to notice the princess of Hapes, who the hell does that)

There’s no annoyance or impatience in his sense of her, though. If anything, she seems curious, maybe even faintly amused.

“Hi,” she says. “I’m Allana.”

“You could love me for real.”

She laughs at that, mirthless, wishing she could cry instead. She can’t though. All her tears are spent, and there’s nothing left to do but laugh at how irreparably broken they both are. Is there a world where this sad story ended differently? She used to hope so, but even that’s gone.

“I did love you once,” she says from behind glass-gray eyes. “Maybe I always will, somewhere.”

He kneels before her, hands grasping the arms of her chair. “Tell me what I have to do.” He bows his head in her lap, and she wonders if he has any idea how easily he could break her, if he tried. “I’ll do anything.”

Her father’s first lesson: Be a still surface. Be a mirror in the dark. Reflect nothing. Reveal nothing.

“You could start by letting me go,” she says, watching for his reaction. He goes still against her. Seconds tick by, and neither of them moves. “You’re a liar,” she continues, resisting the urge to wind her fingers through his hair, to tease him and bend him and rule him. Be ice, she thinks. Be colder than ice. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

He lifts his face toward hers, his brow furrowed, expression shifting too quickly to pin down. His voice is soft. “I learned from the best, didn’t I?”

They sit against the outer wall of the enclave, watching the sun paint the sky in flame-colored hues as it dips below the horizon. She leans into him, head tipped against his shoulder, fingers brushing his for just a second. He feels that touch like a spark.

This, right here. He could stay like this forever. And he knows how ridiculous that sounds, and maybe hopelessly naïve, too, especially with the way things are now. There isn’t much peace to be found these days, not for anyone. Maybe that’s why he wants to cling to this moment.

(maybe that’s why he never wants to let her go)

The heat clings to her like a second skin, damp jungle air heavy around her, weapons discarded on the ground as their hands roam and drag and claim. It’s too much and not enough, this strange, twisted thing between them.

“Come on, Princess,” he murmurs against her lips before trailing down to her throat, “is that really all you’ve got?”

Too much, her head tells her, defenses crumbling under the onslaught of sensation, aware of how dangerous and wrong this is.

Not enough, her heart whispers back, wanting more, willing to risk everything just to feel this.

She threads her fingers through his hair and answers his question – his challenge – with a murmur of her own.

“Not even close.”

She wakes from her nightmares screaming, more often than not. She’s not embarrassed by it, exactly, but she does get tired of the raw, aching pain in her throat, and the panic that wells up in her chest, making it hard to breathe, and the way she feels herself slipping back into that twisted embrace even here, even now.

He tells her it will change. He doesn’t promise it will get better, but it will change. Less screaming and thrashing, he says with a dark, wry grin. She hardly ever wakes up before him, but when she does, she notices he takes a long, deep breath before raising his arms, as if testing them against invisible restraints. He doesn’t scream out often. When he does, she pretends not to notice.

He’s always at her side when she wakes like this. Sometimes she insists she’s fine, tells him to go back to sleep, not to worry about her.

Sometimes she slips her fingers around his wrist, and she asks him to stay. He always stays; there’s really no question that he will, but she still makes sure to ask.

She thinks how strange it is, that of all the people she could sail the stars with, she ended up with him. Enemies brought together by the twisting of fate’s web, by mutual need, a desire to escape and survive.

Mutual need? Is that what they call it? She tries to ignore the sly, knowing tone of her inner voice as her fingers trace the inside of his wrist once again. It’s never gone that far, but she knows he wants to, knows she has only to say the word and he’ll be with her in every possible way.

Sometimes she thinks she wants that, too.

He slides into the bunk beside her and draws the thin blanket up over them both, and he curls one arm around her waist to hold her close. His breath rustles her hair and flutters across her skin, and she leans back against him, more content in moments like these than she is at any other time. And that’s strange, too, isn’t it? That it takes her worst nightmares to give her some semblance of peace?

(that even knowing the darkest parts of him, she still feels safe here)

She will fall asleep before him, lulled by the warmth of his body and the sound of his breathing and the beating of his heart – and when she wakes in the morning he will be there.

Not yet, he thinks, sensing his brother approach, knowing what it means, what has to happen.

(gods, not yet, he’s not ready for it to end)

Weak. Pathetic. Naïve. He’s played his part to perfection, if that’s the opinion she thinks he holds of her. Funny, because he’s the one who is so pathetically weak, and hopelessly naïve, too, if he thought there was even the slightest chance that this wouldn’t end in disaster. Better to keep playing that part, right? Better to hide behind a lie, because he can’t face knowing what could have been. It’s easier this way.

I doubt that, he hears a voice whisper, remnant of an old, old memory. Simpler, maybe, but not easier.

He tilts her chin up toward him and leans down, lips brushing against her ear.

(so soft, he could still kiss her, she’s right there, he might never be this close again)

—say it, tear it all down, stop lying to yourself—

The words are lodged in his throat, and even if he doesn’t say them, his brother is about to ruin everyone’s night anyway. He only has a second to decide.

—just a few little words, that’s all, break her heart like it’s nothing—

—distracted, distracted, distracted—

—she’s not yours, she never will be, don’t you know that by now—

His second is up. Time to choose.

“You got what you wanted,” she says in that impossibly gentle voice. “I’m here. Let him go.”

All he can hear is the sound of his own ragged breathing; all he can feel is the coral crust beneath his fingers as he kneels on the ground, and the iron grip of his master’s will, ready to crush his throat, or stop his heart, or throw him into the Embrace of Pain and let it do its worst.

“He would have killed you,” his master says, quiet.

She takes a breath, and he watches as she straightens ever so slightly and squares her shoulders. “I know.”

“Do you know?” His master is skeptical, rage still simmering beneath a deceptive mask of calm. “Do you understand what you’d be allowing to live?”

—what kind of monster are you—

“Yes,” she says, so soft it hurts, “and I’m still asking you to spare him.”

He’s only vaguely aware of being released, of the cold fury in his master’s leave us, of his brother reaching down to yank him off the ground – because all he can see is her, turning back to look at him. All he can see is her fear and her strength and her mercy and her eyes and why is she doing this for him, he hates her, he hates everything about her, he deserves to die—

—why, why, why, why—

His twin hauls him to his feet, leaning in close. “Come on,” he whispers quickly. “Move, move.” Ferrus growls a few obscenities under his breath as he drags him backward toward the turbolift.

She doesn’t look away, and neither does he, and it makes him sick, the way she watches him, pitying him. She’s wrong to save him, doesn’t she know that? Doesn’t she? Why should she look at him like that, after everything he’s done? Why?

He and his brother cross the threshold, and Darth Festus stares back at Allana Djo until the turbolift doors close between them; and in that moment, that last second before twin layers of durasteel separate him from her completely, he knows the image of her standing before the Master of the Sith will be forever burned into his brain, and he wonders if he’ll ever see her again.

Chapter Text

“Will we be able to send messages?”

Master Bash puts a hand on his shoulder. “It might be possible, but we have to be careful.” The Twi’lek Jedi Knight tries to smile, but he can sense the man’s hesitance. “I know it’s hard leaving your friends, Dorian.”

He looks up at Master Bash. “I don’t have any friends.” Not even Veeran. Not really.

“Maybe this will be a fresh start for both of you.”

He looks down at the deck of the starship and nods. He doesn’t want to argue the point. Veeran already causes enough problems, and he doesn’t want to be a problem, too. He just thought maybe, if he were to write her a message sometime, it might make her happy. And maybe she would write to him, too…

The starship jolts, sending them tumbling to the deck, and an alarm blares from the comm unit. Master Bash looks up to the ceiling, then turns to them all, eyes wide.

“Hide!”

He runs, grabbing Veeran by the arm as the other kids rush to find hiding places. He needs someplace big enough for the two of them, somewhere no one will look…

Jedi enclave, unidentified location, 43 ABY

The day starts like any other in the Jedi enclave. Allana Djo wakes shortly before dawn and shuffles to the small common area connecting her room with her grandma’s. She climbs onto the sofa next to Grandma Leia, snuggling into her side, smelling the mint and citrus wafting from her morning tea. Davin and Dolan are still asleep, so it’s just the two of them.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” her grandma says gently, sweeping her long bangs from her eyes. “Did you sleep well?”

She holds her stuffed tauntaun tight and burrows deeper into Grandma Leia’s side. “No,” she murmurs, half-muffled by the plush of her toy. “I had a bad dream.”

Grandma Leia pulls her into her lap and holds her close. “What about?” she asks.

Allana tries to remember, but it’s already foggy, like most dreams. But she knows it was bad. She looks up at her grandma and bites her bottom lip. “I can’t remember.”

A soft, warm squeeze. “That’s okay, sweetheart, you don’t have to.”

A muffled cry floats in from Grandma Leia’s bedroom. She looks down at Allana and smiles. “There’s Davin,” she says. “Dolan won’t be far behind.”

Allana scoots off of her grandma’s lap so that she can get the twins from their crib. She watches her bounce them lightly on her hips and sing Alderaani nursery rhymes and feed them breakfast. When all that is done, she gets dressed and ready for the day. Another day in hiding. Another day in the Jedi enclave.

Allana plays by herself, as usual. None of the other kids bother her, not even the boys who picked on her a couple weeks ago. Maybe they’re sad that their friend got sent away. She wonders if that’s her fault. She didn’t mean to get anyone in trouble.

She thinks of the boy who helped her that day. She didn’t know they were sending him away, too. She didn’t even get to say goodbye.

It’s almost lunchtime when she starts to hear the grown-ups whispering about it. She hears them mention the shuttle and those poor children, but when she finally screws up the courage to ask someone, they look down on her with sad, uncertain eyes.

It’s nothing for you to worry about, Allana, they say. As if that’s somehow kinder than telling her the truth.

She makes her way to Grandma Leia’s office, a heaviness weighing her down, making every movement feel so slow. The door is open, and she hears voices inside.

“—traced the transmission from Bash, but there was nothing there.” That’s her great-aunt Mara’s voice.

“Do you have any leads?” her grandma says, tired.

“None,” Aunt Mara answers, also tired. “They were intercepted halfway to Denon, in the Komdar system. There’s nothing out there but empty space.”

Allana steps into the doorway, and Grandma Leia turns abruptly to face her. Behind her, the hologram of Aunt Mara watches in sad, static-filled silence.

“What’s ‘intercepted’?” Allana asks as her grandma kneels down in front of her and takes her shoulders in her hands. Grandma Leia’s eyes go wide, and she glances back at Aunt Mara for a few seconds.

“Allana, sweetheart…” her grandma starts to say.

She can feel the truth rattling inside her, but she has to know. “What happened to him?” she asks. “Why won’t anyone say?”

There’s so much sadness in her grandma’s eyes. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. They never made it to the other enclave.”

She has to know. “But what happened? Where is he?”

“Come here, Allana.” Grandma Leia gathers her into her arms and lifts her off the ground, cradling her. “Come here, and I’ll explain.”

They go into the office, and her grandma closes the door behind them.

“What do we have here?”

“Twins, Doctor. Just arrived.”

“Indeed. Remove their blindfolds, please.”

Dorian Starskip winces as light and color return to him, assaulting his senses. There’s too much… he can’t…

An older man in a long, gray lab coat leans over him, staring down with dark, curious eyes. “Where did you find them?” the man asks.

The Devaronian Sith Lord behind him smirks. “They were on the Jedi ship.”

“Really?”

The old man removes a hand from the pocket of his lab coat and strokes his chin with long, thin fingers. A cold smile stretches across his pale, gaunt face.

“How marvelous.”

En route to Denon, 43 ABY

After being on the ship a few hours, Dorian finally decides to ask the question he’s been turning over in his head since they left.

He walks to where Master Bash is standing and waits for him to finish talking to one of the other kids. “Excuse me, Master?”

The Twi’lek Jedi Knight turns and smiles down at him. “How can I help you, son?”

He hesitates, then presses forward. “I was wondering, when we get to the new enclave… will we be able to send messages?”

The Jedi’s hand is warm on his shoulder. “It might be possible, but we have to be careful.” Master Bash attempts to keep up his smile, but he’s clearly reluctant to promise anything. “I know it’s hard leaving your friends, Dorian.”

“I don’t have any friends,” he says automatically. It’s true, though. Even his own twin brother can barely stand to be around him half the time. Besides, he prefers to watch people from a distance. Or read.

Master Bash is all sympathy as he looks down at him. “Maybe this will be a fresh start for both of you.”

He lowers his gaze and nods. There’s little point in arguing with the Jedi. There’s little point in telling him that Veeran doesn’t want to be fixed, or that the problems aren’t going to go away just because they move them somewhere new. And he doubts Master Bash would understand why Dorian wants to send a message to someone he barely knows, someone who will probably forget all about him before long. But if he could make her happy, even just a little, even from far away… and if she were to write him back, well, that would give him something new to read, wouldn’t it? He had to ask, at least.

He returns to his seat across from Veeran. His twin avoids looking at him. He avoids looking at anyone. Dorian can feel the guilt he’s trying to hide. He briefly considers telling him it’s not his fault. In a way, it isn’t. He couldn’t have known they’d be sent away. But then Dorian remembers the tears in that little girl’s eyes, and he keeps his mouth shut, because it still makes him angry, and he’s not quite ready to forgive.

They never see the outside of the new enclave. It’s buried deep inside a vast, sprawling city-planet that he only catches a glimpse of on approach. When they emerge from the shuttle, they’re already surrounded on all sides by duracrete walls.

“Welcome home,” Veeran mutters behind him, dripping sarcasm and disdain.

They get settled and cleaned up, and they have their first meal. Afterward, Master Bash finds him.

