#gn neutral

As the bus filled with noise, Yi sang quietly moved towards your direction, not too fast but definitely not too slow. Just incase someone wants to steal you away from him. You know.. Just a precaution.

"Pardon me, but" Yi Sang hesitated for a split second before he regained his courage. "Would you like to pair up with me? I believe we would be most compatible, as your skills compliment that of mine." He tries to elaborate offering you his hand.

How could you resist? I mean you could but why would you?

"Oh! Sure I don't mind." You take his hand, it wasn't like you has a partner always and you swear the way his eyes lit up almost immediately was good enough for you.

The giddy Yi Sang beamed with a content smile "Ah, thank you for allowing me to partner up with you. I promise this will not be a dull trip like everyday." He hummed satisfied with himself.

── .✦

It was simply enough to be near you, let alone accompany you alone on a minor mission! He made extra sure that his face looked calm and composed even when his heart is skipping beats internally.

The plan was to stick to the populated side of Hongyuan, maybe visit some locals and find any leads of distortions or whatever that can be reported back to Dante.

Earlier the both of you took a small tour around Hongyuan, it was almost like a date. The activties include sharing street vendor foods and sight-seeing.

Yi Sang was reading a guide on Hongyuan that Ishmael has pestered everyone to take just incase. His brows furrow slightly as he focus on each word and the streets on the pamphlet.

"Yi Sang watch out—!" You exclaimed before reaching out to grab his hand.

"!" Yi Sang jolted up in surprise, missing just an inch away from the person located right in-front of him. His legs loses balance causing him to stumble right into you.

As he steadies himself he looks at you concerned, him gave a quick nod of acknowledgement to the man before turning to you again, "I'm so sorry, are you hurt anywhere?" His eyes go up and down on your figure, his hand reaches over to help dust your clothes as if he might have dirtied you.

"No, I'm fine," You replied quickly, grabbing his hands. "You were so focused on the paper you almost hit that person." You let out a sigh of relief the moment you see that he was okay. Then your eyes diverts back to the man that almost bumped into Yi Sang, he didn't even walk away he just stood there.. with a weapon in his hands?!

Quickly you pushed Yi Sang away before the man could swing his axe at the ravenette. Both you and the caught off guard Yi Sang quickly got ready in combat stance.

"What is your purpose to attack us." Yi Sang asked with that stern look of his that he didn't have earlier all tied together with a frown.

The man just grunted silently and charged at you, but Yi Sang swiftly came to your assistance by helping you parry the attack. Then out of nowhere another assailant arrived from the back and slit your shoulder taking you by surprise. Your coat was torn open by that attack, showcasing a hideous red wound.

You winced in pain, but it's nothing compared to what you're used to fight everyday. The guilt and quiet anger Yi Sang felt when he saw you wounded only fueled his fire.

It shouldn't take too long to wrap this up, right?

"BOOM!" a loud roar of thunder bellows out. Then comes the rain, it wasn't a small mist, it was a straight downpour. Almost causing you to slip, but of course you didn't. The both of you fight under the rain.

Yi Sang with one swift blow, wound the neck of the first attacker. You too managed to subdue the other.

Then as quickly as they came, the two of you ran for shelter under the roof of a closed antique shop, You guessed by the smeared letters of the banners.

"You're hurt." Yi Sang muttered to himself, he removed the coat from your wounded shoulder and tore the long fabric of his white uniform to wrap around your wound to stop the bleeding. The rain didn't look like it was going to stop anytime sound, the droplets land closer and closer to the ground near them but it doesn't faze Yi Sang. He was willing to remove all, his vest and coat to keep you warm.

"Yi Sang," You smiled despite the cold hard wind and air, you felt warmth, "I'm okay, it's just one wound, not the end of the worlds."

"Still—"

"Relax,"

Yi Sang lets out a deep sigh. "I'm so sorry for this inconvenience. I should have paid more attention to my surrounding, to you. I didn't mean for you to get hurt or stuck under the roof of a run down building while it's raining outside." He put his hand over your forehead, "You're burning up." He frowns.