“Here.” He hands Dorian a datapad and smiles. “You can write your messages on this, and we’ll send it the next time there’s a supply run. No transmissions, no navigational data, nothing to intercept.”

He stares down at the datapad, then back up at the Jedi. “Thank you,” he says quietly, unable to summon any other words. How can he express the sudden joy he feels, or explain the weight that has lifted from him in that moment? He’s never needed to talk to anyone before, but now it seems like the most vital thing in his whole world.

“Thank you,” he says again, dazed.

“You’re very welcome.” Master Bash puts a hand on his shoulder and pats it gently. “Now why don’t you run along and get started on that letter?”

He does exactly that, racing through the gray corridors, back to his room. He curls up in his bunk and switches on the pad, and he begins to write:

Hi Allana,

This is Dorian. I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye to you before I left. It happened kind of fast, and I tried to look for you, but we had to go. Anyway, they said I could write to you on this datapad, and I guess they’ll just take it back and forth between us, if you want to write back. It’s fine if you don’t want to. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. I guess I don’t have a lot to say right now, but I hope you stay safe. Talk to you later.

Your friend,
Dorian

The supply run doesn’t happen for another six weeks. He has to resist the urge to write every day, but by the time he hands the datapad to Master Bash to give to the courier, he’s written at least a dozen letters. Maybe closer to twenty. Maybe more than twenty. He hopes she doesn’t think he’s weird because of it. He hopes she’ll want to write back.

“Something came for you today.”

Allana looks up to see Grandma Leia standing in the doorway to her room, a strange smile on her lips. She notices the device in her grandma’s hand. “Something for me? From who?”

Grandma Leia walks to the side of her bed and sets the device down in front of her. It’s a datapad. “Turn it on and see.”

Anticipation and curiosity race through her as she fumbles with the power switch. Finally, the pad turns on, and a message pops up on the screen. She can’t help the smile on her face or the way her heart leaps as she scans the first few words.

Hi Allana,

This is Dorian…

Chapter Text

“You could love me for real.”

She laughs at that, mirthless, wishing she could cry instead. She can’t though. All her tears are spent, and there’s nothing left to do but laugh at how irreparably broken they both are. Is there a world where this sad story ended differently? She used to hope so, but even that’s gone.

“I did love you once,” she says from behind glass-gray eyes. “Maybe I always will, somewhere.”

He kneels before her, hands grasping the arms of her chair. “Tell me what I have to do.” He bows his head in her lap, and she wonders if he has any idea how easily he could break her, if he tried. “I’ll do anything.”

Her father’s first lesson: Be a still surface. Be a mirror in the dark. Reflect nothing. Reveal nothing.

“You could start by letting me go,” she says, watching for his reaction. He goes still against her. Seconds tick by, and neither of them moves. “You’re a liar,” she continues, resisting the urge to wind her fingers through his hair, to tease him and bend him and rule him. Be ice, she thinks. Be colder than ice. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

He lifts his face toward hers, his brow furrowed, expression shifting too quickly to pin down. His voice is soft. “I learned from the best, didn’t I?”

She knows. Oh, gods, does she know.

He offers her a rueful smile. “You know I can’t go against him.”

She takes a slow, deliberate breath. “You can’t, or you won’t?”

“Both,” he answers, his weight pressing against her knees. How does he always manage to look like he’s in such pain, as if her words are literally killing him? This would be so much easier if he didn’t still make her feel. “How long are you going to punish me like this?”

She tilts her chin up. “Is forever too long?”

He lets out a short laugh and lays his head back down in her lap; her muscles tense at the contact. “As long as I get to see you, I guess it doesn’t matter.”

To hell with her father’s lessons. She takes his face in her hands, lifting his head toward her, and a shock races through her entire body, like lightning skipping across clouds. “But you want more, don’t you?”

His blue eyes go wide. “Yes,” he whispers.

She runs her fingers through his hair, eliciting a weak moan. “You want me to touch you—” She drags her thumb slowly across his lips. “—and kiss you?”

“Yes,” he answers, in a low voice that rattles her very bones with want.

“Let me go,” she murmurs, “and I’m yours. All of me. Everything you could ever want.”

He goes still in her hands, then closes his eyes. “Now who’s the liar?” he says with a bitter laugh. “For a second there, I actually believed you.”

When he opens his eyes, she meets his gaze head on. “I’m not lying,” she says evenly.

He rises from his knees, hands still gripping the arms of her chair, pushing forward to completely fill her space. She lets go of his face and draws back, but there’s nowhere else for her to go, nothing to hide behind.

“I told you,” he says as he leans in, lips grazing her neck, the threat in his tone tempered by the way his voice breaks. “I want you to love me. For real.”

“It’s too late for that,” she whispers, feeling his breath warm her skin. Be ice, be a still surface, be stronger than him, too cold to thaw, too distant to reach. That’s the problem, though, isn’t it? No matter what she does, no matter how hard she fights it, there’s always a part of her that yearns for a part of him. Does that make her weak? Does it make her a liar?

“Don’t say that,” he says as he softly kisses her throat. “You don’t mean that.”

Her real problem is this: there’s still a part of her that loves a part of him… and he knows it.

He leaves a trail of kisses from her throat to her jaw, each just as gentle as the first, before stopping shy of her mouth. He never kisses her there. She knows he’s waiting for it to be real.

He could break her so easily, if he tried.

She thinks maybe she should let him.

Chapter Text

When he wakes, Dorian realizes he’s being carried. He cracks one eye open, ignoring the pain that accompanies that one small movement. The doctor glances down at him and smiles, an action completely devoid of warmth or happiness.

“Ah, finally awake, are we?” He says it as though the whole world hasn’t just come crashing down around them.

Dorian can’t even lift his head to see where they are or where they’re going. Ash chokes him as he coughs and attempts to speak. “Veeran?”

The doctor quirks one eyebrow and studies him for a moment. “Your brother is already on the ship. He survived as well, but I would have expected you to know that, with your twin bond.”

A small sigh of relief. How can he explain it to him? Feeling and knowing aren’t always the same thing. He needed to hear it out loud.

“I made a promise,” he whispers.

Yalena, 44 ABY

Dorian is still watching the little Jedi boy bleed out on the table when he senses a pair of eyes on him.

The doctor stares at him from the doorway of the lab as the alarm continues to blare, its constant, shrill wail rattling his insides. “Come, my boy,” the old man says expectantly, single-minded in his efforts to ignore the noise. “This way.”

He can’t tell if he obeys because he wants to or because he has to, but he follows the doctor through the fortress, down hallways he has never seen, past windows he has never looked through. It all runs together, too much input, noise and light and blood and fear—

Fear. It hits him like a wave, powerful enough to overwhelm the wall he holds up around himself, spilling over, fear and panic and desperation – not his, and not the Sith’s either, but strong and familiar and—

Veeran.

He stops and looks out the closest window, and he notices the sun is setting. His brother is close. He’s really close, if Dorian can just find him.

“You aren’t thinking of leaving me, are you?”

That voice is like a hook buried deep in his chest, reeling him in. He tries to shake it off, reaching for his left arm, for the scalpel he slipped into his bandages when no one was looking. “Stay away,” he orders as he pulls the blade out, his voice hoarse from lack of use. “I’m not going.”

The doctor eyes him with dark amusement. “Come now, child. You didn’t really come all this way just to be blown up now?”

The hand holding the scalpel shakes, and he wonders if he’ll have to use it. That thought, and his brother’s fear, and every second of every minute of every day he has spent in this place hits him all at once, choking him. “My brother,” he manages to say.

The doctor is still smiling that cold, patient smile. “Of course, of course. The wonders of the twin bond. I would have liked to explore it more. Alas.”

Without another word, the doctor turns away and leaves him standing in the middle of the hallway, completely alone, no one to stop him from running away. He remembers what Malleus said, about the Jedi planting detonators all over the fortress. How long does he have?

Dorian spins around and runs back the way he came, glancing through the windows that line the corridor. There’s a courtyard below – he’s never seen that before either – and someone is running across it, sprinting toward a starship that has landed just beyond the compound. His breath catches as he realizes who it is: Ben Skywalker, Jedi Knight. He’s carrying one child and dragging another by the arm.

Dorian throws himself at the nearest window, pressing against the transparisteel. “Wait!” he calls out, his voice scratching from his throat. “Come back! We’re still here!” He runs along the corridor, slowing to look out each window, making sure the ship hasn’t left yet. He has to find a way out, or get the Jedi’s attention…

On the ground below, Ben Skywalker staggers as the child running alongside him stops and turns back, and Dorian’s breath leaves him as he recognizes that child as his twin brother, fighting to get free of the Jedi’s grasp. Skywalker reaches out and wraps an arm around Veeran’s waist, shouting as he drags him toward the ship.

I’m here! Dorian calls out, forcing every ounce of desperation through the cord that ties him and his twin together. I’m here, I’m still here!

Veeran’s head snaps toward the window, and he bucks violently against Skywalker’s grip.

Don’t leave! He curls his fingers against the transparisteel, his breath fogging the surface as he leans into it. Please don’t leave!

Dorian! His brother’s scream is deafening in his head; he can practically feel Veeran thrashing in his rescuer’s arms. Come on, come on!

The Jedi Knight hauls Veeran into the starship, and the ramp begins to close.

“No, no!” Dorian slams his fists against the window and watches helplessly as the ship takes off, silhouetted by the setting sun. “Veeran!”

A plaintive wail rips through their bond, and in his mind’s eye he can see his brother beating his fists against a gray durasteel deck, and he can feel the sobs in his chest as if they’re his own, no, no, no, no, no…

He tries to reach out to Veeran again, but it turns out Darth Malleus was right about those detonators, and his last awareness is of the fortress breaking apart beneath him as explosions tear through it.

When he wakes, Dorian realizes he’s being carried. He cracks one eye open, ignoring the pain that accompanies that one small movement. The doctor glances down at him and smiles, an action completely devoid of warmth or happiness.

“Ah, finally awake, are we?” He says it as though the whole world hasn’t just come crashing down around them.

Dorian can’t even lift his head to see where they are or where they’re going. Ash chokes him as he breathes in. He doesn’t try to speak. There’s nothing to say anyway, is there?

The doctor frowns and studies him for a moment. “I am sorry about your brother. Such a waste.”

Veeran. The thought of his twin sends ice through his veins. Dorian pulls his defenses tight around him, draws the wall up as high as it can go. Even separated as they are, he can’t risk letting anything slip through. He can’t be a bridge for the Sith to reach his brother. Not ever.

The enormity of that realization finally hits him. This isn’t a temporary severing like all the others. This is constant. This is permanent.

This is forever.

It has to be.

“What does it feel like?” the old man asks, coldly curious, as always. “Losing him in that way?”

He closes his eyes and lets his head sag against the doctor’s chest, and he feels the yawning emptiness in the place where his brother should be.

“It hurts,” he whispers, swallowing his tears and his weakness. But I made a promise.

For a long time, the only sound in the cargo hold is the sound of his own stupid, pathetic screams.

Veeran loses track of how many times he throws himself at the hatch, of how many times he slams his fists against metal, tearing his knuckles to shreds. He loses track of how many times he shouts in Ben Skywalker’s face, begging him to go back, calling him every foul name he’s ever heard, without so much as a word in response. The Jedi Knight hasn’t moved from his spot since he collapsed to the deck, still clinging to the dead Twi’lek girl in his arms.

The other kids, the ones who are conscious at least, are staring at him wide-eyed, as if he’s completely lost his mind. He thinks maybe he has. His brother was always the smart one, the one with the brains. What good is Veeran now, without his other half?

One of the other Jedi kneels in front of him, and he finds he’s too spent to fight her as she puts her hands on his shoulders. Anchoring him, he thinks distantly, like Dorian used to do. He goes rigid at her touch, his jaw set in a defiant line.

“You left him,” he growls under his breath, staring down at the deck as he repeats the accusation he’s already thrown at Skywalker a hundred times. What would she do if he tried to hit her? Would she slam him against the cold durasteel, tell him what a failure he is, how weak and stupid—

Her fingers bite hard into his shoulders, as if she’s sensed his thoughts. Or maybe she’s trying to get him to look at her. He won’t give her the satisfaction. Bad enough that his face is streaked with tears, his skin stiff from the ones that have already dried. He won’t look at her. He won’t.

Eventually the Jedi lets go and walks away. He glances up at her as she leaves, and for a second he wants to say something, anything, to make her come back. He’s not even sure why.

They arrive at the enclave, and as grown-ups swarm around him and lead him out of the ship, he realizes this is the place they sent him away from, the enclave Dorian was forced to leave because Veeran couldn’t stop screwing up; and his legs give out from under him before he can take another step. Someone picks him up, lays him on a stretcher, and he watches bright amber lights pass at steady intervals overhead as they take him inside, and all he can think is that he deserves every terrible thing that has ever happened and will ever happen to him, for the sin of leaving his brother behind.

Allana stands outside a closed door, the nervous fluttering in her stomach growing more agitated by the second, and she thinks about turning around and running the whole way back to her room. No one said she couldn’t go in there, but they also didn’t say visitors were allowed. He needs rest, her grandma had told the other kids when they asked about him. They all do.

She heard one of the grown-ups say he wasn’t talking, and that they’re keeping him separate from the rest of the children they rescued. She doesn’t know why; something about special circumstances. She takes a deep breath and stands as straight as she can, and she taps the keypad for the door.

The room is dimly-lit, with a single bed off to one side. He lies on his back, white sheets drawn up loosely around his waist as he stares off into space. He looks up when she enters the room, and she sees confusion and panic flicker across his face. He doesn’t seem to recognize her at first, but after a moment his eyes narrow, and he props himself up on one elbow.