"I promise I'm good, it's nothing I can't get through." You sit there on the pavement next to the boy who was in-front of you. You took his cold hands into yours. "You kept your one promise to me though," You noted, "Today wasn't dull like everyday. It was bright and fun, except for what happened earlier. I liked sharing my time with you." You said quietly as the rain started to calm down.

"So please, do me one favor and give me that sweet smile again."

── .✦ BONUS

"Wow, you two are completely soaked," Rodya comments with a cheeky smirk. Gregor raising his eyebrows in suspicion.

"T.Y.L.E" Ryoshu murmurs.

"I think she said 'took you long enough.'" Sinclair translated, meekly.

Obi-Wan didn't think. There was no Jedi Code. He didn't calculate the angle of descent. He didn't measure his strength through the Force. He acted on pure, raw instinct.

The air blew out of his lungs in a sharp, ragged gasp. The physical world narrowed down to the sight of your hand slipping, your fingertips sliced and burned from the jagged edges just before your hand try as they might to grasp blindly, desperately on empty air.

A violent feeling urgency slammed against the inside of his ribs, his heart punched in desperation against his sternum so hard he felt it constricting sickly. He felt as if his chest might crack open. His saber clattered, rolling heedlessly down the platform.

Obi-wan threw himself forward, slamming his torso against the scorching metal edge, his left arm plunging into the void. His body dangerous halfway off the edge. He felt the jagged edges pierce through his tunic.

His calloused fingers caught your wrist.

The weight of the impact jerked his shoulder with a dull, sickening pop, but his grip clamped shut like an iron vise. His knuckles turned stark, bloodless white against your skin.

The skin of his face flushed deep crimson, the tendons in his neck standing out in sharp, strained cords as his jaw locked so hard his molars ground together.

"Got you," he rasped, the words choked off in the back of his throat, barely audible over the roaring fire below.

He hauled every bit of strength he had to pull you, using every ounce of physical momentum. A loud grunt leaving his throat and whatever Force-assistance levering his body could muster.

Obi-Wan felt legs dug into the grating, his boots slipping before finding purchase. With a final, agonizing heave, he dragged you over the lip of the broken catwalk and pulled you onto the solid steel deck above. That brought you crashing directly against his chest.

Obi-Wan didn't pull back. He didn't adjust his posture. His arms wrapped around you, locking you against him with a sudden, desperate tightness that crushed the breath from your lungs.

His chin came down hard against the top of your head, his face burying itself into your hair, inhaling the sharp, metallic tang of smoke, sweat, and the distinct scent of your skin.

His entire body was trembled with a visceral shudder that started in his very core and radiated out throughout his body, taking hold of the nerves of his thighs and arms.

Underneath your cheek, through the damp linen of his tunic, his heart was beating at a terrifying, erratic pace, a frantic pounding that mocked at his usual stoic, self-imposed rhythm.

"Obi-Wan," you breathed, your own hands gripping the heavy fabric at his shoulder, feeling the heat pouring off his skin. And he held you tighter.

He held you tighter. He held you for five long seconds. His fingers dug into your back as if you might slip away, as if the image of you falling was still burning behind his eyelids. His breathing came in heavy, ragged hitches against your hair.

Then, slowly, the violent shuddering in his muscles subsided.

He sucked in a deep, lung-filling breath of scorched air, his ribcage expanding under your cheek. Slowly, the tight grip of his hands on your tunic loosened, though his fingers remained pressed firmly against your back.

Obi-Wan moved his hands around your back, helping you sit up. The pain of his dislocated shoulder hit him all at once, a white-hot spike that made his vision darken at the edges. And he used the Force to try and ignore it.

He held you at arm's length, his hands resting heavily on your shoulders as his eyes scanned all over you. The slight panic clear in his green eyes.

"I'm fine," you said as he searched for something, anything, ignoring his dislocated shoulder and the jagged cut through his tunic.

"Obi-Wan," you insisted, cupping his face so he'd look at you. "I'm fine. I'm fine, you saved me." You assured in frantic need to convince him through the noise of his panic.

His eyes searching your face with a fierce, burning scrutiny that swept over your eyes, your mouth, and the soot smeared across your chin. The cuts on your hands, his eyes searched as did his hands, desperate, looking for burns, anything.

"Are you certain?" he asked, his voice strained, a octave lower than normal, his eyes searching your eyes. His hands cupped your face as you did his.

"I'm fine," you repeated, your breath still coming in uneven hitches as you touched his forearm to ground him. "You dropped your lightsaber."

Obi-Wan looked down at the slope his lightsaber was now lost, before his mouth twitched upward into a fragile, crooked line that didn't reach his eyes.

You saw the measured control of the Jedi form returning to him. "So I did. A minor oversight on my part."

His hand didn't leave your face as if he marveled on the reality that was finally sinking in. That you're safe.

You felt the panic and detachment of the Force within him as you've felt years ago when the two of you Padawans still harnessing the control of the Force. Your eyes surveyed him.

"Your shoulder," you said, your thumb pressing through the torn tunic where his arm were disjoined from his shoulder in a slight awkward angle. You felt him hold himself stiff.

Obi-Wan didn't look down at his arm. He swallowed hard, his throat working as he forced his breathing back into a slow, measured cadence.

"A minor disagreement of anatomy," he rasped, his voice rough at the edges. "It will keep until we reach the ship."

"You're not climbing twenty meters out of rusted conduit with your left arm like this," you muttered, moving closer before he could pull back into his Jedi stoicism. "Sit back."

His right hand twitched upward, hovering near your wrist as if to push your hands away. "I am entirely capable–"

"Exhale," you cut him off quietly, your left hand wrapping tight over his collarbone to anchor his weight against you.

He started to breathe out, his jaw tightening as he realized what you were about to do, but you didn't give his muscles time to lock up.

You leaned back into your weight, giving his arm a firm, steady traction pull before driving the joint upward with a practiced, brutal rotation.

A harsh gasp was pulled from his throat. The heavy, nauseating clack of the bone snapping back into its socket echoed around the two of you.

Obi-Wan’s head snapped back against the steel wall beside him, his right hand suddenly shooting out to clamp around your forearm with a involuntary grip.

Cold sweat broke instantly across his forehead. His face went stark pale beneath the soot, his eyes squeezed shut as he fought to force the white-hot spike of agony down into the Force.

His chest hitched in shallow, ragged breathes beneath your touch and you held him still; his chin trembling slightly before he managed to lock his jaw.

For three long seconds, neither of you moved. Your hand remained anchored over his collarbone, feeling the frantic, hammering pulse in his neck. His grip on your arm was rigid, desperate, before his fingers slowly remembered themselves and uncurled, sliding away.

He let out a long, shuddering breath through his nose, his eyes fluttering open to meet yours, heavy-lidded and dark with pain.

"There," you said, your voice lower than you intended as you released his wrist. "Problem solved."

A faint, strained twitch touched the corner of his mouth, though his face remained a color that resembled green. "I shall be sure," he rasped, his voice hoarse though with his usual faint sarcastic humor, "to recommend your delicate touch to the Temple Healers."

"And yet," you replied, taking a ragged breath as you stood up and reached down to pull him up with you, "I am the one who currently has to get us out of here without a primary weapon."

The metal platform beneath your boots gave another violent shudder. Below, the white-hot slag pool burbled, sending a wave of stifling heat up through the gaps in the floor that made the air shimmer.

"Upper exhaust conduit," you said, pointing toward a narrow maintenance hatch twenty meters up the far wall, visible through the billowing grey smoke. "It bypasses the whole way through the main gantry."

Obi-Wan adjusted his belt, his left arm hanging slightly stiff at his side despite the joint being set. You felt how the Force coming from him spiked with the agonizing pain he couldn't quite control. It was something new to Obi-Wan.