“What do you want?” he says in that same cold tone she remembers. Strange, when everything else about him feels like a spark searching for something to ignite.

She twists her hands together in front of her, unable to respond. She shouldn’t have come here. Her grandma already told her the name. Why did she think they were all wrong? Maybe she thought if she came here, it would be him, somehow. Is it bad that she wishes it were him instead of his twin? Does it make her a bad person to be sad that Veeran is here and safe?

He stares back at her. “You just gonna stand there or what?”

She shakes her head, remembering how he held her stuffed tauntaun too high for her to reach and looked at her like he’s looking at her now. She wishes she was holding her toy right now, even if he probably would make fun of her for it.

He looks away from her and lies back down. “Just get out of here,” he says, “and leave me alone.”

She backs away quickly, reaching for the keypad. As she turns to leave the room, his anger gives way to a sadness so heavy, she can feel it pressing down all around her. She hesitates a moment. Then, quietly: “I’m sorry about your brother.”

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even move.

She slips through the door and closes it behind her.

Chapter Text

Kurin, 59 ABY

“So what are you saying?”

He comes to an abrupt halt in the middle of the dance floor, her momentum driving her further into his arms. He leans closer, tracing the smooth curve of her neck with his mouth, and he wants more, he doesn’t want to hold back anymore, not too much, don’t screw this up…

“Can’t you tell?” he murmurs. “I guess I’m not very good at this after all.”

Her breathing is too steady, and she still won’t meet his eyes. Gods, does she have any idea what she’s doing to him? What is she thinking? Why won’t she look at him? Why is she letting him touch her like this?

(oh right, because he threatened to kill everyone here, like the murdering bastard he is)

She should run. She should run far away from him and never look back.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” she bites out, a harsh whisper, eyes narrowing as she shakes her head. “That I would believe anything you say or do?”

He turns her hand in his, trailing his thumb along the center of her palm. He has to tell her. Just once. “I think you’re—”

“What?” she snaps, trembling. “Weak? Pathetic? Naïve?”

Perfect.

She finally looks at him, taking his breath away, and he thinks he could stand here forever, could hold her forever, if only he wasn’t—

—disgusting and wicked and vile and broken—

—sick, sick, sick—

—stop looking at her, stop thinking about her—

This is a dream, he tells himself, still caught in her gaze. A stupid, stupid dream.

(let it be real, for once just let it be real)

His brother’s presence sears across his awareness, burning with dreadful intent, as if trying to banish the warm haze of being so near her. The bastard. He would try to ruin this.

(gods, not yet, he’s not ready for it to end)

He tilts her chin up toward him and leans down, lips brushing against her ear.

(so soft, he could still kiss her, she’s right there, he might never be this close again)

—say it, tear it all down, stop lying to yourself—

The words are lodged in his throat, and even if he doesn’t say them, his brother is about to ruin everyone’s night anyway. He only has a second to decide.

—just a few little words, that’s all, break her heart like it’s nothing—

—distracted, distracted, distracted—

—she’s not yours, she never will be, don’t you know that by now—

Screw it. Screw all of it.

“I think you’re incredible,” he says, breathless, his heart thundering in his chest. He takes her chin gently between his fingers and turns her face toward his. Only a few centimeters separate them as she stares back at him, her gray eyes wide behind the mask.

“No, you don’t,” she whispers. “You don’t.”

(please let it be real)

“Yes,” he breathes, closing the last bit of distance to trace the corner of her mouth with his. “I do.”

She lets out the faintest gasp in response, but that one small sound is enough to spur him forward, and before she can say or do anything else, he loses himself to the unbelievable softness of her perfect lips.

She’s not yours.

She never will be.

Don’t you know that by now?

She doesn’t pull away.

She doesn’t pull away, and her fingers grasp his shoulder harder, and she kisses him back.

For a few seconds, the only things in his world are the taste of her lips and the curve of her waist and her soft skin and the way she holds on to him. For those few fleeting seconds, nothing else exists. Nothing else matters.

In a distant corner of his mind, he knows he should be ecstatic, because isn’t that how normal people feel when they finally kiss the girl of their dreams? But he’s not normal, and he never has been; and instead of reveling in the ecstasy of this moment, all he can think is that he’s tricked her, she doesn’t know what she’s doing, he should stop but he doesn’t want to, he never wants to, stars, he wants more, how is he supposed to let her go now, how is he supposed to go back, how could he ever stay?

A shard of hot, ugly rage drives through him, and screams begin to erupt on the other side of the ballroom, nearly masking the hiss of an activating lightsaber. He breaks off the kiss to look across the room, where Ferrus is standing with the last of their targets, the crimson blade of his saber protruding from between the man’s ribs. His twin’s eyes find his, accusing and vindictive.

Allana tries to turn around, but Festus keeps a firm grip on her chin. “Don’t look,” he says, meeting her panicked gaze. Is he actually pleading with her not to? As if she can’t already sense what’s happening?

“Why?” she asks in a broken whisper, and he knows there are a myriad of questions contained within that single word – questions she can’t give voice to, questions he can’t even begin to answer honestly.

Ferrus yanks the blade from his victim’s body and cocks his head to one side, the cold fury in his eyes completely at odds with the dark, manic grin slashed across his face. Am I interrupting? he asks, his thoughts dragging like a knife across their bond.

Festus looks down at Allana again, still holding on. Better to hide behind a lie, because facing the truth is worse. It’s so much worse.

—plaster on a smile and play the part—

And he does.

“Thanks for the dance, Princess.” He releases her and takes a step back, watching her sway as the words hit her.

“You—” She draws a ragged breath and spins around in time to see Ferrus dragging his victim out of the ballroom. Then she turns back to face him, bitter anger warring with stunned disbelief as she rips the mask off of her face and hurls it at his feet. “You bastard.”

—play the part, pretend it doesn’t hurt—

—really, what did you expect—

He spreads his arms at his sides. “I’d hate to disappoint you by being anything less.”

He’s always been a good liar.

Chapter Text

Darth Festus is used to being in close quarters. He grew up surrounded by people, first in the academy and enclaves of the Jedi, and then on Korriban as a Sith initiate – not that he ever felt particularly connected to any of the people around him, or they to him – and for all but three of his nineteen years, he has shared a room with his twin brother. Being in close proximity doesn’t faze him; in fact, he often delights in how uncomfortable he can make others, just by standing too near them. But what Darth Festus has never done, not in any of those nineteen years, is live with a girl.

The door to the refresher opens, and Allana Djo steps out, eyeing him warily as she holds her belongings close to her chest. They aren’t much, just a few supplies they picked up their second day on the run, and the clothes she was wearing before she went in there. The ship is cramped – the space outside the refresher even more so – but he keeps as much distance as he can.

Maybe this doesn’t really count as living with a girl. They’ve only been on the ship six days, which he supposes makes this more of an extended trip than a permanent living arrangement. Then again, this is the plan for the foreseeable future, to keep moving and not stay anywhere long enough to be found; and if that’s the case, then he’s going to be living here with her for a while. It probably counts.

“It’s free,” she says after staring back at him for a few seconds. Her voice is quiet and strained, and after a few more seconds she looks away from him, her face flushed. That doesn’t mean anything though, probably just an aftereffect of the sonic shower, which he’s really been trying not to think about in the first place.

There are a lot of things he’s been trying not to think about when it comes to her, like the fact that it’s been weeks since he kissed her or that he replays it in his head every damn day or that she’s as scared of him as ever and he can’t think of a single reason why she shouldn’t be or why he should care and what the hell is he even doing here—

She doesn’t wait for him to answer, turning instead to key open the door to the ship’s only designated sleeping quarters. It’s just one bunk, which he didn’t bother trying to claim. There was nothing noble about it, and he made sure to tell her so, before she could get any ideas. He really doesn’t care where he sleeps.

She closes the door quickly behind her, leaving him alone in the corridor.

He doesn’t care where she sleeps either.

Their next stop is Beltresh, an Outer Rim world that sits off a branch of a branch of the Hydian Way, dead in the middle of nowhere. The only information he has on it is that the war with the Vong never reached it, and neither did the civil war a decade later, and though it technically lies within the borders of Darth Krayt’s empire, it doesn’t seem to have any Sith presence whatsoever.

They put down in a small port on the outskirts of the capital city, which is surrounded on three sides by forestlands and bordered on the fourth by a modest snow-capped mountain range. As they disembark, a man with the port authority approaches Festus for payment. He produces a few of the credits he stole back on Malastare – though not nearly enough to dock a ship – and waves the guy off with a mind trick. There are a few fraught seconds where he’s not sure the guy is going to be susceptible to his influence, and he senses Allana tense up on the ramp behind him; but then the man shrugs and pockets the credits and tells them they’re paid up for the next eighteen hours.

“What would you have done,” she asks once they’re well into the heart of the closest public marketplace, “if he hadn’t taken those credits?”

He looks at her sideways as they push through the crowd. Instead of her usual long braid, her copper red hair is pulled back in a tight knot and partially covered by a dark blue cap, leaving her neck exposed. He’s never really studied her from this angle or noticed the way her freckles trail down to her collarbone, and he wonders if they continue onto her shoulders, too, and—

An image returns to him without warning or permission: her lying facedown beneath him, his knee digging into her back as he grabs her by the hair and yanks her head up—

He drags in a breath, then forces his jaw to relax before saying, “Probably exactly what you think I would have done.”

She doesn’t say anything to that, and they continue to make their way through the market. She stays fairly close to him as he begins to lift items here and there from the various stalls, but after he’s hit five vendors, she slows her pace, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. He slows to match her, his eyes sweeping over the square and the people he stole from, watching for signs that any of them suspect.

“What is it?” he asks, his gaze finally settling on her.

“We can’t just keep stealing from people,” she says in a hushed tone, eyes narrowing.

“What’s your solution? Stay here and get a job?” He scans the crowded marketplace again. “Don’t be ridiculous, Princess. We need credits—”

“I’m not a princess—”

“—and we need to eat.”

She stops dead in the middle of the walkway and glares at him. “It’s wrong. This is—”

She cuts off before she can finish that thought, but he can hear what she’s left unsaid. Wrong. This is wrong. They’re wrong. Not that he didn’t already know that – he did know that, didn’t he? – so why does it feel like a kick in the gut?

His danger sense flares, and he looks over her head in time to see a trio of local security officers wading through the crush of people. Instead of answering her, he loops an arm around her waist and pulls her off to the side. She goes rigid in his grip but doesn’t fight him, and he ducks behind one of the vendors’ stalls and into a narrow alley, holding on to her as he watches the officers go by.

“Let go,” she whispers breathlessly once the danger has passed.

He does as she orders, taking a step back to put distance between them. She doesn’t look up at him, but her hand drifts toward her throat for a moment before clutching at the collar of her jacket. The bruises are long gone, but he can still see exactly where they were, can still picture his fingertips pressing into her soft skin…

“Come on,” he says, mouth suddenly dry. “We should get out of here.”

When they make it back to the ship, he unloads his haul on the fold-down table in their tiny common area and begins to sort through it. Credits and ration bars and a few packets of some kind of mystery instant meal, and several small bags of dried fruit, and more ration bars.

“That’s it?” she asks in disbelief. “Ration bars?”

He looks up from his organizational efforts to see her staring at the food with thinly veiled contempt. He picks up one of the other bags and holds it out between them. “And fruit,” he says.

She tilts her chin up at that, but he can see the way it trembles for a brief instant. “We can’t live on just ration bars.”

He shrugs and raises one eyebrow. “Why not?”

“Because, they don’t… they’re not…” Her mouth snaps shut as she stares back at him, and he allows himself a small smirk in response.

“You say you’re not a princess anymore,” he says, secretly delighting in the furious blush that colors her cheeks, “and yet you’re too good for ration bars?”

“I never said that,” she retorts in a huff, eyes falling once more to the table. “I’ve eaten plenty of stuff like this in my life. It’s kind of hard to get fresh food, growing up in the enclaves.”

Maybe she doesn’t mean anything by it – and he wouldn’t care even if she did – but he can’t let that one pass. “Yeah,” he says, with a touch of asperity, “I remember.”

That stops her indignation in its tracks, and he tells himself he’s not sorry for saying it, or for embarrassing her. That’s not why he picks up one of the bags of dried fruit and offers it to her. She holds up a stopping hand and steps around him, heading for the door.

“You have to eat sometime,” he calls after her.

She pauses at the door, her expression pointed. “I’m not hungry,” she informs him as she gives him that imperious little chin tilt again, daring him to argue. But he doesn’t try to argue with her, and after a long moment she steps across the threshold and retreats to her room, leaving him to eat alone.

He finds her sneaking into the supplies a couple hours later, and he can’t help smirking as he flips on the lights in the common area. She drops the food she’s holding and spins around to face him.

“Those ration bars are looking pretty good now, huh?” he says, crossing his arms over his chest as he leans against the doorframe.

She flushes and hugs her arms around her midsection, and her gaze wanders to the corridor behind him, but she doesn’t answer. Her hair is loose, falling well past her shoulders; for an instant all he can think of is how it felt against his fingers, and how he wants to know that feeling again.

“You don’t have to sneak in here,” he says, banishing those thoughts with a shrug. “I don’t care what you eat, or where. Or how much.”

She nods absently and moves toward the door, leaving the food behind. She’s just passing him in the doorway when she stops to look up at him, her brow furrowed, like she’s steeling herself to say something important. He’s beginning to think she’s lost whatever battle she’s fighting with herself, when she whispers, “I want to go home.”

He exhales and rolls his eyes. “Okay fine, no more ration bars, we’ll figure something else out.”

She shakes her head and utters a sound somewhere between a sigh and a whimper. “No, I— I want to go home.”

He narrows his eyes at her, a quiet rage kindling in his chest as understanding dawns.