"Lead the way," he said, his voice regaining its familiar, measured rhythm, though his eyes lingered on your face for a fraction of a second longer than necessary before he saw you remove your tunic and pull off the tabards. "I am quite certain that this is hardly the moment for a wardrobe change."

You roll your eyes folding the tabards, "Hold your arm close to your chest."

"That is not necessary," Obi-Wan protests as you step closer to wrap the fabric around his arm and shoulder.

"Be quiet."

He opens his lips, but doesn't say anything as you wrap his arm in a makeshift arm sling. You felt the Force in him soothe around the edges, the pain and agony more bearable now. His eyes examining you as your finished it.

"Try to refrain from testing the structural integrity of any more of the walkways ahead." He said and you scoffed stepping back and moving ahead of him, scrambling up the steel rungs as sparks cascaded down like orange rain around you.

Obi-Wan climbed directly beneath you, his right hand gripping the rungs with disciplined strength while his other arm was secured. His body positioned so that if your footing gave way again, he'd be a barrier between you and the drop.

The heat inside the exhaust conduit was suffocating, smelling of old grease and stale iron. You crawled through the cramped cylinder on your knees, the metal burning through the fabric of your tunic, until the dark narrowed down to a vent opening onto the landing pad above.

You laid on your back in the narrow space to kick the rusted grill open. It clattered onto the wet permacrete outside.

Acid rain was pouring down across the Ord Mantell pad. It was cold, heavy, and smelling of sulfur. It hit your skin with a sharp, stinging shock. Your smelled the singing of your clothes, your skin, your hair amidst the everything else.

Ten meters away, the sub-light shuttle sat, hiding, idly hovering. Its landing lights cutting bright white beams through the downpour.

You broke into a sprint across the slick permacrete, the rain washing the soot from your face in dark streams. Obi-Wan was right beside you. The instant your boots hit the interior deck, you slammed the door override button.

The heavy hydraulic ramp lifted with a deep, pressurized hiss, sealing out the roaring storm, the heat, and the crashing collapse of the refinery outside as Obi-Wan started to prepare to take flight.

The red emergency lighting cast long, muted shadows across the steel bulkheads. He eyed you as you took the controls.

"We don't have much time," you said as you took the controls.

Obi-Wan leaned heavily against the back of the co-pilot's seat, his right hand gripping the headrest to keep his weight off his sling.

"The primary generator took a heavy hit during the breach," he countered, his voice low and tight as he watched the amber warning icons flicker across the console. "We barely have enough thrust in the sublight drive to break the gravity, let alone power the hyperdrive for a jump to lightspeed."

You didn't hesitate, slamming your palm down on the repulsorlift ignition and dragging the thruster levers back. The shuttle groaned beneath the sudden strain, the deckplates shuddered as the sublight engines kicked in with a sputtering groan.

"We'll figure out the hyperdrive on the way up," you muttered, your fingers flipping secondary bypass switches to route auxiliary power to the forward shields, "unless you care to stick around and watch the reactor go critical."

Obi-Wan glanced through the rain-slicked viewport, his green eyes tracking the rapid, violent destruction of the refinery below. The main gantry finally buckled with a thunderous roar, hundreds of tons of structural steel plunging directly into the white-hot slag pool.

A massive geyser of molten metal and black sulfur smoke erupted into the storm, lighting up the dark sky in a violent orange glare. And through the billowing smoke, the searchlights of two heavy mercenary gunships cut bright white beams through the acid rain, their forward cannons spinning up as they banked toward the shuttle's rising heat signature.

Copyright © by writinginthenameof. All rights reserved. Do not copy, repost, or translate this work.

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"Is Faust not going to wake them up?" A voice rings through her mind.

Another sneered, "The longer they stay on Faust's shoulder, the more face Faust is losing"

She should really wake you up—but... Only the wings know how much you need the rest. It would not only deem Faust as a 'heartless colleague' to awaken you but also the trust you had given to her in the first place, to even fall into just a sweet slumber would diminish into rumble.

But if she doesn't wake you up, she could quite literally embarrass herself in front of the other gesellschaft members for letting such a numbing feeling affect her like that.