“I am not taking you to the Jedi,” he says, not quite managing to mask the bitter hatred that thought stirs in him.

“You don’t have to,” she says quickly. “Drop me off somewhere and I’ll go on my own.”

He blinks at her. “You don’t know where they are.”

“I’ll find them. We have ways—”

“You’ll never make it. Your father is still looking for you, or did you forget that?”

“I didn’t forget,” she says quietly.

“He’ll find you long before the Jedi do.”

She looks away and shrugs. “Then he finds me.”

Those words, stated so simply and wearily, twist at something inside him, and he reaches out to take her by the shoulders. She lets out a little yelp as he pulls her closer.

“No,” he growls. “You’re not just gonna go back there, after everything—” He stares down into her startled and frightened gray eyes, and loses some of his momentum. “Why would you— you can’t want to go back there?”

“Maybe it’s for the best.”

“It’s not. I know you’re not stupid enough to actually believe that.”

Any trace of fear leaves her as she glares up at him. “Why not? I was stupid enough to get on a starship with someone who tried to kill me.”

He laughs then, tries to choke it off by gritting his teeth, but he can’t stop it from bubbling out of him. “I could have left you there.”

“So why didn’t you?”

Gods, he walked right into that one. Why didn’t he? Because of that damn kiss? He’s tried to tell himself that he only did that to distract her from the Embrace of Pain, but why the hell should he have cared about that in the first place? He shouldn’t have. He’s not the person she knew, and they’re not little kids anymore, and she’s exactly right, he did try to kill her. He would have done it if he hadn’t been interrupted, but every time he tries to imagine it playing out, he can’t get past the tears on her face and that name on her lips and how it left him paralyzed—

Her eyes are wide as she waits for an answer, and he realizes how tightly he’s holding her, and he wonders if it’s hard enough to bruise, if she’ll find five blue-black spots on each shoulder in a day or two and hate herself for ever having kissed him back. Maybe she already hates herself for that.

—of course she does, why do you think she keeps hiding from you—

He lets go of her, hands dropping to his sides. “I don’t know,” he lies.

Free of his grip, she reaches up with both hands to grasp the ends of her hair, twisting her fingers around several copper strands. “Of course you don’t,” she whispers. For a second, he thinks he sees tears in her eyes, but she averts her gaze and hurries off to her room before he can get a better look.

He flips the lights off and stands there in the dark, listening to the sounds of the ship. After a few minutes, he makes his way to the cockpit and unrolls the blanket he’s been sleeping on, and he lies on his back, watching the endlessly swirling blue tunnel of hyperspace through the viewport above him.

She should run away from him. She should run far, far away.

The scream that yanks him out of his sleep is so familiar that for a few seconds, he thinks this is just another one of his nightmares. He sits bolt upright, heart pounding as a second scream echoes throughout the ship, this one cutting off in what sounds like a muffled sob. Without thinking, he grabs his left wrist with his right hand, then begins to repeat the motion with the opposite hands before ruthlessly suppressing the instinct. He’s not there, he already knows he’s not there, why is he wasting time with that nonsense, like he can’t fragging help himself—

Another sob, not as loud as the screams, but this one is followed by a distinct thump, one that sounds a lot like someone falling out of her bunk. He flings back his blanket and staggers for a second, shaking away the lingering haze of sleep as he rushes out of the cockpit.

When he reaches her door, he hears her take a long, gasping breath, in a way that makes him wonder if she’s actually having trouble breathing. “Hey,” he calls out, pounding a fist against the durasteel. “What’s wrong?”

Instead of going quiet, the sobs return, punctuated by those same gasping breaths, and he remembers how it felt the first time he saw her twisted up in the Embrace, helpless and broken, her agony dragging against his senses—

He beats on the door again, harder and repeatedly, trying to snap her out of it. “Hey! Allana!” He tries to open the door, but she’s locked it – of course she has, why the hell wouldn’t she? He knows he’s doing this all wrong, but he can’t tamp down the panic rising up in his chest, and he closes his eyes and presses his hands against the door, reaching through the Force for the mechanism that holds it in place. It takes several seconds to latch onto the right parts, but once he does, he steps back and wrenches his hands to one side, and the door slides open with a metallic screech.

She’s kneeling on the floor next to her bunk, hunched over, arms hugging her middle, but she sits up straight when he enters, her hands flying up to cover her mouth. They stare at each other in the dim light, and he realizes how this must look to her, him barging into her room in the middle of the night. He wonders when he started to give a damn about things like that, or why he feels the need to explain himself to her.

“I—” He swallows hard, not even sure what he wants to say. “I thought— I mean, I heard you…”

She lets out another broken little sob, and the hands covering her mouth tremble, and whether by instinct or choice – he’s not really sure which – he crosses the small room in two strides and drops to his knees beside her, just in time for her to fling her arms around his neck.

“You’re not there,” he says as he pulls her closer, drawing her into his lap. “You’re not there, Allana, it was just a dream.”

She clings to him and turns her face into his neck, her tears warm on his skin. “It still hurts, and I can’t— I can’t—” She takes another tremulous breath, and he can feel her entire body shudder from the force of it. “When does it end?”

When does it end? He doesn’t know, though he suspects the answer is never. He certainly can’t imagine there will ever be a time when his own nightmares cease, or a time when he doesn’t check for restraints upon waking from them, just to make sure he isn’t back on that godforsaken table.

“It won’t always be like this,” he murmurs, in a voice he hardly recognizes. “You get used to it after a while.”

Her lips brush against his collarbone as she answers. “I don’t want to get used to it.”

“Yeah,” he says, arms tightening around her, “I know.”

She leans into him and takes a deep breath, still shuddering a little from her earlier sobs, but more in control now. “Why didn’t you leave me on Coruscant?” she asks softly. “You could have.”

“No,” he says, “I couldn’t have. I thought—” He closes his eyes for a moment, feeling the rise and fall of her chest against his, slowing with each breath. “I thought I could bear any pain imaginable… but I couldn’t bear yours.”

He opens his eyes and looks down to see her gazing up at him, and he thinks of how he held her face in his hands, and how soft her lips were, and how he’d never wanted to stop kissing her. And there’s something about her expression, something new and at the same time familiar, though he can’t figure out why that is. On Vjun, all he’d known was her terror, and even in their better moments together on Coruscant, he’d only ever seen sorrow or a fleeting, wary hopefulness. This isn’t any of those things. This is almost like… like admiration, or—

No, he can’t allow himself to imagine it. He should tell her not to look at him like that, like she’s seeing someone worthy of her smile, because she’s not. Whatever he might have been a long time ago, he isn’t that person anymore, and he never will be again, and she ought to realize that by now. What he should do is remind her of that acid-soaked hell, and the life he tried to take, and the bruises flowering across her throat, and… and…

Stars, why is she still looking at him like that? It’s only a little smile, but he has no defense against it. She shifts in his arms, her face lifting slightly toward his, eyes searching; and he feels an answering heat spread through him as he finds himself caught in her gaze. What would she do if he kissed her right now? Is that what she wants? How is he supposed to know?

“Dorian,” she murmurs, and despite her hooded eyes and her soft voice, that name drags him from his reverie just as surely as being doused in ice-cold water. He isn’t that person anymore, and he can’t pretend to be. Not even for her.

“I think I broke your door,” he says abruptly, more awkward than harsh. She draws back a little, and her eyes widen to study him. “I’m no mechanic,” he continues, “but I can try to fix it when—”

“You don’t have to,” she interrupts quietly, with a little shrug. She looks away from him at the open doorway, that faint smile still on her lips as she says, “It’ll make things easier next time; you won’t have to worry about breaking it again.”

He knows it’s twisted, but his heart beats faster at the way she says next time. “That’s true,” he says gravely. “Starship maintenance is such a hassle.”

She smiles wider and shakes her head, then looks behind her at the disheveled bunk. “I guess I should let you get back to sleep.”

“Yeah,” he says as he helps her to her feet. “You too.”

She raises a hand to tuck a few strands of hair behind her ear, and he senses her hesitance, her uncertainty. “You could stay,” she says at last, so quiet he can barely hear. “Only if you want to; I— I don’t want you to feel like—”

“Sure.” He surprises himself with how quickly he answers. “I’ll stay.”

There’s that smile again. He’s not sure he’s ever seen anything more beautiful. “Okay,” she says.

He retrieves his meager blankets from the cockpit and lays them on the floor next to her bunk, and he assures her it’s fine, he can fall asleep anywhere. He doesn’t sleep though, not until long after she’s drifted off, her hand hanging over the edge of the bunk to cling to his. He listens to the steady sound of her breathing, and through the Force he can sense she’s resting, even if she isn’t fully at peace. And he thinks maybe that’s all either of them can ask for – a few restful hours in the middle of the storm.

Chapter Text

symbiosis
sym·bi·o·sis

(n.)
the living together of two dissimilar organisms; a relationship of mutual benefit or dependence

I. “Let Me.”

His hand twitches just slightly at his side, already missing the lightsaber that should be dangling at his hip. How she convinced him to leave it on the ship, he still doesn’t understand.

(looked at him so sweetly with those gray eyes, she has him completely wrapped around her finger, doesn’t she)

The guard says something to him in Huttese – angry Huttese – and jabs a finger right in his face before flailing a wild hand toward their ship. Festus stares up at the guard, and he pictures reaching out to grab the man’s wrist, imagines twisting, breaking, forcing him down on his knees, yanking his head back to look him in the eyes for those last few seconds…

A gentle hand touches his arm, and Allana leans in close to whisper, “Let me.”

He watches, not quite stunned but definitely surprised as she sweeps past him and strikes up a dialogue with the guard in Huttese. It’s clear she’s nowhere near fluent, but the guard relaxes a little and shoots Festus an incredibly annoyed glare before accepting their credits and stalking off.

“See?” she says, smiling serenely back at him. “Diplomacy.”

“Luck,” he counters.

She smiles wider. “No such thing.”

II. “Calm Down.”

“There you are, I was starting to worry— oh my gods, what happened?”

“Calm down—”

“Calm down? Are you insane? You have a knife sticking out of your side!”

“You’re kidding, I didn’t notice… Okay, what? Yelling at me isn’t going to get it out, Allana. Wait, wait— just leave it!”

“Leave it?”

“Yes, leave it. Do you want me to bleed out faster?”

“No! But we have to get it out and— and stitch you up and get some bacta and— and why aren’t you upset that you have a knife in your side?”

“I know this might shock you, but this isn’t the first time someone has stabbed me—”

“I can’t believe you’re joking around right now—”

“I’m actually serious, it was kind of a sport for the other initiates to see if—”

“Stop. Just stop. I’m getting the med kit.”

“Take your time. Not like I’m bleeding to death or anything… What? Come on, that was a little funny…”

“I really hate you right now… Should I ask what happened to the other guy?”

“Guys, actually. And no, you shouldn’t.”

“…I’m glad you’re okay. Don’t smirk at me, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, Princess. I know.”

III. “Make Me.”

Her fingers drift past the plate of muja fruit and stop to hover over the lone shuura, and their eyes meet as she glances over her shoulder at him.

“I was saving that,” he informs her, eyes narrowing.

She quirks one eyebrow, and her lips tug up even as she tries to look stern. “You ate the last one.”

“So?”

She chews on her bottom lip for a second – never mind what that does to him, he has more important things to worry about right now – and then snatches up the shuura. “So, it’s my turn.”

He rises from his seat and steps around the edge of the table. “Put it down,” he warns in a low voice.

She stares back at him, lips parting slightly as she inhales. “Make me.”

He springs forward, nearly catching her before she dances just beyond his reach, and he gives chase, hungry in a way that has little to do with the stolen fruit.

His pursuit ends in the corridor outside her bunk. “You win,” she says, breathless and laughing in his arms. She offers him the shuura.

“I win,” he murmurs, ignoring the fruit in her hand as he leans in close.

IV. “Wake Up.”

“Hey,” she says softly, her voice drifting to him over the creaking of the ship and the ever-present hum of the hyperdrive. “You awake?”

Is he? “No,” he mumbles, shifting to pull her closer to him. So warm. He can feel her turn in his arms to face him, her hair brushing against his chin for a second before she sweeps it out of the way.

“Yes, you are,” she says, feigning exasperation. “Wake up.”

He keeps his eyes shut and doesn’t loosen his grip. “Why?”

“Because it’s morning.”

He cracks one eyelid open and smirks. “It’s space, Princess. There is no morning.”

She pulls away from him to sit up, ignoring his half-groaned protests, and tugs her shirt down to cover her waist. “I actually wanted to talk to you about something,” she says, hesitant.

He immediately opens both eyes and sits up. “What is it?”

Her eyes drift for a moment to the partially open collar of his shirt, and he resists the impulse to fix it so she can’t see. He still hasn’t explained it all to her.

“Don’t be mad,” she whispers, eyes lifting to his, “but I think it’s time for me to go home.”

V. “I Promise.”

“Why?”

“I miss my family. I miss…” She sighs and glances down at her lap. “I just miss them,” she finishes softly.

He pauses before speaking. “Is that the only reason?”

She doesn’t look at him, and she doesn’t answer, and a knot begins to form in his chest.

“Allana,” he murmurs, raising a hand to her cheek. She closes her eyes and leans into his touch.

“The longer I stay,” she whispers, “the harder it is to say no.”

He lifts his other hand to the opposite cheek and cradles her face. “I told you I don’t need anything else. This is enough.”

She looks up at him, and the knot in his chest tightens further at the uncertainty in her gaze. “You promise?”

“I promise.” And it’s not a lie, it’s true – he doesn’t need anything more than what she’s already given him. But he has imagined more. He imagines it every day, every night. He can’t help wanting.

She nods, a faint glistening of tears in her eyes, but they don’t fall. He lowers his hands from her face. She doesn’t belong here, with him. He wonders how he ever fooled himself into thinking that she might.

Chapter Text

At first, he doesn’t seem real.

The doors at the opposite end of the once-grand room are thrown wide open, and the black-clad figure between them stands completely still, eyes glittering like molten gold from within a pale, angular face. He could almost be mistaken for an apparition, the last ghostly remnant of the noble family that lived here and went insane here and ultimately died here. That seems fitting, actually. You’ve been haunted by your brother’s specter for the last seven years, ever since you were dragged kicking and screaming from the fortress on Yalena. Why not come full circle and be haunted by the Sith Lord he has become?

That’s the thing, though: he’s alive, and he has been all this time, and no matter what anyone else says, what happened to him is your fault. Any talk of choice is just empty words; you’ve seen the hell that awaited him in ways the others could never understand. You left him there, you left him in the dragon’s lair, completely alone, without even your twin bond to offer support or strength or solace. You left him at the mercy of monsters, of one monster in particular, and as long as you live, you’ll never forget the first time you woke up screaming not from your own nightmares, but from his.

Your twin – your other half, the brother you have loved with all your heart – starts to chuckle, and you notice he’s holding a lightsaber hilt in one hand, absently twitching it back and forth at his side. “Well,” he says, suppressing his laughter just enough to get the words out. “This is a surprise.”

You haven’t heard his voice out loud since before that terrible day, and even though you’re used to your own voice, it’s startling to hear how much his has changed. It triggers an old memory, one you’d thought well and truly buried: your father looking down at you from the kitchen table, where he’d been scanning through a series of holos.

Can I see? your brother asked, and then your father lifted both of you into his lap, arms wrapped tight around you.

This is you in the hospital, your father replied quietly, lingering on each one. And this is when we brought you home… and your first smiles… first steps… Stars, she was always smiling…

You aren’t identical, but you each have your mother’s eyes and your mother’s hair… and your mother’s smile, too. You’re pretty sure that’s the one that used to hurt your father the most.

The face that stares back at you now… it’s hers, even though you don’t remember her, even though you only know her from some holos and the few stories your father told. But the voice is your father’s, if your father had ever spoken a loud or harsh word. You’re not sure he ever did.

“Have you come to rescue me?” Those words shake you from your reverie, drawing you back to the present. The dark grin on his face is an aberrant mockery of the smile your father loved, and a part of you wants to make him stop it, stop looking at you like that; but every other part knows you deserve his ridicule, his wrath, his anything. “You’re a little late for that,” he continues, the slow weaving motion of his sword hand becoming more deliberate and pronounced with every word.

For a moment, you can’t speak, and you wonder what he would do if you simply said nothing. Would he keep talking, hurl insults at you, threaten violence? What happens when there aren’t any more words, and all that’s left is the two of you, broken halves of something that was never truly whole?

(would he kill you, you wonder)

At last, your tongue loosens. “I’m here for the kids,” you tell him, even if that’s not entirely true. Sure, you’d have volunteered regardless, but the only reason they took you on this rescue mission is because of the person standing in front of you, because you refused to let them tell you no after you realized he was here.

A bitter, broken sort of laugh, one that grates against your senses. “Of course you are. History likes to repeat itself, doesn’t it, brother?” Your twin aims the lightsaber at you – still unignited – and the twisted smile falls away. “What gives you the right to come here, to stand there like that, huh? What makes you think I’d want anything to do with you?”

And even though you know this is your fault, there’s still that nagging urge to set him straight, to explain yourself, to make him understand that this is the last thing you wanted for him, that you’d do anything to change it, that you would have walked through every hell to spare him from what he has endured. You want to tell him that you hated yourself every day, that sometimes you hoped he was dead because wouldn’t that have been better, and you want to ask him how many times he had to climb up on that table, if it was just that one time, or a few times, or every single fragging day dear gods how did he survive it?

His fire-cast eyes narrow to slits. “Well aren’t you going to say something? Seven years, and this is all I get?”

You feel something then – a ghostly fingertip tentatively tapping the base of your skull, searching for entry. Even though it’s been years, you can still remember what it felt like to sense your brother tugging at the threads of your bond, desperately wanting in, yearning for that connection; and you remember the last time you shut him out, after you were rescued, when they all realized that connection was a danger, a nav chart in the Force that could lead the doctor and the Sith right to you, right to the last remnants of the Jedi Order.

(right to the one other person you care for most in all the worlds)

You block that probing tendril on instinct, and you watch your twin’s expression not-so-subtly shift, as if the last tumbler on the last lock has finally fallen into place. Deep down, you already know it’s too late, but you take a step toward him anyway.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I’m so sorry, Veeran.”

His eyes are flame, but the set of his jaw, the way he tilts his chin up to look down at you… you’ve seen it all before, and it’s cold and detached, it’s everything he tries to be when he doesn’t know what to feel.

“It’s Lord Ferrus to you,” he says, a dangerous murmur.

Of course, you already knew that, too. You’ve heard about Darth Ferrus, about what he’s done, his ferocity in battle, his brutal strength, and most of all, his manic obsession with killing Jedi. No matter what happens, you have to keep him here, keep him occupied; you can’t risk setting him loose on the others.

(you can’t risk him getting to her)

Mental walls firmly in place, you square your shoulders, drawing yourself up to full height. “You already know I’m not going to call you that.”

He lets out a heavy breath; it ends on a strangled note. “You think you’re better than me, is that it? You think you would have turned out any different if you were the one left behind? Like you wouldn’t have been a sick, murdering bastard, too?”

His accusation settles on you like an itchy second skin. You refuse to allow yourself to imagine that life, the skewed reality where you might have— no, that isn’t who you are. But it isn’t who he should be either. “I didn’t say that,” you counter quietly.

“No, but you’re thinking it, aren’t you? Your poor, stupid brother, too weak and afraid to help anyone but himself, always relying on you to fix his messes—”

“That’s not what I’m thinking—”

“Yeah?” he shouts, and the sheer rage behind it reverberates in your bones. “Well guess what, Dorian. You’re no saint, and you’re definitely no hero either. You think you did me a favor, taking my place? You wanna know what happened once you were gone? He missed you. He wanted you back, and I wasn’t good enough to replace you – but I sure as hell was good enough to punish you with. Even when he knew he couldn’t reach you, that didn’t stop him trying.”

You remember the nightmares, how at first you thought they were memories before realizing that your unguarded, unconscious mind was still connected to your twin’s, and it was his torture you were experiencing. You remember with profoundly aching guilt how Allana’s grandmother trained you to shield your presence at all times, strengthening the walls you’d already created around your mind in captivity, and that each step toward mastery simultaneously damned your brother to the deepest depths of the darkest hells.

“How long?” you ask, tongue thick in your mouth. It’s a stupid question, really, because you already know the only part of the answer that matters.

He spreads his arms wide at his side. “Longer than you. He says no one’s ever beaten my record.” He shrugs and bobs his head from side to side, shifting so abruptly into casual indifference it’s unnerving. “Maybe I was good enough after all.”

You take another step toward him. “Veeran—”

“Don’t,” he growls, slashing the unlit saber through the air in front of him as his unaffected façade slips again. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry. Don’t tell me it should have been you, and don’t you dare tell me this isn’t who I am. You have no idea who I am.” He rubs a hand across his face, muffling another dissonant, guttural laugh. “You know, I reached out to you every kriffing day for over a year, even after I knew you weren’t going to answer. Why the hell did I do that?”

As you watch him attempt to strangle his laughter, you get the distinct impression of someone frantically and unsuccessfully trying to plug holes in a dam, and your heart aches anew. Gods, you have to get him out of here.

“So what now, Dorian?” He sweeps one arm in a broad arc, encompassing the whole of the ruined ballroom. “Is this the part where we fight? I have to warn you, I’ve been practicing.”

The lightsaber at your hip feels suddenly heavy. “I’m not here to fight you, Veeran. I’m here to bring you home.”

“Your home; not mine,” he says simply, shaking his head as he attempts to wrap himself in that cool indifference from earlier. “I can’t ever go back.”

You advance one more step – just a few more and you’ll be in arm’s reach – and extend a hand to him. “Yes, you can.”

He smiles then, a strange, ambivalent smile. “You don’t know what I’ve done,” he says, quieter than before. “They’ll never take me back.”

You’re about to tell him that’s not true, that all he has to do is reach out and take the hand you’re offering him and you can both get the hell away from here, when you notice a nearly imperceptible shudder run through his body. Veeran’s breath hitches for an instant, and you hear a faint, desperate voice whisper across the tattered remains of your bond, a voice that begs you to run – and for the first time you can see that the disgust and loathing and bitterness on his face isn’t directed at you at all, but at himself.

The shadows shift behind him, and a slight, pale figure emerges from them, hands in the pockets of his long gray lab coat.

“There you are, my boy,” the doctor says, his eyes fixed on you as he reaches up to place a hand on Veeran’s shoulder. “I was beginning to think you might never return to us.”

Your next breath seizes in your lungs as you swallow your tongue.

Seven years. It’s never left you, not in all that time. No matter how much you hoped you might forget, or the barriers Allana’s grandmother put in place to keep you from reliving it over and over in your sleep, he has never left you. You will always know the sharp pitch of his voice and the cold dark of his eyes and his mirthless smile and the deftness of his hands as he opened you and how regardless of the mess – spattered or drenched, it didn’t make a difference – those hands were always, always clean afterward. You will see his face in every nightmare and feel his sterile presence hovering over your soul, waiting, beckoning, how much longer can you keep me out—

The hand on Veeran’s shoulder moves up the side of his neck in a gesture you would normally associate with reassurance or affection, and your twin’s head just barely turns toward the doctor, eyes closing for half a second. The old man’s mouth curves up in the barest of smiles as he leans in close to say, “Bring him to me, would you?”

Veeran’s face twists in a grimace as his eyes meet yours—

Run, run, run, run

—and then he sets his jaw and breathes in deep, and just before igniting his blood-red lightsaber, he says in a low, reverent murmur:

“Yes, sir. As you wish.”

Your brother is right about you. You’re no saint, and you’re no hero. You’re nothing, really. But that’s why you can’t run. That’s why you have to stay, because the galaxy needs the others to make it home, so they can keep on saving people. The only person who truly needs you is right here. You took his place once before, and you’ll do it again.

(you hope she’ll understand, that she’ll know how sorry you are)

(you hope she’ll forgive you)

The deepest, darkest hell awaits, and you enter it freely.

Chapter Text

you love in whispers
a tangle of limbs – yours, his
how long must I watch?

you think it’s your place
to want, to recklessly dream?
(you don’t deserve her)

if it meant nothing
why do you whisper my name
when he falls asleep

being normal is:
a mask you wear, to hide
the monster within

I’ve haunted your steps
in desperation, longing
(I think you should run)

don’t try to deny
there’s something broken in you
that will break her, too

Chapter Text

Veeran watches from under the canopy as Kyrian crouches next to a puddle, carefully tapping the tips of his little fingers against its glassy surface. Fine misty raindrops catch in his dark hair – dark like his father’s, everyone always says – and freckle his face and his clothes. He’s usually so particular; Veeran wouldn’t have expected him to enjoy being out in the rain like this. But his presence in the Force is a warm glow, like the embers in a fire. It’s how Kyrian feels when he’s perfectly content and knows he’s safe.

“We should take him in soon. The weather is supposed to get worse.”

Veeran looks over at Allana. She stands silhouetted by the sheer curtain of rain rolling off the canopy, her gaze focused on her son. It always catches him off guard, these little moments of wanting. He looks away and shrugs.

“Let him have a few more minutes,” he says with half a grin, already anticipating the not-really-irritated look she’ll give him in response. “He’s having fun.”

“He won’t be having fun when he’s lying in bed with a fever.” Her words carry only a trace of actual admonition; he can tell she’s trying not to smile.

He lets out a mild snort and shakes his head. “He’ll be fine. It’s just a little rain.”

She nods and returns her gaze to Kyrian. “If you say so,” she says, tilting her head back against the frame of the shelter. His sense of her is amused, if distant.

“You’re a good mom,” he says abruptly.

She turns her head and studies him, her gray eyes nearly the same shade as the sky overhead. “Good, huh?” A wry smile plays at the corners of her mouth.

“Great,” Veeran amends. “Amazing.” He hesitates, because sometimes she likes him to say it, but sometimes she doesn’t. “Beautiful.”

The smile changes, becomes less wry, more furtive. “You don’t have to say that,” she says in a soft, faraway voice.

He takes a deep breath and holds her gaze. “I know.”

A sharp wail pierces the quiet fog, and Veeran snaps his head around in time to see Kyrian running toward him, his face scrunched up in anguish. The little boy launches himself at Veeran’s legs, sobbing indecipherably except for one word: “Daddy!”

Veeran scoops Kyrian up without hesitation and holds him close to his chest, and it’s then that he notices the steady rumble of thunder in the distance. “It’s okay,” he whispers, stroking his son’s hair. “You’re okay, it’s just a storm.”

Kyrian’s arms squeeze tighter around his neck, and though his sobs begin to subside, his tiny body still trembles. Veeran closes his eyes and continues to run a hand over Kyrian’s hair.

“Did you know I used to be scared of thunderstorms, too? I used to hide under the covers and close my eyes so I wouldn’t see the lightning.” There’s no answer, but Kyrian goes still, like he always does when he’s really listening. “My brother was brave, though. He always stayed with me so I wouldn’t be as scared.”

He senses a pang of regret from Allana, but it’s fleeting, there one instant and gone the next. She’s learned to lock those feelings down tight. He meets her gaze, and she offers him a faint, wistful smile.