"ahm Fau," A soft vowel escaped through your closed lips strike through the tense air between the voices and the outside world,

"Gregg darling, don't be such a downer."

"Prithe join us Sir Gregor, it would be most wonderful had thou join us on 'tis exciting game of wits!"

"Don, you know that Rodya's trying to get us to gamble right?"

The warmth chatter of the nearby sinners seeped into the calculated and noisy mind of hers. A harsh contrast to her cold messed up self.

Inside her peripheral view she saw your lashes flicker slightly, in unease. Sitting in such a grueling position will end up with a hurting back had you not been careful.

Out of the girl's consciousness, her hands move to your shoulders pulling them down to her lap with a gentleness surprising her own self. Her eyes traced over your sleeping form that was laying peacefully on her lap without a clue of the cruel things that reside in the darkest part of her mind.

Faust's cold hands trace over the plains belonging to the back of your uniform. The coat long discarded, was hanging off the seat in front of her. It was as if the girl was trying to map out your entire body with simply her the drag of her fingers. She smiled lightly as she moved the strand of hair out of your sleeping face.

"Sleep well." The words coming out like a forbidden whisper. The sliver head had long tuned out the unnecessary comments of the other Fausts, as long as you're in her arms, her mind will be at peace.

── .✦ BONUS

"Sleeping on the clock? That's absolutely unacceptable. Executive manager, I shall give them a stern talking to—"

"Outis, I think we should just leave them alone," Hong Lu suggested, his smile curving slightly in amusement.

The air in the lower hallways of the Ord Mantell refinery smelled of melted copper, and the acrid smoke of scorched insulation.

Above, the central gantry groaned under the strain of a dying support strut, sending a shower of orange sparks cascading down through the dark. Beneath your boots, the metal grating vibrated with the rhythmic, concussive thrum of overworked cooling pumps that were seconds away from seizing entirely.

Beside you, Obi-Wan moved with the ingrained fluid instinct of someone whose movements you had known almost as long as your own. There was no hesitation between you after a lifetime of shared Temple katas, late-night sparring sessions, and quiet mornings that meant you didn't need to look to know where he was or where his lightsaber would strike.

His lightsaber snapped upward, catching two red bolt rounds and reflecting them overhead where they shattered against the vaulted ceiling. When he shifted his weight, snapping another red bolt, as you moved on the opposite side. It was almost like a dance. A rhythm honed over fifteen years of shared training halls and mud-soaked battlefield.

When you stepped backward to cover the eastern approach, Obi-Wan pivoted on pure instinct and trust; his stance dropping into the space your body had just vacated. Your blades crossed the space overlapping in an arc of blue and green, creating an impenetrable wall of plasma that caught a volley of heavy repeater rounds, sending them ricocheting harmlessly into the overhead gantries.

When he stood up his back pressed against yours. It was a grounding contact, but the heat of his skin through the damp tunic fabric never failed to sent a familiar warmth under your skin.

It was a constant reminder of how close you were allowed to stand, and how far apart the Code forced you to remain. Something that has been persistently evident over the years, lately more so though you ignored what it could truly mean.

As the hum of a plasma blade cut clean through the air colliding with targets you moved fluidly with him. He shifted his stance by half an inch to press his shoulder to yours and look at you over his shoulder in brief intervals.

"The secondary lift is dead," you said, your fingers tightening around the hilt in your grip as another burst of heavy repeater fire tore through the railing three meters to your left, spraying jagged flecks of hot alloy across your forearm.

Obi-Wan didn't waste time. His eyes tracked the shadows on the upper gantry, his head tilted as he listened to the mechanical screech of the collapsing ceiling.

"I am aware." He replied, his voice carried a smooth, deliberate calm that contrasted with the sharp turn he took take down enemy before it could fire again. "I recall explicitly suggesting the east ventilation shaft," Obi-Wan said, sweat glistening along his temple as his blade deflected another shot into the dark.