Kyrian lifts his head and looks up at him, blue eyes brimming with tears. “Daddy?” His little voice wobbles in a way that hits Veeran dead in the chest. “I’m still scared.”

Lightning streaks across the sky, and Veeran places a kiss on his son’s cheek and holds on tighter. “It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Chapter Text

She hears his voice through a red haze; I’m sorry, he whispers, hands in her hair and lips pressed to her face, kissing away tears, soothing. Every frayed and tangled nerve crackles with why, why, oh gods why, and the haze doesn’t just fill her vision, it fills her brain, it reaches into her chest and sets fire to the tattered remnants of her heart, and she thinks distantly that she’ll never love again, how can she when the person she loves most is gone, when the father she loved more than he deserved is gone too, what does she have left to give, why should she care anymore what happens to her?

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It echoes in the space between them, rattles around the inside of her head. It’s not his fault, not really, but he’s still ready to take the blame, he’s willing to bear it for her, she wonders how many other things he will bear for her, she wonders if he would bow to her, if he would die for her, if he would kill and kill and kill for her.

(is this what her father wanted all along, a dark queen to rule over a galaxy of ashes?)

“Allana,” he murmurs in her ear, holding her close. “Look at me.”

She tries, she really does, but she can’t take her eyes off of the perfectly circular pools of blood, so dark in this light they’re nearly black. She wants to answer him, she wants to pretend it never happened, maybe if she closes her eyes really tight, Ben will open his, and so will her father, and she can go back to being what she always was: a one-time princess with too much legacy and too little power, who would have been better off never existing at all.

Maybe she shouldn’t exist at all.

His fingers wrap around hers where they grip the blade, hard and unyielding as durasteel. “It’s over,” he says, gently prying her fingers open to pull the weapon from her grasp. She utters a feeble protest, little more than a moan, but he wraps her tight in his arms. “Allana, look at me.”

She does. His eyes are a paler blue than Ben’s, and they see right into her, and she doesn’t have to say anything because he knows. He knows.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

She finds her voice slowly, weakly. “You didn’t have a choice.”

“I did.” His mouth curves slightly in a bitter smile. “I couldn’t lose you.” And she forgives him for that, and for everything else. She’s not sure she can love him, but she doesn’t want to be without him either. His fingers brush the side of her throat as he caresses her face, and she thinks of how easy it was to slide the blade into her father’s neck, of how quickly the blood flowed. Life is tenuous. She thought she understood that before.

“What now?” she croaks. It’s such an ugly sound.

“I don’t know.” He holds one of her scarlet-stained hands in his own and squeezes it gently. “We’ll figure it out.”

The red haze thins – not very much, and not very quickly, and she wonders if it will ever really go away. “We?”

He gazes at her for a long while; she doesn’t know what to do with the devotion in his eyes. She’s never even had a boyfriend.

“If that’s what you want,” he finally murmurs. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She glances over his shoulder at the empty throne silhouetted by the sweeping, glittering, fluorescent decadence of Coruscant, and through the haze she can sense the buzzing background noise of a trillion lifeforms always moving, moving, moving, going on with their lives as though nothing happened, as though their brightest star hasn’t just burnt out forever, as if it’s all the same to them, Alliance, Empire, Jedi, Sith, what difference does it make? What difference does any of it make? And behind that veil of grief and loss, a quiet rage burns on and on and on.

She twines her bloody fingers with his, and leans into his embrace. “I’m not going anywhere either.”

Chapter Text

Long ago, he read stories of ancient earthbound civilizations that existed hundreds of thousands of years in the past, predating all forms of interstellar travel. Some of them spread across continents, conquering nations and claiming the land and amassing riches and resources beyond belief, while others took to the seas, exploring the uncharted darkness in vessels crafted by hand, utterly dwarfed by the deep, and yet recklessly defiant in the face of its unyielding might. With naught but the suns and the stars to guide them, those seafaring people wandered their worlds’ oceans and built powerful empires of their own, and they paved the way for generations of explorers and conquerors to come.

Space, he reflects within the privacy and solitude of his own thoughts, is not unlike the sea. Dark and cold and vast, encompassing and uncompromising and constantly in flux… Space cares nothing for the whims of sentient beings, and it will just as soon dash them against the rocks as it will guide them to safer waters.

Space, he realizes, is merciless. Just like him.

(space is lonely, so fragging lonely he wants to scream, but space is silent and no one would hear him anyway)

“My lord.”

He tears his gaze from the ocean of stars and locks eyes with the officer at the comm. The man visibly swallows before proceeding. “My lord, we’re picking up a distress signal.”

He suppresses a sigh. Probably pirates again; this sector is rife with them, and he’s come across more than one unwitting ship left gutted in their wake. Most of the Lords turn a blind eye, sometimes even taking part in the pillaging themselves. Stupid bastards. He’d happily gut every single one of them, Lords and pirates, gluttons and fools. Strap them down and show them what it is to fear, what it is to be powerless and pathetic, to be stripped and laid bare and torn open and—

Focus, my apprentice, he can almost hear his master say in response. Remember your purpose.

In this imaginary dialogue with his master, he thinks about reminding him that he’s never forgotten his purpose, not even once, not even for an instant. One singular thought – no, obsession, call it what it is – has dominated his every waking moment, and it is that obsession which has driven him from one side of the galaxy to the other, over and over again, for the last four years.

He gives himself a mental shake and shelves the imagined conversation. The distress signal. Focus.

“Pirates?” he says, feigning boredom in place of a cold rage he can’t quite let go of. He knows if he fakes it long enough, eventually it’ll feel real.

The comm officer hesitates. “My lord, the signal… it’s a Jedi frequency.”

The background hum of conversation typical on a Star Destroyer’s bridge falls completely silent for several heartbeats as those words register. He turns to fully face the nervous lieutenant and narrows his eyes. “Say that again.”

“The frequency, my lord. It matches one in our database; last known use was by a Jedi starship captured in the Komdar system over a decade ago.”

He laughs against his own volition, a stiff, halting bark of a laugh that he doesn’t even bother trying to control. It escalates quickly, forcing him to turn away from the astonished and unnerved bridge crew and brace himself against the viewport.

“Lieutenant,” he says quietly once the moment has passed, still facing the stars, a tiny seed of anticipation slowly unfurling in the dark and hollow place inside him. “Was there a message to go with the signal?”

He can sense the comm officer scrambling at his station to provide an answer. “Yes, my lord. One moment…”

After a few seconds of furious tapping, a woman’s voice issues from the control panel, laced with static but still clear enough to discern the soft, dignified cadence of her words. She doesn’t give her name, but she asks for help, says there is a child with her. Only someone intimately acquainted with her would recognize the hint of desperation in her voice.

I can’t stay here.

I don’t want this life.

He turns sharply away from the viewport and meets the unflinching stare of his ship’s captain, an older man who stands ramrod straight and ready for orders.

“Set course for that ship,” he tells the captain, and is met with a swift, acknowledging bow.

“As you wish, Lord Festus.”

Chapter Text

“You wanted me, sir?”

You typically loathe interruptions. Your time is precious, a fact which no one here seems to understand or appreciate, and the nature of your work makes it even more vital that you be allowed to conduct your research in peace. Interruptions are the bane of your existence – but you are willing to make an exception for the boy.

It seems the years truly do pass in the blink of an eye. Somewhere along the way, he has grown into… well, if not quite a man, then certainly something more than the child you first met. He stands nearly head and shoulders above you now, and his broad frame fills much of the doorway as you look up from your work.

“Ah, good.” You offer him a perfunctory nod and return to the specimen on the table. “Bring me another scalpel, would you? The blade on this one is quite dull.”

He crosses the threshold without hesitation – Lord Malleus likes to complain that he is defiant, but all that is truly needed to curb those impulses is a deft hand and a keen understanding of the human psyche, a combination that few besides yourself possess – and retrieves a fresh scalpel for you. He doesn’t flinch at the test subject’s intermittent moans, which is another improvement you’ve grown so used to these last few years that you can hardly remember the pathetic child with his weak stomach and his tears and his incessant whimpering. You cannot express how grateful you are that he passed out of that stage as quickly as he did.

You extend a hand without looking up, and he places the scalpel in it. “Thank you,” you remember to mutter, discarding the other instrument and lining up once again for the incision. He stands slightly behind you, silently observing your work. You have toyed with the idea of letting him assist you in a more official capacity – perhaps that would finally settle his lingering misgivings – but he is not yet ready. (What is more, you are quite certain he would botch his first several attempts at least, and while it is true that messes are unavoidable in your line of work, you would much rather deal with your own than someone else’s; for all your strengths, you are not a very patient instructor.)

The blade meets little resistance as it slices through layers of tissue, and you note the eagerness in your would-be protégé’s presence, like a tuk’ata pup with its first kill, anxiously awaiting its mother’s approval. He tries not to let it show, but the boy has never been very difficult to decipher. He craves recognition. He craves affection, craves it so nakedly that you cannot fathom how the others have missed it for so long. But what he craves above all else is devotion, the sort that inspires unwavering and often unreasoning loyalty from those in its thrall, the sort that he himself gives without measure and sometimes without discernment. A devoted heart, you have learned, is capable of a great many things.

“Much better,” you say, stopping your work long enough to glance over your shoulder and make eye contact. His are a remarkably piercing shade of blue, one of the few traits he shares with his absent brother. “What would I do without you, my boy?”

His face flushes despite his efforts to remain aloof, but even so, his gaze flits past yours to the subject on the table. Another misgiving. You may not have much patience as an instructor, but your patience for the experiment itself, for the processes that will ultimately cede the desired results, is nearly without limit. There was a time when you lamented the loss of the other – what a marvelous puzzle he was, opponent and student and specimen all intersecting in one deceptively ordinary package – but over time you have come to appreciate this boy’s subtle complexity. Lord Malleus’s prized brute may be the indisputable champion among his peers, but he is still hampered by the inconvenience of his conscience – the last and most stubborn holdover from his Jedi upbringing. Ridding him of it has proven more challenging than you anticipated… but you have always relished a challenge.

The boy clears his throat. “Is there anything else you need, Doctor?”

“No, no, that’s all.”

He nods and heads for the door, and you note with mild amusement that he has managed to slip the dull, discarded scalpel off the tray beside you and is attempting to smuggle it out in his closed fist. An adroit maneuver to be sure, but still predictable.

“If you are thinking of using that on yourself, you might as well leave it here.”

You don’t have to look up to know the way his fingers tighten around the blade. You don’t need eyes to see the way his young muscles flex beneath his tunic, sinews traveling a path between the scars. After all, you know him more intimately than he knows himself.

He hesitates, searching for the words to refute you, no doubt. The impatient instructor wants to tell him to spit it out already, but the patient alchemist knows not to force these things.

At last, the boy shakes himself from his stupor. “It’s not for me,” he says in a defensive tone, fidgeting with the scalpel. You sense that it’s only partly a lie. How interesting.

“Indeed,” you reply, playing along. “And which of your peers has earned your ire this time?”

He doesn’t answer right away. How far will he go to keep up the appearance of control, to pretend that all is well as he crumbles inside?

“I don’t know,” he admits with a sullen shrug. “Too many to count.”

“Quite the conundrum. But I trust you will make the right choice.” You glance up to see him watching you, puzzled. “Well, run along then. Come see me when it’s done.”

He doesn’t meet your eyes, staring instead at the table. “Yes, sir.”

The boy bends down slowly to slip the scalpel into his boot; then without another word, he turns his back to you and crosses the threshold, and the door closes behind him. You stand there for too long a moment, gazing absently at the space he occupied, only to be pulled back to the present by a faint moan. Your current test subject starts to convulse, and you reach out with your free hand to pry one of his eyelids open.

“A devoted heart,” you mutter, leaning in close to observe the eye’s erratic movements. “He won’t want to leave me, you know. No matter how often he might consider doing so. And he won’t want to disappoint me either.”

Another moan. Though you know it is nothing more than an involuntary reflex at this point, for a brief second you allow yourself to imagine it a form of agreement, a confirmation that your analysis is sound. You release the subject’s eyelid and continue with the procedure. “I do wish I could be there to see him choose. But I suppose I shall have to satisfy myself with the knowledge that I was right about him.”

The others fail to understand. It is not enough to simply dominate or bribe or threaten or deceive or manipulate. Anyone can do those things, and indeed, your compatriots fancy themselves quite adept at all of them. But they only see in part. They still have so much to learn. The way of the Sith isn’t treachery. The way of the Sith is dissection, and study, and reassembly, creating new entities from the old. The way of the Sith is transformation, and what could be more natural and more beautiful than to see a thing transformed?

Chapter Text

Delight

The news of Darth Krayt’s defeat spreads to every corner of the galaxy, from the glittering bastions of civilization in the Core to the far-flung and ever wild reaches of the Outer Rim, and the name of his executioner is spoken with unfettered delight in hidden resistance bases and degenerate cesspools alike: Allana Djo, daughter of Light.

Jewel

“To coruscate means to sparkle,” she says thoughtfully, distantly, pressing her fingers to the clear-bright transparisteel, watching through a veil of mourning as endless lines of speeder traffic glitter in ignorant bliss under Coruscant’s star.

Radiance

She has ever been a warm, unfading light to his senses; even in the blackest depths of her grief and despair, Darth Festus finds that he can’t look away.

Lovely

It’s brutally unfair that she should wear her sorrow so well.

Ardor

Does she ever think about that first kiss, he wonders?

Laughter

What a stupid thing to hope for, the voice inside patiently mocks.

Content

Festus assures her that once she has the loyalty of Krayt’s most trusted lieutenants, the rest of the Sith will fall in line – so when Darth Satrus kneels before her and pledges his blade, she breathes a little easier.

Welcome

The foreign dignitaries are slower to bend the knee, but they are charmed nonetheless by the unassuming grace of their mysterious savior.

Golden

“They call it the throne of balance,” she says as she stands before the empty, gilded throne, shadowed as always by her self-appointed Sith protector, “and they want me to take it.”

Flourish

“No theatrical posturing,” Darth Satrus says in softly accented Basic, his words as clipped as his instruction, “and no wasted movements; the lightsaber is an extension of your own will, and you must waste no time in asserting that will over another’s in combat.”

Blessed

If we are to live under an autocrat, the people whisper, better a pleasant, pretty one, don’t you think?

Sunshine

The coronation is largely symbolic at this point, a formality of state, but it takes place on a clear day, without a single cloud to prevent sunlight from streaming into the black halls of the temple – a unity of light and dark, tenuously balanced.

Fortune

Who would have thought she’d end up right back where she started: a little girl playing queen on her parent’s throne.

Kiss

The first time she puts Festus on his back in training, the pure elation of victory over one who once bested her is overshadowed by, or perhaps intermingled with, the insatiable desire to claim his perfect panting lips.

Speak

I spend more time dreaming about imagined kisses than I do training or studying affairs of state, and I think about you all the time even though I know I shouldn’t, and I don’t know why I can’t tell you how I feel when I’m pretty sure you feel the same way…

Shimmer

It doesn’t help her resolve that the moonlight becomes him so.

Bliss

“Lord Festus,” Satrus says as he stares blandly down at him, “I’m starting to think you’re letting her beat you on purpose.”

Life

Darth Ferrus looks at his brother over the bodies of the fallen syndicate enforcers, and says in a dark tone: “Now there’s the killer I remember.”

Vivid

It’s simple, really – all it took was one unfortunate threat, a few words painting a picture of Allana’s abrupt and violent end, to snap him sharply into focus.

Tender

He told her once, back when this all began, that he couldn’t lose her; but as she takes in the sight of his blood-spattered clothes and his reckless nonchalance, she realizes with startled, aching certainty that she can’t lose him either, and her battered and weary heart beats anew.

Honest

It’s just a few little words – I need you, I want you, I think I might love you – but it changes everything.

Embrace

When she wakes the next morning, he is still there, and she sinks back into his arms, delighting in the warmth of his body and the way his breath flutters across her skin.

Spirited

As the queen moves through her warm-up exercises with unusual vigor, Satrus casts a sideways glance at Festus, noting the hungry way his eyes follow her – as if he needed further proof when it couldn’t be more obvious.

Caress

Even after months of clandestine meetings and more nights spent together than apart, she still finds herself taken aback by the softness of his touch.

Promise

“You gave the people of this galaxy your solemn word that you would be different from your forebears, that you would bring stability and peace and unification – and now the time has come for you to make good on that promise, Your Majesty.”

Intimacy

She doesn’t want to talk about what’s bothering her, but he can feel how serious it is in the way she clings to him; so he holds her as close as he can, until sleep takes them both.

Marry

“They’re saying she’ll have to choose someone from an influential system, like Kuat or Hapes or— don’t kriffing look at me like that, you had to know this couldn’t last.”

Home

“Of course he’s going to live here, where else do you expect the prince consort of the whole damn galaxy to live?”

Protect

“I told you I would stand by your side and keep you safe no matter what; you didn’t think a little thing like you marrying someone else would change that, did you?”

Flower

The tupisia bloom adorning her hair is exquisite – a flower whose two-toned petals appear more the painstaking work of an artist painting scarlet across snow-white silk in delicate, feathery strokes than the natural wonder she knows them to be – and for once, she smiles at her own reflection, imagining what he alone will think.

Renewal

They say it’s quite a statement the young queen made, attending her wedding with a retinue of Sith Lords, the black of their uniforms a sharp contrast to the groom’s golden silk brocade, and to Her Majesty’s own elaborate gown – equal parts deep red and purest white satin, no doubt modeled after the striking flower tucked in her copper-red hair – but despite the grim nature of her chosen attendants, the galaxy dares to hope.

Devotion

“You should know,” she murmurs as she removes the tupisia from her hair and offers it to him, “that the vows I spoke were meant only for you.”

Entwine

He stays with her that night, and all the nights after.

Dwell

Her Majesty’s consort sets up residence in another wing of the temple, far from her own, and the newlyweds see each other as often as they wish – which is to say, never.

Newborn

It hardly seems real; how could something so pure have come from him?

Gorgeous

All her attempts to imagine perfection pale next to this new, exquisite reality.

Divine

“By the sacred Will of the Force, we anoint and proclaim this child, Kyrian Djo, son of our Most Beloved and Exalted Queen Allana Djo, as Crown Prince of the Free Galaxy and heir to Her Majesty’s throne and power, long may she reign…”

Delicious

“I still can’t believe babies actually like this stuff,” Festus says as he uses his finger to wipe a dribble of mashed kibla greens from Kyrian’s chin.

Precious

She never tires of watching them fall asleep together; she wishes it could always be like this.

Irresistible

There’s no doubt in his mind that he has become the most shameful Sith Lord in the history of Sith Lords, the first to both willingly pick up a toddler and fly them through the air – but how could he possibly say no to those tiny outstretched arms?

Idyllic

Despite their purported attempts at privacy, images of the royal family’s month-long vacation on Chandrila are splashed all across the HoloNet; in particular, the young prince’s delightful adventures with his doting father – swimming in the Silver Sea, exploring verdant jungles, learning to ski on Mount Mon – garner the most admiration.

Wondrous

“Lord Festus, look what Papa bought me, isn’t it amazing?”

Safe

It’s safer this way, it’s safer this way, it’s safer this way…

Revere

“Your father is brave and true and stronger than he knows, and I love him for all those reasons and more… but most of all because he gave me you.”

Pure

A child’s love is uncomplicated and unashamed and wholehearted, and it cuts deepest of all.

Dream

“How ridiculous is it that I’m the absolute ruler of this galaxy, and I can’t even acknowledge my own son’s father?”

Angel

Ben, she whispers in a moment of weakness, seeking counsel from her ghosts, I don’t want to do this anymore.

Sweet

She runs her fingers through his hair, tipping his head over the back of the couch, and bends down to murmur in dulcet tones: “I promise, O husband mine, that the very instant you so much as breathe a word about my son’s paternity to anyone, I will destroy everything and everyone you hold dear.”

Darling

As she lies in her lover’s arms (lover is so inadequate a word for the man who holds her heart in every way), she gives voice to her most pervasive fear: “We can’t keep it hidden forever.”

Cherish

“Don’t worry, Princess,” he says as he gently strokes her hair, years of imagined violence flitting like shadows before his eyes, “I’ll take care of everything.”

Chapter Text

Her first breath after the crash fills her lungs with fire.

The smoke is thick and blinding, and it burns, and she pulls the collar of her shirt up over her mouth as she crawls through the flames, skin blistering, fingers slipping against slick, slanted durasteel. Water rushes in to meet the inferno, and the only way out is up, the only way out is to keep going, keep climbing.

When she finally frees herself from the twisted carcass of the ship, she finds herself tumbling through the air, landing head and shoulders first in a warm, turbulent sea. She shuts her eyes against the sunlight glancing off the surface and the saltwater splashing in her face, and she coughs as some of that water makes its way into her throat— Force, she can’t see, she can’t breathe…

That’s when she feels it: an arm around her torso, pulling her backward through the waves. She remembers the moments before the crash, how he pursued her, how their ships entered the atmosphere too close, trajectories overlapping in a blazing spiral. Before she can chase that thought any further, her feet scrape against sand, and the waves knock her about as he drags her toward the shore. “Stand up,” he orders, and without considering whether she should obey, she struggles to extricate herself from his grip and stand on her own two legs.

Another wave crashes into her, nearly knocking her over, and she feels him wrap an arm around her waist as he drapes one of her arms over his shoulders. He all but carries her to the shore, and when they reach it, he deposits her on the sand and falls to his knees next to her.

“You’re injured,” he says after a long moment, his voice ragged and waterlogged – how can a voice be waterlogged, that doesn’t even make sense – and his form partially blocks the sun as he looms over her. Panic blooms in her chest, and she tries to sit up and back away from him, only to collapse under the weight of a terrible, searing pain shooting through her left leg. She lets out a sharp cry and reaches for the source of that pain, and discovers a hand already pressed against her thigh.

“You’re still bleeding,” he tells her. “I need to see it.”

She sucks in a breath between her teeth. “What?”

“The wound.” His voice is absurdly steady, almost matter-of-fact. “I need to get a better look, to see how deep it is.” He punctuates that sentence with a signifying tug on her pant leg.

Oh. Even in her heat- and smoke-addled brain, she experiences a moment of intense embarrassment and indignation and fear all rolled into one. It’s not quite enough to override her more pressing survival instincts, but it’s enough to make her groan as she nods and lays her head back against the sand.

The sound of ripping cloth reaches her ears, distinct from the crashing of the waves, and seconds later she feels the pressure of his hand again, squeezed tight around her inner thigh. She thinks distantly that no man has ever touched her there, and if she wasn’t so fuzzy from the crash and nearly drowning and apparently losing blood, she’d have a lot more thoughts about that, just like she’d have a lot more thoughts about the fact that he’s currently kneeling between her legs.

He slides his other hand up under her knee and lifts gently, maintaining pressure all the while with his other hand and propping her leg up against his side. She realizes he’s attempting to elevate the wound. She tries to hold still, but even with him supporting her leg, she trembles from the effort.

“How bad is it?” Gods, her voice is shaking, too; there’s too much energy bound up in her body.

“You missed the femoral artery,” he answers, “so that’s good.”

She can’t help the low moan that slips past her lips. “If it’s good, then why can’t— why can’t I stop shaking?”

“Adrenaline. I can keep applying pressure, but we need to close the wound.”

“There’s a medkit in the ship—”

“Not an option now.” He pauses, and she hears him take a deep breath. “Here, put your hand here.” Sandy fingers grasp her left hand and draw it down to her thigh, where she can feel a damp scrap of cloth covering the gash. He holds her hand firmly in place. “Keep the pressure on; I’ll make a bandage.”

“With what?”

“With this.” He steadies her leg against his body, and there’s a tug and another rip, louder than before, as he tears off the rest of her pant leg at mid-thigh. The sun is still too bright to look for long, but she sees him hold up the dark material in his hands before tearing it into smaller strips.

“Great,” she mutters, trying not to wince as he wraps the cloth around her leg and ties it in place. He repeats the motion with two more of the strips, nudging her hand out of the way as he does. She lets her arm flop onto the sand beside her, annoyingly aware of the blood coating her fingers and how each tiny granule sticks to it. She didn’t think she’d be so eager to return to the water after what they went through, but now she can’t wait to rinse off all the… everything.

“There,” he says, and she senses him lean back on his heels, and hears him exhale loudly. “You should keep that elevated until it has a chance to close up more.”

She realizes she’s still trembling. Stupid adrenaline.

“I thought you wanted me dead,” she blurts out. “What changed? Why—” She pauses to wet her lips, and tastes salt. “—why did you save me? Why would you do that?”

Amid the crashing waves and the blowing wind and the distant sounds of sea birds calling out to one another, she feels him go very, very still. “Would you rather I didn’t?”

That eerie stillness and the edge of steel in his voice only makes him loom larger in her perception, makes his proximity all the more visceral and dangerous. It makes her wonder why he’s still kneeling between her legs.

“Please move,” she whispers.

He doesn’t move, not at first; he just stares back at her, his mouth parting as if to say something. Then his gaze shifts down to her body, and without a word, he stands up and backs away from her, turning toward the water. He says something she can’t hear.

“What?” She wants to slap herself for how feeble she sounds.

He looks over his shoulder, his expression inscrutable. “I said we should find some freshwater.”

“We? I thought I was supposed to keep this elevated.” She gestures toward her injured thigh.

“I meant me. I’ll go. You stay here.”

Alone? She doesn’t dare voice it out loud, but the thought of him leaving her here is nearly as frightening as the thought of him staying.

“I got a look at the island before we crashed,” he says. “It’s not that big; I’ll be back before dark.”

She meets his eyes despite the white-hot glare, and he doesn’t look away. Why are you doing this? she wants to ask again. What’s your game?

Why don’t you just kill me now?

He breaks eye contact, looking off toward the treeline. “You should try some of that Jedi healing while I’m gone.”

She shakes her head. “I’m not a healer, I can’t just…” Stars, why is she even bothering to explain? She doesn’t owe him anything when he’s the reason she’s in this state. “Whatever. Just go.”

He gives her the barest of nods and heads up the beach, leaving her there without so much as a parting word. She lays her head back and shuts her eyes, listening to the water lap against the shore as an insistent breeze kisses her skin. Breathe, she tells herself, and opens her mouth to obey that unspoken command. Those breaths are quick at first, but she forces herself to fill her lungs slowly, deeply, exhaling in a controlled and steady stream. With each repetition, her pulse slows, her muscles relax, her fear dissipates. It doesn’t go away completely – she’s not sure it can, as long as she’s here with him – but it feels smaller now. More manageable.

Her leg is still throbbing, and she calls upon the Force to ease that pain, to bond the torn edges of her wound together enough to stem the bleeding. It’s slow work, and not completely successful, but as she lies there under the blazing sun, listening to the hypnotic lull of the waves, a strange calm washes over her, a certainty that whatever happens, she will survive this. She won’t let this be the end.

Chapter Text

Darth Ferrus hadn’t exactly lied when he’d told his brother he was going out for a few hours. He just left out the part where “a few hours” meant spending a whole day exploring Narath City with the most captivating woman he’s ever met, and pretending to be completely normal.