"The lower maintenance is magnetically sealed," you argued without missing a beat with your boot planting firmly against his heel to anchor his pivot while you swept your blade around his left flank. "Without the slicing cylinder, we would have been pinned against a dead-end blast door."

"I am more than capable of getting us through terminal manually, given two undisturbed minutes and a bit of focus."

"You love the drama," you countered, leaning into his back to absorb the recoil as a heavy blaster bolt scorched the railing beside your ribs. "Admit it."

"I tolerate our misadventures," he corrected him. His breath brushing the side of your neck as he adjusted his stance, his elbow sliding past yours with the effortless precision of someone who had trained beside you since you were both tall enough to reach a lightsaber rack. "Though 'love' is hardly the word I would choose."

You scoffed. You didn't need to speak to signal a stance shift. You felt the subtle shift of his weight against your arm, the exact angle of his elbow giving you the opening to sweep low and take out the knee of an oncoming mercenary while he covered your head.

"Either way," you add catching your breath, "we're locked here without the lift and the grading below might burn us alive."

"Which leaves us the maintenance shaft. Assuming you still have the override key." He grins triumphantly something that almost made you roll your eyes before your lightsaber hummed a little too close to his neck for comfort which clearly indicated you weren't happy yet it didn't seem to bother him. He tilted his head sharply with the sweat glistening along his jaw and the rapid, shallow rise of his chest.

"I lost it in the furnace room," you muttered, stepping backward to match his rotation as three mercenaries pushed through the smoke at the far end of the gantry.

A mocking, dry huff of air escaped his nose. "How remarkably consistent of you."

"I recall someone promising to keep the backup key in his utility pouch," you accuse him, sparing second to glare at him the moment he shifts to gain leverage the moment another repeater bolt shattered off the railing.

"A pouch that was well-attached to my belt until you decided to throw us off a third-story landing." He defends himself, you grunt and he gets out of the way when your wrist snapped in a tight, effortless arc that sent a burst of reflected plasma straight into the shoulder of the lead shooter.

"It was a tactical retreat!" You insist. Obi-Wan moves with you the moment you swept your green blade low and two mercenaries to moved back into the acrid fog, your shoulder blade grinding against his in a tight, fluid pivot. "And we survived!"

"By the narrowest possible margin," he complains with the same exasperated cadence you had heard in Temple training rooms since you were twelve years old.

The blade in his hand hummed with a low, dangerous vibration, but the press of his forearm against yours was steady, warm, and grounding. "You have a very loose definition of 'tactical,' my dear."

"You're free to draft a formal complaint to the Council when we get back," you shot back, adjusting the dial on your hilt to narrow your beam.

A faint, genuine twitch softened the corner of his mouth, visible only because your cheek was barely three inches from his temple. "Don't tempt me."

Before you could respond, the primary support girder directly above your head shattered. A thousand kilograms of structural steel plummeted through the smoke. Obi-Wan’s blade swung in a wide, sweeping arc to clear the line of sight, but the floor beneath your feet gave way first.

The breath caught sharp in your chest when the metal grating broke with a screech that vibrated straight through the bones of your legs. Gravity snatched at your center, the platform tilting sharply into a sixty meter drop toward the molten slag pools below.

Your boot skidded uselessly on the grease-slicked iron edge. Your hands reached out, clawing blindly at empty air, fingers scraping uselessly raw jagged edge of the plates.

In that single, fraction of a second, present and future formed a convoluted reality. Time ticked too slow and yet too fast for comfort. Obi-Wan found his feet wouldn't move as fast as he wanted them to. His stomach dropped, he never allowed himself to feel fear, he trained not to, but in that very moment, nothing mattered. His blood ran icy cold in suffocating terror.

Your eyes wide mirrored his panic as he saw you plummeted into scorching emptiness. He had half a mind to cut out the lightsaber, the hilt clattering useless onto the tipping metal as he threw his entire body forward, his chest hitting hard onto metal, the dirt and heat, plunging his arm into the open drop in a desperate attempt to reach for you.

Copyright © by writinginthenameof. All rights reserved. Do not copy, repost, or translate this work.

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