“It’s this way!” Iselle shouts over the noise of speeder traffic and the music blaring from a cantina down the street. The low rumble of thunder has chased after them for the last several blocks, ominously underscoring the city’s lively nighttime melody, and even though it’s too dark to see them, Ferrus senses the clouds overhead have reached their breaking point.

“We’re not going to make it,” he points out as they come to a halt in the middle of the walkway.

The wind whips several strands of sandy brown hair across her eyes as she looks up at him, and she tucks them behind her ear and grins. “Sure we will; that’s my building right there.” She nods toward the tall building across the street; it’s at least thirty stories tall, with a transparisteel exterior that reflects the flashing neon of the buildings and speeders around it. As Ferrus looks up at it, the first fat drops of rain splash against his unprotected head.

“Well that’s just my luck,” he mutters.

“Maybe it’ll pass—” Iselle’s words cut off with a surprised laugh as it begins to pour. She grabs him by the hand and pulls him toward the edge of the road, and they wait for a few speeders to pass before dashing across the street. By the time they duck under her building’s shallow overhang, they’re both completely soaked. He smirks as he watches her wipe damp strands of hair out of her face.

“It’ll pass, huh?”

She smacks him playfully on the shoulder; she has to reach up to do it, and he’s not sure why that makes him like it more. “Okay, so maybe it won’t pass,” she says, glancing up at the sky. “Happy?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Oh I don’t know, because it’s pouring rain and you still have to cross half the city to get back to your ship?”

“You’re right, I should be miserable instead.” He bends down and scoops her up in his arms, holding her close as he stands up straight and lifts her head and shoulders above him. “Worst day of my life.”

“Veeran!” Iselle ducks her head to keep from hitting the overhang, even though she’s still at least half a meter under it. “What are you doing?”

“I’m having a terrible, terrible time.”

She laughs again and shakes her head. “Well I guess if you want to keep having a terrible time, you can put me down so we can go up and dry off.”

He lowers her slowly, still holding her close to him. “You are just no fun.”

“I keep trying to tell you I’m not. I’m the very boring old lady among my friends.”

“Uh-uh. You’re forgetting, I’ve seen you dance.”

Iselle groans as she takes a step back and digs through her purse, but he can see the shy smile on her lips. “That was a one time thing. And I had a very skilled partner.”

“I wouldn’t say skilled, so much as motivated.”

“Sure.” She rolls her eyes affectionately as she pulls her keycard out of her purse and taps it against the security panel. The door slides open, and he follows her inside.

The turbolift is empty when they reach it, and he doesn’t waste any time; she’s barely entered the code for her level when he draws her into his arms and kisses her.

“Veeran,” she says with an admonishing sort of laugh. “The cameras.”

He doesn’t let go, but he does relax his grip. “This can’t be the worst thing they’ve seen in here,” he counters with a smirk. She swats him again, not hard at all, and he catches her hand and twines his fingers with hers. “How am I supposed to resist you when you keep smacking me like that?” Her mouth drops open a little, and he winces. “Yeah, I just heard it, too.”

She steps back from him, trying in vain not to giggle. Gods, it’s the most kriffing adorable thing he’s ever seen. She’s really not making this easy on him.

The lift chimes, and her eyes flit to the control panel. “This is my floor,” she says, scooting past him. He senses a hint of nervous anticipation, one that isn’t at all obvious from the assured expression on her face.

He turns and stands innocently next to her as the lift opens, and he keeps his hands to himself all the way to her door and into her apartment. His twin accuses him of lacking restraint, but knowing when and how much to hold back is probably his greatest strength as a lover. Well, that and the rest of it. He’s pretty great at the rest, too.

The apartment opens up immediately to a small living room on the left and a kitchen on the right, separated by a short hallway that leads to what he assumes is Iselle’s bedroom. She activates a light in the foyer and another dimmer one in the kitchen and drops her purse on the counter. “So this is my place,” she says, making a sweeping gesture with one arm. “I’ll be right back with a towel.”

He wanders into the kitchen while he waits, noting the dark green tea kettle on the stove and an active holocube on the counter next to it, cycling through images of Iselle with her friends. A flash of lightning draws his gaze to the door looking out onto the balcony. There are curtains, but they haven’t been drawn, and as another bolt splits the sky, he has a perfect view of it arcing over the city.

“Here you go,” Iselle says as she returns to the kitchen with two towels and hands him one. “I was not expecting it to pour like that.”

“I was.” He runs the towel over his face and his hair, watching her do the same. How does she manage to make a simple thing like drying off look so enticing?

“Oh, of course you were,” she says with a smirk, squeezing the water from her hair. “I think you’ve got a bit of a pessimistic streak.”

“Hey, you’re the one who promised me a terrible time.”

She lets out a good-natured huff and hoists herself up to sit on the edge of the counter. “I guess I walked right into that one.”

“You did.” He reaches past her to set the towel down and then plants his hands on either side of her, his hips pressing against her knees. “And I’m not a pessimist; I’m a realist.”

“Oh, a realist…” She catches her bottom lip between her teeth and spreads her legs a little wider, allowing him to lean in closer. “Never dated one of those before.”

“Never?”

Her flirtatious tone mellows a little as she tucks a damp strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m usually the realist in the relationship. Not that I’ve had many. Only a couple that lasted long enough to really call them relationships, anyway.” She looks up at the ceiling and exhales with a laugh. “I’m really selling myself here.”

He shakes his head. “I’m already sold. Have been ever since I saw you in that club.”

She studies him carefully, the same way she did when they first met, like she’s not sure if he’s real. “I guess I ought to thank my friends for dragging me out that night,” she says with a shy smile.

His gaze travels over her mouth, and her rain-soaked blouse. “And I should probably thank my brother for not letting me drag him out that night,” he says, and immediately regrets it. Iselle’s eyes go wide at the mention.

“Ooh, that’s right, the brooding twin. You know you’re going to have to tell me more at some point, because right now I’m just picturing you, but with more… scowling?” She grins and nods at him. “Yeah, like that.”

He hangs his head with a groan. “You’re killing me, you know that?”

“I know,” she says with another playful smirk. “So when do I get to meet this mysterious brother of yours?”

It requires great effort not to cringe at her question, even though he knew she would ask eventually. He shrugs it off with a flippant grin. “Never?”

Her gaze drops, and he senses her sudden hesitance. “Oh.”

“Hey.” He lifts a hand to her face, fingers sweeping back a few strands of her hair. “It’s not you. My brother is… difficult. And weird.”

A teasing gleam lights in her eyes. “You think he’ll try to scare me off?”

Without a kriffing doubt probably isn’t the answer she wants to hear, so he goes for something slightly less creepy. “He might. That’s why I haven’t…” He exhales, laughing awkwardly under his breath. This is not going how he expected. “I haven’t exactly told him about you.”

“Well, then.” She leans in closer and tilts her face up toward his, lips curving in a coy expression. “I guess for now it’ll be our secret.”

Stars, he can’t take it anymore, her closeness and her smile and the scent of rain on her skin. He takes her face in both his hands and kisses her, thrilling at the crackling bone-deep heat between them and the soft moan that escapes her lips. He can’t get enough of that sound; he wants to hear it again and again, wants to hear her say his name (his real name) as he makes love to her. He wants to take his time and make her forget everyone she’s ever been with, and he wants to forget, too. He doesn’t want anyone but her, doesn’t need anything but this.

She pulls back after a few more seconds – but not too far – and he can feel her pulse jumping against his fingertips. “You could stay here,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” he murmurs as he leans in to kiss her neck. “Probably should get out of these wet clothes.”

She tilts her head back and lets out a breathy laugh. “You’ve just been waiting to use that one, haven’t you?”

One hand runs down to her waist, brushes against a sliver of cool, soft skin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you don’t…” A flash of lightning illuminates the apartment, followed immediately by a crack of thunder so loud it rattles the building, startling her. She laughs again, embarrassed and nervous. “Veeran…”

“I’m ready when you are,” he tells her. “Just say the word.”

She places both hands on his chest and lightly pushes him away from her, and she holds his gaze as she slides off the counter and takes him by the hand. “This way.”

She leads him down the hallway to her bedroom, where they discard their wet clothes in favor of soft, dry sheets, and spend the rest of the night in a beautiful lie.

It’s still raining when he wakes, and from the gray light spilling between a gap in the curtains, he knows it’s morning. The room is too dark to make out much of anything, and he gives his eyes time to adjust as he lies there listening to the rainfall and the distant rumble of thunder. Usually he would be out of bed by now, but for the first time in years, he’s perfectly content to stay right where he is. Right next to her.

Something starts to buzz.

At first he thinks maybe it’s the apartment’s comm, but it’s too muffled, and anyway, he can see the comm panel on the wall by the door, its interface backlit in a calming shade of ocean blue, without the pulse of light that usually accompanies a message. His gaze turns to his jacket, hanging on a hook next to the comm panel. Iselle had hung it there last night – so it’ll dry, she’d told him with a satisfied little smile when he asked what she was doing, completely unaware of how uncommon that sort of natural courtesy is anywhere in the galaxy, let alone in the parts he knows best. He glares at the pocket where his comlink continues to buzz. He should ignore the stupid thing; it’s too early for it to be his brother, and any other business can wait. He can’t remember the last time he wanted to stay in bed so badly.

Iselle is lying on her side facing him, draped across his right arm, still sound asleep. Maybe he’ll just roll back over and join her…

The comlink buzzes again. And again. And again. He sighs and pulls his arm out from under her body and slides to the edge of the bed. As he does, he glimpses the long lightsaber scar across his abdomen, the one Iselle’s fingers had hesitated over when she removed his shirt. It had taken him a few seconds to realize she was actually concerned for him – he was used to his partners being impressed by that particular scar, or a little scornful of it, like it didn’t measure up to their lofty expectations somehow, or just ignoring it completely because scars were so commonplace in their world – and he’d mumbled something about it being an old injury before demonstrating thoroughly and intimately, in more ways than one, how completely uninjured he was now.

She didn’t bring it up again after that, but he should probably think of a better story, just in case.

The comlink continues its incessant buzzing, and he pulls on his pants and crosses the room to retrieve it, glancing over his shoulder at Iselle. She inhales a little deeper, but she doesn’t move. He watches her for a moment, then finally leaves the room and makes his way out to her balcony, where the rain is splashing gently against the railing. There’s only space out here for two chairs, and both of them are wet. He shuts the door and pulls out his comlink. “Ferrus.”

“Took you long enough.”

He breathes in through his nose and lets it out slowly, trying not to react to his brother’s smug voice. So Festus can get up early when he feels like it. That’s annoying. “What the hell do you want?”

“Where are you?”

He glances around the balcony, wondering how far his voice carries up here. He doesn’t sense anyone nearby, at least not anyone awake enough to eavesdrop on him. “Why does it matter?”

“Because we were supposed to leave last night, and you weren’t here.”

“So why didn’t you comm last night if you were so concerned?”

“Oh, I know better than to interrupt one of your little trysts, brother.”

He bristles at that dismissive tone, his fingers flexing around the comlink. “Go to hell.”

His brother huffs a laugh in response. “When you’re done trying to convince this girl you’re not a murderer, don’t forget we have work to do.”

The transmission ends, and he stands there holding the comlink in too tight a grip, cold rainwater soaking the hem of his pants. Little trysts. That bastard. He knew exactly what he was doing.

He heads back inside and squeezes the excess water from his pants, then hangs them up next to his jacket to dry. Iselle rolls onto her back and pulls the covers up to her chin.

“It’s cold,” she mumbles. He climbs into bed next to her, and she opens her eyes and looks at him with drowsy contentment. “Good morning.”

He combs his fingers through her hair. “Good morning.”

She holds a hand to her mouth as she yawns. “Did you sleep okay?”

“I did.” He shifts closer, and she lets out a yelp, her legs jerking suddenly under the covers.

“Gah, your feet are freezing!”

He laughs at that and wraps an arm around her waist. “Sorry, I went outside to take a comm.”

She snuggles close, resting her head on his shoulder. “Is it still raining?”

“Yeah.”

There’s a small pause before she asks, “When do you have to go?”

He trails his fingertips down her back. “When do you want me to go?”

Another pause, and he feels her breath flutter unevenly against his chest. “Never,” she murmurs.

Even as her words spark an unfamiliar warmth all through his body, his brother’s last taunt echoes in the back of his head. Never is a long time to hide that less desirable part of himself, but if it means keeping her, he’ll do it. He’s pretty sure he’ll do anything.

He pulls her closer, and whispers in her ear: “I can work with never.”

Chapter Text

Your universe brings pain.

It comes hard
and it comes harsh

burns, scrapes, tears

The world around you
shatters
into a hideous simulacrum
light and shadow
palpable, unfiltered
black glass sand
and scorched-pale eyes

All you have left is
memories of brotherhood
and the table on which you were strapped
the old man
his voice
his breath
his deepset, dark eyes

A face full of meanings.

I’m very sorry
a complicated apparatus had to be disentangled.

Can you hear me?

Yes, your universe brings pain
and all you have left is
anguish
horror
shame

the boy was good, once

Your mind is a complicated apparatus
the table
your only means of existing
cold venom within your furnace heart
injected with uncaring virulence

the shadow gathers you unto itself

You remember all of it
You can never stop
and you scream
seizing
because you finally understand:

It was all you.

It was always you.

You, with all your world-destroying fury
your rage
your power
your cruelty
your lying mouth

All you have left is yourself
and yourself is all you will never have

part of you will always lie upon the table

This is the trap of the dark side.

It comes hard
and it comes harsh

Light and shadow
this hideous world
his voice
his eyes
yourself

the boy was good

the boy was good, and you killed him

You will always lie
You can never stop

Your universe brings pain.

Forever.